We were dancing in it, dancing in the rain which left red smears across our faces and tasted of copper in our mouths. There was she and I and we were all across the roof, step one-two-three and one-two-three and twist-two-three and left-two-three and step-two-three. I noticed that her hair was sticking to her face and moved to brush it away with my hand and she laughed and kissed me and I tasted blood in my mouth.
When I entered her I felt Hive Sibellus murdered. It was glorious memory recreated in her flesh, and I knew again the moment when the hour struck and the churches toppled and we carved the poem that ended the world on sixty-four perfect smooth baby bellies. We were enraptured and I damned her and she damned me and thus we remained by the weight of our sins while all the righteous and the holy and pure ascended into the heavens and then fell from the sky like screaming rain, and even as I spent myself inside her I heard those wet sounds again as billions impacted on the pavement.
Then we listened to the sound. The sound was clink clink clink and it was the sound the ice made in her cup which I held in my hand and the sound the ice made in my cup which she held in hers. We drank extracts from fruits grown in polarized glasshouses, then threw the empty cups over the railing and down onto the ground-level streets some miles down. The glass passed through the red cloud-layer and was gone, gaining velocity.
She made the turn into Parade Street badly and the landcar smashed through the front of a barbershop on the corner. For a second we saw ourselves, attired like glorious looter kings lounging on the pyre of civilization, as our car passed through a vast mirrored wall. Then our images exploded in a galaxy of fragments and spun away and we were through, the front of the landcar jumping madly as a front wheel ejected an adjustable chair that had somehow got stuck in the machinery. We screamed all the while, for joy and destruction.
We saw daemons hunting survivors on the third day, those stupid enough to come out of hiding and forage for food. We honked as we sped past and kissed and I fondled her breast under the fabric of her silk kimono and groxhide jacket and wolf-fur coat. The landcar leaped another pile of rubble and we were soaring and I saw a small face and big, frightened eyes for just a moment before there was a resounding thunk and we sped onward.
“I think that was a kid!” I shouted over the vox – it was playing All The Saints Speed From Terra but someone had put the tape in backwards and the chorus was the damned, wailing for daemonic mercy.
“I think so too!” she shouted and then we both laughed uncontrollably and she lost control of the car and we went into a spin and flew sideways through an intersection where holes in the ceramicrete opened into smoking pits, then into and over a guard rail that was supposed to prevent vehicles from flying off the bridge, which we did.
