City of Halves

by Lucy Inglis

  ‘Maybe.’

  They pulled on their coats and headed out of the warmth of the cafe. Lily shivered in the frozen air. A frost was settling back on the City. People headed back in their droves towards Liverpool Street, heads down against the cold. Regan, wearing only the thin Henley beneath his coat, seemed unaffected. He tugged up the wide hood, hiding his face.

  They soon found the fire station. Jack was letting himself out of a side door, dressed in jeans and a jumper and a thick duffel coat. He turned left and began to walk quickly back into the City.

  ‘That’s him,’ Lily said, pointing. ‘We’d better hang back a bit. He thinks I’ve gone home. To Chiswick.’

  They followed at a careful distance. Jack took the main roads back into the City. Lily and Regan kept well behind him, without ever losing sight of him. After ten minutes, they ended up back at the Bank of England, where Jack headed down into Bank tube station. Lily and Regan followed.

  ‘Do you have a pass?’ Lily asked, pulling her travelcard from her bag.

  He tugged one from his back pocket. ‘Yep. Thanks to Sid and his adventures.’

  They followed Jack through the barriers.

  On the downward escalator, Lily turned around, lifting her chin to look up at Regan. ‘We’ll have to stick closer to him here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘This place is a nightmare. You have to go along the platforms of one line to get to another.

  He nodded. ‘Yes. But depends which line he takes.’

  ‘We could lose him. The tracker doesn’t work down here.’

  He tilted his head, not taking his eyes from Jack’s back. ‘We won’t lose him.’

  At the bottom of the escalator, Jack took a left turn on to the Central Line platform but he didn’t stop and wait for the train, instead following the arrows towards the Northern Line. The platform was relatively crowded, and he threaded in and out of the knots of commuters.

  The billboards on the other side of the tunnel advertised for blood donors, large red letters on white backgrounds. From tomorrow, mobile blood-donation centres would open in the City for a week. Lily’s brain registered the date printed on one of the huge posters, and the caduceus in the bottom right-hand corner. Trickery, theft. Regan ducked in front of her, striding through the crowds of people in his usual fashion. Lily hurried in his wake, pushing when they closed ranks. Then Regan stopped and turned to her.

  ‘I’ll get on to the next carriage. If he’s working for the Agency, he could well recognise me. You stick close to him.’

  ‘But he knows who I am too! I should have been on the Central Line to Chiswick an hour ago,’ Lily protested.

  ‘Tell him you got lost in the station and then saw him. It’s plausible enough. Stick close to him. I won’t be far away.’

  He moved into the crowd. The far end of the platform was congested and Jack walked along the yellow line, close to the edge, to avoid the crush of people. Lily pushed and edged her way closer to Jack, until she was just behind his left shoulder. The rails began to rattle far off in the dark.

  Lights appeared in the tunnel. The crowds of people on the platform stirred as a hot, metallic wind signalled the arrival of the train. Jack, only a foot in front of Lily, was looking down at the phone in his hand, checking the time. He was standing right at the edge of the platform.

  As the train charged from the tunnel a hand reached over Lily’s shoulder, sending Jack falling with a quick shove. Falling out over the track, into the path of the oncoming train.

  Time seemed to slow down. Jack twisted in the air in a futile attempt to save himself. Lily grabbed for him, their fingers clashing but failing to grip. In that second, a strong hand caught the scruff of her jacket and hauled her backwards.

  The noise of the impact was deafening. Then the noise from the people crowding the platform, the collective intake of breath. The driver braked instantly, but Jack’s body had already been pulled beneath the wheels and on to the live rail. As thousands of volts charged through his mangled corpse, there was an explosion of sparks, then flame as his coat ignited and began to burn fiercely. Wisps of black smoke carried the smell of burning flesh to those on the platform. A woman began to scream.

  Lily tried to turn, but the hand on the back of her collar was immensely strong. Mayhem erupted on the platform all around them.

  She wriggled. ‘Let me go.’

  Abruptly, she was released. Turning, she saw the back of a tall man with black hair, wearing a black motorcycle jacket with a caduceus pattern spread across his shoulders, stamped into the leather. He moved through the crush easily, pushing through people like water. As he passed under the ‘way out’ sign, he turned slightly and Lily saw his profile. She frowned. Perhaps Gamble wasn’t as confused as Regan thought . . .

  The man stepped into the exit tunnel and was lost from sight.

  Regan appeared at her side. ‘What the hell happened?’

  She jumped. ‘We have to get out of here,’ Lily said. ‘The . . . I can’t explain here. Someone pushed him. It’s the Agency, I know it is.’

  Regan almost towed her through the crowd, pushing people out of the way if they didn’t move quickly enough. It became almost impossible to take a step as the exodus began. As she passed the first exit tunnel, she glanced into it, but she couldn’t see anything but the coat and shoulder pack of the man in front of her. Announcements came over the tannoy, but the noise of the crowd was too much to make out what it was saying. The scorched smell was overpowering.

  At last they made it to the exit, the bottleneck suddenly clearing as people ran for the escalators. There was no sign of the man in black. They made it out of the barriers and went back the way they had come in. By the exit Lily noticed a large dragon mural built into the tiles by the designers of the station.

  They ran up the final few stairs into the fresh, cold air.

  Regan threw his hands up and cursed. ‘Did you see his face?’

  Lily tried to catch her breath. ‘I—’

  Regan’s jaw tightened. ‘I can’t believe I lost him,’ he burst out angrily.

  Past his shoulder, by the Mansion House, Lily caught sight of a black van creeping forward. ‘They haven’t lost us. Behind you,’ she said, ‘that van. It’s them. They’ve seen us.’

  He didn’t look, but took her arm. ‘Come on, then. Let’s give them a run for their money.’

  They began to walk swiftly down the fortified western wall of the Bank of England.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘The dragon’s lair.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ll be fine.’

  At the end of the street they arrived at a busy junction, with roads coming from all directions and a broken traffic cone acting as a makeshift roundabout. The van was in a short queue of traffic behind them, and as they crossed the road the light turned green and it followed them. Regan pulled up his hood and walked into a narrow alley to the north of the massive blank-walled Bank of England, off the ancient street called Lothbury, Lily on his heels. The van immediately turned in after them, lighting them up in the headlamps and making it hard for Lily to see ahead of her in the glare. Regan seemed unfazed, and led her and the van deeper into a maze of small streets. Most of them had only a few doorways, and the windows were high, well above Lily’s head.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Nowhere. Look up.’

  Lily glanced up at the dark sky. She saw nothing, then a flash of silver streaked between the buildings high above them, a lashing tail just visible for a second as the dragon landed, cat-like, on the edge of an old office building.

  ‘It knows we’re here,’ she said, staring.

  ‘Yep. It will also know they’re here. And my bet is, it won’t be happy about that. Plus, it’ll be getting hungry as it wakes.’

  ‘Hungry? For what?!’ Lily asked in alarm.

  They turned left, into an alley almost too narrow for the van to follow, but it turned in a few seconds behind them, stalking
them, engine rumbling softly. Lily’s chest tightened. The alley was lit with a solitary orange sodium lamp, high up on a bracket above them, a relic of the 1960s. It cast an ugly light over the street, which was so narrow the pavements were reduced to pointless strips on either side. Lily and Regan walked down the centre of the road, the van creeping behind.

  ‘Slowly,’ Regan warned.

  ‘They’re going to run us down!’ Lily exclaimed in an urgent whisper.

  ‘No, they want you. And they probably know running me down won’t work.’

  From high above them came a rumbling, purring noise. It was hard to hear over the growl of the van’s engine, but it was lower, deeper, stranger. Regan turned again, straight into a dead end. The van turned in immediately behind them, blocking them in. They stopped and faced it. Lily put her hand up to shield her eyes against the glare of the headlights.

  The rumbling grew louder, escalating to a roar as the dragon landed on the roof of the van. Rearing up on its hind legs, punching down, its thick talons shrieked through the metal as it ripped open the top of the vehicle like a tin of sardines, peeling the sheet metal back as if it were foil. The driver’s door opened but slammed against the brick of the alley wall, not wide enough for anyone to get out. The dragon’s head disappeared inside.

  Lily had never heard men scream before. A hand pressed briefly against the inside of the windscreen, the palm white. It was replaced a second later with a red splatter. The dragon grabbed something and shook it like a dog shaking a rat, resurfacing moments later, jaws crunching, blood running from its mouth, a strip of black clothing dangling. It gulped thickly, like a lizard with an awkward mouthful, before reaching one huge gold-clawed foot into the cab and grasping the passenger, plucking him out. As Lily and Regan watched, the dragon launched itself towards the rooftops, spreading its undersized wings against the black sky, emitting a piercing cry before it disappeared into the darkness away to the west.

  Silence fell in the alley, followed by running footsteps and the roar of an approaching engine. Then Regan swore.

  ‘What?’ Lily exclaimed.

  ‘No, you don’t!’ He ran, stepping up on to the van’s bumper, its bonnet and then its shredded roof.

  The engine screamed to a halt, echoing around the alley. Lily ran towards Regan, trying to see through the gap between the van and the wall. She saw an agent getting on to a large black motorbike, ridden by the man in black leathers. The man on the bike held something in his ungloved hands. His helmet obscured his face, but it seemed to her that he was looking, not at Regan hurtling over the top of the van towards him, but at the doorway where she stood. She watched as he pulled the pin from a grenade and threw it, with the accuracy of a baseball pitcher, into the back of the van.

  Time slowed down. Regan shifted his course instantly, dropped down and grasped Lily’s arm as the bike roared from the alley. Pushing her hard into the brick doorway, he hemmed her in, his arms around her, as the grenade detonated. A wave of hot gas hit them, blowing Lily’s hair back and spattering the exposed side of her forehead with hot grit. He curved his shoulder around her even more, keeping tight hold until the only sound was a popping and burning. The air stank. He straightened up, brushing black speckles of stone and carbon from her face.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  She shook her head, looking up at him.

  Her phone rang loudly. She pulled it from her pocket, hand shaking.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Miss Hilyard?’

  ‘Lucas?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. How remarkable. This thing actually works. Where are you?’

  Lily looked around. ‘Somewhere near the Bank of England.’

  ‘Is Regan with you?’

  Lily held out the phone. Regan took it. In his abrupt way he described what had happened that day. The conversation was brief. Lily’s legs weakened. She leant against the alley wall, hands on her knees, concentrating on breathing in and out, staring at the burning shell of the vehicle a few yards away.

  ‘Lucas, we should get out of here. He told Lily his name was Jack. Fine. Oh, and Lucas, when did you get a phone? I thought they weren’t for people like us?’ He listened to the answer, grunted, then passed the phone back to Lily.

  They made their way back to Bow Lane. Tom’s was closed, but Regan pushed open the door anyway. Tom was shutting down the coffee machine. He said nothing as Lily sat down and pulled out her computer. She searched for the news of a death on the Underground. There was only an announcement that Bank station was closed due to a fatal accident. Accident, thought Lily sourly.

  Regan sat down next to her.

  ‘What will happen when they find the van?’ she asked.

  ‘No idea. My bet is we won’t hear a thing.’

  ‘So people can get torn apart by dragons in the middle of London and no one will ever hear about it?’

  ‘You may not have noticed, but they weren’t exactly the good guys. And don’t exaggerate, it was only one dragon. By the way it headed west, it’s the Cripplegate one. I’ll check it out tonight. Hopefully its belly will still be full by then.’

  ‘Why did it attack them?’

  ‘I had a hunch that the dragon wouldn’t be too keen on the Agency.’

  ‘Wait, a hunch. You led me in there . . . on a hunch?’

  He shrugged. ‘It worked, didn’t it?’

  She held up a finger. ‘May I remind you that some of us aren’t virtually indestructible? And how many more of these Ancients are still asleep beneath the pavements?’

  ‘Well, there’s the Thames River God in the Rock Lock beneath London Bridge. He mainly ignores us land-dwellers. And the giant brothers, Gog and Magog, who’re buried beneath Guildhall in a kind of stasis. But as far as I know they’ve never woken up. They’re the last stand. If they wake, the City as we know it is finished anyway.’

  ‘You’re joking now.’

  ‘No. They’ll level it. Everything. And start again. You really do look pale.’

  ‘That’s probably because I’ve just seen a man die under a Tube train, another one get eaten by a dragon and almost been blown up,’ Lily said. She bit the edge of her lip, feeling the adrenalin still buzzing through her veins.

  ‘Destroying any evidence, classic Agency tactic.’

  Tom came over and pushed two teas across the table with his strange, stubby hands. ‘Thanks,’ Lily said gratefully, grasping the handle of the mug.

  He nodded. ‘No problem.’

  Lily picked up the mug but her hands were shaking so badly the tea slopped over the sides, scalding her fingers. She put it down again hurriedly, laying her hands down flat on the table to stop them trembling.

  Regan turned her face towards him, tucking her hair behind her ears. ‘Hey, hey, come on.’

  She turned her cheek into his touch, cat-like. Then she remembered the man on the platform, on the bike, throwing the grenade with such deadly accuracy. Remembered his height, the distinctive black hair, so dark it had a petrol-like sheen. She pulled away, ducking her head. Regan let his hands drop instantly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Your brother, is he like you?’

  ‘A halfbreed? Yes.’

  ‘That wasn’t . . . I—’

  ‘What?’

  She shook her head. It couldn’t have been. If his brother had been abducted by the Agency, he wouldn’t be roaming the Underground killing people. ‘Wait, I’ve got an idea.’ She turned to her phone and opened the web browser, searching Twitter for anything to do with Bank station. She pointed at the screen. ‘Here, look.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There.’

  ‘I don’t see . . . “fatality at Bank station”, “man on Northern Line at Bank” . . . so what?’

  ‘No, here.’ She tapped the screen with a thin, nervous finger where @Louise501 had tweeted OMG, just heard it was @bikermedic who was killed at Bank. Can’t believe it. Crying!

  Lily clicked on @bikermedic’s profile. Jack Lewis hadn’t tweeted for
a few days, but his last few tweets had all been images. Lily opened them up. ‘These are all Ruskin Park. I recognise the bandstand. And he refers to it in the captions as his back garden, so he must live close by.’

  ‘So he lives near the park? How does that help us?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Wait, let me look further back. He might tag his location.’

  Regan shook his head. ‘You people are insane. Why would you tell anyone your location?’

  Lily poked her tongue out at him. ‘Look.’

  @bikermedic Finally! Keys to new flat! Great to have my own space!!! :)

  He looked at the screen, then wrote down the address quickly. ‘Okay, let’s go.’

  Lily took a hurried gulp of the tea. It was strong and sweet. She mumbled an excuse and slid out of the booth to the bathroom, where she washed her hands and face. The shadows beneath her eyes, which had been vague thumbprints that morning, were now purple smudges. The sensible part of her brain was telling her that she should go home, right now, and forget all of this. It was screaming it: Go home and forget him.

  She stared at her reflection.

  I couldn’t forget him if I tried.

  Lily took a deep breath. She went back and drank as much of the hot tea as she could manage.

  ‘Ready?’

  She nodded and looked over to where Tom was standing near the coffee machine. On the counter was a small pile of left-over pastries. He glanced up at the ceiling and made an odd, chattering noise. As if from nowhere between the beams, two small mothwings appeared, shinning down the wooden supports on to the counter, grabbing up the pastries in their grubby hands. Even as they were cramming them into their mouths, Tom lifted them down one at a time and chided them softly. They scrambled into the corner and sat there, a jumble of pale limbs, rags and dusty wings.

  ‘I found them near the entrance to the courtyard. They were terrified. No idea what they’d seen. They keep babbling about traps and snares.’ Tom watched them eat. ‘But you know what they’re like, they don’t make much sense at the best of times, even less when they’re frightened.’

  Regan watched them. ‘Someone’s picking them off,’ he said, thinking. ‘But who? And why?’