by Kate Griffin
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I noticed.”
“You put a gun against my head!”
“You sound surprised,” she said. She did not.
“No, not really. Just a little . . .”
“Disappointed?” She also had a cup of orange juice. She slurped from it through a stripy pink and white straw. “You know, sorcerer,” she said, “I was always planning on killing you one day.”
I did not credit Oda with a sense of humour. “Why haven’t you?” I asked.
“The usual.”
“Which usual?”
“Greater pictures, lesser evils.”
“Oh. That usual.”
“Make no mistake,” she added. “You are the spawn of the Devil and will burn in all eternity for your sins, for your godless, soulless existence as arrogant minion of Beelzebub upon this earth. The fact that you may be useful to the greater good is neither here nor there as regards the inevitable destruction of your warped spirit.”
“Thank you, Oda,” I said, letting my head fall back against the pillows of the bed. “I’m pleased to see you too.”
I drank orange juice, and looked round the room. It was a studio of some sort, bed and sofa and kitchen all sprawled across the same floor, counters keeping them apart. The floor was covered with great white rugs, far too clean to be lived on; a black grand piano was in one corner, a small cluster of chairs round a TV, a low dining room table and of course, the bed, pressed up into a corner by a window with the blinds drawn, into which I had been unceremoniously dumped. A clock on the wall said 16.33. I looked up at Oda and said, “Is the clock right?”
“Yes.”
“Where’d the day go?”
She shrugged. “There was a lot of shouting. A lot of arguing. You will be unsurprised to learn that much of it happened while you were bleeding to death on the grass in Regent’s Park.”
“I was in Regent’s Park?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. I was bleeding to death?”
“Someone,” she said, lips pursing round the straw, “someone might just have happened to have torn a stitch.”
“But I’m not bleeding to death now.”
“No. That was one of the conclusions of all the shouting. I had always imagined Aldermen would be good at holding committee meetings. They’re not.”
Thoughts returned slowly to us. I said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not thinking I killed Nair.”
She shrugged. “It’s all the same to me. Kill him, don’t kill him — one less freak on the streets.”
“But . . .”
“You’re useful, sorcerer,” she said. “That’s what it boils down to. You killed Bakker and that was a useful thing; you destroyed the Tower, and that was an extremely useful thing. Now you’re on your own. And that” — she let out a long sigh — “is also, potentially, useful. The Aldermen are cowards.”
We nearly laughed. “I guessed.”
“They’re terrified of whatever killed Nair.”
“So am I.”
“They think they’re next.”
“So do I.”
“Do you believe this myth? That the ravens protect the city? That there are . . . things, whatever that means, waiting to come gobble up the innocent?”
“I believe in the Thames Barrier,” I answered carefully.
“What does that mean?” she snapped.
“It means that I believe if the Thames Barrier failed, a great tide of floodwater would sweep over the city and sink most of its more fashionable areas beneath many metres of salt, sewage and slime. I have never in my life seen this, nor ever seen the Thames Barrier at work, but I believe it from the bottom of my heart. So, yes. I’m willing to run with the idea that we might all be well and truly buggered.”
Oda slurped the last of her orange juice and put the cup to one side. She leant forward, looking us straight in the eye. “You want to know what was decided?”
“I’ve got a nasty feeling . . .”
“It’s the stitches.”
“That wasn’t the feeling I meant . . . Why should we care what the Aldermen decided?”
“Because they were only two votes short of shooting you.”
“When you put it like that . . .”
“It’s your problem.”
“What is?”
“All this. This imminent destruction thing. You’re the Midnight Mayor. They agreed on that. You’re going to have to sort it out. Your problem.”
“They’re saving on bullets,” I sighed.
“That’s the elegant thing about the Midnight Mayor. Even if you die, there’ll be another sucker along soon.”
“You really don’t care, do you?” I asked. “Why are you here?”
“The Order may not care about your life. But we are naturally concerned when the actions of your clan of freaks may destroy the city that we live in. The innocent must be protected, even if it means cooperation with the guilty.”
“Carry on thinking like that,” I muttered, “and you’ll be heading for sensible, fluffy normality before you know it.”
“Not so fluffy. I’m here to keep an eye on things.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” she sighed, “that if at any moment it looks like you’re not going to sort this out, that you’re going to run, or betray, or double-cross, or generally walk away from this situation, then I’m the one who gets to shoot you.” She added with a crocodile smile, “It’ll be just like old times.”
“Why aren’t the Aldermen doing this?”
“They considered . . .” — she sucked in, choosing her words carefully — “that you might be more amenable to a conversation with an old acquaintance. It was suggested that I handle matters initially, lay out the position, tell it like it is. You’re used to that, aren’t you?”
“Tact and humour are not ideas I associate with you, no.”
“Good. See — their reasoning had something going for it, despite their thrice-damned souls. You’re going to have to work with them. Talk with them, let them help you do the thing you do until it no longer needs to be done.”
“We’re really not,” we replied.
“Oh, I think you are. You see, you may be the Midnight Mayor — which is just another proof of how twisted is this life you lead — but you don’t know what to do about it, do you? You don’t know what it means. They do. They spend their lives learning the answer.”
I said, suddenly suspicious, “Where are they?”
“There’s five of them waiting downstairs in the car.”
“Tell them to stick it up—”
“There’s five of them, all very heavily armed, all annoyed, all trying their very best to be polite despite themselves. I never thought the day would come, sorcerer, when I would be saving you from your own withered walnut of a brain, but I have my instructions. They’re going to have a word with you. You’re going to play nice. If you don’t, I will personally unpick those stitches from your skin with a blowtorch. Do we understand each other? I am that good.”
Meekly, to our infuriation, I said, “Yes.”
I got dressed. You can’t be Midnight Mayor in your underpants.
Trains rumbled by. Somewhere in South London, I decided. Old brick arches filled in with other buildings under the railway lines; maybe somewhere near Waterloo, where the chaotic street plan had fallen like custard from a trembling spoon.
Someone had given us new stitches. They hurt, a dull throb that came and went with each pulse of our heart. Our face in the bathroom mirror could have frightened a dead horse that had already seen the innards of the glue factory. Our clothes were another bloodstained write-off. Again. Oda gave me new ones. The T-shirt read, “What Would Jesus Do?” and featured a big white cross on front and back, wrapped in thorns.
We said, “We can’t wear this.”
She said, “Will it burn your flesh?”
I put it on. It was that, or shiver and be un
dignified. More undignified.
Oda made supper. It was grey splodge served with undercooked pasta. Fanatical psycho-bitches clearly had different priorities from the rest of us. We ate it anyway, and tried not to look as grateful as we felt. We let the Aldermen wait. We could do that, at least.
* * *
It was 6 p.m. when Oda let the Aldermen in. I sat on the sofa; they stood in a row in front of me. Earle wasn’t there. I wondered which way he’d voted in the should-we-shoot-him ballot. I wondered who’d voted for life.
Unfortunately, Earle’s absence was not a total blessing. Kemsley stepped forwards.
“Mr Swift,” he said through the corner of his slit-mouth.
“Mr Kemsley,” I said.
“I am here as a representative of the Aldermen.”
“I guessed.”
“There are certain things that must be rectified between us. May I say firstly, on behalf of the Aldermen, that we offer an unconditional apology for the treatment you have received. We were acting on the best of intelligence, and I am sure, in time, you will come to see the reason of our ways.”
“That’s not unconditional, but let’s stick with it for the moment.”
His fingers twitched, but he managed to keep his face austere. “We have chosen to accept your appointment as Midnight Mayor.”
“Big of you.”
“It is unconventional.” The word came out between his lips like thin bile when there’s nothing left to vomit.
I folded my arms and waited.
“Mr Swift, I am sure you understand that the situation is complicated.”
“It seems very simple. Someone is trying to destroy the city’s defences, and you’re too scared to stop it by yourselves. You want us to go and fight for you, find out why Nair was interested in the shoes, find out what’s behind ‘give me back my hat’. In short, you want me to be the one to find the guy who can flay people alive without laying a finger on them, and deal with the problem. Have I missed anything?”
A moment’s hesitation. Kemsley drew in his lips, then smiled. “No,” he said. “You seem to understand the situation. Issues arising?”
“A few.”
“Deal with them.”
“So much for the contrite apology.”
“You know what’s at stake.”
“You killed my friend.”
For a moment, his eyebrows drew together. “Did . . . oh . . . the White. Vera whatever-her-name-was. I might say that she turned into a puddle of paint, rather than the usual corpse.”
“Yes, I noticed that. Curious, isn’t it?”
“She was a White. They have different expectations of life than the rest of us. I’m sure you understand.”
“If I’m Midnight Mayor, do I get to sack you?”
“What do you think?”
“Kemsley,” we said calmly, “if you so much as breathe out of tune, we will kill you as casually as Vera died.”
“I had no doubt. And for my part, may I say I find the idea of you as Midnight Mayor an abomination, a sickness, a degradation of the post and all the duties, age and time that it entails. But that doesn’t change the fact that for you to be Mayor, Nair must have wanted it. He must have known what would happen when he dialled his phone, he must have known that the blue electric angels would be waiting. For his sake, I will respect the choices that have been made, and hope that they have not damned us.”
There was almost a flicker of humanity in the man. The kind of human who pulled wings off flies as a kid, but still human. I smiled. “Well, it’s nice to have that cleared up. Anything else I can do for you, gentlemen?”
“You have a badge. A cross within a cross. It belongs to my colleague, Mr Earle. He’d like it back.”
“It’s in my bag. Is it significant?”
“Sentimental value.”
A lie. He knew that I knew, and brazened it out with a willpower that declared, yes, it’s a lie, and no, I’m not going to say more.
I waited for them to fetch it, remembered Earle’s face back in the flat in Bayswater, metalled over, and the shock when I’d pulled it from his chest.
Kemsley said: “We need to discuss strategy.”
I shrugged. “Sure. What the hell.”
“We need to find out who killed Nair. It makes sense that whoever — whatever — it was is connected to the other attacks in the city. We have links that could be of use. CCTV, police records, databases, forensic techniques . . .”
“What do you plan on doing with them?”
“We may be able to track the killer’s movements.”
“With CCTV? Good luck.”
“You don’t think we can do it?”
“I think that there’s nine million people in this city, and of them probably two million wear bad suits and have slicked-back hair. And they’re just the humans.”
“There are other ways to track . . . creatures.”
“And what do you intend to do, having found this creature?”
“Kill it.”
“Any idea how?”
Kemsley smiled again. It felt like fingers being dragged down the back of our eyeballs. “That, we thought we might leave to you, sorcerer. Mister Mayor. In the meantime we’re arranging for nine replacement ravens to be flown to the Tower.”
“You just think that’s going to fix the problem?”
“No. But I do think it might help with whatever the problem is. Even if it doesn’t, it’s better than sitting around radiating negative attitude.”
“Did you just say ‘negative attitude’?” we asked incredulously.
“I suspect you’re not a team player,” he added, all sucrose and teeth. “And what,” he added, “do you propose to do?”
I looked round the room. “Where are my shoes?”
“If you mean the boy’s shoes, Mo’s, they’re at the lab along with every other pair of shoes we could find in his bedroom. Also every pair of shoes we think you have ever worn.”
“That seems like an overreaction.”
“Nair thought the shoes were important — he didn’t say how. Your wandering expedition might have been for nothing.”
“You have a lab?”
“We consider all possibilities.”
“I want the shoes back.”
“Why?”
“To finish what I started before all this happened.”
“Do you think that will—”
“We want them back.”
He bit his lip. “You can have them in an hour.”
“Thank you.” A thought struck us, slowly catching up with the rest. We said, “What do you mean, ‘every pair of shoes in his bedroom’?”
“We acquired them.”
“From Loren’s flat.”
“Yes.”
“You talked to her?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“Not much. It’s better if civilians don’t know.”
“‘Civilians’? Where is she?”
“We have her in a safe house.”
We stood up slowly, pain dancing down our arm. “You took her away?”
“To keep her safe; to learn more.”
“You took her away and didn’t tell her why?”
“It is for the greater good.”
“If we hear those words one more time, we will set the sky on fire,” we snarled.
Kemsley seemed almost pleased. “Do you really care?” he asked.
“She is our . . . we said we would help her. She is lonely, afraid. We are . . . we will protect her. One hair of hers goes missing down the bathroom plughole, and we will tear you apart.”
He smiled. Stood and stared at us and smiled.
I said, “You total bastard.”
“Just covering base,” he replied.
“She’s not part of this.”
“I am impressed that you care — really, I am.”
“We will . . .”
“What? What will you do? What would you do if you weren’
t as mortal and scared as the rest of us? Mister Mayor. Mister Midnight Electric Mayor. What would you do?”
We slumped back into the sofa. I stared at my hands. A mess. “What happens now?” I asked.
“There’s an inauguration.”
I laughed.
“I mean it.”
“I know you do. That’s part of the joke. Will there be cocktail sausages, and bits of pineapple on sticks?”
“No.”
“Sad.”
“The Mayor must be inaugurated.”
“What’s the point of a party without the punch?”
“You want to live? Take it seriously.”
“I am.” I rubbed the palms of my hands over my eyes. “We do. What should I expect?”
“Ghosts,” he said with a shrug.
“Thanks a bundle.”
“See me smiling?”
“Ghosts,” I repeated. “Terrific. When is this punchless, pineappleless inauguration thing?”
“Tomorrow, midnight.”
“Naturally.”
“You need to do it if you’re going to be Midnight Mayor, if you’re . . .” He trailed away.
“Going to live?” I suggested.
“Yes.”
“Didn’t save Nair, did it?”
“Nair was a man.”
“I thought he was Mayor.”
“He was a man who happened to be the Mayor. You’re something else.”
“Sure. Blame the resurrection business. Go on. Why not? If in doubt reminding a guy that he got killed, got torn to pieces by black claws on a black night, saw the white light and the long corridor and all the things you see before you die, breathed a last breath — sure. Go ahead. Because that’s really going to make me more inclined to help.”
“This is about need, Swift. You need us, and we need you, and while we can both hate it, the sensible strategy would be to deal with the issues and move on. Keep your phone switched on, Mister Mayor. Remember to answer it when we call.”
And that seemed all he had to say on the subject.
The Aldermen left.
All except Anissina.
She said, “I’m the shadow.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I’m the shadow. The one that’s going to keep your back.”
I jerked my chin at Oda. “She’ll do that just fine and she brings her own knives.”
“So do I,” she replied with a twitch of her lips that might have been a smile. “And mine need not end up in you.”
