by Kate Griffin
“Hundreds of people must have heard.
“But as we avoid seeing the cleaners, the dustbin men, the drivers, the road painters and the sewage workers, no one heard.
“Only Mr Pinner.
“Her anger was as beautiful to him as the diamond to an avaricious eye. It summoned him, brought him up out of the streets, built him from the papers drifting in the wind, stitched the suit to his flesh and the fury to his soul, bound him to one purpose, and one purpose alone — damnation on this city! He is the tool of her vengeance, the vehicle for this city’s demise. Her magic created him, fuels him, he cannot die while her fury still lives. You cannot kill him, Matthew Swift. I am sorry that two Midnight Mayors had to die to learn this truth.
“Mr Pinner — the death of cities — is Ngwenya’s revenge made flesh. He has destroyed the protectors of the city, wiped them out, enacted vengeance on all who would hurt her. The man who spat drowned in his own spittle; the man who beat was flayed alive and his skin stitched to the ceiling of his bedroom while his eyes could still look to see. The boy who stole her hat, infected with lingering death and thrown aside like the ruined rubbish he was, condemned and tossed with the contempt he showed a stranger. But her damnation is much bigger than just her personal enemies. She said, a curse on the unkindness of strangers, and the city is nothing more than a commune of strangers, eight million of them, each of whom will never know more than a few hundred faces, a tiny sliver of a per cent of all that there is to know, who will never walk more than a few hundred streets, a fraction of the hive. She has damned the city. Her will be done. Mr Pinner is here to see to that.
“It will be soon.
“She will return to London Bridge.
“She will raise her face to the sky and her arms to the river.
“The city will burn, Mr Swift.
“Mr Pinner has seen that nothing will stop her vengeance. It is simply a matter of time; of bringing down the defences. It is strange that you should be one of these. Another sorcerer. Too late. End of the line.
“For me . . .
“I have little to say.
“I am a true Alderman.
“I look at the city and it is a miracle. That for two thousand years these streets can have stood and grown; that for two thousand years a ragged union of strangers pressed in tighter than blood to a boil can have lived together, fed together, worked together; that now eight million strangers can reside in one place, pressed in like lovers — that it works! That the water flows, the electricity burns, the gas rumbles, the streets hum, the wheels turn, that this works is a miracle! Wonder! Glory! Ours is a world full of strangers, that is what gives it such life. That in this place, at this time, we live; through the actions of strangers, faces we shall never know, miracles we shall never comprehend, history we can never understand. Madness in depth; we can only scratch a tiny percentage of the life, the power that is the city. To understand any more than our little part in it is to slip into spiralling madness. I think you’ve seen it, sorcerer. I think you know what I mean.
“And now it is taken for granted.
“Obscenity.
“Damnation.
“How dare anyone, anyone who lives in this city, how dare they ignore the miracle? How dare they shrug and say, ‘whatever’; how dare they forget the size, the beauty, the wonder, the scale, the life, the vibrancy, the glory, the miracle! How dare a stranger spit in another’s face, how dare a stranger strike a woman down, knowing it is cruelty without consequence, how dare you throw your litter into the street and wait for the cleaner to pick it up, how dare you park your car and shrug at the rules, how dare you scream at the policeman, how dare you curse the bus driver, how dare you steal a traffic warden’s hat, how dare you show such contempt? Contempt! Take it for granted, damnation, contempt! Strength in the city, strength in survival, strength in being strong, in being hard, in caring for yourself and none other, a jungle in the city, preserve thyself and let the others burn, how dare you walk down the street and not notice its wonders, how dare you look just at your shoes, how dare you turn your face away, how dare you leave the man to die, how dare you, how dare you?!
“I am a true Alderman.
“Magic is in the strange.
“The cruelty of strangers.
“The kindness of strangers.
“The things that strangers have done, built, made, maintained.
“Beauty in the city.
“I am a true Alderman.
“This city is going to burn.”
* * *
She finished speaking.
We considered.
“Well,” I said finally, “you’ve clearly thought hard about this.”
She said nothing.
“To tell the truth, I’d figured a good part by myself.”
Still nothing.
“You couldn’t have gone to a shrink instead?”
“Weakness,” she replied. “Kemsley was right — you aren’t fit to be Midnight Mayor.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I’d kinda sussed that too. But, see, if there’s one thing we’re going to agree on about the nature of the city, it’s this: time has come for a bit of change. How long before Mr Pinner gets here, do you think?”
She shrugged. “He doesn’t move like mortal creatures.”
“Sure. Why not? Hey — if you shoot me, right, do I get any say in who becomes Midnight Mayor? Like — could I make you Midnight Mayor with my dying breath? That’d be a turn-up for the books, wouldn’t it?”
“You wouldn’t know how.”
“I’ve been inaugurated.”
She shrugged, but there was a hint of unease behind it. “So?”
“I saw the dragon.”
“And?”
“I know quite how big the madness is, Anissina. Ms Smith. Whatever. Would you like to meet it? Would you like to look into its eyes until your brain dribbles out of your nose?”
Nothing.
“Scared?”
Nothing.
“Fire and fury,” we sighed. “People say these things as if they were meant to make us feel ashamed. As if a bomb going off were not, secretly, obscenely, immorally, indefinably, beautiful. We are not permitted by the customs of this world to say such things. It is regarded as unhealthy. But it is so. Has been so ever since the first caveman became lost, staring into the firelight. Where is the traffic warden’s hat? Did you destroy it? It would be the smart thing to do.”
Nothing.
“I don’t think you destroyed it. It’s like the Midnight Mayor, yes? A symbol of everything you don’t like about the city. The cruelty of strangers, a kid on a bike steals a stranger’s hat. Not to speculate too deep about your sexual predilections, but I’m just betting you couldn’t destroy it. Where’s Ngwenya’s hat, Anissina? Where did Mo hide her hat?”
“End of the line,” she said.
“Been there, done that. Where’s the hat?”
“It’s nothing personal, sorcerer.”
“I know, you said, you did maths at me you stupid, stupid woman! Where’s Ngwenya’s hat?!”
“You can’t do anything here, not here, not . . .”
“We are the blue electric angels! We were born from the left-over breaths of humanity, by the fears and the thoughts and the ideas and the truths and the lies you poured into the telephone lines. We were created by you, bigger and brighter and more alive than any mortal could aspire to be! Do not think to tell us what we can or cannot do! Where is her hat?!”
The men with the guns wanted to shoot, we could feel them aching for it, see them watch the burning of our eyes, just a twitch away from firing.
“Do it,” we snarled, “and you will have the brand on your hand, Midnight Mayor. Let the city watch, the shadows drag, dream the dreams of the sleeping stones, Midnight fucking Mayor! Protect the city, protect the streets, protect the stones — and nowhere did anyone bother to mention that this tiny little ant scuttling within the heap is a best buddy of this tiny little ant who knows this
ant who knows this ant who knows that ant who lives on the other side of town whose family all know these ants who just happen to know another ant who knows our initial scuttler and it’s not strangers, we are not strangers, Anissina! It wasn’t a stranger who stole the traffic warden’s hat; that would be fine, that would be nothing! It was a Londoner. It was one of the family, united because of the streets and the stones and the stories! That’s why the city is going to burn, it was a betrayal! We will kill you before we die, Anissina. Burn and be damned — GIVE ME BACK MY HAT!”
We screamed it, the curse on the city, and as we screamed, we raised our right hand, felt the twin crosses blazing blue-blooded brightness, saw the men with the guns flinch away, and felt something more, felt a stiffness in our skin, glanced at our flesh and saw . . . a darkness settled over it that hadn’t been there before, a clawing, growing darkness spreading out from the palm of our right hand but now wasn’t the time, one by one, and there was something wrong with our eyes, something hot and prickling and
Here they were!
Come on, my little beauties, you know this song . . .
Up came the rats. They tumbled out of every hole in the wall, hair raised on their backs, teeth bared; they spilt from the pipes and the cracked vents in the ceiling, crawled over each other to come through the doors; and they were angry because we were, because their home had been invaded when they hadn’t asked, no invite, no reboot. They spilt around our feet and crawled up the legs of the men with guns, who screamed and,
of course, as frightened men do,
fired.
Something went boom. I couldn’t name where, the blast spread so fast through my skin, tore up the back of my throat and liquidised my knees, a great big rolling cloud of mushroom-shaped fire spreading through my nerves. I went down and backwards because that seemed to be the direction the pain was headed in, and I wasn’t going to argue with the pain. The rats parted beneath me, ran across my arms, my face, my chest, scuttling still in their hundreds out of the walls, bearing down on each of the men, who didn’t have lips left to scream, just fell, black bundles melting under black bodies, the torches going out, the lights going out, everything going out inside the room. I could hear shouting, screaming, gunfire as they shot at the rats, and I could feel the blasts, little fat bodies bursting on the earth as the bullets went in, little yellow eyes dying, little claws twitching, little whiskers flicking through the air, little teeth nibbling and biting into soft, warm, human flesh, sinking in like they were eating raw pink chicken. And there was blood on my hands burning bright blue wriggling bright blue blood our blood and I’d been shot bugger that shot after all the things that could have happened some bastard had
the rats were going
running into the night
too frightened to stay
couldn’t stop them, my friends, come back and sing this song,
what bastard shoots strangers anyway?
A man was lying on the floor a few feet from me. He was still alive, wailing, just wailing like a hurt child, too low and pitiful to be a scream, too quiet to be a roar, just . . . crawling and wailing. Half his ear was hanging off. The rest was too bloody for me to see. We were grateful for that. His comrades lay behind him. One of them was going, “huhn . . . huhn . . . huhn . . .”
The blood in his breath caught the sound in his throat, made it crackle.
The others weren’t moving at all.
I tried to raise my head.
A shadow was standing against the furthest wall.
I could see a pair of red eyes blinking in the darkness. They were perfect marble spheres in the black oval of the creature’s head, deep and mad and endless. They moved towards me. A torch had fallen from the hand of one of the men; the light cut across the feet of the creature as it moved. Human legs, wearing a long black coat, but still attached to those mad red eyes. The creature knelt by me. Its skin was a silverish metal colour, its veins dark black beneath the surface. Its hair was fused black wire that trailed behind its head, its ears had stretched to spiked points, its fingers were black curved claws coming out of strangely jointed arms, and when it breathed, black smoke rolled from its nostrils and lips. If dragons were silver and human, then this was a dragon. Its eyes were the insane brightness of the creatures that guarded the city gates.
I whispered, “Anissina,” and was pleased to feel the breath move, not lungs then, still had my lungs, for the moment.
The half-creature curled back its silvered lips to reveal sharpened teeth. The shadows moved behind her, the metal walls of the shed creaked. One shadow seemed to have my name on it. Time for that in a moment . . .
“Anissina,” I breathed again. “True Alderman.” Then I added, because I was feeling depressed, “You should see what’s behind you.”
She didn’t get it. She closed her metal fingers around our throat. And the shadow behind her said, “Now . . . that doesn’t look like first aid to me.”
Anissina turned, hissing, claws reaching up to tear at the shadow that had spoken, and I closed my eyes. Even then, the gun was near enough and the flash so bright that I could see it explode, star-pattern, on the back of my retinas, feel it jolt through my brain. I heard an animal scream, a piteous, wailing mewl, and opened my eyes again in time to be dazzled by another bang, another flash, and Anissina fell, rolled to one side screaming, the metal shimmer vanishing from her skin, her claws retreating back into nails, hair regrowing from the metal strands on her head, and she was screaming! There was blood flowing from the half-blasted remnants of her left leg, and worse, blood now in her belly, her hands clasped over the middle of her gut and she lay on the floor screaming until the shadow that had pulled the trigger knelt down next to her and very firmly put a hand over her mouth.
The torchlight fell on that hand, the colour of rich chocolate melted in a dark pan.
I wheezed, “Help me.”
Oda said, “Of all the people to ask that of me, I would have thought you’d know better.”
Oda’s voice, Oda’s hand, Oda’s gun, Oda’s general sense of humour.
“Shot,” I breathed. “Shot.”
“Yeah. I noticed. Entry and exit, Swift, left side of your upper abdomen, just below the ribs. Stop complaining. As bad news goes, it’s one of the best of the bads. Care to tell me why this should-be-dead Alderman was throttling you, or was it just your nature again?”
“She’s working with Mr Pinner,” I groaned, trying to sit up and thinking better of it. “Jesus, he’s coming here — we have to go!”
“An Alderman? This Alderman? With the death of cities? Why?”
“Screwed-up reasoning.”
“She know anything?”
“The hat,” I hissed. “The traffic warden’s hat.”
Oda’s eyes widened in the torchlight. She carefully pried her hand back from Anissina’s mouth, who started gasping and wheezing, on the edge of a scream but without the strength to make it, clawing at the blood flowing from out of her belly. Then she leant over to me, gun still in her hand, and carefully ran her fingers down my throat.
“Liar,” she whispered. “The sorceress . . . Ngwenya . . .”
“We can find her hat.”
“We can kill her, end it, should have killed her, ended it!”
Her fingers rested on my windpipe, applying just the gentlest little pressure, just enough to let me know. “Innocent,” I whispered. “She didn’t know . . . she didn’t know! Spat at, beaten, stolen, hurt! Innocent! Damnation, strangers, damned, hell, burn! For God’s sake help me!”
“For His sake?”
“Help me,” I whimpered. “Please. Anissina knows where her hat is. Give me back my hat! I can break the spell! Please! You still need us!”
“I can kill the sorceress.”
“He’s coming, Mr Pinner is coming, end of the line, damnation, give me back my hat, he’s coming please . . .”
“You couldn’t even be Midnight Mayor, could you?” breathed Oda.
“Please,
” I whispered. “I saved your life. I could have let you die. Please. Help me. I saved your life! Oda!”
She grunted in reply, lifted her fingers from my throat, turned to Anissina, twitching on the floor. She leant over her, lowered her face in so close it was not an inch off Anissina’s, breathed gentle, steady hot breath into her clammy face, and, as softly as a mother rubbing a child’s tummy, pushed the barrel of the gun into Anissina’s belly.
The woman screamed.
I turned my head away, tried to bury my cheek in the floor.
“Where is the hat?” asked Oda.
Screamed so loud the floor hummed with it.
We closed our eyes, counted, maths, if I am one eight millionth of a city what does this make me in percentage terms? Do the maths, divide and . . .
“Where is Ngwenya’s hat?”
“He’ll . . . he’ll . . . he’ll . . .”
“Mr Pinner will flay you alive, yes,” breathed Oda softly. “Of course he will. But the thing is this. You’ve been shot in the stomach. Right now, the contents of your bowels are spilling into your bloodstream. Faeces, gastric juices, stomach acids, digestive enzymes. They’re going to get into your veins, and start eating. The acid is going to burn you from the inside out, the enzymes are going to gobble away at your body until there’s nothing left for them to chew on, digest you from the inside out, the faeces spilt from your stomach are going to turn your blood to sewage. If you’re fortunate, septic shock will take you out before the worst of it. If not, then having the skin peeled from your bones will seem the balmy mercy of the Almighty compared to the death you will endure. And that’s just the start. Damnation awaits you, Alderman. I cannot say what manner of suffering it will be. That is a secret that will be shared only by you and the Devil, and he does not care for reason. Where is the hat? Anissina? Where is the traffic warden’s hat?”
