by Kate Griffin
I sighed, rubbed my eyes, and regretted it, felt sticky blood slither from my fingers to my face, heard it crackle like velcro against my skin.
“All right,” said Earle.
“You sure?” I asked, eyes closed and turned up to the too-bright afterburn of the neon light overhead.
“Yes.”
“Good. So if you gentlemen will excuse me, I need to get this hat to Penny Ngwenya before I bleed to death.”
I staggered back to my feet, pushed past Earle towards the door.
“Is that it?” asked Earle. “The end of it? The death of the death of cities?”
“Ha-ha,” I said.
“Then . . .”
“Mr Pinner isn’t just going to let us bring this hat to Ngwenya! The curse that she made is his life, it is what summoned him, what sustains him. He’ll do everything he can to stop us. Which is, sadly, quite a lot.”
“But if he . . .”
I waved at the window. “Have a look out there and tell me what you see.”
Oda was nearest the window, so she was the first to look, and the first to see. She sighed a long, sad sigh. “Kids in tracksuits and hoods.”
“So?” snapped Earle.
“How many?” I asked.
“Maybe . . . fifty. They’re looking right up at us, if that’s of any interest to anyone. Can’t see any faces.”
“Are they? Is it? What do you think, Mr Earle?”
His jaw was locked tight, his fists clenched at his side. “All right,” he said. “Mister Mayor. What do you want done?”
“You expecting a big speech? Get off your lazy arses and fight, damnit! Oh — and pop.”
“And po—?”
The lights went out with a faint pop.
They went out in the office, in the floor, in the building, in the buildings around, in the streets, on the wings of the planes overhead, in the tunnels underneath. We grinned. “Told you so,” we said. “Where’s the nearest way out?”
Spectres.
How we loathed spectres.
And turning the lights out was just cheesy, a distraction, an itch of an inconvenience, nothing compared to the big wallop. Mr Pinner, he’s coming, always coming, can’t hold back the death of cities for ever, sooner or later they’ll die along with everything else and here he is right now, coming for you.
How we loathed mystic forces and their uselessly obscure ways. Why couldn’t the travelcard of destiny ever be left behind the sofa, why couldn’t the prophets of fate write up a spider diagram with useful footnotes and references?
So here we were, in the offices of Harlun and Phelps, surrounded by the Aldermen (how we loathed Aldermen!), who in turn were surrounded by empty hoods playing loud bass beats through their headphones, while somewhere down in the streets below a man in a pinstripe suit looked up at the black windows of the darkened office and just kept on smiling, because he knew, of course he knew, that there’s no point finding the hat if you didn’t give it back after.
I said, “Do you have beer or fags in this office?”
“Do you really think this is the time?”
“Bottles of beer, packs of fags,” I replied sharply. “Weapons.”
Earle’s face was a grey shadow in the darkness. I was grateful I couldn’t see his expression. “Catering department,” he said. “You can try office drawers.”
“Good. This place must have some sort of warding, protective spells, yes? I mean, if the Aldermen work here . . .”
“Some, yes. Wards against evil, hostile intent, that kind of thing.”
“Will they fire automatically?”
“The second anything steps across the threshold. I don’t think they can stop the death of cities; our insurance doesn’t cover it.”
“Mr Earle! Was that a moment of light-hearted humour?”
“No.”
“Oh. ‘Course not. My mistake. I don’t suppose anyone here knows what the spleen does?”
Silence in the darkness, then a polite cough, Oda’s voice. “I do. But for the sake of keeping you focused on Mr Pinner, I’m not going to tell you.”
“Terrific. Mr Earle?”
“Yes, Mr Swift?”
“You Aldermen lot do whatever it is you do when forces of primal evil are about to obliterate you and your . . . I nearly said loved ones, but you get the idea . . .”
“Where are you going?”
“Fags and bottles of beer,” I replied. “Oda?”
“I’m coming with you,” her voice drifted from the darkness. “Just in case.”
“It’s nice to have certainty in life. These wards . . .”
From somewhere below, there was a crack, a crash, distant, far-off, almost embarrassed to have its effect ruined by the weight of cold winter air between us and it. The Aldermen all at once turned their faces towards the window, and, since this was strange behaviour for anything that wasn’t a pigeon, we followed their gaze as well.
In the darkness of the city outside, a single red light came on, somewhere on the other side of Aldermanbury Square. Then another, then another, a line of little red lights, here embedded in the walls, here stuck on above the street signs, here in the tops of pavement bollards. A spreading line of bright scarlet rippled down from across the other side of the square, shimmered in the double red parking lines on the streets, reflected off the red warnings on the signs, bounced and reflected off the darkened windows of the lurking buildings around, and then more. The light crawled out of its sources, spilt across the square, seeped between the legs of the hoodies — how many spectres could one guy summon?! — illuminated the empty nothings in their hoods, the cracks of nothingness between their loose, grey clothes, and still spread.
It shimmered up the side of the tower, spilt through the windows of Harlun and Phelps and kept growing and rising, a bright, unremitting crimson light that made our head hurt, a photographer’s lamp amplified to the point where the eyes ached to see it. The red light ran up through the whole height of the tower, crawled out of the walls, the floors, the ceiling; everywhere there was a surface to shine, it shone red. When the Aldermen moved, they seemed to trail scarlet behind them, as if the light were a thin solid, or a floating fog, rather than a thing of insubstantial energy, and it occurred to us with the slow shuffling pace of a thought slightly shy to have been caught late to the party, that this same all-pervading light was the same blood-red of the dragon’s cross, and that, looked at from the right angle, the office of Harlun and Phelps might well make a strong starting line from which you could draw the same cross on the very streets of London.
By the bright blood glow, I turned to Earle. “I gotta hand it to you . . .”
But he raised a hand, commanding me to silence. “Domine dirige nos,” he breathed, and the Aldermen chanted it in reply. “Domine dirige nos.”
Then, “They’re inside. They’re coming up the stairs. Spectres and . . . and something else.”
Earle had never met the death of cities.
“He bleeds paper. You can’t kill him,” I said quickly, “not while the curse is still doing its thing, but you can slow him down. Protective wards, incantations, general big explosive effects. I need a way out of here, I need to get the hat to Ngwenya . . .”
Earle nodded briskly. “Seventh floor, there’s a jump, but if you’re smart . . .”
“Oda!”
She was by my side, face lit up dark, night-time blood in the all-pervasive redness.
“Earle . . .” I began.
“Run, Mister Mayor,” he breathed. “We will slow them, distract them, fight them where we can. Run. Get the hat to your traffic warden. Damnation on you, sorcerer, burn in hell — run!”
We ran.
Blood dripped scatty and unsure behind us, forming diamond-shaped splatters on the thin carpet. The lifts were dead, no point even trying, the stairs were concrete and grey. Oda had a torch, a gun, I had my torch from my jacket pocket. But I didn’t want to risk summoning a light. What little mortal strength we had
now, we were not going to waste, not while there was still a chance that we might survive the night. The white light from our torches was gobbled up in an instant by the all-pervasive ruby glow, spilling from every inch of wall and floor. I could see it stretch and part around my feet as we ran/tumbled down the stairs, gasping for breath, heart pounding in our ears, scared, scared, just the anxiety, just scared, just nothing, just feeling, just mortal things for mortals to worry about, just run!
Eighteenth floor; what kind of penis-obsessed architect builds so high anyway?! (Land prices, think land prices, think running . . . )
Sixteenth floor, fifteenth, couldn’t breathe, just keep on falling and gravity should do the rest, fourteenth floor and a sign caught my eye — “Oda!”
“What?”
“Catering.”
“But . . .”
“Come on!”
I dragged her through the fire-exit doors onto the fourteenth floor, pushed her at the nearest line of boring plywood desks. “Fags, Sellotape! Every cigarette you can find!”
Scowling, she started to rummage through drawers. I hurried down the corridor to a pair of white double doors with a round glass window set in each one, pushed them back, lurched into a kitchen of stainless steel and giant tubs for suspicious soups made mostly of floating carrot to boil in, started tearing open everything on the shelves. We nearly screamed our frustration — what kind of big office didn’t have some hidden cache of booze?!
Big cartons of Perrier, fizzy water, lemonade, fruity fizzy water, water with added vitamins, water with added volcano, fruit juice made mostly out of sugar, fruit juice made mostly out of crushed ginger, yoghurt drinks, “power” drinks, protein drinks, more water, carbonated, decarbonated, hydrated, dehydrated, mix and match in one cup and see if your head explodes . . .
“Matthew!” Oda’s voice drifted through the doors.
“What?”
“They’re coming!”
“Get in here!”
She came through the double doors to the kitchen without complaint, carrying a depressingly small armful of cigarette packets and a roll of Sellotape. “Beer,” I muttered, “gotta find beers, where are they?”
“I saw a face . . . a not-face . . . an empty-face at the door.”
“Beer bottles!” I dragged open another stainless-steel cupboard door, dragged down sacks of flour, great packets of gelatin, opened another and there it was! Tucked away discreetly at the back, the shelf of expensive green glass. I dragged them down by the armful, started to fumble at the tops.
“Sorcerer!”
Oda’s voice from my left; I turned and there were two of them by the door, bobbing along to the silent beat, empty nothingnesses inside their hoods, penknives in hand. I raised my hands towards them, pushing my blood-soaked palms out in front of me. “Oda, light the cigarettes, empty the bottles, put the fags in them still burning, got it?”
She grabbed the fallen bottles I’d been working at, and started fumbling in her pocket for her knife, trying to get the lids off. The spectres shuffled towards me, bobbing from the hips down to their unheard rhythms, swinging their shoulders as if to say, “you think you’re hard enough?” So they swaggered towards me, arrogant nothingnesses in a tracksuit, and I held up my hands towards them and felt the crosses carved into my skin, and I said:
“‘It is apparent to me that you, being a . . . thing . . . aged ten or over namely, (a) have acted, since the commencement date, in an anti-social manner, that is to say, in a manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household as yourself and (b) that this order is necessary . . .’”
The air thickened around my fingers; blood oozed down my palm, to my wrist, splattered onto the floor. The spectres kept coming.
“‘. . . to protect persons in the local government area in which the harassment, alarm or bloody major distress is caused or is likely to be caused from further anti-social acts by yourself; and as the relevant authority—’ Oda hurry up! . . .”
Thick light began to shimmer off my skin, and spill down my arms onto the floor. As the spectres neared, they began to slow, arms sliding through the air like vengeful t’ai chi gurus, each movement reduced to a crawl; but still coming—
“‘. . . for the purpose of determining whether the condition mentioned in subsection (1)(a) above is fulfilled, the court shall disregard any act of the defendant which he shows was reasonable in the circumstances. The prohibitions that may be imposed—’ Oda! Faster!”
The spectres were a few feet from me, moving now so slow, caught full fast in the enchantment and I screamed the words of the spell, felt the power run through my arms, burn at the ends of my fingertips: a new spell, a young spell, and still not strong enough. I let it fill my lungs, my blood, lift me almost off my feet with the force of it, feeding it everything I had: “‘. . . prohibitions that may be imposed by an anti-social behaviour order are those necessary for the purpose of protecting from further anti-social acts by the defendant (a) persons in the local government area; and (b) persons in any adjoining local government area specified in the application for the order . . .’”
One of the spectres raised its knife; in slow motion, the weapon screeched and hissed and spat furious angry sparks as it moved through the air as slow and gentle as a freak wave on a starlit night — I pushed back against it with everything I had, saw it slow still further, but still coming, poured out the spell with every last drop of air I had in my lungs, bellowed it at the empty hood of the spectre, “‘An anti-social behaviour order shall have effect for a period (not less than two years) specified in the order or until further order. Subject to subsection (9) below, the applicant or the defendant may apply by complaint to the court which made an anti-social behaviour order for it to be varied or discharged by a further order—’ Oda!!”
Something was pushed into my hand, moving quickly through the air that had thickened to porridge between me and the spectre. It was a green beer bottle, the sides sticky with the drink just poured out. A single cigarette smoked dully inside, dark mist crawling out from the top. We nearly laughed, and drawing back our arm, thrust the bottle as hard as we could into the slowly drifting face of the spectre, shrieking with the attack, “Hey, man! Like total respect!”
The spell I had been casting broke. The spectre should really have screamed, but what it was was already shrivelling down inside the bottle, vanishing into the mist of the smoking cigarette, behind the foggy cage of the glass. Its clothes crumpled into a messy heap on the floor; the knife fell through empty air to break its own blade on the pale tiles. I snatched the bottle back as the hood shrivelled into itself, planted my thumb firmly across the opening and snatched Sellotape from Oda’s hand, sealing the bottle and tearing the strip free with my teeth.
The other spectre, freed from the spell I had been weaving, lurched towards me, but I snatched another bottle from Oda’s hands and waved it, roaring, “Come on, then! Another nothing for eternity!”
The other spectre retreated a few paces; we stepped sharply after it, it moved too late, tried to put the knife between our ribs; but we had the bottle with its tantalising smoke, and jammed it into the empty middle of that vacant hood, sucking it down until nothing but a pile of baggy clothes remained, and another foggy beer bottle.
Oda stuttered, looking at the sad clothes on the floor, “Just like . . .” “Yes. Just like that.”
“That was an ASBO you just . . .”
“Yeah. I know. That’s why it didn’t really work. Bottles!”
She handed me four, put another one in my coat pocket, kept two to herself, held in either hand. “This will kill spectres?”
“Contain them. The invocation of an ASBO will slow them down as well, if there’s more than one of them, but, like you saw, it’s not a perfect spell. And if the cigarettes burn down before the bottle is filled, they won’t work either. But it should be enough to get us to the seventh floor.”
“I can�
�t . . .”
“You push the bottle into their faces, and if it doesn’t work, tell them, ‘respect’. Say it like you mean it.”
“I can’t just do ma—”
“You can.”
“I can’t! I’m not some . . .”
“It’s a simple binding, nothing more than a piece of sympathetic magic. You want to live?”
“And not be damned!”
“Well, you’re gonna have to pick one or the other. Come on!”
I dragged her, or maybe she dragged me, or maybe we just got in each other’s way, out of the kitchen, across the dull office floor turned the colour of blood, or crosses, or dragon’s eyes, or maybe just a tasteless brothel-red, to the stairway. And there it was, the beat in the stair, echoing up the concrete walls: dumdumdumdumDUH dumdumdumdumDUH dumdumdumdum . . .
“Another stair?” I gasped.
“Sure, because I know—”
“It’s not really a question!”
There was another staircase, tucked in at the opposite end of the office floor.
sshssshsssCHA sshssshsssCHA sshssshsssCHA . . .
“Where now?”
“Down, gotta get down . . .”
“Do you even know where this Ngwenya woman is?”
“Sure I do,” I muttered. “The death of cities is about to kill the Midnight Mayor; that’s the last defence the city’s got, the last thing that’s gonna stop us all burning. Of course I know where Ngwenya is!”
“Jedi spidey-senses?”
“Obscure mystic forces.”
“The spectres are here, Swift! Mr Pinner is here; do you really think we can just walk this one down?”
“Right,” I scowled, dragging her back. “Fine.”
Red light, spinning chairs, dull desks, silent sleeping computers, big glass windows behind the doors of the executive cubicles, plywood doors, plaster walls. “Do you suppose there’s those big vents like there are in American thrillers?” I asked hopefully.
Oda grunted in reply, her eyes still fixed on the stairwell door through which was coming the sound of:
sshssshsssCHA sshssshsssCHA dumdumdumDUH dumdumdumDUH dumdumdumDUH
“OK.” I looked down at the floor. Our hands were shaking, we hadn’t even noticed this time, the edge of our vision seemed to be going off on its own business.
