by Kate Griffin
When we were finally calm, our mind soothed by drifting down the silver flashing rails of the lines along with the dozing commuters and sleepy lights of the trains, and lulled by their regular rhythm, we left Victoria station, and wandered back onto the streets. Outside a domed Catholic cathedral that could have been transported from the streets of Rome, hiding in a plaza that burst out between the local launderette and a cobbler’s shop, we found a telephone box.
I dialled the number from memory, and waited.
The number was disconnected.
I swore and tried some others. Two more were disconnected, and one was a XXX video store in Soho whose assistant introduced herself with a silky voice and the words, “Hey hon, looking for something special?”
In desperation, I tried one last number. The phone rang. A voice said, “You’re through to KSP reception, how may I help you?”
“I’d like to speak to Robert Bakker.”
“I’m sorry, we have no one of that name…”
“But you know where to find him. Please. It’s very important.”
“I’m sorry, but…”
“My name is Matthew Swift.”
After a while, a voice said, “Please hold.”
The phone started playing the remnants of Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony on a xylophone. I endured the pain and waited.
Fifty pence later, a new, bored, woman’s voice said, “Hi, you’re through to reception, how may I help?”
My heart rattled at the speed of a train, my mind scuddered along endless silver tracks; but my voice, strengthened by all that buzzing life in one place, was steady. Just like he’d taught me. Forget you are afraid, he’d said. In a place like this, when you step out into the road you could be run down, when you turn a corner you could be knifed, when you come home you could die from a short circuit in the mains, or eat a curry poisoned with badly cooked cat meat and in somewhere this big, and this busy, you will never know what hit you. Forget you are afraid – there is too much worth living to just hide behind your own uncertainties.
I said, “Hi, I’d like to put in a call to Mr Robert Bakker.”
“Mr Bakker is busy at the moment…”
“He’ll want to talk to me; please, it’s very important.”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“My name is Matthew Swift. Please – tell him.”
“If you will hold the line…”
“I’ll hold.”
I held for another 70p and almost half a movement of xylophone Beethoven. I began to understand the power of tinned telephone music – it gave me something else to get angry about, to marvel at, instead of letting my thoughts dwell on what I was doing.
The woman’s voice came back. “Mr Swift?”
“Yes?”
“Mr Bakker would like to know if there’s a number he can call you back on.”
“Miss?” I answered in my sweetest, gentlest voice.
“Mr Swift?”
“I want you to call Mr Bakker back and tell him that, as well he knows, my body was never found and that this should tell him something about the urgency of my call. Please tell him those exact words.”
“Uh, Mr Swift…”
“Please, miss,” I said nicely. “If that doesn’t get him to the phone, I’ll go away; I promise.”
“I’ll be right back, Mr Swift.”
Vivaldi was the next composer, murdered by someone on a harmonica. Thirty pence later the woman’s voice was back.
“Mr Swift?”
“Still here.”
“I’m transferring you now.”
“Thank you.”
A beep. A long silence. A sigh of distant breath. I found I couldn’t speak. After ten trips of my shuddering heart he said, in that familiar, rich voice, “Matthew?”
“Mr Bakker, sir,” I stumbled, tongue tangling over the automatic, familiar words, feeling like a fifteen-year-old boy again, about to be prescribed tranquillisers.
“Matthew! My God!” Nothing but surprise; no anger, fear, just marvelling wonder, tinged with an odd flavour of almost laughter – perhaps delight. “I heard you were… there was a funeral!”
“Yes. I wasn’t.”
“Clearly, clearly. My God. God. But where are you? I must see you at once!”
Panic was beginning to make my skin burn; whatever I’d been expecting, this was not it. “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I said.
“Matthew! Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
“I must see you! You must tell me everything – they said you were dead!”
“They were pretty much right.”
“What’s happened to you? My God…”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m staying with some friends.”
“Well you must come round, at once! We have to talk!”
“No, thank you.”
“Why not?” Again, hurt, almost fatherly pain in his voice – whatever I had expected, it was not this, nothing like this, and for a moment, just a moment, I almost said yes. Then we shuddered in fear and turned our face away from the receiver. His voice came, tinny and small, through the phone in our hand. “Matthew? Are you there? Matthew!”
My teacher, Mr Bakker, who came and knocked on my mum’s front door when I was just a kid, voice full of worry and concern.
Give me life, the shadow had said.
And if you gave him a tropical disease, starved him for a month, fed him on nothing but darkness and fear, then Hunger’s face was Bakker’s.
I could taste the blood in my mouth again.
“Make me a shadow on the wall,” I said, leaning my head against the cold of the glass. “Mr Bakker? A shadow on the wall.”
“What’s happened? Tell me what’s happened! Matthew…”
I slammed the phone down on the hook, turned, and ran from that place into the dark, spreading my mind into the wings of the pigeons and the claws of the rats and the honking of the cars and the spinning of the wheels and the drifting of the dust until I forgot that I was running and forgot from what it was I ran.
I did not notice myself sleep, and my dreams flowed like the river.
I woke huddled in a corner underneath Battersea Bridge, brought awake by the sniffing of a dog at the hem of my coat, out for its early-morning run with its well-exercised owner. I smelt of river mud and cement dust; and my legs, when I tried to stand, burned. I had no idea where I’d gone or what I’d seen or done. Although perhaps if we wished…
… we see…
… we were…
so free
Couldn’t remember.
Didn’t want to remember.
I picked up my few possessions and went to find a shower.
At midday, I found Oda sitting by herself on a bench overlooking the river, outside the white palatial mass of Somerset House, a strange building of stately, many-paned windows, massive stonework, pedimented roofs, and dignified statues surveying its spacious courtyards. It held within its walls a museum, a university, part of a tax office and more besides; a place as confused as the streets compressed around it.
“Where’ve you been?” she asked as I sat down.
“Went wandering.”
“At a time like this?”
“Needed to sort out a few things.” She grunted in reply. I glanced up at her, raising my eyebrows, and said, “Worried?”
“You’ve got us all together – for now – are you going to bail now?”
“I’m staying,” I answered.
“And you’ve made an alliance, sworn on blood – well done. Congratulations. Happy for you. What next? Pitched battle with Guy Lee, blood in the streets and so on?”
“No.”
“You’ve got a plan,” she groaned. “Naturally.”
“It’d be nice to just deal with Lee on his own.”
“Not going to happen,” she said sharply. “Not now San Khay is dead.”
“There’ve been battles before; but they have to be done quietl
y.”
“A quiet magical battle,” she said with a scowl. “That must be interesting. What do you do – poke each other with your pointy hats?”
“We’ve already got the perfect location.”
She stared at me, understanding. If anything, her expression of dismay deepened. “The Exchange?” she murmured.
“Yes.”
“You’re seriously going to try and get Guy Lee down there?”
“Yes.”
“And what makes you think he’ll be even halfway inclined to do what you want?”
“Because we’re going to be betrayed. Someone’s going to leave the back door open, knock out a few guards, turn off a few alarms and when we’re not looking, poof, Lee is going to sneak right on in there and execute the perfect, self-contained massacre.”
She was on her feet. “You are expecting the people in the tunnels to die?”
“I didn’t say that,” I replied. “I said I’m expecting us to be betrayed.”
“Why?”
“Because we were at Sinclair’s house. Because you know, like I do, that the Tower has contacts everywhere. Because no matter how powerful and important an alliance like this one might seem, it will also look like the number-one opportunity to wipe out the leaders of all those pockets of resistance that Lee has been fussing over for all these years. Someone’s going to tell Lee where we are and what’s going on. Might even be you.”
“Me?” she echoed incredulously.
“Yes.”
“You think that I would…”
“You’ve made your feelings towards me and mine very clear,” I replied sharply, “I’m sure the idea of wiping us all out at a go doesn’t entirely upset you.”
“I don’t just… it’s not…” For a moment, just a moment, there was something in her eyes, a flicker across her face; but it passed, and the mask was there, harder than I’d ever seen it. She swept up her bag and stalked past me, without a sound, without a look. Just for a moment, I felt almost sorry for her.
I met Vera that afternoon outside the local library. She was smoking, with every sign of enjoying it; when I approached, she huffed a cloud in my direction and said, “Have a fag.”
We coughed and recoiled from the stench, from the idea of it, of black tar drifting in our breath. I mumbled, “Thanks, no.”
“Feeling pleased with yourself?”
“Should I?”
“Got an alliance, haven’t you?”
“It wasn’t too hard.”
“It’ll end in blood.”
“I know.”
“And you think it wasn’t too hard? It hasn’t even fucking begun.”
I said, “Sinclair laid the groundwork. I’m just here for Lee, then for Bakker.”
“And you knew the biker, and the warlock, and the Order, and at the end of the day…”
“Yes?”
“… you were Bakker’s apprentice.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Does it matter?”
She sucked a long cloud of smoke into her mouth, then puffed it out between her teeth. “Yes,” she said, rolling the cigarette between her fingers. “People want to see if the sorcerers can be redeemed. They’re curious about you – an investment, you might say.”
“Is that it?”
“Don’t you want to be redeemed?” she asked quickly.
“I haven’t done anything wrong to be redeemed.”
“Yes, but what you are, your buddies who like to play with the artificial forces of nature; all horribly gone wrong with the Tower, hasn’t it?”
“This is revenge,” we snapped. “There’s nothing more to it.”
“Fine,” she said, her voice too light. “Sure. Whatever. What was it you were wanting to chat about?”
“I’m looking for a traitor.”
Her eyes flashed. “There’s a traitor?”
“Almost certainly.”
“The Order?”
“Perhaps.”
“How do you know there’s a traitor? Everyone swore on blood…”
“That’s not the point,” I replied. “Besides, a blood oath doesn’t stop you breaking your vow, it simply makes life difficult once you have, and even spells like that can be broken. Redeemed, I think you’d say.”
“Then who’s the traitor?”
“I have no idea.”
“You have no idea, yet you’re certain that there’s a traitor?”
“There’s got to be!” I said brightly. “All those disparate groups of unlikely people working together, all those busy little people with the big ears who suddenly are ordered to go and hide in the tunnels and prepare for a battle – there’s got to be someone in their numbers who will betray us. Sinclair was gunned down in his room, we did run into the night, the shadow did follow us. Ergo – traitor.”
“This is something you’ve already considered.” Not a question.
“Yes.”
“You want… what? To go around trying to read minds? Shouldn’t the good guys in any heroic battle desist from such tactics?”
“On the contrary,” I said, “we need someone to betray us. We just need to make sure we know what they’re saying when they do it. Need to make them come to us, need to make Guy Lee think it’s important enough to make a stupid move. Take a risk. Come out into the open.”
“And you look like a guy with a plan,” she sighed. “Well, thanks shit.”
“You know you have to fight Lee eventually. Why not now, when everyone is still – sort of – on your side?”
“You’re a real bastard, sorcerer. You’re going to let that many people die, to have your revenge?”
I hesitated, licked dry lips. “Necessary things,” I replied at last. “If… there are greater evils than… there are… Bakker will… it will never stop, Vera? Do you understand that? It will never stop. We have to make it stop, and we have to do it now. If not like this… then how?”
She sucked in a long lungful of smoke, then blew it out between the thin jut of her lips into my face. I coughed, she smiled. “OK,” she said at last. “So we’re gonna be fucking betrayed. Whatever. Lee is going to know of us; he’s going to try and stop us before we can stop him. I get it. You want him to do something stupid. The question is – how stupid do you think stupid can get?”
I shrugged, not really understanding the question.
Her smile widened to a grin, turned nasty. She said, “Matthew Swift – how would you like to meet Mr Guy Lee?”
Oddly enough, she meant it for real.
We went to a club in Soho. It was in a basement and smelt of hot breath compressed into a tiny space, and sweat, and spilt alcohol, and testosterone. The floor was sticky with dried beer splashed across its grey lino surface, the ceiling was low and made lower still by the revolving lights, and the shaking speakers pounding out drumbeats with the rhythm and resonance of a racing heart; and when we saw the dancing, we didn’t know whether to crawl away and cry at the thought of such a hollow, graceless thing, or to stare for ever, hungry to learn. The scent of that place was burning wet heat on our tongue, the sound of it buzzing whispers in our mind, the desire and appetite of it so overwhelming that we didn’t even have to try to hear it; but the feeling of it forced its way into our brain, demanding that we look and be amazed.
Vera looked completely at home. As she trailed through the crowd, myself in tow, men and the odd woman reached out for her and here she’d trail her fingers through there, and press her hips to the waist of some stranger, and even, when an especially tall man with hair spiky from gently melting gel grabbed her round the middle, kissed him, until he let her go and moved on to the next woman to walk across his path. We stared, enthralled, until I forced my eyes away and stared at the floor until my head ached, trying to paste its greyness across my thoughts to keep out the pounding assault on the senses.
We found a corner of black leather sofas underneath a dull red lamp. Vera bought cocktails, strange bluish things in tall eleg
ant clear glasses that were the coldest things in that place. She sat down with her shoulder pressed right into ours and said, “Not your kind of place?”
We took a cautious sip, recoiling at first at the cocktail’s bitter taste, then relaxing as it heated our throat all the way down to the belly with an oddly pleasant sensation of burning. “Different,” I said. “Why are we here?”
“I want you to meet someone.”
“Who?”
“Guy Lee.”
We felt our stomach tighten. “Lee’s here?”
“He will be this evening.”
“This is… his place?”
“No, it’s run by a man called McGrangham; he pays protection money to Lee, and Lee leaves him alone, except for when he occasionally sends some of his men here, to learn how things are done. But that’s not the point. McGrangham also pays money to the Neon Court.”
I nodded slowly, running my finger round the top of the wide cocktail glass. If the Tower made the mafia look polite, then the Neon Court made those members of the mafia locked away for ever gibbering at the back of the asylum look like fluffy teddy bears. It wasn’t a case of punishment and reward; you crossed the Neon Court, you died, pure, quick, simple. The only redeeming feature of the place was that it had only a few very special interests, and never messed with you unless you were stupid enough to mess with it first. And like all the best mafia families, once you were in, you never, ever got out again.
“OK,” I said, “I get it. Neutral territory. No one makes a move in this place without getting a knife in the back. Sure. Why’s Lee here?”
“There’s a pit.”
