The Mime Order

by Samantha Shannon

  My sixth sense was slow. I didn’t feel them coming until they were right on top of me.

  “Well, look who it is. My old friend, the Pale Dreamer.”

  My stomach plummeted into my boots. I knew that oily voice, all right. That was Haymarket Hector.

  4

  Grub Street

  The Underlord of the Scion Citadel of London was not a pleasant sight at any distance. Still, now his face was only inches from mine, I was reminded why darkness suited him so well. A scabrous nose, broken rods of teeth, and eyes threaded with blood vessels were all arranged in a grin. Beneath his bowler hat, his hair was limp with grease. His horde—the Underbodies—clustered around me, forming a tight semicircle.

  The Undertaker, the binder of I-1, brought up the rear, recognizable by his top hat. His right arm had been hewn with so many names, it was little more than a sleeve of scar tissue. Beside him was the Underhand, Hector’s enormous bodyguard.

  “The little Dialer is a long way from home,” Hector said softly.

  “I’m in I-4. I am home.”

  “What sweet sentiment.” He passed his lantern to the Underhand. “We missed you, Dreamer. How lovely it is to see you again.”

  “I’d love to say the same for you.”

  “Your time away from London hasn’t changed you. Binder didn’t tell us where you’d gone.”

  “You’re not my mime-lord. I don’t report to you.”

  “But your mime-lord does.” A thin smile. “I understand you two have had a quarrel.”

  I didn’t answer that. “What are you doing in I-4?”

  “We got a few bones to pick with your boss.” Magtooth grinned at me, showing a left incisor inked with a tiny tarot image. He was a dab hand at tarocchi, Magtooth. The most gifted cartomancer I’d ever played. “One of his lackeys has summoned a meeting of the Unnatural Assembly.”

  “It’s our right to summon meetings.”

  “Only when I feel like it.” Hector pressed his thumb to my throat. “As it happens, I’m not in the mood for any tedious gatherings. Imagine if I were to answer all the summons I get in my dead drop, Pale Dreamer. I’d never be doing anything but listening to the woes of my more pious mime-lords and mime-queens.”

  “Their woes might be important,” I said coolly. “Isn’t it your job to answer summons?”

  “No. It’s my underlings’ job to deal with the herd. It’s my job to keep you all in line. The petty problems of this syndicate are important only if I deem them to be important.”

  “Do you think Scion is important? Do you think it’s important that they’re about to crush us with Senshield?”

  “Ah.” Hector placed a finger on my lips. “I think we’ve found our suspect. It was you, wasn’t it, Pale Dreamer? You called the meeting, didn’t you?”

  The words were met with raucous laughter. My spirit felt as if it were swelling, overflowing.

  “You think you can summon us?” Magtooth sneered at me. “What are we, her fucking lapdogs?”

  “Yes, Magtooth, it seems she does. How presumptuous of her.” Leaning close, Hector whispered in my ear: “The White Binder will feel my displeasure for allowing you to be so bold as to summon me, Pale Dreamer.”

  “Don’t act like a king, Hector.” I didn’t move. “You know what London does to kings.”

  As soon as I said it, the æther gave an ominous tremor. The night air blew down my spine as a poltergeist seeped from the walls. “This is the London Monster,” Hector said. “Another old friend. Do you know him? He walked these streets in the late eighteenth century. Had a particular penchant for splitting the skin of young ladies.”

  That blot in the æther was enough to bring bile to my throat and chills to my legs. Then I remembered the pendant, and courage sparked inside me. “I’ve seen worse,” I said. “That thing’s a cheap Ripper knock-off.”

  Hector’s speaking medium, Roundhead, let out a ghastly snarl. “Blast your eyes, you damned bitch,” he barked. The poltergeist was talking with Roundhead’s tongue.

  The Undertaker crooked a long finger. Reluctantly, the poltergeist retreated. Roundhead choked out a handful of ugly curses before falling silent.

  “Any other party tricks?” I said.

  “I’ll show you one.”

  The promise came from Hector’s mollisher, Cutmouth. Several inches taller than her mime-lord, she wore knives around her hips and her long red hair in a French braid. Eyes of a deceptively soft brown stared into mine. Her mouth was tugged into a permanent snarl, the result of an S-shaped scar that slashed through both her lips.

  “I know a trick or two, Pale Dreamer.” The blade of a long knife caught the lantern as she held the tip to the corner of my mouth. “I think they’ll make you smile.”

  I held still. Cutmouth could only be one or two years older than me, but she was already as cruel as Hector.

  “A mollisher should have scars.” Her thumb traced the faint line on my cheek. “Where’d you get this? Break a nail, did you? Slap on too much greasepaint? You’re a sham. A nothing. You and your Seven Seals make me want to spit.”

  And she did. The others burst out laughing, save the Undertaker, who never laughed.

  “Now that’s out of the way”—I wiped my face with my cuff—“maybe you could tell me what you want, Cutmouth.”

  “I want to know where you’ve been for the last six months. The last person in London to see you was Hector.”

  “I’ve been away.”

  “Yes, you dumb mort, we know you’ve been away. Where?”

  “Nowhere near your turf, if that’s your issue.”

  Cutmouth thumped me in the ribs, hard enough to knock every breath from my body. Pain exploded from my old injuries, doubling me over like a snapped twig. “Don’t try and toy with me. You’re the toy here.” While I clutched my ribcage, she aimed a kick at my knee, bringing me to the ground, then pulled my hair free of my hat and twisted it around her hand. “Look at you. You’re no mollisher.”

  “She’s a charlatan,” one of the flimps said. “Thought she was supposed to be a dreamwalker?”

  “Well said, Mr. Slipfinger. She doesn’t seem to do much, does she? Bit of a chair-warmer, I say.” Cutmouth pressed the blade against my throat. “What are you for, Dreamer? What does Binder do with you? We’re honor-bound to get rid of charlatans, so you’d better open that trap of yours and talk. I’ll ask you again: where have you been?”

  “Away,” I repeated. She gave me such a smack across the face, my head cracked against the wall.

  “Talk, I said. Would you like to be a stiff as well as a fucking brogue?”

  I bit back a foul retort. Even voyants parroted Scion’s hatred of the Irish. Hector stood by, looking at the golden pocket watch he always carried. There was no way I’d win this fight, not with the other injuries I was hiding. I didn’t want Hector to know how much my spirit had changed. As far as he knew, I was still just a mind radar, good for nothing but counting dreamscapes.

  “Oh, she won’t talk. Give us your wallet, Dreamer,” Slipfinger said to me. “We’ll buy something more fun.”

  “And that pretty necklace.” His companion, a thickset woman, grabbed my hair. “What metal’s that?”

  My dirty fingers groped for the pendant. “It’s just plastic,” I said. “From Portobello.”

  “Liar. Give it.”

  The metal tingled against my palm. It was sublimed against poltergeists, but I doubted it would protect me from London gangsters.

  “We’ll let her keep her trinket,” Hector said after a moment. “Although I must say that a necklace would look dazzling on you, Miss Slabnose.” While the others snickered, the Underlord extended a hand. “Your wallet.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Don’t lie, Dreamer, or I may have to ask Bloatface to search you.”

  My gaze flicked to the man in question. Thick-fingered, with a hairless, doughy head and two greedy black eyes, Bloatface the maggot was the one who did all Hector’s rea
lly dirty work. The one who did the killing and dumped the bodies, if the situation called for it. I dug into my pocket and threw my last few coins at Slipfinger’s boots.

  “Consider that payment,” Hector said, “for your life. Cutmouth, put the knife away.”

  Cutmouth stared at him. “She hasn’t talked yet,” she bit out. “You just want to let her go?”

  “She’s no use to us mutilated. The White Binder won’t want to play with a damaged doll.”

  “The bitch can tell us where she’s been. You said we would—”

  With a clap of one hand, Hector struck her. One of his rings caught her cheek, drawing blood. “You,” he whispered, “are not my master.”

  Hair had come loose from her braid, falling over one side of her face. She caught my eye, then looked away, clenching her fist. “Forgiveness,” she said.

  “Granted.”

  The other gangsters all looked at one another, but Magtooth was the only one smiling. All of them had small scars on their faces. With a last look at me, Hector placed his hands on his mollisher’s waist and guided her away. I couldn’t see her face any longer, but her back was tense.

  “Boss,” Magtooth called. “Forgetting something?”

  “Oh, yes.” Hector waved his hand. “A hit for the cards, Dreamer. If you bother me again, your light will be put out.”

  The Underhand parted the others. Before I could duck, his fist smashed into the side of my face, then straight into my stomach. And again. Sparks flew from the center of my vision. The ground lurched up to meet my palms. If he’d been a smaller man, I would have at least tried to land a punch, but if I pissed him off he might just kill me—and I’d fought too hard to live to let that happen. He gave me a few kicks for good measure.

  “Mort.”

  He spat on me and went loping like a dog after his mime-lord. Laughter echoed through the mews.

  Pain leaped from the roots of my teeth. I wheezed and coughed. Gutless bastard. Magtooth had been itching for a fight since he’d lost our last tarocchi match, although setting the Underhand on me hardly counted as a fight. It seemed so downright stupid now, so stupid to shed blood over a game—but that was all Hector’s people really did. They had made a game board of the syndicate.

  I pushed myself on to my hands and knees. Now I really was a gutterling. I took out the burner phone from my jacket and dialed. It rang twice before a courier picked up.

  “I-4.”

  “The White Binder,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Three minutes passed before Jaxon’s voice came down the line: “Is that you again, Didion? Look, you wretched jackanapes, I have neither the time nor the money to waste on capturing yet another one of your escaped—”

  “It’s me.”

  There was a long, unbroken silence. My voice usually sent him into fits of prolixity.

  “Look, Hector just cornered me. He says he’s coming to talk to you. He’s got the Underbodies with him.”

  “What do they want?” he said curtly.

  “I summoned a meeting of the Unnatural Assembly,” I said, just as curtly. “They didn’t like it.”

  “You wretched fool, Dreamer. You should have known better than to think Hector would convene a meeting. He hasn’t called a single one in all the years he’s been Underlord.” I heard him moving around. “You say they’re coming here? To Seven Dials?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then I suppose I will have to deal with them.” Pause. “Are you hurt?”

  I wiped blood from my lips. “They knocked me about a bit.”

  “Where are you? Shall I send a cab?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I would like you back at Seven Dials. I’ve already been forced to inform the nearest sections that you’ve considered leaving my service.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Then come back, darling. We’ll talk this over.”

  “No, Binder.” The words came out before I’d even thought about them. “I’m not ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”

  This time the silence was much, much longer.

  “I see,” he said. “Well, I await your readiness. In the meantime, perhaps I shall begin my search for a replacement mol lisher. Bell’s commitment is encouraging. After all, not all of us have time to lounge in lavish doss-houses while our mime-lords dust away our problems.”

  The dialing tone pierced my ear. I yanked the module from the phone and dropped it down a drain.

  So Jaxon was considering Nadine, the Silent Bell, as his new mollisher. I shoved the empty phone into my pocket and headed for the end of the mews, my cheek throbbing. Nick was staying on Grub Street, where pamphlets were produced. I should go to him. Talk to him. It was better than spending another night alone, waiting for the red-jackets to drag me from my bed. I hailed a rickshaw and asked for I-5.

  ****

  There would be no meeting of the Unnatural Assembly. It had been optimistic to hope that Hector would listen, but a tiny part of me had thought he might at least be curious enough to hear me out.

  I’d have to get word out some other way. I couldn’t go shouting about the Rephaim on the street. People would think I’d lost my mind. And I couldn’t fight them alone, not when they had the military might of Scion behind them. The sheer size of the enemy was frightening. If I didn’t have the syndicate, I had nothing.

  Rain was pouring by the time the rickshaw dropped me off at the entrance to the street. I promised the driver I’d come back with coin, wrapped my cravat over my face and walked beneath the archway.

  Since the 1980s, Grub Street had been home to the haute bohème of the voyant underworld. It was more of a district than a single street, a seam of sedition in the heart of I-5. Its architecture was an eccentric mix of eighteenth-century Georgian, mock-Tudor, and modern, all crooked foundations, cobblestones, and leaning walls, interspersed with neon and steel and a single, modest transmission screen. Shops sold all the supplies a wordsmith could desire: thick paper, moonbows of inkwells, old collectors’ tomes—the kind that opened, like doors to other worlds—and bejeweled fountain pens.

  There were at least five or six coffeehouses and a solitary cook-shop, already open for business. The smell of coffee drifted from most windows. You could tell it was home to most of the biblio-mancers and psychographers in the citadel, who dwelled in mildewed garrets with only their muses, coffee, and books for company. Victorian parlor music floated from the open door of an antiques shop.

  Short alleys twisted off on all sides of the main street, each leading to a small, enclosed court. It was into one of these that I walked, heading for the single doss-house it housed. A sign hung over the door, with letters spelling out BELL INN. When I sensed Nick’s dream-scape, I gave it a nudge.

  After a few moments, a worried face appeared at the garret window. I waited by the streetlight until he came through the door of the doss-house.

  “What are you doing here? What happened?”

  “Hector,” I said, by way of an explanation.

  A shadow crossed his brow. “You’re lucky to be alive.” He kissed the top of my head. “Quickly. Inside.”

  “I need to pay for the rick.”

  “I’ll do it. Go on.”

  I stepped into the hall and shook the rain off my coat. When Nick returned, he led me past the firelit parlor, where a large man was hunched over a book, smoking a pipe. He was perhaps sixty, of sallow complexion. A neat, dark beard, shot with gray, grew out from below his large nose.

  “Evening, Alfred,” Nick said.

  The man started so violently that the chair let out a gunshot crack. “Oh—Vision, my good friend.” His accent was distinctly upper class, oddly so, like he should have been born in the monarch days.

  “You don’t look too good, old man.”

  “Yes, well.” He sank back into his seat. “Minty’s out looking for me, you see. Rather on edge.”

  “You thought I was Minty? I’m flattered.” N
ick took his key from the doorkeeper. “You work too hard. Why don’t you get out of Grub Street for a few days, take a break?”

  “Oh, no fear. Your mime-lord would throw a fit, for one thing. He likes me to be available at all hours in case of literary emergencies. Not that he’s in my good books—still owes me a blasted manuscript.” With a gnarled finger, the man forced his pince-nez to the end of his nose. When he spotted me, his eyebrows sprang up. “And who is this fair maiden you’re sneaking into the garret?”

  “This is Paige, Alfred. Jaxon’s mollisher.”

  Alfred looked at me over the tops of his lenses. “My word. The Pale Dreamer. How do you do?”

  “Alfred is a psycho-scout,” Nick said to me. “The only one in London. He discovered Jaxon’s writing.”

  “I hasten to add that the ‘psycho’ is short for ‘psychographer.’ Most of my clients are writing mediums, you see.” Alfred kissed my grimy hand. “I’ve heard a great deal about you from your mime-lord, but he never deigned to introduce you.”

  “He doesn’t deign to do much,” I said.

  “Ah, but he’s the mastermind! He need not lift a finger.” Alfred released my hand. “If I may say so, dear heart, you look as if you’ve been in the wars.”

  “Hector.”

  “Ah. Yes. Our Underlord is not the most peaceful of men. Why we voyants fight each other so passionately, yet do nothing to fight the Inquisitor, I shall never know.”

  I studied the drooping face. If this man had discovered Jaxon’s writing, he was at least partly responsible for the publication of On the Merits of Unnaturalness, the pamphlet that had turned voyant against voyant and caused the terrible fault lines that still divided our community.

  “It is strange,” I said.

  Alfred glanced up at me. His downturned eyes were gunmetal blue, and beneath them hung two swollen pouches of skin.

  “So, Nick. Tell an old man the latest Scion scandals.” He folded his hands on his stomach. “What sort of devious new experiments are they performing? Are they chopping up voyants yet?”