Dana slammed the door shut behind us and pressed a large metal bin against it as the bike swept by. The sound of it stopped too suddenly for it to have gone into the stairwell; the engine noise just winked out, leaving us in sudden and uncomfortable silence.
Dana looked at me, I looked at her. She rolled her eyes, marched over to the bank of low, cracked metal taps and started running every single one, putting in the plugs and dipping her hands into every basin as they started to fill. I groaned as I saw what she was doing; but, not having a better idea, I picked up the lid of the bin lodged against the door, and smashed it against the long mirror above the sinks. I carefully picked out a shard of glass from the cracked spiders web clinging to the wall, curling my fist around it until it bit into my skin, drawing blood. Dana raised her hands from the final basin, water pouring off them, and grinned. Right, she said. Not so useless!
She started to spin her hands through the air, with a beckoning, gentle gesture. The water pouring out of the taps started to turn, twist up away from the basins it was filling and spin towards her, circling around her like clear silk scarves, winding around her legs and arms without ever actually touching her skin, the taps still running so that she seemed to be almost attached by liquid placentas to the sinks, by lines of still-flowing, thickening water that constantly spun and moved around her as the taps poured more and more into the spell, and kept on pouring. Id heard of sorcerers whod sucked whole reservoirs dry doing spells like this; unless someone actually, physically turned off the taps, there was no reason to stop.
And she was good at it. The spell flowed around her, and the way she spun it, the way she let the growing swirls of water dance and mingle into thicker strands of sparkling translucence across her she knew the effect was beautiful, and in many ways, that sense of the elegance of the thing was what let her craft the spell so well. Shed always said shed found the sight of still waters to be calming; and watching her then, entirely in control, I felt for a moment that, perhaps, everything would be all right after all.
I raised my fist, the glass clenched inside it, towards the mirror and spun my own version of the same magic. The cracks spread from where Id smashed it with the lid of the bin, rippling out towards the edges in ever-splitting streams like the passage of water across uneven dry soil, until, with a single heave, the entire thing shattered. The glass fragments, however, did not fall. They drifted at my command; I could feel everyone like the skin on my back, taste them in my mouth, a sharp metallic feel on the tip of my tongue, and when I moved, they moved with me, wrapped themselves around me like a reflective blanket, each one shimmering back the brightness of my eyes
our eyes
bright blue
a moment to remember that our eyes are blue now, a thousand, thousand pieces of blue brightness looking back
beautiful brightness too
before I turned to the door, painfully aware of the silent nothing outside, and said to Dana, Right. Sorcery.
I kicked open the door, as much for the drama as anything else.
The corridor outside was empty, except for a trail of burning tyre marks along its length that finished as suddenly as it had begun. Dana gestured, and a slender filament of water still drawing its life from the running taps in the bathroom, and snaking out from the door behind her as she moved, now slithered through the flames, extinguishing them in front of us. I walked ahead, careful, in case I cut her, to keep my distance as the shards of shattered glass and mirror danced and dazzled around me in a standing wave of silver. Moving slowly behind, Dana trailed the umbilical cords of water like the tails of a kite.
We passed through another office. A post room, full of empty sacks and bags; a small kitchen; a canteen, the shutters drawn across the windows. Our shadows stayed obeying the laws of physics, turning and bending with the light. Another office. Another flight of stairs.
Dana said, Can we break his spell? Can we get out?
Sure, I answered. But itd be easier with a motorbike.
Shouting somewhere below; sounds of battle somewhere above.
Guns? asked Dana.
Yes; my friends dont have much imagination, I replied. Come on.
Cant we find them?
Sure, I said. Bakkers ex-apprentice and his current apprentice together at last in front of an angry mob of people come here for the express purpose of destroying the Tower, bloody sorcerers and all their works. What a happy meeting that would be.
No need to get sarky.
Sorry.
We started descending, slowly, one step at a time. We turned the corner of the stairwell and I could see the door to the second floor and felt a tight tugging in my belly and we stopped.
Putting our head on one side we leaned gently forward, then back on our heels, feeling the sickness grip us as we did. Its here, we whispered, eyes half shut as we tried to pinpoint the source of our unease. Right here.
We looked round. The floor we stood on was uncarpeted, the walls clean. We looked up. The ceiling consisted of plastic panels set into concrete. Dana threw a fistful of tight, high-pressure water at the most central one, which wobbled, came loose, and flopped onto the floor. I bent to pick it up, letting my glass shroud drift above me for a while. On the back, someone had drawn, very carefully in thin black ink, a picture of a stairwell, all odd angles and strange dimensions, that seemed to feed inexorably into itself. I touched it with a fingertip. The hot magic of it burnt; we snatched our hand away and for a moment heard
Matthews fire!
We dropped the panel. Then, with a scowl, we directed a handful of shattered glass at it, tearing the thin plastic to shreds in an instant.
You OK? asked Dana.
Childrens games, we snapped, louder than wed meant. We have no patience with these tricks of the light!
I grabbed back my handful of glass, tossing it into the whirling męlée around my head, and kept descending. This time, the second floor stayed the second floor, and the first floor was the first. The door to the ground floor was locked, but Dana leant out of her watery cloak for a moment to stroke it, whispering gentle invocations into the bars on the door, which eventually, reluctantly, clicked loose. The doors swung back.
There was a foyer beyond, high-ceilinged, full of odd alcoves and strange shapes, along with the occasional neglected potted plant, a battered reddish carpet and an abandoned reception desk. Beyond that were a pair of large, black glass doors.
In front of them sat the motorbiker, and there too, its long tail curled round the back of him, was a dragon.
There was no mistaking the creature. The tail was the signs of street names that had been changed by the local council; its claws were the bent pipes of signposts that had been smashed into by speeding cars; its spine rippled with the reflective Catseyes of the motorways; its belly was plated with speed warnings; its haunches were tense with the triangular fluorescent warning signs of DANGER! or SLOW CHILDREN CROSSING, bent and twisted to fit the curves of its hulk. Unlike the litterbug, this creature was at least fifteen feet end to end, and all metal; no vulnerable cardboard underbelly here, nor beating recyclable heart. It didnt so much blink as that the reflective coating of its eyes the battered lenses of smashed speed cameras glinted with the slightest movement of its head, capturing the shimmer of the white lamps dangling high over head like suspended jellyfish.
If there was an expression on the bikers face, it was hidden under his shiny helmet, and the impassive curling dragon showed no inclination towards feeling across its twisted metal snout, buckled together by the reflective neon yellow bands of cyclists warning straps.
Dana said through the corner of her mouth, wisely keeping perfectly still as we surveyed the creature and the dwarfed shape of the biker beneath it, You didnt mention dragons.
Oh, come on. I must have.
Pretty sure I would have remembered.
I considered the beast. There was a familiarity in its shape and form. I said, I dont suppose youve ever lived in the City of London?
Not my kind of rent, she admitted. Is this going to be relevant?
Perhaps. We looked down at the biker, cleared my throat and raised my voice. Bakker still needs us, we said. The shadow still wants us.
Blackjack reached up, and slowly pulled off his helmet. Underneath, his face was blistered, red, eruptions of pus around his throat and chin, and thick infected arteries standing out across his forehead. I know, he said, staring straight at me, his voice hoarse and weak. He told me.
The lights shuddered, dimmed overhead. The dragon stirred. I murmured to Dana, for her ears only, Legally the City of London is a historical anomaly; its been almost unchanged for centuries. They say the Mayor has the power to exclude even the sovereign from entering the city, not that anyones tried for a while.
If its not relevant I will actually chain you back up in that damn room myself, sung out Dana in a fluty, frightened voice. The shadows stretched, bent at our feet.
The citys symbol, I replied, keeping my voice as low and as calm as I could, is a dragon, holding the cross of St George. And its motto
darkness thickening in front of the dragon, tightening to a spot, warping, rising
is
Domine dirige nos
.
Nice, squeaked Dana. Catchy.
rising up from the floor, forming a head, a chest, arms, a face
Let me handle the dragon, I muttered.
Hunger emerged from the shadows. He stood in front of the dragon, which seemed quite content to have him there, and stretched, the darkness swirling around him. I saw Blackjack flinch in his presence, but he didnt otherwise move. Hunger looked at the biker, like a snake drawn by movement, and grinned, exposing rotten teeth. Poisons in your blood? he murmured.
Blackjack looked away, and for a moment it occurred to me that the expression on his face wasnt anger, but shame.
Hunger turned to me, still grinning; then his attention moved to Dana. I always knew youd betray me, to him, he whispered, voice carrying like the hiss of a serpent. I hoped that the pain of you betraying him would be enough to kill his heart, and let them take over what was left; but you didnt. Little child, running back for safety.
Dana didnt answer.
Hungers empty black eyes settled on my face. Ever killed a dragon, sorcerer?
Not lately, I replied.
Behind him, the dragon flexed its claws.
This is a beast of forgotten and disobeyed things, said the shadow. He is summoned from the broken street sign, from the smashed order and the bent commands, vulnerable to being summoned because so much of what he is has simply been ignored.
A hand stroked the dragons metal flank, nails scraping across the rusted remains of a one-way street sign. Little humans always think they know best. Forget the past, forget the rules, forget humility that is their natural place, being petty things. It is why he is angry.
I licked my dry lips and risked staring into the cracked camera lens of the dragons eye. It shimmered back at me.
I hoped that she would free you, explained Hunger. Does that surprise you?
You wanted what? Danas voice was a bare breath on the air.
We thought you would let her help us, we replied coldly.
And why? he asked, enjoying his moment.
To make us fight to escape. To make me fight to protect her.
To make your blood burn blue! He almost laughed it, practically clapped his hands together with childish delight. When you are the sorcerer your blood is nothing to me. I have drunk my fill of it already and it tastes like the others, like all the other dead old men and frail little women; it barely touches a corner of my belly, it is tepid in my throat! When you are the angels, your blood burns so brightly it
it
A whine entered in his voice, he seemed to constrict, shrink into himself like a petulant child. Hungry. The words rattled out thin across his teeth. So hungry
We can beat you, we said easily.
Youve never killed a dragon, explained Hunger, eyes burning bright.
I grinned. Life is full of
well, a lot
more
life.
And, because we had it to hand, we threw a wall of glass towards Hunger and Blackjack; Hunger melted into the shadows in a second, Blackjack threw himself down under the blast and the glass shattered lightly off the dragons metal sides. Its nostrils flared with the clanging of tempered metal, and it raised itself up, shaking its bulk with a deafening clamour. I grabbed Danas wrist and hissed, You worry about the biker.
Dana opened her mouth to complain, looked into our eyes and changed her mind. She nodded, turned and threw a head-sized ball of water at Blackjack, wrapping it around his nose and mouth as he struggled to his feet. I focused my attention on the dragon.
It raised itself up on its back legs, the slashed wreckage of a speed-humps sign warping around its thighs as it did, the bent remnants of a dog fouling notice cracking under the strain, and roared. The sound severed the lamps in the ceiling, which smashed down on the floorin front of it and around it; it shattered the glass of the foyer and knocked Dana off her feet. We dropped to a crouch, ready to pounce, and I dug my nails into the palm of my hand without even thinking about it, digging them deep until the blood ran. I dipped two fingers in the pool of red liquid accumulating in my hand and, the blood sloshing thinly, drew a crude cross on the floorin front of me, and another, smaller cross in the left-hand corner of the shape. The dragon lumbered towards me with surprising ease and grace, its form shimmering across the floor. It didnt even need to claw me to death; a single swipe of its neck would break every bone in my body.
