The Midnight Mayor (29 page)

So we lay still. We pressed ourself into the ground, dug our fingers into the thick blue carpet, and let it buffer us, let the sound push us across the floor,
deDUM!
until we were up against the door, all twisted limp limb, and our head was screaming, bursting; our eyes ached in their sockets, such a frail little body to hold
us
and die and . . .
deDUM!

. . . think
sound
. . .

My fingers were knocked against the wall. Through a static haze, I looked at it. I pushed my fingers closer into the wall, sensed its warm dry touch. Then I pushed a bit deeper. I curled my fingers into it, felt the concrete slide around them, dug in up to my fingertips, up to my wrist, closed my fingers around the sense of it, and pulled.
deDUM!

I saw the wall warp and twist, seem to shrivel into itself as its middle was dragged out along the pipe of my arms, saw grey dryness wriggle over our skin, settle between the gaps in our fingers, stiff and locked in place, run up our arm, crawl into our armpit, slide over our chest, press against our neck, a thick, suffocating solid scarf that dug into our throat, made it hard to breathe, tiny twitches of the lung within its fixed frame. I pressed my lips tight shut and closed my eyes, but still tasted the dust on my lips, dry sickly nothing sucking out everything good from sense, felt it dribble into my ears, snatched one last frantic breath before it bunged up my nose, a bad cold backwards, felt it dribble over my eyelids, slide into the hairs of my eyebrows and close over the top of my head. As the concrete drained down my legs, the wall began to buckle and bend in on itself, its substance sucked away; and before it could set around my knees, I stood up, and turned to face what seemed to be the source of the sound.

Concrete locked my feet in place. My fingers were turned towards the heartbeat, I could feel it shake my solid shell, see nothing but darkness, breathe nothing, smell nothing, every sense blocked, except that distant

My head was burning up, air that was no longer air unable to get out of my lungs, blocking my throat, a stone sinking deeper and deeper down into my chest, every part withering inside, every blood vessel in my body stalling, warping, fracturing. We were going to die, us alone in a concrete shell, die from a heartbeat in a basement in . . .

. . . in
Willesden.

We didn’t want to die please no not the end not the end not back there not again not the end not us not no-sense not no-sight not no-colour please not prison again please not

please please please please

I listened for it, found the rhythm again, pounding against my shell, and as it came

I forced my legs to move. Strained against the concrete around my knees, forced my whole weight forwards, like a tree about to topple, felt it fracture, crack and as the
deDum!
split the world, I pushed into it. Against it. Turned myself against the sound, and sent it back.

The shock sent fault lines rippling up my shell, but that just made it easier to move, I listened again,

moved again, pressing myself into it, pushing back on the sound with every gram of will and strength I had, saw light ripple across my vision as a fracture line ran across the concrete over my face, tasted dust worming between my lips, stepped again, each step a giddy flight up to boiling clouds and back down again, heart bursting inside, ready to pop, hammering
dedumdedumdedumdedumdedum
in tiny terror in our ears oh God not like this please please please

Pushed against it, threw it back again, felt a shock run down the length of my spine as the backlash from the sound cracked my armour shell, felt concrete jar against my ribs as it began to tear and break, but I was moving now, dust falling from my legs, I had momentum and with each step I took, I sent as much sound bouncing back as I received. I could feel broken glass from shattered lights fall across the solid frame around my head, see the lights go out through the little spreading cracks across my vision, kept moving, pushing back against the sound like it was an avalanche and I a very angry rock.

The concrete shattered around my right hand, I felt it fall away and my fingers come free, pale and dusted, felt the sound twist at my palm, try to crash down against the little bones in there, clenched my fist against it and kept moving.

The lower concrete covering of my left leg fell away. I nearly fell with it; kept going, bowing head first into the force of the roar, and

the concrete skull cracked; I could feel it rippling down my neck, playing pins-and-needles across my shoulders

began to shatter; not around my ears, I prayed, sound and pain, no more pain, not there, not . . .

and our right hand was on fire, blood seeping down our wrist and we were nearly there, so close, red blood catching with blue fire, blue electric flames that spat and hissed and threw angry sparks across the floor as it writhed over our skin, electric oil burning electric flesh and we let it burn, let the fire spread throughout our body, set the cracks running through this concrete coffin ablaze, let the neon flame spread throughout and carry us that last pace as our lungs prepared to give up the ghost, fed them on fire and fury and

and it was right there, right in front of us, we could feel it, hear it, knew it. We reached out with a hand on fire and felt our fingertips brush spiked bone as
deDum!

the shock blasted away the concrete across our chest, ripped it from our neck, sent dust spilling out from around our ears and . . .

One more beat of the heart, that’s all it needed, one more beat and goodnight and goodbye and . . .

Our fingers closed around his heart. His contracted heart, waiting to pump. We could feel bright hotness, stiff, solid flesh, like a lump of uncooked steak, feel his ribs scratching at our dust-covered sleeve, feel the valves trying to move and expand in the claw of our grip. We held on tighter, fighting that strength back within his chest, pushing his heart shut within him, and it was strong but so were we, and we were on fire.

He screamed.

Big men shouldn’t scream. It’s the yowling of a baby with a soiled nappy, the wail of the kid on the landing plane whose ears have just started to pop. It’s pure and animal and ugly.

I shook the last of the concrete shield from me, tumbling it to dust all around. Glancing over my shoulder I could see the whole near wall was largely down, just a few foundation spikes and a lot of shattered slabs, and in my wake a floor of dust and broken dirt, running from the wall to where I now stood, fingers buried in the Executive Officer’s chest.

By the burning of our skin, by the bright electric fire running over our flesh, I could see his face, almost black now with the effort of death, and we hissed, “Tell us!”

His lips were the blue-black of an evening storm, his eyes were nearly all out of their sockets, the equators of the spheres starting from between his rolled-back eyelids. I relaxed the pressure on his heart a moment, let it beat a frail, constricted beat within my fingertips, then tightened my fist again. Someone, with a scalpel dipped in acid, had scrawled blessings, incantations, inscriptions and wards all over the inside of his ribs, carved them into the muscular wall of his heart. They were the only reason he wasn’t dead. They were the things that kept him almost alive.

“‘Give me back my hat’,” we said. “Tell us what it means.”

“Don’t know!” he wheezed, tongue waggling like a sick pup between his lips. “Don’t know!”

We tightened our fingers on a valve in his chest and he couldn’t even scream, there wasn’t enough blood and air. But his mouth opened, his head rolled back and every part of him spoke of agony until I relaxed our grip again. “What about the kid? Where’s Mo?”

“Took him . . . hid him . . .”

“Why?”

“Paid. Told . . . paid. He came here . . . he said to take him, hide him. The kid used to come here with his mates, he said to take the kid, kill the rest, I didn’t argue . . .”

“Why?”

“Didn’t say. Just said he wanted kid hidden, just said . . . he said . . .”

I let his heart beat a shallow beat; then we dug our fingers in deep again. “Tell us!”

“Had to keep the kid hidden. Very special kid, he said, very special, gotta have a special end, needed someone who could get him snatched, keep him hid, kept him moved . . .”

“You provided the logistics to a kidnapping?”

“Didn’t argue with him!”

“Where’s Mo?”

“Took him . . . hid him . . .”

“Where?!”

“Kilburn,” he hissed. “Raleigh Court. Gone, 53 Raleigh Court, took him, hid him, I was told, kill the rest, but Mo, keep Mo alive.”

We almost forgot to let his heart pump. The breath slithered from his lungs, his head began to sink. We tightened our fingers and relaxed, tightened and relaxed, forced the blood to flow. “Where in Raleigh Court?”

“Top floor, fifty-three, safe house.”

“Why?!”

“Didn’t ask. Paid. Scared. Didn’t ask. Just did.”

“Who? Who told you to do this? What did he look like?”

“He wore a suit. A pinstripe suit.”

“What did his face look like?”

“Pale. Slicked-back dark hair. Grey eyes. Pinstripe suit. Handkerchief in his pocket.”

“Who is he?”

“He said . . . he said he . . .”

We jabbed at the arch of his aorta with a fingertip and he screamed, screamed and screamed, shrieked at last, “His name is Mr Pinner! You can’t stop him! He’s not human!”

“Boring name for someone who isn’t human,” we snapped. “What is he?”

“He said . . . he was . . . he said . . . he’ll kill me . . .”

“Probably, sorry, sad loss. What did he say?”

His little eyes fixed on me from a face about to burst. He choked, “He is the death of cities. He’s here for yours. End of the line.”

His head started to roll back. We dug our fingers into his heart, but his mouth was a dribbling slackness, his great jaw hanging down almost as low as my fist buried in his chest. I let go of his heart slowly, saw it flicker feebly, and not move any more. We backed away a few paces, skin still burning by the fire of our blood running down our wrist. The furious blue glow of our anger began to recede into a paler neon-white shimmer. His blood, ordinary, boring, red, dribbled between our fingers. We backed away towards the place where there should have been a wall holding a door, saw the lights in the corridor burning towards the stairs. We walked away. His heart was dead behind me, a dead thing in ripped-apart flesh and we kept walking, but I wanted . . .

Walk away

I wasn’t

walk away

we are

but that’s not what I

we do

Not human.

I turned and looked back at him. A great dead whale beached on a fluffy blue sofa. I raised my hands up to the ceiling, spun my fingers for the bright burning electricity in the air, dragged it down, let it ooze out of the lights, out of the walls, the floors, the roof, let it drag in from the mains and spun it like a cat’s cradle in the air in front of me, wove it between my bloody and dusty fingers, concrete mortar and human ooze fusing into ugly lumps on our flesh, twisted it into new and exciting shapes and, as we reached the bottom of the stairs, I threw it. It danced through the air, spitting our anger and frustration, and slammed into the Executive Officer’s heart.

Which went
deDum.

We started to climb the stairs, as the lights behind us died and went out.

Behind us came the rhythm.

I fumbled for the door, opened it in the dark, and slipped out into the chaos of the club.

 

The dancers were in uproar. The bass to which they’d been dancing had failed, the lights had died, the electricity had been sucked out of the circuits and all this after paying an £8 admission fee and ridiculous prices for cocktails! If they weren’t so young and cool they’d write to the council and complain; as it was, being young and cool, they’d rather have free drinks or smash things, thanking you kindly.

Oda was leant against the wall inside the exit. The door was standing open, thin neon overspill from the streets pouring in. She saw me and said, “I’m guessing you didn’t have a toilet break. You know, if you’d told me where you were going . . .”

We glowered at her and staggered out into the half-light of the street, trailing dust and blood in our wake. Anissina was leaning on the wall outside. I guess the two ladies felt they had nothing to talk about together. She looked me over and said, “Hurt?”

“My ears.”

“We can get you to a doctor.”

“No. No. Thanks. I’ll be fine.”

“He’ll be fine,” added Oda quickly. “They’re good at blood and dust.”

I ignored her, turned into the street. “I want . . .” I hissed, and then didn’t know what to say. So I started walking instead, fumbling in my bag for a fistful of painkillers, my bloody fingers slipping off the cap. “There’s a . . .”

“Where are you going, sorcerer?” demanded Oda, scampering to keep level with me.

“You” - I jabbed a finger at Anissina. “Tell the Aldermen, there’s a guy in there who does things. Wrong things. Tell them to sort it out.”

“Sorcerer!”

“Stop calling me that!” I had shouted. I hadn’t meant to shout. “Sorry,” I muttered. “Sorry. I’ll . . . I just need . . .”