The Midnight Mayor (55 page)

She stood in front of the wide glass window, eyes turned down towards her hands, hands turned up towards the ceiling. Something small, quaint and black was resting in her upturned palms. It was made out of the hybrid offspring of felt and plastic, its top dully reflecting the white light. A band of small white and yellow squares ran round its base, just above the shallow, upturned rim, and a small silverish shield had been stuck to the front, that a gleeful child might have mistaken for a sheriff’s badge. It was, in short, a very boring, rather small, quite old-fashioned not-quite-bowler hat, a piece of headgear that in the 1950s would have been the embodiment of modern style and which now was just . . . a bit sad. A piece of uniform that time forgot.

Oda murmured, “Um . . .”

I took the hat carefully from her hands and turned it over.

Inside, a rim of elastic had been sewn in to make the hat sit easier on the head. On this rim, in faded yellow letters, someone had written in lopsided capitals:

We put the hat down carefully on Anissina’s desk.

We looked at it.

Silence.

“Well?” demanded Oda. “Is it . . .”

“Shush!”

She shushed, then in a lower whisper added, “What’s the matter?” “I’m having a moment of reverence. I would have thought you’d appreciate it.”

“For heaven’s sake, I don’t have time for this. Is it . . .”

“Yes. It’s the traffic warden’s hat. It’s
her
hat.”

“And can . . .”

“Yes. I can break the curse.”

A pause. Then, “Well? Do it! What are you waiting for? Full moon?” We reached out tentatively, ran our hands over the black dome of the hat, picked it up by one side and turned it over in front of us. “He’s coming,” I muttered. “Mr Pinner is coming.”

“
What?
”

“He’s just passed across the boundary of the old London Wall. We can feel him. He hurts, right here, in the palm of our hand. He knows we’ve got the hat. The hat is the key to the spell that summoned him. Break that, undo the curse, and he’ll die. He’s coming.”

“Then do it!
Do it!
”

“I need Ngwenya.”

“If this is . . .”

A voice from the door said, “The traffic warden?”

I looked up slowly, ran my eyes up the immaculate length of Earle’s suit, his black coat, his stern face. There were other Aldermen behind him. None looked happy. Earle carefully pulled off a pair of black leather gloves, passed them over to an Alderman in the corridor, slipped through the door, reached out for the traffic warden’s hat. We snatched it back defensively, cradling it to our chest, and seeing this, he smiled.

“I thought Ngwenya
wasn’t
a sorceress, Swift? After you ran off at St Pancras, Oda informed us she was . . . just an innocent. And yet you seem to be holding a traffic warden’s hat, and seem to think that the death of cities is coming
here
, and seem, may I add, to have been shot and to be breaking into the property of one of our missing colleagues. You’ve clearly been busy these last few hours. Did you . . .
lie
to us about Ngwenya?”

We met his eyes. “Yes,” we said. “Deal with it.”

His fingers tightened on the edge of the desk. “You lied to us about the woman who has damned this city, cursed it, condemned it, whose anger summoned the death of cities, whose power is going to rain mystic vengeance down on our streets, and you . . .
you
dared to lie?”

We thought about it, then nodded. “Yes. And would do it again. Anissina, by the by, is a loony backstabbing bitch, and yeah, thanks for your concern, I’ve been fucking shot and yes, Mr Pinner is coming. Very very much is he coming: we can hear him on the stones, inside the city. He’s coming for this.” I twiddled the hat in the air. “So, since there’s not much time left for you to get angry in, Mr Earle, why don’t you ask me the incredibly important question - why, Mister Swift,
Mister
Mayor, why oh why oh why did you get shot trying to find this damn hat, and quite how are you going to save the city with it?”

“Doesn’t really matter, now I know to kill Ngwenya after all . . .” he began, turning away.

We reached up, grabbed his arm, pulled him tighter towards the desk. “It matters to
us
. We can break the spell, and she doesn’t have to die.”

“Weakness! Stupid ineffectual blind stupid weakness! You are a . . .”

“Disgrace to the office of Midnight Mayor, yes, I know!” I snarled, climbing to my feet. “Every bloody stranger in the fucking city has been telling me this at every given moment and you know what, I have had it up to
here
! I am a disgrace to everything that the office used to be, to the bigger picture, to the sensible solution, to the pragmatic deeds, to the necessary sacrifice, to the stones and the streets! And good! Frankly, excellent! I am honoured to have got this brand on my hand and be able to say with it, up yours, this is the big city! We exist to change the rules, and here I am, changing one now! Ngwenya doesn’t have to die! I have her hat! I can break the curse, I can destroy Mr Pinner, I can stop the death of cities. We can do it!”

“And how, exactly,” growled Earle through gritted teeth, “do you plan to do this?”

“I’m going to give her back her hat.”

There was silence while the collected Aldermen considered this.

Finally Oda said, “What?”

“Thank you, Oda, for your essential ignorance of mystic procedure,” I sighed, the energy suddenly gone back out of my bones, groping for my chair again. “I am going to give her back her hat.”

“And that’ll just do it? That’ll break the curse?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention? ‘Give me back my hat’!”

“But that’s . . . you said that was just . . .”

“A warning. A solution. You ever wonder how the ravens, the London Stone, the river, the Wall, the Midnight Mayor get any of their defending done? Bloody mystic forces and their uselessly obscure ways.”

“We could have killed her, sorcerer,” growled Earle.

“Yeah. The most efficient strategic solution in response to the onsite risk assessment analysis. The police would never have known, a crime without consequence. A stranger kills a stranger and that’s it, goodbye, goodnight, end of the line. Cold, efficient - very
financial
. As cruel and distant as mankind can ever really get. We will not sink to your level. We are going to give her back her hat.”

Silence.

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.