The Midnight Mayor (60 page)

“No, I . . .”

“No,” I sighed. “Me neither.”

And then, because it seemed like the right and most sensible thing to do, I closed my eyes, put my head down on the pavement, and let the gentle rustling of the river below me and the whispering of paper falling through the air sing me into an endlessly falling darkness.

In which all things end, and something new and unexpected begins.

 

 

 

 

The Lord said, “Let there be light.”

And lo, mankind decided to capture said light, put it in a neon tube, install it in all hospitals everywhere, and leave it on at unwholesome hours when sensible members of the Homo sapiens line should have been sleeping.

For this reason, rather than because we felt like it, we opened our eyes.

A hospital.

Again
.

Life suspended.

Not our favourite place.

A private room; nice. A wristband proclaiming “John Doe”. Also nice. A heart monitor that went “ping” without any good reason and with no explanation at random intervals. A woman asleep at the end of the bed. This is the sort of thing soppy single men in need of mothering dream about.

I said carefully, “Oda?”

The woman stirred slowly, looked up, said, “Who’s Oda?”

Next to the woman was a traffic warden’s hat.

 

An Alderman came to visit.

I didn’t recognise her, but the big black coat and hard expression were a giveaway.

She said, “Ms Dees. I’d offer to shake hands, but maybe when you’re not wired up to machines that go ‘ping’?”

I said, “Where’s Mr Earle?”

“Mr Earle . . . did not make it. We’re having a memorial service tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have some flowers sent in your name. Don’t worry about the cost. We’ll settle these things when you’re feeling better.”

“Did many . . .”

“Aldermen died; Aldermen lived. The details are unimportant,” she replied.

“Kemsley?” I asked. “Did Kemsley . . .”

“Mr Kemsley is in a stable condition. He has been moved from Elizabeth Garrett. He is scheduled for major reconstructive surgery to . . . iron out . . . some of the consequences of his encounter with Mr Pinner, just as soon as his body is strong enough to survive the procedure. You need not concern yourself with Mr Kemsley either.”

“What should I concern myself with?” I asked carefully.

“At the moment, very little!” she replied. “The city is saved, Mr Pinner is gone, the Midnight Mayor lives. I’d say that was deserving of a Christmas bonus, yes? There is only one question outstanding.”

“Well?” I asked.

“The city is saved. But for how long?”

I shrugged, feeling stitches pull. “A while?” I suggested.

“While an untrained sorceress wanders the streets?”

“You mean Penny?”

“If we are being so
informal
about the woman who summoned the death of cities to our streets, then yes, Ms Ngwenya.”

“You know she’s sat in the corridor outside eating takeaway curry, right?”

“I know,” she said. “The Aldermen are watching.”

“Ms Dees?” we asked carefully. “Do you know what the spleen does?”

“Part of the immune system,” she replied calmly. “Stores blood reserves, breaks down old blood cells from the body. Why do you want to know? You’ve still got one, I believe.”

“We just wished to understand you a little better,” we told her.

“That’s all.”

She smiled, leant forward across the bed until her face was a few inches from mine. “Mister Mayor,” she said, “everything changes, sooner or later. Especially the city. You look after yourself, Mr Mayor. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to discuss these things later.”

And she left.

The next day I got a bunch of flowers, too big to put anywhere except against the opposite wall, in a wide wicker basket.

Three weeks later, I got the bill.

There were other things that needed to be done.

Blood is hell to shift from clothes that aren’t soaked immediately.

The hospital declared my old clothes a write-off and graced me with a set of surgeon’s slacks that made surprisingly comfortable pyjamas.

On my release, I bought a new pair of shoes.

I also indulged in a few nights at hotels. Pampering has its place.

Sometimes, when I was trying to go to sleep, the twin crosses on my right hand ached.

We got used to it.

There was a phone call that had to be made.

I didn’t think about it until it happened, at 10 p.m. on a raining Tuesday night. I just picked up and dialled without looking at the numbers.

The phone rang, and kept on ringing, until at the last, someone answered.

She said, “Yes?”

“Loren?”

Silence. Then, “Who is this?”

“Matthew. It’s Matthew.”

Silence.

“Loren?”

“Goodbye, Matthew.”

She hung up.

We didn’t call again.

 

There was supper with Sinclair.

It was polite, pointless, and pompous.

We felt better for having had it.

We never say no to free food.

 

There was Oda.

Her hair had been burnt off, one side of her face was crinkled and withered. She said she was only there because the Aldermen had asked her. One hand was wrapped in bandages, thicker than the skin they protected. The skin drooped over her right eye like the skin of an old prune. She wouldn’t look at us, wouldn’t talk to us, wouldn’t say a word, except one. When we stopped her at the elevator, said, “Oda . . .” she looked up at us and replied, “
Damnation
,” and walked into the lift, and didn’t look back.

 

Time passed.

It’s something time is good at doing.

Impersonal, passive, just rolling along like the river, too big to notice the bits of paper that get dragged along with the tide.

There was one thing left to do. Not for the Midnight Mayor, not even for us and our fears or desires. One thing I had to do, and get it done with.

I went back to London Bridge.

Walked to the middle, drooped my arms over the edge of the railing, felt the stitches pull in my side and didn’t care. Breathed beautiful river air, let it swim through my body like liquid diamond, purifying all that it touched. I don’t know how long I waited there; but it wasn’t long.

Penny Ngwenya draped her arms over the edge of the bridge beside me, and said, “Hello, sorcerer.”

“Hello, sorceress,” I replied. “How are you feeling today?”

She shrugged. “OK, I guess.”

We watched the river in silence. Finally she said, “A woman called Ms Dees talked to me today.”

“Really? What did she say?”

“She offered me a two-week away-break, all expenses paid, job guaranteed when I came back. Just walked up and said, ‘Take it, and it’ll be OK.’”

“What did you say?”

“It’s in Scotland.”

“Scotland can be very pretty, when it’s not raining.”

“It’s in the
countryside
- and when does it not rain in Scotland?”

I sighed. “Don’t take it,” I said. “Ms Dees will ship you up to Scotland and you’ll never come back. She’ll make sure you never come back, never return to a city ever again. It’s part of her job.”

“OK.”

Silence a while longer. Then she said, very quietly, “The . . . they tell me I nearly destroyed the city.”

“How tactful of them.”

“The Aldermen.”

“I know. I recognised their lack of tact.”

“They tell me I’m a threat. A danger. That for me, good people have died.”

I thought about it. “People have died,” I said finally. “‘Good’ . . . who knows? But yes, people have died. And yes, you dunnit. I’m sorry to tell you, but you dunnit fair and square. You stood on this bridge and cursed the city, damned it to burn and suffer for what it had done to you, called forth the death of cities to plague the people within. He was your vengeance, your curse. And you were utterly and completely innocent of it. You couldn’t help it. You’re a sorceress. Sorry. Kinda stuffed on that front.”

Silence.

Then, “Should I go?”

“Go? Where?”

“Like . . . Scotland, like the lady said?”

“Seems a little hard on Scotland.”

“If I did this, if I somehow . . .”

“You know you did. If you didn’t know it, feel it in your belly, hear the shadows tell you and the river whisper it, if you couldn’t feel it in your blood and bones, you’d be shouting a lot more abuse right now. You know what you are. You just didn’t have anyone to explain it at the time.”

She nodded slowly, eyes fixed on the water. “What should I do? I . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

“There are other sorcerers,” I said. “They can train you, help you get a control and, say,
not
summon primal forces of darkness and death - something you should keep an eye out for, by the way. You could try Fleming, in Edinburgh, she’s excellent, or Graham, in Newcastle. Or, how’s your French? There are some top-of-the-line sorcerers practising in Paris right now - Aod is a sweetheart; I mean, the flavour of the magic there is very different, much more stylised, I guess, not the same sodium stuff of London. But it’s a nice city and you can learn some useful skills there.”

Silence. Then, “I don’t think I want to go to any of these places.”

“There’s others,” I said. “If you don’t want to stick too close to London after all this, I get it. There’s some excellent practitioners in Hong Kong, and English is widely used round there anyway . . .”

“No,” she said firmly. “That’s not it. This is . . . this city is my home. This is where I want to be.”

“You did almost wipe it out in a splurge of unconscious magical destruction,” I pointed out. “I mean, others might find that a bit, you know, threatening.”

She looked up sharply and said, “Do you?”

“Me? Well, no . . .”

“Who’s good in London?”

“You really want to stay?”

“Yes.”

“The Aldermen . . .?”

“You said I can be trained. If not, then it’s kinda hard on Hong Kong.”

She had a very stubborn chin when she needed one.

I sighed. “Look, sorcerers in London . . . there was this thing . . . there’s not many . . . I mean . . .”

“Do you know any good sorcerers in the city?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Do you have an apprentice?”

“No.”

“Can you teach?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Penny, I’m not just . . . I mean, obviously not just . . . But there’s things about who I am . . .”

“Are you a murderer?”

“No.”

“A paedophile?”

“No!”

“You expect other people to do your washing-up?”

“What? No!”

“Secretly married with two kids you beat up whenever you go home?”

“No!”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Well, for a start . . . I’m the Midnight Mayor!”

“Which means?”

I hesitated. “I’m still not entirely clear on that,” I said. “Protector of the city is a vague job description at the best of times, but that’s not the point. We are not willing to . . . I’m not going to take the risk, OK?”

“Of teaching me? Am I that dangerous?”

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

She grunted. “Heard that before.”

“Penny!” we snapped. “Listen! We are not merely a sorcerer! We are more! Brighter, faster, we are me and I am us, and we . . . we burn the things we touch. We burn because of the beauty in the burning, because life is precious, extraordinary, and we would live it as if we were on fire with the brightness of it. Life is magic. We live to prove this true. It is a fire that mortals cannot sustain. I will burn, one day. My skin will crack and my blood will fall and when it does it will be blue electric fire and all that is human and mortal in me will dissolve in fire and speed and fury and delight and not even notice that it has died though I am senseless and alone. I cannot teach you. I will not have you share this fate, capisce?”

She thought about this a long hard moment, then said, “Well, bugger you with a pineapple.”

“Beg pardon?”

“I said . . .”

“I got the idea.”

“Way I see it,” she snapped, “is, if you are this protector of the city, and I am, basically, a walking bomb waiting to burst, then isn’t it your job as fucking protector to stop all threats from wandering the streets? Now, I’m going to wander your streets, Matthew Swift, because they made me who I am, because they defined me and what I believe in and how I think and feel and travel. And if I happen to go apeshit while doing it, then up yours, protector. You’ll have failed, all because you were scared
you
might hurt
me
. When I was going to destroy this city for . . . for so many fucking things . . . you gave me back my hat. You could have killed me, and you got
shot
giving me back my hat. And you really think you’re going to hurt me? Christ! Get a shrink already!”