The Neon Court (26 page)

He stared straight up into my eyes, into
our
blue eyes, and whispered, so low as to be almost inaudible, “B my god?”

I pulled my hand free instinctively, stood up and backed away a step.

All was silent.

The entire warehouse.

The babble of noise, the laughter, the shouting, the breaking of glass.

I turned slowly on the spot, meeting every eye that dared to meet our own. I could feel blood filling the twin scars on my right hand, thin red lines thickening in the two crosses carved into my skin. I ignored it. “All right,” I said finally, when I’d turned a full circle. “You ready to talk?”

The Tribe formed a council of nine.

They sat on overturned boxes, scrap bits of metal and, in one case, a broken toilet.

The youngest looked seventeen.

The oldest was forty.

He had a birthmark, vivid bright purple, that ran across half his face. A few thin strands of hair dribbled down by one remnant of a torn ear, and at some point he had lost an eye, to who knew what, and nothing but a withered hole remained.

He said, “I am da shaman. my name is Toxik.”

I wasn’t offered a seat, and was too busy trying not to puke to stand. I sat down on the concrete in front of them, cross-legged, hugging my aching, churning belly. “Awesome,” I said, waving meekly. “Hi Toxik, I’m Matthew, hundred and somethingth Midnight Mayor, sorcerer,
blue electric angels, whatever and so on. I hear you guys are going to war with the Neon Court. Mind … sorta … not?”

“Dey kiled our wariors.”

“What, generally or …?”

“Der woz a fire in Sidcup. a tower block. da court started it, da court traped our wariors insid n kiled dem.”

“And when I ask you what your warriors were doing there in the first place … ?” Uneasy silence. I twisted my position on the floor, trying to find the least uncomfortable way to sit. “Look, guys,” I exclaimed, “I know about this chosen one bollocks, right? So if your guys were in Sidcup looking for this chosen one, and the Court were there for exactly the same reason, then let’s not beat about the bush; just tell me.”

“Yes,” said Toxik finally.

“Grand! Glad we got that bit of duplicity out of the way in under thirty seconds. So – your lot went to Sidcup looking for this chosen one, and just so happened to turn up at the exact same moment that the Court did. Because … ?”

“Der woz a phon call. we woz told to go den. it woz a court setup; dey caled us 2 trap us.”

“You got any proof of that?”

Sulkily: “No.”

“So, really, anyone could have made that call. Man or woman?”

“Man.”

Not entirely the answer I’d been expecting. “So your lot turn up at the tower, mosey on inside, there’s the Court there too, you have a good old punch-up, someone – and let’s face it, at this stage it could be anyone – starts a fire on the lower floors, trapping your lot and some Court guys upstairs …”

“U no a lot.”

I shrugged. “I can be thorough as well as terrifying. Anyway, long story short, everyone dead, you cry vendetta, the Court cries vendetta and then what? You decide ‘hey, let’s go set fire to some Court shit for kicks, that’ll ease the situation’.”

“Dey took da girl! wat wer we meant to do? sit bak n wait 4 them 2 take us? we gotta get her b4 dey use her agenst us!”

I leant forward, clinging onto my knees for comfort and support. “Who took what girl?”

“Da court tok da chosen 1!”

“You know that? For sure? They’ve got her?”

“We got our guys. No bodies of no women woz found in da fire. da chosen 1 is a women; she woz in dat tower.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Da seer. he told us.”

“Was it the seer – O’Rourke? – was it O’Rourke who tipped you off about the tower block?”

“No. we dont kno who did dat.”

I ran my hands through my hair, felt grease and dirt and underground things that I didn’t want to think about. “OK. Only, the thing is, the Court seem to think that you’ve got her. Or someone has. Because Lady Neon has flown to town …”

“Lady neon is ere?”

“Yeah.”

“Wen did she com ere?”

“Last …” I stopped, bit my lip. “OK, wanting to say last night, but that’s an abuse of language, so let’s skip over that. A few hours back.”

Toxik’s eye narrowed, a sudden flicker of intelligence, awareness. Then he suppressed it, and mumbled, eye somewhere else, “Shes ere 4 da war.”

“Yeah, that’d be my guess. Only, thing is, she wants me to find this chosen one girl. And you think she’s got her?”

Toxik was silent a long time. Then he stood up and held out one punctured hand towards me. “Walk wiv me,” he said.

The air outside the warehouse was cold, wet, quiet. It smelt of the river, clean washed mud, tinged with a pinch of salt. A flock of seagulls were hobbling up and down by the waterfront, waiting for the new day that was still refusing to come. Toxik handed me something slippery and blue. A plastic mac.

“Wear it,” he said. “U lok shit.”

I pulled it on gratefully and zipped it up. Pulling the hood over my head, I wandered along hermitlike at the side of the Tribe’s shaman. He didn’t seem to mind the rain. He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his trouser pocket, offered me one. I shook my head. He shrugged, stuck
it in his mouth, lit it from inside his cupped hands, didn’t bother with the lighter.

He drew a long puff, held it, and relaxed.

I let him walk and smoke, waiting.

“U a screwd up mother, u r,” he said finally.

“Yeah. That’s me.”

“If u r da midnite mayor, y u let al dat shit go down?”

“What shit?”

“U kno.” He gestured, fists punching an invisible enemy in the air, eye tight.

“Oh. That shit. Thing is …” I went to rub at the tenderness in my face and changed it at the last moment to an uneasy scratch of my nose. “When you’re a sorcerer, and Midnight Mayor, and burning fire runs through your veins, you’ve only really got two modes. You’ve got diplomatically passive, and you’ve got apocalyptically destructive. Finding that middle ground – you know, breaking someone’s kneecaps without actually causing them to spontaneously combust – can be a delicate business.”

“No midnite mayor givs a shit bout us.”

“Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly Florence Nightingale about this business.”

“Den y u bothrin?”

“It’s my job. Trying to stop the blood on the streets. And …”

“N?” he echoed flatly, drawing another puff of smoke.

“There was a guy in the tower block. In Sidcup. A beggar man, camping out there. He died in the fire too. Burnt alive. He wasn’t Tribe, or Court, or chosen one, or whatever. There’ll be more like him, many many more, if this gets any worse than it already is.”

“So u gotta mak it stop.”

“Yeah.”

“Court got u by da ass, tho?” He saw my hesitation, grinned a grin of cracked yellow teeth, flecked with black. “I kno u got a treaty wiv da court. every1 kno. midnite mayor always dos wat is best 4 city, not 4 people init.”

“I’m not exactly your traditional Midnight Mayor.”

“Sorry u got beat up.”

I shrugged, and even that hurt. “I get that reaction.”

“Bein tribe – its not jus bout respect, u kno? its not jus bout strength or honor or dat. its bout not bein the other guy.”

“The other guy …?”

“Its bout the whole world screamin @ u, b dis way, walk dis way, talk dis way. u not talkin this way, u not walkin this way, u not lookin, u not speakin, u not bein wat we want u 2 b? den u rnt 1 of us. u r asbo kid, u r hoodie, u r da problem. kids wiv knives, kids wiv guns, kids wiv drink, kids wiv babies, kids dat make da old ladies run in2 da corner an say he didnt lok nice he didnt speak proper he must b out 2 get me, u kno? bcaus u r different, u dont do wat dey expect. n dey gotta b right. someone gotta b right bout something, otherwise dis world is shit, i mean real shit. ders gotta b absolutes, ders gotta be rules else y shuld der b good n bad n right n wrong n true n lie? dese r jus da thins made up by da time we liv in. 1 day right n wrong n good n bad will change agen, like theyve changed b4, n change agen, n agen until 2moro isnt anythin we can name 2day, n all da futur looks back on da big old ere n now n says ‘u lived evil – u all lived so evil’.”

“That’s a lot of big philosophy for a guy who lives in a shed.”

He shrugged. “I red philosophy @ uni.”

“You’re shitting me. What, the world of high academia didn’t appeal?”

He glared at me. “U rnt listnin. dat woz wat I woz ment 2 b.
ment
. lik
ment
is al der is 2 b.”

“And what’s your solution?” I asked. “Just reject good and bad outright? Stop wearing the clothes, stop walking the walk?”

“Yeah. we r da ones who av seen da lie. we av seen dat 1 day, itll all b different anyway, so wats da point?”

“Helpful attitude you have there.”

“It maks us free,” he replied, flicking ash across the concrete. “Not good n bad – jus free.”

I sighed and shuffled deeper into my anorak. “So what’s your beef with the Neon Court? Why d’you hate them so bad?”

He looked up into the rain, as if seeking inspiration. “Dey r da opposit. dey say dat power is da beauty, da faces, da voices. but dey dont jus say dat. dey want us al 2 belive dat. dey want us all 2 look at how beautiful dey are n say ‘we want dat’ n den they say ‘u can av it but
da price u pay must b ur soul’. u kno dey keep thralls? human slaves who give up der souls 4 a piece of beauty, 4 a few days of da world sayin ‘u r d best, u r all we want to b’ until da world changes agen n dey get old n dey av nothin but da memory of 1 moment when da world smiled @ dem. y do u allow it?”

“Me? Haven’t been in the job long enough to do anything about it.”

“U r part of it.”

“I have no love for the Court.”

“But u dress like dey want, n talk like dey want, n act like dey want, n when they say ‘com runnin’ u do, bcaus dey talk pretty n look beautiful n dat is all u can c.”

“Remember you’re judging the guy who went through shit to come and have a chat with you,” I pointed out, as he stamped out the remnants of his first cigarette and headed onto the next. “I think I get brownie points for that.”

“Mayb. mayb u r somethin different.”

He lapsed into cigarette-sucking silence. I flapped my arms against the cold, hopped up and down. I said, “OK, so I get why you don’t dress like other guys, and don’t talk like other guys, and don’t act – hell – don’t act like regular civilised bastards; fine, fair enough, so long as you’re doing it on your own terms, fine. But I’m not entirely won over by this whole hacking off your own flesh and carving up your own skin. Why that?”

“2 b mor dan da rest.”

“To be more than … ?”

“More dan human. man is, c, a cockup arsehole shit species. we hate n hurt n do cruelty n hate n hurt n cruelty is done 2 us by dem dat hate n hurt more n they learnt 2 hate n hurt from dem dat hated n hurted n …”

“I think I get the picture.”

“We dont av 2 b dat. we dont av 2 b nothin we dont chose. only birth made us human, so we chose 2 b somethin else. n u call it ugly, but we cal it free.” He held out the cigarette packet to me. “Sure u dont want 1?”

“Cheers, nah.”

“Tel me bout blue electric angels,” he said suddenly. “Tel me bout them.”

“We are … what is there to tell? Here we are. Judge for yourself.”

He looked at us long and hard. We stared back. His eye skirted ours, and looked away. He tried to disguise his mortal fear with a flick of cigarette ash into the darkness, a casual half-nod of the head. Then, “I av heard of dem, but u shuld b in da telephon. da angels mad when da voices stop, da thought left behind in da wire, da creature mad of al da human emotion tipped in2 da electric signal. y u ere?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I intrested.”

“I got killed by my old teacher. Robert Bakker? Yeah, you’ve heard of him. He wanted to summon the blue electric angels from the telephone wire, use our power to extend his own life. He wanted me to help him; I refused. I was killed. His shadow came alive, you see – he was a sorcerer and he was out of control and I guess that’s how it manifested. Anyway, it came for me, and I couldn’t stop it, and it killed me. Very, very dead. But not very quick. Should probably have been quicker, really, but I … uh … I had time to get to a telephone box. Thought about dialling 999, but then what was the point? Nothing they could do. So I just listened. Listened to the sound of the telephones, that big, wide-open sound of the dialling tone, a whole world just the other side of the connector. And we were waiting. We took my last breath into the wire, dragged me down soul and, I suppose, what was left of my body. We cannot describe the world we came from. Humanity has not invented the words to encapsulate electric godhood. But after a few years, Bakker tried to summon the electric angels again, tried to suck us out of the wire. But he got it wrong. He tried to summon us and instead he got me. I am us and we are me, for ever one. One blood, one mind, one soul.”

“But 2 voices.”

I shrugged. “It’s not a conscious thing.”

“R u possessed?”

“Nah.”

“R u human?”

“Sure.”

“But ur blood burns blue.”

“Only when we’re really, really frustrated.”

There was a moment’s uneasiness in his face. Then he grinned,
shook it away with a tug of his head. “U rnt lik da midnite mayors dat went b4, r u?”

“I did try to say.”

Silence again. Then he said, “If i tel u something dat is freakin me, dat i cant share wiv any of da others, u will listen?”

“Try me.”

“I dont think da sun is risin.” I stopped dead, stared at him, mouth gaping. He shifted uneasily. “U think im crazy 2?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” I exclaimed, grabbing him by the shoulders. He dropped the cigarette and shied back, unsure. I shook him, nearly shouting, “If you weren’t an ugly bloke on the verge of a bloody and stupid pointless war, I’d snog you right here, right now!” His eyes widened. I let go self-consciously, coughed. “As it is,” I added, more subdued, “you are, so I won’t.” He relaxed a little. “Lucky escape all round, really,” I concluded. “How’d you notice?”

“I c thins.”