stalkers had been frustrated. The tallyho of the urban hunt sounded like a parping fart in the latest hours, as they rode unorthodox horses over roofs, making locals think there had been very brief very heavy rain, and tracked down bugger-all. The vaguely cowboy gunslingers had failed to run them down. Londoners slept badly, as their internal nightlands were infiltrated by eyeless snuffling beasts that lolloped through their sex reveries and parental angsts, dreamhounds sent out by hunters at their most dangerous when they slept. They could not sniff their quarries either.
The hunters fought among themselves. More than once they faced murderous confrontations with figures that seemed part of some other agenda, that were come and gone too fast to make sense of in any political schema of which anyone knew. Men who disappeared when seen, men and women accompanied by shuffling monster shadows.
The gangs and solitary freelancers seeded the city with rewards: anything for a harvest of hints. With all his care, nous and skill, Dane could not stand in the way of all the snips, momentary glances, overheard words—all the stuff that registered not at all on passersby, but that the best hunter could winkle out of someone who did not even know they were withholding, could collate and aggregate.
“I’M GOING INSIDE,” FITCH SAID. “THE REST OF THE LONDONMANCERS need to see me. And we’ll have to find a way to get him onside, now.” He indicated the man Billy had shot.
“You got to let me go back in, Dane,” he said. “You want to get them worried?”
Dane raised his weapon as if he did not know what to do with it, and gritted his teeth.
“Do you believe them?” Billy whispered.
“We didn’t know what you wanted to do with it,” Fitch said. “Or we would have said.”
“We didn’t know if we could trust you,” Saira said. “You know how some Muslims get rid of Qur’an pages? They burn them. That’s the holiest method. Whatever’s coming is after burning the whole world down, starting with the squid. And it’s still out there. We thought that might be your plan.”
“You thought I’d end the world?” Dane said.
“Not deliberately,” Fitch said, in a strange reassurance. “By accident. Trying to set your god free.”
Dane stared at them. “I ain’t going to burn shit,” he said levelly. “Take me to it.”
And we can tell you what we know, Billy thought. That Grisamentum’s still alive.
“There’s things need preparing,” Fitch said. “Protections. Dane, we can work together. We can be in this together.” He was eager now. How long had he been bending under this?
“We ain’t short of offers,” Dane said. “Everyone wants to work with us.”
“There’s things we need to know,” Saira said. “There’s got to be something about this kraken. That’s why we need you,” she said to Billy. “You’re the squid man. This is perfect. If we can work out what it is about this one, maybe we can stop it.”
“Do you believe them?” Billy whispered. He heard the grind of glass. “I think I do, Dane.”
THAT WAS HOW THE TWO OF THEM ENDED ALONE IN THE YARD, while the Londonmancers returned inside, to mum normality for a few more hours.
“What if they …?” Dane said as they waited.
Billy said, “What? Run? They can’t disappear their whole operation. Tell someone? The last thing they want is anyone to know what they did.”
“What if they …?”
“They need me,” Billy said.
They wedged the door closed so frustrated smokers would find another place to go. “Wait,” Saira had told them. “When we’re done here, we’ll go.” They sky went dark over hours.
“Soon,” said Dane. What impeccable timing, what a perfect jinx: as he said that, there was the glass noise, in Billy’s head. Knowledge came with it. He stood.
“Someone’s coming,” he said.
“What?” Dane stood. “Who?”
“I don’t know.” Billy held his temples. What the fuck? “Jesus.” His headache was talking to him. “I just know they’re coming. I don’t think they know where we are. Not exactly. But they’re close and they aren’t friends.”
Dane looked around the yard. Grind grind. “They’re getting closer,” Billy said.
“They can’t find us here,” Dane said. “They can’t know the Londonmancers are in on this. We can’t lead them to God.” He grabbed a metal shard and ground into the wall the words BACK ASAP. Written in scratches among scratches.
“Up,” he said. Made his hands a sling and pushed Billy back onto the roof. They scuttled under the arriving night, back down drainpipes and corporate fire escapes, to the main streets