alarming jagged line, and the words IS TATOO IS U? An arrow. Pointing at Paul. Paul stood.
“Hey,” said Billy. “Why do you have the girl?” He wrote in tiny print again. TA2 NO CATCH YOU YES. HELO
“That’s enough,” Billy said. A couple more meaningless scrawls, the words came again, and this time fast.
WHAT WILL THEY DO 2 U?
“What? Do what?” Billy wrote, looking away. “What’s he talking about?”
“Wait wait,” shouted Fitch, and Billy pulled the nib up and looked at what he had written.
THEY HAVE U & TA2. WONT LET YOU LIV I PRTECT U QIK
“What …?” “Wait …” “Is that…?” Everyone was sounding it out.
They have you. Paul was standing. And Tattoo. Dane was beside him. They won’t let you live.
Billy stared at Saira and Fitch. I protect you, Grisamentum was telling Paul. Quick.
“Hold on, now,” Fitch said.
“What?” said Billy.
“Wait,” Dane said. “He’s messing with you.” He looked at Fitch. Paul moved faster than Billy would have thought he could. Paul snatched the container of ink and the papers on which Grisamentum had written from Billy’s hand. Grabbed scissors from a table. He backed to the lorry door.
Billy looked at Fitch’s face, and did not try hard to stop Paul.
“Look,” Fitch said. “See? It’s stirring between us all.”
“Alright,” said Dane. He stood between Paul and the Londonmancers. “Let’s calm down …”
Billy lowered the needle and wrote with the last of what was on the needle. “Don’t,” said Fitch, but Billy ignored him and read out loud.
“‘Why would they let you live?’”
Billy caught Dane’s eye. A recognition sparked between them that the tiny fuggy-minded drop of Grisamentum had a point.
BILLY SWUNG HIS PHASER AT THE LONDONMANCERS. THEY DID NOT know it was empty, or almost. He doubted it would fire. “Look,” said Saira. She stood in a pugilist’s pose, but glanced at Fitch. “This is bullshit.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Fitch said. He stammered, “No one intends any, no one has any … why would we …?”
“You …” whispered Paul. “He’s right.” He moved back against the door.
“Wait,” shouted Fitch, but even as his last able-bodied Londonmancers stepped forward, Dane came to meet them.
“Back,” said Billy, standing by Dane, now. Protecting Paul. “What the hell are you planning?” he said.
The lorry reached a stop sign, or a red light, or a hazard, or just stopped, and Paul did not hesitate. He opened the back so there was a glow of headlights in from behind them lurching side to side, as perhaps some glimpse of kraken was granted a startled motorist. Too fast to be stopped, Paul was down, gone, out of the lorry, ink and papers in his hand, slamming the door closed.
“Shit!” said Dane. He fumbled, but the lorry, its driver unaware, was speeding up. When Dane at last got the door open again, it had moved some way off and Paul was gone.
“We have to find him,” Billy said. “We have to …” To bring him back to the Londonmancers, to Fitch, who had not made a full denial of the ink’s allegation. Billy hesitated. Dane had taken a right old time opening that door.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
“YOU LET HIM GO,” FITCH SAID. “WE HAD THE TATTOO AND YOU LET him go.”
“Do not give me this shit,” Billy said. “You shut your face. Paul is not the Tattoo.”
“We weren’t going to let you kill him, Fitch,” Dane said.
“We weren’t going to kill him.”
“We saw you,” Billy said. “Couldn’t even meet his eye. Don’t come the innocent, we know what you did to Adler.”
“Anyone could get hold of Paul and then we’re all in trouble,” Fitch said. “I have no intention of hurting him, but I make no apology for keeping all options open.”
“All options open?” Billy more or less screamed.
“What?” Saira said to Fitch.
“We had one of the two kings of London right here,” Fitch said. He trembled. “Responsible for God knows how much. We had to be ready to secure the situation. What could we do?”
“You weren’t going to let him go,” said Billy. “Don’t you think he’d had enough of being someone else’s property?”
“There was a debate to be had,” Fitch said.
“I imagine,” Billy said, “Paul would have disagreed strongly with those who proposed the motion that his incarceration or death were the least bad option. I bet he’d have strongly seconded those who leaned toward not that.”
“Now would you all listen?” Fitch said. “Paul knows where we are.”