reason to think he was devout. Have you heard of him having any run-ins with angels?” Collingswood looked at him and sipped.
“Boss,” said Darius, finishing his drink. “I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. Now if you’ll excuse me. Collers, always a pleasure. Giz a snog.” She flapped her tongue at him. He made a slurping sound as he stood and left.
“Jesus,” said Collingswood to Vardy. “I feel like arse. You’re alright, aren’t you? The Panda’s not doing your head in. I can’t see you crossing any palms with fucking euros.” As the shapeless anxiety approached, the foreseers of London were doing incredible trade. Second-, third- and fourth-stringers were getting employment, as people tried to find someone, anyone, to see something, anything, other than an end.
“Panda? Oh, yes, that’s your funny joke, isn’t it? Well, I’m keeping busy. There’s a lot to do.” He did not look merely busy: Vardy seemed invigorated, energised by the crisis. His university must be complaining—not that they could do anything—because he was spending all hours at the FSRC offices.
“What the hairy bollocks was that about?” Collingswood said. “Angels? What are you getting me into?”
“Have you heard of mnemophylaxes?” he said.
“No.”
“Another word for the angels of memory.”
“… Oh that. I thought that was all bollocks.”
“Oh no, there’s certainly something to it. The difficult thing is working out exactly what.”
“Can’t you ask one of your snouts?” He glanced at her with a ghost of humour.
“My collectors are no good. Nobody worships these angels. They’re … well, you’ve heard stories.”
“A bit.” Not much. Some archons of history, not memories but metamemories, the bodyguards of remembrance.
“There was a witch, years ago. She’d been a Londonmancer, but she broke with them because she was tired of noninterference. She and a couple of rent-a-mob broke into the Museum of London, to fetch something or other. Found dead the next morning. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Her friends were dead. She was nowhere. There was just a knocked-down pile of bricks and mortar in a display case. Some of the bricks were oddly shaped. We took the pile and did a bit of a jigsaw, fitted it back together. It was a sculpture of a woman. In brick. It had been made, then knocked down.” He looked at her. “Thinking of angels, I wanted to suggest that you have a look at the readouts from the scene there, and perhaps compare to whatever you get from the spot in the basement where Billy found Adler.”
“So, what you wanted to suggest was I do a load of extra work, is it?” she said. Vardy sighed.
“There are points of connection,” he said. “That’s all I’m saying. I’m not sure the Tattoo’s the only thing we’re looking at. And you’re still getting no whisper about the whereabouts of the squid. I presume.”
“You presume right.” Snouts, bribery, violence, scrying, possibility-running, prophecy poker—nothing was netting any word at all. And the continual non-up-turnance of so valuable a commodity as a giant squid—the thought of getting their alembics on which made the city’s alchemists whine like dogs—was provoking more and more interest from London’s repo-men and -women.
“It ain’t just us looking for it,” Collingswood said.
Chapter Thirty
COME CHAMPION SADDLE UP TIME FOR US TO GO WE MUST BE QUICK WE have a job to do
One moment Billy was deep under the surface of sleep and dreaming so vividly and quickly it was like being in a sped-up film.
saddle up and lets get those
He was under the water, as he was most of the times he slept, now, but it was light not dark this time, the water so bright it was like sunlight; it was daylight he was in; the rocks were deepsea rocks or they were the innards of a canyon; he was in a canyon, overlooked by buttes and mesas, with the sun or some underwater light above him. He was getting ready to ride.
champion, he shouted, champion saddle up
Here was his mount. He knew what would come over the rocks and hills for him to grab and with cowboy drama swing himself onto its back as it passed. Architeuthis, jetting, mantle clenching and tentacles out ready to grab prey. He knew it would scud over the plains, sending out limbs to grab hold of what it passed, to anchor itself and hunt.
It came. But something was not as expected.
how do i get on that? Billy thought. do i get in maybe?
What came bucking over the hills was Architeuthis in its tank, the great glass rectangle pitching