their way into solid reality. The driver’s voice came in over the intercom.
“Anywhere round here in particular?”
“If you could just drop us off outside the main entrance . . .”
“No problem.”
We turned, actually turned, something I couldn’t remember the cab doing in our whole journey, down a side street off from Euston, round the back of a grey office block and a Gothic fire station, towards a red, turreted building with broken windows and bright blue hoarding all around its walls, stuck with signs saying, “DANGER KEEP OUT” and posters for dubious gigs and, of course, scrawled in white paint over the blue hoarding by the door: GIVE ME BACK MY HAT
The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital for Women. Abandoned by almost everyone and left to rot. Almost being the important part.
The taxi slid to a stop outside the padlocked dark entrance, covered over with plywood. There wasn’t any traffic on the street, not at this hour, not even night buses turning onto Euston Road towards King’s Cross. Even the lights in the hotels ahead were out, even the receptions just distant dim puddles. I had to remember to breathe, watching the dark shadow of the driver’s hands reach up to check the tariff, to stop the clock, watching a hand push back the plexiglas between him and us, waiting for the damage.
“It’s thirty quid,” he said, just a voice drifting in from the driver’s compartment.
“What?”
“Thirty quid,” he repeated.
“OK. Great. Thanks.”
I fumbled in my wallet for the money.
“And her gun.”
I glanced at Oda, whose lips pursed. I mouthed, please, and she reluctantly pulled a gun from a pocket, all black metal and power, and pushed it through the gap between passenger and driver compartments. As her fingers slid in, a hand moved in the front, locked down on her wrist and dragged her forward so sharp and hard I heard the seat belt lock around her chest and saw her face wrinkle in pain.
“Her hand,” said the driver. “You seen her hand?”
I realised he was talking to me. “Um . . . yes?” I hazarded.
“You seen the blood?”
I glanced instinctively at her fingers, grasped in his, stretched across the panel separating front from back. I couldn’t see any blood, not a shimmer of darkness on that deep chocolate skin, dry and thick.
“No?” I mumbled.
“Hey, now, I just drive cabs you know, but I gotta tell you, I’ve noticed, and it wasn’t like that a few years ago. Fucking government!”
“Um . . .”
“Immigrants! I mean, I’m no racist, some of my best friends are foreign, but no one can deny it’s a problem and now look at this.” He dragged her hand forward and Oda cried out as her chest strained against the seat belt, which seemed to refuse to budge. “Look at this! A disgrace!”
I couldn’t see his face, couldn’t see if he was smiling, joking. There was just a dark oval where features should have been. “Here’s your thirty quid,” I mumbled, leaning forwards against the line of my seat belt, forty pounds in hand. “Keep the change.”
“£30, her gun, her hands.”
“What?”
“What?!” Oda didn’t do shrill, but she was close.
“You see the blood?” asked the driver. “Look at it! Dead wizards, dead magicians, dead witches, dead warlocks, dead, dead, dead - and you know, none of my business, but the smell! It’s just been rotting down under the skin for like, you know, like years. Little brother and little sister and little sister and all dead and rotting and you know, sure, you know she buried them back home but they’re still rotting, can’t stop the air, you know? It’s like the fucking taxman, gets everywhere and you’d be surprised how long it takes the eyes to decay until they’re no longer staring, it’s the casing, you see, once the outer muscle’s gone then the jelly just sorta evaporates. Nah, trust me. Better this way.”
He pulled at her hand, so hard that Oda now cried out, face bunching in pain, dragging her forward against the tightness of her belt. “Wait!”
He meant it, he actually meant it, the silhouetted black oval shape of the driver: he was going to pull the hand from her arm, pop it out of the bones and just pull until the muscle tore and it was snapped away from her flesh, just like that.
“Wait!”
I tried to lean forward, but the belt held me back. I fumbled at the catch, but it wouldn’t open, wouldn’t unlock. I tried to duck my head beneath the diagonal strap, and