it just tightened, so sudden and so hard I was pressed back against the seat barely able to breathe, choking and wheezing. Oda wasn’t a screamer, wasn’t a moaner, but every part of her shook with pain; I could see the skin around her wrist turning strange beige-white, hear every terrified breath.
“Wait!” I shouted. “For God’s sake, wait! Look at my hand before you take hers!”
The dragging stopped. The pressure on Oda’s arm seemed to relax for a second. The strain of the seat belt against my chest relaxed a little; in the tiny extra space it allowed, I gasped for breath.
“Let’s take a gander,” said the driver.
The belt let me lean forward just far enough. I got the glove off my right hand, slipped it through the narrow gap in the dividing glass, unfolded my fingers. The twin red crosses were still burnt on my skin, glaring in the gloom. I felt a pair of hands, metal-cold, steel-hard, take my palm and turn it this way and that, dragging me further towards the driver’s compartment. The belt was cutting into my throat, a dull knife against my windpipe.
This close, I could see more of the driver’s face.
Nothing to see.
The black, face-shaped, featureless thing that I had glimpsed from the back of the cab was, close to, the same. Empty, a pair of carved eyes around a carved nose and a pair of carved, slightly parted lips, drawn out of ebony darkness. Taxi drivers are among that great mass of people in the city who you go out of your way not to notice - just extensions of the machine. This one had taken it literally. His back melted into the chair he sat in, his feet were the pedals. His fingers clackered like the click on the fare indicator when he moved them over the palm of my hand, tracing with one metal fingertip the twin crosses.
“So,” he said finally, “you’re like, you know, Midnight Mayor, yeah?”
“I guess so.”
“What happened to the last guy?”
“Killed.”
“Shit. See? Didn’t I tell you? I mean the radio talks about it plenty but no one listens - times are getting hard. Fucking politicians. Corrupt, the whole lot. Need a clean sweep, if you ask me.”
The pressure around my hand released. I drew it back, rubbing at the fingermarks in my skin. Then Oda’s hand was released as well, and her gun handed back.
“Keep the thirty quid.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Midnight Mayor’s got an account. Direct debit. I’ll send the bill to the Aldermen. Receipt?”
“The Midnight Mayor has an account?”
“Yeah. Jeez, didn’t they fucking tell you?”
“I’m new.”
“You should get your act sorted, I mean, seriously! The perks, man, the perks of a cushy job like that - if I had the damn perks you think I’d ever walk anywhere? Hell no. Bureaucrat fat cats - hey, but all respect, like.”
Oda had undone her seat belt, so I undid mine. It snapped free in a perfectly ordinary, respectable way. A piece of paper was handed back to me. I took it carefully. It was a receipt. It said:
Thank you for using Black Cab Ltd. Your account will be billed at a later date. Have a pleasant onward journey.
And a serial number.
One problem at a time.
Keep moving. Don’t stop to think. Thinking only led to trouble. Keep moving. Your body is smarter than your mind. It gets hurt easier.
Oda and I unloaded Kemsley from the cab. There was no gentleness in what we did; there didn’t seem any point. Nothing we could do could possibly make it worse than it was. The taxi rumbled away behind us; Oda dragged Kemsley by the armpit. I hammered on the plywood door of the hospital, slashed at the padlock, which was smart enough to know when not to argue, unlocked the door, barrelled Oda and Kemsley inside.
“Hello?! We need help!”
Dead, dark corridors. Buddleia was growing out of the walls, water dripping down into stagnant, green-drifting pools, walls of faded drained colour, floors of broken forgotten trolleys and shattered old glass. I dragged neon out of my skin, tired, we were so tired now, wanted to sleep, hadn’t slept for too long; too many days, too many nights, it seemed longer than it was, too long; by the pinkish glow I managed to drag into my hands I spread light across the corridor, called out again, my voice inhumanly loud, “Help! We need help!”
A voice from the darkness said, “Well, don’t stand there fussing, come on!”
I dragged the light across the shadows cast from