“Not a clue. Not a finch’s fart. He’s going to kill us, isn’t he?”
“From the sounds of it, yes,” murmured Earle thoughtfully.
So we laughed. And realising that what we really wanted to do was cry, we laughed just that bit harder, so no one would see the truth.
Safe places.
Strange how these things get redefined. A guy walks behind you in an empty street and safety is the home. A couple of kids burgle your house and safety is with Mum and Dad’s home. A bomb goes off at the end of the street and safety is in the countryside. A guy comes looking for you who bleeds paper and shredded the last bloke with your job title like an unwanted telephone bill, and safety is . . .
Thinking is trouble.
The Aldermen found me a place to stay. They didn’t want me in the office, and I didn’t want to be there. I had no home of my own, hadn’t had one since my death certificate had been put on file. So, grumbling all the way, they found me a hotel to spend the night.
I wanted to sleep.
I wanted to feel safe.
And as safe goes, it wasn’t bad. It ticked the mundane choices - twenty-four-hour security staff, police station practically across the road, busy streets outside, CCTV surveillance up the kazoo and Aldermen stationed on the corridors and doors at all times. It also met some mystical choices - the River Thames only a few yards away in one direction, the lights of the West End only a few yards the other way; and, just down the road, Charing Cross station, generally accepted as the heart of the city. There was power in that, even if it wasn’t true. Ideas are power, and the constant burning of the lights gave the place a magic that we could practically float on, an electric-orange lick in the air. Look out of any window, and whether you saw reflected lights on the water or the flashing signs of the Strand, it was beautiful. Even we could sleep, safe in so much busy, beautiful life around us, trusting to strangers and their ways to keep us from danger.
And whaddayaknow?
It even had room service.
As a rule, I dislike hotels. Too much money, too little soul. Plus the bed had ten layers of sheet and blanket that needed a hydraulic pump to pry them away from the mattress, and the radiators were turned up too high. But it was peaceful, and it was safe.
So we curled up beneath the sheets, and we slept.
Sorcerers are supposed to have prophetically insightful dreams.
I guess I wasn’t in the zone.
My dreams were drenched in terror. They woke me every half-hour, gasping for breath, face burning and arms goosebumped, without being able to name the dread that hunted me across the synaptic snooze of my mind. When I went back to sleep, turning in the wrecked mess of blanket, it would come back, beating against the edge of my skull the chant:GIVE ME BACK MY HAT
GIVE ME BACK MY HAT
GIVE ME BACK MY HAT!
GIVE ME BACK MY HAT!!
GIVE ME BACK MY HAT!!!!
Another thing to add to the list of things that needed to be thought about, and about which I did not want to think.
We slept.
Morning began at three in the afternoon.
Still here.
Still not dead.
Surprise!
Our heart missed a beat as we opened the bathroom door, but no, no flayed victims or vengeful pinstriped . . . things waiting for us.
Surprise!!
I didn’t get up in a hurry, reasoning that if Earle had anything heartbreakingly important to tell me, he would. It occurred to me that, it now being three in the afternoon, Earle might already be dead along with the rest of the Aldermen and for all I knew the remainder of the city, and we were all alone in the ruined remains of London - but the water ran hot from the shower and the slippers were too fluffy for this to be Armageddon quite yet.
Besides, there was a phone call I had to make before the end of everything, the death of the city. I made no conscious decision to do it. But I knew, with the certainty that comes over you in a hot shower after a long day, that it had to be done.
While I slept, someone had cleaned my clothes, even my coat. Polishing my shoes had been out of the question, but