Armageddon? It has to have a meaning, it has to have . . . something more than just random words to it, otherwise why would it appear? That’s the first thing.
“Second! The death of cities. Why is he in London, here, now? Look at the patterns of his appearances . . . Hiroshima when the bomb fell, Rome when the Vandals came, Babylon when the walls fell, London when the fire burnt, Pompeii when the volcano blew, New Orleans when the levees broke. Are we to assume that he created all these events? If so, then why hasn’t he just obliterated London already? The death of cities is not the creator of these disasters - he’s summoned by them. Sure, his presence might exacerbate them, might make them worse; he might fan the flames or shine a light in the dark to guide the bombers to their targets. But always he’s there because something is going to happen. He’s feeding off the death of cities, he is not the cause.
“So what has brought him to London? Why now? What could be so catastrophic that he has come to our city and interests himself in the activities of a kid who likes to hang around in Willesden, and goes out of his way to kill the Midnight Mayor, to poison the ravens in the Tower? What summons him to our city, when there is no war and the Thames Barrier still rises and falls? I think we can safely assume that his presence bodes a disaster of a mystical nature - if we’re talking a bomb in Westminster then I suspect Mr Pinner would be far too busy killing MI5 officers to bother with us. This is about magic, straight and thorough.
“In other words: something magical has summoned him to London.
“Are we happy with this so far?”
I looked at the faces in the room.
They looked unhappy, but no one wanted to say anything, so I ploughed right on.
“Mo said before he died, before Mr Pinner went out of his way to make sure that Mo died, having hurt him, punished him, inflicted on him . . . terrible things . . . Mo said, ‘the traffic warden’s hat’. He took a traffic warden’s hat, and for this he has been punished. The death of cities - and I think we can be fairly sure that’s what he is - doesn’t bother with individuals. He’s about bricks and stones and streets, about ideas bigger than you or me. So why bother with Mo? He was punishing him, very deliberately, very cruelly. He got Boom Boom to lift him, and him alone from the club floor, specified the kid must be alive. Alive, in order to hurt him, throw him out with the garbage, turn his blood to ink. Mo took a hat, a traffic warden’s hat, and on the walls the writing now says, ‘give me back my hat’.
“And Mr Pinner said - I made his life easier. By destroying Bakker. That . . . that by bringing Bakker down, I gave him a way into the city. Now, the Tower was powerful, but I don’t think even Mr Bakker was up to keeping out Mr Pinner if he wanted to come. But what Mr Bakker did do, did so brilliantly and without even a thought that he was doing it, was kill sorcerers.
“When Nair died, you assumed I killed him, because I am the last trained sorcerer left in the city. You dislike sorcerers, Mr Earle. You regard us as dangerous, unstable, running the constant risk of madness. You think that most of all about us. You are wrong; but just this once, that’s not the question. When I killed Mr Bakker, I stopped the systematic murdering of sorcerers, but not before we had nearly all been wiped out. There is no one left to train new apprentices. And if anyone would go mad, an untrained sorcerer is a loony job waiting to happen.
“So here’s how I think it goes.
“I think that ‘give me back my hat’ is a warning. Not from Mr Pinner, but from the city. The London Stone, the Midnight Mayor, the ravens; these are all part of the city’s defences, and while even one of them is alive, the magical defences still stand. I think it’s a warning, trying to tell us what’s happened.
“I think when Mo stole the traffic warden’s hat, he stole something from someone who has enough anger, enough vengeance, enough fury and enough