nose stuck out three or four inches past the length of his nose, and I could hear it whirr faintly as it adjusted focus on me, and see my own faint reflection in the square glass. The wires seemed to have been plugged direct into his brain, and his nose pushed to one side to make space for it, so that the creature I saw was as much machine as mortal, and neither to completion. His other eye was bright green, and looked steadily at me, just like the gun he held.
I breathed, and found that was about all I could do, hypnotised by the sight of such extremity.
“Addison is my assistant,” said Mr Umbars, moving down from the doorway. “You should be afraid of the gun, Mr Swift - not of him.”
“Sure, bullets don’t kill people, people kill people,” I muttered. “Long live the National Rifle Association. What exactly . . .”
“Addison suffers from a rare condition. It’s not infectious. His brain is randomly shutting down parts of his body. First it was his voice, then his left eye, then his left ear, then his lungs. The NHS can’t help him. So I did. He is my assistant.”
As he said this, Mr Umbars reached carefully past me and took hold of my right hand, with the same firm, unsympathetic grip that all doctors seem to possess. He peeled back the glove from my hand and held it up to the light. I watched the CCTV camera of Addison’s eye, and it watched me.
“Fascinating,” murmured Mr Umbars, running his fingers over the crosses carved into my hand. “The mark of the Midnight Mayor.”
He let my hand fall and then without a word reached up to my head, dug his fingers in under my chin and pulled my head towards his, tilting it back and then down, staring at my eyes. “Bright blue,” he murmured. “Not your natural colour, is it, Mr Swift?”
“I am so not in the mood for this,” I snapped. “I’ve told you everything you need to know and like I said, guns are right down the list of things that frighten me.”
“You know,” sighed Mr Umbars, “if I didn’t believe you, I would drain every drop of blood you have and make a fortune flogging it, I mean a fortune. It’s not every day you get to drain the blood of the blue electric angels, after all.”
“Tougher guys than you have tried and died,” I replied. “And thankfully you do believe me, which will make all this a lot easier. I need to talk to the guy on the table.”
For a moment, Mr Umbars hesitated. I could see him thinking about blood, and fire, and telephones, and electric gods and expensive golf courses. Then he smiled, and gestured at that. “It’s all right,” he said. “Put it away.”
The gun was slowly lowered. Mr Umbars gestured at the plastic casing. “He’s all yours. Try not to kill him again. Think of me, if the NHS should ever let you down.”
“I’ll think of you,” I said coldly. “But I don’t think I’ll ever see you again, will I, Mr Umbars?”
He smiled. “Possibly not, Mr Swift, quite possibly not. Addison!” His voice was a command; Addison obeyed, shuffling dutifully up the stairs with Mr Umbars, leaving me in the basement alone with Boom Boom, the Executive Officer of club Voltage.
I could hear his heartbeat, still faint through the casing:deDumdeDumdeDum.
“You should try and relax,” I said, leaning my elbows on top of his transparent cover. “You’ll do yourself a mischief.”
“What do you want?” came the voice over the intercom.
“You just calm yourself down. If we were here to kill you, we would also have killed everyone else.” I could see the great mass of his heart rising and twitching quickly below the protruding spikes of his ribcage, torn upwards from his flesh. “You’re a mess, mate.”
“What do you want?! I told you about the boy.”
“Yeah, thanks for that. Found the kid, saw the kid flayed alive while I stood powerlessly by - you know, I see why Mr Pinner has you so freaked, why you played flunky for him. Now we’re going to talk about the traffic warden’s hat.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“The hat. The traffic warden’s hat that Mo - the kid - stole. He took her hat and she’s a sorceress, although she probably doesn’t know it; but she is. I took one look at her and knew it, and now I’ve gone and fibbed to the Aldermen;