A CCTV camera was hanging over the door. I considered it, I considered him. CCTV cameras are easy to confuse, if you know how. I didn’t even have to wave at it, and it was willing to turn the other screen. I said, “Shapeshifter.”
He had shoulder muscles the size of an ox. They tensed. His coat nearly rode up a foot from his ankles. I waited. He said, “OK. Wizard.”
“Not quite.”
“It’s not your kinda place.”
We laughed. “I know that. What’ll it take to get inside?”
“I’d like to help you mate, seriously, I’d . . .”
We reached forward suddenly, not blinking in warning, and snatched the glasses from his eyes. Beneath, his irises were solid spheres of bright orange, tinted yellow at the edges and filling the expanse of his eyes. A pair of pigeon’s eyes in a human’s head. He reached for me instinctively, one hand pushing back my chin, the other going for my right arm, all martial arts glitter. A sharp and purposeful click stopped him. Oda’s sleeve was pressed to the back of his neck. There was something in it more than a hand. She said, “If this wasn’t an area of public view, it’d be your spinal cord on the pavement. Let go of him.”
His fingers eased back; I staggered away. Oda looked at me nicely and smiled. “Are there any alleys round here?”
“Don’t kill him.”
“Imagine the trouble if I don’t kill him. This is for your good as well as the city’s.”
“You’re smart. Use your imagination. Don’t kill him.”
“He’ll only . . .”
“Cause trouble, yes, I know. We just don’t care. Deal with it.” Her face flickered in annoyance. “You know, I could just . . .”
“If you kill him, we’ll know,” we snapped. We weren’t sure how we’d know, but she didn’t need to know that. We looked her straight in the eye and added, “We’ll know. Deal with it nicely.”
“I’ll go.” Anissina. When she did speak, she was to the point. “Give me the gun.”
Oda scowled, but carefully shifted places with Anissina, whose fingers slithered over the black metal pressed into the bouncer’s neck. Oda pulled the Alderman’s sleeve sharply down over Anissina’s hand, to hide the worst of the barrel. “Don’t think about it, sister,” she hissed, wrapping Anissina’s fingers tighter round the trigger. “When he tries something, don’t think. It’ll be easier that way.”
Anissina said nothing. We had no idea if she was going to kill the bouncer either. But I figured he stood a better chance with anyone who wasn’t Oda.
“Walk,” said Anissina, and slowly, obediently, the bouncer began to shuffle from the door. I watched them walk down the street. It looked like trouble, all awkward movements and turns; but if an Alderman couldn’t look after things, then who could? They vanished round the corner into a side street, and like the wise woman said, we chose not to think about it.
“Shall we?” asked Oda, looking into the dark mouth of the club.
“Dance?” I asked.
“What?”
“Shall we dance, it’s a . . . forget it. Come on.”
We went inside.
If the outside had been all glitzy gaudy glam, the interior of Voltage did its best to live up to the name. I could smell the electricity, sizzling the air, making every breath buzz. I could feel it, hear it like the hum of a computer battery kept overcharged; it made the hairs on the back of my hands stand on end, and it was all we could do to walk without sparking.
Flat plasma screens had been embedded in one wall, round circles of not-quite-glass within which wriggles of blue, green, purple and white mini-lightning danced and twisted. When we pressed our fingers against them, all the current danced towards our finger ends, turning them the colour of their own fire. The ceiling was set with twisting lights that gave off every colour except ordinary white, while above the bar in the corner deep UV blue mingled with a flickering strobe to set off the painted faces of the bartenders in psychedelic strangeness. And all the time, there was the music.
It went:
Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum
- too loud to hear anything else, though we knew from the open mouths of the dancers pressed close on the floor that they were shouting, screaming, talking, flirting, with all these inaudible things lost behind the relentless heartbeat of the bass. Lost too, any lyrics or other rhythms and beats; there was just