slid past. It was like being inside a lava lamp. The light intensified and my eyes jerked open. “T-t-t-t-t….” My teeth were chattering, though I had no sensation of cold.
I could hear people moving, but I couldn’t focus. I could see vague shapes swimming in and out of my field of vision; the light burned into the back of my brain, but now my eyes were open I couldn’t close them. Someone was using a mobile phone, calling an ambulance.
“He’s lying on the floor,” he said, and then after a pause, “No, not as far as I can see.”
It felt like my arms and legs were quivering as sensation returned. I managed to twitch my arm over my eyes in a rag-doll spasm, shielding them from the intense light.
“Are you all right?” said the second voice.
I swallowed, and managed to roll over onto my side. As soon as I did, I puked noisily onto the pavement, my stomach cramping and my knees jerking upwards with the effort of chucking everything up. It was some minutes before I could hear anything other than the sound of my own retching.
“Here, I have a tissue somewhere,” said the voice.
A middle-aged lady squatted down beside me and fished into her handbag, pulling out a small pack of tissues. “Can you breathe now?”
I nodded, accepting the tissue and wiping my mouth. It was coming back to me now. I’d been next to the gates. The van had driven straight through them, flinging the gates into me and knocking me flying. Raffmir had been the passenger in the van.
“Give me a hand,” I asked hoarsely.
“I think you should wait,” said the lady. “There’s an ambulance on its way. They won’t be long.”
“I have to get after them,” I said.
“Who? The van? They’re long gone – nothing you can do about it. Just you rest there.”
I pushed myself up onto my elbow. Now that sensation was returning I could feel the bruising down my face, chest, arms, thighs… I was going to be a patchwork of black and blue.
“Get me up,” I said to the lady.
“I don’t think you’re in any position to–” said the lady.
“I said, get me up,” I growled. Something in my tone must have overridden her concern because she offered her hand and I half-crawled and half-staggered to my feet.
“Have to think…” I said, mostly to myself.
“You’re in shock,” she said. “It takes some people like this. You need to sit down and have a nice cup of tea.”
“A cup of tea… not what I need right now,” I said. “Which way did the van go?” I looked up and down the street. She was right. They were in a vehicle, with the safe. I was on foot, and I had no idea where they were going.
In my head I could hear a voice echoing hers. You are in shock. You don’t know what you’re doing.
I knew one thing, though. I couldn’t afford to be around when the ambulance arrived. I staggered away from her, into the street. A taxi swept by, horn blaring. I had a brief impression of the face in the cab, a fist raised.
“Where are you going?” the woman called after me.
I lurched into an unsteady jog, weaving towards the big stone church across the paving. Veering around, I could see I was leaving a line of red spots on the pale paving. I was bleeding from somewhere – I held out my arms to see where it was coming from, whirling around wildly, leaving a trail of bloodspots. It was like they were following me around. I wrapped my glamour around me in a vague attempt to disguise my path, knowing that the trail of blood-spots would give me away regardless. I wanted to turn people away, to get them to ignore me, but I was incapable of such subtlety. Instead I slammed together a ward of Leave me alone! and hoped for the best. Crashing open the doors into the church, I collided with an old man in the entrance porch. I barged him aside, taking the steps down to the crypt in ones and twos. I could hear the commotion behind me.
The crypt of the church of St Clement’s Dane is not a great place to hide, but there is a Way-node there. That much I remembered. I stumbled onto it, feeling it rise up under me, and it swept me away from the sounds of pursuit and unwelcome attention. The Ways welcomed me, lifting me