The Neon Court (21 page)

“Um … it’s ah … it’s a … um …”

A voice, ringing with authority and excellent vowels, burst out of the darkness: “Are you the midnight appointment?”

Penny’s fingers tightened around my arm a little too hard. “Matthew,” she whispered, “I’m freaked again.”

“Yes, that’s us,” came Dees’ calm reply, “thank you so much for agreeing to see us …”

“You know this is very unorthodox,” snapped the female voice, which I could only guess belonged to the archivist. “I was supposed to be attending a lecture on the naval policy of the Ottoman Sultanate from Lepanto to Tzitva-Torok; this is all highly disruptive and of far too late a notice for me to give away my ticket. They tell me that it’s important but …”

“It’s very, very important,” said Dees. “And naturally we had to come to an expert for guidance …”

“Well, I suppose if you needed an expert,” came the huffy reply. “The phone call said something about darknesses and destruction.”

“Yes, exactly, yes …”

“Not exactly, no!” exclaimed the archivist. “If you put ‘darkness’ and
‘destruction’ into the library search engine, even within just this department, do you know how many hits you get?”

“Um …?”

“Twenty-one thousand three hundred and forty-three! Even if you put in ‘darkness’ and ‘destruction’ and ‘damnation’ you’re still returning over fifteen thousand hits – you have to be specific, do you see? Knowing exactly what you’re looking for even when you don’t know what it is is the key to academic success!”

“If I may …” Dees came in, “… now we’re here, perhaps we could refine our enquiry?”

“Well do, do!”

“In that case … we’re looking for any information that might allow us to relate any of the following: a chosen one, a case of possession whose symptoms manifest in bleeding eyes followed by blindness and brain death; also, the lights going out across the city, and the sun failing to rise.”

“I’m not even going to bother with this ‘chosen one’ business,” was the prim reply. “Find me an appropriate footnote to reference and perhaps we can look into it, but otherwise it’ll only stall the system. What were the others? Sun failing to rise I can probably get you something on, and as for possession … very tricky to narrow down without some more specifics. Would you like to come with me, Ms …?”

“Dees. Leslie Dees.”

“And your friends …?”

“This is Ms Ngwenya, apprentice sorceress, and her teacher, Mr Swift, sorcerer.”

“Hi,” said Penny weakly.

“Hi,” I added feebly.

“Yes yes yes,” sighed the archivist. “Ms Dees … ?”

I heard footsteps on tile, fading into the distance.

I hissed at Penny, “You’re hurting my arm!”

“Sorry.” Her fingers relaxed a little.

“Now will you tell me what the hell is going on?” I whispered.

“Um … well, we’re in this library thing …”

“I got that much.”

“Yeah, but it’s like a fucking
huge
fucking library. There’s these walls made of glass, right, and there’s books behind them on all the shelves,
right, but there’s also these lifts right, inside the glass? Like those waiter lifts you see in those old films? Only they’re carrying books and there’s hundreds of them, I mean like
hundreds
of them, all the time, carrying books and bits of paper and folders and boxes and stuff and they’re moving around us, up and down, I can’t see where they go or where they come from, but they don’t look like they’re ever going to stop. And there’s this desk in the middle of the room with an old PC on it and this archivist lady who’s … like … totally weird.”

“Define ‘totally weird’.”

“Um … well, she’s like got straight grey hair in a bob, and these eyes the size of tennis balls …”

“You being metaphorical?”

“Nope. These huge grey eyes in this kinda old stretchy grey face, and she’s wearing these big round reading glasses that are like something NASA might’ve made and she’s got this cream-coloured shirt with like the frills on the collar and sleeves and little sensible green shoes and ankles like sticks and six fingers on each hand, only her fingers aren’t grey, they’re black. Like they’re stained with ink, you see? And you can like see the veins on her neck because she’s old and they stand out, and you can see the blood moving in them, and it’s like … black too. Like she’s got ink for blood or something. I don’t think she likes us very much.”

“Nonsense!” I said with false cheerfulness. “We’ve got charm!”

“You haven’t,” she replied sourly. “You’ve got bloodstains and dirt.”

“Is there anywhere to sit?”

“Um … no.”

“Anything to drink?”

“No.”

“Anything to eat?”

“Still no.”

I scowled. “Right. If I just lie down and nap for a minute on this floor, do you suppose it’ll undermine my gravitas and dignity?”

“Your what?”

“My gravitas and …”

“I heard what you said,” she replied.

“Some apprentice,” I scowled, and engineered myself down onto the floor. It was cold beneath my fingers, and cold through my clothes, but
my bones were weary and enough of me was bruised and burnt that the cold was something of a relief. I stretched out on my back, hands folded across my belly, head turned upwards, and contemplated nothing.

After a while Penny’s voice, far overhead, said, “So … I’ll just stand here, right?”

“You could take this opportunity to ponder the great mystical wealth of knowledge that is all around you.”

“Why don’t you ponder it for me?”

“Don’t need to,” I replied. “I’m the qualified sorcerer, you’re the apprentice.”

“God, I can’t wait to graduate,” she groaned. “Hey – there a time period on that, by the by?”

“Usually there’ll come a point when it’s pretty damn obvious that there’s nothing left for me to tell you, at which there’s a fine and noble tradition of the apprentice buying the teacher a Chinese takeaway and a bottle of champagne.”

“You’re making that bit up.”

“Traditions have to begin somewhere. I mean, don’t let your imagination be limited just to a Chinese takeaway …”

“I’m not listening to you any more.”

“Well, that’s all part of the learning experience too, I guess …”

There was a movement beside me. It took a while to work out that it was the sound of Penny lying down. Silence. Then, “You should see the ceiling.”

“Should I?”

“Oh yeah. They’ve gone and painted it up, words, thousands and thousands of words all across the ceiling.”

“What do they say?”

“Nothing. I mean, everything … but nothing that has a meaning if you try to string it together.”

“Sounds suspiciously like art to me,” I said.

“It’s not. It’s alive.”

“What?”

“The words; they’re alive. It’s a sky made out of words, big and bright and brilliant and alive.”

“We’re talking metaphorically?”

“Uh-uh. Magic and shit, innit?”

I let out a breath that, for once, wasn’t a sigh. “Yeah,” I said. “Magic and shit.”

We lay still for a very long time.

I felt the dusty drifting of my eyes, the slow warmth of sleep beginning to creep through me. How long since I’d slept properly? Not since the fire in the tower block; not even properly then, just a disturbed doze on the floor at the foot of Oda’s bed. She’d said “kill me” and she’d said “save me” and we’d chosen the wrong option for the right reasons. Catch us doing that again.

I must have been on the edge of sleep, because when Penny hissed “Mind,” her finger prodding my side, I jerked awake like I’d been stung by a bee. “They’re coming back.”

I didn’t bother to move, but waited until the two sets of footsteps that I guessed had to be the archivist’s and Dees’ grew loud and stopped. “Hi,” I said in the calm. “Anything shiny?”

There was a long, embarrassed silence. Then Dees said, “The sun not coming up – you’re absolutely sure about that part?”

“Yep.”

Another long silence. Then, “You’re not going to like this.”

“Wow, because I was expecting good news,” I sighed.

“There’s a passage in the prophetic works of Alfred Khan …”

“Hit me.”

“It goes …” I heard the unfolding of paper. Dees cleared her throat self-consciously and began to read in the wrong accent and with the wrong inflection, “‘So yeah dude there’ll be like this major shit you know what I’m saying man and it’ll be like the sun is totally not rising ‘cause that’ll be what’s fucking happening you know and shit that’s some strong stuff so yeah the sun not rising because the girl with the bleeding eyes is walking the earth but yo! Man! No sweat right ‘cause it has happened before you get where I’m coming from and it’ll happen again and you just gotta ask the dust. Dust to dust dude. Breathe deep if you wanna see that heaven burn again. I gotta get me a paracetamol, shit.’” The paper was duly folded up again. Silence.

Then Penny said, “That’s a prophecy?”

“Alfred Khan,” replied Dees, “was one of the most gifted seers of our age.”

“And stoned,” I added, raising one limp instructive hand. “Let’s not forget that part. Well, I don’t know about everyone else, but I feel hugely informed.”

“There is more …” began Dees uneasily. “A footnote to Khan’s prophecy.”

“I’m all ears.”

“It says ‘see Bakker, R., 89183, shelf B18; also Blackout, 21631’.”

“Meaning?”

The archivist’s voice came in, high and sharp. “It’s a reference to two different sources. The first is … a special archive … the second is a document which I have already ordered and should be on its way as we speak from lower storage.”

“What do you mean ‘special archive’?” I asked, voice dripping suspicion.

“Mr Mayor, do you really feel that this is a conversation to be carried out while you’re lying on the floor?” asked Dees.

“Yep. This is where I’m most comfortable, therefore most easily able to think, therefore where I intend to be,” I replied with the relentless merriment of the drunkard at the wake. “What special archive?”

“The British Library recently received sponsorship to open up an archive of … of extra-media storage material …”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning …” There was a knock on the door. Dees couldn’t keep the relief out of her voice. “To be continued!”

I sat up grumpily, reached out for Penny’s arm, hauled myself up by her support. “Why does no one tell me what’s going on?” I barked at the stretching pause. “Come on!”

“A moment, Mr Mayor, a moment please,” sang out Dees nervously from the door. I heard the low murmur of archivist and Alderman in conversation, punctuated by the occasional louder hiss of “That’s entirely an interpretation …”

“You regret not going to university and stuff?” I asked Penny quietly as the two argued in a corner.

She thought about it. Then, “Dunno. Kinda like asking if I’m sorry I wasn’t born a bloke. Having never had a willy, I can’t exactly say if I miss one. Although, thinking about it, that’s probably not kinda the same, since it’s obvious that having a …”

“And already I’m regretting asking,” I sighed. Then raising my voice, “Dees! Quit gabbling in a corner and tell me what the hell is happening!”

A lull. Then footsteps approaching. A polite cough. “Um … Mr Mayor. We need a little more time …”

“What have you found?”

“There are some items which might suggest … might suggest that this business with Oda is indeed more serious than perhaps an initial assessment …”

“How serious?”

“Serious enough, Mr Mayor, that we would wish to make no mistakes in handling it.”

“In other words you’re not going to tell me.”

“Not yet, Mr Mayor, not yet …”

“Right! Penny?”

“Yes?” come the worried voice by my left shoulder.

“Help me out of this place, will you?”

“Um … sure. Where we going?”

“Just a little walk.”

“Mr Mayor,” began Dees uneasily as Penny guided me towards the door, “I hardly think this is a good time for you to be going off on …”

“Just a little walk,” I replied. “No more, no less! I’ll be back before you can say ‘whoops where’s the sun gone?’ OK? Good! Bye!”

I stormed out as quickly as I dared, Penny guiding me as we went.

Dees made no attempt to follow.

Some few minutes later, we stood in the rain.

It was thickening, a proper London-night downfall, tumbling water trying to see if it could dent the pavement.

Penny said, “You know, I don’t like Dees much either, but she may have a point …” I fumbled for the bandages around my eyes. “Hey hey hey! Whatcha doing?”

“Seeing if I can see,” I replied.

Her hand fell on mine, pulling it back. “Hey,” she declared, “Dr Seah said to give it five to six hours.”

“Hasn’t it been five to six hours?”

“Getting there, but you really want to risk getting it wrong?”

“I need to see!” I shouted at the sky and the darkness. “Enough already of this silly-buggers crap, I need to see!”

“Sure, you’ll be able to do the mystic protector crap better if you’re permanently squinting!”

“We will not be trapped in a cripple’s flesh!” we snarled, snatching our hand free of hers and turning away. Before she could speak, we grabbed the bandages around our eyes and pulled them with more than just human strength, the fabric tearing with a long pained sound. We pulled cotton wool free from our eyes and found, as the pressure relaxed, that we hesitated. I rolled the torn bandage up around the cotton pads, and, taking it a glimpse at a time, opened first one, then the other eye.

The world outside was so bright it hurt: a hot sharpness burnt straight through to the back of the eyeball. At first we couldn’t look, had to turn our face away and try looking with just one, then the other eye, as slowly our crude mortal organs adjusted to the light. It was nothing, this light: the bright pinkish glow of a street lamp, and yet it burnt. When at last we could risk opening both our eyes at once, we turned our head up towards the light and its edges were distorted, the features of it oddly blurred. I pressed my palms over my eyes a few times, then took them away.

“You OK?” asked Penny nervously.

I half-turned to look at her. Skin the colour of water-soaked dark wood, eyes slightly too small in proportion to her ears. Today her black frizzy hair was being worn like a lion’s mane, a vast halo of crinkly dull darkness sticking up from every possible angle as if, freed from its traditional tightly bound style, it had overreacted to the wonders of the universe. She wore a bright silver plastic-leather jacket, a green T-shirt that hung loosely around her shoulders, a pair of too-tight blue jeans, and tight high-heeled black boots that stopped just below the knee and were the nightmare of every street maintenance officer in every local council in the city. We said, “You are beautiful.”