The Neon Court (27 page)

“Lord be praised and hallelujah for that!”

“Also … it is da
other
prophecy.”

“Come again?”

He sighed, and looked almost embarrassed. “Der r 2 prophecies bout da chosen 1, not 1. O’rourke made da first prophecy, da 1 we al wanted 2 hear, da 1 in wich da court is destroyed n we live. But der is another prophecy, mad by 1 of da shamans of da tribe in manchester.”

“The Tribe has branches in Manchester?” I echoed flatly. “Hell, of course you do. What’s this other prophecy say?”

“Says darkness. says dat der wil b nothin but darkness, endless night, if we seek dis chosen 1.”

“Something in that.”

“Da others dont wana hear it. we want 2 fight, we want 2 go to war wiv da court, n da others say dat da seer in manchester is old n dont kno her stuff any more. but i’ve looked, i’ve seen. da sun isnt risin, is it?”

“Nah. It isn’t.”

“U’ve seen 2?”

“Yeah.”

“N … cockfosters has vanished.”

“Yeah it’s … it’s what?” My voice rose to near a shriek. He shied back again, as if alarmed I might grab him. “Cockfosters has what?”

“U avent seen?”

“Haven’t seen what?”

“Da tube map! cockfosters, high barnet, amersham – dey’r al gon. al da outer stations on da tube map r just … gon. lik they weren’t never der. n i say dis n people dont think dey wer ever der.”

“They were bloody there, I got pissed dressed as a dwarf on a stag night in Barnet!” I was on the verge of shouting; Toxik waved me urgently to silence.

“Dey think it is madnes.”

“Too bloody right it’s madness, how long has this bloody been happening and why hasn’t someone told me?”

“People dont kno. like dey dont kno the sun isnt risin, like dey cant c. n it all hapened after sidcup. watever happened in dat tower, sinc den nothin but bad has com.”

I thought of Oda and her bloody eyes.

“You think it’s connected to this chosen one?”

“Has 2 b.”

“What do you know about her? Do you have a name? A picture? A postcode?”

“A name. O’rourke gav us a name.”

“That’s something. What is it?”

“JG.”

“JG?” I echoed. “What kind of a rubbish name is that?”

“He said her name woz JG n she woz the chosen one. n den we got da call telin us 2 go 2 da tower in sidcup n …”

“‘JG woz ere’,” I murmured.

His eye flashed, head angling up towards me. “Wat?”

“Um … graffiti. Written inside the tower. I saw … well, it was there.”

He nodded slowly, drew another puff on his cigarette, held it up carelessly in the falling rain. Then, “I thougt da fire destroyed da whole place.”

“Thorough, remember?”

He smiled, but said nothing. We turned another corner, began lap two of our tour of the docks. “So,” he said finally, “wat u goin 2 do now?”

I shrugged. “Don’t really know.”

“U cam al dis way n dont kno?”

“My plan was to try and convince you lot to not kill each other for a while, and get more information about this chosen one. Is that really all you’ve got? A name? JG?”

“We kno she woz in the tower when it burnt, n we kno her body werent found when it stoped. we think dat lady neon has her but if u arent so sure den wat we gonna do?”

I tried to huddle deeper into my coat, and found it had no depths left to plumb. “What if there’s something else happening here?” I asked finally. “A third party, some other bugger mixed up in this?”

“Lik who?”

“I don’t know. Someone who wants war, someone who’s playing silly buggers with the Court and Tribe both.” Then, “You heard of the Order?”

“Nah.”

“Bunch of religious nutters, fanatics, out to destroy magicians and all their works.”

He shrugged. “Bit midle ages innit? y u think dem involved?”

“Maybe?”

“U kno dat thin u said bout duplicity n how we shuld b past it?” he asked with a crooked grin. “I likd dat.”

I looked down at my boots, and smiled. “Yeah. Ignoring the casual violence, it’s all gone OK. Can I trust you?”

“I trusted u, yeh?”

I sighed, wiped rainwater off the end of my nose, tasted blood on the inside of my mouth. “I know there’s more going on here than just the Court and the Tribe. I don’t know what – yet. But there’s definitely other people mixed up in it, and this whole … endless night, Cockfosters vanishing business … isn’t necessarily about this chosen one at all.” A thought hit me, late and hard. “Unless, that is, your chosen one walks around with pudding for eyes?”

“O’rourke …”

“Didn’t specify?” I asked with a sigh. “You astound me. You know, I met O’Rourke? Seemed kinda like an arse.”

“Seers r rare now dat most of dem r dead.”

“Just saying, a hole in the market doesn’t necessarily attract top-quality service providers, you know? Look – if I can find this chosen one
ducky, and if I can square things up with you, her, and the Court, can we put off this whole war business?”

“Da others wanna fight,” he replied, sadness tinging his voice. “We r proud 2 b difrent, but we jus end up da same. angry n violent, hatin every1 cos dey hate us til we cant remember who did da hatin 1st.”

“You don’t strike me as particularly angry and violent.”

He shrugged. “Im old enogh now 2 want somethin more dan da thins i believed in wen a kid.”

“What kind of things?”

He sucked in air thoughtfully between his crooked yellow teeth. “I think … free prescriptions on da nhs, posture-corectin matres 2 sleep on, holidays by da seaside, n central heatin.” He saw my face. “Dont tell no 1. i havent got no 1 if i havent got da tribe.”

“Your secret is safe with me. So how about not having that raging war?”

“I dont av dat much power dese days. kidz jus wanna fight. kidz jus wanna scream but dont av no way 2 do it cept in da dark.”

“You’ll try, though?”

He scratched his chin carelessly, white skin dragging and flaking beneath his metallic nails. “Ill try but dont make promises.”

“Fair enough.” I pulled off my coat, twisted it over my arm, passed it to him. “Thanks for the loan.” He took it with a shrug, tossed it carelessly against the wall. I held out my hand. He hesitated, then shook it. His skin was cold and clammy, his grip made of wrenches and steel. I tried not to shake the blood discreetly back into my fingers when he released it; then grinned, and turned to walk away.

He said, “Swift?”

I stopped, looked back. “Yeah?”

“If u find her – da chosen 1 – if u find her n she isnt wiv da court, u better bring her ere.”

“I had?”

“Yeh.”

“Why?”

He fumbled another cigarette free from his pack, stuck it between his lips. It waggled as he spoke. “Cos if u dont, da tribe wil think u r on da courts side n kill u, n kill da chosen 1, rather den let lady neon av her. jus sayin. jus so u kno.”

I grinned, all weakness and teeth. “Thanks for the warning.”

He shrugged, and lit the cigarette.

“Hey, Toxik?” I half turned, looking back at him, face lit faint orange in the dark. “This war, this thing you have with the Court? As Midnight Mayor, I’ve gotta tell you – it’s a wanky piece of piss. The city is much, much bigger than what you two have going on tonight. You kill Lady Neon or she kills you, at the end of the day, when all the cards are counted and the chips are laid across the table, no one will really care.”

There was a flicker of something in his carved-up features that might have been sadness. “Is al we av,” he replied softly. “Is al we r.”

I found Penny some four hundred yards away from the metal warehouse of the Tribe, curled up on a pile of tyres, hard hat pulled down over her face, huddled beneath the overhang of an abandoned lorry-loading dock. Her eyes were shut, her lips parted, her breathing long and slow: fast asleep.

I knelt down next to her and unhitched my bag from her shoulder. She stirred, head lolling as if it was trying to rise, before gravity and fatigue pulled it back down. I fumbled open my bag and pulled out my mobile.

There were three missed calls on it, all from Dees.

I dialled.

She answered almost instantly. “Mr Mayor?” Her voice was low and urgent.

“Hi.”

“Where are you? Are you all right? You can’t just walk off like that …”

“I’m in Woolwich, I’m fine, and I can, thanks for asking.”

There was a long slow huff as Dees got her anger under control, and when she spoke again, her voice was cool and level. “We need you to come back to the British Library as soon as possible.”

“OK – why?”

“This … matter of the sun not rising. There may be more to it than I initially thought.”

“And?” I prompted.

“And?” she echoed. “And what?”

“And, this is where you say, ‘Goodness, Mr Mayor, there may be more …’”

“Oh, yes, of course,” she said, as realisation dawned. “Yes, sorry, Mr Mayor, you were right, and the collective wisdom of the entire city and all its extensive training and wisdom was, just this once, wrong, and I’m very sorry that reason has failed, and you have prevailed and I will try to doubt you with more politeness and, I trust, a wiser soul from here on in.” A pause. “That is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

I sighed. “I’m on my way.”

Waking Penny was a necessary guilt.

Finding a working Underground station was a struggle.

After two buses, we found our way to Bromley-by-Bow, a District Line station whose main function seemed to be servicing the Blackwall Tunnel flyover and a recycling centre. The gates were open, the blue-uniformed men and women at their posts. Their eyes were bloodshot, their faces addled. The sun was failing to rise, and humanity, with its finely tuned body clock, was beginning to pay the price.

We sat on the train as it ran west, clunking through stations of dirty ceramic tiling and general suburban neglect. Penny said, “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Falling asleep. Should’ve been … you know … butt-kicking and shit.”

“It’s fine. We’re all tired.”

“You’ve got this kinda fist-sized red mark …”

“ To quote classic American foreign policy – stuff happens. It’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

She sighed, shrinking down further into the criss-cross-patterned seat of browns and blacks. Her eyes began to drift closed again. I pinched myself to stop my own eyes following her course, focused on sitting upright, on staying alert. On the row of seats opposite us sat a mother, her face ash grey, her hair unbrushed, holding a briefcase in one hand and a child in the other. The child looked about five and was wearing a scruffy blue uniform. The child said, “I wanna go home.”

The mother said nothing.

“I wanna go home I wanna go home I wanna go home! Mummy!”

She didn’t even look down, but stared blankly into nothing. The
newspaper on the seat of the train was the same newspaper I had read on the ride back from Heathrow, the same headlines, the same trivia, only more scuffed than before. Penny’s head bumped against my shoulder. I thought about chosen ones, about prophecies and all that they entailed. I had never known any good come of either.

On the concrete walls of Mile End, some wit had written:

WAITING FOR YOU

Someone else had replied, equally witty;

at the end of the alley

Next to them was a giant ad demonstrating the extraordinary abs a guy could get from wearing Marks & Spencer underwear. I wanted breakfast, and thought I could smell Fat Rat in the tunnels, hear footsteps in the clunking of the engine.

We tried changing trains at Monument, and were told that, due to vital and ongoing refurbishment, such a thing was impossible. We got out and walked the few hundred yards between Monument and Bank stations overground, while I seethed and wondered how much extra this little wander would make the ticket to Euston cost.

The Northern Line carried us duly north, to the minor maze that was Euston station, a trap of escalators and signs to this line that way, but not that line this. There were rumours of clever sorcerers who’d learnt to bend the rules of space and time in Euston station, make minutes pass in hours, hours pass in days. Sometimes, so the rumours went, you could see a reflection in the curved mirror on the corner of the stairs, that had no body attached to it round the bend. I wasn’t sure if I believed it. Bank station seemed a far more likely time-bending location.

The main concourse of Euston, a dull flat white space inside a dull flat black rectangle of a building, was dominated by huge orange boards proclaiming what train was leaving next. I looked up. The train to Birmingham Snow Hill was cancelled; most of the rest were indefinitely delayed. I stopped by a map of the London Underground and examined it as Penny bought us a breakfast of sausage rolls and black coffee. It was a stunted multicoloured map of an arterial system starting to suffer from congestive failure. The usual ends of most lines had vanished, leaving just whiteness. Cockfosters, Amersham, Uxbridge, Upminster, Epping, Morden, even Heathrow had all been sliced off, as
if they had never been. Penny stood next to me, handed me a hot plastic cup of coffee and a bag containing nine parts grease to one part pastry and meat. I ate gratefully, and through a splattering of pastry shards said, “Notice anything odd?”

She stared long and hard at the Tube map. “Dunno,” she said finally. “Should I?”

“Cockfosters, Amersham, Uxbridge … ?”

Blank emptiness on her face.

“Heathrow?”

“I’ve heard of Heathrow!” she said. “It was that … that uh … that thing … that place where you went to … um … that other place … you know … uh …” Her voice trailed off. “Nah,” she said finally. “Sorry. Drawing a blank.”

“Airport?” I suggested.

“That’s the shit! Jesus! Mind not with it today.”

“You notice something else?” I asked, waving with my coffee towards the departures board.

“Uh … ?”

“None of the trains leaving London are actually leaving. Cancelled or indefinitely delayed. Strike you as odd?”

Her face furrowed with concern. “Uh … no?” We both lapsed into silence. Then she added, “Shit.”

“Hum?” I asked through a mouthful of sausage roll.

“‘No’s the wrong answer, innit?”