An impassable barrier, to something without a ticket.
Pretty much.
I suppose that is clever, she admitted. In an obscene way.
Its sorcery, I replied with a shrug. All that sorcery is, is a point of view.
Her eyes flashed up to me, and held, and for a second there was a fire in them that scared me. Sorcery, she said quietly, makes men into gods, and men were not meant to be such creatures.
Youre
not what people call
nice
, are you, Oda?
There is a distinction between being nice and being righteous, she replied primly.
I groaned and slumped back into the tattered embrace of the seats as the bus turned onto Tottenham Court Road.
University College Hospital was new, clean, busy, bright and smelt of disinfectant. The floors and walls were so bright and white they almost hurt, the glass in every window an odd, reflective bottle-green, the potted plants were cheerful plastic in full bloom, the seats padded and pale, the uniforms of the night staff bright blue. Outside the Accident and Emergency entrance was parked a very large, black motorbike.
We didnt look out of place in A and E: two bedraggled figures stained with blood, staggering in from the street. The receptionist took one look and promptly assured me that a doctor would see to me soon. We didnt ask where Sinclair was as two bloody people, looking for a gunshot victim didnt seem the best way to go about matters. Instead we followed signs on the wall up through the hospital, endless identical-looking corridors of gleaming white and strip lighting, tried intensive care, found no one, and eventually made our way towards the operating theatres.
We found the motorbiker sitting on a bench with a can of Red Bull open in one meaty hand, outside Operating Theatre 3. He grunted as we approached and said, You took your time.
Were you followed? asked Oda sharply.
You dont follow me, he replied in a voice that left no room for argument. Then with a sudden flash of a smile, But youd be welcome to try, lady. Oda rolled her eyes.
There were no windows or other way of seeing into the operating room, so I sat down on the bench opposite him, every muscle exhausted, every nerve throbbing in reproach, and said, What do they think?
Oh, you know. Police must be called, immense internal damage, may not make it through the night, miracle he got so far, dont understand whats keeping him alive will do everything they can so on and so forth yadder yadder yadder, you get the drift? There was an alert gleam in the corner of the motorbikers eye. You get trouble?
A little.
Come out OK?
Yes.
Good. Well, shit, now youre here, I dont know about you but I think we should consider buggering off.
What about Sinclair? asked Oda quickly.
The biker burped. He lives, he dies, we cant change it, OK? But the police are coming. And I dont want to deal with the police, do you?
Youll leave him to die?
Christ, woman, I signed him in under a false name and like I said, the police will be here soon. If the guy pulls through, hell be safe enough.
Oda glanced at me, eyebrows raised. I said, Well only bring him more danger.
I dont believe that, she replied.
Then we will only suffer more inconvenience if we stay, I corrected, is that better?
She gave a snort in reply, but didnt disagree. The biker stood up in a single quick movement, slapping his thighs cheerfully as he did and tossing the empty can of drink with perfect aim into the recycling bin by the vending machine. Right! Lets bugger off out of here before the shit really hits the fan.
The biker lived, for want of a better description, in a garage, in a scrapyard. If that wasnt bad enough, it was in Willesden.
Willesden, to most of the population of London, is a place that you pass through on your way to somewhere better. It is a composite, an area whose character is defined by the places around it by the leafy streets of Hampstead to the east, by the broad avenues of Maida Vale to the south, by the squat, semi-detached homes of Wembley to the north, and by that strange, indefinable area sprawling out, along streets with still-young trees that aspire one day to be great oaks, from the boundary on Willesdens western edge where city becomes suburb, and stays that way for nearly fifteen miles beyond. London, indeed, can be defined as one big suburb spread around a relatively small core, and at Willesden, every aspect of this suburbia seemed to combine into a mishmash of scrapyards, railway junctions, neat terraced homes, semidetached bungalows, tall terraced houses, giant supermarkets, strange ethnic greengrocers, synagogues, mosques and Hindu temples galore, all pressed together like they didnt quite know how theyd got there in the first place.
The bikers shed, for there wasnt a kinder way to describe the cobbled sheets of corrugated iron that enclosed his home, was near an old canal, a remnant of a more industrial past, opposite a field of dead cars and mechanised hands for crushing them. The walls of his home were hung with tools, jackets, salvaged spare parts from bikes and cars, and pictures of bikes, reminding me of a cross between a garage and a teenagers bedroom. There were no overt symbols of a mystical nature anywhere to be seen. But as he stoked the small iron stove in a corner and kicked a small electricity generator until the lights stopped flaring up and down and settled for a dull consistent glow, I tasted a certain unique spice on the air, like a flash across the senses, seen and instantly gone. I could only guess at its nature since whenever I tried to catch the sensation again, it was as elusive as a bar of wet soap slipping from my fingers.
The biker gestured at a couch covered with old, stained blankets and said, Want coffee?
No, replied Oda, not bothering to sit.
Yes, I said, slumping across the couch with the sudden, absolute certainty that coffee was the thing around which every ambition in my life revolved.
Want to talk about what happened?
Yes, said Oda.
No, I replied.
Shit, well, I guess Ill just make the running, he said, putting an old iron kettle on top of the stove. Any of you two think we were sold out?
Yes, said Oda.
Perhaps, I whimpered, pressing my hands against my temples with the effort of staying awake.
Want to guess whether theyll come after us again? added the biker, cheerfully spooning a large heap of instant caffeine into a chipped brown mug.
If they are smart, said Oda calmly.
Perhaps, I added.
The creature what you call Hunger said he would come after you, Matthew Swift, she pointed out, without any sign of concern.
You had to remind me, I groaned.
What creature is this? asked the biker casually.
Just a shadow.
It knew the sorcerer, she corrected. Called him by his name.
Ill handle it, I said.
You sure of that?
Its what Im here for.
Fair enough, muttered the biker, as the kettle started to spout hot steam. So what do you want to do about this shit?
I am here to destroy Bakker, said Oda flatly, folding her arms. This changes nothing.
Youll get no complaints from me on that one. Question is how do you want to do this? Were not doing a great job right now.
Oda produced the bundle of blood-smeared documents and spread them across the rough metal floor of the shed. We have what we need, here, she said.
I rolled over on the couch to see more clearly.
Everything we need to destroy the Tower, to stop Bakker from whatever he plans, to rein in his power, to destroy his evil, she added, and the way she said it was more frightening than any shadow, it made my nerves itch, is here. I am not without my friends, or my resources.
Me neither, murmured the biker, passing a mug of coffee in my direction, though his eyes were fixed on the documents.
I picked up a picture from the pile of papers on the floor and studied it. The pale, fine features were familiar to me indeed, I could give them a name. San Khay, Bakkers right-hand man.
I took the picture, folded it and, very carefully, slipped it into my bag.
Part 1: The Hunting of San Khay
In which the beginning of a plan unfolds, revenge is plotted, and a lot of rats decide to congregate.
At dawn, we parted company. Oda went where, she would not say and the bikers only contribution was that he was going to hit the road for a while. We agreed a time and a place to meet again, and I, with the sum effect of Sinclairs research on the Tower in my bag, went to find a safe place to sleep, and read, and think.
When the first shops opened at 8.30 a.m., I bought myself a heavy-duty box of plasters to cover the cut on my left hand, a new shirt to replace the bloody remnants of my current one, and a packet of aspirin, just in case. At 9.30 a.m. I checked myself into a small but friendly enough hotel off the Cromwell Road, in that strange, transient part of town where the mansions of the rich compete with the squalor of endless bed-and-breakfasts and their constantly migrating population. In the tiny, windowless space next to my room, I had a bath. The experience was bliss, a sudden sinking into warmth and contentment that we had not imagined possible, a moment when our fears and senses began to relax, letting go of the nights tension which, we realised, had clenched every muscle to the edge of rupture. We lowered our head underwater and stayed there until we thought we would burst, lungs burning, and emerged again with a sense of being more alive and powerful than ever before, risking death and coming away unharmed, clean, safe. Blood and dirt turned the water pinkish-grey as it floated off our skin like mist rising in the morning sun. We then wrapped ourself in towels and stood behind the net curtain in the window to watch the bright morning light cast the shadows of the trees across the street below, and felt, at last, content.
Clean and dry, I bandaged my cut hand, brushed my hair with my fingers, having forgotten to buy a comb, and examined myself in the cracked mirror above the sink. In my new shirt and stolen trousers, I looked almost dignified. An almost perfect resurrection, then, just like wed thought, just like wed hoped at least physically.
My eyes were still too blue. I leant in close to the bathroom mirror and saw that the iris was tinted, as human eyes should be, with flecks of other colour, a hint of brown, a suggestion of green, a darker rim. But the overall prevalence was the colour of a summer sky. It didnt particularly suit me, and gave a disconcerting albino appearance; but I supposed, like a new haircut or a shave after a week of neglect, I would grow used to my current appearance, and forget the old. I considered being frightened, curling up at the base of my bed and whimpering in fear at what consequence this change in my appearance might bring. The mood wasnt on us, so I didnt.
I felt less than confident about painting a ward onto the door of the hotel room, so settled for a compromise and, with a biro, drew a swift protective symbol onto five pieces of hotel-headed notepad paper and left each sheet around the bed in a vague semicircle as the closest I could come to a magical defence without causing criminal damage. Then I lay down and slept. This time, we did not try to resist, and could not remember our dreams.
I woke in the mid-afternoon. Sitting on the floor at the foot of my bed, I spread out the bloodstained remnants of Sinclairs documents in front of me.
I did not care why Sinclair really wanted Bakker dead. I did not care particularly why the rest of them were involved, although I suspected Odas reasons went beyond mere personal motives and into a more dangerous realm. We chose not to be concerned with this now, however, until we knew if it threatened our own interests.
What did I want?
What did we want?
I wanted
I wanted
come be we
to find and
we be fire, we be light
stop
we dance electric flame
hello Matthews fire!
stop
we want
stop NOW.
Done?
Good.
I wanted to kill Hunger.
If that meant ploughing through more mortal creatures on the way, then so be it.
I wanted to kill the shadow.
We found it ugly, and dangerous.
I picked up Bakkers photo and studied the face. There was a bloody fingerprint, probably Sinclairs, in the top corner. If you aged the face, gave it a tropical disease, starved it of food and drink, took the fire out of its eyes and the smile away from its lips, if you looked at it with all that in mind, just out of the corner of your vision, then Bakkers face could just, perhaps, be fitted onto another creatures shoulders. For that alone, I suspected Bakker might have to die.
However, these things were easier said than done. And revenge, we decided, should be more than about dying.
I turned my attention to San Khay.
An impression of the daily life and routine of San Khay.
At 6.30 a.m. his alarm goes in his penthouse flat on the river by Victoria. If he has had romance the night before, he does not wake his sleeping partner, but walks across his white-carpeted floor to the bathroom, a thing all of mirrors and silver taps, so that, standing at any point in the room, he can see his own reflection, muscles and polished almond skin, reflected back at him. The tattoos that cover his entire body are done in deep black ink, and every six months he returns to a very special tattooist in Hong Kong, to make sure that any faded areas, around his buttocks or across his chest where they may have experienced strain, are kept up in full, ebony-coloured glory. The swirls of ink crawl around his ankles and across his toes, run round the back of his knees, spiral up his hips, curl lovingly around his belly button, sinking inside like some sort of strange root burrowing into earth, lash themselves across his back and chest, bend luxuriously down his arms and, at the wrist and neck, just below the collar line, fade gently, into nothing.
