The Glass God (43 page)

“But,” she paused to slurp coffee as Sally, Gretel, Rhys, Kevin, Sammy and Mr Roding waited, watching her in the slow pale creep of dawn. “But you can’t just go around
making
a god. I mean, you need time, you need power, right? And where do you get that power from? I’m guessing it’s not enough to sacrifice a chicken or anything like that; you need something bigger. And they look around and they see Old Man Bone and they’re, like, ‘hey, this dude, he’s kinda like a god, and he gets fed on human lives and stuff, and wow! He’s got a magic blade, because that never goes wrong for anyone; let’s pinch it and use it for our stuff, there’s gonna be no consequences in pissing off an ancient god of the dead, yeah!’

“But they’ve got a few brain cells to rub together, because someone clearly says ‘whoa there, I’m not sure about stealing the blade of Old Man Bone, I’m thinking there might be some curses attached’, so they get this kid – B-Man – to pinch it for them. B-Man is one of the Tribe. He pinches the blade, and, sure enough, gets the Black Death for his trouble. But by the time the Tribe are sitting up noticing that one of their kids is growing black lumps under his arms, these glass-god guys have already got the rusted blade. But they’ve still got a problem, haven’t they? The rusted blade of Old Man Bone is still only good for feeding Old Man Bone, they can’t use it just like that to make their own god. They need a new one, something modelled on the basic principle of Old Man Bone’s blade, but crafted to their own purposes.

“So they go to the scylla sisters, who use the rusted blade as a template to make something new. A new, glass blade, something which mimics the effect of Old Man Bone’s magic but, obviously, without actually chilling out the dead guy. And they might have got away with it except, by now, other people are interested. Crompton’s noticed that he’s lost the blade, and he goes running to Swift. The Tribe have also noticed that B-Man’s got the Black Death and so when Swift turns up in the hospital trying to chat to the kid, the Tribe sit up and take note, because, let’s face it, where Swift goes, explosions usually follow and so it’s only sensible to pay attention to that sorta shit. And Miles said that B-Man died, but it wasn’t the plague that killed him, which kinda suggests that Brid and that crowd… did it. Killed him, to stop him talking to Swift.

“But that’s still not stopping Swift, and by now he’s noticed that there are shoes being thrown over high things but Old Man Bone is getting pissed. And he’s kinda dumb, but he’s still Midnight Mayor, and actually he’s got this special kinda dumb that really makes him a bit scary. So I figure that the glass-god crowd are all a bit ‘oh fuck’ and they decide they need to get rid of him.

“But here again, they’ve got a problem. Cos it’s all very well killing the Midnight Mayor, but even if you manage to get rid of the guy, the magic is still gonna linger on, it’s gonna get inherited by someone. And, bloody hell, I think we all don’t want that to happen because I’m not happy about this deputy Midnight Mayor stuff, and even if it doesn’t mean anything for my pay grade I’m seriously thinking you should have more qualifications for the job of Midnight Mayor other than ‘the other guy said so’. I mean, whatever happened to proper management techniques, it’s the twenty-first century, for Christ’s sake… but anyway. Yeah. Killing Swift isn’t really gonna hack it. But then they figure… he’s not just the Midnight Mayor, is he? He’s the blue electric angels, he’s got this mega affinity for the telephones; maybe they can use that to somehow… bind him? Like, to trap his mind while leaving his body harmless? Because that’s not death, not really, and it’d take out the Midnight Mayor without some other bugger taking over the job.

“So they send him an email. ‘Hey, we’ve found Crompton’s umbrella!’ they say, ‘come collect!’ I mean, they probably dress it up a bit, but based on what we found on Swift’s computer, that’s my best guess. And Swift, he’s dumb, but he’s not totally dumb, so even as he’s thinking ‘sure, I’d better check this out’, he’s chatting with Kelly and he’s all ‘if something happens to me, make Sharon my deputy’. Which, like I said, is majorly flattering but professionally seriously flawed. And then he trots off to Deptford and these guys try to bind and compel him or whatever and it goes wrong. Majorly, majorly wrong. I mean, it works in the sense that they do incapacitate the Midnight Mayor, if you count a rampaging blue electric angel with no restraining human consciousness as a victory. And I think we can say that the angels kill Brid, during the whole cock-up that was that bit of business, before they go totally off the rails and end up running to the next-nearest off-the-rails guys they can find – the Tribe. Which is obviously where we come in.”

Sharon paused to let out another sigh and take in another slurp of coffee. “So, like, most of what Rhys and me do is catch up with what Swift’s already done. Which is, I think, even more proof, like you needed it, that memos are good. But eventually we catch on to the whole scylla sisters thing and off we trot to World’s End and I’m guessing by now someone’s noticed that we’re getting close and…⁠” Her voice trailed off abruptly.

“Actually, I’m not totally sure about how someone worked out that we were getting close. I mean, I’ve got a few ideas, but it’s not really something I gave much thought to at the time, what with all the death and fuss and that. Anyway, point being, whoever’s behind the glass-god business clearly decide they need to tidy up their loose ends, so they kill the sisters and nearly kill Rhys, Miles and me, and that’s another thing, actually. Because when I last checked, people served their gods, not the other way round, but this glass dude who we met in Chelsea seemed to be totally on board with the other guys’ agenda, and I’m thinking it takes more than just a bit of prayer to do that.”

“‘A god’,” sniffed Sammy, his nasal hairs quivering with indignation at the notion. “In the old days all you needed, to be a god, was to be unexplained. The sun comes up and we dunno how? It’s a god! The moon waxes and wanes and it’s a goddess! Gods are always made up by people, to serve people; it’s what they do. Ain’t no such thing as a god… just an idea with a purpose, that’s all, and usually some bloody stupid bloody naïve purpose made up by people what ain’t got the brains to figure shit out for themselves.”

“If we are hypothesising,” offered Mr Roding, idly peeling a thin layer of translucent skin off the palm of his hand as he talked, “that the mechanism by which Old Man Bone’s blade works has been mimicked, and adapted onto a new weapon by the scylla sisters, then it is no great logical leap to assume that the object being fuelled by the blade has been modified accordingly. Thus, where Old Man Bone is an independent entity with his own will, whatever has been created by this new blade need not, in fact, have an independent consciousness of its own. ‘God’ could merely be a term representative of some imposed physical and spiritual properties, rather than an indication of actual theological purpose.”

Sammy turned to stare at the necromancer. “That’s what I bloody said!” he shrilled. “People are always like that. I say clever shit and then humans repeat it bloody slowly and stupidly, and people are, like, ‘that’s a great idea’ and I’m sitting right here! It’s racist, that’s what it is!”

Mr Roding stared long and hard at Sammy, as if trying to work out whether he wasn’t the victim of an inexplicable goblin joke. Then his gaze turned back to Sharon. “Your training as a shaman,” he said. “Is it a certificated course?”

Sharon smiled wanly, even as Sammy shot her a glare more expressive than any shriek. “Let’s say for now,” she murmured, “that ‘god’ isn’t the right way to talk about the big scary glass dude. Let’s say… glass guy or glass… construct or something like that. Anyway, that wasn’t the only odd thing about him, because, sure, he looked like an unstoppable glass dude all the time he was trying to tear us to itty-bitty pieces. But, actually, if you saw him from the spirit walk he was… well, he was sorta more a girl.”

All eyes shifted to Sammy. “Oh, now you want my opinion, do you?” sniffed the goblin. “Now that you ain’t got a clue what it means, you come running back to Sammy for answers. Well, they always do, don’t they?”

“Do you have any?” asked Mr Roding.

“Not… right now,” admitted Sammy. “But that’s only cos I ain’t got enough information to work off, ain’t it? ‘He looked like a girl’ is bloody useless.”

Rhys shuffled closer to Sharon, hoping his mere physical presence would offer a wordless reassurance to complement her locked, tired smile.

“Whatever this glass guy is,” she said, “I think we can say he’s connected to the glass blade that the sisters made, and that this thing is modelled on Crompton’s umbrella. And if it is, then it means it’s making people… disappear, with their shoes thrown over the nearest telephone line, and that whoever made it is also responsible for killing B-Man and for trying to do shit to Swift. And while we’re talking about Swift, I think we also gotta pay attention to the fact that his human mind is still stuck in the telephone wires, and, while he’s doing okay, I can’t imagine that’s gonna be a helpful thing for anyone. So the sooner we get him out, the better. He’s given me the beginning of a telephone number…⁠”

“You’ve talked with the Midnight Mayor?” blurted Mr Roding.

“Yeah, but it was a kinda wires-crossed moment. Anyway, there’s the beginning of a telephone number, which I think makes a kinda sense, since if you were going to get him into the telephones you’d probably need a phone or something with an open line to do it with. So I think it boils down to this: find the guy with the glass blade; find the guys who summoned the glass god; find the mobile phone that Swift’s so hung up on – sorry, didn’t mean for it to come out like that – and then… yeah…That’s kinda that.”

Into the silence that followed, there sounded the slow, careful scribbling of wipeable marker pen on whiteboard.

Excuse me? I have a question?
 

Sally the banshee held up her small whiteboard for inspection. Satisfied that no one was about to object to her enquiry, she turned it over to reveal:

How do we find these individuals, or individual, or culpable party?
 

Silence.

Then, “I’ve got an even better question,” grunted Mr Roding. “If this glass god – or not-god, or whatever he – it – is meant to be, is so tough, and has been fuelled by the sacrificial blood of people snatched away in the night, how exactly do you suggest we deal with it, when we meet it?”

Another silence. Sharon said, in a voice suddenly high and bright, “Well, I think this is a lot for us to think about so if anyone wants another cup of coffee…⁠”

Wordlessly, Rhys took the mug from her hands.

“Could Mr Swift handle it?” asked Gretel. “I don’t mean to impose any difficulties upon him, I’m sure he’s already very imposed upon. But as I understand it, the blue electric angels are themselves very… temperamental… individuals, and perhaps if they could be convinced to interact with this glass entity…⁠?”

“I’m not sure the blue electric angels are in a convincing mood,” murmured Sharon. “Which isn’t to say it’s not a great idea,” she added, as Gretel’s great face began the slow collapse of an ice sheet from a glacier. “It’s just getting them on board without blowing up the train, if you see what I’m saying.”

Gretel nodded the slow nod of the mildly dejected.

“The A-A-A-Aldermen seem very big on heavy artillery?” ventured Rhys.

“Yeah, I was kinda hoping to get through my first month at work without breaking out the grenade launchers,” sighed Sharon. “But I guess it’s all part of senior management, learning to adapt to difficult circumstances and that.”

“Challenging,” corrected Rhys automatically.

“Sorry – yeah. ‘Challenging’ circumstances and that. Like, so it’s challenging to know the graves are gonna crack open, plague’s gonna flood the streets, the dead’ll walk among the living and Old Man Bone will have my shoes.”

Rhys hadn’t thought it was possible for the dejection in the room to deepen, but somehow it managed it. Then Sammy said, “We could just give Old Man Bone his blade back?”

“Yeah,” grunted Sharon. “I guess we should at that.”

If this was meant to lighten anyone’s spirits, it didn’t.

I hate to offer such a stand-offish approach
, wrote Sally,
but perhaps this isn’t the time to consider the matter?
 

All eyes turned to the banshee, who scrubbed out her note and wrote in a hurried scrawl,

Of course the dead walking is a grave concern, but if everyone in this room is tired and rather fraught, perhaps any decisions made regarding the fate of the city would be more constructively made after a little recuperation?
 

At the stunned silence in the room, Sally beamed a deadly-toothed beam and added, with a scrub of her sleeve across the board and a scribble of pen,

It’s important to recognise one’s own limitations, yes?
 

Sharon looked at Rhys, and Rhys smiled what he hoped was a smile of utter faith, confidence and dedication, mixed with an overwhelming, soul-deep desire to sleep. Outside, the grey light of dawn was drowning out the sodium glow of the streetlamps, which started to flicker and die. The silence of the streets was yielding to the distant grumble-hiss of rising traffic. It occurred to Sharon that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept, or even what sleep felt like; only that it was good and it was blissful, and that it seemed entirely inappropriate.

“Maybe a couple of hours,” she conceded. “Then we… totally get on this thing. Fate of the city and that.”

Rhys sagged with relief. Sally’s wings twitched in approval.

“Besides,” added Sharon, “I’m sure the Aldermen will have things to do.”

Chapter 74

Management Is the Art of Delegation

Kelly said, “I see.” She listened a little longer. “I
see
.” And listened still. “Of course. Well, naturally.”

The black-clad Alderman stood with a phone pressed to her ear, and nodded, and smiled, even though the speaker on the other end of the line couldn’t see the expression of goodwill and optimism that was, Kelly felt, a good default position for any personal assistant.