The Glass God (52 page)

“Yeah,” she admitted. “Like, with the Shard blowing up and that? I thought Kelly was gonna be so mad about it, but apparently it’s okay when stuff is insured.”

“I was thinking of yourself. You look a little… tired.”

“Tired?” she echoed. “I guess I am a little knackered, you know. Well, there’s this bingo night to organise, and this social, and the guys want a singles’ night for polymorphically unstable individuals seeking a meaningful relationship and…⁠”

“Have you considered a holiday?” interrupted the Alderman.

“What?”

“A holiday?”

“But… I’ve only been in the job for a few weeks! I can’t take time off now! What would that look like?”

“How about an assistant?” he suggested, before Sharon’s indignation could begin to swell. “Or… a partner?”

“⁠… You mean, like a boyfriend?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

Sharon sat back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling. “I dunno,” she said at last. “I guess it isn’t just up to me, is it?”

“Ms Li…⁠” Miles sighed. “⁠… I’m hardly in a position to offer you good advice, but if I may suggest… you perhaps have more options than you are aware of.”

Sharon looked at Miles, Miles looked at Sharon.

She started to smile.

Chapter 94

Share Your Burdens to Make Them Less

Magicals Anonymous assembled.

“I’ve had to pull out everything I had saved up: potions, lotions, organs – how’s my skin doing? Is it setting nicely?” asked Mr Roding.

Thank you for your enquiry, my left wing has healed very well, and Dr Seah assures me that I will have full flight with my right soon. In the meantime I have been using Boris bikes for my transportation needs. Tell me, do you know of an easy way to locate the nearest bike parking station? I seem to spend a lot of time pedalling in circles trying to find a place to lock my bike.
 

“And I was, like, ‘do not worship your false gods, babes!’ and they were, like, ‘fuck you, vampire’ and I was, like, ‘oh my God, that is so judgemental’ and they were, like, ‘unleash the glass god’ but I stayed cool, you know, I held the guys together…⁠”

“Personally,” said Gretel, “I think the entire thing was overblown. If we could have just discussed it over a good meal, I’m sure we could have found an amicable solution.”

“Apparently there are antihistamines which
don’t
cause drowsiness!” Rhys breathed, his eyes glowing at the thought. “Imagine it!”

“Hey, guys!” Sharon’s voice cut across the hubbub. Slowly, mugs of tea clasped in hand or talon, Magicals Anonymous settled down. Sharon stood, waiting for their attention, ragged notebook in hand. “Just a few housekeeping things before we start,” she said, when the silence had settled. “If you’re wearing a chameleon spell on arrival, can you please be careful about recharging the sigils before you leave. I get the need to be discreet, but we’ve had a couple of you putting your sigils into the microwave to recharge and I gotta remind you it’s six hundred watts for your average chameleon recharge, and our microwave is seven hundred watts so if you could just keep an eye on that, that’d be great. Um… if anyone else wants to sign up to go with Kevin and the gang to the blood donor centre on Wednesday, then please book your place sooner rather than later as there is a high demand for appointments during the middle of the day, and remember to drink plenty of fluids before and after your donation. As you can see, we’ve started a biscuit kitty – a few pennies here or there really go a long way – and Rhys will be taking you through the ‘comments and suggestions’ leaflet at the end of the session. I see a couple of new faces here tonight, so let’s begin like we usually do. I’m Sharon…⁠”

“Hello, Sharon!” sang out the room.

“⁠… and I’m a shaman…⁠”

Chapter 95

Companionship Is Society’s Greatest Gift

The meeting came to an end.

They drifted out, some by themselves, some in little groups, heading for the buses, trains, bikes and, in a few cases, skies, of London, slipping back into the shadows from which they’d so briefly emerged for tea, biscuits and shared lives.

In the end, only Sharon and Rhys were left, closing up the office, turning the lights out.

Sharon’s key clicked in the door as she closed it behind them.

Rhys said, “Um…⁠”

Sharon turned to stare at him. “You okay?”

The druid nodded. “Uh?” he managed.

She waited.

“I uh. I um.” He gestured furiously to fill the space his words couldn’t achieve, and finally sneezed.

“I saw Miles this morning,” Sharon put in, and Rhys froze, even his sneeze seeming to suspend itself. “He’s doing okay, you know. I mean, beat up, but who the hell isn’t? But doing… all right. He said I should get myself an assistant, but I don’t think I need one. Then he said I should take a holiday, but I don’t think that’d give the right message. Then he said I should get a boyfriend, which I think is actually a bit of a leap, you know what I’m saying?”

Rhys nodded furiously.

Sharon nodded, too, slower, which seemed to calm Rhys’s furious head-waggling.

“So, yeah,” she concluded. “All things considered… yeah.”

“⁠… Yeah?” asked Rhys.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?” he echoed again, checking the sound, making sure it was everything he’d thought he’d heard.

“Uh… yeah.”

“Really yeah?” His voice rose to a squeak.

“Yeah!”

Rhys shuffled forward, a quickstep his body made before his brain could reject the idea, and stood now, a nose distance away from Sharon. “In that case,” he said, “Ms Li – Sharon – in a strictly not-professional way, can I… buy you dinner?”

“
Yeah!
” The sound bounced off the streets around as Sharon threw her hands to heaven.

“Can I buy you dinner…
now
?” asked the druid.

She thought about it, but only for a second, and then, quieter, took his hands in hers. “So basically,” she said, “yes.”

Chapter 96

Leave No Loose Ends

There was one thing left to do.

Sammy said, “Ain’t no body, innit! And I’m not saying as how it’s impossible for a guy to just explode into glass and stuff. I mean, maybe he did, maybe there’s no squishy bits left behind, but, as a goblin in the know, I’m telling you – there
should’ve
been squishy bits left.”

And Swift said, “I’ve got legs! I mean, sorry, that wasn’t what I meant to say, what I meant to say was fate of the city blah blah blah epic struggle blah blah blah battles against evil blah blah blah but look! Legs!”

And Miles said, “It sounds like he’s gone to lick his wounds.”

And Rhys said, “I’m sure it’ll work out all right.”

And Kelly said, “I’ve got a pay rise! An actual pay rise! Can I buy you dinner? Can I buy you a really
expensive
dinner?”

And it occurred to Sharon, as she listened to all this, that somehow, without noticing how or why, the task had fallen to her.

He walks, angry and alone.

He has become a nightmare on the lonely streets, the man people cross over to avoid.

He shuffles, checking the payphones for any spare change, the stink of sweat and disappointment ingrained on his skin, and as he walks he whispers to himself,

“I’ll show them, I’ll show them, I’ll show them…⁠”

Once upon a time, this man shuffling along had power, he had strength, he had respect, people looked up to him, asked his opinion, valued his advice…

But that was then and this was now. Now he is old and alone, and people ignore him, as though time had stripped away all he ever was, could ever be.

“I’ll show them, I’ll show them…⁠”

Now they call him “old man”.

“Bag of bones.”

They took his magic from him.

They took his strength.

They took his respect.

They took his daughter.

But they never took his mind.

“I’ll show them, I’ll show them, I’ll…⁠”

Passing by the red postbox, on the corner of the road where shadows stretch between the bubbles of the streetlamps, he feels something press against his thigh, and turns in indignation.

No one there and, as he brushes his leg, he can’t feel any blood, and is already wondering if he imagined it. Perhaps he did. He’s had a long day, a long week, and in the darkness of the lonely streets it’s easy to imagine things stirring in the night.

He walks on, past the shuttered convenience store and the locked-up laundrette, beneath the painting on the wall of the glowering, long-nosed rat, a top hat on its head, a fistful of dollars held in its claws, and beneath the glowing arches of the railway line, where domes of coloured lights ripple from blue, to green, to red and back again. He turns the corner towards the graveyard, his fists clenched at his side, his head throbbing and his back bent, walks three more paces, and pauses.

Stops.

Stares at nothing in particular, then down at the ground.

His hand brushes his thigh again, where he thought he felt something in the night, and this time there is blood there, a tiny streak of crimson, seeping through his trousers.

He raises his head, looks around at the empty dark.

“I know you’re there.”

His voice is a whisper, a bare gasp. He doesn’t move, frozen in place; and she is there, without a sound, without a sigh, where she had been all along, standing beside him.

Arthur Huntley doesn’t turn, doesn’t move his head, seems to stare straight ahead at nothing, his body frozen in place, his hand still held up, blood turned brown beneath the dull yellow streetlight; but his eyes dance in his face, straining round to see her at the edge of his sight. “Have you…⁠?” he breathes, and she doesn’t answer. “Did you…⁠?”

“I didn’t see you fall,” she replies. “And there wasn’t a body. Swift says that you’re not a threat now, that as soon as he’s worked out how to walk again, he’s going to hunt you down and do the sorcerer thing. But I thought about it, and I realised that wasn’t his job.”

She moves round a little further, so he can see her clearly now, Sharon Li, with her Winnie the Pooh plasters, and her green shoulder bag covered in badges. She stands before him on the empty street, and there is something in her hand. Something thin, ancient, reddish-black. A blade of rust, gripped beneath her fingers, the point hanging down loosely by her thigh. Arthur’s body shakes with the effort of not moving, every breath a swell in his chest that is gasped out before it can be drawn fully in.

“I guess I oughtta ask you why,” she murmurs, wrapping the rusted blade carefully up in a plastic bag. “Why you did all this, why you let so many people die, why you killed, why you lied, why your daughter…⁠”

Arthur jerks at the words, but his feet don’t move, rooted to the spot. Sharon pauses, eyebrows raised, waits for the moment to pass, keeps on wrapping. “Why you let your daughter,” she continues, “give her life, her body, to the glass god. Because that’s what she did, you see. I saw it when I looked at the glass god in the shadow walk, in the spirit walk where all things are real, and true; and there, he was a she, and she was your daughter, giving her very life to sustain this lie of yours. And that got me thinking… if your daughter was sustaining the glass god, then what the hell was the point of stealing Old Man Bone’s blade? Why’d you get a copy made, why’d you need to waste all that time and effort? It’s not for kicks, it’s not for worship, so what’s the point? And then we had all that stuff in the Shard, and you went mental and as you went mental you went mental in a glassy way and I thought, shit. He hasn’t been killing people to feed the glass god. He’s been killing people to feed himself.”

She finishes wrapping the blade, slips it into her bag, and, for the first time, looks Arthur in the eye. “Mr Roding had your number, right from the beginning. An ex-wizard, he said, and I never stopped to think, what must that be like? To have been the guy at the top, and find yourself suddenly the guy at the bottom. And talking to you, when you were busy being whacked out, I mean, it was like all you really cared about was that people knew how big you were, and how important, like nothing else mattered and I thought, yeah. That’s the kinda guy who might just do it. That’s the kinda guy who might be arsehole enough to steal the blade of Old Man Bone, and make himself a copy, and go around stabbing people with it and feeding on their deaths, like Old Man Bone has fed, but you… you’re just a guy, just a man, an old, broken man and Old Man Bone…⁠” – she sighs, shoulders sagging forward a little, bag swinging by her side – “⁠… he’s not. He’s part of the city. Like rats, and sewage, and death. Ain’t pretty and ain’t nice, but that’s what it is. So, yeah. I figured it was time to finish it. Sorry about that.”

So saying, she turns and begins to walk away.

“Sharon!” The sound jerks out from Arthur’s throat, a bare crackle on the air. She stops, turns to stare back at him. “You… you can’t…⁠” His voice strains on the very edge of speech.

She hesitates, then shakes her head. “You know,” she murmurs, “if this whole… deputy Midnight Mayor thing sticks, and I, like, get lumbered with this job forever, then people are gonna talk about me and Swift, and how we worked and that. And everyone’s going to be, like, ‘wow, Matthew Swift, he’s such a bad-ass, such a firebrand, look at all the stuff he blows up’ and they’re gonna go ‘jeez, Sharon, she’s so like “let’s work through our issues” and shit and so kinda “cuppa tea in the afternoon” and that’ and they’ll be right, of course, because that’s what I’m like and that’s what I think people should do.

“But the thing is, you gotta remember that all this doesn’t make me the good cop.”

Walks away.

“Sharon!”

His voice rings out among the railway arches and the high apartment blocks.

“
Sharon!
”

Drifts down through the open drains and tangles upward in the buddleia sprouting through the old dark stones.

And Sharon is gone.

Arthur stands alone in the dark, his thigh smarting, his fingers sticky with the tiniest smear of his own blood. He doesn’t move. His own weight is pushing him forward, trying to force the next step. He stays frozen, chest heaving now with a rush of air, eyes turning this way and that. Spells rise and fall unbidden to his lips, but they are ash, hollow, futile. He whispers wards and summons shields, begs spirits and calls for aid, and nothing comes, and, pressed on by the forward slope of his own back he…