The Midnight Mayor (61 page)

We stared at her in horror. “But we . . .”

“Don’t give a shit!”

“I can’t . . .”

“Seriously! Look at my face! From now on I am going to be a difficult bitch until I get my way, and you, Matthew Swift, are standing right between me and my intended plan of being one kick-arse sorceress who can totally go out there and get her shit done. So either help me, or get out of my way, and the only way you’re getting out of my way, Mr Mayor, is by helping me. It’s your choice.”

“It’s not really a
choice
.”

“Then it should be very easy to make.”

I looked her up and down slowly by the neon lights of London Bridge. I looked up at the reflected sodium glow in the night-time sky, down at the river rippling below. I heard the rumble of traffic, the squawking of seagulls made fat on chips, smelt coffee and exhaust fumes and the distant rumbling of London Bridge station. I ran my fingers over the twin crosses scarred into the palm of my right hand, rubbed the back of my head, stretched from my nose to my toes, let out a long sigh of pure Thames air. Thought of mad eyes in a night-time dragon, of the songs that the telephones used to sing, and the shape of a traffic warden’s hat.

I said, “If we do this . . .”

“Yeah?”

“. . . promise me you won’t give up the day job?”

She shrugged. “Too late. Already quit. When do we start?”

I sighed, turned on the spot to look at the city, stretching out all

around, the lit-up wonders in the night, Tower Bridge, the London Assembly (which would always and for ever be known as Ken’s Bollock), Hay’s Wharf, HMS
Belfast
, Southwark Cathedral, the
Golden Hinde
, Southwark Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Tate Modern, Blackfriars, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Old Bailey, the Monument, a great golden flame frozen for ever on top of a stone pillar, reminding the city of the last time it nearly died . . .

. . . nearly being the operative word . . .

I started to smile.

“Life,” we said, “is magic.”

Kate Griffin
is the name under which Carnegie Medal-nominated author, Catherine Webb, writes fantasy novels for adults. An acclaimed author of young adult books under her own name, Catherine’s amazing debut,
Mirror Dreams
, was written when she was only 14 years old, and garnered comparisons with Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman. She read History at the London School of Economics, and is now studying at RADA.

 

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