lock, stroking it with my fingertips like you might caress a frightened kitten, wishing I had my set of blank keys from my satchel to make life easier. Purple paint bubbled and hissed on the walls; the tower blocks swayed, the lavender bushes whispered in the wind, little faces of office lights blinked uneasily at us from the surface of the walls; until, eventually, with a reluctant snap, the lock came open.
I pushed the door back. There was no one in the long, gloomy corridor, but also no rats I could hijack for a little scouting. There was, however, a
“You give me more credit for humour than I deserve,” she replied. I wasn’t entirely surprised.
I held up my fingers and started dragging the electricity out of the walls, wrapping it round my hand, my wrists, wreathing it up my arms and around my neck like a scarf, letting it drape down my back in a mass of angry worms of lightning, feeling it wriggle across my chest and make my hair stand on end. When I had enough of it in my grasp that my blood ached with the pressure of it, and my eyes stung from the closeness of its heat to my face, I started marching down the corridor. Oda followed at a tactful distance. As we walked, the paintings very gently turned to watch us.
I chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“They’re watching,” I said.
“Who’s watching?”
“The Whites.”
“Why?”
“I’m not entirely sure. Come on. This way.”
“How do you know?”
“We know this place from the inside, from the old days.”
“What do you mean?”
“It used to be a telephone exchange. We would come and play here, when the lines weren’t so busy. Remember – trust me!”
“You try, one day,” she retorted. I grinned and kept walking.
When we ran into the first guard, he had a fireman’s axe in one hand, took one look at us, and ran straight for us. I threw a handful of electricity on instinct, and that knocked him back, but, to our surprise, didn’t do anything more. He charged again, mouth open and face twisted with rage – it occurred to me that, for an angry running man, he made almost no sound. So I lowered my hands and waited, while the electricity popped angrily between my fingers. Oda leapt forward to push me aside, but at the last instant, when the axe was an inch from striking, the man stopped, wobbled, and shattered into a thousand spatters of paint, which quickly wiggled their way into the concrete. “Illusions,” I said.
“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” she replied, self-consciously flicking bubbles of paint off the back of her hand.
“I think I understand what’s going on.”
“Perhaps you can explain it to me.”
“I think the whole thing is a bloody inane test.”
“A test?”
“To see if we’re really any use whatsoever.”
“‘Use’?” she echoed with disdain.
“Are you just going to repeat select parts of what I say?”
“I just wish to remove any hint of cryptic mystery you’re attempting to push.”
I sighed. “In the good old days you said, ‘Hello, I’m a sorcerer and this is what I want’ and people bloody listened. But these days… I guess Bakker has given the profession a bad name.”
I relaxed, turning my fingers towards the floor, and slowly let the electricity on my skin make its way to earth, tickling its way down my legs, across my feet and into the concrete.
“If I understand you, is that wise?” she asked, watching the last sparks die.
“Bollocks if I’m going to play their games,” I replied. “We have too much we need to do.” I raised my head and shouted down the corridor, “All right, you’ve had your fun, you’ve seen what we’re up to. Now either you cut this crap right now or I’ll bring the bloody street down on your head, and don’t think I’m not in the mood.”
“Can you do that?” asked Oda quietly.
I dropped my voice again. “Oda, even if I was inclined to tell you the extent of my abilities, do you really think now is the time for an academic exploration of the subject?”
“You were saying?” she asked, lifting her eyebrows and smiling a sickly smile.
“Oh, right, yes.” I raised my voice again. “I mean it! We talk right now or everything goes fucking mythic. Right
From the far end of the corridor a petulant voice said, “Oh, all right, sorcerer, you’ve made your point. Jesus, it’s not like we wanted the sermon on the fucking mount.”
I grinned at Oda. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
We ended up back in the room with the round table. She said her name was Vera and she was, she coldly informed us, the mostly properly elected head of the Long White City Clan, and proud of it.
“What’s a mostly properly elected head?” I asked.
“It’s generally accepted that if there was an election, I’d win,” she answered, with a dazzling tight smile. “So I figure – why bother?” She sat down, stretching out a pair of legs clad in more tight leather than it seemed circulation could bear, and said casually, “So, you really are a sorcerer. I wasn’t sure.”
“You could have bloody asked,” I said. “No one these days seems interested in just
“I thought it’d be more telling to see what you did on your own initiative,” she replied. “And I figured… if you were out to get us we would have been got quicker. Sorry about the sandwiches. Would you like something better?”
“Not hungry,” said Oda, in a voice like icebergs creaking in a high sea.
“I wouldn’t mind,” I answered. “But I would like to know – why the theatrics?”
“We have to be careful; the Clan is under siege. Guy Lee has promised to destroy every trace of us, and is throwing around a lot of money and a lot of threats.”
“So you lock up anyone who comes to say hello?”
“Until we can find out some more information about them. For example, in the day and a half we’ve had you here…”
“Day and a half?” echoed Oda incredulously.
“Yes.” Statement, matter-of-fact; this was not a woman used to remorse or even polite social embarrassments. “I’ve learnt that you” – one long, pointed finger uncurled luxuriously in my direction – “are almost certainly Matthew Swift, sorcerer, ex-corpse, formerly a cleaner for Lambeth Borough Council and…”
“You were a cleaner in Lambeth?”
“I needed the money,” I said.
“You cleaned?” Oda couldn’t have looked more surprised if she’d been told that I’d built the pyramids in my spare time.
“… and the chosen and favoured apprentice of Robert James Bakker,” Vera concluded with an irritated exhalation, her moment of revelation spoilt.
“That’s all true enough,” I admitted. “Although again – you need only have asked.”
“Can’t be too certain.”
“How did you find out?”
“It wasn’t too hard; sorcerer, living and not in a mental home, ostensibly not working for the Tower, grudge against Bakker. Amiltech in pieces, Khay dead, no one to blame and a rumour going round that Bakker’s apprentice is back, with a serious grudge against the master. Just needed to match up some photos and sweet-talk a few filing clerks, to get the proof.”
I shrugged; there didn’t seem much use denying it.
“Heard you were dead.”
