The Midnight Mayor

The spectres were a few feet from me, moving now so slow, caught full fast in the enchantment and I screamed the words of the spell, felt the power run through my arms, burn at the ends of my fingertips: a new spell, a young spell, and still not strong enough. I let it fill my lungs, my blood, lift me almost off my feet with the force of it, feeding it everything I had: “‘. . . prohibitions that may be imposed by an anti-social behaviour order are those necessary for the purpose of protecting from further anti-social acts by the defendant (a) persons in the local government area; and (b) persons in any adjoining local government area specified in the application for the order . . .’”

One of the spectres raised its knife; in slow motion, the weapon screeched and hissed and spat furious angry sparks as it moved through the air as slow and gentle as a freak wave on a starlit night — I pushed back against it with everything I had, saw it slow still further, but still coming, poured out the spell with every last drop of air I had in my lungs, bellowed it at the empty hood of the spectre, “‘An anti-social behaviour order shall have effect for a period (not less than two years) specified in the order or until further order. Subject to subsection (9) below, the applicant or the defendant may apply by complaint to the court which made an anti-social behaviour order for it to be varied or discharged by a further order—’ Oda!!”

Something was pushed into my hand, moving quickly through the air that had thickened to porridge between me and the spectre. It was a green beer bottle, the sides sticky with the drink just poured out. A single cigarette smoked dully inside, dark mist crawling out from the top. We nearly laughed, and drawing back our arm, thrust the bottle as hard as we could into the slowly drifting face of the spectre, shrieking with the attack, “Hey, man! Like total respect!”

The spell I had been casting broke. The spectre should really have screamed, but what it was was already shrivelling down inside the bottle, vanishing into the mist of the smoking cigarette, behind the foggy cage of the glass. Its clothes crumpled into a messy heap on the floor; the knife fell through empty air to break its own blade on the pale tiles. I snatched the bottle back as the hood shrivelled into itself, planted my thumb firmly across the opening and snatched Sellotape from Oda’s hand, sealing the bottle and tearing the strip free with my teeth.

The other spectre, freed from the spell I had been weaving, lurched towards me, but I snatched another bottle from Oda’s hands and waved it, roaring, “Come on, then! Another nothing for eternity!”

The other spectre retreated a few paces; we stepped sharply after it, it moved too late, tried to put the knife between our ribs; but we had the bottle with its tantalising smoke, and jammed it into the empty middle of that vacant hood, sucking it down until nothing but a pile of baggy clothes remained, and another foggy beer bottle.

Oda stuttered, looking at the sad clothes on the floor, “Just like . . .” “Yes. Just like that.”

“That was an ASBO you just . . .”

“Yeah. I know. That’s why it didn’t really work. Bottles!”

She handed me four, put another one in my coat pocket, kept two to herself, held in either hand. “This will kill spectres?”

“Contain them. The invocation of an ASBO will slow them down as well, if there’s more than one of them, but, like you saw, it’s not a perfect spell. And if the cigarettes burn down before the bottle is filled, they won’t work either. But it should be enough to get us to the seventh floor.”

“I can’t . . .”

“You push the bottle into their faces, and if it doesn’t work, tell them, ‘respect’. Say it like you mean it.”

“I can’t just do ma—”

“You can.”

“I can’t! I’m not some . . .”

“It’s a simple binding, nothing more than a piece of sympathetic magic. You want to live?”

“And not be damned!”

“Well, you’re gonna have to pick one or the other. Come on!”

I dragged her, or maybe she dragged me, or maybe we just got in each other’s way, out of the kitchen, across the dull office floor turned the colour of blood, or crosses, or dragon’s eyes, or maybe just a tasteless brothel-red, to the stairway. And there it was, the beat in the stair, echoing up the concrete walls: dumdumdumdumDUH dumdumdumdumDUH dumdumdumdum . . .

“Another stair?” I gasped.

“Sure, because I know—”

“It’s not really a question!”

There was another staircase, tucked in at the opposite end of the office floor.

sshssshsssCHA sshssshsssCHA sshssshsssCHA . . .

“Where now?”

“Down, gotta get down . . .”

“Do you even know where this Ngwenya woman is?”

“Sure I do,” I muttered. “The death of cities is about to kill the Midnight Mayor; that’s the last defence the city’s got, the last thing that’s gonna stop us all burning. Of course I know where Ngwenya is!”

“Jedi spidey-senses?”

“Obscure mystic forces.”

“The spectres are here, Swift! Mr Pinner is here; do you really think we can just walk this one down?”

“Right,” I scowled, dragging her back. “Fine.”

Red light, spinning chairs, dull desks, silent sleeping computers, big glass windows behind the doors of the executive cubicles, plywood doors, plaster walls. “Do you suppose there’s those big vents like there are in American thrillers?” I asked hopefully.

Oda grunted in reply, her eyes still fixed on the stairwell door through which was coming the sound of:

sshssshsssCHA sshssshsssCHA dumdumdumDUH dumdumdumDUH dumdumdumDUH

“OK.” I looked down at the floor. Our hands were shaking, we hadn’t even noticed this time, the edge of our vision seemed to be going off on its own business.

“I can see them coming!” hissed Oda, scrambling back from the doorway at a sight on the stairs. “They’re nearly here!”

“How many bottles do we have?”

“Maybe six? Can they hold more than one spectre?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m thinking that life was not made to be easily lived.”

“I was thinking something ruder than that, but yeah, you’ve got the basic gist.”

I could see shadows moving behind the door; taste them. And something else, something that made the fingers of our right hand curl in disgust and fear. “Back into the office,” I hissed. “There.”

Oda obeyed, kicking back a plywood door to reveal an office garnished on a theme of golf: clubs, pictures, trophies and all. The far wall was nothing but glass, slightly curved outwards, looking down on the dark/red soak of the city. I ran my hands over the window, felt the cold glass, pressed my nose up against it, ran my tongue over it, tasted the dull dirt. “This’ll do,” I muttered.

“For what?” she hissed.

“You still got your penknife?”

She handed it over; I wrenched through the blades until I found the pointed end of a four-head screwdriver. Turned the point towards the glass.

And a voice from the door said, and there was no hiding the anger, “Give me back my hat, sorcerer!”

I glanced over my shoulder, and there he was, Mr Pinner, and he wasn’t smiling, not now. His jacket billowed, his hair stood on end, his face was cold and pale, and behind him the office trembled. The furniture bounced gently on the floor like flowers in a breeze, the computer screens cracked, the chairs spun giddy on their axis, the files on the shelves split open, the paper started to tumble out, a few sheets at first, then more, dozens, hundreds, endless walls of paper spilling out into the room, caught in a whirlwind, blasting and screaming in the air behind him, filling the doorway with nothing but an A4 snowstorm.

“Give me back my . . .” he began, and I drove the end of the screwdriver as hard as I could into the glass.

It went thunk. I drew it back slowly. A tiny white scar, no bigger than the end of a