The Midnight Mayor

I ignored her. The swagger ignored her. It knew when it was dealing with the ignorant, not worthy of respect.

A patch of concrete that might possibly, sometimes, be a garage. A length of chain drawn low across the fence. Inside, a public phone, the receiver hung neatly on the hook, under a single fizzing neon bulb. We wanted to stop and stare, to look at it for hours and will the night to be another night, some time before; but the shoes wanted to keep on walking, and I didn’t have the time or energy to care. It was how it was. The rain had washed off our blood.

I kept on walking. Unfamiliar territory from here on, never got past the phone in the garage last time. I turned my head down towards the pavement and watched the stones pass underfoot, trusting — despite our better judgement — in Oda and Anissina to warn us of impending cement lorries — and let the shoes do the walking.

I don’t know exactly where we ended up. Somewhere to the south, doubling back on our previous route. It was a shopping street doing its very best to be trendy, and not quite making it. Pubs were pretending to be wine bars, condensation on the windows and punters pouring out into the streets, despite the rain; restaurants had hiked their prices up by two quid and added aubergine, even the curry houses, and the newsagents advertised local “cultural events” by amateur theatre groups or community choirs. We walked past it all, feeling water seeping through our shoes and itch inside our socks, shimmering bright blackness sparkling down the streets into the spitting drains. The rain drained away the usual smells of the streets — kebabs and bus exhaust — and left cold numbness in their place, invigorating until it started to stick.

Nor do I know how long we walked. Time was measured in strides, not seconds; distance in the warmth of our legs, rather than metres or miles. It seemed nothing at all. Oda said it was a long way.

And without warning, we stopped and turned, toes pointing in at a street wall. I looked up. The wall was an ordinary terraced house which had had extraordinary things done to it. Its entire surface was covered over with bright aluminium, into which a thousand glittering would-be diamonds had been implanted around a core of plastic purple jewels, the bulbs just visible within them, pulsing out in a hypnotic rhythm the blazing word “VOLTAGE”.

Beneath the sign, a pair of aluminium doors, reinforced on the inside and padded with purple silk, had been swung back. They led into darkness; a red cord strung from a brass stand marked the beginnings of a queue line into this place. A man in black with a radio stuck in his left ear was standing on the door, gloved hands folded across his belly, one on top of the other. He stank of treacle, of deep dark maple syrup without the sugar, all thickness and no charm, a stench of magic that reminded me of Charlie, Sinclair’s loyal assistant.

He was good at not meeting anyone’s gaze, but scanned the street constantly as if we weren’t looking at him, his ridiculous dark glasses pushed up on a great fat nose. Oda, seeing us stare, said, “There? You want to go in there?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” she sighed. “When I last checked, you were a sorcerer, not a Jedi.”

“You’ve seen Star Wars?”

“Seen it and denounced it.”

“You’ve denounced Star Wars?”

She looked me straight in the eye and said, “Hollywood should not glorify witches.”

“I think you’ve missed the point . . .”

“I also denounce Harry Potter.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Because . . .”

“. . . because literature, especially children’s literature, should not glorify witches.”

“Oda, what do you do for fun?”

She thought about it, then said, without a jot of humour, “I denounce things.”

“Let’s forget I asked.”

Anissina, as always, said nothing. I nodded towards the door. “I want to go in there.”

“Do you really think this is the most productive way you can go about . . .” — Oda grimaced, then spat the words, “. . . saving this damned city?”

“You used ‘damned’ in a . . .”

“Purely literal sense. I do not blaspheme nor have a sense of humour.”

“Mo’s shoes want to go into Voltage.”

“You speak as if they have a life of their own.”

“You speak as if you can’t imagine they could. I had a pair of shoes, a few years back, that had been rained on by the Singapore monsoon, got sand in them by the Indian Ocean, run the best part of the Bronx and been scoffed at by waiters in Istanbul. And that was after it was sewn together by a child in rural China, carted on the back of a truck across the country, boxed and flown around the world for me to buy. Find me a pair of shoes that hasn’t got a life of its own, and I’ll find you a blister plaster that actually works. Deal?”

Oda scowled, and looked towards the dark door of the gaudy club. “Voltage?” she asked.

“Voltage,” I said.

The bouncer took one look at us, and said, “Wrong shoes.”

You can’t intimidate bouncers. It’s not just that they’re paid to be tough — it’s that they’re paid and bored. It’s a bad combination.

I said, “Really? You sure?”

“Sorry, mate. You can’t come in with those shoes.”

As he spoke, a gaggle of kids, not out of their teens, were waved through without a glance, bundling down the dark passage of the stairs into the pumping gloom inside. I asked carefully, “Am I too old?”

“You know, mate, I’ve got my instructions . . .”

A CCTV camera was hanging over the door. I considered it, I considered him. CCTV cameras are easy to confuse, if you know how. I didn’t even have to wave at it, and it was willing to turn the other screen. I said, “Shapeshifter.”

He had shoulder muscles the size of an ox. They tensed. His coat nearly rode up a foot from his ankles. I waited. He said, “OK. Wizard.”

“Not quite.”

“It’s not your kinda place.”

We laughed. “I know that. What’ll it take to get inside?”

“I’d like to help you mate, seriously, I’d . . .”

We reached forward suddenly, not blinking in warning, and snatched the glasses from his eyes. Beneath, his irises were solid spheres of bright orange, tinted yellow at the edges and filling the expanse of his eyes. A pair of pigeon’s eyes in a human’s head. He reached for me instinctively, one hand pushing back my chin, the other going for my right arm, all martial arts glitter. A sharp and purposeful click stopped him. Oda’s sleeve was pressed to the back of his neck. There was something in it more than a hand. She said, “If this wasn’t an area of public view, it’d be your spinal cord on the pavement. Let go of him.”

His fingers eased back; I staggered away. Oda looked at me nicely and smiled. “Are there any alleys round here?”

“Don’t kill him.”

“Imagine the trouble if I don’t kill him. This is for your good as well as the city’s.”

“You’re smart. Use your imagination. Don’t kill him.”

“He’ll only . . .”

“Cause trouble, yes, I know. We just don’t care. Deal with it.” Her face flickered in annoyance. “You know, I could just . . .”

“If you kill him, we’ll know,” we snapped. We weren’t sure how we’d know, but she didn’t need to know that. We looked her straight in the eye and added, “We’ll know. Deal with it nicely.”

“I’ll go.” Anissina. When she did speak, she was to the point. “Give me the gun.”

Oda scowled, but carefully shifted places with Anissina, whose fingers slithered over the black metal pressed