The Midnight Mayor

question — why, Mister Swift, Mister Mayor, why oh why oh why did you get shot trying to find this damn hat, and quite how are you going to save the city with it?”

“Doesn’t really matter, now I know to kill Ngwenya after all . . .” he began, turning away.

We reached up, grabbed his arm, pulled him tighter towards the desk. “It matters to us. We can break the spell, and she doesn’t have to die.”

“Weakness! Stupid ineffectual blind stupid weakness! You are a . . .”

“Disgrace to the office of Midnight Mayor, yes, I know!” I snarled, climbing to my feet. “Every bloody stranger in the fucking city has been telling me this at every given moment and you know what, I have had it up to here! I am a disgrace to everything that the office used to be, to the bigger picture, to the sensible solution, to the pragmatic deeds, to the necessary sacrifice, to the stones and the streets! And good! Frankly, excellent! I am honoured to have got this brand on my hand and be able to say with it, up yours, this is the big city! We exist to change the rules, and here I am, changing one now! Ngwenya doesn’t have to die! I have her hat! I can break the curse, I can destroy Mr Pinner, I can stop the death of cities. We can do it!”

“And how, exactly,” growled Earle through gritted teeth, “do you plan to do this?”

“I’m going to give her back her hat.”

There was silence while the collected Aldermen considered this.

Finally Oda said, “What?”

“Thank you, Oda, for your essential ignorance of mystic procedure,” I sighed, the energy suddenly gone back out of my bones, groping for my chair again. “I am going to give her back her hat.”

“And that’ll just do it? That’ll break the curse?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention? ‘Give me back my hat’!”

“But that’s . . . you said that was just . . .”

“A warning. A solution. You ever wonder how the ravens, the London Stone, the river, the Wall, the Midnight Mayor get any of their defending done? Bloody mystic forces and their uselessly obscure ways.”

“We could have killed her, sorcerer,” growled Earle.

“Yeah. The most efficient strategic solution in response to the onsite risk assessment analysis. The police would never have known, a crime without consequence. A stranger kills a stranger and that’s it, goodbye, goodnight, end of the line. Cold, efficient — very financial. As cruel and distant as mankind can ever really get. We will not sink to your level. We are going to give her back her hat.”

Silence.

I sighed, rubbed my eyes, and regretted it, felt sticky blood slither from my fingers to my face, heard it crackle like velcro against my skin.

“All right,” said Earle.

“You sure?” I asked, eyes closed and turned up to the too-bright afterburn of the neon light overhead.

“Yes.”

“Good. So if you gentlemen will excuse me, I need to get this hat to Penny Ngwenya before I bleed to death.”

I staggered back to my feet, pushed past Earle towards the door.

“Is that it?” asked Earle. “The end of it? The death of the death of cities?”

“Ha-ha,” I said.

“Then . . .”

“Mr Pinner isn’t just going to let us bring this hat to Ngwenya! The curse that she made is his life, it is what summoned him, what sustains him. He’ll do everything he can to stop us. Which is, sadly, quite a lot.”

“But if he . . .”

I waved at the window. “Have a look out there and tell me what you see.”

Oda was nearest the window, so she was the first to look, and the first to see. She sighed a long, sad sigh. “Kids in tracksuits and hoods.”

“So?” snapped Earle.

“How many?” I asked.

“Maybe . . . fifty. They’re looking right up at us, if that’s of any interest to anyone. Can’t see any faces.”

“Are they? Is it? What do you think, Mr Earle?”

His jaw was locked tight, his fists clenched at his side. “All right,” he said. “Mister Mayor. What do you want done?”

“You expecting a big speech? Get off your lazy arses and fight, damnit! Oh — and pop.”

“And po—?”

The lights went out with a faint pop.

They went out in the office, in the floor, in the building, in the buildings around, in the streets, on the wings of the planes overhead, in the tunnels underneath. We grinned. “Told you so,” we said. “Where’s the nearest way out?”

Spectres.

How we loathed spectres.

And turning the lights out was just cheesy, a distraction, an itch of an inconvenience, nothing compared to the big wallop. Mr Pinner, he’s coming, always coming, can’t hold back the death of cities for ever, sooner or later they’ll die along with everything else and here he is right now, coming for you.

How we loathed mystic forces and their uselessly obscure ways. Why couldn’t the travelcard of destiny ever be left behind the sofa, why couldn’t the prophets of fate write up a spider diagram with useful footnotes and references?

So here we were, in the offices of Harlun and Phelps, surrounded by the Aldermen (how we loathed Aldermen!), who in turn were surrounded by empty hoods playing loud bass beats through their headphones, while somewhere down in the streets below a man in a pinstripe suit looked up at the black windows of the darkened office and just kept on smiling, because he knew, of course he knew, that there’s no point finding the hat if you didn’t give it back after.

I said, “Do you have beer or fags in this office?”

“Do you really think this is the time?”

“Bottles of beer, packs of fags,” I replied sharply. “Weapons.”

Earle’s face was a grey shadow in the darkness. I was grateful I couldn’t see his expression. “Catering department,” he said. “You can try office drawers.”

“Good. This place must have some sort of warding, protective spells, yes? I mean, if the Aldermen work here . . .”

“Some, yes. Wards against evil, hostile intent, that kind of thing.”

“Will they fire automatically?”

“The second anything steps across the threshold. I don’t think they can stop the death of cities; our insurance doesn’t cover it.”

“Mr Earle! Was that a moment of light-hearted humour?”

“No.”

“Oh. ‘Course not. My mistake. I don’t suppose anyone here knows what the spleen does?”

Silence in the darkness, then a polite cough, Oda’s voice. “I do. But for the sake of keeping you focused on Mr Pinner, I’m not going to tell you.”

“Terrific. Mr Earle?”

“Yes, Mr Swift?”

“You Aldermen lot do whatever it is you do when forces of primal evil are about to obliterate you and your . . . I nearly said loved ones, but you get the idea . . .”

“Where are you going?”

“Fags and bottles of beer,” I replied. “Oda?”

“I’m coming with you,” her voice drifted from the darkness. “Just in case.”

“It’s nice to have certainty in life. These wards . . .”