service?’ he croaked. He was hoarse with thirst.
‘Why elsse would you be sstanding here, ssqueezing your sstone into that abssurd vissage, and trying not to sspit your intesstines out in fear?’ Johnny Naphtha’s voice remained a quiet, courteous hiss. ‘ Of coursse you need ssomething. Everyone needss ssomething, that’ss why they come to usss.’
Petris tried for a smile. ‘Perceptive as ever, Johnny. Yes, I’d like to strike a deal, for a fair price.’
‘Alwayss fair, Petriss,’ Johnny Naphtha chided him. ‘We are the Chemical Ssynod. Our equationss alwayss balance. Ssymmetry iss in our blood.’
Petris drew a deep breath. ‘All right. There’s someone I want you to protect. The little twerp’s going to get in over his head with a nasty character and I think he’ll need guarding.’
Johnny sat back in his swing, considering the request. As he thought, he produced a cigarette lighter from the pocket of his oil-soaked jacket and began snapping the lid open and shut. ‘“There’ss ssomeone I want you to protect”,’ the acid hiss echoed. ‘ I, not we. Well, I ssuppose that answerss my firsst question: vizz, why the oh- sso-fearssome Pavement Priestss cannot protect their own people. Leaving only my ssecond, vizz, what causse is sso critical you would rissk being caught by your compatriotss courting me? I am intrigued now, Petriss; who is this persson? Who is sso contentiouss that you cannot even command your own Priessthood to guard him?’
Petris swallowed, and felt his Adam’s apple graze granite. ‘Filius Viae,’ he said.
‘Filiuss Viae,’ Johnny Naphtha echoed. ‘Ah. Sso I take it this “nassty character” is Reach?’
There was a long silence, broken only by the click of the lighter. Petris couldn’t take his eyes off it. Just one spark… all that oil. The very thought made him sweat into his armour.
‘A “ little deal ”,’ Johnny Naphtha said eventually. ‘Hmmph. Your sskillss in undersstatement are unparallelled.’ He sighed and straightened his oil-soaked tie. ‘I’m ssorry, old sstonesskin, I ssincerely am, but to battle Reach? You ssimply couldn’t afford our price.’
Petris started to argue, but Johnny Naphtha held up a hand. ‘The rissks in ssiding against the Crane King are conssiderable, as you are cognissant, and to be ssuccint, your ssuppliess of what interestss uss are already ssapped-’
‘What interests you?’ Petris interrupted desperately. ‘Johnny, you’ll commodify anything. Surely-’
‘Sssome ssecuritiess are more interessting than others,’ Johnny Naphtha cut him off without raising his voice. ‘A deal on thiss ssubject could not ssimultaneoussly sserve both of our interessstss. ’
It was brisk, blunt and brutal. The Chemical Synod were discreet to the point of deception, but they never lied. Their contracts were constructed so neatly that there was neither the need nor opportunity to cheat.
Petris stared at him in disgust, feeling exposed and humiliated. His stone felt a hundred times heavier as he turned and strode away, faster than he could really spare the energy for. His granite feet sank ankle-deep in the mud.
I’m sorry, Filius…
‘Let me know if you need anything elsse a little lesss exspenssive,’ Johnny Naphtha called brightly. ‘For the price of an eyeball, or a few happy memoriess, sssay… We have sservicess to ssuit all ssituationss.’
And then there was silence, except for the snap of his lighter and the swish as he started to swing again.
CHAPTER 19
How many crazy tramp-God-kids does it take to change a lightbulb? Beth mused as she watched Fil argue with the glowing man. She sighed. More than one, I guess.
The cobbled courtyard behind Carnaby Street was filled with glass men all pulsing with snowy-white inner light, the same hue as the posh pure tungsten lamps that lit the richer streets in Central London.
Apparently they’d turned up in the middle of marketnight. A shifting inkblot of shadows flooded the walls as the figures ambled about, bartering for lengths of wire and batteries, dabbing their wrists with bottled shades in semi-visible wavelengths as subtle as scents. One figure lay flat on a doorstep while another crouched over him, working his glazed-skin with a buzzing tattoo needle plugged into his own heart. Fine lines of red light followed the blade of the needle, like blood. The etched man’s shoulder became frosted, opaque, outlining a shining dragon on the skin that remained clear. All around them, gossip was swapped in rapid semaphores.
After the past few days, it had been a relief for Beth to see something even half-familiar.
‘Oh, right,’ she’d said as they’d rounded the corner, ‘it’s more of your girlfriend’s lot. Only paler.’
His head had jerked in alarm and he’d muttered, ‘She’s not my girlfriend. And don’t mention Electra.’
‘Gotta say, though,’ Beth was eyeing their glass forms critically, ‘they look a bit fragile to stand up in a fight against a bunch of cranes, not to mention — what was it you said? A barbed-wire monster?’
‘Don’t mention that either.’
‘Is there anything I can mention?’ she’d asked testily.
‘Good point.’ He’d patted her on the shoulder. ‘You’d probably better leave the talking to me.’
‘Why?’ Beth’d felt a twinge of wounded pride. ‘We made a good team with the Mirror-toffs.’
‘We did, yeah,’ he’d admitted, ‘but this lot won’t listen to you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because they… um, they don’t really think that much of girls.’ He’d had the good grace to wince.
Beth had looked back at the glass men. They were, she’d noticed then, all men — fat men, thin men, heavily muscled men: moving nude glass statues with white-hot metal veins.
‘Well,’ she’d said flatly, ‘now I just want to hug them.’
All commerce had ceased when they walked into the cobbled square. The glowing men were eying them suspiciously and Beth thought one, a bulky one, looked positively scared of her.
A tall, rangy man with tightly curled fibre-optic chest hair stood up.
‘ Crap,’ Fil hissed.
‘What?’
‘It’s Lucien, one of the Blankleit Elders. He doesn’t like me.’
‘Why not?’
‘I locked him inside a bulb once.’ He caught Beth’s startled look. ‘ What? Didn’t do him any harm. He was at the treaty talks with Glas a couple of years back — we weren’t making any headway, and he wouldn’t shut up. ’
Beth snorted as Fil cracked his knuckles and said grandly, ‘Leave the negotiation to me.’
She didn’t need to understand the semaphore language to realise that the ‘negotiation’ had instantly become an argument, which had slowly dissolved into a row, and the row simmered into a fine stew of personal abuse and sarcasm, seasoned with a light dusting of gamesmanship.
Beth was able to follow the diplomatic disaster with the help of a bearded homeless man who’d apparently bedded down in the square. He’d come over, introduced himself as Victor and appointed himself her translator. He huddled beside her, leaning against a shop wall, wrapped in a worn sleeping-bag. A faded woollen hat with a hammer and sickle logo covered about a tenth of his copious hair. He watched the glass man’s semaphores carefully and then loudly called out the English, which turned out to be doubly helpful because the street prince, as it turned out, didn’t speak the white Lamppeople’s language very well himself.
The Lampman drew himself up and flared off a sentence.
‘We will not leave the purity of our districts,’ Victor croaked in his thick Black Sea accent, and Fil rolled his eyes.
Beth leaned over to Victor. He smelled of wet dog and pee. ‘Hey, Victor?’ she started, ‘how’s it you speak their language when even he doesn’t?’ She pointed to the skinny boy, who’d thrown his spear down on the cobbles like a pissed-off tennis player.
Eyes puddled in rheumy lids rolled upwards. ‘Blankleit lingo is simple. Anyone can learn.’ He produced a bottle of clear liquid from his sleeping-bag and opened it. The fumes from it peeled the moisture off Beth’s throat.
‘I come here from St Petersburg, you know? Had to learn English — you learn English, you can learn anything,’ he tutted. ‘English is crazy language. Nothing make sense.’
In the square, Fil was trying to be nice. He dropped a friendly arm on Lucien’s shoulder, muttering rapidly, but
