stuttering, starting to breath again. Rubbish-juice sprayed like saliva over them as he placed a hand atop the chest, counting under his breath. He swore.
‘He needs energy. Victor, go through the bins, grab any food you can find — the rottener the better.’
‘The rottener the better?’ Beth asked as the old man hurried off.
‘Easier to break down,’ he muttered tersely. ‘He needs all the help he can get right now.’
Victor returned with a double-handful of slimy vegetables and a half-jar of mouldy mayonnaise. Fil fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small glass vial and sprinkled a few drops of liquid on each, then poured the food directly into the black-sack belly. Noses twitched, antennae wavered and the vermin seethed in around it. Once they’d eaten, they returned with renewed purpose to the task of pulling the rubbish spirit back together. His shape emerged from the little pile of landfill as suddenly as a Magic Eye picture.
Gradually his breathing began to ease and some of the tension left Fil’s face. He slipped a hand under his teacher’s filthy hair and gently tilted his head up. ‘Glas, what happened?’ he murmured.
For a while it was all Gutterglass could do to breathe. His paper lips opened and shut on nothing. Finally he uttered one word in a dry whisper: ‘ Reach.’
Fil’s knuckles paled slightly where they gripped the old man’s hair. ‘Reach?’
Gutterglass whispered, ‘He knows about-’ With tremendous effort, he sat up and looked at the Blankleits, who were glowing back at him sullenly, uncertain.
‘He knows what you’re doing,’ Gutterglass concluded. Bugs shifted subtly under cardboard and suddenly the pride shone out through the patchwork skin. ‘Filius, look what you’re doing: you’re finally growing up,’ he croaked happily. ‘I’m so proud of you.’
Beth could have sworn Fil actually blushed. ‘Well,’ he mumbled, ‘they’re only a start. I can really see us rocking up at the Demolition Fields with a hundred Whities and a few reflections. “Oi, Crane Face, quake in the face of my awesome army!” I just hope it doesn’t rain.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘They’re not even trained yet, but-’
Gutterglass was staring up at him, an oil-like film stretching between his eggshells. He seemed to be looking past his shoulder. Or not looking at all.
‘Glas!’ Fil yelled. Fear made him warble. ‘Glas, stay with us!’
Gutterglass’ head snapped around, eggshell-eyes stretched wide. ‘They’ll have to do, child,’ he whispered. ‘They’ll have to learn fast.’
‘Glas, what are you talking about?’
Beth felt the silence before he answered. ‘It followed me — it hid on the buildings, Filius.’ His tone was beseeching. Rich garbage air gusted from his mouth. ‘I tried,’ Glas said again, ‘I tried but it — it mauled me.’
‘Glas, what are you saying?’
The white inside of Glas’ eggshell eyes glowed in the Blankleit glare. ‘ Scaffwolf,’ he breathed.
A tiny tremor of shock ran through Fil; Beth was sure no one else had noticed it. Then the muscles in his shoulders and his arms relaxed, became visibly supple, and his grip on his spear tightened. His face took on the same cocky tension it had when Beth had first met him. Her heart tightened in her chest.
He was gearing up for a fight.
‘Victor, mate?’
‘Da.’
‘Be a champion and get our Christmas tree cousins ready for a scrap.’
Victor flashed his torch imperiously. The Blankleits milled around, their faces uncertain. A couple flashed questions back.
‘They want to know what comes.’
As if in answer, a sound carried over the city: a clattering, ringing sound like an iron landslide.
‘Tell them it’s worse than an Amberglow scalping party.’
The Blankleits fanned out with Fil at the centre of their rough semi-circle, crouching over Gutterglass. Beth stood behind him, her knees sagging. She was sweating despite the chill of the night, alternately feeling very hot and very cold.
‘Um, Fil?’ she said. Her voice was shrill. ‘What should I, you know? What do you want me to-?’ She tailed off as the sound of tumbling metal drew closer. It concentrated itself into a rhythm, focused knots of ringing. She caught sight of a flicker of motion above the slates to the right: something vast and fast and grey.
He lifted his spear from the ground and swept it around in a smooth arc, as if following the path of something hidden behind the buildings.
The hollow ringing was deafening now, enough to smash glass and burst eardrums. How? Beth wondered: how could it be that loud and not be on them? She twisted left and right, but she couldn’t see it.
Suddenly, chillingly close, came a low metallic howl.
Scaffwolf.
Steel screamed around the corner. Beth hurled herself to the ground, feeling the wind of its passing. Metal pipes whirled over her at decapitation-height, catching a Blankleit and shattering him into phosphorescent powder. A sooty man-shape burnt on her retinas for an instant and then was gone.
The world was spinning metal and broken glass and sickening howling. Something grabbed Beth by the hood and yanked her back. A steel paw clanged off the cobbles where her head had been.
The Scaffwolf bayed. She saw it and heard it and felt it in her gut. A blunt muzzle formed by a skeleton of pipes emerged from an unformed body, a cloud of scaffolding whirling in constant, chaotic motion. Jaws creaked on hinges as they snapped, and clouds of blood-red rust sprayed from flaring nostrils. As Beth watched, rods spun and locked into place and a paw the size of her head lashed out, shattering the life from another lightbulb man.
‘Victor!’ Fil yelled over the screeching metal, ‘we have to fall back!’
The old man was dancing a strange jig, trying to dodge the rain of metal. ‘Da, you think?’
The Scaffwolf snapped at them with jagged teeth and sharpened screws and Fil hauled Beth backwards. Her entire body rang with the impact as the jaws slammed shut on empty air. She shoved herself upright and together they ran for a narrow lane. Gutterglass crawled and spilled and swarmed under her feet.
They wormed their way into the narrow gap in the bricks, Blankleits scrambling after them. Mannequins watched dully from a shop window and it took Beth a second to realise that the shop was set into a wall at the back of the lane. Panic rose in her throat.
The lane was a cul-de-sac.
Everything shuddered as the wolf pounced. Its toes gouged the cobbles at the mouth of the lane. It was huge, its shoulders wider than the alley. The Scaffwolf rammed against the buildings, baying and snapping. Brick- dust flowed like snow from the scarred walls. Its head extended nine feet into the alley, but it could come no further. It snarled in frustration; the sound was like a braking truck.
Beth pushed out breath as hysterical relief washed through her. She looked at Fil for reassurance, but she found none. His knuckles were pale around his railing and his face taut with fear.
Cogs whirred and nuts loosened. There was a shinking sound and oiled struts slid closer together as she watched. The muzzle at the mouth of the lane grew narrower, the neck and shoulders collapsing towards one another. The wolf shrank just enough to slide into the alley and sprang right at them.
Fil yelled, ‘ Victor! ’ and the old tramp barked something in Russian. His light flashed and the Blankleits flared in response. Their light, springing back off the belly of the wolf, nearly blinded her. The Scaffwolf slowed down in midair. It sank sluggishly and landed just short of them, growling and shaking its head from side to side.
Beth’s back was pressed to the glass shop front. Around her the Blankleits’ hands were extended towards the beast: a forest of glass arms with incandescent veins. The fine hairs were standing up on Beth’s skin. The Blankleits were pushing out some kind of force at the wolf.
Beth’s head whirled. She felt giddy. How? She couldn’t breathe. How?
The glass men had slowed the beast, but they hadn’t stopped it. Slowly, inexorably, it placed one paw in front of the other, its metal neck bent against the invisible power they projected.
A glass man stood transfixed in its path: the round one, the first one to sign up. Beth wished suddenly that she knew his name. The wolf loomed over him, jaws hanging open, slavering rust. Other Lampmen stepped forward. She could see every filament straining, but they couldn’t stop it.
Every light flashed, but Beth’s scream was the only sound as the wolf’s jaws crunched shut.
It turned to face her, a tiny bit quicker now with one of its enemies dead. Its feet rang off the street as it
