“Only the vac-trains.”
“But how long will this go on for?”
“Ask the President. He forgot to tell me.”
“I see. Well, thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. You want some advice? You have finite funds, right? You might consider shunting along to a different hotel. And if this goes on for much longer, which I suspect it will, you’ll need a job.”
“A job?”
“Yeah, that’s one of those nasty little things ordinary people do, and in return they get given money by their employer.”
“There’s no need to be rude.”
“Eat it. When you apply to the local Burrow Burger as a waitress, or whatever, they’ll want your citizenship number. Refer them to me, I’ll grant you temporary immigrant status.”
“Thank you.” That much sarcasm couldn’t be carried along a datavise, but he’d know.
“Hey, if you don’t fancy that, at least you’ve got an alternative. A girl like you won’t have any trouble finding a man to look after her.”
“Detective Roi, can I ask what happened to Fletcher?”
“No, you can’t.” The link ended.
Louise looked out of the window across Green Park. Dark clouds swirled over the dome, hiding the sun. She wondered who’d sent them.
It was a forty-storey octagonal tower in the Dalston district, one of eight similar structures that made up the Parsonage Heights development. They were supposed to raise the general tone of the neighbourhood, encumbered as it was by low-cost housing, bargain centre market halls, and a benefits-reliant population. The towers were supposed to rest on a huge underground warren of factory and light manufacturing units. Above that buzzing industrial core, the first seven floors would be given over to retail outlets, followed by five floors of leisure industry premises, three more floors of professional and commercial offices, and the remaining floors taken up by residential apartments. The whole entity would be an economic heart transplant for Dalston, creating opportunity and invigorating the maze of shabby ancient streets outside with rivers of commerce and new money.
But Dalston’s underlying clay had a water-table problem which would have tripled the cost of the underground factory warren in order to prevent it from flooding, so it was downgraded to a couple of levels of storage warehousing. The local market halls cut their rock bottom prices still further, leaving half of the retail units unrented; franchise chains took over a meagre eight per cent of the designated leisure floorspace. In order to recoup their investment, Voynow Finance hurriedly converted the thirty upper floors into comfortable apartments with a reasonable view across the Westminster Dome, which market research indicated they could sell to junior and middle management executive types.
The rushed compromise worked, after a fashion. Certainly, sixty years after its construction, Parsonage Heights was home to a slightly more affluent class than Dalston’s average. There were even some reasonable shops and cafйs established on the lower floors—though what activities went on in the dilapidated, damp, and crumbling warehouses hidden beneath was something the top-floor residents declined to investigate.
The local police station knew there was a Light Bringer coven down there; but for whatever reason, the chief constable had never instituted a raid. So when Banneth’s tube train pulled in at Dalston Kingsland station, the magus and a fifteen-strong bodyguard was waiting with impunity on the platform to greet her. She took one look at the blank-faced young toughs carrying their pathetic assortment of inferior weapons, and had trouble preventing a laugh.
Did you arrange this?she asked western europe.
I simply told the magus how important you are to God’s Brother. He reacted appropriately, don’t you think?
Too appropriately. This is becoming a farce.
The Dalston coven magus stepped forwards, and bowed slightly. “High Magus, it’s an honour to have you here. We have your safe house ready.”
“It better be a good one, or I’ll have you strapped down on your own altar and demonstrate how we deal with people who fail God’s Brother in Edmonton.”
The magus’s vaguely hopeful air wafted away, leaving behind a belligerent expression. “You won’t be able to fault us.
She ignored the crude reference. “Lead on.”
The bodyguard clumped their way noisily up the carbon-concrete stairs and out onto Kingston High Street. The first four out of the station’s automatic door levelled their TIP carbines along the road, which startled the few late-night pedestrians heading home from the district’s grotty clubs. They swept their muzzles round in what they thought was a professional scanning manoeuvre.
“Clear!” the leader barked.
Banneth rolled her eyes as the rest of the bodyguard hurried out around her. Cars had been halted in the street to let them cross. They hurried into the ground floor mall of the Parsonage Heights tower opposite the station. Three more sect members were waiting inside, standing guard beside an open lift. The magus and eight bodyguards crowded in around Banneth. They rode it to the top floor, where it opened out directly into the penthouse vestibule. More sect members were inside, toting their weapons and finishing off the new security sensor array.
“No fucker’s going to sneak up on you while you’re here,” the magus said confidently. “We’ve got every approach covered. There’ll be guards outside, and in all the stairwells. Nobody gets in or out without a secure access code, which you have command authority over.”
Banneth walked into the penthouse, which occupied the whole fortieth floor. The absent owner had chosen its decor straight out of a thirty-year-old catalogue file specialising in unashamed chintz: green leather furniture, Turkish rugs over polished marble tiles, glowing primary-colour sketches hanging on the walls, and a red marble fireplace complete with holographic flames. A glass wall had swing-up slab doors which led out to a roof garden with a swimming pool and hot tub; the sun loungers were sculpted blue plastic frogs.
“The fridge is full,” the magus said. “If you take a fancy to anything, just let us know and we’ll have it sent up. I can get anything you need. My grip on this town is total.”
“I’m sure,” Banneth said. “You, you, and you,” her finger singled out two attractive girls and a teenage boy. “Stay. The rest of you, fuck off. Now.”
The magus blushed heavily. Treating him like a piece of street shit in front of his acolytes would be a serious blow to his authority. She stared right at him, a silent direct challenge.
He snapped his fingers, gesturing everyone out, then stomped through the big blackwood doors without looking back.
“Dump the guns,” Banneth told the three remaining acolytes. “You won’t be needing them in here.”
After a moment’s hesitation they left them beside the kitchen bar. Banneth walked out into the small paved garden. Night fuchsias spilled their sweetness into the air. It had a balcony of high, one-way glass, allowing her to look over the glimmering crater of lights which defined the city. Nobody could see in. A reasonable protection against snipers, she acknowledged.
Did I cause a big enough splash?she asked western europe.
Oh yes. The dear magus is currently screaming at London’s High Magus about how big a shit you are. All the covens will be talking about your arrival by this evening.
Evening.she shook her head irritably. I hate train lag.
Not relevant. I’ll have the little traffic-stopping scene downstairs logged on the police intelligence bulletin as well. The patrol constables will ask their informants for further information about the coven’s new activities. We’ll have the whole arcology covered. Dexter will find you.
“Shit,” Banneth mumbled. She beckoned the nervous acolytes out onto the roof garden. “One, find me a decent glass of Crown whisky; then take your clothes off. I want to watch you swimming.”
“Um, High Magus,” one of the girls said anxiously. “I can’t swim.”
“Then you’d better learn fast. Hadn’t you?”
Banneth ignored their whispering behind her, and looked upwards. Long strips of faintly luminescent cloud
