A Madness of Angels: Or the Resurrection of Matthew Swift (36 page)

“I will help you in this.”

 

“Your word pretty please on the Bible.”

 

A flicker of anger around his eyes, just for a second; but then he raised one shaking hand and said in a clear, precise voice, “I swear before God. Until the Tower is defeated and Bakker is dead, if you do not harm mine, we will do nothing to harm yours. We will support and help each other against this… greater… evil. Before God I swear.”

 

I grinned. “Good. I’m glad that one is sorted.”

 

 

I spoke to Blackjack on the phone before I undid the curse, just to make sure. He sounded tired, but alive, and promised that he had all his fingers intact. I asked him to find allies. When he’d heard the details, eventually, he said yes, and hung up briskly without another sound.

 

In the men’s bathroom, I put my hand on the priest’s forehead and slowly, shivering as it wormed its unfamiliar presence back into my skin, drew the curse out of his flesh, the sliver of blue magic trickling across my fingers and melting back into my skin.

 

The man said, “Is that it?”

 

“Yes. You’ll recover soon enough. Plenty of bedrest.”

 

“I do not understand how you managed to cause me harm. You were defenceless.”

 

“Prayer,” I replied cheerfully, washing my hands clean in the basin. “Prayer and a soul soaked in positive karma.” I glanced at him in the mirror, to find his expression not so much angry any more as curious. “And I am a sorcerer. Magic is just… a point of view. We don’t know your name.”

 

His eyes flashed up to mine, met them in the mirror; then he looked away. “Names give power.”

 

“You know that I’m Matthew Swift. I’m assuming you’re ex-directory – secret cultists tend to be – so you might as well tell me.”

 

“Anton Chaigneau.”

 

“French?”

 

“My mother was from the Congo. My father was from whatever Satanic pit spawns such creatures.” He was rubbing his forehead where I’d pulled the curse out, head on one side, a look of discomfort in his eyes.

 

I said, watching him, forcing myself to sound disinterested, “You’ve come a long way.”

 

“The Order is good to those who adhere to it,” he insisted. “They are kind.”

 

“You’re not in charge?”

 

“I am a servant of the Order, I bring their will…”

 

“Who’s in charge?”

 

He shook his head. “Is there anything else I can indulge you with, sorcerer?”

 

“Who did Oda’s brother kill?”

 

His face became stone for a moment, then widened out again into a tight grimace. “She told you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Did she tell you that her brother was a witch doctor?”

 

“She implied it.”

 

“Did she tell you that when he first discovered his magic, he tried to help the family, heal others and use his craft for goodness? Did she tell you that the power of it tainted him, corrupted him, as such power always does, and that he swore he could only do the best by creating things of such evil as, I think, will never leave her dreams?”

 

“Again, it was implied.”

 

He met my eyes and said, utterly flat, “He killed her two little sisters, and tried to kill her. He said it was a necessary sacrifice to summon creatures of knowledge, spirits. He said that nothing else would do but the blood of kin, and apologised and wept but said it was the
necessary
thing. Oda was fourteen at the time – her sisters were nine and eleven. She escaped, and didn’t speak for three years after. Her brother was killed by the local police when he refused to surrender himself, but not before his arts had burnt Oda’s family home, and everything she possessed, to the ground. The Order loves her. We will be a better family than any formed of kin. What do you do that’s ‘necessary’, Mr Swift?”

 

“Necessary?” We tried the word a few times, rolling it around our tongue and lips. “We work with you, Mr Chaigneau. Only because it is necessary. I hope to be seeing your men armed and ready for battle by tomorrow night; in the mean time, I wish you a speedy and successful recovery. Good day to you, Mr Chaigneau.”

 

I turned and walked away, and to my relief, no one tried to stop me. On the train, my hands were shaking. I had never played such games before; no degree of magical inclination can teach you the character skills necessary for cloak-and-dagger dealing; never before, however bad things had got, had I felt that my life was in danger. At least, not while I was technically alive, last time, and living it.

 

 

After lunch, I went back to University College Hospital.

 

Sinclair was still sleeping a sleep that was too close to death for our taste, and Charlie was still on the door.

 

“Did you visit her?” he asked, slipping into the room as I looked down at Sinclair’s sickbed and listened to the puff of his machines.

 

“What?”

 

“Elizabeth Bakker. Did you visit her?”

 

“Yes.” I wrenched my gaze from Sinclair and forced myself to meet Charlie’s ever so slightly feral gaze. “I saw her.”

 

“Did you kill Khay?”

 

“No.”

 

“But… he is dead,” said Charlie, in the strained voice of a clever man trying to work out something obvious.

 

“I didn’t kill him… I need to ask you a question.”

 

“OK. What do you want to know?”

 

“Two things. First – I’m mustering allies in the old Kingsway Exchange. We’re going to fight Guy Lee.”

 

He laughed. “Perhaps Harris Simmons will invest in the coffin-making market today and make a huge profit tomorrow?”

 

“I mean it.”

 

The humour faded from his face. “Lee has an army of paid and bought troops at his command. And those are just the ones whose breath still condenses in cold winter air.”

 

“He can’t get support from Amiltech.”

 

“He doesn’t need support from Amiltech!”

 

“I’m raising allies against him. I can’t go it solo, not now. I was wondering if you had any friends who might be interested in joining?”

 

“Friends?” He didn’t understand for a moment; then he let out a long breath and drew his shoulders back. “I see.”

 

“This is our best chance to break Lee’s monopoly on power in the underworld,” I murmured, studying his face for any kind of reaction. “The Whites are willing to cooperate, the bikers, perhaps the beggars…”

 

“You want to see if any of my kind will help?”

 

“It’d be useful.”

 

“Lee doesn’t bother us. He
employs
us, most of my kin – most others simply spit at the thought of what we are, unclean.”

 

“Employs to spy, to cheat, to steal, to kill…”

 

“We have to survive.”

 

“This is what Sinclair would want,” I said gently. “This is what he was trying to achieve. I’m just finishing the job.”

 

His face tightened for a moment in uncertainty, then relaxed. He nodded slowly, fingers loose at his side.

 

“Second thing,” I said. “You were the closest to Sinclair…”

 

“
Am
the closest to Sinclair,” he insisted. “He’s not dead.”

 

“I apologise – are the closest to Sinclair. That gives you a certain something when it comes to this question.”

 

“Well?”

 

“Of all those people Sinclair gathered together to fight against the Tower – the warlocks, bikers, fortune-tellers, religious nutters, mad old women and me – who do you think is most likely to have betrayed us to Bakker? Who do you think told them where to shoot the night Sinclair was hurt?”

 

His eyes went instinctively to the slumbering form of the big old man, then back; and they were hard and certain. “The woman. Oda.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I know nothing really about her. Ignorance might mean there is something to hide.”

 

“What if it’s not Oda?”

 

“You know something?” he asked quickly.

 

“I know something more than I did,” I replied. “Although it didn’t make me happy to find out. Who would be next on the list?”

 

He thought about it long and hard. Then, “The biker. Blackjack.”

 

His answer caught me by surprise, but I tried not to show it. “Why the biker?”

 

“His smell, when we were attacked.”

 

“His
smell
?”

 

“Yes.” Charlie’s eyes flashed up to mine, daring me to disagree. I raised my hands and shook my head defensively. His mouth twitched in triumph.

 

“All right,” I said. “What did he smell of?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Nothing?”

 

“When the first bullets started hitting,” said Charlie, “I could smell the fear on you, the sweat on the warlock, the terror on the fortune-teller, the blood on the hurt men, but on him – on the biker – there was nothing. His skin did not perspire.”

 

“I see.”

 

“You do not believe?” he demanded, fingers tightening.

 

“I believe you,” I said hastily. “I just don’t know what to make of it.”

 

“Why do you ask now?”

 

“I’m getting allies together against Lee, just like Sinclair tried to get allies together against the Tower…”

 

He was nodding already. “You think one of them might betray you.”

 

“It’s possible.”

 

“What will you do if they do?”

 

I thought about it, then smiled. “Absolutely nothing,” I replied. “At least, for the moment. Nothing at all.”

 

 

It took nearly thirty-six hours for the first emissaries to arrive. The bikers sent messages out to Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, all the cities frightened of being next hit by the Tower. The Whites sent whispers through the tunnels of the city; the Order cleaned its guns, the beggars skulked and the skies turned. Among so many people, so much preparation, someone would, sooner or later, say something stupid. Sooner or later, Lee would hear of Sinclair’s plans. That was just fine by me.

 

Necessary things.

 

They assembled at the My Old Dutch pancake house at suppertime, around a table booked for eight, although we weren’t sure how many would arrive.

 

The My Old Dutch served massive plates covered with batter, covered in turn with almost anything imaginable. Chicken, ham, bacon, egg, cheese, tomato, salad, chocolate, coconut, cream, lemon, sugar, honey, syrup, treacle – ask, and it would be delivered. I sat with my back to the wall, head away from the window next to Vera and ordered the most sugary, exotic-sounding dish we could find. Vera ordered tap water and a Caesar salad, and flinched at the prices. She wasn’t used to daylight; she especially wasn’t used to being seen through glass.

 

Oda and Anton Chaigneau arrived together; slipping in behind them came their bodyguards in the guise of an amorous courting couple. Outside, a pair of badly disguised traffic wardens each tried to hide their gun under their bulky black jacket and reflective vest. Neither Oda nor Anton looked happy; but they both sat, and both ordered very dull, very vegetarian salads. His face didn’t bulge as it had at Stansted airport, his hands didn’t tremble; nonetheless he didn’t grace me with so much as a nod of acknowledgement, but sat, when not eating, with his hands folded and his face immovable.

 

The small talk was not extensive. There were séances with livelier chatter. Oda glared suspiciously at Vera; Vera glared suspiciously at her. I ate pancakes.

 

“I don’t like having armed men eat in the same place as me,” Vera offered at last.

 

“I don’t like your manner of dress, your soul, your duplicity or you,” replied Chaigneau. “But that is besides the point.”

 

Vera made an indignant snorting noise.

 

I said, through a particularly rich bite of coconut, cream and hot chocolate sauce, “What has our religious nut friend here upset is the two men at the back of the restaurant with the tattoos running across every inch of their skin and the rich purple glow of embedded power emanating from their flesh – although it is ironic that someone that insensitive actually noticed them. Are you going to be civil or do I have to bang heads together?”

 

Vera simply grunted and ordered more water.

 

I was settling into my second pancake when the two shapeshifters arrived. I could tell by a number of things what they were: by the emanation of slippery, unstable deep brown magic crawling off their skins like oil off a puddle of water, by the flash of yellow in their eyes when they turned their heads quickly round the restaurant, looking for the table, but most of all, by the old man’s sandals they wore over their neatly socked feet, which, while being in appalling taste, left room for the shape of their toes to change. I waved at them, and they, sniffing cautiously, drifted over to our table.

 

“We’re looking for Mr Swift,” said one.

 

“And what do you do?” asked Vera. “Write fortunes on the back of cigarette packets?”

 

“We bite,” replied the woman coldly. “Among other things.”

 

“Have a pancake,” I said, waving my fork in cheerless welcome. “I’m Matthew Swift. I’m guessing a nice young man with a pair of stylish whiskers called Charlie sent you?”

 

They sat down carefully, eyeing up the table. “There are… those who do not like… anything,” said the woman at last, pretending to scan the menu as she spoke. “We’re committing to nothing.”

 

“Sure thing,” I said with a shrug. “Welcome to the pack.”

 

 

The last to come was the biker, and he certainly wasn’t alone. He came with two others, one of whom could have been three men. When he turned sideways he just about managed to fit through the door, and when he sat down, the chair, creaking and moaning, just about managed to support his weight. It wasn’t that he was fat – not in the traditional saggy-belly, drooping-chin sense of fat. He was pure and simple
big
: his thighs bulged in their black leather trousers, his shoulders strained the edges of his studded, extra-large black jacket, his chest threatened to burst through his black T-shirt, his beard ruptured off his face like curling smoke from a volcano, his hands were the size of the plate from which Vera ate her salad, his fingers were thick and raw, his every breath was like the rising and falling of a glassmaker’s bellows, his expressions stretched from ear to ear and twitched over the end of his expansive Roman nose. I had never seen such a man – and more, there was a slippery power about him, more than just the bulk of his presence, a flash of orange and golden fire on the senses, visible out of the corner of the eye, impossible to pin down. He smelt of dirt and car oil and the road, and uncontrolled, risky power. He looked at us and said, “Fucking hell. Who hit you lot with a fucking haddock and hung you out to dry?”