The Minority Council (10 page)

Kelly Shiring looked as fresh as if she’d sprung fully spruced from a good night’s sleep. She was dressed in Alderman black and held a mobile phone. As I opened my mouth to speak, she said, “You wouldn’t know anything about a pair of wizards having a duel in a hotel in St Katharine’s Dock, would you?”

I smiled my best smile, peering past her into the computer-filled room that served as the main operation centre of the Aldermen’s dead shift, and said, “Why on earth should I know about that?”

There were seven of them.

They were, so they informed me, the Aldermen’s night-
time support team. They too wore black and, for men and women meant to serve at the whim of the Midnight Mayor, they didn’t look very pleased to see me.

I sat at the end of the table, threw my bag onto the floor, stretched my legs out until they clicked at the knees and said, “Quiet night?”

They gave me a look that has been passed down from lance-corporal to lance-corporal ever since the first general surveying a battle scene asked his troops if they were looking forward to getting stuck in for round two, chaps.

“We’re so pleased you’re here, Mr Mayor,” Kelly said over the silence. “I do believe this is your first time visiting our little operational unit…”

“And fine and sterling work you’re doing, I’m sure.”

“… but is there something specific we can do for you?”

I smiled, and saw at least two pairs of eyes darken at the sight. “Funny you should mention that.”

Kelly beamed. “Of course! What may we help you with?”

“Fairy dust.”

Silence as the words settled. A man with salt-and-pepper grey hair adjusted a biro, lining it up perfectly with the edge of the table. A young woman caught our eye, and looked quickly away.

“Fairy… dust?” queried Kelly.

“What is it, where does it come from, who controls it, and why didn’t I know? In whichever order excites most.”

The polite sound of someone clearing their throat. I looked at the man with the salt-and-pepper hair. His eyes were grey-green, his haircut conservative, the face showed faint lines: age, heading for fifty.

“Mr Mayor,” he said. His voice was roughed around the edge with time, and polished down the middle with experience. “Shall we check on the coffee?”

Magicians have sometimes studied the effect of certain physical locations upon the mental energies of their subjects. Bus stops, supermarkets, airports, all can induce in even the most uninitiated minds a trance-like state often two mystic intonations short of a sleeper spell. Likewise, there are certain parts of a building—the water cooler, the photocopy machine, the corner where the smokers sneak off for their breaks—where the phrase “the walls have ears” should be taken seriously.

The man I was with knew this, for he walked straight past the water cooler and the coffee machine, and into a small, anonymous office with a plaque on the door that read—Mr. R. Templeman, Sub-Chairman. Quite what Mr. R. Templeman was sub-chairman of, it didn’t specify. He sat down behind a desk freighted with empty air, and gestured for me to take the chair opposite. I eased into it, and waited.

He eyed me, and I looked at him. We found in each other a worthy opponent.

“Templeman,” he explained. “My name is Richard Templeman.”

“Hi,” I replied. “I guess you know me better than I know you.”

Maybe he gave the beginning of a smile. “Indeed, Mr Mayor. On your appointment, I did read your file. You are, if you don’t mind me saying so, a mess.”

I scrutinised his office: walls where pictures should have been, empty desk, empty in-tray. The desk held only one object of note, a stainless-steel model seesaw that
pivoted on its axis, perpetual motion from nowhere to nowhere.

“Learn anything else?”

“You charge into things without considering the implications of what you do.”

“Is that a warning, Mr Templeman?”

“Of course.” His voice rose a sparrow’s peep in what might have been surprise. “But it is a warning when I say do not go outside without your laces done up, for you might trip; do not stand in front of heavy trucks rolling inexorably downhill. It is a truism of life, offered in good faith. Whether you choose to follow it is up to you.”

“This is leading to something I won’t like, isn’t it?”

Now he did smile, eyes crinkling in what might have been genuine appreciation. “Yes, Mr Mayor, I rather fear it is. May I ask what your present interest is in fairy dust?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Someone…?”

“She was taken to the dusthouse.”

“Ah.” The syllable hung in the air. “May I take it that you plan on going after her?”

“As you said, what you choose to think is up to you.”

“Are you… aware of the nature of the dusthouses?”

“I’m aware that I probably need to be more aware before I go charging into one. I’ve done a lot of charging into things tonight, and it’s not done anything for my mood. You could say I’m having a rare moment of reflection before the next dash towards disaster.”

He spun on his chair, barely moving side to side. Then, like one reaching a decision, he said, “The dusthouses are highly protected. Fairy dust… enhances the capacities of individuals prone to magical activities. The exact
biological effect is, at the moment, not well understood; but let me assure you, any attempt to break into a dusthouse by force could end badly. Even for you.”

“I’d started to figure that by myself. That’s why I’m here.”

“The Aldermen,” he went on, raising a finger at me for patience, “cannot… no… not cannot… but will not… assist you in any action against the dusthouses at the present time.”

“Because…?”

“At any one moment there is a great number of threats against this city. Our relationship with various institutions—the dusthouses among them—allows us to focus our attention on greater and more immediate threats. Engaging the dusthouses in any sort of open conflict could cause far greater damage to the city than it does any brief good.”

“So… you won’t help, because it could get messy?”

“That is the present policy.”

“I thought I had a say in present policy.”

“In a way. As Midnight Mayor you possess a range of abilities that has been handed down over thousands of years. You are, if you will, the living embodiment of much of the city’s mystical heritage. But that doesn’t make you a politician, Mr Swift, nor an economist, nor a social worker, nor give you any quality that makes you suited to direct policy decisions, besides, that is, your exceptional skill for implementing them. So, while we will always respect your views…”

“I doubt that.”

“… the kind of radical change you want cannot be worked overnight.”

“Is that what I’m sat here for? So you can tell me no?”

“What do you know about the dusthouses?” His eyes gleamed; his voice was low and dry.

I said, “Fairy dust makes people high, makes people powerful, probably has a few nasty side-effects; I mean, I’m just speculating here. People seem terrified at the name, so I’m reasoning there’s some things that might merit a little more information. That said, I’m on a clock, so if this conversation is going anywhere, now’d be the time to let me know.”

“The supply of fairy dust is not technically illegal.”

“Technically?”

“The legislation hasn’t caught up with it yet, put it like that.”

“But I’m guessing it’s still fulfilling a few clichés of the drug business.”

“People… vanish. It’s surprisingly hard to monitor heavy users, since their hobby isn’t advertised. The problem with magicians is, they’re not renowned for their free and frank census replies.”

“Define ‘vanish,’ ” I groaned, trying to rub some of the sleepiness out of my eyes.

“They go into the dusthouses.”

“And don’t come out?”

“Not as far as we know.”

“See, that sounds suspiciously like the kind of thing that gets judges hollering ‘illegal.’ ”

“There are no bodies,” added Templeman. “No sign of foul play. People just… go into the dusthouses and don’t come back.”

“In no way is anything you tell me making us less inclined to burn this institution to the ground. Where does
it come from? The fairy dust, I mean? I assume we’re not talking battery-farmed fairies.”

He nodded, with what might have been a smile. If a feeling could be done by halves, Templeman did it by a quarter. “To be frank with you, the source of the dust is another mystery we aren’t yet fully on top of. There are rumours. But that is in itself a factor in the decision not to intervene too precipitously: we just don’t know enough.”

“So what do you know?”

“That it would be a shame for our latest Midnight Mayor to die starting a war he cannot win. After all, you’ve only just started coming to the meetings.”

I smiled, leant back in the chair and put my feet up on the desk. If this displeased him, it was but a twitch in the corner of his eye. “Anything that’s going to stop me?”

“Have you heard of the fairy godmother?” he asked.

“Oh, Cinderella, don’t be sad, for you shall go to the ball?”

“The supposed head of the dusthouses.”

“Let’s say no.”

“You’ve heard of, say, Triads? The Mafia, Yakuza, naughty men who deal in naughty dealings?”

“I’ve watched the news.”

“Imagine all of that,” he said, plucking the words from just above my head, “—the savagery, the power, the connections—then give it the ability to curse you and all your kin, and you begin to understand why we Aldermen are being so cautious in our dealings with the dusthouses.”

I imagined.

“Well,” I said at length, getting to my feet, “thanks for the warning. It was scary, it was bad, it was succinct and it
was, for an Alderman, surprisingly free and frank. So well done you, full marks. I’ll send you the post-match report when I’m done.”

“I take it then you’re still determined to find your friend?”

“Yup.”

“May I ask… who it is that’s so important to you?”

I hesitated, hand on the door. “It’s Meera,” I explained.

“Is Meera… someone you’ve known long?”

“Nope. Met her on a boat. Seemed nice.”

“You are close friends?”

I thought about it. “Barely know her. Met her once. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and cause a major political incident.”

Templeman caught my wrist, and eased the door back shut. He wore a thin, tense smile. “Mr Mayor,” he said, “do you know why I asked you to come and talk to me privately?”

“To freak me out?” I hazarded.

“The others,” he explained, “won’t violate Alderman policy and risk conflict with the dusthouse. There will always be a Midnight Mayor; it just needn’t be you. So why should they take any major risk?”

“I get that.”

“I don’t think you do, Mr Mayor. They will not move against the dusthouses. I will.” He saw my surprise, and added, “I’ve just been waiting for someone with the courage to ask.”

“Okay,” I said. “You’ve got an idea?”

He had.

“But there’s something about it you won’t like.”

“I wouldn’t believe in it unless there was.”

“It involves you wearing a suit.”

“No bloody way!”

He smiled apologetically. “Would you like to hear the rest?”

I’d been given a name by the man I’d threatened in the hotel room.

He’d said: Morris Prince.

Morris Prince, dealer in fairy dust. He’d cropped up on the Aldermen’s system two years ago in connection with the death of a mage in Richmond, inasmuch as a scorched outline on a wall was considered proof of extermination. But nothing had been proven and, as he seemed no threat to the city as a whole, Morris Prince was allowed to continue quietly in his deeds.

His employment records put him down as a minicab driver, but the car registered to his name had been taken off the road by the DVLA three years prior. He didn’t claim benefits, and seemed to hold down no other registered employment; but for all this he managed to live in a mews near Holland Park, a two-storey apartment converted from what had once been a wealthy man’s stable. His small-time magic was one of blood and bones, of physical transformation rather than air and fire, and had in recent years affected his biology. His neck now started at his shoulder, purple-black veins appeared from deep beneath his skin, and he’d suffered an almost complete loss of body hair, including but not limited to eyebrows, eyelashes and scalp. It was said he could crush a man’s windpipe with his thumb, pop out an eye with the flick of his little finger and snap a spine with a twitch of his knee. That these things were reported with such medical preci
sion led us to wonder if they might not be true. While any sensible wizard could easily win a fight by staying out of his way, if you entered combat within reach of his great arms the conflict would be over very quickly indeed.

We had already learnt our lesson. We could fight, and defeat, men like the one at the hotel. But not forever. And not without sooner or later paying a price.