The Minority Council (50 page)

We screamed.

Or someone screamed.

They blurred into one, the voices in this creature’s heart, the thoughts sucked out of them like blood from a wound. Didn’t matter whose or what they’d been; all that counted was the pain, and the sense of loss when the creature withdrew, its jaws dripping with thoughtless nothing, from the hollow inside that could never be healed.

Someone fell forward, clutching a scorching heart, and it might have been me.

Water broke beneath and above me, rolled over my head, filled my nose and tickled, cold in my throat. The rumbling of the river rushed into my ears, and through it, far away, the rattle of a barge engine choking on cheap diesel, and the beating of great wings as a flight of swans made their way skywards.

Old Father Thames was real, as true a god of his dominion as the Beggar King and the Bag Lady, and there was more than a little truth to the rumour that, if you looked hard enough, at certain hours the river dragons
could be glimpsed below the water’s surface. The silver-skinned dragons of the Thames should have died when the cholera-infested sewage of the city began to taint their waters; in fact they had lived, evolved and would, one day, evolve again. Not stone or street had such power, not enchantment or prayer.

I forced open my eyes under the water, and in that instant I saw nothing but pain.

Closed them, opened them again, strove to look through the churning murk; saw the bubbles popping from the blackened heart between my hands, a bundle of broken plastic bag and shattered old childhood things. The fury of the water was turning, being tugged with the current, away, and, as I looked through my own blood staining the water shark-bait red, it seemed that something else was sliding free: an oily brown stain, thick and viscous and organic, slipping out from between the folds of the heart and rolling away.

I stayed under, holding out the heart at arm’s length, until it became hard to tell if the pain in my chest was from ribs breaking, lungs bursting, fire washing or just an all-purpose exploding from the inside out. And when to stay under any longer was to pop like a boiling orange, I lifted my head up and gasped for air, and the culicidae’s heart came with me, to rest on the surface of the water.

I hauled down air: one breath, two, three, gulping it like a thirsty drunk, and when the world had stopped pirouetting, I looked down, at the heart.

Traceries of oil were still peeling from its surface like starch from boiling rice, but the pain of burning was now merely a throbbing heart-red in my fingertips, a memory of distress running up my arms. The heat had baked the
river mud, like potter’s clay, onto my hands. I picked it off in chunks, and flinched as the skin on the palms of my hands came loose. I gathered up the floating plastic box by what I hoped was the least scalded part of my hands, and scooped the culicidae’s heart and several litres of water back inside it. A pause, before leaving: I trailed my fingertips in the water held by the box, the heart floating inside, and listened for…

… nothing.

The thin layer of oil had vanished, drifting into the pull of the stream.

(“Sometimes people come here to get clean.”)

Meera on the river.

(“It’s where I’m me.”)

Keeping my injured hands clear, I clasped the box within my arms and, dripping and squelching, I headed back for the car.

Wet clothes and fresh car seats do not mix well.

I took off my socks and shoes, and the foul-smelling coat of infinite pockets, and laid them out as best I could across the car’s heaters, turned to full. Then I pressed my toes against the pedals and curled my fingers as best I could around the steering wheel, and went in search of medical aid.

I drove as far as I could, gingerly prodding the wheel this way and that, before giving up and parking, badly, on a double yellow line.

The joints of my hands were swelling up, making it hard to separate my fingers.

A shuddering was starting to eat through my body that wouldn’t stop even as the temperature in the car rose higher and steam began to run down the inside of the
windows. I staggered barefoot out onto the pavement, river water dribbling from the ends of my sleeves, and half walked, half fell towards a row of shops.

Before I could get there, the throbbing in my chest burst into full-fledged agony. I gasped for breath and slid down onto the pavement, clutching my side with my swollen hands and shaking. A mother with a buggy came towards me, saw me, accelerated away. A man on a mobile phone hesitated across the street, conscience fighting with caution as he wondered whether to help. Caution won.

I curled over on the ground, and now nothing could stop the shaking. Cold and heat and pain and a few things besides, a few terrible things that we could not name, pinned us to the earth and we just shook, head pressed to the ground, legs kicking, unable to believe there was no place they could be to stop this agony.

A pair of feet at eye level.

A voice said, “Um, excuse me?”

Male, middle-aged; the shoes were brown leather, clean laces. Above them, beige flannel trousers, neatly pressed.

“Excuse me, you can’t stay here.”

“Help me,” I begged. “Please, help me.”

“Mary!” hollered the voice.

Another pair of shoes snapped on the pavement. A pair of navy-blue pumps lined up beside the brown loafers. A voice said, “For Christ’s sake, can’t you see he’s in pain? Hello? Excuse me? I’m going to call an ambulance.”

I shook my head, whimpered, “No… no ambulance…”

A moment, a pause, in which thoughts turned and turned again and decided that no matter how they looked at it, they didn’t like the view. “I’m calling the police,” murmured the woman called Mary.

“No!” Our hand shot out and grabbed her by the ankle. She screamed and all at once the man shouted a wordless cry and kicked our arm, twice. We held on and she was still screaming, so he turned on us and, with a grunt and a limp flail of limbs, he kicked us in the belly.

Fireworks burst behind our eyes.

Something black and bright and hot wriggled its way out from the back of our brain and started boring its way forwards. A big squirm-shaped hole, eaten by worms, led to the place between our eyes where, if it had lived, the culicidae would have enjoyed sucking out our thoughts. There, something opened its jaws wide enough to blot out the sun, to engulf our head, our throat, our body and our all, before snapping us into darkness.

I thought I heard Penny’s voice.

I thought I heard a lot of things, but Penny’s voice was the only thing I wanted to remember.

I thought I saw a dragon.

Its black wings were folded time, its eyes a red endless pit.

It stood on the black walls of the city, silver claws curled round a blazing shield, tongue rolling out, licking the air.

There was blood on its lips.

Bones beneath its feet.

Then it looked at me, and I was tiny, and it was vast, and it was not impressed.

I staggered towards the pit inside its eyes, that great red falling pit of a thousand thousand years lined with a million million bones, and didn’t fight it, and didn’t argue, didn’t even pause on the edge to catch my breath, lined with flame, but fell in, laughing all the way.

Someone was playing bad songs of the 1980s in another room.

The DJ called them “vintage classics,” which was never a good sign.

Someone else was unwrapping cling film from around my hands.

Funny thing, that.

The DJ said, “Now, we’ve got a request here from Sharon in Hoxton, who says this song reminds her of the time she first accidentally walked through a wall, and it’s for all the gang in GCSE Chemistry who wanted to know why and never got an answer—interesting shout-out there, Sharon, not often we get that kinda request but then, you’ve asked for a classic of the 1980s and all afternoon we will be playing your Vintage Classic requests so here from Sharon to everyone in Chemistry class is your choice…”

Something cold was run over my skin.

It tingled to the touch, like icing sugar on a sore.

Somewhere else, a kettle was boiling.

A voice said, “… milk and sugar?”

Another voice, much nearer, replied, “Just milk, ta, and leave the teabag in.”

I knew those voices.

The smell of tea drifted on the air.

Somewhere overhead—not so far overhead as it should have been—a jet plane locked its undercarriage for landing, or maybe unlocked it from takeoff, or perhaps merely came in low to have a better look at the seat. The dishes rattled in the kitchen at its passage.

I opened my eyes.

Dr Seah sat on the edge of a small single bed in a small
single room, a pair of latex gloves on her hands, holding a fistful of white cream. She was chucking the cream at my hands and lower arms like a paintballer testing the quality of their ammunition, bottom lip curled in concentration. I was certain I hadn’t made a sound but she said, without looking up, “Now, when I said ‘bed rest,’ did you take this as, like, meaning the
bed
should get a rest, because I think we both know that wasn’t what I was getting at.”

I opened my mouth to answer, and regretted even that much movement.

Someone had made a corset of bandages and steel and wrapped it round my chest: mostly, I felt, to enhance the pain. I groaned and pushed my head back against the lumpy pillow on the bed. Dr Seah said, “Yup, that right there is what I’m talking about but do people listen, oh no. It’s all ‘I know my body’ and I’m all ‘You only think you know your body’ and they’re all like ‘Hey who the fuck are you’ and I’m all like ‘Hey, you know what, it’s your fractured ribcage, whatever’ so, basically, I figure, screw it.”

A footstep in the doorway to the room and the smell of tea grew stronger. A voice rang out, “Mr Mayor! You’re not dead!”

Kelly Shiring—grinning hugely—scurried up, nearly dropping a mug of tea.

“Mr Mayor,” she babbled. “You would not believe what happened, but I was just about to leave the office when…”

“Kelly?” I groaned.

“… when the Beggar King burst through the door! He marched right across the floor, stood on a table, clapped his hands together and shouted, ‘Right! Which of you bastards thinks Templeman is innocent? Come on, stand
up right now and let me kick you and your smug, polished white teeth in!’ I mean I couldn’t believe it…”

“Love a cuppa tea,” murmured Dr Seah, taking the mug and circling it under her nose like a wine taster.

“… and then he grabbed poor old Rumina Rathnayake by the scruff of the neck and I thought she was going to cry poor thing, and he starts shaking her and shouts, ‘I put the curse of the beggars upon you! May all eyes turn away from you in distrust and fear, may the cold wind find you in the warm corners of the street, may you be forever lonely in a crowd! I command the doors of the city to be shut upon you, all that you eat shall taste of the garbage from whence it came, all that you drink will be slewed with mud, there shall be no charity, nor no redemption for you and your departure will be cold, alone and unmourned, a headstone placed upon your tomb which reads simply “unknown” and he lets her go and she’s shaking and he turns to me and I think, ‘Whoops, that’s it, I’m next,’ but he just marches up to me, takes me by the elbow, pulls me over to the water cooler and says, ‘Your boss is a stupid fucker who can’t keep out of trouble and that’s why I like him’ and next thing I know he’s sending me down to the Weybridge police station and I’m having to…”

“… are there any biscuits?” asked Dr Seah.

“… do the Alderman thing and pull rank and be generally, you know how it is, generally
ghastly
unpleasant and then here you are!”

“Here you are,” concluded Dr Seah over her mug of tea. “I should probably add, I don’t usually do house calls.”

I looked from Dr Seah to Kelly and back again. Kelly’s smile quavered, unsure if it was appropriate for the
moment but hoping it would do. Dr Seah’s face was one of pure tea-filled contentment.

I tried a deep breath, and regretted that too.

“You’ll get that for a while,” said Dr Seah, eyes not leaving her mug of tea. “
Bed rest
. Did I mention the bed rest and, oh yes, while I’m here, can I just add,
bed rest
.”

I managed to wheeze, “Kelly?”

“Yes, Mr Mayor?”

“Don’t think that I’m not grateful for the intervention—I am—but I gotta ask a few questions and I’d like you, if you don’t mind, to answer them succinctly, if not, in fact, briskly, is that okay?”

“Oh, sweetie, you have had a bad day,” said Dr Seah.

“Go ahead, Mr Mayor!” trilled Kelly.

“I was in a police station?”

“Yup. Apparently you assaulted some woman. And possibly trespassed. And stole a car. Mr Caughey’s car, in fact! And passed out on the pavement isn’t really a criminal offence, might be a civil disobedience. But actually there’s something…”

“Does some great curse befall anyone who arrests the Midnight Mayor?” I asked hopefully.

“Um… I don’t know. Why, do you want one to?”

Dr Seah had put down the mug of tea and was looking in her medical bag for bandages.