The Minority Council (62 page)

His eyes darted back to the gun, then away; his smile curling wider. “You can’t save everyone.”

“No.”

“You can’t save those who don’t want to be saved.”

“No.”

“You can’t save your friends.”

“I… no. No, I can’t.”

“Do you understand? I did try to tell you.”

“I know. I get it now. I understand. And you’re right. You are right, I couldn’t… I couldn’t do it. Meera died and I couldn’t… and people died and Nabeela… and I couldn’t have changed it. I couldn’t. All this power, all this blood, all this magic and none of it, not one thing, could have made the difference. You’re right, Templeman. You are right.”

“You could thank me.”

“Could I?”

“I’ve been trying to teach you.”

“I know.”

“I’ve been trying to make you a better Midnight Mayor.”

“I know.”

“These lessons… will make you stronger. Look at you, now. You have no idea of the power of your office, no concept of what you could do, what you could be. There are things they haven’t told you, that you still don’t know about being Midnight Mayor… will you use the gun?”

I turned it over in my lap, slipped my finger into the trigger guard, thumbed off the safety catch. “Dunno,” I said. “It’s that or we have a major magical punch-up. But I hurt, and you hurt, and here we are, away from men and magic, and it’d be messy. I mean, I’m not saying it’s out of the question. But with you on fairy dust, and me in my state, there’s no way I could guarantee who’d win. But you do have to die, Templeman. There’s no simple way round it. You have to die.”

“Of course,” he replied. “You’re the Midnight Mayor.”

“Which makes you my responsibility?”

“Yes. You can’t save yourself.”

I groaned, slipping my hand tighter round the butt of the gun, knocking the barrel against my skull as I tried to concentrate. Everything was too far, too fuzzy, even him. “Thing is,” I sighed, “this whole… you can’t save shit, shit. I mean, it sounds great, doesn’t it? And you’re right, I mean, you’re right. You’ve been right about everything. I couldn’t save Meera, I just couldn’t; she didn’t want to be saved and there’s an end of it. And I couldn’t make it stop, when we… when we did what we did, I couldn’t make it stop, and then Nabeela… you killed her, you killed her and why? Because she was there and you were there and you had a gun. I couldn’t save my friend. You beat me.”

We hauled ourself up, holding the gun loose at our side. He followed us with his eyes, waiting.

“But here’s the thing,” I continued. “In all of this, with all this shit going on, and despite truth and logic and reason, despite the bigger picture and the wider issues and the great responsibility of being Midnight Mayor, despite what must be and what can be and what should be and what can never be and despite the fact that you won—you won and you were right—despite all of this, I still think I have to try.”

We raised the gun.

Our hand shook.

Levelled it at his head.

“Sorry,” I breathed. “I know it’s not what you were looking for.”

He picked himself up from the bench, eyes locked on ours, straight past the gun. I shuffled back a pace, keeping distance between us, supporting the butt of the gun with my other hand. His eyes were liver-yellow, his skin gleaming with more than sweat, a shimmer I recognised from Meera, just before the end.

“Go on then,” he murmured. “Go on.”

I swallowed, took another step back, tightened my grip on the gun. He moved closer, and I retreated, backing towards the edge of the path. “Go on!” His voice rose higher, “Go on, prove it! Show me what you are, show me that you can do it, show me, prove it, show me that you can make it happen, show me, do it!” He came towards us again and we backed off, hand shaking, vision shaking.

“Do it! You call yourself the Midnight Mayor? Do it, do it, this is what has to be done, this is it, this is the greater good, this is what matters, this is it, do it!”

“Stop…”

“What does it take? What does it take to make you do it? How many more must I kill, how much worse must things become, before you do what has to be done? What is the point of you?!”

I backed another step, slipping on the grass, eyes still focused down the length of the gun. Templeman hissed in frustration, not even interested in looking at us. He turned away, fingers flexing at his side. “Very well. If you can’t do what needs to be done, even now…”

His hand moved down to his side. We saw the shape of something beneath his jacket, something metal. His fingers closed around it; I heard the snap of the safety being released, raised my gun again, opened my mouth to shout a warning, our finger tightening around the trigger, “No, please, don’t…”

He turned, pulling up the gun from its holster in the same movement, arm outstretched, and there was a look in his face

He’d do it

He’d do it

He’s going to do it

He’s going to do it

Oh God

A shot in the night.

Hear it.

Not hear not with ear not hear just there and it stayed, it stayed inside us like the mind couldn’t get rid of it, would never get rid of it.

I stared at my own hands, dropped the gun, staggered back.

It landed heavy on the ground, and stayed.

Templeman stood, mouth open in surprise.

The gun was still in his hand.

He raised it, slowly, awkwardly, his body lurching to one side as he overbalanced to fire. He got it to belly height, chest height, shoulder height, and there was another shot.

This one seemed quieter, though it couldn’t be.

I saw the flash.

Star-like stab of yellow light in the dark behind the bench.

It briefly picked up the face of the shooter.

Templeman reeled as the bullet hit, square in his back. His legs brought him towards us, we scrambled away as he reached out, trying to hold onto us. He went, “Uh… uh… uh…” lips working at the sound.

His outreaching arm pushed his weight too far forward.

He fell, landing on his palm, which gave way, knocking him onto his elbow with a grunt. There were two holes in his back, through a lung. I could see the flattened metal gleam of one of the bullets, where it had wedged against a rib.

His fingers scrambled against the ground.

“Uh… uh… you…”

A figure stepped into the light, gun at her side.

She wore Alderman black.

Her auburn hair was pulled back.

She had a white badge, with two red crosses, pinned to her chest.

She looked down at Templeman, who tried to turn and see.

“Uh… you… uh…”

“Walk away, Mr Mayor,” she said.

I shook my head.

“Please, Mr Mayor,” she repeated. “Please walk away.”

I stared at her, and she didn’t smile.

Templeman breathed out blood and foam, mixed with a sound that, if it had strength, might have been a scream. “You… you… can’t… can’t save…”

I looked up at Kelly, who nodded, just once, in farewell.

“… can’t save… can’t…”

I turned.

Walked away.

The first gunshot came as I rounded the path down the hill, and I flinched.

The next were easier.

In which things end in a way that is probably a beginning.

There were things to be ended.

Meetings were held.

Agendas were noted.

Minutes were taken.

Reports were issued.

At the end of the day, a memo landed on my desk. It said:

Re: The Minority Council

The special commission of the Aldermen has concluded its investigations into the Minority Council. The full outline of our report may be found under section 8/111BL of the special archive. The complete version will also be filed with the bursar, treasurer and secretary of the relevant departments. A departmental special assembly will be held to discuss the broad conclusions of the report, which may fall into the following categories:

Failings

Mistakes

Lessons to be Learnt

Social Intentions

The Greater Good

The presence of the Midnight Mayor is requested.

I considered the note, then tore it into a lot of pieces, and threw it away.

There were funerals.

Nabeela’s parents had outlived their daughter.

They didn’t cry at first, which made things worse.

Then one of her cousins started to cry and, at the sight of it, her mother wept too, and her father held his wife’s arms, and still refused to cry, and that was all we could take.

Penny laid flowers by the grave and said a few words.

They were short, and they were true, and they were right, and they were all that needed to be said.

There was a dinner engagement.

Kelly said, “The worshipful company of Magi, Maguses and…”

“You are kidding me.”

“No, Mr Mayor. Now, I know this is a difficult concept, but this is a
tie
…”

“No fucking way.”

“This is a
tie
, you wear it around your neck like
this
…”

She stepped back.

“There! That isn’t so bad, is it?”

“This is a horrible moment. Just give me a second to deal with it. I can feel my life lurching in an odd and unexpected direction. This is the start of a slippery slope. First a tie, then cufflinks, then council tax and buying a mortar and pestle for the kitchen.”

“I’m not quite sure I follow the derivation, or even see the problem! Now, here’s your invite…”

“Thank you.”

“… and please do brush your hair…”

“I mean it, Kelly. Thank you. You are… what you do… did… for what it’s worth… thank you.”

She paused.

Smiled her lighthouse smile.

“You’re welcome, Mr Mayor.”

There were meetings.

He said, “… the policy of discrimination is entirely unjustifiable!”

“The policy of discrimination…”

“I am willing to take this to the EU!”

“During daylight working hours?”

“You’re completely misrepresenting the situation…”

“I’m just saying, people will talk.”

“I demand my rights! According to May vs. Howell, discriminating against any one individual on the basis of their genetic predispositions is entirely unacceptable under civil law…”

“You really think the blood donor centre is a good place for a vampire to work?”

“Have you ever felt sick from eating too much cake and never wanted more of it?”

“Yes, but that’s cake and this is kinda the life fluids of innocent victims—hell, not even innocent victims, but fine upstanding members of civil society kindly donating their blood to others…”

“Including vampires!”

“NHS-registered vampires…”

“This is the death of the liberal society…!”

The Worshipful Company of Magi, Maguses and Mages did, as Kelly had promised, serve canapés at their dinner.

Then fish.

Then meat.

Then salad.

Then pudding.

By the time Kelly kicked us under the table at the start of our speech, we could barely stand with the weight of our own belly.

A hundred pampered faces looked up at us.

A set of cards informed me in Kelly’s stiff neat hand that today I was giving a talk on thaumaturgy in the modern age. Point one read like this:

Thaumaturgy: What’s it good for?

We smiled.

I cleared my throat.

Raised my head and looked round the room.

“You will ask yourself,” I said, and we were surprised at how clear we sounded, “why. What is thaumaturgy good for? We here assembled could do, if we had the will… marvellous things. We who feel every atom of the wind as it runs across our skin, we who bathe in streetlight, we who see the shape of the stone as it bends beneath our feet, who hear the singing in the wires and know the weight of the turning tide. We who hide beneath the city’s skin, blood in its veins, beating invisible life under the surface. We could do such things, you and I. We could change… everything.

“You will ask yourself why. Why we do not, with the power we have. I have no simple answer. All I can do is tell you this: that to do such a thing is not to be human. If
you think yourself gods, well then, here is the world, waiting to be shaped. Stand and shape it, if you dare. If you dream yourselves immortal, then take immortality. Others may stand in your way, and they may fall, and you may fail, but who will know until the moment to decide?