The Severed Streets (54 page)

‘I don’t know where to begin,’ she said.
‘I don’t know how you can deal with it.
I don’t know how I can help.
But I want to.’

‘It was harder on you.
I learned a lot by being absent.
I’m fine.’

‘Of course you’re not …
fine,
Quill!’

‘I’ve just got some odd memories, which seem a bit like a dream now, and a new cock.
Thought you’d be pleased.’

The phone on the bedside table rang.
Quill looked at the display and recognized the number.
He hesitated.
No, he had to answer it.
He took it out into the hall and closed the door behind him before he did, so she wouldn’t hear.
There was, as he’d expected, only the sound on the other end of the line of something big and far away, breathing.
Quill knew he was connected to the Smiling Man.

‘So you’re calling me to try and scare me,’ said Quill, ‘to remind me where I’ve been.
I think you’re hoping I might tell someone, even just Sarah, what was written on the sign I saw over the gates of Hell.’
Silence.
Had the breathing paused?
‘Yeah, I’ve been thinking about everything that’s happened, and I’m pretty sure that’s what you want me to do.
That’s why my time never ran out in Hell, because you didn’t want me coming back here a gibbering wreck.
Maybe you planted the document that set Ross off on her quest for the Bridge of Spikes.
Let me walk you through it.’
He went down the stairs into the kitchen and started to make a cup of tea, the phone clamped to his ear, aware he was doing this to hold off with sheer domesticity the idea of who he was talking to.
‘Gaiman was working for you.
He made sure Vincent killed me.
But I wonder if he also made sure my notebook ended up in Sefton’s hands.
He could have burned it, couldn’t he, or just kept it?
But no, he disposed of it somewhere in London, so it fell into the Rat King’s clutches.
Of course, he could have just left it at the scene of the crime, but then it wouldn’t have seemed so important, would it?
It took Sefton such a lot of work to find it that it was obvious those ridiculous few words of mine must contain some major clue.
That was what got Sefton and Ross to the long barrow, and opening that finished off Vincent.
So why would you want to let Vincent nearly complete his plans, and then get rid of him?’
Quill watched the kettle boil.
‘I think you like chaos in London.
So you liked what Vincent was doing, but not what he was planning for afterwards: all those jackboots, all that
order.
If anyone gets that done, you want it to be you.
Am I right?’

Silence again.
The breathing had definitely slowed.
Quill wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the Smiling Man speak.
But he was going to keep daring him to do so.
‘I suppose some other people must have come back from Hell, or know what’s written above that gate, what the secret is.
But you’ve seen that I’ve got a thing about doing my duty.
You were sure I’d
have
to tell everyone who’d believe it.
That gradually that message would sink in to them.
That it’d grind them down even more than they’ve been ground down now.’
The kettle finished boiling.
He poured the tea.
‘So I’m not going to do that.
I’m going to find a way to heal my unit.
I’m going to wait until I’m sure they’re able to cope with what I know.
Then we’re going to find some way to change it.’

There was a click from the phone.
He’d hung up.

Quill found that he was actually smiling.
He took a slow sip from his tea.
He thought about Sarah and Jessica asleep upstairs, and what the words on that sign over the gate of Hell meant for them and for everyone else he knew.
The sign had read:

It’s everyone who ever lived in London

Acknowledgements

This book could not have been written without the permission and cooperation of Neil Gaiman, to whom I owe an enormous debt.
He read through all the relevant sections and gave his approval.
He is, of course, an honest and lovely man.

Others who aided enormously in the writing of
The Severed Streets
are: Simon Bradshaw, Dave Clements, Judith Clute, Simon Colenutt, Andrew Englefield, Kieron Gillen, ‘SJG’, Simon Guerrier, Lynn, Harry Markos, Jamie McKelvie, Cheryl Morgan, Chief Inspector Andrew Smith and Mark Wyman.
Thanks are also due to Steven Moffat and Sue and Beryl Vertue, for old times’ sake.

By Paul Cornell

London Falling

The Severed Streets

PAUL CORNELL has written some of
Doctor Who
’s best-loved episodes for the BBC.
He has also written a number of comic book series for Marvel and DC, including
Wolverine
and
Saucer Country.
He has been Hugo Award-nominated for his work in TV, comics and prose, and won the BSFA Award for his short fiction.
The Severed Streets
is his second urban fantasy novel.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE SEVERED STREETS

Copyright © 2014 by Paul Cornell

All rights reserved.

A Tor Book

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New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

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First published in Great Britain by Tor, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

First U.S. Edition: May 2014

eISBN 9781429943857

First eBook edition: May 2014