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CHAPTER NINE

Parked Up

George and the Gunner stared up at the concrete ceiling. The gunner smiled. Its gone.

George slumped back against the wall and stared at the radiator grille of the Mercedes in front of them. “What was it?” “A taint.”

“A taint?”

The Gunner shrugged and scratched himself with more human pleasure than you’d expect from a statue.

“Probably a gargoyle. It was flying. Most of the flying taints are gargoyles.” George filed this under “New Information” and found he was overloaded in that department.

“Wait a minute. The thing that chased me from the Natural History Museum. The three lizard things that came off the building. The things you shot. Were they taints?” “There you go. Catch on quick, you do. Keep going like that you might even make it through the night.” George was opening his mouth to ask a question he didn’t really want the answer to, when there was a scuff of feet approaching. The Gunner held him still with a hand on his knee. The footsteps stopped in front of them. There was the scrape of a key in a lock, the solid click-clunk of a Mercedes door opening and closing, and then the boom of an engine coming alive behind the radiator grille in front of their noses.

“Er …” said George.

The headlights came on. George and the Gunner were splashed against the raincoat gray of the walls by the high beams, like cartoon prisoners caught in a searchlight.

“Help?” George shouted hopefully to the face behind the steering wheel in front of him. The face looked through him, then away as it craned around to back out of the parking space.

“He can’t see you,” said the Gunner.

The lights swept off them as the Mercedes chunked out of reverse, found drive, and squealed away down the rows of parked cars, looking for the exit.

“Why can’t he see me?” he asked, feeling like he shouldn’t have shouted help, as if it had somehow, given his situation, been rude.

“Oh. Well, he can see you. His eyes work, but he can’t see you in his head. His brain won’t let him.” “Because?” said George.

“Because he’s a normal rational bloke—apart from driving a German car—and normal rational people don’t believe you can walk around London with statues. Stands to reason—it’s impossible. So his mind won’t believe his eyes. It’s a protection thing. If he could see us he’d know he was, y’ know …” “Doolally.”

“That’s the ticket.”

“Why can/see you?”

The Gunner indulged in some more scratching, then stood up suddenly and stretched out the kinks in his neck.

“Because you done something. Dunno what, but it must have been bad to get the taints so angry. Suppose we’ll have to find out what it was, but I’ll tell you this, and I’ll tell you for nothing an’all—it was bad enough to drop you out of your London, into my London. And that ain’t good. Not for you.” “What do you mean, your London?”

“I mean the London where the taints hate the spits, and things that stay still in your London move and hunt and fight. Didn’t think your London was the only one, did you? London Town’s more than just any old city. It’s like the rock and the clay and the dirt it sits on. It’s got layers. You just fell through one into another. Now, come on, we got to go ask the sphinxes how we can best solve—” He stopped. Ears pricked. George stepped closer to him without thinking about it.

“What did you hear?”

“Nothing. I mean, I heard something stop, but the something was so quiet I didn’t notice it until it suddenly wasn’t there.” Footsteps started again, this time easily audible, heading for them. The Gunner relaxed.

“It’s all right. It’s just a person. Stand easy. Nothing to worry about.” “Nothing to worry about?”

The Gunner shook his head in disappointment.

“If you ain’t going to listen there’s no point me flapping my lip, is there? I told you. Normal people can’t see us, because to them we, I, am impossible, right?” He pointed. “So she can’t see us. Look.” A twelve-year-old girl with dark hair and a sheepskin coat walked toward the empty car bay they stood at the end of. The Gunner waved at her. Looked at George.

“See. Nothing. Try it. Make a face. Blow a raspberry. She won’t be able to see you, I promise.” He nudged George. George waved at her. Her face didn’t change. He stuck his tongue out and made a face.

“See,” said the Gunner, “she can’t see us because her mind won’t let her.” “I can see you fine,” said Edie. “I’m just waiting for you to stop making stupid faces and say something sensible.” The Gunner stared at her.

George stared at the Gunner.

The Gunner looked down at George.

“Ah,” he said. “Interesting. That’s not meant to happen. Unless …” His voice trailed off like the smoke from his cigarette. And they all stood there for quite a long time, not saying anything, just looking at each other. George looked at Edie, Edie looked at the Gunner, and the Gunner looked right back at her. George felt the tiniest bit left out of the staring contest. So he broke the silence.

“Who are you?”

Edie didn’t answer.

“Okay. Why are you here?”

She broke eye contact with the Gunner long enough to shoot George a look that was fierce and contemptuous in roughly equal proportions.

“I followed you. Obviously.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve seen statues move. Lots of times. But I’ve never seen anyone else see it. So.” Now she gave up trying to outstare the Gunner and looked at George. He realized her eyes were the same deep dark brown as her hair, as deep brown can get before it becomes black. So dark that you couldn’t really see where the eye stopped and the iris began. This was a little unsettling. For all he knew, the irises were pinpricks of hate.

“So what?” he asked.

“So I thought you might be like me.”

“He ain’t,” said the Gunner, still looking hard at her. “He’s nothing like you.” Edie lifted her chin. Maybe it was to look up into the Gunner’s face. Maybe it was just defiance. George thought it was probably both, but what he thought on top of all that was that the only thing weirder than finding yourself talking to a statue that talked back and shot things was seeing someone else do it. Somehow, standing to one side and watching something impossible happening made you a lot more woozy than doing it yourself. He found his hand had excavated the lump of plasticene in his pocket and was kneading it nervously.

“Why not?” asked Edie.

“Because,” said the Gunner, as if that ended it, and walked past her, heading for the exit ramp. George and Edie looked at each other.

“Er,” he said. That didn’t sound impressive. So he tried “Um”—which sounded just as pointless as the last time he had used it. The black eyes blinked at him once. Then turned away as Edie strode off after the Gunner.

“Hey,” she spat, “’because’ isn’t an answer. Why isn’t he like me?” The Gunner stood on the ramp, looking up at the rain coming down.

“I’m talking to you.”

The Gunner turned very fast and grabbed her wrist.

She went to bite him, striking in the same swift snake action with which she’d bitten the bus conductor, but stopped before her teeth hit the bronze hand. Instead she growled in anger and kicked him. All she hurt was her foot. He reached for the collar of her coat and lifted her until they were eyeball to eyeball.

“I heard you,” he said.

“So why isn’t he like me? He can see you. He’s just like me. He’s—” The Gunner cut her off. “He ain’t like you. Ain’t like you at all. No one’s like you… .” She struggled against the grip on the scruff of her coat, but it was about as effective as kicking him.

“No one’s like you. No one’s been like you for years. I ain’t seen nor heard of someone like you for more than years. For decades. No one has. Some of us even think you’re …” Rain dripped into a growing puddle at the base of the ramp as he stood there trying to think of the right word. When he found it he rolled it around his mouth like a favorite sweet before letting it out.

“Extinct.”

“I don’t know what you’re taking about. I’m not gone. I’m here. I’m a—” “You’re a glint.”

“A what?”

“A glint. You’re a glint.”

She looked at George. He shrugged.

“What’s a glint?”

“A glint is what you are if you can see all this. You’re a glint, a seer, a bright spark; someone so sharp and shiny they cut themselves, so sharp they slice between all the different layers of ‘what is’and ‘what might be’and end up chopping right on through into the ‘what was.’” There was a flicker of something close to panic in Edie’s eyes for a moment, then she pushed it away and jutted her jaw at the Gunner.

“I don’t know that. I don’t know what that means. I’m just me—” “Glints is dangerous. Glints is trouble. Glints is so much bleeding trouble that they attracts more trouble. A glint is the last thing we need if we want to get where we need to go. So you stay here—and we’re going.” “Don’t tell me what to do,” Edie growled. “Put me down.” “Or what?” asked the Gunner with a dangerously good-natured smile.

Edie squirmed her hand in and out of her pocket, and brandished the sea-glass disk in his face.

“Or I’ll use this,” she spat.

He looked at the dull glass circle with interest. He reached his hand toward it. He tapped it. It pinged dully.

“You’ll use your bit of glass, will you?”

Edie concentrated savagely and nodded.

“What does it do?”

“It glows when there are gargoyles around, and they fly away when they see it. It’s powerful.” He pinged it again. She began to feel silly holding it out. He put her down suddenly.

“Frightened a lot of gargoyles with it, have you?” “Yes. No. One. Just now. The one that was sniffing after you. It came after me, and I held it out and it flew away.” The Gunner looked at the rain falling out of the black rectangle over their heads.

“And why did you hold it out? Did you know it was powerful?” “It gets hot when they’re about. It gets bright. It senses them….” “And it’s a weapon, is it?”

“It must be. It flew away.”

“That why you got it out?”

“No. I got it out because I couldn’t think what else to do.” The Gunner’s smile was getting on Edie’s nerves. “Anyway. Why doesn’t matter. It worked.” “Was it raining?”

“What?”

“When you thought you defeated the mighty gargoyle, was it raining? Had this rain just started?” Edie thought. And nodded.

“Wasn’t your glass. Your glass is just a warning stone. Not a weapon.” “But it flew away!”

“It flew away because it’s a gargoyle. S’what a gargoyle is. Just a jumped-up waterspout. A really ugly bad-tempered waterspout. That’s its purpose. When it ain’t raining, it can go where it likes, but soon as the first drop hits the roof of its building, it’s got to go. Vengeance and spits don’t mean a thing to it. It’s got to do what it was made for, same as everything else does. It can’t deny its First Purpose. It’s got to do what the maker intended.” George coughed.

“The Maker? You mean God?”

The Gunner laughed and shook his head, sending an arc of rainwater spinning away from himself.

“Don’t know anything about gods. A makers just the bloke what makes us. I told you mine certainly wasn’t any shape of a god, not Jagger. He was just a soldier himself, fought in the Great War, come out alive with a head-ful of what he’d seen, and making-hands to help others see a bit of it too. The gargoyle’s maker was probably some medieval stonecutter with a foul mouth and a belly full of sour beer, more’n like. ‘Makers make the made, and the made must follow their makers meaning.’That’s how it goes. It’s how it’s always gone.” He turned to Edie. “Your glass didn’t save you, so don’t try it again. Rain stopped play, or it’d have had you. It’s not a weapon. It’s a warning, no more, no less. Now we’ll be going. Goodbye.” He snapped his fingers at George.

“Come. We can move fast and safe while it’s raining, and we got a lot of city to cross before we make the river.” “Why are we going to the river?”

“Asking the wrong question again. Just come.” George threw a glance at Edie. She was standing in the rain, looking down at the glass in her hand. Two steps would have taken her under the shelter of the overhang at the lip of the ramp, but she didn’t seem bothered. She looked bedraggled and sad and a little like a puppet with some of its strings cut.

“Why can’t she come?”

“I told you. She’s a glint.”

Edie looked up. There was a flash of lightning above, and in that flash she flinched. And for an instant, and only a very short instant, George thought she looked much younger and less certain. She pocketed the glass and wrapped her arms around herself, as if she had suddenly noticed the cold.

“But I still don’t know what a glint is!” she said, frustration straining the edges of her voice.

“Glints is uncanny. And what we got to do is going to take all the canniness I can muster. Glints is bad luck. Sorry, but that’s the truth on it. Now we got to go.” “Okay,” she said. “Go. Fine. But I’ll follow you.” “Don’t,” said the Gunner, and strode off up the ramp.

She waved George after the Gunner.

“Go on, then. Off you go. You have to go. Otherwise I can’t start following, can I?” George felt a tug in his guts. He wanted to stay close to the Gunner, but something made him feel bad about leaving this girl. Maybe he was feeling sorry for her, he thought. Maybe he was feeling sorry for himself. Or maybe he just wanted company in his nightmare.

“Look,” he started, “I’m sorry—”

Whap. She slapped him. The stinging smack to his face shocked him almost as much as anything he’d experienced so far.

“What the … Why did you … ?”

Edie bunched his shirt collar in her fist as she spoke, fierce and low.

“Don’t be sorry for me. Don’t treat me like I’m soft. And don’t like me.” He felt the red handprint on his face. “I don’t like you. Don’t hit me again.” “Good. Then we’ll get along fine. You better hurry up.

George looked up the ramp. The Gunner was gone. He didn’t stop to think. He just raced up the wet incline, shouting, “Wait!”