Chapter Thirty-Two
“THIS IS A LIST OF PEOPLE WHO OWE ME FAVOURS, WHO AIN’T IN the church, and who won’t screw me over,” Dane said. There were not many names. They were in a hide way out in zone four, in what both was, and mystically masqueraded as, a deserted squat. They were waiting for Wati.
“What’s a-does that say ‘chameleon’?” Billy said. “That name rings a bell…”
Dane smiled. “Jason. He’s the one I said. He goes from job to job. Yeah, him and me go back.” He smiled at some reminiscence. “He’ll help if it comes to it. But it’s Wati who’s our main man, no question.”
“Where was that workshop where the Tattoo had me?” Billy said.
“What do you want to know for? Have you got some stupid idea, Billy?”
“What would be stupid? You’re a soldier, aren’t you? You’re worried about the Tattoo getting hold of your god. Is there a reason we’re not taking all this to him? You know I want to do whatever I can to him. I’m honest about that. And Goss and Subby. We want the same thing, you and me. If we can mess with them, everyone’s happy. Except them. Which is the point, right?”
“Billy,” Dane said. “We ain’t going to be storming the Tattoo’s place. Not without an army. First off I don’t know where he is, not for certain. That’s one of his gaffs, but you never know where he’s going to be, or where that workshop’ll be. Second, his guards? They’re not nothing. And plus he’s one of the biggest powers in London. Everyone owes him a favour, or money, or their life, or something. We mess with him we’re bringing down no end of shit on ourselves, even if we got to him, which we wouldn’t.”
“Has he got…? Can he…?” Billy swirled his hands suggestively.
“Knacks? It ain’t about knacks with him: it’s about money and smarts and pain. Look, someone out there has the kraken, and no one knows who. The only thing we’ve got at the moment is that Tattoo’s as buggered by that as us. I know you want to… But we can’t waste time going after him. What’ll screw him over worse is if we get hold of it. He’s too big to hunt, I’m sorry. We’re just two guys. With my know-how and your dreams.
“You should start dreaming for us. You can’t pretend they’re nothing anymore: what you’re seeing’s real. You know that. The kraken’s telling us things. So you got to dream for us.”
“Whatever it is I’m dreaming,” Billy said carefully, “I don’t think it’s the kraken.”
“What the hell else would it be?” Dane did not sound angry, but pleading. “Someone is doing something to it.” He shook his head and closed his eyes.
“Can you torture a dead god?” Billy said.
“’Course you can. You can torture a dead god. You can torture anything. And the universe don’t like it-that’s what’s got the fortune-tellers sick.”
“I have to tell Marge Leon’s dead.” Billy rubbed his chin. “She should-”
“I don’t know what this is about, mate,” said Dane, without looking at him. “But you better let it go. You ain’t going to talk to no one. You can’t. It’s for your sake and it’s for her sake too. You think you’d be doing her a favour if you got her interested? I know this ain’t really about her, but still…” He left Billy feeling unfinished.
On the floor between them was a plastic gnome. They were waiting for Wati. Dane showed Billy truncheon strikes using a wooden spoon, showed him slowed-down punches and neck locks. “You did good,” he said.
His tuition was distracted. But when Wati did come, it was so quietly that neither man had any intimation of his presence until he spoke. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, a snarly voice in the chubby plastic man’s pipes. “Emergency meetings. You got no idea.”
“Everything okay?”
“Not even. We got attacked.”
“What happened?” Dane said.
“Look, it ain’t a picnic and everyone knows that, right? But they came in hard, and they came in brutal. André’s still in hospital.”
“Cops?”
“Pros.”
“Pinkertons?” The agency’s name was a byword for mercenary strikebreaking.
“They weren’t secret about it. It was the Tattoo’s bastards.” Dane stared at the statuette, and it stared back at him.
“I guess that ain’t such a surprise,” Dane said. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Do we know who’s paying him?”
“Take your pick. No shortage of candidates. But d’you understand what this means? They’re gunning for us. They’ve taken it up to DEFCON One.”
“I’m sorry, mate. You’re not the only one. I thought I knew which of my places were secure,” Dane said. “The Teuthex sent some of… You remember Clem?” Wati whistled slowly.
“That’s got to fuck with your head,” he said. “At least I know the bastards I’m up against are no friends of mine. If I could, I’d go in have a shufti, see what your old church are up to.”
“There are statues all over the walls…” Billy said.
“There are blocks,” Dane said. “Ways to keep people out. They’re careful.”
“I got to look out for my members, Dane,” Wati said. “We have to win this. But it turns out that I’m warring with the Tattoo whether I like it or not. He comes for my members, I’m coming for him. If the main thing he wants is to get hold of the kraken, the main thing I want is to get it first. Whatever he’s for, I’m against it.”
The two men smiled.
WATI SUMMONSED A JACKDAW OUT OF THE SKY AND TO THE kitchen window. It dropped a piece of paper on the counter, sang something to Wati and left. It was Dane’s list of porters. It was much folded, scratched with bird claws, written on in various clumsy hands, in red, blue and black.
“It wasn’t hard to get information,” Wati said in that out-of-time accent. “Mancers know each other. People with this sort of talent, even if my members haven’t met them through their bosses, they know of them.”
“Why are these ones crossed off?” Dane said. “I’d’ve thought Fatima Hussein was a good candidate for having shifted it.”
“The ones crossed out in blue are out of the country.”
“Alright. What about these others?”
“They have familiars. Their knacks are so tied up with them that with the strike, they couldn’t port cheese into a sandwich.”
“How does it work?” Billy said.
“Quid pro quo,” Dane said. “They’re your eyes and ears, but more’n that. Put something into your animal or your whatever it is…”
“Magic.”
“Put something into it, you get more out,” Wati said. Animals as amplifiers. “There’s four people we reckon could’ve ported this. Simon Shaw, Rebecca Salmag, the Advocate, and Aykan Bulevit.”
“I know a couple of them,” Dane said. “Simon retired. Aykan’s a tosser. Any beamers? I hate beaming.”
“Yeah, but we ain’t talking about you,” Wati said. “We’re talking about your god.”
“Its body.”
“Well, yeah. So, either it was one of this lot, or we’re dealing with something we’ve never seen before,” Wati said. “And it isn’t that bloody easy to stay secret in London.”
“Not that whoever it is seems to be having much trouble,” Billy said.
“There is that,” said Wati. “Keep something in your pocket for me to get into. So I can get to you quick.”
“How’d you feel about a Bratz doll?” Dane said.
“I’ve been in worse. But there’s something else. It isn’t just a question of being able to get the thing out. It’s getting past the protection. All those people on the list are porters, but none of them are fighters. There’s no way any of them should’ve been able to get past the phylax.”
“The angel,” Dane said. “The angel of memory.