"Bring them down." Amber gestured towards the tarps draped over the windows.
I went down the gallery, pulling down plastic sheeting and old tarpaulins, spilling light across the floor. As I reached the far end, something stirred in the shadows at the back.
"Now what did you wanna do that for?" The voice came from a figure outlined against the dark, moving forward from the deeper shadows.
"Upstairs, Dogstar. I will handle this."
I moved back along towards the stairs only to be intercepted by others moving out from the shadows. They moved in across the gallery, converging on us — four of them, all male, wearing the much-vaunted hoodies. They had crude weapons, an iron bar, a piece of piping. One of them had a piece of wood with nails spiked through the end. My hand moved down to my weapon.
"Where you going, bro?" one of them taunted. "This party just startin'."
"Upstairs, Dogstar," Amber ordered. "Or we'll lose them."
The one nearest the stairs moved into my path, blocking my exit. "You outta luck. There's nothing here but us, and we ain't leaving," he said.
"Neither are they," the one closest to me chuckled, slapping the pipe into his open hand.
"This is not your lucky day," said the third.
"If you got any money, it'd be wise to hand it over now. It'll save us searching the bodies later," said the fourth.
Amber stood easily in the centre. I knew better than to move closer to her; that would restrict our opportunities for movement. Instead I moved apart slightly, forcing them to split their attention in two directions and spread out when they would have closed in. Their attempt to bunch us together faltered.
Amber stood, head bowed, waiting.
"Got nothing to say, little girlie?" the first one taunted.
Amber lifted her head. "How are you," she asked quietly, "on nursery rhymes?"
The one who'd spoken first laughed. "You're a long way from the nursery now, bitch. You're out in the wild woods is where you are."
"How about this one," she said. "One upon a time there were four little piggies…"
I blinked. Amber had gone. There was a whine from the one who'd spoken last. Amber was behind him, the bright slash of her blade held across his throat. He dropped the iron bar.
"This little piggy went to market," she said into the silence. I blinked.
The first guy was on his knees, holding his neck, the second fell to his knees, Amber's blade under his right ear.
"This little piggy," she said, "should have stayed home." I blinked again.
The third was staring about him warily, brandishing the nailed club. There was a flash as her blade swept up from behind, up the inside of his thigh, holding him on tiptoe.
"This little piggy was roast meat," she said.
"Don't you cut me, bitch!" His voice squeaked like the piglet in the rhyme.
I blinked.
The guy with the pipe stood there, swinging it back and forth. Suddenly his legs were kicked out from under him and he crashed backwards, the pipe bouncing out of his hand to ring noisily on the concrete.
"And this piggy's blood, will run and run and run…" The tip of Amber's blade was half an inch from his eye.
I blinked. She was in the middle of the circle again.
"Shall we try again?" She said quietly, "this time with real piggies?"
She paused. For one second they stared at each other. Then she smiled.
"Once upon a time there were four little piggies…"
They scrambled to their feet, abandoning their weapons and running for the stairs. They collided with each other in their haste to get down and away from the crazy woman and her nursery rhymes. I could hear the clatter as they went down the floors, the thud as they burst through the ruined door.
Her smile faded as the noise died away. The only problem was that I was left with the crazy woman.
"I said, upstairs," said Amber, sheathing her sword.
"They blocked my way," I protested.
"No wonder you have problems if you let their kind come between you and your quarry." Amber went to the staircase leading upwards and listened.
"Do you think there's more of them?" I asked.
"No. They were just the alarm system. The real quarry is upstairs."
She vanished upwards and I followed after her. When I reached the floor above I saw her standing at an open fire door, looking down a rusty fire escape.
"They've gone," she said.
"We could follow them?"
"And play cat and mouse when they know all the bolt holes and we're not sure which of us is the cat?" What she didn't say is that if I'd been quicker getting past the watchmen then we would have had them bottled in up here. As it was they were long gone.
The upper floor had been kitted out as a grand open living space. There were multiple sofas, old metal cupboards, bookshelves and mattresses. They'd found a generator and wired up an Xbox to a flat-screen perched on top of a metal file drawer. The furniture was an odd mix of discarded seconds and the spoils of skip-diving.
"Expensive taste," she said, picking up a cashmere scarf carelessly draped over a tired sofa.
"You think they've got money?" I looked sceptically at the holes in the nearest sofa.
"No, I think they have light fingers. Anything too big to steal is second hand. All the small stuff is new." She walked through and around piles of CDs, DVDs, games and books. "There are a lot of books for teenagers."
"Some teenagers like books," I replied. "Mine does."
"Alfred Watkins, The Old Straight Track, and Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley." She tossed the books back onto the pile. "Dangerous rubbish."
"Sounds a bit New Age to me."
"We'll need to watch the cults and the nutcases," said Amber. "If they get a foothold with one of the extreme groups then we'll have a problem. The last thing we want is them setting up a new religion."
"How many are they?"
"Four, maybe six? They have beds for four but they could be sleeping together."
"Four could be difficult. They are fey," I pointed out.
"And we're Warders," she said. "Sounds like the odds are in our favour. Besides," she looked back at the fire escape, "the first sign of trouble, they abandon everything and scarper. They're not looking for a fight."
"They might come back."
"If they do they'll know we're here long before we see them, so there's no point waiting. They'll make a mistake eventually, and then we'll see."
"What does that mean?"
"We'll know the answer to that question when it happens." She turned towards the stairs.
"You know, sometimes your accent slips and you sound quite the Londoner."
"You know," she said, "Sometimes you poke your nose in where it's not wanted."
"You could have killed them," I called after her. "Why didn't you?"
"Because then we'd have to dispose of the bodies, and I don't particularly feel like digging. Do you?" She glanced back and then headed back down the stairs.
I had hoped for a better answer, something about the nobility of human life, or at least of saving killing until the last resort. Instead I got cold practical Amber. Then again, if she had killed them I was sure it wouldn't be her doing the digging. I was grateful for that much at least.
I sighed and looked around. The factory was chaotic and squalid. I wondered what they used for toilets, or washing. They probably smelled to high heaven living like this. A life in the courts would seem like luxury, if only I could find a way to persuade them before someone like Amber shoved a blade through their hearts.
I picked out a book that had slipped down the side of the sofa. The title emblazoned upon the cover was The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites amp; Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order.