Cubism as failure. Billy walked to another picture. More traditionally representational-a fat, flattened giant squid mouldering on a slab, surrounded by legs in waders. Quick, wisping brushstrokes. "Why did you drug me?"

"That's Renoir. That over there, Constable. Pre-Steenstrup, so it's what we call the atramentous epoch. Before we emerged from the ink-cloud." The works around Billy looked suddenly like Manets. Like Piranesis, Bacons, Breughels, Kahlos.

"Moore's my name," the priest said. "I am very sorry about your friend. I sincerely wish we could have stopped that."

"I don't even know what happened," Billy said. "I couldn't tell what that man ..." He swallowed into silence. Moore cleared his throat. Behind heavily framed glass was a flattish surface, a slatey plane. It was brown-grey rock perhaps two feet square. In organic lines, in charcoal ink and stained a dried-blood red, overlooked by outlined human figures, was a torpedo shape; a conclave of spiral whips; a round black eye.

"That's from the Chauvet Cave," Moore said. "Thirty-five thousand years old." The carbon eye of the squid looked across epochs at them. Billy felt vertigo at the preantique rendition. Was it meant to be seen in the licking of a fire light? Women and men with sticks and deft fingertip smuts rendering what had visited at the edge of the sea. What had raised many arms in deepwater greeting while they waved from rockpools.

"We've always commissioned," Moore said. "We show them god." He smiled. "Or god's young. That's what we used to do.

"Since the end of the atrament we can generally only offer dreams. As we did you. How Hubert called up a young god we don't know. Even the sea won't tell us. And we've asked it. You've seen the young, Billy. Baby Jesu." He smiled at his little blasphemy. "That's what you preserved. Architeuthis Architeuthis is kraken-spawn. Gods are oviparous. Not just our gods, all gods. God-spawn's everywhere if you know where to look." is kraken-spawn. Gods are oviparous. Not just our gods, all gods. God-spawn's everywhere if you know where to look."

"What was that tattoo?" Billy said.

"Those kraken that make it to the last stage?" Moore jerked his thumb at the cave painting. "They sleepeth, is what they do," he quoted. "'Battening upon huge seaworms,' as they say. They'll rise only at the final end. Only in the end end, when 'latter fire heats the deeps'"-he did quote fingers-"only then to be seen once once, roaring they shall rise and on the surface die."

Billy looked past him. He wondered how the search of his almost-colleagues was going, whether Baron, Vardy, and Collingswood were making headway as they looked for him, as they must be doing. With a moment's startling clarity he imagined Collingswood with her so un-uniform uniform and swagger knocking heads together to find him.

"We were there at the beginning," Moore said. "And we're here now. At the end. Baby gods have started manifesting all over. Kubodera and Mori. That was just the first. Pictures, video, making themselves known. Architeuthis, Mesonychoteuthis Architeuthis, Mesonychoteuthis, unknowns. After all those years of silence. They're rising rising.

"On the twenty-eighth of February, 2006, the kraken appeared in London." He smiled. "In Melbourne they keep theirs in a block of ice ice. Can you imagine? I can't help thinking of it as a godsicle. You know they're planning one for Paris which is going to be, what do they call it, plastinated? plastinated? Like that strange German man does to people. Like that strange German man does to people. That's That's how they're going to show god." Dane shook his head. Moore shook his head. "But, not you. You treated it ... right, Billy. You laid it out with a how they're going to show god." Dane shook his head. Moore shook his head. "But, not you. You treated it ... right, Billy. You laid it out with a kindness." kindness." Odd stilted formulation. "With respect. You kept it behind glass." Odd stilted formulation. "With respect. You kept it behind glass."

His squid had been a relic in a reliquary. "This is kraken year zero," Moore said. "This is Anno Teuthis Anno Teuthis. We're in the end times. What d'you think's been going on? You think it's just bloody chance that when you bring god up and treat it as you do, the world suddenly starts ending? Why do you think we kept coming to see? Why do you think we had someone on the inside?" Dane bent his head. "We had to know. We had to watch. We had to protect it too, find out what was going on. We knew something was going to happen.

"You realise the reason you had had a kraken to work on is because in roaring it rose and on the surface died?" a kraken to work on is because in roaring it rose and on the surface died?"

Chapter Seventeen

IF YOU GOT INVOLVED WITH L LEON, MARGE HAD ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD, you took certain behaviours for granted. It wasn't a bad thing-it gave leeway for your own behaviour, the indulgences of which might have caused all manner of resentments and bad bloods with previous lovers.

For example, Marge felt no compunction about cancelling a night out if she was working on a piece and it was going well. "Sorry sweet," she'd said, many times, leaning over the battered video equipment that she rescued from skips and eBay. "I've got something going. Can we raincheck?"

When Leon did the same, even if it annoyed her, it also often came with satisfaction, the knowledge that these were credits she could cash in later. For similar reasons, knowing she had no intent to become monogamous when they got together, she found his own occasional non-her-focused sexual liaisons (mostly obviously telegraphed) rather a relief.

In and of itself, she would not have thought much or anything of not hearing from Leon for two, three, five days, a week at a time. That was nothing, any more than was a last-minute cancellation. What, however, gave her some anxiety, some pause, was that they had had a specific arrangement-they had been going to see a James Bond marathon, because "it'll be hilarious"-and that he had not called to change plans. He had simply texted her some nonsense-that itself not news-and not turned up. And now was ignoring her messages.

She texted him, she emailed him. Where are you? Where are you? she wrote. she wrote. Tell me or i'm going to get worried. Call rsvp text carrier pigeon whatever you prefer xx Tell me or i'm going to get worried. Call rsvp text carrier pigeon whatever you prefer xx.

Marge had deleted the last message Leon had sent, thinking it some drunk foolishness. Of course she regretted it deeply now. It had said something like: billy says theres a squid cult billy says theres a squid cult.

"FATHERS AND MOTHERS AND UNCARING AUNTS AND UNCLES IN freezing darkness we implore you." freezing darkness we implore you."

"We implore you." The congregation mumbled in time, in response to Moore the Teuthex's phrases.

"We are your cells and synapses, your prey and your parasites."

"Parasites."

"And if you care for us at all we know it not."

"Not."

Billy sat at the back of the church. He did not stand and sit with the small congregation, nor did he murmur meaningless phonemes in polite lag of their words. He watched. There were fewer than twenty people in the room. Mostly white, but not all, mostly dressed inexpensively, mostly middle-aged or older, but, a strange demographic blip, with four or five tough-looking young men, grim and devout and obedient, in one row.

Dane stood like a hulking altar boy. His eyes were closed, his mouth moving. The lights were low, there were shadows all over the place.

The Teuthex recited the service, his words drifting in and out of English, into Latin or Pig Latin, into what sounded like Greek, into strange slippery syllables that were perhaps dreams of sunken languages or the invented muttering of squidherds, Atlantean, Hyperborean, the pretend tongue of R'lyeh. Billy had expected ecstasy, the febrile devotions of the desperate speaking in tongues or tentacles, but this fervour-and fervour it was, he could see the tears and gripping hands of the devout-was controlled. The flavour of the sect was vicarly, noncharismatic, an Anglo-Catholicism of mollusc-worship.

Such a tiny group. Where were others? The room itself, the seats themselves, could have contained three times as many people as were there. Had the space always been aspirational, or was this a religion in decline?

"Reach out to enfold us," Moore said, and the congregation said, "Fold us," and made motions with their fingers.

"We know," the Teuthex said. A sermon. "We know this is a strange time. There are those who think it's the end." He made another motion of some dismissal. "I'm asking you all to have faith. Don't be afraid. 'How could it have gone?' people have asked me. 'Why aren't the gods doing anything?' Remember two things. The gods don't owe us anything. That's not why we worship. We worship because they're gods. This is their universe, not ours. What they choose they choose and it's not ours to know why."

Christ, thought Billy, what a grim theology what a grim theology. It was a wonder they could keep anyone in the room, without the emotional quid pro quo of hope. That's what Billy thought, but he saw that it was not nihilism in that room. That it was full of hope, whatever the Teuthex said; and he the Teuthex, Billy thought, quietly hopeful too. Doctrine was not quite doctrine.

"And second," said Moore. "Remember the movement that looks like not moving." A small frisson at that.

There was no communion, no passing out of, what, sacred calamari? Only some discordant and clunky wordless hymn, a silent prayer, and the worshippers left. Each as they filed out glanced at Billy with a strange and needy look. The young men looked positively hungry, and nervous to meet his eye.

Dane and Moore came to meet him. "So," said the Teuthex. "That was your first service."

"What was that squirrel?" Billy said.

"Freelancer," Dane said.

"What? Freelance what?"

"Familiar." Familiar Familiar. "Don't look like that. Familiar. Don't act like you've never heard of one."

Billy thought of black cats. "Where is it now?"

"I don't know, I don't want to know. It did what I paid it for." Dane did not look at him. "Job done. So it's gone."

"What did you pay it?"

"I paid it nuts, Billy. What would you think I'd pay a squirrel?" Dane's face was so deadpan flat Billy could not tell if what he was facing was the truth or contempt. Welcome to this world of work. Magic animals got paid in something, nuts or something. Billy examined the pictures and books in Moore's own dark grey chambers.

"Baron ..." Billy said.

"Oh, we know Baron," said Dane. "And his little friends."

"He told me some books got stolen."

"They're in the library," said the Teuthex. He poured tea. "Can't use a photocopy to persuade the world."

Billy nodded as if that made sense. He faced Moore. "What's happening?" he said. "What did that ... man ... want? And why are you keeping me prisoner?"

Moore looked quizzical. "Prisoner? Where is it you want to go?"

There was a silence. "I'm getting out of here," Billy said. And then very quickly he said, "What did ... Goss ... do to Leon?"

"Would you be very offended if I said I don't believe you?" Moore said. "That you want to get out? I'm not sure you do." He met Billy's stare. "What did you see?" Billy almost recoiled at the eagerness in his voice. "Last night. What did you dream? You don't even know why you're not safe, Billy. And if you go to Baron and Vardy you'll be considerably less so.

"I know what they said about us." He almost twinkled, a vicar being a good sport. "But that little faith-gang called 'police' can't help, you know. You're in the Tattoo's sights, now."

"Think about the Tattoo," Dane said. "That face. That man's face on another man's back. How was you going to deal with that, Billy?" After a silence Dane said, "How you going to get the police to deal with that?"

"It isn't just that, either," Moore said. "As if that weren't enough. I know it's all a bit ... Well. But it isn't just the Tattoo, even. Suddenly, ever since something or other, everyone agrees the end's in sight. Nothing unusual in that, you might say, and you'd be right except that I do mean everyone everyone. That has ... ramifications for you. You need to be with a power. Let me tell you. We are the Congregation of God Kraken. And this is our time."

THEY EXPLAINED.

London was full of dissident gods.

Why? Well they have to live somewhere. A city living in its own afterlife. Why not?

Of course, they're all over, gods are. Theurgic vermin, those once worshipped or still worshipped in secret, those half worshipped, those feared and resented, petty divinities: they infect everybloody-where. The ecosystems of godhead are fecund, because there's nothing and nowhere that can't generate the awe on which they graze. But just because there are cockroaches everywhere doesn't mean there aren't cockroaches in particular in a New York kitchen. And just because angels keep their ancient places and every stone, cigarette packet, tor and town has its deities, doesn't mean there's nothing special about London.

The streets of London are stone synapses hardwired for worship. Walk the right or wrong way down Tooting Bec you're invoking something or other. You may not be interested in the gods of London, but they're interested in you.

And where gods live there are knacks, and money, and rackets. Halfway-house devotional murderers, gunfarmers and self-styled reavers. A city of scholars, hustlers, witches, popes and villains. Criminarchs like the Tattoo, those illicit kings. The Tattoo had run with the Krays, before he was Tattoo, but really you couldn't leave your front door unlocked. Nobody remembered what his name had been: that was part of what had happened to him. Whatever nasty miracle it was had en-dermed him had thrown away his name as well as his body. Everyone knew they used to know what he was called, including him, but no one recalled it now.

"The one who got him like that was smart," Dane said. "It was better when he was around, old Griz. I used to know some of his guys."

There was a many-dimensional grid of geography, economy, obligation and punishment. Crime overlapped with faith-"Neasden's run by the Dharma Bastards," Dane said-though many guerrilla entrepreneurs were secular, agnostic, atheist or philistine ecumenical. But faith contoured the landscape.

"Who's Goss and Subby?" Billy said. He sat guarded between them, looking from one to the other. Dane looked down at his own big fists. Moore sighed.

"Goss and Subby," Moore said.

"What's their ...?" Billy said.

"Everything you can think of is what."

"Badness," Dane said. "Goss sells his badness."

"Why did he kill that guy? In the cellar?" Billy said.

"The preserved man," the Teuthex said. "If that was his handiwork."

Billy said, "That Tattoo thought I stole the squid."

"That's why he was hunting you," Dane said. "See? That's why I had that familiar watching you."

"You preserved it, Billy. You opened the door and found it gone," Moore said. Pointed at him. "No wonder Baron wanted you. No wonder the Tattoo wanted you, and no wonder we were watching."

"But he could tell I didn't," Billy pleaded. "He said I had nothing to do with anything."

"Yeah," said Dane. "But then I rescued you."

"We got you out, so we're allies," Moore said. "So you are are his enemy now." his enemy now."

"You're under our protection," said Dane. "And because of that you need it."

"How did you take the Architeuthis?" Architeuthis?" Billy said at last. Billy said at last.

"It wasn't us," said Moore quietly.

"What?" But it was a relic. They would fight for it, surely, like a devout of Rome might fight for a shroud, a fervent Buddhist might liberate a stolen Sura. "So who?"

"Well," said Moore. "Quite.

"Look," he said. "You have to persuade the universe that things make sense a certain way. That's what knacking is." Billy blinked at this abrupt conversational twist, that word unfamiliarly verbed. "You use whatever you can."

"Snap," said Dane. He clicked his fingers, and with the sound came a tiny fluorescent glow in the air just where the percussion had been. Billy stared and knew it was not a parlour trick. "That's just skin and hand."

"You use what you can," Moore said, "and some what-you-cans are better than others."

Billy realised that Dane and his priest were not, in fact, changing the subject.

"A giant squid is ..." Billy petered out but he was thinking, Is powerful medicine, a big thing, a massive deal. It's magic, is what it is. For Is powerful medicine, a big thing, a massive deal. It's magic, is what it is. For knacking. "That's why it's been taken. That's why that tattoo wants it. But this is knacking. "That's why it's been taken. That's why that tattoo wants it. But this is craziness," craziness," he added. He couldn't stop himself. "This is craziness." he added. He couldn't stop himself. "This is craziness."

"I know, I know," Moore said. "Mad beliefs like that, eh? Must be some metaphor metaphor, right? Must mean something else?" Shook his head. "What an awfully arrogant thing. What if faiths are exactly what they are? And mean exactly what they say?"

"Stop trying to make sense of it and just listen," Dane said.

"And what," Moore said, "if a large part of the reason they're so tenacious is that they're perfectly accurate?" He waited, and Billy said nothing. "This is all perfectly real. The Tattoo wants that body, Billy, to do something himself himself, or stop someone else else doing something," Moore said. doing something," Moore said.

"All these things have their powers, Billy," he said intensely. "'There are plenty of currents on the way down deep' is what we'd say. But some go deeper, quicker, than others. Some are right." right." He smiled not like someone joking. He smiled not like someone joking.

"What would someone do with it?" Billy said.

"Whatever it is," Dane said, "I'm against it."

"What wouldn't they?" Moore said. "What couldn't they? With something that holy."

"That's why we need to get out there," Dane said. "To find it."

"Dane," said Moore.