"For what?" the voice said. A whip kinked out of the shade and wrapped around Billy's leg, sticking where it touched like a gecko foot, yanking him off his feet and out of the circle of last light. Down on the tarmac Billy opened his mouth to shout, but there was that glass grinding, much louder than he had ever heard it before. His head was full of communicative pain. Something came. It whirled.

Bone arms windmilling. There was a clack of teeth, vivid empty eyes. Finger bones punctured meat like fangs. The thing arrived with incomprehensible motion, too fast. It punch-punched stiff-fingered, leaving blood, ripping the throats of two, three, five of the attackers, so they screamed and fell pissing blood.

Billy kicked off the whip. He crawled back. The interceder rocked at the edge of the light.

It was a skull on the top of a giant jar. A huge glass preserving bottle, of the type that Billy had for years been filling with preservative and animal dead. This one was nearly five feet high, full of flesh slough and clouding alcohol. On its glass lid was a shabby human skull liberated, Billy absolutely knew, from one of the cupboards of remains in the Natural History Museum. It snapped its teeth. Where the rim met the lid the flaring glass served as shoulders, and the thing raised two fleshless taloned arms taken from bone boxes, humerus, ulna radius, clacking carpals and those sharpened phalanges.

The angel of memory.

The jar-angel rolled on its round base, oscillate-rocking forward. It punched again and killed again, and with a tiny incline of the skull-head opened its lid. A dandy man froze. He was motionless, then not there at all, and Billy saw more meat shreds in the jar. The bounty hunters scattered. There was a flat sound. Dane was down and motionless. Billy was too far, and the lasso or whatever it was that had Dane by the neck went taut, and Dane was dragged into the dwindling shadow the swastika-wearing men had brought with them.

Billy fired twice, but he could see nothing of them, and Dane was barely visible anymore. Billy grabbed Dane's gun. "Here!" he shouted to his glass rescuer, and he heard it wobble and roll toward him. The attackers hurled half-bricks and iron as they retreated.

A lucky heavy piece took the cylinder full on. The jar-angel smashed. The guard of the museum's memory burst. Its bones went dead among the chemical slick and glass shards.

Billy raised his phaser in one hand, gun in the other. But the attackers did not come back. He ran in the direction Dane had been dragged, but the darkness retreated quicker than he moved, and when it was gone he was alone. The corpses were still there, the glass scintillas, the skull of what had saved him. Dane was gone.

As always when a quiet holed the city, a dog barked to fill it. Billy walked through the ruined remains of his rescuer, left preservative footprints. He sat heavily and held his head by the dead, in the doorway of a sandwich bar.

That was where he was when the Londonmancers found him-nothing so dramatic could take place so close to the London Stone without them knowing it. He could see them at the limits of his vision, but they would not come closer, would not breach their neutrality, which only a few of them could have known was already fucked.

It must have been one of them who got word to Wati, who came into the toy Billy still carried, so the voice came from his pocket. "Billy, mate. Billy. What happened? We better go, Billy. We'll get him back. But right now we better go."

PART FOUR

LONDON-UPON-SEA

Chapter Forty-Seven

"SO THE HONEST BLOODY SHITTY BOLLOCKS IS THAT I' I'M WONDERING what the fuck it is we're up to." what the fuck it is we're up to."

"Look," said Baron sharply. "You know what, Constable? I'd be obliged if we could have a smidge less of that."

Collingswood was terribly startled. She covered with a swagger. She didn't look at him but at her bracelet.

"We could do with a few things, Collingswood," Baron said. "We all know it." He took a moment and spoke again more calmly, jabbing his finger at her. "Not least of which is some information. And we're on that. Now ... Calm down and get back to work. You've got your own sniffers sniffing, I presume? Well, see what they can smell." He walked away, through a door that he closed loud enough on her to almost be a slam.

In the grounds of the police training college at Hendon was the portacabin where the specialists of various FSRC cells went through their training. Pitifully nicknamed Hogwarts by most attendees, Cackle's and Gont by a few who exchanged smug looks when others didn't get it.

Collingswood hadn't. Didn't care. Had been too busy listening to the semiretired witches, mavens and karcists. "You are police officers, or will be," one of her instructors had said, "unless you bollocks this up proper." He was ancient and small, lined like discarded skin scooped off cocoa. He had stroked his chin as if everything he said was well considered. He swaggered too, in a very different way than she did. She loved watching him.

"Your job is to get villains. Right? You'll have to know what to do. If you don't know what to do you have to find out. If you can't find out you bloody well make it up and then you make it so. Do I make myself clear?" The little lux ex tenebris lux ex tenebris that he flashed between his fingertips as he spoke (blue, of course), was a nice touch. that he flashed between his fingertips as he spoke (blue, of course), was a nice touch.

Through all the occult jurisprudence since then, chasing things down and banging them up, that sort of fuckity vigour was what she had always seen as being police. The lack of it in him was what had made Collingswood impatient with, if amused by, Billy Harrow.

With a pitch inside, Collingswood considered the possibility that Baron was not sure what to do. She thought about that. She examined that as carefully as if it were something she had picked off the floor and was trying to identify. Officers walked around her where she stood-she was there long enough. Some of them didn't even give her an odd look. Collingswood, you know Collingswood, you know.

She stood near the dispatch room, so she was the first FSRC officer the messenger saw to give word to. It was she, then, who shoved open the door on Baron sitting folded-armed staring glumly at his computer, hung to the doorframe with one hand like a kid on a climbing frame, and said, "Ask and you receive, boss. Currently hospitalised. But it's info."

IT WAS A SHITTY DAY, ALL SODDEN DRAB GREY AIR AND A SULKY wind as irritating as a child. Despite that Marge spent the morning outside, in the Thames Barrier Park. She trudged in drizzle through the waveform topiary, past miniature football pitches. That morning she had cried a long time about Leon, and it had felt like a last time. She had finished, but it was as if the sky had not. wind as irritating as a child. Despite that Marge spent the morning outside, in the Thames Barrier Park. She trudged in drizzle through the waveform topiary, past miniature football pitches. That morning she had cried a long time about Leon, and it had felt like a last time. She had finished, but it was as if the sky had not.

Marge suspected that she did not have a job anymore. Her boss was a friend, but her repeated nonanswering of his messages must have put him in an impossible position.

It was not as if she felt confused. It was not as if she felt driven, precisely, overtaken, losing her mind, anything like that. It was just, she thought, that she could not concentrate on anything else. She was not hysterical. It was just that having discovered that London was not what it was supposed to be, having discovered that the world had been lying to her, she had to know more. And she still had to know what had happened to Leon.

Not that he was alive. She knew that ridiculous sputtering message in bad light must be true.

Which brought her here, to this little sculpted grassland by the river's defences. There at the notional mouth of the river, by the industrial lowlands of Silvertown, the piers of the Thames Flood Barrier squatted in the water like huge alien hives, like silver-carapaced visitors. Between them chopped brown water, and below that water in the slime of the river's bed ten gates hunkered, ready to rise.

It was a long way round to the foot tunnel in Woolwich, but Marge had the whole day. She could see the barrier control building rise from the roofs of the south bank. She thumbed at her phone.

Christ Jesus it was depressing, she thought, this part of the city. She took the route by City Airport and under the river, huddling into her coat. She did not check the details she had printed out: she knew them by now. The information had been hard to winkle out of her online informants but not that that hard. It had taken wheedling and guile but not quite as bloody much as it should have done if you asked her. As she'd been able to tell, yes, these were "secret" bulletin boards, but plenty of their members were just bursting with pride about what they knew. It was all hard. It had taken wheedling and guile but not quite as bloody much as it should have done if you asked her. As she'd been able to tell, yes, these were "secret" bulletin boards, but plenty of their members were just bursting with pride about what they knew. It was all I've said too much I've said too much, and You did not hear this from me You did not hear this from me.

From who, you fucking prick? Marge had thought at that particular disavowal. Marge had thought at that particular disavowal. All I know is your screen name, which is All I know is your screen name, which is blessedladee777 blessedladee777 if you fucking please, so please just get on with it if you fucking please, so please just get on with it.

Pre-armed by the cult-collector with the terms "floodbrother," and the location of "the barrier," it had taken a couple of days, but no more, to uncover a little bit more information. This time it was a place of work and an affiliation, the outlines of a system of belief.

Marge finished her cigarette. She shook her head and jogged on the spot for a bit, then came rushing into the Thames Barrier Visitors' Centre. The woman behind the reception desk stared at her in alarm. "You have to help me," Marge said. She made herself gabble. "No, listen. Someone here calls themself floodbrother, yeah online. Listen, you have to get them a message."

"I, I, what, what's their name?"

"I don't know know, but I'm not crazy. I swear. Please, this is a matter of life and death. I mean it, literally. There must be a way of getting a message to everyone who works here. I'm not talking just about the Visitors' Centre, I'm talking about the engineering. Listen to me, I'm begging begging you, I'm you, I'm begging begging you." She grabbed the woman's hand. "Tell whoever here's nickname's floodbrother, just say that, that there's a message from you." She grabbed the woman's hand. "Tell whoever here's nickname's floodbrother, just say that, that there's a message from Tyno Helig Tyno Helig. He'll understand. Believe me. Tyno Helig Tyno Helig, got it?" She scribbled the name on a scrap. "I'll be waiting. I'll be in Maryon Park. Please." Please."

Marge stared into the woman's eye and tried for some insinuatory sisterly thing. She wasn't sure how well it went. She ran out and away, until she had turned a corner, at which point she slowed and wandered calmly along Warspite Road, past the roundabout to the park.

The weather was too different and too bad to jog much reminiscence, but she looked around until she was pretty sure she had found a spot recognizable from the film Blow-Up Blow-Up. She sat as close to it as she could. She watched everyone who came in. She fingered the little flick-knife she had bought, for whatever useless good it would be. She was banking rather on daylight and passersby. Marge wondered whether she would know if her quarry entered the park.

In the event, when, after almost an hour, her call was answered, there was no question at all. It was not one person but three. All men, they strode urgently along the little paths, looking in all directions. They were big, athletic guys. They wore identical engineers' uniforms. The oldest, at the front, was gesturing to his two companions to fan out. Marge stood: she would feel safer facing all three of them than one. They saw her immediately. She closed her hand around her knife.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Tyno Helig."

They hung just a little back. Their fists were clenched. The front man's jaw worked with tension.

"Who," he said, "are you? What the hell are you doing? You said you had a message?" message?"

She could see his contradictory emotions. Rage, of course, that they should be discovered and outed at work, when they were in mufti. Rage that they should be mocked like this, their faith scorned, as she could see him think surely this must be. And yet, as well as that anger, wrestling with it, excitement. She recognised that little bastard hope hope. "What's your message?" he said.

Her plan had worked, then. Tyno Helig, no person but a place: one of the sunken kingdoms, the Welsh Atlantis. That That, she had thought, making her plan, should intrigue them. "Who are you?" the man said.

"Sorry for misleading you," she said. "I needed to get you out. I'm sorry"-she hesitated for a second, but sod it, she was too tired not to piss people off-"this isn't about your aspirational tidal wave. I have a question for you."

The man raised his clenched fist to his head, as if he would hit himself, then suddenly grabbed her by the lapels. His companions crowded them, shielding them from others' view. "Our what?" what?" he whispered. "You have a he whispered. "You have a question? question? Do you know who we are? You better start convincing me not to drown you. Do you know who we are?" Do you know who we are? You better start convincing me not to drown you. Do you know who we are?"

SHE HAD AN IDEA, YES. OUTRe BELIEFS WOULD KEEP CROPPING UP IN her researches. She had trawled around hard enough for the info. her researches. She had trawled around hard enough for the info.

The Communion of the Blessed Flood. The rainbow, she gathered from some furtive online theologian, wasn't a promise: it was a curse. The fall didn't come when the first couple left the garden: all that was some ghastly prerapturous dreamtime of trials. What happened was that God rewarded his faithful with eventual holy rains.

Mistranslation, she had read. If what Noah, Ziusudra, Utnapishtim or the same figure by any other name had been told to build was a ship ship, why did the Torah not say so? Why was his ark not an oniyah oniyah, a ship, but a tebah tebah-a box? Because it was built not to ride the waves God sent, but to move below them. History's first submarine, in gopher wood, three hundred cubits long, travelling the new world of God's promise. It harvested the meadows of kelp. But those chosen for the watered paradise had failed, and God had been wrathful and withdrawn the seas. That landscape of punishment was where we lived, exiled from the ocean.

The Communion of the Blessed Flood prayed for the restoration of the wet. Marge read of their utopias, sunk not in ruination but reward: Kitezh, Atlantis, Tyno Helig. They honoured their prophets: Kroehl and Monturiol, Athanasius, Ricou Browning, and John Cage's father. They cited Ballard and Garrett Serviss. They gave thanks for the tsunami and celebrated the melting of the satanic polar ice, which mockingly held water in motionless marble. It was a sacred injunction on them to fly as far and often as they could, to maximise carbon emissions. And they placed holy agents where they might one day help expedite the deluge.

So this little cell, working in what might seem the most blasphemous industry of flood-defence. They were biding their time. Blocking piddling little backtides and holding out for the big one. When that final storm surged, that sublime backwash came roaring from the deep, then, then then they would throw their spanners in the works. And after the water closed on the streets like a Hokusai trapdoor the Brotherhood of the Blessed Flood would live at last in the submerged London of which they dreamed. they would throw their spanners in the works. And after the water closed on the streets like a Hokusai trapdoor the Brotherhood of the Blessed Flood would live at last in the submerged London of which they dreamed.

And now her message. It was was the end of the world, everyone knew that ... maybe, they'd thought, it was the end of the world, everyone knew that ... maybe, they'd thought, it was theirs theirs.

"Count yourself lucky no one's messed with you till now," Marge said. She pulled out of his grip. "I never even heard of you until a few days ago. Someone said you speak for the sea. And maybe you took the squid. You know what I'm talking about. I need to know ... Someone who did something with that bloody thing did something to my man."

"You've got face," he said. "I'm not saying that buys you an out, but you've got something."

"I told you, man," said another. "Everything's messed up."

"It's not face," she said. "It's just that I'm really tired, and I loved him. He was with Billy Harrow ... Billy Harrow." She said it again at his reaction. The man rolled his thick neck and glanced at the others.

"Harrow," he said. "Harrow? He's the one took took the kraken, I thought. That's what I heard. He's like its prophet. He went with Dane Parnell, when he ran from the Krakenists. It's them you want to talk to. They're the ones took it." the kraken, I thought. That's what I heard. He's like its prophet. He went with Dane Parnell, when he ran from the Krakenists. It's them you want to talk to. They're the ones took it."

"No they're not." They stared at each other.

"Dane ran from his church when the kraken went, to join Harrow, so if they've got something to do with your bloke ..."

"I'm telling you," she said. "That isn't what happened. I don't know anything about Parnell, I don't know much about much, but Billy Harrow did not not take the squid. I had a pizza with him." That made her laugh. "And I know it wasn't him. I think he's dead, anyway. And if he knew where Leon was, he'd tell me ..." She shut up, at the memory of the on-off-on-off streetlamp. "He'd tell me," she said slowly. "If he could." take the squid. I had a pizza with him." That made her laugh. "And I know it wasn't him. I think he's dead, anyway. And if he knew where Leon was, he'd tell me ..." She shut up, at the memory of the on-off-on-off streetlamp. "He'd tell me," she said slowly. "If he could."

The man huddled with his companions. She waited. She could hear them in debate.

"Do you think," think," she said suddenly, to her own mild surprise, "that I'd be messing around with you if I had any choice?" They blinked at her. "I don't want any of this, I don't want this bollocks, I don't believe your crap, I don't want a drowned world and I don't want a squid to be the king of the universe and I don't want to get involved in this crazy shit, and I don't even think I'm ever going to get Leon back. I'm just tired and it turns out"-she shrugged to say she said suddenly, to her own mild surprise, "that I'd be messing around with you if I had any choice?" They blinked at her. "I don't want any of this, I don't want this bollocks, I don't believe your crap, I don't want a drowned world and I don't want a squid to be the king of the universe and I don't want to get involved in this crazy shit, and I don't even think I'm ever going to get Leon back. I'm just tired and it turns out"-she shrugged to say who knew? who knew?-"it turns out I need to find out what happened. You telling me you've got no idea what's going on? What is the use use of you people." She was tearing up a little bit, not weakly or weepingly but out of infuriation. of you people." She was tearing up a little bit, not weakly or weepingly but out of infuriation.

"Whoever it is been talking to you," he said, and hesitated. "They don't know what they mean. We don't represent represent the sea, we don't ... How could we? That's misinformation." the sea, we don't ... How could we? That's misinformation."

"I don't care ..."

"Yeah, I do. People need to know. Stuff's brewing. How do you know all this? Who's helping you?"

"No one. Jesus."

"I can't do nothing for you." He wasn't speaking gently, but not aggressively either. "And I don't talk for the sea." He spoke with irritated care. Her impression was that this man devoutly wishing for the effacing of the world by water, the reconfiguration of all humanity's cities by eels and weeds, the fertilizing of sunken streets with the bodies of sinners, was a decent enough guy.

"You need to be careful," he said. "Stay out of trouble. You need protection. This is a dangerous town any time, and right now it's mad. And you're going to tread on toes. Get protection Get protection. You're not wearing a damn thing, are you." He clutched at his chest, where an amulet might hang. "You'll get yourself killed. No good to your bloke that way, are you?"

She was going to say I'm not a child I'm not a child, but his brusque kindness unmanned her. "Leave this alone. And if you don't, go to someone. Murgatroyd, or Shibleth, or Butler, or someone. Remember those names. In Camden, or in Borough. Tell them Sellar sent you."

"Look," she said. "Can you, can I take your number? Can I talk to you about all this? I need some help. Can I ...?"

He was shaking his head. "I can't help you. I can't. I'm sorry. This is a bit of a busy time busy time. Go on now." He patted her shoulder, like she was an animal. "Good luck."

Marge left that dogged landscape of Woolwich. She did not look back at the horrible flattened dome, all white as if sickly. Her best lead had gone nowhere. She had more to do. Perhaps she would, as he advised, seek protection.

HER BEST LEAD HAD GONE TO NOTHING, TRUE, BUT SHE HAD BEEN A lead herself, though Marge had not known it. The revelation that Billy Harrow, the mysterious kraken prophet, might lead herself, though Marge had not known it. The revelation that Billy Harrow, the mysterious kraken prophet, might not not be the force behind the godling's disappearance, was important. be the force behind the godling's disappearance, was important.

The armies of the righteous needed to know. The sea needed to know.

Chapter Forty-Eight

JASON S SMYLE, THAT PROLETARIAN CHAMELEON, LISTENED AS B BILLY begged him to take out an unpaid commission. begged him to take out an unpaid commission.

"You're Dane's friend," Billy said.

"Yeah," Jason said.

"Do this for him," Billy said.

Billy did not know where Jason was. They had no time to arrange a meet. He had given Wati the number of the phone he had-without much difficulty, even in the miserable aftermath of that assault-stolen. Wati found Jason and passed on the number.

"Do you understand what's happened?" Billy said. "They took him. Chaos Nazis. You know what that means." Billy felt as if he knew, too, as if this was where he had lived a long time. Dane, unlike him, had had no angelus ex machina watching.

"What do you want from me?" When he spoke, even down the line, Billy felt as if he knew Jason from somewhere.

"We need to find him, and we need to know what's going on. There's bad connections going on here. Listen." Billy hooked the phone with his shoulder and swung through a tear in wire into a fenced-off yard. "These Nazis are being paid by the Tattoo. And his people are also the ones doing shit to Wati's pickets. Along with the police.

"We need to know how deep those connections go. For all we know the cops might be holding holding Dane. They're obviously in some sort of cahoots with the Tattoo, they must at least know where he is. So we need you. But even if we could find them you couldn't walk into the Nazis, it wouldn't work, right?" Dane. They're obviously in some sort of cahoots with the Tattoo, they must at least know where he is. So we need you. But even if we could find them you couldn't walk into the Nazis, it wouldn't work, right?"

"No," said Jason. "They're not paid, so it's a nonstarter. They're committed, and I can't hide behind belief. That and proper knacking'll screw me." said Jason. "They're not paid, so it's a nonstarter. They're committed, and I can't hide behind belief. That and proper knacking'll screw me."

"Right. So you need to go into Neasden Station and see what they've got on all this. Find out what you can. Jason, it's Dane." Dane."

"... Yeah," Jason said. "Yeah."

Though his voice had not admitted the possibility that Jason would refuse, Billy closed his eyes in relief. "Call me when you're done, tell me what you can find out," Billy said. "Thanks. You need to do this now, Jason. Thank you. We've got no idea where they are."

"What are you ...?"