"Yeah, but ..."

"No, you're right, we couldn't fake it. We need to bump up some little one that no one would've noticed scheduled ... Ha. I say 'one.' 'Something big.' For the times when one apocalypse isn't enough, ha." He stood, all bristling. "A list of the sects we have an in with." He clicked his fingers. "Everyone's heard about the kraken by now. Right? And they know that whatever it is that's coming has something to do with it. Don't they? They do."

"What is it you've got in mind, bruv?" Collingswood said.

"Everyone's waiting for the end of the world. Let's get in there first and bring it to them. Like you say, we can't fake it. We need proper rumours. So we'll have to make it real. And we'll have to get as many details right, so they think ... We need to encourage certain rumours, and the closer to the truth the better. We probably can't make it an octopus, but who do we know with an animal animal god? Who could we persuade to bring their apocalypse forward? Word'd get out." god? Who could we persuade to bring their apocalypse forward? Word'd get out."

He began to go through his files. After a second, Collingswood joined him. Baron watched them and did not rise.

"Are you two out of your bonces?" he said. "You're going to come up with an end-of-the-world party, just to get everyone together ..."

"What about this lot?" Collingswood said. Vardy looked where she pointed.

"I don't think we have the clout to persuade them," he said. They continued looking.

"Them?"

"No."

"Them?"

"... It's nothing like a squid."

"What are you even are you even doing?" doing?" Baron said. Baron said.

"Yeah, but if we get rumours out quick, it won't matter, it's a big animal," Collingswood said. "That's what people would hear."

"Maybe," Vardy said. "A problem occurs to me," he said. He pointed at something on another sheet. Baron peered at whatever they were discussing. "There's another one coming in soon. In and of itself who cares, but it's got no animal stuff to it, and it's going to be difficult to get their prophets to delay. Or if we have them too close together, no one'll-"

"Just have them on the same day," Collingswood said.

"What are you ...?" Baron said, and Vardy hushed him with a glance. He looked as if he were about to pooh-pooh Collingswood's suggestion, but a stare of quite astonishing delight came over him.

"Why not?" he said. "Why not? If we have the right, the right keywords keywords to the rumours, even then, one little everyday Armageddon might hardly cut it. So long as enough people think it even to the rumours, even then, one little everyday Armageddon might hardly cut it. So long as enough people think it even might might be an animal god thing. It'd certainly get people talking ... Could be a surefire way of making our little bait even more ..." be an animal god thing. It'd certainly get people talking ... Could be a surefire way of making our little bait even more ..."

"Baity," said Collingswood.

"Dramatic. Maybe. Imagine if there are two?"

He and Collingswood looked at each other, snorted, and nodded. "It won't change the, the real real deal," Collingswood said. "But we don't even know when ... Step up, boss-man," Collingswood said, to Baron, and patted his cheek affectionately. deal," Collingswood said. "But we don't even know when ... Step up, boss-man," Collingswood said, to Baron, and patted his cheek affectionately.

"Alright," said Vardy. "So we've not one but two prophecies to, um, chivvy. I'm going to make some calls."

Chapter Fifty-Nine

A CHOLERIC DELEGATION CAME TO THE EMBASSY OF THE SEA. CHOLERIC DELEGATION CAME TO THE EMBASSY OF THE SEA. There was no possibility such a troop could bicker with such an antagonist and not be noticed, and noticed they were, and in the wake of that confrontation rumours went everywhere. There was no possibility such a troop could bicker with such an antagonist and not be noticed, and noticed they were, and in the wake of that confrontation rumours went everywhere.

Mostly, they weren't badly inaccurate. A few mad exaggerations, alright, within a couple of days: swear to fucking god, they were like throwing grenades and pulling out all kinds of crazy knackery, it was out of control swear to fucking god, they were like throwing grenades and pulling out all kinds of crazy knackery, it was out of control. Whatever. As if the story, if big enough, reflected glory on the teller.

The truth was adequate drama. A motorcade arrived in the street. Man after man, a couple of women too, helmeted as if they rode motorbikes but emerging from cars, stationing themselves at each junction. Tinted glass obscuring finger faces. No one walked down the street while they were there.

From within the street's houses people looked nervously at the people in helmets and the night outside. You did not have to have a grasp of the details, and they did not, to know in a carefully unverbalised way that that bloody end house had long been a problem. From the largest car came two more helmeted figures escorting a scrawny third. Punk-haired and terrified. His mouth was covered. The guards walked him between them to the front door.

"Turn round." The man obeyed that voice. His jacket had holes cut in it, through which stared ink eyes. No avatars, no workshopped figures, no mouthpieces: the boss himself. "Your fucking eminence," said the Tattoo. His voice was perfectly audible despite the clothes his bearer wore. Looking out at the street, away from the argument behind him, the Tattoo-bearer shivered.

"I heard you visited some contacts of mine. They were holding something for me and you sort of intervened intervened yourself. And I ended up losing something I had expended a great goddamn lot of effort and money getting hold of. So what I'm here to do is ask yourself. And I ended up losing something I had expended a great goddamn lot of effort and money getting hold of. So what I'm here to do is ask one one, is this actually true? And two two, if it is, do you really want to go down this route? Want to go to war with me?"

Again nothing. After long seconds the Tattoo whispered, "Answer me, your oceanship. I know you can bastard hear me." "Answer me, your oceanship. I know you can bastard hear me." But no bottle, no message from the letter box. "You and your elemental whatever. You think I'm afraid of you? Tell me there was a misunderstanding. Can you even tell what's going on? Nothing's safe anymore. You can burn, same as the rest of us. I'm not scared of you, and whatever you think, you are not safe from war. Do you But no bottle, no message from the letter box. "You and your elemental whatever. You think I'm afraid of you? Tell me there was a misunderstanding. Can you even tell what's going on? Nothing's safe anymore. You can burn, same as the rest of us. I'm not scared of you, and whatever you think, you are not safe from war. Do you know know who I who I am?" am?"

The way that maleficent ink said those last words, that old-hat kitsch threat, made it something again. If you had heard it you might have shivered. But nothing happened in the sea's house.

"Think I won't fight you?" the Tattoo said. "Stay out of my business."

Had the sea invaded the Tattoo's own halls it would have been an insult too far, and whatever the cost-and the cost of war against an element was big-the Tattoo would have waged it. There would have been bombs lobbed into the waters, that exploded and left holes of nothing under traumatised waves. Brine-killing poisons. And even though the Tattoo could not have won, the sea's interest and breach of neutrality might have spread the war.

But no one would count the attack on the despised and disavowed Nazis as meddling, and the Tattoo would find no allies. The downside of employing bogeymen. Which was why the sea had risked its actions. People doubtless knew it had been there, though it had assiduously withdrawn every molecule of saltwater from the caverns carved under the pavement, the new oceanic grottos, but no one admitted it.

"Tell me what you have to say for yourself," the Tattoo said. "Kick backward," he said to the body he was on, and the man clumsily did, but the blow connected with neither the door nor with anything. "Fuck with my business again it's war," the Tattoo said. "Car," he said to his body, and the man walked jerkily to the vehicle. The Tattoo was raging because the sea faced it down. Even the Tattoo won't face down the sea, people said afterward. No one'll face down the sea. That word found its way all over.

ANOTHER QUEASY LURCH OF HISTORY. IMPOSSIBLE TO DESCRIBE, A stutter, a switch, the timeline two-by-foured onto another course that looked, smelt, sounded the same but did not feel it, not in its flesh. In the clouds was more of that strange rage, more fighting, memory versus foreclosure in a celestial punchup. Every blow reconfigured the bits in Londoners' heads. Only the most perspicacious gathered something of the reasons for their little strokes, their confusions and aphasia: that it was a part of the war. stutter, a switch, the timeline two-by-foured onto another course that looked, smelt, sounded the same but did not feel it, not in its flesh. In the clouds was more of that strange rage, more fighting, memory versus foreclosure in a celestial punchup. Every blow reconfigured the bits in Londoners' heads. Only the most perspicacious gathered something of the reasons for their little strokes, their confusions and aphasia: that it was a part of the war.

Marge was part enough now of the hinterland that she felt it. Her head was full of abrupt forgettings and jab recalls.

It was a last night for her already. Resentful of and exhausted by all the impossibles, she had responded, to their great surprise, to a final pitch from some of her friends. A small group from one of the galleries at which she had exhibited-two men, two women who showed together under a collective term, the Exhausteds, they had given themselves based on perceived shared concerns. Marge, on the basis of her art, had once been dubbed a fellow traveller, a semiexhausted, a Somewhat Tired.

She had stopped hearing from her work friends, but one or other of the Exhausteds had been calling her every couple of days, trying to encourage her out to a drink, to supper, to an exhibition of competitors at which they could all sneer. "It's fucking good to see you," said a woman called Diane. She made pieces from melted plastic pens. "It's been ages."

"I know, I know," Marge said. "Sorry, I've been getting really crazy into the work."

"Never need to apologise for that," Bryn said. He painted portraits into fat books opened at random. In Marge's opinion his work was total shit.

She had thought she would feel herself playing a role that evening. But their rambles from pub to arty pub pulled her back into the life she had thought long gone. She had only a slight sense of watching herself, of pretence, as they went past tattoo parlours and bookshops, cheap restaurants. Sirens of police and fire passed them in tremendous rushes.

"Did you hear about Dave?" they asked her about people she barely remembered. "What's up with that business with the dealer you were talking about?" "I can't even believe I had to move, my landlord's a shit," and various other bits.

"How have have you been?" Bryn asked her at last, quietly, and she just shook her head and rolled her eyes you been?" Bryn asked her at last, quietly, and she just shook her head and rolled her eyes you don't want to know you don't want to know, as if at a deadline, a heavy workload, time lost track of. He did not push it. They went to a movie then a dubstep gig, shedding Bryn then a woman called Ellen as they went, a late supper, gossip and creative bollocking. London opened up.

Miracle on Old Compton Street: Soho was fucking lovely that night. Crowds danced bad salsa, still clubbing outside Blackwell's bookshop. The cafes bustled onto pavements, and a stranger with a spare cappuccino turned down by some disdainful prospect handed it with a shrug to Marge, who almost rolled her eyes at the world's performance, but drank it and enjoyed every sip. Empty temples of finance watched from the skyline: bad times were not yet quite there, and they could overlook with indulgent window eyes as Marge played with her friends and just was in London.

It got close to midnight and seemed to stay there. She drank with the Exhausteds remnants for a long endless late-night moment amid cheerfully gusting paper trash and the lights of cars shunting around zone one as if the world was not about to burn. Marge had an appointment in the early small hours.

"Alright you outrageous flower," said Diane when the calendar finally turned. "It's been lovely, and it's been too bloody long, stop acting up." She gave Marge a hug and descended into Tottenham Court Road Tube station. "Be well," she said. "Get home safe."

"Yeah," said Marge to her back. I'll do that I'll do that. Since when had home been home? She took a taxi. Not to a ghost or trap street, of course: the driver's very expertise, the knowledge that got him his cab, would have hidden it from him. She directed him instead to the closest main street to her destination, and from there walked to the little east-London shack.

It looked thrown up out of discarded walls, wood, wattle, daub and brick remnants, on a tiny street of such mix-bred buildings, where a man she had found, via a convoluted online route, waited for her.

"YOU ARE LATE," HE SAID. INSIDE THE MUTT-MADE HOUSE THE rooms were drier, finer and more finished, more roomlike rooms than Marge would have thought. Amid mould-coloured upholstery, paintings the shades of shadows and books that smelt and looked like slabs of dust was a computer, a video-game console. The man in the hoodie was in his fifties. His left eye was obscured by what she thought for a second was some complex Cyberdog-style hat-glasses combination, but was, she realised, without even a flinch or a twist of the lips, these days, the metal escutcheon of a keyhole from a door, soldered or sutured to the orbit of his eye. rooms were drier, finer and more finished, more roomlike rooms than Marge would have thought. Amid mould-coloured upholstery, paintings the shades of shadows and books that smelt and looked like slabs of dust was a computer, a video-game console. The man in the hoodie was in his fifties. His left eye was obscured by what she thought for a second was some complex Cyberdog-style hat-glasses combination, but was, she realised, without even a flinch or a twist of the lips, these days, the metal escutcheon of a keyhole from a door, soldered or sutured to the orbit of his eye.

It was attached to face toward him. Everything he saw was glimpsed as through a keyhole. Everything he saw was an illicit secret.

"You're late."

"You're Butler, right?" said Marge. "I know, what can you do? Traffic's a swine." She took money out of her bag, a roll in a rubber band. If the world If the world doesn't doesn't end end, she thought, I'm going to be buggered for cash I'm going to be buggered for cash.

The air in the room eddied, like interruptions in her vision. Things that should not, like ashtrays and lamps, seemed to be moving a tiny bit. "Anyway," she said. "It's you who lives where no taxi driver can go."

"You think this is tricky to find," he said. "There's an avenue in W-Five that's only in the 1960s. You try getting back into that. Protection, right, as I recall? From what?"

"From whatever's whatever's coming." coming."

"Steady on." He smirked. "I'm not a magician."

"Ha ha," she said. "I'm looking for someone. I've been told to leave it alone and I'm not going to. I'm sure you know more than me about whatever, so you you tell tell me me what I need." what I need."

The watcher-through-the-keyhole nodded and took the money. He counted it. "Could be djinn," he said as he did. "Fire's what's coming. Maybe someone arsed them off."

"Djinn?"

"Yeah." He tapped the keyhole. "That's the thinking. Fires, you know. Anything you remember never been there, all of a sudden?"

"What?" she said.

"Things are going up in fire and never been there." When she looked no wiser he said, "There was a warehouse in Finchley. Round between the bath shop and the Pizza Hut. I know there was because I used to go there and because I've seen seen it." He tap-tapped his eyepiece again. "But 'seen it' butters no bleeding parsnips these days. That warehouse burnt down, and now it didn't ever was there. The bath shop and the Pizza Hut are joined up now, and the only ash blowing around there's a bit of charred never. it." He tap-tapped his eyepiece again. "But 'seen it' butters no bleeding parsnips these days. That warehouse burnt down, and now it didn't ever was there. The bath shop and the Pizza Hut are joined up now, and the only ash blowing around there's a bit of charred never.

"Burnt out backward." He headed into another room, raising his voice so she could still hear. "They can't get it out of everyone's everyone's head yet, but it's a start. There'll be more, bet you a thousand quid. Might be that's what you're up against." head yet, but it's a start. There'll be more, bet you a thousand quid. Might be that's what you're up against."

"Might be."

"I mean we're all up against it but most of us aren't out hunting for trouble. Anyway that ain't the only apocalypse right now. You'll have a choice soon enough. Which is bloody ridiculous." He returned and threw an iPod to Marge. It was scratched, well used. An older model.

"I've got one," she said.

"Ha ha yourself. Put it on but don't turn it on, not yet. Wait till you're out there in the world."

"What have I got? Bit of Queen?"

"Yeah, 'Fat-Bottomed Girls' and 'Bicycle.' I don't know what you're going up against any more than you, so this is a bit all-purpose and you better be gentle with it. It should give you a little little bit"-he held his finger and thumb apart an inch-"if it bit"-he held his finger and thumb apart an inch-"if it is is djinn, and a djinn, and a little little bit if it's herders, or gunfarmers or Chaos Nazis or anyone else up and about-you hear all bloody sorts-or whatever of your multiple-choice end-times is coming. But don't push your luck." bit if it's herders, or gunfarmers or Chaos Nazis or anyone else up and about-you hear all bloody sorts-or whatever of your multiple-choice end-times is coming. But don't push your luck."

"What do you mean multiple choice?" she said.

"There's two on the way, turns out, is what I hear. One of which may or may not be the fire. Can you Adam and Eve that? So to speak. Some animal Ragnarok plus some other awful bloody thing."

"What do you mean, animal?" animal?" she said. "What do you mean?" she said. "What do you mean?"

"In a minute. Listen." He pointed at the machine he had given her. "You've got a little guardchord, is all. It's in there. Swimming about in the noise, and if you listen listen to it it'll keep you safe. A bit. So you better hope you like it and don't let anyone else listen. If you sniff trouble play it. Just play it all the time, sod it. Keep the bloody thing charged. Keep it fed." to it it'll keep you safe. A bit. So you better hope you like it and don't let anyone else listen. If you sniff trouble play it. Just play it all the time, sod it. Keep the bloody thing charged. Keep it fed."

"What does it eat?"

"Music, gods' sake. Put some playlists on there. Make sure you give it what it likes."

"How do I know?"

"Never had a pet? Work it out."

"How strong is-?"

"Not bloody very. You're flying blind, like we all are. It's a lick and a prayer and a spit of goodwill, so don't piss and moan."

"Thanks," she said. "Alright."

"It might give you a bit of time to get away from whatever, is all. Think of it as a head start for when you run. 'Cause let's face it, you'll run."

"What did you mean about the choice?" she said to the seeing man.

He shrugged. "There's way too many ends-of-the-world to keep up with, but this is the first conjunction conjunction I can remember in a long while. Seems like it's animals and puritans, this time. Right now with all this going on. Seems a bit-" I can remember in a long while. Seems like it's animals and puritans, this time. Right now with all this going on. Seems a bit-"

"Animals?"

"Some animal god, they reckon-that's what you hear, that's what I see." Tap-tap on the keyhole. "We'll find out soon enough. I might not miss this one. Takes more than an apocalypse to get me into town these days, but two two ...? Right now? ...? Right now? You You should, though. Miss it, I mean." should, though. Miss it, I mean."

"I can't. That sounds like what ... people've been waiting for. And anyway, what with my little ..." She shook her iPod, and he his head.

"It'll just give you time to run," he said.

"About that," she said. Her mouth moved, but no sound came for a moment. "One thing I might have to get away from ... Can this, can the music-thing you ... I might see Goss and Subby."

She waited for those names to do their bad magic. For the man to gasp. He only looked sad and winced.

"I know," he said. "Think you get to be on that sort of shitlist and people don't hear? That's why you should stay away."

"This, though?" she said, raising the iPod. "It'll help, if I do ... if they ..."

"Against them?" he said flatly. "That thing? No it won't. It won't do nothing."

"Thanks for the warning," she said at last. "I'll be careful. Still if ... if you could please give me the details of those, of the animal Armageddon ... I think someone I know might be there."