Paul attempted home-grown removals with sandpaper, but each time he, screaming, failed, the Tattoo screaming with him. It had him return to the tattooist's shop, but the proprietor was long gone.

He covered it, but such muffling would never last. When the gags fell the Tattoo would shout when he was out in the street, curse him and mock him. It shouted filthy slurs, swear words and racist names, trying, with success sometimes, to have Paul beaten up. "Hush now," it would whisper to him afterward. "Hush. Just do what I say, never need happen again."

It sent him to mages' speakeasies. It made him connections, whispering to him the code words necessary to get in, had him sotto voce describe the clientele, or turn and let the Tattoo glance through his thin shirt, so the Tattoo would know who was where and direct Paul to those he knew.

"Borch," it would say, when Paul sat down backward at the tables across from startled operators. "Ken." "Daria." "Goss." "It's me. Look. It's me." me."

Grisamentum's intent must have been to exile him into that mobile skin prison where he would be powerless, carried by a host who hated him, tormented with bodilessness until his weak bearer died. But the Tattoo sent Paul to find his associates. He drew them back into his orbit. He sent Paul to secret stashes of money, used them to buy the services of magicians and underworld knowers-how. The Tattoo had only his voice and mind, but it was enough to grow his empire again.

Among the first jobs he carried out while on Paul's body was to track down and execute the tattooist who had trapped him. Paul did not see it-he had his back to the butchery, of course-but he could hear it. It was not quick nor quiet. He shook as blood spattered the back of his legs, held in place by the first of his followers the Tattoo had had made into fistmen.

The Tattoo wanted to ignore Paul. It would let him eat what he wanted, read, watch DVDs with headphones on while the Tattoo did business. Paul might have been granted evenings out, trips to the cinema, sex. But after his first escape attempt the relationship hardened. After his second, the Tattoo had warned that one more would result in his legs being amputated, with anaesthetic an open question.

The Tattoo was plotting his revenge. But as he auditioned assassins, he heard the stories: Grisamentum had been dying anyway.

"WHY DOES THE T TATTOO WANT THE KRAKEN?" FITCH SAID. PAUL stared at the bottled god. stared at the bottled god.

"He doesn't know," he said. "He just clocked that someone else wanted it. So he wants it first." Paul shrugged. "That's all. That's his plan. 'Don't let anyone else get it.' He might as well burn it ..." Paul did not acknowledge the looks that occasioned. "I know who you are," he said to Billy and Dane. "I heard everything he was saying."

"Look," said Billy to Fitch. "We're here. We've got it. We're protecting it. We're not going to let it burn, and that's what kicks it off. Now we've got one of the big players. The whole ... burning should be getting a lot less probable, right?" The Londonmancers had been future-hunting frantically. Fitch grinding pavements at every snatched stop; rushed ambulomantic walks to see what the twists of city nudge-nudged; ailuromancy over light-footed cats; the readings of dust and chance London objects. "This must've all helped, right?"

"No," said Fitch. He opened and closed his mouth and tried again. "It closes harder than ever. Soon. I don't know how, but we've achieved nothing."

No redemption, no remission, no reversion. Still just that oncoming.

Chapter Sixty-Four

COLE WORKED LATE. THE DEBRIS FROM THE FIGHT HAD BEEN cleared. He shook his head and sifted through the papers that remained on the desk, listing what was there and working out what must therefore have been taken. He ignored a knock, but his door opened. A man peered in. cleared. He shook his head and sifted through the papers that remained on the desk, listing what was there and working out what must therefore have been taken. He ignored a knock, but his door opened. A man peered in.

"Knock knock?" he said. "Professor Cole?"

"Who are you?" The man shut the door behind him.

"My name is Vardy, Professor. Professor Vardy, in fact." He smiled, not very well. "I work with the police." Cole rubbed his eyes.

"Look, Mister, Professor, Doctor, whatever, Vardy, I've already ..." He looked through his fingers and paused. "The police? I've had two visits from the police, and I've told them everything. It was a stupid prank, it's all finished. Which police do you work with?"

"You're wondering whether I'm part of the conventional crime squad come to do a bit more dusting, or whether I'm with the-what do my colleagues call us? special unit?-and whether I know about all your other less conventional interests. Did they buy it? The regulars? That this was just a 'prank'? Two men too old to be students breaking in and beating you up?"

"They believed what I told them," Cole said.

"I'm sure they did. They've every reason not to want to get too involved. What with everything else going on. The sky, the city ... Well, you can feel it all."

Cole shrugged. "It doesn't make much difference."

"That's an odd thing to say."

"Look ..." said Cole.

"Professor Cole, listen. I know you were part of Grisamentum's team."

"Just because I did some work for him ..."

"Please. Every knacker in London did some work for him at some point or other. And it was you behind that spectacular send-off. The funeral. Great fire. The cremation." cremation." Cole watched him. "You must know you're not talking to a moron. Word's getting out anyway. Did you hear about the rumble last night? Everyone's saying Grisamentum was there. It's not just me who knows he never died." Cole watched him. "You must know you're not talking to a moron. Word's getting out anyway. Did you hear about the rumble last night? Everyone's saying Grisamentum was there. It's not just me who knows he never died."

"I swear to you," Cole said, "I'm not in touch with him. I don't know what he's doing, and whatever his plans are, I've got nothing nothing to do with them." to do with them."

"Professor Cole, you're probably one of the few people who knows that things have been burning and disappearing, and might even have a chance of explaining how."

"That's way beyond me! The principle's the same as some of the stuff I've done, but that's out of my league."

"Oh, I do know that."

"You know?"

"It's my job to have a pretty clear sense of what you can do and what you can't do. So I know you couldn't have burnt all that stuff out of time. But I also know that you did have something to do with it. You've been delivering information and charges, haven't you? According to demands?"

"... I ..."

"And no, I don't think you're in cahoots with Grisamentum. And I know why you're doing this. Family. Professor, I know your daughter's disappeared." Cole's face collapsed. Agony, relief, agony.

"Oh, God God ..." ..."

"I know your wife's no longer with us," Cole said. "From what I gather-she's at a C of E school, isn't she?-your daughter probably takes more after you than her mother. But she's mixed-race and she'll have certain abilities. Combine that with whatever you've been handing over, in the right hands ..."

"You think she's being used? used? You think they're making her do this stuff?" You think they're making her do this stuff?"

"Could be. But if so, well. We can use right back. We can use you you to track down whoever's doing this. I'm asking you to work with me. To trust me." to track down whoever's doing this. I'm asking you to work with me. To trust me."

HE MUST BE A PIG IN SHIT RIGHT NOW, GRISAMENTUM, BILLY thought. His worst enemy down, captive. Without their Svengali, enforcers like the Tattoo's fistmen would fall back unhappily on a loose network of contacts and half-trusted lieutenants, trying to decide what to do. Subby and Goss were the most important of these, and they were many things-including back from wherever they'd been, apparently-but not leaders. thought. His worst enemy down, captive. Without their Svengali, enforcers like the Tattoo's fistmen would fall back unhappily on a loose network of contacts and half-trusted lieutenants, trying to decide what to do. Subby and Goss were the most important of these, and they were many things-including back from wherever they'd been, apparently-but not leaders.

"Goss and Subby went to get something," Paul told Dane, Billy and the innermost Londonmancers. "They went hunting for something. I don't know more."

Baron and his crew must be highly in demand now, Billy thought, as local forces struggled with irrupting violence nightmaring their usual run. What would be turning up in these last days was not stabbed dealers of disallowed drugs and smashed shop windows, but strangely dead new figures with blood that did not run as blood should. Terrorised pushers of building-site dust. The Tattoo was gone, the dead Grisamentum was back, the balance of power was fucked, and the boroughs of London were Peloponnesea-as the world got ready to end, this was their great multivalent war.

"I need to ..." Billy said, but what? He needed to what? He and Dane looked at each other.

Freelancers were rampaging. Puffed-up thugs with imperfectly learned knacks; consciousnesses born in vats, escapees from experiments; seconds-in-command of all kinds of minor ganglets decided that this was it! this was it!-their chance. The city was full of mercenaries carrying out long-delayed vendettas as the strike fell and the familiars came back to work, bit by defeated bit, on terrible, punitive terms.

Never mind, some thought, those in the worst circumstances. Only a few more days and we'll all be gone forever Only a few more days and we'll all be gone forever.

Chapter Sixty-Five

ABSOLUTELY SOD-ALL WAS WHAT THEY HAD TO SHOW FOR THAT, Collingswood thought. Absolutely cack. It was obvious Collingswood thought. Absolutely cack. It was obvious something something big had happened. Not that she knew what it was yet: she'd pitched up at the site of some shitstorm or other, tasting familiar people in the air, tasting the very Billy and Dane they'd been there hoping to snatch, the knacks she threw out unpleasantly degrading in that atmosphere, slugs in salt. There was a shift, alright. Something had seesawed, and it was maddening and ridiculous how hard it was to work out what. And Baron and Vardy didn't help. big had happened. Not that she knew what it was yet: she'd pitched up at the site of some shitstorm or other, tasting familiar people in the air, tasting the very Billy and Dane they'd been there hoping to snatch, the knacks she threw out unpleasantly degrading in that atmosphere, slugs in salt. There was a shift, alright. Something had seesawed, and it was maddening and ridiculous how hard it was to work out what. And Baron and Vardy didn't help.

That's fucking it. Collingswood cooked up everything she had. Rang around and called in favours, sent out eager Perky on sniffing errands, stressed as shit by hurry, by whatever it was impending. Took, though she assiduously avoided reflecting on the fact, charge of the investigation. Seemed as if figures she'd never expected to hear from again, that she'd never faced herself but that were well known in the specialist police milieu, were back, or back again, or not dead, or pushing for the end of the world, or coming to get you.

This time it was her ignoring Baron's calls for a bit. Working from home, from ley line-squatting cafes, with a laptop. Some stop-offs with contacts. "What are you hearing? Don't give me that no one knows no one knows bollocks, there ain't nothing no one knows nothing about." bollocks, there ain't nothing no one knows nothing about."

Because the one line of stories that kept coming, the one connection that made her think she still had it, in these winding-down times, concerned the gunfarmers. Whom she had officially mentally upgraded from rumour. Which she had done, she reminded herself later, scrabbling for pride in that wrecked time, before before all those gathered hints reached her and critical massed into intuition, and she suddenly knew not only that the gunfarmers were about to attack, but where. all those gathered hints reached her and critical massed into intuition, and she suddenly knew not only that the gunfarmers were about to attack, but where.

Holy shit. shit. What? Why? What? Why? That would have to wait. But still, Collingswood couldn't stop herself thinking, That would have to wait. But still, Collingswood couldn't stop herself thinking, If they're being targeted they must've took it If they're being targeted they must've took it. Which meant the FSRC had even less of a clue than they thought they did.

"Boss. Boss Boss. Shut up and listen."

"Where are you, Collingswood? Where've you been? We need to talk about-"

"Boss, shut up. You have to meet me."

She was shaking her head. The lurchingly sudden clarity of the intercepted intent staggered her. She knew she was good, but for her to get this kind of knowledge? They've given up hiding, they don't care anymore They've given up hiding, they don't care anymore.

"Meet you where? Why?"

"Because there's about to be a big-ass attack, so bring backup. Bring guns."

WOULD IT ESCAPE THE ATTENTION OF OCCULT L LONDON THAT ON that night when small-scale apocalypse competition had been a wedge to crack the city open, Fitch and his Londonmancer cadre had been missing from the proximity of the London Stone? Could that be ignored? that night when small-scale apocalypse competition had been a wedge to crack the city open, Fitch and his Londonmancer cadre had been missing from the proximity of the London Stone? Could that be ignored?

"We're on borrowed time," Saira said. None of this could last. Those among the Londonmancer cadre who could obsessively parse the future-or, they reminded themselves to say, possible futures-from the safety of the trailer. Their job had become simple and minimal: keep the kraken out of the trouble until, up through and after the closing-in last day. To stop it being that day. That was all they could see to do. A new sacred duty.

"There was another one." "Another two." The Londonmancers, by agonising dream and memory interpretations interpreted the city's history and burnlike blebs in its timeline, collected these new strange outriders, these architectural, temporal arson victims. "You remember that garage out by the gasworks? The really cool old Deco one?" "No." "Well, that's the point, it was never there anymore. But look." A preserved postcard of the building, soot-stained and unstable-looking as it struggled gamely to exist, not to be snuffed in the burn-damaged timeline.

Wati went for hours, then a day. He would not respond to any whispers to figurines held out of the vehicle. Was it a retreat, a surrender he was negotiating?

They kept Paul comfortable. They had no trouble with food. Stop for a moment and Saira would dig her hands into the brickwork of an alley corner, knead like clay, and the bricks might go from being a buckle of scaffolding to a key ring and keys to at last a bag of takeaway.

Twice they unwound the tape from the Tattoo's mouth, in reasonless hope that he would say something incriminating or helpful or illuminating. Everything should be falling into place now, in the presence of this malevolent player, and it was not. The Tattoo remained silent. It was wildly unlike him. But for a certain moue of ink face lines, you might have thought him uncharmed.

"He's still got troops out there," Paul said. Desperate little rearguard actions. Knuckleheads in half-assaults/half-defences, against traditional enemies, forced to take their own initiatives, the very thing they had strived so hard to avoid. People mindlessly showing secrets, knuckleheads fighting for them, winning some and dying, falling, their leather armours ripped, their helmets shattered, little dwarf-hand replacing their cocks and balls suddenly visible, meat-echoes of their head-hands. "Maybe Goss and Subby are back."

Fitch screamed. The lorry lurched. Not in response to the sound of him-the Londonmancer driving could not have heard him-but because of something striking at the driver as it struck at Fitch, in that same instant. Fitch screamed.

"We have to go back," he said, again and again. Everyone was up. Even Paul had jumped up, ready for whatever this was. "Back, back, back at the heart," Fitch said. "I heard a ..." In the twanging of aerials, in the cry from the city. "Someone's come for them."

THEY HAD TO TAKE THE LORRY OUT OF ITS AVOIDANCE CIRCLE along streets it barely fit through, so tight Billy could tell the driver knacked to keep them from crashing. They passed violence everywhere, occult and everyday. Police and ambulances and aimlessly meandering fire engines, the buildings that had gone up and the callouts themselves charring out of memory, so midway en route no firefighter could remember what they were out for. The lorry came as close as it could go to the tumbledown sports shop where the London Stone was homed. They heard more sirens and they heard shots. along streets it barely fit through, so tight Billy could tell the driver knacked to keep them from crashing. They passed violence everywhere, occult and everyday. Police and ambulances and aimlessly meandering fire engines, the buildings that had gone up and the callouts themselves charring out of memory, so midway en route no firefighter could remember what they were out for. The lorry came as close as it could go to the tumbledown sports shop where the London Stone was homed. They heard more sirens and they heard shots.

There were a few pedestrians on the street, but far too few for what was still not yet night. Those out moved like what they were-people in a regime at war. There was police tape around the building. Armed officers waving them back, cauterising the area.

"We can't get through," Billy said. But he was with the Londonmancers Londonmancers. As if these alleys they ducked into would deny them, as if the alleys wouldn't switch back and kink obligingly for Fitch and Saira and their comrades now they weren't hiding and didn't care if the city noticed. So they led Dane and Billy running like scarpering schoolkids down some bricky cul-de-sac that tipped them with architectural abruptness into a corridor within that ugly place, near the London heart, where there was battle, still.

The police would not enter a free-fire zone. From the Londonmancers' lair in the corridor of shop fronts, two dark-dressed figures emerged. They held pistols, and were shooting behind them as they came. Dane kicked in the door of an empty shop, and Billy dragged Saira and the others inside out of their range. Fitch sat heavily and wheezed.

"Get off me," Saira said. She was straining to make the plastic stuff of London into something deadly, pressing her fingers on what had been a bit of wall and was becoming that other part of London, a pistol. She was shaking, brave and terrified. The men fired, and two Londonmancers still in the hallway flew backward.

The men wore dark suits, hats, long coats-assassin-wear. Billy fired and missed, and the blast from his phaser was crackling and unconvincing. It was winding down. A blast from Dane's gun hit one man but did not kill him and set him snarling.

Clattering shapes came out of the store doorway behind them. There were composite things, made of city. Paper, brick, slate, tar, road sign and smell. One's motion was almost arthropod, one more bird, but neither was like like anything. Legs of scaffold tubes or girder, wood-splinter arms; one had a dorsal fin of broken glass in cement, cheval-de-frise. Billy cried out at the mongrel urban things. One took hold with autumn-gutter fingers of the closest attacker and bit exactly as a rooftop bites. He screamed, but it sucked him, so he kicked as he was emptied. His colleague ran. Somewhere. anything. Legs of scaffold tubes or girder, wood-splinter arms; one had a dorsal fin of broken glass in cement, cheval-de-frise. Billy cried out at the mongrel urban things. One took hold with autumn-gutter fingers of the closest attacker and bit exactly as a rooftop bites. He screamed, but it sucked him, so he kicked as he was emptied. His colleague ran. Somewhere.

Both the shot Londonmancers were dead. Saira clenched her teeth. The predator city bits came toward her. "Quick," Billy shouted, but she clicked her fingers as if at dogs.

"It's alright," she said. "They're London's antibodies. They know me."

The immune system trilled and clattered. Another young Londonmancer joined Saira, and she did not look up. When Dane and Billy approached, the defence-things reared in complex ways, displayed cityness in weapons. Saira clucked and they calmed.

Inside the sports shop was a rubble of smashed fittings and bodies. Not all the Londonmancers left were quite dead. Most were, with bullet wounds in their heads and chests. Saira went from survivor to survivor.

"Ben," she said. "What happened?"

"Men," he said. His teeth chattered. He stared at his blood-sodden thigh.

The dark-suited men had entered. They had shot anyone who opposed them, with ferocious, astonishing guns. Of those left alive they had demanded, repeatedly, "Where's the kraken?" They had heard the police come, but the police, following no-entry protocol, had sealed the attackers and attacked in together.

"We have to hurry," Billy said to Dane. He waited, bided, as best he could, but he had to tell Saira to hurry too. She stared at him expressionless.

The attackers knew the secret Fitch and Saira and their treacherous comrades kept. But the rest of the Londonmancers they had come to butcher did not, had been the out-of-the-loop, the hard core of excluded, an unwitting camouflage left in place to pretend all was as it should be. Some were aware that they were being kept in a cloud of unknowing, but they had no knowledge of what that secret knowledge was. They did not understand the gunfarmers' question. Which surely must be provoking to a killer. Some frantic seers had managed to provoke the antibodies into appearance, a little late.

"We were trying to keep them safe," Saira said. "That's why we didn't tell them anything." With a clatter of wood-bits and kicked-away plaster, Fitch arrived at the threshold. He looked in and simply wailed. He gripped the entrance.

"We have to go," Billy said. "Saira, I'm sorry. The cops'll come in any minute. And the bastards who did this know we've got the kraken."

Dane put Billy's hand to a dead woman's wound. In the Londonmancer's cooling flesh was a warmth. "Incubation," Dane said. "Gunfarmers." In the dead the bullets were eggs. Guns would grow and hatch, and perhaps one or two little pistols might muster the strength to emerge, call for their parents.

"We can't take them," Billy whispered.

"We can't take them," Saira said, dead-voiced, seeing Dane's action.

The last of the Londonmancers and the London antibodies went with their leader, if that's what Fitch still was, down those attention-drawing urban kinkways back to their lorry. "We're the Londonmancers," Fitch kept saying, and moaning. "Who would do do this?" this?" You broke neutrality first You broke neutrality first, Billy did not say.

"It's new rules," Dane said. "Everything's up for grabs. This is just nuts. They didn't care they'd be seen." Like they wanted it. That's how terror works. They stared at Paul.

"Not this one," he said. Jerked his head at his own back. "Nazis and fists and Boba Fetts, but not gunfarmers."

Blood puddled. Those Londonmancers who had survived stared at the kraken sloshing in its tank. "But why is it ...?" they said. "What's it doing here? here? What's going on?" Fitch did not answer. Saira looked away. Paul watched them all. Billy felt as if the kraken were staring at him with its missing eyes. What's going on?" Fitch did not answer. Saira looked away. Paul watched them all. Billy felt as if the kraken were staring at him with its missing eyes.