Free The Midnight Mayor by Kate Griffin

can ask whoever attacked me. They’ll know what happened.”
    “Ah, yes. And I suppose you have no idea who attacked you?”
    “No.”
    “You didn’t see his face? Or speak to him?”
    “No. It was all done by remote. Mr Earle?”
    “Mr Swift?”
    “Why do you care?”
    Mr Kemsley almost snorted. Our eyes flashed to him and for a moment, he met our gaze, and cringed away from it.
    Mr Earle said, carelessly, “Oh, you understand how it is, Mr Swift. After the business with Bakker and the Tower, sorcerers are in short supply. And sorcerers with . . . if you’ll forgive me saying it . . . such a casual attitude as yours towards death, resurrection and the telephonic system cause us understandable concern, whenever anything bad befalls them.”
    “So you’re just here because you care,” I said, letting the sarcasm show.
    “Something like that.”
    “Mr Earle?” we sighed, rubbing the bridge of our nose.
    “Yes, Mr Swift?”
    We looked up. He saw our eyes. Not just Mr Swift. My attitude towards the telephones had never been casual. “Mr Earle,” we said, “why do you keep referring to our attacker as ‘he’?”
    He was good; but if he’d been brilliant, the question wouldn’t have slowed him down. It did now. “I suppose it must be my natural socio-cultural gender bias. Forgive me, my dear,” he added, nodding to Ms Anissina, whose face remained empty, and Vera, who scowled.
    My bag was at the foot of the coffee table. The bottle with the spectre in it was on the end. There were three lights in the room, small bulbs churning out bright whiteness from the ceiling. I had my coat and shoes on. Mr Earle guessed what I was thinking. It didn’t take much effort.
    “You don’t like Aldermen, do you, Mr Swift?”
    “No,” I replied.
    “Why, may I ask?”
    “You only come out for the big things.”
    “I don’t understand . . .”
    “When the peasants revolted in the reign of Richard II, the Aldermen came out to send the nightmares let loose by the fear of destruction back to sleep. When bubonic plague went through the streets, the Aldermen came out to stop the dead from walking. When the Fire of London gutted the city, the Aldermen made sure to save the precious treasures from the flames: the ravens in the tower, the London Stone - the altar supposed to have been laid by Brutus at the heart of the city, the heart of the damn country. When the bombs fell in the Blitz, the Aldermen were the ones who kept the things unearthed in the rubble from getting up and walking.”
    “And . . . you seem to regard this in a negative light?”
    “When the plague rats came to the city, the Aldermen made sure the dead didn’t walk. But they didn’t lift a finger to stop the dead from dying.”
    “Ah - I see.”
    “You are the protectors of the stones , Mr Earle, of the memory and the riches and the buildings of the city. You do not protect the people. So I’ve got to ask again - why are we having this conversation?”
    Silence in the room, except for the slow bubbling of the kettle. Mr Kemsley shifted his weight against the wall. Ms Anissina took a slow, quiet breath. Mr Earle smiled. Skulls smile, and in the grave, Mr Earle will grin for ever at a joke only he could understand.
    “I respect your honesty,” he said at last. This is something liars say. “You’ve been frank with me, I’ll be frank with you. Quite regardless of your personal condition, our concern is larger than the mere trifle of whether you live or die again. We couldn’t care less if you were attacked or who attacked you, except that there are . . . matters at work which require our involvement. And you, Mr Swift, seem to be currently sitting in the middle of them.”
    “What matters?”
    “I do not think I need trouble you by reporting them.”
    “You already are troubling me.”
    “Then I shall be brief to save us all further inconvenience. I believe you when you say you were attacked last night. I believe that you were hurt, I believe