Free The Neon Court by Kate Griffin Page A

that as a compliment,” she sighed.
    “You believe any of it?”
    Silence. Then, “No. But we need proof. The Aldermen cannot risk a war on two fronts; we can’t be fighting the Court and the Tribe and guarantee the safety of the city from all the other threats that hammer against our walls. Not even you, Mr Mayor, would survive that.”
    “See if you can find someone from the Tribe to have a chat with,” I said. “See if we can have a conversation that doesn’t involve the syllable ‘ugh’.”
    “I make no promises.”
    “Fair enough. What time is it?”
    “Eleven ten.”
    I looked up at the black, plane-speckled sky. “Already?”
    “We’ve all been busy.”
    Something wrong.
    Badly badly wrong.
    I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
    “Where’s the girl?” said a voice, and for an instant, I didn’t realise it was mine.
    “What’s that, Mr Mayor?”
    “Just thinking out loud.”
    Oda.
    Where’s the girl?
    Oda with a hole in her heart, Oda who should, by all reason, be dead, and who I’d left sleeping, unwatched, unguarded, in a hotel in Greenwich. Oda who’d stuck a sword into the back of a man who might or might not have been (but probably was) Minjae San, daimyo of the Neon Court, on a burning tower in Sidcup, while I’d stood and watched and done nothing to make it stop. And I’d been summoned to that tower; someone had summoned me. It takes clout to summon a taxi, let alone a sorcerer who doesn’t want to go. And Oda despised magic.
    ‘Where’s the girl?’ she’d said.
    And now Lady Neon had come to town.
    Find the girl.
    I became vaguely aware of Dees making sounds at me, and mumbled, “Look, I’m going underground a while. Call me if you get anything.”
    I hung up, and went in search of the Piccadilly Line.
    There was something wrong with the Piccadilly Line.
    There was something wrong with the map.
    I stood inside Heathrow Terminals 1, 2 and 3 station and staredlong and hard at the map, and couldn’t quite name what it was about it that made me feel uneasy. Tourists with great bags on wheels that snipped at the ankles of strangers jostled around me to look and find their destination; men in sharp suits put away their mobile phones in expectation of going downstairs. Travellers who’d never seen the city’s Underground at work tried to stick their Oyster card into the paper ticket slot, and swipe their paper tickets over the Oyster card readers. The attending staff, having seen too many tens of thousands pass through speaking too many languages to ever be learnt, looked on, and made no effort to help. The barriers were extra wide to accommodate the luggage, the escalator a frustrating disorder of tired, bleary-eyed wanderers who hadn’t yet come to realise that London was, more than anything else, about neat queues and always standing on the right. The platforms were wide, the board with the orange indicator sign read:
    1 Southgate – 2 mins
    2 Southgate – 5 mins
    3 Turnpike Lane – 8 mins
    Beneath it rolled a continual line of text. I watched it; I was the only one who did. Please keep your luggage with you at all times. The lights are going out. Any unattended items must be reported to a member of staff immediately. It’s waiting for you.
    The train was relatively new, the seats still padded, the windows still mostly unscratched, the white paint on the outside only somewhat grey from the passage through the tunnels. I sat down in a small puddle of half-read used free newspapers, picked one up, flicked through it.
    ‘Fire in Sidcup; arson suspected’ had made a footnote on page 7 . I read the few words. Fire brigade called; tower block due for demolition; haunt of local kids and homeless; locals reported bodies; opposition councillor calls for inquiry into failures etc.
    The train rumbled through west London past stations of half-glimpsed pale faces in the platform light, not bothering to slow down for the corners as it sped towards Hammersmith and the City. I read