Free Our Lady of the Streets (The Skyscraper Throne) by Tom Pollock

on her forehead, the floor under her rippled like a puddle in an earthquake.
    Dizziness swept over her and her concentration broke. The rippling stopped. ‘
I can
’
t
.’ She rocked back against the corner of the kitchen counter and slid to the floor, the air aching inside her lungs.
    Gutterglass pursed her rubber lips speculatively and poised a pencil-tipped index finger over a small notepad half hidden amongst the morass of her forearm. ‘What exactly feels like the problem? Describe it as fully as you can.’
    Beth shook her head. ‘
I just
can’t.
I can see them, hold them in my head, but when I try to make them in the world, they just don
’
t come up
.’
    Gutterglass scribbled, then tapped her finger against her cheek. ‘Hmmm,’ she murmured in a voice made from the low buzz of beetle wings. ‘It
could
be a new progression in your pathology. It could be weakness due to your lack of sustenance, or,’ she mused, ‘it could simply be stress. Has anything happened recently to cause you any stress, My Lady?’
    ‘
Really?
’ Beth said. ‘
You
’
re doing that joke?
’
    Gutterglass shrugged, a complicated manoeuvre involving the scurrying of half a dozen rats under her shoulder blades; it was one of the human gestures she was least accomplished at.
    ‘In my experience, in situations like this one you can’t be too picky about where you pick up your laughs, My Lady.’
    Beth peered at her from under her drooping eyelids. ‘
You actually have experience of situations like this?
’
    ‘Not exactly like this,’ Gutterglass admitted, ‘but over the years you’d be surprised how close I’ve got.’
    ‘
How did they turn out?
’
    ‘Varied,’ Glas replied, ‘but I’m still here, aren’t I?’ She crouched and patted Beth’s knee. ‘There’s usually a way out. Just because we haven’t seen it yet doesn’t mean it’s not there.’
    Beth nodded at the floor beside her. ‘
Sit down
.’
    Gutterglass obeyed by simply allowing her lower body to collapse in a miniature landfill. Her torso emerged from it like some salvage-sculpture bust.
    ‘
Petris and Zeke are pretty pissed off at us
.’
    ‘They are,’ Gutterglass confirmed.
    ‘
Think we did the right thing, not telling them?
’
    ‘I think that the speed with which they’re taking measures to keep the news from their followers implies that
they
think we did, whether they’ll admit it or not,’ Gutterglass said.
    ‘
Yeah – but what about you? Would you have told them? If I hadn
’
t ordered you not to?
’
    ‘Would I have told them that, in our best but by no means expert opinion, we are woefully overmatched in a battle against an Urban Goddess who is an exact copy, except, if possible, slightly
more
callous and sadistic than the one who stole their deaths and condemned them to an eternity under rock? And that the girl on whom all their hopes depend as a challenger to this demonic entity is a rotten apple-skin’s thickness from the grave herself?’
    Gutterglass considered it. ‘If I’m honest, I think it might not have been the
best
morale booster I could think of.’
    ‘
Still, it might have given them a chance to prepare
.’
    ‘They’re soldiers, My Lady. They live prepared.’ Gutterglass paused. ‘Mater Viae’s mirror-sister is stronger than you,’ she said, ‘that I grant, but there is at least this: She is alone. We have three hundred and fifty-nine streetlamp spirits and Pavement Priests and garbage avatars and,’ she added with a smile, ‘dying semi-divine graffiti artists.’
    Beth peered at her through half-closed eyes. Gutterglass’ rats covertly counted every non-human resident of the department store in the morning and again in the evening.One body too many, Glas had pointed out, and there could be a spy in their midst. One unaccounted for could be the first sign of a rout.
    ‘
Three hundred and fifty-nine, huh?
’ Beth said wearily. That was less than a third of the force she and Fil had led against