Vicious Circle

It was too late now for Po to tackle Peace. Instead, he and Zucker grabbed tarmac on either side as I accelerated past them. At the last moment, I pulled the wheel hard over. I hit the fence full-on, about ten feet to the left of where Peace was still scrambling up: hit it, and went straight through it onto a paved forecourt where the remains of the fence rained down around me as splintered flotsam.

The front tires blew and the Jeep settled like a broken steer, its front bumper hitting the ground in a shower of sparks. That took care of a lot of my speed, which was good as far as it went, but a second later the air bag inflated, slamming me backward in my seat and pinning my arms. A secondary impact after that told me I’d smashed into something else that I hadn’t even seen.

I lay there dazed. There was a wailing sound in my ears, and for a chilling moment I thought I must have hit someone—but then I realized it was an alarm of some kind going off.

Forcing myself to move despite the aches and the shock of impact, I managed to get my hand into my pocket and groped around until I found my penknife. On the third try, I succeeded in puncturing the air bag: then I had to wait until it had deflated far enough for me to slide out from under it.

Staggering out of the remains of the Jeep, I saw that I’d actually slammed into another car on the forecourt of the sports shop. It had been a very nice electric blue BMW: it still was, except for the front third, which was twisted scrap.

Amazingly, nobody was coming to see what the noise was. The shop hadn’t opened yet, and neither had any of the offices on the street behind me.

There was no sign of Peace, or of the two loup-garous. I took that as a good sign, because if they’d brought him down they’d still be right there questioning him or beating him up or eating his remains.

There was nothing I could do except make myself scarce before someone came along to investigate the noise and the shattered fence. I headed back toward the Collective. I was in the right mood now to have another round with Reggie bastard Tang and his gormless little friend, and see if I couldn’t shake some more information out of them.

But when I got back to Pier 17, all my well-chosen phrases died on my lips as I stared, nonplussed, across a widening swathe of water toward the Collective’s receding stern rail. The gap was a good ten yards already, and the ship was heading out into the river at a slow, shuddering two knots.

Reggie was standing up on deck, a black silk jacket thrown on over his undershirt and pants, his hands thrust deep into the pockets. He favored me with an unfriendly, appraising stare.

“Go on home, man,” he said, sounding stern and sad. “Have some fucking self-respect and go on home.”

For one crazy moment I actually contemplated trying to make that jump. I’d have ended up trapped in the viscous Thames sludge until sometime in August, when the heat turned it back into dust again. Instead, I stood and watched the ship out of sight around the next bend. Reggie stayed up on deck the whole time, watching me as though he wanted to be sure I didn’t try anything. After a while, Greg Lockyear came and stood next to him, a hand on his shoulder. Then the graceless curve of Ferry Approach intervened, the Collective slid out of sight, and I was left alone on the pier, looking—if I can get technical for just a moment—like a complete fuckwit.

Eight

IHEADED BACK WEST. SWITCHING ONTO THE JUBILEE LINE, I passed within a stone’s throw of Paddington. At some point I’d probably have to drop in there for a word or two with Rosie Crucis. But now wouldn’t be a good time. I was still feeling a bit seedy and hungover, and you need a full set of options to stand a chance against Jenna-Jane Mulbridge; anyhow, Rosie is more nocturnal even than Nicky.

Yeah, maybe I was just putting off the inevitable, but right now that worked for me.

So I dropped in at the office instead, and dug out some emergency supplies from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. It was just a foil-backed bubble sheet with eight slightly odd-looking pills on it—white squares with rounded edges, marked with a cursive “D.” There’d been space for twelve pills originally, but four had already gone. The nurse who’d given them to me in the course of a brief, tempestuous relationship had said the “D” stood for “Diclofenac,” although the tablets had a couple of other active ingredients as well. “They’re magic,” she said, sliding them into my breast pocket with a wicked grin. “Strongest painkillers you’ll ever take, but they leave you as sharp as if you’d just popped a handful of dex. Only don’t drink too much booze with them. Or . . . um . . . go out in direct sunlight, because with this stuff in your system you’ll burn like a sausage on a grill.”