Our Lady of the Streets (The Skyscraper Throne) Read Online Free PDF Page A

her indignation.
Whatever she owes you, you owe her that
.
    They plunged into a tunnel and the light disappeared. The ghost train rocked under them in the darkness.
    It was mid-afternoon by the time they reached Bond Street station, but the roof of slate-grey clouds over the city made it feel later. Rain speckled Pen’s face as she emerged from the tube station. Drops hissed into vapour on the surface of Oxford Circus, six hundred yards away. The Fever Streets had advanced again in the night.
    Pen inhaled deeply. The rain smelled of limestone and for a moment she was back on the rooftops of London-Under-Glass, dodging chunks of brick and tile and concrete as they fell from the clouds.
    At least the weather here
’
s still safe
, she thought,
even if nothing else is
.
    *
     
    Metal rang off metal behind her as Beth climbed the stationary escalators, swinging her spear jauntily, like a dandy’s walking cane – but that didn’t hide the way she leaned on it every time it hit the floor. Pen offered her an arm, but Beth put on a baffled smile and waved her away.
    They crossed the empty expanse of Oxford Street. A statue stood on the steps in front of Selfridges, watching them. Pen didn’t recognise the Pavement Priest, but Beth obviously did. She stiffened, and the city-voice that emerged from her body sounded shocked. ‘
Timon?
’
    The air blurred and then the statue was standing on the pavement in front of them. Deep gouges had been dug into the stone of his torso, and Pen thought she could make out fingerprints in the bases of them. Whoever this Timon was, he’d been in a fight. His face had been chipped so badly Pencouldn’t read an expression, but his body language was pleading. Inked on his right shoulder, faded but still visible, were four wolf-heads.
    ‘Lady B,’ Timon said. He sounded desperately relieved. Through the crack in the statue’s limestone mouth, Pen glimpsed his flesh lips moving.
    ‘
When did you get here?
’ Beth asked. She clapped him on the shoulder. ‘
Were you at Abney Park when Mater Viae hit it? Where
’
s Al?
’
    Timon’s voice cracked as he answered, ‘Al didn’t make it. He got reborn.’
    ‘
Oh, Thames. Timon
—’ Beth sounded stricken. ‘
I
’
m sorry
.’
    ‘I don’t know where he is,’ Timon went on. ‘Been trying to look for him, but the city’s ripped up into so many bad zones and I can’t travel without tangling with
Her
Masonry Men. I can’t – Lady B, I can’t stop thinking about him as a little reborn baby, all alone out there, sealed up inside a statue, without no one to look out for him.’
    The eyeholes in Timon’s stone mask were tiny pinpricks, but Pen didn’t have to be able to see his eyes to sense the hope as he looked at Beth.
    ‘I came to you ’cause I wanted to ask something,’ he said quietly. ‘Lady B, I don’t know how many more times he can do this. You hear about fellas going crazy from the rebirthing, from the dark and the claustrophobia. I came because I wanted to beg, Lady B,
please
: give him his mortality back. Let him die for real – let him rest. He’s earned it.’
    Beth’s face set. The light from her gaze refracted throughthe rain to speckle his face. ‘
Timon
—’ She kept her lips pressed tightly together, and when she spoke, her voice was the whisper of tyres on a wet street. ‘
Timon, I
’
m so, so sorry, but I can
’
t. I
’
m not Her, you understand? I know I look like Her, but I
’
m not. The goddess who took his death – your death and all your brothers
’
deaths – away from you
, She
is dead herself. She killed herself with the poison She brewed up from your mortality. She used up all your deaths
.’
    Beth spoke gently, but even so, Pen could sense Timon’s frail flesh body shrinking inside the statue with every word.
    ‘
If I could give you what you
’
re asking for, you know I would. If I had it, it
’
d be yours, like it should be. But I don
’
t
.’
    The silence that followed was all