The Glass God Read Online Free PDF Page A

sandwich…⁠”
    “Oh, Miles!”
    The man addressed as “Oh, Miles” detached himself from the doorframe and stepped inside, closing the door behind him lest rumours of his participation escape beyond the nearest four walls. He inclined his chin in the universal nod of manly-men-respecting-each-other’s-masculinity to Rhys as he passed, inducing another quiver at the end of Rhys’s already inflamed nose, and held out a polite hand for Sharon to shake. His grip was firm without being oppressive, loose without being limp, and as their fingers brushed she tasted
                        finest coffee beans ground beneath a brass handle in the morning
    shoe polish, never too bright, never too polished
                   laughter of children in the playground
    stab of regret
                        click of the gun in the night
    before their hands parted. Pulling up a stool, the man called Miles settled by the corner of her desk. Kelly swung herself into the chair opposite Sharon, and began testing its manoeuvrability as if on the verge of shouting “whee!”
    “I really feel you should have a doughnut,” she declared, satisfied by the motion of the chair. “They’re marvellous things. Did you know that the doughnut has a Jewish origin? During Hanukkah the Temple of Solomon was besieged, and they didn’t have enough oil to keep the sacred flame alight but, would you believe it, the flame made it! And there was something to do with sacred oil as a result, and therefore doughnuts – I’m a little vague on the details but aren’t doughnuts just the most marvellous thing to ever come out of organised religion?”
    “Miss Shiring…⁠”
    “Kelly, please!”
    “Kelly,” corrected Sharon, “I’m really grateful for the doughnuts, and I’m sure Rhys is, like… giddy… about them, too, and I don’t mean to seem rude or nothing, but why are you here?”
    “I don’t think you’re rude, Ms Li – may I call you Sharon? – I don’t think you’re rude at all! Did you think she was rude, Miles?”
    “Absolutely not,” murmured the Alderman.
    “Of course you’d want to know why we’re here, why not? And of course the answer is, I’m here to give you the umbrella because Mr Swift specifically requested that you should have it, and to inform you that you’ve been deputised and the Midnight Mayor has vanished, and to bring you doughnuts because I believe in the project!”
    Silence, punctuated by the sound of Rhys trying to blow his nose with all the discretion of a steam engine. Sharon gingerly pushed the doughnuts to one side, in case they were somehow contaminated by the news they’d arrived with. Kelly waited, her smile fixed in place. Her companion sat hunched forward, elbows on his knees, fingers twined together, watching Sharon, waiting for a reaction.
    Sharon spoke slowly and carefully. It was, she’d found, the best way to create an illusion of shamanly wisdom, as people often mistook cautious speech for being thoughtful instead of panic-struck. “When you say… the Midnight Mayor has vanished… ⁠?”
    “Yes,” sighed Kelly. “Embarrassing, really, as I’m supposed to be his PA.”
    “And ‘vanished’…⁠?”
    “Off the face of the earth. Well! Maybe not off the face of the earth, we have no evidence for that per se, and it seems a bit of a leap to assume that, because we can find no trace of him, he is in fact not here. But from what we can tell, he has disappeared completely, utterly and without a word. Which he has done before,” she added. “But never like this, and never so… silently. Usually when he disappears it’s to blow things up, or engage in nefarious acts with dark forces, but this time there’s been none of that, and I’m a little concerned.”
    “You’re concerned that things aren’t blowing up?”
    “You have met him,” Kelly pointed out.
    “Okay,” Sharon admitted. “So maybe it is worrying. But I don’t get