The Minority Council Read Online Free PDF

if he doesn’t ever get off his arse and do it?”
    My mouth was open for a comeback that my brain couldn’t deliver. She broke in with, “So, you going to help me or what?”
    “Well, I…”
    “I just need five minutes to talk to him, convince him that he needs to get involved. Those fuckers downstairs won’t even let me leave him a note! What arsehole employs people like that? It’s all like ‘Wow I’m the Midnight Mayor, I’m like, cooler and more powerful than you little people, so you little people can fuck right off.’ I mean, don’t you hate that?”
    I managed a nod.
    She let out a sigh, and shrank back into her seat. She was younger, I realised, than I’d given her credit for, barely in her twenties.
    “So,” she said, “what do you… like… do?”
    “Uh… things.”
    “What kind of things?”
    “I’m, like, a… magical consultant.”
    She raised her eyebrows.
    “Well, you know, if there’s spells people don’t understand or problems that people can’t solve, you know, involving monsters or magics or stuff, then they call me, and I come down and clean it up.”
    “Does it pay well?”
    “Not really.”
    “You have to declare to the taxman?”
    “What? Well, no, I haven’t for a while, but that’s complicated…”
    “I
hate
wizards who don’t declare to the taxman,” she said. “I mean, I get that you’re all busy summoning imps and enchanting elves and all that stuff, but you’re still going to use the NHS, aren’t you? You still want your rubbish collected, you still want your kids to have a decent place to go to school? Or are you just going to magic a stable job market and decent A-level grades into being? I think not, oh-no.”
    “Actually there’s more to it…”
    “So do you, like, work for the Midnight Mayor?”
    I hesitated. Truth shot a sly glance at expediency, expediency waggled its eyebrows significantly, truth made a little noise at the back of its throat, and expediency jumped straight on in there.
    “I’m the guy who does all the stuff he can’t be bothered with.”
    “Does that mean you can get me in to see him?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Good. When?”
    “Well, I…”
    “Tomorrow at nine any good? I’ve got appointments all day from ten, but can maybe do a lunch meeting. He’ll have to come to me, of course.”
    “Maybe we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves,” I ventured.
    A look shot across the table that could have snuffed out a stadium flood. “You
are
going to help me, aren’t you?”
    I leant forward, clasping my fingers between my knees. “I’m not sure you mentioned your name.”
    “Nabeela. Nabeela Hirj.”
    “I’m Matthew, nice to meet you. What do you do?”
    “I work for the council.”
    “Which council?”
    “Kensington and Chelsea.”
    “And you do magic?” I asked, dropping my voice.
    She shifted uneasily. There it was, that taste of cold thin metal on the air. “I… I’ve got a condition,” she mumbled. “It’s nothing. I mean, it’s fine. It’s nothing. But it’s, uh… you know, you have to get answers, don’t you?”
    “I get that.”
    “It’s not like it’s something I do for a living. It’s just something that’s like asthma, you know?”
    “Sure.”
    “Anyway, when I was a kid my mum asked around, trying to get a few answers, and she met a few people whoknew stuff, and then one guy said there was this bloke called the Midnight Mayor and he fixed things. Anyway,” she added, “I’m not here about me.”
    “Then go on. What are you here for?”
    She hesitated, then said, “You want to know what it’s about? Really want to know?”
    “I suppose, yes.”
    “Then you gotta come see for yourself.”
    I tried not to sigh. The sun was undeniably down now. I could feel the Underground rumbling below, the rush hour slipping away into that indoors time when the kettle boiled and oil hissed in the pan. The Beggar King wanted to see me, the Aldermen were pissed off, and the night was about to