Nick hurried down the empty street, leaving the apartment and the Walker far behind her in the dark gloom of the night. The rain wasn't as heavy now but it was still bad enough to see less clearly. She squinted as she walked. A dire, raw feeling was clasping around her throat, making it difficult to breathe. She stopped for a moment to regain herself and couldn't hear anything except the sound of her own breathing in the still emptiness. Little flecks of rain drifted on the air and dampened her skin, but she didn't feel the cold. She didn't feel anything.
The book was gone. Destroyed. Now how would she ever find out how to defeat the Stone? The thought played on her mind.
What about the Glint? Would she be safe?
While Nick was thinking, she failed to notice the three shadowy figures shifting down the street at a slow crawl. That was until one of them shouted. Some slurred, non-sensicle comment aimed in Nick's direction. She looked. One of them was staggering around, swaying from one step to the other into the light underneath a lamp post. Another had his arm wrapped around the third man's shoulder, apparently holding him up.
Bloody drunks.
It was too late for Nick to hide now. They had seen already seen her and there weren't any alleys to loose sight of her in. Nick started walking back.
"Oii luv! Come here!" one of them shouted.
Ignore them.
Nick continued to walk. She was about to break into a run when her foot caught under something and before nothing, she was falling. Her ankle twisted on the uneven pavement and she went onto all fours. She closed her eyes to block out the pain and stood up. Taking a step forward she was confronted by one of the men standing right in front of her. Nick gasped and wondered how had they caught up with her so fast. She turned round quickly but another stood there too. They had surrounded her already. Nick looked from man to man. The third guy was propping himself up a little further back. He turned his back on them and urinated on the lamp post.
"What's the matter luv?" the man in front of Nick grinned.
Nick could smell the alcohol on his grim breath. Could see the stains where he'd spilt it down his jacket. Could see his pupils struggling to focus. She edged further backwards on her toes and thought a single thought deeply in the back of her mind. The guy behind her had rounded back towards his mate so he could see her face.
"What's a pretty girl like ya self doin' out 'ere all alone? And so late too," the first man- who was presumably the leader of the group- asked.
"I don't want no trouble," Nick breathed.
"Well then. Ya should've really answered me first time. You ain't scared, are ya?" he reached down into the pocket on his tracksuit bottoms. Nick's eyes followed his hand and saw a flash of light reflecting of metal. He held a knife out towards Nick's throat. "What ya scared for?" he mocked.
His friend snickered in approval with a callow smile. As they glared at her, the third man walked towards them, whistling the tune of 'London Bridge is falling down' slowly and eerily, echoing down the street, the song getting louder as he approached with quiet, sunken footsteps. The darkness covered his face. For a moment all Nick could do was stand still, mind too stunned to try and make them forget about her. She watched the silhouette grow larger and closer, engulfing the space around it, the sound of the children's nursery rhyme provoking a terror in her much deeper than she knew he would have caught up on. The two other men had gone quiet awaiting his arrival. He stood right before her, too close, looking down at her with dark eyes. Even though Nick's stomach felt unsteady and called for her to back away, she stood her ground.
"You're not interested in me. You don't even see me. You want to turn around now and walk away," Nick declared.
The man took one step forward, face finally entering the light, and looked at her with dull confusion. His head cocked to the side and he chewed the inside of his mouth, waiting for his inebriated mind to make sense of things. Then his head rocked forward and he scoffed a pig laugh at her, spit flying everywhere.
"What you on about girl? You crazy?"
The other guys began to laugh. Nick scowled. She'd hoped that would work. She'd seen the Walker control people so many times without a second thought. She hadn't succeeded. She wouldn't be able to hide in plain sight now, not unless...
She got prime and ready on her toes. Not ready enough.
The guy in front looked Nick up and down for a second, then threw a hand out that hit her square in the shoulder. He had been so sluggish up to that point that the speed of it caught her off guard. The force was tremendous and it threw her backwards, once again knocking her off her feet. She landed in a puddle. She tried to look up at them but flickers of rain found her eyes and blinded her. They all laughed harder as she scrambled on all fours backwards trying to get away. The three of them only drew closer.
Something made a noise.
At the end of the street behind the guys, a bottle smashed. It echoed down the street, magnifying as it reverberated off the stone walls. The guys all turned round trying to locate where the noise had come from. Nothing could be seen at the end of the street. The silence became errie. The guys' heightened sense of caution soon packed in as they wore out and finally gave up, turning back around to finish with their prey.
"What the…?" said all three men collectively.
The girl was gone. In a second she had totally vanished. The street was long and narrow with no obstacles to hide behind. They would have heard her footsteps if she'd tried to run away. It was impossible. The third man shrugged and remembered something. One of the men walked back over to the tree where he had left their drinks.
The sound of bottles clattering were heard as they made a toast to themselves and their good looks, then made their way towards the nearest pub, already having forgotten about the girl.
But of course, Nick was right there, standing right in front of them. Using everything she had to not make them see her.
She had the right mind to punch one of them but resisted. They were scum from the lesser world. They weren't worth it.
She started to limp down the street, her head throbbing and her clothes wet when suddenly something grabbed her shoulder. She swung round to knock it away, thinking the lads had snuck up on her again, but she was trounced by a hand covering her mouth. She closed her eyes as she was forced back against the wall. As she opened them again she saw the Walker holding up a finger against her lips, urging her to be silent.
"You're a sleight of a shadow," he glowered. "You put shame to your nickname, Nick."
Nick made a face and he realised his fingers were digging hard into her spent shoulder. He let go and her body swooned, his body close beside being the only thing holding her up before she found her feet again. Nick blinked and understood. The Walker had smashed the bottle. He'd made the moment of distraction so that Nick could use the last of her strength to disappear. Her shoulders drooped and she leant her head forward, burying it into his chest in relief. He gently released his hand away from her mouth and held her for a quiet moment. Then he took a step back to let Nick catch her breath.
"You alright?" he asked in a voice which sounded more of a burden than a concern.
As she took some more breaths she asked herself the same question. She was a little shaken and still angry at him, but she must admit, he had come to her rescue and she was grateful for him being there.
"M'fine," she sighed and rubbed the back of her neck, embarrased. She didn't like him to think she couldn't take care of herself.
"Good," he said calmly whilst taking another step back. He produced the neat folded bit of paper out of his coat pocket. He looked at her for a second, hesitant, but finally gave in to whatever thought was in his head and stretched out his arm towards her. "Here. It's all you need."
He watched as she unfolded it and began to read. By the end she looked at him bewildered.
"I don't understand," she said simply.
"It's all that was said about you in the Book. Nothing else."
"About me?"
"No. Such as you. Or to cut it thinly-"
"Such as I used to be. Glints. Yeah, I get it." Nick read it again and realised that it had stopped raining. "I didn't mean that though, I meant, I don't understand why you're giving it to me."
"Because once an idea gets in your head you don't stop looking until you have the answer. It would send you on a collision course. I'm giving it you now so if you do ever figure it out, you'll know not to bother because you're wasting your time."
For some reason something he'd said didn't add up right to Nick. The Walker was taking a huge risk keeping something the Stone wanted destroyed. And if it were pointless, why did he still have it? Now he'd let Nick on it as well. She wondered why he had.
"Thank you," she said gratefully.
The Walker looked at her with suspicion, thinking she'd misheard him. She stared down at the paper with cushy eyes and he had a nagging in him to snatch it away again. But then she looked up and caught his eye, and as they looked at each other for once neither of them saw fear or anger in the other's eyes. It was just an understanding that both of them agreed on.
"Welcome," he replied.
They both started walking again, this time together, in silence.
Nick, for once, hadn't paid any attention to her surroundings since leaving the flat, yet still didn't look around for any sign as wandering aimlessly was something she needed to do to clear her mind. She wanted to forget where she was. She rounded a corner and came to a halt so abruptly that the Walker, who was following close behind, would have surely stumbled into her. However, he lucidly sidestepped around her, barely thinking about it until after it happened, his long coat swishing around the side of him, making the whole move look majestic. Even being blind in one eye would not bring him down. He smiled secretly. He made two quick takes, one to where Nick was staring, and the other back at Nick to reassess her expression.
The corner they were on was not far from St Barts. The building Nick was facing housed an alcove wall harbouring the Golden Boy of Pye Corner. The small, rather chubby child stood naked on his plinth, arms gilded and crossed across his chest, showing a stuck-up stance of disobedience. He spotted the two servants watching him and tensed up, a nervous shiver taking hold of his body, backing up against the wall behind him.
"Get lost filthy vermin," said the boy, spoken with a pompous high-pitched arrogance. He straightened and lifted his chin up so that he talked looking down his nose at them.
Nick bit her tongue to resist acting upon the insult and the Walker merely shrugged it off as something not worth his bother, only a small arching off his top lip to show mild hindrance. The boy, who merried himself having apparently gotten away with his remarks, pushed up on his tiptoes, lifting him a little further higher than the inferior slaves below. The Walker went back to surveying Nick, her eyes sad and riddled with deep thoughts, moving from side to side as she read the plaque below the plinth. Out of the corner of one eye, she saw the Golden Boy stick his tongue out and blow a raspberry at her.
She'd been here before. She'd read the plaque before. She'd read it so many times in fact, that the words had been memorised. But there was something different about actually being there, seeing it, reading it with her own eyes. The connection of a first person perspective that made it all the more real.
This was where the Great Fire of London had been stopped.
"Gluttony," Nick quoted with a bitter suppression of old fury. She turned to face the Walker, speaking directly to him. "Greed. The weakness of yearning. A swinish hankering for unreachable and undeserved treasures. Makes me sick. I've seen it happen all too often in this world. All worlds. People never learn. They don't stop until something truly terrible happens. And it's always the good people who pay the price. The innocent. It's them who suffer the damage. The sad truth is that the only real way of learning is from mistakes, not logic. And this is the how it ends. No one wins."
She communicated the rest through her eyes which the Walker fought to keep in contact with. Then she rolled her bad shoulder, easing out a tight knot in the muscles from her neck. The chubby child folded his arms tighter across his chest and huffed in dismissal and as she turned. Nick harrumphed and walked back the way of their apartment. The Walker pulled his hood tighter around his face and followed close behind.