The Neon Court by KATE GRIFFIN

Author:KATE GRIFFIN [GRIFFIN, KATE]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780748119196
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

There’s never anywhere good to get a drink near railway stations, and Euston was no exception. The pub we found ourselves in had the advantage of convenience, emptiness and dark, shuttered corners away from windows and the passing of strangers, and not much else to recommend it. A fruit machine dazzled with a constant flicker and flow of brilliant yellow and orange lights that raced up and down it like frantic ants in a boiling maze; the carpet was thin, with spilt beer trod in deep, the barmaid a bleary-eyed student with an Eastern European accent who handed out drinks in glasses still carrying the lipstick scars of their previous owners. She looked too tired to sourly judge our order of tap water, two packets of cheese and onion crisps and a glass of cranberry juice for Chaigneau, price: extortionate. A TV in one corner was showing repeats of ancient 80s sitcoms, in which all the female voices rose to earth-shattering pitches, and the audience cackled at every waggling eyebrow. The stained beer mats on our glass-topped table promised that no one knew how to party like the Aussies, and invited attendance to the 2001 Rugby World Cup to test this theory.

In our dull, underlit corner I sat next to Chaigneau, Penny on my other side. I wasn’t sure whether I was protecting her from him, or the other way round.

He said, “Does your apprentice really have to be here?” I looked at Penny. “I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t we ask her?” Penny beamed and gave a cry, only slightly subdued by fatigue, of “I just dig those religious psycho-bastard fanatics, shit.”

“Yes,” I translated for Chaigneau. “I think she does. Talk – tell me about Oda.”

“I’m here to help you, sorcerer,” he said. “Sure.”

“I have information that could be relevant to the safety of the city.” I let the silence hang, hoping that my expression was at least partially receptive, mingled to dilute our natural hate.

“The Order has come across information that the woman Oda has engaged herself to dark powers.”

I waited. “Are we talking … rings, bells and a honeymoon in Ibiza?” I queried at last. “Or do you mean something specific?”

“This is hardly a time for flippancy.”

“I’m sorry; it’s my defence mechanism. So Oda has gone and got herself mixed up in dark powers. What dark powers and why?”

He hesitated. Then, eyes fixed on a point somewhere just above my head, “We’re not sure.”

“Of which bit?”

“Both. But she has … killed … at least two people that we know of, in a hotel in Greenwich. We think she may have killed more. And her means were not of God’s creation. I will not lie to you; our relationship with her has cooled.”

“Before or after the dead people in Greenwich?” asked Penny sourly.

His eyes flashed. “Oda lost her path some time ago. She has not been a true scion of the Order for … many months.”

“You think it’s been a long-term engagement with darkness and death?” I asked through a fistful of cheese and onion crisps.

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