Whispers Under Ground

“I want assurances,” said Zach.

“You can have my word,” I said.

“No disrespect, Peter,” he said, “but I don’t want a promise from the monkey, I want it from the organ grinder.”

“It’s one of those paradox thingies,” I said. “What happens when the unstoppable cook meets the unfillable stomach?”

Was it better to die in the illusion of sunshine and warmth or face death in a cold darkness of reality? Was it better to die in happy ignorance or terrified knowledge? The answer, if you’re a Londoner, is that it’s better not to die at all.

As Conan the Barbarian famously said, “That which does not kill us does not kill us.”

Low sample size—one of the reasons why magic and science are hard to reconcile.

Like young men from the dawn of time, I decided to choose the risk of death over certain humiliation.

“He did some drugs at university,” I said. “Isn’t that what it’s for?”

All diplomatic cars have distinctive plates that indicate status and nationality, for the ease and convenience of terrorists and potential kidnappers.

A lot of people have died in the Underground, through accidents, stupidity, or suicide. All the one-unders whose dying wish had been to make other people late for work.

You don’t actually know enough about me to insult me properly.

“Fortunately,” said Nightingale, “seeing isn’t always believing.”

Back in the summer I’d made the mistake of telling my mum what I did for a living. Not the police bit, which of course she already knew about, having been at my graduation from Hendon, but the stuff about me working for the branch of the Met that dealt with the supernatural. My mum translated this in her head to “witchfinder,” which was good because like most West Africans, she considered witchfinding a more respectable profession than policeman.

So just chalk it up to pixie dust or quantum entanglement, which was the same thing as pixie dust except with the word “quantum” in it.

I looked at Lesley—surely nobody could really be that stupid? She shrugged. Lesley has a much lower opinion of humanity than I do.

It was a good plan, and like all plans since the dawn of time, this would fail to survive contact with real life.

“The scope of your ignorance, Peter,” said Seawoll, “is truly frightening.”

“Is that your professional opinion?”

“Yes.”

“Which as usual,” said Seawoll, “is as about as useful as a chocolate teapot.”

Half-caste, I thought. I hadn’t heard that one in a while. Not since Mum fell out with Aunty Doris, who having grown up in Jamaica in the 1950s regarded political correctness as something that happened to other people.