So I shot him. It was worth it just for the obvious outrage it caused him and I enjoyed it right up until the point where he caught the bloody fireball. Just snatched it out of the air and held it, Yorick-like, in front of his face.

I’d released it as soon as it got near him but it hadn’t exploded. He twisted it this way and that as if examining it like a connoisseur, which perhaps he was—I figured he wanted me to lob another one at him so he could catch it or deflect it or do something else with annoying insouciance. So I didn’t. Besides, the more time he spent taunting me, the farther away Simone could get.

“You know,” he said, “when I first saw you I thought you were with the Thames girls, or a new sort of fae or something really outlandish like a witch doctor or an American.”

The man popped the fireball like a soap bubble and rubbed his thumb and finger under his nose. “Who trained you?” he asked. “Not Jeffers, that’s for certain. Not that he was without skill, but you’ve got spirit. Was it Gripper? He’s just the kind to bleat about what he’s doing. Have you noticed that about journalists—all they really want to talk about is themselves.”

Gripper was obviously Jason Dunlop. Dunlop tires, grip, Gripper—which gives you an indication of the lively wit promoted by our elite educational institutions. And Gripper obviously wasn’t the only one who wanted to talk. It’s no fun looking down on people if you can’t let them know you’re above them.

Come on, you bastard, I thought. Drop a few more names.

“You talk too little,” he said. “I don’t trust you.”

And suddenly the world was flooded with light and the massive downdraft from a helicopter blew dust and rubbish around our faces. He threw a fireball at me. I threw a chimney stack at him—that’s the London way.

I’d been working on loosening the chimney stack with what I call impello vibrato, but Nightingale called will you stop messing about and pay attention, while Faceless had been chatting. When the Nightsun searchlight from the police helicopter hit him in the face I created as pure an impello form as Nightingale could wish for and aimed it straight at the bastard. I knew he’d try to zap me, so I threw myself to the right and his fireball sizzled past my shoulder. I was hoping his gaze would automatically track me and not spot the quarter ton of brick and terra-cotta coming at him from the other direction, but he must have glimpsed it from the corner of his eye because he flung up his hand and the chimney stack disintegrated a foot short of his palm.