Quill crossed on the lights, a wave of tourists around him, passing Toffs coming in the other direction. He was looking forward to the relative cool of the Opera Rooms, which was an upstairs bar with big leather sofas in a pub called the Chandos near the Strand. They kept the windows open in summer. ‘Give me a call if any of them flare up. Okay, see you…’

Quill was looking dully ahead at one of the many Toff figures coming in his direction, but something inside him was yelling an alarm at him. At first he thought he’d crossed on a red, that he was hearing some oncoming car that was about to run them all over. He wasn’t hearing anything, he realized; it was his new senses shouting a warning. Huge meaning was approaching, coming straight for him.

He looked into the face of the figure marching across the road towards him. It was masked and caped like all of the others. But in the moment he’d turned his attention to it, it … started to blaze with the potential of the Sight.

From the eyes of its mask were falling tears of silver.

In that second Quill knew what he was looking at …

The figure ran at him.

‘Kev,’ yelled Quill, ‘he’s here! He’s—’

The razor sliced the air beside him. Quill ducked aside and ran. He shoved his way back through the crowd of tourists coming in the other direction. They shouted happily at him in Dutch or something. They couldn’t see what was behind him. Or some of them half could and recoiled, doubting themselves, dreaming.

He burst out of the other side of them, onto the concourse in front of Charing Cross again, and ran straight into the mass of protestors, looking round and round as their masks surrounded him and parted in front of him, every hand holding the possibility of a blade, every mask blank with no tears. He picked a direction and heaved his way through them. He still had his phone in his hand. He could hear Kev yelling from it.

He broke through them and found a gap ahead. He ran down the shallow hill that led around the corner of Charing Cross, down towards the Embankment. He grabbed the phone to his ear again, looking desperately behind him. ‘What can you do for me, Kev?’

‘I’ve called for backup. Where are you?’

‘Embankment tube.’ He heard Sefton yell that to someone on another line. ‘I’m not going to get into a cab, not here. With the traffic, I’d be a sitting duck like Spatley—’

‘Marked cars converging on you.’

‘You’ll just get uniforms killed.’

‘I don’t care.’

Quill saw light blaze at the top of the hill. A brilliant figure, like something out of William Blake, had shot up onto the heads of the crowd, and now took one huge leaping step towards him.