Chant glanced over his shoulder. The whistler was in sight. It looked perfectly human, dressed in a gray, well-cut suit and black tie, its collar turned up against the cold, its hands thrust into its pockets. It didn’t run but almost idled as it came, the whistle confounding Chant’s thoughts and making him stumble. As he turned away the second of his pursuers appeared on the pavement in front of him, drawing a hand from its pocket. A gun? No. A knife? No. Something tiny crawled in the voider’s palm, like a flea. Chant had no sooner focused upon it than it leapt towards his face. Repulsed, he raised his arm to keep it from his eyes or mouth, and the flea landed upon his hand. He slapped at it with his other hand, but it was beneath his thumbnail before he could get to it. He raised his arm to see its motion in the flesh of his thumb and clamped his other hand around the base of the digit, in the hope of stopping its further advance, gasping as though doused with icewater. The pain was out of all proportion to the mite’s size, but he held both thumb and sobs hard, determined not to lose all dignity in front of his executioners. Then he staggered off the pavement into the street, throwing a glance down towards the brighter lights at the junction. What safety they offered was debatable, but if worst came to worst he would throw himself beneath a car and deny the voiders the entertainment of his slow demise. He began to run again, still clutching his hand. This time he didn’t glance back. He didn’t need to. The sound of the whistling faded, and the purr of the car replaced it. He threw every ounce of his energy into the run, reaching the bright street to find it deserted by traffic. He turned north, racing past the underground station towards the Elephant and Castle. Now he did glance behind, to see the car following steadily. It had three occupants: the voiders and another, sitting in the back seat. Sobbing with breathlessness he ran on, and—Lord love it!—a taxi appeared around the next corner, its yellow light announcing its availability. Concealing his pain as best he could, knowing the driver might pass on by if he thought the hailer was wounded, he stepped out into the street and raised his hand to wave the driver down. This meant unclasping one hand from the other, and the mite took instant advantage, working its way up into his wrist. But the vehicle slowed.
“Where to, mate?”
He astonished himself with the reply, giving not Esta-brook’s address but that of another place entirely.
“Clerkenwell,” he said. “Gamut Street.”
“Don’t know it,” the cabbie replied, and for one heart-stopping moment Chant thought he was going to drive on.
“I’ll direct you,” he said.
“Get in, then.”
Chant did so, slamming the cab door with no little satisfaction and barely managing to reach the seat before the cab picked up speed.
Why had he named Gamut Street? There was nothing there that would heal him. Nothing could. The flea—or whatever variation in that species it was that crawled in him—had reached his elbow, and his arm below that pain was now completely numb, the skin of his hand wrinkled and flaky. But the house in Gamut Street had been a place of miracles once. Men and women of great authority had walked in it and perhaps left some ghost of themselves to calm him in extremis. No creature, Sartori had taught, passed through this Dominion unrecorded, even to the least—to the child that perished a heartbeat after it opened its eyes, the child that died in the womb, drowned in its mother’s waters—even that unnamed thing had its record and its consequence. So how much more might the once-powerful of Gamut Street have left, by way of echoes?
His heart was palpitating, and his body full of jitters. Fearing he’d soon lose control of his functions, he pulled the letter to Estabrook from his pocket and leaned forward to slide the half window between himself and the driver aside.
“When you’ve dropped me in Clerkenwell I’d like you to deliver a letter for me. Would you be so kind?”