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So I’d had my rehearsal for the big show, and that was good: but it was more than possible I’d just told the bastards I was coming. They’d have all the time in the world to prÓthe biepare us a really nasty welcome.

‘We’ve got to go now,’ I said.

Moloch gave me a look of ruthless, detached appraisal.

‘You think you can walk?’ he asked.

I nodded again. ‘Yeah,’ I said, from out of a fog of exhaustion and pain. ‘Just getting my second wind.’

‘We can’t go now,’ he reminded me, in the same cold tone.

‘We need the lady,’

I climbed unwillingly to my feet. ‘I know,’ I muttered.

‘Can you find her?’

I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know. There was only one place I’d thought of that was worth looking in, and I knew for a fact I wasn’t going to be welcome there. I trudged down the stairs: I couldn’t hear Moloch’s footfalls, but the prickle on the back of my neck told me that he was following me.

The night loomed ahead of us like a mountain. Only idiots climb mountains in the dark.

23

I hadn’t expected to be back in Royal Oak so soon, and Susan Book wasn’t expecting to see me there. In the four or five seconds between ‘Jerusalem’ sounding again and the door opening, I braced myself for storms.

But Susan wasn’t in the mood to give me a hard time. Her eyes looked swollen with unshed tears, or maybe just with sleep. Everything about her posture suggested misery and a pre-emptive surrender to despair. Juliet’s absence was obviously hitting her very hard.

Given that even looking at Juliet felt a little bit like taking a hit of some illicit drug, to be withdrawn from her so suddenly must be a little like going into the instant, unwelcome free fall of cold turkey.

Susan just stared at me. ‘I told you she wasn’t here,’ she mumbled tonelessly.

‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘I’m thinking that maybe I know a way to bring her back. Can I come in and explain?’

I hunched my shoulders against the gathering wind, playing the pity card to give myself an additional argument if my words didn’t work.

Beside me, Moloch tilted his head back, sniffed the air and growled. ‘This hovel stinks of the lady,’ he said, in his car-crash-in-slow-motion voice. Susan swivelled her head to stare at him, her eyes widening. She hadn’t noticed him until he spoke.

Maybe after living with Juliet for so long she could tell what he was just by looking: that would explain the fear that crossed her face.