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Jago

Page 66

by Kim Newman


  ‘I remember you,’ he said. ‘This is all your fault.’

  ‘You’re a professional, aren’t you?’

  Stryng nodded.

  ‘No more pay packets,’ Orlando said.

  On stage, Strawjack Crowe was jittering, a thousand shadow-darts in his face and torso. Strange little hypodermic needles stuck in and emptied into the bloodstream. Orlando didn’t like to think what the Doctor had filled them with.

  ‘You don’t have a bounty here,’ Orlando said.

  ‘I agree. But I have a hostage.’

  ‘There’s always that.’

  Stryng’s Webley was at Orlando’s temple.

  ‘Rutland Stryng,’ came a shout.

  Across the floor strode Captain Lytton.

  ‘Here’s where we find out,’ muttered Stryng.

  Without letting go of his hold on Orlando’s throat, Stryng turned, sliding as much of his body behind Orlando as possible, extending his arm to fire. Lytton reached for his side-arm.

  A shot roared past Orlando’s ear.

  Lytton stood still, as if shocked. Orlando, deafened, thought the whole melee had gone silent.

  Then Stryng let him go.

  Lytton holstered his pistol. Orlando looked over his shoulder and saw Stryng had taken a ball in the forehead. His knees gave out and he fell.

  Noise rushed back into Orlando’s head.

  * * *

  When the real Whittington appeared, everyone was grateful. The Prime Minister sweated gallons as he denied knowledge of the substitution. The Queen looked stern and pleased at once, posing in front of the still-burning Diana face. The Archbishop dug out the hot chain of office from the trashed automaton and handed it over.

  Dr Shade disappeared into the night, leaving a great many fires and not a few deserving casualties. Orlando still didn’t understand the shadowman, and had an unsettled feeling that his cure could be far worse than the disease a few years down the line. The city owed its continued independence, probably its continued existence, to a creature far beyond human notions of right and wrong. From now on, as in dark times long ago, the shade was upon London, and would be a final court of appeal for the desperate and the high-minded. And Orlando had asked him back.

  Jeperson, in union jack tunic and boots, was in charge of rounding up the few reliable coppers and restoring order. He got everyone calm until Whittington could get on stage and apologise for the poor show. The true Lord Mayor made his real speech, which was greeted with cheers.

  Orlando got out of the Dome.

  He found Lytton, walking away.

  ‘Thanks, Captain,’ he said.

  Lytton shrugged. ‘Had to be done.’

  ‘I think you clipped my ear.’

  Lytton examined the wound.

  ‘Your looks aren’t spoiled.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Lytton looked away from the Dome, and said, ‘Somewhere green. What about you?’

  Orlando thought of slate and stone, tarmac and brick, shingle and concrete. And the shadow that had fallen upon the city.

  ‘Green, ugh,’ he said. ‘Give me somewhere grey any day.’

  COMING SOON FROM TITAN BOOKS

  ANNO DRACULA

  JOHNNY ALUCARD

  by KIM NEWMAN

  It is 1976 and Kate Reed is on the set of Francis Ford Coppola’s movie Dracula. She helps a young vampire boy, Ion Popescu, who leaves Transylvania for America. In the States, Popescu becomes Johnny Pop and attaches himself to Andy Warhol, inventing a new drug which confers vampire powers on its users…

  A brand-new novel in the Anno Dracula series, this fourth instalment takes the series to Andy Warhol’s New York and Orson Welles’ Hollywood.

  THIS LONG-AWAITED SEQUEL SHOULD NOT BE MISSED

 

 

 


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