Footsteps approached but passed on. Dane looked at the ceiling. “You know what the question is?” he said. “What is it you’re loyal to. God? The church? The pope? What if they don’t agree?” He kept his gaze up. “What you want and what I want ain’t the same thing. You want to be safe, and… not to be a prisoner. Which do you want more? Because it’s safer here. You want a bit of revenge, too? What I want’s my god. Maybe that’s in the same direction for a bit.

“If we do this, Billy, you and me, I got to know you’re not going to run. I ain’t threatening you-I’m telling you you’ll die if you try to deal with shit on your own. If we do this I’ll help you, but you have to help me. That means you got to trust me.

“It ain’t going to be safe even a tiny bit, understand? If we go. You got everyone after you.” He lifted the bag.

“You’ll be safer if you stay here. But they won’t let you go. They want to know what you see.” He tapped his head.

“Why are you doing this?” Billy’s heart was speeding again.

“Because it ain’t our place just to watch. There’s a god to save.”

“They think it’s the right thing,” Billy said. “I read about the movement without movement. Moore thinks he’s doing the holy thing, moving like a kraken on a board. By not moving.”

“Well ain’t it convenient that this interpretation lets him sit on his arse? They won’t let you go. I want your help, but I ain’t going to force you. Time ain’t with us. So?”

“I’m not what you think,” Billy said. “I’m not a saint, Dane, just because I cut up a squid.”

“Are you more worried about being a prisoner or a saint?” Dane said. “I ain’t asking you to be anything.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You fallen in the middle of a war. I’m not going to bullshit you, I’m not going to tell you you can get your revenge for your mate. You can’t take Goss and neither can I. That ain’t what I’m offering. We don’t know who has the kraken, but we know the Tattoo’s after it. If he gets hold of something like that…

“It’s him who got your friend killed. The best way to ruin his day’s to get the god back. Best I can do.”

Billy could stay among obsequious jailers. Offering him hallucinogen, taking devout and monkish notes on whatever drivel he subsequently raved.

“Will they come after you?” Billy said. “If you go rogue?”

What this renegacy would mean! Dane would be without the church that made him, an apostate hero taking faith into the heart of darkness, a paladin in hell. A lifetime of obedience, followed by what?

“Oh yeah,” Dane said.

Billy nodded. He pocketed the ink. He said, “Let’s go.”

THE TWO MEN ON DUTY AT THE GATE LOOKED SHOCKED AS DANE approached. They nodded. They piously averted their eyes from Billy. It made him want to pretend to speak in tongues.

“I’m out,” Dane said. “On a job.”

“Sure,” said the younger doorman. He transferred his shotgun from arm to arm. “Let us just…” He fumbled with the door. “Only,” he said, and pointed at Billy. “Teuthex said we need his permission…”

Dane rolled his eyes. “Don’t bugger me around,” he said. “I’m on a mission. And I need him for a moment to taste some stuff out. Need what’s in there.” Tapped Billy’s head. “You know who he is? What he knows? Don’t waste my time, I’m bringing him straight back.” The two men looked at each other. Dane said, in a low voice, “Do not waste my time.”

What, were they going to disobey Dane Parnell? They opened the gate.

“Don’t lock it,” Dane said. “He’ll be back in a second.” He led Billy up the stairs, Billy behind him risking a tiny backward glance. Dane pushed open the trapdoor and pulled him out past bulwarks of rubbish, into the rear room of the South London Church of Christ.

LIGHT BURST THROUGH WINDOWS. LONDON DUST SETTLED AROUND them. Billy blinked.

“Welcome to exile,” Dane said quietly, lowering the door. He was a traitor now, in his fidelity to his duty. “Come on.” They went past the kitchen, the toilet, the bric-a-brac. In the main room, chairs were circled. Billy and Dane came out into a meeting of mostly elderly women, who broke off chatting.

“Alright love?” one said, and another, “Is everything okay, sweetheart?” Dane ignored them.

“Do they…” Billy whispered. “Do they worship the, the kraken…?”

“No, they’re Baptists. Mutual protection. Any second the Teuthex’s going to find out we’re gone. So we’ve got to get far away, fast. Follow me close and do exactly what I say, when I say. You try to go off on your own, Billy, and you will be found and you will die. Neither of us wants that. You understand? Walk quickly but don’t run.

“Are you ready?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

THERE WAS NO PLEASURE, NO I-TOLD-YOU-SO AMONG THE hedge-seers who had for so long predicted that the end was on its way. Now that everyone who cared to think about it agreed with them-though they might abjure the insight-those who found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly the advance guard of mainstream opinion were at a bit of a loss. What was the point of dedicating your life to giving warnings if everyone who might have listened-because the majority were still unbothered and would possibly remain so till the sun went out-merely nodded and agreed?

A plague of ennui afflicted London’s manic prophets. Warning signs were discarded, pamphlets pulped, megaphones thrown into cupboards. Those who could count questionable presences insisted that ever since the Architeuthis had disappeared, something new had been walking. Something driven and intense and intent on itself. And since shortly after that, it had unfolded again and become something a little more itself, emerged from a pupa of unspecificity into sentience, an obsessive moment of now that trod heavy in time.

No, they didn’t really know what that meant, either, but that was their very strong impression. And it was freaking them out.

BILLY STUMBLED AT THE DAY, THE COLD SUNLIGHT, THE PASSERSBY. At people in everyday clothes carrying papers and bags and on their way to south London shops. None of them looked twice at him. The trees leaflessly scratched the sky. It was all washed out by the winter.

A clutch of pigeons rose, wheeled and disappeared over the aerials. Dane stared at their retreating forms with frank suspicion. He beckoned Billy.

“Move,” Dane said. “I don’t like the look of those birds.”

Billy listened to the flatness of his footsteps on tarmac, not echoing at all. His pulse was fast. There was a stretch of low skyline and neglected brickwork. The church behind them was little more than a big shed. “I really do not like the look of those birds,” Dane said.

They went past newsagents, past bins spilling from their rims, dogshit by trees, a row of shops. Dane walked them to a car. It was not the same one as before. He opened the door. There was a whisper.

“What?” Dane said. He looked up. “Was that…?” There was no other noise. He was looking at a crude clay dragon, a little Victorian flourish in the matter of a roof, ajut from its vertex. He hustled Billy into the car.

“What was that?” Billy said. Dane let out a shaking breath as he drove.

“Nothing,” Dane said. “It’s a thought, though. God knows we need some help. We need to put some mileage behind us.” Billy did not recognise any streets. “Any second now London’s going to be teeming with my pissed-off crew. Ex-crew.”

“So where are we going?”

“We get underground. Then we start hunting.”

“And… what about the cops?” Billy said.

“We ain’t going to the police.” Dane smacked the wheel. “They can’t do shit. And if they could, it wouldn’t be what we want them to. Why do you think they’re looking? They want it for themselves.”

“So what are you going to do with it if you find it, Dane?”

Dane looked at him. “I’m going to make sure no one else gets it.”

DANE HAD HIS HIDES. IN EMPTY-LOOKING SHELLS, IN SHABBY squats, in neat-seeming places that appeared to have permanent tenants holding down jobs respectable and unrespectable.