“Yeah,” said Marge to her back. I’ll do that. Since when had home been home? She took a taxi. Not to a ghost or trap street, of course: the driver’s very expertise, the knowledge that got him his cab, would have hidden it from him. She directed him instead to the closest main street to her destination, and from there walked to the little east-London shack.

It looked thrown up out of discarded walls, wood, wattle, daub and brick remnants, on a tiny street of such mix-bred buildings, where a man she had found, via a convoluted online route, waited for her.

“YOU ARE LATE,” HE SAID. INSIDE THE MUTT-MADE HOUSE THE rooms were drier, finer and more finished, more roomlike rooms than Marge would have thought. Amid mould-coloured upholstery, paintings the shades of shadows and books that smelt and looked like slabs of dust was a computer, a video-game console. The man in the hoodie was in his fifties. His left eye was obscured by what she thought for a second was some complex Cyberdog-style hat-glasses combination, but was, she realised, without even a flinch or a twist of the lips, these days, the metal escutcheon of a keyhole from a door, soldered or sutured to the orbit of his eye.

It was attached to face toward him. Everything he saw was glimpsed as through a keyhole. Everything he saw was an illicit secret.

“You’re late.”

“You’re Butler, right?” said Marge. “I know, what can you do? Traffic’s a swine.” She took money out of her bag, a roll in a rubber band. If the world doesn’t end, she thought, I’m going to be buggered for cash.

The air in the room eddied, like interruptions in her vision. Things that should not, like ashtrays and lamps, seemed to be moving a tiny bit. “Anyway,” she said. “It’s you who lives where no taxi driver can go.”

“You think this is tricky to find,” he said. “There’s an avenue in W-Five that’s only in the 1960s. You try getting back into that. Protection, right, as I recall? From what?”

“From whatever’s coming.”

“Steady on.” He smirked. “I’m not a magician.”

“Ha ha,” she said. “I’m looking for someone. I’ve been told to leave it alone and I’m not going to. I’m sure you know more than me about whatever, so you tell me what I need.”

The watcher-through-the-keyhole nodded and took the money. He counted it. “Could be djinn,” he said as he did. “Fire’s what’s coming. Maybe someone arsed them off.”

“Djinn?”

“Yeah.” He tapped the keyhole. “That’s the thinking. Fires, you know. Anything you remember never been there, all of a sudden?”

“What?” she said.

“Things are going up in fire and never been there.” When she looked no wiser he said, “There was a warehouse in Finchley. Round between the bath shop and the Pizza Hut. I know there was because I used to go there and because I’ve seen it.” He tap-tapped his eyepiece again. “But ‘seen it’ butters no bleeding parsnips these days. That warehouse burnt down, and now it didn’t ever was there. The bath shop and the Pizza Hut are joined up now, and the only ash blowing around there’s a bit of charred never.

“Burnt out backward.” He headed into another room, raising his voice so she could still hear. “They can’t get it out of everyone’s head yet, but it’s a start. There’ll be more, bet you a thousand quid. Might be that’s what you’re up against.”

“Might be.”

“I mean we’re all up against it but most of us aren’t out hunting for trouble. Anyway that ain’t the only apocalypse right now. You’ll have a choice soon enough. Which is bloody ridiculous.” He returned and threw an iPod to Marge. It was scratched, well used. An older model.

“I’ve got one,” she said.

“Ha ha yourself. Put it on but don’t turn it on, not yet. Wait till you’re out there in the world.”

“What have I got? Bit of Queen?”

“Yeah, ‘Fat-Bottomed Girls’ and ‘Bicycle.’ I don’t know what you’re going up against any more than you, so this is a bit all-purpose and you better be gentle with it. It should give you a little bit”-he held his finger and thumb apart an inch-“if it is djinn, and a little bit if it’s herders, or gunfarmers or Chaos Nazis or anyone else up and about-you hear all bloody sorts-or whatever of your multiple-choice end-times is coming. But don’t push your luck.”

“What do you mean multiple choice?” she said.

“There’s two on the way, turns out, is what I hear. One of which may or may not be the fire. Can you Adam and Eve that? So to speak. Some animal Ragnarok plus some other awful bloody thing.”

“What do you mean, animal?” she said. “What do you mean?”

“In a minute. Listen.” He pointed at the machine he had given her. “You’ve got a little guardchord, is all. It’s in there. Swimming about in the noise, and if you listen to it it’ll keep you safe. A bit. So you better hope you like it and don’t let anyone else listen. If you sniff trouble play it. Just play it all the time, sod it. Keep the bloody thing charged. Keep it fed.”

“What does it eat?”

“Music, gods’ sake. Put some playlists on there. Make sure you give it what it likes.”

“How do I know?”

“Never had a pet? Work it out.”

“How strong is-?”

“Not bloody very. You’re flying blind, like we all are. It’s a lick and a prayer and a spit of goodwill, so don’t piss and moan.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Alright.”

“It might give you a bit of time to get away from whatever, is all. Think of it as a head start for when you run. ’Cause let’s face it, you’ll run.”

“What did you mean about the choice?” she said to the seeing man.

He shrugged. “There’s way too many ends-of-the-world to keep up with, but this is the first conjunction I can remember in a long while. Seems like it’s animals and puritans, this time. Right now with all this going on. Seems a bit-”

“Animals?”

“Some animal god, they reckon-that’s what you hear, that’s what I see.” Tap-tap on the keyhole. “We’ll find out soon enough. I might not miss this one. Takes more than an apocalypse to get me into town these days, but two…? Right now? You should, though. Miss it, I mean.”

“I can’t. That sounds like what… people’ve been waiting for. And anyway, what with my little…” She shook her iPod, and he his head.

“It’ll just give you time to run,” he said.

“About that,” she said. Her mouth moved, but no sound came for a moment. “One thing I might have to get away from… Can this, can the music-thing you… I might see Goss and Subby.”

She waited for those names to do their bad magic. For the man to gasp. He only looked sad and winced.

“I know,” he said. “Think you get to be on that sort of shitlist and people don’t hear? That’s why you should stay away.”

“This, though?” she said, raising the iPod. “It’ll help, if I do… if they…”

“Against them?” he said flatly. “That thing? No it won’t. It won’t do nothing.”

“Thanks for the warning,” she said at last. “I’ll be careful. Still if… if you could please give me the details of those, of the animal Armageddon… I think someone I know might be there.”