Wormwood Gate: Excerpt 1

(In which our heroine meets a Queen, and finds the experience most unsettling...)

There was a series of clattering clicking noises, as of keys being turned or bolts being drawn, and the door was opened a few inches, enough to reveal the face of a guard – human this time – who glared at them suspiciously. ‘What’s the story?’ said the guard.

‘Mortal prisoner,’ said the horse-head guard, tilting his head sideways to make it easier for the other guard to see Julie. ‘There was two of them. Queen wanted to see one.’

‘All right.’ The door opened fully, and the horse-head guard trotted through it and down a short corridor that ended with a pair of vast double doors guarded by two helmeted men. The guards opened the doors without a word, and the horse-head guard trotted towards them, hesitated for a moment at the threshold, then passed into the room beyond.

It was a big room, a grand room, decorated in a style that Julie hadn’t expected to see: blond pine, white carpet, geometrical furniture in solid colours, and floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows looking out over the City. The rest of the City was so old-fashioned that Julie had taken for granted that the queen’s chambers would be as well, but it looked like it had been furnished from an Ikea catalogue. It was a little unnerving.

‘Set her down,’ said a voice. It was a woman’s voice, presumably the queen’s, but Julie couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The horse-head guard crouched down and let go of Julie’s legs, and she stepped back, hopping from foot to foot to banish the pins and needles.

A very fancy-looking black leather office chair swivelled on its stand, and there she was: undoubtedly the queen. Here in this chamber, she could hardly be anyone else, but Julie thought she would have known her for an important person anywhere. She was dressed like an executive from an American movie, the kind who would make her company successful by firing employees for the slightest infraction but would turn out to have a hollow and lonely personal life (and probably end up falling in love with a waiter and retiring to have babies). Her hair was short and slicked back with something that made it glisten in the light, and her one visible eye was a hard and penetrating blue. The other eye was covered by a leather patch, which should have looked ridiculous with the dark suit and manicured nails, but somehow just added to her aura of power.

The guard fell to one knee and bowed his head. ‘Your Majesty, the prisoner,’ he said.

‘Yes, yes, I see that. Watch the door from this side, but don’t go just yet,’ said the queen with a gesture of dismissal.

Julie stared as the guard bowed deeply and walked backwards towards the door. Weren’t there countries where you weren’t supposed to turn your back on the king or queen? A stupid rule, but the guard seemed used enough to it that he didn’t bump into anything.

‘So,’ said the queen. Julie started and turned to face her, a blush spreading over her cheeks.

The queen smirked and stood up, striding over to a window and staring out of it, her hands clasped behind her back.

‘I know who sent you,’ she said, ‘and I know what you’re you’re here to do. It won’t happen, do you understand? I won’t allow it to happen. The City is mine and will always be mine. I won it by fair combat and I will not lose it, by fair means or foul.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Julie.

The queen laughed, a dry, mirthless sound. ‘A protestation of innocence. How charming! How utterly charming! You’ve come this far and been found out, and you still think you can bluff your way past me.’ She turned her head so that her face was in profile, her one good eye fixed on Julie. ‘Although from another point of view, that might be considered insulting.’

‘I’m not bluffing,’ said Julie. ‘I didn’t mean to do anything when I came here. I came here by accident, and all I want to do is go home.’

The queen pivoted round to face her in a move so smooth and sharp that Julie suspected she had practised it for hours. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’ she growled. ‘The Lord of Shadows has ignored my message and sent no aid against the Queen of Crows. Thus I know: he plans to break the treaty with my death, and the deaths of my sister-queens! I know, too, that he is a lying mortal! I know he is the consort of the Queen of Crows! I know Molly Red is his servant! All this I know, mortal, so you betray nothing if you admit this much.’

‘I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Julie. ‘I mean, who are these people? The Queen of Crows? The Lord of Shadows? The names are sort of familiar, but that’s all. And I’ve heard a bit more about Molly Red, but I’ve never met her.’ As soon as she finished the sentence, it occurred to her that that last part wasn’t entirely true, though it was true enough. She was pretty sure being run over by a horse didn’t really count as meeting the horse…

Wormwood Gate: Excerpt 2

(In which paranoid pigeons prove problematic.)

There was a pigeon sitting on the line. Julie frowned. ‘Shoo!’ she said, flapping her hands in the pigeon’s direction. ‘Get off!’

The pigeon turned its head slowly round to face Julie. ‘Are you talking to me?’ it said.

‘You what?’

The pigeon shuffled awkwardly along the telephone line. ‘‘Cos there’s no one else here,’ it said. ‘Are you talking to me?’

‘I’m not sure –’

‘Are you a spy?’ the pigeon said, interrupting her. ‘You don’t look like a spy, but then again, a spy that looked like a spy wouldn’t be a very good spy. Well? Are you?’

‘I’m not a spy! Why would you even –’ She stopped herself from finishing that sentence. There were plenty of reasons for anyone in the City to think that anyone else in the City was a spy, and just at that moment she couldn’t think why pigeons should be exempt from the general paranoia. ‘Look,’ she said firmly, ‘I just want to get a closer look at those runners.’

‘Do you, now?’ said the pigeon, cocking its head to one side. ‘And what’s it worth to you?’

‘Oh, for the love of – are you going to charge me? Is that it? You want me to bribe you to fly away from that wire?’

The pigeon puffed up its chest and shuffled back and forth in an affronted sort of way. ‘A bribe, is it? Is that what you think of the pigeon race? That we’ll do anything for a few breadcrumbs?’

‘I never said –’

‘Seagull propaganda, that’s what it is!’

‘What are you –’

‘Now, I’m a kind-hearted bird, anyone round here’ll tell you that, but when it comes to seagulls –’ The pigeon cooed suddenly and wriggled a little, and on the street below there was a moist splat sound. ‘That’s what I think of seagulls. Dirty lying feckers, the lot of them. Are you with the seagull patrol?’ it added abruptly.

Julie sighed. ‘Look, a spy might not always look like a spy, but I’m pretty sure a seagull always looks like a seagull.’

The pigeon laughed. ‘Shows what you know, miss. Shows what you know...’