Read Online Our Lady of the Streets (The Skyscraper Throne) by Tom Pollock - Free Book Online

going?
’
    Even though her voice was made of engines and turbines and smoke, the fear in it was almost palpable. It made Pen’s stomach clench. But she had known Beth for a long time and she knew she wouldn’t change her mind, not as long as she thought people were depending on her. Whatever other changes the bizarre alchemy moving through her friend had wrought, one thing at least was the same: she was still more afraid of letting people down than she was of getting herself killed.
    She looked back over her shoulder. ‘To see the friends you’re waiting on. Maybe they’ll be able to talk some sense into you when they know what’s happening to you.’ She took the first two steps slowly, then something broke inside her and she ran, half expecting at every step for Beth’s street-laced hand to clamp down on her shoulder before the next.

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    She was breathless by the time she reached the kitchen. Gutterglass had company. Now a woman, the old trash-spirit was pointing at one of the latest symptoms on the map with a ludicrous fake fingernail stuck to the end of a carrot broken in the places where the knuckles ought to be.
    Two statues flanked her. The one carved into the form of a limestone angel was in considerably better repair. Ezekiel’s face was turned to Gutterglass in an expression of bored but saintly patience. The second statue was a granite monk with lichen patching him like mould.
His
face was hidden by the jut of his carved hood, but Pen knew his eyes were the first to track her as she burst in.
    ‘Kid’ – as ever, Petris’ voice sounded like he was gargling rock salt and it was pissing him off – ‘what do you want?’
    ‘Petris, don’t be such an arse.’ The rebuke came from behind Pen and she jumped as she realised there was a fourth figure in the room.
    She turned, and her heart lurched to see Paul Bradley,Beth’s dad, smiling his worried smile. His wide cheeks had turned pink in the heat put out by Gutterglass’ burners.
    ‘Is everything all right, Parva?’ he asked.
    Pen felt unbalanced by his presence. She hesitated. She couldn’t do this, not in front of him. He was Beth’s dad; it would be too cruel. She heard brick-soled feet in the corridor outside and a green glow showed through the bubbled glass in the doors, growing brighter with every step. She felt a sick kind of relief. She’d lost her chance; Beth was here and she’d stop her, and then she would stay and keep her secret and die here, Beth would die and—
    ‘Beth’s dying,’ she blurted just as the door swung open again, framing her best friend. Beth’s city-face was etched in a kind of sad resignation.
    ‘W-w-what?’ Paul Bradley’s lower jaw was trembling, making him stammer. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘What’s happening to the city,’ Pen said, ‘it’s happening to her too, in that new skin of hers.’
    There was a long silence. Petris shifted, his stone feet grinding over the tiles. And now Pen could see his eyes, the way the mica glittered in them as he stared at her. ‘Urbosynthesis,’ he grunted.
    Then the air blurred and he was suddenly facing Gutterglass. The trash-spirit put a hand to the front of her makeshift dress as Petris demanded, ‘Why in the fucking River’s name didn’t you tell us, Glas?’
    ‘Why?’ Gutterglass countered mildly. ‘What precisely would you have done, old man? Vibrate with worry againstthe inside of that rock suit of yours until you liquefied yourself? The only one of us qualified to act on the information is me, and I am already acting on it. Trust me,’ she added, with a brittle smile. ‘I’m a doctor.’
    Pen stared at her, remembering the frenzied energy with which she’d attacked the diagnosis of the city, the dozens of hands that must have been so exhausting for her to animate, the way she never slept. She remembered, too, that though the two statue-skinned men she stood by were both members of the priesthood, their zeal had never matched