Rivers of London (Rivers of London #1)(101)

And people say modern education is a waste of time.

‘I asked the river to give us a sacrifice,’ said Tiberius Claudius Verica, ‘and a sacrifice was provided.’

‘I thought the Romans frowned on human sacrifice,’ I said.

Verica laughed. ‘The Romans haven’t arrived yet,’ he said.

I looked around. He was right, there was no trace of London – or the bridge. For a moment I hung suspended like a cartoon character, and then I fell into the river. The Thames was cold and as fresh as any mountain stream.


I came up feeling horribly wet and sticky. There was blood smeared over my chest and I’d wet myself at some point, probably when she’d bitten me. I felt drained and voided and numb. I wanted to curl up and pretend that nothing was real.

‘That,’ I said, ‘is never going to catch on as a tool for historical research.’

Somebody was retching but amazingly it wasn’t me. Molly was hunched over, her face turned away and hidden by her hair, vomiting blood onto her nice clean tiles. My blood, I thought, and climbed to my feet. I was light-headed but I wasn’t falling over – that had to be a good sign. I took a step towards Molly to see if she was okay, but she flung her arm in my direction, palm out, and made violent pushing gestures, so I backed off.

I found myself sitting down again without any memory of wanting to. I was short of breath and I could feel my pulse racing in my throat – all symptoms of blood loss. I decided that it would be a good idea to have a little rest, and I lay back down on the cool tiles, all the better to maintain the blood flow to my brain. It’s surprising how comfortable a hard surface can be when you’re tired enough.

The rustle of silk made me turn my head. Molly, still crouching, had turned away from the slick pool of red vomit and inched towards me. Her head was tilted to one side and her lips were drawn back to reveal her teeth. I was just about to tell her that I was all right really, and didn’t need any help, when I realised that was probably not what she had in mind.

With a disturbingly spider-like motion Molly swung one arm over her head and down until her hand slapped on the tiles in front of her face. The arm tensed and dragged Molly another few centimetres towards me. I looked into her eyes and saw that they were all black, with no trace of white at all, and filled with hunger and despair.

‘Molly,’ I said, ‘I really don’t think this is a good idea.’

Her head tilted the other way and she made a gurgling, hissing sound, halfway between laughter and a sob. Sitting up gave me tunnel vision and dizziness, and I fought the urge to lie back down again.

‘You think you’re conflicted now,’ I said. ‘Just think how you’ll feel when Nightingale finds out you had me for dinner.’

Nightingale’s name made her pause, but only for a moment. Then her other hand swept over her head and slapped down right next to my leg. I snatched it away as best as I could and managed to gain a metre in separation.

This only seemed to aggravate her, and I watched as she drew her legs up under her torso. I remembered how fast she’d moved when she first bit me, and wondered if I’d even seen her coming. Still, I wasn’t about to sit still and let her take me without a fight. I started putting a fireball together, but the forma was suddenly slippery and impossible to imagine.

Molly snorted and her head twisted on its side as if her neck had become as flexible as a snake. I could see the tension building in the curve of her back and the hunch of her shoulders. I think she could sense me trying to do magic, and didn’t think she was going to give me a chance to succeed. Her mouth opened too wide and displayed too many pointed teeth, and the squeaky little mammal in my ancestry started my legs scrambling in a mad attempt to propel myself backwards.

A brown shape smelling of damp carpet streaked past me and came to a halt, claws skidding on the tiles, between Molly and me. It was Toby in full primeval circle-of-the-campfire, man’s-best-friend, oh-that’s-why-we-domesticated-the-sodding-things mode, barking at Molly so hard his front paws were bouncing off the floor.

To be honest, Molly probably could have leaned forward and bitten Toby’s snout off, but instead she flinched backwards. Then she leaned forward again and hissed. This time Toby flinched, but he kept his ground in the long tradition of small scrappy dogs that are too stupid to know when to back down. Molly reared back on her haunches, her face a mask of anger and then, as if a switch had been pulled, she slumped down on her knees. Her hair fell back down to cover her face and her shoulders shook – I think she might have been sobbing.

I dragged myself to my feet and staggered towards the back door. I was thinking that it was probably best to put temptation out of harm’s way. Toby came trotting after me with his tail wagging. I bounced off the doorjamb and found myself outside in the sunlight facing the wrought-iron staircase that led up to the coach house. I contemplated the stairs and thought that I should have fitted a lift, or at least got a bigger dog.

I knew something else was wrong when Toby wouldn’t come all the way up the stairs. ‘Stay, boy,’ I said, and he dutifully sat on the landing and let me do the heroics. I considered walking away, but I was just too knackered to care and besides, this was my space with my flat-screen TV and I wanted it back.

I stood to one side of the door and pushed it open with my foot before gingerly peering around the jamb to see who was there. It was Lesley, waiting for me on the chaise longue holding Nightingale’s cane across her knees and staring into space. She glanced over as I slipped in.