/UNDERGROUND/

Brief

"A phoenix got on the fucking tracks again." 

The smell weighs heavy on the stale air of the underground, which is already thick with the breath of the sleeping. 

"Rat-catchers took their ferrets down the tunnel about an hour ago, but no dice I guess."

Lately the city itself seems to be rejecting magic - almost as much as it's inhabitants. Somewhere there would be a pile of ashes congealed with eggshell and yolk, fried by the electric current that whisks Londoners beneath the city and rattles our bunks at night.

"George'll be pissed" I reply, half-listening as I tie my shoes.

"George needs to invest in better cages." Hastings sits up and swings his legs over the edge of his top bunk. "Fire retardant at the very least."

I smirk at that. George was one of the few Londoners who had seen the ruptures more as a business opportunity than a sign of the ~end of days~. When the bombs started to erode the barriers between our planes, all sorts of creatures found themselves tumbling from the lush woods of Albion into a wailing London, air heavy with sirens and smoke. Those lucky enough to bag a few before the rifts healed suddenly found themselves in possession of ethically (and legally) grey goldmines, like the scrap metal beachcombers strip from the ruptured corpses of U-boats. Rich Londoners jump at the opportunity to collect an extra-planar dinner party curio, and some of us in the underground would do anything for a taste of home. I probably would too, if I wasn't so broke. I had once traded a pack of cigarettes (made pre-war, a real luxury) for one of the phoenix's feathers, only for it to burn a literal hole in my suit pocket. Figures.

Hastings watches me lazily. "There'll probably be some clean-up work going if you're quick."

"Nah, these are my best trousers. Just pressed. Got a job up by Battersea Park so I thought I should look the part."

"Real cash?"

"Sounds like it. I'm sick to death of ration cards."

"I hear they're phasing them out"

"Fat chance. War's over but all the money went into making craters in Europe. None left for us."

"Maybe you're headed to an arms dealer. I'll take what I can get, myself - gonna go sign up while there's space." 

I shrug and head for the door. "See you around."

Follow the exit signs, I pass row on row of makeshift rooms, bunkbeds divided by thin curtains and piles of luggage. One has a lamp on inside, projecting someone's silhouette against the sheet between us like a shadow-play, their horned head turning as they read. The walls here are white-tiled, their shine muted with years of grime and bathed in ads - watercolour women, 8 feet tall and smiling hollowly down at some product or other that none of us could afford. With the lights dimmed for the night they seem to sneer at us, angered by their own futility.

Between them, scraps of wartime posters still cling here and there - gas mask instructions, calls to arms, blackout warnings. A few years ago these 'deep level shelters' were communal air raid shelters - they brought down bunk beds to stop sleeping on the floor, but when the bombs stopped falling and we stopped falling through with them, the beds stayed. Where better to tuck us away, as much an ugly reminder of the war as the rubble they're still clearing?

At least it's cheap.

I take a back way out, climbing an eternal spiral of iron stairs until I finally step outside and find it raining - no surprise. The city had been wet before, but has apparently only worsened since I got here. Something about the rifts releasing pressure as cold fronts... I don't know. Nights seem longer too, I'm told. Hard to know what's real and what's been dreamed up for some shilling rag and endlessly regurgitated by people who'd prefer to blame their joblessness on "monsters" than something banal and economic. Can't say I blame them.

Leaving Clapham Common behind me, I begin the trek to the client's place - far enough to be a ball-ache, but not so far to be worth the bus fare. I pull up my collar against the cold. Between umbrellas and the dim light it's a lot easier to pass as a 'person' when it's late, so we tend to be night-owls.

...

The place is smaller than I expected for the area and price being offered - a small semi-detached with sooty red-brick and the air of a granny-annex. The knocker bounces a little against the water-swollen wood of the door.

It opens to reveal a small woman, anxious looking, hair greying under a kerchief. I seemed to have woken her.

"...I can come back-"

"No - please," she beckons me in "you  just surprised me. I'm afraid I just can't get used to the... blue." She waves a hand in my general direction and turns.

The atmosphere inside is overwhelming - dense air seems to gush out the door like blood from an open wound, and I close it instinctively behind me to staunch the flow, stranding myself in the darkness. She hasn't taken down her blackout curtains. The heat has been turned up high, and a low thudding sound reverberates through the walls from a boiler somewhere.

With the pull of a chain a bulb fades indecisively to life, casting dim light over a modest lounge and kitchenette. "Tea?" She passes the sofa to light the stove without waiting for a reply. "You must be terrifically cold - although I suppose it's hard to tell with your complexion. And the wet! Are your kind still bothered by it?"

"Some." I sit on the edge of an old recliner, placing my hat on the table beside me and combing my hair back to sit neatly over the sharp ridges of my ears. The wallpaper in here is a patterned off-pink - dated, but no one has really started redecorating yet. Returning, her eyes linger on me a little longer than is comfortable, so I try to get to business: "...so it's a missing person?"

Her demeanour shifts, the pleasant façade of playing host souring, and she drops a plate of biscuits in front of me heavily to mark the end of the routine. "My son. I think he's felt a little - without purpose - since he's been back. Recently he's been staying out late, trying his hand at being a reporter, but he doesn't seem to have landed anything steady. I'm not sure what he was doing, but he seemed very focussed. It wasn't unlike him to be gone for a day or so, but it's coming up on 12..."

"It's not unusual. Hard to buy into the importance of retail when they only just took the gun from your hands - a lot of kids looking for a cause. You think he headed to Albion though? I don't get much work outside of there."

She fetches a handful of handwritten receipts and peers over my shoulder as I sort through them. I'm becoming increasingly self conscious about sitting while she stands, but I lean into it - posture myself as suave. I brandish one. "The Blue Pearl. Lot of gang activity. Not many of you find your way there." In truth, it wasn't as dangerous as it sounds - the pub had established itself as neutral ground some time ago and had gained a reputation for facilitating Romeo & Juliet situations in the back booths. I wasn't going to tell her though, a little danger always ups the rate. "Good a place as any to start. I'll probably need to grease a few palms though." I look up at her pointedly.

"An advance?" Assuming a more formal posture she digs out an envelope from a side table. "This is a third." She slides it over to me in a clumsy affectation of indifference at the sum, and I have to catch it from falling. A decent wad of 1 pound notes inside. 

"That'll do fine."