Gods and Monsters

II

St Pauls Cathedral, London

"We love you England, we do, we love you England, we do, we love you England, we do, oh England we love you..." The chant continued as Jacob Kenny, his girlfriend Katherine Mulligan, and a few of their friends left the pub they had spent the evening at, enjoying a triumphant England football team. Everyone had got a little tipsy and they were all beginning to make their way back home.

Tommy LeBlanc, the noisy one of the group, shot out into the middle of the street, darting in front of a black cab in an attempt to get it to stop, but the driver slammed on his brakes and hooted his horn

before working his way around Tommy. "Oh fuck off!" Tommy shouted as the cab continued its journey, forcing the friends to continue walking, most likely until they either found another cab or got to a train station.

The group continued to stumble their way away from the pub before they saw two large metal structures ahead of them. "Metal detectors, lads. You better be careful!" Andy Rogers piped up as Jacob moved forward. The "metal detectors" were in fact just a rather odd piece of modern art, a sub-ironic guard of honour to anyone approaching the Tate Modern from the north side of the river. Jacob approached one of them, faux shuffling his way through as though it was a real metal detector. As he paused in the centre of the structure, a loud beeping alerted the group and caused them to scatter, suddenly believing that Jacob had genuinely been in a metal detector, when in fact it had just been the noise from the traffic lights after Tommy had pressed the button a few moments prior.

Even in his drunken state, Jacob noticed the time and knew he needed to take his pills. He pulled the bottle of pills from Quantum Chemists — Quantum Technologies medicine department — out of his jacket pocket and looked at the label. "For patients suffering from schizophrenia." Jacob hated seeing that each time. He felt so weak and strange, like a freak because of this uncontrollable disease that had affected him for the last five years. Katherine noticed Jacob lagging behind the group and went over to him, holding his hand after he took the necessary dosage with a drink of water.

"You'll get through this babe. Trust me," she said to him, brushing his messy brown hair back away from his eyes and behind his ears. In return, he tucked her bleach blonde hair behind her ears too as they kissed. Both of them stank to high heaven of cheap booze, but they didn't really care.

As they pulled apart, Katherine stuck her left palm out, facing it towards the sky. Jacob's face lit up with excitement as he realised what was about to happen. Whirling her right hand above the other, Katherine began to create a glowing purple aura in her hand. Moving her hands caused the purple ball to warp into all sorts of different shapes and sizes, leaving Jacob with his mouth hanging open in astonishment. He had known about Katherine's affinity with magic for a few months now, but it never failed to amaze him when he saw some of the stuff that she could do.

"You have got to teach me how to do that, babe!" Jacob said to Katherine, careful not to speak too loud so that neither Tommy nor Andy could hear what he was saying. Katherine was still a novice when it came to magic, and she wasn't entirely sure she wanted anyone other than Jacob to know. She gave him a cheeky smirk as they picked up their pace to join Tommy and Andy who had strode further ahead.

The group continued their walk up to the Millennium Bridge where they got to the midway point before pausing. London always looked good at night-time, the skyscrapers towering above the city, all lit up, illuminating the streets below and reflecting off the water of the River Thames.

Tommy called over to Jacob. "Oi! I dare you to climb along the outside of the bridge."

It was Katherine that replied. "What? Why would you ask him to do that, don't be silly Jacob. Leave it." Jacob paused for a moment as he considered what to do.