The Golem's Eye

had an ancient, noble pedigree; each had been ravaged beyond repair. Shelves and counters, stands and draperies lay bludgeoned into fragments, the valuable produce smashed and crushed and ground into the dust.
    The scene was overwhelming, but it was also very odd. Something appeared to have passed through the partition walls between the shops, in a roughly straight line. Standing indoors at one end of the devastation zone, it was possible to gaze right down the length of the block, through the shells of all five shops, and see workers moving in the rubble at the other end. Also, only the ground floors of the buildings had suffered. The upper reaches were untouched.
    Nathaniel tapped his pen against his teeth. Strange.... It was unlike any Resistance attack he had ever seen. Far more devastating, for one thing. And its exact cause was quite unclear.
    A young woman appeared amid the debris of a nearby window. "Hey, Mandrake!"
    "Yes, Fennel?"
    "Tallow wants to speak with you. He's just inside."
    The boy frowned slightly, but turned, and treading delicately to avoid getting too much brick dust on his patent leather shoes, descended the rubble into the murk of the ruined building. A short, burly figure, wearing a dark suit and a hat with a wide brim, stood in what had once been the center of the shop. Nathaniel approached.
    "You wanted me, Mr. Tallow?"
    The minister gestured brusquely all around. "I want your opinion. What would you say happened here?"
    "No idea, sir," Nathaniel said brightly. "But it's very interesting."
    "I don't care how interesting it is," the minister snapped. "I don't pay you to be interested. I want a solution. What do you think it means?"
    "I can't say yet, sir."
    "What good is that to me? It's not worth a farthing! People are going to want answers, Mandrake, and we have to supply them."
    "Yes, sir. Perhaps if I could continue looking around, sir, I might—"
    "Answer me this," Tallow said. "What do you think did it?"
    Nathaniel sighed. He did not miss the desperation in the minister's voice. Tallow was feeling the pressure now; such a brazen attack on Gladstone's Day would not go down well with their superiors. "Demon, sir," he said. "An afrit could wreak such destruction. Or a marid."
    Mr. Tallow ran a yellowish hand wearily across his face. "No such entity was involved. Our boys sent spheres into the block while the enemy was still within. Shortly before they vanished, they reported no sign of demon activity."
    "Forgive me, Mr. Tallow, but that can't be true. Human agencies couldn't do this."
    The minister cursed. "So you say, Mandrake. But in all honesty, how much have you yet discovered about how the Resistance operates? The answer is not very much." There was an unpleasant edge to his tone.
    "What makes you think this was the Resistance, sir?" Nathaniel kept his voice calm. He could see the way this was going: Tallow would do his best to foist as much blame as possible onto his assistant's shoulders. "It's very different from their known attacks," he continued. "A completely different scale."
    "Until we get evidence otherwise, Mandrake, they are the most likely suspects. They're the ones who go in for random destruction like this."
    "Yes, but just with mouler glasses, small-time stuff. They couldn't wreck a whole block, especially without demons' magic."
    "Perhaps they had other methods, Mandrake. Now, run me again through the events of last night."
    "Yes, sir; it would be a pleasure." And a complete waste of time. Inwardly fuming, Nathaniel consulted his vellum notebook for a few moments. "Well, sir, at some time around midnight, witnesses living in the apartments across Piccadilly summoned the Night Police, describing disturbing noises coming from Grebe's Luxuries at one end of the block. The police arrived, to find a large hole blown in the end wall, and Mr. Grebe's best caviar and champagne scattered all over the pavement. A terrible waste, if I may say so, sir. By this time, tremendous crashes were coming from Dasheh's Silk Emporium two doors down; the officers peered through the windows, but all the lights had been extinguished inside and the source was not clear. It might be worth mentioning here, sir," the boy added, looking up from the notebook, "that today all electric lights are fully functioning in the buildings."
    The minister made an irritable gesture and kicked at the remnants of a small doll made of bone and shell, lying in the debris of the floor. "The significance