The Golem's Eye

pursed her lips. "It's not a pleasant gift. Now then, demon or no demon, I want to itemize the stuff I stole. Who wants to come to the cellar? I know it's wet, but it's only a couple of streets away...." She looked around.
    "Red feelers..." Fred gave a shudder. "You should have seen 'em. Covered with little brown hairs...."
    "That was too close," Stanley said. "If it had overheard us talking..."
    "Just one mistake is all it'll take. Just one, and we'll be—"
    "Oh, shut up, Nick." Kitty slammed the counter hatch back and stomped off across the shop. She knew she was only feeling what they all felt: the claustrophobia of the hunted. On a day like this, with the rain drumming endlessly down, they were all reduced to loitering helplessly indoors, a state that exacerbated their permanent sense of fear and isolation. They were cut off from the rest of the teeming city, with wicked, clever powers set against them.
    This was no new sensation for Kitty. She'd never been clear of it, not once, for three long years. Not since the attack in the park, when her world turned upside down.

12
     
    Kitty
     
    Perhaps an hour had passed before a gentleman walking his dog had found the bodies on the bridge, and contacted the authorities. An ambulance had arrived soon afterward, and Kitty and Jakob were removed from public view.
    She had woken in the ambulance. A small window of light switched on far away, and for a time she watched it approaching on a long slow curve through the darkness. Little forms moved inside the light, but she couldn't make them out. Her ears felt as if they were stuffed with cork. The light grew steadily, then with a sudden rush, and her eyes were open. Sound returned to her ears with a painful pop.
    A woman's face peered down at her. "Try not to move. You'll be all right."
    "What—what—?"
    "Try not to speak."
    With sudden panic, memory returned: "That monster! That monkey!" She struggled, but found her arms pinned to the trolley.
    "Please, dear. Don't. You'll be all right."
    She lay back, every muscle rigid. "Jakob..."
    "Your friend? He's here, too."
    "He's all right?"
    "Just try to rest."
    And whether it was the motion of the ambulance or the weariness deep inside her, she had soon slept, waking in the hospital to find nurses cutting her clothes away. The front of her T-shirt and shorts were charred and crispy, flaking into the air like wisps of burned newspaper. Once attired in a flimsy white shift, she was, for a short while, the focus of attention: doctors swarmed around her like wasps around jam, checking her pulse, respiration, and temperature. Then they suddenly drew back, and Kitty was left lying isolated in the empty ward.
     
    After a long while, a nurse passed by. "We've informed your parents," she said. "They're coming to take you home." Kitty looked at her with incomprehension. The woman halted. "You're quite well," she said. "The Black Tumbler must have just missed you, caught you only with its aftershock. You're a very lucky girl."
    This took a moment to sink in. "Then Jakob's all right, too?"
    "He wasn't so lucky, I'm afraid."
    Terror welled up inside her. "What do you mean? Where is he?"
    "He's nearby. He's being cared for."
    She began to cry. "But he was standing beside me. He's got to be all right."
    "I'll bring you something to eat, dear. That'll make you feel better. Why don't you try reading something to take your mind off it? There are magazines on the table."
    Kitty did not read the magazines. When the nurse had gone, she slipped out of the bed and stood, unsteadily, on the cool wooden floor. Then, step by step, but growing in confidence in her own strength, she crossed the quiet ward, walking through bright patches of sunlight under the tall, arched windows, till she came to the corridor outside.
    On the opposite side of the corridor was a closed door. A curtain had been drawn across the inside of its window. Checking quickly left and right, Kitty flitted forward like a ghost, until she stood with her fingers on the handle. She listened, but the room beyond was silent. Kitty turned the handle and went in.
    It was an airy room, small, with a single bed in it, and a large window that overlooked the roofscapes of South London. The sunlight blazed a yellow diagonal across the bed, snipping it neatly in two. The upper half of the bed was in shade, the figure lying asleep there likewise.
    The room was heavy with normal hospital smells—medicine, iodine, antiseptics—but underlying them