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Put off my stroke, I looked out of the window. Sure enough, at some point during our verbal fencing match, the taxi driver had obviously put his book down and gone on with the journey, and now he was about to turn into Crown Office Row in the Temple district, where the secret society of the Guardians had its headquarters. A little later, he was parking the car in one of the reserved slots next to a gleaming Bentley.
“Sure we’re allowed to stop here, are you?”
“It’ll be okay,” Gideon assured him, and got out. “No, Gwyneth, you stay in the taxi while I get the money,” he said as I started climbing out after him. “And don’t forget, whatever they ask us, leave me to do the talking. I’ll be right back.”
“The meter’s still running,” said the taxi driver morosely.
He and I watched Gideon disappear among the venerable buildings of the Temple, and only now did I realize that I’d been left behind as a pledge that the driver would get his fare.
“Are you from the theater?” he asked.
“What?” What was that shadow fluttering overhead?
“I only mean because of the funny costumes.”
“No. The museum.” There were strange scratching noises on the roof of the car. As if a bird had come down on it. A large bird. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” asked the taxi driver.
“I thought I heard a crow or something land on the car,” I said hopefully. But of course it wasn’t a crow dangling head down from the car roof and looking in at the window. It was the little gargoyle from Belgravia. When he saw my horrified expression, his catlike face twisted into a triumphant smile, and he spewed a torrent of water over the windshield.
True love knows no constraints, no locks or bars.
Past every obstacle it makes its way.
It spreads its wings to soar toward the stars,
No earthly power will make it stop or stay.
MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS
TWO
“SURPRISE, SURPRISE!” cried the little gargoyle. He’d been talking nonstop ever since I got out of the taxi. “You don’t get to shake me off so easily!”
“Yes, okay, I know. Listen…” I looked nervously back at the taxi. I’d told the driver I urgently needed fresh air because I didn’t feel well, and now he was glaring suspiciously our way, wondering why I was talking to a blank wall. There was still no sign of Gideon.
“And I can fly too!” To prove it, the gargoyle spread his wings. “I can fly like a bat. Faster than any taxi.”
“Do please listen. Just because I can see you doesn’t mean that—”
“See me and hear me!” the gargoyle interrupted. “Do you know how rare that is? The last person who could see and hear me was Madame Tussaud, and I’m sorry to say she didn’t appreciate my company. She usually just sprinkled me with holy water and started praying. Poor dear, she was rather sensitive.” He rolled his eyes. “Well, you can understand why, after seeing all those heads sliced off by the guillotine.…” He spouted another jet of water. It landed right in front of my feet.
“Stop that!”
“Sorry, just excitement! Harking back to when I was a gutter carrying rainwater away.”
My chances of shaking him off again were slim, but at least it was worth a try. I’d adopt a friendly tone. So I bent down to him until our eyes were level. “I’m sure you’re a really nice guy, but you can’t possibly stick around here with me! My life is complicated enough already, and to tell you the truth, the ghosts I already know are as much as I can take. So would you please go away again?”
“I am not a ghost,” said the gargoyle, offended. “I’m a demon. Or what’s left of a demon.”
“What’s the difference?” I asked desperately. “I can’t do with any more ghosts or demons right now, understand? You’ll just have to go back to your church.”
“What’s the difference? Oh, really! Ghosts are only reflections of dead people who for some reason or other don’t want to leave this world. But I was a demon when I was alive. You can’t just lump me in with ordinary ghosts. Anyway, it’s not my church. I simply like to hang out there.”
The taxi driver was staring at me with his mouth wide open. Presumably he could hear every word through the car window—every word that I said.
I rubbed my forehead. “I couldn’t care less about that. You can’t stay here with me, anyway.”
