Waywalkers: Number 1 in Series Read Free Page B

by, ready to run straight through it. Because evidently in this world anybody, even innocent Freya who just a while ago was friends with everyone, had enemies.
     
    When the clock struck twelve, Sam Linnfer finally put his head on the pillow and fell into a dreamless sleep. Outside in the street, there was the sound of a cat mewing. In the distance, the roar of a main road and the wet rush of a bus. The wheels of the bus sent a sheet of water up from the little lake around a blocked drain, to soak a group of drunken youths emerging from the nearby pub, so saving maybe three hours’ worth of sobering up. The V Shop across the road played its endless silent songs and films on the never-dying TV screen in its window, and New Look squatted uncomfortably between the shoemender’s and the newsagent’s, which even at this inhospitable hour was still open, the family that owned it working constant shifts to try and pay off who-knew-what debt. Only two of the five children spoke English, and the husband kept a very old guard dog with yellow teeth and a famous temper. Outside the shop was a stand that sold strange bent vegetables that looked like some kind of religious symbol, and which only one ethnic minority in the whole world could cook properly to get that particular dead-dog taste that was so prized.

    A raven flew down the street, and this was unusual in several ways. Firstly, Camden is not famous for its ravens; the dustbins full of McDonald’s packages tend to attract, at best, a scrawny breed of pigeon. This raven was sleek, a gleaming shade of black. It flew along a dead straight line, keeping below the house tops and following the street itself – as though it had been given directions and needed to see the street signs to know where it was going. Once it overshot a turning and had to spin round, disobeying the traffic system in a way to make a traffic warden weep. Somehow it managed to navigate from Tufnell Park station to Camden Road and along a canal, until, looking, it must be said, slightly lost, it hit the street where Sam lived and banked sharply, almost colliding with a lamp-post. Flying down the quiet street, it looked this way and that until it reached his house. It made for a window ledge, sensing its target.

    Then something happened. The raven itself was not thinking as such, but behind those unblinking, beady eyes there was an acute consciousness nonetheless, a light that most people wouldn’t expect to find in a brain the size of a walnut, and one that fed hungrily on the images the raven sent back to it. As the raven’s feet touched the window ledge, however, something seemed to change. There was a tingle through the creature’s body. Silver sparks flashed across its eyes. The grip on its little mind slipped, faltered, was shoved away. Then the raven was once more a raven, taking off in panic, completely disorientated and with no memory of what had just happened.

    In the bed, Sam rolled over and opened his eyes. He felt no surprise that someone had tried to spy on him; indeed he’d been expecting it, which was why he’d taken such careful precautions. His landlady, dotty as she was, hadn’t noticed the many hours he’d spent drawing symbols throughout the house, that sparked occasionally during thunderstorms even though not connected to the mains. It was inconvenient, he decided, before drifting back to sleep, that his defences had been activated, but it would have to be tolerated.

    For now.

FOUR
    Adamarus
    T here are many King’s Heads in London. But for Adam there would really be only one. It was the cheerful pub of that name down one of the many alleys off Fleet Street, and was usually full of journalists spending freely on doing what journalists do best. In the secret square where the King hid his Head, a board declared that this was ‘an authentic pub, lunch served’.

    Adam had been sitting in a corner nursing a pint of beer for half an hour, and now eyed those same lunches eagerly. He