Tales of the Hidden World by Simon R. Green Read Free Book Online Page A

start of their day, and then I check I have all my bits and pieces, before I go out. The tools of my trade: salt, holy water, crucifix, silver dagger, and wooden stake. No guns. Guns get you noticed.
    I live in a comfortable enough flat, over an off license, right on the edge of Soho. Good people, mostly. But when the sun goes down and the night takes over, a whole new kind of people move in: the tourists and the punters and every other eager little soul with more money than sense. Looking for a good time, the fools. They fill up the streets, with stars in their eyes and avarice in their hearts, all looking for a little something to take the edge off, to satisfy their various longings.
    Someone has to watch their backs to protect them from the dangers they don’t even know are out there.
    By the time I’m ready to leave, two drunken drag queens are arguing shrilly under my window, caught up in a slanging match. It’ll all end in tears and wig pulling. I leave them to it and head out into the tangle of narrow streets that make up Soho. Bars and restaurants, nightclubs and clip joints, hot neon and cold hard cash. The streets are packed with furtive-eyed people, hot on the trail of everything that’s bad for them. It’s my job to see they get home safely, or at least, that they only fall prey to the everyday perils of Soho.
    I never set out to be a street wizard. Don’t suppose anyone does. But, like music and mathematics, with magic it all comes down to talent. All the hard work in the world will only get you so far, to be a Major Player, you have to be born to the Craft. The rest of us play the cards we’re dealt. And do the jobs that need doing.
    I start my working day at a greasy spoon café called Dingley Dell. There must have been a time when I found that funny, but I can’t remember when. The café is the agreed meeting place for all the local street wizards, a stopping-off place for information, gossip, and a hot cup of tea, before we have to face the cold of the night. It’s not much of a place; all steamed-up windows, Formica-covered tables, plastic chairs, and a full greasy breakfast if you can stomach it. There’s only ever thirteen of us, to cover all the hot spots in Soho. There used to be more, but the budget’s not what it was.
    We sit around patiently, sipping blistering tea from chipped china, while the Supervisor drones on, telling us things he thinks we need to know. We hunch our shoulders and pretend to listen. He’s not one of us. He’s just a necessary intermediary, between us and the Council. We only put up with him because he’s responsible for overtime payments. A long, miserable streak of piss, and mean with it, Bernie Drake likes to think he runs a tight ship. Which basically means he moans a lot, and we call him Gladys behind his back.
    “All right! Listen up! Pay attention and you might just get through tonight with all your fingers, and your soul still attached!” That’s Drake. If a fart stood upright and wore an ill-fitting suit, it could replace our supervisor and we wouldn’t even notice. “We’ve had complaints! Serious complaints! Seems a whole bunch of booze demons have been possessing the more vulnerable tourists, having their fun and then abandoning their victims at the end of the night, with really bad hangovers and no idea how they got them. So watch out for the signs, and make sure you’ve got an exorcist on speed dial for the stubborn ones. We’ve also had complaints about magic shops—that are there one day and gone the next, before the suckers can come running back to complain the goods don’t work. So if you see a shop front you don’t recognize, call it in! And Jones, stay away from the wishing wells! I won’t tell you again. And Padgett, leave the witches alone! They’ve got a living to make, same as the rest of us.
    “And, if anybody cares, apparently something’s been eating traffic cops. All right, all right! That’s enough hanging around! Get out