The Midnight Mayor is hunting.
This is something he’s got quite good at, learning to read the signs in the streets. A smear of paint on the wall, a single mitten left on the spike of a fence, a cigarette butt stubbed out on the side of a bus shelter, a plastic bag shoved into the paper slot of a recycling bin. Sometimes it’s just people mucking about; sometimes it’s a sign of something truer, hidden just beneath the surface.
Tonight he hunts a hunter.
His phone rings.
“Help me!” the voice wails. “For God’s sake, help me!”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I know you’re scared, and quite right too, but you’re doing fine. Don’t look back–he wants you to look back. Come to Exmouth Market.”
“He’s going to kill me!”
“Don’t look–he wants you to look. Come to me.”
He hangs up and waits. This too is something he’s got very good at–mastering the art of being a grey silence in the moving night.
“Come on,” he whispers to the empty air. “Walkies.”