Edna was…
… rather enjoying herself.
She’d never smashed things like this before. Now, as she tore through the office of Magical Affairs, ripping out drawers and knocking over desks, she felt a certain sense of liberation.
In the skies outside the office, Sally’s marvellous aerodynamics might also have made the banshee glory in the moment’s experience, were it not for her suspicion that the plastic-bag snake rippling through the air behind her was catching up. How this could be, the banshee had no time to speculate. But as she swung round the great silver summit of Canada Tower and began a nosedive back down towards the street in a dizzying blur of windows passing at her back, the plastic was undeniably gaining.
Sally turned out of her dive at the last instant and swooped down a silent street which by day thronged with suits and taxis. Swerving beneath a sign proclaiming that the future of futures lay in sensible spread betting, with a talon she snagged a giant awning over an area of empty café tables, which crashed and clattered down behind her. She darted over the low black chain that bordered the quayside and threw up a great wake of spray as she passed over the still surface of the water, soaking the snake at her back. Something rustled close by and lashed out at her feet, dragging her down. She lurched in mid-flight, and her wingtips scraped the water itself before, with an effort of will and a great leathery flap, she pushed up. Banking hard, she tried to escape her pursuer by darting through the masts of the yachts moored beside the Thames.
Behind her a flapping and a burst of feathers caught her attention. Part of the plastic-bag snake had been caught by a dive-bombing mass of pigeons, which now struggled with it and writhed in fury, plummeting towards the surface of the river. The airborne snake-shape wobbled as if deciding what to do, then, with a great swell of bag, it split in two, dropping its pigeon-laden half like a snowstorm towards the ground, while the front half, relieved of this burden, accelerated towards Sally.
Inside the office of Magical Affairs, Edna swung her waste-paper bin with increasing zeal, knocking a calendar off the wall and sending a jar of biros flying across the floor. She turned, seeking something else to smash and, from the corner of her eye, saw a flash of green metal in the wall itself. A safe, until now hidden behind the calendar, sat squat and forbidding and very solid. She went for Gretel, but the troll was still struggling to pull plastic bags off herself as fast as they settled. In vain too she turned to Kevin. The vampire was gasping for breath, blood running freely from his nose, ears and eyes as his body went into full rejection of the blood he’d supped on a few minutes before.
Edna stared at the safe, then reached up for the combination lock.
A hand fell on hers.
She swung the waste-paper bin, slamming it into the source of the unwelcome grasp. In response there came an unintimidating cry of “Bloody hell!”
Edna dropped the bin and exclaimed, “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise it was—”
“I can see that!” exclaimed Swift, batting away a plastic bag trying to settle onto his head. “This is a fine spell you’ve unleashed…” Another bag began to wrap itself around Swift’s ankle. It was met with a blast of rolling power that propelled plastic, paper and shards of broken furniture across the room from the epicentre of Swift’s upraised hand, which was still smarting from Edna’s assault with the bin. “The safe’s warded,” he added, pulling a penny from his pocket. He flicked it at the heavy green door and ducked as the copper rebounded with enough speed to bury it in the far wall. “You touch that and you’re crispy.”
He approached the safe warily. Edna took a nervous step back as blue sparks flickered briefly around the sorcerer’s fingers. She saw him move his lips, fingers twitching at the air. Then she felt a pressure, a great ear-aching pressure, gather, grow, stretch and suddenly snap with an audible collision of metal, magic and will.
The safe went “click”.
Swift pulled it open, handling it through the end of his sleeve. “Hot hot hot hot hot.”
Edna craned to look past him. Inside she saw…
One woman’s slipper, old and grubby.
One child’s mitten, pink and with a bobble hanging from the wrist.
One broken umbrella, the spokes blown backwards.
One greasy sheet of paper in an empty fried-chicken box.
And one woven hemp bag. The bag was old, worn and torn at the bottom. The lettering on the front, much faded, read, T IS BAG W LL LAST YOU A LIFETI E.
Swift snatched it from the safe, turned to the room, opened it wide.
Edna thought she heard some words slip from the sorcerer’s lips. But later, when asked, she couldn’t believe that what she’d heard could possibly have been uttered.
“Choose biodegradable,” whispered the sorcerer. “Consider your environment.”
In the skies above the Isle of Dogs, Sally felt a sudden turn in the movement of the snake at her back. Glancing behind her she saw the great plastic creature twist in midair and begin to fly back towards the silvery lights of Canary Wharf.
In the office of Magical Affairs the still-dancing plastic bags coalesced into great knots of blue, white, orange and grey, and flew all at once, like bats to a cave, towards the opening of the hemp bag. They flooded into it: dozens, then hundreds, more than the one saggy bag could possibly contain. But still they kept filling it, while Swift held the bag open as if it weighed no more than a T-shirt, watching and waiting as the cascade of plastic tumbled and collapsed into its depths. The last piece settled with sullen slowness into the bag, which Swift quickly clamped shut, weighting it down with a desk fan wrenched from its socket.
Throughout the room, nothing stirred.
A flapping of leathery wings announced the arrival of Sally through the shattered windows. Beneath her, the pigeons that were probably Jess circled and cooed in the still night air.
The banshee was already reaching for her whiteboard. Kevin coughed blood, Gretel was lumbering uneasily to her feet.
Is everyone all right? wrote Sally.
Edna looked at Swift; Swift surveyed the room.
“Vampy-boy looks a bit the worse.”
“I think Kevin drank the wrong kind of blood,” ventured Edna. She was still shaking, though she didn’t know why. She could sense every capillary beneath her skin and felt at once more tired, and more alive, than she remembered being in a very long time.
Someone hesitantly opened the door, and Mrs Rafaat stepped through, followed by Dog. Hanging back from his clawed companion came the small shape of Sammy.
“What a drama,” grumbled the goblin, hopping over the recumbent form of Kevin. He saw the safe. “Hey–sacrifices! Maybe you lot aren’t as totally crap as you look.”
Without pausing, Sammy took off his coat and began unloading the single slipper, lost mitten, broken umbrella and empty fried-chicken box into its hood.
“Should we call a doctor for Kevin?” asked Gretel.
“Good idea,” murmured Swift. “And maybe for you too?”
“I’ll be all right, Mr Mayor sir,” replied the troll. “Thank you for your concern.”
“Good. That’s good. One quick question… where’s Sharon?”