It felt good to be geared up and back out in the cold night air. I had on a fresh jumper, my new enchanted belt, Grandad’s bat on my back, and newly repaired gloves. I had heavily strapped my shoulder but I knew I couldn’t be out fighting crime in a sling, so I just tried to hug my arm close to my body and keep it still. Even so, I relished being back out on the hunt. Even though fatigue still wore at the edges of my consciousness, and my shoulder ached, I was invigorated.

  The shooting in the alleyway had scared me and made me want to put away my gear and leave this whole stupid vigilante thing behind. But knowing that a small child had come so close to death because these Syndicate hooligans thought it was acceptable to walk around the streets with deadly weapons and use them indiscriminately, made my blood boil. I would clear the Mulberry Estate of the Syndicate, or I would die trying.

  I returned to Ebbets Alley, the scene of the shooting, and it was a lot quieter than it had been during the day. The reporters were gone and so were the angry mob. The police still had the place taped off, and there were a couple perfunctory officers on guard, but nothing else. Hunching down on the roof, I got the sick feeling of someone walking over my grave. In the halflight of the streetlamps, I could just make out the puddles of blood. I swallowed dryly and forced myself to keep moving.

  At street level, I followed along the path I remembered taking when I met Sherbert, stopping at the alleyway where he had found me. I told him to keep in touch but had given him no way of doing so, and I didn't actually know where his home was. I had a rough idea, but I'd been unconscious for most of the journey there and barely conscious for the journey back.

  I circled around the area, trying to spot the familiar factory, knowing that such buildings weren't that common on the Estate, so I should be able to spot it eventually. I walked along the rooftops, surveying left and right, noting how quiet the Estate was. I hadn't spotted a single goon so far, but that didn't surprise me. With this many police officers around and the amount of media attention the shooting had brought, I wouldn't be surprised if they went underground for a few days. But that didn't mean I had to stop what I was doing. If anything, it helped. It meant I could prowl around the rooftops without interruption and maybe get lucky and find a few of them who were foolishly still out trying to make a quick pound.

  I saw a homeless person shambling down an alleyway, and my heart leapt. Was that Sherbert? I ran across the rooftop, used my magnetic glove to glide down a light pole, and alighted on the cobbles behind him.

  "Sherbert!" I called out.

  The figure turned around, and I realised it was a woman. At the sight of me, I saw her jump in fear. I didn't blame her, I'd be scared too if someone ran up to me dressed all in black with their face covered.

  "It's okay," I said to her quickly, raising my hands. "I'm not gonna hurt you.”

  "You're him, ain't ya?" she said, her eyes going wide. "You're the Mage.”

  I hesitated for a second and then nodded.

  "I'm looking for Sherbert. Do you know him?" I said, trying to make my voice sound gravelly and less like I hadn't grown any hairs on my chin yet.

  "Of course I do, love," she replied. "Sherbert's been running around telling folk how he met you and helped you out of that shooting situation. We all thought he was full of it." She gave a small cackle and then pushed her grimy hair out of her face. "You'll find Sherbert down by the river. He'll probably be picking for metal at this time.”

  "Thanks," I said to her.

  "Thank you, sweetheart," she replied. "It's much nicer walking around this place lately.”

  I nodded and then disappeared back up the nearest fire escape. I tore across rooftops, running and jumping between buildings, scaling across fire escapes like the whole Estate was my own personal playground. I was panting and red faced by the time I arrived at a tall yellow brick building that overlooked the river. My shoulder was screaming at me in pain but I pushed it out of my mind and scanned up and down, looking for Sherbert. I spotted him after only a moment or two. Fortunately, he stuck out like a sore thumb, being the size of a horse as he was.

  I trotted down the fire escape and flitted through the shadows until I was close enough to get his attention.

  "Sherbert!" I called, waving a hand to him.

  He flinched and turned around, peering into the darkness.

  "It's me," I said to him.

  A broad smile broke out across Sherbert's face, and he clapped his hands excitedly.

  "Mr Mage!" he cried out, lolloping towards me through the sticky mud of the riverbank. "You're alive!" he said.

  "I am, thanks to you," I replied.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked, and I shrugged and then winced as my shoulder flared in pain.

  "Still here," I replied. "Hey, listen, I wanted to say thank you, and to give you this." I reached into my bag and pulled out a bundle of cash that I'd stolen from the drug dealers on the Mulberry Estate. Sherbert's eyes went wide as he saw the thick wad of dirty money.

  "Here, take it," I said to him, and he shook his head vigorously.

  "No, no, no, no, Mr Mage, you can't be giving me that," he said. He shook his head so hard his cheeks wobbled.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Why not?" I asked. "It's not mine anyway."

  "No, no, no, no," he insisted. "You give me that, and old Sherbert will be dead in a week," he said gravely while shaking his head. “Too much temptation for the likes o’ me.”

  I stood there with a fistful of my stolen money, suddenly feeling very foolish. I had seen the empty bottles laying around his den and I knew the signs of an alcoholic years deep into their addiction. Silently cursing my stupidity, I cleared my throat and then peeled off a couple of the notes and handed them to Sherbert.

  "I'll tell you what," I said to him. "Hold on to that for now and I'll keep the rest. Whenever you need it, you just let me know."

  Sherbert gave me a broad, gap-toothed smile and nodded, accepting the notes from me and secreting them in one of the many pockets of his filthy clothes.

  "How should I..." Sherbert asked me.

  "How should you what?".

  "Get a hold of you?”

  I thought about that for a moment. I couldn't exactly give him my WristPod access without revealing who I was, and besides, I didn’t even know if Sherbert had access to the network. I also couldn't tell him my address so he could just pop around when he needed to leave a message for me.

  I looked around and saw a playground and waved him over. Sherbert grabbed his cart, dragged it out of the mud of the riverbank, and followed me up to the playground. I pointed to a large pole in one of the climbing frames and then tapped it with my fists.

  "You just write your initial here," I said to him, "and I'll check on it every night. If I see it, I'll come and find you at yours, okay?"

  "Okay," Sherbert said, nodding his head.

  "And if you're in trouble," I said to him, "write my initials, G. M., okay?"

  Again, Sherbert nodded.

  "And if you need money or anything like that, you just let me know, okay?"

  Sherbert nodded again, but he looked slightly downcast.

  "What's wrong?" I asked him.

  He shrugged his heavy shoulders.

  "Even the homeless don't really like charity," he said in a small voice.

  For the second time in that conversation, I felt like a fool for not being able to see anything from any other perspective but my own.

  "Well, why don't you earn it?" I blurted out, and Sherbert looked at me quizzically. "I mean, you helped me, right?”

  "Right," Sherbert replied slowly.

  "Well, maybe you could keep helping me," I said to him.

  "Okay," Sherbert nodded his head and then looked at me confused. "How?”

  "Well, you know about the streets, right?" I said to him, and he nodded. "Well, you can be my eyes and ears on the streets. You can feed me information, tell me where the Syndicate are, what they're doing, if somebody's in trouble. Stuff like that.”

  "Like a spy?" Sherbert said, his eyes lighting up. "I always wanted to be a spy.”

  "Yeah, exactly," I said. "And you'll get a salary for it. How about a hundred a week?" Sherbert scratched his chin and sucked his teeth thoughtfully.

  "￡120" he shot back.

  I nodded, grinned and patted him on the back, and then we shook hands on it.

  "And if any of your friends have any information," I continued. "Any of the other homeless people, then tell them I'll give them a reward for every bit of information they have."

  And Sherbert nodded goofily again.

  "You got a deal, Mr Mage," he said. He grabbed his trolley, swinging it around like it wasn’t laden full of heavy metal and other discarded objects he’d picked up. "I'm gonna drop this off home and then I'm gonna go get me some hot food tonight."

  "I'll walk with you," I said, and we exited the playground and made our way down a quiet, deserted street.

  "Boy, Mr Mage," Sherbert said while looking around. "Sure is nice walking around the estate without all those thugs and all them drug addicts everywhere.”

  "Yeah, it kind of is, isn’t it?" I replied.

  "You might be a bit young to remember," Sherbert said. "But the Estate wasn’t always like this. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was always a rough place, it was always tough, but these drug addicts and these dealers, they've made the place..." He stopped and searched for the word for quite a long time, staring into the dark sky, rolling his eyes around, and sucking on his teeth. "Cruel," he said finally, and I nodded my head in agreement. "But now me and my friends and the other street folk, we can go about our business without being bothered. I would never have been able to scavenge around on the riverbank before. Now old Sherbert can fill up his trolley, fill up his belly, and go home safe and sound. And that's all anyone wants, isn't it, Mr Mage?"

  "Right," I said to him. "Exactly."

  "But these addicts, they're the worst," Sherbert said. "They'd rob you blind and cut you just for the sake of it.”

  "Where have they all gone?" I asked him.

  He shrugged his heavy shoulders. "There's still some dealing going on in the Estate, but it's all gone indoors now in flats and stuff like that."

  I nodded and grimaced. If the drug dealing had really gone that far underground, it was going to be hard for me to flush them back out until they felt safe enough to hit the streets again.

  "It's like stamping on roaches," I said to him. "No matter how many you think you've got, more turn up."

  "'Cause you've gotta hit the nest, Mr Mage," Sherbert said with a wise nod of his head.

  "The nest?" I asked. "You mean like a stash house?"

  And Sherbert nodded his big head.

  "Well, I already found it," I said, "and I doubt I'm gonna be able to get in. The place is guarded like a prison or a bank. It's out there on an industrial estate by Foxworthy Road."

  Sherbert creased his brows and looked at me.

  "I don't know about that one," he said after a moment.

  "That one?" I said. "They've got more than one?”

  "Oh yeah," Sherbert said. "They got clubs and pubs they use as fronts, a couple of abandoned old buildings. Yeah, the Syndicate stash their drugs all over the manor."

  "Do you know where they are?"

  Sherbert shrugged.

  "Not all of them, a couple of them maybe, ‘coz they move about a lot. They're very cagey."

  "Could you show me?”

  Again, Sherbert shrugged.

  "I don't know where they would be now, but..." Suddenly his eyes lit up and he stopped walking. "I do know about the Rose of India!”

  “The Rose of India,” I repeated. “Isn't that a nightclub?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, nodding his head. “And one of those illegal casino-type places where they do gambling in the back. All sorts of nasty stuff goes on around there, a bunch of real hard faces all over the place. But I definitely know a lot of those higher-up Syndicate thugs go there all the time.”

  I nodded.

  “The Rose of India,” I repeated.

  I looked down at my knuckles, energy crackling across the Shock Runes. Maybe it was time to go and pay them a visit and flush the roaches out of their nest.