104.

  I debated whether to take any of my new gadgets with me, but then decided against it. If I went out armed, that meant I was going out looking for trouble, and I wasn't. I was just going to look, that's all. I crept out of my window and stepped onto the fire escape, draped in black with a mask across my face. As much as I hate to admit it, it felt right, it felt good. I snarled in anger at myself and shook my head. This wasn't that; this was just due diligence, that was all.

  I crept up the fire escape and stood on the roof, already plotting my route to where I'd last seen the gang. Then I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the silver-eyed cat. Where it had appeared from, I don't know, but it looked at me like it knew exactly what I was doing.

  "I'm just having a look," I said to the cat, as if I'd been caught out of bed after lights out by a strict parent. "I just need to make sure that nothing's happening on the estate." The cat cocked its head like it didn't believe me. "Just having a look," I said before turning away from the disapproving eyes of the silver cat.

  Then I was running. Before I could lose my nerve, I hit the edge of the building and leaped, landing on the next one and rolling as I did. I felt the familiarity of the rooftops; it was like being back home. It felt natural for me to be prowling in the darkness, and my mind was so occupied, I didn't even hear the whispers at the edge of my consciousness anymore. I was just focused on my task: find the gang and see what's going on.

  It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time. I must have been running around the rooftops for over an hour, and it was incredibly difficult. I don't know if I had lost some stamina in the intervening months or if my battered body just wasn't up to it the way it was before. But I had to keep stopping to take breaks, and embarrassingly, there were a few leaps that I would have done previously without even thinking about that I now stared at worriedly and ended up climbing down fire escapes and walking instead.

  But I made my way through the Mulberry, checking all the usual haunts, and for the most part, they were empty. There were a few thuggish-looking individuals hanging around in places they shouldn't be, but none of them were dressed in red like those other boys had been, and I didn't recognise any of the faces either. So, I kept going.

  It was perhaps halfway through the night when I was just deciding to give up that I finally caught a flash of red. There they were. I didn't know if it was the same group as before but they were dressed in red hoodies just like the ones who had mugged us. I crouched on the lip of the building, sucking wind, feeling the throbbing of my ankles and knees as I watched them. They were set up in such a familiar way: one lookout, one with a weapon clearly stashed next to him, one taking the money, and one dealing the drugs. It was a classic setup, one I'd seen hundreds of times before, and busted up just as many times.

  Almost instinctively, I began planning my attack route, then shook the thoughts from my head. I wasn't here for a fight. I wasn't here to hurt anybody. I was just here to see what was going on, and the answer was clear. This gang had moved into the Mulberry estate, and they were dealing drugs. But they were right on the edges of the Mulberry, on the border of the Toxton Estate that touched the far reaches of the Mulberry. I guess that's probably where these boys were actually from, and they were just dipping a toe across the line, seeing what happened. Even where they had mugged us was right on the edges. From the way they kept looking over their shoulders, I guessed that all their bravado about not caring about the Gutter Mage was just that, bravado.

  Business was slow. Usually, when I watched these gangs there was always a constant stream of addicts coming and going, but I'd been sitting on this building now for half an hour and I'd only seen one sale. But that made sense; you drive away the drug dealers, the drug addicts usually follow, and so the Mulberry had been relatively free of addicts for the last couple of months.

  I watched them with curiosity and noticed the one who was clearly the enforcer kept checking on something. I kept my eyes trained on him to watch what he was up to, and I realised that he kept checking the trigger of a handgun stuffed into the front of his jumper pocket. These idiots actually had a gun. I mean, they’d pulled blades on me and Marilyn, which was fairly standard procedure for thugs in New London, but for street-level dealers to be standing around with a handgun, that was unusual. As I looked closely at it, I realized it wasn't some old rusty revolver or piece of crap handgun that I'd usually seen. This one was new, it was shining in the streetlight, and looked like it was military-grade hardware. Where the hell would these goons have gotten a gun like that?

  Not only that, but I noticed they had way too many drugs on them. I've robbed so many drug dealers that I had an instinct for how they usually operated and what quantities they'd have. Their bag was full of drugs, way too much for the quiet trade they looked to be dealing in. What was going on? Where would these four nobodies get military-grade weaponry and have enough drugs that they would just cavalierly walk around with what probably amounted to somewhere near five or six thousand pounds worth of drugs? The questions kept piling up, and I knew I wouldn't be able to rest until I had some answers. So, I stayed where I was on that rooftop, watching their movements.

  During that time, over the next couple of hours, perhaps five more addicts were served. The idiot with the gun pulled it out at least seven or eight times to check the magazine or look at the safety. Once he pulled it out just to wave it at one of the others. But eventually, they grew tired, almost as tired as I was. My eyes were heavy and I kept yawning. It had been a while since I had prowled the nights.

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  The Blood Brothers had a quiet conversation that I couldn't quite hear, and then they began moving out. I hesitated for a second but knew I had to follow them. I had no choice. I prowled around on the rooftops behind them. Fortunately, those silly matching red jumpers stuck out in the early morning light, making them easy targets to follow. They weren't exactly being subtle. Although, I noticed they weren't moving like the typical drug-dealing goons of the past. They weren't loud and obnoxious, behaving as if the whole world should bend around what they wanted or desired. They were furtive and almost silent, checking over their shoulders and looking around constantly. But not once did they look at the rooftops, which was interesting. By the end of my time as the Gutter Mage, all goons had learnt to watch the rooftops and the fire escapes rather than the alleys. It was almost as if they weren't afraid of the Gutter Mage; they were looking out for something else. Could be police, but the Mulberry Estate never had random patrols, and when police did come, they came heavy and noisy. So what were they worried about? Another gang maybe? Were there others operating on the Mulberry Estate already? Could I have missed that?

  It was entirely possible. For the last two months, I'd spent every night locked in my room at home, and during the days, I was either at the shelter or curled up in bed snoring. I didn't really get out and about very much. It could be that other gangs had infiltrated from different points in the Mulberry Estate and were slowly working their way in. How could I have been so naive to think they would just leave us alone? Of course they wouldn't. Criminals weren't known for their intelligence, but they were known for their brazenness. Two months is a long time to a brain-dead goon, and it's easy to forget the lessons that were learned in the downfall of the Brick when there was money to be made.

  I followed the Blood Brothers all the way to the edge of the Mulberry and watched them cross over into the Toxton Estate. Toxton had almost as bad a reputation as the Mulberry, but it was smaller and wasn't as built up and cramped as the Mulberry had become. It was one of the older estates; none of their buildings went above four stories, and they actually had more lighting and fewer dark twisting alleyways.

  Following them would be harder now, especially without any gear. I would have to follow them as a normal human on the ground, and that was a dangerous prospect considering they were already twitchy and armed. Plus, I didn't know the Toxton that well. I could accidentally stumble right across them if I didn't keep them in direct eyeline. Again, I questioned whether that was the smartest thing to do, but some urge drove me to continue to haunt their steps.

  Before long, I found myself at street level, walking behind them, my head down, hood low, hands in my pockets, ready to run if they spotted me. But now they were back on their own estate, they weren't as paranoid. They stopped looking over their shoulders as much, and I could tell that they were exhausted and just wanted to get home. Their footsteps were heavy and their shoulders were sagging. Two of them split up from the others, waving goodbye and walking into buildings I assumed were where they lived. But I kept following the other two. They were the ones with the gun and the drugs.

  They made their way to a particularly run-down tenement block in a cul de sac. I watched them and then clenched my jaw. I was literally walking into a place with one way in and one way out, not even so much as a Bang Rock to protect myself with. But I'd come this far; I had to know more. I stuck to the shadows of a large, overgrown hedge in someone's front garden. I crouched down at the base of it and watched them walk into the flat. I noticed neither of them buzzed anything; they just pulled the door open. Like most flats in such rundown blocks, the door probably no longer worked. From where I was hidden, I could see them walking up the stairwell through the big glass windows. The windows were frosted, but I could see the shadows of their bodies. They went to the third floor, and there were only two flats up there, one on either side.

  Just when I thought that was as far as my chase could take me, I saw something that excited me and made my guts churn at the same time. There was a fire escape leading up to the side of that building, ending on the third floor. Before I could ask myself, ‘am I really doing this?’ I was stealing down the road of the cul de sac, ducking behind cars to keep myself under cover.

  I made my way to the fire escape and trotted up the steps two at a time, looking out for cameras or anybody watching, but the Toxton was quiet. As I got to the third floor, I saw that there was a ledge that led around to one of the big windows. Again, I hesitated for only a moment. My body seemed to be moving without permission. My curiosity and my need for answers were too great for my rational brain to overcome. I climbed onto the edge of the fire escape, placed my foot on the ledge, and began shuffling around until I was crouched down by the window, clinging to an old satellite aerial.

  I peered into the window, and what I saw made my blood run cold. There were the two goons, and they were definitely the two that had mugged us. They'd thrown off their hoodies now. One of them was bare-chested; the other was in a dirty vest, and they were sitting on a sofa. In front of them was not just one gun, but a small arsenal of at least a dozen guns, half of which looked like submachine guns. There were also boxes and boxes of ammunition. Where the hell had these idiots got that much hardware from?

  There was a pile of cash on the table and two more rucksacks full of drugs just casually thrown across the floor. One of them was counting money, and the other was messing around with the guns. He looked like he was cleaning them, but really he was just rubbing a rag across them. I'd never even heard of these guys before, and now here I was staring at tens of thousands of pounds worth of drugs, guns, and actual cash. Were they Syndicate goons? They had to be. How else could they be so well-armed? Was the Syndicate back on the estate, and were they operating through these smaller gangs to stay off the radar?

  \What the hell was going on in the Mulberry? I had more questions than I had begun with, but I knew one thing for certain: with those weapons in the hands of these sorts of thugs, someone was gonna get hurt. Someone was gonna get killed.

  I had to do something about it.