114.

  By the time I’d hit the streets again, violence had already erupted on the Mulberry. I was drawn by the wails of sirens and the morose pulse of blue lights. From the rooftops, I could see the consequences of this deadly street war. Two men were laid out on the pavement, the police had taped off the area, but they hadn't touched the bodies, as the forensic team hadn't arrived yet. A small crowd had formed, people looked shocked and horrified, some openly wept. The two deceased teens were surrounded by a pool of blood, killed in another drive-by.

  I didn't recognise their outfits; they weren't wearing the red of the Blood Brothers or the biker uniform of the Lear Street Thugs. However, I could tell they were in a gang. Both were decked out in green baseball jackets and green trainers. I remembered what Sherbert had told me and guessed that these must be the Beth Boys. They'd been gunned down just on the northern border of the Mulberry. If I remembered my gang geography, the Beth Boys ran the surrounding areas. Unlike the other three gangs, they didn't operate out of a specific estate; rather, they had taken over a few neighbourhoods, with their main hub being Beth Street.

  I scoped around the area and saw bullet holes everywhere in the walls. Whoever had shot at them had put maybe 30 rounds into the surrounding area. I just imagined what could have happened had innocent people been walking by. As I looked down the road, I saw a sign to warn cars to slow near the local primary school. There was a bullet hole in the centre of the sign. Bile rose in the back of my throat. This was getting out of hand, and I had to do something, but what, I didn't know. I could keep beating these thugs up, but they would keep killing each other. I could keep destroying their stash of weaponry, but as long as this Syndicate thug was selling them cheap guns, I'd never be able to destroy them quicker than they could buy them. I needed to cut the head from the snake.

  But I'd already checked around Brick's old hangout, the Rose of India, and there was zero sign of any Syndicate movement. I knew from dealing with them before that if this was the Syndicate, they would have switched up everything since the last encounter I had with them. If this Danny was just a lone operator, he'd be even harder to track down. I barely even remembered what he looked like. He was just a short, pudgy, bald guy. I didn't even have a solid name, and I doubted whether Danny was even his real name if he was so freely giving it out. Tracking him down felt impossible. I'd asked Sherbert, but he'd never heard of him, so my one good source of information had come up blank, leaving me with no other way of finding him.

  One thing I was certain of: there would be retaliation. The Beth Boys were probably arming up right now, and I needed to get there and stop them before there was more bloodshed. I activated my Jet Boots and bounced between rooftops, moving quicker than I ever had before, across the rooftops of the Mulberry Estate, making my way to Beth Street. I had to find the Beth Boys and try to stop another murder from happening tonight.

  *

  When I arrived on Beth Street, there was nothing, no sign of anyone dressed in green, no congregation of angry criminals, just a normal little residential area. I didn't like being on the street level like this, all decked out in black and armed as I was. Unfortunately, unlike the Mulberry Estate, this place actually had working streetlights, which made me stick out even more. I prowled around for a bit and eventually found a small allotment space behind a series of flats. Apparently, people used to like to grow stuff, even in urban areas like this, and they'd have these little allotments with their own greenhouses and spaces to grow. But, as communities had fallen apart, things like that had died long ago. In New London, if things weren't modernised, they were just left to rot.

  I don't know why, but I had a strong feeling this was the type of place where goons would congregate, and I wasn't wrong. As I approached the allotment, I saw two green-jacketed teens with hoods over their heads walking into the allotment. I slipped in after them, activating my cloaking charm and ducking around the rows of abandoned greenhouses until I could get close enough to see them. There were only six of them, including the two that had just arrived. Their gang hideout was rather underwhelming, it was just a little shed in the middle of the allotment, and an open-walled one at that. The six of them stood around, and I could taste the fear in the air. They looked tense and worried. Two of them kept pacing around while the others chain-smoked or just stood staring out into the darkness.

  As I got closer, I could hear them arguing.

  "This is fucked, man," the one who was chain-smoking said. "Dobbs and Johnny are dead.”

  "We don't know that for sure," the one who was pacing said.

  "Come on, man, I saw them get gunned down," the chain-smoker spat.

  "And what did you do about it?" the third one, who was staring into the darkness, snapped.

  "What did you want me to do? Stand there and get gunned down with them? Come on," the chain-smoker said, rubbing his tired eyes. "They're dead, man. I saw them both get shot down.”

  "Matt's right," said one of the teens who had just arrived. "Me and Kendall just been down there. There's police everywhere, man. They're dead.”

  The six men deflated and stared down at the floor. I heard one of them sniffle. These six didn't look like hardened criminals. They reminded me of the Blood Brothers, just a bunch of teens in over their heads. I could imagine they were little tough guys when it was bats and blades, maybe even the odd pistol, but now there was military hardware, drive-bys, machine guns and they were way out of their depths. Hell, I didn't blame them for being scared. But maybe, just maybe, they wanted out. Maybe I could talk to them.

  I took a deep breath, dropped my cloaking charm, and stepped out of the shadows.

  "Oh shit, who the fuck is that?" the one who had been staring out into the darkness said, stumbling backwards as I appeared out of nowhere.

  I held my hands up to show they were empty, even as a pistol was pulled and pointed at me. My instinct was to dodge, to draw Grandad’s bat and fight, but I took another deep breath and raised my hands higher.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "I'm not here to fight," I said. "I just wanna talk."

  The six of them looked at each other. The one who had been pacing was the one who had pulled the gun. His hand quivered as he stared at me.

  "Who the fuck are you?" he shouted.

  I turned calm eyes on him.

  "You know who I am," I said. "I'm the Gutter Mage."

  At the sound of my name, I saw a couple of the teens flinch.

  "Bullshit," one of them said.

  "Yeah, yeah, I know," I replied. "I'm not real, but I am, and I've had this conversation a couple of times already, so can we skip past it? I can do some magic tricks for you if you want?" They looked at each other, unsure of themselves, and I sighed. "Listen, I've been standing there for five minutes. I heard your whole conversation and I saw your dead friends. I'm just here to talk. How about you lower that gun?”

  The one holding the gun looked at the others, and I saw a small nod pass between them. He lowered the gun, but I noticed he kept his finger on the trigger and didn't put it away. That would have to do for now.

  "Can I?" I said, nodding my head at my hands, and the one with the gun nodded, so I lowered my hands.

  "Are you really the Gutter Mage?" one of them asked me.

  "Yeah," I replied.

  "Shit, man, we thought that was all bullshit," the one chain-smoking said. "Like just some stupid fucking story, like the boogeyman or something.”

  I didn't know what to say to that, so I just shrugged.

  "Well, I'm real," I said, "and I'm trying to stop the violence that's happening right now on the Mulberry. You boys look like you're in over your heads." I saw a bit of bravado spark in their eyes at the suggestion that they were getting the worst of it, but one of the teens, who looked like the youngest, nodded his head glumly.

  "We're fucking right in the middle of it, man," he said.

  The one with the gun hissed at him to be quiet, but then he too sighed, the bravado dropping.

  "Between the Lear Street fucks and those fucking G15 psychos, we're stuck between it all, man," he said to me. "We didn't even wanna get involved in this shit. It just… it all happened too quickly, you know?"

  "I know," I said to him. "And if it makes you feel any better, I feel like all of you are being played."

  "What?" he said.

  "I think someone much higher up the food chain than you boys has deliberately instigated a war. The same guy that's been selling you guns and drugs has been selling to the Lear Street Thugs, the Blood Brothers, and I'm guessing these G15 guys”

  "Motherfucker!" the one who had been staring into the dark and spotted me first said. "I told you we couldn't trust that fucking Danny."

  "Wait," the one with the gun said. "He's been selling weapons to all of them?"

  "Yep," I said. "I've seen him drop guns off to the Blood Brothers, and then I found the exact same type of artillery in the Lear Street Thugs' hideout. He's been selling all of you weapons, and I'm guessing he was the one that also told you to start moving in on the Mulberry, right?"

  A few of the older ones looked at each other and then nodded their heads.

  "Yeah," the one with the gun said. "He told us it was wide open, just there for the taking, you know? We could just stroll in and make some easy money. Next thing you know, we're fighting the Lear Street boys on one side and G15 on the other side, and everybody's shooting. It's fucking nuts, man!”

  "It's them G15 psychos," the youngest one said. "They're the real nutjobs. They're the ones that are all about killing and fucking doing crazy shit, man. Like, that's why we had to protect ourselves, because they were gunning for us. Look, they killed two of our boys!" His voice cracked as he spoke, and I saw tears glisten in his eyes.

  "You think it was these G15 people that killed your friends?" I asked.

  "Yeah, it was definitely them," said the one who had been staring into the darkness. "When they pulled up, I saw they were all wearing all black, like skull masks and shit, like real demonic stuff, you know what I'm saying? Like, I saw them when they pulled up, and they’re the ones that love doing drive-bys and shit. Man, they're probably celebrating right now.”

  "Do you know where I can find them?" I asked, and the teens hesitated.

  "Listen, I'm just trying to stop the violence," I said to them. "I'm not a police officer or nothing."

  "No," said the one with the gun. "You're worse. We heard what you've done to Brick."

  I looked at him coolly.

  "I didn't do anything to Brick that he didn't have coming.”

  "Fair," said the one that was chain-smoking. "But all this other shit, this is all your fucking fault too, bro," he said. "Brick might have been tapped in the head, but at least he kept all this shit under control, and you went and fucked with that. You fucked with the whole ecosystem of the jungle. You took the lion out, and now these fucking snakes, they've all suddenly popped up out of nowhere, all trying to be the next Brick."

  "I didn't mean for that to happen," I said, his words stinging me.

  "Yeah, well it did," he shot back. "And now my friends are dead." He turned away from me, and I didn't know what to say to him.

  I knew taking out Brick was the right thing to do, but I'd also never considered the consequences. Here I was, looking at it: a bunch of idiot teenagers suddenly trying to step up and fill his shoes the only way they knew how, through violence. And people were getting killed.

  "This is why I need to stop them," I said. "If you think it was my fault, then let me make it right. I need to find this Danny guy, and I need to get these weapons off the streets."

  The Beth boys exchanged looks, and the one with the gun sighed and looked up at the sky.

  "I ain't a snitch," he said, "but they killed my friends. And if you wanna go fuck them up for that, then you do you. They're meeting with Danny tonight, I reckon."

  "What?" I said.

  "G15, they love posting shit online and sending videos about what they're doing. One of the boys saw a video earlier saying that they was reloading tonight on artillery, and they was gonna come out and do a madness. I didn't know, obviously, that it was Danny selling them the guns, but I'm guessing now that's who they're meeting with," he said.

  "Do you know where?" I asked.

  "We know where their hideout is," he replied. "It's over there on the Allwell block on the west side of the Mulberry. They got a little nightclub over there. It's really just some shitty little dive, but they muscled in and took the place, and they're there every night, the whole crew. The place is like a little fortress, but I guarantee if they're buying guns, that's where they're meeting Danny. Danny don't like you coming to him. He likes going to you."

  I nodded.

  "Thank you," I said, "and for what it's worth, I'm sorry about your friends. But maybe the rest of you should take this as a sign: criminal life ain't worth it.”

  "Yeah, fuck you," the chain-smoking one said, and the others murmured their agreement. "Why don't you go clean up your mess before lecturing us, Gutter Mage?"

  I looked at him and then activated my cloaking charm, disappearing into the darkness, leaving them behind. I guess I was paying G15 a visit tonight, and by the sounds of it, I was walking into a den of killers armed to the teeth and ready to commit violence.

  That was becoming a bit of a habit, wasn't it?