It took Alexander an entire hour to walk back to Whitechapel. He could have been there in twenty minutes on the underground, but he needed some time to clear his head. As he moved through the streets of the City, he saw the crowds parting around him. The dense flow of commuters, which no attack would ever stop, seemed utterly oblivious to him and yet still moved aside as if he were some obstacle. They were aware of him but seemed to be unconsciously ignoring his presence, further proof that he wasn’t invisible. It was strange to move so effortlessly through the crowds. Londoners always seemed to keep pace with each other, and any hapless newcomer to the city would find themselves jostled or overtaken for failing to keep up with the flow, but this was something entirely different, it was as if he no longer existed.

Soon the monumental skyscrapers of the city began to peter off, and he passed the proud dragons mounted atop plinths that represented the boundary of the City of London. Gradually the tall buildings of new glass and steel gave way to the familiar expanse of brick tenements that was Whitechapel. There was very little transitional space between the two districts, no band of middle-class cafés to divide the wealthy from the poor. In London, the city’s wealthiest and its poorest often lived and worked a mere stone’s throw from each other, cooperating in an uneasy truce. Whitechapel was one such example, having housed the salt of the city for hundreds of years. Whitechapel had a reputation, one its residents took macabre pride in; here was the true East End, home to Jack the Ripper and many other murderers, thieves and scoundrels. Here was the origin of Old King Kray’s empire.

Alexander could see the people of Whitechapel, those who had jobs, returning from across the city dressed in filthy boiler suits, garish high-vis outfits or cheap suits. Inevitably, their path brought them to the various pie shops that had lined the road, serving London’s staple food of meat pies with mushy peas and the barely palatable, but traditional, jellied eels. Alexander’s eye was drawn to one of these stores, an old favourite of his run by the indomitable Mr Harris. Surprisingly, the window was not filled by a sea of workmen wolfing down greasy pies but by a quiet huddle of men staring up at a quartet of youths each of whom was armed in some way.

Alexander stared at the four men with open disbelief; everyone in this district paid the Firm protection money, and you’d have to be a fool to either not pay, or to rob someone who was paid up. He moved closer in to the entrance, not worried about being seen, and began to hear the conversation between Mr Harris and the would-be thieves. Mr Harris was a cockney of the old breed whose slang and witticisms were beloved by his regulars. He was obese, with a shaven head and a stained apron, every part the ideal host. After all, who could trust a thin chef?

‘You lads are in a heap of trouble, you know that?’

Despite being faced by four knife-wielding men, Harris seemed completely at ease. He was leaning against his shelving, and his face held the contemptuous look he gave all his customers.

‘Shut it you fat fuck!’ one of the men, the leader or at least the loudest, shouted as he waved about a machete. ‘We’re in charge now!’

‘Are you by Jove? I might pay my bit to the firm, but the only boss a’ my shop is me. Now, you don’t look like the King’s men, just a bunch of ginger berks throwing their weight about.’

‘Kray’s dead dumbass, everyone knows that. E1 belongs to us now!’

A postcode gang. Alexander winced as he heard. Their ilk was ten-a-penny across the entire city, in every borough not held by one of the major gangs. Small wars would develop between people over a single number on their address. They were almost omnipresent, but few dared to raise their heads this close to the centre.

‘People have said that before,’ Harris continued in a low rumbling voice, ‘you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard talk that he’s been shot or blown up or just died of old age. It’s never true lads, and you’d best ignore talk like that if you want to keep your head.’

‘You fucking threatening us? You fat fucking shite?’

‘Shut up. You touch me and the firm’ll feed you your Hampton.’

The ganger kicked over an empty table in frustration, and Alexander could see the others tightening their grip on their weapons. This was going south quickly. The diner was full, but most of the men and women were exhausted after a day’s work and were too used to keeping their head down to act. He could see a solitary figure at the back of the room discretely texting under the table. From his garb, Alexander suspected he was with the firm. He wouldn’t move to help the besieged shopkeep, but his boys would retaliate against the gangers. Alexander felt the weight of the sword he had carried, still in its sheath, from Temple before tucking it into his belt and sneaking a cast iron skillet from the kitchen, filled with boiling vegetables. He didn’t really want to kill the idiot kids, but he also didn’t want Harris to die.

The leader of the gang suddenly dropped to the floor in agony as a load of boiling hot carrots, and the accompanying water, scolded his exposed face. Everyone stood stupefied for a moment as he fell to the floor until a second gang member fell as a cast iron pan, its surface still scolding, collided with his face. They caught a fleeting glimpse of the attacker this time, but were left with little more than an impression of a bloody suit, its tails and tie flowing backwards with the force of its movement. As quickly as it appeared, this figure was gone and many bforgot its presence entirely, left with only the faintest impression of movement.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Harris vaulted over the bar with a grace that seemed impossible for a man of his girth and drove his rolling pin against the third gangster, who was dazed but still standing. The teenager tried to respond, thrusting forwards with his knife, only to be shoved aside by the mysterious figure, losing his footing before being floored by another blow with the pan. The final ganger began to slowly back himself into a corner, clutching his knife as his eyes darted wildly around the room. Once he reached the wall, he slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor.

‘You’re all on your jack now. Piss off, and take your mates with you. That one probably needs the hospital.’

Harris loomed over the lowly figure, who scrambled to his feet and practically dragged his screaming ‘leader’ out of the shop, shortly followed by the other two gangers, each of whom was nursing their own burns.

‘I owe you one.’ The old cockney spoke to the thin air, but no response came. He stood in the middle of his shop for a short moment, looking around with wary confusion. Once he moved back behind the counter, he noticed one of his new batch of pies was missing.

The pie tasted good, Alexander remarked to himself, wherever the meat came from. It was warm and the watery centre hadn’t ruined the crust, making it the perfect companion for the cold evening. He moved further into Whitechapel, stepping off the main rad and into the warren of streets and housing estates that marked the real East End. The streets here were as quiet as London got at the end of the working day, which meant he only shared the pavement with a few dozen others. This was his home, and he had grown up amongst these dilapidated estates, built in a rush in the thirties to meet the demands of a rapidly growing city. Still, for all its decay, he wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world. This was home.

He finished up the pie, and was looking for a place to store it when three armoured cars rounded the corner, escorting a transit van done up in the livery of the metropolitan police and only ‘armoured’ by a mesh cage over the front windscreen. The force was hardly necessary in this part of the city, Kray had a policy of not pissing off the military, but isolated soldiers or officers were still considered fair game by some of the less scrupulous criminals, and their guns and ammunition proved a tempting target for the black-marketeers. Therefore, no member of the security forces ever travelled alone and every effort was made to rescue lost personnel. The glory days of old, when citizens would share a pleasant chat with the bobbies on the beat, had ended on the fifth of November, two years ago, and it didn’t look like they’d return anytime soon.

Gradually his path brought him farther north, away from the more settled areas around the river. This area of the city was built around a network of old high streets, with housing in between. Alexander crossed several of these streets, and ducked through innumerable estates. Most people would follow the broad avenues around the jumbled housing, but Alexander no longer had to fear the random mugger and even before he had never been overly afraid of the gangs. This part of London produced tough men and fierce women, and there were few children of Whitechapel who couldn’t hold their own in a fight. With only a slight change in circumstance, Alexander could have ended up like those kids in the pie shop. Many of his childhood friends had gone that way, or found less-than-legal employment in other areas.

There was a shop in this part of the city that sold DIY supplies to the residents of Whitechapel, fireworks to their kids and electronics to everyone. Alexander paused outside its large glass windows, the glow of innumerable lightbulbs emanating out onto the dark street and illuminating the lone figure. This was the Laszewski Electronics shop, owned and operated by Andrzej Laszewski, Alexander’s father. He could see him now, a wiry man with close cropped hair that was now more grey than black. He was stood behind the till, running a long series of numbers through an electronic calculator before jotting them down in his ledger. His expression was relaxed; this was a ritual he did every day and would continue doing until the day he retired. Alexander pressed his hand against the glass and stared at his father. The man had doubtless forgotten about him, just as Nathaniel Smyth had. And, just like the gunwoman and the gangers, he would forget about him again the moment Alexander stopped touching him. He couldn’t do that to his father, he couldn’t have him deal with the anguish of forgetting who his son was again and again and again. He left the shop alone, and walked off into the darkness.

His own apartment was a few hundred metres away from his father’s, from the home he had grown up in, but he had made an effort to make it his own. It lay atop a four-story building of similarly built apartments and, though it was on the highest floor, only offered the barest view of the London skyline. His keys dropped into their bowl with a jangle, as he did up the bolts of his door. With the rest of the city shut out, he stripped off his bloodstained clothing and stepped into his tiny shower. The act of scrubbing the blood off his face and hands persuaded Alexander that the events of the last day were more than some fever dream, or the imagination of a man dying of gunshot wounds and when he stepped into the bathroom, he saw the same face reflected back at him from the mirror. At least he could remember who he was.

Once dried, and covered in a dressing gown, he sank into his plush leather sofa before switching on the television. The news was, unsurprisingly, focused on the Temple massacre, as the incident had been dubbed. The reporters had moved past reporting the facts and were now in idle speculation. None of the usual suspects had come forward to claim responsibility, apart from the most fringe groups who regularly claimed responsibility for random muggings, and analysts and experts were appearing in droves, each offering wildly differing theories as to the attackers responsible. There was even a few aerial shots of the scene, from before the RAF had cleared the airspace, and Alexander noted what looked like a grey smear on the lens, hovering above what was unmistakably his office. He cast his mind back to the indistinct figure he had seen flying over the rooftops, but to his frustration he was unable to recall anything about her.

As the news moved on from the attack to cover incidents in the wider Commonwealth and the rest of the world Alexander tuned out, instead reaching over to his tattered suit jacket to pull something out of the pockets. There had been enough dead or unconscious gunmen about the place for him to pocket one of their weapons, and he stared at the stocky pistol with a familiar sense of dread. He was not unfamiliar with the weapon, national service having schooled him in their use, but he was unsure of what to do with it. His path ahead seemed clear enough, there were only a few employers who would value someone they can’t even see, but there was still a choice to be made. Any of the petty powers in this city would employ him in a heartbeat, he would be the perfect hitman, able to strike at any target without being seen.

He shifted position on the sofa until he was staring out over the city. Above the rooftops of the neighbouring apartments he could see the skyscrapers of the city itself, gleaming white lights that outshone even the stars themselves. He though back to his father, and of the photograph of a man in a blue uniform that hung behind the counter of the little shop, and another on his own wall. His father held in him a fierce pride that had often caused him to rub up against the Firm’s management in this area, but he held enough sway in the Polish community to be permitted the occasional outburst. His father had seen him through law school precisely so that he didn’t end up on some petty tyrant’s payroll, and he wasn’t about to abandon his principles.

That narrowed his options. He could try it alone, become a vigilante or sign on with the mercenary Thief-Takers. He would earn enough to live independently, and he would be working of not within the letter of the law, then at least somewhere near. But the Thief-Takers were as corrupt as they come, and were subject to regular crackdowns by the government. He could go it alone, but a vigilante couldn’t live within his own means and they would always work alone. What Alexander craved right now, more than anything else, was human contact. It was unfortunate that was the one thing his new abilities denied him. He would give anything to be able to go down to his father’s store and talk out his dilemma with the old man, but he couldn’t put him through that pain.

It was through this tangent that his mind shifted to thoughts of an incident that had happened during his escape from Temple. That Runner, Morgan the Fay, had seemed to see him. It might have been mere illusion or a trick of the light, but she had looked right at him as if she was aware of his presence. Perhaps there was truth to the rumours that she could see the dead, or at least that she saw more than others. It was a faint hope, but it was better than nothing. It wasn’t like she would even be that hard to find, after all he knew where she worked.