Take Back The City - Part One of the 'Life in London Town' series

18 - Lost and Found in Leicester Square

   ‘Fresh air,’ I thought. ‘Thank you!’

   Once again, I found myself out in the open in the middle of the now extinguished Piccadilly Circus, sitting beneath Eros just as I had been last time. The pressure of water building up behind my eyes was forcing my eyes slowly but surely from their sockets and, worse still, a coating of acid was setting off an inferno in my throat. I was a wreck. By now, I should have been glued to the floor in a foul quicksand created by the congealed mess of vomit and tears which were begging for emission but, by some miracle, I wasn’t. The battle down in the depths of the station below me may have been undecided as yet, but in the depths of my stomach and my brain the battle was being won. The emotional constraints that had plagued me for so long were finally on the run. I was not crying. I was not scared. It had only taken three years, but I was finally desensitising.

    I heard yet more shots. My nerves jolted, pinning me to the dark aluminium of the statue base and shaking a tear free. I tried with all my strength to stem the flow down my right cheek and, for once, my efforts actually paid off. Only a tiny bobble of water, no more than half a centimetre long, made it to the rounded cliffs at the bottom of my face.

   I caught the tear on the tip of my left pinkie. This tear, I told myself, would be the last tear I would ever shed on the battleground. ‘The battle’s almost won,’ I thought. Then, remembering the walk Victor and I took along Long Acre past the pools of blood last night, I added two more short words: ‘Stay strong.’

   “You must be Nox.”

   An unfamiliar face hit my eyes as I glanced upwards. The face belonged to a man who looked even younger than me. For all I knew, it could have belonged to a boy who had only just hit the worst of puberty; he had tried to grow a beard, but had only managed to coax a few translucent hairs from his chin. He was surrounded by about a dozen similar men-slash-boys, all looking simultaneously older and younger than their years due to an awkward combination of destroyed attire, lanky bodies and an inability to grow facial hair and muscles bigger than a pound coin.

    “I am,” I answered briefly. “I take it you lot are the runners, then.”

    “We are.”

    I stood up, ensuring that I was on the top step of the stone plinth on which the base of Eros stood so that everyone could look me in the eye without bending down, and addressed the group.

    “I assume you all know where we’re heading,” I began. A strained pause ensued. “Do you all know where we’re heading?”

    “Charing Cross,” they answered, as if they were primary school children.

    “Right,” I continued. “We’ll enter via the Bakerloo entrances on Trafalgar Square. Remember to stick to open spaces as best you can; the backstreets could be dangerous.”

    I stared intently into the darkness of Coventry Street as I spoke. Any of these streets could have some hidden danger lurking within them, but we couldn’t focus too much of the terrors we faced. We had to stay away from risks but, in a way, we had to take risks in order to stave off risks.

    “Are we...”

    A flash of yellow lights shot across my eyes. ‘It’s gone,’ I convinced myself. ‘It’s all in the past.’

    “Anything wrong, Nox?”

    “No,” I stuttered, “nothing’s wrong. All’s well.” I stumbled down from the top of the steps. “We ready?”

    Various heads bobbed up and down assertively.

    “I’ll lead.”

    Passing the place where the decoy marksman had stood last night, the runners and I raced towards Leicester Square in a speedy march. It was just as empty and lifeless as the Circus and, seeing as it was being lit by nothing more than a few torches carried by the runners behind me, resembled a tiny forest more than anything else. The buildings were little more than faint outlines on the sparkling night sky; the only real clue to their presence was that the starlit sky was ever so slightly lighter in colour than the artificial scenery, standing like silhouetted cut-outs in the background of a theatre stage and waiting for their chance to upstage the lamps of the night sky. Any noise of conflict from the marble-clad depths of the Circus had dispersed to the point of inaudibility; all was peaceful. If anything at all, it was a little too peaceful.