"Gray sheets of water tumbled from the sky, breaking upon the pavements with a roar louder than cannon fire." (Jonathan Stroud)

"Picture the scene. London in the rain. Gray sheets of water tumbled from the sky, breaking upon the pavements with a roar louder than cannon fire. A strong wind buffeted the rain this way and that, blowing it under porches and eaves, cornices and capstones, drowning each possible refuge with a freezing spray. There was water everywhere, bouncing off the tarmac, swilling along the gutters, congregating in basement corners and above the drain. It overflowed the city's cistern. It cascaded horizontally through pipes, diagonally across roof slates, vertically down walls, staining the brickwork like sweeping washes of blood. It dripped between joists and through cracks in ceilings. It hung in the air in the form of a chill white mist, and above, invisibly, in the black reaches of the sky. It seeped into the fabrics of buildings and the bones of their cowering inhabitants."

SOURCE: "The Golem's Eye" (Jonathan Stroud)

Bartimaeus, djinni extraordinaire, in the form of a large gray cat, sits under a statue in the heart of London, on the lookout for a mysterious and malign opponent.