A Hollow in the Hills (10 page)

Please? He wasn’t used to hearing words like that. But her hand touched his and the light beneath his skin started dancing again. He could feel the music welling up inside him and he could barely contain it.

‘Silver, why would Mari come back?’

‘Maybe she has unfinished business. Maybe she has a reason to be unhappy. And maybe she wants answers of her own. Or perhaps she just wants to see you again, to hear you play. Your music is magical now. Perhaps it called her. Now please,’ she leaned in against him, her body almost purring in the same vibrations that underpinned her voice. ‘Play for me again. I want to hear it all.’

‘You miss it, don’t you?’ he asked softly and her eyes opened, thin glowing slits.

‘What?’

‘Your voice. Having your voice as your power.’

‘I have other powers … But yes. I miss my voice. I’d give
anything
to have it back.’ It was the way she said ‘anything’ – the deep-seated need and desire – that made him really believe it. And that wasn’t a comforting thought.

Chapter Eleven

Ghosts in the Fog

T
hey sprinted down Abbey Street, along the side of the tram lines, trying not to look back, praying that no one was following. Izzy’s chest felt tight and horrible, the same awful fear that had nearly crushed her into the ground when her father had been in the coma. Now he was in danger again, in terrible danger, because how could he hold off angels, of all things? Even him. He might be the Grigori, but so was she and that didn’t seem to help.

Jinx held her hand in an iron grip. She probably couldn’t have pulled free if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to. He was the only thing real and strong around her, and she held on to him, as if he could keep her strong, keep her running. She just wanted to fall, to let the ground hit her like one of the silver trams that slid alongside them. She wanted to drop to the ground, curl into a ball and never move again. But she couldn’t.

Jinx swung around the corner onto Capel Street and then again at the bookies, down by the old markets, red brick fronts and Victorian facades.

‘It’s not far,’ the Cú Sídhe yelled. He didn’t even sound out of breath, but she was already gasping. ‘Just keep going!’

And suddenly she knew where he was heading. In one sense it was the last place she wanted to go, but where else was there? The Market might protect them from the angels. They couldn’t enter there, could they? Though open to all on the horizontal plane, there were restrictions. There were rules to be observed. The Aes Sídhe’s builders had been masters of their craft, physically and magically, and they had excluded those who might be enemies. It was a Sídhe place. It was a hollow and protected under the Grand Compact.

And everything revolved around that. Gran could quote the thing. Dad could too, but didn’t bother. Izzy only wished she’d taken the time to learn it herself, but it had seemed so dull and boring at the time. Now she wished she’d made the effort.

Would it protect Dad though? Would it protect
him
from angels? He wasn’t in a hollow, although the Storyteller’s domain was right beside him. The shop stood outside it in her world. And she had left Dad there on his own.

‘Jinx, I have to go back to him. What if he needs me?’

‘They’ll use you to get to him. He told me to get you away and that’s what I’m doing. Now.’

Always obedient
, she thought bitterly.
Always the good dog
.

They crossed the wider street in front of the Bar Council
building and slipped down the side where the road narrowed again and the grey stone walls loomed up over them, harsh and unforgiving. The streetlights flickered as they ran along the side of the Jameson distillery, and as they reached the end, flared to blinding incandescence.

‘They’re coming,’ Jinx shouted.

But it wasn’t the angels. Izzy stumbled, trying to stop. Fog tumbled out of nowhere, swirling through the air and cutting off everything ahead and behind them. Like the bathroom at school. And in that terrible fog there were figures forming. No, not figures, shadows made of mist.

The Fear rose all around the two of them as they faltered and stopped, back to back, trying to circle, to see it all at once, but their eyes couldn’t penetrate the fog. Terror swept over Izzy, terror that made her stomach knot and her legs seize up. Jinx gasped out a curse, and his grip on her loosened. He faced the main group of Fear full on and dropped to his knees, staring at them, his mouth open.

The Fear bore down on them like a wave of fog. They materialised out of the miasma, laughing, their hands clawed, their eyes hungry, their teeth so sharp. Lightning leaped between them, sparkled in their eyes. Their power growing, fed by the terror rising in Izzy and Jinx.

What had Dad said? The Sídhe rhyme …
When the fog is dense and thick, when the whispers are all you hear
… There ought to be more. Everything she knew about poetry said there should be more, but Dad had never said it.

Izzy fumbled in her bag, tearing it open and digging in it for the knife. It was her only defence against the fae. Maybe it would work on the Fear too – they were still fae, weren’t they? Or the ghosts of fae – but she had to do something. It made her strong, made her confident. It slipped into her hand as if it belonged there. Looking up, she saw they were almost at Jinx, almost there. She did the only thing she could think of and screamed his name. ‘Jinx, change!’ And she hurled the knife at their attackers.

Jinx shuddered, quivered and transformed. In a moment he flowed from one form to another and the knife sailed over his head, spinning in the air.

But there was nothing for it to hit on the other side. The Fear flowed around it, laughing as they did so, their bodies lithe and supple, made of mist. The knife clattered onto the stones. Useless.

The great green and black Cú Sídhe scraped steel-sharp claws across the road surface. His fur stood in hackles and he snarled at the figures dancing on air towards them. Izzy tried to shuffle back and came up against a wall. Nowhere to go. Rubbing her shaking hands together, she tried to conjure fire as she had in the school, but nothing would come. She swore and tried again while they slowly drove Jinx back towards her. Even in hound form, their fear infected him. One touch and he’d be lost.

One touch. And they’d be inside his head.

Just as they’d been in hers.

A single member of the Fear horde stepped forward and Jinx snapped at him, teeth closing on teeth as the creature flowed away, parted like fog, and then reformed, seizing the scruff of his neck. It brought him down with a yelp of rage and terror, pinning him to the ground, and raised its long fingered hand.

‘
Well, Daughter of Míl? Is it time yet? No, not yet
…
’

‘Let him go,’ she whispered, dredging her voice from the depths of her.

‘
Is he yours? Then I’ll take him. I’ll take them all. All that is yours should be mine. You should be mine … But he’s already marked, already another’s. Don’t you see it?
’

‘Who are you? What do you want?’

‘
Want?
’ He laughed and dropped the Cú Sídhe. Jinx thudded to the ground as the ghostly figure swept over him. The features reformed, resolving to a handsome man, his eyes glowing an eerie green. Strongly pronounced cheekbones defined his face, and his mouth curved in a strangely sensitive way. But the eyes told her all she had to know. Cruel, heartless eyes. ‘
I want what I am owed, what I was promised. I am the king of my people. And I was promised much. I was cheated
.’ He reached out to her, his hands stretched out towards her like those of a skeleton, reaching for her. ‘
But here you are now
.’

‘Leave me alone.’

‘
You will be mine, Daughter of Míl. By the cross on the head, by hellfire at Samhain. You were promised
.’

‘No, I wasn’t.’

‘
Well, then
…’ He stopped, turned back to Jinx’s still form. ‘
I’ll take another tribute instead. For now. If you don’t come, I’ll take them all
.’

‘No! Let him go!’ Izzy didn’t know where her voice came from, but it shook the air. She felt the magic in the air all around them and fed on it. Flames lit up her fingers and she hurled the fire towards them. Suddenly energised, she lunged forward, throwing her other arm around Jinx. ‘Get up and run. Please, please, please, get up and run!’

He staggered to all fours and they took off again, the hound leaping alongside her sprint. She only paused for a second, ducking down even as she moved to snatch the knife from the ground.

They skidded into the plaza at Smithfield, moving on blind instinct, running because there was only one place they could run from here and they needed to make it or die. Together, they plunged into the gateway to the Market, tumbling as they did so, skidding down the steep incline on feet that could barely keep up with their forward momentum.

Nothing followed. There wasn’t a sound but their laboured breathing. Jinx groaned as he transformed back to Aes Sídhe.

‘So they are real,’ he said, his voice hoarse as if it grated on his throat.

‘Too real,’ she agreed. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I think so. I’ve never encountered anything so …’ He shivered, not from the cold, though he’d left his clothes behind him. Something he only just seemed to realise now. ‘Feck it, I
loved that shirt.’

Izzy managed a smile, even as her face burned. ‘You can get another.’

‘Yeah. I have a collection.’ He nodded to an alcove a little further down the corridor. ‘I usually leave a change there. Just in case.’

She couldn’t tell him what the king had said. Or how close Jinx had come to being taken by them. Promised? What did he mean by promised? Promised by who?

By the cross on the head, by hellfire at Samhain. You were promised
.

Instead, she turned it all aside with a joke. ‘Is streaking becoming a habit?’

Jinx grinned at her then, a wild and dangerous grin that made her breath hitch in her throat, himself again. ‘You could say that. I’m quite the spectacle some days. Even get fan mail.’

She tried to smile back, return the grin, but her mouth wouldn’t work properly. Holly was back, the Fear were following them. She needed to let Dad know. She needed help.

And where was she going to get it?

She had no choice now but to make her way like a beggar into the Market, to rely on Silver.

And Jinx.

Chapter Twelve

Silver's Market

T
he Market heaved with all varieties of fae life. Jinx was used to that, had known it all his life. With its cruel former mistress Holly gone, a new vitality had seized it, with an added element of lawlessness and abandon that set all his nerves on edge. Music rang out, echoing off the bronze domed roof, and the walls reverberated back with the bell-like acoustics. There were dancers and acrobats, jugglers and fire-eaters. From the moment they stepped through the entrance, he could tell that Izzy was distracted. So much to look at, so much to see. Or maybe she was just mulling over how close they'd come to falling victim to the Fear.

How close he'd come. He'd be dead now if it wasn't for her. Dead from the terrors they could plant in his head. Dead from the cold that came with them. Dead from fright.

He had to tell Silver. He ought to have kept running, stayed
in hound shape and torn his way through the Market until he reached Silver.

But he couldn't leave Izzy.

Things had changed since they'd been together last. She seemed so much more confident, but he wondered how much of that was for his benefit. Or at least to protect herself from him, from letting herself trust him again. He couldn't blame her for that.

She'd spoken to the leader of that ghostly band. What they'd said he couldn't make out, but he didn't like it. Now she'd gone quiet. Far too quiet. It didn't do to dwell on the things some people said, especially not beings like that. But he knew Izzy was mulling the words over and over. She couldn't let them go.

Izzy wasn't the only thing that had changed. The Market seemed different now. Vulnerable. If the Fear came rampaging through here, what would stop them? Jinx could sense the vibrant atmosphere, the wild joy of freedom, the feeling that at any moment anything might happen, for good or ill. The Market was more than a little wild, as if infected with that older magic, devoid of the Sídhe hierarchy. It was the same thing that made him get into the fights, brawling like some medieval bear in a pit. But with Izzy here, it made him uncomfortable. Under Holly, the market had been safe enough, if you knew how to walk its ways and where to tread, if you were not unwary. Only its mistress stood above its laws. No one else.

Silver had defeated Holly, helped by Izzy, Jinx and the other Cú Sídhe, but she hadn't claimed the Market as her own.

In truth – though Jinx hated to say it of the Sídhe who had been his only friend through all the long years when he had been Holly's slave, his aunt, the beloved sister of his mother – Silver was struggling, and without a matriarch, the Market was running out of control.

He saw faces watching him as he and Izzy passed, faces with a schooled indifference that was anything but. They were beautiful and terrible, those faces. Some haunted his nightmares. But none so much as Holly's had.

She was back. The very thought made his chest tighten to the point of pain. Holly was back and she had a plan. A plan that included him. She had set loose the Fear. She didn't do anything without reason.

Izzy's hand tightened in his. Her touch alone kept him grounded, kept him from slipping into his hound-form and fleeing for safety. From the Fear. Even though they weren't here now, couldn't enter the hollow as far as he knew, or wouldn't, choosing to evade discovery instead for as long as possible. Even without their presence, their effect on him lingered like a hangover. He didn't like it.

When Izzy had taken his hand, he didn't know. He was just grateful that she had, and that she had yet to let go.

‘Jinx.' She whispered his name, harsh with urgency. His instincts screamed alarm as he turned and saw her looking back behind them. Again.

At the end of the aisle stood two figures, identical in appearance, and dressed in perfectly matching black and white.

‘Magpies.' The word was a hiss of disgust. He couldn't hide the relief though. He'd thought for a moment he'd been wrong, that the Fear had followed them down here, that at any moment they'd gorge themselves on the entire Market.

But it was just the Magpies. Checking up on him probably. It should never be a cause for comfort, but somehow it was. Because the alternative was just too terrible.

The Magpie brothers glanced at each other, sharing that strange unspoken communication, but they didn't move, just looked back at Jinx and Izzy as if willing them to approach, or as if their glares could hold the two of them there. It was a most uncomfortable gaze.

‘We need to get away from them,' said Izzy on a single breath.

‘They can't hurt us. Not here.' And wouldn't anyway. He was working for their boss. He couldn't tell her that. She'd never understand. Well, not working for him exactly. He was working for Silver. Now and always.

If only other people thought that. He could sense eyes on him, the other people of the Market, who would never trust him, who still saw him as Holly's through and through.

‘They can hurt us
anywhere
.'

True enough now. The Magpie brothers were ruthless and cunning, experts at intimidation and pain. They served their master and their master wanted answers from him. They could
hurt them, but they wouldn't. Not just yet.

‘It's okay,' he said though he barely believed the lie himself. It wasn't okay. But they were safe for now.

Safer than outside.

‘Sure,' she said, putting her head down and pushing forward through the crowd. ‘Let's just find Silver and talk to her. We've got to tell her about Holly and the Fear. We've got to warn her.' She hung her head and muttered, so low she possibly thought he couldn't hear her. But fae hearing was more powerful than human, and Cú Sídhe hearing more powerful than all. ‘I shouldn't even be here. Dad's going to flip.'

‘He must have known we'd head here. It's the only safe place.'

She flinched, and gave him the death glare he knew too well. No, he wasn't meant to have heard that. ‘I just hope he's okay. We shouldn't … we shouldn't have left him.'

‘And what would have happened had we stayed? They'd use you to get to him, if we're being optimistic. Or they'd just have a rummage through your mind and find out what Holly did.'

She ripped her hand free of his. ‘God, you sound like Dad!'

A dark surge of anger speared up through him and burst in his brain, glittering and bright as a firework. He stiffened and fought the sudden urge to just walk away. Or worse, to turn on her. It was just for an instant, but it shocked him to silence, and was gone as soon as it appeared. Jinx forced himself to breathe. Like someone or something else lurked inside
his skin, in the base of his mind. Burning bright.

She was staring at him, suspicion in her gaze. Had she sensed that burst of rage? He didn't know where it had come from, but it drained away just as quickly, dread taking its place. What had just happened?

He shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, spreading his hands out in front of her in what he hoped was a gesture of peace. ‘He'll be okay, Izzy. They won't hurt the Grigori. Especially with the Fear loose and Holly killing angels. But they'll want to know everything and if they find out what she's done, what she could do … I didn't live through the war in heaven, or our expulsion, but I've heard the stories. I've seen the ghosts in the eyes of those who did. No one can fight the angels.'

He didn't want to tell her any more, not about Holly and what she'd sent Osprey to do. He didn't want to dwell on the sensation that his mind and body belonged to her, that his life wasn't his own.

Silver raised her eyebrows to see Jinx with Izzy. He knew that look – surprise, yes, and displeasure, but also speculation. She could convey so much with just a look. So could her mother. But he didn't want to think of Holly. It made the line at his throat tighten. Jinx gave a respectful bow and Silver responded with a nod of her head. Izzy meanwhile bounded up the steps to Silver's private chamber, grinning broadly, and
rushed by them both to hug Dylan.

Now it was Jinx's turn to glare. Whatever happened to ‘
stay out of their lives to keep them safe
'? Silver pursed her lips, chastened, and then rolled her eyes to the bronzed dome high above them. Apparently staying out of Dylan's life wasn't proving easy for her either.

Perhaps stubborn attracted stubborn.

‘What are you doing here, Isabel Gregory?' Silver asked, her voice stern.

Izzy's smile faltered a little, but Dylan squeezed her hand. If it was anyone else – anyone – Jinx would have wanted to rip his arm off. The temptation lingered even though he knew he had relinquished all rights and demands on her. If he had ever really had any. Those were the wrong words to use around Izzy. Any rights were her own, not his. Any demands were met with strong resistance. He knew that and respected it. Other Sídhe would fight her just to prove her wrong. Jinx knew better. They would fail every time.

He'd given her up for her own safety and regretted it ever since.

‘Lady Silver,' Izzy said, schooling her features and stance to formality. ‘We need to talk in private. As Grigori, I offer my respect and my bond of peace while I stand within your hollow.'

Oh, she knew the words and the form all right. She'd been studying. Her father had drilled all the right words into her. But not the truth of it perhaps. He feared for her. Feared what this would do to her.

‘Of course, Grigori,' Silver replied just as formally, though Jinx knew at once she was hiding her surprise. ‘Come this way and take your ease.'

Once they were inside the inner chamber, Silver stopped by the door, handing out orders to those who attended her. Mainly orders of the
bugger-off-and-leave-us-alone
variety. They didn't look pleased. Eager ears wanted to hear what the Grigori's daughter had to say to the matriarch who would not be a matriarch.

Meanwhile Izzy stumbled to a halt, staring into the middle distance, her eyes unfocused. She brought her hand up to her throat.

‘What's wrong?' Jinx asked, instantly alarmed. The Fear had almost had them both. There could be repercussions, lingering complications.

‘My necklace. Where is it?'

‘Necklace?'

‘Yes, the silver salmon pendant. Dad gave it to me.' She spun around, searching the ground, pulling at her clothes to see if it had caught in them.

‘Izzy, you lost it months ago,' said Dylan, concern lining his face. ‘Remember?'

She looked at him, blinked, her gaze sharpening. ‘I lost it?'

The only thing that looked lost was Izzy herself.

‘You gave up a memory to read the Storyteller's Book, Izzy,' Jinx said, as carefully as he could, unwilling to alarm her any further. ‘Could that have been it?'

‘I— oh, of course.' Her cheeks flushed red. ‘Of course. That's what it took then? The memory of losing my necklace?' She sighed, but even that sounded shaky. ‘That's not so bad, is it?'

Dylan looked bewildered, so that left Jinx to reassure her, something he wasn't particularly good at.

‘I guess not. You gave the necklace up to save us from the merrows. Do you remember that?' Not so much ‘us' as ‘him'. The merrows would have dragged him into the water and torn him to shreds if she hadn't. Izzy might forget but he never would. She'd saved his life more times than she knew.

She frowned ‘I remember the merrows. And I remember—' This time her cheeks flamed scarlet and she looked away from him. So she remembered him then, out of his mind with lust after encountering the merrows, lost in their magic, kissing her as if his life depended on it. Oh, yes, the Storyteller couldn't have taken that mortifying memory and spared him the shame. Just the necklace was gone. Just the way she'd saved them both. ‘After,' she finished lamely. ‘But not the necklace. Shit, that's strange. Like a whole section of my mind is blank.'