Between Two Thorns (8 page)

“Do you know if something has happened to the Chapter, sir?” he asked.

“I’m not going to talk to you about it. How do I know you’re not responsible?” Ekstrand replied.

“Mr Ekstrand,” Petra said, her voice as smooth as a fine single malt. “Max needs our help.”

The Sorcerer pursed his lips and said nothing more until Axon returned with the gargoyle. Ekstrand leapt to his feet, eyes wide as the gargoyle gave a small, awkward wave.

“Evening,” it gravelled.

“In all the worlds,” Ekstrand whispered. “I have never seen its like.”

The gargoyle winked at Petra who looked down at her notepad.

“Do you… feel anything?” Ekstrand asked.

“Glad to be here,” the gargoyle replied. “It was getting a bit hairy at the hospital. I kept seeing Arbiters in all the shadows. One tried to kill us on the way here, you know. A London Arbiter. In Bath. It’s not right, I tell you.”

“And how do you explain your state?” the Sorcerer asked, getting closer.

“We were connected,” it said, jerking a claw towards Max. “Up on the clock tower.”

“As I said, I was using a deep connection to gather evidence for the Chapter Master,” Max said, watching the Sorcerer just as carefully as the gargoyle was.

Ekstrand nodded. “That’s the only reason you’re still alive. The soul vessels in the Cloister were destroyed, as far as I can tell, but you were in such close contact, the connection pulled your soul into Mundanus, into this gargoyle.”

The gargoyle’s mouth dropped open. “Destroyed?” It clutched the sides of its head. “What about the others?”

“All the Arbiters in the field dropped dead. I have no idea what happened to the rest; there’s been no contact.”

“That’s… oh, shit… that’s terrible!”

“It’s most certainly inconvenient. Luckily for you,” he said to Max, “I added an extra function to my formula, detailing that the soul chains should only be destroyed if the Arbiter were dead. Otherwise you’d have died too. Now you’re the only Arbiter left from the Bath Chapter.”

Max recalled the powder in his pockets. “You worked a formula to destroy our field equipment?”

“Of course. Arbiters were dropping dead in Mundanus, I couldn’t have mundane authorities finding a Peeper and working out what it was for. I should have added an exclusion clause for my glasses though.”

The gargoyle sank down onto its haunches and looked as if it was trying to cry. Without tears it just looked miserable and made an awful rasping sound deep in its throat.

“Absolutely fascinating,” commented Ekstrand, observing its distress. “And a terrible liability. If any of the Fae or their puppets were to get hold of him, we’d be in a lot of trouble. And you,” he pointed at Max, “would be susceptible to their magic. The gargoyle has to stay here. We can’t have your soul chain running around independently of you.”

“Can’t we take it off it?” Max asked.

“Too much of a risk for now. It’s probably the only thing keeping your soul inside it. You wouldn’t want to lose your connection.”

“And what about me?”

“I suppose you’ll have to stay as well,” Ekstrand said, clearly not happy about it. “You’re practically useless in your current state, and you have no cloister to be healed in.”

Max nodded. “I’m the only eyewitness. When you approach the Essex Sorcerer you’ll need me to give evidence.”

Ekstrand shook his head. “Not for that, for something in Bath, or rather Aquae Sulis. One of the most important people in Fae-touched society has disappeared, and with all this nonsense going on I haven’t had anyone to investigate it.”

“But there are innocents being taken in London,” Max said. “There are corrupt Arbiters and now they’ve destroyed the Bath Chapter to cover it up.”

“Don’t you care?” the gargoyle asked. “Arbiters are supposed to be incorruptible, how has this even happened? What else are they up to in London? Why are they working with the Rosa family?”

“I’ll deal with that another time,” Ekstrand said, irritated.

“Another time?” the gargoyle straightened up. “It has to be dealt with now, before more innocents are taken!”

“You,” Ekstrand pointed at the gargoyle’s chest, “are nothing more than a dislocated soul trapped in an ugly statue and have no right to question my judgement. Besides, any sane individual knows it’s utter madness to deal with any serious problems on a Sunday.” He scratched his head and shivered. “Which reminds me, I need to check the wards, especially with the two of you in the house. Axon, find suitable arrangements for these two, would you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I haven’t finished with you,” he said, giving Max one last suspicious look, and then hurried out of the room.

Max dropped his head back on the sofa cushions. Ekstrand was more concerned about a Fae puppet than his Chapter, Arbiters had tried to kill him – twice – and he was corrupted with Titanium. It hadn’t been the best weekend. The gargoyle’s head settled on the arm of the sofa with a suitably grim expression.

“The Sorcerer of Wessex is mad as a nail,” the gargoyle whispered. “We’re buggered.”

 

9

 

Cathy watched the sun come up over the city. Everything she did was punctuated by a sense of finality. This might be the last time she saw in the dawn in Manchester. This might be the last morning she woke as a free woman. This was the last day she would ever see Josh.

She had to end it. Her family could turn up any moment, and she wanted to make sure Josh didn’t worry about her after she’d gone. She didn’t want to do to him what she’d done to her family a year before. Again, the guilt. She banged her forehead against the window gently, hating herself.

Perhaps this is what it’s like when you only have a week left to live, she caught herself thinking, and then immediately pulled herself up. She couldn’t think like that. It wasn’t over. Besides, millions of people suffered much worse every day.

It didn’t make her feel any better.

The appalling night’s sleep had been a mess of regrets and fears but she had managed to make one decision: she was going to make arrangements to keep the flat as long as she could and for all of her stuff to go into storage. She had to believe there was a way to escape again and when she did she’d want somewhere to go in Mundanus. If it took longer than the length of the lease at least her stuff wouldn’t be thrown out in her absence. There was enough money in her account to keep it going for the rest of the agreed lease and to pay for storage. Then she realised her mother might ask for the jewels she’d sold to fund her escape. The forehead was banged against the window again.

As she dressed in jeans and a top (for the last time?) and dragged a brush through her hair, her thoughts returned to the botched wish. It was the price of being outside Society for so long. She’d got slack and forgotten the first rule of wish-making: be specific.

Then she was thinking about Josh again, as if there were only two topics her head could contain. She felt like a ping-pong ball being batted between them.

She had to think like a member of the Great Families, not a freakish runaway. What could she wish for to help her survive once they’d dragged her back? Would it impress Lord Poppy to go back to Aquae Sulis and dance, sing and play the piano even better than her odiously perfect younger sister? Or would it be better to wish she could speak every language in the world? That had always been a secret wish and one that would be useful if she did find a way to freedom in Mundanus.
When
she found a way; she had to stay positive.

It was tempting, but Lord Poppy probably didn’t even realise people in Mundanus spoke different languages. She had a vague memory of a lesson in her youth in which she was told the Fae could understand and converse with anyone, universally understood. She couldn’t remember why. Perhaps this is what it’s like to go mad, she thought as she pulled on her boots and grabbed her jacket. To think the most stupid, irrelevant things instead of a way to avoid a terrible fate.

She had to get out and walk.

Manchester sparkled in the dawn’s gentle sunshine, a delicious assortment of deep-red brick and glass and steel. The shops were still closed, the streets relatively empty. She found a greasy-spoon café and ordered a coffee and breakfast, only to push most of it around the plate. She headed further into the city as it woke, finding herself in crowds of people hurrying to work.

The sense of finality lingered. Cathy took in deep lungfuls of the air, appreciating its freshness and the gentle blue of the morning sky. Like all Fae-touched children she had been raised in the mundane nursery wing of the family home. The rest of the house, on the other side of the door she was never allowed to go through without a nanny, was in Aquae Sulis. As she got older she was brought through into the Nether reflection of the house more often and every time she got back to her room she’d open the window as if she’d been forced to hold her breath. In the Nether there was no breeze, no weather as there was in Mundanus, nothing but a silver sky. There wasn’t even day and night.

She passed the red plaque she’d sought out the first day she arrived in the city, before she’d even arranged a place to stay or used the Persuasion Charm on the university admissions tutor. She didn’t need to read the words to know what it said.

“On August 16 1819 a peaceful rally of 60,000 pro-democracy reformers, men, women and children, was attacked by armed cavalry resulting in 15 deaths and over 600 injuries.”

Peterloo. The last lesson Miss Rainer gave to her before her radical education was discovered and punished. The beginning of Cathy’s true rebellion.

As she walked down Peter Street, Cathy thought of the women who had been in that crowd, in their beautifully white Regency dresses, cut down by Hussars who targeted them for being so outrageous as to participate in a political rally. Their world wasn’t much different from the one she was being sucked back into, and yet they were brave enough to take a stand when the majority of society decried them.

What if she were to wish for–

“Cathy!”

Josh bounded up to her in his Labradorish way and scooped her up into a hug, lifting her off the ground. She tried not to breathe in the gorgeous smell of him, studiously looking away from his large brown eyes and messy dark hair. The last thing she wanted to see was his lips and how kissable they were, so she tucked her face into his shoulder and let him squeeze her.

“Hi,” she managed to say, returning the hug and worrying about the lump in her throat. He set her down on the pavement.

“I missed you. How was your aunt?”

“Not so good,” she said, remembering the lie.

“Sorry to hear that. You OK?”

She didn’t let him go, not wanting him to see her face as she struggled to get a grip of herself. “Yeah,” she croaked, and he pulled her back into his embrace.

“You free this morning? Let’s do stuff and then have lunch afterwards,” he suggested. “Forbidden Planet’s got some new stock I want to show you.”

This wasn’t how she’d planned it. Not how she’d expected it to be, anyway. She’d got as far as imagining seeing him at the restaurant and at least saying they had to talk, then there was just a mess of emotion. Uncertain how to handle the inevitable break-up, she nodded, deciding that she couldn’t just split up with him in the middle of the street.

He took her hand, then let go and threw his arm about her shoulders, pulling her against him so they walked with their sides touching. He was wearing a military-style jacket and skinny jeans. The top of her head came to his shoulder. His height usually made her feel safe and was one of the first things that had attracted her to him. That, and the kindness he’d shown her when she’d been struggling to get to grips with real student life.

She remembered his amazement when she’d been confused by a comment he’d made about
The Time Machine
by HG Wells. Even though the nursery wing had been in Mundanus they were still cut off from everyone else so she’d never watched television and didn’t even know about a cinema until she arrived at Cambridge. Her minder wouldn’t allow her to go or do anything beyond studying for her degree, so she never actually saw a film there.

“You’ve never seen a film? Where the hell did you grow up?”

That was when she told him the biggest lie; that her family was part of a cult that lived separately from society. It was as close to the truth as she could get; they had their own rules and morality, shunned contact with outsiders and considered their way of life superior to those outside.

“I ran away,” she told him and immediately regretted it. Would he think badly of her?

“Why?”

“Because they don’t believe girls or women have the same rights as men. They’d marry me off and make me do what they want. I just don’t… I just didn’t fit in there.”

“That sucks,” he finally said. And that was it.

He made it his personal mission to educate her about sci-fi’s transition from paper to film. Somewhere between
This Island Earth
and
Forbidden Planet
they’d started to hold hands. They kissed halfway through
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
and by
Fantastic Voyage
they were almost inseparable. He’d lovingly introduced her to
Star Wars
in the original film release order, and she realised she loved him at the end of
Raiders of the Lost Ark
. By
Back to the Future III
he’d confessed he felt the same, inspired by the scene between Clara and Doc Brown stargazing together.

It would have been perfect if it hadn’t been for the curse, but in a way that only deepened her trust. He didn’t mind waiting, thinking that her reluctance to do more than kiss was a wound from a childhood with religious extremists.

As they walked, he told her about what he’d been doing while she’d been away, but all she could think about was how and where to tell him. Did she spend one last morning with him and tell him over lunch? Did she do it now, before it got too difficult?

Then they were in the shop, greeted warmly by the bloke behind the counter, and Josh was bouncing about the latest reboot.

“I need a cup of tea,” she said and he put the comic down.

“Are you feeling poorly?”

“I didn’t sleep well.”

“How come?”

“I really need some tea,” she said, and hurried out of the shop.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, following her out and catching hold of her hand. “Is it your aunt? Is she really sick?”

“No.” Her voice wobbled and she looked up at the bright shop sign, avoiding his eyes.

“You can tell me, Cathy, come on.”

“I’m leaving Manchester.”

There was a long pause. “When?”

She shrugged. “In the next couple of days… by next week I think.”

“But what about your course?”

“I can’t do it any more.”

“Have you talked to your tutor?”

“No, I mean, I… it’s not too hard, I mean… I can’t.”

He frowned, standing directly in front of her, drawing her eyes, and she immediately regretted it. She hadn’t realised how much she’d planned ahead until it was all over. She’d finish her degree, they’d get a place together and see if it worked out. She’d find a way to unravel the curse, they’d–

“Has this got something to do with your weird family?”

“I can’t talk to you about it.”

“Shit. Are they putting pressure on you?”

“I said–”

“Because they can’t make you leave, you know. They don’t pay for your course, you’re in control.”

She frowned at his chest, trying to work out how to end it cleanly, with respect and love. This was heading in the wrong direction.

“It’s not that simple,” she said, pulling away from him, feeling sick. “We have to split up.”

She felt like she’d just kicked a puppy. His eyes widened and for a few moments he just looked confused.

“Why?”

“Because they won’t let me see anyone.”

“What, they’re going to lock you away and tell you who you see and who you don’t?”

Hearing the truth, she started to walk away, fearing she’d make it worse if she said any more.

“Cathy! Are you really dumping me?”

She stopped and turned around slowly. “Yeah.”

“What the fuck?”

“It isn’t anything to do with you, it’s my family! You just have to accept it. OK?”

“No, it’s not fucking OK! We’ve been going out with each other for over a year. I’ve tried to understand all that baggage you’ve got from them. I’ve been patient, I never pushed it with you, and you’re just–”

“What, you waited all that time to get into bed with me and now you’re pissed off because you didn’t get what you wanted?”

“No, I’m just saying that–”

“Because I thought you were with me because you wanted to be with me, not just waiting around until we could have sex.”

“Jesus, Cathy, what is wrong with you? You’re sounding like some mad woman. What the hell happened in London? Did they put the fear of God in you again?”

She closed her eyes, put her hands over her face as she tried to string her tiny beaded thoughts into something useful. “I’m so sorry. I love you, but it’s best for both of us if we just split up now and be done with it.”

“How can that be the best thing?” He reached towards her, but she stepped away. “Why let them carry on ruining your life?”

“They’re not just weirdoes, they’re dangerous!” she blurted, and then swore under her breath. He just looked even more confused. “I just need you to let me go. And to forget we were together.”

“Bollocks. Not when you say something like that. We’re going to the police.”

“No, we’re not!”

“You know they have people who specialise in this kind of stuff? Just because your family are religious weirdoes it doesn’t mean they have to ruin your life too. You got away from them once, don’t let them suck you back in.”

This was getting out of hand. The gentle approach wasn’t working, and she could see him escalating it into something horrific. If her family found out about him, they’d…

“Cathy?”

She remembered Elizabeth. How many times had her spiteful sister broken hearts and laughed at the consequences? “I just don’t want to be with you anymore. OK? It’s nothing to do with my family.” She thought back to her mother, how cold she could be. “I just made that stuff up, I just can’t face the thought of… being with you like that.”

He was turning a horrible grey colour. “So you weren’t screwed up at all. You just wanted to string me along?”

“Yes.” She wanted to chew out her own heart.

“Why?”

“Because I thought it was funny.”

His mouth was hanging open. With horror she realised his eyes were glistening. “How could I have been so wrong about you?”

“Probably because you were only thinking about one thing.” She smothered her own thoughts and feelings as she took on the necessary role. “That’s what men are like, isn’t it? Any hole’s a goal?”