Pandaemonium (35 page)

Jacey said, “You used to do that with me.”

“What?” I don’t believe I blushed; I haven’t blushed over a boy since etc. I may have snatched my eyes back to the table. I may have looked stupidly caught-in-the-act. Whatever.

“Follow me all the way, without shifting a muscle from where you were.”

“I was just...” I stopped, took a breath, met him eye to eye; said, “I’d be doing it with you now, if it was you up there fetching the beer.”
And Jordan sitting with me here, in an awkward silence...

“I don’t think you would.”

“Jacey –” I realised that I had no idea, none, where that sentence was heading –
Jacey, you and Fay were long ago, and she’s not here any
–
? Jacey, you’re still the only
–
? Jacey, Jordan and I were never
–
? Jacey, come here – ?
so I stopped that one too. Instead, I turned my gaze stubbornly back to Jordan and made light of everything, said, “You know, it’s only been a couple of days, but I swear he’s moving differently.”

“Well, he’s not trying to hide any more. He used to want to disappear, every step he took. You could see it in him. That’s if you could see him at all; he was pretty good at disappearing.”

“Until I found him,” I said. Was that a boast, or a confession? I wasn’t sure. “It’s more than that, though. He’s got that sudden infusion of Overworld cockiness, he wants to strut because he doesn’t know what else to do with himself; but all those years of self-effacing are still in him, they’re built in deeper than muscle-memory, call it bone-memory, and – well, look. The rush of confidence gets mixed in with the discretion, and it’s coming out as grace. He moves like he’s on a catwalk suddenly. I know girls who’d kill for that walk.”

And then he turned with his hands full of glasses, and it was an absolute expression of balance, and I knew exactly how that felt because I felt exactly that way when I had my Aspect on, when I couldn’t make an awkward move if my life depended on it, and –

Oh.

Oh,
yes
.

That, and Johnny Depp.

Just like dominoes falling over, pieces dropping into place, clickety-click and rat-a-tat.

Now
I had a plan.

Now I just had to sell it. To Jacey and to Jordan, and I wasn’t sure which would be the harder sell, only that both of them were going to fight it from start to finish.

Jordan brought beer, distributed beer, sat down.

I said, “Remember
Return of the Jedi?
”

Jacey would have scowled, but he was scowling already because I’d watched Jordan all the way back and I expect my face was a giveaway. It was Jordan who said, “Those bloody teddy-bears?”

“Ewoks.”

“Whatever.”

“Yes, but the good bit, the first twenty minutes.”

“Leia goes into Jabba’s lair in disguise to rescue Han –”

“– And gets caught, yes, that. And then Luke comes in alone and all heroic to rescue everybody.”

“Okay, yes. What about it?”

“Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra,” I said, changing the metaphor abruptly.

It only took them a moment to come back in unison, “Temba, his arms wide.”

I love geeky boys; they make hard things easy.

Sometimes.

S
O THEN THERE
was some hard arguing, because they didn’t like it at all once they understood what the metaphor was. What I was using it for, which was just to bully them into doing what I wanted.

And then the pub shut and we had to go back, so we did that; and once we were across Mrs J’s threshold I kissed both boys indiscriminately – because there had been quite a lot of beer, all told – and went to bed, leaving them no doubt to argue more between themselves.

And in the morning, well. We went our separate ways.

R
IDE A COCK
horse to Banbury Cross

To see a fine lady upon a white horse.

I’d thought I understood that. I thought I’d done it all already.

I was wrong.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

F
IRST TO LEAVE
was Jordan, slipping out of the back door and the garden gate in the early morning, in the dawnlight. He went sneakily while Mrs J was laying tables for breakfast in the front room, for all the world as though he was hoping to avoid attention.

Before he left I kissed him, just because. My mouth still held a taste-memory from last night, and I wanted to check it. And yes, it was quite a lot like kissing Asher used to be; and no, it was nothing like kissing Jordan just a week ago. He tasted of desert places now, and his breath was a hot dry wind. He made me think of barberries, sweet and tart all together. Also, wine full of tannin: that sour leather mouth-puckering thing that young claret does, but you want to keep drinking it anyway.

I didn’t keep kissing him. He was on a mission, and besides. Jacey was right there, and Jordan was – well, not reluctant exactly, but nothing more than cooperative. Two days ago, he’d wanted to kill me. Half-wanted, maybe. Neither one of us had forgotten that.

So I kissed him out of curiosity, and then I let him go. He ducked off down the garden path, suddenly oddly awkward for a prince of Hell; we hung back watching through the window.

Birds rose up from a hawthorn hedge as he passed the gate, a crowd of them, a cloud. Then we couldn’t see him any longer, not through Mrs J’s net curtains. Jacey said, “Upstairs, quick,” so we doubled back up just as she called us to table.

“Two minutes!” we cried, pelting on up to the boys’ room, where they had a better view of the back lane.

A view of Jordan, for a precious couple of seconds: that white head unmistakable between the green and brown of the hedgerow and the grey of the road. Until there was a ripple in the air like the sudden heat-haze when a racecar engine starts, and then suddenly no boy.

“I’ve never seen that done before,” Jacey said, “I’ve only ever been a part of it.”

“Me neither. Me too.” I’d wished plenty of people to go to Hell – out loud, quite often – but I’d never actually seen it happen.

And barely had time to process it before Jacey was pressing a damp towel into my hands and gesturing me back into the corner of the room. His towel, or Jordan’s? I couldn’t tell; I didn’t even know if princes of Hell needed to shower. I was sure they didn’t sweat. But then I rarely sweated myself these days, I mostly let my Aspect do the work, and I did still take showers all the time.

Jacey had a towel too, so either he’d showered twice or used two towels or else Jordan did too wash. Thinking back, I remembered that Asher used to, need or not, so that was probably definitive. Jordan wouldn’t want me to say so, but Ash had pretty much defined the path his elder brother followed.

The air shimmered, right there in the room, between us and the rumpled double bed. There was a blast of scorching wind, and out of nothing, there was Jordan. Looking utterly nonchalant, hands in pockets, as though it was no work at all to shift from one world to another so precisely, to put himself exactly in this room that was upstairs and a hundred metres away from where he’d left.

You’d never know that he’d been counting every step from the moment he left. He played cool for all it was worth, until he chanced to look down and see the smoke rising about his feet, where he’d imported a little Hell-dust onto the carpet.

He yelped then, and danced out of the way. I grinned savagely, and joined Jacey in beating out the flames.

Well, let’s not exaggerate. Just a few smoulder-spots: nothing that Mrs J would even notice, among the violent paisley patterns of her flooring.

“One down,” Jacey said, “two to go. Desi, are you sure...?”

We’d been through this. We’d been through all the alternatives, over and over, and this was still the only plan that worked. “I’m sure,” I said. “Get going, both of you. Jordan, you’ll want this.”

Blessedly, we both wore T-shirt and jeans as standard uniform. His were as new, as crisply black as mine, and as travel-worn and grubby; we didn’t need to swap anything but jackets. He took my smart denim, I took his disreputable leather. Even he doesn’t know how long he’s had it, or where he picked it up. It had survived the streets with him; now he was making it survive the Overworld.

Right now, it was having to survive me. I have better shoulders, so it came closer to being tight; but it wouldn’t hurt the thing to fit itself around a proper body for a while, before it went back to hanging shapeless over his scrawny frame.

He was wearing mine the same way, the way he always did, flapping open; I frowned at him and zipped it neatly up to his chin. While I was there, I rescued my phone from the pocket and replaced it with his own.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Nothing I need,” he said.

I nodded. “Me neither. Let’s go, then.”

So we trooped downstairs, where Mrs J scolded us for letting the toast get cold while she laid heaped plates before us, a full pirate’s breakfast. Apparently pirates like bacon and eggs and black pudding and sausages and beans for breakfast, with toast and marmalade and pints of coffee and, “Are you sure you don’t want porridge, anyone? Or kippers? It’s no trouble.”

We were sure, yes. Plates were wiped clean, but we were stuffed.

“Time to hit the road, then. Mrs J? Can we...?”

We’d conscripted her into this part of the plot, just because none of us fancied stealing from her. We’d had to lie, of course, but you get used to that. Jordan had concocted a sweet story about how I was on the run from a smothering relationship, a boy who loved me all too much. We knew he was lying in wait on the main road, because a friend had phoned to warn us; so the boys were going to act as decoys and lead him one way, while I scarpered in the opposite direction.

In pursuit of which, please, Mrs J...?
Dear
Mrs J...? You’ll get it back, honest, but could we just borrow...?

We could; we did. She disappeared into her own quarters, and came back with Johnny Depp’s piratical locks, the long dark wild wig her dummy wore beneath its hat.

We stripped out the beads and ribbons plaited into it, and – well, it still didn’t look much like my own hair, but it was long and dark and that would do. Close enough to pass, if it passed at high speed on a motorcycle.

So that went on Jordan’s head, and his vivid white crash-hat followed, just the same get-up that I’d worn yesterday. Once I’d sighed and zipped my jacket up again on his stubbornly scruffy self.

“Go on, then,” I said. “And be careful, yes? No heroics. I hate dead heroes.”

“And you,” Jacey said. “You’re taking more risks than we are. You’re being
stupid
.”

Which was true, but I was doing it anyway, and we were all resigned to that.

The boys went out of the front door then, while Mrs J and I watched from the window. Mostly, I was watching watchers. I quite enjoyed seeing Jordan playing me, sitting pillion on his bike as Jacey drove it away, but the rising birds held my attention. Three of us, and one had left already; here went two more; I hoped that birds could count. I hoped there might be a Corbie or a weregull among them, to do the counting better.

I had quite a number of hopes for the day, and precious few certainties. Only that it was down to me now, to be as sneaky as I could. I was on my own, which isn’t really my best side; Jordan prefers it, but he’s had the practice. Me, I like companions. So long as they do what they’re told. Sidekicks, I guess. Subordinates.

Getting the boys there – well, that had been hard. Underling wasn’t a natural role for either of them. Even now, I wasn’t sure that they were quite persuaded.

Still: they’d gone, with a flock of birds to follow them.

Two down, one to go.

“Now, dear?”

“Please, Mrs J.”
Before one of those sharp-eyed birds figures it out, or the boys do something stupid, or...

If we were lucky, there was no one left to watch the house now. If birds could count. We couldn’t count on that.

But Mrs J had a garage that adjoined her house, with a connecting door from the utility room; and for a wonder, she’s one of those people who actually use their garage to park their car. So we went through together, and I did the movie thing of lying in the footwell behind the front seats, all covered over with the classic tartan blanket. Then she pottered about, raising the garage door and driving the car out onto the street and getting out to close the door down again, and being very obviously a single woman setting off alone.

I don’t know if any bright-eyed birds were actually watching, or thinking in any way about what they saw, or reporting back to anyone. But we did it all as though they were, and then she drove to town and found a quiet alley to unload me, and made sure I had cash enough, and saw me around the corner to the bus station.

A
ND THEN
I caught a bus.