Sixty-One Nails: Courts of the Feyre (17 page)

    "Little things. I smoke too much, drink too much, stay up too late and do far too many things that are bad for me, but I've never had a day sick since my teens. These things should be the death of me." She held up the cigarette and took a last puff before dropping it to the floor and grinding it out with the toe of her embroidered slipper.

    "It sounds like you have it made," I told her. "I mean, it's what every woman wants, isn't it, to stay young looking forever?"
    "It has its drawbacks."
    "Like what?"

    "For one thing, it gets difficult when I go to collect my pension. I don't look like I'm about to get a telegram from the Queen congratulating me on my centenary, do I?"

    "Does the Queen still send telegrams like that?"

    "I don't know. I guess in a year or two I shall find out, shan't I?" she grinned.
    "So how do you get your pension?"

    "Usually I have to sign to say I'm my own daughter and I'm collecting it for my mother who's too old and frail to come and get it for herself, which is ironic, isn't it? "
    "Why is that ironic?"

    "Because I don't have a daughter, or any other children." The sudden bitterness in her voice was palpable. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise." I hadn't meant to pry into personal matters.

    "You may live a long time, Rabbit, but you had better get used to the idea that you'll never be a father. "
    "I'm already a father."

    It just came out in response to her statement but I realised as soon as I said it that I probably shouldn't have mentioned it. It was just that I had felt the need to shake off Megan's dark prediction before it turned into a foretelling. I cautioned myself to be more careful in future about who I told about my daughter. Megan, though, was startled. "You are?"

    "I have a daughter," I admitted, finding it too late to retract the statement.

    "A daughter?" she muttered to herself, momentarily lost in thought. "Are you sure she's yours?" She looked up suddenly as if she'd just realised what she'd said.

    "Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that… it's just it's very unusual. A daughter you say? And the mother is normal – human, I mean?"

    "I think so. At least she's never shown any sign of being anything other than completely normal." Then again, until yesterday neither had I.
    "How old is she?"
    "A little younger than me, why?"
    "No, silly. How old is your daughter?"

    "Fourteen." There was no point in being coy about it now. Besides, she appeared fascinated, as if I had just done something truly magical.

    "Fourteen. Nearly of an age, then. Has she shown any sign of being gifted?"

    "She's quite good at maths and science and she has a good eye for art."

    "No. I meant signs of being Fey. Any strangeness about her, shifts in appearance, odd affinities? "
    "I don't think so, not that her mother has mentioned."

    "You'll know if it happens. For her sake I hope she takes after her mother, no offence meant. I hope she has a normal life and has a bevy of beautiful babies. I hope her children grow up while she grows old and she turns into a wrinkled grandma with grandchildren to care for and great-grandchildren to come."

    It sounded like a mixed blessing, but Megan clearly thought she was wishing the best for my daughter. Her words also brought to mind the conversation I'd had with Kareesh the day before, when we'd been bargaining. She'd offered to tell me whether I would be a grandfather and I had thought that what she was offering to me was the chance to know whether my daughter would survive to become a mother. Perhaps, though, it had been more than that. Perhaps the trade I had refused was to discover whether my daughter could become a mother. Either way, I had chosen to receive the vision instead.

    "Look," I said. "I'd better go. If you see Blackbird, could you tell her I was looking for her?"

    Megan stood up and tucked her cigarette tin into her bag. "Stick around and she'll find you," she said.
    "What makes you say that?"
    "Trust me. I know."

    She wouldn't be drawn any further on the subject, so I bade her farewell and went back to the bakery to buy breakfast. The savoury pasty came hot in a paper bag and I was suddenly famished. It was all I could do to wait until it had cooled enough not to burn my tongue. Running around in the small hours of the morning had left me starving.

    I walked through the arcade eating my pasty and then dropped the paper bag into a bin before walking out onto the cobbled road up to the Underground Station to see if I could leave a message for Blackbird with Kareesh.

    As I crossed the junction with Floral Street I was shoved sideways.

    "Betcha thought you wouldn't see me again too soon, didn't ya?"

    I stumbled across the uneven cobbles and turned to face my assailant. The long black coat and overuse of eyeliner gave it away. It was Fenlock.

    I backed slowly away from the tall black-garbed figure down the side-road, holding my hands up in a placatory gesture.

    "Hello, Fenlock. Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. It was a misunderstanding."

    "Misunderstanding is it?" he jeered, pushing me again with a suddenness that took me off guard. I stumbled backwards on the uneven footing.

    "Sent me on a merry chase, didn't ya? I bet you and her were havin' a laugh at our expense, weren't ya? "
    "That was Blackbird." I scanned the road behind him. There were people walking past, but none of them noticed my predicament. I glanced backwards to see if anyone was there but at this time of day these side roads were deserted. An empty white van was parked a little way off and that was all the cover there was. "Well, she's not here to protect ya now, is she, bumpkin?" He loomed forward, appearing to grow in size as he approached. I backed away. He leapt towards me and grabbed me by the throat, practically lifting me from my feet. I grabbed at the hand clamped around my throat, gargling as he squeezed at my windpipe. I battered at his arm, making wild swings for his face and kicking at his ankles. He was oblivious to my thrashing and steered me sideways into an alley.

    He thrust me backwards down the alley and I staggered down the passage away from him. A glance behind told me this was a dead end. He was going to murder me.

    I pulled my wallet from my pocket. "Look, you can have this. It's all I have." I held it out, warily. He swatted it aside, and it ricocheted off the wall and bounced onto the ground.

    "Too late for that," he announced. "Ya should have thought of that before, shouldn't ya?" He stepped over the wallet as I backed down the alley. "I don't have anything else!" I protested.

    He launched forward and scooped me up by the neck, swinging me around until I thumped into the wall. I swung a punch at his face and it connected with his nose, but he just laughed it off, his hand squeezing my windpipe.

    With my screams strangling in my throat, I tore at his hand with my fingernails, gouging into his skin. His muscles felt like steel hawsers.

    I felt my toes leave the pavement as I dangled from his hand. He scraped me upwards against the brickwork, then carelessly lifted me back off the wall and slammed me back against it, jangling my wits. I tried to kick him, thrashing wildly in his grip. He barely noticed.

    "Shall we shake ya and see what falls out?" he chuckled and slammed me against the wall again. Spots were appearing before my eyes. If he didn't let go of my throat soon, I would pass out. In a flash of inspiration I grabbed his hand with both of mine and wrenched at the core of power within me.
Forget me!

    The jolt went down my arms but the command rolled off him like water off the back of a spoon.

    "Feisty, eh? I like 'em feisty!" He lifted me back off the wall, shook me like a rag doll and slammed me back, leaving me disoriented and parched for air. He was going to kill me.

    I was starting to black out. Lights played around the edge of my vision. Spots mingled in and the alley went dim. The light was fading around me. I clawed at his grip, drawing blood but not breaking his grip. "Huh?" His voice came to me as an echo, far away. The moment of distraction was what I needed. I reached deep inside, forging a connection with the darkness, desperate to do something, anything.

    In response I felt a deepening, an opening to a cold empty core in my being. Hungry darkness emptied into me.

    His scream echoed in my ears, piercing and anguished. Its harshness needling into my brain. Fenlock tried to wrench his hand away but my fingers were still clawed around his wrist, nails embedded in the flesh. As he staggered back, I scraped down the wall, my feet thumping against the ground, jarring me.

    I opened my eyes to find everything dappled with moonlit shade.
    My glow filled the alley.

    Fenlock was trying to back away from me, his arm still clamped in my grip. Something had changed. Something had shifted. He was looking at his arm with astonishment, as if a harmless insect had stung him. No, more than that – wounded him. My hands were black against the pale of his skin and his veins stood out dark on his arms.

    "You fu–" His eyes lifted to my face and he froze.

    He registered shock and then something else I didn't recognise; a kind of fascinated horror. I felt a hot wire of energy coursing down his arm into mine, lighting up senses I hadn't known existed. It sparked an unrecognised hunger that sang to me. The darkness flooded into me like a tidal rush and I yielded to it.

    Fenlock shrieked again, this time in abject terror. He thrashed, trying to free his arm, flailing wildly and screaming like a banshee. My fingers dug into the flesh, the grip tightening in reflex, sinking into the skin as the heat flowed down his arm into mine. He pushed at my face with his free hand but then snatched his hand back as if it had been burned. He yanked at his arm but the strength had gone out of him. Though he jerked wildly against my grip, the tide was inexorable. The blackness spread into his bloodstream following the arteries to his heart. His flesh hollowed, his muscles and sinews standing out on his frame like a starved man. His voice broke into a cracked wail, his skin went sallow and his cheeks sank into his face in front of me. Repelled by the horror of his affliction, I tried to release him, but my fingers were cramped into spasm around his wrist. With a will of their own they bit into his flesh, refusing to release him.

    In the last moments, he slumped against me, his papery cheek pressed unwillingly next to mine, my own frame the only thing holding him erect. His form dissolved in my hands, his flesh desiccating to ash, his clothes collapsing into a pile of powdery rags and collapsing to the floor. I stood there, little understanding what had happened, staring at the dust falling through my fingers and trying to comprehend what I had just done.

Nine

    I expected to be breathless, battered and bruised. Fenlock had beaten me, thrown me against the wall and half-choked the life from me. He'd been going to kill me, but now there was nothing, just dust and rags. My glow faded and daylight returned to the alley.

    My hands were still covered in grey ash. I felt fine. I felt better than fine. I felt invigorated, full of life and ready to take on the world. It was unreal. Staring down at the heap that had been Fenlock, I denied to myself that I had killed him. It must have been his fault. He brought it on himself. He must have caused it. I looked around for some other reason, some clue as to what had happened there.

    As I glanced up towards the opening at the end of the alley, there was a silhouette. It was Blackbird. "Blackbird, it's me!" I raised a hand to attract her attention, but the silhouette moved away. I trotted towards the opening and then remembered my wallet. I skidded to a halt and went back for it, snatching it from the ground, stuffing it into my pocket and trotting back out of the alley. I glanced back at the heap of dusty clothes. The light breeze that flicked though the alley stirred the ash from the clothes into a dust devil, scattering the remains. I turned away.

    When I reached the side-street, she wasn't there. I looked up and down and then spotted her on the crossroads where the road met the side-street. She turned towards the tube station.

    I ran down the street to the junction. "Blackbird! Wait!"

    I reached the crossroads and stumbled into a pair of Japanese tourists who politely shrugged me off with repeated apologies. Muttering excuses, I barged past them and ran headlong after Blackbird. I caught a glimpse of her coat, turning into the station entrance and I thought I knew where she was going.

    I ran up to the tube station, panting and out of breath. I was so flustered that I slammed into the barrier and then had to search for my wallet under the watchful eye of an Underground attendant. My card registered with the barrier and I went through, smiling apologetically. A lift was ready to descend and I rushed forward to press myself between the closing doors before they shut. The few other passengers in the lift gave me cold looks as I shoved my way into the car, the door juddering closed behind me. The car jolted, and I got my breath back as it descended.

    At the bottom I had to wait until the other passengers filed away. I used the method I had used in the alley to make everyone ignore me and headed for the doorway between the corridors where we had gained access to Gramawl's domain. The door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open to find the passage and stairway in darkness, the light from the corridor illuminating only the top of the stair. There was no sign of a light switch, nor could I remember seeing one anywhere in the Underground. The lights were probably operated from a control room somewhere. Still, I had my own light. The door thudded closed behind me. Standing in the darkness I let the wish to be ignored drop away and concentrated on summoning my glow, feeling the temperature in the enclosed stairway drop suddenly as light spilled out onto the stairs. It was getting easier to do this. Was that practice, or was it getting stronger?

    I stepped down the stairs slowly and cautiously, wondering why Blackbird hadn't waited for me. Hadn't she heard me? Then another thought occurred to me. Perhaps it wasn't really her, but merely the semblance of her meant to draw me here? If it wasn't Blackbird, was it Carris? Had she seen what happened in the alley? Could she make herself look like Blackbird to lure me down here and take her revenge?