Sixty-One Nails: Courts of the Feyre (48 page)

    "For what reason?" Blackbird asked her. "Because they were scared? Because one particular corridor was triggering an irrational fear of the dark? Security guards are supposed to be immune from that sort of thing. I can't see anyone admitting they wouldn't check certain offices just because it was making the hairs on the back of their neck stand on end."

    "Still, they ought to have done something."

    "It's probably just as well they didn't. Can you imagine what would have happened if someone had disturbed the people that did this? At least all you have to do is clear up from the vandalism. There aren't any corpses."

    "You have a point. I'd better let security know, though. They'll need to notify the police."

    "Before you call in the police, we need the nail. If it's still here?"

    "It should be in the safe at the back there." She began edging around the broken desk to get to the cupboard at the back of the office.
    "Stop."

    The words were out of my mouth before I was even conscious of the prickling sensation down my spine. Claire paused. "Is something wrong?"

    "Don't you feel it?" I glanced at Blackbird who raised her eyebrows.
    "I don't feel anything. What is it?"
    "There's something here."

    "Are you sure it's not just the remnants of the fear warding? It can take a while to dissipate?"

    "No. It got stronger as Claire went towards the cupboard with the safe in it. It's not the same. Claire, can you retrace your steps back to us?"

    "I think so. I can't see anything odd, though. It all looks fine."

    "Just do as I say. Call it intuition," I told her.

    She negotiated her way back to us and then looked faintly bemused when nothing happened. "It looked fine to me," she repeated.

    I followed the route she'd taken, taking each step slowly and carefully, looking for the telltale prickling that had alerted me. Something in the room was causing the sensation and I was trying to trace the source. As I came to the desk and began to edge around the bent leg, the unpleasant tingling returned, but as Claire had said, there was no sign of any barrier.

    I was about to place my hand on the leg of the upturned desk so I could slip past it when a jolt in my hand stopped me.

    My hand was almost touching the metal, and where I had been about to grasp there was a tiny movement. A small cluster of tiny lightless spots were migrating across the surface to where my hand would be. The movement was slow and it was only the prickling sensation that alerted me to it. I snatched my hand away and the spots immediately halted. Then they spread out, slowly edging away from each other, until they formed a perfect ring across the corner of the metal surface. The last time I had seen spots like that, they were in my flat. They had run across the walls and ceiling and then eaten through the wood of my bedroom door until it was rotted through. It was darkspore.

Twenty-Five

    The vandalised office was not as randomly wrecked as I had thought.

    Reaching sideways I lifted a torn leaf of paper from a ripped volume left on the top of a filing cabinet and held it between finger and thumb. I edged it forward until it just touched the edge of the black circle on the leg of the upturned desk. As soon as it touched the surface, the black spread onto the paper, running along it like a flame. Immediately I let go and it fell towards the floor, covered by the infecting mould.

    I edged back from the desk to where Blackbird and Claire were waiting.

    "It's darkspore. She's left spots of it in the office. I thought the vandalism was random. I thought they had taken out their frustrations on the office and left the room in this state as a warning, a kind of symbol as to what was to come. I was wrong. It's a trap. She was expecting us to come here and she left it so anyone who touched the furniture would be infected with darkspore. "
    "What's darkspore?" asked Claire.

    "Never mind," I told her. "Just don't get any of it on you."

    "It's more than a trap," said Blackbird. "The darkspore isn't her creature. It's her. It has her sense, her feeling. It can't see or hear but what it knows, she knows. If it had got onto one of us then she would know it, wherever she is."

    "It could be everywhere," I told her. "It could be on any surface anywhere in this room; outside even. "
    "No. Like all Fey gifts it has its limits. The more of herself she left here, the more she is weakened. In time it will die without her. She spreads herself thinly to do this and it's a sign of desperation. It will only be in the places she thinks are important, the places she doesn't want us to reach."

    "The safe containing the nail is behind there," confirmed Claire, "inside the cupboard on the floor. "
    "Could she have taken the nail already?" I asked.

    "It's a very old safe; they keep offering to replace it with a new one, but it only contains a few documents, some petty cash and the items for the ceremony. The locking mechanism is partly iron, though. We keep it as a guard against, well, against your kind. "
    "So the nail should still be there."

    "That makes sense," said Blackbird. "If she couldn't reach it then she would make sure we couldn't either. Hence the darkspore. We can't let her win, Niall. "
    "I know. How do I get into the safe? Is it a combination?"

    "You'll need this key," said Claire holding out a long, double-sided brass key, the complex pattern of teeth attesting to the security of the safe.

    I took it from her and considered my options. I could drag the desk aside and pick my way through the detritus scattered on the floor, but it would be like walking through a minefield. The thought of making the slightest contact with the darkspore made my insides turn cold. The noises from my garden were still haunting me.

    "You said it's still part of her?" I asked Blackbird.

    "Yes. She'll know if it touches you. If even the tiniest speck–"
    "Good. Take Claire out into the corridor."
    "Why, what are you planning?"

    "Why do I have to go outside?" said Claire.

    "Just do what I ask. I don't know how much I can control it."

    "Niall, the last time you tried something like this we nearly ended up in next week."

    "This is different. We're going to fight fire with fire. "
    "You can't do that here. It's not exactly subtle. People are going to notice." She glanced at Claire, none too subtly. "What will I notice?" said Claire.

    "Do you have another idea?" I asked Blackbird.

    "Maybe I could use the knife, burn it out," she said. "And burn the building down with it? With all these books and paper? The fire would almost certainly spread and if you miss a speck, just a tiny mote, then it's all for nothing. At least my way we get all of it in one go. "
    "It's her, Niall. She's going to feel it as if she were here. And you can't reach all of her, only the parts she left behind. She'll know you were here and she will hate you with a vengeance."

    "You forget, I was in that glade with her. I stood there helpless, with my teeth chattering, while she helped herself. She thought she was being clever, leaving traces of herself, but now the tables are turned. So she'll know it was me? Good, I want her to."

    Claire interrupted us. "Will you two stop talking in riddles? What's going on?"

    "We need to be outside," Blackbird told her, guiding her by the shoulder out into the corridor.

    "What's he going to do?" She looked back, trying to figure out what was about to happen.

    "You have to trust us. I don't know what you've been told or what's in those journals of yours, but you have to trust us."

    "What's the matter? What's he doing in there?"

    Blackbird pulled the double doors closed behind her leaving me alone in the infected room. Even through the door I could hear Claire's persistent questions and Blackbird's reassurances. I let it fade into the background.

    When I fought Fenlock, I had used my talent unconsciously. Panic and instinct had brought it on and given me the break I needed, but then I had used it. It had sung its hungry song in my veins and I had listened and been seduced by it, consuming Fenlock utterly until only dust remained. I had felt sick afterwards, repulsed by what I had done and felt sure I would never use it like that again.

    Now, though, I had a different reason. Now I had a chance to strike back, to make my presence felt and show my hunters I had teeth.

    I closed my eyes and reached inward. The temperature dropped and all the little noises that accumulate unnoticed into the background died, leaving a potent hush. I opened my eyes and found the room swimming in moonlight. The dappled light rippled over the debris, making it insubstantial and bringing a faint sense of vertigo.

    A noise filtering through the door distracted me for a moment. It was Claire. She was insisting there was something wrong, that the lights were behaving like they did with the strange phone calls. I heard her telling Blackbird they had returned and that I would need her help.

    The door handle rattled behind me. I heard Blackbird's voice.

    "He's fine, Claire. Come away from the door. "
    "It's them, I tell you. They've returned. "
    "No. It's Niall. He's doing this."

    "Niall? How is Niall doing it?!" The rattling became more urgent. "We've got to stop him. He's one of them, isn't he? He's from the Seventh Court. He tricked us. He

    tricked me into giving him the key. Now he can get the nail. You have to stop him."
    "No, Claire. Let him be."

    The rattling intensified, but then halted suddenly, followed by a crumpled thump. Blackbird had dealt with the problem in her own way. I turned my attention back to the room.

    When Fenlock attacked me, I hadn't needed to call gallowfyre. My defence had been instinctive and once it had him I couldn't let go. This was different. The room was filled with dappled light but the gallowfyre wasn't active. It was merely there, an outward expression of my connection to the void. There was no enemy trying to throttle me or shake my teeth loose. Somehow I had to bend it to my will and make it do my bidding. I pictured it in my head, rolling through the room, consuming everything. It swam uncertainly. Stretching out my hand, I expected it to stream forth. It remained the same.

    I concentrated on making it flood out, like a river or a stream. Nothing happened.

    My hands fell back to my sides. So much for my ability to handle this. I had claimed I knew what to do, convinced that my instincts would come to my aid. Blackbird had said I had to convince myself it was true, that I had to know and trust my instincts. Well I did know, but it wasn't enough. It needed something else. I was almost on the point of turning back to the door behind me and asking Blackbird for some helpful hints when it came to me.

    Trying to wield gallowfyre like a sword or a club wasn't working. I been thinking of it as a weapon with which I could strike out. I was wrong. It wasn't a weapon. It was part of me.

    Closing my eyes, I felt the cool dim light as it swam around me. I told myself it responded to me because it was me. I looked inwards, following the dappled light to its source deep inside, feeling it become stronger,

    harsher, burning like a molten core within me. In the centre of that core was nothing.
    I had found the opening.

    In my mind's eye it was both absence and presence, a duality at the centre of my being. It was a hole within me left gaping to the void, opening out into endless nothing and allowing endless nothing back in. I smiled inwardly, understanding it was a mirror and a gateway. I carried it with me. It would allow me to reach into the void anytime I wanted to. At the same time, it allowed the void to reach into me. Now I understood. I opened the gateway.

    It rolled into me like a seething flood. I heard my own sharp breath and felt my spine arch as it hit me, flooding down my nerves with icy power. My muscles went rigid, my eyes shot open. My nerves shrieked as the floodgates opened and it boiled out of me, a swirling nimbus of ravenous shadows. The flickering moonlight showed the shadows of tentacles, unseen except for the darkness they cast in the light of the gallowfyre, they licked the walls and swept across the surfaces. The tiny motes left hiding there were consumed almost incidentally as the flood of dark power swept through the debris, the darkspore sparking tiny flares in the roiling darkness as it was consumed. In those flares, I heard the echoes of distant screams as they boiled away. It made me smile.

    The void sang though me, its dark harmonies humming through my veins, the heavy bass of hunger rumbling around like echoes of thunder. It rolled like a restless flood around the room, searching for anything to fill that gaping emptiness. I held my breath. For one terrible second I thought it would turn back on me so I would end up like Fenlock, a withered husk. It calmed, though, pooling around me, sending curious tendrils into the debris, searching for morsels like a curious medusa.

    "Niall! Niall, can you hear me? You might want to do something."

    I turned to the door behind me. It had found the crack under the door and was coiling into the crevice. Panic filled me and, in response, it wriggled back and wound around me, curling around my legs protectively. I found myself unwilling to pull it back within me. It was connected with me in a way that was profound. I knew I should send it back to the dark well within me but part of me wanted to unleash it and let it feed itself. For the first time, I understood. This was what the Untainted wanted; to unleash their power on the world and let it sing its hungry song. This was what they were fighting for; the right to be true to themselves. The thought sobered me and I steeled myself, turning the coils inwards, calling the darkness to slip back into the well where it sank back into the core. My gaze turned inwards for a moment, marvelling at the thing within me. It was tiny yet filled with endless emptiness, a minute black sun shining inside me.

    Blackbird had said in the room above the abandoned tube station, "We stand between life and power," not as a statement of belief but as an acknowledgement of fact. Here it was. This core of power was in me now, as much part of me as my heart or my mind. It would be there for as long as I lived and finally, when I died, it would turn on me and consume me. Strangely, there was peace in that.