Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 (19 page)

I left Eurycleia with the bill.

I could only hope Raidne would be more accommodating – Hell, I could only hope Raidne would get in contact. I’d have tried
to find her myself, but without a surname to research, even Ziggi’s connections wouldn’t be able to do much.

The air was icy outside Eurycleia’s little bubble and the wind picked at me as if to get revenge for having cheated it for
a while. I needed to walk off the pancakes, clear my head and get things straight. Stone steps cut into the cliff led down
to a path beside the river. People wearing too few clothes and tied with too few ropes for my liking were already clambering
on the sheer rock walls. Groups of middle-aged men wearing Lycra, that most unforgiving of fabrics, rode past on expensive
bikes as less fit individuals puffed on the grass, throwing medicine balls at each other, doing sit-ups and skipping ropes,
while very fit instructors yelled at them in a manner meant to be motivational. I took the long way, meandering along the
mangrove walk, stopping from time to time to watch the river roll past.

Out in the middle of the current was the Boatman, his cloak, roughly the same colour as the water, flapping lazily in the
breeze. In the bow of the boat a huddled pair of souls clutched at each other. I couldn’t tell who they were – a married couple,
carried off together, or simply two strangers finding the only comfort available to them on this last journey?

The Boatman raised his head casually, found me and gave what
might from anyone else have passed as a jaunty wave. I raised my own hand politely, and watched the mist rise around the vessel
as it continued its journey out towards the sea. In a few seconds I couldn’t see him any more, nor even the movement of the
water where his oar dug in deeply to steer the course.

I returned to the road at the base of the cliffs and continued on downriver, until pinpricks started running across the nape
of my neck; I sensed I was being watched. Looking around, I discovered I was somewhere below the garden area of St Mary’s
Church. I started craning back and squinting, trying to find my watcher, but there was nothing to see but the rock face and
some determined climbing vines. I thought it was entirely possible my imagination was working overtime.

My head ached, a combination of insufficient sleep and excess frustration. Thoughts chased each other around and around while
I kept walking, not really paying attention to where I was going, conscious only of the river on one side and the cliffs turning
into houses and apartment blocks on the other. When I reached the outskirts of the park beneath the Story Bridge, the path
wound through a maze of trees and bushes. Far above, traffic rushed and clattered, the noise drifting down to mingle with
the busy sound of water flowing past. On my left was a railing, and below it, a small beach. I leaned my arms against the
metal piping, which was cold even through my coat sleeves, but it took me a moment to realise that on the sand below an almost
clothed young couple were rolling to and fro on a tartan picnic blanket, apparently oblivious to the winter breeze coming
off the water. I was about to retreat, meaning to give them privacy, but another movement caught my eye.

At the base of the bridge was a wall of stone and cement, and in its face was a dark hole; one of the old tunnels. Something
spun out
from the darkness, but it took me a few seconds to realise I was looking at the thing that had appeared on Ziggi’s dodgy phone
video, now much bigger. Maybe it had gathered stuff to itself from the drains and sewers. The courting pair were so caught
up in each other that they didn’t smell the dreadful foetid stench wafting up from the beach, or hear the awful
whirring
as it hurtled towards them. I opened my mouth to yell, then felt a cold hand press over my lips and an arm around my waist
pull me backwards.

As I struggled, the grasp didn’t relax, but someone hissed in my ear, ‘You can’t do anything for them. Be quiet or it will
come after
us
.’ Bela’s voice was so low I could barely make out the words, but I recognised the urgency in his tone, and something else:
fear. If Zvezdomir Tepes was afraid, the world should be crapping its pants.

We watched as the thing first bundled up the girl, then the guy; inside the maelstrom of its form I saw bodies pulled apart,
limbs flying, then finally absorbed into the whirling darkness. When it was done, the creature moved back to the open mouth
of the drain and disappeared within, leaving only a crumpled tartan blanket and a few crushed cigarette packets on a disturbed
patch of sand.

When Bela’s grip finally loosened I could feel the imprint of my teeth against the inside of my lips.

I swallowed before saying, ‘So, is there something you want to tell me?’

Brisbane’s City Hall is a beautiful old sandstone building, fully equipped with a clock tower, auditorium, marbled floors,
myriad offices, moulded ceilings and chandeliers, not to mention the Shingle Inn Café. Apparently said café was so beloved
of Brisbanites that when a fit of urban renewal necessitated its removal from the original location, the whole thing – from
dark wood panelling to padded booths, scarred tables, comfy armchairs and dainty doilies – were put into storage until they
could be reassembled in a new spot.

Now it looked as if nothing had changed: all terribly normal, and Normal – and a useful place to hang out if you were waiting
to be summoned . . .

If you stood in the City Hall’s aforementioned auditorium, right in the centre of the mosaic depicting the city’s leopard-between-two-gryphons
coat of arms, and whispered the right words, then the space around you would shiver and shift, opening a door in the air right
in front of you.

I didn’t quite have the pull to enter unaccompanied, hence Bela, my chaperone. Access to the seat of power was carefully regulated
and jealously guarded. Normals didn’t have the monopoly on bureaucratic mechanisms or paranoia, and sometimes the Weyrd could
be positively Byzantine.

‘Remember: the Archivist seldom receives guests. The only reason
you’re here is because of my intervention.’ Which was Bela’s roundabout way of telling me to behave myself. ‘Don’t speak until
spoken to,’ he continued, and I had to stop myself checking to see if he was ticking off the points on his fingers. ‘Don’t
touch the books. Don’t ask her about anything other than the sirens, because that’s the only subject she’s agreed to talk
about. Understand?’

‘Don’t put my hands or arms outside the moving vehicle? Yes, Zvezdomir, I understand,’ I said, and as he winced I felt a twinge
of guilt. After all, he’d just kept me from getting eaten by whatever it was we’d seen by the river, so I thought I should
probably be a bit more amenable. I could do that. I smoothed the front of my dress to make sure I was tidy, then touched his
arm and said, ‘Just messing with you. I get it. I promise I’ll follow the rules.’

The Normal section of City Hall was perfectly well lit, unlike the Weyrd area into which we stepped: that was distinctly dim.
Suits of armour lined the round foyer, surrounding the central glyph in the floor, a mosaic made of precious and semi-precious
stones forming two gryphons but without the leopard, just to distinguish it from the Normal coat-of-arms. The polished metal
reception desk, looking rather out of place, was manned by two Weyrd guys who probably wouldn’t get far down the street without
causing a riot: one was hirsute and distinctly fangy; the other was so thin and wispy he could probably slip under a door
unimpeded.

‘Weapons?’ the hairy one asked.

I shook my head, wondering if anyone ever said ‘Yes’ and handed over their knives, blackjacks, hawthorn stakes, crucifixes,
swords, holy water, et cetera. The skinny one looked as though he might try a pat-down. Bela had warned me that could happen,
and we both knew it wouldn’t end well – I objected to being treated like a potential
criminal. The guy was probably very fast, but I was strong; I only needed to get hold of one of his digits and pop it out
of its socket—

My escort held up his hand and said, ‘That won’t be necessary.’

Phew.

I thought it spoke volumes about the state of Weyrd politics these days that this level of security was deemed necessary,
that not even Bela could walk right in. Seats on the Council of Five were inherited and members, though long-lived, seldom
had ‘old age’ listed as a cause of death. Memories were enduring things, and feuds between Weyrd families never simply died
out, not unless the families died with them. The Weyrd hadn’t ever really taken to any sort of democratic system of protest,
preferring older, more permanent methods of change: assassination was considered a perfectly valid form of social revolution,
not to mention an effective way of silencing dissent. And not everyone was happy with the way the tribe had to live now.

Mr Wispy led us along a corridor and stopped so abruptly in front of a steel-banded door that I almost ran into him. When
he finally got all the various locks undone he gestured for us to go in.
How does the Archivist get out at night?
I wondered. Did she knock three times and wait to be released? Or did she just never leave? Maybe she had a secret tunnel
somewhere. A memory rattled in the back of my mind: Ziggi mentioning that the old woman lived in, with a room somewhere in
the bowels of the earth. A set of surprisingly well-lit steps led downwards, and I noticed a set of dimmer switches on the
walls. The gentle flicker of flames might be the preferred illumination for mostly nocturnal creatures, conjuring reminders
of the good old days, a time when people were rightly afraid of the dark, but fire and paper weren’t such a good mix, so for
the Archivist at least, practicality apparently overcame nostalgia.

We stepped into an enormous room with rows and rows of steel
shelving stretching before us. It was cold – climate-controlled, I’d bet – and remarkably hi-tech. I could hear a server whirring
contentedly somewhere nearby; there were a few whispers from the books shelved along the walls too. As we approached the far
end I could make out a line of desktop computers taking up one corner, and a couple of microfiche readers not dissimilar to
those at the State Library in the other. In between sat a large wooden desk blackened with age, like a kind of oversized mediaeval
lectern with a tilted tabletop. It was the oldest thing in the room.

Well, the second oldest.

She was tiny, wizened; sitting on a high stool of chrome and plastic so she could reach her work surface, which held an illuminated
manuscript. She glared over her hunched shoulder as if our echoing footsteps had disturbed her, then closed the book, pushed
away from the desk and stretched as if she might reach the ceiling, her bones giving cracking protest. As she swung about
to face us I noticed her ears were tiny vestigial flaps of skin. Her eyes were a deep pinkish red, her nose small but kind
of squashed, and showing a little more nostril than I was used to. The battered leather orthopaedic boots she wore had once
been burgundy, though her khaki overalls were pristine. A skullcap sat on her thick white curls. A cane was propped against
the wall. She wore no jewellery of any sort; nothing so frivolous. She’d not bothered with a glamour as far as I could tell,
she was unalloyed, without vanity, proud of what she was . . . then I thought again: if the Archivist didn’t go out, she didn’t
really have a need to hide anything, so perhaps it was less bravery and more lazy arrogance. She gazed at me as if she had
some serious reservations about my presence. In spite of myself, I felt a chill run up my spine.

‘Honourable Ursa.’ Bela intoned the name as one might a prayer. ‘This is Verity Fassbinder.’

‘Zvezdomir Tepes. And Grigor’s daughter,’ she said, narrowing her eyes, considering me. Her accent was not especially thick,
not easily definable, but it certainly said ‘Old Country’, wherever that might have been for her. ‘What do you want?’

If that was a warm welcome, I was likely to get frostbite.

‘Err,’ I began, my promise to behave warring with my natural urge – sadly, never far below the surface – to tell someone who
was rude to me to fuck right off.

‘You are here to waste my time?’ she sneered, crossing her arms.

The legacy of being Grigor’s child is this: many Weyrd, the elders especially, those who were around at the time, remember
my father. They remember what he did and, most importantly, they remember that he
got caught
. They remember how their lives changed because of that. And in remembering that, they apparently cannot forget to number
my breeding amongst my sins, most especially the fact that I’m neither purely one thing nor the other.

The Archivist was obviously one of
those
Weyrd. I bowed my head so she couldn’t see the anger sparking in my eyes and said humbly, ‘I’ve come seeking your aid, Honourable
Ursa. I beg your indulgence if I appear nervous: the depth and breadth of your wisdom is spoken of with great awe and respect.
You will forgive someone who feels daunted at the prospect of speaking to you.’