Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 (43 page)

And why had none of the other Weyrd noticed? Ursa didn’t leave the Archives, I knew that from Ziggy. She wasn’t a social creature,
had no assistants, and mostly communicated by memo
. . . so
her lifestyle meant it was an easy thing for Vadim Nadasy to take over. All he’d have to do was avoid contact
. . .

Ah, but me. He couldn’t resist seeing his opponent, could he?

‘What have you done with Sigrid?’ he asked in clipped tones. I didn’t answer, mostly because I didn’t want to say
I bashed her head in
.

‘I know you,’ I said softly, trying to dredge up a memory. It was something to do with Lizzie . . . the football match . .
. the old man who’d been watching the game on the day of the brawl. ‘At the sports ground—’

‘Dig deeper than that,’ he said, a distinct sneer in his voice. And I could feel there was something else, something profoundly
buried, something that still refused to come to the surface. I shook my head and he repeated, ‘What have you done with Sigrid?’

‘Sigrid is . . . indisposed,’ I said and saw understanding flooding his face, followed quickly by rage.

‘David, are you okay?’ I called before the Q&A went any further.

‘All things considered . . . I’m really pleased to see you. And I mean
see
in the broadest sense of the word.’ Though his reply was pure smartarse I detected a relief matching my own.

‘Likewise.’

‘Is the girl okay? I heard them bring her in; they’ve been hurting her. She . . . she’s been quiet for a while.’

‘Why did you take her?’ I asked the old man. ‘Why couldn’t you just leave her be?’

‘Little Sally Crown,’ cooed Vadim Nadasy. ‘Sigrid caught her for me. Silly little Sally should have known better than to betray
my poor Magda – she should have known better than to help
you
.’

‘I was given to understand that you and Magda had had a falling-out.’

‘Water under the bridge,’ he said dismissively. ‘We . . .
reconnected
. We talked about the good old days, about how all our rights and privileges had been given away by those mealy-mouthed Councillors—’

‘And that’s when she started her business again?’ I guessed. ‘But not meat this time.’

‘Hasn’t been a decent butcher since your idiot father got himself caught.’

‘And you brought your grandson on board?’

He made an impatient noise and I noticed how the boy cringed. Donovan Baker hadn’t moved when I’d come into the light; he’d
just cowered on the edge of the bed. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, but everywhere something adhered to him, some skerrick of
paper or chewed gum or twigs or dirt. And now I could see that his feet and hands weren’t quite right: it wasn’t just that
they were covered in garbage, but that they were partially
made
of rubbish and filth. Halfway up his neck was a greying carapace of cigarette packets, the discoloured Winnie Blue logo still
visible on some of them. Around
his right wrist was the remains of a silver bag from a wine box. I could smell him too, his odour a mix of rot and old booze,
sweat and piss and contamination, overpowering his grandfather’s discarded shell.

‘The boy offered himself,’ Nadasy sneered. There was no pride in his voice, only disdain for the fact that Donovan had allowed
himself to be so used. I felt for the boy, that his very human desire for affection had led him to this. ‘My
grandson
. Nothing of the Weyrd about him but that little pulse, the miniscule thread of blood his mother left him, the faintest hint
of what he could have been. Not like you.’ His face stiffened, and it was by that expression of well-bred distaste that I
finally knew him.

‘You came to my grandparents’ home after Grigor’s arrest,’ I said.

He grinned, and it was an ugly thing. ‘I offered that grandmother of yours more money than she could have spent in a lifetime.
I promised her you’d have the best of everything. She wasn’t interested.’

‘No,’ I said, proudly. ‘She would have seen right through you.’

I hadn’t understood then why Not-Ursa had been questioning me about my childhood. He’d wanted to see if I remembered him.
Keeping the mage in my sights, I bent to pick up the walking stick, then gave it a twirl. In my hands it was little more than
a club, but if Nadasy got hold of it, this thing that stored his power and magnified it, we’d all be in trouble.

‘Stop that!’ he yelled, and it took me a moment to realise he was talking to his grandson. Donovan had been picking at his
dressings. It looked like the injuries I’d inflicted on him in the tunnel had got worse. Nadasy returned his regard to me,
his face creased with contempt. ‘Thus I am served with such materials. Even
you
were better – even a shifting peasant’s child had some puissance.’

‘You’re really not the cuddly type of granddad are you?’ I sighed.
Despite everything the golem had done, I pitied him. ‘Donovan, how are you doing?’

‘I . . . I don’t feel so good. I just wanted to be special. I’ve been so ordinary all my life. I thought . . . I thought if
I were different . . .’ His voice trailed off.

‘You thought someone might care about you,’ I finished, then addressed the old man. ‘You told him he could change.’

‘He didn’t take much convincing.’

The boy started to sob, and his grandfather’s expression hardened.

‘Donovan?’ I said, and he lifted his head. ‘Did you kill your father?’

Vadim Nadasy exploded, ‘
You killed him?
We
need
him to find Dusana!’

‘It wasn’t me!’ screamed the boy, retreating against the wall. ‘It wasn’t me! It was Aunty Sigrid!’

‘
Aunty Sigrid?
But your father was an only child,’ I said, confused.

Nadasy looked past me, discomforted, as Donovan blurted, ‘She was
his
daughter – Granddad’s. She was Mum’s half-sister – but she was useless, like me. Part Normal.’

‘Oh my, Mr Nadasy! What a nice view you must have in that glass house.’ The room threatened to spin again and I leaned on
the walking stick-cum-wand and tightened my injured fist to make myself focus. Still Nadasy remained silent. ‘Poor old Sigrid.
Not favoured, but useful: a whipped dog hoping for approval – hoping to be loved. Did you make her work for Baker in case
he let anything slip about your golden child? Did you think she’d tell you?’ I laughed. ‘You should have thought about it
from Sigrid’s point of view: if Baker was gone, so were your chances of getting Dusana back, and if Dusana was gone for good,
then maybe there might at last be some love for Sigrid.’

‘That’s preposterous,’ he snapped, but I could see his colour leeching away.

‘Hope is corrosive.’ How right the Councillor been. I was willing
to bet that once Nadasy had returned to Brisbane and set his plans in motion, Sigrid, who’d spent so many years toiling on
his behalf, had realised Dusana was finally within Daddy’s grasp. That must have tipped her hand: she’d killed Anders Baker,
determined that the knowledge of her half-sister’s whereabouts should disappear forever. But I knew where she was . . . not
that I had any intention of sharing that. ‘Donovan? How about you untie David for me? Then we can all walk out of here. We’ll
get you some help.’

‘The boy won’t obey you!’ shouted Nadasy.

Donovan didn’t move, but his glassy stare started swinging between us.

‘Your weakness, Mr Nadasy, is that you can’t see anyone else’s angle. Everyone else is just a pawn to you. You’re as bad as
the angels.’

‘Ah, my feathered friends—’

‘You know about them?’ Now I really was surprised. I’d never dreamed the two cases might be connected.

‘Stupid girl! Who do you think told them about the prophecy?’ He laughed, delighted to be able to demonstrate his superiority.
‘Not directly, of course; they don’t like my kind any better than I like yours. But whispers and rumours travel fast, and
in time they always find the right ears. You killed my ’serker, so I had to find something else to eradicate the Council,
just in case Donovan proved to be less than efficient.’

‘Why get rid of them?’ I asked. ‘Because they wouldn’t help you against Baker all those years ago?’

‘Ancient history . . . but in some small spiteful way, yes.’ He threw his shoulders back. ‘Once upon a time I was very reasonable
about the Normals—’

‘
Reasonable
enough to get one up the duff,’ I interrupted, but he ignored me.

‘Back then I had faith in the Council. I believed we could live in harmony beside the primates. But then they grew too big
for their boots and we could no longer move about freely, or live as we wished. We were forced to cover what we truly were
with glamours, to make ourselves
ordinary
. I might have still remained tolerant, had one not dared marry
my
daughter, and when he took her away, I saw I’d been wrong to be so benevolent. We’d lost everything, discarded our great
inheritance, out of misguided
compassion
.’

‘Did you feel that way when you fathered Sigrid?’

He continued to ignore me. ‘And Anders Baker, so smug when he told me what he’d done, so self-satisfied when he taunted me
. . . oh, I wanted to take him apart slowly, but I couldn’t risk losing my Dusana forever.’

‘You left, though . . .’ I prompted, hoping he’d get lost in his tale. Every extra minute was a minute closer to Bela finding
us . . . if only Ziggi could get hold of him. I looked at Donovan, hoping he’d lean across and untie at least one of David’s
bonds, but the boy was too sunk in his own misery to move. Over by the furnace I thought I saw Sally’s foot twitch – but it
was so brief, so fast. It could have been my imagination because I so badly wanted her to be alive.

Nadasy obliged, saying, ‘I travelled. I made myself humble, apprenticed myself to whoever would teach me their secrets, their
deepest, darkest magics. I sought all possible means to take someone else’s sorcery apart so I would know how to tear the
veils they’d wrapped around my daughter.’ He shook his head. ‘So many years . . .’

I took a couple of steps towards David, but Nadasy raised a finger and waggled
uh-uh
at me.

‘But you came home. You must have found what you needed . . .’

‘In part,’ he admitted. ‘I knew how to break the spell that had
changed her form, but not where she was, or how she was concealed. And Sigrid failed to discover that.’ He drew himself up.
‘Still, we had other plans, Magda and I: we summoned the ’serker to remove the Council so that we could fill the breach .
. . and then you came along and ruined
everything
. A good battle plan must be fluid and we wanted to deal with you in a special way, so when this idiot grandson presented
himself . . .’

‘Why not just kill me outright?’

He looked genuinely surprised. ‘Where’s the suffering in that? Oh my dear, you underestimate how
very
annoying you’ve been. You’re constantly in the way, digging where you’re not wanted, always at the beck and call of Zvezdomir
Tepes, turning over stones and letting the light shine where it shouldn’t.’

And I recalled the Winemaker’s words: ‘You’ve made some trouble for us!’ At the time I thought she’d meant for her and Sally,
but now I realised Magda would never have elevated Sally to her level. Sally was no partner, merely an implement.

‘After you murdered my poor wife, I knew I couldn’t do it on my own, but I am nothing if not a
strategist
. I have always made it my aim to read every great grimoire there was to be found, every record of prophecy and doom I ever
came across. And I recalled that of the double-winged, of the river-city when, months and months ago, I caught whispers of
the angel and the siren keeping company and realised how that could be used to my advantage. I’d put the tale out so it might
be heard by the other angels, the
angry
ones . . . I let it tempt them here with a promise of breaking the sky. All of that was set in train long ago! Let the angels
run home and we’ll see how well the apes will do against the natural selection of the night.’ He glared at me. ‘You were still
getting in the way, but at least the boy’s activities kept you out of my hair. And soon the
angels will do their work, you’ll be dead and my Magda will be avenged and then—’

‘Yes, so . . . about the angels . . .’

His face went slack and then taut again, as if someone else was playing his muscles. I was going to enjoy this bit.

‘The double-winged is no longer the double-winged, so there’ll be no angel-induced apocalypse, no eternal night, no perpetual-darkness
theme park – and I’m afraid that means no Lordship of the Weyrd for you.’ To underscore my point, I raised the walking stick-wand
and snapped it over my knee, which was worth every ounce of the not-inconsiderable pain. The two pieces made a very satisfactory
clatter as they fell onto the polished concrete floor. From the hollow centre a mix of something wet and dry and red leaked.

Nadasy roared at his grandson, ‘Kill him first, so she can
watch
!’

But Donovan wasn’t paying attention. He was staring down at his hands of flesh and detritus, his dripping tears making
plink-plink
sounds on the paper and plastic. Nadasy charged towards him, utterly enraged, and I took the opportunity to bolt over to
David.