“Excuse me,” Holly said, “you were just saying we have nowhere to go.”
“Broadplain’s worse than nowhere,” Darren countered. “Their sort fester around there. They came to our house, Holly, blew a hole in our street –”
“Chew a sock, shit-tower,” Letty said. “That blast must’ve jogged the bit of your memory where I was helping you.”
“Trouble is,” Darren growled, “your help comes with other Fae attached.”
The fact that Letty didn’t deny it outright said Darren’s fears weren’t unjustified. She even looked upwards, seemingly to confirm it. They followed her gaze to another small shape floating a short way off. A white dot in the sky.
“The Ministry aren’t gonna stop coming for you,” Letty said, more calmly. “My people can hide you.”
“I’ve had it in the ear from every direction how dangerous this Ministry is,” Holly said, eyes on Darren. “Considering what I’ve seen of your efforts so far, Diz, I’m inclined to go with the fairy.”
“Pax will be there?” Grace chimed in.
Darren went quiet and merely looked to Rimes. She was staring at the Fae, fascinated, making it no mystery where her interests lay.
“That’s sorted then,” Letty said. “Next on the agenda, I’ve got a name and it’s not fucking fairy.”
28
Pax’s fear and confusion abated with the distraction of Casaria, sitting close behind her, shifting from his numb trance into more conscious stiffness. As they shakily swerved through Ordshaw, she felt Casaria leaning self-consciously away from her, his touch easing off from her waist. The liquid had worked, and he was regaining his senses, but it reminded Pax who she was dealing with. Hitting the ring road, she drove faster than was safe for the bike, nuts and bolts rattling, to end this closeness.
Pax parked a short distance from the shopping centre, leaving the remains of the glo in the bike’s seat, with Casaria on it, rather than stop and talk to him. He called out, “What are we doing here?”
He’d got his voice back.
Pax stopped across the road from the first gloomy walls of Broadplain Plaza. The shutters were down on the ground-level shopfronts and windows, the doors chained and padlocked. No sign of the Fae welcoming her in. She searched the gutters for scrap metal to use as lock picks.
“You fed me those vagrants’ hooch,” Casaria scolded, catching up.
“I’m trying to focus,” Pax told him. He watched silently, his energy not totally returned, until she found the little shards of metal she was looking for – one the bent arm of a brooch, the other some hair clip remnant. Bless Broadplain for its unclean streets.
As Pax settled into picking a lock, Casaria decided to speak again. “Never do that to me again. You know that stuff rots minds?”
That was good, at least; whatever he’d seen, Casaria was likely to dismiss it as an illusion. Never mind that the glo had clearly worked unnatural wonders, relieving his pain and leaving him walking and talking like he hadn’t just been stabbed.
“You were laid out dying twenty minutes ago,” Pax said.
“Twenty minutes ago,” he echoed, as though that was explanation enough. Suggesting he’d rested it off, riding on the back of a scooter? Pax gave him an incredulous look; was he that delusional? He continued, “They were rank amateurs – it took three of them to capture me. And they botched a stabbing? And who did they think I would talk to. To report what? I’ve had more trouble with drunken brawls.”
Pax probed silently at the lock’s mechanism. If that’s how he wanted to see the day, who was she to stop him.
“You came after me, though,” Casaria said, raising his voice. Christ, the liquid had done a full job reviving him. “You realised you need me, right? After running off into the night. But I set that weapon off. I did that. No one’s ever faced the praelucente like that before. I injured it.”
“You pulled a trigger,” Pax replied. “I faced it.”
His reply came slowly, “And what did it do to you?”
“Hurt like hell.”
“Afterwards,” he said, tone hinting he was questioning his hallucinations after all. “The power of that thing – you must have felt –”
Pax said, “Stop. Talking.”
He did, for a moment, and she realised his line of questions sounded like Barton, when he’d drunk the glo that morning. He’d seen it too, hadn’t he? Thankfully, Casaria changed the subject. “They talked a lot, your gangster friends. The talk of morons is a particular kind of hell. Good thing they didn’t realise that.”
Pax ventured a glance at him. From the way he was standing, the knife wound really wasn’t bothering him. She couldn’t see any fresh blood. His foot was still a bloody, bandaged mess, though. “How bad is your toe?”
“I’ve got others. It was nothing.”
He was smiling. His false smile, the street light bouncing off those straight white teeth. His eyes told a different story, discomfort biting at their edges. He’d make light of it, even find pride in enduring it, but he had suffered.
“I’d never have talked,” Casaria continued scornfully. “People like that are the reason the Ministry exists. They could use those monsters. Breed them, unleash them.”
“Make them dangerous?” Pax said. “Your praelucente is already hurting this city.”
“Please. You’ve been poisoned with the lies of psycho Fae and driven to the Ordshaw mafia, what do you know?”
Pax gave Casaria a severe look. “The Fae saved my life today. Yours, too.”
Casaria paused, for a second seeming ready to flat-out deny it. But he said, “You might think you and me are even, but –”
“We’re a long way from even.”
Casaria’s expression softened. Surprised. “Well, that’s a start.”
“That wasn’t an apology, you prat. You took my money. Kidnapped Rufaizu, stole things from my apartment –”
“Saved your life? While you lied to me, stabbed me in the back, left me to hang.”
The padlock clicked open and Pax stood. She pulled the chain away and opened the door, then replied, “You didn’t hang, I notice. You ran back to the Ministry, right? Did they take you in with open arms? After what you did?”
“I convinced them it was momentary madness,” Casaria said. “Manipulated by a woman. Who, it would seem, is trying it again.”
“I never fucking manipulated you. Listen. We’re gonna get safe, and we’re gonna have a proper talk about who’s been stabbing who in the back, okay?”
She entered the unlit expanse of the plaza and stopped, checking for an alarm. A light blinked green in the distance. A smoke detector.
“What a dive,” Casaria said, walking past her, scanning the dead shops. “This the sort of place you shop?”
“What do you think?” Pax said, closing the door behind them. She scanned the upper walkways. “This way.”
“You never answered my question,” Casaria said. “What’s in here?”
She still didn’t tell him, heading towards the dead-end of the Fae’s hideout. She reached the department store and climbed the stairs to the gap in the boarding. Coming up behind her, Casaria announced, “I know this place.” He laughed like he’d just got the punchline to a joke he’d heard long ago. “They came back here? The arrogant little shits.”
“Keep it down,” Pax warned. “What are you talking about?”
“The Fae,” Casaria said, voice suddenly nasty, accusing. “You brought us here for the Fae. What’s the plan, deliver me from gangsters to be sacrificed to insects?”
“No,” Pax told him, “the plan’s for you to live long enough to do the right thing.”
“The only right thing for the Fae is burning them all to ash.”
“I need you to rein that right the hell in,” Pax snarled. “Keep talking and you’re gonna turn this opportunity into a bloodbath. Your choice.”
He was grinning, enjoying the suggestion of trouble, but he didn’t answer back. For all his bluster,
Pax sensed the day of torture had humbled him.
She turned back to the store entrance and paused. This place was supposed to be safe from the Ministry. “How did you know the Fae were here?”
“I’ve seen photos,” he said. “From before my time. I never come this way myself – patrols in Broadplain tend to be restricted to the west side, around the storm drains – but this was once the site of their gypsy city. The MEE tracked them here. The bugs evacuated before we could snuff them out. And now they’re back?”
“No,” Pax said, “there’s no city here. Just a few sympathetic souls. Why didn’t the Ministry keep an eye on this place?”
“What would I know?” Casaria’s mood shifted again, bitterness redirecting. “Apparently what the MEE do with the Fae is not my concern. Maybe Sam Ward ceded Broadplain to the insects when she started sucking up to them.”
“I don’t think so. I’ve been told her department hasn’t had much luck with the Fae.” A mix of pleasure and confusion passed across Casaria’s face; happy to hear of others’ failings but curious about this unexpected insight. Pax said, “You’ve got layers of misinformation within the Ministry, haven’t you?”
“No. Management think they’re better than us on the ground level, that’s all.”
“Management being?”
“Bureaucrats behind desks, men with no connection to the real world.”
“Uh-huh.” Pax appreciated the irony. “I’ve got an idea it’s more complicated than that. Come in.” She moved into the empty store and scanned the area with the phone torch. Bare and desolate as before. She continued to the escalator and searched the darkness below. No lights, no sound of movement. She called out, “You guys here?”
No reply.
“I can’t believe –” Casaria started, but Pax clicked her tongue for quiet. She went down the steps. The lantern was off, the light behind the counter too.
“Guys?”
By the counter, the shadow of a fairy came around the till. The rounded bulk of Rolarn. He said, blandly, “So this is the corrupt agent? Our key to the Ministry?”
Pax gave Casaria a glance, finding him staring with tight-lipped anger. “Casaria, this is Rolarn. He saved my life earlier today, same as you did last night. You’re more alike than you realise.” Both violent creeps, for starters. Casaria looked too livid to respond. She turned to Rolarn. “Arnold not here?”
“Arnold,” Rolarn scoffed, leaning on his shotgun as if it were a crutch. Apparently they weren’t close. “Lightgate’s had his crew running errands all day. With luck they won’t be back. Bad enough I’m putting up humans, I’m not taking in Fae garbage, too. The shit I’m doing. Look.”
Rolarn turned the lantern on as Pax moved around the counter. She discovered a remarkable stash of human produce that Rolarn had apparently amassed alone. Wrapped sandwiches, bottles of water and bags of snacks, stacked to knee-height. Behind that, a pile of blankets, packaged fresh from a camping store. These Fae definitely had their uses – and despite Rolarn’s words, this stockpile showed empathy for human needs.
“How did you get all this here?”
“Carried it.”
Pax whispered, “Like rhino beetles.”
Casaria loomed over the counter from the other side, keeping his distance. He said, “Carried it from where?”
“No one’s going to trace it,” Rolarn said.
Pax noticed the safe. She crouched by the sturdy metal box, its door open. The two-tiered Fae hideout contained worn dollhouse-sized beds and armchairs, surrounded by piles of trinkets: jewellery, credit cards, a torn family photo. At the front, a barrel of powder that had to be Fae dust. Enough to dip a whole fairy into. The stash suggested the supply stockpile might have more to do with Fae hoarding instincts rather than empathy. And if this little camp was anything to go by, the Fae city had to be a sight worth seeing. Pax stood again, hearing Casaria’s voice getting more aggravated: “Illegal isn’t measured by whether you can get away with it. I didn’t think you were actually a criminal, Pax, even if you associate with them.”
“You stole from me.”
“In the interests of national security.”
“Bollocks.” Deciding not to fuel his hostility, Pax turned her attention to the state of her clothing. She asked Rolarn, “You do requests?”
Casaria tutted. “Add more theft to your willingness to work with these vermin and we’re getting into seriously dangerous territory.”
Pax bit back the need to reply. Barely interested, Rolarn said, “Lightgate says you get whatever you need.”
“Have you heard from her?” Pax said. “Are Letty and the others okay?”
Rolarn shrugged, his nonchalance as irritating as Casaria’s hostility. “Sure.”
“You can carry a human blanket but you can’t string a sentence together?”
“I can get it to talk,” Casaria said. “Ask me to get it to talk, Pax.”
“Yeah, Casaria” – Pax gave him a scathing tone – “I want you to hurt our only allies. That’s why I risked everything to get you back. You wanna park the macho for a minute and let me tell you what I do want?”
Casaria gave quiet assent.
“I want to figure out exactly how the minotaur and the things surrounding it are fucking us all.”
“It’s good for Ordshaw –”
“Get bent. You talk about protecting the city; after you shocked the minotaur, it started tearing through Ordshaw. Popped up at least twice to feed. People died.”
Casaria hesitated. “Impossible. It would never –”
“It did. At least seven dead in an Underground accident caused by the minotaur. And it’s only getting worse.”
Unsettled, Casaria’s voice broke slightly. “I’m sure – then the Ministry will deal with it. Our analysts monitor the net benefit, and if it crosses the point where it stops being useful, the MEE have protocols to take care of it. We have –”
“Bullshit,” Pax spat. “You have no idea what it is, how could you possibly know it’s got a net benefit, let alone deal with it? I saw it attached to the blue screens, and I saw a half-formed slug monster come out of one of them today.”
“There are no blue screens,” Casaria said, automatically. “Apothel invented –”
“They exist!” Pax replied, firm enough to startle Casaria into quiet. “I saw them myself! And there’s definitely something operating behind them, the thing Apothel called his Blue Angel. It’s capable of more than scratching on walls – these screens can move things, I saw an acidic slug creature come out of one – something else” – she pointed, indicating back where they’d come from – “at that glo drop-off. The Blue Angel controls these screens, and somehow uses this energy. I saw the screens connected to your praelucente. Whatever’s behind them is behind everything.”
“What everything?” Casaria said. “We have undesirable creatures surrounding a single desirable phenomenon. There’s no conspiracy –”
“There’s nothing but conspiracy!” Pax said, exasperated. “The creatures protect the minotaur, keeping us and the Fae away, so this Angel can keep using the energy it sucks from us. The Ministry are acting like game wardens – preserving the minotaur without properly understanding it. Fuck, Apothel did the same thing, even if his heart was in the right place.”
“Apothel,” said Casaria, pronouncing the man’s name like a curse, “wanted to destroy the praelucente. He was out of his mind.”
“Beside the point – he didn’t destroy it. He spent his time tracking it, telling the Blue Angel where the minotaur was, with no result. The moment he got his hands on a weapon that could make a difference, he died. And now you do his job instead, tracking the monster, protecting it.”
“Because we have data proving its worth, not because anyone tricked us.”
“Data that tells you what?” Pax said. “You don’t know what the minotaur is, do you? You have this idea of – what’s it called – novisan? Life energy? But you don’t know what glo does, or how
the blue screen works. You don’t even believe they exist. But look at yourself, you’re standing, talking, after what you went through? Think – the truth of this whole mixed-up energy source is being hidden by this anonymous Angel, with powers beyond our understanding. It’s messing everyone around; it needs the minotaur, but it needs people watching it, too. The Blue Angel is using the monsters but they are not in its control. See the danger?”
“I see conjecture and paranoia,” Casaria said. “You think you’re the first person to ask these questions? Pax, I’m glad you’re invested, but the MEE have –”
“No,” Pax said, quickly. “Your people aren’t playing with a full deck. And maybe I’m not the first to ask, but I’m trying to get all sides of the story. It sure as shit feels like I’m the first to talk to the Fae without losing my head.”
“The Fae can burn in –”
“They used to live in the Sunken City!” Pax said. “They know things we don’t! Apothel died for these questions. People killed to silence the answers – your people continue the tradition.”
“I do what’s best. ”
“Yeah? Where the fuck is Rufaizu?” Pax’s voice rose again.
Casaria stalled. “It wasn’t safe having him free to share what he knew.”
“And what does he know? You’ve got all that from him now, have you?”
Casaria frowned. “Pax, he’s an aberration, like his father. Look, this isn’t you. You aren’t like them. You’re smarter than that.”
“Fuck you,” Pax spat. “You don’t know me.” She moved closer to him and thumped a hand against her chest. “This is me, standing up for my city.” She tapped her temple. “Using my fucking brain. Talking with other people, even if they’re homeless or tiny or just different, because they’ve got different pieces of this puzzle. I am like them, because I’m willing to fight a good fight. What are you?”
Casaria leant away, intimidated by her proximity. The muscles around his mouth tightened. He was digging deep, for whatever justifications helped him sleep at night. He wanted to argue back but no words came. Finally, he gave in, breaking her gaze. “Whatever. Go steal some clothes.”
Blue Angel Page 20