The Pearl King

by Sarah Painter

  Jason nodded, his outline shimmering in the disco lights.

  Lydia gripped her coin in her other hand and concentrated on focusing her energy. The training with Charlie had taught her that she wasn’t a cup of magic that could quickly be drained, she was more like a dynamo, converting her human electrical energy into Crow force. She didn’t know if it had an end or whether she could keep replenishing the fire, so to speak, forever. Charlie had said she could be limitless and maybe that was true. All she knew in this moment was that she could hear wings beating and feel wind on her face like she was flying, part of her was high above this building, in the clouds with the city spread out below. Once Jason was fully solid and stable, she pushed her energy out further, in a wave. She didn’t know if this would work or for how long, but felt a core of confidence. It would work. She would push until it worked.

  There was a gasp from the assembled crowd and, through her sweat-stinging eyes, Lydia saw Jason standing in front of the crowd. She could hear his voice and, from the reactions of the king and courtiers, they could, too.

  ‘I’m honoured to meet you,’ Jason was saying.

  Very polite. Very proper. Good man. Lydia pushed a little harder, making sure that every person in the room could see and hear Jason. She could feel it like a net she had thrown out across the room, or a thin piece of fabric like a veil. She could see it loosely covering every person’s head and draping down at the edges of the crowd.

  The king clapped their hands, delighted. ‘This is a very fine gift, very fine.’ They beamed at Jason and then at Lydia and she felt, again, the Pearl-pull, the urge to throw herself at the king’s feet and kiss their toes. Bleurgh.

  ‘You may approach,’ the king said.

  Jason glanced at Lydia and she nodded encouragingly.

  The crowd had got closer, people shifting forward, those at the back wanting to see better and their murmuring voices combined in a single, entranced song. Lydia was checking out the vast room, while simultaneously trying to pretend that she wasn’t. There was a bar area along one wall with glittering glass bottles housed in a beautiful art nouveau cabinet and a row of stools in front of a polished slab of wood. The stools had carved wooden bases, shaped like twisted tree trunks and polished to a deep shine. Without the strobing lights, which had given the impression of a night club, Lydia could now see that the interior was far finer than your average dance pit. And it had to have cost a fortune.

  The crowd were leaning in, their faces avid, and Lydia was checking that the veil she had cast was covering every member, when she spotted a figure who remained outside the circle. A female figure, young-looking and half-hidden in the shadows behind the king’s fancy chair. Even in her mind, Lydia refused to say ‘throne’. The figure wasn’t looking at Jason, as he held out his hand for the king to shake, but was gazing instead at the king as if they were the most beautiful, mesmerising creature they had ever laid eyes upon. Even with her face made-up with rainbow glitter and wearing a prom dress, Lydia recognised the girl. Lucy Bunyan.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The king reached out and attempted to touch Jason’s outstretched hand, but theirs passed through it. They laughed, thrilled. ‘Very, very good. Thank you for visiting. I hope you will do so again.’

  Lydia spoke before Jason could say something unwise like ‘not on your life, mate’. ‘We are very glad to have pleased,’ she stopped short of saying ‘your majesty’ but dipped her head respectfully.

  ‘And what is it you wish to request? Speak quickly, before I tire.’ The king smirked as if aware they were speaking in a parody of royalty, but there was a haughtiness around the eyes which was entirely genuine.

  Lydia swallowed. She couldn’t ask the question she had planned upon. Not with the object of that enquiry currently making moon-eyes from the back of the room. She flipped to her other area of interest and hoped that the king would deem it sufficiently important not to guess that Lydia had actually come for another purpose. ‘I would respectfully ask about the collective known as JRB. I am an investigator, a business which is based on information, and that is an area where my knowledge falls away.’

  The king regarded Lydia for a long moment. ‘JRB is an incorporated company. It is registered with the proper authorities.’

  Lydia’s heart sank. She had started with the wrong question. And she needed more time. Extracting Lucy Bunyan was not going to be easy when she was so drastically outnumbered, but she was hoping to reassure the girl, at least. Lydia forced herself not to glance around.

  ‘They are also a family, of sorts.’

  Lydia looked up at the king, holding her breath, and momentarily distracted from Lucy.

  ‘They keep us.’

  Lydia waited, not wanting to interrupt. After the silence stretched on, though, she asked. ‘Keep you?’

  The king waved a hand. ‘Pearls have always had a weakness for money and the pretty things it can buy. We would sew mother-of-pearl to our jackets to catch the light, pick a silver piece from a midden, fill our carts with polished tin and sell it for ten times its value.’

  Lydia compressed her lips, stopping the urge to interrupt. She didn’t want a history lesson or more stories but if it kept them talking, it bought her time.

  The king smiled. ‘You want the truth? The unvarnished reality, not this,’ they waved a hand, indicating the large room, the beautiful people. ‘The truth is this; JRB offered us a great deal of money and we took it. Now we are here. In this jewel box.’

  ‘You’re trapped?’ The question was out before Lydia could stop it.

  ‘I am a king,’ they spoke in icy tones. ‘And everybody is trapped in one way or another.’

  Which wasn’t a real answer. The king was looking increasingly impatient, however, and the crowd was shifting.

  ‘Jason,’ Lydia said, quietly. ‘Come here. Walk backwards.’

  Jason obeyed, backing away from the throne with small steps.

  ‘We thank you for your time,’ Lydia said. ‘You have been most gracious and patient. I hope this can be the start of a friendship between our two Families.’

  The king smiled with their mouth only. ‘You wish an alliance? That will require a far larger gift. The coin you hold concealed in your hand, perhaps. Or this toy.’

  For a second Lydia didn’t realize the king meant Jason. ‘I do not have the authority, sadly,’ Lydia said. ‘I will carry your message back to the head of the Crow Family.’

  The king wagged a finger. ‘You must not tell lies, Lydia Crow. I have a mind to teach you a lesson. I shall keep your gift, I think.’

  With a speed and fluidity which surprised Lydia, the king was off their throne and in front of Jason, hands plunged into his chest.

  He looked over his shoulder at Lydia, eyes wide and terrified.

  ‘No!’ Lydia said firmly. In her mind she added ‘bad king’ which was probably the product of fear, but it made her smile, which reminded her of an important fact. She wasn’t powerless. She had always assumed that she was, had always felt like the spare part, the damp squib, the disappointment. But that wasn’t true. It had never been true, she just hadn’t known it.

  She reached for Jason’s hand and took it firmly in her own. It was solid and real under her touch and, as always, very cold. At the same time, she whipped away the veil she had cast over the crowd, removing their sight so that they could no longer see Jason. The king hissed displeasure, but she ignored them. She pulled Jason back and he stumbled against her. For a second he almost overbalanced her with his weight and in the next second he was insubstantial as a puff of air. Air she breathed in, gathering him inside for the trip home.

  ‘That was very rude,’ she said. ‘You should not take things which do not belong to you.’ Lydia let her gaze fall on Lucy Bunyan who was still gazing adoringly at the king with exactly zero comprehension on her face. ‘There will be consequences.’

  The king flicked a glance at Lucy before looking back at Lydia. ‘You presume to threaten me, Crow?’


  ‘I very much do,’ Lydia said. ‘And now I’m leaving.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ the king said, turning beautiful and terrible eyes upon her.

  Lydia turned and realised that the crowd had encircled her. They no longer looked like a group of glamorous party-goers, their faces were twisted with anger and ugliness showed in every line. A split second more and Lydia realised something else. It wasn’t just anger transforming their faces, it was age. Wrinkled skin sitting loosely over bone, milky-eyes, and gnarled fingers reaching. The king wasn’t immune. They flickered between the perfection of youth and a well-preserved sixty-ish, black hair turning grey and then back again. A truth occurred to her. The Pearl court wasn’t composed of newly evolved Pearls or the watered-down versions which she had encountered out and about in London, but of the old guard. The original, most powerful members of the Family. ‘I see you,’ Lydia said. ‘And I am not afraid.’

  The king laughed, but Lydia caught the flicker of uncertainty in their eyes.

  ‘You will return what you have taken and I will forgive your transgressions. There is no need for the truce between our Families to be broken.’ Lydia drew herself up to her full height. It wasn’t very impressive, she would be the first to admit, and she could feel Jason’s panic inside her mind, lapping at the edges and frilling her thoughts with sharp anxiety. The fear was good. When Charlie had attacked her, she had reacted instinctively, the terror of being choked had unleashed something wild and unknown. Now that she recognised the feeling, the shape of that something, she knew she could reach for it. Like the different powers she sensed in others, it had a signature. It was wings beating, it was the cushion of warm air lifting from below, it was sleek feathers shining in a noonday sun, and a sharp beak ripping into flesh. Not just one beak or two wings, though, hundreds. Thousands. A multitude of beating hearts. Lydia raised her arms, stretching them wide. She didn’t stop looking at the king, keeping eye contact as she pushed the feeling out.

  The crowd took a collective step back. Lydia could see the way out of the party basement. The door had a mirror attached and would have blended completely into the wall, becoming invisible, but Lydia had noted its position when she had come into the room and left it partially open. She backed toward it, keeping the Pearls in sight. They were frowning, uncertain as to why they hadn’t rushed Lydia, as their king so clearly required.

  Lydia didn’t know how long this mass-whammy was going to work or how long it would hold if they all decided to push back. The basement club was covered in reflective surfaces and it made it seem as if the crowd were ten times larger than it really was. There were ten Pearls there, maybe fifteen, but their expressions were replicated and fractured in the multiple mirrors, polished wood, and mother-of-pearl inlay which formed the walls. With the lights, there were so many surfaces glinting and refracting light, so many areas shining, it was hard to keep your bearings, keep your thoughts on track.

  Lydia.

  That was Jason. Lydia tried to concentrate above the rhythmic beating of wings. The expressions in the crowd no longer looked angry, they looked excited.

  Lydia realised that she had stopped moving toward the door. She didn’t know when that had happened. She hadn’t meant to, but she was rooted where she stood. She tried to move her feet, but they were planted. Was that the sound of wind in trees? How could she hear that? The music was too loud. And they were in a basement. A fancy basement, sure, but a basement. There was no wind.

  Lydia! Money!

  Yes. Good point, Jason. Good man. Excellent assistant. Lydia reached into her pocket and found her coin. She held it between finger and thumb, arm stretched out in front of her body. All eyes in the room snapped to it. Lydia could see hunger. Faces that had seemed beautiful, now looked knotted and creased like old bark. For once, the assembled Pearls looked their age.

  Lydia forced the power she had felt, those thousands of tiny pulsing hearts, those beating wings, and fractured the coin into hundreds of gold Crow coins. Then she flung the lot high into the air so that they clattered down on the Pearls. And then she turned and ran.

  There was a roaring sound from behind, but Lydia ran up the stairs and into the grand entrance with the tree. Up here, Lydia could hear cracking and a low rumble, like something was moving deep under the ground. The floor began to shudder and the tree was shaking as if blown by an invisible gale. Lydia dived for the front door, yanking it open and throwing herself out, and running down the driveway to the closed wooden gates. She almost fell as the ground moved. Earthquake, Lydia thought, even as her mind told her that it was no such thing. Just ahead, a tree root broke through the stone chipping of the driveway and Lydia ran into air that was suddenly filled with earth and vegetation, and this time she did fall, catching herself on her hands and knees, the jolt of the impact traveling through her joints. Ignoring the pain, she forced herself back up and ran around the tree roots which were bursting through the ground, one four feet in the air and whipping around like the tentacle of a mythological sea monster.

  The gates were closed but Lydia was pretty sure she would be able to climb over. There was a decorative lattice in the top half which ought to provide hand and footholds and, besides that, she had no choice. A moment later another tree root burst through the ground underneath one of the gateposts, spraying chippings and spitting earth, Lydia instinctively threw her arms in front of her face and felt sharp pains on the backs of her hands. The gate was splintered and sagging on one side and Lydia didn’t break pace, pushing through the gap and stepping over the raw jagged edges of the broken wooden boards.

  Lungs burning, skin stinging, and her breath coming in harsh rasps, Lydia forced herself to keep running as she emerged onto the street. She ran diagonally, putting as much distance between herself and the exploding grounds around the house as possible. Lydia felt as though she was still sprinting as she reached the end of the private road but, truthfully, she slowed by the time she made it to the gatehouse with its road barrier. She was dragging one foot in front of the other as every part of her screamed for rest, the weight and cold of Jason dragging her to the ground, but she ducked under the barrier and kept moving.

  Lydia didn’t want to be grateful to Uncle Charlie, but right at the moment, she was extremely glad to see her new car, parked where she had left it. Once she was in the driving seat, all doors locked and shaking hands gripping the steering wheel, Lydia allowed herself a moment. Just a moment to take some deep, shuddering breaths.

  The ground felt stable, now, which was a relief, but she could feel the ghost inside her and the strain of keeping him contained and stable. The beating of wings had receded and Lydia knew that whatever that power was it had turned down, like the volume on a television. She started the engine and kept her eyes on the rear-view mirror, ready to floor the accelerator if she saw even a single Pearl. She dialled Fleet and put the phone on speaker.

  When Fleet answered she gave him the essential details. The address of the house he would find Lucy Bunyan. ‘It’s the Pearls,’ she said. ‘And they are pissed.’

  ‘With you?’

  Lydia could almost hear him resisting the urge to say something sarcastic. ‘Yes. If you get here quick, you’ll catch them on the hop. I doubt they’ll expect me to call the police, they seem quite old fashioned.’

  ‘Where are you now? Are you safe?’

  ‘I’m at the bottom of their road in my car.’

  ‘Well get moving. I’ll call you when we have Lucy.’

  ‘I want to help.’ Even as she said the words, Lydia knew she didn’t have a good follow up. She had barely got herself out of the house. ‘They’re strong.’

  ‘An armed response is on its way,’ Fleet said. ‘Ten minutes.’

  Lydia gripped the steering wheel. She should move. Get away. But what if the Pearls moved Lucy? If they were going to leave, she needed to see. Get a direction or a number plate. Something.

  The minutes crawled past and Lydia’s rear-view mirror remained devoid
of action. She could feel the weight of Jason and wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold onto him. Lydia didn’t know what would happen if they separated in her car, but she knew one thing for certain; if the Pearls decided to come for her, she wouldn’t be able to protect herself or Jason. She was exhausted.

  At minute eleven, Lydia saw the first blue-and-yellow police cars. The guard didn’t approach, just waved from his little cabin and raised the barrier. Three marked cars and two police vans headed up the private road and Lydia peeled away. She was still a little nervous of the police as an official entity and couldn’t afford to get stuck giving a witness statement, not with a ghost onboard.

  She drove carefully back to Camberwell, grateful that Jason was staying quiet, and, as soon as she had one foot through the door of The Fork, she pushed him out of her body. Lydia was glad that it was almost closing time and the place was deserted, but she honestly couldn’t have waited for another second and would have ejected Jason even if the place had been packed in a midday rush.

  ‘We made it,’ Jason said, shimmering just in front of Lydia, his feet not bothering to connect with the floor. ‘You look like crap.’

  ‘I’m… Okay.’ It was an effort to speak.

  Angel pushed through the door from the kitchen, a mop bucket in hand, and stopped when she saw Lydia doubled over. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Fine.’ Lydia managed. ‘Stitch.’

  ‘Well, that’s running for you. Terrible idea.’

  Lydia made her way upstairs. Jason had disappeared and she hoped it wouldn’t be for long. She knew how much he hated blinking out of existence. She didn’t need to worry as he was waiting for her in the office and his stoic silence in the car had given way to verbiage.

  ‘I can’t believe they… I don’t think they were going to let us go. And how did the king do that? Put their hands in me. That was horrible, I felt them grabbing.’ Jason shook his head. ‘I never want that sensation again. Do you want some tea? I need to make tea.’