A Crack in Everything

by Ruth Frances Long

  She was never going to be normal again.

  Izzy closed her eyes tightly and forced her breath to calm. In through the nose, out through the mouth, a wave on the beach, just like the mental yoga-pimping drama teacher at school liked to say. The shock was that it worked. Would she get a surprise when Izzy told her in September? If they made it to September. Next week was looking decidedly dodgy. And as for tomorrow …

  Izzy opened her eyes again and allowed herself to glance at Jinx. He’d fallen, or been beaten to his knees. The glare he gave her wasn’t exactly friendly. She knew it though, the same way he’d looked at her in his Cú Sídhe form, before she’d pulled the knife out. He wanted to change. But couldn’t.

  The silver collar. It was something to do with silver, the way it burned him. But he wore silver studs and rings, didn’t he? He touched silver every single day.

  This couldn’t be good. It couldn’t be good at all.

  ‘We’re here, Matriarch,’ said Blythe, her voice measured with respect and more than a little fear. That worried Izzy more than anything. If a bitch like Blythe was afraid, what was the matriarch going to do?

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Wave on the shore. Calm, calm, freaking calm.

  Her hand shook and for a moment she worried that the knife would fall out. She bent her elbows slowly, carefully, and clasped her hands in front of her.

  The fire flared, even more brightly, the warm gold bleeding to the edges while the centre turned white hot.

  And in the middle of the inferno, a figure formed, slender and flame-haired with piercing eyes. The woman stepped forth, formed of fire itself, and smiled victoriously at Izzy. She wore an elaborate necklace like a swirl of gold, set with a huge chunk of amber which flickered like a flame.

  She didn’t look quite as she had. There was nothing human about her at all now. All the same, Izzy couldn’t help but recognise her – the nurse who wasn’t a nurse. The woman from the hospital.

  ‘You!’ Izzy cried, before she could stop herself.

  Blythe hissed at her and Jinx paled, but the woman – the matriarch of the Hill Sídhe – just laughed. It wasn’t a comforting sound.

  ‘Yes. Me. You left the hospital so quickly I didn’t have time to introduce myself.’

  Anger replaced shock. So much anger she thought that she might burn with incandescent flames as well. ‘What did you do to my father?’

  ‘Do to him? What did I do to him? Nothing, you stupid child. But together we might have healed him. You spoiled that. You and that bitch he calls his wife.’

  That did it. Izzy snapped. ‘Don’t you dare talk about my mother that way!’ she screamed.

  Blythe raised a fist ready to strike, but the matriarch let out a snarl of rage. The Cú Sídhe fell back, her face startled and confused. And more than a little afraid.

  ‘Never harm what is mine, Blythe. Never raise a hand to her. You are nothing compared to her. Remember that.’

  Deathly silence fell across the hollow. All Izzy could hear was the sound of her own breath, heaving in and out of her body, waves on the shore beaten by a hurricane.

  The matriarch stepped forward, onto the pool of water, but she didn’t sink. Her feet touched the water’s surface and it boiled beneath them. Steam flared up around her and her flame-red hair billowed out in her wake. Izzy took an involuntary step of retreat as the woman approached, but they still ended up standing face to face on the edge of the water.

  ‘She isn’t your mother, foolish child. I am.’

  Izzy’s body spasmed, ice cold with shock, rigid with rage. It wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true! She opened her mouth, struggled to find the right words. Only one came out.

  ‘No.’

  Her mother? It wasn’t possible. Her mother was Rachel Gregory, neat and exact, far too intelligent for a daughter’s peace of mind. Her mother … her mother was nothing like the almighty bitch in front of her.

  ‘No?’ The matriarch sneered. ‘Your father is a Grigori. A Watcher. He knows his duty and his place. He didn’t argue. He was a dutiful lover.’ Izzy’s stomach twisted and her disgust must have shown on her face. He’d never do that, never betray Mum like that. Of all the things Izzy knew to be true and real, her parents’ relationship was the strongest of all. The matriarch flapped a hand at her, dismissing of her reaction. ‘Oh, he talked about his young bride, his love and all those other things men say, but in the end he did his duty. We needed a warrior, a vessel for divine power, and in time a new Watcher to take his place. Someone stronger. The mortal blood was thinning down the Grigori. It had made him weak. I was the best option and as part of the Grand Compact I complied. He obeyed. And what did it get us? You.’ Loathing riddled the word.

  It was like a physical blow, but Izzy stood her ground. What else could she do? Run now – not that she’d get far – and she’d never find out the truth.

  Dad’s mistake, his terrible mistake …

  Mum – would never look at Izzy like that. Mum who had held her and sung to her, soothed her or scolded her. Mum of the plasters and the kid’s cough syrup, the hugs for no reason. Mum who turned up on Sports Day in the rain with a massive umbrella and a flask of hot chocolate. Mum who took her to lame Irish attempts at theme parks and woeful movies where they should have served the adults neat vodka instead of popcorn. Mum, who encapsulated the word.

  This … thing … was not her mother.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Brí, I guard this place, stand vigil over the weak points in the world. I was once held to be a living goddess. I guard your whole line, the Grigori, the Watchers. I am one of those who see to it your family does their duty. And duty overrules everything else.’

  ‘And what’s our duty?’

  ‘To maintain balance, of course. Balance in all things. Except, it seems, you.’

  Balance, that’s what Dad had been on about, last summer at Clonmacnoise. Tears stung her eyes like acid.

  ‘You could have healed him, Isabel,’ said Brí, her voice so soft and warm it drifted on the air around her.

  ‘And when did you give her that option?’ Jinx asked, his eyes still wild with pain, his teeth clenched.

  But it struck Izzy in another sickening wave of realisation. ‘At the hospital.’ Her voice grated on her throat. Her chest ached. ‘You gave me water at the hospital.’

  ‘You’re meant to be a grail bearer. It’s in your blood.’

  ‘What grail? It was a plastic cup!’ Izzy yelled.

  Anger fired Brí’s voice. ‘It was water, blessed by me, carried by you. It was a grail, no matter what it looked like. Do you think I could just walk into a hospital in the human world with a magic cup and go unnoticed? I cloaked it, disguised it as something mundane. You have no idea how much power it took, how much time … And what does it matter? It’s gone now, destroyed, lost. It would have healed him, woken him, but what did you do?’

  She could see it now, the crushed plastic cup, a pool on the lino, dripping down the side of the cabinet. It might have woken him?

  ‘I spilled it.’ All she could manage was a whisper, and a broken one at that. The fight died inside her. It had been a chance, a test perhaps, and she’d failed. Failed utterly.

  ‘Spilled it,’ Brí echoed, her voice strangely flat. ‘And crushed the grail underfoot. Well done. You’re useless. All of you. Selfish, petty creatures with no vision beyond your own needs. I have done with you all. I have done with humanity.’

  ‘Can’t you do it again? Can’t I try again?’

  ‘What, just like that? Just pull another grail out of the air for you? And have the spark you carry destroy it again?’

  ‘Destroy it? How could the spark destroy it? There was a shadow …’

  ‘It’s too late now. Besides, I don’t have the power anymore. My grail is gone.’

  ‘Please, help me. For Dad.’

  Brí’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. ‘Do you think he means something to me? He’s just a tool. As are you.’

&nbs
p; ‘So that’s it?’ Jinx interrupted again. ‘She fails you by accident and that’s all her chances. There were shades all over that hospital, and angels outside waiting for us. But you blame Izzy. Some mother you are. Not so much a mother as a motherfu—’

  Brí flung out her hand and Jinx arched in agony, his voice choked to silence, his muscles ratcheting as the silver heated to white at his neck and wrists. A strangled cry forced its way through his clenched teeth and his nails sliced into his palms as his body tried to shift to hound-form in vain.

  ‘Stop it!’ Izzy yelled, but Brí ignored her.

  ‘Sometimes the only way to shut up a barking cur is to teach him a lesson.’ But she didn’t look happy about it. If anything Izzy thought for a moment that Brí’s gaze was regretful as it lingered on him. But she didn’t look away, and she didn’t do anything to ease his pain. The Cú Sídhe around them moved restlessly, clearly unhappy. Blythe raised her upper lip, baring her teeth, giving a low growl.

  Brí released him and Jinx slumped to the ground, breathing hard, his chest like a bellows.

  ‘The spark,’ said Izzy, terrified now, so afraid she couldn’t let herself think about what was happening, what she was doing to Jinx. ‘How do I get rid of the spark?’

  Brí’s eyes widened for a second. Just a second. Then they narrowed to slivers of ice. ‘Get rid of it? Oh, my poor dear girl, that’s why they want you. The angel’s spark.’ She laughed. ‘Holly and the Old Man will be more than willing to help you ‘get rid of it’. The power that thing offers … You can’t let them do that. Really. But if you really want to do it yourself, you’ll need another grail.’

  ‘A grail?’ Izzy’s eyes opened wide and inside her the angel stirred, fluttering against the back of her mind, in equal fear. ‘The Holy Grail?’

  Brí shook her head and closed her eyes in exasperation. ‘No, child. There are many grails. It means cup. A healing cup. They will only heal once though, and only the people they choose, or those who can find them. Fickle as the Sídhe. But a grail will indeed free you from the spark, and all those who hunt you.’ She paused, giving Izzy a long stare. ‘Or you could use it to heal your father. Or maybe that leech inside you will help. But you’ll need the spark to work that miracle and if you were to use it that way, it will become part of you for all time. Bound to you until death. A bit like Jinx.’

  ‘Don’t listen to her,’ Jinx warned, his voice still scarred with pain. ‘She’s playing with you.’

  ‘I’m telling her the truth, raw though it may be. Unlike you, hound, who have told her nothing. So be silent.’

  ‘Jinx? What haven’t you told me?’

  So much, her instincts warned. She’d been far too gullible. She didn’t want to know the answer, but the words were already out there.

  He hung his head, refused to meet her eyes.

  ‘Why do you have him in chains?’ Izzy asked Brí.

  ‘When one of my enemy’s kith, her would-be assassin, wanders into my realm, I’m hardly likely to let him have his liberty, am I?’

  Assassin? Jinx? But they’d spoken of assassins and wars that never ended. She should have guessed. Which meant he’d killed people, he had blood on his hands. Izzy stared at him, but Jinx didn’t look up. Like he knew she was questioning him, that she wanted answers.

  ‘He said Holly could help me.’

  ‘Help you by carving it out of you, perhaps. Holly kills angels. Their broken after-images are burned into her walls. That’s how she holds her power, the way she thrives, filling her touchstone with stolen power. She can destroy lesser gods. I doubt you’d be anything like a challenge. But he can’t allow that to happen now anyway, can you Jinx?’ To the surprise of them both, Brí knelt down in front of him and cupped his chin, lifting it so she could look into his eyes. ‘I gave you that geis for a reason, boy. If you’d but stayed true …’

  ‘Then why trade me away to Holly, Brí?’ It came out like a plea, a lament. It was almost the voice of a lost child.

  She smiled, a gentler expression. The words she said however were harsher. ‘What choice did I have?’ she asked. ‘The position your mother and father left us in … Look at you, with her charms and wards all over you, entangling every atom in you. Poor beast. And now, to make matters even worse, you’re well and truly tied, aren’t you? Enslaved not to Holly. But to her.’

  To Izzy’s horror, Brí looked up and their eyes met. She looked away and found Jinx watching her too, his expression haunted, desperate.

  Izzy took a step back from them. ‘I don’t want a slave.’

  Brí shook her head, amused. ‘You don’t get a choice. This is old magic. You save a life, you own that life. You drew iron from him, the very iron you try to hide from me now. Don’t look so guilty. At least you had the sense to come armed. Jinx belongs to you now. He’ll die at your command, he’ll kill at your command—’

  ‘That’s outrageous.’ Izzy swallowed hard on the bile rising in her throat.

  ‘Any of the Sídhe would kill to have the power you don’t even know how to use. Let me guess, you’ve been running since you first met Jinx? Shadows that move by themselves. Angels dogging your footsteps. Monsters left, right and centre. I ought to cut the spark from you myself, feed it to my touchstone and draw on it myself. And maybe I would, if you weren’t my blood. A geis is a geis and they bind all the Aes Sídhe, irrevocably. They’re important. What else can hold my kind to account? Your father should have prepared you for this, but no. They wanted you to be “normal”. They wanted a human life. I’ve tried to keep watch over you, to guard you and shield you within my realm. And still they wouldn’t listen to me. That woman—’

  Izzy narrowed her eyes. ‘What did my mother ever do—?’

  Brí surged to her feet, her eyes blazing with sudden anger. ‘I am your mother!’

  ‘Really?’ Izzy stuck out her small pointed chin and glared at the former goddess, seeing for the first time a reflection of her own bone structure, her own stubbornness. ‘Where were you when I broke my arm? Who nursed me through scarlet fever? Who made my Halloween costumes and sat through endless clarinet recitals? Who was there with breakfast and supper and everything in between? If we’re talking genetics then I don’t know, maybe you are. But if we’re talking about my life then you’re no mother of mine.’

  ‘You will acknowledge me as your mother one day.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Yes, you will. And come the day, what will you do if I refuse to answer?’

  ‘I’ll never have cause to need you. I’m leaving this place and Jinx is coming with me. Get those chains off him. We’re going!’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Brí, drawing back her shoulders and looking over Izzy’s head, every inch the goddess she claimed she once was. ‘You’re both far too dangerous, and far too attractive to any number of people who would cause you untold harm. You’re staying here. Indefinitely.’

  The air grew chill around them, as if Brí had sucked the warmth from it, and Izzy shivered. ‘You can’t do that. I need to get to my parents, back to my dad.’

  ‘Take them away,’ Brí told Blythe and the Cú Sídhe. ‘Put them somewhere … safe.’ But before Izzy could argue or Blythe could act, another runner came from the shadowy tunnels and prostrated himself before Brí. She leaned forward and spoke to him in rapid undertones. Her features hardened. ‘Very well,’ she said at last. ‘Bring her here. Unarmed. And if she raises even a glimmering of power, I’ll have her head.’

  The Cú Sídhe surrounded Jinx and Izzy, some in hound and some in human form. They herded the pair of them together and Izzy was able at last to hunker down beside him.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘As “okay” as I might be, given the circumstances.’ His voice was a bitter growl and he refused to meet her eyes. She reached out and brushed her fingertips along the line of his jaw nonetheless. Jinx flinched away, almost knocking himself over in his haste to get away from her.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Izzy protested.<
br />
  ‘How could you know about Brí? If your parents didn’t tell you—’

  ‘About you. About you and me.’

  She reached out and touched him again, his jaw hot beneath her fingertips. He closed his eyes, his mouth hardening. ‘What does it matter? We have greater things to worry about.’ But he didn’t mean that, couldn’t. Izzy could tell. He was bound to her. And hated her for it. A shard of guilt stabbed through her. But what could she have done? Left him to die in that alley?

  The knife felt like ice against the skin of her arm.

  He was an assassin. He’d killed people. The thought made her cringe inside. What was worse, he didn’t try to deny it. The voice of the angel had warned her he couldn’t be trusted. Was this why? Because how could she trust a killer?

  The hall fell silent but for the delicate tap of a pair of heels crossing the marble. ‘You’re so good to see me, Lady Brí. My Lady Holly sends her most respectful greetings.’ Silver’s musical voice rang like bells of morning off the high ceiling.

  Jinx’s head came up so quickly, his lips brushed up against Izzy’s palm and she felt the sharp edge of his teeth beneath. She turned, just as surprised to see the slender form of the singer standing only a couple of feet away.

  And beside her, dressed in his customary black, his appearance unbelievably haggard, as if he’d gone through hell since she last saw him, Dylan.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Payments Past and Payments Due

  Silver had spoken to the cops while ambulance crews scoured the scene of the disaster and whisked Marianne’s body outside. Dylan shuddered and clamped his eyes shut, trying to make it be a lie, a nightmare, a terrible, terrible mistake.

  ‘Dylan!’ Silver rubbed his shoulders gently.