All The Things You Have To Burn (Grey Corp Book 1)

by Abbey, Kit

  “Ha,” said Rowan. “Well.”

  “Why do we all need to go?” asked William, who really meant ‘why do Lucy and David have to go?’

  “The well is extremely powerful,” said Kirk, “it may take all of our combined skills to subdue it.”

  He still didn’t see how much help David and Lucy were going to be; their powers were nowhere near the level of his. They’d be better off staying back and making out or something. But, he was not the boss, so he followed Rowan out to her car without a word.

  Chapter 40.

  Rowan and William trailed Kirk’s Bentley Continental through the city. They drove past the cafe with the awesome chocolate cheesecake, and William’s stomach gave a little rumble. They passed a train station, a pub, and turned down a dead-end street where the houses were old and tall and clustered together like thugs in an alley. They were all built of dark wood, and this, along with the heavy clouds above, made the street feel gloomy and oppressive. Kirk parked at the street, and Rowan pulled in behind him.

  “We should proceed from here on foot,” said Kirk. “We don’t want to give Shannon and the well any unnecessary warning. This is exciting stuff!”

  “The four of us will take the back,” said Horace, “you and William take the front.”

  Rowan nodded again, and the two groups parted ways. The house was the last in the street. It was old with a wide, old fashioned veranda wrapped around it. A forest of potted plants

  hung from the guttering and a sad old couch nestled under a window. Despite the overall dilapidated feel, little touches indicated that the house was well loved. The care that had obviously been put into the many potted plants; the hand crocheted rug thrown over the couch; the row of shoes neatly lined up by the front door.

  William wasn’t happy to note that several pairs of the shoes were kid sized. At no point had anyone mentioned Gwendoline Shannon had a kid. What was she thinking, acquiring wells and keeping them from Grey Corp when she had a kid to be looking after. He watched from the side as Rowan stepped up to the front door, ducking to avoid hanging plant tendrils. She wrinkled her nose at the dusty and torn fly screen before knocking.

  He could hear the faint sounds of a TV inside. It sounded liked cartoons. Rowan was raising her fist to knock on the flyscreen again when the wooden door behind it opened. Even when viewed from behind grotty flyscreen, Gwen’s eyes drew attention. At that moment they were opened wide in shock, fixed on Rowan.

  “You!” Gwen reached forward, as though she was going to touch Rowan, but her hand was stopped by the flyscreen door. Instead she gripped the metal framework. “What are you doing here; you know you can’t touch her!”

  “You’re right, I can’t,” agreed Rowan.

  “And none of your other shitty Grey Corp monsters can either! Not that old lady, not that black guy, none of you! So why are you even here?”

  “We’ve some new Employees,” said Rowan, “thought we would give them a shot at it.”

  “No,” said Gwen. “You need to leave us alone!”

  “Not happening,” said Rowan.

  Gwen looked past her, to William. Her eyes widened, and she mouthed a word that William couldn’t make out. Gwen slammed her palm against the door. “I’ll never let you take her!”

  Rowan looked set to make some clever reply to this, but before the words could leave her mouth Gwen abruptly turned and ran into the depths house. Looking a little put out at being deprived of her comeback, Rowan opened the door and followed her. William trailed behind. The interior of the house was just as gloomy as the outside street. The walls were covered in old fashioned maroon wallpaper, and the carpet was mustard yellow. There was an open fireplace, and the smoke that escaped it gave the room a vaguely hazy feel. There was a coffee table covered in a half--finished jigsaw puzzle and the floor was covered in dolls and picture books and crayons.

  William ducked under a low doorframe and entered a poky kitchen. There was a drawing pinned to fridge. Laid out in wobbly crayon, a big house and a tall tree. William picked his away around the scarred kitchen table to give it a closer look. The house was depicted in classic, illogical kid style. And yet there was something familiar about its large shape. Even more familiar were the two figures under the tree. A small stick person with big blue tear drop shaped tear drops spaced evenly down her cheeks, and a taller person with black hair and two very blue eyes. William eyed his own black haired, blue eyes appearance in the reflection of the microwave oven door, and then turned back to the drawing. He studied the branches of the tree, and was somehow not that surprised when he located a black ball with eyes that vaguely resembled a cat. A cat that vaguely resembled Mr. Gordan Morgan.

  “Huh,” he said.

  “William, get out here!”

  His attention snapped away from the curious drawing and he looked around. There was a passage way next to the fridge, and from this direction came Rowan’s demanding voice. As he moved to find her he caught sight of the second drawing taped to the fridge’s other side. A big grey rectangle shape with trees drawn up and down each side. Blue squiggles that, William guessed, were supposed to be water ran down the grey shape. It was the same dam as the one he’d seen in the photo in Madeline’s office, albeit depicted in a much simpler style. But there was only one stick figure standing in front of it this time. And he had blue dots for eyes and a scribble of black for hair, just like the one standing under the tree.

  “William!”

  He jogged down the passage. It was short, and led to the house’s back door. He paused, looking out. Horace and Kirk flanked Gwen, each gripping an arm. She struggled against their grip. “Leave us alone!” she yelled. “Damn it, just accept that you can’t have her!”

  Sitting on the lawn, a few feet away from Gwen, was a little girl. She had brown pigtails and a cabbage patch doll. Clearly Gwen’s anger was distressing her, but she wasn’t crying. She toyed with the dolls hair, and regarded the adults around her with wide eyes. Lucy and David stood around looked awkward and unhelpful. Lucy in particular looked upset. William figured this was the first time either of them had been sent on a job like this.

  “You don’t see her?” Kirk looked frustrated. “Are you sure?”

  Lucy shook her head, and David said, “see who?”

  William stepped out onto the lawn.

  “Where were you?” demanded Rowan. Before he could answer she went on, “is the kid here?”

  “What?”

  “The kid,” snapped Rowan, “the well. Where is she? Do you see her? She must be nearby; her Mother wouldn’t have been trying to run without her.”

  “Leave us alone!” said Gwen.

  “Wait.” William’s stomach was sinking, and sinking fast. “The girl is the well?”

  “Yes!” said Rowan, “where is she?”

  “Don’t you see her?”

  “Does that mean you do?” Kirk’s voice was eager.

  “No!” screamed Gwen. She wrenched herself free of their hold, but only for a moment. They had her again before she could get take two steps.

  “Grab her,” said Rowan. “Quickly.”

  Gwen screamed incoherently.

  Every awful situation Grey Corp had thrust him into paled in comparison to this. William tried to think, but it was impossible with Gwen sobbing angrily only metres away.

  “No!” she shrieked, “no, you can’t! No!”

  “Horace,” said Kirk. He did not finish the sentence; he merely waved his free arm about vaguely as though this was a sufficient enough substitute for his words. For Horace it apparently was. He reached around and grabbed the base of Gwen’s throat. William could not see what he did, but he must have done something, because her cries petered off, her eyes rolled back and she slumped in Kirk and Horace’s grip. They released her, and she slumped gracelessly to the grass. William hesitated.

  “William.” The warning in Rowan’s tone was clear.

  Quickly, forcing down misgiving
s with every step, William strode across the lawn. He stopped in front of the little girl and looked down at her.

  “Caspien tells himself he’s not going to use it,” she said, looking back up at him, “but he still hides the silver statue in his pocket.”

  He didn’t know what he was supposed to do with that, so he just knelt down and scooped the girl up. This action must have rendered her suddenly visible to everyone. Lucy started, and David blinked. Kirk grinned and Horace made a triumphant noise. Rowan nodded once.

  “We need to get her to the Grey building,” she said, “before something goes wrong.”

  “Don’t be so pessimistic,” said Kirk, “this could not be going better.” He grinned and stepped over Gwen’s prone form. “William, I see that the boss’ faith in you is not misplaced.”

  “Hmm,” said Rowan.

  “Don’t listen to her,” said Kirk, “we couldn’t have done this without you.”

  He shot his own charge a look, and Lucy scuffed her feet on the grass.

  “Yeah, well,” said William, “this kid is kinda heavy. Will one of you take her please?”

  “Probably best if you keep her for now,” said Kirk. “We don’t want to risk little Daisy disappearing again.”

  “I thought you said the well was dangerous,” William said to Rowan.

  “No we didn’t,” she said as she moved back towards the house, “we said she was powerful.”

  “Doesn’t seem so powerful.” He cast one more look at Gwen, and then followed Rowan. His stomach squirmed with miserable guilt, and the kid was heavy in his arms. It had been one thing to stand by Grey Corp when hurting grown men, but this was something else again.

  “If you let appearances fool you, then you’re even more of an idiot than I already think you are,” said Rowan as they walked back to the parked cars.

  William shifted the kid, Daisy, from hip to the other. She wasn’t crying, or struggling in any way. If anything, she looked sleepy. She rested her cheek on William’s shoulder and shut her eyes. William was grateful that she wasn’t crying, but her apparent lack of concern about the situation was unnerving. Granted, he knew nothing about small children and didn’t really believe that he ever could have been one himself, but he thought it was reasonable to expect a kid to cry a bit after what had just gone down.

  “Here,” said Rowan unlocking the Mustang and folding down the front seat. “Get in the back with her, and don’t let her of your sight.”

  “Are you going to hurt her?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Rowan.

  “No, damn it,” snapped William, “answer the question.”

  Rowan stopped adjusting the seat, and stood up slowly. “Excuse me?”

  “I am sick and bloody tired of you not telling me anything!” William wanted to bang the roof of the car for emphasis, but his arms were full. And so he settled for stamping his foot. Somewhat less impressive, but it would have to do. “I do everything you damn well tell me to, and you can’t even answer a simple question!”

  In contrast to William’s outburst, Rowan was very still. “You shouldn’t need answers. Your trust in Grey Corp should be enough.”

  Kirk got out of the Bentley and yelled, “what’s the problem?”

  “No problem!” called Rowan. To William she said quietly, “get in the car.”

  “Answer my question.”

  “Get in the car.”

  “Answer my question!”

  “William!” her voice rose abruptly from fierce whisper to angry yell, making Daisy stir. She dropped back to a whisper. “Get in the God damned car! Right now!”

  “We don’t have time to waste,” called Kirk, “what’s going on?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the well was a little girl” demanded William, “what powers does she have? Is. She. Going. To. Be. Hurt?”

  Rowan shook her head. “You don’t need to know any of this. You should trust Mr. Grey.”

  “Well you know what, I do need to know.”

  At this Daisy woke up fully, if she was ever even asleep. She stared calmly at Kirk and Horace, who were approaching the Mustang.

  “You idiot,” hissed Rowan, “do you think just because you have power the Man trusts you? You’ve been here months. Months! And already you’re in a position it takes most years to reach.”

  “I don’t-”

  “No! You listen to me! You think the boss trusts you? He doesn’t trust you for shit, you understand me? You’re just a kid with more power than he knows what to do with.”

  “I don’t think wanting to know what you plan for her is unreasonable.” William tried to sound calm, but didn’t quite make it.

  “We need to go,” said Kirk, clearly agitated by the delay.

  “I need to know that she’s not going to be hurt,” said William.

  Rowan threw up her hands in frustration, Kirk looked puzzled. “Well of course not William, she’s the well. Madeline doesn’t seem at all hurt, does she?”

  “What does Madeline have to do with anything?”

  “She’s our current well. You should already know all this! Can we please leave?”

  William still in no way felt ok about what had just happened, but he did feel a bare scrap of an iota better, knowing that Daisy wasn’t going to be hurt. He nodded, and looked at Rowan. “Could you not have just told me that?”

  She just stared at him, and he got the feeling she was disappointed. “Your faith in Grey Corp should have been enough. Just get in the damn car.”

  William did so. He wished it didn’t feel so much like the worst thing he’d ever done.

  Chapter 41.

  They followed Kirk’s Bentley as it winded back towards the Grey Building. Daisy sat curled in the corner, her face pressed to the Mustang’s window. She watched the houses pass by with wide eyes, sucking her thumb. The back seat was small, even for a skinny sixteen year old and a skinny six year old; and William felt a little trapped. Car door pressing on one side, Daisy on the other, and the back of Rowan’s seat pushing against his knees. Night was beginning to circle the city, it was that eerie period of time when everything seemed slower and softer, and the lights of cars and street lights seemed out of place in the not quite darkness.

  Rowan caught William’s eye in the rear-view mirror and shook her head. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “It didn’t have to be this way, it was her mother’s fault.”

  William looked to Daisy, who appeared either unaware or unconcerned that she was the current topic of discussion. “And how do you figure that.”

  “That kid has been Illuding since the second she was born. Of course we noticed right away, and Dr. Smith was able to pinpoint where it was coming from. The maternity ward, where little Daisy Shannon was only a few days old. So Mr. Grey goes in to offer the mother, who was at the time sixteen and alone in the big cruel world, a generous sum of money in return for placing her bastard kid in the able car of Grey Corp. She flips out and does a runner, taking the kid with her. By this point any kind of surveillance in half the city is dark. Within six months the whole city was out. If she’d just agreed to give us the kid we’d have raised her with the finest of everything, and she’d probably be over it by now. She could have had four more to replace this one.”

  William was pretty sure it didn’t work that way. William couldn’t stop thinking about Gwen and how upset she had been. And she was going to wake up and find her daughter gone, with no way to get her back. It wasn’t like any cop or lawyer in the country would consider even for a second moving against Grey Corp. She was one woman, powerless and alone. Maybe the dentist had been right, maybe they really were all monsters.

  He looked down at Daisy. “So, you’re six?”

  “Uh huh,” she replied, still staring intently out the window. Night was well and truly upon them by that point; lit up shop signs flashed all around them. A long line of merry red tail lights stretched out from a set of traffic ligh
ts, and the Mustang joined the queue. William could see Kirk’s Bentley a few cars ahead, sandwiched between a van and a station wagon.

  “I had a sister who was six,” said William. And once the memory of his sister was in his head, there was no way in hell it was going anywhere. William tried to imagine how his mother would have reacted had someone come along and taken May away. Not surprisingly, these thoughts only increased his miserable guilt.

  “What was her name?” asked Daisy, still not looking at him.

  “May.”

  “Oh.” Daisy thought about this, and then turned away from the window to look at him. “A car hit her.”

  William’s heart skipped a beat, his chest felt suddenly tight. Rowan, who up until that point had been gazing at nothing, with one eye on the traffic lights, sat up and twisted around to stare at Daisy intently.

  “Well then,” she said, “how could she have known that?” Daisy bit her lip, and went back to staring out the window. William shrugged, but didn’t say anything. “Mr. Grey,” said Rowan, “is going to be very, very interested in you, young lady.

  She could Illude inside heads. Just like William. And now Rowan new it, and she would tell Mr. Grey. Would Jones kill her to stop her from spilling his secrets? Or would she be driven mad, like Mr. Grey’s wife? Would they leave her alone because she was the well? It was all too much. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about his sister? He never thought about May. He could barely remember her!

  They were driving through the centre of the city. The streets here were narrow and congested. Theatres and expensive cafés on one side, trendy used book stores and juice bars on the other. Up ahead was William’s favourite music store. Their pace was glacial. William wondered if late onset claustrophobia was a thing.

  “Why are we going this way?” asked William, “along the river and over the bridge is quicker.”

  Rowan shrugged. “I’m following Kirk. Try and see what other stuff the kid knows that she shouldn’t.”

  William looked at Daisy. Trying to tell her with his eyes that she would be wise to say nothing. Daisy pointed at Rowan.