Strangeness and Charm

by Mike Shevdon

  "Amber, I'm so sorry. You must miss her very much."

  "I wouldn't change it. If I could swap a year of my life for a year of hers, it would be different, but that's not the way it works. Instead you are given the years that are yours. Her years were wonderful. She was a beautiful girl."

  "I don't know what to say."

  "As I say, it was a long time ago."

  "It's strange, Amber. You've never mentioned her before. I never even knew you had a daughter. Why are you telling me this now?"

  "It brings back memories – mostly good ones." I caught a glimpse of her sad smile in the half-light. "You're very lucky."

  I looked down at the child in my arms. "I like to think so."

  "You already have one child who's come into her power. She will outlive you, perhaps, but you won't see her age and die."

  "I hadn't thought of it like that."

  "Your son – well you won't know until it happens. With fey power on both sides, he stands a better chance, but there are no guarantees."

  I looked down at him. He'd stopped drinking, his eyes were closed and his limbs had gone floppy. I withdrew the teat and he made a half-hearted attempt to get it back, but quickly turned his head into my chest and went back to sleep.

  "At one time," I told her, "all I wanted for my daughter was that she would grow up as a normal girl with a normal life."

  "Be careful what you wish for," said Amber. "It's not easy watching your children die, even if they have a good life. It's not something you ever get over."

  "No. I don't suppose it is," I agreed.

  "Treasure every moment, Dogstar. You have no way of telling how long you have." She stood, sliding across the room with lithe grace. "Good night, sleep well."

  She vanished into the dark and I sat quietly with a lightly snoring baby for some time before I made my way back upstairs. Settling him back into his cot, I wondered what would become of him. I went back to bed, listening to Blackbird breathe in the dark, and by the time I went back to sleep, the first signs of dawn were showing behind the curtains.

  The next morning I woke up late and was immediately summoned to see Garvin.

  "I have a list of items for you. I hope you know what you're looking for."

  He placed a folder in front of me. I opened it to reveal several sheets of paper with typed lists of items on them. "What's all this?"

  "It's what you asked for, a list of all the unusual items stolen since the release of the prisoners from Porton Down."

  "Can't they narrow it down a bit?" I turned over the first sheet to find the list continued on the next, and the next.

  "They could if they knew what they were looking for."

  "A seventeenth century chalice stolen from a church near Toxteth, ceremonial robes from another church near Barnstable, a replica sword stolen from a museum in Burgess Hill. How are we supposed to narrow it down."

  "That," said Garvin, "is your problem. You have the list. Now you need to tell me what they're doing with it all."

  "But these weren't necessarily stolen by any of the escapees. They could have been nicked by anyone."

  "Then you need to identify which of it is important, don't you?"

  I went down the list. "Well, I guess we can eliminate anything that's a replica, can't we?"

  "I don't know," said Garvin, "can we?"

  I slid the papers back into the folder. "Let me work on it, see what I can figure out. There must be a pattern to this somewhere."

  "Fine," said Garvin, "but in the meantime these people are still running around loose. I want them caught and dealt with, and whatever it is they doing stopped. If you find them, you can ask them what all this is for yourself, can't you?"

  "If we find them," I pointed out.

  "You're not going to find them in there," said Garvin, nodding towards the folder.

  "Perhaps," I said, "but we're not having much success finding them anywhere else, are we?"

  "We'll see," said Garvin.

  "When are we going to do something?" Alex was pacing up and down the office floor between the empty desks. "We never do anything."

  "We are doing something," said Eve. "I'm reading, or I was until you interrupted me. Chipper is doing whatever Chipper does when he's plugged into that machine, and Sparky is… What are you doing, Sparky?"

  Sparky looked over the monitor across the cluster of desks. "The internet is still working – I'm downloading movies. There's this Chinese site – you can get anything on here."

  "Anything good?" asked Alex.

  "I've got Evil Undead 3 if you want to watch?"

  Alex sighed. "Don't you ever watch anything but zombie flicks?"

  "I watched that thing the other night with the bald guy in it. That didn't have zombies."

  "No. It had aliens instead. Why can't we watch something that doesn't involve the human race being wiped out."

  "What could be wrong with that?" asked Eve.

  She said it jokingly, but Alex caught something in her tone that didn't follow the joke. Alex watched her, but Eve just shook her head and returned to reading.

  Sparky went back to browsing files for download. Alex walked up and down the office again. It was an odd place. Eve said the company that owned it had gone bust, so they'd sounded the fire alarms and marched everyone who worked there outside and locked the doors. The desks and chairs were just as they'd left them, newspapers open, coffee mugs half-full of cold coffee with lines around it where the water had evaporated. It was spooky, as the people had been disintegrated leaving everything else in its place. There was even an empty pair of shoes under one of the desks as if the person wearing them had simply vanished.

  "Why don't you read a book?" said Eve.

  "What? One of your weird-arse mystical relics, or that one about the universe being two-dimensional?"

  "Flatland," said Eve. "It's a very thought-provoking book."

  "It is not good. It is boring. B-O-R-R-I-N-G, spelled D-U-L-L."

  "That's not how you spell boring, Alex," said Eve.

  "It's how I spell it. Why do we never go anywhere or do anything, except when we're stealing some bizarro artefact from a lost civilisation? Why don't we go clubbing or something? We could have some fun!"

  "You are free to go clubbing if you wish," said Eve, coldly.

  "On my own? And yeah, Gina went clubbing. Look what happened to her."

  "Gina had other problems."

  "We could go and find some decent food, instead of living off noodles and chips. My skin feels like an oil slick." Alex rubbed her finger up and down her nose to demonstrate.

  "Vanity does not suit you," said Eve, "and we are supposed to be keeping a low profile. We can hardly do that by skipping out of restaurants without paying. Besides, Chipper doesn't want to leave his computer."

  Chipper was wired into a PC with three screens that he'd cobbled together from equipment around the office. He wore huge headphones which sometimes failed to deaden the sound of staccato gunfire and the screams of the dying.

  "That's all he ever does! What's he playing now? Some World War Two thing that goes on forever. He'll be all night on that. What am I supposed to do?"

  "You can go out if you want to. You're not a prisoner," Eve pointed out.

  "And this office – the chairs are all on wheels, there's no beds to sleep in, the lights are on whether you want them on or not."

  "As Sparky pointed out, it has internet and power, it's clean and dry. There's a basic kitchen with a microwave. What more do you want?'

  "A bed?" said Alex.

  "Sleep is highly overrated," said Eve.

  "I don't get it," said Alex. "You're in all this hurry to get hold of the stuff and then we wait. What are we waiting for? Why don't we change the world now? Today?"

  "The timing must be perfect. You don't understand."

  "You always say that, but you never say when. You're worse than my sodding parents."

  "It will be soon, Alex. You must learn patience." Eve glance
d up sharply. "What was that?"

  "What was what?" said Alex.

  Eve looked back along the line of desks in the deserted office space to the doors where the lift lobby was. "Why is there no light in the lift lobby?" she said, her voice acquiring an edge as she rose to her feet. She picked up a stapler and threw it towards Chipper so that it bounced off the monitors.

  "What'd you do that for?" said Chipper, tearing off the headphones.

  "Trouble," said Eve. "Police?" She picked up the book and stuffed it into the satchel she carried, tucking it in beside other items stashed in the satchel, slipping it over her head and across her body.

  She was collecting a long silver arrow from the desk where she'd been reading when Sparky spoke.

  "Er, guys?" Sparky stood up slowly, his hands held up and away from his body. As he stood it became apparent there was someone standing close behind him holding a long curved knife to his throat. "Problem here?"

  "Fellstamp?" Alex said his name before she could stop herself. She immediately recognised the broad-nosed face rising behind Sparky. "What are you doing…?"

  "You know him?" asked Eve, incredulous.

  "Kinda," said Alex. "He's one of the people who work with my dad."

  "Just everyone relax and no one gets hurt," said Fellstamp. "We're not looking for a fight – just being cautious. If we wanted to hurt you, you'd be dead by now."

  "We?" Said Eve. "There's only one of you."

  "No, there isn't." A figure appeared near the door to the lift lobby, where seconds before Alex could have sworn there was no one.

  "Fionh," said Alex, turning to face her. "You're not taking me back. I won't go!"

  "Shut up, Alex. This is not about you," said Fionh. "You," she nodded towards Eve, "put down the arrow, drop the bag and any other weapons, place your hands high where we can see them."

  "You know these people?" said Eve, shoving Alex in the chest so that she staggered back against a desk. "You brought them here?"

  "No," said Alex. "They must have tracked us here. I didn't tell anyone, honestly."

  "In two," said Eve, quietly.

  "What?" said Alex. From her position she saw Chipper pretend to lift something from the desk, cradling it to him. Eve paused for just a second. Sparky was gripping the top of the monitor in front of him. There was a faint smell of electrical overheating. A wisp of smoke rose from the back of the monitor. Sparky nodded.

  "Don't try anything," said Fellstamp, "Or your friend will grow a new smile."

  "Two," said Eve.

  There was a blinding white flash from Sparky. In the after image burned into Alex's retina, long trails of jagged lightning forked out all around him. Fellstamp flew backwards, a bright arc lancing into his chest. To Alex, blinking through the green spots floating in front of her eyes, he seemed to float in the air as he sailed backwards, arms out-flung.

  Chipper made a gesture that looked to Alex like he was launching a grenade. A great gout of flame erupted in front of Fionh, the pulse of heat throwing Alex forward so she landed across one of the stupid office chairs and toppled sideways onto the floor.

  Her ears ringing from the twin detonations, Alex crawled to her knees, coughing at the bitter-tasting smoke that was roiling down around her. A high-pitched alarm was screeching. Emergency lighting flickered into dim illumination.

  Alex pulled herself up on the desk in time to see Fionh striding through the smoke towards Eve with a long straight blade held easily, but as she advanced her steps faltered. Fionh glanced down, suddenly unsure of her footing. Even as she hesitated, the floor appeared to ripple and bow underneath her. Carpet tiles up-ended into a dip in the floor which expanded, swallowing everything as it flowed outwards.

  Fionh leapt forwards, the ground under her sagging and collapsing, leaving her sprawled across the shifting carpet tiles as they were sucked inexorably into the slowly whirling vortex that had opened up in what had been a solid floor. It rippled like water, and sighed like sand. Fionh crawled forward while the floor slipped backwards into the dark hole that had opened up in the floor.

  "Die bitch!" said Eve.

  "No!" said Alex. "You mustn't!"

  Eve glanced at Alex and then stepped forward and slapped her, flat-handed, across the face. Alex staggered sideways at the force of the blow. Tears welled into her eyes.

  "Never!" Eve's eyes blazed with anger. "Never ever tell me what I can and cannot do!"

  Alex held her hand to her cheek where her cheek burned. "There are more of them," Alex blurted through the tears. "If you kill them they'll come with more, better armed, better prepared."

  "They'll have to find us first," said Eve. "Out!" she called to Sparky and Chipper. "Emergency exit. Now!" She grabbed Alex's hair, lifting it and pulling it back so that Alex's throat was exposed. In her hand, the tip of the silver arrow glinted menacingly.

  "Did you bring them here? Did you?" asked Eve.

  "No!" Alex gasped. "I swear."

  Eve paused, on the cusp of a decision. Alex readied herself, trying to think of something she could do, something she could say.

  Eve threw her forwards. "Go! Follow them down. I'll be right behind you."

  She pushed Alex towards the emergency exit. Alex stumbled forwards, her footing uncertain. The whole floor was shifting and bucking like it was a living thing. The foulsmelling smoke drifted around her, forming into drifts like ghosts in the still air. She glanced back. Outlined against the dull flicker of the flames, she could dimly see Eve's outline.

  It was too late to help anyone now.

  It was so rare to see people running in the courts that I couldn't help but follow the commotion down to the source, the room where the Ways converged, under the house.

  When I reached the room I couldn't quite believe what I found. Fionh was sprawled on the floor, covered in smears of dark soot, showing livid bruises and singed hair. Garvin was knelt beside her giving her water from a glass. I'd never seen Fionh look anything but crisp and business-like. It was a shock to see her in such disarray.

  Beside her, Fellstamp was laid with his head in the lap of one of the female stewards, his eyes closed. In normal circumstances he'd be enjoying that sort of attention, but he lay quite still, eyes closed. She held a cloth pressed to his forehead, murmuring down to him. There was an acrid smell of burning plastic and another smell I couldn't identify.

  People were bringing in bowls of warm water and blankets. They didn't seem to know what else to do.

  "What the hell happened to you?" I blurted out.

  Fionh pushed the glass away. "Your daughter and her friends, that's what."

  "Alex did this?" I was incredulous.

  "Her friends did. We underestimated them badly. They looked peaceful enough and we went in hard. Fellstamp took one of them hostage. We thought we had it under control but there was some sort of electrical discharge, I've never seen anything like it. It caught Fellstamp full in the chest. He hasn't moved since."

  "Perhaps it was an accident. They don't have much control."

  "You joke!" said Fionh. "While one of them was throwing fireballs at me, the other did something to the floor of the building. It was like quicksand, dragging me down."

  She coughed and Garvin gave her some more of the water. When she could speak again she continued.

  "The leader is a girl, not much older than Alex. She was carrying a bag slung across her chest and a metal arrow, it looked like silver. She had a book as well, but she put that in the bag as soon as she realised they weren't alone." She coughed again. "When the others had gone, she leaned down at the edge of the pit that was dragging me down. She watched me struggling as I was sliding slowly backwards. She didn't offer a hand, or even blink."

  Fionh's gaze turned inwards at the memory.

  "She said to pass on a message. She said not to come after them. She said if we did she would take a city and do the same with that as she was doing to me. She said she would drag all of it down and send it to hell, which was what it deserve
d. Then she stood up and walked away without a backward glance."

  "And you left Alex with these people?" I asked.

  "Your daughter?" She laughed without humour. "She's in on it – one of them, calm as you like. They had a bit of a tiff when the leader thought she'd given away their location, but she went with them all the same. She's one of them, Niall."

  "She can't be. Alex wouldn't associate with anyone like that," I protested