Dark Embers

by R. L. Giddings

  His hair and beard were even more bedraggled than usual and it looked like he’d dressed himself from one of the racks of clothes downstairs. He was wearing a green duffle coat which would, no doubt, have looked better on the child who’d previously owned it.

  But it was the gun which grabbed my attention. It was the oldest revolver I had ever seen. He was aiming it less than perfectly in my general direction but that didn’t make me any less susceptible to the threat it posed. A twitch in my general direction would be all it took. Just a few pounds of pressure on the trigger and it wouldn’t matter how good a marksman he was. It was a small room and he was close enough to negate any defensive spells I might be able to conjure.

  “Now stand up, slowly,” Macrory used his left arm as a communication device.

  I was very careful to follow his lead.

  “I didn’t kill him,” I said when I was standing.

  He ignored me. “Now take your handbag and throw it over here.”

  I’d forgotten I had a handbag. When I reached for it, his gun angled upwards so that it was pointing straight at my face.

  “Slowly!”

  Very carefully, I eased the strap off my shoulder and then extended the bag as if in slow motion.

  “Don’t drop it,” he warned.

  I held the bag dangling in space. It was heavy enough that my shoulder started to hurt after a while but I forced myself not to let it dip toward the floor.

  Macrory indicated where he wanted me to throw it. It landed at his feet. I was careful not to straighten up immediately. I didn’t want to startle him into shooting me.

  He switched the gun to his left hand then knelt to pick up the bag. He unzipped it slowly and then started rooting through its contents. When he found my purse, he eased it out but, as he did so, he relaxed his gun hand so that it pointed to the floor.

  “There’s nothing in the purse,” I said.

  He didn’t seem to hear me. He was too intent on releasing the clasp.

  That’s why my spell caught him so completely off guard.

  He lurched as if he’d been kicked in the chest by a donkey which was, in effect, pretty much what had just happened. He dropped the gun and the purse as he staggered backwards, pure instinct causing him to keep hold of the bag.

  Stumbling through the open doorway, he hit the stair rail hard, but that wasn’t enough to stop him. Momentum sent him spinning over the rail and the last thing I saw were the soles of his shoes as he disappeared into space.

  *

  “Have you rung for an ambulance?”

  Macrory was standing in the kitchen with a sleeping bag draped over his shoulders. In his hands, he clasped a cup of tea Millie had just made for him.

  “There’s no point ringing an ambulance,” I pointed out. “The bloke upstairs is beyond saving.”

  “I meant for me. I think I’ve broken my back. Just here, between my shoulder blades. Want a feel?”

  “No, I don’t. You’re just lucky this place is so full of junk that that sofa-bed cushioned your fall.”

  “You could have killed me,” he avoided looking at me.

  “You were the one waving the gun around,” I held the gun between finger and thumb. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that you were the people who’d killed Sabien.”

  “Sabien, is it? And you thought you’d scare them off with this?” I gripped the gun properly. It felt very clumsy in my hand.

  “That’s a classic, that is. An old Webley service revolver. They used these in the war.”

  “Which one? The Boer war? This thing belongs in a museum.”

  “It’s got a few good years left in it yet.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Really? You fire this thing and the only person you’re going to hurt is yourself.”

  “Yeah, well. I figured I needed protection after what happened to Sabien.”

  “Not with this,” I broke open the cylinder and took out the three rounds. They were a real mismatch, as if they’d come from different time periods. I put them in the sink and then turned on the tap.

  “Heay, what are you doing?”

  I handed the gun to Millie. “Do me a favour and put this somewhere safe. I’d rather some teenage housebreaker didn’t come across it.”

  She disappeared upstairs and I indicated for Macrory to join me in the back-yard. The sky was grey and it had started spitting with rain but it was still preferable to being inside.

  “So who is this Sabien person to you?” I asked, though I already had a pretty good idea.

  “My business partner?”

  Macrory was the world’s worst liar.

  “Try again.”

  “Alright. He was a freedom fighter.”

  “For the Sidhe.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess. Now tell me all about him. And before you say anything else, be assured that if I even suspect you of lying, the next person you’ll be talking to will be an Advocate.”

  The Advocate are the Inner Council’s enforcers. They don’t have much time for the niceties of cross-examinations but they do get the job done.

  “Why would you do that? I thought we had an understanding.”

  “Which ended as soon as you started waving that gun around. Now, who is he?”

  He suddenly looked terribly ill.

  “I promised him I wouldn’t tell.”

  “And a lot of good it did him. Who was he?”

  He pulled the sleeping bag tight around his shoulders.

  “A member of the Unseelie Court. He’d known my father and, when he got into trouble, he came looking for me.”

  “He must have been in a whole heap of trouble to end up in a dump like this.”

  Millie came back into the kitchen looking pleased with herself. Macrory scowled at her.

  “He was part of the team involved in the bombing.”

  Millie looked at me as if she might have misheard.

  “So, he was one of the two who got away?”

  “Not that it did him much good,” Macrory looked utterly miserable. “I didn’t want him here but he was very persistent. He said that he’d had a major disagreement with the people he was working with. Said someone wanted to kill him.”

  “Did he give you a name?”

  “No. He was too scared.”

  Then a thought occurred to me.

  “Was this before or after the bombing?”

  Macrory had to think for a moment. “This was on the Saturday. So the day before.”

  “Did you know what they were planning to do then?”

  Macrory looked at me then Millie.

  “No, of course not. All he’d say was that he was in trouble.”

  “So you let him stay here. When was the last time you saw him alive?”

  Macrory shrugged. “That was it. I said that he could stay for a couple of days but then he’d have to look elsewhere. Of course, when I heard about the bombing, I came round to confront him but he wasn’t here.”

  “When was this?”

  “On the Monday morning.”

  “Are you sure he wasn’t here. Did you look upstairs?”

  Macrory looked shame faced. “Didn’t think to. But he wasn’t here, I’m sure of it.”

  I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t trust Macrory but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t telling the truth on this occasion. Millie and I exchanged glances. If Macrory was to be believed, that was four of the five man team accounted for. Florian, the two men who had blown themselves up and now this Sabien.

  The obvious question was: who had killed him?

  Could the fifth team member have been responsible? Or was there someone else involved?

  Millie said, “But why go to all this trouble? Because whoever killed this Sabien character set fire to his body somewhere else and then brought the remains back here only to dump them.”

  “What makes you think he was killed elsewhere?” I said.

  “The smell for a st
art. The body’s oils and gases being burned off like that would have left one hell of a stench upstairs. Plus, there was no sign of smoke damage on the ceiling, no scorching around the body. You burn a body in a house like this and you’re going to leave all kinds of evidence. And there just aren’t any.”

  Macrory arched his eyebrows and took a sip of his tea. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

  I was a bit over-awed by Millie’s problem solving skills. Now that she’d said it, it was quite obvious that the body hadn’t been burned on the premises. Transporting the body back into the house and then upstairs without the body collapsing would have to be at least a two man job. Which sort of put Macrory in the clear, as far as I was concerned. I didn’t think he could afford to call on someone to help him out on a job like this.

  Let’s say that it didn’t seem likely. Not for someone of his size. No, you’d need at least two big tall guys for something like this. Preferably three.

  “Anyway,” he said. “What are you doing back here? Last I heard, you’d emigrated to Scotland. Shacked up with that Silas bloke. The one with the lovely hair.”

  The jibe hurt a lot more than it should have done. I think, mostly, because Silas did have lovely hair. And thinking about it only reminded me how much I missed him.

  “That was the plan. Just, sometimes, things don’t turn out the way you’d hoped.”

  He eyed the walls of the grubby little kitchen. “Yeah! Tell me about it.”

  *

  The three of us travelled back to our flat on the bus. Macrory insisted that it was the quickest way back and it turned out that he was right.

  Before catching the bus, he’d insisted that we visit a dry cleaners at the end of the road.

  We sat together on the top deck of the bus. Millie and I sat on one seat and Macrory sat behind us. Even though the bus was crowded, no one attempted to sit next to him.

  Millie had gone quiet. She’d hardly said anything since I’d suggested that Macrory come back with us. She didn’t trust him and I didn’t blame her. The problem was that we didn’t have much choice. He possessed a peculiar skill-set which would be invaluable to us if only we could get him to co-operate. If that was going to happen then we had to keep him close; we couldn’t afford to let him go wandering off. And that meant that he had to come and stay with us in the flat. At least for the time being. Millie was far too polite to voice her objections with him sitting right behind us. She’d have to wait until we had some privacy back at the flat and, by then, it would be too late.

  Clearly, I was manipulating the situation for my own ends but then I was getting desperate. I needed Macrory’s help. I could understand why people might be trying to kill him - I’d had the urge myself on numerous occasions - but he was no good to me dead.

  At the dry cleaner’s, Macrory showed us to a rail sporting a very diverse collection of clothing. These were items which had been cleaned only for their owners to then fail to collect them. In order to re-coup some of their costs, the cleaners waited until a suitable amount of time had passed and then attempted to sell them on. Macrory was very pleased with his dinner suit. He’d clearly picked it out some time earlier. The jacket was a reasonable size, if a little long in the arms, but the trousers were a different matter. Too tight in the waist and too long in the leg. Other than that, they were a perfect fit.

  The suit was sheathed in plastic and kept sliding off his lap.

  “And who was this fellow again? The one with the Bentley.”

  Facing behind me, I gave him an approximation of his name but even I wasn’t convinced that I’d remembered it correctly.

  Macrory continued, “Never heard of him. And he wanted you to track down the …”

  He mimed a stabbing action.

  “That’s right.”

  “And did he say anything else? Did he threaten you?”

  I looked at Millie who simply pulled a face. She thought I’d told Macrory too much already, and she might have been right. Every time I’d had dealings with him in the past he’d managed to double-cross me somehow. The only time that he hadn’t double-crossed me was when I’d managed to double-cross him first.

  There was another reason why I was drawn to Macrory, though. He had worked for Silas in the past and, for some reason, Silas seemed to trust him.

  I said, “He didn’t exactly threaten me …”

  “No?”

  I hesitated. “But he did seem to know an awful lot about me.”

  Macrory nodded. “So, he did threaten you, then.”

  This was Millie’s cue to turn on me. “That’s exactly what I said. This man is not being driven round London in a chauffeur driven Bentley because he’s being nice to people. It’s because he gets things done.”

  “And I would agree,” said Macrory. “You have been threatened, albeit subtly. While it’s unlikely that he’s going to try to hurt you directly he is trying to gain some kind of hold over you. You have to start taking this seriously, Bronte.”

  “That’s exactly what I said,” Millie was suddenly animated. She held up a hand towards Macrory but it took him a moment to realise her intentions. Then, the most embarrassing High-5 in history took place: in slow-motion.

  Millie and Macrory were ganging up against me!

  That’s when I knew I was lost.

  “What’s the time-scale for finding the …” he mimed the knife again. “How long have we got?”

  I had to think about that. “Oh, yes. He did say. Forty eight hours. But that was at eleven o’clock last night, so we’ve only got …”

  “Thirty two hours left!” Millie shrieked. “That’s – sixteen hours we’ve wasted.”

  “I can tell the time!” I snapped.

  People on the bus were turning to look over in our direction.

  Macrory raised a hand for silence.

  Just at that moment, the bus braked and his suit slipped of his knee and onto the floor. Macrory lent forward to pick it up.

  He lowered his voice. “Which gives us thirty two hours before the Sidhe invade. That’s what he said was going to happen, right?”

  “You think he was serious about that?”

  “The Sidhe take warfare extremely seriously. That’s why we’re so good at it.”

  I gave him a hard stare but said nothing.

  He continued. “We need to track down the blade as quickly as possible. There are traders in this kind of item. Silas would know them all.”

  “And how do we find them?”

  “They’re notoriously difficult to track down, normally. They only come out when there’s an auction on.”

  “Okay,” I said, starting to lose my patience. “When’s the next one?”

  “This time of year they have one a week,” he produced a pair of tickets.

  They were for a thing called the Strange Fruits Auction.

  “But this is for tonight,” I said.

  Macrory drummed his fingers on his suit. “Good job I brought this along.”

  Things were moving too fast and I was struck with uncertainty.

  “What about Kinsella. Shouldn’t we tell him about what we’re up to?”

  Macrory grabbed the back of our seat. “You mean you haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “He’s been arrested.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Millie said, “He’s still in hospital. Who’s arrested him?”

  “The Inner Council sent a medical team. They took him up onto the roof where a helicopter was waiting. No one’s seen him since.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Are you sure that the Council was involved?”

  “Four of their Advocates carried out the arrest. You don’t get a clearer indicator than that.”

  “Have you any idea what they’re charging him with?”

  “Gross negligence. They’re saying that he should never have had two Sidhe prisoners in the same holding facility. That by doing so he endangered the lives of everyone inside.”

 
“We were working to a very tight schedule!” Millie snapped. “Where else was he meant to take them?”

  Macrory tapped a finger on the back of our seat. “Oh, I don’t know. Dublin, Reykjavik, Paris? Or what about that custom built holding facility in Borehamwood?”

  Millie got to her feet. “So, you’re the expert now?”

  “I was merely making an observation.”

  She took a moment to compose herself then set off towards the stairs.

  “I’ll see you at home, Bronte.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Millie still wasn’t home by the time we left the flat. I sent her a couple of texts but she didn’t respond and I could understand why. Any criticism of KInsella’s actions on that night were also a criticism of her.

  She must have been feeling guilty enough about Kinsella’s injuries without then seeing him vilified by an organisation which should have been protecting him. It was a desperately sad situation which left me feeling hollow.

  If there was one thing which helped me focus it was the idea of getting my hands back on Sigurdsil. I didn’t know why but the thought of getting my hands on something so powerful helped me to fantasise any number of scenarios all of which culminated in me and Silas lying next to one another in bed.

  Macrory insisted on taking a cab to the auction house, although he didn’t insist on paying.

  The taxi dropped us at the end of a long dark street. He was adamant that he would take us no further and, once we’d paid him, he turned the cab in a tight circle and drove away at a furious pace.

  There were cultivated hedges on both sides of the road so that it was difficult to see the houses beyond. We walked along until we came to a pair of high gates. Macrory had stressed the importance of me wearing my nicest dress and I had complied. Macrory had taken a shower and spent some time trimming his beard while I did my best to take up his trousers using a pair of scissors and some iron-on webbing. Considering how little time I’d had, I thought they looked quite smart, although one of the hems kept coming loose.

  The gates were made of wrought iron and ornamented with little bas-reliefs of devils tormenting the various humans who had found themselves in the precincts of hell. Each figure was uniquely detailed it was just too dark to fully appreciate them now.