Relics

by Tim Lebbon

  She drifted through several reception areas as she went from one stairwell to another, using certain doors that were not alarmed, passing security cameras that were disabled. Some of the corridors she traveled seemed unused, peeling paint resembling shed skin in the weak security lighting. Others were secured with locks that only a handful of keys opened. The safe route through this building was invisible, and known only to a few.

  At last Lilou reached the upper floors. She used her own key to exit the staircase, and then she slumped against the wall, breathing deeply. Pent-up emotions threatened to flood through her, but she had to hold on. She wasn’t the priority here. She wasn’t the only one who would mourn.

  She passed a couple of rooms where others like her slept, and one place where someone watched. The man knew who she was—if not, she’d have been dead already—but he was confused at the grief and turmoil she was exuding.

  “What is it?” the man asked.

  “Mallian has to know first.”

  She slipped into the large central room, cut off from the outside and the only place on this floor which benefited from utter darkness. Closing the widened, heightened door gently behind her, she muttered the words none of them ever wanted to hear, but which they heard too often.

  “We’ve lost another.”

  Mallian stirred. She could smell him, the rich, spicy scent of age and strength. His presence was heavier than the darkness, thicker. He scared her then as much as he ever had before, but they all loved him without reservation.

  “Was it Sandri May?”

  “Yes,” she said, voice breaking. The pain was biting in, now that she was here. She’d kept it at bay to make it home, but having arrived, all she wanted to do was grieve.

  She heard Mallian’s intake of breath, and then a gentle exhalation.

  “I sent her to follow Vince’s girlfriend. Make sure she was safe.”

  “The woman wasn’t our concern.” His voice was deeper, stronger. Lilou could feel the air move around her as he spoke, and a subtle vibration that traveled through the floor.

  “She was!” Lilou protested. “After what he did for me, for us, it was the least we could do.” She leaned back against the wall and slid down, drawing her knees up and hugging them. Closing her eyes made no difference in the darkness, nor in the terribleness of it all.

  There weren’t enough of them left. Every loss was a tragedy.

  “Lights,” Mallian whispered, and the room was slowly illuminated.

  He sat on his bed, naked and magnificent. Ten feet tall, muscled, scarred and marked by conflict, he exuded age and strength. Yet Lilou knew that he had a more vulnerable side. She had once told him that he cared too much, and his reply had been, “That is impossible.”

  The last of the Nephilim had already begun to cry.

  “I knew Sandri May for a long, long time,” he said. “I first met her on the Persian Steppes, long before that place even had a name. Just a wild, untamed land of hunter and hunted, survivor and prey. There were mammoths in the land then, and even a few saber-toothed cats remained, here and there. It was a world that knew humanity, yet remained unchanged by their stain.

  “She feigned indifference when she first saw me. She pretended not to be afraid. I liked that strength in her, and we became friends. We travelled east to west, slowly, spending centuries making the journey, and we saw humanity change on the way. For better or worse—we weren’t sure at the time. Over the years, we came to know together. The Time was already long over by then, but it didn’t seem so to us, not really. We parted company, sometimes for decades, but we always found each other again. We would have so many stories to tell.”

  He drifted a little, as if silently reliving some of those tales. Perhaps one day Lilou would ask him to share, but not today.

  “She sometimes made me angry,” he continued. “Other times, I loved her.” His voice shifted from reflection to anger. “Was it them?”

  “I don’t think so, not this time. Sandri May was… shattered. Smashed to pieces. I think Ballus is back.”

  Mallian’s eyes opened wider in surprise.

  “I thought he was gone.”

  “We all did. Down deep, or crawled away somewhere to die.”

  “We should have never just assumed.” Mallian narrowed his eyes into slivers of hate. “He might be one of us, but that bastard has to die.”

  * * *

  “Fat Freddie is an idiot,” Mary Rock said. She took a delicate sip of her coffee. By the time they’d returned to the library, the coffee Kris had brought was too old, so she’d sent him to bring more. After delivering it he had left the room without being told, and now there were just the two of them.

  “He killed someone for calling him that.”

  “If so, that makes him doubly an idiot,” she replied. “Mostly he’s a fool because he can’t understand the wonderful.”

  “He seemed pretty besotted with his dead angel,” Angela said.

  “He’s a good actor. What gangster isn’t? How do you think he got where he is?”

  She wasn’t sure Mary expected an answer, and she had none to give. She had no wish to discuss brutality and murder. She’d seen enough already.

  “How many are there?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” Mary said. “Their time has been and gone. Their numbers are fewer because of your boyfriend.”

  “Meloy told me Vince is his greatest relic hunter. He knows what’s on the market, where to go, where to look.”

  “He knows how to kill them.”

  “Vince? Killing them?”

  “That’s where the real money is. He murders the rarest, most wonderful beings in order to sell their body parts to collectors, and others who use pieces of them in quack medicine. It’s ivory poaching taken to the nth degree. A harvesting of the rarest things known to man, simply for profit. It doesn’t even matter if they’re fresh. It’s usually better if they aren’t. Meloy explains it away by telling his customers the parts don’t putrefy.”

  “Incorruptible,” Angela said.

  “Like a saint’s heart.”

  “Vince wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t go out there and kill these things. If he even knew about them he’d be… amazed. He’d be in love with the idea of them.” As am I, Angela thought, remembering the fairy opening its eyes and gazing at her, following her movements as she walked back and forth across the small platform. Such alien eyes, so knowing. She shivered even thinking about it. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to sleep again.

  “Then you don’t know him as well as you think,” Mary said.

  “You’re protecting the fairy?” Angela asked.

  “Out there, in the streets, it’ll be hunted and killed. It doesn’t like being here, but it’s weak. It knows what I’m doing and appreciates it.”

  “Why are you doing it?”

  Mary frowned at her as if it was the world’s most stupid question. “Because they’re beautiful, and they need protecting.”

  “So if it wasn’t Vince, who did I see killed in my street?”

  “I’m not sure. We think it was another one of them, perhaps a nymph or dryad of some sort, sent to keep watch on you. They know who Vince is now. His cover is blown, his identity out there, and they want him dead even more than I do.”

  “Who killed it?”

  “Perhaps Vince, or those he associates with.” Mary Rock shrugged.

  Part of the play, Angela thought. Giving me as much information as she wants, and not a bit more. But… I did see Vince there. Watching me, then hiding from me. Mary knew a lot more than she was letting on.

  “Why did your people scoop it up from the street? I saw them put bits of it in a bag. Harry and Claudette, they were so casual about it.”

  Mary looked away and sipped at her coffee. She seemed uncomfortable, and this time Angela wasn’t sure it was feigned.

  “Mary?”

  “Something like that can’t be just left around,” she said at last. “The more secret their
existence, the less they’ll be persecuted. And… a fairy has to eat.”

  Angela couldn’t respond to that. The thought was horrible, but she didn’t feel in a position to judge. She wasn’t sure what position she was in. Her world kept shifting, tilting, and every change took her further away from everything she knew. Safe and normal was now a long, long way away, and she didn’t think she would ever know that place again.

  Mythological creatures had once existed, and there was a trade in their remains.

  Some of the creatures still existed, and they were hunted and killed for profit.

  Vince was one of the hunters, and now they knew him. They, as well as Mary Rock, wanted him dead.

  “I don’t know where he is,” she said. “I’m glad he’s not dead, but I have no idea how to find him. I’m not sure I even know who he is anymore.”

  “He fooled you pretty well, eh?” Mary said. She chuckled and drank some more coffee.

  “I don’t understand you,” Angela said. “I mean, you being involved in this. I don’t get what your part is, or why your thugs brought me to you. What do you want of me? I’ve told you I don’t know where he is, I have no idea, so why am I here?”

  Will she even let me go? The sudden thought shocked Angela with its potential finality. Was she really that close to death? A fairy has to eat. Angela looked away from the older woman, around the library at the thousands of tomes. There were two doors, and she guessed that they’d both be guarded. One window, double-glazed and with mullions close together. If she had to run, it would have to be the door she’d entered through.

  But if she ran, she might lose track of Vince completely.

  “I’ve lived an interesting life,” Mary said. “I’m not one for regrets, which is probably a good thing—otherwise I’d torture myself day and night. I dealt in ancient relics, just like Meloy, and he and I even did business a few times. I always found him crass, and too close to the cliché of what he really was. He always seemed one step away from being exposed, taken down either by the law or others with interest in taking control of his little empire. It’s amazing to me that he’s still there at all.

  “When I discovered the truth, my life changed. I found… a cause. I think I realised then that, though I was very much in control of my life, I was also rudderless. I drifted from one place to another, building up wealth and respect, drawing people to me who I know I can trust with my life.”

  “Harry and Claudette?” Angela asked.

  “Them, and others. Discovering the truth of these creatures opened up the world to me. I have a purpose now, something for which I can use my accumulated wealth.”

  “You’re making yourself sound like some sort of saint,” Angela said.

  Mary Rock looked at her over the coffee mug. “Oh, far from it.”

  Angela had to look away. She managed to control a physical shiver, but a chill passed through her. She tipped her own cup against her lips, even though she knew it was empty. Glanced up and back at the door.

  “Refill?” Mary asked.

  “No. I’m ready to leave. If I hear from Vince, I’ll let you know.”

  “Really?” the woman asked. She stood and came across to Angela, sitting on the arm of her chair and looking down at her, their faces so close that Angela could smell the coffee and age on her breath. “You’ll go home, and if your murdering boyfriend contacts you, the first thing you’ll do is let me know?”

  Angela sank into the chair, struggling not to show her fear.

  “Well, I’ll make it easier for you,” Mary Rock said. “If he contacts you and you don’t let me know, I’ll have you both killed.” She smiled and finished her coffee, turning her head to the side so she could hold Angela’s gaze.

  “What choice is that?” Angela asked.

  “No choice at all.”

  As if at a signal the door opened and Kris entered the room. He and Mary Rock exchanged a nod, and the old woman marched briskly to the doorway. She paused there and turned back.

  “If I don’t find him, they will,” she said. “They’re not entirely defenseless, you know. All they wish is to be left alone.” Then she went, and Kris closed the door behind her.

  “Here,” he said. He handed Angela a slip of paper with a handwritten phone number on it.

  She took the paper and stared at it. “Hers?”

  “Mine. Which is as good as hers.”

  “Now what?”

  “Now we take you home.”

  Helpless, hopeless, all Angela could do was to let them.

  * * *

  Every shadow might have been thrown by something she didn’t know. Every movement across poorly lit streets, along darkened alleys, behind curtained windows, might have been the shifting of something extraordinary from here to there, a creature of legend using the night as its cape and the relative silence as its disguise.

  Perhaps a few drunks leaning against walls, or homeless people sheltering wherever they could, caught sight of something from the corner of their eye, and dismissed it just as quickly. The drunks because they were used to seeing things that didn’t exist. The homeless because they were scared.

  With Kris next to her again, Angela sat in the back of the car, trying to accept just how much her world had changed.

  After the fairy had opened its eyes, she had backed toward the door, the creature’s head turning slightly as it tracked her movements. Its body had flexed a little, and a low keening rose as it flinched in pain. Some of the wounds its body had displayed looked recent.

  Harry drove, the passenger seat empty. Claudette hadn’t come with them. The car felt strangely silent because of the woman’s absence, as if hers was the personality that had filled it. Angela had no wish to break the silence. Though filled with countless questions, there was nothing she wanted to say to these men. One of them would probably be the person sent to kill her.

  She had been threatened with death twice in a day, but Mary Rock’s threat hung heavier than Frederick Meloy’s. Perhaps because the woman had issued it so casually.

  They passed a park, its boundary lined with street lamps which made its depths appear even darker and more impenetrable. Perhaps Vince was hiding in there. Or hunting.

  Angela tried hard not to cry. She hated the sense of self-pity that had settled over her, and she missed the distance that she’d felt when she thought Vince had been killed. She was certain now, as much as she could be, that he was still alive, but the idea that he was a killer made her feel like a fool. Could she have lived with a murderer for two years, without suspecting something?

  No. I don’t believe it. I can’t.

  Yet much of what she couldn’t believe was revealing itself as fact.

  Even though they were taking her home, Angela felt lost.

  14

  A sickening stench made him queasy with every breath. Panic bit hard. If he vomited he’d choke, a wretched death, drowning in the puke that would never make it past the gag in his mouth.

  His tongue was swollen and dry, and every time he unstuck it from the roof of his mouth it hurt more. He was blindfolded. However hard he strained his head and neck, or turned his eyes, he could see nothing but the vaguest hint of light. His wrists were tied behind him, arms in turn tied to a rigid metal chair. His arse and legs were numb, and a fire had been set in each shoulder. Every time he moved they flared more, spearing flames through his pressurised joints and stretched muscles.

  Stay calm, stay calm, Vince told himself, because the more he struggled, the more it hurt. The more he panicked, the harder it was to draw the next breath.

  Every sound echoed around him. At first he thought it was his hearing, distorted by the blood flow pulsing through his ears, but then he settled as much as he could, heart rate slowing, and scooted the chair to the left. The scrape had echoed, taking several seconds to fade away.

  He was shut away in a large space.

  Better than the cell Lilou had kept him in, at least.

  He hadn’t caught a good
look at the man who’d taken him, but he had been big, immensely strong, and he’d stunk. Not just an aroma of sweat or dirt, but a true animal stench.

  Nothing as bad as what he could smell now, though. At least his kidnapper’s scent, powerful though it was, had been of something living.

  All he wanted to know was that Angela was safe, but nothing of what he recalled could guarantee that. She’d looked his way, he had ducked down instinctively, and then the screaming and violence had begun. He should have gone to her and dragged her away, but even then his fear for her had been a confused, fractured concept—if he went closer, would he put her more at risk? If they were caught together, would they both be killed?

  So he had turned to run, feeling guilty for having returned there at all. He should have remained in that little cell with Lilou tending him, making sure he was all right, and of course she would do that because he had saved her. Whoever she was, whatever she was, her gratitude was obvious, and her concern for him palpable.

  He’d betrayed that.

  In the darkness the man had tripped him, and punched him so hard that he saw stars. When he came to he saw cars, and buildings, and realised he was being carried. He’d tried to struggle. An elbow to the face, and he saw nothing else.

  Now, helpless, constantly on the verge of drowning himself with his own vomit, Vince waited for whatever was to come next.

  If they removed the mask and he saw that bitch Claudette’s face, he’d know that whatever future he had left would be unbearably painful. He’d try to mock her, tell her how her brother had shit his pants as he’d fallen in front of the train. Maybe that would make her kill him quickly.

  But I don’t want to die. The thought brought back the panic, his breathing increased, and he drew in great gulps of the rancid stink that filled this place. Trying to calm himself again, willing his fear to subside, he heard footsteps.