by Tim Lebbon
“Where and when?” he asked.
“Now,” Lilou said. “I’ll tell you where. Is that car big enough for six?” Without waiting for a reply she walked across the parking lot toward the gangster’s idling Mercedes.
“Angela—” Fat Frederick began, but she pushed past him and shook her head.
“You’ll see,” she said. “Pretty soon, you’ll understand.”
* * *
I’m doing something so foolish… Lilou thought. She was scared of Ballus, and worried about Mary Rock and her followers. Yet she knew that this was right. Ballus might have already killed Vince, but if not, she should do everything she could to rescue him.
Mallian would be angry, but if she’d asked his opinion he would have talked her out of it. He had a gift like that. “The fairy,” he would have said, “is more important than anything else.”
Yet he also had said of Ballus, “That bastard has to die.”
Four of them were crushed into the back of the Mercedes. Meloy was in the front, his big bodyguard driving. Two men he’d introduced as Billy and Ming sat in the back. Billy was short, thin and covered in scars, Ming had a long pointed beard. Angela had insisted on sitting squashed in between Ming and Lilou, meaning Lilou was pressed against the door. That was best, she knew. She could rein herself in and keep everything calm.
Meloy was staring at her in the car’s side mirror. He dealt in the relics of her dead kin. She didn’t like people like him, but had encountered many through the years.
Lilou was not Time-born—few of the remaining Kin were—but she was still very old in human terms. She had known plenty of bad people.
A thousand years before, in a land to the north, soldiers had sacked and burned, raped and killed, all on the orders of a Frenchman who could not have his way. Lilou had been younger of mind and soul then, and she’d taken it upon herself to help a group of women and children fleeing one of the villages. She’d always had a weakness for humans, Mallian often said. She could hardly deny it.
Most soldiers had let them pass, but in a cold forest still gripped by snow they’d encountered one small group, drunk and fired up by blood already spilled. One of them had perceived something in Lilou that caught his eye, understood that she was different. Perhaps in that land of blood and conflict, her difference had shone bright. Whatever the reason, the soldier had dragged her from the small group she was helping, had thrown her to the ground, and pinned her through the shoulder with a pike.
Lilou’s scream had brought help. Back then she and her Kin had a far deeper, wider feel for the land and the creatures that lived above, upon, and beneath it. In modern London they used the Seven, foxes that had been alive for a long time, making the city their own. A thousand years ago, it had been the wolves.
The pack arrived quickly. Four of them attacked the soldiers, while three others crouched down close to Lilou, keeping her warm and protecting her from further harm. She had welcomed the animal smell of them, the simplicity of their existence, and their loyalty.
Two soldiers went down with their throats torn out. Others fled. The man who had wounded Lilou remained, pressed against the tree by the alpha male.
“Bad man,” Lilou had whispered, and with a twist of its head the wolf bit off the soldier’s face.
She remembered the people screaming and crying, and the looks on their faces as the wolves left. She begged the women for help, but to them she was a monster, a witch, a demon, commanding wild animals to kill.
The people she had been trying to help ran away from her, and she never knew what happened to them.
Wounds healed, injuries faded away, and such long periods of time meant that even scars became little more than ghosts. But memories remained.
There had been many more bad men and women. Gertrude, the old woman with an unnatural appetite for children of the Kin. Before he went mad, Ballus had buried her alive in a peat bog in Wales. And there was Nicholas the Rat, a sword for hire whose men regarded him with terror and devotion. He had worked for a Middle Ages equivalent of Mary Rock, and his bloody group had taken a dozen Kin before they were trapped and killed by Mallian.
Such a long life, she mused. The memories that fill it should be good ones. But sitting in the back of that cramped vehicle, she remembered only the pain and darkness.
“Do you have weapons?” she asked. None of them replied, and she took that silence as assent. Meloy was still staring at her in his mirror. He exuded cockiness and arrogance, and a naive belief in his own strength.
Soon they’ll meet Ballus.
Lilou laughed softly, silently, sending a shiver through the car.
20
“You lost her?”
Mary Rock never raised her voice, but the anger was evident. It could have reached through the phone line and ripped Claudette’s brain through her ear.
“She gave us the slip. Knew we were following, left a café through—”
“Of course she knew you were following. She isn’t stupid.”
“We think she was helped.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Mary Rock fell silent, but she was still there.
Harry tapped the steering wheel gently, humming a random tune. He knew the way the conversation was going. He knew pretty much everything Claudette knew, and that’s why they made the perfect team.
But things had started falling apart. She’d felt herself starting to fracture from the moment she rushed down to the derelict British Museum Underground platform and found…
“Tell Harry he’s a prick, too,” Mary said.
“He knows.”
Harry glanced across at Claudette, one corner of his mouth rising slightly. Contrite, embarrassed, angry at himself.
Not like her. Claudette’s anger went way beyond anything he was feeling. She wanted to kill someone, and it should have been the girl. Probably would have been, by dusk that very day, if they hadn’t lost her.
The world hurried past outside, back and forth along the pavement, as if Daley hadn’t been killed beneath these streets. She wanted to shove the door open and scream at them all, pull her knife and get to work on one of the apathetic bastards. See red. Her heart fluttered as she thought of the violence she could wreak.
“We’ll find her again,” Claudette said. “We have eyes on the streets, they’re looking, and as soon as—”
“There are several train parks and servicing depots on the tube line,” Mary Rock said. Claudette imagined her sitting in the plush living room, coffee cup on the table, perhaps a plate of biscuits. In the dining room next door, arrangements would be continuing. There was going to be a feast.
“In one of these depots is a train that’s been pulled off duty for a while. Some material was found on its wheels and undercarriage, and they have people cleaning it down. I doubt they’re being too careful. Maybe they found scraps of clothing, perhaps even some hair, but nothing identifiable. Not after it continued running a day after Daley was pushed in front of it. So your brother’s resting place is in the bins and drains of that train depot. They’re washing him away, just as they wash down the remnants of squashed cats, dogs, and rats.”
“I don’t need to hear that,” Claudette whispered.
“I think you do,” Mary Rock replied, matter-of-fact. “I think you need to understand how much we have to find that fucker. And what of Celine?”
“Mary, you don’t need to hear that.”
“I don’t?” Almost a laugh, but Claudette heard her boss’s grief. “I see it every day, every night, even though it was you who found her. Tell me again.”
“Really?”
“Tell me again.”
“She was alone in the dark,” Claudette said. Beside her Harry rolled his eyes, and she felt like punching him in the head. Her heart fluttered. Such violence.
“But she was dead when you found her.”
“You know she was. I’ve told you before. The knife was still in her, she was cool. Her face… she didn’t look in pain.” She trailed of
f. Not only did she not wish to relive the rest, she had done her best to forget it.
“And the rats were eating her,” Mary said.
“Yes,” Claudette said, blinking and seeing that terrible sight again. Chewing into the wound on her stomach, opening it around the blade, making it larger so that they could reach the succulent parts inside.
“I think you stopped them just in time,” Mary said. “I think she’ll be all right.”
Claudette said nothing. All the things she had seen, everything she knew, the incredible truths to which she had been exposed, none of them could make her believe.
“I’m sure she will.”
Mary Rock kept her dead lover in a freezer in the basement. She was waiting to find the right magic to bring her back. They had heard that some of the Kin possessed such magic, and although it was perhaps a myth, Mary had become obsessed with the idea.
None of them had ever witnessed even the slightest hint that the magic existed.
“In the meantime, revenge,” Mary said. “That’s why you have to find the woman again. While Vince is still alive, neither of us sleeps well.”
“An added bonus would be the nymph,” Claudette said. Mary was quiet for so long that she thought the connection had been broken, and she took the phone away from her ear. Mary’s voice whispered in again.
“I don’t want only her,” she said. “I want them all.”
21
From the moment they arrived at the old swimming pool building, Angela knew she should have gone to the police. This was way beyond her. She was here with people she did not trust, to do something she did not understand, and every instinct was telling her to run.
The front of the facility had been boarded up long ago, windows and doors closed with steel shutters screwed into the frames, and several large signs were added to state the obvious.
SWIMMING BATHS CLOSED WARNING! DANGEROUS STRUCTURE
They sounded like invitations to any number of kids, junkies, and homeless people looking for a night’s rest, yet it appeared as if the security shutters remained intact.
As they pulled around back, what they found there was different. Heavily overgrown with wild shrubs and brambles, the parking lot was a jumble of rusted machinery and refuse. Some of the machines were large, and she couldn’t identify their use. Metal long exposed to the elements had rusted, sharp lines softened by rot.
The building itself looked like something out of a fairy tale. Which, she realised with a startled laugh, was quite apt. The whole rear facade was smothered in wild foliage that had crept up the walls and sprouted from the wide roof. The structure was built in sloping sections, allowing new growth from flat roof areas, providing a perfect footing for small trees and a wild spread of what Angela thought must be Japanese knotweed.
The uppermost peak was pitched with a glazed ridge, most of the glass smashed, plants reaching inward as if seeking entry.
“Nice place you have here,” Fat Frederick said to Lilou. She ignored him and walked toward the building. Angela followed, weaving across the parking lot to find the easiest route through the rampant shrubbery. Where Lilou seemed to walk with ease, Angela forced past clutching branches, thorns catching her clothing and scratching her skin. Glass crunched underfoot.
“You’re sure he’s here?” she asked.
“Ballus, yes,” Lilou said. “I’ve been certain since we arrived. Can’t you smell it?”
“Smell what?”
“Death.”
Angela paused and sniffed, turning her head aside from the gentle breeze. She inhaled again, a deeper breath. Nothing.
“What about Vince?”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
Know if he’s here, or if he’s dead? she wanted to ask, but the time for talking was over.
As they drew closer, Cliff drew a handgun, and Billy and Ming held knives. They also carried heavy flashlights.
“We go in there,” Lilou said, pointing. Closer to the building, Angela could see that the shutter over one of the service access doors had been popped from its bolts.
She turned back to the four men still clumsily shoving their way through the undergrowth. Fat Frederick was in the lead, ignoring his supposed bodyguard. His eyes were wide and excited, like a kid’s. She thought perhaps he was starting to understand.
His gaze remained fixed on Lilou.
“Meloy,” Angela said. He blinked. “Stay alert. This is dangerous.”
She’d expected mockery, but he nodded.
“Help me with this,” Lilou said. Fat Frederick, pushed past Angela and joined the nymph at the broken steel shutter.
“Jesus, what’s that stink?” he asked.
“Maybe they haven’t drained the pool,” Cliff said.
“Shit, I’d have brung my trunks,” Ming said. It was the first time Angela had heard him speak, and his soft, high voice came as a surprise.
While Fat Frederick and Lilou strained at the shutter, Angela felt a rush of trepidation that caused her to take three steps back. Cliff grasped her arm gently, then stepped aside.
What the hell am I doing here? she thought. She remembered the darkness of her street, the feeling of being followed, the silence. Then sudden, shattering violence, the stamping and thudding. The crack of bones or skull breaking beneath hooved feet.
The mess she had seen Harry scooping up with a shovel.
The stain on the road the following morning.
“Keep your gun out,” she whispered as the shutter squealed open, revealing a triangle of darkness beyond.
Cliff held his weapon like something hot, and Angela realised without asking that he’d probably never shot anyone or anything.
Lilou disappeared inside, and Fat Frederick followed. Angela glanced around at the deserted lot, a wasteland in the middle of the city, unvisited, forgotten and abandoned. Then she followed.
As she stepped through the door the stench hit her, and she leaned over and puked. She felt a hand on her back and saw Lilou’s feet beside her own, and she wiped her mouth, stood, squinted into the shadows.
“He’s been murdering my kin,” Lilou said, voice flat. “It smells like he’s been saving them, too.”
Plenty of relics here! Angela thought of saying that to Meloy, and manic laughter threatened. She was tempted to give in, let madness take her away from the awful, unbearable present. Then Lilou gripped her hand and squeezed hard, and for the first time she bent in close to betray something approaching hope.
“We will save him.”
Angela squeezed back, then followed her along a narrow corridor.
Fat Frederick walked by her side, with Cliff and Billy behind them. Ming waited in the shadow of the broken shutter, guarding the entrance and the route of their escape.
I should have let Lucy know where I was going, she thought. Should have called Mom. What if something happens to me, and they never…? But “could have” and “should have” were too late now. She was in the thick of things, and this was all her own choice.
For Vince.
For the man she loved, who was in trouble because of his goodness, not because of what Mary Rock had said about him.
Billy took a flashlight from his pocket and shone it ahead. They followed a service corridor with doors leading off and pipes and wires running in trays at ceiling level. Many pipes had frozen and burst, and much of the copper wiring had been stripped and stolen. Every door had been smashed open, and the equipment rooms were home to bulky machinery and shifting shadows. The smell of rot was rich, but it did not originate from there.
“Up ahead,” Lilou whispered, and Billy aimed the flashlight that way.
Double doors were propped open by a metal chair lying on its side. There was a sense of space beyond, deep shadows, a stillness swallowing any slight sound they made. The closer they got, the worse the stink became, a cloying, sickly-sweet aroma that coated the inside of Angela’s nose and throat. Her stomach rolled, but this time she kept the vomit down.
S
he didn’t want to make a noise.
They moved more quietly now, cautious without being told. Lilou took the lead with Fat Frederick close behind. Angela followed. Cliff and Billy were behind her, but they hardly made her feel safe.
Police. Lucy. Mom.
I should have told someone.
But it was too late.
Lilou stepped over the chair and through the double doors. As Angela and the others followed, she could already hear Lilou’s gentle sobs. The stink was horrible, the air thick with rot, and she had never smelled anything that bad. It reminded her of a time when she was a kid, not even in her teens, exploring ruins in a forest with two of her friends. The place was widely reputed to be haunted, but when they finally plucked up the nerve to venture there they found little more than tumbled walls covered in vegetation. The old house must have been abandoned for decades, but Angela had been keen to explore, and after half an hour climbing over and around the remnants, they’d found an opening leading into a large, low-ceilinged cellar.
It was ridiculously dangerous, and only a child would have ventured below. Excitement and fascination drowned any sense of risk, and in the darkness they’d discovered an old chest freezer. Whatever was in there had been sealed inside for a long, long time.
She’d never forgotten that smell, and the memories rushed back rich and fresh.
“Oh, no,” Lilou said. She walked slowly across cracked tiles to approach the old pool. Dragging her feet. Moving for the first time, Angela realised, like a human, graceless with shock and grief.
The baths were large, old, and had been abandoned for a long time. The high sloping ceiling was topped with a smashed glazed ridge, and it was from here that most of the illumination came. There was enough light to see things scattered across the shallow end of the pool. They were spread around an area from which two lines veered away, scratched into the dark moss and mold marring most of the surfaces.
The lines led to the side of the pool, then continued around the edge to a doorway on the opposite side.
Angela frowned, trying to make sense of what she saw.
Fat Frederick jumped into the shallow end and walked around the dark, hunched things, trying to avoid their wetness. He bent and leaned in close, and Angela couldn’t understand how he could stand to do it.