Relics

by Tim Lebbon

  Kneeling, she took Vince into her arms and hugged him tight. He groaned where she hurt him, but it felt good, and she would never let him go again. Over his shoulder she saw Fat Frederick sitting on the floor, staring at her. Billy was sprawled beside him, dead. Then she realised that Meloy wasn’t looking at her, he was looking through her, at the doorway that had just closed.

  He shifted slightly, rocking back and forth. His hands lay clenched in his lap. His ears were swollen, and blood slicked from the right one and down his neck.

  He opened his mouth and it moved, but no sound emerged.

  “Are you all right?” Angela asked, forming the words carefully.

  He blinked a few times as his eyes refocused.

  “An angel,” he said. “An angel saved us?”

  “We need to do what Lilou said,” Vince said. “Get out of here. Get back to The Slaughterhouse.”

  “But I want to go home,” Angela said. She felt like crying, and hated the weakness that might portray. She didn’t feel weak. She had helped fight a monster, and helped save her lover.

  “Babe,” Vince said. He groaned again, stiffening and then shivering as pain cut in.

  “How bad are you?” she asked. She leaned back and looked him over, shocked again by how much the man she loved had changed. He was smeared with filth, his face bruised and swollen, one eye puffed shut. His clothing was torn, and through several rips she could see deeper wounds clotted with black, dried blood.

  There was a deeper change, too. Last time she had laid eyes on Vince, her world had been calm and normal. Peaceful, even. Her lover had been a good man, perhaps unremarkable, but loving and funny. Now he was someone else. Still her lover, still her man, but one who had seen amazing things, and someone who had killed. Since before she had known him he had been involved in this, and it had always been a separate part of his life.

  She wasn’t sure whether she loved him more or less. She was equally uncertain whether she would ever know.

  “I’m alive,” he said, “and you came to find me.”

  “Of course I did.”

  “And you found Lilou.”

  “She found me, really.” That ghost of suspicion made itself known again, but in truth it barely seemed to matter. Not right then. Later it might, but by then a lot would be different.

  “I’m sorry you had to see…”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.

  Vince looked away, wincing as pain bit in again.

  “We need to leave,” he said. “Boss, we need to get to your place.”

  He’d called Fat Frederick “boss.” That sent a chill through her, but when she looked at Meloy she also felt something like pity. He was still shivering, pressing at his left ear, tilting his head as if he’d been swimming and needed to clear out the water.

  “Boss?” Vince repeated, but the man didn’t reply.

  “Vince, I want to go home,” Angela said again. “You can take a bath, I’ll see to your wounds, go to hospital if we need to, and tell them you were mugged. I want us to be there together again. Share a bottle of wine on a Wednesday, a pizza on a Friday. Watch cooking programs in bed on Saturday morning. Take bets on who’ll come first upstairs. I want…”

  She wanted her old life back.

  Even thinking those words felt naive.

  “Babe, we can’t do that,” Vince said. “Not after what I’ve done. After what we’ve both seen.”

  “I won’t say anything,” she protested, sobbing at the unfairness of things. She hadn’t asked for any of this.

  “It’s not about that,” he said. “The world’s got bigger for both of us. Things can never be the same again.”

  Still holding his hand, Angela looked at the new man before her, and knew that he told the truth.

  “Boss,” Vince said again, louder. “We need to get away from here.”

  “You didn’t tell me about them,” Fat Frederick said. He spoke loudly, the words slurred.

  “I only just found out myself.”

  “When you did a job for Mary Rock.”

  “Yeah. Sorry.” Vince sounded apologetic. “It wasn’t the money, boss. She said she needed my help to find something amazing, and I just… you know.”

  “I know,” Meloy said. “It’s never about the money.” He looked at the dead man lying beside him. Then up at the doorway leading into the main hall.

  Vince struggled to his feet. Angela helped him, neither of them willing to relinquish contact.

  “Has the angel gone?” Fat Frederick asked.

  “Yeah,” Vince said. “Whatever it was, I think so.”

  “Will it come back?”

  “Dunno, boss.”

  “You’ve got a good woman there, Vince.” Fat Frederick was looking at the dead man again, his friend, one hand resting on his back.

  “So what the fuck do we do now?” Angela said softly. “People are dead. Things are dead.”

  “We do what Lilou says,” Vince said. “We’re in their world now.”

  * * *

  “We shouldn’t have left them,” Lilou said.

  “We have to plan, find a way to rescue Her,” Mallian replied. “Besides, they don’t matter.”

  “He saved my life!”

  Mallian laughed softly. “You think he’d do so again?”

  “Of course he would!”

  “Of course he would. He’s probably in love with you already.”

  They were down in the tunnels again. A different junction, an alternate route, Mallian was sniffing his way. Above, outside, it was almost dusk. Where they walked, the darkness was absolute.

  “We can’t let anyone else see you,” Lilou had said. Mallian had seemed unconcerned, smiling at her worry.

  “We can’t hide forever,” he’d replied. It was a familiar refrain.

  This was their world. The underside, the hidden depths. They moved via shadows and made them into friends. Sometimes they threw shadows, casting vague deceptions to avert attention so that they could slip past. It wasn’t magic. Once upon a time it had been, but that was long, long ago. Very few of them held magic anymore.

  Lilou had never witnessed it in its truest form. With the fairy still alive, perhaps she would.

  “Thank you for following,” she said.

  “The word is out to the Kin that the fairy’s still alive. Some are coming to help, others I fear are beyond our reach. But you knew I’d come for Ballus first, didn’t you?”

  She smiled to herself. Guilty and pleased.

  “You know me so well.”

  “I know you too well, Mallian. That’s why I’m glad we’re leaving this way.” She could feel the Nephilim’s heat, his mass.

  “You know I’m not stupid,” he said. “I’d never reveal myself like this. Not coated in the gore of a dead Kin. Besides, we all have to be ready for Ascent. We have to be stronger.”

  “Even if we don’t all agree?”

  He snorted, harsh and angry. “Only fools sit on the fence.”

  “Then I’m a fool.” Her words echoed away to silence. She thought perhaps a dreg had followed them, but it could do no harm. Now that its familiar was dead, it would soon melt away into the darkness, become less than nothing. She almost felt sorry for the wretched thing.

  “A fool is the last thing you are,” he said.

  They hurried on in silence. Mallian paused now and then to assess their route. He seemed unfamiliar with their surroundings, and Lilou wondered which way he had come. Surely he hadn’t moved across London in the daylight?

  “We have to clear the pool,” she said. “It’s good that Ballus is dead, but now that he’s no longer using that place, the curious will find their way in. If they discover…”

  “Our dead friends,” Mallian said. His voice was heavy with grief. Lilou wished they could see each other and share comfort, but a touch sufficed. A squeezed arm, a hand on her shoulder.

  “At least he’s gone now.”

  “Yet he did so much damage,” Mallia
n said. “He killed our friends, but it didn’t feel good to kill him.”

  “We have to take them all away, put them at peace. They can’t be found.”

  “If they are, they are. Besides, I was seen. A man was down there.”

  “What man?”

  “Older. Scared, but he knew what he was seeing. He had a camera.”

  Dean, Lilou thought, her eyes widening. I was stupid. He was bound to follow.

  Mallian smiled. “The human world changes quickly, and it is difficult to keep up, but even I know that those images may be everywhere by now. Perhaps it’s for the best.”

  “You can’t believe that!” Lilou caught her breath, waiting for the thunderous voice of an angry Nephilim. Few ever questioned Mallian, not like this. He had been their leader for so long, and his immense age carried a weight of experience and wisdom. He was one of the few remaining Time-born, and that engendered respect.

  Sandri May had been another. Ballus was very old, but not of the Time. Even Lilou herself, born more than three thousand years ago, had never known an era of true freedom and expression. Still she had spent her childhood wandering forest glades and bathing in woodland pools.

  The Kin were hunted even then, though more out of fear than greed, and there had been enough of them to offer protection. She had witnessed and lived through their decline. For her, humans had always been the dominant species.

  Mallian came from a Time when he was a king.

  “Your feelings will change when you see Her once more,” he said. “Now hurry. We need to move quickly, reach the safe place, and plan the rescue. She’s been gone far too long.”

  “Angela could help. She’s been there. Mary Rock showed her.”

  “Perhaps,” Mallian said, but Lilou knew he was far too proud to accept aid from a human.

  “There’s something I have to do,” she said. “You go and prepare the Kin. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see a man about a camera.”

  “Lilou—”

  “Mallian, please. Whether I agree with you or not, about Ascent, this would not be the way to do it.”

  He sighed heavily.

  In the darkness, Lilou and the fallen angel parted ways.

  * * *

  By the time they made it out of the building, Angela’s phone had reception again. She was about to contact Lucy to let her know she was safe, when notifications began to chime.

  There were three missed calls from her friend, and another from a number she didn’t recognise. Vince leaned against a wall as she tapped her phone’s screen.

  “Not now,” Fat Frederick said. They met Ming at the rear door, and when he saw the body, the man was on the verge of weeping. As he cradled the dead Billy in his arms, Meloy gathered himself, but he seemed quieter, weakened and confused by his injuries. He was also wide-eyed, looking around as if everything he witnessed was new. In a way it was. Angela knew how he felt.

  “My friend will be—” Angela began.

  “The Slaughterhouse,” he said. “We have to get Billy back there. I’m not just leaving him.”

  “Of course not,” she said. She glanced at Vince, trying to gauge what he was thinking. Had he seen this sort of thing before? Was it commonplace in Meloy’s world? Ming’s reaction indicated not, but the big man seemed sad, rather than shocked.

  “Ming, you seen Cliff?”

  “No, boss.”

  “He ran.”

  “Cliff? Why?”

  “Scared.”

  “Cliff isn’t scared of anything.”

  A brief silence fell, and looks were exchanged. Ming had no idea what had happened down there, and no amount of explanation could come even close to the truth.

  “He’ll find his own way back,” Angela said. “Meloy, Vince needs a doctor. You must have access to one.”

  “What, for all my gangland injuries?” he asked, trying to smile. Angela didn’t know whether he was attempting humour or a threat, but she didn’t reply.

  “I’ll bring the car closer,” Ming said, still staring down at Billy. “Who shot him, boss?”

  “Cliff.”

  “What?”

  Fat Frederick looked around, never focusing on anyone or anything for more than a second. Searching for reality, perhaps.

  “It was an accident,” Meloy said. “Get the car, Ming. Quick.”

  The man jogged off, and at last Fat Frederick’s gaze settled on the building’s back door. Angela knew that he was thinking about everything the building contained. All those body parts. All those unimaginable relics.

  “Meloy,” she said. “They’re not for the taking.”

  For a moment he looked so cold, so distant, that she thought he was going to lash out. But she stood up to him, chin out, trying to exude strength and defiance. If he was any sort of man, he’d leave those wretched things behind for the Kin.

  The big man sighed heavily, slumped a little, and looked down at his dead friend.

  “Everything’s changed,” he said.

  “It’s still changing,” Angela said. “Mary Rock has one of them, alive. A fairy. The Kin want it back.”

  Before the mobster could process that, Ming arrived with the car. He and his boss lifted Billy into the boot. Ming closed the lid gently, as if worried about waking him. Angela and Vince climbed into the back, and as soon as the door closed she dialed Lucy.

  Vince slumped against her. He stank, and seeing his wounds she could almost feel the pain herself. But however strange things had become, and however frightening their situation was, it felt good to be with him once more. For a while he had become a stranger, but now he was back.

  Lucy didn’t pick up. It was almost 7:00 P.M. She’d be home from work by now. Angela tried to remember what day it was. Thursday? Friday? Lucy did something most evenings, whether it was squash, swimming, or running with the local club. Still, she was rarely more than ten feet from her phone.

  The voicemail kicked in, but Angela hung up.

  She sighed and leaned back. Ming started the car and drove them out from the debris-strewn service area at the pool building’s rear. As they slipped onto a side street and accelerated away, the phone rang in her lap.

  Lucy’s face smiled up at her from the screen. Angela grinned, and put the phone to her ear. Through all that had happened, she still had good news to relay. The best news. People, and things, had died, but she had Vince back.

  It wasn’t Lucy on the end of the line.

  “Have you found him?” the voice said, and she instantly recognised Claudette.

  “No.”

  “That better not be the case. You’d better have found him. Lucy wants you to find him.”

  Angela held her breath as the situation sorted itself in her shocked mind. Claudette was speaking on Lucy’s phone.

  “Lucy needs you to find him. Don’t you, Lucy?” In the background Angela heard someone struggling to shout, but the sound was muffled.

  “What have you—?”

  “That’s your friend, Lucy. Harry’s got her tied up and gagged, but she’s still fighting. Plucky little fucker.”

  “Leave her alone,” Angela said. Fat Frederick turned in his seat and stared back at her, hearing something in her voice. Vince stirred and sat up straight.

  “I’ll leave her alone when we have Vince. That’s the deal. That’s the trade. The bastard boyfriend who lied to you, and who kills those beautiful things for profit, in exchange for your best friend’s life.”

  He doesn’t kill them, he saves them! But that would be revealing too much of her knowledge. She pressed her finger to her lips, making sure the three men in the car all saw.

  “I have no idea where he is,” she said. “I’ve been looking. I’m still looking, and I’m no closer.”

  “We were following you and you lost us. Now, why would you do that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re on about. I didn’t know you were following.”

  “Liar.” In t
he background, Lucy squealed loud against her gag. It was an expression of pain, rather than frustration and anger.

  “What are you doing?” Angela shouted.

  “Every lie hurts her more. Every hour that passes without us having Vince hurts her more. How much hurt can one woman bear? Is she strong?”

  “Threatening me can’t help you, not if I don’t know where he’s gone.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s just another avenue we’re exploring.”

  “I’m doing my best,” Angela said.

  “Do better. I’ll call again at eight o’clock.”

  “Let me speak to Lucy.”

  The line went dead and she was left in a silent car, expectant faces turned her way.

  “Claudette and Harry have Lucy,” she said.

  Vince groaned. Fat Frederick raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth, a facial shrug that said, Oh well, she’s dead then.

  “She had nothing to do with this!” she shouted, slamming her hand against the back of his seat.

  “They don’t care,” he said. “Not about anything.”

  “They cared about Daley and Celine,” Vince said.

  “And?”

  “I killed them both protecting Lilou.”

  “You killed Claudette’s brother and Mary Rock’s pussy. Holy shit, Vince, no wonder they’ve got a hard-on for you.” He shook his head and looked in front again.

  “We have an hour,” Angela said. “Then they’ll start hurting her more. We have to go to the police.”

  “You fucking crazy, woman?” Fat Frederick turned again to give her the full weight of his stare.

  “They have Lucy,” she said. “Meloy, you might think you’re a big shot. You might have killed people and seen others die, but you’re like a kid in all this, wide-eyed as if you’ve just seen Father Christmas.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that.”

  “What’re you going to do, fucking skin me?” she shouted. Vince squeezed her leg but she shook him off and leaned forward between the seats. “You saw what happened down there, you saw those things, and I know you’re feeling the same sick wonder I am, Meloy. It’s written on your face. So don’t retreat into your fucking hard-man image. I don’t give a shit about your organisation or who you are. I just give a shit about the people I love. One of them is here, and the other one…” She clammed up, unable to finish.