Bloodstone

by Gillian Philip

  But Jed, now. Jed was tired.

  His breath stung his throat, rasped at his lungs. Up onto the railway bridge, feet clanging, briefcases and bags banging his shins, but commuters dodged back as he shoved through, and nobody was enough of a chancer to have a go. That held up the blond. By the time Jed leaped the stunted hedge into the superstore car park, he was fifteen metres ahead.

  Across the ditch – tripping on a tangle of wire trolleys – and down the side of the next warehouse. Oh God go away leave me go away.

  It was a warren, back there among the wire fences and the broken glass and the sickly grass that cracked concrete. No way would he know where Jed had gone. No way.

  Not unless those were running steps, now, behind—

  Shit. He ran again, sucking in a breath like a sob. So help me I’ll never steal again.

  Shaking sweat from his eyes. I’ll never steal from him again—

  Left, and left again. Over a low wall and round the back—

  —from him, on a Monday—

  Down the gut of a narrow alley, cut your hands on broken glass but you’re there, you’ve done it—

  Piece of piss. Lost him.

  NO!

  He slammed into the wire fence he hadn’t seen coming, bouncing back off it. Clutched and tried to rip it in rage. Oh, stupid, stupid. Climb, you wanker—

  He’d barely gripped the wire when hands seized his wrists. He was torn down from it with such ease, he knew there was no point fighting.

  Go limp, it won’t hurt as much—

  His face slammed against the wire. Its diamond pattern branded his cheek, cutting into his skin, but he was most afraid of the grip on his neck, strong enough to snap vertebrae, and the burning pain between his temples. He twitched, blinked, fought the need to struggle, lashes butting a strand of wire. The man’s breath was hard at Jed’s ear as he took back his wallet.

  Not the polis. Not the polis. Just give us a kicking and go—

  Dropped abruptly, he fell in a curled-up heap to the ground, waiting for a foot to slam into his ribcage. That always hurt, but that was okay, so long as his head didn’t get kicked—

  Nothing. Above him he could hear breathing, and he was suddenly so afraid he thought he might piss himself. The headache was worse, searing his brain. Couldn’t even think—

  He didn’t hear them at first, the footsteps. By the time he did, they were retreating calmly up the alley. They faded, and as he blinked and dared to look, so did the pain in his head. Slowly he took his arms away from his skull, and looked up.

  Gone.

  Jed blinked hard. No, he really had gone. No police, and despite the headache it seemed his skull was in one piece. He was shaking, and he was still afraid. Two industrial-sized wheelie bins were jammed against the warehouse wall; he shuffled backwards till he was squeezed between them, forced himself not to cry. It wasn’t so much the fear of a kicking as its absence. Useless wanker. Run faster next time, or fight like a proper ned. Or pick the pocket properly, so the bastard doesn’t notice.

  He sat hugging his knees in the cold, drowning in misery, aching with rage, but he didn’t cry. At least he didn’t cry.

  Not till he felt something strange in his inside pocket. It scared him before he even saw what it was, before he dragged out a bundle of paper and fumbled through it. His hands shook and he dropped it, but he snatched it up again before it could gust away. He rubbed away hot maddening tears, and shoved the bundle of banknotes back in his pocket.

  Then he got up, and ran again.

  Funny how I always knew it was a dream. In some part of my head, anyway. I was never truly tempted to believe it was real when I dreamed about Mila, but when it happened, I liked it. At the time I did. The moment of waking was cruel, but I deserved that. I always tried to delay waking, and of course as soon as you think that, you wake.

  Despite the bitterness of the memories, I did miss her. I didn’t miss watching her play hunt-the-vein; I didn’t miss wiping spatters of her blood off the wall so her son didn’t see it, but I missed her old dead self, I missed her skin and hair and smell.

  This time, though, I swear I could smell her hair. Not like it was the last time I left her: burnt-sugar and scalp-sweat and dust. In my dream the glossy strands of it between my fingers smelled of orange blossom and grass, of the supermarket shampoo the boy Jed used to steal for her. I closed my eyes, pressed my face into the back of her head. I put both arms round her to hug her body tighter against mine, scared suddenly of letting her go.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she murmured.

  ‘But I want to be sure.’

  Her arms closed round mine, holding me holding her.

  Desire stirred in me along with sadness. As I ran my palm down her arm the sadness left me altogether, and I kissed her shoulder, smiling. I licked her skin to taste it better: citrus and salt, like a margarita. She wriggled with pleasure, and I sensed her smile. She lifted one languid hand to pull her long hair aside, letting me nip her ear, and my hand slid down across her belly, and this time plain hot lust bolted through me. I clutched her hair, trying to turn her, and opened my eyes to her soft laughter.

  Wrong, this was wrong. The hair wound round my fingers was chestnut-red. I blinked, trying to draw back, but she twisted, caught my face in her hands and laughed silently, her bright eyes holding my stare.

  ‘Kate?’ My world tip-tilted.

  I could have pulled away, I know I could. Even though it was a dream, I could have shoved my queen away from me, but I didn’t: just pressed even closer against her. Well, my body did; my mind recoiled, but my mind wasn’t in charge. Beneath the sheets her fingers closed round me and I sucked in a breath.

  ‘Oh, shush,’ she said, and kissed me, her tongue flickering into my mouth.

  I still had hold of her hair, and I tightened my grip. So real, so vivid that I knew I could break her slender neck if I tried.

  I couldn’t even try. Wanted to. Couldn’t. I wound my fingers tighter in her hair till she gasped.

  She nipped my lip as I forced myself to pull away; it hurt. But in a good way. My heartbeat tripped and raced.

  ‘No,’ I said. More of a hoarse croak, really.

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly. It’s a dream.’

  ‘I know...’ Didn’t I?

  ‘So relax.’

  ‘Uh...’

  ‘Not too much, though.’ She winked.

  I kissed her, tugged on her hair to pull her back from me again. I said, ‘No.’ I thought about my mother. My father. More to the point, my brother. ‘Conal would—’

  ‘Have your balls on a platter, dear one. But even he can’t object to a dream shag.’

  She’d made me laugh. I slid my hands down her back, pulled her hips tight against me.

  ‘Some dream shag,’ I said. ‘I don’t even like you.’

  Which proved it was a dream, because I doubt I’d dare say that in real life.

  ‘But I like you, Murlainn.’

  Must have been the way she said my name. That got me, right on the inside. And why get wound up? My dreams were my own, at least. Conal could hardly be hurt by some subconscious fantasy I hadn’t even known existed.

  I hooked her leg over mine, stroked her thigh. Expecting to wake at the crucial frustrating moment, I was pleased that for once I didn’t.

  I was too old for this, I thought, as I finally blinked awake, limbs weak with spent lust, heart twisted with shame. Too old, too experienced, too cynical. But what the hell.

  No harm in it.

  No harm in it, so I put it out of my mind; I put Kate out of my mind. It took more effort than I thought it should, so I was short-tempered by the time I crouched on Dennis Sacranie’s roof that night, cold and irritable. The night above us was black velvet, beautiful with stars, and the moonlight was strong. What a stupid night to pick. Trouble was, we were both losing patience with Leonora, and that made us impetuous. Conal had wanted to get it done and over with, so here we were.

  Poor sod. Like me he
was homesick, but he was lovesick too. He didn’t want to be here any more than I did; he wanted to be gentling half-wild horses on the machair, he wanted to be building walls and digging ditches in the dun lands, or swimming in the bay. He wanted to be getting mildly drunk under a summer night sky, making music that was by turns wild and racing, then brain-achingly sad. He didn’t like Sacranie any more than I did, but he didn’t want to be in his house, taking what belonged to him. And he wanted badly to be with Eili again.

  With all that sympathy in my head, the gods only knew why I wanted to pick a fight with him.

  ‘Your mother’s closer to doing something,’ I said.

  ‘And?’ There was an edge to Conal’s voice as he looped his rope through a carabiner and tugged it firm.

  ‘Just saying. In case you haven’t been watching.’

  ‘Of course I’ve been watching.’

  I waited for a few beats. ‘As for your goddaughter—’

  Carefully he ignored that. ‘My mother won’t go over. We’ve worried for years and she hasn’t done anything. I trust her.’

  I said nothing. Not aloud.

  ‘I heard that, Murlainn.’

  ‘You know Dorsal thinks something’s up? She may be a royal pain in the arse but she’s not stupid.’

  ‘Her name’s Finn.’

  ‘Hardly matters what I call her. She’s going to be trouble whatever her name is. And she won’t get a true name if things go on like this.’

  ‘Aw Seth, not now.’ Conal rolled his balaclava down over his face. ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘You’re always busy. You’re avoiding the issue.’

  ‘All of them. Too right I am.’ Silently he lifted the loosened pane of glass out of the roof. ~ Now shut up. Please?

  I lay on my stomach and watched him lower himself head first, slithering down the rope, legs hooked securely round it. The floor was alarmed, touch-sensitive, but he wasn’t going to fall. He never did. He wouldn’t even wear a climbing harness, despite his dislike of heights, and that was pure pride. I was the better climber, but I hadn’t the patience for this job. The figure below us, sprawled snoring in tangled sheets, stirred and grunted; I turned my mind on him, almost bored.

  ~ Hurry up, said Conal.

  Sighing, I tried to focus. Dennis grunted again and rolled over, making us both freeze, but there was no way Conal could touch him to drain him of more consciousness. Besides, through a deeper sleep I might never find the code in his head. Conal had plied him with too much lunchtime booze as it was, hence his insanely early night.

  I reached out my mind to Dennis’s. It had been hard the first time I’d done this, finding the pathways and the sparking connections that led me where I needed to go. But I’d got the hang of it alarmingly quickly, and now I’d done it so often it was a breeze. I don’t think Conal truly appreciated how good I was. He retained his old distaste for this kind of theft, though it made no difference to his moral probity that I did the dirty work for him.

  Still, it was no effort these days. Who’d put a lock on their innermost thoughts anyway? No-one but a Sithe.

  Dennis was dreaming of a Bond girl. Aye, I thought, and only in your dreams. In passing I couldn’t help amusing myself with his indignation at his ex-wife, his plans to shaft his co-directors – Conal included; now that was interesting – but most of it was none of my business. I probed an interchange, a tributary and then – bingo – locked onto the sequence of numbers. I forwarded them to Conal, waiting upside down with thinning patience, and he keyed in the numbers with one gloved hand.

  He stilled, waiting as Dennis moaned lightly and turned again. I couldn’t blame Dennis. She was lovely, his dream-woman: crop-haired, delicate, as lovely as a Sithe. She reminded me of Eili, a little. And what Dennis was up to with her reminded me suddenly, sharply, of Kate.

  I slapped the thought away, freeing myself instantly from Dennis’s mind, shivering. I didn’t understand myself. I hated the woman, but already desire stirred in my groin. Bloody hell.

  ~ You finished yet? I snapped.

  ~ What’s with you? Conal slid a broad square box from the safe, but though the fiery ruby pendant was a stunner, it wasn’t what we were after. He replaced it and a folder of financial documents – Mister Integrity, he didn’t even glance at those – and drew out a narrower velvet box.

  He snapped it briefly open then, satisfied, tucked it inside his jumper. Closing the safe, he flipped upright and slithered back up the rope, slick as a snake.

  On the roof, the glass pane replaced, he shook his head to clear the blood-rush headache as I opened the box. Diamonds glittered, pretty in the moonlight, but the stone Leonora was after was the unassuming pink sapphire on the clasp.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll only have to put the bloody thing back.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t think this is the One?’ I couldn’t repress the sarcasm, even if I did feel sorry for him.

  ‘Not this one, not the last six fecking thousand. Or whatever. I’ve lost count. There’s no such thing as this Bloodstone. Why can’t she face it?’

  ‘There’s no such thing as us,’ I remarked. ‘Oh, of course the Bloodstone doesn’t exist. What matters is keeping your mother interested. She of all people needs a hobby.’

  He gave a dry laugh. ‘She’ll be suspect number one if Dennis remembers how she was ogling that on his girlfriend’s wrist. I have to stop letting her come to company functions.’

  ‘So? Even better. They lock her up, she can’t go home. Better than Finn’s mad guess. You know, Calderwood Rest Home for the terminally stroppy.’ I slithered down the sloping roof and dropped lightly to the ground after him.

  ~ I’ve heard worse ideas, he told me glumly. ~ There’s got to be some way of stopping her...

  I shrugged. ~ Don’t suppose she wants to go back, but what choice does she have? We know it’s got to happen. Eventually.

  ~ We can delay her.

  I felt the Rottweilers before we heard them: they raced round the corner of the house, running silent. Not barking was, I reckoned, a bad sign. I sighed.

  ~ You might have put some sleep on those...

  Conal crouched, waiting for them, smiling as they skidded to an uncertain halt.

  ~ Hey. Me Alpha Wolf. Show us your belly, Omegas.

  He peeled off a glove and stretched out his hand to the first of them. It sniffed, hesitant, the echo of a growl in its throat. Then it rolled over, tongue lolling, and within a second the other one did the same.

  I rubbed its tummy with a foot, glanced at my watch as it whimpered happily. ‘Pub?’

  Conal straightened, pulling affectionately at the bigger dog’s ear.

  ‘Pub.’

  The girl behind the bar was a rangy redhead, hair pulled back to show off her cheekbones. I liked the athletic look of her, and there was a faint hint of sweat on the sharp line of her collarbone that begged to be licked. Leaving my pint untouched, I felt for the Veil. It was fragile, so frail, and still it stood between us.

  I focused on the right half of her brain, reached out all my senses. There was the shadow of the Veil, lying like dark matter across her perceptions: easy enough to twitch it like the finest of silk. She saw me. Smiled at me. I smiled right back as her left hemisphere clicked in to process the information. I liked the way she was thinking.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  I glanced with amusement at my untouched pint. ‘Not yet. Busy night?’

  She shrugged. ‘Makes the time go faster.’

  ‘Why? What time d’you finish?’

  ‘Soon.’ She gave me a very direct, intense grin, then her gaze flicked up over my shoulder. Her grin grew just that little bit broader.

  I rolled my eyes as Conal sat on the stool next to me, smiling nervously at the redhead. One of these days he’d come back from the loos at what wasn’t exactly the wrong moment.

  ‘Give us some peanuts, love? Please.’

&nbs
p; ‘Salted,’ I added, with my warmest smile.

  As she turned her back to get them, he shot me a glower. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘You played with her head.’

  ‘Look who’s talking.’ I nodded at her, chatting up a roughneck at the other end of the long bar. She’d forgotten not only the peanuts, but the pair of us.

  ‘All I did was take her mind off you. Put things back to normal. Don’t make me have to do that.’

  ‘I hate going out drinking with you.’

  ‘Aye, right.’ He grinned suddenly and clinked his glass against mine. ‘Here’s to the Bloodstone. Which this one undoubtedly is.’

  ‘Ha ha.’ I took a long swallow. The beer tasted faintly of sun-toasted heather. Hell, these days anything could make me homesick. ‘And I can’t believe you’re having a go at me, given what your goddaughter gets up to.’

  His eyes hardened, but they slewed a little away from mine. ‘Leave her be.’

  ‘Leave her be? I told you what she did to that Rooney girl.’

  ‘Shush.’ He glanced at the nearest group of drinkers. ‘That was a one-off.’

  ‘No, Conal. No it wasn’t. You know what it was? It was a start.’

  ‘She’ll settle down.’

  ‘No. Not until she understands what she is and why she can do what she does. If it’s not explained to her, she’ll do it again. And again. She can’t control herself, and though it pains me to admit it, that’s not her fault. She doesn’t know what to control. Or why. She’ll turn out a witch, Conal.’

  ‘They don’t burn those any more.’

  ‘No indeed. She’s more likely to hurt somebody else.’

  ‘No. No, she wouldn’t. It’s not in her.’

  I could only stare at him and shake my head.

  He set his glass down so carefully, I knew he was trying not to fling it at me. ‘Look, for the fifty-hundredth time, it’s not up to me. She has a mother and it’s Stella’s decision. I can’t go against that.’

  ‘You’re her Captain!’