‘Oh, Ellen.’
‘It came on so fast . . . I mean, she’s been ill, but she’s been having chemo – she’s been responding well. Then this . . . It got worse after she talked to that angel.’
The dying and the mad can see angels. That day in her office I’d told her they hung around churches. She’d gone looking for them . . . ‘Ellie, what happened?’ I asked urgently. ‘Do you know which one – which angel?’
‘He wanted . . . She asked him to heal her – she begged, and he just laughed. He said we were all so small, so unimportant, that we weren’t special, and one less of us would make no difference.’ Her tone took on an edge of righteous anger. ‘She’s believed, her whole life, despite all that anti-gay shit, and that’s what he told her! But then . . .’
I waited, letting her talk at her own pace. ‘He said everything had a price. That he’d help her if she’d help him.’
‘What was the price?’
‘The baby – the one you’ve been looking for. He wanted Rhonda to tell him when you found it, to tell him everything you’d said, everywhere you’d been.’ She took a deep breath, then added, ‘She didn’t, you know, she didn’t tell him anything.’
‘She wouldn’t,’ I agreed. Rhonda McIntyre was a grumpy, tough old bat and I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that even if she had known where the baby was, she wouldn’t give up the child’s life. Any child’s life.
‘Ellie, did she say anything about how the angel looked? Was there a gemstone on his breastplate?’
She paused, thinking. ‘Blue. She said it was blue.’
Brisbane’s own special boy. He hadn’t rummaged through her brain, which made me think the Arch was the only one who could do that. She must have found Sapphire when he was alone, waiting for the others. The angel had pissed her off, so she’d made sure Ellie told me everything, because she figured the worst thing she could possibly do was to set me on him. He’d made her illness worse, but she’d put her revenge in motion. I smiled, strangely proud of her faith in me.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ Ellen whispered.
I knew how she felt. ‘Stay by her side – be there when she wakes. Talk to her, hold her hand. She’ll know you’re around, and that’s the best thing you can do for her. And let her know . . .’ I swallowed, hard, then said firmly, ‘Let her know I’ll make them all bleed.’
She was bawling when I hung up, and I was pretty close myself. I leaned against the headrest. Apparently the Universe felt obliged to add a few more concrete blocks to the load already on my chest.
‘You okay?’ Ziggi asked.
‘No. No, I am not.’ Then I wailed, ‘Oh, shit, Ziggi, when will it end?’ I pulled myself together and gave him the side of the conversation he hadn’t heard and we fell silent again, less uncomfortably now.
Then he circled back to David, his intentions good. ‘They won’t kill him, you know. They didn’t kill Mel. There’s no leverage in the dead.’
‘That’s great. You should be a guidance counsellor,’ I snapped, and that was the end of our friendly chat. I closed my eyes until at last he said, ‘We’re here,’ and I felt us pulling to a stop. When we got out of the cab, I went to the driver’s side, reached in and wrapped my arms around Ziggi’s waist, muttering, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I know.’ He stroked my hair just like my father used to before the world turned upside down.
Bela was waiting outside the rectory. There were another six Weyrd, lounging in the late afternoon sun, slouched against walls, sitting on the loveseat in the front garden and hanging from tree branches – including Hairy Jerry and Monobrow Mike, the pair who’d let Mercado White get away. They’d all let their glamours slip and were sporting the leathery wings, thick furs, scaly skins and bone plates they usually kept firmly under wraps. Eyes glowed a little too brightly, some red torches, others green and blue; ears were either overly developed or little more than niches set high on the sides of skulls. They watched us – no, they watched me. The sun was behind the building, giving it a kind of halo.
‘I’m sorry about—’ Bela stopped when he saw my face. Everything had already been said when I’d called in the goon squad. He cleared his throat. ‘You want company in there?’
‘Nope, I’ve got this. Just make sure all the exits are covered.’ I didn’t want any distractions, but mostly I didn’t want anyone standing between me and whatever I had to do to get David back. The front door opened; Father Tony, his expression sombre, stood aside to let me pass, then touched my arm.
‘This is a place of refuge,’ he said, as if reminding me to eat my greens.
‘Father, she bought wine made from the tears of children; they died during the harvest. Would you like me to give her a pat on the head?’
His hand fell away. ‘Just . . . try not to . . . break anything. I don’t want Miriam to get upset.’ Behind me he closed the door to sitting room rather reluctantly.
The lumpy chairs with their over-stuffed cushions were in the same position, but only one was occupied. Eleanor Aviva wore a stylish wrap dress of blood-red, and a new handbag nestled in her lap. Around her neck was a fetching iron collar to dampen her powers and keep her from disappearing.
She smiled, stroked the choker. ‘Ms Fassbinder, lovely to see you again so soon. Do you like my latest accessory?’
‘Did Mercado know that you were a fellow client of the Winemaker?’
‘No small talk for little Verity Fassbinder!’ She laughed, and it wasn’t especially unpleasant. ‘My dear, did Mercado strike you as one to keep his mouth shut if he could save his own skin by giving up someone else’s?’
‘Good point.’
‘His ancestors were weasels, you know.’
‘How appropriate.’ I sat across from her on a chair that felt like concrete sculpted to look soft. The discomfort helped me concentrate, dulled the throbbing anxiety slightly. ‘So.’
‘So, indeed.’ She eyed me as if time was on her side.
‘So, you know more than you’ve told.’ I stared, trying to detect anything untoward, but for all intents and purposes she was an attractive, elegant middle-aged woman with great taste in handbags. Was she too young to be a contemporary of Magda Nadasy, or was that just another cunning glamour?
‘Most people do.’
‘How about I ask questions and you answer in a full and frank fashion?’ Much though I wanted to hurt her, that wouldn’t have done any good. What my acquaintance with Eleanor Aviva had taught me so far was that she didn’t spook easily. She’d waited confidently as the whole Winemaker scandal came to a head around her and brazened it out. After Magda’s death she had probably thought it was all over. ‘Feel free to offer any insights to help me or make your peers consider you more favourably.’
‘Oh, you sweet thing.’ She laughed again. ‘Ask away.’
‘You were a client of Madame Nadasy’s?’
‘Yes, but I wasn’t aware it was her. I always dealt with that urchin.’ She sighed. ‘I know it was naughty, but I hadn’t had anything like that in such a long time. The road to hell is paved not with good intentions but with nostalgia. However, my dear, I don’t think this track will get you very far.’
‘And you’d suggest?’
‘What would you give for information relating to Vadim Nadasy and his little pet?’
‘I’m just the hired help. I can’t make any deals about your fate.’
‘Ah, but our darling Zvez— . . . Bela will listen to you. We both know that.’
I was aware of no such thing, but I kept my lips sealed as I thought furiously. If I could use her delusion for my own ends, I would. ‘If what you tell me pays off, then I’ll put in a good word.’
‘Can’t say fairer than that.’ She sat up straight. ‘You wondered, no doubt, why Nadasy didn’t kill Baker himself.’
‘You know I did.’
‘Did you know there was a woman’s body – in addition to the males – found in Baker’s house after it was blown up?’
> ‘Yes, Dusana’s.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s the only body that counts, really.’ She grinned, and her teeth were bright white and terribly sharp. Why is it always the teeth?
If Dusana hadn’t died . . .
As if reading my mind, her smile widened. ‘Everyone assumed it was her, but it was, I think, some friend of the pool boy, the gardener or the tennis instructor. Someone no one looked for, someone mistaken for the lady of the house. But whoever it was, it was not Vadim’s daughter. And no one investigated too closely because dear Anders greased the right palms in the right manner.’
‘She’s alive?’ I asked.
‘Mr Baker was fed up, you see. He knew he’d never get away with killing her – he was as terrified of Nadasy as the rest of us – but he wanted to do something. His wife had gone out of her way to humiliate and torment him and he wanted to start over, but on his terms. Beginnings are so hard, that’s why we always try to go back to them, to change them, make things move differently. To make things go our way.’
‘So what did he do?’
‘He paid someone a fantastical sum to cast a spell to enchant the girl, to make her into something more . . . static . . . more manageable . . .’
‘And Nadasy?’
‘Oh, he confronted Baker, threatened him – Anders is a horrible little man, but he’s stubborn. He let Nadasy know that Dusana was alive, but he said if he died, she would too. That was his bargaining chip, you see; that’s how he was able to keep Vadim at bay. He tormented him with the knowledge that without Anders, he’d never find his darling daughter, never have the chance to release her. Hope is so corrosive, isn’t it?’
‘And that’s why he stopped asking the Council to punish Baker.’
She giggled, an odd sound coming from her. ‘Then Vadim disappeared and everyone assumed he’d given up. But I think he went off to learn darker magic, to become more powerful so he could find Dusana himself and break the binding. He wanted to become someone feared not just by us but by the Normals too: those who walk so bravely in daylight.’
‘Who cast the spell?’ The more she said about Nadasy, the more my fear for David swelled, but I had to push it down for the moment and concentrate.
She pursed her lips. ‘What you need to understand, and I trust you’ll take this into consideration when you speak to dear Bela, is that Nadasy had been talking for some time about taking back the world, both night and day. He talked of staging a coup, leading a revolution against the Normals. He was stirring things up, finding those Weyrd willing to listen to his ridiculous ideas. So, when a certain person was approached by Anders Baker, looking for a means to put his new beginning into action, perhaps that person thought of a way to help distract Nadasy from his goals – to make the wheels fall off, as it were.’
‘You.’
‘Clever child.’ Her smile never wavered. ‘Nadasy was a great snob, not just about Normals, but about Weyrd too: half of us weren’t good enough for him, our bloodlines insufficiently regal. Not all of us can have the blood of the Bathorys – inbred, every one, I promise you – running through our veins. Our breeding doesn’t affect our power or our potential; a peasant might as easily bring down an empire as a prince.’
I could have sworn speculation gleamed in her eyes as she said peasant.
‘And Dusana? Where is she?’
‘Have you not seen Baker’s mermaid? A fairly tasteless piece, I always thought, but one must work with the tools one has.’ She watched her own fingers playing with the gold spider pendant dangling from her bag. It had rubies for eyes, eight of them.
Understanding started to creep up my neck like multiple tiny sticky feet.
‘Lifelike, isn’t it?’ Her gaze met mine, flashing red. How did she look under her glamour? How many legs might be apparent if she let it slip, just for a moment; how many fangs might jut from her mouth?
‘You . . .’ In my imagination I superimposed the bronze mermaid’s face over the portrait in Baker’s sitting room; the features, now in context, matched perfectly. ‘You turned her into that? You left her like that for more than fifteen years?’
‘I never liked her. She was as uppity as her father. Besides’ – she gestured eloquently with bejewelled fingers – ‘Baker offered a lot of money. Hermès handbags don’t come cheap.’
I licked my lips a few times. My mouth felt parched. Donovan Baker’s mother had watched him his whole life. Did he know? I was willing to bet not. And Anders Baker had overseen his wife all those years. I felt queasy.
‘And now Nadasy’s back—’
‘Well, I suspect he’s learned much in his time abroad. He probably thinks he can free his daughter, if he can find her. And if Vadim’s got his hands on Baker – whom I understand has disappeared – and he thinks he can get away with killing him now, then I don’t trust Anders not to give me up if his other leverage is gone. My chances of survival are vastly increased by standing behind the likes of you.’
‘Your faith is flattering.’ I picked at a thread on the arm of my chair and found myself having to resist the urge to keep pulling until the weave broke. ‘Where is Nadasy?’
‘I wish I knew . . . imagine my bargaining power if I did.’ She clasped her hands and rested them on the bag. ‘I think that’s enough. I’m very impressed at your self-control, given the trying circumstances, but I’m not sure how much patience you’ve got left.’
‘You’re smarter than you look.’ I stood, kept my tone even and said, ‘And remember: if anything happens to my lover, I’ll come for you. It won’t matter who you try to hide behind, I will tear you apart.’
At last her smile wavered and she blinked furiously. I rose and opened the door; Father Tony appeared as if by magic. I jerked my chin in his direction and he disappeared again, presumably to call Bela. Eleanor Aviva and I waited in silence. I thought about popping her head off, just to see what she looked like after death, to see if the glamour would fade and reveal her in what I suspected would be arachnid glory. I wanted to see if that might release some of my tension, let some of the distress drain away. But I didn’t. I didn’t have the energy. I felt sick at heart at the thought of David at the mercy of the mage and the golem. It was clear Nadasy had taken him in revenge for Magda, my loved one in return for his, and despair threatened to overwhelm me, until the sound of Bela’s footsteps pulled me back.
My time with Eleanor Aviva was done.
‘Good luck,’ she called as I left the room. I didn’t turn around.
Chapter Thirty-One
The low sun left little licks of silvery-gold on the ripples of the river; the wind bit through my jacket and turned my hands to ice as I held the dagger out over the water. I was crouched on a rocky outcrop, studiously ignoring Ziggi standing on the nice flat path behind the guardrail, sighing loudly and telling me every few minutes that he was cold and bored and utterly convinced there had to be a better way of doing this.
Stupid as I felt, this was the only option I had left. As the certainty I was wasting precious time became heavier, the harder it was not to turn around and yell rude things at my friend. But I did my best to ignore him and concentrate on the sole means I could think of to summon the Boatman. Things like the Dagger of Wilusa didn’t exist in isolation: they were connected to the world like spiders at the centre of their webs. They linked to the elements, their owners, their custodians, to the acts they’d committed, sometimes to anyone who’d touched them . . . and the Boatman ticked at least two of those boxes. So I continued huddling determinedly as the blade vibrated and sang, much like an attack of tinnitus. If the only course to draw the Boatman out was by irritating the hell out of him, well, under the circumstances, I was okay with that.
Finally, the temperature dropped even further and the air started thickening and whitening until a fog was churning around me. A glance over my shoulder showed Ziggi as nothing more than a faint silhouette. In a frozen moment the boat and its oarsman were floating in front of me, staying in one place with no
discernable effort, as close as he could get to the shore without running aground and losing all professional dignity. In the bow hunched a figure, facing away from me. I stood, feeling my knees crack, stretching out my arms to steady myself.
The Boatman’s hood fluttered on the wind and I could see he was less than pleased. Then his shoulders lifted, a gesture I took to mean he was demanding to know what I wanted and why hadn’t I done whatever it was I was supposed to do? Had I been able to reach him, I’d have wrung his scrawny neck.
‘What do you want me to do?’ I yelled.
‘Stop them,’ he yelled back, shaking a fist.
‘How?’ I glanced down at the figure at his feet, who was now looking up at me. A long cut had ruined Anders Baker’s throat and rust-red blood covered the front of his expensive cream pullover and designer jeans. Stunned, I blurted, ‘What happened to you?’
‘They have no voice, not until they pass through. Do you imagine that any would remain silent on this last journey? That they would not howl their despair?’ the Boatman asked. ‘Voices have power, and these are powerless.’
Had Nadasy found him and learned the secret of Dusana’s fate? I hoped not. As soon as I’d told Bela what I’d learned, he’d set out for Baker’s place with full-on goon squad and informant in tow. What if I’d sent him into a confrontation with the mage? Though they’d been friends once, I didn’t think Nadasy held too many lives sacred these days.
Maybe it wasn’t Nadasy, I thought. After all, the list of folk Baker had pissed off was long. Bela had back-up; David was on his own. David might already be dead and growing cold, said that shitty little voice in my head. He’s being tortured, maimed, broken, and it’s all my fault. I shuddered and returned my attention to the Boatman, who was looking decidedly impatient.
‘I get it, you’re not supposed to interfere, but the golem – do you know anything about it? Its master, Nadasy? They’ve taken—’
He was shaking his head, maybe a bit sadly, as if to say I can manage only one crisis at a time.
Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 Page 28