Box of Frogs

by Helen Harper

  That was hardly much of an explanation. I thumped him between his shoulder blades. ‘Explain yourself,’ I said sternly. ‘Do faeries have special three-sixty vision?’ I experimented with my own eyes, swivelling them first one way then the other.

  ‘We do. It’s a difficult technique to master, though. Get off the bike and I’ll show you – it might come in handy.’

  Cool. I slid off and ambled round till I was facing him.

  ‘What you have to do is tilt your head back fifty-two degrees,’ he said

  ‘Fifty-two? How am I supposed to know how far that it is? It’s not like I’m carrying a protractor.’

  He laughed. ‘Do your best.’

  I did as he bade. It was awkward but not entirely uncomfortable.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘lick your lips three times, spin around and do a star jump.’

  To my shame, I started to. I licked my lips at least twice. Then I came to a halt and glared. ‘You’re taking the piss out of me, aren’t you?’

  Morgan’s face split into a massive grin. ‘I am indeed.’ He unhooked his leg from the bike and shook out his hair as if he were in a shampoo advert. I wasn’t complaining. ‘We faeries are impressive but we’re not so impressive that we can beat the basic laws of biology.’

  I frowned. ‘Then how do you always know what I’m doing?’

  ‘As I said,’ he told me, ‘I know you. When you’re so close, I’m … attuned to you. I could hear your breathing change. And your body was pressed up against mine. I felt it when you tensed.’

  My mouth was suddenly inexplicably dry. He was paying that much attention to me? Slightly discombobulated, I shuffled my feet. ‘Spiders,’ I said, by way of explanation.

  Morgan blinked at me. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘There were lots of cobwebs in the last place we went to. Rubus’s old hide-out. Fortunately I couldn’t see any spiders but the cobwebs were massive.’ I shrugged awkwardly. ‘I guess I have mild arachnophobia.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ His tone was so dismissive that I bristled.

  ‘It’s a phobia. It’s not supposed to be logical. It just is. I can’t help the way I feel.’

  ‘The Madrona I knew wasn’t afraid of spiders. She wasn’t afraid of anything.’

  I pulled back my shoulders. ‘The Madrona you knew dumped you for your brother and was by all accounts an evil bitch. At least I’m trying.’

  He stilled and his eyes met mine. For a long moment, we simply looked at each other, surrounded by night and silence and the whisper of old, broken promises that I couldn’t remember.

  Eventually I shook myself. ‘We should get going,’ I said. ‘Julie is in that building and I’m going to rescue her. You can do whatever you want with Rubus. I just want to get out of there with my new boss still alive.’ I sniffed. ‘And I want to find out what happens with Stacey and her husband.’

  ‘Who the hell is Stacey?’

  I smiled. ‘I’ll tell you all about her once we’re out of this place.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Coming?’

  He growled in the affirmative.

  With my shoulders hunched and my back slumped, as if poor posture could hide me from any prying eyes, I slipped across the street. Morgan followed. The last thing either of us needed was to end up trapped in Rubus’s lair without knowing how to get out, so I went left while Morgan went right. We met up round the back of the derelict warehouse.

  ‘No other doors round this side,’ I whispered, ‘apart from the one the arsebadgers entered, and the front door itself. There’s a low window that is ajar though. It’s on a latch that can’t be reached from the outside, but it’s an option for an escape route from inside if we need it.’

  Morgan nodded. ‘There’s a door back that way,’ he told me, pointing in the direction he’d just come from. ‘It’s padlocked and chained so it doesn’t look like an option.’

  ‘Then it looks like we enter the same way they did.’ I glanced around. The streets were still quiet but there was a faint glow appearing on the horizon. ‘Dawn isn’t far off. If we’re going to do this, we should do it now.’

  I was prepared to argue with him; I couldn’t face staking out this place until we were sure about who was inside. I didn’t have the energy and I wasn’t convinced Julie had the time. Fortunately, Morgan offered a low murmur of agreement, pivoted and led the way back to the first side door.

  The door handle was a simple affair. Morgan twisted it and I gave a brief sigh of relief when the door swung open. Weak florescent light poured out. Morgan looked round the edge of the door and held up his arm to me with his fingers curled into a tight fist. It was obviously some kind of silent signal but, not being SWAT or even in possession of a memory that might tell me what he wanted me to do, I simply stared. Then I stepped past him and into the building.

  Morgan grabbed my shoulder. ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed.

  ‘Breaching the stronghold.’

  ‘I told you to wait!’

  I shook my head. ‘No, you didn’t.’

  He made the gesture again. ‘This means wait.’

  I tilted my head. ‘How am I supposed to know that?’

  Morgan rolled his eyes in despair. He beckoned with one hand. ‘This is come.’ Then he circled one index finger in the air. ‘This is return to the rally point. That’s here.’ He moved his hand up and down. ‘This is crouch down.’

  I flung my arms up in the air. ‘This is Y,’ I said.

  ‘Why what?’

  I ignored the question and moved my arms again, curving my fingers down to my head. ‘This is M.’ I switched. ‘This is C. And this is…’

  ‘Very funny.’ For some reason, he wasn’t smiling. ‘How is it that you know the dance moves to a stupid song but you can’t remember anything important?’

  ‘I think you’re underestimating the role of the Village People in human culture. And I don’t know why I remember that. I don’t know why I remember how to drive or how to speak English. Nothing about any of this makes any sense to me.’

  ‘You don’t make any sense to me,’ he growled.

  I flipped up my middle finger. ‘I remember this signal too.’

  Morgan clenched his teeth. ‘Fine. Forget the signals. Just…’ he sighed in irritation. ‘Just let me go in front and follow my lead.’

  I saluted. ‘Aye, aye.’

  He tutted and pushed past me.

  The exchange had loosened the knot of tension inside my stomach and helped me to relax slightly. That was good; if I jumped at every shadow or tiptoed along on tenterhooks, I’d get both of us noticed. The banter seemed to have helped Morgan, too, despite him appearing vexed. His shoulders were less rigid. I decided that could only be a good thing.

  In any case, now that we were inside the time for fun and games was over. Rubus must be here – which meant the entire building was probably teeming with his minions. The fact that I was supposed to be one of those minions didn’t exactly fill me with joy. Whatever he’d been to me in the past, if he’d harmed one hair on Julie’s head just because she was a vampire, I’d burn this place to the ground and everyone in it.

  I closed the door behind us, using a piece of cardboard to wedge it open so we could make a fast exit if we had to. Then I caught up to Morgan, my eyes swinging this way and that for any signs of life. So far there was nothing more than a long corridor with cracked bare walls and overhanging strip lights. Rubus’s life certainly wasn’t as glamorous or luxurious as I’d expected. What was the point in being evil if it didn’t translate into gold-plated penthouse apartments?

  We must have gone at least twenty feet down the dingy hallway before we came to a doorway. We came to a halt outside it, listening for any sounds. After a moment, Morgan turned to me and frowned. I shook my head. Nope. I couldn’t hear a damned thing, either. I knew enough about my own abilities by now; if someone was beyond that door, even if they were only breathing, I’d have been able to hear them.

  Morgan’s expression was stony; he clearly wasn
’t happy with the lack of life we’d come across so far. He squared his shoulders and set off again. I stayed as close to his back as I could. There was no way I was going to be left behind.

  The same thing happened three times. There were three more closed doors; each time, we stopped and waited, listening with all our faery might, but there was nothing. The warehouse appeared to be completely deserted.

  There was a right turn at the end of the corridor. Morgan started down it but I touched his shoulder in a bid to forestall him. ‘Something about this isn’t right,’ I whispered.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s too quiet.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We’re probably walking into a trap.’

  His expression tightened. ‘I know.’ He looked back down the corridor. ‘Maybe you should wait outside.’

  I snorted. No chance. I wouldn’t even deign to comment on such a ridiculous suggestion. ‘Perhaps the actual lair isn’t here at all. Perhaps this part is just for show and the main den is underground.’

  We looked down on the off-chance that the floor would give us some clue. ‘It’s possible,’ he conceded quietly. ‘But we’ve still got a lot to explore on this level first.’

  ‘Wouldn’t we have heard something by now if anyone was up here?’ I asked. At that very moment, my ears prickled at a distant sound.

  I stopped moving. Morgan looked at me. ‘What did you hear?’

  ‘A clink.’ It hadn’t lasted long but it wasn’t a natural sound.

  He nodded. ‘That’s what I heard too.’ He pointed round the corner. ‘Let’s go.’

  We set off, our footsteps even lighter and quieter than they had been before. There were no more clinks but I felt more confident that we were heading in the right direction. I couldn’t fail Julie again; it simply wasn’t an option. Images of her corpse flashed through my mind with stomach-churning regularity. There was nothing to suggest she actually was dead; if Rubus had wanted that outcome, no doubt the Redcaps wouldn’t have bothered kidnapping her in the first place. The alleyway attacker would have used a stake, not a Taser. All the same, my trepidation was growing and it wasn’t a feeling I enjoyed.

  We kept walking, turning right twice. The corridor remained depressingly similar. It wasn’t until we reached the second-to-last doorway that my senses started to prickle again.

  I stopped. Morgan, who’d continued on ahead, turned his head. He frowned at me, indicating silently that there was nothing to be heard beyond the doorway I was standing beside. I jerked my head at it. He was right that there were no sounds but there was something about the quality of the silence through the old oak veneer that was different. As Morgan moved back towards me, I reached for the handle and gently pushed it down, revealing a glimpse of the room beyond. When I saw what was covering the inside of the door and the walls, I knew we were finally getting somewhere.

  Not daring to open the door more than an inch or two, I pointed. Even from his awkward angle, he could see the black soundproofing foam covering every inch of the space. His jaw tightened. I grinned; at least this wasn’t going to be a wasted visit. Rubus was indeed a canny arsebadger.

  I edged inside. The room was about eight metres square, with two more foam-covered doors at opposite ends. Nothing else was visible – but if this was merely the gateway to the lair beyond, that wasn’t surprising. I strained my ears again but I couldn’t hear anything other than Morgan’s and my own breathing.

  I stayed on the balls of my feet and headed for the door on the left-hand side, motioning to Morgan to take the one on the right. His mouth twisted briefly, as if he were unhappy at us splitting up. Although I was more than happy to keep him by my side, I was getting bored with skulking around.

  ‘Three minutes,’ I mouthed, indicating that we should meet back here after that time was up. He blinked at me in reluctant agreement and, with one final glance at each other, we went our separate ways. I opened my door and Morgan opened his then we vanished from each other’s sight.

  Unsurprisingly, the short corridor that greeted my eyes was covered in soundproofing foam, just like the previous room. There was one more door. Grimly, I stalked up to it, pressing my ear against the foam triangles in case there was anything to be heard. When not even a whisper reached my ears, I pulled back and braced myself. I was more than ready for what lay beyond.

  With one swift movement, I yanked on the door handle and flung it open, leaping inside with a short-lived roar.

  ‘Goodness,’ Julie murmured from a red-velvet chaise longue. ‘That’s quite a dramatic entrance, Mads. Being around me has rubbed off on you already.’ She took a sip of the gin and tonic in her hand and smiled. ‘Chin-chin.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  My yell died on my lips and my mouth fell open. ‘What the gasbudlikins…’

  Julie tutted. ‘Darling, you look terrible. Have you not been sleeping?’

  I stared at her. To make doubly sure she wasn’t a figment of my imagination, I shuffled forward and poked her. She was definitely real. Then it occurred to me that she might be a faery wearing a glamour. Could Redcaps glamour themselves? If I could do it surely they could. I crossed my arms. ‘If you’re really Julie,’ I said, ‘tell me what you were buying the first time we met.’

  ‘Who else would I be if I wasn’t Julie?’

  ‘Answer the fucking question.’ My voice was low. I didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on here but I wasn’t going to relax until I got some answers.

  ‘Darling!’ Her eyes opened wide in mock shock. ‘Language! If you really need me to say it, I was buying some Valium. Or rather Mark was buying it for me.’

  I stayed where I was. No glamour then; this really was the Julie I knew. That only meant I had more questions now. I stepped back, suddenly desperate to keep some distance between her and myself. ‘You need to tell me what’s going on here,’ I said. ‘And you need to tell me now.’

  The door behind me thumped open. I sprang back, spotting Morgan facing off against both Redcap arsebadgers. My stomach dropped. I jabbed my thumb at Julie and growled, ‘Stay here,’ then I jumped into the fray to help him.

  The Redcaps were gunning for Morgan, grim fury on their faces. I had to draw one of them away from him. I needn’t have worried; it took both Redcaps less than a second to recognise me. As soon as they did, they abandoned their onslaught on Morgan and spun towards me.

  The shorter of the two reached me first, slamming a punch into my stomach that I wasn’t fast enough to avoid. I doubled over, winded and in agony. The second Recap thumped my spine and I crumpled, wheezing. All I could think about was the pain.

  One of them gave a strangled cry. ‘You killed him!’

  I rolled onto my side, barely managing to draw my knees up into a foetal position so I could protect myself against more attacks. Some fabulous fighter I was, I thought dully. Morgan roared as he threw himself at the Redcaps, fury lacing every indistinct syllable. Through brimming eyes, I registered him grab the backs of their heads and shove them together so their foreheads bounced off each other. The shorter one took the worst of the impact; he fell backwards with a groan before tumbling down onto the floor next to me.

  While I willed my body to recover, Morgan and the second Redcap went at it, fists and feet flying. Neither paused to speak; I wasn’t sure they even paused to breathe.

  Morgan grabbed hold of the Redcap’s arm, twisting it hard behind him. The Redcap reacted by swinging his head backwards and connecting with Morgan’s nose. Morgan fell back a few steps, his body landing against the foam-covered wall. He pushed himself off and jabbed a kick at the Redcap’s chest. In response, the Redcap lashed out with his foot. Even I heard the crunch of Morgan’s ribs.

  The fallen arsebadger next to me moaned and twitched. He was already starting to move again; another moment or two and I knew he’d be back on his feet. I couldn’t allow that to happen – Morgan had his hands full as it was.

  Pain still throbbed through my body, alth
ough it was lessening by the second. I tensed my stomach and rolled, managing to get on top of the Redcap and pinning him in place to stop him re-joining the attack on Morgan. I wasn’t sure it was going to do any good, however, because the other Redcap had pulled out a gun and pointed it at Morgan. What was it with these guys and their damned guns?

  My stomach sank. This wasn’t a country road with plenty of room to manoeuvre; in this small space, there was nowhere to go and no moves to make. Morgan froze, lowering his fists. I did the only thing left to us and straddled the Redcap underneath me, wrapping my hands round his throat and squeezing. He choked, his face turning a fascinating shade of purple. In my peripheral vision, I spotted his brother pressing his gun even harder against the underside of Morgan’s chin. Stalemate.

  All of a sudden there was a sound behind us. Before I could glance round, a cold liquid drenched me. I heard the Redcap holding Morgan swear loudly and I realised that exactly the same had happened to him.

  We all stopped what we were doing and stared at Julie, who was holding an empty glass in one hand and a half-empty bottle in the other. ‘Waste of good gin, if you ask me,’ she said. ‘This would be far easier if you all simply spoke to each other instead of attacking first.’

  The Redcap underneath me spat out, ‘She works for Rubus.’

  His words were barely understandable given that I was still gripping his throat but it didn’t stop me from snarling at him. ‘I work for her!’ I retorted angrily. ‘Or at least I used to. I’m not sure what’s going on now. The only ones around here who work for Rubus at this moment in time are you and your ugly buddy.’

  ‘You’re a fucking idiot.’

  I tightened my grip. ‘Say that again,’ I said. ‘Go on. I dare you.’

  Julie sighed loudly. ‘You’re all idiots.’ She walked over and kicked the Redcap.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘He deserved that.’ I’d barely finished speaking when she slapped me sharply on the cheek. ‘Hey!’

  ‘You deserved that too,’ she answered serenely. ‘Let’s all go and sit down in the next room and talk about this like adults.’