The Road to Bedlam cotf-2

by Mike Shevdon

  It wasn't the best news a father could give his daughter. I imagined her reaction, the curling of her lip in that peculiar way as she elongated ' eww ' into a whine. I smiled at the thought, but it had kept me from telling her.

  It wasn't certain, though. I had also been told that humanity had introduced a random factor into the inheritance. The Feyre had long had problems with fertility. When they did have children they bred true, each to their element, their forms reflecting their differing affinities. When they discovered that the union between fey and human was fertile it caused a rift between those who believed that the union would save the Feyre from extinction and those who saw human-fey hybrids as an abomination, a corruption of their bloodlines. What neither the pure-bred Untainted nor the remaining factions of the Seven Courts had realised was that the human DNA somehow altered the mechanism of inheritance, meaning that there was no way to be sure what fey traits would be inherited. My hope was that maybe Alex would inherit some other gift, possibly fire and air like Blackbird rather than the grisly gifts of the void.

  In any case there was no way to tell. She would either find herself one day gifted with uncanny power, or she wouldn't. If she did, she would live an unnaturally long life. If she didn't, she would live a human lifespan and age and die long before I did, assuming that no one broke my neck with a wooden sword first.

  I dried myself and pulled on my jeans and T-shirt. I was not allowed the charcoal uniform of the Warders. Garvin would decide when I could wear grey and he would make sure that I would not disgrace the reputation of the Warders before he would allow that. His decision was final.

  I looked forward to that day with a degree of trepidation. It would mean that he thought I was worthy of it, which was a huge compliment, but it would also mean that I was available for duty. Being a Warder meant being ready twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The Lords and Ladies could request our assistance or assign duties whenever they felt like it. That was the job.

  In practice, it wasn't an onerous schedule. Mostly the courts kept to themselves, dealing with their own internal issues. It was only when something affected all of them that the Warders were involved. Then the Warders would be called upon to carry out the will of the Seven Courts of the Feyre, which could be anything from delivering a message to carrying out an execution. The will of the courts was absolute, and the Warders were there to ensure it was enacted. I had heard that a job rarely took more than three of them.

  There were six of them and me, one from each of the seven courts. I had bargained for my life by threatening to expose the High Court's weakness. Their solution had been to make me a Warder, ensuring my loyalty and my silence, sworn under an oath bound by magic far more powerful than my own. But I wasn't an active Warder until Garvin said I was. It was his call.

  I clipped my phone to my belt. Amber called it my boy-toy and had told me to drop it down a well. She spurned all the trappings of technology and connected with no one outside the Warders as far as I knew. Even then it was a cold relationship. My phone was my connection with my human life and the means by which other people, human people, could contact me. In truth it had its limitations. If I used power with it near me then the battery would drain, sometimes beyond recharging. It had been through five batteries in its short life, even through I carried it only when I needed it. It wasn't allowed in the practice hall where it could distract me from my training but it meant I could check for messages when lessons were done for the day.

  It beeped twice when I turned it on. That would be Blackbird wanting to know what time I would be home. She had only partially settled into domestic life and felt vulnerable without the magic that her pregnancy denied her. I was assured it was quite natural and that it was to protect the baby from the raw power of fey magic. She accepted it, but she wasn't happy about it. It was the first time she had been without magic for hundreds of years and she felt the loss keenly.

  I grabbed my bag. The phone beeped again. What was the matter now? She knew I couldn't be contacted until the session ended, so what was the point of sending me multiple messages? Or was it simply that she wanted me to get some milk on the way home?

  I unclipped my phone from my belt and pressed the button to read the messages. The phone beeped again as I held it. What was the matter with it?

  The first message was from voice-mail saying that there was a voice message for me. The second message was from Blackbird. It said, "Call me, URGENTLY." The third message was from voicemail again. Another message beeped as I dialled Blackbird. What was going on?

  The number rang twice, then picked up.

  "Hello?"

  "It's me. You wanted me to call."

  "Thanks goodness, Niall, I've been trying to reach you all afternoon. Katherine rang. There's been an accident."

  "What kind of accident?"

  "It's Alex. She's in hospital."

  My stomach clenched at her words. "What happened? Is she OK?"

  "I don't know. There was some sort of incident at school. They called Katherine. She called me when she couldn't reach you. She said they were going to the hospital."

  "Is Alex all right?"

  "I don't know, Niall. She said to meet her there."

  "Give me the name of the hospital."

  Blackbird read out the address of a London hospital and gave me directions.

  "If Katherine calls, tell her I'm on my way."

  "I'll tell her."

  "Are you OK?" I asked her.

  "Yes." I could hear the lie clear down the phone line. Blackbird had once told me that magic was too close to truth for the Feyre to be able to lie convincingly.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I'm fine." She must have known I'd hear the lie. "Go see to your daughter. She needs you. Call me when you have news."

  "I will." I ended the call and headed for the basement. It was a two-hour drive to London, but I had no intention of driving. The house had another exit for those that could use it.

  The Ways were lines of elemental force that crisscrossed the landscape allowing the Feyre to travel quickly from place to place. While the High Court had no Way node of its own, it did have access to the Ways. I went down a set of stairs to a room below ground.

  Garvin had told me that the room I entered had been created by the Luchorpan, the Court of the Maker, to connect to the Ways without actually joining them permanently. The floor was marked with an intricate pattern, marking the points that could be accessed with radial lines terminating in silver stars, mirroring no constellation I knew.

  The Ways were held open by a smoky clear stone which, if you looked into it, was threaded through with tiny filaments like complex wiring. While it was placed in the centre of the pattern the Feyre could come and go, but once the stone was removed the connection collapsed and the house was isolated from the rest of the Ways.

  I only used a couple of the connections, the one that would take me to the house where Blackbird and I lived, and the one terminating in central London. There were eight or nine other connections I had never used. I once asked Tate where they went, and he said, "Everywhere."

  I found the star that signified the connection with London. Standing over it, I reached down with my power. Beneath the floor, the power of the Way swelled up to meet me. I took a step forward and it swept me into the stream, bearing me through a depth of blueblack night, swirled with streaks of unearthly light. On other occasions I would have exhilarated in the power of it, but now I only wanted it to carry me to my daughter. I shimmered into being in another basement, many miles away, stepping off the line and mounting the steps to the ground floor two at a time.

  My training made me leave the house cloaked in magic. This was one of the places that could connect directly with the High Court of the Feyre and Garvin would not thank me for revealing its secrets. I wrapped myself in power, cloaking myself with misdirection before unsealing the wards of protection holding the front door and exiting to the street. I walked away from the square where the
house stood without looking back. Only when I was clear did I let the misdirection fall away and start hailing black cabs.

  The driver knew where the hospital was. I asked him to hurry, but with the evening traffic the progress was frustratingly slow. My impatience must have shown because he turned in his seat and leaned back to speak to me.

  "Do you want me to try another route? It'll be longer and cost a bit more, but it might be quicker."

  "Do it."

  He waited until the traffic moved forward, then turned sharply into the other lane. He reversed and then completed the U-turn to go back the way we had come. Shortly after, he turned into a narrow alley, taking us down the access roads between the backs of buildings, swerving around wheelie bins and badly parked cars. When we came to other main roads, he went straight across, halting only to wait for a gap so that he could drive over to the next back alley. We navigated up and down one way streets, taking odd turns and driving right around squares to get to rat runs that crossed the main routes. I held on to the grab handle to stop myself being thrown around in the back of the cab as we swerved around obstacles. Finally we juddered to a halt.

  "The hospital is down there, about fifty yards or so. I can't get any closer because of this bastard." He nodded at a huge truck parked in the middle of the road. "It'll be another twenty minutes if I take you round the oneway to the door."

  "That's great," I told him. "I'm really grateful." I paid him, adding a substantial tip.

  "Ta muchly," he grinned.

  I got out of the cab and the driver began backing down the street away from me. I could see the problem now. Someone had parked one of those enormous trucks that you usually only see in Europe in the middle of the road and left all the lights on. It looked new, the paintwork bright and clean. On the back there was a row of hazard warnings, the familiar sign for radiation, one for biological and another two that I didn't recognise.

  As I walked past it I felt something I almost didn't recognise. There was faint emanation from the truck, something that was only familiar because of what had happened the previous autumn. It wasn't strong, but it was the unmistakable taint of cold iron.

  Cold iron was anathema to fey magic and having it close set my teeth on edge, but this was only a trace, an echo of that sensation. There was no signwriting or logo down the side of the truck to identify it. If I had more time I would have investigated, but I needed to get to the hospital.

  As I passed, I noted the driver sitting inside the truck reading a newspaper. He looked settled, as if he'd been there some while. It struck me as odd because he was blocking the entire street and the police would normally insist that something like that was moved to clear the access, especially this close to a hospital.

  At the end of the street was the Accident and Emergency Unit, just as the cab driver had promised. I trotted past the entrance where ambulances were parked, their crews waiting on standby, to the public entrance and went straight to the information desk.

  "I'm looking for my daughter, Alexandra Dobson?" Alex had taken to using her mother's maiden name instead of my surname when Katherine and I divorced. It made sense, but somehow it still hurt.

  The man consulted his computer. "You'll need to go through that door and take a left. Head right down to the end and then take the lift up to the sixth floor. She's in the Tesla Wing. Ask at the nursing station when you get up there."

  I thanked him and followed his directions. I had to wait for the lift and nearly went for the stairs instead. It was six floors but I was a lot fitter than I used to be. The lift doors opened just as I had decided to take the stairs.

  On the sixth floor, I followed the signs to the Tesla Wing and went straight to the nursing station. As I started to speak, I spotted Barry, my ex-wife's new husband.

  "Never mind," I told the nurse. "I can see them."

  I went to walk past, but she stepped into my way.

  "I'm sorry, sir. You can't go down there."

  "I'm Niall Petersen, Alex Dobson's father."

  "I was told her father was already here," she said.

  "He's not her father." I told her. "He's her stepfather."

  "I see." Her attitude was brittle. "You may come with me then."

  She walked ahead of me down the corridor to where Barry was waiting. His expression was grim. My stomach clenched when he didn't smile.

  As we came near, Katherine, my ex-wife, appeared. The nurse was about to speak when Katherine ran forward and threw herself at me, hugging me close. Barry looked on, embarrassed.

  "Oh, Niall, thank God you're here. We've been trying to get hold of you all afternoon."

  The nurse looked nonplussed and then turned and walked back to the station, apparently happy that I was indeed Alex's father.

  "Where is she? What's happened?"

  Katherine took a deep breath, stepping back. "There's been a terrible accident."

  "Is she OK?"

  "They're treating her now."

  "Can I see her?"

  "No one is allowed in. They won't even let me in."

  "What happened?"

  "She was at school. No one knows what went wrong. We were told an hour ago that three girls are dead."

  "Dead!"

  "They were found in a changing room. Kayleigh, Alex's friend, raised the alarm. There was some sort of biological contamination. Everyone who had any contact with it has been brought here."

  "What in hell happened?"

  "They've quarantined the school, no one is allowed on site. Some sort of specialist unit has been brought in to deal with it all. The doctor came by half an hour ago and told us that they were doing everything they can to save Alex, but it's touch and go."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I don't know, Niall. That's all they would say. The doctor said they were specialists, the best in the country, and they were doing everything they could."

  I held my hand up to pause her, then went back to the nurses' station.

  "Excuse me. I would like to see my daughter, please?"

  "It's Mr Petersen. Is that right?"

  "Yes." She knew perfectly well who I was.

  "I've asked the consultant to come and see you. He asked me to notify him when you arrived."

  "Fine. I'd like to see my daughter."

  "I'm afraid that's not possible at the moment, Mr Petersen."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't know if you're aware, but this is a specialist isolation unit. We treat everything here from the ebola virus to smallpox. We have very strict protocols which must be followed absolutely to the letter for public health reasons. I'm afraid you will only be able to see your daughter when the consultant gives the all-clear. I'm really sorry, I know this must be hard for you, but that is the way it has to be."

  "I want to see whoever's in charge."

  "The consultant is on his way."

  "Good."

  I turned away, angry at being thwarted but anxious not to show my anger. It would get me nowhere in this environment. I walked slowly back to where Katherine and Barry waited. They were holding hands, but dropped them guiltily as I turned towards them. In a moment of clarity I could see that the only reason Katherine wasn't throwing herself at the walls was because Barry was being her rock.

  I went to stand with them.

  "They won't let me see her either; it was worth a try, I suppose. Barry, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you being with us. I know Alex would want you here." I offered my hand and he took it, pressing it long and slow.

  "I couldn't bear to be anywhere else. You know she means a lot to me."

  I nodded, conscious of the relief on Katherine's face.

  "It's the same for all of us," I lied, and pressed Barry's hand into mine, offering what little comfort I could, knowing that his pain was so much less than my own.

  "What else do we know?" I asked him.

  "A consultant came to see us, but he wanted you to be here."

  "So we wait?"

  "We wait."<
br />
  Katherine went back into the waiting room and sat on the edge of the vinyl-covered armchair biting her nails. Barry and I sat in the corridor, watching the hallway for signs of movement. It occurred to me that I could break into the area where Alex was, if I wanted to, but that I had no idea what awaited me there. This was unknown territory for me and my training had taught me caution.

  We didn't have long to wait. A man in a dark suit appeared at the nursing station. He glanced at us and then turned away, speaking at length with the nurse in quiet assured tones. Then he nodded to her and came to meet us. I stood, as did Barry. Katherine appeared, warned by our movement.

  She spoke first. "Is there any news?"

  "I'm Mr Phillips." He offered his hand to me and answered Katherine's question. "No, I'm afraid there's no change."

  "I'm Alex's father," I told him.

  "I'm glad you're here. I need to explain what's happening and obtain your consent."

  I noticed the sheaf of papers in his hand. The close, tight printing spoke of indemnity clauses.

  "Consent for what?" Katherine beat me to the question.

  "I'll explain it all. Shall we sit in here?" He glanced at Barry. "I… ah… only need Alexandra's genetic parents' consent."

  "Barry is staying with me." Katherine caught his hand as he turned away and drew him into the room with us.

  The doctor caught my eye.

  "It's OK," I told him. "Barry should hear this too."

  "As long as you're comfortable with that."

  We sat on unsuitable chairs around a table that was too low.

  The consultant adopted an official tone, presumably reserved for moments like this. "Your daughter has been involved in an incident at her school, as you know. This type of incident is very unusual, but fortunately we have protocols in place that can be applied. There has been some degree of biological contamination…"

  "What does that mean?" I interrupted him. "What is biological contamination?"