The Road to Bedlam cotf-2

by Mike Shevdon

  To reach the fence I had to walk around the estate, passing houses with upstairs windows open for the evening air and music spilling out over the neighbourhood. It wasn't a dangerous area, but I used my power to turn away curious eyes. I reached the side gate unnoticed by the kids playing football on the green space with piles of jerseys for goalposts, or mothers out wheeling buggies, older children trailing behind.

  My experience with the church door had the padlock on the gate loose in my hand in seconds and allowed me to lock it again behind me. I strode across the field in full view of all the houses around, knowing that no one would see me. The door into the PE block was also locked but that was no harder than opening the gate. I crossed the sprung wooden floor, my footsteps echoing around the empty basketball courts. The door to the changing rooms was at the rear. Beyond was a small corridor leading to changing rooms marked "Boys" and "Girls". On the girls' changing room was a sign in large bold letters saying "Out Of Order", and underneath that, as if to emphasise the point, "DO NOT ENTER". The door to the girls' changing room was not locked. It swung closed behind me with a prolonged screech, making me wonder whether it had always done that.

  I had been expecting some sign of what had happened here: not taped outlines on the floor or a sign saying "This is the Place", but some indication of what had occurred. Instead it looked like a building project.

  The room smelled strongly of disinfectant and there was a power washer parked behind the door. Where the toilets had been there were bare holes in the floor, each stuffed with polythene bags. There were no sinks on the wall, just pipes and screw-holes in the walls where mirrors had been mounted above them. There was a blank screen wall where once showers had been fitted, and space for rows of benches where the children could get changed. All of that had been stripped back to the bare tiles.

  In the centre of the floor near the sinks was a hole. I knelt down to examine it and drew my finger around the edge. The screw-holes were enlarged where the screws had been torn out and the tiles were cracked and jagged-edged. The drain was spotlessly clean and smelled of bleach.

  I stood again and turned slowly around. There were small rectangular windows high along one side wall, high enough to stop the boys peeking in while the girls were changing. I could see the window catches had limiters, allowing the windows to be tilted for ventilation but not opened enough for anyone to escape through.

  I closed my eyes and tried to sense what had happened here. All I could feel was the chill of a room scoured clean and left long empty.

  "Hello? Anyone there?" The voice came from the corridor to the main hall. I moved around behind the wall for the showers. There were footsteps on the tiles outside. I drew concealment around me, feeling the air chill in response.

  The door squealed open. "Hello?" It was a question hoping not to be answered. "Is there someone there?"

  I concentrated on being unseen.

  "I coulda sworn I locked that door."

  There was the scrape of a footstep as he entered the room. "This place gives me the creeps," said the voice. "Shoulda knocked the bloody thing down."

  The door hinges protested and the footsteps receded. I waited until the spring closure pressed the door closed with a final thunk. I heard him entering the boys' changing room, his voice reverberating through the adjoining wall. He moved around for a while and then retreated.

  What light there was in the changing room was fading, so I went back to the door. Trying to open it quietly just made it worse, so I opened it as little as I could and slipped through to the corridor. The owner of the voice had departed, so I could slip out of the fire door on the far side of the gym, shouldering it closed behind me as quietly as I could. I strode back across the field as the light from the overcast clouds faded and the evening deepened into twilight.

  Once through the gate in the fence, I was back in the estate and as unremarkable as anyone else. I let the concealment slip away and made my way along the streets, past smells of cooking and noises of TV: family life in the suburbs.

  Originally, I hadn't intended to go and see Katherine, but my mind was pondering the clean-up after the accident at the school and whether that meant anything. Were the school paying for the refurbishment or had they got funding from somewhere else? Would the source of the money provide any clue to where Alex was? How could I get access to that information? My feet were on automatic and followed the route from Alex's school through the streets, across the park and back to the street where we had made our home.

  I nearly stumbled when I noticed where I was. It brought me suddenly to a halt when I realised that if I saw Katherine she would ask me how I was and what I was doing there. I moved so there was a tree between me and the house. I couldn't just turn up unannounced on her doorstep, could I?

  Lying to her would be extremely difficult and the subject of Alex was bound to come up. Garvin was right about one thing: I could not explain to Katherine that Alex wasn't dead. It wasn't that I wanted to lie to her or that I didn't want her to know, but what could I say to her? I could hardly tell her that Alex was alive but I didn't know where she was. If I accused the authorities of kidnapping her then I was going to look as if I had lost my grip on reality. Grief was one thing, delusion quite another.

  If I managed to convince her, she was likely to turn up on the local MP's doorstep within the hour and demand the return of her daughter, and then she would have to explain how she knew Alex was alive, making it look as if neither of us was sane. Besides, Garvin had said the authorities would be looking for me, in which case wandering into an MP's office or a police station probably wasn't a good idea.

  Maybe it was the thought that people were searching for me that made me peek around the tree to see if anyone had noticed me arrive. That's when I noticed the car. It was parked across the road from the house and would not have been remarkable but for the two men sat inside it. They didn't get out and they didn't drive away.

  Instead, they sat waiting, watching Katherine's house.

  SIXTEEN

  The two men could just be parked, listening to the radio, or waiting for a friend in one of the other houses, but the way they glanced towards the house periodically and talked without looking at each other made me suspicious. Katherine was my ex-wife and one of the people I'd had recent contact with. If the authorities really were trying to find me then this is one of the places I might turn up.

  Using glamour, I could walk right past the car and they would not recognise me, but Garvin had told me they were prepared and that they learned from past encounters. They'd already had the better of me twice, once at the hospital and once at the cottage. That made me cautious.

  I moved back along the pavement and walked away. I wanted to get a closer look at them, but walking straight up to the car was not the way. I had the advantage. I knew where they were and as far as I could tell they didn't know I was here. I also knew the ground. I had lived here for a number of years and I was betting I knew things they didn't.

  Along the road was a concrete drive that went behind the row of houses opposite Katherine's house, leading to a block of garages. I knew this because we'd had problems with vandals breaking into the garages and setting fire to them. The neighbours had called the police and fire service out on more than one occasion.

  I strode between the houses and through into the parking area. A couple of kids were passing a ball between them, kicking it against the side wall of the end garage. They looked a bit young to be out in the late dusk but I ignored them and they did not see me. At the end of the row of garages was a path that crossed between the streets, allowing pedestrians from either side to access the garages. It was used as a cut-through for bikes and an escape route for vandals until the gates had been padlocked and only the garage owners given keys. The gate was almost opposite Katherine's house.

  I peered around the end of the last garage, noting that the gate was shut, and then walked quickly between the houses. There were hedges either side but the gate its
elf was metal with a chain-link mesh and so I would be able to see through to where the car was parked only yards away.

  I wanted to see them without being seen myself, so I intensified the misdirection around me. The air chilled and, as it did, a persistent beeping started. The car doors opened and the beeping got louder. I pressed myself closer to the hedge.

  A low voice spoke. "See anything?"

  "Nope."

  "Could be a false alarm?" The voice sounded hopeful, but also excited.

  There was a pause.

  "Could it?"

  "Watch the house. Tell me if there's any movement. Have any lights come on?" The other voice was calm, low and level.

  "No."

  There was another long pause.

  "It's a false alarm, right?"

  "The alarm went off," said the calm voice.

  "Yeah, but that could just be natural, right?"

  "Didn't you feel it get colder?"

  "Sure, but the sun's just gone down."

  "It suddenly gets colder in a car with all the doors and windows shut."

  "Right." There was another pause. "Hear anything?"

  "Only you."

  "Right."

  We all kept silent, not ten yards apart. I waited to see what they would do.

  "Shall I call for backup?"

  "No. It'll be over by the time they get here."

  "We should report it."

  "We will. See anything?"

  "No, it's getting dark."

  "Yeah, that's how it goes."

  Keeping a reassuring grip on my umbrella, I moved quietly back down the alley to the garages. I had been right to be cautious. While I had seen no sign of weapons, I had the distinct impression that these people were armed, or at least one of them was. What were they going to do, shoot me? For what? What about human rights? Then I realised that human rights probably didn't apply to people who weren't entirely human.

  I had disappeared off the radar as far as the authorities were concerned. I no longer paid tax, owned a flat, had a job that could be called a job or even had a bank account. My life had been cleaned up and cleared away. It made me feel suddenly vulnerable. They could kill me and no one would ever know. The way fey magic worked, if I was killed, my own power would be released and it would consume my remains, leaving only dust. There wouldn't even be a body to explain.

  I was used to a world with rights and obligations. As long as I lived peacefully and paid my taxes I expected to be left alone. But I no longer paid taxes, the umbrella I carried was really a sword and my loyalty was not to any human authority.

  I walked through the garages and cut back to the street, turning away from the house and feeling isolated and exposed. Wrapping the dark around me like a shadow, turning away glances and avoiding notice. Part of me wanted to go back. Part of me wanted to return to the car and show them what being fey really meant. I knew if I used my training and my power, two men with guns would be no match for me. I could kill them both before they even saw me.

  The anger boiled up in me, making me squeeze my fists together. They took my daughter and now they were denying me access to my ex-wife. Even though Katherine and I were no longer married, even though she had Barry to care for her, I still felt protective about her. How dare they camp outside her house, waiting to see if I would appear. What did they think they were doing, protecting her?

  It was that thought that killed the anger for me. What were they protecting her from? Where was the monster?

  That would be me.

  I stopped. I was walking around the streets blindly, just as likely to walk into trouble as away from it. I needed to get my head together and start behaving like a Warder. What had Garvin said? I needed to find out about them while they were looking for me. Well, I had learned something – several things.

  I knew they were watching places I was known to frequent. I knew they had a way of detecting fey magic, probably using some sort of heat sensor. They had mentioned the fall in temperature and that would make sense. Any strong use of power triggered a cooling in the general area, indicating that fey magic might be close by. I had the strong impression they were armed and that they were prepared to use their weapons.

  I wondered how much of this Katherine knew. Did she even realise she was being watched? She had no reason to be suspicious and if she wasn't looking for it, she probably wouldn't notice.

  I'd been making my way through the estate until I reached a particular cul-de-sac. Recent experience made me cautious. I stepped into the shade of an overhanging tree and merged with the shadows there. Glamour used very little power and would not cool the air around me. I shifted appearance and became an old man out for an evening stroll, my umbrella now a walking stick. I stepped out from under the tree, moving slowly and gently, as an old man might.

  The kerbs here were crowded with cars and vans. Most of the houses had been extended at some point, leaving no room for a garage. With two or three cars to each family, parking was at a premium. I did a full circuit of the cul-de-sac, stopping to look at an interesting shrub outside one house. There were lights on and in the upstairs room at the front the window was ajar and I could hear a radio playing. I knew this house. I had dropped Alex off here many times for sleepovers and homework sessions. It was Kayleigh's upstairs window that faced the front and it sounded as if she was in her room.

  I continued my walk, finding all the cars unoccupied.

  "You all right, Grandad?"

  Two large lads walked towards me, just as I reached the road.

  "What's that?" I growled, preparing myself for an assault.

  "I said, are you OK, Grandad? You were looking a bit lost. A bit deaf, are ya?"

  "I'm quite well. thank you, young man, and I can hear perfectly well."

  "All right, keep yer 'air on and mind your step. It's getting dark."

  They walked past, and I watched them cross the end of the road and walk on into the evening. They were just lads out for a walk, or on their way to the pub, maybe. They still made me jittery. Being ultra-careful, I walked back around the cul-de-sac the other way. Every few yards I stopped, as if for a rest, and used a little power to create a concealment around me, cooling the surroundings. Each time I listened carefully for an alarm, seeing no one and nothing.

  A lady came out of one of the houses with a dog and bid me a good evening. The dog growled at me in an uncertain way until the owner yanked the lead and told it to stop being silly. Even so, it watched me as it was led away out of the Close. I followed it slowly until I reached the end of the Close again. Opposite was a small park with a few swings, a seesaw and a roundabout. There were some seats where parents could sit and watch the children play in the daytime, only now one seat was occupied by a pair of teenage lovers who were focused entirely on each other. On the swings nearby a small group of lads were trying to impress two teenage girls by engaging in the sort of antics that consistently failed to impress while simultaneously providing an opportunity to lose several teeth. One was standing on the swing with one leg while hanging from the chain by one arm, jerkily swinging back and forth.

  I walked slowly across to the park and sat on one of the vacant benches as the twilight slipped into nighttime. Carefully and slowly I drew a stronger and stronger concealment around me. Gradually the temperature in the park fell. The lovers cuddled together while the teenage girls zipped up fleeces and said they were cold. The gang coalesced, leaving the swings oscillating wildly, and called to the couple to follow. They lingered a moment more, pressed to each other, and then moved off, the girl wrapped in under the boy's arm, soft murmurings between them.

  I needed to talk to Kayleigh. She was the only living witness to Alex's accident, and I needed to know what happened. I could call at the door, but then it would be Kayleigh and her parents. Although I knew her parents, we were acquaintances rather than friends. They had probably been told to look out for me.

  This was a conversation I needed to have with Kayleigh alone. I was mak
ing some wild guesses and I needed to know whether they were correct.

  I let the night gather around me and watched the dog lady return down the road. The dog kept looking nervously towards the park, though to my relief it did not howl. When it was fully dark I walked back across the park to where a van was parked against the kerb. It said 'No Tools Left Overnight' on the back and the windows were silvered to prevent anyone from seeing inside. The mirrored glass was what I needed.

  Focusing, I placed my hand upon the glass. This would be more complicated than I had attempted before. To make it easier, I tried to break it into stages. The concealment was first, then came the glamour.

  I knew my daughter well. I had held her as a babe and carried her on my shoulders. I had comforted her while she cried and hugged her when she laughed. I had never looked like her before, though, and it felt very strange. The difference in size was difficult. It took more power to change size as well as shape, but for this it would be necessary. I needed to be convincing.

  I felt my body shifting around me, more than an image, less than a shape. I held the image of my girl in my head until her hair tickled about my neck and my frame felt lithe and light. I opened my eyes and stared at the reflection of my lost daughter.

  I reached out with my fingertips to touch the reflection. It blurred and when I blinked my eyes clear I was looking at my own face again. Damn, this was difficult. It ought to be easy. There was no one in the world I knew better. I knew every curl, every inch of her, yet every time I tried to build her image it slipped from me. I could hold it for a second, but then it would unravel. It was as if I could not accept so profound a change.

  All I really needed was her voice. Perhaps that would be easier.

  "Hello?" It sounded odd, hearing it from inside myself when I had only ever heard it from her.