Vowed

by Liz de Jager

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Uncle Andrew doesn’t bother to reprimand me the way Jamie would have for swearing. Instead he sighs heavily and I can feel disappointment radiating from him, even across the many thousands of miles separating us. ‘So now you’re working with the Spooks. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You are your mother’s daughter, after all.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ My tone is sharp and, right then, I don’t really care. I’m owed so many explanations about my life that I’m prepared to get into trouble to get answers.

  ‘Only that you follow your head and your instincts and usually they’re good. Sometimes they’re a bit misguided.’ He sighs again. ‘I have a few things I found out about your young Spook, Dante. I’ll email you what I’ve got. All I ask you is to keep me up to date with everything that’s going on. Especially anything he drops about who in Suola’s court is feeding the Spooks intel. I’ll get our people working on it too.’

  ‘What will the rest of the family say?’ I ask him, still sharp, still a bit annoyed at his jab about my mum.

  ‘They’ll grumble and think you’ve gone over to the dark side,’ he says, his voice full of humour. ‘But I’ll assure them you’re a Blackhart claimed and trained and know how to handle yourself.’

  ‘You guys are so full of it.’

  ‘Read the stuff I’m sending you on your new friend. Tell Aiden to stick around as much as he can too. I don’t want you going at this alone. I’m talking to his dad in a few hours. I’ll keep you updated on stuff.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ I snap out smartly and it earns me a laugh. ‘I’ve got to go. My frappe’s getting warm.’

  ‘Get some rest, Kit. You look tired.’

  Bah, I hate it when he does that. I look around me and spot the CCTV camera above the door pointing at me.

  I salute with two fingers to my brow and click my heels like a good soldier and know he’s watching me. Kyle didn’t get his tech savvy from nowhere. Pocketing my phone I head back into George’s to find Dante on the phone. Possibly speaking to one of his bosses.

  He rolls his pretty eyes at me in an apology when I sit down and grab my frappe.

  ‘Yes, sir. I understand.’ A pause. ‘Highly irregular. Yes. Understood.’ He nods a few times. ‘I’ll see you in a few hours and will make my report then.’

  He shares my grimace.

  ‘Do you ever feel like a pawn in a much bigger game?’ he asks me with a weary sigh.

  ‘All the time. The pawn that gets bashed around and beaten up.’

  ‘Sent on errands that lead nowhere.’

  My frappe’s melting so I push it aside. ‘I was born into this; you chose it,’ I tell him. ‘You’re still young. You can leg it. Go somewhere else, do something else.’

  ‘Huh, not as easy as that. I’m being put through uni by the SDI. Without it I get to sling burgers somewhere if I’m lucky.’

  ‘What about your parents?’

  ‘There’s no way they could afford it. Besides, they think I got a scholarship and that I’m going into IT. They don’t know anything about the SDI.’

  ‘That must be hard.’ It’s hard enough not being able to speak to other people about what I do. But at least I have my family, who are all so immersed in all the weirdness that it’s not unusual to have long rambling conversations about it at breakfast. For example, on the luxuries of waking up and not having blue hair. All because a nixie got annoyed with you the day before and slammed you with a blue-hair-for-a-month spell.

  He shrugs eloquently and the edge of his T-shirt collar moves, revealing a further hint of tattoo. A part of me wonders how big the tattoo is. Something tells me it’s not tiny and I wonder how intricate it is. My cousins Marc and Megan each have one on their left wrist, an eternity sigil. I find this quite sweet, as it’s a promise they made to always be there for one another, no matter what happens. I realize I’ve been staring intently at Dante’s neck with a dazed expression and I snap my gaze back to his face and pretend not to see his amused expression at being caught staring.

  ‘Your uncle not too impressed with us working together?’

  ‘Not really, but I think he’s prepared to let me run with this. I suspect he knows better than to tell me outright that he doesn’t want me to do it.’

  ‘Why did you decide to do it? I mean, you’ll be working with me. Your family will hate that. You’re not going against some kind of religious edict or anything?’

  His question, although overly dramatic, stills me and I breathe out quietly. I decide to be as honest as I can.

  ‘I think no one else can help these kids,’ I tell him. ‘What she said is true, if we’re dealing with kids younger than Dread Boy and his little crew of Lost Boys, any adults who go in there will be met with animosity. We don’t look like the establishment.’ I flick my eyes over him again and smirk. ‘We’re likely to get answers and fast too, before these kids turn up dead.’

  Dante’s dark eyes watch me intently. ‘I think there’s more, but I won’t pester you. My boss isn’t madly keen about me working with you either, but mostly I think he’s worried I’ll run off and join you in fairyland or something.’

  My eyebrows shoot up. ‘Or something?’

  ‘Yes, be lured to the Otherwhere and sold into slavery to some bad fairy or something and used as a pleasure toy.’

  My eyebrows climb higher. ‘That’s what the Spooks think the Blackharts do?’

  ‘We have no idea what exactly you do. A lot of the files I’ve seen are old and yellow and falling apart. A lot of superstition and wild stories.’

  I’m actually thrilled by this. The agency apparently doesn’t know every single thing about the Blackharts, which pleases me immensely.

  ‘Let’s go walk around for a bit,’ I say, pushing upright. ‘I promise not to sell you to anyone to be used as a – what did you call it? A pleasure toy.’ I laugh at his scowl. ‘Sorry, I forget that we’re not in some swashbuckling Regency drama.’

  He mutters something about me not being funny and that it could happen as he shrugs into his jacket.

  Chapter Eleven

  We wave at the waitress and head out into the night. I lift my jacket off the back of the bike and shrug into it, flipping the collar up. The air’s become cooler and fresher, with the breeze coming off the river. We head towards the newly restored Cutty Sark. The shape of the eighteenth-century tea clipper is lit by bright lights but it still looks ridiculously exotic, as if it is ready to sail off at a moment’s notice for places far more exciting than Greenwich.

  ‘Do you want to go to the Brownie Market?’ I ask him after we’ve walked around for a bit.

  ‘I don’t even know what that is.’

  ‘Come, I think you’ll like it. It’s perfectly safe.’ I lead him down a set of steps. ‘These are the stairs to the foot tunnel that leads beneath the river to the other side.’

  ‘Pardon?’ He stops behind me and looks down the long tunnel. ‘I’m not comfortable going down there.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  He looks shocked by what he just said but he nods after a few seconds. ‘I’m not sure where that came from but, yes, the thought of going into that tunnel is making me feel physically ill and I’ve never experienced anything like it before.’ As if to prove it, he sits down heavily and drops his head between his knees. His breath shudders through him. ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’

  Okay, so this is really weird and I’m pretty freaked out by his odd behaviour. And I’ve seen odd behaviour in the past. This is something else and the way he just spoke, with his voice a bit high and rushed, makes me more than a bit worried. I lean forwards so that my knees are on the step beneath him and duck my head so I can look at his face. ‘You’re sweating and shaking. Are you scared of water? Enclosed spaces?’

  ‘No, not at all. I’m a strong swimmer and I’ve never had issues with tight spaces.’ He looks me in the eye and I’m shocked to see how far his pupils are dilated. Genuine fear, I decide.
>
  ‘But you can’t come down there with me?’

  He shakes his head and closes his eyes, obviously trying to get a grip on himself. ‘No. I’ve never embarrassed myself like this before. I’m not sure what’s going on.’ He sucks in a deep breath of air and looks at me. ‘Can we please go somewhere else? It feels like something’s sitting on my chest and I can’t breathe.’

  ‘Yes, sure, of course.’ I help him up and we walk back up the river towards Queen Anne Court.

  It’s a cold clear night but even so his forehead’s beaded in sweat and his skin feels feverish under the back of my hand. I make him sit on the stairs to the chapel and settle down next to him.

  ‘Do you want to go home?’ I ask him, watching him carefully to see if any part of this is going to kick off into a proper panic attack. I’ve never had one, but I’ve seen a young girl go into one when confronted by a goblin eating her dog, and it had been incredibly scary to see.

  ‘I’m okay, thanks. I already feel better. It’s just when I stood at the top of those stairs and looked down, it felt as if the world around me tilted and my knees just went lame.’ He presses a hand to his chest and sucks in deep breaths of air.

  I give him some space to pull himself together. On the other side of the river the buildings of Canary Wharf stand tall and proud, having grown out of the wreckage of the Second World War and many years of urban neglect. I like looking at the new buildings across the river; they make me realize how London will always rise up from its ancient roots and shows a new face to the world.

  ‘Have you met any of Suola’s people before?’ I ask him to distract him.

  He shakes his dark head and the wind ruffles his hair lightly, making his fringe drop across his forehead. I resist the urge to brush it back. The gesture would be too intimate, too strange coming from me. I hardly know him and I’m not sure how he’d react because personally I’d hate it. I hate being touched by strangers and I always have.

  ‘Not face to face, no.’ Dante’s hands have steadied somewhat but even so he folds them together in a tight knot, twisting his fingers together. I notice that he has nice hands: with long fingers, the nails neat and well cared for. ‘I’ve only ever heard my superiors talk about meeting one of her people, or getting a contract to work on something.’

  ‘What did you think of her Beast?’ The questions are meant to distract him enough so that he can think about something else, not about whatever made him freak out so much.

  ‘He seemed pleasant,’ Dante eventually says after some time, his lips twisting in a way and making the word ‘pleasant’ sound dirty somehow. ‘Isn’t that strange?’

  ‘He did, didn’t he? Like someone’s kindly, slightly eccentric uncle.’

  He nods, and his gaze is pulled to the reflection of the lights on the water. I can tell he’s trying to equate the man we met earlier with the savage murderer and torturer we know by reputation. I somehow expected the Beast to look exactly like his namesake, something akin to the nightmares he induces in the Unseelie realm. Instead, we were given the well-dressed, cane-carrying, middle-aged professor lookalike.

  ‘What do you think will happen when we find the people who’ve been taking the kids?’

  ‘The Beast will come and take them. It won’t be our problem any more.’

  ‘What if they’re human?’

  ‘They probably are human. The Fae are no longer allowed to steal children.’

  The bleak look he gives me tells me he doesn’t really believe me.

  ‘There are treaties between us now,’ I explain. ‘And they’ve been around for several hundreds of years. Humans are safe from the Fae. Mostly. Unless they ask to be taken to the Otherwhere; then there’s nothing we can do about it.’

  ‘Some people ask to be taken?’

  I nod, remembering the young artist we found wandering around Dartmoor, his mind entirely gone.

  ‘Yes. And then we can’t stop them, not if they go into it willingly. Once they’ve signed over their free will to the Fae, the Fae can do anything with them.’

  Dante shakes his head and leans forward, watching the black water of the river below.

  ‘Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘Fame,’ I say. ‘Fortune. Sometimes someone wants something so badly they are prepared to do whatever it takes to get it. Artists, singers, musicians, writers. There are records that go back a long time that are evidence of this type of thing.’

  We stand quietly for a few minutes before Dante slants a look at me. ‘I think I’m learning more from you in one night than in the time I’ve been with the SDI.’

  I check the BBC website and it tells me when dawn’s supposed to arrive. Dante’s starting to look a bit hollow-eyed and I worry that he’ll fall asleep talking to Melusine or on his way back to the office. We huddle near the Cutty Sark, drinking tea from polystyrene cups, the warmth from the previous day now completely gone.

  We don’t have long to wait for Melusine. She comes out of the water in front of us and changes shape as she moves towards us, her mermaid’s tail melting and splitting into two trim long legs encased in what looks like silvery leggings. Her hair’s long and loose down her back and her eyes are large and dark as she takes us in.

  ‘You’ve decided?’ She frames it as a question but it’s a statement really. I try not to stare below her neck because the shirt she’s wearing is diaphanous and it leaves nothing to the imagination. And, well, I have my own and it’s not necessary to stare at someone else’s.

  ‘We have,’ Dante says, his eyes rigidly above the neckline.

  ‘We’ll take on the job,’ I tell her. ‘At the usual payment. For both of us.’

  Melusine’s smile is sharp edged. She produces two wooden tokens on silver chains and hands one to each of us.

  ‘Agreed. But on condition that both of you are present when the creature is either taken by the Beast or killed.’

  Dante and I share a look but we both nod, in the end.

  ‘Is this your vow, to hunt the thief of children?’ She asks us, her voice suddenly sonorous and official. ‘To find him and send him to the Otherwhere for judgement?’

  ‘I so vow,’ I say.

  ‘Yes. I vow this.’

  As both Dante and I speak the words, we slip the tokens around our necks. The shimmer of the spell implanted in the token sparks in the early morning light and I can’t help the shiver that steals through me. I finger the rune-carved wooden pendant – no longer or bigger than my thumb – and wonder who the sorcerer is who can work the magic so finely that a piece of wood stows enough energy to open a gateway between two realms.

  ‘It is done,’ Melusine says, turning to go. She hesitates for a second, perhaps about to say something, then she seems to think better of it and walks back towards the river. ‘Suola expects you to have the case wrapped up soon,’ she throws over her shoulder at us. ‘You know better than to disappoint her.’

  She dives smoothly into the river, her clothes shedding mid-arc and her legs forming into a shimmery mermaid’s tail. I watch her dark head dunk beneath the water and she’s gone as the sun’s early morning rays hit us.

  ‘What now?’ Dante asks after a few seconds of watching the river.

  ‘Now I go home, get some sleep and head back to the estate to check things out. With luck, we’ll get calls from the girl or Dread Boy in the meantime to set something up.’ I look at him. There’s no sign of his earlier queasiness or weirdness, except maybe in the darkness of his eyes. ‘And you? Are you okay? What are you doing now?’

  Dante checks his watch and grimaces. ‘I’m okay. Thanks for sticking with me. I’m off to work, unfortunately. I’ll call you later.’

  ‘You don’t have my number,’ I point out and he passes me his phone. I quickly type in my number and hand it back to him. He immediately hits dial and my pocket starts ringing. ‘Where’s the trust?’ I ask him, laughing openly now.

  ‘Ah, just being careful,’ he says, pocketing the phone. ‘Drive safely, Kit. Ta
lk later.’

  I watch him wander off to the parking garage as I swing my leg over my bike and pull on my helmet. Maybe he wasn’t so bad, I think to myself. He was certainly easy on the eye and didn’t look too shabby in that T-shirt of his. I laugh at the thought and shake my head as I start the bike. I have to tell Megan about him, I decide. He’s definitely her type.

  Chapter Twelve

  I get back home fast; there’s little enough traffic going through town. I love the Ducati for this but I miss my little car, Lolita, and I hope the ogres are taking care of her. Here’s a tip: never agree to play poker against ogres. They are canny and like shiny things, like my Mini Cooper. But at least the agreed three months’ lending term is almost done and I’ll have her back. Megan is still refusing to talk to me about the mess I got myself in there. But the ogres swore very prettily not to damage it, so here’s hoping I get her back in one piece.

  Kyle’s still sleeping when I get in, so I have a quick shower, crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head. I’m exhausted but sleep decides to play elusive and I sit up in bed after half an hour of tossing and turning. I wonder about checking on Aiden for not showing up at the club last night but decide against it. We’re good mates but I really don’t want to be the clingy one.

  I pull my sketchpad over and flip to a clean page. I twiddle the charcoal between my fingers thinking about last night. My sketch is rough and untidy as I draw Suola’s face but I like it. It gives her a wildness that seems apt. I draw Melusine too, only her face. I purposely don’t sketch Dante. I don’t think I want to have him in my sketchpad, not yet. I do, however, draw the bits of tattoo I saw peeking from beneath the sleeve and collar of his T-shirt. They have sharp strange edges that I think are definitely part of a larger tattoo. I wonder how old he was when he got it. His parents must have been unimpressed. I get the feeling that they were quite strict with him but that obviously didn’t stop him from being a bit of a wild child.