by Laura Powell
Lucas blinked. ‘You’re putting this in the hands of the United Council of Inquisitors?’
‘This is an international issue, and only they have the necessary resources.’
So Edie Starling the outlaw wasn’t so revolutionary after all. Lucas should be glad she wasn’t some mad-eyed jungle queen. It was clear she had influence and authority, as well as mystique. What would Glory make of her, though? How could she be prepared? His heart tightened. For a new possibility had occurred to him – that this life was something Glory might want too. Edie might want it for her. She could be La Bruja Blanca the Third: righting wrongs, fighting tyranny, folk-heroine and celebrity.
Edie cut into his thoughts. ‘I don’t intend to deal with the UCI directly and I’m sorry they arrived before we could reach the rest of your companions. I would have preferred to have met you all first.’ She turned to face him. ‘Nonetheless, I’m glad of the opportunity to speak to you on your own.’
Lucas tried to prepare himself. Though he didn’t think this was an ambush any longer, it was still a reckoning. ‘My fath—’ he began.
‘Can you tell me –’ Edie said at the same time and he felt silent, not least because of the unfamiliar hesitation in her voice. ‘Can you tell me . . . Glory . . . what is she like?’
He could feel the intensity of her gaze, like heat. It took a moment to collect himself. ‘She’s strong and she’s brave.’ He paused. ‘An extraordinary witch, though you probably know that already. Stubborn as hell, but not quite as tough as she thinks she is. Exasperating. Generous. Loyal. She’s – well. She’s the best person I know.’
‘Thank you.’ Edie suddenly looked, and sounded, very tired. ‘Ashton and I . . . we talked about the two of you. It was a long time ago.’
‘I’m sorry about what my dad did.’ The words came easily now. ‘I found out how they blackmailed you – he and the others at the Inquisition. I know he regrets it. It was a shameful thing.’
Edie nodded slowly. ‘When I met your father,’ she said, ‘he was in the grip of a terrible grief. Sometimes it seemed like anger. Behind it all, I thought he was a decent man.’
Lucas felt a great unclenching inside, like a cluster of knots untying itself. But he had one more confession to make.
‘Endor wanted to do it to me – what they did to Rose. But there’s nothing genuine about the Cambion treatment, is there? The fae can’t be blocked.’
Edie shook her head.
‘But if it could be . . . if the procedure was known to be safe . . . if things had been different . . . I would have said yes.’
‘And now?’
‘No.’ The last knot had loosened. He smiled. ‘I’d say no.’
Edie Starling smiled too, then sighed. ‘I think it’s time I met my daughter.’
Chapter 32
‘Surrender yourselves!’ boomed the man with the loudspeaker. ‘This witch-hunt has been authorised by the United Council of Inquisitors! Cease and desist all witchwork! Lay down your arms!’
Glory put down her gun in the doorway of the clinic and followed Jenna and Raffi outside, hands behind her head. One instant they were surrounded by hulking black-clad men bristling with weaponry; the next, they were pushed to the ground, arms wrenched behind their backs and cuffed in iron. Here we go again, she thought.
It took a lot of arguing, explaining and telephone calls before it was accepted that Glory, Jenna and Raffi were not Endor terrorists. On the way out of the building, Glory had ordered the others not to breathe a word about Lucas if he wasn’t already in custody. She was boiling with frustration and anxiety about him. Would she be able to sense if something bad had happened to him? And could Jenna be trusted to keep her mouth shut?
The leader of the squad was a stocky German. Glory recognised him from the fundraising party for Senator Vargas. He curtly introduced himself as Major Carsten von Dernbach, Witch-Hunter First Class.
‘Senator Vargas requested our intervention – the police here are impossible and he’s lost confidence in the private security firm he was using. Then we had a tip-off from the WSA regarding this facility.’
The WSA was otherwise known as the US Inquisition. Jenna did not look happy. ‘This is a Section Seven-led operation. The WSA has been appraised of our progress but –’
‘I think you’ll find most of the leading was done by WICA,’ Glory put in. ‘It were us who made the breakthrough at Wildings, and then with Rose Merle.’
Jenna’s ponytail swished. ‘Oh, so you’re WICA again, are you? As opposed to AWOL?’
‘And hey,’ said Raffi, jabbing an indignant finger at the Major, ‘don’t you make bad talk of the police. You have no authority in this country, dude. We Cordobans throw you out once, we do it again.’
Busy with recriminations and resentments, nobody paid much attention to the villagers quietly gathering at the end of the drive, or the elderly lady at their head.
‘La Bruja Blanca,’ she announced in a high cracked voice, ‘has something she wishes you to see.’ She held up a straw basket. ‘It is for the girl called Gloriana Starling.’
‘That’s me!’ One of the inquisitors put out a restraining hand but Glory shook him off.
When Major von Dernbach strode over to take the basket, the woman moved back. ‘I do not question La Bruja Blanca’s bidding. Neither should you.’
She looked Glory over, then beckoned her near. After handing her the basket, she kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Your friend is safe,’ the old woman whispered in her ear. ‘Come to the edge of the forest in one hour and I will bring you to him.’
Then, so that everyone could hear: ‘If La Blanca’s gift pleases you, there will be more to come. She has chosen the girl Gloriana to be her courier.’
‘Senora!’ the Major interjected, as the old woman shuffled off. ‘Who gave this to you? We need to talk –’
The woman paid no attention, hobbling towards the village with surprising speed. Her assembled neighbours murmured softly. When the Major sent one of his men after her, he had to push through an uncooperative crowd. He came back a few minutes later, shaking his head. The crone had vanished into thin air.
‘Get these people rounded up,’ the Major told him irritably. ‘We’ll need to take their statements. Some of them must have had an idea about what’s been going on round here.’
Glory looked inside the basket. There was a USB flash drive in a padded envelope, and a white feather, like the one the cat-woman had given her.
‘You are a special one,’ Raffi told her solemnly. ‘La Blanca’s favour is very rare thing.’
‘Special’s one word for it,’ Jenna muttered.
Glory suppressed a smile. She knew she owed Jenna for their escape from the hacienda and for bringing them here. That didn’t mean she had to like her. Glory suspected that the S7 agent would have preferred to keep the trip to Cambion a solo gig. Just as the Major would have preferred to snatch the USB stick and fly off in his shiny black helicopter. But to both their irritation, Glory was turning out to be a valuable resource. They needed to keep her onside.
A computer was fetched from the helicopter and brought inside the building. There were two folders stored in the memory stick, and a statement from La Bruja Blanca in a separate Word document. It said that the contents of Folder A pertained to the final hours of the Endor agent known as Flavia Caron, now deceased. Folder B contained material taken from her laptop. The laptop and other ‘items of interest’ would be passed over in due course, via Gloriana Starling, and only on the condition that Gloriana could personally testify to her colleagues’ good faith in ‘pursuing the matter with diligence and integrity’.
Both the Major and Jenna White made harrumphing noises when they got to this part.
Glory started with Folder A. There was a photograph of Dr Caron’s body, splayed among rocks, with a bloody gash on her head. Another photograph of two halves of a ring, and a sprinkle of sand. Finally, a short film that appeared to have been taken on a mobile phone.
Folder B, with contents taken from the Endor laptop, provided more pieces of the puzzle. Even so, it would have been difficult to make sense of them if it wasn’t for the information that had already been gathered. There was an article from a Cordoban tabloid, with a photograph of Senator Vargas making a speech, and Rose and Gideon standing among his supporters. An X-ray of a skull, with a splinter of bone. A second film-clip.
This clip was of much better quality. It had been taken inside the clinic’s consulting room. The people in it had their faces digitally disguised, but Glory recognised some of the voices. She knew Rose, who was sitting at the table, from the burn mark on her hand. There was a tray of sand next to her, just like the ones in Dr Caron’s study, and a tiny shard of bone.
‘So how do you feel, about to perform your last act of witchwork?’ Dr Caron asked off-screen.
‘Hopeful,’ answered Rose.
Her mother was sitting beside her. Although Lady Merle’s face was pixelated, Glory would have recognised her voice anywhere. ‘I’m so happy for you,’ she said. ‘So happy and proud.’
‘We’ll repeat this test,’ said Dr Caron, ‘after you’ve had the procedure, to ascertain its success. That’s why, even though I know it makes you uncomfortable, you must use your powers to their full extent. You know what to do?’
‘I do.’
Rose Merle summoned the piece of bone to her hand, and expelled it with a little cry. It was a lodestone now: the receptacle of her Seventh Sense, part of her body and soul and fae. It also formed the backbone of the human figure she began to mould from the sand, damp with spit and blood from her finger.
A poppet, with a lodestone at its heart. Rose summoned the lodestone again, and it carried the sandman with it. The figure moved sluggishly, but unstoppably, towards her hand.
‘Look, Mummy,’ said Rose. ‘It’s like in that fae-tale. A gingerbread man!’
Soon the sand would be sealed in Dr Caron’s ring, and the bone sealed in Rose’s head, uniting them for ever. Bonded by bone and earth, blood and fae.
‘Oh, my darling,’ said Lady Merle. ‘Imagine – you’re going to be free.’
Chapter 33
The inquisitors did not want Glory disappearing into the jungle. Neither did Jenna. But they didn’t have a choice – not if there was a chance of gaining further information from the White Witch. Their priority had to be finding the other Cambion victims, and the Endor agents controlling them. So approximately one hour after receiving the memory stick, Glory walked alone into the forest, taking the path marked by white feathers pinned to trees.
Lucas was waiting for her a little way along. His face was dappled by sun and shadow; what she saw most of all was the blue of his eyes. She knew her face lightened foolishly, that she pulled him towards her too eagerly. She didn’t care. If only they could always meet like this: alone in the wilderness, free from regulations and obligations and everything else that divided them . . .
Very gently, he pushed her back, holding her face between his palms. For the first time she became aware of the other people emerging from the trees. Lucas’s expression frightened her. It was more searching, and serious, than she had ever seen before. ‘I have something to tell you,’ he said.
The deeper they moved into the rainforest, the more dream-like the journey became. A flock of rainbow-coloured macaws swooped above, followed by a scatter of neon-bright butterflies. In the treetops, what looked like thin black branches turned out to be the limbs of spider monkeys. Glory walked through more shades of green than she knew existed.
The old woman, Ana, led the way. Lucas kept a few steps back, giving Glory her space. She was glad of it. She was in a state of almost hallucinatory anticipation. Nothing felt real, nothing mattered, except what waited for her at the end of this journey.
Finally, her escort dropped behind. So did Lucas. Ana pointed ahead, to where the trees thinned and the ground grew stony. Glory’s dreamy haze evaporated. She smoothed her tangled hair and Rose’s ill-fitting, sweat-stained clothes. She wished she had something to do with her hands.
A muddy path led to the lip of a ravine. There was a small, slim woman standing on the edge, looking across to the horizon. It seemed an eternity before she turned around.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’
They looked at each other. Each took a step nearer, then another. But not too near, not too close. To cross that final short distance was impossible. It was not just space, it was years and memories and irredeemable loss.
Edie’s eyes were moving carefully over her. Edie’s face was very calm, very pale. She was not the wary young woman in the photographs, with her distant smile and flyaway hair. Yet Glory would have known her anywhere.
She was afraid that if she touched her, she might vanish. This woman was the last in a sequence of potential mothers, different ghosts. Edie the feckless runaway. Edie the coven queen. Edie the martyr of the Burning Court. Edie the terrorist. Edie the revolutionary. Edie the Starling Girl . . . She didn’t look like any of these. She could have been all of them.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ Glory said at last, with a catch in her voice.
Edie closed her eyes briefly. ‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t know what happened.’
‘No.’
‘I knew you was probably dead. But I couldn’t believe it. Not truly, not inside. Then with me coming to this country . . . well, it’s like fate, ain’t it? The white feather, I didn’t know what it meant, but it was you, protecting me –’
Edie was so very still. So very watchful. ‘Of course,’ she said formally, ‘I would do everything within my power to help.’
‘’Cause you are powerful, ain’t you?’ said Glory, too eagerly. ‘With all these people following you, thinking you’re some kind of – of super fae-godmother. Then there’s the stuff you got off Endor. Them UCI prickers couldn’t believe it.’
‘I’m glad it was useful. There is a document that was damaged during the decryption but might still be recoverable. I think it relates to the identities of the other victims.’
Glory nodded distractedly. Somehow, the meeting had already gone wrong. Somehow, she must have said the wrong thing, in the wrong way. For why else was her mother still talking of work? And with such deadening politeness?
‘Dr Caron told me of two others, apart from Rose Merle. An American boy and an Iranian girl. Each has their own Endor handler, of course. It’s possible the witchwork can be undone, if the implant is removed and the controlling ring or equivalent destroyed. It will take a good fae-healer as well as a surgeon.’
The words marched on, relentlessly. Glory barely heard them.
‘Did you know Rose is – was – family?’ she tried. ‘Uncle Vince’s kid. She was a Starling Girl too. I didn’t know it at first, but I felt a connection. So did she, in spite of everything. Candice Morgan’s been in Cordoba too.’ She knew she was babbling, yet she couldn’t stop. ‘She’s a bit of a wild child. Been running rings round Troy and the rest.’
‘How are they all? The Morgans?’ Edie’s voice was strained. But there wasn’t a trace of the East End in it.
‘Um, well, the Wednesday Coven’s still top of its game.’ She wondered about explaining the story about Charlie and the Goodwin Trial, Silas Paterson and the rest, but maybe Edie already knew it. None of it seemed important anyway. ‘Cooper Street is on its uppers, though. Auntie Angel’s lost the plot. Me and
Dad moved out.’
Surely the mention of Patrick would be a cue?
Nothing. Just another polite nod.
Glory looked over the ravine, and its treacherous plunge. There was a dark stain on the rocks below. Back to business, then. ‘Is this where the doc fell?’
‘Yes. We’ve moved the body. It was a pity; we’d been making progress with her, and I’m sure there was more to come. She wasn’t a strong woman – she could have been made to talk.’
‘But Rose and the doc was linked in bodies as well as minds, right? If you’d been . . . forceful . . . with her, then Rose might’ve suffered too.’
‘I’ve done worse,’ Edie said. Not casually, exactly. Wearily. Matter-of-fact.
‘That’s not surprising, is it.’ Indignation warmed Glory, pushed her on. ‘I know how them pyros at the Inquisition stitched you up. Strong-arming you into Endor, so you’d do their dirty work.’
Edie sat down on the rocks. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘But . . . Mum . . .’ They both flinched at the word. ‘They stole you from us. Stole you from me and Dad. It broke him.’ She felt the old anger flood back. ‘This is what Lucas don’t understand. All this “end justifies the means” – it’s crap.’
‘He does,’ said Edie.
‘Does what?’
‘He does understand.’
‘Oh – he told you that? Made a formal apology on behalf of the British nation, did he?’
‘It wasn’t his fault. We can’t be responsible for our parents’ actions.’
Tears sparked in Glory’s eyes. Nothing was making sense.
Edie made as if to put out her hand, then thought better of it. ‘You’re right,’ she said slowly, carefully. ‘The Inquisition treated me, and others like me, with ruthlessness and contempt. But even though I owed them no loyalty, I knew Endor was the bigger threat, just as it is today. I did my duty. And then I found I liked the responsibility, I relished the challenge. So when I had the chance to do bigger, better things – take bigger risks – I took it.’