by Alexis Hall
I wasn’t exactly a stranger to feeling like a total idiot, but getting out of a silver and ebony coach decorated with elaborate scrollwork and drawn by a pair of thoroughbred horses—one pure black, the other pure white, both with bells on their harnesses—in front of the kind of North London café that served buttered white bread as a side dish and chips with everything was a whole new level of pillockdom. Pulling my hat down over my face, I hurried inside and ordered a mug of coffee that, true to my expectations, was basically warmish, brownish water.
Sofia rocked up on her bicycle at around three. She was wearing a pretty, yellow sundress and, I was glad to see, seemed fairly upbeat. Discovering you have weird magical powers, nearly dying and then having to go straight back to your A-levels can really take a toll.
I waited with my coffee-themed hot-water-beverage while she went to the counter to order. The first couple of times we’d hung out I’d offered to pay for her on account of being the mature, responsible one with the actual job, but that had given the whole arrangement too much of a sexual grooming vibe. I’ve never been super invested in what strangers think of me, but I do try to avoid giving the impression that I’m a child molester.
“Let me guess,” I said when she finally sat down. “It’s over, he can’t be with you because he’s dangerous, and after all the terrible things that happened to you last year it’s best if you never see each other again, and you shouldn’t come and look for him because you’ll only get hurt?”
To my surprise, Sofia shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s more...” She paused, took a sip of tea, looking a little embarrassed. “There’s this new boy. He joined our college in January because he used to be at a private school but—hang on, are you okay? What happened to your face? And is that your, um, are those your horses outside?”
“Complicated faery magic, wizard bullshit, you know how it is. Tell me about the new boy?”
“Well, he used to go to Charterhouse but his parents couldn’t keep up with the fees, so now he’s finishing his A-levels with us and...”
“And Patrick is having a crazy jealous freakout because you said six words to him after a maths lesson?”
She gave me a look. “Kate.”
“Sorry, sorry.” I took a deep breath. “You are your own person and I respect your right to make your own choices about your relationship no matter how much I feel that you are making the same gigantic, avoidable mistakes that I made when I was your age.”
“As apologies go, that’s pretty awful.”
“Do you seriously want me to apologise for my apology?”
That made her giggle. “But you’d probably do that really badly as well.”
“Yeah, you don’t want to sit here listening to me apologise for the poor quality of my apology about my apology.” I sat back and tried to look approachable, which I had no idea how to do. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Well, you weren’t completely wrong. About Patrick, I mean. He is a bit jealous. But I think he might sort of have a reason to be?”
Halle-fucking-lujah. Except no. Mature, nonjudgemental. This was about giving her the support I never had, not sticking it to my ex. Well, not too much about sticking it to my ex. Okay, okay, only a little bit about sticking it to my ex. “You mean you”—I could barely believe I was saying it—“like this boy?”
I wasn’t just too old for this conversation. I’d been too old for it for a decade.
She shrugged. Actually goddamned blushed. “He’s nice, and he’s normal, and he wants to be a doctor like I do and he plays the harp and he thinks I’m funny and he knows I have a boyfriend and I’m not sure if he’s even really into me in that way and I’m just...”
Holy shit. Over the last few months, I’d found the best strategy for dealing with this sort of thing was to treat Sofia like a suspect. Look focused, use her own language, ask open questions. “Just what?” I asked in my best I’m-on-your-side voice.
“I just don’t know what’s right anymore. I know you don’t like Patrick, but he saved my life—”
“Hang on. Somebody saving your life doesn’t mean you owe them anything. Technically you saved my life and... I’m not going to finish that sentence because there’s no way it won’t end up creepy.”
She smiled. “I know, and I didn’t mean it like that, not really. But I’m all he thinks about and he used to be all I’d think about too but now it’s all different and...” She stopped dead again, staring down into her tea.
This was going to be awkward. Patrick was still a sticking point between us, and the infuriating, ironic, hypocritical thing was that I wanted to do the same high-handed bullshit I was angry with him for doing to me. I wanted to tell her to walk the fuck away because the boy was dangerous, and not in a mysterious, sexy, my-life-is-one-of-darkness way but in a he-will-make-you-miserable-and-tank-your-self-esteem way. Except not only would that have been a total dick move, it also wouldn’t have worked.
Finally, I said, “Different is normal. I’m sure people like me tell you this every day of your damned life, but you’re going to change a lot in the next few years. And the thing is, Patrick just...can’t.”
“I know that. I know I’ll get old and he’ll still be young, but we’ve talked about it and I know he’ll love me forever.”
I just about managed not to club myself to death with the salt shaker. “That’s the thing. It isn’t about when you’re old and grey and he’s young and beautiful. It’s about when you’re twenty-six and a doctor. And he’s still the boy from biology class.” She was getting that I-don’t-like-how-mean-you’re-being look so I pressed on in a backing off sort of way. “And this isn’t only about Patrick. It’s how vampires work. Once they work out who they are, they never change.”
I’d never really said any of that out loud before and, now that I had, I felt almost sorry for Patrick. For all of them, really, watching the world go by without them until they had no choice but to lash out in anger like the Morrigan, or wall themselves off like Aeglica Thrice-Risen, or make mad plans to become gods, or spend their unlives drunk on whatever pleasure they could find. I slid my already slightly battered but thankfully still functional phone out of my pocket and surreptitiously texted Julian. Thinking of you.
Sofia sat quietly for a long while. A staff member who couldn’t really be called a “waiter” so much as a “bloke who worked in a cafe” brought her a bowl of chips, which she picked at idly. “It’s just,” she said at last, “it’s just not supposed to be like this. When you love somebody.”
“Pretty sure love isn’t supposed to be like anything. That’s why it causes so much trouble.”
Sofia giggled again. She had an annoyingly charming giggle. No wonder the seventeen-year-old boys were all crazy for her. “Was that supposed to be comforting? Because it’s up there with your apology.”
“What I’m saying”—I paused to steal a chip—“is that love is different things to different people. Hell, more than that, it’s different things to the same person. When I was...”
Sofia was smirking now. “When you were my age?”
“Yes. When I was your age I felt the same way about Patrick as you do. Confused and crazy, with everything all tangled up in my head. Fifteen years ago, I thought it was love. Now I think it wasn’t. Now I think it was just this hundred-and-something-year-old creep messing with the head of a teenage lesbian who didn’t know who she was or what she wanted. And when you get...”
“To your age?”
I grinned. “Maybe you’ll feel the same and maybe you won’t. And maybe this other guy, whatever his name is...”
“Samuel.”
“Right. Maybe you feel something for him. And maybe it’s like what you feel for Patrick. But maybe it isn’t. And maybe you’ll call it love, and maybe you won’t. But whatever happens, it’s okay.”
I think I’d finally cracked it because s
he gave me this sweet little smile. “Thanks, Kate.”
“Unless,” I went on, “you get murdered by vampires or sucked into Hell or consumed from the inside by a power you don’t know how to control.”
Her face fell.
“Um. But almost certainly none of those things will happen.”
“Nice recovery.”
“Sorry, I’m kind of new at this. And basically the worst person in the world to go to for relationship advice.”
“No, it’s good. Maybe don’t predict my death next time.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Now,” said Sofia sternly, “what really happened to your face?”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
She gave me what I suspected was her best hard stare. It wasn’t particularly intimidating but I appreciated the effort. “That’s exactly the kind of answer you keep telling me I shouldn’t accept.”
“Yeah, but you’re not supposed to listen to me. You’re a teenager.”
“Stop stereotyping me and tell me what’s going on.”
Well, I hadn’t seen this coming, but she was right. I got myself a refill of barely acceptable coffee substitute and explained the situation. I wound up explaining it in quite a lot of detail, because while the tough-talking woman-of-few-words act was a great way to pick up chicks, it was a really bad way to keep vulnerable teenagers away from dangerous situations. The last time the city’s magical community had gone to war, both sides had tried to hoover up whatever stray mystically empowered entities they could find. I hoped that this time they’d got past that stage already and moved on to blowing the shit out of each other with fireballs and killer ick monsters from beyond the stars. Because if they hadn’t, then Sofia was a prime recruitment target, what with the visions and the being-the-delphic-oracle-somehow and the weird glowy sun thing she’d done that one time, so she really needed a heads up. But, given her previous comments, I made an extra special effort to avoid explaining the many and horrible ways the people involved could kill her.
We finished up and she biked off soon after. As for me, it was getting on for early evening and I had a pop-up cabaret night to get ready for. I’d been concerned that I might have to make a trip to Brighton, but apparently the Enchanted Kingdom—which was one of these super exclusive gigs where you only found out the details on the day, and then only if you were in the know—was already here and had been for the last month. That made sense in terms of “had opportunity to rip people apart in Peckham,” but much less sense in terms of “reasonable things to do after screwing over Arty King.” Anyway, I wasn’t about to complain, especially since my current transport options were quadrupedal.
I took the carriage home, changed, and ran down my mental checklist of things I should be freaking the hell out about. It turned out to be a depressingly long list, what with Nim doing cameos in my dreams again, demons taking over the underground, the Merchant seeming pretty keen on getting me closer to my mother’s side of the family, me putting myself slap bang in the middle of Arty King’s radar, and still needing to track down the artefact that got my partner killed and was also part of a ritual that might get me killed. I’d say I needed a new line of work, but half of this was crap I wasn’t even getting paid for.
Chapter Six
Carparks & Cabaret
Kauri showed up around eight, by which time Elise had been back home for a while. I’d sort of forgotten to invite her out with us, but since I don’t really do friends or social occasions I was pretty rusty on shit like, y’know, basic courtesy. Thankfully, Elise was fine about it. But, then again, she was fine about most things. Maybe she had a fundamentally forgiving nature, but sometimes I worried she genuinely hadn’t learned to be angry yet.
In any case, she was excited at the idea of a pop-up cabaret experience despite, or perhaps because of, my complete inability to explain what it actually was. As we made our way downstairs, I realised that once again I was underdressed. I’d gone with my usual doing-something-in-the-evening-for-once ensemble of jeans, shirt and blazer, while Kauri, even without his full get-up, was dazzling in killer heels and a leather jacket, his eyes a magical riot of purple and gold. Elise, for reasons I didn’t really understand, had gone with crazy eighties hair, fingerless gloves, and a denim-on-denim combo that I kind of hated her for being able to pull off.
Turning my back firmly on the carriage, which was glittering in the twilight in a way that seemed frankly pointed, I marched over to the car.
“So,” said Kauri, “are we going to pretend that you haven’t got an accessory from Goth Barbie’s Dream Wedding parked outside your house?”
“Yes. Yes we are.”
Elise stood still a moment, regarding the coach suspiciously. “I do hope this is not a clandestine attempt to replace the car, Miss Kane. It will be most unhappy without us and I understand that horses are extremely difficult to refuel.”
“It’s temporary.” I yanked the door open. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
We all piled in. To the car. Not to the magical pimp wagon that the Merchant of Dreams had saddled me with. Elise was still on driving duty and I somehow got stuck in the back. It was kind of depressing how over the last year I’d gone from “nobody drives but me” to “I don’t even get shotgun.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Little underground place.” Kauri twisted round in his seat. “Like, literally underground. Near Waterloo. Nice venue if you’re into arches, brickwork and tunnels.”
Elise sat up slightly straighter. “Yes. I think I am.”
“This sounds sewery.” I was less pleased. I’d had more than enough sewers to last me at least the rest of the decade.
“It would be fair after the literal shit you dragged me through last time. But, no. I’m not that kind of girl. You’ll see.”
We ditched the car in the carpark at Waterloo and made our way past the station, down a staircase, and through a tunnel that was covered in the sort of graffiti that’s allowed to be there because it makes everything look cool and urban, as opposed to the sort of graffiti you got around my way, which wasn’t allowed to be there because cool and urban had to be restricted to pre-approved parts of town. Some of it was even bordering on okay. There was this one mural of two neon-yellow skeletons kissing which kind of worked for me. Not that I thought I’d ever take my dating-the-dead experiments quite that far.
We entered the club itself through a low door on the right, and found ourselves in...well...it was an enchanted kingdom. Clue was in the name I suppose. The whole place had this vibe that was one part nightclub, one part bomb shelter, one part haunted forest. It was washed in a bluish-green light that seemed to come from nowhere, and I could have sworn I saw honest-to-god crows flapping about. After last year, I was about as big a fan of crows as I was of sewers. Seriously, corvidae could go fuck themselves.
“So,” said Kauri with the nonchalant air of somebody who came to avant-garde events in tunnels under the city most days of most weeks, “here’s the deal: bunch of different rooms, bunch of different stuff. Knock yourselves out. I have to get this”—he pointed in a way that encompassed his entire body—“onto a dancefloor before the ugly sisters get all the best princes.” He spiralled away into the crowd in a swirl of glitter and shadow. One of the things I appreciated about Kauri was that he wasn’t afraid to be supernaturally fabulous.
Elise stuck close to my side as I pushed inside. We passed a tiny performance space where a man in a black-and-gold frock coat and a fox mask performed a dreamlike aerial routine to a hypnotic baseline. Next was a tunnel packed with dancing bodies, which I guessed was where Kauri had gone—a classic club space, all flashing lights and writhing.
As we moved on, the music started to shift: less dancey and trancey, more classical and violinsy. Up ahead, the venue opened out into, well, it was still a tunnel, but it was a bigger tunnel with
a vaulted ceiling. The atmosphere in here was different again. Kind of a you-shall-go-to-the-ball feeling. Behind us, people were grinding to digital sex; here they were whirling the night away to a genuine string quartet. The—I wasn’t really sure what to call them—guests? Dancers? Clubbers? Anyway, they were a mixed bag. Some of them looked like they’d walked off the set of a costume drama, others like they’d walked in off the street. And I had a feeling that if I was going to find Rose Red, I was going to find her here. I was right.
She was standing on the mezzanine level gazing down at the crowd, looking beautiful and terrible, with wine-dark lips and deep black eyes, her hair bound up with a spike-tipped crown. Her gown was a vision in deep crimson, with a sharp collar that rose in knife-edges behind her head and a train that flowed behind her like a river of blood and darkness. She held an apple in her left hand which, I’ll be honest, I thought was a bit much.
Once upon a time, and I can’t believe I just said that in this context, I’d have felt awkward pushing my way across the dancefloor and up the stairs, but I’d got pretty used to balls on account of having been tangled up with a bunch of unbelievably posh werewolves for the past year and a bit. Also I’d brought an immovable statue with me, which made it really hard for people to get in your way.
Rose Red saw us coming, and swept across the platform to greet us. She looked...narked. “You were not invited.” What with the heels, she had a good couple of inches on me, and I was suddenly aware that I was standing quite close to the edge of a rather rickety iron ledge.
“I’m a plus one.”
“If Nimue wants to speak to me, she can come herself.”
Why did they always assume I was there for Nim? I mean, apart from the whole pledged-her-my-loyalty-unto-death thing. “Right now I’m freelancing.”