by Alexis Hall
“It is my business to know a lot.”
“You seem to know more than that.”
“The Tears of Hypnos are one of the few things that can give a mortal sufficient power to threaten my people. Did you really think I wouldn’t have learned how they work?”
Something was bugging me. “Can we just back up to the part about the sacrifice? Nim, did you know about that bit?”
She nodded.
“How...how did you expect to use the damned things?”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
“Oh of fucking course. ‘Something’s come up which is a bit tricky to deal with so I’ll sacrifice myself for everybody else like the grumpy veteran in a war movie.’ I swear, if I knew where your actual body was, I’d come over there right now and smack you in the head.”
The wind gusted, the rain came in waves. “It’s how it was always going to be.”
“I cannot believe that we’ve got to the point where your evil alter ego is talking more sense than the real you.”
“It’s complicated, Kate. There are tides. Patterns. I started down this road long before I met you.”
This was circling the edges of useless. I’d have walked away, but we were in a non-geographical never-space, so I wasn’t sure it would even work. “You know what? Fine. I tried. I guess I fucked up. Sorry I ruined your whole big martyrdom kick. Good luck with the war.”
“If you mortals have finished squabbling, perhaps we could focus on the matter at hand.” I hadn’t thought Sebastian’s tone could get any more patronising. I was wrong. “King will come for you, and he will do it soon. Are you prepared?”
Nimue flared again. The silver and the storm. The queen in splendour. “You are not my master, vampire. You may follow me or oppose me, but you will never command me.”
A look crossed Sebastian’s face. It wasn’t much, and it only lasted a moment, a look of bitter resentment and hard memory. “As you say, Majesty.”
Without another word, Nim turned back to the city. Lightning sheeted across the clouds, and she took to the sky.
A thought and I was beside her. I still hoped it was my thought.
We came down in some kind of garage. The Dream of fire. The Dream of a storm. King stood waiting for us. He was all light and hate and anger. Around us the rain warred with the flames.
For the longest time, neither of them said anything. I almost felt like I was intruding, and I guess I sort of was. After all, Nim had made it pretty clear that the only thing I’d done so far was throw off her plans. Finally King stepped forward. His footprints were ashes.
“You made a bad fucking mistake.”
Technically I’d made a bad fucking mistake. But Nim didn’t drop me in it. “This ends.”
And right here was where I found out if it had been worth it. Because if he’d been thinking at all clearly, Arty’s answer should have been “no thanks, I’m going to unlock the power of this ancient mystical doodad first, then use it to kick the crap out of you.” If he actually agreed to a showdown, then maybe I’d done something at least half right. Maybe.
He nodded.
I woke up.
* * *
Normally when I came back from the Dream, I was in bed, usually feeling that not-exactly-pleasant sense of waking from mystical communion with a mysterious city queen. This time I was standing up, looking into the eyes of the Prince of Wands. My legs gave out for a moment from the sheer unfamiliarity of it. I recovered, but really wished I’d been more dignified.
“Thank you.” Sebastian bowed. “I fear that I shall be of little help in the confrontation to come.”
“You’re bailing?”
“Your mistress and her rival seem determined to meet in open battle. Probably in daylight. I fear our kind would prove a liability.”
“And what am I supposed to do?”
The Prince of Wands was already halfway to the door. “I suspect that you will work something out. You generally seem to. If she doesn’t call you to her side when she begins to muster her forces, I might suggest you visit Bromley.”
“Bromley?” I’d seriously had it up to here with cryptic bullshit. “What is it you know that I don’t?”
“A great many things, Miss Kane. A great many things.”
Okay, I’d kind of set him up for that one.
He left. Hadn’t that been fun? If by “fun” you meant “confusing, frustrating and now I thought about it a little bit scary and sad.” I filled Elise—Elise and Lisbeth, technically—in on the details. When I’d finished they sat patiently, like they were waiting for me to say something else.
Nobody could do sitting patiently like those two.
“And umm...that’s it?” I tried.
Neither of them blinked. “And will you help in any way?” asked Lisbeth. “It seems as if you want to, but you have said nothing to suggest that it is your intent.”
“I feel like I should,” I told them. “But last time I tried it didn’t go so well.”
Elise took my hands in hers and gave me a surprisingly well-executed look of reassurance. “Do not fret, Miss Kane. You made a difficult decision in trying circumstances and, from what you have told us, it has led to a strategically favourable outcome.”
“It’s led to Nim running into a deadly wizard duel before she’s ready.”
She made a thinking face, a tiny crease forming and then vanishing between her eyebrows. “I am not a great strategist,” she began, “but it seems to me that when confronted with an enemy whose power is increasing, who has access to a weapon that will, in time, make him unstoppable, then however unready one feels oneself to be, it is none the less optimal to force a confrontation at the earliest possibility.”
I gave Elise a half-hearted hug. “Thanks. That’s the third wordiest pep talk I’ve ever had but, thanks.”
There was still a lot of night left. The sun went down late what with the whole summer thing, but I wasn’t exactly the early-to-bed, early-to-rise type. Which might have explained why I was doing so badly in terms of health, wealth and wisdom. I crashed out on the sofa, displacing Lisbeth slightly but fuck it, it was my damned flat and I hadn’t technically invited her into it.
My phone buzzed. Julian’s number.
I’m in your room.
I really needed to date somebody with boundaries.
“Well...” I looked at Elise and Lisbeth in an I-suck-at-making excuses kind of way. “I might go and just check on something. Later.”
I slipped back into my room. Julian was sprawled on the bed. She had that faux-outraged look she liked to get when I’d mildly inconvenienced her, or whenever else she thought she could get away with it.
“In future, sweeting,” she purred, “I’d rather not find out about significant events in your life from Sebastian.”
I could have called. But I’d been freaking out and covered in blood, and I’d gone with the people I knew dealt with that kind of thing. “Sorry. Been a really long day.”
She glided towards me, pulled me down into her arms. “I know.” Her voice had lost all of its edge—it was weird how gentle she could be when she put her mind to it. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
I told her about it.
It took longer than I’d expected. Once I started talking, all of the guilt and confusion and uncertainty and fear started coming out like emotional vomit.
“...and there was all this blood and it was—fuck—she was his nan, you know? She was basically the same as my nan if you don’t count the part where she’s an evil wizard. And now she’s dead because I stabbed her because a demon and a witch’s evil dream twin told me to. And I don’t know if I did it because something made me or because it was the right thing to do or because deep down some part of me really wanted to see if I could. And I could feel my mother watching me while I did it, and
it wasn’t like last year when everything went crazy with the Morrigan and she took over, because this time it was just me and she was just watching and it was like she—like she approved. Like even when she isn’t controlling me she’s—like I’m like her. And I don’t know... I don’t know if I feel bad because of what I did, or because I don’t feel anything, or because...”
I didn’t finish the thought. She kissed me. The soft touch of rose leaves. The promise of forgiveness, of something dark and comforting. Leaning back a little, she placed a finger over my lips. “Hush now, sweeting,” she said. “I won’t tell you that you’re a good person, because there is nothing so tedious as a good person. But whatever your mother may want, you are not a hunter, and you are not a killer.” She smiled, a little of her natural wickedness slipping through. “After all, if you get this worked up over one trifling assassination, you’d clearly be terrible at it.”
I wiped my eyes, and it was only when I did that I realised I’d been crying. Great. Real sexy. “Is that your idea of being supportive?” The freaky thing was, it had sort of worked. It was hard to be overcome with self-loathing when your companion actively rejoiced in her own villainy.
“If you wanted sentimentality, you should have chosen a less interesting lover.”
“Christ, your vanity. Remind me why I find you attractive again?”
She smiled, flashing the tiniest hint of fang. “Don’t worry, I fully intend to.”
The speed with which we’d changed the subject was calming in some ways, disconcerting in others. “It really doesn’t bother you at all, does it?”
“You’re forgetting two very important things, sweeting. Firstly, I am older than Vera King, and so I lack your culturally mandated respect for her advanced years. I tend not to pay much attention to the affairs of witches, but back in the sixties she was notorious. Beautiful, ruthless and up to her neck in hellfire. If she hadn’t been strictly cock-only, she’d have been very much my type.”
“You don’t think she deserved better than dying in a kitchen?”
“I think she deserved better than dying of old age. Besides, if I’ve learned anything about fighting wizards, it’s that you should never assume they’re beaten. Not even if they’re dead.”
Again, that weirdly helped. While my personal life plan has always been to die at the age of a hundred and six with my friends, family, and twenty-eight-year-old trophy girlfriend gathered around me, Nana King had seemed like the sort who’d want to die on her feet.
“So,” I began, although I was pretty sure I was walking into an obvious setup. “What’s the second thing I was forgetting.”
Julian quirked an eyebrow. “That I’m a motherfucking vampire prince, naturally.”
She kissed me again, less gently this time.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fire & Water
The sun rose early. We’d had a new hottest day on record pretty much every week for the last month, and I was really beginning to appreciate having a girlfriend whose body was naturally room temperature.
“I don’t suppose,” she began, hooking one leg playfully over mine, “that I can persuade you to give the whole final conflict between good and evil thing a miss and stay home and fuck instead?”
It was a pretty tempting offer. And it wasn’t like Nim had exactly asked for my help. Hell, she’d come close to doing the opposite. And I didn’t even know for certain that Nim vs King was even happening today—Sebastian seemed to think it would, but what did he know?
Probably too much.
I disentangled myself. I started to disentangle myself. Be mature, Kate. Be a grown-up and go stand by your friend in her hour of need. Don’t think about the hot, naked, limber, sexually adventurous vampire lady already in your bed.
Doing the right thing sucked.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve known Nim a really long time and this whole shitstorm is partly my fault and...”
Julian sat up under the covers. They framed her body in a way that had to be deliberate. “I understand. I really do understand. I confess that I am a little bit jealous, but we’ll all be safer if you go. Just make sure that if anybody achieves absolute power today, it’s somebody on my side.”
I dressed. Julian didn’t. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“I do like it when you’re all bold and decisive. But truthfully I would very much rather be with you when whatever is going to happen happens. It’s just that sunlight makes me rather less indestructible than I prefer to be in the event of violence. If you could ask your ex to arrange her next battle for the destiny of the city sometime around one in the morning, I’d be ever so grateful.”
I kissed Julian goodbye and emerged into the flat. The smell of fresh-ground coffee suggested that Elise and Lisbeth were making an early start as well. Or maybe they started grinding coffee at dawn. Actually, that was pretty likely.
One of my identical houseguests—they’d changed clothes overnight and I really couldn’t tell them apart if they weren’t speaking or moving—was standing by the sitting room window, eyes closed, one hand pressed to the glass and the other touching the wall.
“Elise?”
The woman by the window shook her head, slightly too deliberately. Lisbeth, then.
“What are you, y’know, doing?”
“Enjoying the temperature differential.”
Served me right for asking.
The real Elise appeared in the kitchen doorway. “You had a pleasant evening, Miss Kane?”
That was worryingly close to not being a question. And apparently Elise had been practising her suggestive look. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what kind of answer she was expecting so I went with “Yeah.”
“And have you developed any further plans regarding the on-going magical conflict?”
I sat down on the arm of the sofa. “Not exactly. The Prince of Wands said I should head to Bromley. That isn’t much to go on, especially since he might be flat-out lying.”
“How would that benefit him?”
“I don’t know. And that’s what bothers me. There’s too much about all of this that doesn’t quite make sense. But there isn’t much we can do about that. We’re going to have to hit the streets and see what we can see.”
Elise’s face brightened instantly. “Are we doing legwork, Miss Kane. I believe myself to be extremely proficient at legwork.”
“Well, you’re in luck.” I swung myself off the sofa. “Because your legs—scratch that. I can’t think of anything that doesn’t sound really inappropriate.”
Leaving Julian to show herself out, I headed down to the car. It wasn’t until we reached the street that I realised Lisbeth had followed us. “You’re coming too?” I tried to sound neutral about the idea, but voice went up half an octave.
“If that is agreeable.”
It was...well, okay, it wasn’t not agreeable. But I hadn’t been counting on it. I wasn’t especially wild about running around with an ever-expanding menagerie of animated statue-ladies. Still, I couldn’t leave her standing on the doorstep, if only because it was so likely she’d stay there until I got back. I told her it was fine, and we all set off for Bromley.
Honestly, it was a trek. Going suburb to suburb was always a pain because your choice was either go through the middle of the city where the traffic was a nightmare or go on a massive detour around the M25. And we couldn’t even take the Tube because, although the death of Nana King made it a lot less likely we’d be ambushed by demons, we were going to the one damn borough in the city that didn’t have an underground station. Once you factored in the weather, I was honestly half ready to just leave Nim to it. But there was that whole annoying oath-of-fealty thing to deal with. Plus I really didn’t want her to die horribly.
We were stuck in a tailback on the A13 when my phone went. I motioned for Elise to turn her music down. My preferenc
e, as ever, would have been for not listening to loud, angry thrash metal in the first place but I was now being outvoted by two-to-one.
“Hello?”
“Patrick’s gone crazy.” Sofia’s voice.
Ah. Well, fuck. “Crazy in what way?” I asked, somewhat disingenuously under the circumstances.
“He attacked Samuel. He said he was lying and he was trying to hurt me. I mean... Patrick said Samuel was lying and trying to hurt me. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s been angry but I’ve never seen him so... I know he’d never do anything to...but I’m worried and...”
“Okay.” I tried to sound reassuring. “This is kind of...how he is. It’s very unlikely he’ll kill anyone and...look, can you hold things down at your end for a bit? I’m kind of in the middle of a situation here.”
“He said you’d told him things.”
Double fuck. “Yeah, about that.”
Sofia was very quiet.
“Look, I’m really sorry, but I’m an investigator. It’s my job and he hired me and I couldn’t really say no.” It was only half a lie. Okay, maybe two thirds.
“He said you’d told him Samuel was a monster.”
Woah there. “I never said that. All I said was I’d found a couple of red flags.”
“Kate, how could you!” She sounded genuinely betrayed.
Honestly, it had been a pretty shitty thing to do. But it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Actually it hadn’t even seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess I just have really poor judgement. “I know, I know. Don’t learn how to be a grownup from me. I’m a terrible example. And I really will come sort this out, but right now I’ve kind of forced one of my oldest friends into battle with an angry gangster fire wizard who wants to be spiritual king of London.”
She was silent again. I’m not sure I’d have known what to say to that either.
“Try to keep it together,” I said. “I’ll deal with Patrick when I’m done.”
There was a vaguely assenting noise from the other end of the phone and something resembling a thank you, which was a really unwarranted level of politeness given how badly I’d screwed her over.