The Catalyst

by Helena Coggan

  Aaron had treated every piece of information about her with the respect it deserved — knowing, perhaps, how uneasy she felt to give it — and responded with his own: his father’s occupation as the leader of the Gospel, though Rose already knew about Stephen, of course; his mother Natalie’s career in the MoD; his annoying younger brother, Tristan; his fears about his Test next year. He wanted to pass, of course, but he also knew that Amelia wouldn’t be allowed to go to a magical school with him.

  She didn’t know why all of this seemed so fascinating to her, at first. She remembered that the first time they’d met she had thought dispassionately that he was what Maria would call “hot,” but weeks passed before she started to feel it: his easy smile, the way he pushed his black hair out of his eyes like the action was nothing, the quiet gravity that accompanied his words.

  This, she realized slowly, was what “attractive” meant: the pull toward someone that seemed to happen even when you had your eyes closed and were trying to walk away; the sudden elevation of their every word and action to a treasure, a precious thing, something to be watched and analyzed and remembered.

  It became certain the day he came over to her in the hall — without consideration or pause, as if she were a natural person to talk to, as if she mattered. She was fourteen by then, and it was the day before his Test.

  “Listen,” he said, and of course she did, “do you think I can do this?”

  She didn’t remember what exactly she said, but it was sincere, and encouraging, and at the end of it he said “Thank you, Rose. Thank you so much,” and walked away half distractedly, and she’d fallen in love — or the closest she’d ever known to love — involuntarily, quietly, the pull increasing with his every step.

  Rose was at the cinema at five fifty-five that evening. Maria had come round and spent the last two hours finding a dress, doing her hair, and applying types of makeup that Rose had never even heard of. Rose could only be grateful to her for this, but even so, having your best friend analyze and articulate all of your flaws was hardly reassuring.

  David had been as stunned as Maria when Rose had told him, nervously and shifting her weight from foot to foot, that someone had asked her out. He had seemed happy for her — at least when he was able to speak again — but slightly quieter than usual, all the same. Rose suspected he did not especially like the fact that she was dating Stephen Greenlow’s son, but he said nothing. He was no hypocrite, and, as he always said, he did not judge children by their parents.

  He had told her to be back by nine thirty, and Rose had agreed, of course. She hated it when she made him anxious.

  She wondered whether this was what a normal teenage girl’s life was like: makeup, dates, cold spring nights in a dress that was uncomfortably short. She’d never done this before. She felt spectacularly unprepared; she had no template for what he might say or do, or what she was meant to do, or . . . Oh, for Ichor’s sake.

  Why could she look a murderer in the face, but not do this?

  Maybe it was instinct. Maybe she’d just know what to do, without thinking.

  Somewhere in the distance, there was a thud, like construction work. It echoed faintly in the headlight-streaked blackness.

  Rose hoped Aaron wouldn’t offer her alcohol. Rose had only ever tasted alcohol once, a year ago, at Maria’s house. They had shared a glass of wine, giggling and daring each other. The way it had made Rose slightly woozy scared her, and she had resolved to be a teetotaler ever since. A lifetime of being a Hybrid had made her deeply frightened of being in anything but her right mind.

  And oh Angels, there he was.

  She could see him standing in the shadow of the entrance. She caught his eye and he smiled and beckoned her over. She measured her walk carefully, not wanting to seem too eager. She still had her pride.

  Aaron said, “Hi.”

  She said “hi” back, slightly breathlessly.

  “Look,” he said, somewhat nervously, “can I speak to you for a moment?”

  She nodded and ducked with him into a little alcove by the ticket office. A siren screamed past them on the high road. She was all too aware of how red she was.

  After a few seconds’ silence, Rose asked, “So, umm . . . what film did you want to see?”

  Aaron seemed to be staring into the middle distance. She had to say it twice before he jerked out of his reverie.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. He looked at her with something strange in his eyes and for a moment Rose’s heart was alarmingly still, and she wondered, half terrified, whether he was going to kiss her.

  He said, “Actually, I just wanted to tell you how much of a bitch I think you are.”

  For a second, with her breathlessness and her warm cheeks and the glowing, bustling dreaminess of the night, she did not quite register it. And then, when she did, she waited for a few seconds for him to laugh, for it to be revealed as some sort of a joke, albeit in very bad taste. But his expression was cold and calm and empty.

  That was when she realized, far too late, that there was something very wrong about all of this.

  “I mean,” he said, still with that inexplicable, shattering coolness, “I thought this would be the best place to do it. You’ve never been asked out by a boy before, have you? I’m not surprised. Nobody likes you, you know. You never hang around with anyone but the other Department kid. Did you beg him to take you? I’m not surprised he didn’t. I mean, who’d want to be seen with you? You’re the ugliest girl in the year.” He laughed. It was a terrible laugh.

  More sirens and streaking lights. The cars had stopped. Somewhere a few streets away, people were shouting.

  Rose felt herself break. She held herself tall and straight, but there were tears streaming down her face, and she couldn’t stop them.

  “Oh, my God,” he said, smiling. “You would have thought anyone raised by a psychopath would be a bit hardier than that.” Rose jerked slightly at the mention of her father. “Oh, did I touch a nerve, daddy’s girl? Yeah, he’s a psycho. Everyone knows it. Or did he not tell you? Has he not shown you a list of the people he’s killed? Angels, you’re a wimp. No wonder not even your parents wanted you. I bet they wished you’d died.”

  Rose’s legs wouldn’t hold out for much longer. She leaned against the wall. She was genuinely shaking now. She should respond, should say something clever, but her wits had deserted her in her hour of need and all she could do was stand there and take it.

  A camera flash went off to her left and she whirled. Of course, of course; she should have known, should have figured this one out. Tristan Greenlow, Aaron’s younger brother, stepped out of the shadows, laughing raucously at whatever it was he had captured on his camera.

  Aaron grinned. “Oh, you’re disappointed. Did you really think I wanted to go out with you? Me, with an ugly psycho girl? You’ve fancied me for years, haven’t you? Yeah, I knew. Pathetic. But all I ever wanted to do was slap your stupid face.”

  Rose, at last, managed to say something. But it was at Tristan — the orchestrator of this terrible, very clever prank — that she aimed it.

  “Nice one,” she told him. Her voice broke. “Did you think you could beat me this way? Or did you think I would care about your stupid brother . . .”

  Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Aaron backed away from her to stand beside his brother. Rose’s legs gave out at last and she sank to the floor, bringing her knees to her chin. Tristan took another picture. For a few seconds, she thought he was going to kick her in the shins, and was not at all surprised to find that she didn’t care.

  She could hear them laughing. She sat there and waited until they went away.

  No one in the cinema came near her.

  When she was sure the Greenlows weren’t going to come back, she let herself cry for five minutes. She timed it by the clock. Rose sobbed her misery out of herself: how she had been tricked, how she had let Tristan attack her, how she hadn’t even managed to fight back, how probably ev
en now the pictures of her crying in a dress would be doing the rounds on the e-mail circuits. After the five minutes were up she let the residual unhappiness condense into a cold desire for revenge. Not anger; anger clouded judgment. But she made a mental note that she would make Tristan pay for what he had done to her. She would act like it had never happened, yes, she would do that for now, and as soon they were allowed to use magic in a fight — which the teacher had hinted would be soon — she would destroy him utterly.

  That was a good objective. Free of emotion. Destroy him utterly.

  Then Rose stood up and went outside. The high street was clogged with police cars, following the ambulances to wherever that sound she had failed to recognize as a gunshot had gone off. She could hear the sirens farther down the road. They did not change in volume. The ambulances weren’t moving.

  Rose waited for a few seconds, and when nothing happened, she found the nearest Tube station and caught the train to Westminster.

  Rose found her father sitting in his office chair, seemingly paralyzed, staring into the distance with nothing in his eyes. James was there, too, and he saw that she’d been crying and tried to ask, but she went straight past him to David.

  “What happened?”

  He looked at her but he didn’t see her. There was a piece of paper clenched in his hand; he did not resist when she took it. In black ink had been scrawled the words Behold the Interregnum. Rose closed her eyes for a moment.

  “What is this?” she asked him fiercely.

  David’s eyes focused at last on his daughter. “They’re going to find out, Rose,” he said heavily. “They’re going to have to find out about us.”

  Rose’s attention sharpened so quickly it was almost painful. “No they won’t,” was her automatic answer, and then, glancing around nervously at the cameras in the corners of the room, “Why do you think they would?”

  “Regency,” he murmured. The sound of his voice around that word shocked her into silence for a moment. “Their leader, Felix Callaway — I think he might have known about me, what I was, years ago.”

  “What do you mean? Who are they?”

  He fixed his gaze on her. “I fought for them,” he said, very quietly. “Years ago, in the War. I was Regency’s secret weapon. This War army, Regency, I was fighting for them, fighting for the Ashkind . . . I had some friends there, that’s why . . .” His eyes closed. “I thought they’d broken up. I thought Regency had been destroyed. But they’re alive again, Rose, they’ve been sending me notes, they’re alive, and they’ll come for me — they’ll come for you, they’ll use you against me . . .”

  “Shush,” she whispered, and gripped his hand. “Shush. They won’t find us. We’re safe.”

  “You never should have known,” he said. He wasn’t listening to her. “You were never meant to find out about them.”

  Rose pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “I can cope. Dad, you know you can tell me anything.”

  “No,” he said vehemently. “No. Oh, Rose, you think I’m good, but the things I’ve done . . .”

  “Shush,” said Rose again, unnerved. She looked around the office for something, anything, to calm him down, to transform this pitiable, broken repentant back into her father. His gun was in his desk drawer. Perhaps he would feel better if he were holding it.

  She got to her feet and let go of his hand.

  And then —

  The whole office heard it: a voice, booming, deafening, coming from every speaker in the room, every earphone and every computer. Without amplification, Rose imagined it might be quite a soothing voice. Now it was hard and clear, and it said, with all the shaking force of that wall of noise: “We are coming.”

  People screamed and fell off their chairs. Terrian froze, and then sped into movement, looking around frantically for the source of the noise. James, behind them, cried out in surprise and anger, and then, hands over his ears, dived for his computer.

  “We are coming,” said the voice again, “and we will find you, you heretics, you Angel-worshippers, and we will destroy you, and we will scatter your ashes into the wind. We are your enemy. We are Ashkind. We are your deaths, you autocratic infidels, and when the Interregnum comes and we rule over this country and every land like it, we will hunt you down, and we will grind you into dust.”

  Next to Rose, David was coming awake again. The color was returning slowly to his face, and his eyes were clearing. Here was his enemy in front of him; here was something he could fight. The voice surged on, promise after promise of destruction rolling over them like thunder, and then David got to his feet, walked forward, and tapped on the speaker.

  “Are the microphones on in here?” he asked mildly. “Felix? Can you hear me?”

  There was a pause. A long pause. Even the silences were loud. Then the voice growled, “Elmsworth.”

  “Hello,” David said to the speakers. The office was staring at him. “It’s been a while.”

  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you,” said the voice. The sheer volume of it turned every word into a rattling blow. “We have been devising your pain for years, and we have no intention of your escaping it, Elmsworth.”

  Astonishing how his name could hurt so much in this terrible voice.

  “No,” said her father, “I think you’ve made that clear.”

  “I claim your death as my own.”

  “Oh, don’t pretend you had that line first,” said David scornfully. “Listen, Felix. I understand you have some grievances against us.”

  “Griev —?”

  “Shush. I understand you have some grievances against us, but there are better ways to say them than this. If you’re going to kill me, you are very welcome to try.” Only the office could see the smile that spread across David’s face, but it was articulated so clearly in his voice that he might as well have been laughing. “You want to kill us? You want to grind us into dust? Come and get us. We will destroy you before you come anywhere close.”

  “You have no idea how strong we are,” said the voice.

  “Oh, I really do. And I’m not scared.”

  “You are arrogant to think you can defeat us.”

  “And you are delusional to think you can control me. Felix Callaway, I will say this once, and once only. This is your last chance.” He leaned very close to the speakers. “Go die quietly in a ditch somewhere, and save yourself the pain.”

  James, who had been at the keyboards for most of this conversation, pressed the Enter button with something of a flourish, and the voice began to crackle and disappear, which was just as well, as the reply was riddled with profanities. The last audible words were a dark “we will come for you,” and then the voice was gone.

  The office was quiet. David looked around at his speechless audience.

  “And that, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “was Regency. Expect to hear more from them.” He turned. “Rose?”

  Rose wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at something on David’s desk, next to a copy of The Amateur’s Guide to Monsters, the Department’s criminal-spotting handbook. It was a Government-issued comms tablet, and, though technically she didn’t qualify for office supplies, she had been using it as her own for years. There was an e-mail alert in the top-right corner of her in-box. It was from an automated, no-reply address.

  The subject line read: my threat still stands.

  Below that was a house number and postcode.

  Rose put her hands to her face and made a small moaning noise through her fingers. Oh, in Ichor’s name. Not now. Please, not now.

  “Rose?”

  David looked concerned. She turned to him blindly. In his face there were a thousand flickering emotions — the exhilaration of a threat curtailed, concern for her, lingering fear of the voice on the speakers, apprehension at anticipated questions. And she wanted to ask those questions. She so dearly wanted to ask them. But first she had to save both their lives. And to do that, she had to leave him.

  God, she ha
ted Loren Arkwood for this.

  “I need to go home,” she said quietly, and turned away before she could see his face fall.

  In the police car on the way over to Armitage Crescent, James kept looking at Rose. She refused to acknowledge it.

  “David said you went on a date,” he said finally, and Rose had to nod yes.

  There was a pause.

  “Do you want me to kill the bastard?”

  She had to laugh.

  “I’m going to try and do it myself, thanks, but if I need help you’ll be the first one I call.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  They drove the rest of the way in silence.

  He dropped her off a few streets away from their house, and from there it was a two-minute walk to the address Arkwood had sent her. She stood there waiting in the cold, arms wrapped around herself. She was still wearing Maria’s makeup, still dressed in the clothes she had worn to meet —

  How many hours ago?

  It felt so close. She didn’t want it to. She wanted it to feel like years.

  Destroy him.

  She hugged herself more tightly against the wind.

  “I know how this is going to sound,” came his voice from behind her, “but I want you to come down this old abandoned tunnel with me, which is near collapsing, and I promise nothing can possibly go wrong.”

  She didn’t turn.

  “Come out here where I can see you.”

  A pause. Then footsteps. Warily, he walked round her and into the path of the cold blue starlight. He looked older again — gaunter, dirtier. He raised his eyebrows at what she was wearing.

  “If you ask,” she said, “I will hurt you.”

  He closed his mouth.

  Slowly, she walked toward him until they were very close. They looked at each other for a moment. Then she slapped him very hard across the face.

  He stepped backward, hand to his cheek.

  “But I didn’t ask,” he said bemusedly.

  “You son of a bitch. How dare you — what you said —”