The Catalyst

by Helena Coggan

  They burst out from behind the pillar and ran. Rose poured her power into the physical shield Loren had set up around them. Physical shields used up a lot of power; they had ten seconds at most, considering how tired they were. They ran down the steps and into the high street and down a deserted alleyway and Rose heard someone yell her name, and there were footsteps following them; footsteps, far too close.

  “Rose,” Loren said, gasping for breath, “get Tabitha out of here.”

  Rose shook her head. “I’m not leaving you like this.”

  Tabitha looked between the two of them, terrified. Loren turned.

  “I said, get —”

  The bullet didn’t hit Rose, not exactly. She saw Tabitha gasp in horror before she felt the pain; it was a shining, white-hot line across her cheek, dulling in sudden warm wetness. Her first reaction was confusion. She had been shot before; surely she should feel some kind of solid impact. Then she realized the bullet had only skimmed her.

  She let out a deep, shaking breath.

  Tabitha, though, did not share Rose’s relief. She became angry slowly, absorbing it as if from the air, her face pale and furious in a way that was very rarely frightening in a seven-year-old.

  “No,” she said, and Loren tried to say something to calm her down but she ignored him. “No!”

  She turned toward the soldiers and reached out a trembling hand. Rose was only half paying attention to her; she put a hand to the wound on her face, stupidly astonished when it came away bloody, and tried to summon enough strength and concentration to heal it.

  “Don’t hurt her!” screamed Tabitha at the soldiers, and the buildings next to them began to rumble.

  Loren, to his credit, clocked what was going on almost immediately, and tried to pull her away. The soldiers did not. They stared at the furious little girl bemusedly, not sufficiently afraid to fire on her again, and not until bricks started to crumble from the walls on either side of them did they start to understand what was happening, and of course by then it was too late.

  Loren started whispering to Tabitha, glancing nervously at the walls. Something he said must have gotten through to her, because she started to go with him, stumbling through the collapsing alleyway with Rose following them.

  They got clear of the passage before it fell and stared as the buildings collapsed onto each other. They could not see the soldiers from where they stood. For all they knew, the men could have run before the walls fell, and survived without a scratch on them. It must have been this that Loren whispered to the little Demon girl, softly, soothingly, as his eyes flickered wildly over the rubble. Tabitha’s small body was trembling violently. She stared at what she had done and hugged herself, trying to listen to what Loren was telling her.

  None of them heard anything over the echoes for a very long time.

  “First-aid kit. First-aid kit.”

  They sat in a different, darker alleyway, several miles away, and Loren was rummaging through his emergency pack. Rose knew he wasn’t going to find anything in there. Tabitha was asleep against the wall, and the blood on her face was starting to congeal.

  “We don’t have a first-aid kit,” she told him tiredly.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I put that emergency pack together for you,” she said, “and at that point, if you’d been wounded, I would have tried to finish you off, not heal you.”

  “Ah.” He sat back. “Well, that backfired on you a bit, didn’t it?”

  “Thank you for rubbing it in.”

  “Can you heal yourself?”

  Rose bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m terrible at Healing, and I’m not sure I have the strength.”

  They looked at each other, and she could tell they were both thinking of the same thing.

  “Hospital’s out of the question,” he said. “I suppose . . .”

  “No. You’re not healing me.”

  “I would rather heal you of a flesh wound than an infection, Rose.”

  “I don’t care. I would rather die of gangrene.”

  “You’re too proud.” He saw her expression and sighed. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

  “You bet you won’t. I would never live this down.”

  “Why are you so against being healed?”

  “I’m not. I’m against being healed by you.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake.” He opened the pack and shook it absentmindedly, but nothing came out. Then he frowned, turned it upside down, and tried again. One forlorn-looking bandage drifted down onto the pavement. “You’ve done more than enough for me.”

  “I know! That’s the point! I’ve done everything! Saved your life, rescued your niece, given you food and shelter . . . I have the high ground. Completely. If you heal me, I’ll lose all my leverage.”

  He half smiled. “You have your water?”

  She took it out of her jacket pocket and pointedly poured some of it over her own face, washing off most of the blood. She sat up as he came over.

  “Please don’t touch me.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  He held his hand over the wound, and she felt the edges of the skin begin to prickle and pull together. She tried not to shiver. It was like having someone else brush your hair, but significantly more painful.

  Tabitha stirred in her sleep and turned over. Rose glanced at her. The Demons of her childhood were burly, angry men with guns and murderous intentions. They had never been seven-year-old girls.

  “Did you know she was this powerful?”

  He did not glance at her. “I knew she could be, in theory. I didn’t know she was.”

  “She chose to use her magic. She knew how dangerous it was, but she chose to use it anyway. And she chose to do good, too.”

  “Don’t throw my own words back at me, Rosalyn Elmsworth,” he said, and the edges of her wound began to knit together. It was an odd, crawling sensation. “I know what she did, and why she did it. But she’s seven.”

  “Yes, and?”

  “She’s too young to know what her power means. She doesn’t know what she’s chosen.”

  “She’s perfectly old enough. You don’t know what she’s been through down there.”

  There was pain in his eyes now, enough to make her want to take back what she’d said.

  “No,” he said, “I don’t.”

  He was beginning to look tired. He had not slept in a long time, and his Gifts were not strong enough to maintain this for long. She pulled away. “It’s okay. I can take this from here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” He had closed most of the wound; it was simply a matter of strengthening the connections now. “Get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

  “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded, and went to Tabitha. He stood over her for a moment, and the look in his eyes was so full of love and concern and joy and grief that Rose turned away. Then he lay down beside her, curled like a she-wolf protecting a cub, and Rose, behind him, was angry at herself for thinking she had known the extent of what he was fighting for.

  He fell asleep almost immediately. Rose heard only distant police cars that night.

  “This is a bad idea.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “I don’t care. There are easier ways to do this.”

  “Yes, and are any of them legal?”

  “They’re less illegal than this.”

  Loren gave her a skeptical look. “Cannibalism is not less illegal than shoplifting.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of cannibalism. I was thinking of breaking and entering. A house, I mean.”

  “We don’t know they’d have food.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Rose irritably. “What kind of house doesn’t have food?”

  “An uninhabited house.”

  “We’ll choose an inhabited one, then.”

  “And if we have to hold someone up to do it? Will you condone that?”
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br />   She hesitated.

  “At least there won’t be CCTV cameras in the house.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  Rose rolled her eyes. “Please don’t make me have to stop you.”

  “Like you could. Rose”— as she raised her eyebrows —“we’re going to have to steal food from somewhere, and Tesco has Pringles. Pringles, Rose. I haven’t had crisps in five months.”

  “And it’s probably been very good for your health.”

  Tabitha turned over, murmuring in her sleep. It was the very edge of dawn; Rose’s cut showed only the barest of scars, and the supermarkets near their alleyway were beginning to open.

  “I want to get this done before she wakes up. I don’t want her seeing me doing anything illegal.”

  “Loren, we are on the run from the police.”

  “Well, that can’t be helped.”

  “It doesn’t mean we don’t have anything left to lose.” He started forward, but she grabbed his arm. “I swear, if you get yourself caught, I’ll kill you.”

  “I’ll be in and out before anyone sees me. Trust me, Rose.”

  She sighed, but let him go. If he was going to do it, the earlier the better; maybe there wouldn’t even be any witnesses. They deserved some luck by this point. She had spent most of the night staring blankly at the church clock in the yellow illumination of the streetlights: midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock, and now five o’clock in the morning, the dawn cold and gray and thick with the smell of wood and rain.

  This was the third day of her life as a fugitive.

  A landmark.

  She didn’t know what David and James would be doing now. Trying to find them, doubtless, but what else were they doing? What were they thinking? Had they reconciled the events of the last few months with what they now knew about her? Would they have worked out who had hacked the Department database, who had stolen food from the military canteens, why she had told them that Thomas Argent had not been murdered?

  She hoped not, but she knew she hoped in vain.

  Could there be forgiveness for something like this? Certainly there was no precedent; the history of the Department bore no marks of such a betrayal as hers. It is very, very bad practice to have a civilian know as much about our operations as you do, Serena had said, and, galling though it was, Rose had proven her right.

  Was it possible there could be redemption for this? Or had her crimes been too grave?

  “Why are you helping us?”

  Rose turned to see Tabitha, sitting up in her sleeping bag and watching Rose with alert, curious dark eyes. She smiled, and touched her own face where Rose’s wound had been.

  “You’re better,” she said, and there was genuine happiness in her voice.

  “Yes,” Rose said, because it was all she really could say, faced as she was with this black-eyed girl, easily as powerful as an Angel, the depth of her apparent innocence belying the fathomlessness of her magic.

  Those black eyes . . . was it possible to ignore them? Or what they meant?

  Oh, get lost. Loren puts up with you, and you are far more dangerous than this kid. Do not judge her. Speak to her as if she were a normal human being.

  She’s not evil. Right there — that is not an inherently belligerent political dissident. She’s a child.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “Gone to get food.”

  “From where?”

  Rose gave up. “Tesco.”

  “Does he have money?”

  “No.”

  Tabitha considered this. “Is he stealing?”

  “Look, kid, you want to eat or not?”

  “Yes,” said Tabitha, but she seemed unhappy about this. “Isn’t that wrong, though?”

  “It’s better than letting you starve.” When she still looked discontented, Rose added, “Or letting him starve.”

  Tabitha nodded. “Mum said sometimes you had to do a little bad thing to do a big good thing.”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “Mum’s dead,” said Tabitha — tearlessly, and five months after the event. Rose felt the painful inadequacy of her own “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re David’s daughter.”

  Rose sat down next to her. “Yes. How do you know about him?”

  “He came to visit me sometimes in my cell. To talk to me. Try and get me to do magic. But Mum and Dad always said I never should. So I didn’t. He said they might hurt me. He said he would try to stop them hurting me. They never hurt me. They just talked.” Tabitha looked up at Rose. “Did he say anything to you about me?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Did he lie to you a lot?”

  Rose put her face in her hands. “It would seem so.”

  Tabitha seemed to understand how much this meant to her; she waited until Rose was sufficiently in control of herself to look at her again.

  “I’m sorry. About what my father did.”

  “It’s not your fault,” said Tabitha, so gently that it almost seemed as if the younger girl were comforting her. “Is that why you’re helping us?”

  “No.”

  “Why, then?”

  “It’s a long story.” Rose glanced back at the alleyway entrance. “Loren persuaded me.”

  “Did you want to help us?”

  Rose hated perceptive children. “No, not at first. But I do now.”

  “Why did you help, then?”

  “Because he knew a secret of mine, and he used it against me so he wouldn’t be captured.”

  Tabitha went very quiet, absorbing this. “I don’t know if that’s good or not.”

  “Well, from his point of view, I suppose it was.”

  “What was your secret?”

  Rose looked at her for a long time, and considered lying.

  “I’m a Hybrid. You know what those are?”

  Tabitha shook her head.

  “We look human for most of the time, but every six weeks, or when we feel that our lives are in danger, we turn into monsters.”

  Rose didn’t dare look at her after saying this. She had never in her life told anyone what she was before, not in such terms. It felt obscene. When she did look at Tabitha — tentatively, apprehensively — the girl’s eyes were filled with pity. It still made Rose want to hit something, but it was better than fear.

  What did it say about you when not scaring a seven-year-old was an achievement?

  “That can’t be very nice,” said Tabitha softly.

  “No, well, it isn’t.” And then, hating the plaintiveness in her own voice: “I don’t like having to hurt people.”

  “You never have to hurt people.”

  Rose looked at her, and did her best not to sound contemptuous. “You don’t believe that.”

  They sat in silence for a while.

  “What are we going to do now?”

  Rose shrugged. “I’m assuming Loren has a plan that will go wrong, and after that, who knows?”

  The girl smiled, and took her hand. “Thank you,” she said, with unexpected sincerity, and Rose, feeling desperately out of her depth, was saved from having to respond by the return of Loren: disheveled, grinning, and carrying five whole tubes of Pringles.

  Tabitha slept again that afternoon. Exhaustion had followed close behind them all since the prison, but Rose knew she stood no chance of sleep. Loren glanced at his niece every few seconds, as if she were merely a hologram who would vanish if he stopped concentrating on her.

  “You need to get out of the country,” Rose told him.

  His gaze flickered distractedly towards her. “What?”

  “Loren. Look at me. The two of you need to get out of Britain. As soon as possible. It’s the only way you’ll outrun the Department.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Of course you can. We’re on the bloody Thames, for God’s sake. Get a ferry to the Netherlands, or France, or Portugal. Their Departments are barely functional, and they don’t talk to London. They’ll never find you there.�
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  Now he was paying attention. “We don’t have any money there.”

  “Get a job. Learn Dutch. You’ll be fine.”

  “What about Tabitha?”

  “Oh, you can tutor her for the school she’s missed. She’s clever enough. Even if she weren’t, Loren, you can’t stay here.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “What about you?”

  She took a deep breath. “I’ll go back to the Department and hope.”

  “Rose. Don’t be an idiot.”

  “I’m not being an idiot. With any luck James deleted the footage of our escape, so only the Department knows I’m not your hostage, and I can deal with what they think of me.”

  “No, you can’t.” He leaned forward. “Rose, you’re not safe with that man.”

  “That man is my father.”

  Loren said nothing for a while. “You’re going to be sixteen in seven months. What are you going to do with your life when you’re an adult?”

  She wanted to say “work for the Department” but she realized with a hollow heartbeat that that wasn’t going to happen anymore. “I don’t know. I can’t really . . . I can’t really do anything until he’s safe.”

  “Or until he’s dead.”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that again.”

  He hesitated. “Sorry.”

  On the fourth day, they ran out of supplies. The bread and cheese Loren had brought with the Pringles went stale very quickly, and they woke in the morning cold and hungry. They were a good few miles from Tesco by then, and anyway, sending Loren to shoplift twice in two days would be pushing their luck.

  Tabitha wanted to go, and of course initially Loren was extremely reluctant to let her, but she was far less likely to be recognized — the Department could hardly set up a public manhunt for a child — and, it had to be said, was the most capable of all of them at defending herself. After a while, and with Rose’s backing, Loren relented, and let her go.

  After that, everything went to pieces very quickly.

  The first Rose heard of the explosion was the distant, ominous boom. Her first instinct was to recognize it as thunder, but then she remembered the glorious blue sky and the distinct lack of clouds. Then she heard the screaming, and decided it probably wasn’t thunder.