by Mike Shevdon
"When I finally did, she explained it to me." She turned to face me, finally, her eyes red-rimmed, skin puffy and blotchy. "You remember when I sent you to the moors with the wolves? That's one of the gifts I inherited from my mother. That's what my mother did to the wraithkin, but she couldn't bind him to it. Without his name, he could shrug it off any time he wanted to. So she made a world for him identical to the one he was in, except I wasn't in it. He couldn't see me because, for him, I wasn't there."
"She saved you," I said quietly.
"She saved me, but to do it she had to touch…" The tears welled in her eyes again and she fumbled for the hanky. "She had to put her hand on that blackness, defenceless against what he could do. He consumed her power, sucked the life out of her and discarded her, and she stood there and deceived him while he did it so that I…" The tears ran down her cheeks unheeded, the hanky wrung between her hands. "So I…" Her shoulder shook and she turned her back to me.
I stepped forward to offer some comfort.
"Don't!" She threw her hand back, warding me off. "Don't touch me."
"I'm sorry, I didn't think–"
"You can't help it. It's what you are."
Her shoulders shook.
"I can't change what I am."
"I know. But that's why I wanted to kill you. Part of me still wants to."
She stood apart and I watched her cry.
Sometimes Alex hates me. She rails against me and screams and shouts and stamps about as if she can't contain the fury within her. Then she cries and screams again and I try and stay calm and soothe her. And when her anger is spent, she won't let me touch her, won't let me hold her. So I wait. And when the storm has finally blown itself out and she's calm again, I open my arms and she'll come and press her head against my chest and accept comfort from me.
I waited until Blackbird had calmed herself and then I opened my arms in that way to her, knowing that, being Fey, touch had other connotations to her than to my daughter but wanting to offer her that simple gesture against her pain. Her grief was wrapped about her like a veil and it was beyond me not to offer some comfort. She hesitated at this human gesture and I thought she would turn away from me again.
Instead, she shook her head. "No, I'm all right, really. It's just that I've never told anyone that before. Kareesh and Gramawl knew but I've never told anyone else. Only with you being…" She dried up.
"Yes." I dropped my hands back to my sides, awkwardly. At least I knew why she pulled away.
She blew her nose on the dishevelled hanky and stuffed it back into her pocket, looking up at me.
"So now what?" she lifted her chin, making a bold effort to put the weight of the past aside. Eyes still puffy, she was determined to move on, rather than dwell on what had been.
"I don't know. I was hoping you'd be able to tell me."
"The building over the way, there. You said it was the one in your vision. What about it?"
"I don't know. It was mixed up with a whole load of other stuff. I just know it's the one. In the vision there was a sign by the main door carved into the stone, that's all."
"What does it say?"
"I don't know. I couldn't see it clearly."
"We should go and look then."
"Are you sure you're up to this?"
"I'm fine." She broke into a half smile. "I thought I was over it, it was all such a long time ago, but when you summoned the gallowfyre… it brought it all back. I know it's wrong to blame you, but…"
"You still do."
"I don't blame you. I don't. It just feels like I should."
"Because of what I am?" I rubbed at where the point of the knife had pressed under my chin, feeling the break in the skin.
"The rational part of me knows you aren't him and could never have been him. It's just my feelings haven't caught up with the rest of me yet.
"I understand. Sort of."
"We should go and have a look at this building of yours. Maybe the writing on the doorway will tell us something."
I accepted her change of subject and she turned away from the window, straightening her coat, and took the stairway down to ground level. I tagged along, down and through the darkening passage to the heavy street door. Blackbird turned the catch, shot back the bolt and opened the door, spilling daylight into the corridor. We stepped out onto the pavement along the Strand, attracting only mildly curious stares from passers-by. Blackbird let me past and then stood at door, masking what she was doing with her body. It made a low crunk sound and when she tested it again, it was locked.
I stepped across the wide pavement and turned to look at where we had emerged. A sign along the base of the arched window above the street declared it to be the Strand Station of the Piccadilly Railway.
"I've never heard of a Strand Station," I told her. "In fact, I didn't know there was a tube station here at all."
"There isn't. The line was supposed to go through under the Thames but the extension was never built. This is as far as they managed."
She turned and walked brusquely off down the Strand with me trailing after her. Then she slowed, allowing me to catch up so we could walk alongside each other. It was a small concession, given what she'd told me.
We crossed the busy road when the traffic thinned momentarily and continued across the road down the side of Australia House. The building was roughly triangular in plan, being the easterly point at the end of the long crescent formed by Aldwych alongside the Strand. There were doors for the public set along the side of the building with notices about opening times for the issuing of visas and other documents. Posters of Ayer's Rock, Uhuru or whatever it was called, adorned the walls inside.
We followed the pavement past these until we came to the blunted point of the triangle where the Strand opened out into a wide thoroughfare. A church faced us across the broad paved area where the trees were shedding, the leaves whirling around in a fickle breeze. Turning back, the entrance to Australia House was impressive with tall stone pillars and heavy iron gates folded back against the wall inside the entrance porch. To either side of the doorway, stone statues graced the entrance, while high above the gates a bronze sculpture of heroic figures on untamed horses adorned the frontage. Inside the doorway there were letters picked out in gold, carved into the door pillar where I knew they would be. Blackbird leaned down to inspect the writing.
"What does it say?" I asked.
"It says the stone was laid in…" She translated the roman numerals. "1913. Does that mean anything to you?"
"No. Should it?"
"Are you sure? It must have some significance or you wouldn't have seen it in the vision."
"Well, perhaps it's not the building that's significant. Maybe we're supposed to meet someone here, or find something?"
I looked around at the roads, busy with passing traffic. No one approached us with a secret code word or a mysterious package. There was a distinct absence of things with clues written on them.
"Do you see anything else that looks familiar?" Blackbird asked.
"Not really. The sign is the right one, but it's just a carving showing when this was built."
I found myself conscious of the huge ornamental iron gates turned back against the wall on each side of the entrance. They were beautifully made and I couldn't help feeling there was something significant about them.
"I wonder what was here before this was built," she mused. "I don't remember anything particularly special."
"Even if there was something, it was demolished a hundred years ago to make way for this." I watched the gates, feeling that somehow they were also watching me.
"That isn't a very long time, really. I can't recall that there was anything particular here, though it was a pretty rough area. I'm sure I would remember."
"So, where does that leave us?"
"It leaves us asking why, I suppose." Blackbird scanned the surrounding buildings.
The gates definitely had my attention. Were they the thing I was supposed
to find here? Were they the clue we were looking for? I found myself reaching out to touch the dark ironwork.
"Perhaps if we ask at th– NO!"
My hand touched the metalwork and a jolt went through me like a lightning bolt. I remember something slamming into my arm and the trees above me spinning, then crashing onto my back on the paving. My breath went out of me and the back of my skull banged against the concrete. For a moment, everything went black.
When I came to, Blackbird was leaning over me. She'd moved me onto my side and had her palm pressed against my forehead. Despite that, a dizzying nausea welled up in me and I threw up the remains of my pasty on the paving slabs. Blackbird leant back until the retching stopped and then handed me a practical hanky. It was still damp.
"Are you all right?"
I nodded weakly, wiping my mouth with it. At least I thought I was OK. I did a mental check for broken bones. My arm was numb where I had touched the gate and the nerves in my hand were jangling.
"Are you OK, mate?" The Australian twang in the question meant that although I couldn't see the questioner I knew we had attracted attention from the building.
"I'm not sure," Blackbird responded. "My friend got a shock off those gates just now."
There was a slight pause. "That's impossible. They're not electric or anything. He couldn't have done." A man in uniform, possibly a security guard, walked into my field of view. "Are you OK, sir?"
"I think I'll be OK in a minute. Can you help me sit up?"
"Do you think that's wise? I could get an ambulance for you, if you like?" The long "A" of ambulance was almost comical and I found myself smiling at his Australian accent, despite my aching head.
"Well, you've still got a sense of humour about you." He stepped back and let Blackbird help me to a sitting position. I sat on the cold paving with my head against my knees while the spinning sensation slowly subsided.
"I've never seen anything like it. You went up in the air like you were doing a backwards somersault. I saw it on the monitors." Clearly this was the most exciting thing that had happened all day and now he had established I wasn't dead he was determined to make the most of it.
"Well you should definitely have those gates checked," asserted Blackbird with all her authority. "They caused a nasty accident. Next time someone could be killed."
"I still don't see how," he commented, taking his peaked hat off and scratching his head. "Maybe some sort of static build-up?" He glanced back at the gates, inert inside the doorway. "What were you doing, anyway?"
"We were trying to work out how old the building is."
"1917," he said. "Well, what I mean is, they were able to move in by then. I don't think the building was fully finished until after the First World War."
The way the intonation in his accent lifted at the end made every sentence made it sound like a question, as if everything were uncertain and he was looking for constant confirmation of reality. Having banged my head on the paving, I knew how he felt.
"The decorations must have taken a while to complete," he continued. "It's very grand inside. We used to have open days so you could look around, though that had to stop after the 7/7 bombs. How's your friend?"
Blackbird stood up. "I think he'll recover but that could have been serious."
"We've never had any trouble before. I can't think why he would get a shock from there."
"Do you want to go and touch the gates, after that?" she asked him.
"No, I think we'll have the electricians in to check them out, first, eh?" he grinned.
"It might be wise. We were just trying to find out about the building. Do you know what was here before all this?" She gestured at the grand façade.
I was a little miffed that Blackbird was more intent on the security man than on my injuries, but it did present an opportunity to find out more. I sat on the ground and listened while she gently pressed him for more information.
"I've worked here for thirty years and I don't remember anyone mentioning anything before this. You'd be amazed at some of the enquiries we get, though, people wanting to emigrate and everything. We don't get many historical queries, though. Mind you, one of my colleagues trained as one of those guides, you know, an official London guide? He's got a certificate and everything. I could ask him if he knows anything."
"That would be very kind."
He turned and went back into the building, taking a careful look at the gates as he passed them. Blackbird turned back to me.
"What on earth did you think you were doing?" She kept her voice down, though her anger was evident.
"I thought the gates might be the reason we were here," I said defensively.
"They're made of iron!"
"What's so special about iron?" I asked.
"Iron is the antithesis of magic. All the Feyre react to iron. It's one of the things that marks us out."
"I didn't know."
"Couldn't you feel it? What on earth possessed you to touch them?"
"I told you, I thought they might be what we came for."
She probed the back of my head with her fingers. "Nine times idiot!" she hissed. "It's a good thing you weren't right inside the doorway or you'd have been flung back into the other gate. If your head had hit iron instead of concrete, you wouldn't be sitting here nursing a headache. Look up at me."
I lifted my head off my knees and looked up into her grey eyes, surprised by the concern that showed there.
"At least your pupils are the same size. How do you feel?"
"A bit nauseous, but the world has stopped spinning."
"I still can't believe you touched them. Didn't it feel wrong?"
"Yes, kind of, but at the same time it was compelling, almost alive."
"Let me see your hand."
I could feel the pulse throbbing in my palm and when I opened my hand I found my fingers had red wheals where the bars had touched. I looked up at Blackbird and she shook her head.
"You won't do that again in a hurry. Is it sore?"
"It's still numb."
"Is anywhere else numb?"
"My arm was completely numb, but it's just my forearm now."
"If the feeling doesn't come back in a little while, let me know."
She offered her hand and supported my uninjured arm as I got to my feet. I was a little unsteady, but once I was vertical I felt better.
"Are you up to coming and finding out what our antipodean friend has come up with?"
I nodded and then wished I'd spoken instead. My head pounded. I swallowed and steadied myself. Blackbird tucked herself under my arm and helped me towards the doorway. At that moment, the stone Megan had given me flared to warmth against my chest. It was odd that it had chosen this moment to become active again. Maybe it was reacting to my injury. Megan had said it had something to do with physical awareness.
Blackbird helped me through the entrance, carefully avoiding the black iron of the heavy gates. It was incongruous that the older of us was helping the younger, though she appeared unconscious of the irony. Inside there was a security desk with glass screens between us and our security man. He was holding the phone tucked onto his shoulder, meanwhile waving his other hand and making an expression that must have been intended as "Hang on a minute, I'm on the phone".
I leant with my back against the counter, observing that the inside of the doors was separated from the rest of the building by more security screening. One of those walk-through metal detectors you see at airports had been installed. Clearly they took the security seriously, as he'd said. What little I could see of the inside of the building indicated that it was decorated in the style of the kind of country house that had grand ballrooms.
We waited while the muffled sound of the guard's voice came through the glass.
"Wrong building?" He conversed with his hidden colleague. "You're sure about that?"
Blackbird tried to interrupt him to explain that it was this building we were interested in, but he held his hand up to pa
use her and asked his colleague to repeat his last sentence again. Finally, he thanked them and hung up, turning back to us and speaking through the screen.
"You've come to the wrong place."
"It was this building in particular we were interested in," Blackbird explained patiently.
"Yes, but you see, the history isn't here. It's at the Royal Courts of Justice across the way there." He pointed out of the glass doors at the street.
"But it was this building…" Blackbird repeated.
"Yes, I got you, ma'am, but the history of this building is over at the Royal Courts. My colleague trained as a guide, like I told you, and he says that this ground was paid for by something called a quick rent."
Blackbird, who had been looking at me with an expression of exasperation, suddenly focused back on the man.
"A quick rent? Do you mean a quit rent?"
"It could have been. Yes, that was it. I thought it sounded funny."
"Why would there be a quit rent?" she said to herself.
"He said the Ceremony of the Quit Rents is held every year at the Royal Courts across the road and if you wanted to know more about this building, you should be asking there. Apparently the ground for this building is owned by the British Crown and the Corporation of London pay a quit rent for it. They have information over at the Royal Courts and you should enquire there." He showed us a victorious smile, revealing uneven teeth stained by heavy smoking.
Blackbird thanked him for his help, while my attention was drawn to a bank of monitors set up on a side-bench. They were obviously used to monitor the security cameras and they depicted various views of the exterior of the building. One of them, though, had been adapted back to its original purpose and was showing a twenty-four hour news programme.
It had suddenly flashed up with a photo-fit picture of a middle-aged man with a scrolling caption underneath. The caption said this was a picture of a man police urgently wanted to interview in connection with the death of an officer in West London that morning.