Sixty-One Nails cotf-1

by Mike Shevdon

  I carefully wrapped the blade in the towel.

  "I didn't know it did that," she said, watching the knife shift back to dull grey.

  "Neither did I. You should see it when Veronica holds it."

  "Perhaps not," she demurred.

  I let the subject of the knife drop and concentrated on getting ready to leave. An hour later we were all dressed and ready to go. I cancelled the seals on the doors and we left.

  "I'm sorry if I was touchy earlier," Blackbird said to Claire as she locked the front door behind her.

  "I didn't notice," said Claire. Curiously, that didn't sound untrue, as if she had willed it to be so.

  "We're grateful for you putting us up and for coming with us to get the nail."

  "And I'm grateful for what you did for Jerry. He would have died if you hadn't helped, wouldn't he?"

  "Eventually," Blackbird confirmed.

  Claire had called a taxi and a black cab was waiting for us when we got downstairs. We all got into the back and Claire gave the driver crisp instructions to take us to the Strand. I sat on the jockey seat while the two women sat on either side at the back while we rumbled through the streets.

  Blackbird had gone back to the appearance she had in Shropshire, the one I had said I liked. She had a gypsy skirt and a loose cotton top in an emerald green that brought out the sparkle in her eyes. Her hair formed a cloud of gold and copper around her head and against Claire's sombre outfit of low heels, dark blue skirt and matching blouse, she looked exotic.

  The cab driver dropped us near the church of St Mary-leStrand and I paid him. We walked with Claire down the Strand and across the wide road until we were outside the Royal Courts of Justice.

  "I won't be long," Claire told us.

  "You're not going in alone," Blackbird told her. "We'll come with you."

  "It's OK. The building is closed on a Sunday but they're used to me going in at odd times. I'll get the nail and bring it straight back."

  "Don't imagine they've given up, Claire. They're just waiting for the right opportunity. You're not safe until the knife is re-forged and the ceremony has been performed. We're coming in with you."

  She looked as if she were about to argue and then changed her mind. "All right then, if you think so."

  We went to a side gate where a security guard was on duty. I felt a tingle as Blackbird's magic encompassed her and me. Claire nodded and smiled at him; we followed after. Claire pulled a pass from her handbag and the guard looked at it and nodded. He barely glanced at either Blackbird or me as we walked past behind her. Claire spoke to him for a moment and then joined us.

  "Keith says it was quiet over the weekend and security haven't reported any problems."

  "That doesn't mean anything. You saw how easy it is for us to get inside. The smallest distraction would be enough."

  We walked through a side entrance and across the main hall over to the stone stairs up to the first floor. Claire's shoes echoed on the tiled floor as we followed her towards the office. As we approached she slowed down and then halted.

  "What's the matter?" asked Blackbird.

  "Nothing. It's just that, well, isn't it the other way?"

  "Isn't what the other way?" asked Blackbird.

  "The office. I know it used to be this way but now I'm not sure."

  "What are you talking about."

  "The office. Didn't we move offices?" She looked bemused as if her memory was failing her.

  "Claire, we met you in your offices last week. It was at the end of this corridor. Unless you moved after we went on Friday then it's still there."

  "Yes, of course. You're right. How silly of me." She still didn't sound convinced.

  "Well go on then," Blackbird urged.

  Claire looked confused for a moment and then carried on. As we moved down the corridor towards the door to the office I could feel the hackles on the back of my neck rise. Claire stopped again.

  "Can you feel that?" I asked Blackbird.

  Claire answered, "They're in there, aren't they?"

  Blackbird moved around to stand beside Claire. "Who is, Claire? Who's in there?"

  "I don't know. The people you're hiding from, the ones that will try and stop us."

  "If they were in there then you wouldn't know it until it was too late. They're just trying to frighten you. Feel the fear and understand it. It's false. You have no reason to be afraid. It's your office and there's nothing there."

  "But they're in there. I can feel it."

  "It's an old trick, Claire. Confuse the path and then leave a non-specific fear for those who get through. Let it latch onto uncertainties and exploit inner fears."

  "They were here, weren't they?"

  "Yes, they've been here. They've gone, though."

  "How do you know they're not still in there?" She glanced nervously towards the door.

  "Because if they were, you wouldn't know about it until it was too late."

  "It could be a double bluff. They could be in there waiting for us."

  "Then why leave the warding?"

  "To turn away casual intruders?" I suggested.

  "You're not helping," said Blackbird.

  "Claire could be right, though. What if they're in there waiting for us."

  "Oh, don't you start. Listen to your heart. Feel the warding there and know it as I know it. Hold the fear up and examine it under a cold light. Greet it like an old friend. Can you do that?"

  I tried to do as she said.

  "Now, does it change? Does it switch to something else and wriggle into another crack in your confidence? Does it slither into deeper uncertainties, looking for darker fears to latch onto?"

  "No. It's just that one thing. They're here and waiting for us."

  "That's because there's no one driving it. It is what it is and that's all it can be. If they were here then it would feel different; as if it had a life of its own."

  It made sense in a strange kind of way. The fear, once faced, was just that. It lost its power and became something small and irrelevant.

  "I still don't think I can go in there," said Claire.

  "I can," said Blackbird. She turned and swept towards the doors, throwing them open.

  At the moment she opened the doors, the fear vanished. Beyond the doors, though, we could see the office was wrecked. Claire's desk had been upturned onto the floor with one steel leg bent out at an awkward angle. Bookcases filled with legal works had been pulled down and the books scattered around the floor. Handfuls of pages from books had been ripped from their bindings and strewn around the room, drawers were pulled open and their contents dumped onto the floor.

  "Oh no," said Claire. "Look at the mess."

  With the fear dispelled, Claire walked forward and stood in the doorway, surveying the damage.

  The double doors into the Remembrancer's office had been flung open, the bookshelves pulled over and pictures pulled from the walls and smashed on the floor. It looked like someone had jumped up and down on them, buckling the frames and tearing the canvasses.

  "I don't understand. How could this happen? We're supposed to have security."

  "Not against intruders like these," said Blackbird.

  "I need to call them. They're supposed to check these offices overnight."

  "Don't blame them," I told her. "Can you imagine what walking down that corridor would have been like in the dark on your own?"

  "But why didn't they raise the alarm?"

  "For what reason?" Blackbird asked her. "Because they were scared? Because one particular corridor was triggering an irrational fear of the dark? Security guards are supposed to be immune from that sort of thing. I can't see anyone admitting they wouldn't check certain offices just because it was making the hairs on the back of their neck stand on end."

  "Still, they ought to have done something."

  "It's probably just as well they didn't. Can you imagine what would have happened if someone had disturbed the people that did this? At least all
you have to do is clear up from the vandalism. There aren't any corpses."

  "You have a point. I'd better let security know, though. They'll need to notify the police."

  "Before you call in the police, we need the nail. If it's still here?"

  "It should be in the safe at the back there." She began edging around the broken desk to get to the cupboard at the back of the office.

  "Stop."

  The words were out of my mouth before I was even conscious of the prickling sensation down my spine.

  Claire paused. "Is something wrong?"

  "Don't you feel it?" I glanced at Blackbird who raised her eyebrows.

  "I don't feel anything. What is it?"

  "There's something here."

  "Are you sure it's not just the remnants of the fear warding? It can take a while to dissipate?"

  "No. It got stronger as Claire went towards the cupboard with the safe in it. It's not the same. Claire, can you retrace your steps back to us?"

  "I think so. I can't see anything odd, though. It all looks fine."

  "Just do as I say. Call it intuition," I told her.

  She negotiated her way back to us and then looked faintly bemused when nothing happened. "It looked fine to me," she repeated.

  I followed the route she'd taken, taking each step slowly and carefully, looking for the telltale prickling that had alerted me. Something in the room was causing the sensation and I was trying to trace the source. As I came to the desk and began to edge around the bent leg, the unpleasant tingling returned, but as Claire had said, there was no sign of any barrier.

  I was about to place my hand on the leg of the upturned desk so I could slip past it when a jolt in my hand stopped me.

  My hand was almost touching the metal, and where I had been about to grasp there was a tiny movement. A small cluster of tiny lightless spots were migrating across the surface to where my hand would be. The movement was slow and it was only the prickling sensation that alerted me to it. I snatched my hand away and the spots immediately halted. Then they spread out, slowly edging away from each other, until they formed a perfect ring across the corner of the metal surface.

  The last time I had seen spots like that, they were in my flat. They had run across the walls and ceiling and then eaten through the wood of my bedroom door until it was rotted through.

  It was darkspore.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The vandalised office was not as randomly wrecked as I had thought.

  Reaching sideways I lifted a torn leaf of paper from a ripped volume left on the top of a filing cabinet and held it between finger and thumb. I edged it forward until it just touched the edge of the black circle on the leg of the upturned desk. As soon as it touched the surface, the black spread onto the paper, running along it like a flame. Immediately I let go and it fell towards the floor, covered by the infecting mould.

  I edged back from the desk to where Blackbird and Claire were waiting.

  "It's darkspore. She's left spots of it in the office. I thought the vandalism was random. I thought they had taken out their frustrations on the office and left the room in this state as a warning, a kind of symbol as to what was to come. I was wrong. It's a trap. She was expecting us to come here and she left it so anyone who touched the furniture would be infected with darkspore."

  "What's darkspore?" asked Claire.

  "Never mind," I told her. "Just don't get any of it on you."

  "It's more than a trap," said Blackbird. "The darkspore isn't her creature. It's her. It has her sense, her feeling. It can't see or hear but what it knows, she knows. If it had got onto one of us then she would know it, wherever she is."

  "It could be everywhere," I told her. "It could be on any surface anywhere in this room; outside even."

  "No. Like all Fey gifts it has its limits. The more of herself she left here, the more she is weakened. In time it will die without her. She spreads herself thinly to do this and it's a sign of desperation. It will only be in the places she thinks are important, the places she doesn't want us to reach."

  "The safe containing the nail is behind there," confirmed Claire, "inside the cupboard on the floor."

  "Could she have taken the nail already?" I asked.

  "It's a very old safe; they keep offering to replace it with a new one, but it only contains a few documents, some petty cash and the items for the ceremony. The locking mechanism is partly iron, though. We keep it as a guard against, well, against your kind."

  "So the nail should still be there."

  "That makes sense," said Blackbird. "If she couldn't reach it then she would make sure we couldn't either. Hence the darkspore. We can't let her win, Niall."

  "I know. How do I get into the safe? Is it a combination?"

  "You'll need this key," said Claire holding out a long, double-sided brass key, the complex pattern of teeth attesting to the security of the safe.

  I took it from her and considered my options. I could drag the desk aside and pick my way through the detritus scattered on the floor, but it would be like walking through a minefield. The thought of making the slightest contact with the darkspore made my insides turn cold. The noises from my garden were still haunting me.

  "You said it's still part of her?" I asked Blackbird.

  "Yes. She'll know if it touches you. If even the tiniest speck–"

  "Good. Take Claire out into the corridor."

  "Why, what are you planning?"

  "Why do I have to go outside?" said Claire.

  "Just do what I ask. I don't know how much I can control it."

  "Niall, the last time you tried something like this we nearly ended up in next week."

  "This is different. We're going to fight fire with fire."

  "You can't do that here. It's not exactly subtle. People are going to notice." She glanced at Claire, none too subtly.

  "What will I notice?" said Claire.

  "Do you have another idea?" I asked Blackbird.

  "Maybe I could use the knife, burn it out," she said.

  "And burn the building down with it? With all these books and paper? The fire would almost certainly spread and if you miss a speck, just a tiny mote, then it's all for nothing. At least my way we get all of it in one go."

  "It's her, Niall. She's going to feel it as if she were here. And you can't reach all of her, only the parts she left behind. She'll know you were here and she will hate you with a vengeance."

  "You forget, I was in that glade with her. I stood there helpless, with my teeth chattering, while she helped herself. She thought she was being clever, leaving traces of herself, but now the tables are turned. So she'll know it was me? Good, I want her to."

  Claire interrupted us. "Will you two stop talking in riddles? What's going on?"

  "We need to be outside," Blackbird told her, guiding her by the shoulder out into the corridor.

  "What's he going to do?" She looked back, trying to figure out what was about to happen.

  "You have to trust us. I don't know what you've been told or what's in those journals of yours, but you have to trust us."

  "What's the matter? What's he doing in there?"

  Blackbird pulled the double doors closed behind her leaving me alone in the infected room. Even through the door I could hear Claire's persistent questions and Blackbird's reassurances.

  I let it fade into the background.

  When I fought Fenlock, I had used my talent unconsciously. Panic and instinct had brought it on and given me the break I needed, but then I had used it. It had sung its hungry song in my veins and I had listened and been seduced by it, consuming Fenlock utterly until only dust remained. I had felt sick afterwards, repulsed by what I had done and felt sure I would never use it like that again.

  Now, though, I had a different reason. Now I had a chance to strike back, to make my presence felt and show my hunters I had teeth.

  I closed my eyes and reached inward. The temperature dropped and all the little noises that accumulate unn
oticed into the background died, leaving a potent hush. I opened my eyes and found the room swimming in moonlight. The dappled light rippled over the debris, making it insubstantial and bringing a faint sense of vertigo.

  A noise filtering through the door distracted me for a moment. It was Claire. She was insisting there was something wrong, that the lights were behaving like they did with the strange phone calls. I heard her telling Blackbird they had returned and that I would need her help.

  The door handle rattled behind me. I heard Blackbird's voice.

  "He's fine, Claire. Come away from the door."

  "It's them, I tell you. They've returned."

  "No. It's Niall. He's doing this."

  "Niall? How is Niall doing it?!" The rattling became more urgent. "We've got to stop him. He's one of them, isn't he? He's from the Seventh Court. He tricked us. He tricked me into giving him the key. Now he can get the nail. You have to stop him."

  "No, Claire. Let him be."

  The rattling intensified, but then halted suddenly, followed by a crumpled thump. Blackbird had dealt with the problem in her own way.

  I turned my attention back to the room.

  When Fenlock attacked me, I hadn't needed to call gallowfyre. My defence had been instinctive and once it had him I couldn't let go. This was different. The room was filled with dappled light but the gallowfyre wasn't active. It was merely there, an outward expression of my connection to the void. There was no enemy trying to throttle me or shake my teeth loose. Somehow I had to bend it to my will and make it do my bidding.

  I pictured it in my head, rolling through the room, consuming everything. It swam uncertainly.

  Stretching out my hand, I expected it to stream forth. It remained the same.

  I concentrated on making it flood out, like a river or a stream. Nothing happened.

  My hands fell back to my sides. So much for my ability to handle this. I had claimed I knew what to do, convinced that my instincts would come to my aid.

  Blackbird had said I had to convince myself it was true, that I had to know and trust my instincts. Well I did know, but it wasn't enough. It needed something else. I was almost on the point of turning back to the door behind me and asking Blackbird for some helpful hints when it came to me.