by Zandria West
It’s probably just my imagination, but as we head up Maple Avenue and onto Park Way, I can’t help feeling like people are looking at us. Well, at him would be more accurate. I’m honestly not surprised. I remember how hard it was for me not to stare that first night Gabriel came into the bar. Then, as I think of the bar I think of my job, and of leaving Ellie all night without back-up, and of how much trouble generally I’m going to be in, and of how I’m not going to be able to pay my rent if I lose my job, and the whole goddamn mess that my life is at present. My head starts to ache. Once we’re about a block past the Barrier, my phone begins beeping. There’s no signal in Darktown, at least not on my mobile plan. Now a barrage of messages is appearing on my phone, one after another after another. Mostly from my brother.
Jamie. Shit.
It feels like a million years ago that I rang him in a panic asking for his help. I told him about the marking on my arm. I told him I was going to Darktown. I’ve been gone so long without making contact, he probably thinks I’m dead. Which would not be an unreasonable guess.
The problem is, so much has happened I don’t know what to tell him, or how. I type a quick message saying everything is fine and I’m tired and will call him in a bit, then turn my phone off. I feel a jab of guilt, because that’s the kind of manoeuvre that drives me absolutely batshit crazy when people do it to me, but I don’t have the energy to talk to him right now.
As we turn onto my street, I see my building looming at the bottom of the slope. I feel a rush of anxiety. My apartment is probably a mess. I have no food at all. And where is Gabriel going to sleep?
And then I see the little hole-in-the-wall is open, which solves one problem at least.
‘Coffee and croissant?’ I say to Gabriel.
‘Thank you.’
I buy us one each, and Gabriel holds our breakfast as I unlock the outside door, which makes a change from me spilling things and dropping my keys and swearing, which is what usually happens. I feel an increasing sense of strangeness as we climb the stairs, him so close behind me. Each step we take, my reality shifts. This is really happening. We’re really here together. Then I reach the top of the stairs, turn down the corridor to where my apartment is. My heart is pounding now. I’m as nervous as if this was a first date. Which it kind of is, I guess. I go to unlock the door and then stop.
The door is ajar.
I’m sure I didn’t leave it like that. And then, as quickly as I think it, Gabriel pulls me back and steps in front of me, listening intently. For a few seconds we stand like that, waiting. Then Gabriel leans forward and lets the door swing open. I take a step towards the entrance and freeze.
‘Oh fuck,’ I say. I leave our coffees on the floor near the doorway and take a step inside.
My place has been torn apart. Clothes and books and bedding are spread all over the floor. The cupboard doors are wide open, and the cupboard has been completely emptied, everything tossed onto the floor. All the artworks I so lovingly hung have been ripped from the walls. My plants have been smashed and shredded. And then I see something. A weird noise comes out of me. I feel Gabriel put his arms around me, pulling me to him, his grip so tight it almost hurts. Meow-Meow is lying in the middle of the floor, unmoving. His usually beautiful shiny fur is matted and dark with blood.
My shock turns instantly to rage.
Gabriel tries to hold me back, but I push past him and into my home. My home, that someone has wrecked. I feel a sudden hollow lurch. The Dad-Jar. The jar containing my father’s ashes that I always kept by the plants on the window sill, so Dad could enjoy the morning sun and the afternoon breeze.
It’s gone.
14
LANA
I’m basically incoherent as Gabriel drags me back down the stairs and out onto the street. We walk away from my building, into the city centre. I don’t get how everything seems so normal and everyday when meanwhile my world is disintegrating. People in business suits are heading to work. Mums are pushing kids in strollers. Joggers flash past, the rhythm of their steps mirroring the desperate pounding of my heart. But everything’s wrong.
I want to scream. I want to vomit. I can’t believe this is happening to me. It’s not until we’re a few blocks away that I manage to steady my breathing enough to even speak.
‘What kind of a sick fucking psycho would steal my father’s ashes?’ I sob.
Gabriel wraps me up in an embrace and makes shushing noises but it doesn’t help, not one bit. I’m heartbroken and furious. I want to tear someone from limb to limb.
‘We’ll get him back, I promise. I just need to think…’
‘And Meow-Meow–’
‘I know, I know…’ He rests his chin on my head, and then I remember that he lost his familiar only a day ago – the crow, what did he call him? Ruark. I don’t know much about warlocks but I’m guessing that the bond between Gabe and his familiar must have been even stronger than between me and Meow-Meow, who was truly beautiful, but never did much more than demand food, lie in the sun, and purr when I patted him.
I loved that fucking cat though. My eyes fill with tears.
‘I must think,’ Gabriel mutters. ‘This changes everything…’
I shiver suddenly as I realise that it really does. I don’t have a home to go to anymore. My refuge is gone. I won’t feel safe there ever again after what’s happened.
‘I just wish I knew more,’ I groan, my head pounding. I can’t make sense of any of this. ‘Did Dad tell you why I needed protection? Did he have any idea? Did the soothsayer who gave him the warning tell him anything else?’
We’ve slowed our pace now. I look around and realise that we’ve made it to one of my favourite spots in the city, St James Square. The cathedral looms at one end and the art gallery is near the other, and in between is a big, wide, open green space. I lead Gabriel to a bench some distance off the main path and we collapse onto it. My heart throbs from the tiredness and the stress.
‘Your father hinted to me that he knew more but he didn’t say, and I did not press him. He said he would speak to you, Lana…’
‘He didn’t,’ I say numbly.
It all happened so quickly. I only discovered he was sick the week before he died. He’d been away again, which was nothing unusual, and hadn’t been in touch when he returned, which was certainly not unprecedented. But then, when he’d called me, I could hear in his voice that something was wrong. I was shocked when I saw him… he’d lost so much weight already. His skin was yellow, his eyes dark-ringed and sunken. I hardly recognised him.
The doctors had done a barrage of tests but had been unable to make a diagnosis. They’d decided it was some obscure tropical disease he’d caught from his months in the jungle. Nothing they did to treat it made any difference, though.
‘He didn’t leave you anything? Nothing with his will? No letters or other documents…’
And then I straighten.
Oh shit. Fucking shit shit shit.
‘There was something,’ I say, my voice cracking on the words as I realise what this means.
Gabriel gazes at me expectantly.
‘He recorded a video for me. A farewell video. It was on a USB that was taped to the side of the jar containing his ashes. I haven’t watched it yet…’ I look away.
‘You haven’t watched it? Jesus Lana, why not?’
‘I just… I couldn’t bear to. I miss him so much,’ and then I start to cry more stupid fucking tears. Because I realise that the USB is gone, along with the ashes. My father. All of him, gone forever. And with him, the truth about myself.
Gabriel stands and paces in front of the park bench. I close my eyes and bury my head in my hands.
‘We have to get it back,’ he says.
‘How?’
‘We have to find out who took it,’ he says.
‘Yeah great, but how.’
‘Lana, I’m a warlock. There are things I can do. They’re not always easy or pleasant, but they are… effective.’
‘There’s a spell…’ he frowns. ‘It could work. But I must warn you, you may not like it.’
‘Whatever you can do, if it helps us find Dad’s ashes and that USB, please, just do it…’
‘Your cat is the key. He was there when they entered your apartment. He saw whomever killed him. If we move quickly, there’s a chance I may be able to recover his memories.’
He’s not looking at me, and there’s a strange expression on his face that I just can’t read.
‘Okay…’ I say slowly.
‘It is not a form of magic I usually practise,’ he says guardedly. ‘I do not like to call on the dead. But in this case, I don’t see any alternative.’
‘We could check if there are CCTV cameras installed on the street?’
He shakes his head. ‘There’s no time to find the footage and review it. And whoever broke in may well have taken measures that make them difficult to track using such mundane technologies.’
I breathe in through my nose. Out through my mouth.
‘I can cast the spell tonight. But I…’ He looks so uncomfortable I just want to shake him and tell him to get it out, whatever it is. ‘There is one thing I should warn you. In order to complete the spell, I may need to consume a portion of your cat’s flesh.’
It takes a few seconds for the words to sink in.
‘What? You’re fucking kidding me. You want to eat Meow-Meow? No way. No fucking way.’
‘I certainly don’t want to, and it would only be the smallest amount possible, but the flesh is what allows me access to the memories. It’s unpleasant, I agree, and not something I would consider under any other circumstances. But Lana we need information and we need it quickly. Please.’
He stops pacing and kneels before me and takes my hands, looking gravely and sincerely into my eyes. I just can’t comprehend…
‘I would treat the body with dignity, I promise you.’
I scrunch my eyes up and shake my head and let out a frustrated groan. Then I take a breath.
‘It’s the only way?’
‘The only way to find out what we need to know fast enough to ensure we’ll have some chance of retrieving the urn and your father’s message.’
I don’t like it. I really, really don’t like it. But I can’t imagine Gabriel is doing cartwheels at the idea of consuming raw cat flesh either. Or was he planning on cooking it first? I shake my head again. That’s a rabbit hole I didn’t want to go down right now. ‘Alright,’ I sigh. ‘If you think it will work.’
‘It must,’ he says.
15
GABRIEL
The sun has set. There are still so many people out on the street – talking, laughing, checking their phones, those small squares of light they carry with them at all times. Untroubled, as though not expecting any danger. Children they seem to me, most of them. I glance across at Lana. I feel tension radiating from her like storm clouds on the horizon. She has barely spoken since dinner. I can guess what she’s thinking though; about what she has lost and what we might find, about what I’m about to do.
She is beautiful – like some rare, precious being materialised from ether. Her beauty radiates. I’m surprised that people don’t stop in the street just to stare at her. She’s dressed in the same clothes she found me in: plain jeans and a long jacket, black boots. She hasn’t had a chance to change, but it doesn’t matter. None of it does. She glows.
She glances across at me and a shy, tentative expression passes over her face. I remember the sensation of her skin, her nakedness when I woke beside her. I want her with an urgent, deadly need. But desire must wait. For now, my purpose is keeping her alive. I clamp down on the impulse to pull her into my embrace and follow her into her apartment building.
She unlocks the bottom door with a shaking hand and leads me up the stairs. I feel the tension rising as we climb. The stairs feel as though they go on forever, but finally we are there. She unlocks the door to her apartment, flicks the light on. We step in. She shuts the door behind us and we both looks around. The place is just as we left it, a scene of chaos and destruction. I can see the tightness working in her jaw, and I know how hard she’s trying not to cry.
‘What should I do?’ she whispers. ‘While you— you know…’
‘Just sit. I don’t know how long it will take. Hopefully not long, but it’s impossible to say.’
I don’t tell her that this is the first time in almost a century that I’ve worked magic without Ruark’s assistance, and that I’m not even sure I’ll be able to do it. I feel his lack like a missing limb. I had grown to rely on him so deeply that now, when I most need to draw on my powers, I am uncertain of their extent in his absence.
Lana takes her long jacket off, bundles it and clutches it to her chest as if for comfort, and sits on the bed. I crouch down beside where the cat is lying on the floor. Its body is cool now. I hope that we’re not too late. I’d hate to do all this for nothing.
‘You don’t have to watch,’ I say, shifting uncomfortably for a moment. ‘Not if it’s going to upset you.’
She pulls her legs up to her chest. ‘It’s okay. Meow-Meow was my best friend. He’d want me to know who did this to him. And anyway, he’s dead, so it’s not really him anymore is it?’
I nod quickly though of course she’s not quite right. Something of the living being remains for a short time, that is the basis on which the magic manifests. But if it’s a comfort to her to think otherwise, I won’t correct her.
I lay out the things I will need: my grimoire, candles, herbs, my knife, a silver plate inscribed with occult symbols. I close my eyes and begin the chant and feel the room shift around me. Darkness. Heavy, cold and hard. The chill sinks into my bones. I let myself slip deeper. I sense the words of the chant, as though they are burning, inscribing their shape onto the dark. I hear Lana gasp as I make the first cut, an incision on the back of the cat’s neck. Carefully, I carve a small portion of flesh. I place it on the silver plate, light the herbs and let the smoke waft over it. I say the words, they’re coming faster now, and I feel their power growing, building, rising within me. It feels strange, this unfamiliar magic. Then I take the flesh and place it on my tongue. I’m no longer chanting but the effect of the words fills the room around us, fills me. Even though I can sense the magic, hungry and chaotic, searching, reaching from some dark, dark place, for a moment I doubt that it will work. Nausea overwhelms me. I wait until it passes and then swallow the piece of flesh, which sticks like a lump in my throat.
I shift – the whole room seems to transform around me.
And I see her.
She strides into the room. She looks different – she wears tight black pants and knee-high boots, her hair that was always tied back is long and loose around her shoulders. Her green eyes have not changed: they still spark like emeralds. She works quickly, methodically. The scene we discovered when we entered the apartment looked chaotic, but now I see it was the product of a determined, systematic effort. She’s looking for something. Desperately searching. She pulls paintings off their hooks, looks behind them, casts them aside. She examines individual garments in the cupboard then tosses them onto the ground. And then, she rounds on me, and I sense the sharp focus of her attention. She takes a step closer, looming, terrifying. I freeze, sensing her intent. She smiles. ‘Here kitty kitty kitty,’ she calls, kneeling, reaching a hand out. I sense the cat’s interest. He stands slowly and takes a step towards her and then another. He is hungry and lonely and scared that he’s been abandoned. She strokes her fingers down his spine. I see her draw a small knife from her belt. There’s a shudder of energy and then… nothing.
I’m back in the room. In the present. Crouched beside the body of the creature that she killed.
Well at least I don’t have to wonder anymore. Now I know exactly
who we’re facing.
I look up to where Lana sits, watching me expectantly.
‘Did you see?’ she asks.
I nod. ‘We have to leave. Now.’
As the implications of what has unfolded hit me, I grab her hand and pull her out the door. There’s no time to tidy, no time to pack clothes or do anything to better deal with the remains of the cat. We need to get a long, long way away from here, as quickly as we can.
As we spill back out onto the street, I realise I have a decision to make. Do we cross back over into Darktown, and risk being discovered and overwhelmed in the hope of finding Alexander and the others and completing the binding? Because there’s no way we’re even attempting to recover the urn until we have the strength of the full binding to protect us… Or do we head deeper into the human world, try to hide somewhere we won’t be found by anyone?
Which way do we run?
As I stand there, paralyzed by indecision, Lana jerks suddenly and cries out in pain.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ I feel a rush of panic – perhaps returning to the apartment was a mistake? Maybe she’s been poisoned or cursed… If I’ve brought her into harm’s way—
‘It’s just… I think… I think another sign’s forming. I feel it on my back.’
She leans forward, resting her weight on her knees, and I carefully pull the back of her top up. Against the pale silk of her skin, a shape is beginning to form. The magic has begun to work. I only see the faintest glimpse, but I know immediately what it is and what it means.
Thank god. Thank fucking god. Because I know now that we need all the help that we can get if we’re going to keep Lana safe.
‘It’s a wolf,’ I tell her. ‘Alexander must have found Reuben.’
Which means we’re one step closer to completing the binding.