by Alexis Hall
“And who the fuck are you?” snarled Isis.
“My name is Elise. I am Miss Kane’s assistant.”
She gave Elise a long look. “You’re one of Russell’s girls, aren’t you?”
There was a slight pause. Elise had gone very, very still. “I was unaware that there were others.”
“Oh, there are others. Believe me.”
“Look,” I interrupted, “she’s right. I’m not here for Nimue. I’m tracking a fugitive, and I think we can help each other. Also the sooner you talk to me, the sooner I’ll get out of your, um, hair.”
There was a brief silence.
Isis Fortuna shifted to a slightly less fuck you pose. “All right. The break-in wasn’t a big deal. Whoever it was, they just took some crappy old statue.”
“A crappy old statue of what?”
“Napoleon. I thought it had a kind of kitsch edge that really set off the rest of the collection, but it can’t have been worth more than twenty quid.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the empty shelf. “I stuck it over there.”
Well, fuck. It was a crappy statue of Napoleon that had got Archer killed last year. I spent weeks chasing this piece of tat that was supposed to have a thingamy of tremendous magical power stashed inside it, bodies racking up around me the whole time. Then it turns out that everyone’s nuts, my client’s a murderer, and the damn thing’s a fake with nothing in it.
“Where did you get it?” I asked.
“Friend of mine skipped town last year and left me a box of stuff.”
“This friend got a name?”
“Syme.”
That figured. Syme was the guy that Corin had hired Archer and me to keep an eye on. He was dead, but there was no point telling Isis that. He must have ditched the real statue before he got whacked.
I pulled out my phone which had exactly one picture of Corin on it. She was glancing over her shoulder as if she expected someone to step out of the shadows and pull a gun on her. “Have you seen this woman?”
Isis glanced at the picture for a second. “I think someone like that came in last month, but I couldn’t say for sure it was her.”
That sounded like Corin all right. When she wanted to be, she was the only thing you could think of. When she didn’t, she was a fucking ghost.
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” asked Isis.
I gave her the short version. “She killed my partner. She might have killed your friend as well.”
Isis looked unconvinced. “Why did she want a bust of a dead French dictator?”
“I’ll tell you if I ever work it out.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure I care. If two people have already been killed over it, I don’t want it. Oh, and you know I don’t really want you to tell the Witch Queen to fuck off, right?”
“Fine by me. I’m not a messenger service, anyway.”
“Before we leave,” said Elise suddenly, “would it be possible for me to arrange an appointment with you? My hair cannot be cut, but I am quite interested in having it styled.”
“Talk to Janus. He’ll sort something out.”
While Elise and the boy with the quiff scheduled an appointment, I went outside for a smoke and a think. It looked like Corin had finally got whatever it was she’d been looking for a year ago. I didn’t know Corin nearly as well as I once thought I did, but I was 99 percent certain she wasn’t a mage herself. Which meant she was either working for someone, she was going to sell the thing on, or she was going to use it as leverage. There’d been a lot of real heavy hitters involved last time round, and she could have been in bed with any one of them. That might even have been why they busted her out of jail, but then that wouldn’t explain why she woke up the Morrígan. If she even did.
Part of me figured that if Corin had done this job, it was unlikely she’d done the one in Oxford as well. But the part of me that had dealt with her before said that I couldn’t rule it out. Either way, it looked like me and Elise were taking a road trip. And by road trip I meant a two-hour drive up the M40.
I was just stamping out my cigarette when my phone rang. Unknown number. Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother having caller ID. “Kane.”
Rachel’s voice crackled over the line. “Got a message for you, babe.”
There was a moment of static, and then Jacob spoke: “Tonight. King’s Cross. Six.”
Then the line went dead.
Great. Because I didn’t have enough to worry about. I’ve been involved in a few necromantic rituals in my life, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that they never ever go to plan. But a deal was a deal, and in an absolute best-case scenario, there was a very slim chance that this would solve all of my problems.
Oh, who was I kidding?
As soon as Elise was done, we hopped the Tube back to the office, and Elise drove me home so I could change my clothes and pick up the Sword of Killing Everything. Since I still had a couple of hours to kill, I looked up Marcus Fox on the Oxford University website and gave him a ring. He seemed quite happy to talk to me and quite keen to get his stuff back, so I told him I’d swing by tomorrow afternoon. Assuming I hadn’t had my soul sucked out through my nose in a magical ritual gone horribly wrong.
Then I had to get to King’s Cross in the middle of the rush hour, which was almost as bad. I fought my way off the train and found Jacob waiting for me on the platform.
“Let’s go,” he said.
I nodded.
It didn’t look like we were in for an evening of scintillating conversation.
We squeezed onto the Northern line and headed south, basically forever. Jacob had his eyes closed for most of the journey. I was pretty sure he was doing some weird mage stuff. About three quarters of an hour later, the train terminated at Morden and we got out. As soon as the last stragglers left the platform, Jacob fished around in the Tesco’s bag he’d been carrying and pulled out a Tupperware container filled with slightly reddish goop.
“Should I ask?”
“Blood and ashes.”
He did his thing, and I did mine. Mine involved standing there with a sword in a bin liner waiting for something to try and kill us. Nothing did.
“They’ll know now,” he said. “Be ready.”
We got on the next train northbound and rode all the way to High Barnet. At least we got a seat this time. We arrived, rinsed, and repeated. I stood against a pillar trying to look casual, while Jacob wandered around the platform, muttering and anointing shit.
Then it was back on the Tube to King’s Cross, onto the Metropolitan line and out to Uxbridge. At this time of night, everyone was either at home or still in the pub so the trains were nearly empty. Without the noise of the crowd, the carriages were silent except for the metal heartbeat of the lines and the occasional rustle of an abandoned newspaper. Even at the best of times, other Tube travellers tend to look suspicious as all hell, but when you’re actively expecting to be attacked by vampires, they properly freak you out. I caught myself glaring at a pair of drunk seventeen-year-olds who were half-asleep on top of each other. And then a guy with a long coat got on, and it was all I could do to stop myself running him through on principle.
We made it to Uxbridge at about ten. All the lights on the train slowly faded away, and it lay there beside the platform like a discarded snakeskin. Jacob got on with the ritual while I paced up and down impatiently. Clearly, I’m not cut out to be a bodyguard.
We swapped platforms and took the Piccadilly line to Acton Town, where we switched to District and stayed put until Upminster. We hit chucking out time hard, and the Tube filled up with chattering theatregoers, drinkers committed enough to stay ’til closing but not enough to go clubbing afterwards, and nice middle-class teenagers with generous curfews they didn’t dare break.
I let myself relax just a little. A smart vampire wo
uldn’t attack in the middle of a crowd, and a frenzied one wouldn’t be able to blend in. We repeated the whole shebang at Upminster. By now, I was almost hoping something would come for us. At least it’d give me something to do.
Here lies Kate Kane. Killed by irony. Beloved daughter. Sorely missed.
Then it was back on the train, back to Acton Town and back onto the Piccadilly line, this time bound for Heathrow.
By the time we got there, everything had shut down except us. The train rushed through silent, empty stations. And when we reached our destination, it just waited for us to finish.
“Are we nearly there yet?” I asked, as we got back on the Tube and started rattling back the way we’d come.
“Shh.”
I hadn’t even brought any boiled sweets.
We changed to the Circle line at South Kensington and then to the Docklands Light Railway at Tower Hill. Trains were waiting for us on the platforms. It was a bit of a relief to get on the DLR. We were out of the tunnels, so I had something to look at that wasn’t cables and black walls. The city glittered gold behind us, and I remembered standing with Nim in the Dream. We used to do things like this all the time, back when we were together. Suddenly I missed it. Then I realised I hadn’t dreamed about her for a couple of nights. And I missed that too.
It was nearly two in the morning by the time we were done at Woolwich Arsenal and heading back to King’s Cross. As we pulled into the station, the automated voice echoed eerily through the carriage: “This is King’s Cross St. Pancras. This train terminates here.”
I guess that meant we were done.
We got out and Jacob led me up the frozen escalator to the ticket offices and the barriers. “Now for the hard bit.”
I stifled a yawn. “Couldn’t we have done the hard bit six hours ago?”
Jacob knelt down and began scrawling an actual pentagram on the ground with the stuff in his Tupperware box.
And that was when the vampires attacked.
There were three of them, all dressed in slightly old-fashioned, charcoal-grey suits. If psycho vampire enforcers had a uniform, that would be it. I’d been expecting a pack of frenzied Morrígan mooks half crazed with bloodlust, but these guys were clearly pros, and I had no idea who they were or where they’d come from. They came in slowly, covering all the exits and I realised I was thoroughly flanked. I’d been ready to be outnumbered, not outmanoeuvred.
I tried to buy some time by engaging them in witty banter.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Old friends, Miss Kane,” replied one of them.
I stared. She was an icy blonde in glasses, with her hair scraped into an aggressive knot. She looked a bit familiar, but I couldn’t think from where. I was pretty certain we weren’t friends.
I heard the tap-tap of posh shoes on tiles and a fourth vampire walked calmly in from the street. He wore a navy pinstriped suit under an ankle-length wool coat. He appeared to be in his late forties, with a mane of wavy, brown hair, an actual wizard goatee, and a smug predatory look.
His name was Henry Percy, and the fucker had kidnapped me before.
“My, my,” he purred. “How you’ve grown. It seems like only yesterday your oh-so-zealous lover was carrying you away in his arms.”
I groped for a suitable comeback. “What the shit are you doing here?”
He gave me a tigerish smile. “Your friend is attempting to annihilate my bloodline. I t-take that rather personally.”
“Why didn’t you just get out of town?”
“You are interfering in matters that do not concern you.”
“Actually, I’m pretty fucking concerned. Last time we met, you tried to sacrifice me, and I still have no idea why.”
“Tragically, you will never f-find out.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Kill them.”
Two of the vampires swooped towards us. I summoned my mother’s power. It came easily, and I felt it rush through me like a river in flood. I caught the scent of the Deepwild. I brought my sword up, still in the bin liner, and rammed it through one of my attackers. I just had time to see the look of surprise on his face before he withered to dust in front of me.
My mother laughed.
“Interesting,” said Henry Percy.
It had given the blonde pause for thought, so I spun round to see if Jacob had been eaten yet. The other vampire had carried him all the way across the station and pinned him against the wall.
I smelled fresh blood, but it hadn’t ripped his throat out yet, which meant he was probably protecting himself somehow.
I started running, pulling the tatters of the bin liner off my sword as I went. Blue fire exploded at my feet and licked up my legs. I was probably going to feel that when the faery magic wore off.
Being a Tube station, there was virtually no cover, so I threw myself down behind the ticket barriers. Another fireball whoomphed into the metal.
Like the man said: interesting.
After a second or two, I poked my head up. The blonde was standing in the middle of the empty station with pale blue flames coiling round her fingers and gathering in the palm of her hands. I was pretty sure that was cheating.
A tongue of fire lashed out towards me, and I quickly ducked. I know how to deal with vampires. I know how to deal with wizards. But vampire wizards are just taking the piss. I was going to have to rush her, but even at faery speed, I’d still get a fireball in the face. And then have to fight a vampire.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jacob come forward. The vampire he’d been struggling with was lying rigid on the floor, dead or at least out of it. The blonde spun on her heels and sprayed blue fire in his general direction. He raised a hand. The flames billowed around him, and he kept walking.
I reckoned it would take the vampire about two seconds to realise the pyrotechnics weren’t cutting it. I vaulted over the barrier and charged. What happened next was a blur even with my mother’s senses. I caught a flash of blue heading towards my face, and I felt rather than saw a rush of motion as Henry Percy shot past me. But I didn’t really have time to worry about that because the blonde was all up in my grill. That, and my hair was on fire.
She tried to pull away so she could carry on pelting me. But I caught her by the arm and brought my sword level with her chest. Her other hand flared blue and slashed at my face. I stabbed her. She slumped to her knees and withered to dust.
I wasn’t so great myself. My face was bleeding badly, and even with my mother’s power, I felt weak. I dragged myself round, just in time to see Henry Percy sink his fangs into Jacob’s neck.
I’d been right. I made a shitty bodyguard.
Jacob had his eyes closed. He looked pretty together for someone having his life sucked out. He reached up and brushed his fingers over the vampire’s face, leaving a trail of blood and ashes. Percy hissed, hurled Jacob to the ground, and leapt away like a cat from a garden sprinkler.
Well, this had been a clusterfuck. I had no idea if we were winning or not but I readied my sword, mustered what was left of my strength and attacked.
I hadn’t exactly been waiting for this for fifteen years, but I was damn well going to make it count.
As soon as I got close, something heavy and invisible knocked me flying. I crashed into the far wall of the station and dropped, winded, to the floor.
Great. Now I was fighting a fucking Jedi.
Henry Percy sauntered over, heels clicking, coat swishing. Whatever Jacob had done had really messed up his face. The skin was greying and peeling across one cheek, and his left eye was covered by a milky film.
I pushed myself to my feet and thrust my blade towards him. I felt of wave of pressure hit me from the side, and I went down again, my weapon clattering onto the ground.
He stared down at me. “It has been a p-pleasure meeting you again, Miss Kane.” Then he bent and picked
up the sword. “I think I should take this for your own safety. Children should not be p-permitted to run around with sharp objects.”
“Fuck you, Percy.”
He arched a brow. “A raconteur as well. I b-bid you good evening, Miss Kane.”
And with that, the patronising bastard fucked off.
The last of my mother’s power faded, and I was suddenly very aware that I was bruised and bleeding on the floor of King’s Cross Station at half past two in the morning. Very, very slowly, I hauled myself upright.
In the ruins of his pentagram, Jacob stirred and sat up.
“That could gone have better,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Sorry.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t expecting a sorcerer.” He was quiet a moment. “They seemed to know you.”
“It’s a long story. Can we finish the ritual?”
“A mage isn’t much use against a vampire who’s tasted their blood.” He pushed himself to his feet. Apart from the wound on his neck, he looked basically okay.
“I thought he was going to kill you.”
“He knew what he was doing. If he’d killed me, I’d have death-cursed him to shit.”
“What do we do now?”
He shrugged. “Do you need a lift home?”
Chapter Sixteen
Angels & Demons
Snow was slanting silver outside the windows of an empty train. The dark folded thick around us. Nimue sat by my side, looking out at the Dream of the city. She was tired. She was resting her head on my shoulder, her curls spilling down my arm.
“It didn’t work,” I said.
“I know.”
“I couldn’t stop them. He took the sword.”
Nimue slipped her hand into mine. She was cold. “It will find you again.”
“How’s Jacob?”
“Angry with himself but unharmed. His power is rooted in the dead. If he hadn’t been focused on the ritual, the vampires would have been no threat.”