The Shadow Wing

by Sarah Painter

  ‘You have to be careful,’ Henry said, tapping the back of her hand. ‘Promise me. Don’t kill in anger.’

  Lydia noticed he didn’t say ‘don’t kill’ full stop. Not for the first time, it struck her that her life was weird. Pushing down the sudden urge to laugh, she nodded her agreement. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Now will you promise to tell me how to get better control? Maddie’s nearly killed me two times already. I need to prepare for the third.’

  To his credit, her father didn’t even blink. ‘You have to practise.’

  ‘Fine. What else?’

  Her dad looked uncomfortable. ‘You have to really practise. You need to practise killing.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Animals. Birds.’

  ‘No.’ Lydia said flatly.

  Henry shrugged. ‘That’s what I was told. I wasn’t any good at it either, but Charlie was. And, let’s be honest, Maddie is, too. If you want to win, you have to be able to play the game.’

  ‘No,’ Lydia said again. ‘What else can I do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Henry looked as miserable as Lydia felt. ‘Maybe put yourself under pressure? See if you can maintain focus even while other things are going on. Or when you’re in danger. It’s not very easy to artificially create those kinds of situations. Not safely, anyway.’

  ‘And if they’re safe, they’re not really putting me in danger.’

  ‘Yeah,’ her dad said. ‘That’s the issue. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ Lydia touched his hand.

  ‘Be careful, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ Lydia said and ignored the taste of feathers on her tongue.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was almost midnight and Lydia was still wide awake. She knew she wasn’t even close to sleep, so she got out of bed as quietly as possible. There was a shaft of orange light coming through a gap in the curtains and Lydia thought she would be able to get her clothes without putting on a light.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Fleet’s voice drifted from the humped-up duvet.

  ‘Nothing. Go back to sleep.’

  The sound of the covers shifting and then Fleet was propped up on one elbow. ‘Can’t sleep?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to sit up for a bit. Watch Netflix.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Fleet said. ‘You’re going out.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Lydia conceded. ‘If the TV doesn’t work.’

  ‘I’ll come with,’ Fleet was already reaching for his clothes.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ she said. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  His eyes gleamed in the darkness. ‘Can’t. Got a bad feeling.’

  Lydia paused, the door handle smooth under her palm. Fleet had always had a particular signature, a special something that wasn’t Crow or Silver, Pearl or Fox, but was definitely not nothing. Most non-Family people were just that. Nothing. They smelled of aftershave or perfume or sweat, they might seem dodgy or give out a good, kind vibe, but that was it. With Fleet – and Mr Smith – Lydia got the same hit of impressions that she got with the Families, only she didn’t have a convenient label for it. Fleet’s was just Fleet. When she had met him, she would have laid money that there had been something a bit magical way back in his family. Now, after so much time in close proximity to Lydia, that power had intensified and sharpened. Its edges more defined. The impressions quick and clear. And now, when Fleet said he had a ‘bad feeling’ it was perfectly possible that he was getting a premonition. ‘You saw something.’

  She saw his head nod.

  ‘And you want me to come back to bed?’

  Another nod.

  ‘It’s bad?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Right.’ Lydia’s mind flashed with images of Maddie out there in the dark. Black against black, stepping out of the shadows with a length of wire or a sharp blade. She stepped away from the door, dropping her clothes on the floor. She got back into the warmth of the bed and Fleet’s arms encircled her, pulling her close.

  ‘Thank you,’ he breathed into her hair.

  * * *

  Lydia woke up still feeling antsy. She contacted Paul for a meeting and agreed to meet him halfway between their territories. ‘Potters Field will be busy,’ Paul said, and suggested a park a little further from the river. It was technically closer to Camberwell, which gave Lydia the advantage, so she agreed. Less than an hour later, she arrived at the meeting. She had decided to walk in the hopes it would calm her jangling nerves. No such luck.

  Paul Fox was sitting on a bench in Leathermarket Gardens, his face tilted to the sun. He spoke without moving and she wondered whether he had excellent peripheral vision or similar senses to hers. Or whether he would have greeted anybody the same way, just for the chance of appearing superhuman. ‘Hello, Little Bird.’

  ‘I just wanted an update on the surveillance,’ Lydia said after sitting next to him on the bench. She hoped that keeping it all business and her language professional, it would keep the Fox from getting any other ideas.

  ‘I love the spring,’ he said, eyes still closed.

  Lydia waited to see if he was going to say anything else, studying his face without the disturbance of him looking at her. He didn’t, just kept his eyes shut like he was too busy enjoying the warm spring sun to bother himself with anything else. Lydia didn’t have time for games so she spoke again. ‘On Emma. Any sign of my cousin?’

  ‘All quiet,’ Paul said, finally opening his eyes and looking at her.

  Lydia appreciated that he had dropped his habitual teasing tone.

  ‘There’s been no indication of Maddie approaching your friend,’ Paul added and Lydia realised she must be frowning.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘No sighting of her at all, in fact. And I’ve got everyone on the alert.’

  Lydia wondered how large a number ‘everyone’ included. She had been around town, alerting the sources she had been cultivating, like the lads running the food booths along the embankment by Westminster Pier, but it felt like a drop in the ocean. Especially when looking for a professional ghost. ‘It’s scary,’ Lydia said. ‘She could walk past our people. Hell Hawk, she could probably walk past us, and we wouldn’t have a clue.’

  Paul looked surprised. ‘Wouldn’t you do your,’ he waggled his fingers. ‘You know, sensing thing?’

  Lydia hesitated. Then she realised that he was helping her and looking out for Emma and that, after everything that had happened with Maddie and the Pearl King and the Silvers, the Foxes were probably the closest she was going to get to a real alliance. ‘About that… There’s nothing from her. I don’t know how she’s done it or what has happened, but she doesn’t feel like a Crow anymore. It’s disturbing.’

  Paul was quiet for a moment. ‘I’ve never heard of anything like that. I mean, people will say “they’re not acting like a Fox” or they’re not a “real” one if they want to insult someone, put them in their place, but it’s not literal.’

  ‘I know.’ She leaned back and closed her eyes. It felt like she was dealing with too many questions. Too much was at stake and she didn’t know what she was doing about any of it.

  ‘Is it possible that it’s you?’

  Her eyes snapped open. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Could your power be on the fritz? You look a bit knackered, could be that. Or was it the adrenaline?’ He held up his hands. ‘No shade intended. She’s scary.’

  ‘It’s not me,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m firing on all cylinders. You, for example, are giving off an unbearable amount of Fox.’

  ‘Unbearable, is it?’ Paul said in a low voice.

  Lydia felt her whole traitorous body respond. ‘Stop it.’

  He grinned. White teeth flashing. She could see red fur, feel a warm body moving against her in the dark, smell good earth and fresh rain.

  ‘I’m serious,’ Lydia said, producing her coin and squeezing it in her fist.

  He raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘Okay, okay.’r />
  Lydia took a few deep breaths. She could feel the Crow power rising through her, the urge to spread her wings and take flight, the thousand tiny hearts beating an urgent tattoo. A warning call. A swell of support. Both. She could feel the urge to tear into flesh with her sharp beak. The world was tilting, and she caught herself before she fell.

  Her head was between her knees and she was aware of a firm hand on the back of her neck. Paul’s thumb was rubbing small circles on the skin at the top of her spine and that wasn’t helping to clear her head. Or perhaps it was. She was definitely anchored into the seat and the ground and the reality of the closeness of the Fox. She was no longer soaring high on a warm thermal or pecking at a carcass.

  When she straightened up, the first words which came out of her mouth were ‘I need a drink.’

  Paul removed a flask from his inside jacket pocket and passed it over. The fine smoky whisky moved over the tongue and throat and, seconds later, she felt a welcome calm. This was the problem, she realised, she had cut down on alcohol and it had put her out of balance. Maybe the whisky had been keeping the Crow power damped down to a manageable level. Of course, the problem with going back to that coping method, was that she wouldn’t be getting stronger. She needed the strength, needed the full power in case she had to face Maddie, but she also needed to be able to control it. And to not faint.

  Of course, Lydia thought, in a moment of optimism, there was every chance that Maddie had headed off of her own accord. Paul hadn’t seen her in Beckenham and neither Uncle John nor Aiden had sounded the alarm. Maybe she was on the other side of the world, back in the MI6 fold and merrily killing for the government.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Back at The Fork, Lydia was thinking about raiding Angel’s fridge before heading upstairs and was preoccupied by thoughts of food. It took her a couple of seconds longer than it should have done for her to notice that the closed cafe wasn’t empty.

  There was something in the air. Vibrations, perhaps. Or her Crow senses setting off the alarm. She felt her shoulders raise and her coin was in her hand as she scanned the dim room. It wasn’t dark outside but the overhead lights were off. A green light blinked on the coffee machine.

  ‘Angel?’

  A figure rose from behind the counter.

  ‘Ta-da!’ Maddie was wearing a wavy blonde wig today and her lips were the colour of fresh blood. ‘Pleased to see me?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Now, now. That’s no way to greet your own flesh and blood.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want me to look for you.’

  Maddie pulled an expression of faux sympathy. ‘Oh, Lyds, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Just because I don’t want you tracking my every move, sticking your beak into my business, doesn’t mean I don’t want us to be friends.’

  Lydia scanned the room for her nearest escape route, while trying to pretend she was doing nothing of the sort. Her heart was hammering, and she felt the itch in her arms. She wanted to spread them wide, take off for the clear blue sky. Get far, far away from the woman leaning against the counter. ‘You want to be friends?’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t know it was you on the roof. And I blew off the job. That’s got to show affection.’

  ‘I’m very grateful,’ Lydia said, trying not to sound like a sarcastic witch.

  Maddie’s mouth twisted, so she wasn’t sure she had succeeded. ‘And that’s not my first peace offering. I’ve been on your side for months.’

  ‘You have?’

  Maddie blew out a sigh. ‘Who do you think took care of that Kendal problem? And what thanks have I received?’

  ‘Kendal?’ The name fell into place. Mark Kendal. ‘The guy who ran the phone shop on Southampton Way?’ It took Lydia another beat to realise what Maddie meant. ‘You killed him?’

  Maddie smiled. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why?’ She was mystified. Kendal wasn’t exactly the preserve of high-level assassins and he had nothing to do with Mr Smith, as far as Lydia knew.

  ‘To get your attention, silly.’

  ‘But you didn’t sign your work. How was that getting my attention?’ As she spoke, Lydia remembered the ten-shilling note she had found in Kendal’s wallet. She had assumed it had been Mr Smith, but perhaps it had been Maddie’s idea of a calling card.

  ‘I know you like a puzzle,’ Maddie said. ‘Besides, I have my standards. Ghosts never leave a trace.’

  Lydia had the sudden, inappropriate urge to laugh. She could picture a line of cereal bowls and mugs of tea on her kitchen counter, Jason making yet another hot chocolate. She made herself nod thoughtfully instead.

  Maddie had moved from behind the counter and Lydia didn’t like it one little bit. She tried to think of a way to distract her. If she could just get outside or upstairs and behind the locked door of her flat. Somewhere she could phone for help.

  ‘You said you were helping me. I don’t understand…’

  ‘Hell Hawk, Lyds. Where is your head?’ Maddie twisted a strand of blonde hair with a finger, her head tilted as she contemplated Lydia. ‘Kendall was moving product on a massive scale. Quite impressive ambition, really. But it looked bad for you. Made you look weak. People were whispering that you had no idea, that you were asleep at the wheel. Seems they were right.’

  ‘He came to me for help,’ Lydia said, hating the confusion evident in her voice. ‘Wanted me to stop the hairdresser over the road from selling phone cases.’

  ‘No,’ Maddie shook her head. ‘He wanted you to pay them a little visit. And if you didn’t take lethal action, he could arrange a cleansing fire and solve his problem with you in the frame as the arsonist. Everyone would know that the big bad Crow had paid them a warning visit.’

  ‘Why did he want them dead? If he was moving drugs, why would he care about phone cases?’

  ‘Oh, Lyds,’ Maddie said. ‘You really are lost in the clouds, aren’t you? Keep up, babes.’

  Lydia was distracted from her fear by embarrassed fury. She had believed the little twerp. He had played her. Or tried to play her. She would kill him. Lydia remembered a second later that he was already dead.

  ‘The woman who runs the salon. She offers extras in the back room, cash payments only, but that’s beside the point. She didn’t like Kendall or the police attention he was risking with his activities. Perhaps if Charlie was still in charge, she would have been worried about Crow attention, too.’

  Lydia ignored the barb. ‘And?’

  With exaggerated patience, Maddie explained. ‘She made the mistake of confronting our man Kendal, asking him to keep things quiet. He decided to make sure she was going to keep quiet, instead. You know how important the flow of information is, how you’ve got to mark out your territory and make sure that everybody in it knows that you’re in charge?’ Maddie let the insult dangle before continuing. ‘Well that applies all the way along the chain. Even the rats in the gutter have an order to maintain. But I wasn’t going to have Kendal disrespect you like that. It really didn’t look good. So I dealt with it.’

  Lydia tried to come up with a response but her mind was unhelpfully blank.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Maddie said, a note of irritation creeping in. ‘No charge. This time.’

  By this point, Lydia had recovered enough to reply: ‘There’s always a charge.’

  Maddie nodded approvingly. ‘Quite right.’

  ‘I’ll pay it,’ Lydia said, ‘of course. But no more unsolicited help. I’m handling things.’

  ‘Is that what you truly believe?’ Maddie asked, looking genuinely interested.

  ‘Why? Do you want the job?’

  Maddie’s laugh made all the hairs on the back of Lydia’s neck stand up. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  Well, that had the ring of a lie.

  ‘But it’s not my style. I’m more a moves-in-the-shadows type. I could be the power behind the throne, though. Your trusted advisor. Right-hand woman.’

  It
was the old offer and Lydia had been half-expecting it since discovering that Maddie was back in town. ‘Isn’t it time to get a new tune?’

  Lydia didn’t see her intention or her movement but there was Maddie toe to toe, holding an extremely sharp knife to her throat. She felt the sting as it nicked her skin. ‘Don’t be rude, Lyds,’ Maddie said and her eyes were dead.

  Lydia didn’t answer, just returned Maddie’s gaze as best she could.

  After a moment, a spark returned to Maddie’s eyes and they widened ever so slightly. She moved away, the knife stowed as quickly as it had appeared. ‘I’ll leave you to think on it.’ She made a show of checking the time on her phone. ‘Oh my days, is it two already? Got to motor, babes. hope you don’t mind. You know how it is? Places to be, throats to slit.’

  Lydia stiffened as Maddie swooped forward, but she just kissed Lydia on each cheek. ‘Ciao, bella.’

  * * *

  After Maddie had sauntered out through the front door, Lydia’s first urge was to be sick. Instead, she locked the door and pulled the deadbolt. Upstairs in the flat, she found Jason pouring the last of the cereal into a bowl. More accurately, he was pouring the last of the cereal onto the counter next to the bowl and Lydia guessed he was deep in thought. She hated to be the bearer of bad news, but if Maddie was going to start showing up at The Fork, she had to tell Jason. He was almost certainly safe from her, but she could still give him a fright.

  Jason didn’t go pale in the way that a living person did, but his outline shimmered and he became more translucent. Sometimes he disappeared altogether. Right now, Lydia would say he was about seventy per cent solid. ‘What does she want?’

  Before her cousin had found her professional calling, Maddie had tried to throttle her and had then offered a partnership. To say she was dangerously unpredictable would be quite the understatement. Now she was a loose cannon and seemed to want to taunt Lydia. Or help her. It was very hard to tell. ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Lydia said.