A Crack in Everything

by Ruth Frances Long

  Holly stepped back, admiring her handiwork as Izzy blinked sweat from her aching eyes, and struggled to find breath again. ‘There now, she’s secured. Part of you. So when you die, so will she.’

  The angel struggled inside, a bird in a net, desperate, enraged and terrified. Sorath was terrified. Izzy shook from head to toe, her skin crawling as if it could get away where she could not.

  Holly pursed her lips. ‘Never really thought things through, did you, cousin? Turned against me and mine readily enough when your lover failed and you were left alone. You should have gone with him, Sorath – the Dawn and the Morning Star together. You would have been happier.’ She leaned in until her white teeth snapped in front of Izzy’s wide eyes. ‘We would all have been happier. Expelling the Sídhe gained you nothing but time. You still fell. And how you fell. Look at you!’

  Another voice rose up in Izzy’s throat, one that sounded different in her mouth to the one in her brain, but one she couldn’t stop all the same.

  ‘It gained me time indeed. Time for the right vessel.’

  ‘This pitiful Grigori? Did you think I wouldn’t touch their line? Did you think she was protected? Surely you know me better than that. I haven’t changed that much. Her father isn’t dead. He’ll recover and become Grigori once again. That makes her eminently disposable.’

  But Sorath wasn’t listening. ‘And it gained me choice.’

  ‘Choice?’ Holly shook her head in slow disbelief. ‘You’re an angel. You’ve no more choice than my hound there.’ She nodded at Jinx whose shoulders stiffened. But he didn’t move other than that. His eyes still downcast and beaten.

  ‘Not at all. I chose when to fall. I chose here and now. I chose Isabel.’ Sorath dropped her voice to a low whisper and Holly leaned in, intrigue colouring her eyes, a mocking smile painted on her lips. ‘I chose,’ said Sorath with Izzy’s voice and her hand slid down beneath the wires holding her. The metal scraped across her skin, ripping, tearing, like cheese wire on her flesh. It didn’t matter. Izzy couldn’t stop the angel using her body to do its will. Tied together as they were with Holly’s power, she couldn’t fight Sorath’s will at all.

  It felt like drowning in oil, waiting for the touchlight on a fuse and then, in a roar, flames engulfed her. It billowed through her body, burning her away to ashes, the purifying refiner’s fire, leaving Sorath and Sorath alone in control. The angel of the dawn, with all the intensity of the newborn sun and the fire-wielding ability in Izzy’s Sídhe blood, tore through the net of wires, heedless of the body she wore. She seized the iron dagger at Izzy’s hip, pulled it out so it sliced through the silver wires, and drove it straight at Holly.

  But Holly wasn’t there anymore. In a blur of motion, someone else seized the matriarch and thrust her aside, someone else who couldn’t move himself out of the way as well, not in time. No one could move that fast. Someone else who stood there and took the full blade of the iron knife.

  Jinx.

  He shuddered as he stood before her, mouth open, eyes wide. He jerked, a spasmodic reflex, and one hand closed around her wrist, the one holding the knife. His grip was like the iron that penetrated his body.

  ‘No.’ Izzy’s voice was her own, hoarse and broken. Her body was her own again. Every cut burned with pain and she trembled as she stared up into his eyes. Mist filled them, mist and rain, a sky rolling with darkening clouds. ‘No, Jinx. Please.’

  The same thing she always said. Her eyes burned, her tears like acid on her cheeks.

  He pulled himself off the blade and opened his mouth again, as if to speak. But he didn’t. He slipped to the ground at her feet.

  Smithfield was empty. The square looked like a ghost town. Izzy’s text had told Dylan where to come, but he found the gate himself. How he knew where to look, he wasn’t sure. It was almost as if he remembered it. Or something murmured the information he needed at the back of his brain, like an almost forgotten song lodged in his subconscious mind.

  It hadn’t been there before, this curious music that he could only half hear. Not before the angels at the doorway. Something had changed, and that frightened him. But he knew that if he followed it, he’d find them. Music tied them together and he knew what he had to do. Find Izzy. Find Silver.

  It stood between two lampposts, shimmering in the air like a heat haze, touches of light refracting from its surface. It wasn’t real, couldn’t be real, and yet there it was.

  ‘Open to all,’ said a voice. ‘Anyone can go in or out if they know how.’ Dylan turned to find a tramp sitting behind him, his ragged clothes only slightly more filthy than his skin. ‘Thought you’d come looking for her. I hear them a-whispering to you.’

  Them? Dylan didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Who are you?’

  Fae, no doubt about that. Dylan could tell by the unnatural gleam in his eyes, the slanted bone structure and the malicious broken smile. ‘Name’s Mistle. Went in there with your friends. Came back to look for you.’

  ‘Did Jinx send you?’ There was no answer to that. Dylan fought the urge to shudder. ‘Do you know where Silver is?’

  ‘I know it. Got no beef with Silver. She’s a kindly one. But she’s guarded.’ Mistle got to his feet, leaned in too close. His stench almost made Dylan gag. ‘Think you can deal with that?’

  ‘I just need to get inside.’

  Mistle shrugged. ‘Badass attitude. Like I said, anyone can get in if they know how.’ He turned away, stepped through the gap and vanished.

  Anyone. Like him. Just anyone.

  Dylan crept inside, through the field of static that made him think of school science experiments and 1950s sci-fi. There was nothing badass about him, no matter what Mistle said. His stomach lurched and tightened with every footfall, his whole body tense like twisted wire. But Silver was here somewhere. She had to be. And so were Izzy and Jinx. They hadn’t called, or answered the phone. There was no sign of them at all. No way could this be good. No way at all.

  The music was louder now, a raucous carnival tune, played on pipes and drums with some sort of accordion sawing away at the melody. It made him think of riots and clowns, of teetering on the edge of a precipice while a mob cheered and called for blood. The sound of shouts and hawker’s calls wrapped through it. Noise and chaos and all the things in the world he didn’t want to see or go near.

  Someone, or something, lurched across the narrow corridor ahead of him, stinking of beer and piss. They laughed hysterically and fell face-first through a doorway. Dylan advanced again. Where had Mistle gone?

  The crowd roared its approval and the music got even louder, the same rolling, seasick tune that pounded into his head. And through it came a scream. Terrified and desperate, scream after scream after scream.

  He couldn’t see where it was coming from, or who it was, so desperate, so afraid, in such pain, physical and mental. Skirting the edge of the Market, Dylan pushed it away and made himself continue on into the darkness of the nearest side where a tunnel opened in the bronzed walls.

  ‘Where’re you going, boy?’ slurred a filthy voice. Beady red eyes peered at him from the opening. ‘She’s this way. No, this way! Quiet now.’

  The rounded a corner and Mistle pushed Dylan back against the wall. ‘You got a weapon, boy? You got something to fight with? You’re going to need it.’

  A woman stood by a doorway, a woman dressed all in black leather whose face Dylan would never forget. Never. The long braid of hair was flicked over one shoulder. She was pale and dark-eyed, snake-like. Just as he remembered.

  The banshee. The one who had killed Mari.

  Dylan stiffened, sliding his hand into his jacket pocket to pull out the knife Blythe had given him. It felt heavy in his hand. Right.

  Go for the throat, Jinx had said.

  ‘What you need is a distraction,’ said Mistle and he stepped out, waving his hands. ‘He’s here!’

  Dylan didn’t have a chance to think or react. The banshee came at him, her mouth already opening, the scream that had
killed his sister beginning to form. He hurled the knife at her, instincts and muscle memory he wasn’t aware he possessed acting for him. The knife thudded straight into her throat.

  She went down, convulsing, the shriek silenced as she fell still. Dylan heaved in a breath and his stomach churned.

  The old man shuffled past him, stepping over the body. ‘She’s in there. Be quick. You haven’t much time and neither do they.’

  ‘They?’ Suspicion vibrated through his body.

  ‘Well, who did you think was screaming? I serve the angel and therefore Isabel Gregory. If you want the Leanán Sídhe, she’s in there. But more guards won’t be long in coming and then there will be blood. So hurry up, minstrel.’

  Dylan knew he couldn’t trust the wizened old fae. On some deep, instinctive level, it was blindingly obvious. But he also didn’t have a choice. He’d just killed a living thing. A murderous, cruel and terrible thing. But he’d snuffed out its life in an instant.

  A tremor of shock rattled through him. He stumbled forwards, looking for Silver. Hoping, praying, that finding her would make it all right again. He had his revenge for Mari’s life. But it didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel good at all.

  Silver lay in a small, dark room, no bigger than the guest toilet at home. She curled in on herself, her white hair splayed out like cobwebs in the shadows. Dylan knew her in an instant. He also knew it meant Izzy and Jinx had failed. That they too were in here somewhere. Who did you think was screaming? That sound. That terrible, desperate sound. His gorge rose. Izzy would be scared, alone and lost in this nightmare.

  What was Holly doing to her?

  And Jinx? How did they even know if they could trust Jinx?

  Dylan forced himself to focus. So why was he even here, standing over Silver? Why did he feel such a blind need to help her? Perhaps more than Izzy. Perhaps more than anyone. She’d saved his life, but hadn’t given Mari a second thought. They hadn’t made a deal. Not yet. She’d offered. He’d been tempted, but no words had been spoken. No agreement made. He owed her nothing.

  She moved, just a brief intake of breath, and her whole body shook with the effort. It made his heart wrench in sympathy.

  ‘Silver,’ he whispered.

  She rolled over, or most of the way, so she could open her swollen eyes and focus on him. Her parched lips opened in an ‘o’ of surprise and she said his name. Or tried to. She barely had the breath to form it. Dylan sank to his knees, reaching for her, carefully lifting her into his arms. She weighed no more than a child. She had faded away, far from the glorious, vibrant thing she had been.

  ‘I’m here,’ he told her. ‘It’s going to be okay. I’ll get you out.’

  ‘There’s nowhere to go.’ Her breath sawed against her throat. ‘She uprooted my tree, broke it, destroyed my hollow. There’s nowhere to go.’ Tears spilled down her face, onto his chest, spreading out through the material of his shirt. ‘My friends … I thought I had friends but they … She killed the others. All who stayed. Poor Sage screamed when she cut him open. He screamed and screamed. And she just stood there and smiled. Didn’t even look at him. She only watched me. What’s she done with Jinx?’

  ‘Silver?’ Dylan slid his hand up the frozen skin of her arm. She trembled when he touched her. ‘Tell me what I can do.’

  ‘Nothing,’ she insisted. ‘Nothing. Go away.’

  Will you give me anything? She’d asked him that once, her eyes filled with laughter, with promises. It had all seemed like an enormous joke to her then. Even if I ask for a piece of your soul? Even if you know I’d drink down your essence like sweet lilac wine?

  A different Silver, proud and strong, alive and giddy with that life. Now she felt too light and trembled against him – a bundle of rags.

  ‘Will it help you live?’ he asked. She knew what he was asking. She had to know.

  Silver closed her eyes, a crease forming between her eyebrows. ‘For a little while. Then I’d need more. And then more, until, in the end, there’d be nothing of you left. Why do you think so many of my lovers take their lives, Dylan? They’re already dead, that’s why.’

  ‘But it would help.’

  ‘Not in the long run. It would be futile. There’s nothing for me now. No voice, no tree, no mother, no kin. I was always faithful. I never gave her cause to doubt me. I never gave her cause to hate me so.’ Silver wasn’t used to hate. She was a creature who thrived only on love, after all. Hate was a poison. ‘Let me go. Let me fade into the air and be gone forever.’

  No. He couldn’t do that. He shook her gently. ‘And what about Izzy and Jinx?’

  A tear slid from the corner of her eye, trickling down her pale cheek like a jewel. ‘Nothing but trouble, either of them. From the day I first saw him to the day he chose her over me. Just like his mother. When he was first born, while they were still in hiding, Belladonna put him in my arms and I promised … I promised …’

  ‘To look out for him?’

  She nodded and buried her face in his chest. ‘To love him. To love him like she would have. She had the sight. She knew what was coming, though Jasper tried to hide Jinx from Holly, she knew. She’d seen her own death and Jasper’s too. She’d seen his future, what Holly would make of him, though she wouldn’t tell me everything. She begged me, my little sister, and I couldn’t deny her. I could never deny her. Or him.’ Her voice was lost in her sobs for a moment, but then she looked up, struggled to get it back. ‘He loves your Izzy, you know that, don’t you? Can’t help himself, poor fool.’

  He wasn’t the only one, Dylan told himself glumly. There were fools everywhere. But he couldn’t say it. Not to Silver.

  ‘Did he tell you that?’

  ‘I still have eyes,’ she mumbled. ‘And I know hearts, both true and flawed. He’ll betray her. He can’t help it. Holly is too strong. She’s spent years binding him with charms and enchantments. He’s her creature, in spite of himself. Every tattoo she had them etch into his skin, every piece of silver she had him pierced with, they all make him her thing. Jinx doesn’t even know how far it’s gone. All his life, Dylan. All his life she’s tortured him and bound him. Made him into… whatever it is she wanted him to be. She has plans, plans within plans. I did all I could to comfort him, to make it easier. But it was a pathetically small amount.’

  Dylan rocked her against him, murmured her name, but she went on, tears and pain wringing the story out of her.

  ‘And Izzy doesn’t realise what’s at stake. It isn’t just about her anymore. Or about her bloodlines. The angels and the demons, the balance of power on earth, the creation of a new Phantom Queen to link them all … power beyond power… the divine in a single form … She’ll walk again, and where she walks, unhindered by the constraints of heaven … There were other gods, you know? Other beings of such unimaginable power … Holly knows. She knows all about it. She would use the spark herself, to create such a creature to do her will, or to become one herself. But so will that thing in Izzy … We’re lost. All of us. The angel will take it all, free her lover and break every plane to pieces. Heaven’s war will come here with all the nightmares it entails. Everything will burn. It always burns. Do you know what angels are, Dylan?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, trying to soothe her. ‘Yes, I guess.’

  ‘No, you don’t. You think they’re clad in white with feathered wings. Bringers of peace and light and all that other new-age crap. You can’t imagine them as wheels of fire, razing cities to the ground, or creatures made of eyes and teeth, or swords that blazed white hot until nothing could look at them without being blinded. You don’t know … No one can withstand them. And Sorath was one of the highest. It was like gazing into the heart of the sun. And then the sun would burn the eyes out of your head and consume you … Because it could. Because it wanted to. She’ll walk again, like a goddess, and everything will burn. Good, evil, it doesn’t matter to them. When they think you’re tainted … I saw it, Dylan. I saw what they did in their war. That’s why I wouldn’t help. T
hat’s why I wouldn’t join them. And they cast me out for it. It can’t happen again. It cannot happen here.’

  She didn’t want to live, he realised. Not through that. Not again.

  He knew it from the way she said it. He had no idea how old Silver might be. But if she was Holly’s first daughter, she had to be ancient. Sometimes he’d guessed it, looking into her eyes, the ghosts of aeons drifting round the edges of her heartbreaking smile. But nonetheless, he didn’t want to be without that smile.

  ‘You offered me a deal once, Silver. I’d be your lover and you’d make me more famous than I could imagine, remember? You’d make me a legend.’

  ‘There are better things to be. And only for a time. A terribly short length of time, Dylan. It will pass in the blink of an eye and you’ll regret it for eternity. I should never have offered. It never ends well.’

  ‘It’s time enough to figure out a loophole, if you’ll help me. Please, Silver. They need your help and you need mine. It’s the only way.’

  She sucked in a breath. ‘The kiss of a Leanán Sídhe can hurt. It will kill eventually. If I were at full strength it might leave you a thrall. So many things can go wrong. As I am … I don’t know what it will do to you.’

  ‘Then let’s find out.’

  Dylan dipped his head and brushed his lips to hers.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Death Howl

  Jinx had never known pain like it. Not like this. Sure, he’d felt the knife when he’d been stabbed before and she had healed him, but this time … oh, ancestors, this time she’d stabbed him. Her face, her tears, her trembling hand and the blood that covered it, his blood, her blood. Pain danced in front of his eyes and all through his body, the poison of iron eating away inside him. The silver he wore was bad enough, but iron … Iron was like boiling water poured on ice. Iron inside him, in his blood, travelling through his body destroying it from the inside out.