Dark Embers

by R. L. Giddings

  The advocates had taken my phone to ensure that I couldn’t contact anyone. I kept asking for reassurances that Millie was okay but they refused to respond to my requests. I felt hot and feverish even though it was quite cool in the back of the van. Then I realised why. I urgently needed to speak with my dad, to warn him that I was about to betray him, because that would be the hardest thing of all.

  The van pulled up at the rear of the theatre, I was ushered inside and taken to a small dressing-room. They locked me in to ensure that I didn’t escape before my mother arrived. They kept me in there for the rest of the afternoon. The room had its own sink and toilet. At one point, they brought me a cold salad but I was far too anxious to even look at it.

  As time wore on, I could hear the auditorium beginning to fill up. At various points, there came the sound of raucous applause.

  Eventually, the hands of the clock edged towards four o’clock.

  It was five minutes to four when the door opened and Valeria appeared. She’d had her hair styled since I’d last seen her and changed into a backless blue dress.

  “We’ve arranged a change of clothes for you,” she said breezily.

  “Not interested.”

  “Oh, come on. You can’t go out there looking like that,” she indicated my jeans.

  “Take it or leave it.”

  “I’ve got a make-up artist next door.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  *

  They kept me standing in a tiny alcove, just off to the left of the stage. The advocates had me hemmed in so tight that I could smell their sweat.

  Valeria, looking tense, kept checking her phone.

  Suddenly, the mood of the place changed and the four advocates pressed tightly around me. Three men came past heading for the stage, followed by a larger group with my mother at the core. She was easy to spot because of her height, that and the fact that she was so strikingly beautiful.

  She made them stop when she spotted me. “Thanks for doing this for me, Bronte.”

  “I’m not doing it for you.”

  “Whatever your motives might be, I’m glad you’re here.”

  Whatever my motives might be? What was going on?

  “I’m not going to read out a speech, if that’s what you want. I’m not saying anything.”

  She nodded but her eyes were very cold. “I think that’s for the best.”

  We stood facing each other for a moment. They’d dressed her in mottled greys and browns to complement her tawny hair.

  I said, “Did you have anything to do with Macmillan’s murder?”

  Her entourage twitched at that giving me a moment of simple satisfaction. My mother wasn’t so easily rattled.

  “Fortunately not,” she said calmly. “I was keen to take over the investigation myself but, felt that it would be best – under the circumstances – if I remained impartial.”

  She gave me an almost pitying smile before she allowed herself to be whisked away.

  The public address system switched into over-drive.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. Please welcome to the stage Svetlana Prozorova!”

  The noise erupted as she appeared and it was several minutes before it was quiet enough for the formal introductions to take place. Then I heard my mother’s soothing bass tones as she started her thank you speech.

  I turned to Valeria. “I take it she won, then?”

  “Yes. Massive majority. Who knew?”

  “I’m surprised you’re still here. Why aren’t you out there, enjoying the lime-light?”

  Valeria started to say something but then checked herself.

  “She needs me back here, with you. It’s important that we get this right.”

  “I don’t know why she wants me here at all.”

  “She thinks that you will help to bring out her human side.”

  I snorted. “Trust me, she doesn’t have one. But you’ll find that out for yourself soon enough.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. When she tires of you.”

  Only Valeria wasn’t listening. She’d taken out a compact to check her make-up.

  “Almost time,” she said when she’d finished. “Now, remember all you have to do is give her a hug then stand off to one side while she finishes her speech. Once that’s done, it would be nice if the two of you could hold hands…”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “And would it hurt you to smile? Come on.”

  I felt my heart beating heavily as I followed her out onto the stage. It was so brightly lit as to make it almost impossible to see the audience and I was thankful in that sea of noise, that I could only make out the first few rows.

  My mother stood at the lectern with a huge smile on her face. She used to smile like that when I was younger. I was surprised by the emotion that this recollection elicited.

  We had been happy once.

  When she held out her arms as if to hug me, a part of me wanted to respond and I had to make a conscious effort not to reciprocate.

  But, despite my best efforts, I felt my hand reaching out to her. Flash guns exploded as she moved to take my hand but, at the last second, I pulled back. She only managed to hook onto a couple of my fingers before I broke away.

  Our first contact in thirteen years.

  My knees started to buckle at the thought of it.

  She spoke into the microphone and the room instantly settled.

  “And having my daughter here makes this a very special moment for me. It reminds me of everything I’m fighting for. Our community has suffered a series of sleights and underhand attacks in the last few years. We have had a lot to contend with. But the events of the past week have marked a tipping point. First the terrible events at the Bear Garden and then the assassination of Professor Macmillan last night, threatening to undermine the very essence of our independence.”

  “But that’s not all that’s been occurring of late. I would remind you that there have been three other attacks planned this week which have been foiled by our security services.”

  I looked over at my mother. What was she talking about?

  “Even last night four people were killed and many others were injured in a carefully co-ordinated attack in Kingston-upon-Thames.”

  A ripple of surprise ran through the audience.

  “Details are still emerging but the link with the Sidhe is undeniable. The attack was launched using three fire drakes.”

  There was a collective gasp from the audience and I turned to look at the screen behind me. They were showing a succession of photographs of Cardoza’s house taken from the air. It was a scene of utter devastation. A number of bodies were strewn across the lawn.

  What was going on?

  A bead of sweat trickled down my back.

  “The death toll would have indeed been much higher if the fire-drakes had not been drawn away from the house by a small group of practitioners. You might be wondering who these brave folk were. Well, I’m happy to say that I have one of them here: the woman responsible for single-handedly killing one of those fire drakes. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you my daughter: Bronte Fellows.”

  I was so stunned by the explosion of noise that I didn’t resist when my mother grabbed my hand and thrust my arm into the air as if I’d just won a boxing bout.

  The new leader of the Inner Council together with her daughter the hero.

  You just couldn’t make it up!

  By the time I’d gathered my wits about me and managed to pull my arm free, it was too late. The damage had been done.

  As I left the stage, I had to pass a smug looking Valeria who deigned to give me an ironic round of applause.

  *

  That night, Millie, Edwin and I sat at our kitchen table with our second bottle of Sauvignon –Blanc. Millie had been in the auditorium for the announcement with her own security attachment of advocates. They’d wanted to keep her close by just in case I had a last minute change of heart. You had to hand it to my mother
’s team: they had, quite literally, thought of everything.

  “Will you put that away!” I said.

  Edwin had his tablet resting on the table. He was watching yet another video of the announcement which had been posted on social media. It was as if everyone in the theatre had made a recording.

  “I just can’t get over it,” Edwin said. “Regardless of what else you think of your mother, it was a brilliant P.R. stunt. The political outcast who returns from obscurity to lead her people at a crucial moment in their development. Alongside her is her estranged daughter, recently returned from a near fatal run-in with a fire-drake.”

  I grabbed the tablet and pulled it across to look at it. There was a picture of me in the back of the boat, waving the torch into the face of an angry fire-drake.

  “How did they manage to get these pictures?”

  I swiped through them. There were five in all.

  Edwin came around and stood behind me.

  “The resolution is pretty terrible. They were probably taken from some distance away and then someone’s blown them up. Some kid with a camera phone must have spotted us and just started clicking away. He’d have had no idea what he was seeing until afterwards. Happens all the time in mainline media.”

  Millie said, “But you can see why this plays into the hands of the pro-war lobby. If you wanted to symbolise the threat posed by the Sidhe then seeing them unleashing Fire-drakes along the Thames pretty much says it all.”

  They both looked to get my reaction but I was too busy considering the photos.

  “Okay,” Millie said. “What is it? What are you thinking?”

  I tried to pacify her with a simple shake of the head but Millie was having none of it.

  “Look, I’m going to sound paranoid now but that’s because I’ve spent the afternoon in my mother’s company. She does this to me every time.”

  I was only telling them a tiny part of my full blown psychosis. When I’d been driven back to the flat by one of the Council’s staff I’d stripped off all my clothes and stuck them straight in the bin, convinced that they’d been bugged. Then I pretended to take a shower when, in reality, I’d just sat on the edge of the bath checking my skin, trying to spot any puncture marks. Had she injected me with anything?

  Finally, I’d gone back to my bedroom and just stood there, trying to work out what was wrong. While I had absolutely no evidence, I was convinced that someone had been in to search the place. The obvious suspect would have been Edwin. He’d been alone in the flat for most of the afternoon, and that was precisely why I hadn’t said anything. I didn’t want us turning on one another, making crazy, unfounded allegations.

  But someone had definitely been in there.

  Must have been looking for where I’d hidden the knife.

  Millie sat down next to me, taking my hand in both of hers.

  “We understand about your mother, we really do. She makes you doubt yourself, and we get that. But you stepped up for me this afternoon and won’t ever forget that. I know how difficult that must have been for you today.”

  “I’m fine with it,” I lied.

  “Okay, that’s great. But the important thing is that you don’t lock us out now. We need to know what you’re thinking.”

  “Well, I’m thinking that this is all just too perfect. The bomb or bombs. Members of the Sidhe turning up dead. Last night’s attack. Macmillan. It all plays right into my mother’s hands. Or am I just being paranoid?”

  Millie tried not to smile but, in the end, couldn’t help herself. “You’ve got every right to sound paranoid after what she did to you. I’m just thinking that there are simply too many elements conspiring together. And that’s not to mention Salazar, Cardoza, the Sidhe terrorists. Surely she can’t be controlling everything!”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I said, eager to avoid sounding like a crazy person.

  But inside, I was thinking: you just don’t know her like I do.

  *

  As I rolled over in bed, I was actively trying to keep my dream alive. I was back in the Tower of London with Silas. We were being given a tour by a pretty, female tour guide. Silas was being his usual irrepressible self but part of that meant that he was getting rather too much attention to the guide. I was being very understanding, poking him playfully when he went too far but secretly, I was becoming more and more upset.

  It’s never a great dream when you wake up feeling somehow humiliated yet it offered me a reminder of the real Silas; the one that I was slowly beginning to forget in the midst of all that was happening. The sense of being made a fool of quickly shifted into one of desolate emptiness as I came more and more awake.

  “Whatisit?”

  The bedroom light was on and someone was standing over me. I couldn’t make out who it was as my senses were taking their time coming on-line.

  “Bronte,” Millie said. “Don’t worry. Something’s happened and I thought I should wake you.”

  I pushed myself upright, straining to fully open one eye.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You’d best come and see.”

  All the lights were on because it was pitch black outside. I was dressed in a vest and shorts but that was fine, Edwin had decided not to stay the night. When Millie opened the door to the living room I wasn’t expecting to see anyone so I was taken aback to find someone sitting on the sofa.

  “What the hell is she doing here?”

  *

  I hadn’t heard the door-bell ring. The intercom doesn’t work and we never normally answer the door at night, anyway. It’s usually some drunk trying to get into one of the other flats. The wards we have in place are more than enough to discourage the odd casual caller. But tonight was different. When she’d heard the doorbell, Millie had assumed that it was a genuine emergency and so had gone down to see who it was.

  That was her first mistake.

  The second was letting her in.

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “I quite understand,” Valeria said. “But I thought that I should at least make the effort.”

  I was aware of Millie hovering behind me.

  “I think you should listen to what she has to say.”

  *

  Less than an hour later, we were standing outside what looked like a shuttered shop’s entrance. It was a nondescript street with a couple of bars and an Indian restaurant ten minutes’ walk from Oxford Circus. On one side was a florist’s and on the other a phone repair shop. So far, so predictable.

  Valeria handed me her bag while she attempted to open the shutter. She had a key but, in the dark, was having difficulty locating the lock. The shutter rattling up made a ridiculous amount of noise but there was no one on the street to hear us.

  She quickly opened the door and, once we were inside, it was immediately clear that this wasn’t a traditional shop lay-out. It looked more like the entrance to an old amusement arcade. It appeared to go back quite some way. What little ambient light we received from the street disappeared as Valeria slid the shutter down behind us and I reluctantly reached for my phone.

  The place smelled of musty old bricks and mould.

  When I switched the phone’s light on, I let out a gasp.

  “What is this place?”

  Valeria took back her bag. “This is part of the Underground network. At least, it was. It’s what they call a ghost station. There’s quite a few of them scattered about. You sometimes catch a glimpse of them when you’re travelling between stations.”

  She walked ahead, rounding a corner without bothering to wait for me. When I caught up with her, something glinted ahead of us. The barriers which marked the way to the various staircases.

  “This is brilliant,” I said shining my light on the white enamel ceiling tiles. “Why don’t I know about this?”

  “It’s not that big a deal. Lots of stations have been closed down over the years. Sometimes they re-open again if there’s a demand for it. Sometimes not. This place
hasn’t seen a proper passenger since the 50s.”

  We made our way between the barriers and out through to the other side. I made for the staircase straight in front of us but Valeria indicated that we should take the one to our left. I stood on the top step and looked down into a black chasm which my little phone couldn’t hope to illuminate. Not for the first time that night, I started to doubt the wisdom of what we were attempting.

  Whereas I might have stood there all night, Valeria didn’t hesitate. Her fawn coloured raincoat reflected my light perfectly and, as she started down the first few steps, it looked for all the world as if she was descending into hell.

  The steps here were thick with dust and there was a sense of exhaustion about the place as if its essence had relied upon the vitality of the crowds that had come through here. I thought that we were wasting our time and couldn’t envisage the stairs leading anywhere. I imagined that after a short while we’d come to a dead-end, the stairwell all bricked up.

  That’s why I followed Valeria. Because I didn’t think that she was going anywhere. That and the fact that I didn’t want to stay up on the entrance hall all by myself.

  “How do you know about this place?” I was more interested in hearing the sound of my own voice than receiving an answer.

  “The archivists at the Inner Council. They’ve got lots of places like this. Forgotten London they call it.”

  We’d arrived at the next level unimpeded. All the ticket windows were boarded over, all the doors padlocked shut, giving the impression that we were hemmed in on all sides. This level looked much older, the walls were stained an odd tobacco yellow. There were hoardings for films from the 60s: La Dolce Vita, Peeping Tom. Where the water had dripped down from above it had gone into the wall on our right causing a huge bulge, rotten with damp and decay.

  “Is there anyone else down here? I mean, anyone else moving around?”

  “Why? Have you seen something?”

  “No. It was just a thought.”

  At that point, we came to the top of another flight of stairs.