by Kara Silver
“What do you think, Ed?” Kennedy asked, eyeing him.
“You remembered my name? Wow! Or do you like the bars in town? Hey, I could make some quip about the Rusty Bicycle!” He pointed at her transport, his light-brown eyes gleaming.
Kennedy guessed that was a pub or bar. She nodded, acknowledging the hit.
“You look like you need a lift. Want to clip Old Faithful here to the back of the Golf and I’ll run you back?” He tossed the black rectangle of an automatic key from hand to hand before pressing a button on it. The bip-whip noise of lock came from a dark-blue car parked a few yards away.
“Do I…” Kennedy was genuinely startled. This was the kindest anyone had been to her for days. She could only suppose Ed had been doing some other sport or form of training at another facility next door—there were a few in the same area and she’d got the wrong one first off, earlier—and hadn’t seen her throwing up. No doubt he’d be hearing about it soon enough. He stood waiting, twirling his plastic key near his lip like a panto villain’s moustache. The kind-heartedness was unexpected, and he seemed fun and okay. Yet Kennedy hesitated.
WWCD? Chandyce…would say yes and ask if she could drive, probably. Detour into a pub car park en route, too, and tell Ed she wanted a Breezer, any flavour as long as it was half sugar; she could hardly fit in her body-con as it was. Kennedy grinned.
“Thanks, but no thanks. And I have to get moving.” She kicked at the pedal. “See you one of these practicals!”
Hoping she was heading the right way down the street, back to the main road she was familiar with, she whizzed off. Within a minute, the blue Golf had overtaken her, Ed winding down the passenger’s-side window to lean over and give her a whistle and a vaguely salacious catcall. It actually made her laugh. Would it be such a bad thing, to meet him at his college bar for a coffee, or even a drink, or ask if he wanted to meet in the Heylel bar for one? She could probably fit it in with her work and her…obligations. Yeah, right. On, say, the twelfth of never, in the afternoon.
Obligations. One way of putting it, she mused, fifteen minutes later, arriving back at college, as red-faced and sweaty as if she hadn’t showered after training. Catching herself wondering if she had time for a nap before dinner, she felt appalled. God, is there an accelerated aging process…for demons? Sorry, demon mages? Have to ask Aeth. Add it to the list of queries she had for him. He could have a regular column somewhere, his chiselled chin lifted and those stormy-grey eyes intense and watchful. Ash Aeth. Worried about demon-related issues? Ash Aeth! Or, just discovered you’re a demon! Well, heck, child, don’t sweat it. Ask Aeth! He probably won’t tell, you, just be all infuriatingly cheekbone-y and enigmatic about it, but—
“Oi!”
“Je-sus!” Kennedy glared at the porter who’d stepped in front of her. “I could have knocked you over. Oh, yes. No cycling in college. Sorry. I was in a dream.”
“And on an illegal bike.” The middle-aged man in the brown overall coat thing denoting his porterage, folded his arms, not budging.
“What?” She’d been given stolen goods?
“You need to register it and get a ticket, to use the shed on campus.” He gave a sharp downward jerk of his chin at her two-wheeler.
“And there’s no way I could do that right here, right now, yeah?” Kennedy indicated the plodge. “Because this is Oxford.”
The porter sniggered, catching her by surprise. “Come in, miss. Leave there where it’s not blocking anything. We’ll get you sorted.”
“Thanks!” Maybe things were looking up for her? Maybe all she’d needed to do was get used to the place, give it a while to get to know how things worked, who was who and…get Jimbo the porter into conversation, so he’d let drop the room number of the girl reported missing.
Kennedy already knew it was staircase ten, and after shedding her now-lawful bike, she made her way there, and managed to walk in when someone came out. The room was locked, of course, and no doubt empty. Hadn’t they said earlier someone was taking care of it? She hung about a bit, hoping to bump into a neighbour and get chatting, but no one was about and she could hardly knock on doors and ask questions, as much as she wanted to. Maybe she could look into being a private detective if anthropology didn’t work out. Oh, and if she wasn’t a demon, of course. Maybe I’ll grow out of that? Or do they have demon detectives? Another Ask Aeth moment there. She needed to start a list.
She also needed to do some work and figured she’d be better off in the library than her room. “Hey!” she mouthed across the rows of tables, at Elke and Maja on one side of one. She squinted to see who was with them. Could be the back of Liam’s head? Jake’s possibly?
Elke nodded at her and Maja made an apologetic face, indicating that the four of them had taken up the table and there was no space. “Sorry,” she mouthed, blushing. Jake wasn’t blushing, not then or a minute later, when Kennedy heard him referencing “that weirdo,” which she took to mean herself, and felt her guess was confirmed when Liam, less subtle or less practiced at being a messy bitch who loved drama, twisted around to see, turned back and nodded at Jake, without acknowledging her.
Huh. Kennedy was actually a little surprised how much the shunning hurt. She only had herself to blame, she guessed. Guess that stunt I pulled in the museum freaked them out. And damn, she’d wanted to ask them about what she’d missed, after leaving early. Or if the professor had noticed. Hmm. Maja seemed the easiest nut to crack, or rather to guilt into helping her. She’d work on her later. Because now, she was working on…Facebook. She hadn’t meant to, well, maybe just a quick look, see what Chandyce and Layla were up to, maybe send them a message, mention how Ed had offered her a lift and a date—she thought…
Janey Harris wasn’t that uncommon a name, but it only took Kennedy a few minutes to find the one she sought. Oh, God. One of her two foster sisters had made Janey’s account public, urging friends, or anyone, who had info on Janey to post it and—Kennedy swallowed—please leave any messages or advice for Janey, should she be checking in.
It was the sort of thing Chandyce and Layla would do for her. Kennedy scrolled. The comments were mostly from friends back home; very few from people at college, and those from before it was known Janey had gone missing. Gone missing. Sounded like Gone Fishin’ or something equally fake, when Kennedy knew the girl was dead. Her fingers itched to type, to reveal what she’d seen in the graveyard, but she understood that was more about her wanting to tell it than about Janey’s foster family and friends needing to hear it.
Janey’s foster carers—they weren’t called foster parents these days; Kennedy knew all the jargon—hadn’t posted anything and didn’t seem to have their own profiles. Reading more, and on the sister’s own page, Kennedy understood just as this foster placement was the latest in a line for Janey, she was one of a long line for the carers. Layla had been with a family like that briefly and had told Kennedy and Chandy all she’d meant to her carers was the four hundred pounds a week they got for looking after her.
Bet Janey was glad to get to college. She’d been pretty and seemed to have fitted in, judging by the amount of party and event invitations she’d received. Kennedy wished… Well. The number of invites didn’t mean a thing, and anyone could paste on a smile for a photo, desperate for the loneliness and sadness inside not to show.
Kennedy shivered at how intrusive and ghoulish she was being, spectating at another girl’s life, as if she were watching a slide show of Janey’s first year at Heylel, one that had culminated in a summer gala ball thing, some big affair by the look, a few months back. Janey had looked lovely, the colour of her gown catching Kennedy’s eye. She was posing with her back to the camera, head turned to show a three-quarter profile and Kennedy stared, trying to read the expression in Janey’s eyes, wanting to understand, to know what she’d been thinking, been feeling…
But of course that was impossible. And Kennedy was only delaying, stalling. Once again, especially now she’d found a picture that might hel
p. Because the cut of Janey’s dress was such that her neck and parts of her upper back were bare, revealing her shoulders… Kennedy forced her gaze down. Did she want Janey’s skin to be unblemished, free? Well, tough. Because the evidence was the screen in front of her. A tattoo. Right on Janey’s shoulder blade, partly revealed by the style of the dress, was a mark. No, the mark. The one Kennedy had seen before, in that same spot on that same girl, when she’d held her dead body in her arms. The same symbol that had carved itself into the gravestones, then wiped itself off as Kennedy had spun in a mad, hopeless circle, trying to catch it. The same mark she’d seen in the Heylel museum, in a display about demonology. The same mark she bore on her own body.
She wished the photo was better, that the tatt was fully visible. Straps obscured it and it looked blurred. Maybe Janey had covered it in makeup, for the formal ball? Kennedy thought back again to the terrible, frightening night in the graveyard. She hadn’t got a proper look at the mark then, either. Well, she been too horrified and shaking to take anything in. But she could study this now. She downloaded the photo from the girl’s timeline and faffed about connecting to the correct printer for Heylel Library, finally managing and pressing Print.
“Excuse me,” she whispered to the girl behind the desk, young enough to be working off her indentured duty hours, just like Kennedy was. “Where would I find the printer?”
“You wouldn’t. I would.” The girl indicated the door to the side behind her, presumably an office.
“Well, whenever you’re ready?” Kennedy raised a hand in a palm-up over-to-you gesture.
The girl flounced away and returned a moment later. “Is your printing the ten-page law article or the glamour shot of a brunette?” she asked, her voice carrying.
“The photo.” Kennedy pointed to it in the girl’s hand. “For research.”
The girl looked her up and down, her gaze taking in Kennedy’s messy hair, lack of makeup and scruffy clothes. “Surrrre,” she drawled. “Ten pence. This printer isn’t on the card system. You might want to remember that.”
“Thanks.” Kennedy was no longer paying attention, instead, oblivious to the other library users, staring at the photo of the missing girl, angling it to better catch the light and see as much of the strange mark on the girl’s shoulder blade as she could.
As far as she knew, the missing girls, while looking nothing alike and from different parts of the country and studying different subjects, had all gone to Heylel College. Had all been scholarship students. She’d wondered if they’d all been second year students. And now she wondered if they’d all had a birthmark or tattoo or whatever the hell it was…the same as hers and in the same place as hers. She had a few names of missing girls that she’d got from news reports. She could check those. But she wanted a full list, and to check them all.
And who did she know who had at his fingertips—literally—a complete list? Why, the very same young cop who’d told her to drop in to the station anytime. Kennedy laced her fingers and cracked her knuckles, uncaring that the girl behind the desk winced.
No time like the present.
15
“Hey! You should have lights on that bike!” cried the porter as Kennedy shot past him.
“And a helmet on my head!” she called back. “Yeah. If wishes were horses, us poor scraps could ride in the dark.”
“Talking of, there’s no—”
“Cycling on college premises!” she finished for him, leaving him in her wake. It wasn’t as though she’d done a wheelie through the common room, or ridden down the steps into the cellar bar, for God’s sake. As soon as she had a lock, she’d leave Rusty—Ed’s name had stuck—chained up outside somewhere, rather than have to go all the way through Heylel to the shed. There must be some racks down a side street nearby.
Ooh, bikes. The police had a scheme for registering them, didn’t they? And bike theft was rampant in university towns… Kennedy, meet straw. They’re good for clutching, but then, you know that. Well, she needed some excuse for going to the police station, she told herself as she shuddered over a cobbled shortcut rather than weave through the rush-hour traffic. The town was very pretty. As soon as she had time, she’d look around the other colleges, especially the bigger ones, see their boating lakes and art galleries and deer parks and…quit stalling!
Okay. Think fast. I’m outside the cop shop. So I just burst in and…
“Miss Smith!” PC Collier’s face was one big beam as he walked past her when she fussed with her bike, and stopped. “What a surprise. Are you going in?”
“Hi! To the cop hole? Yes, thanks.” She walked through the door he held open smoothing her cycle-ride-crazy hair from her face and hoping she wasn’t too red.
“How’s that work going?”
God. Work. Of which she had a ton to do. “Oh, it’s sort of going.” Go for broke. “And actually, that’s why I’m here.”
“Ah, right.” His baby face drooped a little. “Not to say hello and brighten my shift, then.”
“Hello?” She sketched a wave and made him laugh. “Could you help me? Just a little more? I promise it’s the last time. Well…” He wouldn’t notice she had her fingers crossed behind her back. “Oh, I was wondering about the anti-theft bike registration system you run, where the public give you their bike number?” she added, raising her voice, as two other officers walked past them, one of them shooting her and Chris a puzzled look.
“Do you really want details of the bike marking programme?” he asked. “Only, usually someone from each college is in charge of that. They do it all in the college and bring in all the data to us, in the first week of term.”
“I missed the first week. But you can pretend we’re doing that,” she told him, her voice now a lot quieter. She indicated he should lead the way to the section of counter he’d been standing at before.
“Cheeky little madam,” came his comment as he took his place and nodded to a co-worker who moved away. “What do you really want?”
“Cards on the table? A list of all the missing girls that have disappeared from here over the past five, no, ten, years.”
“What?” He seemed genuinely startled. “I can’t give you that information. Those are open cases.”
“Constable, Chris.” She blew out a breath, blowing a tickle of wayward fringe free of her eyes. “I could look them up and find them myself, but I can’t really afford to take all that time. Please? Pretty please?”
“She wants a favour like that and she hasn’t even brought a bribe!” Chris exclaimed to no one, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “Look, I shouldn’t be doing this, and I can’t do you any more favours like this ever again, not even if you take me out for an iced coffee.”
“An iced—”
“Shh! I have to go and drink them in secret, you see. The guys here all drink those small black espressos, and they’d laugh at me.” One eye on her, he tapped on the keyboard in front of him.
“Oh!” She tried to peer over and at the screen. “I had no idea. Well, can I owe you one?”
“I’ll hold you to that. It’s a bit late in the evening for caffeine, any road. Hang fire …” He twisted around to pull free a sheet of printing behind him. He held it out to her, holding it by one end. “But I’m usually to found here. In fact, my hours are—”
“Hours!” Kennedy echoed, pointing at his wrist in horror. “God, I lost track of time and I’m late! I’ll come back, I promise!” She slid the sheet of paper free and whirled away, calling, “Thanks, Chris!” over her shoulder and nearly crashing into a uniformed woman officer as she did.
She stuffed the page into her backpack and raced back to Heylel, braking hard for Jimbo who sprang from the plodge like a jack-in-a-box. “Do you just lie in wait for me?” she gasped.
“Saw this knocking around and thought of you. It was handed in a good few months back. Be fine with a new battery.” He tossed her a bike light.
“Wow, amazing! Thanks!” Kennedy beamed, pushing Rusty at speed, un
til she was through the first arch, when she mounted again, rather than miss the seven-thirty cut-off for dinner.
“Just made it,” she said firmly to the assistants starting to clear away the huge silver trays. “I’ll have whatever you’ve got left.”
“I’ve just this second started powering down the electronic register,” said an assistant, vacating her place behind it.
“No, wait!” Kennedy jammed her card against the scanner, hoping to catch the last chip of micro floating in the system. A feeble blerp sounded, nothing like the usual noise.
“Oh, well, I’m assisted place anyway,” she announced to whoever was listening, sliding her card back into her pocket. “Or ring me up twice next time. Whatever. Oh, come on. What else are you going to do with that dried-out lasagne and limp salad?”
She stood, triumphant with her main course plus an extra jacket potato, and two circles of jam sponge roulade for dessert, looking for anyone she knew. Not many people left, just a group being coughed at by the custodian, who made a performance of tucking their bench away under the table the second they stood.
“Drew, hi,” Kennedy said as the cluster past her on their way out. She recognised a couple of the others who’d been with him her first evening at the museum. They glared coolly at her. “Hang on. I’ve still got your journal. I can give it back.”
He acknowledged her with a head tilt. “Oh. I forgot. Thanks.” He took the less-than-pristine newspaper back from her. “What did you think?”
“I didn’t read it.” Kennedy realised what that might sound like. “I mean, I was only interested in one story.” And that sounded worse.
With a bored, “Come on, people,” one of the girls hustled the coterie away. Her, “told you she was a cow,” floated in her wake.
Kennedy thought she caught a, “weirdo,” too. “Call those insults?” she queried, her voice muffled by a mouthful of cold lasagne. “You need schooling. Speak to Cheska. She has a nice line in them.”
