City of Halves

by Lucy Inglis

  Her knees were still unsteady. ‘But you killed her.’

  ‘Not her. It. They’re just Its.’

  Lily stared up at him, panting. He looked furious. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It shouldn’t have got past me. Things don’t.’

  ‘Pride in your work?’ Lily tried a weak joke, pushing her hair from her face.

  He didn’t look amused. ‘We need to go somewhere.’

  ‘I thought you couldn’t wait to be rid of me?’

  He didn’t answer. Reaching down, he caught her hand in his, his fingers sticky with gore as they pushed through hers.

  Lily struggled to pull her hand away, grossed out. ‘But where are we going?’

  He tightened his hold. ‘To see some people about this. It’s all wrong.’ He pulled her across the busy road, and up the narrow flight of old stone steps into Carter Lane. For a moment, he hesitated, letting a bike courier fly past. ‘And the only thing I know is, the day you turn up on my doorstep, everything goes crazy.’

  In a side street off Carter Lane they arrived at a bookshop, the windows thick with grime, obscuring the interior. Outside was an old-fashioned iron water pump. Regan worked the handle a couple of times until it spluttered and gushed.

  ‘Here.’ He held their hands beneath it, rubbing the blood from Lily’s fingers before cleaning himself up. Their eyes caught. She stepped back with a mumbled thanks, wiping her hands on her jeans. He said nothing, but pushed the door, and they went inside.

  Ancient parquet flooring crackled and shifted beneath Lily’s feet. Shelves of books, marked by country, crowded the walls and sat in piles on tables. Asleep on a pile of books in the corner was a tiny thing, rather like a cherub, less than a foot tall. One arm across its eyes, it slept soundly, its dirty naked chest rising and falling, and from its back grew a pair of ragged, dusty wings like a moth’s. Lily stared.

  A young man with fine, collar-length brown hair was reading a newspaper spread out on the desk, his right hand hovering above an antique globe, as if he would set it spinning any second. Perilously thin, he looked perhaps twenty years old, with a shrewd, pale face, and he wore a three-piece suit and a watch chain. On the front of the desk, in large gold copperplate lettering, a sign said: ‘Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.’ – Albert Einstein.

  ‘Who’s that?’ The young man was still concentrating on the paper.

  ‘This is Lily. She met her first bandogge outside my door.’

  He looked up, his face sharp, as another young man appeared from behind the shelving, a book in his thin white hands. He too wore an old-fashioned suit, but this time without a jacket. ‘Bandogge? Where is it now?’

  ‘Felix will take care of it,’ Regan said. He collapsed into a worn leather chair, indicating the other to Lily. She sat on the edge, clutching her bag across her lap.

  The man behind the desk sighed. ‘He is busier and busier these days.’ He reached across and held out his hand to Lily. ‘Lucas.’

  Lily shook it. His skin was icy, the flesh stiff and unyielding, yet his bones felt fragile and bird-like.

  The other man didn’t offer his hand, but nodded to her. ‘Elijah.’

  ‘And there’s a girl missing. A human girl,’ Regan said.

  Lucas closed the newspaper. ‘Since when do we interest ourselves in that?’

  ‘We don’t. But Gamble thinks he saw her on the Blackfriars Bridge Road. He thinks there’s a connection.’

  ‘Have you found anything?’

  Regan shook his head. ‘No, that’s just it. Nothing. Nothing at all.’

  ‘Then it was probably just one of his more outlandish visions. Still, you’d better make sure to tie up the loose ends.’

  ‘What, so a girl disappears, and . . .?’ Lily said.

  Regan dismissed that with a wave of his hand. ‘And? Things are becoming even more unsettled,’ he said to Lucas. ‘I’ve just had to deal with a banshee on a construction site off Ludgate Hill.’ Lucas raised an eyebrow, and Regan held up a hand. ‘Slack on my part, I know. But that’s not the point.’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘Lily. She’s Type H.’

  Lucas’s eyes fixed on her. They were a deep, wise brown, at odds with his deathly pale face and his washed-out hair. He looked back at Regan, then again at Lily. Sitting back, he spun the globes, deep in thought. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘She was torn up by the dogge, and she was wearing some sort of tag that confirmed it. I used the transfusion kit. And the book.’

  ‘And?’

  Regan looked over at her. ‘Lily, would you take your jacket off?

  Lily got to her feet, pulling on the zip. She shrugged out of the jacket, revealing her stained, shredded clothes and filthy arm.

  ‘Incredible,’ Elijah murmured. ‘So it’s true.’

  ‘What’s true?’ Lily was confused.

  ‘That . . .’ Lucas glanced at Regan, hesitating.

  ‘That I can heal a human with your blood type,’ Regan said abruptly.

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ Lily said.

  ‘No, nothing.’ Regan shook his head, but didn’t look at her.

  ‘Tell me about yourself, if you would be so kind, Lily.’ Lucas sat back in his chair, spinning the globe as he did so.

  Lily frowned. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Who you are, where you live. That sort of thing,’ Elijah added.

  Lily looked between them. ‘I, er . . . I’m sixteen. I live with my father in the Temple. I’m a student. That’s about it, I think.’

  There was a silence, then Regan described Gamble’s jumbled visions. Lucas steepled his fingers, sitting forward with his elbows on a dusty ledger. ‘I wish that man could control his alcoholic tendencies. It would make our lives a lot easier.’

  ‘Well, he can’t.’

  ‘I hope you didn’t give him money.’

  ‘That’s not really the point, is it?’ Regan said.

  They began to argue.

  Lily got up. ‘I’m off.’ Because this is insane and, seriously, there are some Google searches with your names on them waiting for me at home.

  Lucas got to his feet and nodded. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Miss Hilyard. And don’t worry. Regan will take good care of you. He’s the best at what he does.’

  ‘I don’t need a babysitter!’

  Lucas and Elijah were silent at her bad-mannered explosion.

  ‘Thank you,’ she mumbled.

  ‘He’s the Guardian; it’s what he does best,’ Elijah explained stiffly.

  Lily bit her tongue.

  They reached the door. Regan opened it and held it for Lily.

  ‘Regan?’

  He turned back.

  Lucas hesitated. ‘I . . . had hoped we had more time.’

  Elijah looked away and picked up another book.

  Regan nodded, looking down. ‘Me too.’

  Outside, Lily looked up at him. ‘I mean it, I don’t need a babysitter.’

  ‘Then stop acting like a baby. Lucas is right. Besides, I thought you were the one who wasn’t leaving me alone.’

  ‘Yes, well, that was before I almost got killed again.’

  He looked genuinely amused. ‘You’re going to let a little thing like that stop you?’

  Lily narrowed her eyes at him, then pointed over her shoulder. ‘You said you had no friends. But they’re your friends, aren’t they?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say friends, no.’ He glanced over his shoulder as he began to walk away. ‘More like mentors.’

  Lily followed. ‘They’re only about your age.’

  He looked back at her. ‘Depends on how old you think I am.’

  She caught up with him, catching his arm. ‘If I have to walk with you, you’ll really have to slow down.’ He came to a halt and they started walking again, more slowly. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘So how old are you?’

  ‘Ninetee
n.’

  ‘You look older.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Thanks. There are days I feel older.’

  She turned, walking backwards. ‘How old are Lucas and Elijah?’

  ‘Old.’

  ‘Stop talking in riddles!’

  ‘They’re wraiths.’

  ‘Ghosts? I don’t believe in ghosts.’

  He tutted. ‘Wraiths are physical beings. You felt Lucas’s hand? There’s a reason people say “cold as the grave”.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘They’re dead.’

  Lily stopped in her tracks. He walked past her.

  ‘I know,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘it must be a lot to process. You’ll get used to it. They were clerks in an office on that site. They died in a fire their employer started for the insurance money. Back when insurance was a new invention, three hundred years ago or something.’

  She chased after him. ‘What?!’

  ‘The bookshop is dual-purpose. They’re based there because they have to be – all wraiths are limited to the physical location where they died. It’s made them obsessed with travel. Places they’ll never get to see. So they like books, and the shop acts like a hub for the community. Lucas and Elijah are kind of elders for the London Eldritche.’

  ‘And what was that child, with the . . .?’ She gestured to her back.

  ‘Mothwing. They’re a sort of bastardised urban fairy. Most of our kind think they’re vermin, but the Clerks are fond of them. And they’re in decline.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No idea. They’re just disappearing slowly. At this rate it won’t take much longer for them to become extinct. Another thing that’s bad for the balance. The Chaos, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have any problem with multiplying.’

  ‘But how do people not—’

  He shrugged. ‘I told you, humans see what they want to see. Did you ever notice them, before today?’

  She breathed out slowly. ‘No. No, I didn’t.’ They walked on.

  ‘There are things I have to do before the watch begins,’ he said.

  ‘Can I help?’

  He looked at her, amused.

  Lily blushed and shrugged one shoulder. ‘I want to help.’

  Raising an eyebrow, he said, ‘You want to work a night watch with me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He shook his head, laughing. ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes. Come on, I’ll walk you home.’

  Lily was about to protest when they turned a corner, and almost walked straight into the West Indian street cleaner in his green and yellow high-visibility clothing. He was closing the lid on his cart, and slammed it so hard his dreadlocks jumped. The man turned to them and rolled his eyes expressively.

  ‘You!’ he said to Regan. ‘You tink I no got bettah tings to do wit me time? Two hundred poundsa demon dog to push tru da streets until de end of me shift? And den it tek me at least an hour and de half to offer it op tonight as it should be done. To bind it good. Riskin’ me ass for gettink arrested lak a crayzee man. Again. Risk looosin’ me job. Again.’

  ‘Sorry, Felix,’ Regan said with an unapologetic shrug.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Lily.

  Felix looked at her, his dark eyes piercing. ‘Accourse you don’t unnerstand. Dat is why Felix is de Cleaner and Felix alone. I bind dem, and I sekkle dem tight. Ain’t no comin’ back when Felix sekkle you.’ He closed his fist on the air in front of Lily’s face.

  ‘I’m sure there isn’t,’ she agreed, although she hadn’t a clue what the man was talking about.

  Felix tidied his brushes in the rack at the side of the cart irritably. Regan pushed Lily forward. ‘Felix, just one more thing . . . there’s a banshee that needs clearing up in that site with the blue hoarding, off Ludgate Hill near the station.’

  Felix spun round. ‘Whatchoosay?’

  ‘Clean strike, heart out. Shouldn’t take you long to deal with.’ Regan saluted, walking away.

  Felix grabbed the handles of his cart, outraged. ‘Dat’s it! You go. You stroll out wit’ your likkle jubee like a fine gentleman. Yes. While Felix be here, cleaning up you mess. As always.’

  They made it on to Fleet Street. ‘He was pretty angry with you,’ said Lily.

  ‘He usually is these days. I’m making a lot of work for him. It’s a love-hate relationship. We just keep the love well hidden.’

  ‘Is he . . .’

  ‘Eldritche? No, he’s human. Comes from a long line of West Indian obeah men. Born into it.’

  They reached the Temple in less than five minutes. Regan looked around with interest as Lily led him through the alleys and passageways to Falcon Court. ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘All my life. You’ve never been here before?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I don’t leave the old City of London much. This is a strong sanctuary,’ he observed. ‘You’re pretty safe here.’

  Lily pulled out her keys, running up the stairs to the third-floor flat. Regan loped after her, two at a time. She opened the door, and before she had time to turn around, he was inside, looking around with interest. He paused by the table with the photographs of Lily and her mother.

  ‘Where’s your mother?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All these pictures are years old. And you told Lucas and Elijah you lived with your father.’

  ‘She disappeared, soon after I was born.’

  He looked at her sharply. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She’s gone. That’s it.’ Lily folded her arms and gnawed her lip, uncomfortable.

  ‘What about the rest of your family?’

  ‘We don’t have any. Mum and Dad met in the children’s home where they grew up.’

  He didn’t say anything, just looked at the photographs again. ‘I should go,’ he said, suddenly sounding distracted.

  ‘I’m not stopping you,’ Lily said uncertainly, wrong-footed by the change in him but not wanting him to leave.

  He strode to the door, then turned back, hand on the handle. He took a breath. ‘What happened today . . . it must be strange, finding out about us like that.’

  She thought about it. ‘You know when people say stranger things have happened? Well, right now, I’m not sure they have.’

  He laughed. It lit him from within, making him seem younger, and his harsh beauty even more inhuman.

  Lily coloured up. ‘Will I . . .’ she hesitated, ‘. . . see you again?’

  ‘You want to?’

  She nodded, chipping her toe into the carpet.

  He pulled up his hood with his free hand. ‘You’ll see me again.’ And then he was gone.

  Pulling off her jacket and dumping it, Lily opened her computer and turned it on. She began to search the internet for Regan Lupescar. Absolutely nothing. Well, it’s not as if I didn’t expect that. ‘Will I see you again?’ Great work, Lily. Nothing like looking desperate. Yet the idea of not seeing him again . . .

  She sighed and tried to keep her mind on the job in hand. Searches for the Eldritche brought up myriad pages of folklore, but none of it seemed to relate directly to London Wall. Most of it took her to conspiracy theory sites. She scrolled through a few of the more paranoid forums. The world is full of nutters. Lily shook her head. Then she frowned, peering closer to the screen as she read a rambling, disjointed post full of accusations against the government. Accusations that the government knew there were non-humans living in society and that they were being monitored. Why? asked the rant. And what was the agenda? Lily got to the end of it, then, just as she was about to screenshot it, it disappeared.

  What?!

  For a second she thought the original poster must have deleted it. But then the responses began to disappear, quickly, one after the other. Lily grabbed a screenshot of everything that was left, just in time before the whole thread was eaten from the inside.

  Dammit. She refreshed the browser, but the thread was gone. Rubbing her face, she rested her chin on her hand and glanced t
owards the window. Full dark had descended. Lily turned her attention back to the screenshots, her focus sharp.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there when she finally looked away from the screen. It was past seven. She sent the last lot of screenshots to the wireless printer in her father’s study and checked her email. It was rare she printed anything out, but if things were to continue disappearing in front of her eyes, it seemed sensible to have a hard copy. Putting the laptop on the coffee table, she got up and went through to the bathroom, stripping out of her bloody things and looking at them. In her rush to find out as much as she could about the Eldritche, she’d almost forgotten the huge rips in her clothes, the blood matting everything together. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, examining her unbroken white skin, still covered in flaking patches of now-black blood. On the right side of her neck, her hair was even stuck to her throat in places. It crackled as she pulled it away. She eyed the pile of clothes on the floor. And I walked around all day like that and no one even noticed. She breathed a sigh of relief that she would be changed before her father arrived home.

  After her shower, her hair hanging in damp rat-tails around her face, Lily picked up her jeans and went to put them in the machine in the kitchen, then bagged and binned the ruined T-shirts. The towel she had wrapped around herself felt unusually harsh against her skin. Her stomach growled and she realised she was starving.

  She ran the tap for a glass of water, finding herself somehow fascinated by the sparkling stream, then shook her head. What’s happening to me? Today is getting weirder and weirder. Quenching her thirst and throwing the rest of the water down the sink, she put the glass on the side and walked back to the bedroom, almost bumping into Regan as he walked into the room from the hall.

  She jumped back with a squeak. He stood, frozen, staring at her. Then he spun round so his back was to her, putting his hands on his head like a police suspect.

  ‘When you said I’d see you again, this wasn’t what I had in mind,’ she said.

  ‘I just came to ask you something else about your mother,’ he said over his shoulder.