Fire in the Sea

by Myke Bartlett

‘Vincent Pirandello. That’s him. That was on the website?’

  ‘Sort of. I had to be a bit clever. And you should thank Tom next time you see him.’

  Leaning down under the table, Jake snatched up a pair of black canvas shoes. ‘I’ll call a taxi.’

  ‘Everything’s an emergency with you.’ Sadie sighed, picking up a pastry. But she was already on her feet, following him to the door.

  There was no escaping the heat in this city of concrete and glass, where no architect had ever thought of shade. Sunlight glared from polished steel railings and scared shadows across wide, scalding pavements. It was all Sadie could do not to walk with a palm outstretched, like a lion tamer, hoping to quell the beast’s fury.

  The address was tucked down a laneway, nothing more than one of a dozen steel roller doors. A hatch in the roller door was ajar and cold air wafted through, luring them out of the sun. Jake leaned against the door. It went nowhere, so he gave it a shove with his shoulder. Somewhere inside, a bell tinkled.

  ‘So much for the element of surprise,’ Sadie whispered.

  The warehouse was larger than it had seemed from the outside, but still not large enough for all the stuff inside. Crammed shelves created narrow aisles into which dusty books and ancient magazines spilled. Sadie looked down and wondered where to put her feet.

  The man behind the counter looked older than he probably was. Deep lines cut down from cheekbone to stubbled jaw and there were the shadows of too many late nights beneath his eyes. Dark hair fell long and wild to his shoulders. He wore an embroidered waistcoat without any shirt and his bony wrists were encircled by leather bands and bracelets. He was reading an old issue of Fortean Times. One hand held the magazine, the other trawled in a bag of nuts.

  ‘You’re early,’ he said, sighing heavily.

  ‘Vincent, it’s Jacob.’

  The shopkeeper still didn’t look up. ‘What is?’

  ‘He is,’ Sadie told him.

  The man’s jaw slackened, taking in the tall boy in the crumpled hat. The magazine dropped to the floor. ‘Jacob?’

  ‘Vincent.’

  ‘Wait, no. It can’t be you. How do I know it’s you?’

  His voice was thin and parched, choked with the same dust that now gathered hot and thick at the back of Sadie’s throat.

  Jake lunged forward, grabbed both sides of Vincent’s waistcoat and dragged him across the counter, scattering paperbacks and pistachio shells.

  ‘I should break you in two, right here.’

  Vincent’s shoulders melted away, disappointed. ‘Oh, it is you. I like the new face. Young always suits you.’

  ‘Where is it?’ Jake snarled.

  ‘Where’s what?’

  ‘The relic. What have you done with it?’

  Vincent seemed genuinely astonished. ‘Me? Can you see a coward like me going near that thing? This body’s never been up to much. Its heart would just give in, like an old balloon. You know how I feel about dying. I hate it, hate it. Every single time.’

  Jake threw Vincent into the shelf behind him. ‘Vincent, she’s found us, after all this time. She’s out there now, waiting in the water.’

  Vincent licked at his lips, nervous. ‘Are you certain? You can’t be certain.’

  ‘They killed me. I’m certain.’

  ‘Then you’ll be wanting us to leave, pronto.’

  Jake frowned. ‘We can’t run. Frobisher’s dead. We’ve no passports, nothing. It’ll take too long to arrange anything.’

  ‘They got Frobisher?’

  ‘Somebody got him. I’m stuck here. We’re all stuck here. And if I have to do something about it, then you, of all people, will damn well help me.’

  Vincent seemed to struggle for air. ‘You don’t mean you’re thinking of fighting? But, well, no. I mean, yeah, easy for you to say, your family were fighters. You can’t expect me to fight. I’m a pacifist. I want to be a pacifist.’ His right hand bunched the front of his T-shirt and his breath rattled. ‘This is it, I can feel it. I’m going. My shoulder is tingling. I feel so far away.’

  Jake slapped the old man, hard across his left cheek. ‘Shut up. Dying won’t get you out of this. We both know what they’re coming for. What have you done with it?’

  ‘Nothing, honestly.’ Vincent had sunk to his knees, one hand at his chest, the other nursing his cheek. ‘You’re the guardian. You’re the one who’s supposed to keep it safe.’

  ‘I have. For centuries. But I never realised I’d have to keep it safe from you.’

  ‘I didn’t steal it,’ Vincent insisted, wheedling. ‘Maybe you just misplaced it. I mean, you were old, you know what these brains get like.’

  ‘Don’t insult me.’

  ‘Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe you should just let it stay lost. Maybe that way we’ll all be safe. Oxygen, I need oxygen. Call an ambulance. I’m serious, I’ve died like this before.’

  Sadie prodded Jake’s shoulder. ‘Is he bluffing?’

  ‘I don’t care.’ Jake put both palms down on the counter and leaned over to glare down at Vincent. ‘Whoever stole the relic knew I had it. If it wasn’t you, then who was it?’

  Vincent shrugged. ‘How would I know? It’s not like any of you ever drop by for a chat.’ He thrust a wizened finger at the countertop. ‘I’m staying, even if she is out there. I’m gonna be invisible.’ The same finger now turned towards the ceiling. ‘They’ll never miss me. What am I? They don’t care about me, never have.’

  The shop’s bell tinkled. A young man in a well-cut suit stood there, clasping a black leather briefcase. He might have been a real-estate agent, except that his briefcase was handcuffed to his wrist. Seeing Vincent had company, the new arrival stopped his shiny shoes on the doormat.

  ‘Sorry,’ Vincent called. ‘Think you want next door.’

  The man nodded and backed out into the laneway.

  ‘Anyway,’ Vincent said brightly, returning his attention to Jake. ‘What was I saying? Oh yeah, I don’t have any numbers, any addresses. No friends. Sorry.’ He was grinning, for the first time since they had arrived.

  Sadie lightly touched Jake’s elbow. ‘That man,’ she said. ‘He had a name badge on his pocket.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told you about the God squad, yeah?’

  Jake turned back to Vincent. ‘You’ve been watching the door the whole time we’ve been here. Like you were expecting someone, someone you didn’t want us to see.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Vincent’s grin had become a grimace.

  ‘Stay here!’ Jake barked, presumably at Sadie. He bolted for the door and threw it open.

  Sadie didn’t even consider staying put. She followed Jake into the startling heat of the alley, just in time to see the man sprinting away. A black 4WD waited at the alley’s end, its engine throbbing impatiently, and the suited man ran towards it. He had fifty metres on Jake, but was slowed by the briefcase he clutched to his chest. Jake’s legs sliced through the still air, making ground on his quarry. The 4WD’s rear door was thrown open, the man dived for the back seat and the vehicle swerved off into traffic. Jake skidded to a stop on the kerb, then immediately turned on his heels.

  Seeing Sadie watching in the alley, he swore breathlessly and pointed over her shoulder. ‘Vincent!’ he shouted.

  Vincent was making quiet steps behind her, edging out through the door. Sadie grabbed him by the arm. He jerked back in her grasp, peering down at her fingers with some disappointment.

  ‘You want to let me go,’ he said.

  ‘Fat chance.’

  Vincent’s dark eyes looked for hers. ‘You want to let me go.’

  Sadie was about to insist that she didn’t, even if the idea of touching him wasn’t exactly appealing, when she found her fingers lifting from his arm
and her hand dropping to her hip. She couldn’t remember why it had ever been a good idea to grab hold of him.

  ‘Good girl,’ Vincent told her. ‘Now fall over.’

  There was nothing Sadie wanted to do more. With both hands at her side, she toppled over on the cobbles like a felled tree. Her right shoulder took most of the impact, electric pain singing to her fingertips. The side of her head cracked on the hot stone.

  Jake appeared beside her and lifted her upright. ‘Sadie, are you all right?’

  ‘Ask me how many fingers you’re holding up.’

  ‘I’m not holding up any fingers.’

  ‘Then I’m fine.’

  At the end of the alleyway, Vincent was getting into a taxi. Sadie somehow felt happy to see him go, even if she knew she shouldn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jake was saying. ‘Vincent can be very persuasive, if you’re not expecting it. I should have warned you.’

  ‘It was like the Drowners, their song.’

  ‘Same principle. I told you, each Old One has his own talent.’

  Sadie leaned against the white brick wall, trying to gauge how firmly her head was attached. A new headache pressed at her temples. ‘Guess you were right, my stalkers were after the relic. You think that was money in the briefcase?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been hard for Vincent to find a buyer. There’s no shortage of collectors out there.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you memorised their licence plates?’

  Jake frowned. ‘I suppose that would have been a good idea.’

  ‘What would the God squad want with a demon anyway?’

  ‘Sadie, I’m not sure even you could resist it.’

  ‘You think?’

  He met her defiant glare. ‘You’ve known more death than anyone your age deserves to. If someone offered a chance to change that, wouldn’t you say yes?’

  Sadie’s voice dried in her throat. Of course she thought of her parents. Of course she thought of that book under her mattress, full of scrawled questions she would never ask them.

  ‘What, and that’s possible?’ She was angry at herself for asking.

  ‘That demon makes anything possible.’

  ‘But you must have managed to resist it. I mean, you’ve been looking after it for ages.’

  Jake looked down. ‘Every dream has its price, Sadie. I’m not sure that’s one I could ever bring myself to pay.’

  They took a taxi back to Ocean Street. As they turned right off the highway and rolled downhill towards the beach, sunset flared in the windscreen. Sadie sat at one end of the back seat, Jake at the other.

  ‘So Vincent’s always been seriously dodgy?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so. He and I have been bound together since the beginning. All Old Ones were assigned to a regiment of seven. Squadrons, we call them. When I came here fifty years ago, mine came with me. Moaning all the way.’

  ‘So you’re what, the squadron leader?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you didn’t do anything helpful like stay in touch?’

  ‘They know where to find me.’

  It wasn’t hard to picture Jake leading troops into battle, but it was a surprise to realise there were five more of his lot—his squadron—in Perth. Were they all leading small, ordinary lives? Were they all so alone?

  Jake had lapsed into silence again, digging down into his own thoughts. There was more he had to say, more he was avoiding saying. Sadie nudged his thigh with her knee.

  ‘And?’

  He was scowling now. ‘And what?’

  ‘You promised you’d tell me the whole truth,’ Sadie said, carefully. ‘But when I ask about some things, it’s like there’s this anger just steaming off you.’

  ‘I’m not angry at you.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a happy face?’

  Jake looked out the window at the setting sun. He didn’t shift on the seat, but Sadie felt him pull away from her. ‘Your parents,’ he said. ‘You never talk about them, do you?’

  Sadie flinched. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  He turned back to her. ‘You don’t, do you?’

  For a moment, Sadie worried she couldn’t explain herself. She had spent so long not thinking about it, buttressing herself against the sharp edges of grief and anger and loss. ‘When it first happened, people wanted to talk about it all the time. Like they thought I had to talk it through, talk it out of me. But I didn’t want to talk about it, not then.’

  ‘It was your loss, not theirs.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it exactly. It sounds stupid, but I didn’t want to share it with anyone else. Nobody else was going to understand. It was like every time someone wanted to talk about it, they were stealing a bit of it from me.’

  Jake nodded, waited for her to go on.

  ‘After a while, a few months, people stopped wanting to talk about it. They stopped giving me these pathetic frowns and started smiling. All the time. Like if they smiled enough, I’d just have to join in.’

  ‘What did happen to your parents?’

  Sadie took a deep breath and told him. Told him everything. What she remembered. What she didn’t. How she couldn’t look at the eastern hills without thinking about that day. How Christmas still made her angry. How there were streets and suburbs and shops she couldn’t go near without her stomach hollowing out. The geography of loss.

  ‘I think, in the end, people just get impatient. They wait for you to get over it, to get back to normal.’ Sadie met Jake’s gaze and held it. ‘But I’m never going to get over it.’

  ‘No,’ Jake said quietly. He leaned forwards, grappling his knees as if gathering reinforcements, and took a deep breath. ‘During the last war, I fought in Egypt with the British army. The locals warned us of demons living in the desert. Powerful spirits who would lead men astray. Ifrit, they were called. Demons of fire and sand and dust. Forbidden creatures.’ He frowned. ‘I already knew these stories, just as I knew the worst demons lived at sea, waiting to be summoned to shore. They were creatures of immense power and immeasurable mischief. Praise them or threaten them, make them choose you as their master and they’ll grant any wish.’

  ‘That’s what’s inside the relic. A sea demon?’

  ‘Vincent taught Lysandra how to become its master, and she asked it for immortality. I should have known what they were up to. Each squadron was given a city to care for. Lysandra’s was mine.’

  ‘You feel responsible.’

  ‘What do you think?’ he snapped, then held up his palms in apology. ‘By the time I found out, it was too late. All I could do was trick the demon into a box, before it could grant any more wishes. Demons can be bound to objects, you see—a bottle, a lamp, a chest.’

  ‘It was you,’ Sadie realised. ‘You put it in the box. You made the relic.’

  ‘Yes. I closed the box and I’m the only one who can open it. That’s why it’s my responsibility. Why it always has been. I carved the box from the woods of Mount Olympus, from divine timber. To cut down a tree, I needed the blessing of the Gods. I had to tell them what Lysandra had done.’ Jake watched Sadie carefully, searching for approval. ‘I had to betray the people I was supposed to care for.’

  Sadie waited for him to go on.

  ‘I stood on the shore. I watched a volcano spew burning rock and ash and fire into a blue sky. I watched the sun disappear. The sea rose up and scattered the merchant ships. I watched it swallow my city. Swallow everything.’

  He breathed in hard and straightened his shoulders.

  ‘Even in servitude, a demon delights in being mischievous. Lysandra and her people still drowned. Only their souls had been made immortal, not their flesh. They were left halfway to divinity, halfway to hell.’ He sniffed, shook his head and pretended to be impressed by the
sunset, as if he was suddenly embarrassed by his honesty.

  Sadie recognised something of herself in Jake. He was navigating the brittle edge of dark emotions. She knew how that was done. A quick joke, a smart remark, and her course remained steady.

  ‘Okay, questions. If the demon tricked her, why would Lysandra want it back?’

  ‘It’s been imprisoned for thousands of years. If she sets it free, it will choose her as its master and give her its power. Finish the job.’

  ‘Even if she starts a war?’

  ‘I doubt there’s anything she wouldn’t risk for immortal life.’

  ‘Right. So, second question. You said you were the only person who can open the box. If that’s true, she can’t get at the demon. So why all the fuss?’

  Jake smiled, but only just. ‘Sadie, it’s not just the relic I’ve been hiding. It’s me. I know Lysandra. She’ll find a way to make me open that box. Whatever it takes.’

  The taxi had pulled up outside Ocean Street.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be looking for the God squad?’

  ‘We need to get into Frobisher’s office and get his address book. I need to find the rest of my people. Someone must know something.’

  ‘And we’re back here because—?’

  Jake plucked at the front of his T-shirt. ‘First rule of burglary. Never wear white.’

  ‘Burglary, right.’

  He frowned, looking for her eyes. ‘You don’t have to come with me.’

  Sadie already had her door open. ‘Shut up,’ she said, smiling.

  Sadie buzzed with a strange, nervous electricity. It wasn’t just the hunt for the relic, it was Jake. Being with him, sharing this adventure. He was leaning on the dining table, looking serious, in a tight black T-shirt. The newspaper was unwrapped and spread out in front of him.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  Jake held up the paper to show her the front page. Cold Blooded Murder, it read, above a photo of a suburban shop surrounded by police tape and a fuzzy snapshot of a middle-aged man smiling at the camera.

  If anything, Sadie felt relieved. It was someone else’s tragedy. ‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ she said, but her tone was elsewhere. ‘Do they know what happened?’