The Lost Girls

by Sarah Painter

  ‘Fine,’ she snapped, the panic morphing into anger. ‘Fine. Gone, then.’

  And the coil of hair disappeared beneath her palm. Her fingers grasped thin air and her brain stuttered over the sudden lack of sensation. She felt the back of her head frantically, denying the reality of what had just happened.

  ‘Mirror.’ Her voice was as panicky as her scattered thoughts.

  ‘What?’ Mal looked up. His expression changed as the colour drained from his face. He seemed to be clenching his jaw.

  ‘Mirror. I need—’

  ‘Yeah.’ He smiled without a trace of humour. ‘You’re totally human.’ He stabbed a finger at the door in the corner. ‘Bathroom’s through there.’

  She stood in the tiny room with a cracked basin, a toilet, and a window that was too small for her to fit through and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair had gone. She twisted her head to try and see the back but could only see the sides. It was sticking out in rough tufts. It looked kind of good though, like a hairdresser had been chopping away and had blow-dried it so it stood out. It made her look older, more fierce. Or perhaps that was just how she felt. The anger was still there. Why was this happening? Who was this man and what the hell did he think he was doing? She splashed water on her face, used the facilities and considered locking the door and refusing to come out again. It was a flimsy little bolt, though, and she knew he’d probably kick the door down without a second thought.

  In the main room, he was leaning against the desk, bare-chested. His clothes were bundled on the chair and there was a box of first aid stuff open on the desk. He was cleaning out a wound on his side. It was a three-inch gash and he didn’t even wince as he sluiced it out with a squeezy bottle of water, starting fresh bleeding as he disturbed the clotting. He obviously wasn’t a stranger to injury. There were large bruises on his left side, spreading over his ribs and in various stages of healing. His body was so sculpted that, if it wasn’t for the evidence of harm, it would look unreal, and that, Rose told herself, was why she couldn’t stop looking at it. Scientific interest.

  ‘From them?’ she asked.

  He pinched the edges of the wound and applied butterfly strips to keep it together. ‘Just a nick.’

  ‘I think I’m going to throw up.’

  ‘Bathroom,’ he said, without looking up.

  She took a step towards him instead. He wasn’t wincing or crying, but his muscles were tense. Everything about his posture and the set of his jaw radiated pain. She didn’t know how it was possible, but she actually felt sorry for him. ‘Does this happen a lot? In your life?’

  He smiled briefly. ‘Occupational hazard.’

  ‘Did you do something to me?’ Her hand strayed back to the bare nape of her neck.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘To change me,’ she said. ‘I never cut my hair without using scissors before. And I never hurt anybody or—’

  ‘No.’ He turned his attention back to his work. ‘You were a special little snowflake long before I came along.’

  She digested this. ‘Why are those things trying to hurt me?’

  He didn’t look at her. He was sticking the last of the butterfly stitches to his wound and his face was tense. ‘My boss probably sent them. He sent me first but I guess he got impatient.’

  ‘Your boss?’

  ‘Client, really. I’m freelance,’ he said. ‘Pringle.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s his name.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound very demonic.’

  He glanced up, a grim expression on his face. ‘He’s powerful now, but everything starts somewhere, and I think he needed a name which disguised his nature. If you want to lure kids into your van, you don’t call yourself the childsnatcher.’

  ‘Is that what he did? Hurt children?’

  Mal looked back at his wound. ‘I don’t know, that was just an example, but probably. There’s probably not a single awful thing you can think of that he hasn’t had a shot at.’

  ‘And you work for him?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Not really,’ she said.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he replied after a moment. ‘You’re right. I work for anyone who pays, which makes me worse than them. Happy?’

  Rose didn’t think there was a good answer for that, so she kept her mouth shut. Instead she took another step towards the desk. He was strapping a pad of white cotton to his side, struggling slightly. She picked up the adhesive tape and cut a length.

  His eyes widened. ‘Thanks.’

  She was close enough to catch the scent coming from his skin, and when he twisted to pick up his t-shirt she felt herself leaning towards him. Which was insane. She did have the weirdest feeling that she knew him, though. Or had met him at some other time, a time she couldn’t recall exactly. She had the feeling that he had rescued her before. Not today with the Sluagh, but from a prison. At night.

  She took a step back, putting her hands behind her back in case they betrayed her good sense and reached for him. No matter how odd life had been before, she had never truly felt unhinged. She had never thought she needed psychiatric help. Now, for the first time, she wondered if there was something truly wrong with her mind.

  He pulled his t-shirt on and stood up, suddenly very close to her. She reached out a hand and smoothed the front of the shirt, then snatched it back. Yes, she was unhinged.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. For a moment she thought that he was feeling the same weirdly intense attraction, but then she realised that he was peering at her with a scientific interest. The lines between his eyebrows deepened as he concentrated, his gaze flicking from her eyes over her face, and then back to her eyes again, searching.

  She tilted her face up and put her hands on his chest. It was solid and she could feel the heat of his body through the thin material. If he wanted to examine her like she was some strange breed of cat, she would take the opportunity to give in to her base human instinct. Or base demon instinct, if that was what she turned out to be. She didn’t feel demonic or evil, but then maybe that’s just how being evil was.

  His face was so close that when he spoke, she felt his breath warm on her skin. ‘What are you doing to me?’

  She swallowed, unable to look away from his eyes. Which were narrowing in suspicion, rather than widening with attraction or closing with lust. Not ideal. He let go of her shoulders and stepped back, like she’d become radioactive. ‘Is this one of your things? Powers?’

  ‘You think I’m using my special supernatural powers to get you to kiss me? You seriously think that’s what is on my mind at this moment?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘Get me off guard, mebbe?’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ she said. She had a horrible feeling she was blushing.

  He looked at her for a beat longer and then turned away. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed. She crossed the room and sat in the chair. The rope he had used to bind her was still sitting on the table and she picked it up, passing it through her fingers, feeling the rough surface and using the sensation to bind her to this place, this moment. She had to break out of this fog, try to start thinking rationally. Astrid wasn’t here to look after her anymore, she had to look after herself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mal’s side hurt like a bastard where the Sluagh had caught him. They didn’t need weapons, could simply mould their bodies into sharp shapes, and the thing had moved so quickly. He had been distracted, too, by the girl. Rose. He had cautioned himself to stop thinking of her as a young woman, a girl, a human female. She wasn’t Sluagh, he knew that, but she wasn’t just human, either. He had to see her as the object of power or whatever Pringle had her categorised as, the thing he was going to deliver so that he could tie up his obligations and move on with his life. First job would be to move Euan to a different hospital in a new city, get away from any bad thing which might know about him. Pringle wasn’t likely to fo
rget about some leverage.

  Of course, this wasn’t a simple delivery job. If Laura Moffat hadn’t already proved that, then Pringle sending the Sluagh was the candle on the fucking cake. Mal couldn’t pretend to himself that this was object recovery. Not when the object in question was a girl and that girl was gazing up into his eyes like he was the answer to a question she had been asking all her life. Like he was the light in a dark room.

  It was messing with him. The girl-object was using tricks, maybe a glamour or a charm. Something strong enough to get through his training. Didn’t change the fact that she felt human, though. And if she was human with a touch of power, how did that make her any different from him?

  He finished packing his bag and paced the room for a couple of turns, waiting for the answer to come. His father would have slit her throat. He wouldn’t have delivered her to Pringle because he would never have made any kind of deal with a demon, never have worked for one in a hundred million years. Euan? Mal didn’t know what Euan would do. When Rose had emerged from the bathroom, her pale skin had lost some of its luminosity and there were dark shadows under her eyes. She looked frightened.

  Euan would save the girl. But then, he’d always been the heroic one.

  Now Rose was sitting in the chair by the desk. She kept touching the back of her head, self-consciously. She looked so much like a person it physically hurt to look at her – the disconnect between the energy which radiated from her, the kind Mal had always associated with evil, and the prosaic normality of her body. He had been so close he had seen the pores on her skin. The tiny scar above her left eyebrow that looked like a chickenpox mark. Flakes of dry skin on her lips.

  ‘We have to move out of here,’ he said, trying to ignore the urge to wrap his arms around Rose, to touch her newly-shortened hair. His instinct for self-preservation was at war with his desire to protect. He thought that part of him had died the day Euan was hurt, and he ached with the unfamiliar emotion. As a result his voice came out harsher than he intended. ‘Unless you want to stay and fight.’

  She flinched, and he felt like hell. ‘I don’t know how,’ she said. ‘I told you, I don’t know—’

  ‘Okay.’ He held up a hand. ‘We’ll go.’ He crossed to the window and looked down to the street, taking a sharp breath inward when he saw how many Sluagh had gathered. They were milling about on the pavement, looking like the cattle they were. A couple were working on the door, though, and it wouldn’t be long before they had broken through the protective seal.

  ‘Can’t someone help us?’ Rose said. ‘Astrid took me to see a ghost, but that’s probably not helpful. He mentioned someone called Mary King. Could she hide us or something?’

  Mal paused. ‘Astrid knows Mary King?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head, as if trying to clear it. ‘She knew the ghost. Mr Boots.’

  ‘Small blonde Astrid? Your student friend?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, looking surprised. ‘She knows lots but she wouldn’t tell me. She wouldn’t explain and I got angry. You recognise the name?’

  ‘Oh, aye’ he said. ‘And she is not the place to go for help.’ He stopped. An unwelcome thought arrived: If Mary King knew about Rose, then the Sluagh circling the building might be the least of their problems. Fuck. ‘We need to get moving. Now.’

  There was a crashing sound from the ground floor. Rose’s face was a picture of terror and he felt another stab of concern, responsibility. He had dragged her here.

  ‘They’re in,’ he said. ‘This door is warded, too, but it won’t take them long.’ He hefted his bag onto his shoulder and looked out of the window. When he looked back, he was pale. ‘The roof was my backup plan, but one of them is climbing the wall. It will see us if we go out of the window.’

  The thundering sound of shoes on the stairs seemed to fill the room. It rang in Rose’s head and made it impossible to think clearly. She opened her mouth to ask what they were going to do. This man, who had seemed so terrifying and strong, suddenly looked small and young. But the flash of fear in his face was gone as fast as it had appeared and he reached out his hands to her, pulling her gently from the chair to a standing position. He squeezed her hands, dipping his head to look into her eyes. ‘You can escape. You did it before.’ Fists were pounding on the door to the office now, the door shaking in its frame.

  ‘I don’t know what I did. I don’t know—’

  ‘You can. You were running away from me and you just disappeared. You can do it now. You’ll be all right.’

  ‘What about you?’ Rose knew that she had held Astrid’s hands and they had ended up in Paris together but she didn’t know how or why. She didn’t know if she could make a repeat trip.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Mal said. ‘They’re only after you.’ But she knew he was lying.

  She hesitated, wondering if there was something she could do, like click her heels together or say the magic word.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, smiling a little. ‘I’ll chase you around the room. It worked last time.’

  He was trying to help her, and she felt something tugging in her chest. A feeling. She gripped Mal’s hands more tightly, wrapping her fingers around his and resisting when he tried to pull away. She heard the door crack and knew that there were seconds before those things were in the room. She closed her eyes.

  Nothing.

  The sound of splintering wood. She opened her eyes, terrified now. ‘I can’t. I can’t do it.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ He pulled his hands free and she let him go. He pushed up the sash window and gestured to her. ‘You first.’

  Her legs carried her to the window, while her mind shut down. A blank white space where thought ought to be. She looked at Mal’s face, drawing strength from his concentration, the way he was acting and moving and trying.

  ‘Face me and get hold of the top of the frame. You’re going to stand on the bottom part and then reach up to the ledge that runs along the building. From there you’ll be able to get hold of the roof edge and pull yourself up.’

  ‘Why aren’t you going first? So that I can see how it’s done?’

  Mal glanced behind her as another blow made the door shudder and splinter. ‘No time.’

  She sat on the window frame and grabbed hold of the top of it. She brought her feet up to a crouch and prepared to stand on the frame, her body outside and sixty feet in the air. Her last view before she flexed her muscles and pulled herself upwards was of Mal, looking tense and unsmiling, but giving her an incongruous thumbs up.

  Flattened against the side of the building, Rose felt the wind buffeting her back, and when she looked for the ledge, her eyes began watering. She couldn’t stay here though, and knew that she would have to move. Every second that she remained still was another moment to think about what she was doing, and to freeze in place. She reached up, half blind, and her hand scraped rough stone. There was a definite protuberance, though, and she decided to assume this was the ledge and gripped it with her fingertips. She brought her other hand up and held on. Now she was pressed tightly against the wall and window. She had to move her feet to the decorative stonework to her right. She shuffled along the window frame to the corner, moving her hands carefully along the ledge.

  Then, the thing she’d been afraid of happened. She froze. Every part of her body locked in terror. Her right leg, the one she wanted to move to her foothold, began to shake.

  Mal’s voice, from below and to the left, said something which was snatched away by the wind.

  Then, she had a comforting thought. She could just let go. She didn’t need to be frightened, clinging to the side of a building in the freezing cold. She could just let go and it would all be over.

  ‘Rose.’ Mal’s voice, clearer this time. Just her name.

  The pleasant thought of oblivion receded and she moved her right foot, catching the foothold on her first try. She had to move both feet before she’d be able to get enough height to catch the edge of the roof, so she had to trust t
he stonework would hold her. She moved her left foot across and then reached upwards straight away, as if she could trick gravity with speed. Miraculously, her hands made solid contact with the edge. It was a lovely proper place to hold on. She pulled with her arms and scrabbled her feet up the wall until she could swing her body over and onto the roof ledge. It was narrow, just a foot or so, but the gently sloping tiles and little horizontal space seemed like heaven after the sheer cliff face.

  She moved along so that there would be room for Mal when he made the same manoeuvre. She didn’t allow the possibility that the Sluagh were already in the room below, that he might not make it. His head appeared first, the short dark hair a welcome sight, and then the rest of his body.

  He pulled himself almost silently onto the roof, indicating with a gesture that Rose should move forwards, along the roof towards the next building. She obeyed, crawling, leaning towards the sloping roof and away from the edge. Sounds from the street drifted from below and the wind picked up, whipping strands of her new hairstyle into her face. After what seemed like an hour but was probably no more than a few minutes, she reached a roof valley between the buildings. It wasn’t deep or especially wide, but it looked very smooth. It looked, in fact, like a chute which had been especially designed to funnel climbers off the roof and to their deaths.

  She twisted her neck to look at Mal and found him closer than she expected. He leaned in so that he could speak directly into her ear, mindful Rose assumed of his voice carrying to the Sluagh below. ‘We could go up,’ he said, pointing. ‘Climb to the ridge tiles.’

  She put her mouth to his cheek and said, ‘No more up.’

  She turned back to the channel of smooth leading and tried not picture herself slipping on it.

  ‘We have to keep going,’ he said. ‘Unless you’ve got a better idea?’

  Staying put, she thought. That’s a good idea. Just wait here in the peace and hope they go away and forget about us.

  ‘When they don’t find us inside, they’ll start checking outside. We have to keep moving.’