Bloodstone

by Gillian Philip

  It came from the trees.

  I wondered why I hadn’t recognised it before. It grinned up at me and winked one yellow eye, then gave me a little wave before turning back to console the incandescent Mack, laying a calming arm on his huge shoulders.

  I squeezed Mila’s waist.

  ‘He’ll be livid,’ she said, biting her lip.

  ‘So we’ll stay clear for a bit.’ I started to climb across the rocks, drawing her with me, trying not to look back at Mack and his parasitic pal. When had he attracted that?

  I shuddered. I’d stopped laughing now. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  A city: they belonged in a city, not some rank small town where they couldn’t vanish when they needed to. I remember thinking that as I left Mila and her son, as I shut the car boot and handed over her pathetically small bag of belongings. She smiled at me.

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘We’re always fine. It’s not the first time I’ve been kicked out of a place.’

  ‘Hasn’t been my fault before.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ She kissed me, but I didn’t move, just leaned against the car door, watching her eyes. ‘And thanks for finding us this place.’

  Arms folded, I looked up at it: dank concrete and unwashed windows, an overgrown yard, the smell of piss, the thud of bass from a ground floor flat vibrating my bones. I should have been able to do better, but landlords can be fussy about a tenant with no bank account and no utility bills, just a scrawny teenage son with the eyes of a thief. Speaking of whom, he was already casing the place, peering in a neighbour’s filthy window. I almost felt sorry for him, with his sunken sleepless eyes and his twitching fingers. But there was a limit to my sympathy, and he’d reached it.

  Mila would be fine. I was pretty sure of that. I’d never indented for a lifetime’s support and she’d never expected it. I wasn’t abandoning them, but it wasn’t as if I could move the pair of them into Leonora’s house at Tornashee.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow?’

  ‘Maybe wait till Jed’s gone out?’ She tried again, nervously touched my arm. This time I laced my fingers into hers.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. I was never sure how much he took in, but I felt easier when he wasn’t around. I let her kiss me. I kissed her back.

  I’d intended to go straight home, after that, so the gods knew why I detoured by the base once more. I felt guilty, I suppose, and guilt gave me an unfocused sense of injustice and resentment. It’s not as if I knew exactly what I was going to do when I confronted Mack, but it wouldn’t have ended well. So it’s just as well I was intercepted before I found him.

  It was waiting in the dirty copse of trees beside the traffic lights, and it moved a little out of the shadows as I turned down the road to the base. I stopped. Glanced at the ground beneath its feet, and the nonexistent shadow.

  ‘Long time no see,’ I told it.

  ‘Where you off to, Murlainn?’ It lit a cigarette.

  ‘You know fine.’

  It took a deep drag, tilted its head back, blew smoke at the sky.

  ‘Those are bad for your health,’ I said.

  It grinned. ‘Women are awful bad for yours.’

  ‘Thanks a feckin’ bunch,’ I said. ‘You tipped him off, didn’t you?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have interfered.’

  ‘Interfered with what?’

  It examined the tip of its cigarette, sucked on it again to stop it going out. ‘Stay away from my protégé.’

  ‘Oh. I see. I must say, you’re getting on fine.’

  ‘That I am, and I don’t want Griogair’s runt in the way.’

  ‘In the way?’ I was trying to be civilised, but I couldn’t stop my lip curling. ‘Listen, pal, you’re welcome to him. Feel absolutely free. I wish you joy of him. Just keep your scrawny hands off Mila.’

  It shut one eye, tapped ash off its fag, half-smiled. ‘I’m not interested in the woman.’

  ‘That’s not what I said. Stay away from her.’

  It shrugged. ‘Don’t warn Mack about me.’

  ‘Like he’d believe me.’ I laughed. ‘Even if I wanted to warn him.’

  ‘We understand each other.’ It crushed the cigarette under one foot. ‘You’re a civilised man, Murlainn.’

  ‘One of us has to be.’ I paused as I turned on my heel. ‘A man.’

  ‘Cheeky.’ It wagged a finger. ‘Stay away.’

  ‘Same to you.’

  I turned one last time at the traffic lights, ready to shout back at it, but as hard as I stared into the copse of trees, I couldn’t see the Lammyr. Gone to its protégé.

  And I’d only just realised it had given me no promise.

  PART TWO

  Four Years Later

  Conal always seemed to slide quite naturally into responsible jobs. I shouldn’t have been surprised, and I did eventually stop doing a double-take when I saw him in a business suit. He was quiet, unobtrusive, devastatingly effective, and never attracted the kind of attention that would have brought the corporate knives out. If I got a proper steady job like his, he told me (till I was sick of hearing it), instead of being little better than a mercenary in the worst trouble spots I could stick a map-pin into, he wouldn’t expect me to spend so much of my time nursemaiding Finn.

  The child still had no friends, attracting only the worst kinds of attention, but that didn’t mean she was content to hang around Tornashee keeping her head down and learning how to be a good full-mortal citizen. She wandered.

  Conal drew the line at the Fairy Loch: for obvious reasons it was strictly out of bounds, no questions, no deals; and because it was the only place forbidden to her, she quite reasonably stuck to that rule. As for the rest, we kept an occasional eye on her, as far as we could. And because I couldn’t hold down a job for any length of time, I got stuck with it more often than the people who actually cared about her.

  Conal’s theory was that I was looking after the girl. Me, I reckoned I was looking after the people she met – especially given the filthy mood she was in that autumn when she turned sixteen. She knew something was up with Leonora, and she knew she was out of the loop, and both were guaranteed to madden her.

  I told them. So many times. There are many things that are my fault, but that isn’t one of them.

  Speaking of things that were my fault, I saw Jed again that day. Even if he’d seen me he wouldn’t have recognised me – I’d had time and leisure enough to get into that wild mind of his and rearrange the dark fog of the Veil for my convenience – but I couldn’t help a vestige of curiosity about him. Guilt, too. Their life wasn’t what it had been before, but then I wasn’t the one who’d signed her worldly possessions over to Mack. It gave me only a little satisfaction now to know he’d died in some fatal drunken brawl: too drug-addled for Skinshanks to bother with any more, and swapped, presumably, for a new and more promising protégé.

  Not that that helped Mila and her sons: two of them by this time. To be honest I didn’t know how the younger one survived; the sickliest thing I ever saw, he was. It would be easier for Mila and Jed if he got it over with and died. You only had to look at him to know he wasn’t destined to stay in the world for long, but Jed was attached to him. Jed was clearly not so good as I was at distancing himself from those he should love.

  I’m not saying I’m proud of that. But I am good at it.

  Don’t get me wrong. I saw Mila a lot, in the early days. It’s not as if I simply abandoned her; not immediately. I couldn’t have: truth be told, I couldn’t stay away. I didn’t care that the stairwell stank of piss and stale sweat and rancid fast food; Mila’s skin smelt of oranges and cheap white musk. I didn’t care that the walls were so thin I could hear the suck of her neighbour’s lips on a cigarette, the rattle of phlegm in her throat, the ping of her microwave. We turned the music up, that was all.

  When he was there at all, Jed took no notice of me. That was what I wanted. He stayed away more often, slept rough sometimes. I’d done the same in my yout
h, many times, so it didn’t seem to me like a sacrifice. And she never stopped adoring him, after all. She seemed to me a paragon of motherhood, but it’s true I didn’t have much to compare her with.

  Perhaps that’s why I didn’t worry when I finally left them both. They had each other, and I knew he’d look after her. Jed knew her better than I did, and I couldn’t handle her addiction. At four hundred and something, I wasn’t grown up enough. I didn’t want to leave her. I had to. She’d do better with Jed.

  It didn’t seem like such a bad deal for Mila, who’d looked after him so well, and anyway, she’d stopped needing me by then; she’d stopped needing anyone but the man who came once a week selling dreams and nightmares and high oblivion.

  The last time I saw her was Guy Fawkes night, fireworks in the town park. The smell of gunpowder, and the smell of Mila; my arms round her and my face bent into her hair. Stars in her eyes, all right. Rockets exploding onto the night like a million flung jewels, spangled for an instant on the cushion of black sky. When the crowd cheered and clapped, she kept looking, blinking up at the emptiness, looking for cloud spiders.

  Firework ghosts, she said. That’s what they were: what was left when they died. Vast spiders of cloud. She watched them with such wistfulness. And I was no better, because I wasn’t taking notice of the fireworks either; I was looking only at Mila.

  Sentiment is one thing, but I felt no responsibility for any of them. It was her choice to be permanently off her face: hers alone.

  But I did go by the house now and again. It wasn’t on my way anywhere, but it wasn’t a huge detour. I liked to know the place hadn’t burned down, that was all.

  Not that what I found that day was much better.

  As Jed came storming out of the communal door with the infant brother in his arms, I ducked quickly out of sight; no point taking silly chances. Then he faltered, and bent over, and threw up.

  Cold horror in my spine, and a slow sickening recognition that perhaps Mila’s choice hadn’t been an entirely free one. I waited till Jed spat, and recovered his dignity, and trudged off towards town. He was going to find it awkward nicking stuff with a baby in tow, but I knew he must have his reasons – or one good reason.

  I needed to confirm my suspicions, and I didn’t have long to wait. Mila’s dealer came out of the flat not ten minutes later; nearly translucent with skinniness, but no-one could be fooled that it was weak. If you wanted to put a dent in that kind of wiriness, you’d need a bolt-cutter.

  When it turned the corner, I lunged, slammed it into the wall with my arm against its throat, and hissed in its papery face.

  ‘I told you, Skinshanks. Leave her alone.’

  It blinked, gave me a strangled grin of recognition, and went limp, pointing at its own throat. Reluctantly I eased the pressure. It coughed delicately and pushed my arm away with distaste, then adjusted its collar.

  ‘Could be worse, Murlainn. Don’t interfere, or it will be.’

  ‘You said you weren’t interested in her!’ Desperation and humiliation wormed in my gut.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘So – who...’ My throat dried.

  ‘I’ve never been interested in the woman, I told you. She’s a means to an end, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m warning you—’

  ‘Don’t come between me and a protégé.’ It tutted, pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. ‘You know better than that.’

  I did know better. I knew better even as the picture cleared, nauseatingly, in my head. ‘The boy.’

  ‘Bingo! And you didn’t even have to phone a friend.’

  I could only stare at it. Jed was doomed if I interfered, doomed if I didn’t. I thought I could see his attraction for the Lammyr. That feral intelligence, that devotion underscored with ruthlessness: all that would amuse a Lammyr. He was a game to it. Or perhaps just – game.

  ‘Don’t worry, Murlainn. He won’t come to a sticky end like dear Mack. He’s very promising.’

  ‘What went wrong with Nils Laszlo?’

  ‘Wrong? Nothing went wrong. He’s doing grand. Barely needs little old me any more.’

  ‘Skinshanks, you’re a bastard.’

  It grinned. ‘Funny insult for you to toss around.’

  ‘Don’t hurt Mila.’

  ‘Don’t interfere.’

  I locked my gaze with its cold yellow eyes. Stalemate.

  ‘I’ll kill you.’ Useless threat.

  It shrugged. ‘Sure. And Slinkbone will take over from me. That Gocaman’s getting careless in his old age; your watergate needs a new Watcher. There’s plenty of us around, you know.’

  I shook my head, beaten. The truth was, I didn’t want to involve myself. It would only make things worse for Jed and Mila both; after all, I knew Skinshanks from way back. Not the first time I’d crossed paths with it.

  And the boy – let’s face it – was more expendable than Mila or an innocent baby. He might even do well with a Lammyr mentor. Lots of people did.

  Lots of people did, and still loved their mothers.

  I didn’t know what else to do, so I followed Jed into the town centre; besides, I was meant to be keeping an eye on Finn. It would help if I actually went looking for her.

  It didn’t take me long to find her, but I kept being distracted by the boy and the baby. The latter didn’t seem to be cramping his big brother’s style after all. Through plate glass beside a cafe counter I watched Jed sweet-talk an old lady with a tartan shopping trolley, but she went soppy over the infant, and he stopped short of sliding a hand into her bag. That attitude wouldn’t last long, not with Skinshanks on his case.

  The mother with the sleek off-road buggy didn’t get the same soft treatment; I watched him pick up the toy-overboard, make her screaming toddler giggle, and help himself to her purse. Who could blame him? It was in full view. And the boy had style.

  Mila was fine, with him around. Fine.

  ‘OY! FIONNUUUUUUUALA!’

  Ah, lift a small-town rock, and there was always entertainment. Remembering why I was here, I picked up my coffee and went outside.

  The screecher was on my side of the road, a beautiful, cocky girl with glossed hair and lips and four clones at her high heels. Shania Rooney, endless source of trouble for Finn. Finn herself was on the far side of the road, all limp black hair and hunched shoulders and shame, trying to blend into the pavement like a grey chameleon. She wasn’t far off. I rolled my eyes and wondered if I could get a job on the rigs.

  ‘MacAngus!’ Shania cupped her hands to her mouth to up the volume. ‘BUGFACE.’

  Give her her due, Shania was a sharp observer. Truth was, Finn did have bug eyes, almost too big for her skull. And like a scared beetle she was trying to scuttle through the crowds, lose herself under some stone. Gods, I thought, here we go again. The trick was always to intervene without Finn noticing you were doing it.

  Shania hovered on the kerb, jabbing the air with a polished fingernail. ‘I’m talking to you, MacAngus.’

  I wandered closer, propping myself beside the Big Issue seller to pretend I was talking to his dog, and watched Finn out of the side of my eye. She’d paused, looked over her shoulder, and the humiliated loathing in her face was striking. I wondered if Shania had noticed.

  Obviously not, because her voice rose above the shrieks of her gang. ‘Christ, her mum must have shagged a beetle. Her dad took one look at her in the delivery ward and dropped dead.’

  Holy shit. That one took even my breath away. The girls were hooting with horrified delight, and one of them shrieked, ‘ShaNIA!’

  Still, at least Finn had got her head up, and her expression wasn’t scared or humiliated any more. That was naked hatred shining out of her silver eyes.

  No, Dorsal Finn, I thought. No you don’t.

  Somebody stopped to buy a magazine, obscuring my view for a moment. I dodged round him, trying to keep track of Finn, alarm making my heart trip faster. Now if I was Shania, if someone was looking at me like that, t
he last thing I’d be doing right now was crossing the road.

  Finn was expressionless as Shania reached the traffic island. That’s when my attention was caught by Jed once more. He was watching Finn, very intent, clearly fascinated. He should be watching Shania, he should be riveted by her beauty and her cruelty and her sheer obviousness. Unease tickled my spine. That bloody boy and his chaotic mind. Unintended consequences, they called it: and all my fault.

  Finn didn’t look remotely scared now. She glanced to her left and then back at Shania, and her face was twitching. For a moment I thought she was going to cry, till I realised she was trying not to laugh. I thought, Uh-oh, and I shoved forward. Jed was between me and the little scene, and he was pushing forward himself as if he feared what was going to happen, as if he was about to get involved. I couldn’t see. I cursed under my breath, dumped my coffee in a bin so my hands were free...

  Too late. Shania stepped off the island, and Jed’s free hand clutched empty air. She glanced down, wobbled, and tripped. There wasn’t anything there, nothing. But she tripped on it anyway.

  I swear to the gods, I nearly laughed too. It was funny, watching the gorgeous creature trip on nothing and stagger, arms flailing, mouth gaping, as Jed stumbled back to keep his balance with the infant.

  Then it stopped being funny. Shania pitched headfirst into the road, shedding her make-up along with a layer of skin as her face skidded on the tarmac. Her hands scrabbled bloodily, almost as if she was trying not to break a nail. It looked undignified and downright painful, but it wouldn’t have been life-threatening. Not if the Land Cruiser hadn’t been roaring up to the traffic calmers, not if its driver hadn’t looked up too late, phone frozen at her ear, mouth opening in a great comical O.