"You shifted?" Jax asked, voice full of suspicion.
"Not through choice," Blaze said.
The Occulator turned his attention to the Nightgaunt, howling something in a language Blaze was glad he could not understand, and the skeletally thin creature shuffled off, leaving them alone. A moment later Blaze heard a small tinkle from a doorbell and the sound of the door closing. The creature must have ventured out into the streets. He didn't want to imagine how many people would suffer nightmares tonight because the Nightgaunt walked amongst them.
"We were expected," Blaze said without preamble. There was no masking the anger in his voice.
"Explain?"
"A Warden met us on the road as we emerged from the gate."
"A Warden? They still live?"
"They still live," Blaze agreed.
Jax didn't seem unduly troubled by the knowledge. "How could the Wardens have known you were coming?"
"That's what I want to know, Jax. Targyn Fae killed four of my pack."
"That is regrettable."
"You don't sound surprised. I name one of Ephram Wanderer's pack, who, I thought long dead, and you merely say, 'that is regrettable?' I do not like the way this smells, Occulator. It stinks worse than week-dead carrion."
"It is not for you to like or dislike, Alpha. You are there to do a job. If you cannot do it, you are of no use to me and I will have the Nightgaunt dispose of your worthless hide. Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal."
"Good. Have you located the child?"
"I have found her."
"And is she dead?"
"No."
"Then why have you breached the Veil to summon me? You know the risks."
"The murder of my pack is not reason enough? Their brood should be informed, Jax, no matter what you feel, they should know that they are alone in the world now, that their mates will not be coming home."
"I did not take you for a sentimental fool, Alpha, but as you say, it should be done," Redhart Jax said, "Now finish what you were sent there to do."
"I'm not finished with you, Jax," Blaze snarled, coming up so close to the mirror his breath fogged it. All of his suspicions were beginning to crystallise but he wasn't about to voice even half of them. "Targyn Fae delivered a message after she killed my pack, 'She is protected.' That is what she said. Now this makes me wonder, are the others here? Is that the great secret you are hiding and why you can't look me in the eye, even now? You sent me to this place unarmed, knowing the Wardens were waiting for me, didn't you?"
The suspicion had been festering within the Wolfen ever since he had fled the scene. Blaze was a creature of action, he dealt in the physical world, whereas Redhart Jax's entire gift revolved around mirrors, and mirrors lied very, very well if you knew how to make them. It was as simple as that. A mirror was never truthful, all it ever showed, at best, was a reflection of the truth but it could be bent, twisted or otherwise manipulated to show what the Occulator wanted it to show.
Jax breathed in slowly, seeming to take most of the mist into his lungs as he did. "There was always the possibility." The Occulator admitted.
"We were sitting ducks. They have weapons, Jax. Weapons from our world. We were unarmed. You knowingly sacrificed my pack."
"It was not like that, Alpha."
"Wasn't it? Then how was it? Because from where I am standing that's exactly how it looks. And if it turns out I am right, I will hunt you down and tear out your still-beating heart with my teeth. You have my word on that, Jax."
"Do not threaten me, Alpha."
"There are no threats between us, only promises. If it was your plan to see me dead, it failed. Think on that."
Blaze gripped both sides of the mirror's gilded frame, leaning in to the glass until his lips touched the cool smooth glass. There was no way the mirror man could miss the saliva glistening on his incisors.
"Why would I want that? We are friends, Blackwater Blaze. More. We are pack. We both serve Sabras in all things we do, don't we? We are unquestioningly loyal to him, and by extension loyal to the King Under the Moon. That is the nature of the pack. It was his will that you cross over to the Sunside to kill the girl, not mine. It was his will because of the threat she poses as Tanaquill's child. I do not presume to have such influence. So, Blackwater Blaze, are you questioning him?"
He noticed the Occulator didn't call her the King Under the Moon's child. The threat she poses as Tanaquill's child. Blaze knew what that meant. It wasn't a threat to the Kingdoms, it was a threat to the King himself, because she was the daughter of the Fae Queen. Not daughter of the King and Queen. Succession past from mother to daughter down the female line, and the line ran pure all the way back to the very first Fairy Queen. He had no divine right to rule. That made the girl powerful in ways that the King Under the Moon could never be.
If she lived.
Hence his mission.
If the girl were to return, the King Under the Moon would be forced to turn the throne over to the rightful heir should she be recognised by the Kingdoms. That was why he had sent Blaze. It was better she died here.
Blaze breathed deeply.
The Wolfen had known it instinctively from the moment Jax had opened the Moongate, but hadn't been willing to think about what it actually meant—and what it made him.
The King had no intention of relinquishing his iron grip on the Tribes of the Moon.
Blaze was not happy.
He had been used.
There was no honour in being a killer, even for your king.
"Should I be? Because it disturbs me that the King Under the Moon would send an assassin to kill his missing daughter," Blaze said. "Surely the King would want her brought home, after all she is all that remains of his precious queen? I know I would want my brood returned to me in his place." His back arched sharply, heckles up. Every hair on his body bristled as anger flared within him.
"But then you are not a king are you, Blaze? You are but a foot soldier."
"A foot soldier? Hardly, Jax. I am an assassin. You sent here to kill a helpless child," Blaze snapped. "And not any child; the daughter of our departed queen. You would have me murder the future of the Kingdoms Beneath the Moon simply because the man on the throne does not wish to relinquish his grip on it? He would kill his own daughter, Jax! And you call me a soldier? Soldiers do not kill innocents." Blaze rounded on the face in the mirror. "And now you admit you suspected the Wardens might be alive? What am I to think? You sent me to kill Tanaquill's heir unarmed? Didn't you suspect they would have made contingencies for the coming war when they fled with the girl?"
"You have no authority to question me."
"Authority? How about the fact that I have every right to? I know you, Redhart Jax. You are no fool. If you suspected they were here, you must have known they would be armed. They have had almost sixteen years to prepare for this fight, just waiting for someone like me to come. And yet you offered no warning? What am I to think, Jax? Am I on the wrong side in this fight?"
"I would be careful when it comes to thinking if I were you, Blackwater Blaze. It doesn't suit you. Remember, it is easy to regret words, but once spoken they cannot be unspoken." The mist thickened again, as though the link between the two worlds was weakening.
Blaze gripped the frame tighter.
"Don't you dare leave! Not while you have things to answer for!"
Redhart Jax said nothing for the longest time. The only indication that he had even heard Blaze's challenge was the way the flesh around his jowls quivered, baring sharp canine teeth. His nostrils flared as he drew in more of the mist, clearing the air between them.
"This contact costs me, Alpha. These windows between worlds do not open and close at your whim. Maintaining this connection is hard so believe me when I say I do not have the strength to listen to your ranting. I will forgive your arrogance this once, and put it down to the effect the shift has had on your mind. You are not yourself. But mark my words: you will complete your mission.
"Everything that is to come depends on you killing the girl. Everything. All of our plans will come to nothing if you fail. You are but one cog in a vast mechanism of cause and effect. But the girl's death is the gear at the guts of it all. She must die. Do you understand?"
Blaze stared at the face in the mirror. It still made no logical sense to him that the King Under the Moon would want his only daughter murdered, especially after losing his mate Tanaquill during her birth. Surely he would have done anything to bring her home? But then, the King was not Wolfen. Perhaps he did not grasp the concept of Pack in the same way as Blaze did? Something was very, very wrong about this. But, as Jax had pointed out, he was just a foot solider, not a general. Perhaps there was some other truth he wasn't party to? "I understand." He lied.
"Good. Send word via the Nightgaunt when it is done. Here is something else for you to understand: we never sent you there. You are acting alone. No one knows where you have gone, though your disappearance has already been noted. There are whispers that your pack has gone rogue, that you have your eyes on Sabras' throne and intend to challenge him. Believe me when I say I take no pleasure in these rumours, warrior, but it is in our interests to stoke these whispers, to keep them alive. That is just the truth of it. If you should fail, it gives Sabras everything he needs to vindicate your exile. Nothing personal, Alpha. He has to protect himself in this tangled web. We all do. We have put our faith in you. Do not fail us and all will be well."
"It is what it is," Blaze agreed. He was under no illusions. If his usefulness ended, they would cut him off like some diseased limb. The good of the pack came first, always.
"It is good that we understand each other. There should be no lies between us. Believe me when I say I did not know the Wardens would be waiting." Blaze bit his tongue. There was no point fighting, not while there was a layer of glass and some impossible distance between them. But he would not forget the lie, nor its implications. And he was in no doubt that Redhart Jax was lying. One day not too long in coming he would take grim delight in killing the Occulator.
"If you encounter another of the girl's protectors, kill them, or die trying. There is no way back while she lives. You do not need me to tell you what will happen should you fail, but I will anyway: you will be branded a lone wolf, the remnants of your pack—their mates—exiled, and should you be captured you will face the executioner. No one will weep for you, Blackwater Blaze. So, quite simply, do not fail us."
"I have never failed before," the Wolfen Alpha said.
"That is why you were sent."
"The word you are looking for is sacrificed," Blaze said, his anger finally bubbling over. He didn't care that they were worlds apart. The Wolfen slammed his clenched fist into the mirror-face, taking grim satisfaction at the sight of blood on the cracks. The Nightgaunt's proximity meant he didn't feel a thing as he slammed his fist repeatedly in the mirror until it had shattered into a thousand shards and then a thousand more. He kept driving his clenched fist into the broken glass.
Breathless, Blaze looked down at his hand and saw a dozen sharp splinters of glass buried deep in his knuckles.
The fractured face of Redhart Jax laughed, mocking him as it faded.
"Kill the girl, then you can come home a hero. Fail and you can rot in the sun for all I care."
With that he was gone and Blaze was left to wonder again why the Nightgaunt had not been sent to kill the girl if it was so vital to the King Under the Moon that his daughter die. There was only one answer he could think of, and he did not like it.
SEVEN
The Box
It was a most peculiar bus.
Ashley hadn't seen one like it for years.
No, she realised, that wasn't quite true. She'd seen one this morning. That made two of these old style open-backed double-deckers she'd seen in a single day. She didn't know when they'd taken them out of service, but it had to be at least ten years since they'd been common sights driving across the city.
The conductor looked like he had been riding the bus ever since the Blitz.
He reached up and pulled the bell-rope twice sharply, signalling the driver that everyone was on board and they were ready to leave. Everyone being Ashley. The bus lurched away from the side of the road. The old man wandered down the aisle of seats. He had a little silver ticket machine hanging on a leather strap around his neck. He leaned over the back of Ashley's seat, smiling kindly. "Where to, love?"
She took out her bus pass and showed it to him.
The conductor looked at it as though he'd never seen its like, and shook his head. "That doesn't work on here, love. You need to buy a ticket. And to buy a ticket I need to know where you're heading, hence the first question." He smiled. He had a kindly face, made even more so by all of the creases and wrinkles. He looked like someone's granddad.
"Clerkenwell Rise," she said, "or as close as you get to it."
His smile broadened. "You're in luck. Two pounds twenty five, and we stop right on the corner."
Ashley pulled open her satchel and rummaged inside for her purse. She didn't know why she bothered, she knew there was less than fifty pence in there. She hadn't expected to have to pay for the bus ride. She opened up her purse and counted out the coins. Forty-seven pence. "I'm sorry," she said, expecting the conductor's kindly façade to drop as he ordered her off the bus.
"It's okay," the conductor said. "I'll let you off just this once. It's not like we're full." He rung up a ticket for her and handed it over. "I'll swap you the ticket for a chat, how's that? I don't get to talk to many people these days."
Despite years of 'Don't Talk to Strangers' being drilled into Ashley and every other inner-city girl her age, she couldn't help herself; instead of feeling frightened, she grinned.
It occurred to her then that they'd been driving for a good five minutes, and despite the fact that there was relatively heavy traffic they hadn't stopped once, not for backed-up cars, not for red lights, and not for other passengers to board the bus. She hadn't been paying attention, but looking out through the windows now she didn't recognise where they were. That wasn't so surprising. There were a thousand and one routes through the city to get from A to B but given the fact she was alone with an old man on a bus that didn't look like it had been in service since for fifty years, and that didn't appear to be stopping for passengers it should have been very disturbing.
She saw his name badge, with the London Transport logo on it. Ephram. It was reassuringly official.
"I really should pay for my ticket," Ashley said.
"It's not necessary."
"Still, I'd feel better about it. I thought my bus pass would cover the journey. It's supposed to cover all of Zone One and Two. I'm really embarrassed that it doesn't, and mum's drilled into me how wrong it is to rely upon the kindness of strangers." It sounded like the right thing to say, the sort of thing her mother would say—and she was right, it was wrong to rely upon the kindness of strangers. But she was also dead wrong, because it was never about relying upon kindnesses; it was about accepting them when offered and the need was great. In this case the need wasn't great; she could have walked. It wouldn't have killed her. "Can you give me some sort of bill? I can get mum to pay it when I get home."
"I can," the conductor said, dubiously, "but it's a fifty pound fine for not having a valid ticket, are you really sure you want to give that to your mum?"
"Maybe I'll save it for her birthday next month," Ashley grinned.
"In which case perhaps I should put a smiley face on the bottom and say happy birthday from London Transport?"
"I would," Ashley said.
It took another thirty minutes for them to reach the corner of Clerkenwell Rise, a street that seemed to go on and on forever, climbing up a gradual hill that could have been a mountain by the time she'd finished walking up it. No one else got on the bus. Ephram chatted a little, about nothing really, just making the occasional comment about something they drove past, a landmark, who liv
ed once upon a time in which house, that kind of thing. Ashley rather enjoyed it. The conductor was a mine of useless information about the city she lived in and, perhaps surprisingly, she had hardly heard any of it before. At one point, close to Whitechapel, she was sure he was making stuff up as he went along. She really didn't care if he was, it was still wonderfully charming to listen to him tell tall tales of the city that never was, and made London sound like such a fabulous place.
She had always liked stories.
They fired the imagination in the way that nothing else could.
But far too soon, he reached up to pull the bell-rope once, signalling the driver to pull up. "This is your stop," he said, and walked with Ashley to the back of the bus. He pointed across the road, to a wide street, "That's the way you want to go."
"Thanks for the ride, Ephram," Ashley said.
"My pleasure, Princess," he said, with a wink.
"Princess? Hah, mum would say the word you were looking for is 'Trouble'."
"Well you have just cost her fifty pounds, so perhaps she has a point?" the Conductor said.
Instead of answering Ashley hopped down from the backboard and skipped across the road. On the other side she turned and waved once. The bus had already pulled away and was disappearing down the road.
A battered white street sign halfway up the side of the nearest house said she was standing at the foot of Clerkenwell Rise. It was an old Victorian terrace, identical to countless terraces on the outskirts of the city. The ground floor of several had been converted into shops with huge plate glass windows and flaking signs for haberdashery, laundrettes, groceries and junk shops. It was, in other words, a typical street in a typical London suburb. She started walking up the street. The number three was painted on the glass transom above the first door. Number 723 promised to be a long, long walk away.
There were double yellow lines painted along the side of the road, but that didn't stop people from parking their cars there.
Of course these weren't the same kinds of cars that lined the curb of Curzon Street, but then that was a different kind of London entirely.
Moonlands Page 6
