by Alex Rivers
Odin eyed me from his perch on the window sill. It felt as if his stare was accusing me of something.
“Good morning, Odin,” I said blearily.
He hopped from leg to leg. “Squawk! I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this. Squawk!”
“Take it easy, Poe,” I muttered, pulling on a black T-shirt and a swishy cotton skirt. I found the remote control and turned on the television, flipping the channel until I found the news. A blond reporter stood just outside Liverpool Street Station.
“Eighty-seven cases have been reported of Londoners affected by this … muscular problem. This mania. We don’t really know what to call it. We don’t know the cause yet. As I said before, we don’t know if it’s caused by chemical warfare, but the police are suspecting terrorism, and people are being asked to stay in their homes. Thirteen people are reported in critical condition. We’ve also had reports of numerous floods on the Thames’ shores. Three have drowned, and seven have gone missing, but as I said, authorities—”
I switched off the TV, my chest tightening. We were powerless against the fae, and didn’t even know who was attacking us, or why. I was being strung along by an insane puppet master, and meanwhile, the fae were torturing humans across the city with the dancing plague. I needed to speak to Roan—assuming he was still willing to talk to me after I’d stabbed the forest king. Maybe he’d have a clue who was attacking the city.
“Quoth the raven, betraying wetness. Squawk!”
I sighed, but I found the raven’s rantings oddly soothing. As long as the bird was chattering, I wouldn’t have to think about the mania claiming the city. Wouldn’t have to think about mirrors soaked in blood, or that spluttering, gurgling sound…
Odin fluttered his wings, and I caught a glimpse of color around his leg—a tiny green ring. In fact, each of the ravens had a different colored ring on their legs for identification.
“Tell you what.” I rummaged in my suitcase, searching for my toiletries bag. “Your behavior is utterly inappropriate.”
“Squawk! He thrust into me!”
“Right. That’s what I’m talking about.” I found a pair of small scissors. “I’m not sure you belong at the Tower. You’re not stuck-up like the other ravens. I’m thinking of hiring you as an accomplice.”
He hopped away from me as I walked over to him. “I have dreamed of joy departed!”
“You and me both, buddy.” I grabbed him and carefully cut the ring off his foot. “Congratulations. You’re free.”
“Squawk! Good morning, Goddess!”
I brushed my teeth quickly, eyeing the mirror nervously, but no bloody letters appeared on the glass. I combed my hair, pulled on my shoes, and carefully tucked the sleeping ravens back in the backpack. Then I left some raisins on the windowsill for Odin. He glared at me suspiciously.
“They’re fine,” I said. “You can trust me. We’re friends, right?”
“Nevermore!”
I shut the room’s door behind me. I had some urgent things I needed to do before I got another message.
* * *
Clutching my new cell phone, I scanned the street around the police station. The late afternoon sun slanted over the street, glinting off glass buildings.
The warnings issued by government officials about chemical warfare had nearly cleared out the center of the city, and the crowds had thinned a bit, which would make it a little harder to go unnoticed. If the CIA had been asking the police about me, I didn’t want any of them spotting me. But by now, I was sure, the CIA had marked Gabriel as a person of interest, and if I had to guess, his phone was tapped. If it was, I’d find it out soon enough.
I dialed his number, and he answered after two rings. “DI Stewart.”
“Hey, it’s me. We need to talk. It’s urgent.”
“I can’t.” He sounded troubled. “Things are insane here. Two people have died now from exhaustion and heart attacks, and the hospitals are overloaded. Not to mention that the EDL is stirring things up, blaming chemical weapons brought in by immigrants.”
“The EDL?”
“English Defense League. A far-right organization. From Whitechapel to Luton, they can always be relied upon to be utter fucking pricks. And apparently, someone stole the ravens from the Tower, which they’re all up in arms about. I don’t know why anyone would give a toss about birds when people are dying, but they’re using it as a symbol. An attack on our nation or some shit. They’re claiming that refugees are feasting on the queen’s ravens while poisoning the city with Iraqi weapons.”
My throat tightened. The abductor had me playing right into the chaos. “I’m near the station. Meet me outside. It’ll be quick.” I hung up.
How long until the CIA got here? Ten minutes? Fifteen? They had no authority here, and I doubted they’d use the local police. I was still an FBI agent. They wouldn’t want me taken in by British law enforcement—I hoped. I crossed the street to the police station, keeping my head down and staying at a respectable distance from the cop at the entrance. I rummaged in my bag, palming the small mirror I’d bought on the way here—my emergency getaway if the CIA showed up. Since the day I’d emptied my magic, I hadn’t tried to jump through any reflections, and the thought of doing it now made me feel clammy all over. That feeling of the empty void between reflections still gnawed at me. Still, I might have to disappear fast.
After two minutes, Gabriel pushed through the doors, frowning at me. “What is it?” He asked, his voice low. “I have to go back inside. The mayor and the chief of police are here. They’re demanding answers that I don’t have, and—”
I leaned in closer to him, whispering. “I took the ravens.”
He stared at me, fingers tightening into fists. Nearby, a car horn pierced the air.
I touched his arm. “I had to.”
“You broke into the Tower of London?”
“The abductor contacted me. It was my next task. If I didn’t do it, Scarlett would have been hurt again, or killed. I couldn’t tell you because I knew you’d try to stop me, and I didn’t want you to be complicit.”
“Well, now I am, Cassandra, because you’ve just confessed to me!” he hissed. “You’re a bloody liability at this point. You’re under the control of a maniac, and I don’t know what she’s going to ask you to do next. What if she tells you to kill someone, Cassandra? Not to mention that innocent people are already taking the blame for what you’ve done.”
Guilt coiled through me. “I’ll return them,” I said hurriedly. “Once Scarlett is safe.”
He grabbed my arm. “I’m taking you in.”
I yanked my arm from his grasp. “Gabriel. If you take me in, the abductor—”
“The abductor will get you to do even worse. I can’t trust your judgment anymore, Cassandra. You’ll do whatever she tells you to do, and you’ll drag me down with you.”
“I deeply appreciate your help, and I treasure you as a friend. Your support means the world to me—”
“You covered up the message, didn’t you? When I got to your hotel room yesterday. You were lying to me.” He shook his head. “I can’t trust you, Cassandra. I’m sorry, but you’re on your own.”
I blinked away the tears. “I did what I had to do. And I have a plan. To find Scarlett, and get her back, I swear, but—”
I caught something from the corner of my eye. A businesswoman, briskly walking down the street, glancing at us for a moment too long. Sloppy work.
“Listen,” I lowered my voice. “The CIA is tapping your phone.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because they just showed up here, like I expected. I just wanted you to know. About the ravens. They’re safe.”
“I don’t care about the sodding birds. I care that you broke into the Tower, that you lied to me, and that as long as this woman is controlling you, you’re a danger to the city.”
I glanced over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of a man walking towards us about thirty feet away. He was talking on the phone
, looking sideways. Movements too precise to be accidental. The agents were about to grab me on the street. The bastards had nerves of steel.
Just as I was about to move, the mayor pushed through the station doors, the breeze toying with her tidy gray hair. The CIA operative stopped walking, talking animatedly on his phone. He didn’t want to grab me in front of the mayor. Good.
She crossed to Gabriel. “DI Stewart. I’m leaving, but as I said before, I want results within twenty-four hours.”
He turned to look at her. “Of course, Madam Mayor.”
She glared at him, her gray eyes piercing. “The explosions, the floods, the ravens, the plague… they’re all connected. It isn’t vague, Stewart. I’ve seen zero progress so far.”
She had an odd way of speaking—probably the years of learning to sell her ideas to the public.
Gabriel held out a hand. “I assure you—”
“I’m going to get my car.” She turned, her kitten heels clacking over the pavement. Gabriel turned toward me while the CIA operative was hastening his steps, only a few yards away.
I touched Gabriel’s arm. “I’ll be in touch.”
Chapter 23
The CIA agents were gaining ground when I reached Dirty Dick’s Pub, which quite frankly needed a better name. I pushed through the door and rushed to the bathroom of the old wooden-walled pub. I found my way to the loo, and shoved open the door to the women’s room, letting it swing wide open. But I didn’t go through that door. Instead, I quietly slid into the men’s.
An overweight man stood at the urinal, his face lost in concentration. When he glimpsed me, his eyes widened, and he turned sideways to shield himself. I ignored him, and slid into the last stall. I locked the door behind me and pulled off the tank cover.
Good. The airtight nylon bag I’d left in the tank a half hour ago still floated in the water, and I pulled it out, dropping it on the toilet lid. I unzipped the bag, and pulled out a red tank top and a black wig.
I pulled off my T-shirt, swapping it for the red tank top. Then, using a hair band from around my wrist, I quickly wrapped my hair into a bun and pulled on the wig. Finally, I put on the sunglasses. Cassandra Liddell, master of disguise. The skirt I left the same, but it wasn’t particularly memorable—just a short, black skirt. I thrust my shirt into the bag and put it back in the tank, closing the lid.
I pushed through the bathroom door and slipped past the bar. One of the CIA agents was arguing with the bartender, but I couldn’t see the two others. If I’d been managing the pursuit, one would be looking for me in the bathroom, while the other would have gone into the kitchen. I skulked though the front door and left, loosing a sigh of relief.
Thirty yards down the street, I dropped my phone into a Metro Newspaper stand. Unfortunately, there were no trash cans in this part of the city—a relic of the IRA bombings years ago.
I moved swiftly past a woman in a suit, her body just starting to jerk and twitch with the first signs of the mania, and my throat tightened. This would just keep getting worse—more victims, more terror.
A thought nagged at the back of my mind, and I slowed down my pace, mulling it over. Something the mayor had said caught my attention.
The explosions, the floods, the ravens, the plague.
The floods?
The newsreader on TV had been talking about the Thames flooding, too. I crossed back to the Metro stand, pulling out a copy of the free newspaper from under my phone. I skimmed the articles—the biggest story was about the dancing mania. But after that, an article about a possible terror attack on the Thames barrier, causing the flooding.
I skimmed the article, and dread crawled through my gut. The article was describing towers of water, inexplicable waves, and strange surges of river water.
Grendel.
I had no way to be sure, but my gut told me it was him. After all, I’d just stolen Lucy from him. Today, there were floods all over the Thames. He was punishing the citizens of London, letting his anger take hold. And it was all my fault.
I crumpled up the newspaper and hurried off, my stomach flipping. No. This didn’t make any sense. Grendel knew I was a pixie, and I’d been aided by a fae—Roan. We weren’t human. So why would he attack humans as retribution?
The explosions, the floods, the ravens, the plague.
I began walking again, shoving the crumpled-up newspaper into my bag. As I moved deeper into the oldest parts of the city, I could feel the fear washing over me in waves. It thrummed through me, filling me with power. Someone was doing this—all one plan, to spread panic. Just like the Rix had done, but on a larger scale.
And they were using me.
Grendel wasn’t flooding London out of rage. He was doing it because someone had told him to—someone who held something very dear to him. The bone.
Whoever the abductor was, she was acting out a plan. Grendel’s flooding created panic—just like the dancing mania. The disappearance of the ravens was fomenting discord in the city—an attack on an ancient symbol, that the EDL could blame on immigrants. More chaos, more terror—and more power, for terror leeches like me.
And the boar yesterday—King Ebor. Roan had said he was the key to keeping the peace with the Elder Fae. But this abductor didn’t want peace.
The tasks had been personal, vindictive, hateful. But they also served a purpose. Whoever had abducted Scarlett was also responsible for the explosions and the dancing plague.
I was so caught up in those thoughts that I almost didn’t notice the fourth message as it appeared. A murmur of surprised gasps and cries finally penetrated my mind and I blinked, looking around me. A young woman pointed at a shopping window, just to my left. Words were appearing on it, one after the other in the same erratic handwriting I’d seen before.
It was the moment I had been waiting for, but when it finally happened, it caught me unprepared. I nearly missed it.
Fumbling in my bag, I ran to the window. I got the scanner out just as the final word appeared on glass, waving the thing frantically.
It let out a small beep, and I inhaled.
Got you, bitch.
I now had two scanned samples. If I was right, that would be enough to find Scarlett’s location. Only then I focused on the message.
To Guildhall, to Guildhall, to kill who you find,
Three fifteen, three fifteen, Scarlett is mine.
I checked the time. I had twenty minutes.
I began to run.
* * *
If I hadn’t been constantly feeding on the fear overlaying the streets, I could never have reached Guildhall in time. But the Londoners’ raw fear blazed through my body, and I sprinted past a dozen people caught in the grip of the dancing mania, their bodies jerking helplessly, muscles contracting.
Their fear was palpable. And for a terror leech like me, it was a total feast.
I ran fast, hardly feeling the pain in my lungs, the fast beating of my heart, knowing that I just needed to complete this one last task.
Once I got through this, I could use the scanner to track down Scarlett. I would end this once and for all.
Pumping my arms, my breath ragged in my lungs, I tried to imagine what kind of creature she’d put me up against. A monster from the Hawkwood Forest? A dragon, perhaps? The iron knife hissed in anticipation, stroked alive by my growing battle fury. Whatever lay before me, I had to handle it. I had a loaded gun full of iron bullets, and I wouldn’t hold back.
I peered through the window into Guildhall’s entrance, looking for a guard. Just to my right was a bag scanner—like the kind they have in airports—but no one stood guarding the entrance today. It seemed the abductor had taken care of everything.
I pulled open the door, striding through the empty entrance hall. My pulse racing, I crossed over the flagstones and pulled open the arched wooden doors into a towering medieval hall. A shiver of awe ran up my spine: the vaulted ceiling that arched high above me like ribs, the blood-red carpet, the sunlight pouring in through tall st
ained-glass windows. The dais, where kings and queens had once sat in judgment over the broken bodies of heretics and traitors. Apart from that, the hall was empty. No roaring monster, no elder fae. Just my own fear, curling through the room like a ghostly presence, my heart thumping like a war drum.
As I turned in a circle, searching for my opponent, the world flickered.
The towering ivory walls and stained glass shimmered away, giving way to oak trees and tall grasses that tickled my ankles, rustling in the breeze. Sunlight streamed through oak boughs, flecking the ground with amber light that danced over the grassy earth. A jackdaw chirped, and woodlarks trilled.
In a clearing to my right, a serene lake reflected the dark blue sky, its clear surface interrupted only by crimson water lilies that dappled the surface like drops of blood.
I whirled around. As I surveyed the scene, a voice in the back of my mind whispered, Trinovantum.
I breathed in the humid air, thick with the scents of moss and oaks… Not unlike the way Roan smelled. I could almost picture his golden skin, his muscled body, those perfect lips. His piercing green eyes, like chinks of emerald. He was too beautiful to live, and I wanted to destroy him, to bite into his flesh. Nature killed beauty, and so would I.
I blinked, trying to clear my mind. What the hell was I thinking? My thoughts, focused and sharp only a minute ago, were suddenly jumbled and confused, my body strangely hot. I pulled the wig off my head, tossing it to the ground, and tugged the elastic band from my hair, giving it a chance to breathe. My hair fell over my shoulders.
A new sensation coiled through my ribs, making my limbs tremble—battle fury. I wanted to feel the hot rush of blood dripping down my arms. I wanted to lick it off my fingers.
I pulled out my knife, and its anger seeped into me, infectious, poisonous. I needed to plunge this twisted blade into the hearts of my enemies.
From a copse of hemlocks to my left, the trees rustled, and I crouched, holding the knife aloft, ready to kill.
