Vowed

by Liz de Jager

  ‘Is that why you don’t want to work with the Spook Squad? Because of my dad?’

  ‘Partly, but there are other reasons as well, Kit. They are part of the government and the government is never quite comfortable with things it’s unable to contain and predict.’

  ‘These kids, Uncle Andrew. They need someone to look out for them, figure out where they’ve gone to, who’s taking them, you know?’

  ‘So investigate it. But by yourself.’

  ‘Suola said she wants us both working on the case. And if the one doesn’t want to do it, the other can’t investigate either.’

  ‘That makes things difficult.’

  I sigh and rub the curve of my eyebrow. ‘I know. Nothing can stop me from investigating this on my own.’

  ‘Actually, Suola can. If you turn down this investigation and she gives it to someone else, you are bound by our laws to walk away from it. If you investigate, there will be repercussions.’

  ‘So I’m stuck either way.’

  ‘When do you give her your answer?’

  ‘Dawn. It’s a few hours away.’

  ‘What’s the Spook saying about this?’

  I look back to where Dante’s now watching me through the shop window. He waves at me and I turn my back on him, just in case he can read lips.

  ‘He seems keen. Actually, he came by yesterday already, at home, to introduce himself. He knew that Suola had invited me to a meeting, I realized that tonight when I saw him.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Young. Maybe Marc and Megan’s age.’

  ‘What do you think of him?’

  ‘I think he’s cheeky.’ My sigh is irritable. ‘I don’t know anything about him, at all. But I get the impression he knows a lot about me and us, as a family.’

  ‘Let me do some sleuthing on my side. I’ll call you.’

  I turn and go back into the cafe.

  ‘I took the liberty of ordering some pancakes,’ Dante says as I slide back into the booth. ‘If you don’t want them, that’s fine.’

  ‘I can eat,’ I reply and put my phone down on the table next to me so I can drink more coffee.

  ‘What did your uncle say?’

  ‘He’s going to call back. He’s not keen for us to work together either.’

  ‘You Blackharts are stubborn.’

  I spread my hands wide. ‘Never pretended otherwise.’

  ‘You are pretty confident for someone your age.’ Dante narrows his eyes at me. ‘How old are you anyway? Sixteen?’

  ‘Seventeen.’ I hate telling people how old I am. It makes me feel exposed, as if I’m lacking because I’m not older.

  He whistles. ‘Wow. You can legally drive.’

  I open my mouth to ask him why he was suddenly being a dick, then Hilary turns up with plates laden with pancakes and crispy bacon and maple syrup. She leaves the plates with us and comes back with two more mugs.

  ‘Looks like you kids need this,’ she says, smiling not unkindly at me, before heading back to her small table.

  ‘You’re being a complete pain,’ I tell him, choosing not swear.

  ‘I’ve been told I excel at being a pain.’ He bends his dark head over the pancakes and takes a whiff. ‘These are really good, by the way.’

  ‘You come here often, then?’

  ‘At least once a week.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Okay, maybe I was told by another colleague that these are good.’

  ‘What other colleague?’

  Dante raises his fork and waves it between us. ‘Uh huh. If real questions are being asked, you have to play along.’

  I hesitate only for a second. ‘Fine.’

  The look he gives me is one of triumph. I decide I really hate him.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘I’ll go first. How is it that you’re out on a school night?’

  His question is designed to annoy. ‘I have private tuition. Both my cousin Kyle and I do.’ I chew my pancakes and bacon and have to admit that they’re good. ‘My turn now. How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty. I’ll be twenty-one in December. Why does your family dislike the HMDSDI so much? We’re doing the same job.’

  ‘You work for the government, doing its dirty jobs when there are things that your local police forces can’t handle. You are an interested outside party. The Blackharts work closely with the leaders of the Otherwhere and police their denizens in the Frontier. We try to prevent bad things from happening.’ I raise my eyebrows at him. ‘Now me. You’re really young to be a Spook. How does that work?’

  ‘I was sixteen when I came across my first supernatural creature. It was after a mate’s party and we were all pretty wasted, staggering to the nearest Tube station. I looked up this alleyway we were passing and saw these two guys fighting. One guy was huge, the other was normal sized. I went to help and got an eyeful of something with claws and teeth.’ Dante pauses for a second so he can take a sip of his tea. ‘I was instantly sober. I know a bit of martial arts so I laid into the thing and it gave the other guy the chance to get his taser out. Afterwards he handed me his business card and told me to call him when I finished school. And I did. I’ve been with the agency for two years now.’

  ‘You Saw the creature?’ I’m sure he can hear the different tone I use to inflect in the word ‘Saw’ and he understands what I mean.

  ‘Yes.’ He looks thoughtful. ‘I was pretty drunk at the time and apparently alcohol allows some people to See creatures like the Fae.’

  ‘That is extreme but true.’ I’ve read books about stuff like this in the past, when someone stumbling home after a night at the local free house would see fairies dancing on a local hill. They’d investigate and disappear, maybe reappearing twenty years down the line, oblivious that any time had passed at all.

  Dante nods and watches me as I mop up the last bit of syrup with a slice of pancake. I don’t know where to start trying to figure out more about this guy.

  ‘So, you don’t have true Sight?’

  He shakes his head. ‘The story goes that when I was little I used to have a lot of imaginary friends and I would know things were about to happen before they occured. My friends freaked out on me when it became obvious I knew stuff no one else did. I was brought up in a monastery school until I was seven, and the priests had one of their deliverance priests pray over me. He asked for my gifts to be taken from me until I was old enough to understand how they worked and not hurt anyone with them.’

  This was heavy stuff: a mixture of theology and weirdness that I didn’t fully comprehend myself. But, as far as I understood, the true Sight is usually hereditary – something I and the Blackharts share. But if it’s not understood by the parents, the kid often gets shipped off to visit psychiatrists. There, normality is forced on the poor child, along with a suitcase of drugs to prevent them from ever being remotely normal. A lot of parents talk about imaginary friends in hushed tones and sometimes even, as in Dante’s case, priests are called in to perform exorcisms if things get completely out of hand.

  ‘Can either of your parents See?’

  The look Dante levels at me tells me he knows I’m fishing. ‘I don’t know who my real parents are. I’m adopted.’

  ‘Wow.’ I grimace. ‘Sorry, that must have been hard for you.’

  Dante’s expression is frosty, and he looks me over as if I’ve just suggested his family might be cannibals. ‘No, not really. The family that adopted me is the only family I need. My mum and dad are decent people and my sister . . . anyway, they were fine and are a great family. I couldn’t have been happier.’

  His expression warms as he talks of his loved ones and, just like that, Dante becomes human and likeable. I suspect it’s what he planned all along because he sits back a bit and smirks at me as if he just stole all the cream.

  ‘Can I point out that we’ve been having an actual conversation for five minutes at least and you’ve not told me you dislike me once?’ he says after a few seconds, f
inishing his tea.

  ‘It’s still early,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself.’

  I grab my file and open it up. ‘They’re all from the same estate. That’s unusual by itself.’

  ‘You want to go there now?’ Dante asks, digging in his pocket for his wallet. ‘It’s not far. The traffic shouldn’t be an issue.’

  ‘Yeah. Let’s go see what we can See.’

  Dante pays up and I leave the tip for Hilary. She waves us off and clears our plates as we head into the night.

  ‘I’ve got my bike here,’ I tell him as we near where he’s parked his Lexus. ‘Wait for me.’

  I walk the short distance between my bike and his car and undo the light glamour I threw over it, concealing my leather jacket and helmet. I shrug my jacket on and adjust my fringe before sliding the helmet on.

  I gun the bike’s engine; it answers a deep wuff beneath me and a thrill crawls up my spine the way it usually does when I get on it. Dante’s in the driver’s seat when I pull up next to him.

  ‘Nice bike,’ he tells me. ‘Those pipes definitely aren’t legal.’

  ‘Loud pipes save lives,’ I answer by rote and smile at him. ‘Let’s go.’

  I slam my visor down and pull out into the minimal traffic, keeping to the speed limit and riding sensibly for a change so that he can keep up with me in his Lexus.

  It’s one of my favourite things, riding at night. There’s something primitive about it that I like. Just me and the darkness out on the road. Even in the cities you can sometimes feel it. That you’re being watched and whatever’s watching you isn’t benign or human.

  Dante overtakes me as we near Brixton and gestures out of the window, indicating that I should follow him. I tuck myself behind him at a safe distance and cruise along until we pull off the main roads and take a series of side roads. Small businesses are shuttered and there’s an air of melancholy about the place. Graffiti tags are thrown up but none of them looks familiar.

  We eventually come to a halt in front of a large seventies-built concrete block, flanked by two more blocks slightly lower than the main one. Even the occasional bit of lighting makes the place look tired and in desperate need of a lot of money to tidy it up or, failing that, complete demolition to enable a fresh start. The three buildings form a horseshoe shape and in the middle is a patch of miserable-looking grass, with a sign that reads ‘NO BALL GAMES’ leaning crankily to the side.

  I still the engine and get off the bike, pulling my helmet off.

  ‘This is it,’ Dante says as he gets out of his car and folds his arms on the roof, looking at the three blocks of flats. ‘It doesn’t look like much.’

  This, if I didn’t know better, is the trigger for the screaming to start.

  Chapter Nine

  As we speed towards the noise, I’m gratified to notice that although we are the same height, I’m the faster runner. Dante is only a step behind me when we round the corner of the central block. We are suddenly facing the banshee as she lifts her head from her hands and lets out another ear-achingly loud wail. She’s in the process of floating upwards when she sees us but holds out her hand to us to stop us from interrupting her mid-wail. Dante makes as if to run at her but I grip his wrist and shake my head.

  The banshee’s doing her job; interrupting her would mean she would lose track of her passenger, and that could be potentially disastrous for them both.

  ‘What is that?’ Dante asks, shifting uneasily. He’s wearing silver knuckledusters engraved with sigils that look like angelic script. My magic pings unhappily and I take a step back. Using angelic script on a banshee is like using a nuclear bomb to stop a peaceful sit-in demonstration by unarmed elderly hippies.

  ‘A banshee. She’s a portent of death.’

  ‘No shit,’ he says, sounding shocked. ‘What’s it doing here?’

  ‘When she’s done, we can talk to her. Ask her. Maybe she knows something about the kids who’ve gone missing.’

  ‘How is no one awake with her howling like that?’

  ‘Whoever she’s here for can hear her. The average human can’t. The frequencies the banshees operate on aren’t usually audible to them.’ I watch him thoughtfully for a second. ‘And if you’re wondering, I’m not counting you as an average human.’

  ‘Huh. Thanks, I think.’ He nods. ‘You explain stuff well.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I turn to watch the banshee just as she drops her arms to her sides and floats back down to the ground. At the same time she transforms from ethereal frightening wailing woman to a pretty twenty-something brunette with large eyes and a smiling mouth.

  ‘Ah, an actual Blackhart. And you’ve brought a friend?’ She’s suddenly very close to Dante, really in his face, but he stands his ground and doesn’t flinch when she takes a deep whiff of him. ‘He doesn’t smell of your blood, Kit. Who is he?’

  ‘He’s a Spook,’ I say and watch her recoil as if she’s just stepped in fox droppings. She’s at my side in a flash.

  ‘And you’re talking to it?’ Her voice rose incredulously. ‘Does Andrew know?’

  ‘He knows.’

  ‘Oh.’ She deflates a little and I grin, knowing she was hoping to get some gossip to hold over me so that I had to do her favours. ‘That sucks.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask her. Female banshees just love talking about their jobs.

  ‘There’s a descendant of the MacDougal clan that lives here. I’m tied to their family so I’ve come to sing him home.’

  ‘Is he dead, now?’ Dante asks, unable to keep out of the conversation.

  ‘No. I have three more visits to do before he dies.’ She frowns at him and then at me. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Have you seen anyone here that doesn’t belong?’ I counter. ‘Children have gone missing from this estate in the past and we’re thinking of investigating.’

  She crosses her arms over her chest. ‘And what’s in it for me, if I answer questions?’

  My hand slips into my jeans pocket and I draw out a single white pearl, not too large, maybe the size of my little fingernail.

  ‘I’m happy to part with this if what you tell us is worthwhile.’

  The banshee flutters. I see her real form overlay her corporeal body and I try not to flinch. Next to me Dante mutters under his breath but he stands his ground and, to my surprise, he moves closer to me, as if he’s actually thinking of backing me up in case things go south.

  ‘There is something here,’ she says, her voice low. ‘I’ve sensed it in the past when I’ve come to check on my charge, and each time I felt that it had grown stronger.’ She sighs dramatically. ‘I’d like to call it a ghost, but it isn’t that. It is something different. Something that is pretty old. Older than me, certainly.’

  I frown and look around, taking in the derelict little garden and play area. ‘Has it ever tried to make a move against you?’ I ask her.

  ‘No. It watches and seethes. It feels angry sometimes too. As if it’s annoyed I’m in its territory perhaps.’ She reaches out a hand to me. ‘Give me the pearl.’

  ‘I’m not done yet,’ I say vehemently.

  ‘How often have you been here?’ Dante asks her.

  The banshee stares off into the night, gathering her thoughts before answering.

  ‘I have come here for the past six years, in human time, at least twice a year, if not more, to check on him. Then I go away because nothing in his immediate future showed me that he would die.’

  ‘And you saw the creature each time?’

  She nods mutely, her attention focused on my hand holding the pearl.

  ‘Have you ever spoken to it?’ I ask her and her gaze meets mine reluctantly.

  ‘I am not in the habit of hanging around conversing with things that are likely to do me harm, Blackhart.’ Her tone and gaze as she flicks a look over Dante is rather pointed.

  ‘Is it male or female?’ Dante seems unfazed by her regard and I can’t help but feel a l
ittle impressed by his attitude.

  She shrugs elegantly. ‘I don’t know. Look, Blackhart, I have places to be and litanies to sing. I don’t know who or what this thing is that you’re seeking on the estate. But I know it’s here often and I know it makes things unpleasant for me and others who have to work in the area. I suggest you look to the history of this place.’ She shows me her teeth in a small sharp smile. ‘I wish I knew more, Blackhart, but I do not. Now keep your word and give me my reward.’

  I open my hand and turn my palm upwards so that she can grab the pearl without touching my skin, but even so the coldness that makes up her presence sends shivers down my spine and I sag a little as a bit of my life force is taken in the exchange.

  ‘Good luck,’ she says, turning on her heel and walking off towards the back of the estate where a row of trees separates the grounds from another set of low buildings. As we watch she fades slowly away until there is no sign of her at all.

  ‘That,’ Dante says, with a half-laugh that has a touch of nerves to it, ‘was both creepy and cool.’

  ‘That cost me a very expensive pearl,’ I point out, grimacing. ‘Dammit.’

  ‘I think that the only way to make sure you get paid for it is to take on the job, don’t you think?’

  I narrow my eyes at Dante as I start moving back towards the front of the buildings where we’ve left our transport parked.

  ‘Don’t push it,’ I tell him. ‘Let’s see what else we can find first.’

  The group of teens hanging around my bike look as if they are up to no good. I leave Dante behind as I stride towards them, pulling myself to my full height, shoulders back and chin raised.

  ‘If you don’t get off my bike,’ I tell them conversationally, ‘I’ll have to make you.’

  A tall boy with short dreads looks over at me, his mouth open and smiling. ‘We’re just looking, right? This is a smooth ride.’

  I look at the Ducati and think that maybe I should have come here in Dante’s Lexus instead. But then it would have meant I was reliant on him for a ride home or to the nearest Tube station at least and I’m not keen on that either.