Bloodstone: 2 (Rebel Angels)

by Gillian Philip

  Already running, I heard the squeal of a bystander, saw the Land Cruiser driver shut her eyes. If Shania was making a sound, it was drowned out by the squeal of brakes and tarmac, but I don’t think she was. She just lay there, eyes huge, watching her death coming straight towards her in a colossal four-by-four. I skidded to a halt.

  And so did Death.

  I took a breath in the eerie silence. The huge tyre was kissing Shania’s scalp, but she didn’t move her head. She just opened her mouth, and started to scream.

  There were people crowding round the scene, goggling at the girl on the tarmac and yammering into mobile phones, and some of them – Jed included – were trying to haul her to her feet. Finn hadn’t moved, clearly didn’t feel the need. She loitered, the quicksilver glint lingering in her eyes, only one emotion on her face: a tiny twitch of disappointment. Licking her lips, she cocked her head and listened hungrily to the screaming.

  Gods, she was her mother’s daughter.

  It was time for me to slink away. I’d been sloppy, and it was a near-miss, but no harm done, not this time. There was no reason to stay; there was plenty of reason to go for a stiff drink. There was no threat to her, not now. Finn might as well have been invisible. No-one was interested, no-one watched her.

  Except for Jed.

  I frowned. I wasn’t mistaken: he’d drawn back from the mob, his skin pale, and his eyes darted from Finn to the Land Cruiser driver, who was sobbing on her knees in the road beside Shania. Her car door hung wide open; the strap of her bag lay visible on the passenger seat.

  ~ Whoa, no. That’s enough for one day, boy.

  I’m not sure he reacted to me; maybe he made the decision all on his own. I hope so, because I regretted what I did next; I regretted it for a good proportion of the rest of my life.

  I walked away. It was just that Finn had, too: bored now, she was slouching towards the park.

  It was all over. I didn’t imagine Jed would be interested any more. If I thought at all, I thought he’d stay around beautiful, frightened Shania. I didn’t take account of bolshieness, and curiosity, and a feral uncontrolled mind that had been meddled with once too often.

  So I never saw him follow Finn; never saw him argue and joke and flatter, and at last cajole an explanation out of her. I never saw the light of devotion dawn in her eyes for a boy who wanted to talk to her. I missed the moment Jed became the best and only friend Finn had ever made.

  Stella, who once was Reultan, did her best to be civil. It was important to her self-image. I knew her motives were mixed, and were bound up in our complicated games of provocation and reaction, but at least home life was frostily calm. Her civility, though, was brittle as glass. Most of the time, she’d have liked to slap me, and I loved to see how close I could get.

  Like I said, I was bored. And that particular September afternoon, I knew Finn was at the door, eavesdropping. Furtive little minx. How could I resist?

  I poured a whisky for myself, handed one to Stella. ‘Your mother’s losing her grip.’

  ‘Is that so, Seth?’ Chilly, like snow. ‘What do you plan to do about it?’

  ‘Me? She’s your mother. She’s on the way out. Don’t you care?’ I sighed. ‘Course, caring’s not really your thing, is it?’

  She ignored that. ‘What do you suggest? Locking her up in Calderwood House?’

  ‘Ha! Death’s waiting room? Aye, she’d love that.’

  ‘But don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me. I know what the alternative is.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Place of safety and all that? Sometimes your funny new instincts seem quite rational.’

  ‘I’m well aware you’re thinking of yourself, not her.’ Her voice was a breath of winter. ‘But for once in your life you’re right.’

  Which was when the door slammed open. Finn stood there, beetroot with rage, no longer able to contain herself.

  ‘Oh dear, Stella.’ I smiled. ‘We had company.’

  Stella glanced at me, then at Finn for a long cool moment.

  ‘Finn,’ she said, turning her glass in her fingers. Stella didn’t need ice in her whisky. You could practically see the frost flaking off her fingertips.

  ‘Mum.’ Finn fisted her hands at her sides. ‘Are you putting Granny in a home?’

  ‘Best place for her.’ Oh, I loved baiting that girl. ‘Plastic cups. Plastic seats.’

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘You’re going to listen at doors, you’re going to hear stuff you don’t like.’ I shrugged and swallowed the last of my whisky.

  ‘She’s not senile! She’s not even old!’

  Gods, I thought. If you only knew.

  Thing is, she was protesting too much. I knew fine that Finn watched Leonora, just as I did. I saw the child’s curtain twitch at night like a Morningside matron’s, saw her watch the old woman stride down the gravel drive. Saw her return, an hour or two later, silk trousers soaked to the knees with mud from the reedy fringes of the Fairy Loch. Finn knew as well as I did where her grandmother went, in the smallest darkest hours of the night.

  What she didn’t know, of course, was how Leonora hankered for home, ached after it, fought the drag of it that was worse for her than for anyone. So Finn must have worried, despite all her protests, that the old bat was losing her mind, that she was going to fall into the dark water and drown. Finn couldn’t know it wasn’t ultimately the Fairy Loch Leonora longed for, but another water altogether.

  Leonora could look decrepit enough when she wanted to, seeing as she cast such a fine glamour. And there was always an aura of age about her, like a patina on beautiful wood. Her face remained uncreased, except for the laughter lines, the gazing-into-space lines, the marks left by peering at a thousand stones through a loupe. But old she did not look, unless it was the look of an especially lovely velociraptor.

  So I understood Finn’s frustration. It’s just that I didn’t feel like indulging it.

  ‘If you put Granny in Calderwood House,’ she said through her teeth, ‘she’ll throw herself out the window.’

  ‘No worries, Dorsal.’ I reached once more for the whisky. ‘We’ll put her on the ground floor.’

  The rage and the hate struck me like a dart. Amateur, unschooled, but she had the raw ability, that was for sure. My head jerked with the lance of pain, and she smirked.

  I gritted my teeth, partly to stifle the pain, partly to stop myself retaliating. It was a tantrum, that was all. Giving her tit for tat would be a bit of a giveaway. Besides, Conal would kill me.

  Instead I gave her an indulgent, beatific smile. ‘Clever girl.’

  ‘Did you get out the wrong side of your coffin?’ Her look was full of malice. ‘Away back while I get my stake.’

  ‘Finn, shut up.’ Stella glared at both of us. ‘And you, Seth. You’re supposed to be a little older than her.’

  Genuinely tickled, I laughed. ‘Maybe Finn should be in on the discussion anyway, Stella. I mean, for such a little smart-arse, there’s so much she doesn’t know.’

  Livid colour crept up Stella’s neck. ‘I said shut up!’

  Abruptly her glass slipped through her fingers, crashing to the tabletop. Crystal popped, snapping the air, and whisky went everywhere.

  Recoiling, Stella clutched her temple, staring at Finn in shock. She wasn’t the only one. Bloody hell, I was impressed.

  But it was me Stella turned on. ‘Leave Finn out of this!’

  ‘She’s Leonora’s granddaughter,’ I murmured, not entirely shit-stirring now.

  ‘And she’s my daughter,’ hissed Stella, ‘and she will leave the room now. Now, Finn.’

  Stella’s eyes were fifteen below zero. Finn marched out of the room, with what dignity she had left, and I decided it was time for a strategic retreat. I couldn’t resist turning back for a last shot, though.

  ‘Chip off a very old block, that girl.’

  Stella’s reply was so high-pitched it was incoherent.

  ‘And the latest newsflash: Finn thinks we’re tryin
g to put your mother in a home.’

  Stripping off his shirt Conal shrugged, avoiding my eyes. ‘Let her think it.’

  ‘That’s a bad idea. You know how fond she is of the old bat.’

  He scowled at me and raised his sword.

  ‘Just saying.’ I lifted mine, gave him a mocking salute.

  He lowered the blade again, turned and clicked on the iPod dock. Full volume, drowning me out. And he went for me.

  We were both dripping sweat when we staggered apart. I grinned at him.

  ‘That got a bit personal,’ I panted. ‘It’s the truth that stings—’

  ‘Yes,’ he snapped.

  I stretched my shoulders. Even I sometimes knew when to stop. I did wonder, though, if Finn’s childhood curiosity would abate with age, or if it would only sharpen till we all cut ourselves on it. It was only a matter of time till Finn explored too far. There was rowanwood in the panelled walls of this vast cellar, but not an impenetrable quantity; neither of us liked to be entirely blind to what was going on above us.

  I grabbed a towel, rubbed my neck, gave Conal a conciliatory grin. ‘Enough for today?’

  He hesitated, then smiled back. ‘Wore you out, did I?’

  ‘Funny.’ I tugged my t-shirt over my head, then eyed the timber ceiling. ‘Finn’s brought a friend home.’

  ‘Gods. Not another one.’ He rubbed his face with a hand. ‘So soon after the last girl?’

  ‘The last girl was three months ago.’ I couldn’t help the edge in my voice. ‘Don’t worry, this one’ll forget she exists and all.’

  ‘Exactly. I don’t know if I can stand the fallout.’

  I smiled, and climbed the stairs in the silence of self-righteousness, Conal at my heels. The evening was lovely; sunlight dipped and shifted across the front of the house, dappled with the drifting shadows of dead birch leaves. Give Leonora her due, she wove a fine glamour, and the Veil around Tornashee was dense. The double front door stood wide open and the leaf-shadows spilled over into the hall, and that just made the whole place seem even more like a phantom outline in empty land.

  It was like us. People didn’t notice it, much, which is why it drove me crazy when Finn imperilled that by bringing her temporary friends home. Not that she knew any better, I had to keep reminding myself.

  I stopped short when I saw who it was.

  Mila’s boy?

  Unease tickled the nape of my neck; no, worse than unease: dread. The recognition was horrible: I was trying to hold too many spinning threads, and they were tangling and knotting in unforeseen ways. This was the last thing I needed.

  He was babyless this time, so at least his mother must have been compos mentis; at least Skinshanks can’t have been with her. I didn’t think about it too hard, though, too busy cursing myself for not keeping an eye on Finn, for letting this happen. Jed had followed her, that day she almost killed Shania Rooney. I’d been careless, and look what had happened.

  For more than one reason, I didn’t want Jed getting involved with Finn. I didn’t want him around me, around Conal, around any of us. I glanced into his labyrinthine, resistant mind; difficult, but I was familiar with it now. My, but he was growing hard to handle. I hoped Skinshanks was finding the same. I hoped he unnerved Skinshanks as much as he did me.

  He liked Finn, was fascinated – even entranced – by her, but that was never going to be all there was to it, not with this one. He knew a well-off household when he saw one. He knew he was made for a month or two, if he played us right. He knew there was a grandma around, one who wasn’t too careful where she left her precious metals and her stones. Finn was naive enough to tell him things like that. And he only had to take one look at the house.

  He and Finn made a right pair: him in his oversized army-surplus jacket with the deep pockets, with his sleep-deprived eyes and his shaven head; her with her sulky rich-girl attitude, her enamelled earrings, the thick chain round her neck dangling two hundred quids’ worth of Orkney silver. It almost made me smile.

  But not quite.

  The two of them were engrossed in something, but Jed glanced up as we walked into his field of vision, and his face froze. For an instant I felt sick, thinking he’d recognised me; but before I could open my mouth and give myself away, I realised it wasn’t me he was looking at. I don’t think he could see anything except Conal. His mouth opened in frightened horror, his eyes widened; then he ducked his head and feigned a vast interest in my bike. My beautiful, black, brand-new motorbike.

  Which was when I realised what was going on. ‘You bloody little cat!’

  I snatched the stone out of Finn’s fingers, stared at the scored chassis, at the jagged lettering.

  COMPENSATING.

  Conal caught my raised hand before it could connect with her face. ‘At least she can spell it,’ he murmured.

  In disbelief I stared at what I’d assumed was a chunk of gravel. The raw stone was as green as sea over sand. You could almost see the skin of water, the stir of something deep within it, something ancient that you might not want to see when it surfaced. The nearby burn gurgled over smooth stones, a light breeze whispered in the dying birches, a door slammed somewhere in the outbuildings. Tornashee was suddenly so solid I could almost hear it living and breathing.

  ‘This is an emerald,’ I snapped, closing my fist round it. ‘Did your boyfriend nick it?’

  She snatched at it, furious. ‘No he did not, you arse.’

  Conal seized her wrist before she could hit me, and pulled her round to face my damaged bike. ‘That’s coming out of your allowance, kiddo. Apologise to Seth.’

  ‘Like hell I will.’

  ‘I don’t want her fecking apology, I want her head.’

  ‘Finn, apologise.’

  Jed still wasn’t looking at any of us. His face was white. He was clearly afraid of Conal, but when I glared at my brother, I didn’t see any flicker of recognition. His face was hard and expressionless.

  Finn shrugged. ‘I don’t know what the big deal is. Seth can afford a respray. When he gets Granny committed. When he gets the house.’

  ‘That’s enough. Apologise to Seth or be grounded for a month.’

  Well, she managed. Through teeth grinding like tectonic plates, but she did manage. ‘Sorry, Seth.’

  Despite the sarky tone, that had cost her. Good. I gave her my worst smirk.

  ‘Seth, get a quote for a respray. Finn, quit showing off.’ He glanced at Jed, who was inching backwards, but still he showed no flicker of recognition. If I hadn’t been so angry, my heart would have been in my mouth. How the hell did Jed know Conal? ‘And by the way, leave your grandmother out of it. We do not discuss family in public.’

  She snorted with contempt. ‘Does public include me, then?’

  ‘We’re only looking out for her.’

  ‘Like she needs looking after,’ Finn sneered.

  He took her stone from my hand, examined it, and gave it back to her. ‘Leonie didn’t give you this so you could make havoc. Have some respect for her yourself. And remember you don’t know everything, you little smart-arse.’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’ Her voice was chilly. ‘It might help if you trusted me once in a while. I do have a functioning brain, unlike my demented grandmother.’

  ‘Finn, it’s me. Don’t bite my head off.’ He sighed. ‘School bad, was it?’

  ‘Like you care,’ she snapped.

  ‘I do care. Want me to talk to the teachers?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ he said, slinging an arm round her shoulders. ‘What do you expect me to do about it, then? I’m not your father, Finn. It’s up to your mother.’

  A little reluctantly, she leaned into him. ‘Well, I wish you were my father, and I wish she wasn’t my mother.’

  I sucked in a loud dramatic breath, let it out in an I-told-you-so sigh. Conal snapped, ‘Stop it, Finn.’

  She looked away. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’re getting better,’ I said. ‘That
even sounded sincere.’

  ‘Shut up, Seth.’ A moment’s silence. ‘Ach, Finn. It’s me that’s sorry.’

  ‘How is it your fault?’ She head-butted Conal’s arm, all affection.

  He grabbed her head and shook it playfully. ‘It isn’t yours either, toots. Remember.’

  I thought I might throw up soon. ‘I’m glad we got that clear at last,’ I muttered.

  She took it for sarcasm, but he glared at me anyway, grabbed my arm and started to turn away. He still hadn’t taken a blind bit of notice of Jed and I’m sure Jed was as relieved about that as I was.

  And then Finn called after him, the silly cow. I could have cut out her tongue.

  ‘Oy, Conal. How did you know Granny gave me that stone?’

  ‘I’m a mind reader.’

  ‘Ha bleeding ha. Oh, I never introduced you.’ She turned to the boy with pride, and snatched his arm. ‘This is Jed.’

  I shut my eyes. If Conal knew Jed he knew Mila, surely, and that was meant to be my business. Mine only. I didn’t fancy explaining the whole sordid story to Judge John bloody Deed.

  When I opened my eyes Conal was standing in front of Jed, studying his face. I’d bet it was the longest thirty seconds of Jed’s life. It was pretty long for me.

  Then Conal said, ‘I know.’

  Jed didn’t hesitate. He didn’t even say goodbye. Give that boy his due, he could run like a roach when the lights go on.

  Oh yes, he could run. Spent his life running, for his life and his brother’s life. He attracted bad things, bad luck, bad karma. He pulled foul worlds into his orbit like a great black hole. But the day he had to run from the big blond brute, Jed sensed he’d never attracted anything as bad as this.

  On that particular April day, he’d had to run harder and faster because he was going to be caught and he couldn’t let that happen. He had a fine excuse for taking the man’s wallet, but he wasn’t about to explain himself. It wasn’t as if he’d get any sympathy. A good kicking was what he’d get.

  Bolting over the bypass, dodging cars, he’d known real terror. The theft had been nothing personal but the man had taken it personally. Yet you’d never know it from his face: so cold and grim and not a flicker of strain.