Kayla snorts. “That’s all I feckin’ see,” she says, which seems like a poor sort of way to defend us. “But,” Kayla says, “when you fix something, you get it back to how it’s meant to work. You don’t go about making it into something new.” She gives Hannah a sad look. “There’s good here if only you’d see it.”
Hannah doesn’t bend for a moment. “Well, I don’t see it,” she says. “Probably had too much shit thrown at me to see clearly.”
There’s a lovely image.
And how long do we have before Hannah walks out too? Or Kayla? Or both? We’re spiraling out of control. We’ve even managed to piss off Clyde. Which is pretty bloody difficult. And now I am the one who has to stop it. Because Felicity’s gone.
Jesus. Felicity’s gone.
How the hell do I deal with that? I mean, are we over? She and I? Is she thinking our over-ness over?
I close my eyes for a moment. Shut out the world. Kayla’s right. There was a good time here once. Something to preserve. To get back to. I just need a little hope to ground me. Something. Anything.
The idea that I can make Felicity smile one more time before the end. That has to be enough.
“This has to wait,” I say.
“—people win the lottery three times in a row,” Hannah is saying. “Some people write reports in such a way as to make themselves—”
“This has to wait,” I say again. Louder, with some actual force this time.
“You call Felicity Shaw a feckin’ liar?” Kayla takes a step forward.
“Grow up, Kayla.” This from Tabitha.
“Shut up!” I yell. “All of you!” I rub my head. Everyone needs to start doing this in whispers. Even me. Especially me.
“This is obviously,” I say, “a bad time. The worst time maybe. This is shit creek. And we just had our oars confiscated, but I’m not going to watch you guys saw a fucking hole in the bottom of the boat.”
Three women full of antipathy look at me. I’m glad my back is literally up against the wall. It limits my ability to bail on this.
“Let me be clear,” I say. “We’re fucked. The world is fucked. We are out of options. The opportunity for victory is basically nonexistent.”
I survey my limited audience. Even I have to admit, for pep talks, this is not an auspicious opening.
I do my best to crack a smile.
“Come on,” I say, “this is our comfort zone. This is where we come through. Let’s do this.”
59
There is a moment of underwhelmed silence. “Let’s do this?” Tabitha says. “That’s your big moment?”
“Well,” I say, “I thought there was an outside chance that would be more productive than just discussing how shit we are.”
“Prick.” Still, there’s more warmth to that word than there has been to many of the others Tabitha has said this morning.
“Look,” I say, gambling on honesty, “I’m not going to say I don’t think this is futile. I do. But my head is not in a good place right now. It hasn’t been for a while. I don’t think any of ours are. We just have to do our jobs. Keep pushing, feeling the place where this case breaks.”
I risk looking them in their eyes. And Tabitha is at least willing to put her hurt and rage into the fight. Kayla… well, she’s pretty much always willing to murder someone. And Hannah. Hannah is a soldier in the end. A professional. And even if she’s put in for her transfer, she’ll do the work.
“All right then,” I say, “so where the hell are we?”
“Shite creek,” Kayla says immediately. “You feckin’ mentioned.”
“Anybody else?” I ask. It’s hard not to feel the time pressure on this one.
Hannah shrugs.
“What about the Uhrwerkgerät?” I ask. “That looked… incomplete last night. Like they still had work to do. That’s got to buy us some kind of window.”
Tabitha shuffles her feet in a decidedly un-Tabitha-like way. “Maybe not so much of one. Or, well…” She grimaces. She normally lets Clyde do the uncertainty part of discussions. Already she’s struggling in his absence. She tries to rally. “First thing. Don’t know how big the Uhrwerkgerät has to be. So, completion could be very close. Or may have the resources to complete it already. Maybe just use their own people for it.” She shrugs. Another echo of Clyde. But I let it pass.
“And second?” I ask her. I have a distinct impression I’m going to like second even less than I liked first.
“A theory. Rough edges. Holes. Wanted to talk to Clyde about it.” She looks to the closed door. And I notice her hand moves unconsciously to her stomach when she does it. “To do with the Uhrwerkgerät. With future echoes. They seem to come when we’re interacting with it. But… need to work it out. Going to be slow. One person doing the work of two.” She looks to the door again. “Prick.”
“To do with us interacting with it?” This sounds interesting. It sounds like an angle to work. Maybe there’s a way to sabotage it. Not that sabotaging a magical bomb sounds like the sort of thing you get to walk away from with all your fingers intact, but given the array of options, I’ll take a few lost digits. “Care to elaborate?” I ask.
“No.”
“What if I asked really nicely?” I suggest.
“What if I’d already told you, need more time?”
Potentially, negotiating with the brick wall would have gone better.
“Fine then,” I say. There’s only so much time remaining to us and I don’t want to waste it in pointless arguments with Tabitha. “Do what you need to do. See if you can find us an angle. We’ll look for others.”
“Whatever.” Tabitha leaves the room in a billow of black fabric and bad attitude. Still, at least she’s not heading for the office exit at speed.
OK, that’s one thing down. “What else?” I stare at Kayla and Hannah. They give me nothing.
What would Felicity do?
Walk away? Give up? Is that what she’s done? Is this cowardice? Capitulation?
Was Hannah right?
I don’t have time for that. I need to focus. Keep track of the right questions. How do I stop this? How the hell do I get Clyde back?
What would Felicity do?
And then a thought, a memory. I point to Kayla. “Remember what Felicity said,” I say.
“I’m not doing feckin’ relationship counselling,” Kayla says.
“Yeah, but if you did,” Hannah says, “you should film that stuff and put it on TV.”
Kayla points at her, without looking. “Still having feckin’ issues with you.”
“This is not a relationship moment,” I say. “I have neither the time nor the mental capacity for those. This,” I say, “is about reality magic. That’s the basis of this bomb, right? And Felicity said it. We have an in with someone who knows reality magic far more intimately than anyone else.”
“Oh feck no,” says Kayla.
Hannah actually looks interested. “Who?” she asks.
“I’m sorry, Kayla,” I say.
“I’m not feckin’ doing it.” Kayla shakes her head violently. “She won’t come anyway. It’s a waste of feckin’ time. She’s a shite.”
“Who?” Hannah asks again.
I ignore Hannah, keep focused on Kayla. “You’ll ask her,” I say, “because you know we have to. Because we’re out of options.”
“Feck.” Kayla shakes her head.
“Who the bloody hell are we talking about?” Hannah is finally out of her chair, has finally shaken off her lethargy.
“Ephie,” I say, finally addressing Hannah. “Kayla’s daughter.”
Hannah’s eyebrows shoot up. “Her daughter?” She takes a moment to digest that. To digest Kayla’s pent-up fury. To assess the phrase, “She’s a shite.”
Hannah sits back. “So,” she says, “the world’s still fucked then.”
60
Kayla looks at me, face tight with suppressed emotion. She is trying so hard to make sadness and fear look like anger she almost man
ages it. But the despair is there at the corners of her eyes.
“She won’t come,” Kayla says. But she knows that line of defense will be about as useful as it was last time. She still has to call. That’s what we’re down to. Last hopes and long shots.
I do my best to smile with sympathy. “Have you ever considered,” I say, “that she might be more predisposed to come if you stopped calling her a shite”
“Have you ever considered how far I might shove my sword up your arse if you keep on giving me unsolicited parenting advice?”
I nod. I actually have. “She might come,” I say. “It might work.”
Kayla snorts derision. But only silence follows. She shakes her head, closes her eyes, breathes deeply.
She’s delaying, but if my teenage step-daughter had the power to turn me into protozoic green sludge, I might be nervous too.
“Ephie,” Kayla calls out, all preamble done. “Hey, Ephie, I’d like a word.” It’s as if she’s calling to someone on the other side of a street.
For a moment, nothing. And then for a moment longer still.
“See,” Kayla says. “I feckin’—”
And then, as if simply to spite her mother, Ephie appears.
There is no puff of smoke, no ripple, no sweeping wave of ether. She simply isn’t in the room, and then she is. Like two strips of film spliced awkwardly together.
She looks much the same as when we last saw her. An unseasonably flimsy looking black tanktop. Big hoop earrings. An unreasonably short skirt. Her skinny legs stick out, very pale.
But… oh, goddamn it… there is one change. Though maybe, just maybe, Kayla will recognize this moment for what it is. Maybe she will control herself.
“Is that a feckin’ tattoo?” Kayla screeches.
Oh crap.
It obviously is a tattoo. An anarchists’ “A” in a circle scrawled jaggedly on her bare left shoulder.
“Oh Jesus.” Ephie rolls her eyes. “Now you bloody care.”
“The feck were you thinking?” Kayla’s voice stays in the upper registers.
“Oh come on,” I say. A little prayer to the gods of absurdity. “Can’t we just once…”
“Oh,” Ephie rolls her eyes, “I was totally thinking about you and your reaction, because my every decision revolves around you and how it will affect you.”
“Oh good,” Hannah mutters to herself. “So this plan is going about as well as I would have thought.”
Kayla is still spluttering. Ephie turns to Hannah, a look of mild curiosity on her face. “Who are you?” she asks.
“Oh,” Hannah flaps a hand. “Don’t worry about me. I’m barely here. I quit.”
Ephie smiles. A perfect teenage know-it-all smirk. “So you’re the smart one?”
Kayla finds her voice. “Do you even know what that symbol means?” she says. “You’re stuck with that for life.”
The ink on Ephie’s shoulder wriggles, twists, reforms, becomes a clenched fist that slowly extends its middle finger to wave solemnly in the air.
It’s a small, casual display of power, but it’s almost more effective for that. Young though she may be, Ephie handles authority like a pro.
Kayla, however, has never been entirely comfortable with authority. “Oh, threats is it?” she says, nonchalant. “What are you going to do? Rearrange the limbs of the woman who raised you? Who rescued you? Who gave you care and shelter?”
“You dragged us around half of England so you could kill monsters!” Ephie yells. “That’s not a fucking childhood.”
Kayla’s sword is out again. She advances on Ephie. That really is a terrible instinct to bring to parenting.
“Of course.” Ephie throws up her hands. “I can’t threaten you, but you can threaten me.”
“Oh piss off,” says Kayla. “Like this could really feckin’ hurt you.”
Ephie shrugs. “You’re right.”
Kayla’s sword abruptly droops, the metal becoming plastic soft. Then she holds a bunch of flowers. Then a giant rubber tentacle. Then a flapping, gasping herring. The images slam together. The same film-splice abruptness of Ephie’s appearance. Next Kayla is holding a feather duster. Ephie seems to like that reality. She freezes the flow of images.
Kayla looks up. There’s a fire in her eyes. “Oh, you think because you took my sword away I’m less likely to give you a thrashing.”
She flicks out with the duster, lightning fast. There’s a crack as its plastic spine lands on Ephie’s arm.
“Ow!” she yells.
Suddenly Kayla isn’t holding a duster but something small, furry, and rabid. It spits and scrabbles at Kayla, back legs clawing against her arm. Kayla flings it away toward the wall and a sudden death.
Before it gets the chance to become a bloody stain, it’s a sword again, burying itself in plasterboard up to the hilt.
“You know,” Hannah says to no one in particular, “smart one isn’t really that much of a compliment in this place.”
And, goddamn it, that’s it. “Stop it!” I yell. “Just bloody stop it. God! This bickering bullshit is why we’re in this goddamn mess in the first place!”
Shock tactics seem to have bought me a second or two. Even Hannah seems to be paying attention. I shove forward, away from the wall, past Ephie, jamming myself between her and her adoptive mother.
“There’s a bomb,” I say. “A great big bloody reality-destroying bomb. And I don’t know how much of reality you control, but this could take out more than you might want to lose. You and all of your tribe. Your dominion diminished. Maybe gone entirely. Nowhere left for you to exist. This affects you. So we need your help. We desperately need your help. To figure this out. To stop this.
“Look,” I implore Ephie. “If you don’t help us, people here will die. I will die, Ephie. Me. Felicity. Tabitha. Clyde. Your mom. Hannah here. All of us. The people you grew up with. Please. You can help us. You can save us, maybe. Save so many people. We just need some information.”
Ephie looks at me. And it’s not the good sort of looking. Scorn fills her eyes.
“Save you?” she asks. “Because that’s what I am? Some handy personal deity? Kayla looked after me for a bit so now whenever reality doesn’t go your way I’m meant to bend everything to help you all. Bend everything. I mean screw the collateral damage. Not that you even really know what you’re asking.
“I’m a Dreamer,” she snaps. “My responsibilities extend so far beyond what you perceive it’s laughable. Everything in this room. You, and you, and you.” She points. She makes it clear this is not a general “you.” “You are so petty,” she finishes.
“You try and replace me,” she points at Kayla. “And you can’t even ask for my help. If I was like you, I’d bend you out of existence. Stick you in some backwater reality where you can wallow in your own spite. But I don’t do that, because I have priorities and responsibilities. And you’re too small to register on either list.”
“You,” she points at me, “so paralyzed by your fear of death you’re unwilling to do anything more than cravenly beg for some sort of second chance.” At my confusion she rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I bloody watch. I pay attention. Because you were all there. You were family. Were. Past tense. So now all of you, even you,” she smiles at Hannah, “can go fuck yourselves.”
And with that, she’s gone.
61
It is like the aftermath of a storm. Standing, waiting. Wondering if some tree has been shaken loose of its roots, will topple and fall, crushing all in its path.
Mostly I stare at Kayla. If looks could kill, they’d have dropped her on Hiroshima. Then she slowly lets the muscles slacken.
“Feckin’ told you,” she says.
I claw gently at my cheeks, and bite my tongue. Because it’s done now. We fired the long shot and missed the target. That’s all there is to it. Further recriminations will only get me turned into an Arthur Wallace-shaped kebab.
And, honestly, I think I have a little sympathy for Kayla’s posi
tion after all that. Bloody teenagers.
“All right. All right,” I say, trying to swallow my disappointment and move on. Trying to bring some semblance of clear-headed plan to the surface.
But in the end, we don’t have leads so much as we have a tattered pile of frayed ends. “We’re in the same place,” I say. “We still need to know more about the Uhrwerkmänner. About Friedrich. The devil is in the details.” I think aloud in the hopes someone else will jump in when they’re good and ready. “Tabitha is looking at the papers we got from Nepal. So that leaves two sources. Whatever we didn’t have time to look at in Lang’s underground hidey-hole in London and the Uhrwerkmänner themselves.”
“Don’t think they’re feeling overly chatty right now,” Hannah points out.
“Which is why,” I say, the next steps clicking their heels in my head to show they’re ready now, “you are going to take your winning personality to London to retrieve anything you think might be interesting from Lang’s papers.”
“Messenger duty?” She sounds incredulous.
“While Kayla and myself go to the Uhrwerkmänner in Sheffield and charm and cajole them in equal parts until they tell us something useful.” I nod. “They know more than they’re sharing.” I say it like it’s a fact and not a prayer.
Hannah purses her lips.
“Come on,” I say, “let’s hear the better plan. You’ve only got a little while to get these off your chest.”
There’s cynicism in Hannah’s eyes. “When you say a little time, are you saying it because of my transfer, or because your fuck-ups are going to end the world?”
“You’re one of us too, right now,” I say. “These are your fuck-ups as much as mine.”
Hannah stares at me for a moment. I expect hostility, but it’s something more subtle than that. I wish I knew what.
“London then,” she says after a moment.
“London,” I say.
“Whatever.” A moment later Kayla and I are alone in the room.
Broken Hero Page 32
