Isabella and Antiere both looked over Jacob and his crackling daemon, at Julian and his inky tears. At Alice and Rob, both of whom had become far more than Isabella and Antiere were. At Jessica’s strange machines and her far too eager-for-trouble grin.
At Fiona and the monster in her shadow.
She wondered if Peter Murdoch had formed the first council the same way, over a hundred and fifty years ago. If he’d had to bully and threaten them into it, or if he’d found a better way. Knowing what she did about vampires and werewolves, she suspected he’d taken her approach: by seeming like the scarier monster.
“Prisoners have been taken,” Isabella said. Her gaze lingered on Julian’s sword, still lying where Crispin had vanished. “Trusted associates.”
“The vampires have broken into our homes and slaughtered everyone in them.” Antiere’s fingers flexed.
“Enough,” Fiona said. “If there are prisoners, you’re both going to take really good care of them, because you’re going to give them back. If you’ve taken things, same story. And my friends are good at finding things. Hold back and you’ll answer to me.”
Isabella, cold anger twisting her portrait-perfect features, sheathed herself in a vampire’s mask of civility. “I’m sure we can manage.”
Antiere growled deep in his chest but, reluctantly, he nodded. “Truce, then.”
“You never did tell us your name, my dear,” Isabella said.
She sensed a trap, but both Julian and Jacob nodded. “Fiona.”
“What a lovely name,” Isabella said. “I look forward to seeing you again soon. And Alice, do find time to stop by. We should get to know each other better.”
“Won’t that be lovely?” Alice replied, her words mushed by her long fangs. Isabella’s final smile was a study of courtly manners. She returned to the other vampires, moving with the flowing grace of her kind.
Antiere glared briefly at Rob, who was still in his humanoid snake form. The steel bones in the black sarcophagus pulled his attention and Fiona was sure he would ask about it. But then he whirled around and trotted back towards the other werewolves.
“Now what?” Jacob asked.
“Now we get that somewhere safe,” Fiona replied, nodding to the sarcophagus. “Julian, can you magic it out of here?”
“Are you kidding? Right now, I couldn’t light a candle.”
Fiona smiled, first at the joke, then because of the relief rising within her. It was over. They’d won.
Until the next night, at least.
“It’s too big for me to teleport,” Jessica said, “but I know a helpful van it’ll go into.”
Chapter 34 – Hawthorn House
The house lay within the Greater London area, but few could say exactly where. It required an invitation from one of the family’s five ring-bearers to find it and even then, those who had been granted the privilege could never quite explain where to find it to one who hadn’t been invited.
In a study on the first floor, Trajan Blackwood stood over a table scattered with tablet computers. His warlock ring was a black band around his finger, sucking in all light that touched it. His breath was heavy with the coffee he’d been drinking all night.
“Crispin is secure?” he asked.
Evelyn’s voice came from a conference phone at one end of the table. “Our protocols worked perfectly. Crispin is in time-zero. The stasis spell doesn’t appear to contain his consciousness quite so well, but I slammed psychic baffles down around him as a precaution. They’re holding his mind at bay. It’s taking a non-trivial percentage of my facility’s power to imprison him, but we’re stable.”
“One less concern,” Trajan said to his brother.
Alexander Blackwood stood at the opposite side of the table. The similarity between the two brothers was easy to see, but where Trajan was smooth and polished, the planes of Alexander’s face were harsher, more primal. His coarser hair was streaked with grey at the temples. Like Trajan, he wore one of the family’s five black rings on the middle finger of his right hand.
“They’ve sealed the titan corpse back into the void-steel sarcophagus,” Alexander said. He lifted his right hand and pressed his thumb against the metal ring. “Can you feel it?”
“Now that you mention it, yes,” Trajan replied. “What do we do about this, Alex? Peace will hold only long enough for the vampires and werewolves to take their measure of Julian’s friends. And Orson will go straight after Julian just to get to you, once he’s finished putting together support from other magician families.”
“Then he’s aiming at the wrong target,” Alexander replied. He lifted one tablet from the table. It displayed a picture of Fiona, a psychic image imprinted on film by one of the family’s seers. Though the image of the girl herself was steady, she was surrounded by a blurry shadow monster. Behind her were ghostly, barely-seen faces – thousands and thousands of them.
“You really want to gamble everything on one girl?” Evelyn asked. “She’s too unknown a quantity.”
Evelyn couldn’t see the text on the other tablet computers. The ramblings of the family seers, transcribed and pulled into what order could be made of them. Most of them were about Fiona.
To Trajan, who could see them where Evelyn couldn’t, all this made Fiona seem like an even bigger gamble.
“One girl,” Alexander said, “and the friends she’s collected.” He didn’t smile – Trajan hadn’t seen his brother smile in a long, long time – but amusement showed in his dark eyes. “An interesting group, aren’t they?”
They made it back to the Blue Door, their local pub in Ealing, in time for one drink before the owner rang the bell for last call. Afterwards they walked home, their pace slow. Above them, lines of ghost light gleamed as they arced out from Trafalgar Square to west London’s ancient plague pits.
Julian and Rob had fallen behind Fiona and Alice, who were engrossed in their own conversation. Out of habit, Julian almost pulled out his phone to check the bounty board for his name. No need for that any more. Jacob had upheld his end of their bargain, using one of his electrical daemons to hack the bounty board and confirm the bounty had been placed by the Whitlocks.
“What’s it like having no arms and legs?” Julian asked.
“You’d think it would be weird, wouldn’t you?” Rob said. He wore a pair of baggy sweatpants and a hoodie Julian had provided from his satchel. “But when I’m in a shape, it feels right.”
“Even the one you’re in now?” Julian asked.
Rob laughed. “Bit more than it used to, to be honest. Wonder what else I’ve got hidden inside me? I’m keen to find out now.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Did you know shapeshifters were made to be protectors? I have to say, that works for me.”
Julian smiled. “I’m glad to hear it.”
The girls were much further down the street, far enough that he judged he was out of Alice’s hearing. He checked the shadows between streetlights, but they were empty. They were alone enough on their leafy suburban street for Julian’s liking.
“Can I tell you my secret?” he asked.
Rob stopped in his tracks. “Are you kidding me? What the fuck did we just go through if that wasn’t it?”
“The lead-up to it.” Julian had thought he would be nervous, once the moment came. He’d worked so hard to keep his secret for so long. Instead, it felt natural to speak.
Rob scratched behind his ear. “Is it safe? I remember you carrying on about the best secret being one you never tell anyone.”
“Jacob’s worked it out,” Julian said. “Someone else should know, just in case. And – and I’d like to tell you.”
“Huh. Okay then. Hit me.”
He checked down the street again. If Alice and Fiona were aware that he and Rob had stopped, they paid no mind. “When I first investigated the titans four years ago, when I was trying to figure out what Mitch meant to kill me for, I found out something no one else knows. Like I said, they were incredibly pow
erful, beyond even the level of wizards like Savraith. To them, form was as fluid as imagination.
“But they weren’t always monsters,” he said. “They were born human.”
Rob’s whole body jerked. “You’re shitting me. They were turned?”
Julian nodded. “And I know how.”
He let Rob have a moment for that to sink in. “Hell. No wonder you keep that one to yourself. Every vampire and werewolf in the country would be after you for it. And the magicians too, I guess. Hell.” He clapped Julian on the shoulder hard enough to make him grunt in pain. “Let’s keep that one secret, yeah?”
“That’s the plan,” Julian replied. He noted that, unlike Jacob, Rob didn’t ask why he hadn’t turned himself.
He wasn’t surprised. Rob didn’t need to ask.
Alice had gone inside Flat 1 and left the door open, but Fiona waited for them outside Flat 2. “Struggling to keep up?”
Rob flashed her a smile. “You know Julian. One beer and you have to carry him home in a wheelbarrow.”
“Perhaps I should have eaten as well,” Julian said.
Fiona acknowledged their banter with a snort. A question was clearly on her mind. “Rob, are you happy with things the way they are? In our world, I mean.”
“Huh? Uh, not really. No, no definitely not. The werewolves traffic in human slaves and the vampires suck people dry whenever they can get away with it and I don’t even know what the magicians get up to. Definitely not.” He shrugged. “Don’t know what anyone can do about it, though.”
It seemed to be the answer Fiona wanted. “Thanks. Get some rest, you two.”
I don’t always make the right decisions, Julian remembered telling her. But when that happens, Rob sets me right. She studied him, as though she knew he was recalling the conversation. Then she went inside Flat 2.
Hawthorn had called it his last great working, the spell he believed had drawn them together. Together, but around Fiona.
“What was that about?” Rob asked.
“I suppose we’ll find out,” Julian replied.
He left Rob to raid the fridge and climbed the stairs. Surrounded by home, fatigue began to bite hard. He couldn’t remember when he’d last rested.
Alice lay on her stomach on his bed. Her chin rested on her folded hands. She had taken off her shoes and her toes curled in the air. She stared at him with an unreadable gleam in her blue eyes as he stood in the bedroom doorway.
They hadn’t spoken properly since their fight. He’d been conscious of that the whole time at the pub.
Julian opened his satchel and pulled out his sword, still in its scabbard. Alice’s expression hardened as she recalled the pain it had inflicted upon her. He hung his satchel on the doorknob and held the sword out in front of him with both hands.
“This is the sword of Aganthion Bhel Senjukar,” he said. “A Felgian battle mage who has lived seven lives across most of a thousand years – and those are just the lives we know of. I took it from him after defeating him in single combat at the Scaltan Bridge. Would you like me to tell you the story?”
Her eyes flickered yellow, like a flame had lit inside her.
“Not from way over there,” she said.
Fiona stood in a grey and blasted landscape. The sky above her was dark and torn. In the distance, the mountains reeled back as though from a great blast. Beneath her boots, the ground was lifeless grey dust.
For the first time, she had dreamed herself there on purpose. Despite the urge to fall on her bed and sleep for a hundred years, she’d lain down with her notepad of dream mandalas.
The focus mandala encircled her finger. She had business to take care of.
The wind blew, carrying hints of old screams. The scarred sky rippled in whorls. She listened, but she did not hear the creak of ropes or the bellying of sails. She looked, but she did not see that decrepit barge with its single passenger: a grey-faced man who could be her twin brother.
She wracked her brain for ways to summon him. Nothing worked.
“Figures,” she said. She let herself fall into dreamless sleep.
Fiona’s brow creased as Alice slipped out of the evening crowd moving along the sidewalk. Alice wore a leather jacket, unzipped. “You’re not even trying to blend in. It’s freezing out here.” Fiona had a scarf tucked up under her chin.
Alice shrugged. “Shall we find a coffee shop with warmth in it? Or would you prefer a pub?”
“No, follow me. We have an appointment.”
Alice smiled. “I’ve enjoyed your recent appointments.”
“Really? They nearly got us all killed.”
“Exactly.”
They were in Temple, leaving the Thames behind them as they wended their way into London’s streets. The lines of ghost light were thick in the sky so close to Trafalgar Square, which lay not far to the west. Late night shoppers and early diners crowded the streets.
“Did you ever hear of a man named Lawrence Moth?” Fiona asked.
Alice’s head rose sharply at the name. “Of the Principled Society?”
“Sorry, I don’t know.”
Alice studied Fiona as she spoke. “The Distinguished Gentlemen of the Principled Society. They were a group of aristocrat warlocks, most active around the middle of the nineteenth century. Moth was one of them. Why do you ask?”
Over a hundred and fifty years ago. She recalled what she knew of the timing of the destruction of the place where she came from. If it was a coincidence, it was a big one.
“I met him,” Fiona explained. “Or rather, what was left of him. An ancient monster had climbed inside him and was using him as a vessel.”
Alice grunted. “That explains what happened to him then. The Principled Society didn’t survive contact with Peter Murdoch, back in the day. Some sided with the new Shadow Council, some didn’t.”
The fine hairs lifted on the back of Fiona’s neck. “They aren’t all accounted for?”
“Not so far as I know. Some are known to be dead, some are sure to be, some are … probably not.” A hungry smile curved her lips. “Are we hunting them?”
“Not tonight.”
Sorcha had said she’d done Fiona a favour putting Moth on her trail. A sick and twisted favour, Fiona thought with some anger, but a favour all the same.
A clue that led back into her cut-apart past. The first in a while.
Some of Alice’s enthusiasm had faded. “Did you mean to bring us here?”
They had reached the headquarters of the Shield Foundation. “This is my appointment. Or technically it’s us barging in, since I didn’t make one. I need to find the right person to give something.”
“Why am I here?” Alice asked.
“To make sure they let me out again,” Fiona said. “And to make sure they take me seriously, in case they don’t know to do that yet.”
Alice smiled, a slow lazy smile. “Yet?”
“Come on.”
The lobby was an old-fashioned space with dark wooden beams spanning its high ceiling, lit with soft yellow lights on the walls. The metal panel of the elevator controls was polished brass and the paintings on the walls were all oils. A young man in a suit smiled at her from behind a big wooden desk. It was the smile of a receptionist about to politely sweep you out the door, though it froze when Alice strolled in on Fiona’s heels.
“Hi,” Fiona said. “Last night I negotiated a temporary truce between the vampires and werewolves. I’d like to speak to someone in charge. Please don’t call security because Alice will have too much fun beating them up.”
“Spoilsport,” Alice said.
The receptionist’s voice was not steady. “Bear with me while I call someone.” He picked up a phone.
Fiona wandered away to study the oil paintings. They were all old pictures of London. Most had horses and carriages in them, or looked like they should.
A man in his late twenties arrived via the elevator. He wore a suit, well-pressed for the most part though his tie was askew. A warlo
ck ring gleamed on his right hand. His face paled when he recognised Alice, but he came towards Fiona all the same.
“And you are?” Fiona asked just as he was about to speak.
“David Sacker, watch commander. May I ask–?”
“Here.” She pushed a sheet of folded paper into his hands.
He blinked, wrong-footed again. He unfolded the paper and said, “Who are these people?”
“Those are the names of the victims of a dream monster called Ikandror,” she said, “who was riding around in the body of old Lawrence Moth of the Principled Society.”
David stared at her.
“The monster gradually sucked their minds out,” Fiona said. “Some of them are beyond helping, I suppose, but some of them might recover with help.”
David shook his head. “And what am I supposed to do?”
“Help them. Everyone keeps telling me your Foundation is good at that, at coming along and helping afterwards.” She gestured to the slip of paper. “So help them. Please.”
“Er, I don’t know if this is really our area of–”
She took a half-step closer. “Isn’t this what you’re in this business for? To help people?”
“I–” He paused. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Great. All the best then. I’ll leave you to it.”
He followed after her as she made for the door. “Hang on, Percy said you got the vampires and werewolves to stop fighting last night. That was really you?”
Fiona pushed the door open and held it for Alice. “That was me. You’ll probably see me around.” She pointed at the slip of paper. “Take care of those people. They need you.”
Fiona barely noticed the December cold as they left the Shield Foundation behind them. Her steps felt lighter than before. The fatigue that hadn’t quite left her, even after a night’s sleep, was gone.
“So,” Alice asked, all but bouncing along beside her, “what now?”
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