Sixty-One Nails

by Mike Shevdon

  "Mmm," was about as much as I dared say, nodding was out of the question but I could hear the truth of her intent.

  "Step sideways slowly," the voice commanded.

  I did as she asked. It sounded like Blackbird, but I was taking no chances. So far she hadn't killed me. "Just so you know I'm serious, if I see a glimmer of gallowfyre, a darkening of the ambient light, if a cloud even crosses the sun, I am going to shove this knife up through your head so hard it will stick out of the top, understand?"

  "Mmm," I acknowledged, not really understanding but complying, the knife pressing the point into the root of my throat, under my chin.

  "Step backwards slowly, one small step at a time. There's a wall behind you." I edged backwards, the knife lifting me onto tiptoe. "Turn left and face the wall." I turned around slowly and she moved around with me until I faced the wall.

  "Kneel slowly, facing the wall." I did as she demanded and as I reached an uncomfortable half-kneeling position she moved the knife so it stuck into the back of my neck under the base of my skull. Her knee pressed into my back, pushing me forward.

  "Now put your arms out and spread your fingers wide against the wall. If you move a fraction from there I will kill you instantly. Do you understand?"

  "Yes". I pressed my face against the wall. All my senses were telling me her words were the absolute truth. She would kill me.

  "I'm going to offer you a choice. It's not much of one, but it's all you're getting. You can tell me what I want to know and I will kill you cleanly and send you back where you came from. Or you can refuse and I will bind you to this body so when it dies, you will also. You can hear the truth in my words, yes?"

  "Yes," I could hear the truth in them. She was going to kill me. "But–"

  The knife pressed inwards. "Now. I am going to ask my questions and then you're going to die. My question is simple. Why are you here? What did you come for? "

  "Blackbird…" I had to convince her it was me.

  "No!" The knife stabbed inwards and I'm sure I felt a warm dribble run down my neck. "No names, not even that one. I'm giving you nothing, understand? "

  "But it's me, Rabbit. We spent the day together, yesterday. You can tell it's me." I hated the whiny quality in my voice but I was desperate. She had to believe me. "How can you lie to me without my being able to hear it? Is this some new wraithkin gift?" Her voice had a puzzled quality, as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "How are you doing that? Tell me and I'll despatch you quickly and painlessly."

  "No, please, it really is me. How can I convince you? "

  "Convince me? I saw you in the alley with Fenlock. I saw the gallowfyre. I know what you are. I don't need convincing, I just need an answer." There was anger in her voice that translated into pressure in her hand. I tried to slide up the wall from a kneeling position. I needed her to believe me. I needed a distraction. I needed something.

  "What's gallowfyre? You mean my glow?"

  "Your what? No, enough games! Tell me and I'll finish it."

  "Please! It's me. It's Rabbit. You know it's me. I can't lie to you, can I?" I pleaded with her, knowing any second she could end my existence.

  "That's what I don't understand. How can you say that when I know what you are? How are you deceiving me? "

  "I'm not lying! I'm not! Please listen to me." She had to listen.

  "You must be lying. Tell me how." Her voice had a harsh edge to it. I knew at any moment she would push the knife home.

  "Just wait a moment. Wait, please." I closed my eyes but tears still ran unbidden down my face. I didn't want to die like this, not by her hand. Why was she doing this? "Please, Blackbird, don't kill me. I'm not lying, I'm not. I can't. You know I can't."

  My every nerve tensed, waiting for the searing pain I knew would accompany the knife. The waiting extended from seconds into minutes. The moment came, and passed.

  I couldn't keep up that level of tension indefinitely. I hesitantly opened my eyes, still pressed against the wall.

  "Blackbird?"

  "Shut up!"

  "There must be a way I can–"

  "I said quiet! I'm trying to think."

  The knife-point stayed pressed into the back of my skull and the pressure of her knee into my back increased. My knees were painfully jammed against the wall on the bare floor. It was intensely uncomfortable. "Blackbird, can I move just a little?"

  An exasperated sigh came from behind me. "It would be easier for us both if I just killed you and had done with it."

  I took that as a No and kept still. It would be a shame if she killed me now just for irritating her. She hadn't killed me yet, though. There was hope.

  "Answer me more questions. What did you say to offend Gramawl?"

  "I didn't do anything to offend him. It was him who used his magic on me." There was a further pause. "Was that the right answer? "

  "Which stone did Kareesh like best?"

  "I don't know, ask her! No, wait a minute, the red one. It was dark red. It felt odd, wrong somehow. "

  "Tell me about your daughter. I want her full name and date of birth, where she goes to school, everything. "

  "You said I wasn't to tell anyone. You said I had to stay away from her and not lead anyone to her. "

  "I changed my mind. Tell me."

  "What for? You said it was dangerous." I still wasn't exactly sure who I was dealing with. Maybe this wasn't Blackbird after all? Now that I thought about it, she didn't even act like Blackbird and telling her the details might enable whoever it was to find Alex. "Just tell me or we end this now!"

  I took a deep breath. "No. I can't tell you that. Ask me something else."

  "Tell me!"

  "No."

  It sounded such a small word to end a life, but I wouldn't give away my daughter. I scrunched my eyes together tight and waited for the knife. Instead the pressure of the point was removed and she stopped pushing me against the wall. "You believe me? "

  "Just don't move!"

  "I'd really like to sit back now, if you could just refrain from stabbing me?" I was feeling a little more confident, now the knife had been withdrawn.

  "You may sit back, but keep your hands on the wall where I can see them." She still sounded angry, or maybe just scared. I kept my hands pressed onto the cold surface but sat back on my heels, sighing at the relief as I was able to take some of my weight off my knees. "Tell me about last night," she demanded, "after I left you at the tube station. Tell me all of it and try not to leave anything out. Don't make any sudden moves. I've still got the knife."

  I didn't need reminding. A sticky trickle was running down my spine.

  I started with the tube ride home and told her as much as I could remember. I told her about trying to blend in with the commuters, about clearing out the flat and putting my life into three padded envelopes. When I explained about waking in the night and discovering my glow and how excited I was, she laughed, but it was hollow.

  I got ahead of myself about the thing in the hall and had to go back and explain about the squeaky stair that had brought me back to wakefulness. I explained how I had sealed the door to keep the creature from entering my bedroom. When I explained about the black spots, she hissed between her teeth, but then told me to continue.

  I told her about climbing over the balcony and running away with my rucksack, then getting arrested and being taken back to the flat by the police. "You went back? Willingly?"

  "They weren't going to accept no for an answer. Besides, there wasn't much I could do."

  "You wouldn't have got me back in there," she said. "They went first. They checked every room with me coming after."

  "That wouldn't bother her. She could have been in the flat all the time and they'd never have seen her until it was too late."

  "Her?"

  "The Fey that came after you was female, though the body she inhabited may just as easily have been male. A door wouldn't stop her normally but she was using a human body."

  "Wh
y wouldn't the door stop her? I sealed it with magic. It worked."

  "You sealed the door shut, which was well done, but a shade isn't entirely corporeal. They can dissolve into things, entering through the tiniest crack. They're almost impossible to kill because you can't touch them. In darkness they can lurk in any shadow. She could have been in your flat all the time you were there and you'd never have known."

  "She called me 'brother'. She said, 'Brother, open the door.' It was really creepy."

  "You didn't tell me that before."

  "I didn't remember. I was trying to climb out of a first floor window at the time. Why did she call me that? "

  "I'll explain in a moment. So you went back inside? "

  "The officers went in first. There was no sign of her in the flat but the walls and ceiling were covered in mould. The police wanted me to explain it, but what could I tell them? "

  "It was darkspore. "

  "The mould?"

  "That's how I knew the Fey that came for you was female. She used darkspore to weaken the door so she could go through it after you sealed it shut. That's a gift that only a shade can use."

  "I think one of them found her. While we were upstairs in the flat, two of the policemen went around to the back garden. She was hiding in the hedge. "

  "She must have wanted them to find her. They would never have seen her if she didn't want them to. "

  "I think she used the mould on him. That, what did you call it, darkspore?"

  "Darkspore spreads by touch. It will run over any surface until it reaches flesh."

  "And then what?"

  "It consumes wherever it touches."

  Her words were cold and quiet and I thought about how close I had come to reaching out and testing that black stain with my fingertip. I shivered involuntarily, remembering the sound of strange manic laughter drifting up though my window over the screams of the policeman. I thought about the other officers and the firemen that had been called to the flat.

  "There was a fire engine," I told her. "I think it was sent to my flat to deal with the darkspore. Will they be able to contain it?"

  "The darkspore will revert to mould once she withdraws her power," she said, "and she wouldn't have stayed long. The news would be too important to delay for the sake of a little fun."

  She had a strange idea of what constituted fun. I thought about my ruined door and my mould-stained walls. I wondered whether I would ever be able to return there now it was filled with the memories of spreading blackness and the sounds from the garden. "When the screaming started, that's when I ran. I kept running until I couldn't run anymore."

  "If she had really wanted you, she would have had you. Maybe she changed her mind about you once she saw the gallowfyre?" The question was more to herself than to me.

  "You said that before. What's gallowfyre? Is that what my glow is called?"

  "Will you show it to me?"

  "What, now?"

  "Call it forth, but stay down there where I can see you."

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on reaching inwards. The darkness answered and the room chilled suddenly, a fickle breeze shifted in the room, drawn up the stairs from below. I heard Blackbird's sharply indrawn breath. When I opened my eyes the room was dim with the speckled light shifting in milky waves on the wall in front of me. My hands were black against the wall.

  Blackbird's voice was soft behind me. "Dismiss it. Get rid of it, please." She sounded over-keen for me to stop when I had only just called it, but something in her tone told me it would be wise to indulge her. I released it and it died, the light in the room returning to normal. "Do you remember I told you that the creature pursuing you was one of the Untainted?"

  "Was that what came after me last night?"

  "The Seventh Court of the Feyre are the Untainted. They are the one court that has never mingled its bloodlines with humans. They regard all the other courts as being tainted by the stain of humanity, a refuge for mongrels and half-breeds like you, and like me. We are the reason for their exile from this world. "

  "We are?"

  "The Feyre were a dying race. They lost the ability to reproduce and their numbers were dwindling."

  "What happened to them?"

  "They were the victim of politics."

  "What?"

  "Politics led the Feyre into a selective breeding programme that spanned millennia, a side effect of which is that they have become infertile. Children among the Feyre are rare indeed. Their numbers plummeted until there were barely enough to survive extinction. Then they discovered that the union with humanity was fertile. It gave them new hope."

  "So that's how I came to have a Fey ancestor?"

  "In all likelihood, yes. The Seventh Court rebelled, though. They said that humanity would dilute Fey blood until all that remained were petty conjurers and snakeoil merchants. It caused a schism. In a desperate move, they tried to eliminate the half-breeds, all in one night. Fortunately the alarm was raised before they could complete their task. There was a bloody and brutal skirmish which the Untainted lost. They escaped to a world apart, exiled from their own kin. Now they return to complete the job they started, one mongrel at a time. "

  "What has this got to do with me?"

  "As darkspore is a gift of the shades, Rabbit, gallowfyre is a gift of the wraiths. Only male wraithkin can summon it."

  "I don't get it. If the only ones who can call gallowfyre are the wraithkin, and the wraithkin are the Untainted, then how did I inherit the ability to call it?"

  "You shouldn't be able to, but we've seen you do it. One of your ancestors must have been wraithkin. "

  "I thought you said they don't breed with humans? "

  "Until this day I would have said that with my hand over my heart."

  "I still don't see how it could be, though. I mean, they must have, mustn't they? One of the Untainted must have… you know?"

  "All I know, Rabbit, is you shouldn't be able to do

  that. You can rise now, if you wish."

  "You're not going to kill me?"

  "You summoned gallowfyre, Rabbit. When the Seventh Court rebelled, gallowfyre was used by the Untainted to drive a wedge into the armed ranks of the other courts. Those that didn't flee in terror had the life sucked out of them until their dried husks fell from the air. I took a grave risk letting you call it, but if you wanted to kill me, you could have done it then. You are who you say. Get up."

  She didn't sound very pleased about it, but I settled for being able to stand up. I leant against the wall and stumbled to my feet. Cold from kneeling on the hard floor had seeped into my joints and I tried to rub some warmth back into them.

  "The path I took you on yesterday was deliberately long," she continued. "After I left you at Leicester Square last night I retraced our steps and set wards along the path so I would know if you followed it again."

  I suddenly realised why we had taken such a circuitous route the day before.

  "You set me up."

  "I set the Untainted up. If it retained some of your knowledge then it was possible it would try to follow the route back to Kareesh, seeking to kill her. She is one of the oldest and the opportunity to eliminate her would be a hard temptation to resist. "

  "You used me as bait."

  "No one survives the Untainted, Rabbit, least of all someone as naive and inexperienced as you. I set the wards on the path to give myself time to be waiting for your body, should it return along the path. "

  "You were going to use me to lead it underground where you could kill it."

  "Not you. I hadn't expected you to survive the night. "

  "You might have given me the benefit of the doubt. "

  "I did. When I saw you speak with Megan it set me wondering if perhaps by some chance you might have survived."

  "You watched me talk to her? But if I had been taken by the Untainted then she was in terrible danger. "

  "Megan is small fry compared to Kareesh. I couldn't see the Untainted risking ex
posure just for her sake. "

  "And what about Fenlock? Did you set him up too? "

  "He was an unexpected complication. Once he had you, though, there was little I could do to intervene. I knew what would happen once he got you into the alley. "

  "He damn near killed me."

  "He confirmed what I'd already deduced. You used gallowfyre on Fenlock. He was so convinced you weren't a threat that he didn't understand what was happening until it was too late."

  "I didn't mean to. It just happened. I was trying to get his hand from around my throat and I started blacking out. When I opened my eyes my glow was everywhere. "

  "Panic reaction. Your instinct brought it on, but you would still need to have intended to use it. "

  "I was trying to push him away with magic. I tried to get him to forget me."

  "He was already using his magic on you, filling you with fear and panic."

  "When I couldn't get free, I let it loose. It was the only other thing I could do." The memory of my hands clawed into his wrists returned to me. I felt vaguely nauseous.

  "It's ironic really, he probably saved you. Your panic reaction sucked the life essence out of him, consuming the very thing that makes him exist. It's obscene." I was shocked by the cold tone in her voice. "He was trying to kill me."