by Hanna Peach
His shoulders sank. “Don’t be angry at her. She didn’t realize what would happen.”
A sharp pain went through Alyx causing her to buckle at the stomach. “You knew.”
“Jovanna came to me afterwards. She was so upset. Elise never told her about Sebastian and they shared everything, like sisters. I think Jovanna loved Sebastian too, so when she found out... it was a betrayal for her. That’s why she went to the Elders.”
“A betrayal for her?” Alyx’s voice rises, “A betrayal for her? I’ll kill her.”
Symon grabs her arm as she tries to push past him. “You can’t confront her. They’ll know that you’ve been digging around in restricted information. It will be the end of your life here.”
“Is that a threat?”
“I’m not the threat.”
“No.” Alyx’s head is spinning. Symon is on their side. “You’re supposed to be my friend, on my side. You’re supposed to help me.”
“I am trying to help you.”
“By telling me to just carry on like normal? To pretend like I don’t know the truth?”
“That’s just what you have to do if you want to stay here and live your life.”
“Live. My. Life?” She draws back from him as if he had suddenly turned into a snake, slimy and hissing. How could he say these things to her? How could he tell her to forget? Tell her to pretend?
Alyx backs away, shaking her head. “No. I won’t.”
“Alyx be reasonable.”
“No.”
“Alyx...”
“I don’t know you.”
She shoves past him, fleeing from his pod, ignoring his calls for her to stop.
Chapter 25
Alyx pushes past the guard into the RaceKeeper’s tent.
“I’m sorry sir,” the guard calls from behind her. “She wouldn’t—.”
“Leave us,” the RaceKeeper commands from the shadows. There is a moment of silence as the guard retreats and RaceKeeper takes a long toke of his shisha pipe.
“So my little magic Bullet,” Alyx cringes at this nickname for her, “what brings you to my humble abode. It’s not a race night.”
“I am looking to trade.” Alyx holds up a handful of pouches, all full of gold.
The RaceKeeper makes a noise under his breath. “And what might I have that you would be interested in? You aren’t looking to trade for the little Sparrow again are you?”
“I want information.”
“What kind of information?”
“I know you have Rogues in this crowd.”
He makes a non-committal noise.
“Which means you must have access to their community. I want to know,” Alyx pauses, taking a breath, “I want to know where my parents are.”
“Your parents? I see. But why are you so interested now, Bullet?”
“That is none of your business.”
“Hmmm.” The RaceKeeper takes a long languid puff from his pipe and blows smoke rings towards her face. She grits her teeth and instructs herself not to react. She needs his information. “You have discovered the truth about them have you?”
Her world stops. He knows too. Has he known all along? Does everyone know but her?
“You know about them?”
“My dear, I never accept competitors for my races without a full investigation into their past. You do have some interesting demons in your closet don’t you? Poor Symon must have a rough time keeping you under control.”
Alyx clenches her fists. What else does he know about her?
“I will pay you for what you know.” Alyx throws the pouches at the RaceKeeper’s feet.
The RaceKeeper pokes them with his pipe. He picks one up with his chubby fingers, shakes it, opens it and pulls out a coin. He lifts the coin to his face and it disappears in the blackness. Then he pulls it back out to study it.
There is now a small mark on the coin. He has bitten it, checking that they are pure gold. Pure gold is so soft that teeth can dent it.
“You don’t trust me RaceKeeper?”
“Just business my dear. Don’t take it personally.”
He pulls out another coin, bites, studies, and pulls out another. He does this with all of the coins.
Finally he puts down the last pouch. “Is this all your parents are worth?”
Alyx struggles to hold down the bile that rises in her throat. She pushes her fist into her jacket pocket and pulls out her last four pouches. She throws them on the pile at his feet. All of her savings.
“Holding out on me I see?” The RaceKeeper laughs. “I accept your offer.” He takes another toke of his pipe. “Now, I have good news and I have bad news for you. Which one do you want to hear first? I recommend the good news.”
He is enjoying this. Alyx wants to kick him in his flabby gut, which is spilling out over his purple drawstring pants, but she restrains herself.
“The bad news.”
“Alright then, your choice. Your father, Sebastian, is dead.”
This hits Alyx like a blow to the stomach. Dead. “No.”
“Oh yes. He was killed trying to rescue you from Michaelea. How touching, how tragic.”
Alyx can feel her jaw start to shake with the loss of the father she never knew. No. She won’t cry in front of him. She swallows, forces herself to speak, “And the good news?”
“Elise, on the other hand is alive, or was the last I heard. Living in a Seraphim community somewhere in Egypt.”
Alive. Her mother is alive. Alyx doesn’t know whether she should laugh or cry. But Egypt, so big a country. “Where in Egypt?”
“That I don’t know exactly. This particular community keeps itself very well hidden.”
“Not good enough. Where is she?”
“My dear, I honestly don’t know. You may not think much of me but what I am is a business man. I always hold up my end of the deal. The deal is for what I know. I have told you what I know. Now leave before you start crying. I abhor tears.” He waves his hand in a dismissal. “Guards.”
Alyx is too stunned to resist the hands that grab either arm and lead her from the tent.
Outside, some way from the tent, the guards let her go. Alyx stands for a while gazing at the dark forest in front of her, the moonlight dancing down between the leaves, the air fresh and smelling of pine. Her body is numb. Numb.
Her father, dead. Her mother, somewhere in Egypt. A community somewhere in Egypt. What does she do now? If she left Michaelea to go and find her mother she could never go back.
Go back to what?
Alyx starts to float through the trees towards where she knows there is a stream, having flown over it on her way here. Perhaps cold water on her face will help her to think.
As she approaches the stream, Alyx can hear a soft grunting over the sound of running water. It is Sparrow. He is wrestling with a bucket of water almost the size of him.
“Here let me help,” Alyx says as she approaches him.
“I don’t need no one’s help,” says Sparrow and pulls again with both hands at the handle. Alyx can’t help but smile. That sounds like something she would have said.
“Okay. Do you mind if I come with you back to the tent then? I don’t like being out here on my own at night.”
Sparrow narrows his eyes at her before saying, “Suit yourself.”
He is only able to float a couple of meters before having to put the bucket back down and take a break. Alyx drifts along by his side.
“He calls you Bullet,” Sparrow says.
“Yes.”
“But that’s not your real name.”
“No. My name’s Alyx.”
Sparrow scrunches up his nose. “I prefer Bullet.”
“He calls you Sparrow. What’s your real name?”
“Don’t have one?”
“Everyone has a real name.”
“Not me. I was never given one.”
“What did people call you before you started work for him?”
“You. Or Boy
. I got Boy a lot.”
“Where were you before?”
“I lived with an old lady and her son. Mortals. She was okay, just yelled at me a lot. Her son.” Sparrow shivers. “I didn’t like him.”
“Mortals?” Alyx says in surprise.
“Yeah.”
“How did you come to work for the RaceKeeper?”
Sparrow shrugged. “He just came by the house one day. Said it was time to hand me over.”
“Do you like it here?”
“Don’t have no choice do I?”
Alyx swallows the knot in her throat. “You always have a choice.”
“Not me.” Sparrow almost drops the bucket this time. He pulls up one leg of his pants. There is a silver bracelet around his ankle.
“An Animale bracelet. But…” Alyx can’t believe her eyes. “They’re supposed to be for birds.”
“Supposed to be. Last servant got too big for the bracelet. I think that’s why I’m here. I’ll get to stay till I get too big for my bracelet. Lucky me.” Sparrow picks up the bucket again and continues on another few meters. Alyx floats along beside him, silent, until they are almost in sight of the tent.
“I have somewhere to be but I’d like to come back and visit you sometime. Is that okay?”
“Suit yourself,” Sparrow says, without looking at her. Alyx turns and speeds off into the night.
She doesn’t see Sparrow gazing somberly after her.
Chapter 26
Alyx drops soundlessly to the ground in a dark corner of the gardens surrounding Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
She can see the cathedral from here, an elaborate structure of spires and towers, overflowing with ornate spikes and intricate carvings of sitting dragons and praying angels. A relic from before the last Mortal War, the cathedral had taken substantial damage and had only been partially renovated to its former glory. The grand entrance is two giant doors of a grey metal, worked into the raised forms of opposing angels, outstretched wings and robes billowing.
The town clock strikes midnight in the distance.
Movement, in a section of the gardens kept dark by the bowing branches of a tall willowy tree. It is him. She recognizes it in his silhouette, in the way he moves.
Alyx begins to move towards him, low to the ground along the row of bushes until she is close enough to reach out and touch him.
“Hey,” she whispers. “It’s Alyx.”
He jolts, takes a step back. Then relaxes. He is dressed all in black except for an off-white bandage around his arm where he had been cut last night.
“For a moment there I thought you may not show.”
“I said I would. Now return my blade.”
“Questions first, blade later.”
Alyx makes an exasperated noise. She could probably take her blade off him forcibly if she wanted to but for some reason she decides to humor him.
“Fine, but not out here.” Alyx jerks her head towards the small gardeners shed.
“Dammit. It’s locked,” Alyx says as she shakes the door handle. If only Elijah’s pick could open mortal locks too.
“May I?” he says. Alyx steps aside and he kneels at the door. “Everything is open to those with the right key.”
She can’t see what he is doing but within seconds the lock clicks. He stands and pushes the door open.
“How did you do that?”
“Magic,” he says casually, but there is a grin on his face. “After you.”
Inside the shed Alyx is greeted with the tang of rusty metal and the musk of moist earth. Garden tools – shovels, cutters, trowels – hang across the walls. In the centre of the shed is a thick wood table, a work bench. The small spotlight that appears in front of her makes her jump.
“Steady girl,” Alyx hears him say. “It’s only my torch.” The spotlight swings around and stops on the shed light switch. He stretches out to reach it.
“Don’t. You’ll turn this place into a beacon.”
“You’re not afraid of being alone with me in the dark?” There is a curious twist to his voice.
“Of course not.”
“Maybe you should be.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
“Okay then, no lights.” The mortal turns the torchlight off.
Her eyes adjust quickly to the moonlight filtering through the dusty window. She realizes how close she is to him, caught between his body and the worktable. She slides around to one side of the table and clears her throat.
“What are you?”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“The other night, you leapt up onto the wall and climbed up that building like a spider. You can’t be completely mortal.”
He laughs softly. “Parkour.”
Alyx shakes her head, not understanding.
“Free running?”
Alyx frowns, shaking her head again.
“Think of it as a form of street gymnastics. Some old friends taught me.”
“So you are mortal?”
“Born and bred. My turn. Tell me more about the demons.”
“I shouldn’t be talking to you about them.”
He gives her a look. As if I don’t know they exist already.
“Okay, okay. What you were fighting back in that alley wasn’t a demon, exactly. That’s what we call a Darkened.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The demons have been locked out of earth for some time. They can’t physically cross over to here. Unfortunately they discovered a kind of loophole. Demons can use their magic to appear in dreams or as voices in your head, if you are open to influence. If they are able to turn your mind to the dark, turn you to their side, then the demons can possess you and you become Darkened.”
“Why would anyone chose to side with a demon?”
“Hate, anger, lust, greed, revenge, power... there are many things that the demons will use, many things they will promise, to get you to relinquish your body. They are clever and they have had several centuries to practice.”
“How do you get the demon out?”
“You can’t.”
“You can’t?” He sags. A flash of pain appears across his face then it disappears. “So, the human who has become Darkened...?”
“We are told that they can see and feel everything but have no control. A prisoner in their own body. Can you imagine? I would go mad.”
Barely a whisper. “That’s horrible.” Then a flare of life. “Let me come with you. I can fight alongside you and your people. I can help.”
Alyx shakes her head. “I am already risking so much just being here talking to you. My people, we have rules, a Code...”
“And they don’t include involving mortals.”
“I’m sorry.” She truly was. “Can I ask you another question?”
“May as well.”
“Your demon sight, when did you first see them?”
“I don’t remember. I was really young. No one believed me of course. Just an overactive imagination. I wasn’t even sure they were real for a while.”
“You said they have been chasing you?”
“When I was sixteen one of them realized that I could see his real face. He came after me but I got away from him. I tried telling my step-father but he didn’t believe me of course. ‘You’re too old for this nonsense,’ he said to me. The same demon came after me again later that night when I was in bed. He was angry, yelling, saying all these strange things that didn’t make sense.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Something about a key. I don’t know what he was talking about.”
Alyx’s forehead scrunches as she tries to make sense of this.
“I fought against him and we tore up my room. He ran away before my stepfather burst the locks on my bedroom door. My stepfather thought there was something wrong with me. I mean, how could I explain what had really happened?
“I was sent away to an institution. For a while I thought I was actually crazy. But the demon follo
wed me to the institute. He didn’t come after me straight away. He started toying with me, messing with my mind. I knew it was a matter of time before he found a way in. So I ran away from the institution. I barely made it out, but I did.”
The white room. The creature tearing at the walls. Those were his memories coming out in his nightmares.
“I lived on the streets, taking odd jobs where I could, relying on the kindness of charities, taking scraps from restaurants at the end of the night. But I could never stay in one place for too long. He was still after me. One night, I was confronted by a street gang. They were mostly kids like me but bigger and toughened by years on the street. Apparently I was in their territory. I fought as if my life depended on it. Thankfully, the leader took a liking to me. So he took me in.
“They let me stay with them, taught me how to survive on the streets, how to fight properly with a knife, taught me parkour. But soon the demon caught up to me and this time he had friends with him. I managed to escape but I knew I had to leave my gang, to keep them safe. I left without telling them why. Since then, it has been more of the same.”
His face twists. “I just got fed up of running, you know? I got sick of being afraid and always having to look over my shoulder.”
“I’m sorry.”
He gives her a half-smile. “Don’t be. My life hasn’t been all bad.”
“I can’t believe your parent’s institutionalized you.”
“They weren’t my parents. My mother died when I was born and I never knew my father. My aunt raised me. Later she married my stepfather.”
“I’m sorry... about your parents.”
“You can’t miss what you never knew.” His short laugh comes out as a choke. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. You’re practically a stranger.”
“My parents had me out of wedlock,” it comes tumbling out before Alyx could censure herself. “They abandoned me when I was born. At least that’s what everyone always told me. I found out recently that I had been lied to. By people who I considered my friends, even the man who raised me. My parents tried to take me with them but the Elders, the leaders of my city, stopped them. I just found out that my father died trying to get me out. My mother’s still alive somewhere but I don’t know where.”
