by Sue Tingey
‘Since when do British police officers carry guns?’ I asked. ‘You could be anyone!’
‘We’re wearing uniforms and we’ve got two bleeding marked police cars – is she insane?’ one of them said.
‘We’re an armed response unit, Miss,’ one of the older officers told me.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m sure you’d have specially marked cars if you were.’
The eight men looked at me aghast.
‘I think the fact that there are eight of us pointing loaded guns at you would be enough for you to get down on your knees and do as you’re told.’
‘I will not get down on my knees to mere humans,’ Jinx said.
‘What the hell is he talking about?’
‘And look at him: why is he in fancy dress?’
‘He’s probably ISIS or something,’ another said. ‘They must be dangerous, otherwise the Guv wouldn’t’ve sent us.’
‘I’m telling you for the last time: put your hands on your heads and get down on your knees.’
‘Sorry, that’s not going to happen,’ I said, clutching Jinx’s arm, more terrified of what he might do than getting shot.
The policemen exchanged exasperated looks. This obviously wasn’t one of the responses covered in their manual.
‘I will count to three, and if you don’t capitulate we will have no alternative but to use ultimate force.’
‘Like, shoot two unarmed persons in cold blood? That’ll look good on the Ten o’Clock News.’
‘Now look here,’ one started to say, but he was interrupted by the whine of more sirens in the distance.
‘Jinx, we have to get out of here,’ I said urgently. ‘Can’t you make them sleep?’
He gave me a puzzled frown.
‘Jinx! Can you remember how to freeze people in time?’
The sirens were almost upon us, and from the expression on my Deathbringer’s face I might as well have been speaking a foreign language.
It was too late – two more cars screeched to a halt behind us: Jaguars, with blue flashing lights behind the front grids. I grabbed Jinx’s hand. If they contained police officers, I was Coco the Clown.
Three men climbed out of each car, and when one ran round to the back of the second to open the door I wasn’t at all surprised to see Persephone uncoil herself from the back seat and slither out.
‘We’ll take it from here, gentlemen,’ she said, strutting around to stand in front of us.
‘Excuse me, ma’am, but could you identify yourself?’ the older cop said.
‘Of course,’ she said, and turned around to face him. There was a popping sound and a dark red hole appeared in the centre of his forehead.
My mouth dropped open: she had just shot a policeman! Before the other policemen, who were standing there equally stunned, had any chance to react, they were shot down in a hail of automatic gunfire from the two men who had climbed unnoticed out of the cars: Joseph and Gabriel.
‘Jinx, darling,’ Persephone said, smiling and holding out a hand towards him, ‘we’ve been looking everywhere for you.’
I gave him a sideways glance, not daring to take my eyes off her little gun, which was now pointed straight at me.
He shivered.
‘Jinx, darling, come here. Come to Persephone.’
His eyes dropped to the gun, and then to me. He moved slightly, still holding my hand, so he was standing between us.
‘Jinx, come here.’ She was still smiling, but it had become a little fixed.
He didn’t move a muscle.
‘Do you want to be punished? Do you want me to punish you?’ Her voice was still silky-soft, but the colour highlighting her cheekbones gave away her anger.
Jinx’s hand tightened on mine.
‘You nasty, evil, manipulative bitch,’ I said.
‘You still here?’ She glanced at me, then her attention returned to Jinx. ‘I seem to remember I gave you a job to do. I suggest you get on and do it.’
‘Not here,’ a voice said, and Amaliel, swathed in his usual black hooded robe, was gliding towards us.
‘I want her dead.’
‘And so she will be, but not here, not now. We are too exposed. Anyway, there are certain rituals I’d like to take place.’
And the drawings of the little gold cages skittered through my head.
Persephone’s lips curled into a sneer. ‘Are they as important as ruling this world?’
‘Well, my dear, you will have your Deathbringer, and I will have my Soulseer.’
‘What about the Guardian?’
‘If you want him you can have him,’ Amaliel said, ‘I have no use for him whatsoever.’
‘So you say …’
Amaliel stiffened, then slowly turned to her. ‘Do not for one minute forget who I am and what I have done for you: to do so would be the last mistake you will ever make.’
Her smile became more placatory. ‘I won’t. Really, I won’t.’
This was cheering me up a mite: discord in Team Persephone? I liked this a lot, but the sound of more sirens and a helicopter in the distance put an abrupt end to their squabbling.
‘We have to go,’ Joseph said to Persephone. ‘If we’re found here now, it’ll be game over.’
Her nose wrinkled with distaste and she swung around and stalked back to her car, calling over her shoulder, ‘Jinx will come with me. You take the girl.’
‘Go on then,’ Gabriel said to Jinx, and, hanging the automatic weapon over his shoulder, grabbed hold of my wrist and, with the other hand, snatched the dagger from my belt and threw it to the ground.
Jinx still had hold of my hand, so I felt the sudden surge of power. ‘Jinx!’ I screamed, but it was too late.
The skin on Gabriel’s face began to bubble and blacken. He let go of my wrist to grab for his throat as blood trickled out between his lips, then from his ears and even from his eyes, forming bloody trails down his cheeks.
The other men backed away, doing nothing to help him, even those I guessed were Sicarii. Gabriel sank to his knees still clutching his throat, and with a flick of his wrist, Jinx sent another surge of power radiating out from him, knocking some of the men off their feet.
There was a rat-a-tat-a-tat of automatic gunfire and Jinx staggered slightly. I looked around to see one of the humans leaning against a police car, his gun still raised.
‘No!’ I screamed, and the beast inside my head screamed too. It was almost as if Jinx and I were standing in the eye of a hurricane while the world went spinning around us. A police car flipped up on its end, and bodies went tumbling over and over as they flew away from us. There was a roaring in my ears and a pressure inside my head as my inner daemon yelled out her displeasure.
Then the wind dropped, the earth stood still and an eerie silence surrounded us. There were wrecked cars all around us, and broken bodies, some human, some definitely daemon. Jinx had hold of my hand so tightly I was in danger of losing all feeling in my fingers.
Someone began to moan and twisted metal began to creak. Once again I could hear sirens and helicopters in the distance.
‘Come on,’ I said to Jinx, ‘we’ve got to go.’
He didn’t move a muscle.
‘Jinx?’ I said, looking up at him.
He had his free hand clutched to his stomach and I could see blood seeping between his fingers and dripping to the ground in a steady patter.
‘Oh my God—’
‘He won’t be helping us,’ he said, and started towards the side road we’d been making for when we’d been surrounded.
We passed the human with the gun. He was lying in a crumpled heap with his neck bent at a very peculiar angle. I looked away. I had killed him. I had taken a human life. Would Jamie and his Guardians be hunting me down now?
I glanced at Jinx and realised I didn’t care. I’d always been the good girl; I’d always played by the rules – and look where it’d got me.
I heard a voice cry out behind us, ‘They’re getting away, you fool
s – stop them!’
Persephone. Why couldn’t she have been one of the broken bodies? But that would have been too much to hope for.
We started to run, and a couple of the Sicarii who were still standing came shambling after us, but the whine of sirens and the pounding of rotor blades was getting closer and they quickly gave up. I heard car doors slam: Persephone’s Jag had been the furthest away from us, and it had remained on all four wheels, so she wouldn’t even have to face the music for the deaths of the policemen. I suspected the blame for that would somehow end up planted squarely on our shoulders; they had been trying to arrest us for a reason, after all.
The helicopter was getting dangerously close. I didn’t want us to be seen running away from a crime scene – if they spotted us there would be no hiding from them, not with all their technology.
‘We have to get under cover,’ I said urgently, and as if to make the point I heard a car turn into the road behind us. Persephone and Amaliel weren’t about to give up so easily.
Nor was I. The road curved to the left then came to a T-junction with a boarded-up pub on one corner and a post box on the other. Straight ahead was a six-foot-high hedge.
‘Can you jump it?’
Jinx’s reply was to throw his arm around me, run straight at the hedge and jump. We cleared it by a good foot, but when we landed he went down on one knee, pulling me down with him and almost pitching forward. I shuffled around so I was facing him and pulled open his coat. It was worse than I thought. A line of bullet holes that would have probably cut a human in half ran across his stomach from above his right hip to just below the left side of his ribcage.
‘They will heal,’ he said, but he didn’t look so good.
‘We need to find somewhere to hide out.’
He nodded, and fell straight into my arms. We weren’t going anywhere. I pulled him as far under the overgrown hedge as I could, so we wouldn’t be obvious from above, but I could hear the purr of an idling engine from the road behind us where Persephone’s Jaguar had stopped.
‘They can’t have gone far,’ I heard her say. ‘You two, check that pub. Break in if you have to.’
‘The Deathbringer is injured,’ a Sicarii hissed.
‘Idiots.’
‘It was your human who fired upon him,’ Amaliel said. It sounded like they were all standing in the road.
After a bit we heard footsteps, and someone snarled, ‘Nothing.’
‘We can’t hang about here any longer,’ Persephone snapped, ‘the police will be all over the place.’ And with that, one car door slammed, then the other; the engine growled and the car pulled away.
We’d had a reprieve, but it wouldn’t be for long. The police would soon be combing the area, and when it got dark I was sure Persephone and Amaliel would be back with reinforcements. I had a decision to make: did Jinx and I try to go it alone, or did I risk trying to get help from Jamie?
I pulled the mobile phone from my pocket. It had been vibrating on and off all morning, but I’d ignored it. There were half a dozen missed calls, a couple of texts and the battery was almost done for, so it was now or never.
I scrolled through the contacts, my finger hovering over Jamie’s name: I so wanted to hear his voice – but I couldn’t trust him, not with Jinx’s life. And who exactly was that woman I’d seen him with? All my senses were telling me that I couldn’t trust her. So who could I trust? They would no doubt all be together, so if I called one of them, the rest would know. There was only one person I knew I could trust to keep my secret; I had to hope he would understand.
I need your help – please don’t tell the others – particularly not Jamie.
I stared down at the message, almost deleted it … but pressed send before I changed my mind. Then there was nothing I could do but sit and wait.
I could still hear sirens, and a chopper passed overhead several times, but it didn’t start circling, so I didn’t think we’d been spotted. I hoped they wouldn’t bring in police dogs. I didn’t want them meeting sticky ends should Jinx wake up.
As Persephone had predicted, it hadn’t taken too long for the police to search the road. They stopped about where Persephone and Amaliel had stood and had a similar conversation.
‘The bastards can’t have gone far.’
‘Well, they’re certainly not here.’
‘Nothing adds up.’
‘Eight of ours are dead: eight of ours who were fully armed with weapons drawn. Two cars are flipped onto their roofs – and everyone’s denying all knowledge of why they were even here!’
‘I don’t care about the whys or wherefores, I just want to find the bastards who did this.’
‘I was just saying—’
‘Well, don’t.’
‘Guv, Hawkins, Davis and Brent are searching the pub, but there’s nothing else here. These hedges are harder than prison walls to get through – and anyway, there’s no broken branches or anything: we’ve checked three miles in either direction, both sides of the road. We have to face it, they’ve gone. It’s the middle of fucking nowhere – they must’ve had a vehicle.’
‘They must have had a fucking tank, the amount of damage they’ve done.’
‘Then why did they stop?’ and the conversation rumbled on as they walked back the way they’d come.
Jinx’s wounds stopped bleeding about an hour after he’d been shot and I swear I could see them beginning to heal – although they still looked really nasty.
I kept checking my phone, but there was nothing: if he didn’t contact me soon it would be too late; I’d have run out of battery. Maybe he didn’t understand how to use the thing properly – Jamie and I had given all my daemon guards a lesson, but it had been pretty cursory. Perhaps he was in an area with no signal – or maybe he just couldn’t get away.
Then, just when I’d given up all hope, my mobile finally pinged.
Are you well? Is the DB with you? Where are you?
Yes – yes – not sure. Near deserted pub called
—I had to think for a second; what the hell had it been called?
the Wheatsheaf near a place called Chelwood Gate
I pressed send.
I need to tell the G
No!
Without his help, how can I help you?
Shenanigans was right: I should never have involved him – but who else was there?
I had started to tap in a reply when a hand gripped my wrist.
‘What are you doing?’ Jinx growled.
‘I’m trying to get help.’
He snatched the mobile from my hand.
‘No!’ I shouted as he flung the phone across the field. I watched it arc in the air and fall. ‘We need help,’ I said, attempting to stand, but he pulled me back down.
‘No.’
‘You’re hurt.’
‘I’m healing.’
‘You don’t remember me – I doubt you even remember your own name.’
‘Jinx – you call me Jinx.’
‘Do you remember me?’
He gave me a nasty look. ‘If you were important to me, I would.’
He might as well have stabbed me in the heart; the pain those few words caused me couldn’t have made me feel any worse.
Although he was no longer my Jinx he must have seen something in my expression that made him pause. ‘You are special to me?’
‘Apparently not …’ I said, my heart breaking into a million pieces. ‘Apparently not as much as you are to me.’ I turned away from him.
He took hold of my chin and cocked his head to one side, a gesture so familiar to me that it made me want to weep. He sometimes looked so much like one of the ravens he sent forth as spies for him. Even as my heart was being torn asunder, I wondered if it was the same here.
I would never have believed the day would come when I wished we could return to the Underlands and never come back to the world that used to be my home – but that was exactly how I felt right now. The Overlands was as strange and alien
to me as the moon.
‘Tell me your name,’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘You either remember it or you don’t.’
A hand closed about mine. ‘I will try,’ he said.
Fourteen
After I heard the slam of the pub door, the receding sound of loud disgruntled voices and boots on tarmac was replaced by birdsong and the occasional bleating of sheep in an adjoining field. To add to our misery, it began to rain again; a gentle patter fast turned into a steady drumbeat.
I’d had enough. I stood up and made myself a tiny eye-sized small gap in the hedge. The road ahead was empty. I could see blue flashing lights still colouring the sky beyond the distant hedgerows: the police would have more than enough to do at the crime scene. It was interesting – this lot of policemen were as surprised as I’d been that the men who’d stopped us had been carrying guns; it looked like Persephone really did have friends in very high places.
‘We have to get under cover,’ I told Jinx, and with a lot of effort, he clambered to his feet, pointedly ignoring my hand – although he took it soon enough when he was standing.
‘I think we should chance hiding out in the pub for a few hours, at least until it gets dark. They’ve searched it once, so I doubt they’ll search it again.’ I was hoping this was true; I was also hoping Shenanigans might somehow find us, and I was beginning to not really care overmuch whether he brought Jamie with him or not. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
Jinx had stopped answering me again, and I was worried he’d shut down like he had before. Could I ever fix what they had done to him? I had to push those negative thoughts out of my head; they were too unbearable to contemplate.
We had to walk a lot further than I’d wanted before we found a way to double back to the pub, by which time the rain was falling in stair-rods, turning the tarmac oil-slick black. The pub really was called the Wheatsheaf, so I’d at least got that right, although I had no idea how near Chelwood Gate was; I’d seen a signpost for it, but it could have been miles away.
The Sicarii and the police had both broken into the pub through the back door, and neither of them had done a very good job of securing it afterwards, which was lucky for us. Once inside, I could see why. The place had been gutted, and it was obvious from the mess of polystyrene cups, fast-food containers and beer cans that the local kids had been hanging out here for a while.
