Relics--The Folded Land

by Tim Lebbon

  “Last chance,” Claudette said.

  “Really, I—”

  Click!

  Angela gasped. Claudette turned the gun in her hand and looked down at it, surprised, annoyed. Angela took a step forward, and then the trees above them burst into life, and chaos fell around her.

  Three shapes dropped down onto Claudette. At first Angela thought they were large birds, but then she saw that they were slashing, hacking, and stabbing. Claudette dropped the gun and waved her hands around her head, batting at the creatures that had attached themselves to her face, neck, and shoulder. Her startled shout turned into a gurgling scream as she fell beneath their assault. Blood splashed through the air in a graceful arc.

  Angela stepped back from the violence. She’d seen its like before—and worse, much worse—but it was still a shock. More shocking still was the sudden turnaround in circumstances. From being threatened with death by this woman, now she was watching her die. Confused, unsure whether to help or turn and flee, she could only stand and watch the onslaught unfold.

  A shape appeared from deeper in the undergrowth in the direction of the park wall, and Angela knew who it was simply from the way it moved, as familiar as her own shadow.

  At the same time Coffee Man entered the shelter of the trees behind her, gasped at the scene that greeted him, and started backing away.

  The shadow manifested as Vince. He pointed past Angela at the startled man.

  “You need to go.” Behind her, Coffee Man turned on his heels and ran back the way he’d come. He no longer looked tired.

  Claudette was on the ground now, curled up at the foot of a tree. She shivered and bled, her wide white eyes stark against the bloody mask of her face. The three things that had dropped onto her were back on the low branches, poised ready to leap down again should the need arise. The one closest to Angela was the size of a newborn baby, but its features were that of an old man, its skin a dark grizzled gray, eyes deep-set and sparkling with an unknowable intelligence. It held out its hands, turning them slowly as it examined the gore on its clawed fingers and palms.

  Claudette spluttered and gagged on her own blood.

  “We need to go, too,” Vince said. He was talking to Angela but looking down at Claudette. His eyes were wide, but he did not seem afraid.

  “We can’t just…” Angela said, unable to finish the statement.

  “You want to call an ambulance?” Vince asked.

  Yes, she thought.

  She shook her head.

  “Then come on!” He held out his hand.

  Angela took a step closer to Claudette. The wounds on her neck and face were terrible, gaping, leaking blood in heavy spurts. Her shivers were lessening, her eyes glazed. Perhaps she was already dead.

  Angela took Vince’s outstretched hand, and despite everything it felt good.

  “Where?” she asked, her voice barely a croak.

  “Old gate out onto the road. Then we walk. Just taking in the sun. Okay?”

  “Okay. What about…?”

  “She’ll be found soon enough, and she was seen chasing you, so you’ll need to change your appearance again.” He smiled at her. “Pity. I like the hair.”

  “I was thinking more about them.” She nodded up at the trees.

  “The gremlins? They can look after themselves.”

  Hand in hand, they left the dying woman behind.

  5

  Head down, senses alert as the bustle and chatter of ignorance washed over her, Lilou passed along the warm evening streets of London, this city that was not hers.

  It was almost eight in the evening, and many of the Soho pubs were spilling their clientele onto the streets. Men in shirtsleeves and loosened ties, women in summer dresses, cigarette smoke hanging low in the still air, laughter and chatter ringing between buildings, the throngs seemed to repulse Lilou as she found the easiest route through and between the groups.

  A few people saw her. Some even noticed, and one young man followed her for a while, ignoring the confused entreaties of his female companion as he left her standing alone outside a corner pub. Lilou sped up, drew herself in, concentrating on not being who she was. It took only moments for the man to slow to a halt, and she left him looking around in confusion.

  Lilou could bewitch any man or woman she passed by. Her strongest instincts urged her to do so, but she was a wise nymph, and one who had seen and done so much. These past few months she had interacted with the human world more than ever before, and she’d revealed a talent for doing it well. Amongst her kind such a skill, allied with her human features, could be priceless.

  Truth be told she liked being out on the streets alone. Although she had spent much of her life hiding, sometimes in plain sight, she could not deny the sense of vague superiority that overcame her when she was walking through busy London. So many people doing so many things, each of them thinking that what they accomplished was important, all of them believing they were wise in their own life, knowledgeable about the city and people around them.

  None of them knew anything.

  They couldn’t conceive of the ancient woman who walked amongst them, and would not understand even if they knew. She was older than any of them, older than the buildings in which they lived, worked, and loved, and she carried the weight of that age with ease.

  Most of the time she held back this arrogant sense of pride. It was dangerous. Most of all, it was shallow.

  Lilou was comfortable being friends with humans, even though some of the Kin looked down upon them, and sometimes upon her for doing so. Lately she’d had much more cause to make human friends. Few could deny that her affinities benefited the Kin.

  It was why she had ventured out.

  She headed from street to street, encountering the oppressive city heat in these narrow thoroughfares. A food market drew her, its enticing smells a lure, and she bought a tray of spiced noodles. Walking and eating, she took the opportunity to glance around and make sure she wasn’t being followed. It was an unconscious gesture, as much a part of her life as breathing and eating. These were dangerous times.

  Excited by her mission, she hurried the rest of the way until she was standing across the road from her destination. She had not let him know she was coming—that would have been dangerous—so she knew that her arrival was likely to cause a commotion. She needed to do everything she could to ensure it remained as calm as possible.

  As Lilou finished her food, she eyed the unimposing doorway. She knew what was down there. The man running the club had helped them, his sense of wonder opening up into a childlike fascination, his inbred brutality coming to the fore when he knew they were in danger. She and others like her had watched him afterward, but he’d kept his head down and done nothing to draw attention.

  His part in the attack on Mary Rock’s house had remained unknown. His recovery from the wounds he’d received there had been slow. Gangster, collector of relics, he now knew about those who still existed in the shadows, in hiding. That fact alone meant that they would always keep a covert watch on him.

  Lilou had wanted to give him thanks, but Mallian had forbidden any more contact with Fat Frederick Meloy. Until now.

  As she binned the empty food container and prepared to cross the street, the blue door to the club named The Slaughterhouse swung open. A heavyset man emerged and glanced up and down the street. He was dressed well in slacks, open-collared shirt, and a light jacket, and Lilou had seen him before. His name was Wheeler and he was a new recruit into Meloy’s organization.

  Lilou turned and looked into a restaurant window, pretending to scan the menu but actually watching over her shoulder in the reflection. Soon after the big man stepped aside, Fat Frederick Meloy emerged. Still not fat, he wore jeans and a plain black tee shirt, and he’d grown a light beard since the last time she’d seen him. He also looked older. The wounds he’d received at Mary Rock’s house had indeed taken time to heal, but she thought perhaps it was the mental scars that drew the years down u
pon him.

  He still carried the weight of power and confidence, though. It was an aura, a sense of restrained violence that would likely accompany him into old age, if he lived that long. It came naturally to people like him. He was a man whose personality would fill and control any space he entered.

  Meloy and his companion headed along the street, chatting amiably. They stopped at a stall in the narrow road and Wheeler bought a bag of apples, then they continued on.

  Lilou followed. She’d been ready to enter The Slaughterhouse, but this was better for her. She feared Meloy. She didn’t think he would ever hurt her, at least not on purpose, but his was a deep fascination. An obsession. His collection was of old dead things, but now that he knew some Kin were still alive, Lilou and others feared that he might go the way of Mary Rock.

  The difference was, they had Meloy in their sights. If he ever started to hunt the living Kin, they would kill him first. His death was always just a whisper away.

  Perhaps he knew. Perhaps it was that knowledge that made him look old, whatever defiance and strength he tried to project.

  Some had argued that he should die anyway, just to avoid the risk. But there had always been humans who knew of the Kin, and they were managed, not murdered. Murder was a very human behavior.

  Today would be Frederick Meloy’s great test.

  She followed them along the bustling street. Food smells from the stalls filled the air. Laughter spilled out from pubs. A dozen languages stirred every voice into a loud babble. She passed between countless people who did not know of her, and focused on the one who did.

  In a quieter street, when Lilou judged the time was right, she drew close and whispered his name.

  Meloy froze. Beside him Wheeler glanced around, startled, and locked his gaze on her ten feet behind them. His left hand delved into his jacket pocket.

  Meloy saw her and reached out to hold Wheeler’s hand.

  “You,” he said. His voice was lighter and higher than his appearance might suggest, that one word imbued with wonder.

  Lilou let her shield slip, just for a moment. She became herself, a creature of desire and dread, a napaea whose natural allure could bewitch both man and woman and whose sole purpose had once been just that. Lilou had learned over the centuries to hold in her attractiveness, bury that purpose. Opening herself to the world was the best way of being known, and caught.

  “Hello, Frederick,” she said, closing herself off once again. That single brief glimpse had been enough. She felt a sliver of guilt, but also knew that she must use any means necessary to gain his attention. This was not a social visit. He would know that.

  “It’s fine,” Meloy said to the big man beside him. Wheeler stared wide-eyed at Lilou, wearing an expression of naked animal desire. “Wheeler!”

  “Boss?”

  “I said it’s fine. I know her. You can take yourself home.”

  “Boss? But I thought we—”

  “Business can wait,” Meloy said. “Everything can wait.”

  “We need to talk,” Lilou said.

  Meloy nodded. He blinked, looked around at others who were passing them by, and stepped closer to her. She could smell him, a faint mix of body odor and something older, like the dust of deep places. She wondered how long he spent down in his rooms beneath The Slaughterhouse, perusing his collection of relics.

  “There’s a pub around the corner,” he said.

  “Nowhere that anyone knows you.”

  Meloy tilted his head, and the arrogant sparkle returned to his eyes.

  “A coffee shop?” she asked.

  Meloy nodded. “This way.” She walked alongside him, alert for any dangers from elsewhere.

  They turned a couple of corners and then entered a small establishment. There were two tables on the pavement outside, one to either side of the door, and inside a dozen more tables and some bench seating. The place was buzzing, but Meloy led her through to two spare seats near the back. Framed posters of old movie stars hung on the walls, all of them signed.

  A waitress stepped up and took their orders. Afterward, Meloy leaned in close. Lilou concentrated, working hard to hold back, inside. Meloy was hardly blinking. All of his focus was on her. She could almost feel the weight of his stare.

  “You’ve been watching me,” he said.

  “Of course we have.”

  “I was afraid that Mallian… that thing… would want me dead.”

  “We’re not murderers.”

  “Mallian is.” His eyes darkened as red memories played behind them. “I saw him crush heads. Snap necks. It was…” He trailed off.

  “No worse than some of the stories about you.”

  “My line of business, it’s healthy to cultivate such myths.”

  “You’re saying they’re not true?” Lilou asked.

  “If they were made up, and I revealed that, they wouldn’t hold power anymore.”

  “So myths only retain their power if they remain uncertain and unknown.”

  Meloy blinked a few times, smiled, and leaned back.

  “How are you?” she asked. “You know.”

  “It healed well enough.” Meloy touched his chest through the tee shirt, tensing a little in his seat. “Still hurts sometimes, but that’s fine. It’s like a memento.”

  “We are grateful for your help,” she said. “Rescuing the fairy was a good thing.”

  “And Angela’s friend, of course.”

  “And Lucy, of course,” Lilou said.

  “So where’s the fairy now?”

  Lilou didn’t answer. In truth, none of them knew, and that was something that troubled Mallian deeply. The Nephilim had taken it as a personal slight that the fairy had vanished the moment they’d rescued her. Lilou had been secretly relieved. The fairy was the most powerful amongst them, and perhaps the most potent Kin still alive in the world. Imbued with old, forgotten magics and enchantments from the Time, she held their past and future in her grip.

  Vanished for decades, her potential had always sung through their story, like a plucked string playing an endless tone. Mallian’s plans for Ascent—revealing themselves to humanity once again, fighting them if necessary, rising to prominence—were beginning to frighten Lilou more than anything had scared her in centuries. It would disrupt every human belief system, and even without the turmoil Ascent would bring, their religions frequently inspired long and terrible wars. She and he had argued about it from his first mention of the idea. They still did.

  The fairy was a big part of those plans.

  “I need your help,” she said.

  “My help?” Meloy’s surprise was evident.

  The waitress came with their orders, and Lilou took a moment to sit in silence and look around the café. Though she was always alert and ready for trouble when she was out in the world, it didn’t stop her from enjoying the experience. That was why she was asking Meloy for this favor, and no one else.

  “There’s a Kin-killer working in the United States.”

  She heard Meloy’s sharp intake of breath.

  “He or she has killed several Kin already, and they’re only the ones we know of. Now the killer is working in a more confined area. Mallian’s worried there’s a pattern to their operation. He’s afraid of what they’re finding out.”

  “It’s not another one like that Ballus thing?” Meloy asked. He’d been there when Mallian had killed the mad satyr Ballus, and had seen the abandoned pool awash with the corpses of dead Kin. It was a memory Lilou would never forget, and she could only imagine how awful it must have been for an ordinary man.

  “We don’t think so,” Lilou said. “We think it’s a human.”

  “More like Mary Rock, then.”

  “Maybe, but with her it was pure greed. With this one… we still don’t know their goal.”

  “You want me to stop them?”

  “I want you to come with me to the US.”

  “You?”

  “We don’t travel well,” Lilou said. “I
t makes us vulnerable. I need a travel companion, someone who can look out for me. Someone who knows who I am.”

  “Can’t the Kin over there sort this out?”

  “No. They’re… chaotic.” She frowned and turned her coffee cup back and forth. “There’s plenty you don’t know about us, and much that you can never know. Here, in this country, there’s some form of organization and communication.”

  “A hierarchy,” Meloy said, and she knew he was thinking of Mallian, that amazing, terrible fallen angel.

  “If you like.” She nodded. “But in North America the Kin are much more scattered. In a way it’s still very much old world and new world, and only in the old world is there still some sort of structure. Out there, they’re much more wild. They used to think it would help them hide and survive.”

  “So if they’re so disorganized, how do you know there’s a Kin-killer?” he asked. “A psychic link? Some sort of supernatural message?” His eyes were wide, his speech speeding up, like a child asking about the moon and stars and whether there were aliens on Mars.

  “Snapchat,” she said.

  “Oh… right.” He laughed and took a drink of coffee, gazing at her through the steam.

  “It’s because they’re scattered and vulnerable that I need to go,” Lilou said. She didn’t think he saw through the lie. The truth was, the Kin-killer was only part of the reason Mallian was sending her across the Atlantic. It would have been reason enough on its own—Mallian saw each Kin as precious, and a killer scything his or her way through their ranks was reason to take action. But there was something else happening in the USA that caught his attention even more. Lightning strikes on people. The fairy they had rescued and then lost again might have surfaced across the ocean.

  It was the fairy he wanted more than anything else.

  “And you want me as bodyguard,” he said, interrupting her reverie.

  “Partly, yes.” She saw his expression light up as if reflecting her own. She understood the power she had over these people—more so with Meloy, who was already entranced by her kind. Yet she wanted his help to be voluntary. She could bewitch him into coming, make it so that he understood no other choice, but she wanted him fully there for her, an active presence instead of someone blindly following her scent.