by Kara Silver
“Right.” Hence his remark about understanding Kennedy was just doing a job that she hadn’t chosen to do. “And you’re…?”
“Taking open day students around. They’re in there at the moment. They’re from South America or the Philippines or somewhere.”
“From a charity or organisation?”
“Yeah. How—”
“Never mind.” But her heart sank. The events of last term—girls at Heylel on scholarships going missing—tried to beat at her, but she beat them back. She caught the sound of footsteps on the museum’s stone steps. “Sounds like they’re out, and your break’s done.”
“Yeah. I just about am as well. So long.” He saluted.
Alone, Kennedy felt silly about her plan to climb to the roof. Aeth was there, yeah, but there were three other statues. She’d asked him about them once, and he’d snapped that he couldn’t divulge their business, which made it seem they…would know if she was up there, cleaning one of them. And Aeth might not appreciate being washed when he was helpless. And there I go—or nearly went—again, trying to big sister everyone. Every thing. Even if she didn’t feel much like a big sister to Aeth.
She should cut her losses and call Angela, head back to Wyebury. Oh. Not…head home. That was a heavy realisation, one that brought a cold, damp feeling with it. No sooner had Kennedy put her coat back on and taken out her phone than it rang. A Wyebury number, one she knew.
“Ken Doll!”
She could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who called her that and hearing from the owner and manager of the Rose and Crown— well, nominal manager; he’d been happy to hand most of it over to her when she’d worked there—made her smile. “Hi, Jim.”
“Don’t you like me no more, then? Forgot me? Coz I heard you were back in town. and you haven’t been to see me.”
Kennedy could tell by the background noise he was in the pub. She visualised him, in his special chair—not a stool—at the bar, greeting customers, something he claimed was necessary to set the atmosphere.
“I know. I’m such a snob,” she replied. “Your loss though.”
His familiar guffaw warmed her. “Miss you, you mad cow!” he shouted. “No one’s a patch on you. Not even your wannabe Chandyce, and she’s swanned off. Left me in the lurch. I’m snowed under here, Ken.”
“Hardly.” She shoved a mint into her mouth and set off for St Giles and the car.
“I bloody am, girl. I know normally business tapers off once term ends and the students eff off”—the Rose and Crown was near enough to the town’s second, trendier university, Townsend-Taylor, or TNT, to be one of its official drinking haunts—“but now with them being all international students, a load of ’em stay, and they’re in here all the bloody time for the specials.”
“Told you introducing pub grub and different theme nights would rocket trade.”
“Yeah. Well, I knew it would. Plus there’s loads of school and office parties and that from now on. Got your old college booked in tonight.”
God! She’d nearly forgotten about the meet-up. Her Sixth Form College had used to be Wyebury Grammar School and had a long tradition of students drinking at the Crown, with the pub being near, no matter the incarnation of the public house. It was how Kennedy had begun going there. Christmas saw an old boys’ get-together of alumni and staff spanning the decades. Funny Chandy hadn’t reminded her of it. Or mentioned it.
“So, I’m rushed off me feet.”
“Jim, I bet a tenner they’re propped up on the bar rail in front of your chair at this moment.”
“You cheeky heifer. So, what d’you say?”
“About…”
“Coming back to your old job while you’re home, dopey drawers.”
What? “I’m not home,” she stalled, knowing that was the truth with every gorgeous honey and beige stone building she passed. Here, even the lowliest annexe was prettier than most Wyebury’s old-dirty-brick-style buildings. “But I’ll be back in town in a bit. But about your offer. For one thing, this is supposed to be my break. And for another—” I’ve moved on. I have a different life now. One where I don’t fit in, being a demon and all.
“Ah, they want me. Coming! Look, talk at me later, yeah? Free drinks and starters.”
“For all of us?”
His unrepeatable gainsaying of that turned the air blue.
“I’m not saying yes, but I’m not saying no,” she warned him.
“I see you, little minx. Tryin’ to get me to throw in free dessert… Tut tut. Hard bargainer, you is, Ken!”
“I’ll see you later, Jim,” she promised as she disconnected, still smiling.
She had to call Angela, even though she felt she needed a drink to get back in the car with the woman for the drive home. She vowed to get to the bottom of the weird feeling she got around the woman.
Lots of shops had pre-Christmas bargains, she noted, and couldn’t resist walking into a boutique she’d passed a few times, only this time looking around and buying herself something. She’d need it for the party, was her justification. And it was lucky she had because they hit the afternoon traffic and arrived back in Wyebury later than planned, but Kennedy was able to get dropped off near to the centre, change in the ladies’ of a fast food place, and arrive at the Rose and Crown in good time.
Glasses of wine were arrayed on a table for her party, and Kennedy downed one while looking for the sticker with her name on and fixing it to her chest, reminded of Drew and his unwanted lanyard. She wondered if Chandy would see the humour in that. Oh, poor little lamb, forced to stay in a beautiful place for two extra weeks and given a chance to catch up after pissing his time away, she could imagine her friend saying.
The heat and the need to almost shout over the cheesy Christmas music to have a conversation made her need another drink quite soon. “The music’s even worse than the decorations!” she complained to Jim, once she’d wriggled free of his hug. “What did you do, just shoot a load of balloons and streamers out of a cannon and they stuck to the walls that haven’t been cleaned properly in months?”
She ducked his mock-slap and was swept up by a group from her year, all yelling, telling their news and hiding from ex-teachers. This group had pitchers of cocktails, and Kennedy had had a glass before she caught up with herself. Cries and moans went up from the bar, and she knew what it was. The glass-washing machine acting up, and people having to wait for clean glasses.
“Hang on,” she instructed Nev and Michaela, in the middle of their “and do you do this there?” conversation about their universities. “Back in a sec…”
It took her about a minute to find the right place for the machine’s percussive tap this time. Not her personal best. Out of practice and a bit tipsy.
“Kennedy. I’m on me flippin’ knees here.” Jim actually was, trying to fix the machine, even after she’d got it started. “I’m begging you, come back. Just a coupla weeks. I need a manager and, after all the break-ins to city centre premises left empty at nights, the police have suggested getting people to live in.”
“Oh.” She’d noticed the spaces above a lot of shops and cafés in the centre had now sprouted curtains and ornaments, seeming to be store rooms no longer. “And?”
“There’s a coupla rooms upstairs, as you know, if you want ’em, Perk of the job. Can’t help noticing Chandyce isn’t here, for all you’re staying with her…” He’d always been more perceptive than his gruff exterior suggested. He stood, grunting and knees cracking, and led her through behind the bar.
“On the house. For your engineering skills.” Jim poured her the sort of fruity cocktail drink Chandy favoured, and, her friend not being there and it not looking as if she would be there, Kennedy downed it in one in her stead.
“Fine! I’ll do it. We’ll talk about my pay rise later!” she called as she dashed off to rejoin her friends, catching the bar towel thrown in her wake. She reached their table and grabbed the first drink she saw, knocking back half of it, b
asking in the cheers and whistles and laughing at Nev’s protests that it was his. She didn’t really drink a lot. Hadn’t. Had never liked losing control and that could be dangerous, now. Now, she knew what she was—
“Demon!” she roared, gulping the drink.
“Demon!” echoed her friends, treating it as a toast, which made her laugh and finish the drink. Dangerous? Yeah, things were. At least being half-drunk, she wouldn’t be so fucking scared all the time. She hoped.
4
“Arrrrgh. Ho-ly cow. Just fuck’n shoot me,” groaned a hoarse, muffled tenor voice.
What. The. Hell? Kennedy froze her where she lay. Where was she? Oh, yeah, in a strange bed. Next to some guy whose groan had woken her. Just shoot me too. First, she silently begged. She lay still, trying to get her thumping mind to work, to process the who, the where and the why. Oh, and the what the fuck?
She risked a peek at the groaning body sharing the mattress with her, a pillow wrapped around his head. Fully dressed. So was she. One question seemingly answered, then, and the drench of relief stopped the pounding in her head for a second, but it returned, more of a squeezing tom-tom than before. She took another glance from under heavy eyelids.
“Nev?” she croaked, not understanding why she should be here—wherever here was—next to Nev from her Sixth Form. Wait. Sixth Form. Reunion. Pub. Pub with room above…
“Stop yell’,” came the plea. “And stop shake bed. Feel sick.”
“Not bed. M’tress,” Kennedy corrected, feeling sicker, she was sure, as she rolled off to her knees. It took her a minute to get into a crouch and she didn’t risk standing, so attempted a crawl. She slid on plastic bottles and slipped to a crash, provoking more complaints from behind her. But the plastic bottles were water and soda—lifesavers! Her knee crunched on a small cardboard box of aspirin.
“Here.” After swallowing a few tablets and half a bottle of cola, she passed the supplies over, not even tempted to grin at how much Nev’s hand shook, and how pale the face and how mad the hair that emerged from under the pillow was. She must look just as bad.
Feeling more human now—literally—Kennedy pieced as much together as she could. She wanted to believe that drunk Kennedy had been thinking ahead and helping out hungover Kennedy with the water and painkillers, but Kennedy wasn’t a habitual drinker who’d know to do that, unlike Chandy, say.
“God. I haven’t been so drunk since the end-of-term bash.”
Nev’s words and wry chuckle sounded loud. “That was what, last week?” Kennedy replied.
“Yeah. Better add this to the album.” He started feeling around for his phone, presumably to selfie the occasion. “Nothing happened,” he said, sparing her a glance. “I helped Jim get you up here, then I guess I crashed at the same time and they left me too. It took it out of me to haul you up here.”
“Sorry.”
“No prob.” Nev was already laughing at his messages or social media comments. “Start as you mean to go on, yeah?”
“Huh?”
“The job. Here! Should be a good Christmas break. Oh, and Michaela says she’ll spring for brunch, talk about TNT.”
Kennedy was crawling to the toilet, so his words floated after her, not making much of a dent in her sore brain. She groaned when the bathroom door, opening inwards, hit the small sink opposite with a thud. She was glad for once of the room’s Wendy House size: it meant she could pull herself from toilet to sink easily. The drain in the corner, with a nozzle sticking out from the wall, was supposed to be a shower, but she wasn’t risking standing. She retrieved her bag from the storeroom / bedroom and on the landing changed from her party dress into her jeans and shirt.
The pub was quiet and empty, if filthy, when she got downstairs. Small mercies. A note from Jim told her to help herself to anything, coffee, painkillers, dark glasses from the lost property box so she wouldn’t be recognised, weed killer from the shed in case things were too much… Several people had signed the note and added comments, mostly about having taken pics or video of her singing, and was karaoke going to be a regular night and… It made her grin.
What had Nev said about meeting Michaela? There was a message from her, sent last night when they’d discussed it, in case either of them got too smashed to recall. Clever. TNT, Nev had said. Yeah, Micha was studying at Wyebury’s second university, Townsend-Taylor, and they’d been discussing the courses there, all the joint honours degrees. Creative writing, multimedia journalism, events management, business marketing…with English, or history… It all sounded a lot more modern than what Kennedy was doing. Plus the town uni had options for part-time study, so students could work as well, could support themselves properly, say…managing a bar with a small flat above it…
Kennedy sent a message to Chandy, to explain where she was. Oh, Chandy had replied to Kennedy’s from yesterday, lolling at drunk Kennedy’s spelling. Kennedy vaguely recalled Chandy having phoned her. She should tell her friend about the job offer. Jim had said it was to cover the holiday season, but he was always short of staff. And having a proper manager would mean he wouldn’t have to stir himself so much. A proper, year-round manager…
She had to go and meet Micha, actually at the students’ union on the TNT campus. Oh, yeah, they’d planned it as a chance to show Kennedy around and maybe pop into the admin office, see if she wanted to ask questions about switching educational establishments, say. Guessing Nev would stay at the Crown until the place opened and someone made him coffee, Kennedy grabbed more water and set off to walk to the campus. It wasn’t far, just through the town centre and down the back of the old part of town. And she knew all the short-cuts.
She should, having grown up there. Was the town such a bad place? They’d all joked about Wyebury, called it WhyMe? and discussed wanting to get out, go somewhere better, but…better in what sense? Chandy was still here, and Layla, and Micha and they were fine. Oxford had been something to try, something she’d been pushed into, really, and somewhere she’d been through a lot, a place she’d been left confused and hurt. I’ve paid my dues. She pulled her coat more firmly around her as she left the shopping streets and cut through the cathedral gardens.
After all, I was kind of tricked into going there. A memory prodded her. Her, last night, standing on a table and singing along to the corny ballad playing, other people standing on their tables to join in. She laughed. When had she had such a good night out in Oxford? Like, never. Twice she’d gone to bars, once in the college and once a real bar, and both times had been awful. The second almost fatal. Things were weird there. Kennedy dodged around the side of the cathedral. Yeah, Heylel was weird. Things were difficult there. Wyebury was…normal. Things here were— “Ackkk!”
Spluttering, and wringing water from her long layers of hair, she looked up to see what had soaked her from her head to her waist. What— “No! This is Wyebury!” Weird things happened in Oxford, not her hometown! Oh, so Wyebury’s home again, is it? She managed to dodge before the second gargoyle, right up there in the corner of the wall where it joined the roof, turned and discharged a load of cold, stinking rainwater on her too.
“Bastards!” she hissed. “Especially you!” That was to the first one, a tiny imp, all long limbs and ears, and who she now knew was her first, or original guardian. Because, yep, she was a demon mage who had a stone guardian, or two. She couldn’t ignore that any more than she could this, what, wake-up call? Or could she? “Nothing to see here. Some people really get into the spirit of the party season!” she called out. A stone landed at her feet and she was forced to look up.
The stones making up the side of the cathedral must have been different colours, not uniform, but as they rearranged, with a nails-on-blackboard screeching she remembered from the Oxford graveyard, the darker chips of rock spelled out COWARD.
“So what if I am?” Kennedy hurled back in defiance. “You’re worse. Hiding away up there and—”
The imp or devil or whatever the hell it was inched down, all spider lim
bs and jagged points. It drew level with her and stared, then reached out a gnarled-fingered hand and slapped her smartly, two quick blows, one on either side of her face. She reeled.
“I expected more of you, Kennedy Smith.”
Open-mouthed, Kennedy fought for words, for any response, but the creature skittered back to its perch. A stone figure coming to life and admonishing her was bad, but that the gargoyle had spoken to her in Aeth’s voice—that was soul-wrenching. “I…” she tried, tipping her head back. “I’m…”
A coward. She stumbled and almost tripped over the edge of an ornamental flowerbed. One in which coloured stones were employed for a rockery affect, and one in which said coloured stones tugged themselves free of their earth to re-assemble, spelling out a wobbly lettered COWARD.
“Yes,” she murmured, sinking to a bench. She was. But oh, the lure of a simple life, of not having to fight and grope around in the dark and…against the darkness. She thought back on all she’d been through, the horrors she’d seen, the dangers she learned about, her role that she could only guess at. There was only one thing she could do. Swallowing, she took out her phone and called a number she’d stored when attempting to get organised.
“Dr Berkley? It’s—”
“Miss Kennedy Smith,” the smooth, cultured tones of her Human Evolution tutor and Heylel College moral tutor cut in. She pictured him in his book-filled study, smoothing back his waves of hair, like a lion sighting a gazelle, stroking his moustache. Hang on. God, she was hungover. Lionesses did the hunting, and what bloody moustache? “Well, well. To what does one owe this pleasure?”
The conversation was never going to be easy or pleasant, but she wasn’t afraid to beg, and Berkeley wasn’t afraid to crow, especially when she admitted all her extra-curricular work of last term had set her behind, giving him the opportunity he needed to rub that in. She busied herself keeping a tally of all his digs and quips. Yes, she knew students staying up during holidays to catch up on work also rendered service to the college—not that she didn’t already—and yes, she realised Berkeley couldn’t give permission; he’d have to go to the principal.
