by Mike Shevdon
"I found him on the Underground this morning; he was being taken by the Untainted."
"Hush, child. Do not speak of those. Too much sadness has come of it and I won't dwell on what's downstream. You stopped it, that's the main thing. It was well done." She pressed Blackbird's hand and looked at me again, those huge eyes unblinking.
Perhaps because she looked so ancient, perhaps because of the cosy quality of the place, her strangeness wasn't as disconcerting as it might have been. Perhaps my exposure to Gramawl's fearsome size and speed and Blackbird's eccentricities had inured me to the fear I would have felt, had I encountered her on any other day.
"You're still hiding then?"
I thought the question was aimed at me and I struggled for an answer, but it was Blackbird who replied.
"It's not hiding, it's blending in."
"And yet you drew attention to yourself this day, if my nose does not mislead me."
Her nose was small, unlike Gramawl's, and would have been dainty if it weren't so flared. She turned back to Blackbird, who looked at her hands in the dim light. I thought I saw the colour rise gently in her cheeks.
"You don't miss much, do you?" Blackbird mumbled, then lifted her chin to meet Kareesh's considering look.
Kareesh nodded, then let the subject drop, turning her attention to me. "So, girl, let's have a look at this rescued waif."
She shuffled around to face me, wrapped in overlapping layers that hung from her frame like a long-sleeved smock. Wiry legs appeared from under her then vanished again under the folds as she repositioned herself.
Blackbird glanced at me, raising an eyebrow, but said nothing. I touched my hand to my jacket over my pocket and she nodded imperceptibly.
"With a little assistance from Blackbird, I have brought you a gift, Kareesh, which I hope you'll accept." I dipped into my jacket pocket and pulled out the black bag.
Kareesh's eyes twinkled as I held out the bag. "Well, then. What have you brought for me?" She took the bag from me without touching my hand, a courtesy perhaps, then tipped the stones out into her palm. For a moment the stones shone in her pale palm, or perhaps it was only that they reflected more of the available light against the whiteness of her skin.
Looking at her hand I realised she didn't have a thumb. Instead, the outer two fingers lagged behind the others. She dipped into her palm with the other hand and I could see the outer fingers were articulated differently, allowing her to select a stone from the cluster. She picked out the dark red one.
"This one hid from you, I think." She laughed to herself with the sound of rustling paper, holding it up in the light.
I remembered that this was the stone I had almost missed as it nestled into its box. It was also the stone I had been reluctant to touch. She held it up to the lamplight and it gleamed darkly.
"It wasn't meant for you, oh no, but you chose well. Yes, a good choice." The stone vanished into the smock and she used the longer middle finger to stir around in between the others. "And this one, well yes, I should have expected you to be chosen, shouldn't I?" She addressed the orange Tiger's Eye as if it were animate. Then she dropped it back and slid them into the bag again, tucking it under her smock with the other stone. Had she kept the red one apart for a reason, I wondered?
"So, young Rabbit, you have a gift for gifts." She laughed at her own joke. "But you would like something from me, yes?" Her grin broadened and I was treated to a full display of her pointed teeth.
"He needs your help, Kareesh." Blackbird spoke on my behalf.
"His gift has pleased me, girl, as you knew it would, and I offer him something in return, but it is up to him to choose. You cannot choose for him now, can you?" She wagged her middle finger at Blackbird.
"I am glad my gift has pleased you, Kareesh, but I would not know what to ask for. As you pointed out, I am very new to this and I have no idea what you might consider a fair gift in return."
"Ooh, such pretty manners," she teased. "Perhaps you would choose a talisman to wake you in time of danger?"
I glanced behind her at Blackbird and she shook her head, minutely. I was used to negotiating with vendors where I knew what I wanted and roughly what it was worth. This was different. I chose my words carefully, aware we were bargaining, though for what, I wasn't sure.
"That's a fine offer, but what other thing might you consider worthy?"
"I might consider putting a certain girl over my knee and spanking her skinny behind, as once I did, if she helps you again." She was looking at me but the remark was intended for Blackbird. "You know the rules, girl, as do I."
Blackbird gave me a helpless look, but then looked down at her hands to avoid catching my gaze again. I was thinking of when and why Kareesh might have spanked her when she made her second offer.
"Would you wish to know, then, whether there's a grandchild for you? Your daughter's a mite young yet, but a child may not be too far to see."
"How did you know I had a daughter?" I glanced back at Blackbird, who was still staring resolutely at her hands.
"Well there wouldn't be much point in having the sight if I couldn't see the things written plain in front of me, now, would there?" She grinned, her teeth showing as ivory glimmers against her pink gums.
"Another fine offer, Kareesh." I hesitated. She was a canny bargainer and she knew how to tempt a worried father. If my daughter was to have children then that meant she would survive, didn't it? Or was she simply offering to tell me of the potential for grandchildren?
I was tempted but I had more pressing concerns if I was going to see my daughter safe.
"Is there something else?" I asked her.
"Are you sure you won't have the talisman? You may find you need it sooner than you think."
Did she know something or was she just pressuring me? She'd gone back to the first offer before moving on, which in my experience meant there was something else she could offer, though I couldn't tell what it might be. Perhaps in Fey culture, as in some human cultures, it was a matter of honour to try and get the best price for your bargain.
"No, not the talisman, Kareesh, but something else, something I need." I didn't know what it was, but I was now pretty sure she did.
"Well then, young Rabbit. Will you accept the sight of something to help you secure your place in the courts? Something that will soon be needed – not far away, but not easily found, no."
I glanced at Blackbird. She was like stone. What did she mean by the sight of something? Not the thing itself, obviously, but a picture maybe?
"Truly a generous offer."
I wanted to ask her, if I was able to secure a place in the courts whether that meant my daughter could also join with me but I sensed that, as with her other suggestions, the offer was what it was and it would be up to me to judge the value of it.
I looked for a sign from Kareesh that it really was as generous as she made it sound but her inhuman face was unreadable to me in so many ways. Was there a reason she had offered me the talisman first? She'd hinted that I might need it. I had turned down her initial offer almost on principle, though that could be a double bluff.
No, Blackbird had said that joining in the courts might provide safety for me and my daughter for a while. That was why she brought me here. I had to trust her and get what we had come for.
"And one I would like to accept," I told Kareesh.
Blackbird let out the breath she'd been holding.
"That's a fine bargain you've struck, Rabbit," Kareesh remarked.
I glanced at Blackbird and she gave me a tense smile. Clearly there was affection between these two, but there was a sense of tension too.
"Come then gauntlet runner, witness and suspect, evader of traps, bringer of hope. Rabbit, you are well-named, but not for always. Another name will be yours when you have earned it. The sun will rise and they shall fall. So say I."
Blackbird looked at Kareesh and her jaw dropped. I was lost, still trying to follow what she had just said. By the look of B
lackbird's face she thought it was significant. I made a mental note to ask her about it later. Kareesh, meantime, continued without pause.
"Here, Rabbit, hold out your hands and, when you are ready, rest them in my palms. You can remove them any time you wish and the vision will end. You might find it easier to close your eyes."
"Will it help?"
"No, but you may find it easier to bear that way."
To bear? That was a strange word to use. I repositioned myself on the cushions so I had slightly more support. I had no idea how long this might take so I wanted to be as comfortable as possible. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"OK, I'm ready."
"No, you're not. But then, no one ever is." She showed me her teeth again and I lowered my hands into hers.
Cold rushed up my arms, clamping my heart and seizing the breath in my lungs. Echoes of the heart attack I had survived earlier flooded my veins with fear. The cold wrapped itself around my gut and pooled in my groin, killing all sensation. My eyes flooded with tears and blurred. I couldn't move to wipe them. Lights expanded and shattered into refracted fragments of delicate snowflakes and rushed inwards. I was blind, cold and numb. I think I screamed.
Images hammered into my head: a heavy door that swung ponderously shut, the dull thud reverberating; letters carved into pale stone that I couldn't read; a familiar looking building with a roof stained with livid green verdigris; a black cat, ready to pounce, silhouetted against a darkening sky. Autumn leaves swirled around me in a vortex of red, orange and gold. There was a green twig haloed in a sickly light and a room striped with sunlight, bedclothes scattered across the floor. It shifted into a vaulted ceiling like the roof of a wine-cellar, walls lime-washed and inset with dark stones.
I spun upwards like a reverse skydiver, the wind whipping my clothes around me. I recognised the Thames wriggling out below me until I floated momentarily. Then I fell, my eyes streaming with blurred tears as London rushed up to meet me, the river suddenly large and gleaming in dull menace. At the last second, I swerved aside to pass through a heavy metal grating into a brick-vaulted tunnel where I twisted manically, left and right, to a giant hall filled with the sound of rushing water. In the centre was an island with an altar, strung with detritus and misshapen in the darkness.
My final image was of a square iron door in the wall above the water, its edges caked with rust, a keyhole, black at its centre.
Breath rushed into me and I collapsed backwards, rolling off the cushion onto the cold tiled floor, banging my head in the process. The reprise of my experience this morning was not lost on me as I coughed and retched onto the floor, pins and needles prickling my legs as the flow of blood returned. Kareesh and Blackbird watched, waiting for me to recover myself.
After I had calmed and wiped the spittle from my lips with the back of my hand, Kareesh spoke to me.
"Were you ready?"
I shook my head slowly and had the grace to laugh at myself. The gift I had bargained for had turned out to be a thumping headache and a series of fractured images. I felt cheated and somehow soiled by it, as if something dirty had trampled through my head.
Blackbird was more practical. "Did you see what it was?"
I looked up at her from the cold floor. The memory of what I had seen was already indistinct. I remembered the door with the keyhole and the tunnels, and there had been a cat. What was the green twig, and where was the familiar building? It was like remembering a badly edited movie. "I'm not sure."
Blackbird let out a sigh of frustration and turned to Kareesh, but before she could say anything Kareesh held up her strange hand to pause her. "No child, you know how it is."
Blackbird's face fell, but whatever she'd been going to say she kept to herself. She stood up and moved closer to me so she could help me to my feet. I felt as though I had been beaten in the middle of a hangover. My first attempt at standing was unsuccessful. I only made it to my knees. Then Blackbird, with surprising strength, put her hands under my arms and lifted me so I could stand. She kept hold of one arm, supporting me emotionally as well as physically. My mouth tasted of dry ash and there was shimmering in my vision that screamed migraine.
Kareesh addressed her. "Take him somewhere quiet and dark, girl, and he will recover in a little while. He'll sleep well tonight, perhaps too well." She ushered us slowly out onto the head of the steps, patting Blackbird's cheeks affectionately. "Don't be so long next time, girl. And bring an old one some boiled sweets, eh?"
"They're bad for your teeth," Blackbird objected half-heartedly.
"There are lots of things that'll be the death of me before my teeth, girl, and I can always grow new ones."
Kareesh looked up at me, as you might at a curiosity.
"Goodbye, Kareesh, and thank you for your gift," I whispered, my voice unsteady.
"You can thank me later, Rabbit. If you live."
She stood at the top of the steps while Blackbird helped me down into the dark. There was no sign of Gramawl, either in the corridor or at the base of the stairs, though he may have been lurking in the darkness somewhere. My own vision was still haunted by glowing after-images of things I'd never seen.
Using a mixture of cajoling and support, Blackbird got me up the steps and into the lift. We were joined by a group of German tourists who looked distastefully at me when I came close to throwing up as the lift jolted into motion. The lift reached the surface and we let them disperse. Blackbird steered me after them to the exit.
"Do you have your card?" Blackbird asked me.
"Yes, it's in my wallet somewhere." I made a hesitant attempt to find it, but Blackbird walked me forward to the barrier.
"Just know that you're allowed to pass," she instructed, and walked into the gap between the barriers. I concentrated my limited resources on remembering that I was a valid ticket holder and to my surprise the barrier flipped open.
Outside I was confused. The day had vanished into twilight. I looked around, able to support myself now, at least physically. "Where did the day go?" I asked Blackbird.
"We were down there some while."
She guided me over the cobbles and down a side street to a pub that had emptied of tourists and not yet packed with office-workers released from their labours. We entered between floods.
It was dimly lit and although there was a juke-box, it was mercifully quiet. At the back, there was booth seating where Blackbird left me at a table propped against the cushioned back while she went to get me a drink. I closed my eyes momentarily, trying to recapture the vision, then shied away from it when the sense of vertigo returned. It hadn't been the best of days, overall. I had started out dead and now I felt like crap.
I thought of Kareesh sitting in her nest of cushions and hangings somewhere beneath my feet. It was hard to reconcile the waking world around me with the dream-like one she inhabited. I had once had a bad dose of flu with a temperature that made me delirious. The way I felt reminded me of that. The sense of disconnection, of unreality, was overwhelming.
I looked at Blackbird's back, over at the bar. Here she was, shepherding me around, introducing me to creatures I hadn't even known existed a day ago. What did she get from all this? She had said that she'd gained a degree of responsibility for me. How far did that responsibility extend?
She was close to both Kareesh and Gramawl; affectionate even. What was it that was between them? Kareesh said that she was hiding. What was she hiding, and from whom? I hadn't even had the opportunity to ask whether Kareesh was a female troll. She was much smaller and not hairy, but maybe she was just old. All those teeth in their measured rows; I felt cold inside.
And then the thought occurred to me that actually I had no idea what Blackbird really looked like. As I had discovered, she could appear how she pleased. I had a sudden mental image of Blackbird sitting in the booth beside me, rows of tiny sharp teeth reflecting the mood lighting. Could she and Kareesh be related? Is that what Blackbird really looked like?
Ha
d we been visiting an old friend or had I really just been introduced to her mother?
FIVE
My mind was buzzing with the after-effects of the vision Kareesh had granted me and stray thoughts as to Blackbird's true appearance were doing nothing to calm me. My sight shimmered at the edges with the promise of migraine. I closed my eyes in the hope that it might cease, the thumping headache easing slightly.
"Lost, are ya?" The tone was belligerent, but not out of the ordinary in the back-streets around Covent Garden. It was a nice area as long as you stuck to the tourist track. I opened my eyes to view the couple that had appeared in front of my table.
"Sorry?" I tried to focus on them. I was having a bad moment and suddenly felt quite nauseous.
"I said," the tall youth intoned for the benefit of his female companion, "you're lost, are ya?" He grinned at her. He was dressed in gothic style and would have been a punk had it been thirty years earlier. They were the type that always fell in with the darker fashions. He was upwards of six feet tall with strands of long black hair trailing around his face. His T-shirt said "Heavy Metal" in gothic script, visible between the dull gloss lapels of his leather coat. His face was curiously androgynous, clean shaven with eyebrows sculpted in an almost feminine shape. The similarity to his companion made me wonder whether they were brother and sister, or whether the likeness was contrived.
She was wearing marginally more eye make-up than he was, and her lips were fuller than his, though that could have been the purple lipstick. Her skin was deathly pale and I wondered if the pallor was also make-up or whether she simply never saw the sun. Her T-shirt proclaimed "No Rest for the Wicked", which might have been a band or just a slogan.
"I'm just having a quiet drink with my friend, so I wouldn't say I was lost, no." My brain banged on the inside of my skull.
"I think he's lost," he jeered. "If he wasn't lost he wouldn't be here, would he?" His companion apparently followed the intricacies of this negative logic, because she shook her head.
"You've strayed from the path, my lad, and now you've gotta pay." This time she nodded enthusiastically.
