Sixty-One Nails cotf-1

by Mike Shevdon

  After some thought I settled on Ignore me, since that was really what I wanted.

  Once I had the thought clearly in my head that I wanted people to ignore me, I reached within myself, trying to connect my intention to the source of power inside myself. It pulsed once and then subsided. Was that it? Had it worked? Still wary against further encounters, I continued along the route.

  Thankfully I met no one else before I came at last to the black door onto Covent Garden Piazza where we had emerged yesterday. I smiled to myself remembering Blackbird's remarks about the buttercups. Rolled in them, she'd said, not on them, but in them. I would have liked to see her then, though perhaps that wasn't such a good idea since I had got the distinct impression that she hadn't been alone. A snag of jealousy pricked me, which was irrational given that she was so much older than me. Why should I care about the antics of someone twenty or more years older than I was? She wasn't even human, but then neither was I, apparently.

  I pushed the door open and strolled out into the open piazza surrounding Covent Garden Market. The space was welcome after the claustrophobia of the alleys and walkways. At this time of day the tourists were still doing museums and galleries, leaving the square sparsely used. Delivery trucks were parked in the open piazza and there was no sign yet of the street performers and entertainers who would show up later when the tourists gathered.

  I walked across the cobbles and under the glass roof of the covered market. I didn't think I was doing too badly in the circumstances. I had managed to follow Blackbird's route around the alleys and so far nothing had tried to eat me.

  Megan was setting up her stall, intent on setting out the small boxes in their ordered rows. I watched her for a moment, though she showed no sign of being aware of my presence. Then I remembered my Ignore me spell and focused for a moment on dispelling its effects.

  Megan turned around to collect more stones from the crate behind her.

  "Oh! Rabbit, you made me jump." She stepped backwards, alarmed by my sudden appearance, one hand grasping the edge of the table behind her for support.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. You were so absorbed."

  "Hmmm. Yes, I suppose so. Is Blackbird with you?" She scanned the stalls nearby as if Blackbird might be lurking there.

  "I was going to ask you if you'd seen her, actually. I wondered if she'd stopped by."

  "Really?" She returned to setting out stones. There was a note of scepticism in her voice. Didn't she know I would have trouble lying to her?

  "So have you seen her?" I asked.

  She looked up from what she was doing, assessing me. Then she took a small cloth handbag from the floor behind the stall and came around to lean against the front of the stall. Taking a green and yellow tin from it, she opened it to extract a roll-up cigarette.

  "Smoke?" she asked.

  "No thanks. I don't."

  "I shouldn't either," she said. "Filthy habit."

  Nevertheless she took a plastic lighter and lit the end of the cigarette, taking a drag that made her eyelids crinkle and then blew the smoke sideways, away from me. "You haven't known her long, have you?" she said.

  "Not long at all actually," I admitted.

  "She'll be found when she's ready and not before."

  "Well, if she calls by, I wondered if you'd let her know I was looking for her?"

  "I will if I see her."

  "Thanks."

  "But I won't see her."

  "Why not?"

  "Not unless she wants to be seen," she told me, taking another drag.

  I hesitated. Did that mean I was wasting my time trying to find her?

  "Is there anywhere in particular that I could go… where I might find her? You've known her for some time, right?"

  "I've known her for a fair while, but we're not exactly close."

  "I only met her yesterday. She rescued me."

  "She has a habit of doing that. That's how I first met her. I thought I was going mad. I'd put one of my pieces down and the next minute it'd be gone. The little sods were cleaning me out, taking all my best work. I couldn't afford to replace them, not on my pension."

  "Your pension? Did you retire early?" She didn't look much older than me, and certainly not old enough to be retired.

  She laughed. "No, I didn't retire early. I retired at sixty-four and bought the pitch for the stall then. I needed something that would generate an income and I had a little money put aside for a rainy day. I'd been making jewellery as a hobby for a long time and it was a good way of combining what I liked doing with making a living."

  "I thought Blackbird said you two had known each other for a long time?" If she'd met Blackbird after she had retired then it can't have been that long ago, could it?

  "Not that long really, at least in her terms. That was in seventy-two."

  "Seventy-two? But that would mean you were… No way!"

  "I can show you my pension card if you like." She smiled, but it was an ironic smile. "What did you think? I've been around a while. Blackbird says my Fey genes are keeping me young and I suppose she would know. It might explain a few other things too."

  "What sort of things?"

  "Little things. I smoke too much, drink too much, stay up too late and do far too many things that are bad for me, but I've never had a day sick since my teens. These things should be the death of me." She held up the cigarette and took a last puff before dropping it to the floor and grinding it out with the toe of her embroidered slipper.

  "It sounds like you have it made," I told her. "I mean, it's what every woman wants, isn't it, to stay young-looking forever?"

  "It has its drawbacks."

  "Like what?"

  "For one thing, it gets difficult when I go to collect my pension. I don't look like I'm about to get a telegram from the Queen congratulating me on my centenary, do I?"

  "Does the Queen still send telegrams like that?"

  "I don't know. I guess in a year or two I shall find out, shan't I?" she grinned.

  "So how do you get your pension?"

  "Usually I have to sign to say I'm my own daughter and I'm collecting it for my mother who's too old and frail to come and get it for herself, which is ironic, isn't it?"

  "Why is that ironic?"

  "Because I don't have a daughter, or any other children." The sudden bitterness in her voice was palpable.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't realise." I hadn't meant to pry into personal matters.

  "You may live a long time, Rabbit, but you had better get used to the idea that you'll never be a father."

  "I'm already a father."

  It just came out in response to her statement but I realised as soon as I said it that I probably shouldn't have mentioned it. It was just that I had felt the need to shake off Megan's dark prediction before it turned into a foretelling. I cautioned myself to be more careful in future about who I told about my daughter.

  Megan, though, was startled. "You are?"

  "I have a daughter," I admitted, finding it too late to retract the statement.

  "A daughter?" she muttered to herself, momentarily lost in thought. "Are you sure she's yours?"

  She looked up suddenly as if she'd just realised what she'd said.

  "Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that… it's just it's very unusual. A daughter you say? And the mother is normal – human, I mean?"

  "I think so. At least she's never shown any sign of being anything other than completely normal." Then again, until yesterday neither had I.

  "How old is she?"

  "A little younger than me, why?"

  "No, silly. How old is your daughter?"

  "Fourteen." There was no point in being coy about it now. Besides, she appeared fascinated, as if I had just done something truly magical.

  "Fourteen. Nearly of an age, then. Has she shown any sign of being gifted?"

  "She's quite good at maths and science and she has a good eye for art."

  "No. I meant signs of being Fey. Any strangeness
about her, shifts in appearance, odd affinities?"

  "I don't think so, not that her mother has mentioned."

  "You'll know if it happens. For her sake I hope she takes after her mother, no offence meant. I hope she has a normal life and has a bevy of beautiful babies. I hope her children grow up while she grows old and she turns into a wrinkled grandma with grandchildren to care for and great-grandchildren to come."

  It sounded like a mixed blessing, but Megan clearly thought she was wishing the best for my daughter. Her words also brought to mind the conversation I'd had with Kareesh the day before, when we'd been bargaining. She'd offered to tell me whether I would be a grandfather and I had thought that what she was offering to me was the chance to know whether my daughter would survive to become a mother. Perhaps, though, it had been more than that. Perhaps the trade I had refused was to discover whether my daughter could become a mother. Either way, I had chosen to receive the vision instead.

  "Look," I said. "I'd better go. If you see Blackbird, could you tell her I was looking for her?"

  Megan stood up and tucked her cigarette tin into her bag. "Stick around and she'll find you," she said.

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Trust me. I know."

  She wouldn't be drawn any further on the subject, so I bade her farewell and went back to the bakery to buy breakfast. The savoury pasty came hot in a paper bag and I was suddenly famished. It was all I could do to wait until it had cooled enough not to burn my tongue. Running around in the small hours of the morning had left me starving.

  I walked through the arcade eating my pasty and then dropped the paper bag into a bin before walking out onto the cobbled road up to the Underground Station to see if I could leave a message for Blackbird with Kareesh.

  As I crossed the junction with Floral Street I was shoved sideways.

  "Betcha thought you wouldn't see me again too soon, didn't ya?"

  I stumbled across the uneven cobbles and turned to face my assailant. The long black coat and overuse of eyeliner gave it away. It was Fenlock.

  I backed slowly away from the tall black-garbed figure down the side-road, holding my hands up in a placatory gesture.

  "Hello, Fenlock. Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. It was a misunderstanding."

  "Misunderstanding is it?" he jeered, pushing me again with a suddenness that took me off guard. I stumbled backwards on the uneven footing.

  "Sent me on a merry chase, didn't ya? I bet you and her were havin' a laugh at our expense, weren't ya?"

  "That was Blackbird." I scanned the road behind him.

  There were people walking past, but none of them noticed my predicament. I glanced backwards to see if anyone was there but at this time of day these side roads were deserted. An empty white van was parked a little way off and that was all the cover there was.

  "Well, she's not here to protect ya now, is she, bumpkin?" He loomed forward, appearing to grow in size as he approached. I backed away. He leapt towards me and grabbed me by the throat, practically lifting me from my feet. I grabbed at the hand clamped around my throat, gargling as he squeezed at my windpipe. I battered at his arm, making wild swings for his face and kicking at his ankles. He was oblivious to my thrashing and steered me sideways into an alley.

  He thrust me backwards down the alley and I staggered down the passage away from him. A glance behind told me this was a dead end. He was going to murder me.

  I pulled my wallet from my pocket. "Look, you can have this. It's all I have." I held it out, warily.

  He swatted it aside, and it ricocheted off the wall and bounced onto the ground.

  "Too late for that," he announced. "Ya should have thought of that before, shouldn't ya?" He stepped over the wallet as I backed down the alley.

  "I don't have anything else!" I protested.

  He launched forward and scooped me up by the neck, swinging me around until I thumped into the wall. I swung a punch at his face and it connected with his nose, but he just laughed it off, his hand squeezing my windpipe.

  With my screams strangling in my throat, I tore at his hand with my fingernails, gouging into his skin. His muscles felt like steel hawsers.

  I felt my toes leave the pavement as I dangled from his hand. He scraped me upwards against the brickwork, then carelessly lifted me back off the wall and slammed me back against it, jangling my wits. I tried to kick him, thrashing wildly in his grip. He barely noticed.

  "Shall we shake ya and see what falls out?" he chuckled and slammed me against the wall again.

  Spots were appearing before my eyes. If he didn't let go of my throat soon, I would pass out. In a flash of inspiration I grabbed his hand with both of mine and wrenched at the core of power within me.

  Forget me!

  The jolt went down my arms but the command rolled off him like water off the back of a spoon.

  "Feisty, eh? I like 'em feisty!" He lifted me back off the wall, shook me like a rag doll and slammed me back, leaving me disoriented and parched for air. He was going to kill me.

  I was starting to black out. Lights played around the edge of my vision. Spots mingled in and the alley went dim. The light was fading around me. I clawed at his grip, drawing blood but not breaking his grip.

  "Huh?" His voice came to me as an echo, far away.

  The moment of distraction was what I needed. I reached deep inside, forging a connection with the darkness, desperate to do something, anything.

  In response I felt a deepening, an opening to a cold empty core in my being. Hungry darkness emptied into me.

  His scream echoed in my ears, piercing and anguished. Its harshness needling into my brain. Fenlock tried to wrench his hand away but my fingers were still clawed around his wrist, nails embedded in the flesh. As he staggered back, I scraped down the wall, my feet thumping against the ground, jarring me.

  I opened my eyes to find everything dappled with moonlit shade.

  My glow filled the alley.

  Fenlock was trying to back away from me, his arm still clamped in my grip. Something had changed. Something had shifted. He was looking at his arm with astonishment, as if a harmless insect had stung him. No, more than that – wounded him. My hands were black against the pale of his skin and his veins stood out dark on his arms.

  "You fu–" His eyes lifted to my face and he froze.

  He registered shock and then something else I didn't recognise; a kind of fascinated horror. I felt a hot wire of energy coursing down his arm into mine, lighting up senses I hadn't known existed. It sparked an unrecognised hunger that sang to me. The darkness flooded into me like a tidal rush and I yielded to it.

  Fenlock shrieked again, this time in abject terror. He thrashed, trying to free his arm, flailing wildly and screaming like a banshee. My fingers dug into the flesh, the grip tightening in reflex, sinking into the skin as the heat flowed down his arm into mine. He pushed at my face with his free hand but then snatched his hand back as if it had been burned. He yanked at his arm but the strength had gone out of him. Though he jerked wildly against my grip, the tide was inexorable. The blackness spread into his bloodstream following the arteries to his heart. His flesh hollowed, his muscles and sinews standing out on his frame like a starved man. His voice broke into a cracked wail, his skin went sallow and his cheeks sank into his face in front of me. Repelled by the horror of his affliction, I tried to release him, but my fingers were cramped into spasm around his wrist. With a will of their own they bit into his flesh, refusing to release him.

  In the last moments, he slumped against me, his papery cheek pressed unwillingly next to mine, my own frame the only thing holding him erect. His form dissolved in my hands, his flesh desiccating to ash, his clothes collapsing into a pile of powdery rags and collapsing to the floor. I stood there, little understanding what had happened, staring at the dust falling through my fingers and trying to comprehend what I had just done.

  NINE

  I expected to be breathless, battered and bruised. Fenlock h
ad beaten me, thrown me against the wall and half-choked the life from me. He'd been going to kill me, but now there was nothing, just dust and rags. My glow faded and daylight returned to the alley.

  My hands were still covered in grey ash. I felt fine. I felt better than fine. I felt invigorated, full of life and ready to take on the world. It was unreal. Staring down at the heap that had been Fenlock, I denied to myself that I had killed him. It must have been his fault. He brought it on himself. He must have caused it. I looked around for some other reason, some clue as to what had happened there.

  As I glanced up towards the opening at the end of the alley, there was a silhouette. It was Blackbird.

  "Blackbird, it's me!" I raised a hand to attract her attention, but the silhouette moved away. I trotted towards the opening and then remembered my wallet. I skidded to a halt and went back for it, snatching it from the ground, stuffing it into my pocket and trotting back out of the alley. I glanced back at the heap of dusty clothes. The light breeze that flicked though the alley stirred the ash from the clothes into a dust devil, scattering the remains. I turned away.

  When I reached the side-street, she wasn't there. I looked up and down and then spotted her on the crossroads where the road met the side-street. She turned towards the tube station.

  I ran down the street to the junction. "Blackbird! Wait!"

  I reached the crossroads and stumbled into a pair of Japanese tourists who politely shrugged me off with repeated apologies. Muttering excuses, I barged past them and ran headlong after Blackbird. I caught a glimpse of her coat, turning into the station entrance and I thought I knew where she was going.

  I ran up to the tube station, panting and out of breath. I was so flustered that I slammed into the barrier and then had to search for my wallet under the watchful eye of an Underground attendant. My card registered with the barrier and I went through, smiling apologetically.

  A lift was ready to descend and I rushed forward to press myself between the closing doors before they shut. The few other passengers in the lift gave me cold looks as I shoved my way into the car, the door juddering closed behind me. The car jolted, and I got my breath back as it descended.