Sixty-One Nails Part 17

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 a.s.sailant. 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.

"h.e.l.lo, Fenlock. Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. It was a misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding is it?" he jeered, pus.h.i.+ng 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, b.u.mpkin?" 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 thras.h.i.+ng and steered me sideways into an alley.

He thrust me backwards down the alley and I staggered down the pa.s.sage 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 sc.r.a.ped 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, thras.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.s 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 s.h.i.+fted. 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 had 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, s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 j.a.panese 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 fl.u.s.tered 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 pa.s.sengers 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.

At the bottom I had to wait until the other pa.s.sengers filed away. I used the method I had used in the alley to make everyone ignore me and headed for the doorway between the corridors where we had gained access to Gramawl's domain. The door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open to find the pa.s.sage and stairway in darkness, the light from the corridor illuminating only the top of the stair. There was no sign of a light switch, nor could I remember seeing one anywhere in the Underground. The lights were probably operated from a control room somewhere. Still, I had my own light. The door thudded closed behind me. Standing in the darkness I let the wish to be ignored drop away and concentrated on summoning my glow, feeling the temperature in the enclosed stairway drop suddenly as light spilled out onto the stairs. It was getting easier to do this. Was that practice, or was it getting stronger?

I stepped down the stairs slowly and cautiously, wondering why Blackbird hadn't waited for me. Hadn't she heard me? Then another thought occurred to me. Perhaps it wasn't really her, but merely the semblance of her meant to draw me here? If it wasn't Blackbird, was it Carris? Had she seen what happened in the alley? Could she make herself look like Blackbird to lure me down here and take her revenge?

I took the stairs slowly, the swaying light making it more difficult to judge my footing. At the base of the stairs the corridor led on into darkness. I took a hesitant step forward into the gloom, allowing my glow to swell and throw back the shadows in its s.h.i.+fting, dancing light.

"Gramawl? Are you there? It's me, Rabbit. I came with Blackbird yesterday, remember?"

My voice sounded hollow and empty in the darkened pa.s.sage. There was no answer.

"Gramawl?"

I walked forward a pace or two, my arms spread to show peaceful intent. Still there was no sign of him. I walked a few paces more. The light moved with me and the stairs gradually faded into the dark until it was just me in a length of illuminated corridor. I made slow progress. The pa.s.sage angled left then right, as before, but when I came to the place where the stairway went up to Kareesh's den, there was no trace of the stairs. How could they not be there? We had climbed those steps. I was sure this was where they had been. I felt along the wall where I recalled the opening, looking for some clue. There was only a blank wall with a smooth expanse of tiles. I stood in the dark wondering whether Blackbird had somehow got inside and was even now laughing with Kareesh at my expense. Then a tiny sound came to me from further down the corridor, like a scuff or a stumble.

"Gramawl?" Was he lurking there?

I remembered him appearing without a sound, and figured that either he'd wanted me to hear him or it wasn't Gramawl that was moving down there. Perhaps Blackbird had not found a way into Kareesh's den after all. A row of fluorescent lamps marked the roof of the tunnel, though none of them offered the least glimmer of light. As I sidled along the tunnel it sloped downwards. I found the pa.s.sage to be much longer than I had initially thought. Once I heard the tumbling flow of water but couldn't identify where it was coming from. Several times there were distant rumblings, whether from pa.s.sing tube trains or irritated trolls I couldn't say. At one point I stopped, half deciding to head back to Covent Garden. Then I heard a distant echo of footfalls ahead and moved quickly to pursue it, only to be greeted by the empty walkway. Nothing entered the pool of light around me and I met no other soul. At one point I shouted down the corridor. "Blackbird! I've had enough of this wild goose chase. Show yourself!" There was no sound, no light, and no answer. The light swung and s.h.i.+fted around me, disturbed by a wind I couldn't feel, rippled by a hand that didn't show, leaving me alone in the half-light.

I began to feel she wasn't down here, that she'd tricked me into following the tunnel and locked the door behind me, sealing me in to pursue the endless pa.s.sages until I expired. I began to imagine the tunnel had no end and that it would go on, featureless and unlit, until I wore myself out or turned back. At such points I would hesitate and wait, and after a short pause a small sound, some token of presence, would echo from the tunnel ahead, telling me the person I followed went before me. Was it an illusion, meant to tempt me on? Was it really Blackbird or something darker and more sinister?

I continued on down the pa.s.sage. Occasionally there were marks of some previous human presence, whether a piece of graffiti or a discarded paper, but mostly these were old and yellowed. Once I came upon a smear of oil, smelling of minerals and machinery, with no remnant of the machine it had come from. These rea.s.sured me that I wasn't walking in a circle. A little further on an empty mineral water bottle proclaimed some more recent occupation. The tunnel began to bend and angle from its course and I got the feeling it was coming to an end.

Finally I reached the base of a circular stairway, similar to the one I had started on. As I stepped onto it I heard a door thump shut above me. I was meant to follow upwards.

Setting a steady pace, I climbed the stairway, convinced now that whoever was ahead of me was waiting above. The stairway wound round and around until I reached a steel-clad door on a landing. I took hold of the handle, half expecting it to be locked. It yielded easily and the door swung open to daylight.

I released my glow and let it die, emerging into a pa.s.sage. On each end of the corridor, heavy doors blocked the way, but steps led upwards in the other direction with faint daylight indicating the way out.

The heavy door swung shut behind me with a thud, echoing the earlier sound.

Ascending the steps, I climbed into a room stacked with chairs and tables. A row of windows opened out onto a daylight street outside and I realised as a bus pa.s.sed by below eye level that I had climbed to a level above ground. I stepped up into the room and blinked in the strong light. At the same time a hand circled around from behind me. There was a flash of something bright and I felt a sharp point press hard under my chin. "If you so much as blink I will ram this blade up through your brain." It pressed into the underside of my chin, the point digging into my skin.

"Mmm," was about as much as I dared say, nodding was out of the question but I could hear the truth of her intent.

"Step sideways slowly," the voice commanded.

I did as she asked. It sounded like Blackbird, but I was taking no chances. So far she hadn't killed me. "Just so you know I'm serious, if I see a glimmer of gallowfyre, a darkening of the ambient light, if a cloud even crosses the sun, I am going to shove this knife up through your head so hard it will stick out of the top, understand?"

"Mmm," I acknowledged, not really understanding but complying, the knife pressing the point into the root of my throat, under my chin.

"Step backwards slowly, one small step at a time. There's a wall behind you." I edged backwards, the knife lifting me onto tiptoe. "Turn left and face the wall." I turned around slowly and she moved around with me until I faced the wall.

"Kneel slowly, facing the wall." I did as she demanded and as I reached an uncomfortable half-kneeling position she moved the knife so it stuck into the back of my neck under the base of my skull. Her knee pressed into my back, pus.h.i.+ng me forward.

"Now put your arms out and spread your fingers wide against the wall. If you move a fraction from there I will kill you instantly. Do you understand?"

"Yes". I pressed my face against the wall. All my senses were telling me her words were the absolute truth. She would kill me.

"I'm going to offer you a choice. It's not much of one, but it's all you're getting. You can tell me what I want to know and I will kill you cleanly and send you back where you came from. Or you can refuse and I will bind you to this body so when it dies, you will also. You can hear the truth in my words, yes?"

"Yes," I could hear the truth in them. She was going to kill me. "But-"

The knife pressed inwards. "Now. I am going to ask my questions and then you're going to die. My question is simple. Why are you here? What did you come for? "

"Blackbird..." I had to convince her it was me.

"No!" The knife stabbed inwards and I'm sure I felt a warm dribble run down my neck. "No names, not even that one. I'm giving you nothing, understand? "

"But it's me, Rabbit. We spent the day together, yesterday. You can tell it's me." I hated the whiny quality in my voice but I was desperate. She had to believe me. "How can you lie to me without my being able to hear it? Is this some new wraithkin gift?" Her voice had a puzzled quality, as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "How are you doing that? Tell me and I'll despatch you quickly and painlessly."

"No, please, it really is me. How can I convince you? "

"Convince me? I saw you in the alley with Fenlock. I saw the gallowfyre. I know what you are. I don't need convincing, I just need an answer." There was anger in her voice that translated into pressure in her hand. I tried to slide up the wall from a kneeling position. I needed her to believe me. I needed a distraction. I needed something.

"What's gallowfyre? You mean my glow?"

"Your what? No, enough games! Tell me and I'll finish it."

"Please! It's me. It's Rabbit. You know it's me. I can't lie to you, can I?" I pleaded with her, knowing any second she could end my existence.

"That's what I don't understand. How can you say that when I know what you are? How are you deceiving me? "