"So what am I going to do? I can't keep running for ever."
"I'll take you to someone who may be able to offer you counsel. In the meantime you should call your office and tell them you won't be in. If you make it to Monday you can think again but that's a long way away, right now."
It was Thursday. How far away could the Monday be? Still, she had convinced me to make the call to work. I extracted my mobile from my jacket pocket and flipped it open to get the number from the speed-dials. It rang twice. "Good morning, Project Management Office. "
"Hi, Jackie. "
"Niall? Is that you? Where are you?"
"Hi, Jackie, sorry I've had some problems this morning and I'm not going to make it into the office. I need you to do a couple of things for me."
"But I've got the electrical engineers downstairs in reception waiting for you and there are a pile of phone messages from the site manager. He's been calling since seven-thirty."
I had made the mistake of calling her without any clear plan of what I would say.
"Jackie? Sorry, I know there are problems. Look, I've had a death in the family."
"Are you all right? Are Alex and Katherine OK?"
"They're fine. It's not them, thank God, but I'm the only one who can deal with it. Apparently there are circumstances and someone has to sort out the affairs." She reminded me of a host of commitments I had made and asked me what she was supposed to do with them.
"I'll have to deal with them next week, if I'm back. "
"If you're back? You have the fourth floor conference room booked for the heating and lighting review on Monday morning. What am I supposed to tell them? "
"Ask Jim if he'll talk to them." I named my deputy and second-in-command. "We only need an estimate at this stage. We can confirm prices later."
"So when will you be back? Jim is going to ask." She was right, he would.
"I don't know how long. A few days, I guess. I'll probably be back sometime next week. Could you tell Human Resources I'm taking unexpected leave? Anyone else, just call them and put them off for me. If there's anything that looks really urgent, ask Jim if he'll step in and cover."
"I'll ask him, Niall, but he is already complaining that he's over-committed."
"Thanks, Jackie." I was about to say I had another call waiting, but the lie stuck in my throat. It was a ruse I had used many times to cut short awkward calls, but I just couldn't say the words. I settled on an alternative. "You're a treasure. I don't know what I'd do without you." There was a stream of further questions that I couldn't hope to answer without a lot more time. "You're just going to have to cope, I'm really sorry. Ask Jim if you're not sure. OK. OK, bye. Bye." I closed the connection and sighed.
"That is something else I wanted to tell you," said Blackbird. "Lying isn't the same any more. The Feyre can tell when someone else is lying and they don't lie themselves. It's too…"
"Uncomfortable?"
"That's a good description. It's not that you couldn't lie, but it provokes a sense of discord that rankles in your heart. The more you use your magic, the stronger it will get. You're much better off telling the truth. Magic and truth are siblings, which is why true names have power."
"You might have mentioned it before I called the office," I suggested.
"There's so much I haven't told you, Rabbit, so much you need to know. I don't entirely know where to begin."
I was beginning to realise that, as much as I found that untruth rankled in my own heart, the words of others also held the same note. Blackbird wasn't lying. In fact it threw everything she'd told me into a new light. It briefly occurred to me that this might be yet another layer to this elaborate deception but I had felt it for myself. I knew it was so.
"You should make one more call before we go," she advised.
"Go? Go where?"
"We can't stay in one place for too long, Rabbit – or rather you can't."
"OK. Who should I call?"
"Your ex-wife. Tell her you can't come and collect your daughter this evening."
"Blackbird, I can't tell her that. We've already had one argument about it this morning."
"Do you value your daughter's life? You'd be putting them both in danger. Is that what you wish? "
"You know it's not, but what can I say to her? She already thinks I'm unreliable, unpredictable and a host of other words beginning with 'un'."
"Find a version of the truth she can accept," suggested Blackbird.
I opened my phone again then placed it on the table, looking at it. I really didn't want to make this call, though in my heart I knew I had no choice. I couldn't look after my daughter in these circumstances. I picked up the phone and stood up, excusing myself from Blackbird for a moment and walked a little way away across the open pavement to gain some privacy.
I took a deep breath and rang her. The phone buzzed for a while without answer. Finally she picked up.
"Yes?" Her voice was cold and curt.
"Kath, it's Niall."
"I know who it is. Your number comes up on the phone."
"I need to talk to you about tonight, about the weekend."
"We've had this discussion, Niall. You're coming to collect her after you finish work, whatever time. That's what we agreed."
"I know, and you know I hate to let you down."
She paused, then said, "I know you're going to."
"Kath, this is more complicated than you realise. Something happened this morning."
"Was it something more important than your own daughter?"
"It concerns Alex as well."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, if I come and get Alex, I'll be putting her in danger."
"What do you mean? What kind of danger? "
"There are some people after me."
"After you? What kind of people? Niall, have you been drinking?"
"I'm quite serious, Katherine, and no, I haven't been drinking. I'm very sober right now. Look, I know it sounds preposterous but you have to believe me. It isn't safe."
"What are you talking about? You just think you can make up some story and it will all go away, is that it? Good ol' Kath. She's always there when I want to go gallivanting off somewhere. She doesn't mind. She's used to being the housekeeper, the drudge, the domestic. Is that it?"
"No, it isn't like that. Something happened to me on the underground this morning. I nearly died. There was an ambulance. I had to be revived."
"Where are you now?"
She could probably hear the traffic on the Charing Cross Road.
"I never made it into the office. I'm not going in. There was a woman, she rescued me."
"I might have know there'd be a woman involved."
"Oh, please. She's about sixty, OK?"
"Well, I suppose that's a bit old, even for you."
I sighed. Despite Katherine's accusations I had never been unfaithful to her. "Look, she's a doctor. She revived me. I collapsed on the platform and she was the only one who helped."
"Where are you? A hospital?"
"No, I'm in Trafalgar Square."
"Well, it can't have been that serious then, can it?"
"Listen, Kath. I need you to understand. I've got involved in something unexpected. There are some people who are trying to find me. I can't go to the hospital and I can't have Alex with me."
"Are you in trouble with the police?"
"No. There's no police involved."
"Then go to them. They can protect you."
"It isn't like that. The police would think I was nuts."
"They're not the only ones."
"This is serious, Kath. Do you want Alex to be in danger? Do you want her harmed?" The other end went silent. "I can't be with her, Kath. I'd be putting her in danger and I can't do that. "
"What have you done, Niall?"
"Look," I took a deep breath. "I just need you to explain to Alex that I can't be there tonight. She'll be expecting me and I don't want to let her down, but- "
"Oh, so you don't want to let her down."
"Or you, OK? It's too dangerous. These people may be following me and I don't want them anywhere near the two of you. In fact," an idea occurred to me, "could you go away for the weekend?"
"What? I was planning to go away. Remember?"
It was suddenly apparent to me that she was lying. Her words sounded sour, somehow, filled with deception. Why would she lie to me about something like that? I shook myself. It didn't matter. I just needed her to look after Alex.
"I know, I know, but for me, could you take her away with you? Take her to the coast, maybe somewhere in Europe?"
"Europe? I haven't got that kind of money and you damn well know it, Niall Petersen."
"I'll pay for it," I volunteered.
"Well, I'm very pleased that you can afford to spend weekends swanning off to Europe, but we have other priorities in this house." Her voice had taken on its familiar sarcastic tinge. I couldn't afford to get tangled in this well-rehearsed debate right now.
"I can afford it if it means Alex doesn't get kidnapped," I stated coldly.
"What do you mean, kidnapped?"
"I mean taken away from you, and me. Hurt. Harmed."
"You're not serious?" She sounded frightened now. "What kind of trouble have you dragged us into, Niall? "
"I don't know. I'm just trying to be very careful with the people I care about and I care about the two of you." I think some of the emotion in my voice travelled down the phone line because it went very quiet. "Are you still there?"
"Yes. I'm here." There was a further pause. "Where can we go?" All of a sudden she was taking me seriously.
"I don't know, and don't tell me. It's better I don't know." Echoes of my conversation with Blackbird came back to me. "Use the internet, book one of those lastminute city breaks somewhere, go today. "
"I can't just drop everything, Niall."
I knew she could. "Yes you can," I insisted.
"You really are serious, aren't you? My God."
"Yes I am."
"What do I tell Alex?"
"Tell her it's a surprise trip."
"Not about that, about you?"
"Tell her I love her." My voice broke at the end of the sentence and I had to stop and breathe for a moment. "Niall? Niall, for God's sake, what have you fallen into?"
"I don't know and I don't want either of you involved. Take your mobile with you and I'll call you in a few days." A thought occurred to me. "When I call, I'll ask about the dog, understand? "
"We don't have a dog."
"I know. If I don't ask about the dog, don't say anything. Especially, don't say where you are or what you're doing. In fact, just hang up. And if you see me, make sure it's me, understand?"
"What do you mean, make sure it's you?"
"I mean these people, they can make themselves look like other people." I was sounding a bit strange now, even to myself. "Look, just get me to remember something only we would know, to make sure I am who you think I am."
"Who I think you are?" She was starting to sound sceptical again.
"Just do it for me, OK?"
"Niall? What are you going to do?"
A little part of me was glad she still cared enough to worry what happened to me.
"I'll be all right. I'll have it sorted out in a few days. I'll call you on the mobile when the coast is clear. OK? "
"OK."
"And if I don't call, don't come looking for me. Understand?"
"If you don't call me, I'm going to the police."
There was an edge of determination to her voice that made me feel momentarily proud of her. "OK. You do that." Maybe it would do some good.
"Niall…?" Everything that remained between us, despite all the harsh words and hurtful silences, hung in the pause after that word.
"I know, Kath. You take care of each other."
"Bye."
"Bye."
The connection closed, leaving me standing alone and apart.
I walked back across the paving to the table where Blackbird waited. She looked up as I approached. "All settled?"
"Yes. She's going to take her away for the weekend."
"That would probably be for the best, Rabbit. Are you ready?"
"What for?"
"A little walk, and then perhaps an introduction or two. It is about time you met some of your new brethren." She stood up, tucking the chair neatly back under the table and leaving the paper cups at one side where they could easily be collected.
"Is this the person you said could help me?"
"Perhaps. They will at least be able to offer you guidance. Whether you act on that guidance is up to you. "
"Another one of your choices?"
"Life is choices, Rabbit. We are defined by the choices we make."
I stood up and followed her to the edge of Trafalgar Square and then back up St Martin's Lane.
"So what does one do when one is introduced to one of the Feyre? Shake hands?"
"Touch is an intimate thing amongst the Feyre. You don't touch another Fey unless you're invited. "
"But you touched me." It wasn't meant as a criticism, but she gave me a hard look.
"The other circumstance when one touches another Fey is when one is using power, Rabbit, or when fighting or killing. That is why it is considered discourteous. "
"So you touch someone to do magic on them… to them?"
"Some of our gifts require touch, and touch can enhance other gifts, making them stronger. Some of it works without touch, or even presence. "
"You can use power over a distance?"
"Some can. The spell that binds each Fey to their court works regardless of distance, or even presence. A Fey who broke that spell would risk their life, even if they were a world away, like the Untainted." We continued along our route through the back lanes and side alleys of Covent Garden. There would appear to be a dead end then we would turn a corner and find a gate or the way through a fire escape. People didn't leave their back entrances open in central London because they didn't want drunks or druggies hanging around the fire escape, yet all of these opened to her hand.
"Are you using magic to open these gates?" I asked her.
"Stick to the path, Rabbit. That way is safer." She hadn't answered my question.
We wound our way in a loose spiral around Covent Garden, with me catching occasional glimpses of landmarks I knew and several times finding myself walking in the opposite direction to the one I thought we were going in. "Do we have to come this way?"
"The straightest path is not the shortest," she said.
"What does that mean? Are we talking some mystical geometry here? Surely the shortest path between two points is a straight line?"
"That depends on what is between you and your destination."
"So what would be between us and our destination? "
"This way is safer," she said. "Believe me."
She squeezed her way past a fence post and around the back of a huge wheelie-bin into the rear courtyard of an office block. Two curious smokers, ostracised to the outside, watched us thread our way through and then along the back of the building and through a hole in the fence to the next.
"Now they've seen us, the hole won't be there next time."
"Yes, it will. They won't remember seeing us."
"Why? Did you do something to their memories?"
My voice fell to a hush as she approached the corner of the building more stealthily. Two pigeons were strutting around each other in a doorway, but there didn't appear to be any other hazard to be wary of. "I didn't do anything to their memory. I used my glamour, the part of my magic that affects my appearance, to make us unremarkable. By the time they've finished their cigarettes, the conversation will have moved on to something else and they won't think enough about us to mention it to anyone. "
"So are you using your… glamour to affect my appearance too?" She was walking slowly up behind the pigeons. "Glamour is the least of Fey magic. It allows us to alter our appearance to suit our surroundings or our circumstances. It's all a matter of knowing how you look and willing it to be so. It's a bit like driving, it takes practice, but once you know how, you don't even think about it. As far as they are concerned you are standing in my shadow, in a manner of speaking. The impression it leaves can spill over."
She took a soft brown sack from her bag, then reached down and lifted one of the pigeons off the pavement. The other looked bemused, as if its playmate had vanished. After a moment it flew upwards towards the strip of sky overhead. Blackbird eased the docile pigeon into the sack.
"Why are we catching pigeons? "
"It's a gift."
"Do you mean the catching of them, or that the pigeon itself is a gift?"
"It's bad manners to turn up on someone's doorstep when you haven't seen them for months and not have something to offer." She opened the door, stepping out onto the edge of Covent Garden Piazza. "Which reminds me, you need to do a little shopping. "
"I do?"
She opened the alleyway door and strolled out into the open square as if we hadn't just been furtively sidling around the back of offices. I followed and the door slammed shut behind us, an anonymous doorway in a row of Georgian houses.
"Oh, I've missed this. It's one of the old places." Her mood lightened as she crossed onto the cobble stoned plaza.
I corrected her. "It's not as old as people think, actually. The flower market is only late nineteenth century. "
"And why do you think they built a flower market here?"
"Well, I guess it was part of the original settlement. Maybe there were market gardens here once? "
"Oh, there were gardens here, convent gardens actually, and there was a market here long before Christianity and for much more than flowers. Herbs and potions, talismans and wardings, you could buy anything here, once." She stepped up onto the paving around the covered market and breathed in as if inhaling a heady scent.
"Blackbird, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you, exactly?"
"Didn't I tell you it was rude to ask someone's age?" She arched an eyebrow at me, but I was prepared for her evasion this time.
"No, I don't think that's actually what you said. I think you asked me what age I thought you were and then, when I told you, you laughed and said you were a lot older than that, but you never told me how much. "
"Perhaps I thought you were being nosey." The comment was not harshly made and left just enough of an opening for me to ask once more. "Are you going to tell me?"
"No, I don't think so, except to say I have rolled in the buttercups here and come away dusted in their pollen. I have slept here under the stars on the solstice and been gifted with dreams of the future and I have fought for my life here and come away bloodied, but unharmed. It is a place that has been special to me for a long time." Her words hung in the air despite the milling tourists that passed us by, unaware of her reminiscences. "Buttercups, huh?" I mused.
"Trust you to latch on to that." But the smile she flashed me was one that hinted of the young woman in the square.
She walked through the meandering tourists and I followed her, walking past numerous stalls until we came to one selling semi-precious jewellery. We stood waiting while an elderly couple debated the merits of a haematite pendant versus a pair of olivine earrings. The stallholder was a middle-aged woman with fair wavy hair which fell around her shoulders. She wore a peasant skirt and a bronze top with an open neck. Her earrings were made from coloured feathers and beads and her belt was a band of interwoven colours with more beads strung from it. If this were the Sixties then she would have been one of the flower people. Her face was lined as if care-worn and she looked pensive; worried even. Then she smiled and twenty years vanished. Her eyes were alight with humour and her creases became laughter lines.
We waited until the couple had made their decision and their tiny gift-wrapped parcel was handed over. She wished them a good day and turned to us.
"Hello, Blackbird." To my surprise, she walked around the front of the stall and embraced Blackbird with affection, which Blackbird returned. She had told me that the Feyre didn't touch others, but here was Blackbird greeting this woman like a sister.
"How's everything?" she asked Blackbird. Her voice was deep for a woman and had a worn quality, as if it had once been soft and low and someone had taken sandpaper to it.
"Things are good," said Blackbird, holding onto her hands for a moment. "I would like to introduce you to someone. This is Rabbit. Rabbit, this is Megan." She turned to me and extended a hand in greeting. "Pleased to meet you, Rabbit."
I took her hand, figuring that if Blackbird had embraced her then it must be OK. Her hand was warm and, like her voice, had a delicate roughness to it. "Pleased to meet you too."
Closer to her, I realised that what I had thought were beads were actually polished stones. Her necklace, earrings and even her belt were adorned with small stones, carefully matched for shape and colour.
"Megan and I have known each other for some time, haven't we, Megan?"
"It's been a while, Megan agreed, "but it all goes by so fast. I can't keep track," she admitted, shaking her head and leaning back against the stall.
"Anyway, this isn't entirely a social call. Rabbit would like to choose some stones from your excellent selection."
"I would, would I?"
"Have a look and see if there's any that take your fancy," Megan gestured across the selection. "It is a test of sorts. You cannot pass or fail, but it may tell me something," said Blackbird.
"Is it something you should know?" Blackbird appeared to have my interests at heart, but there were still too many unknowns for me not to ask the question. "Well said, Rabbit, and by your choice I will do you no harm." She said it as a promise or a vow, and I believed her. After all, if she lied to me I thought I would know. "How many? "
"As many as you will, and no more."
Megan gave me a complicit smile but offered no help. I turned to the semi-precious stones set out on the table, searching for obvious clues. They were all nicely shaped, though not completely regular. Megan plainly had a gift for selecting ones that were attractive because they were imperfect.
A stone in a cotton-lined rectangular box caught my attention. It was a lozenge with brown and gold stripes that glowed with an inner light. I lifted it from its box and was slightly startled when Megan held out a black suede pouch for me to drop it into. I let it fall into the soft pocket and she retracted it, waiting for me to choose again.
The second choice was easier as I had more idea as to what I was looking for now. My gaze settled on a lump of minty rock with a sparkly surface. I collected it and dropped it into the proffered pouch. I glanced at Blackbird but she had a watchful withdrawn expression. My third choice leapt out at me when I spotted it amongst the stones at one side. It was stratified like the first, but had verdant green hardness that stood out amongst the others. It joined the rest in the black pouch. For the next one I struggled, scanning the rows of boxes for some minutes until I lit upon a dark red stone, deeply embedded and sulking in its nest of cotton fibre. I found myself curiously hesitant to touch it. Instead, I lifted the box and emptied it into the pouch. Megan nodded, knowingly.
I would have ended there, but there was a sense of incompletion, of things left undone. I went over the table again, sifting through the boxes with a fingertip, until I passed over a box and felt a nerve-tingling jolt. I came back and hovered over a stone that hummed under my finger.
"What's that one?"
"It's a green fluorite," Megan answered. "Most of them are purple, so the green ones have a rarity value." I picked it out and dropped it into the pouch with the others. "I'm done then, I think," I told her.
She walked back around the table and laid out a black velvet cloth, tipping out the pouch. She fell into a rhythm and recounted the stones, placing each at five points of a circle.
"Tiger's eye to see beyond and pierce the veil, actinolite for balance and healing, malachite for connection to the spirit, red jasper for grounding and connection to the earth, green fluorite for guidance and self-knowledge."
"You choose well. These will be well received." Blackbird offered the compliment with something of a degree of respect that had been absent before. "I just chose the ones that felt right. "
"Just so."
I turned back to Megan, pulling out my wallet.
"No cards," said Blackbird. "This is a cash transaction between you and Megan. There is to be no intermediary."
"For a friend of Blackbird's-" Megan began.
"It is for a gift and for that it must be Rabbit's to give," Blackbird told her.
At that Megan nodded her understanding and scooped the stones back into the pouch. "How much do I owe you?" I asked her.
"You owe me nothing, Rabbit, but I will accept ten pounds if you agree?"
I smiled and offered her a tenner from my wallet which she squirreled away in a cash box after handing me the black pouch. It felt weightier than it should. "Thank you, Megan." If this was a test, maybe I had passed it.
"If I may?" She scanned quickly across her wares and plucked a stone from a box. She held out her closed hand for me to put mine underneath.
I glanced at Blackbird and there was the slightest indication of a nod. I put my hand out, palm underneath her fist. She dropped the stone into it. It was shaped into a tiny pear in a deep glossy blue and had a silver ring attached where the pear-stalk would be. It felt initially cold in my palm but it pulsed into warmth in my hand as if fuelled by some inner heat. It didn't look any different, but it felt somehow alive in my palm. "Megan, we're not…" Blackbird started to explain then halted. She blushed very slightly. I looked from her to Megan, waiting for some explanation.
Megan looked thoughtful for a moment then offered, "Lapis will aid your physical awareness and perhaps enhance the focus of your power. It has other properties, too, but those are the ones that are important for now. "
"Why does it go warm like that?"
I was talking to myself, but Megan thought the question was for her. "It does?" she said, surprised. "Hmmm," added Blackbird in a tone that told me she wasn't going to elaborate.
"Here, let me." Megan held out her hand for the stone. I gave it her back she took it and turned away for a moment. When she turned back she had threaded a leather thong through the loop, which she tied deftly in a knot.
She passed it back to me. "Wear it close to your heart and may it bring you good fortune."
I didn't know quite what to say so I slipped the loop over my head, loosening my tie slightly to allow it to fall down inside next to my skin. I felt it rest cold against my chest then flare to warmth again before slowly cooling to skin temperature, confirming what I had felt before.
"Thank you, Megan." It felt odd to start wearing rocks around my neck, but the warmth emanating from it told me there was more to this than I had thought, and I needed all the good fortune I could get.
"Megan, it has been a pleasure to see you again, but we must go. Rabbit, it's time we were moving on." I nodded, acknowledging the gift once again and slipped the black pouch into my jacket pocket. Then I followed Blackbird through the random swell of people out of the market and back onto the cobbles. "Is she Fey?" I asked Blackbird as we moved out of earshot.
She glanced sideways at me but then continued walking and, for a moment, I thought maybe she hadn't heard me. Then she spoke.
"Megan is an interesting person because she is sensitive to our kind. She can usually tell if a person has Fey blood – she knew you did straight away. And you've seen the skill she has with stones." We were momentarily separated by an American couple with broad Western drawls delighting over the ancient monument of Covent Garden, reminding me that what people considered ancient was all relative.
"But she has no power as far as I am aware," Blackbird continued as if she had not been interrupted. "I came across her when I was looking for a gift for someone and she had the ideal thing for me except that when she searched for it, it wasn't there. Some very light fingers were pilfering her stock. She knew they weren't the run-of-the-mill thief as this wasn't the first time things had gone missing from under her nose but she had not found a way to prevent it from happening. "
"And you helped her."
"I placed a simple ward on her stall making it uncomfortable to steal from her, then spread the word that if I caught the thief, I would have the price of the thievery out of their hide." She smiled a grim smile and for a moment there was something predatory there. "Couldn't you just have them arrested?"
"The Feyre live outside of human law and human law enforcement. There are no Fey criminals. If you've done wrong, you've done wrong. Fey justice, when it is served, is immediate and personal. If someone transgresses against one of us then that one has the right to satisfaction, in blood if necessary. It is our way. "
"Your way, you mean."
"No, I meant what I said. It is our way whether you like it or not, and it is a way you will learn if you want to survive. Others will not make the allowances for you that I have."
"I hadn't noticed you making allowances for me."
"That's what's worrying me. Here, we're going down." Blackbird made for the entrance to Covent Garden underground station and waltzed through the barrier without validating a ticket. I fumbled for my card, then waved it at the machine and followed her. "How did you do that?" I indicated the barriers where the attendant watched people passing through but had completely failed to notice Blackbird walking through without a ticket. "Do what?"
"You just walked through the barriers without paying."
"The barriers aren't meant for me," she explained as the lift door opened. Thankfully at that time of day most of the people were coming up in the lift, not going down and we had the lift car to ourselves.
"So you just walked through the barriers because you thought you could? Everyone else has to pay. "
"I don't, though, do I?" she explained, as if I were a two year-old.
I found myself trying to argue with the obvious. I had just watched her walk through the barrier, so I knew she could do it. If the reason she could do it was because she thought she could then perhaps that was reason enough. It occurred to me that there was an underlying arrogance to the Feyre. They believed they were privileged and because they believed it, they were. It was an arrogance I was familiar with amongst human beings, especially at senior levels within companies, but it translated to the Feyre well enough.
The lift reached the bottom and the doors rolled open to the empty corridor. Blackbird exited and I followed her out and towards the platform, except that she swung right after the lifts. I followed her into the passage that joined the platform entry and exit passages. She halted outside a door marked Staff Only – No Entry. "Here we are." She tapped on the door and entered. "It said Staff Only," I pointed out, in case she hadn't noticed. "I know. It's to keep people out. "
"Should we be in here then?"
"No one comes in here unless they're entitled to, trust me. And if they did, they would regret it." Inside we took the spiral stairs leading down. A little way down, a passage led off to the base of the lift shaft but the steps spiralled on down. "Where does this lead to?"
"I think it used to be a service tunnel, but it's been adapted for other purposes now. Here we are." The stairs ended in one of the circular tunnels that are common on the underground, except that this one looked as if it hadn't been used in years. The floor was smeared with something dark in places. Worryingly it looked organic in origin, as if something had decomposed there and left a stain.
Blackbird passed me the brown sack with the pigeon sleeping in it and stepped slowly down the corridor away from the spiral stair. I hung back. The hairs on the back of my neck slowly lifted until I could feel them prickling down my neck. Some instinct was telling me it wasn't safe here and that my best course of action would be to flee back up the stairs as fast as I could. She paused and cocked her head as if listening for something. The light illuminated only the first fifteen feet, then slowly merged with the darkness beyond, vanishing into featureless grey.
"Are we going down there?" I spoke softly to her back as the distance slowly increased between us. She held up her left hand with one finger raised to indicate that I should be quiet. She paused then stepped forward again into the edge of the darkness. As she did, a huge shaggy figure coalesced out of the grey and reached out for her. "Blackbird!" I shouted a warning.
The long shaggy arms closed around her, sweeping her up. I was torn between trying to rescue her and running back up the stairs. My cowardice shamed me, but the thing was immense. Huge hairy arms grasped Blackbird's slight frame. It had swept her up off the floor as if she were weightless and was crushing her against its chest. What could I do?
A long low growl came from the tunnel echoing from the walls as Blackbird kicked her legs helplessly, caught in its grasp. Why didn't she zap it or something? Torn between staying to watch Blackbird's fate and saving myself from a similar one, I stayed at the bottom of the stairs, hand on the rail ready to run for it when my laggard brain made sense of the low growling emanating from the creature.
"Bbbbrrrraaaacckkkbiiirrrddd." The sound rolled like a glacier grinding gravel.
It knew her name?
I hesitated as I heard another noise. It was muffled, but it came from the figure pressed into the creature's chest.
Blackbird was laughing.