"Hey Roland, how's it going?" Sandeep pushed the door to the control room closed behind him, feeling the lock click shut under his hand. The shopping centre was closed; there would be no shoppers nosing around where they weren't supposed to be, but security was a good habit to cultivate for a professional.
Roland stretched in his chair. "Evenin' Sunny." Roland didn't even look away from the monitors, but then he'd have watched Sandeep on the screens, walking through the shopping centre from the back entrance.
"Any excitement?" Sandeep took the plastic box and a bottle of water from his rucksack and tucked them into the small fridge in the corner. "It's about time we cleaned this fridge out again. What's this?" He poked a foil package at the back.
"I think it's a kebab. Marky had to leave early — he must've left it."
"Shall I chuck it away?"
"Better not. You know Marky. He'd eat it even if it was furry."
"That boy will poison us all."
"Reckons he's immune to it. He's built up a resistance, he says."
Sandeep closed the fridge just as it whirred into life. It buzzed for a moment and then settled down. He put his rucksack on top of it and then turned to stand behind Roland.
"Is number four not working?" he asked Roland, glancing at the monitors.
"Been playin' up all day, hasn't it? It comes back periodically, so it's not the camera. Must be a fault on the circuit. I'll have to get the electrician to check it out tomorrow. It might be the booster box gone again. Crappy things — they always buy the cheap ones and then they have to replace 'em every three months."
Sandeep turned away and went to the log book, running his finger along the spiky handwriting to decipher it. "What's this in the log?"
"Oh, unit thirty called us down for some kid an hour before closing. You know, the console games shop? He was swearin' at the staff, started pushing the other customers around — threatening people. Marky and me was gonna chuck 'im out."
"Did you call in the police?"
"Nah, he slipped past us. Sneaky little sod must'a been quick on his feet."
"Isn't that where screen four is?"
"Yeah. We didn't have any pictures for the plod, so we left it. He'll be back — they always are. We'll get him next time."
"Didn't you get him on any of the other cameras?"
"Couldn't find him. If you get chance tonight you could go back through the tapes, see if you can get an ID shot."
"I've told you, they don't have tapes any more. It's all on disk now. What did he look like?"
"Tall skinny kid, spiky hair, looked like he hadn't seen daylight in weeks. Could'a been one of them gothics. The time's in the log. The plod'll probably already be acquainted with 'im. They usually are with that sort."
"Goths, Roland. They're called goths."
"Yeah, them. What the…?"
Screen four suddenly cleared, showing a pallid face right in front of the camera, leering up into it.
"Bugger me, that's him. That's the little sod there!"
"How did he get inside at this time?"
"He's been 'ere all the time, hasn't he? The little sod's probably been hiding in one of the store cupboards. Quick, ring the plod. I'll go and catch hold of 'im." Roland stood up, pulling down his sleeves.
"Wait for me, Roland. You shouldn't apprehend alone. It's against the rules."
"Sod that!"
Sandeep was on the phone, speaking to the police control centre when Roland marched out. He watched on the monitor as Roland's back retreated down the corridor outside and flicked to screen twelve to catch him as he came out onto the main concourse. Sandeep finished reporting the intruder and put the phone down.
"Bloody hothead," mumbled Sandeep to himself. "You're not in the bloody army now, Roland."
Pulling the control room door behind him until it clicked shut, he ran after his colleague. By the time he reached the main concourse he was breathless. He leaned against one of the advertising hoardings. A photo of a youth smiled back at him, holding one of the new smart-phones that Sandeep coveted but couldn't afford.
He pulled a hand-held radio from his belt. "Roland, I'm right behind you. Wait for me, OK?"
The radio crackled. There was no reply.
He jogged through the empty shopping centre, glimpsing lurid offers under the bright lights of the stores behind the security grills, massive discounts on artificially inflated prices. It occurred to Sandeep then that the kid hadn't triggered the alarm. If he'd been hiding in the shop, why hadn't the alarm gone off?
As he turned the corner onto the main strip, he could see Roland up ahead, standing next to the palm trees. The kid was a dark outline beyond him, dressed in a long coat. Maybe Roland was right and the kid was a goth. Sandeep slowed to a walk, relieved to have reached them before Roland got heavy with the kid. The last thing they needed were charges for assault.
Roland's voice sounded hollow. "Come on, son. You can't escape. Give yourself up and we'll go easy on you."
Sandeep smiled between wheezes. Roland watched far too many cop movies.
The boy laughed at him. That was bad. Roland wasn't going to like that.
Roland started walking forward again and Sandeep picked up his pace to a trot.
"You don't want to get funny with me, son," called Roland. "I ain't got no sense of humour."
The laughter petered out and the kid lifted his arms as if he were holding something to his chest. Then his left hand jerked back and forth. Sandeep recognised the gesture; he was pumping a round into a pretend shotgun. A sudden breeze stirred the leaves on the palm trees. Sandeep looked up. Where did the breeze come from? They were inside the shopping centre.
He slowed to a halt, turning back to find the source of the cool air when a massive thud punched into him from behind. A wave of heat like the draft from an oven door hit him in the back, lifting him off his feet and hurling him back down the tiled walkway. He tumbled in the air and landed rolling and sliding on the hard tiled floor. As his hearing came back, fragments of glass tinkled onto the tiles around him in a bizarrely musical way over the screeching of the bomb alarms.
He shook his head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears. Pushing himself up, he could see stripes of blood rising on his hands where the glass had slashed him. He turned to look back for Roland, just as the smell of smoke and burning plastic hit him, catching in the back of his throat and making him cough and retch.
Down the concourse, the kid was walking calmly through the debris under the rain from the sprinklers, black smoke billowing from the shops to either side, their security gratings gaping where the blast had burst them open. He stopped in front of another shop, pumped the pretend shotgun and pointed it at a shop. Sandeep squinted through the smoke — there was nothing there. The kid wasn't holding anything. Sandeep watched in disbelief as the kid's hands jerked, as if in recoil, and the shop windows burst outwards to a dull thud, erupting in fire and smoke.
The kid smiled a long lazy smile and began strolling towards Sandeep, pointing to one side, then the other. As he passed each shop he would pump his hand and aim into the shop. At the gesture, the shops would explode in rolling gouts of flame, erupting in a hail of flying fragments, yet he never flinched or turned away. He walked though each explosion untouched, the detonations timed with his steps. It was like he was playing an instrument, waiting for the beat — a pyrotechnic conductor.
As Sandeep pushed himself upright, the boy paused and made a show of noticing him. The boy's eyes caught the light from the fire, glowing with the hellish light. He pumped a round and turned to aim towards Sandeep. Before he was aware of it, Sandeep was running, his legs carrying him in huge leaping strides away from those eyes. There was a dull crump and a roll of thunder behind him and he was lifted and thrown down the concourse, spinning in the air to land hard and twisted on the tiles. Sandeep's arm gave a wet crack as he fell on it. As his hearing returned, he recognised the sound of his own hoarse screaming.
Acutely aware of the pain as bone grated on bone, he made himself roll over and push up to his knees, and then to his feet using his good arm to help him. Once he was up, he cradled his broken arm against his chest, and staggered away from the smoke and the glow from the shop windows.
He glanced back once, thinking of Roland back there. He had to get help. There was a demon loose and the shopping centre was turning into hell.
Garvin looked up from the slim brown folder he was reading as I entered the room.
"This is nice," I told him. "I didn't know you had an office."
There was a large picture of a pastoral scene in a thick gold frame on the wall. The woodwork of the desk was dark and polished and the curtains were tied back with gold sashes to let in daylight.
Garvin leaned forward and closed the folder on the desk in front of him, setting it on a pile of similar folders. He gestured at the striped seat of a regency chair set in front of the desk. "I don't. This is Mullbrook's office. He lets me use it."
I sat down slowly, wondering what circumstance would mean that Garvin needed an office. "Tate said you wanted to see me?"
"We need to talk. There are things to be done — things I need you to do."
"What kind of things?"
"You've been spending a lot of time with Alex. When you're not with Alex you're with Blackbird."
"Alex needs a lot of attention right now, and Blackbird gets tired easily."
"Blackbird is strong enough to lift the back end of a car. She's fey, Niall."
"Half-fey," I corrected him, "and that doesn't mean she can't get tired. It was a long labour. She still hasn't got her strength back"
"She seems to be managing well enough. She's got the stewards to help her. It's not like she's been abandoned, is it?"
I looked at the pastoral scene on the wall. The watercolours ran into one another, making it look like it had been painted in the rain.
"Alex is improving, so Fionh tells me." Garvin sat back, clasping his fingers together.
"There have been fewer incidents," I agreed.
"Fionh says she's exhibiting some clear signs of control, but she says you're babying the girl."
"She said that?"
"Not in so many words, but that was her meaning."
"What did she say, exactly?"
"Niall, you can't carry on babysitting her. She won't take responsibility for herself if you're there making excuses for her every time she screws up."
"I'm not making excuses. She was tortured — abused. She needs time to adjust."
"It's about time she was responsible for her actions. She can't learn if you keep stepping in for her."
"She's fourteen, Garvin. I'm her father. I'm supposed to step in for her."
"In fey terms she's an adult. She's come into her power, responsible for her own actions, or she would be if you let her."
"She wants to see her mother."
"We've discussed that, Niall. It's not a good idea."
"You said she was responsible for herself. She's an adult, you said. She can take her own decisions. Well, the adult has decided she wants to see her mother."
"It's better that Katherine believes that Alex is dead. It'll be easier."
"For whom? For Katherine? I find that hard to believe. I can't imagine a worse situation than losing your child. The loss of her daughter will be the first thing that comes into her head when she wakes up, and the last thing in her mind before she sleeps — if she sleeps. I know, I've been there."
I consciously softened my tone, forcing down the anger that bubbled up inside me when I talked about what happened to my daughter. "Discovering that she's been lied to will be hard. Knowing what's been done to Alex will be harder. But none of it as hard as living with the loss of your only child. It doesn't compare."
Garvin met my stare for a few moments and then looked down at the desk. He sighed, then took the folder from the top of the pile and began laying out press cuttings in front of me.
Shopping Centre Bomb Terror — Flash Flood Swamps Village — Is this the Beast of Balham?
They were tabloid headlines, and the stories below them were no less sensational. The last was accompanied by a blurry photo, probably taken with a mobile phone. Without any scale to reference the image against, it was impossible to tell how big the animal was.
"Looks like silly season," I said.
"Thankfully the shopping centre was closed, though one security guard died and another was injured in the explosion." He picked up a sheet from the folder. "The fire officer's report on the shopping centre is inconclusive. They can find no trace of an explosive or an accelerant, but the fire spread from shop to shop despite fire barriers and a suppression system. It happened in the late evening, so there were only security staff on site. The surviving guard said the security system was on the blink and the screens went dead, but just before the fire he saw someone on the concourse. Two of the guards went down to investigate."
"Arson?"
"Terrorism — possibly eco-warriors or anti-capitalists — at least that's the official version. They think the dead guard might have been involved. The alarms didn't go off and the devices appeared to be timed — a professional job. The guard who died had military training — demolition. The destruction was total, everything burned."
"Sounds bad."
"Could have been worse. It could have been full of shoppers." He picked up another sheet. "Village of Sawlby in Derbyshire washed away three days ago. It's a Pennine village, pretty little place — or it was. Sixteen dead at the last count. Stream came up into a raging torrent." He picked up the cutting, "A wall of water seven feet high swept through the sleepy hamlet." He replaced it on the desk.
"As usual it's the vulnerable that suffer — the old and infirm, or the very young. They're digging bodies out of the mud, trying to clear up the mess. Sound familiar?"
"Alex was here. Fionh's been with her most of the time."
"Alex isn't the only one, though, is she?" Garvin picked up another sheet. "Reports of very large cat-like creature stalking the streets of Balham. Several people have seen it, usually at night, and there are an increasing number of missing pets. It seems to have developed a taste for rabbit."
"Could be an urban fox?"
"One that can open a hutch with a combination padlock on it? The police have been called in, suspecting vandals. They found a trail of paw prints — big ones."
"So there is a cat?"
"The paw-prints vanish in the middle of a park. They just run out."
"What do you mean, run out?"
"The ground was soft, it had rained earlier in the day. They had a specialist with them — she reckoned it was panther of some sort. She tracked the creature into the park, hoping to trace it back to its lair. They had a marksman with a tranquilliser gun on standby. She followed the tracks to a kiddies playground. The tracks go into the sandpit, but they don't come out."
"There were other tracks?"
"Oh, plenty. Kids and parents had been there all day. The only cat tracks were going in, though, not out."
I had a sudden memory of encountering a large black cat in the passages below Porton Down. It had stared at me with knowing eyes while chewing on something that might once have been human.
Garvin laid his hand on the pile of plain brown files next him. "Secretary Carler was good enough to let us have the files from Porton Down. It's difficult for them to tell whether these people are dead or at large. There were some identifiable items, but they could have been dropped or discarded. There were no bodies found, of course, other than the staff."
I winced slightly. Some of the bodies that had been found were people who had died because of me. Raffmir had been particularly ruthless with the medical staff, and my own hands were hardly clean. I had the sudden flashback of a man in military uniform crawling backwards away from me after he'd tried to blow my head off with a shotgun. The fear in his eyes as my hands closed around his throat would never leave me.
I shook my head, trying to clear the image. "You're saying that these incidents are being caused by the escapees from Porton Down — they are doing these things?"
"I'm simply pointing out the correlation between the traits documented in these files and recent incidents in the press. Secretary Carler has requested our cooperation in tidying up the loose ends. He's dealing with the official inquiry. We're dealing with the escaped inmates. These… stories are an embarrassment for all of us. The courts ensure that this sort of thing doesn't happen. I want you on it before it gets out of hand."
"It looks like it's already out of hand."
"Quite."
"What do I do with them if I find them?"
"Bring them in. It's better for them if they come to us. They can join the courts, gain some protection. We'll find a place for them. They can be with people of their own kind."
"And if they don't want to?"
"We're not really offering them a choice, Niall. It's for their own protection."
"But if they won't come?"
"Persuade them."
"And if they won't be persuaded?"
"What do you want, Niall? A signed warrant? You're a Warder. Act like one."
"You want me to eliminate them?"
"If you choose to put it that way. Bear in mind that seventeen people are already dead, and there may be more we don't know about. What did you think they were going to do, blend in with the community?"
"I couldn't leave them there. They were being systematically tortured."
"And torture victims make such good citizens, don't you find? Alex is barely holding it together, and she's had help."
"You said she was improving."
"She is." Garvin stared at me. "You let these people loose, and you need to take responsibility for them. We can't leave them at large. If they come into the courts then all well and good. We can help them, give them support, keep them safe."
"And if not?"
He pushed the pile of folders across the desk. "I'm giving you Warder's Discretion. It's your call. Deal with them."
I left Garvin's office feeling resentful. Why was it my problem? It was hardly my fault that the people at Porton Down had been running secret experiments with half-breed mongrel fey as their subjects, was it?
Subjects? Victims would be a better word. What had been done in the name of science was obscene. They had stuck needles in them, drugged them, tortured them and made them perform like circus freaks, all in the name of research.
Wasn't anyone else going to take any responsibility?
Of course, I already knew the answer to that. I could tell Garvin that I didn't feel capable of fulfilling the mission and he would shake his head and assign someone else? Amber probably. She would finish the job that Porton Down had started and kill them all, quickly, efficiently and without attracting attention. I ought to be grateful that Garvin was giving me a chance to find a better solution, but I didn't feel grateful. I felt manipulated.
I mounted the stairs two at a time — the injuries I'd sustained breaking out of Porton Down had almost completely healed. I still felt a twinge or two in my shoulder where I had caught the edge of a shotgun blast, but only when I was duelling with whichever Warder Garvin chose to partner me with at our morning practice sessions, and even the twinge would soon pass — a benefit of my fey blood.
Walking through the doors to the corridor on which Blackbird and I shared a suite of rooms, I entered quietly in case she was asleep, not that I often found her sleeping during the day, but since she was the one managing the feeds in the middle of the night I thought it would be unkind to wake her if she had finally managed to grab some rest.
I needn't have worried.
The curtains were drawn back and there were sounds of splashing coming from the bathroom. I left the files on the desk and peeped around the door. She had filled the small baby bath in the big bath and was in the process of introducing our son to the warm water. From the noises he was making, he was enjoying it, though that may have been because of the kicking and splashing. Having no wish to end up damp and smelling of baby bath, I eased the door closed and crept out to check on Alex.
Crossing back across the hallway above the stairs, I made my way the far end of the wing where Alex's room was. The size of the house no longer daunted me — I had become used to corridors with room after room set aside for visitors that never arrived. It did mean that Alex could be well away from most of the rest of the occupants of the house — limiting the amount of damage and disruption to the plumbing for the rest of us.
My daughter's affinity with water was both a relief and a problem. I had been worried that she would inherit my gift for the void, or at least the female form of it, and be able to feed from living things by spreading a corruption known as darkspore. It had prevented me from telling her about her potential to inherit my fey genes until it was too late. Instead she'd discovered her gift for herself with disastrous consequences, drowning three other girls after an incident of bullying. She had lost control then, and was still struggling to regain it now.
Instead of the void, Alex had inherited her affinity with water — she called it a sympathy, I never quite understood why. I did ask her once and she told me she felt sorry for it. She said it always wanted to be somewhere else, that it never rested, leaving me wondering whether she was still talking about the water.
I came to her room at the end of the west wing and knocked on her door. There was no answer. I knocked again and waited. There had been time when I would have simply entered, but having walked in on her naked one day — now I waited. No amount of "I've seen it all before" made any difference, apparently.
Having waited again with no answer, I decided it was worth risking the door. I opened it slowly.
"Alex, are you in?"
The door opened onto a large bedroom, the double bed higher than usual and the furniture in dark polished wood that reflected the daylight from the big French doors in a dull auburn gleam. The French doors were open and I could see Alex leaning on the stone balustrade overlooking the gardens below. Fionh was with her, so I approached slowly, not wanting to startle her. Fionh noticed me and held up a hand in caution.
"Gently now, Alex," she said. "Let it find its own way."
I edged towards the French doors to see what she was doing. Alex had her arms folded on the rail and was staring intently down into the garden. At my approach, a floorboard creaked underneath me and Alex glanced back momentarily. There was a gurgling whoosh from the garden below.
"Oh, now look what you've done," said Alex. She threw her arms up and turned her back on the garden, resting her back against the balustrade and looking annoyed at me.
"What did I do?" I looked at Fionh, who smiled thinly.
"The pond will take hours to settle now, won't it Fionh?" Alex sounded oddly pleased. Fionh raised an eyebrow.
I moved onto the balcony and looked down onto the garden below. In the centre was a circular pond, water roiling with sediment.
"That was your fault. If you hadn't distracted me, I wouldn't have disturbed all the mud at the bottom," said Alex.
Fionh shook her head in resignation. "OK, enough for today. But I want five fish on the surface tomorrow."
"Five?"
"They're only fish, Alex."
"Yeah, but they go all over the place. They've got minds of their own, right?"
"Are you going to be beaten by five fish?"
"Four," she said.
"Five," said Fionh, heading for the door. "I have things to do in the morning, but there's nothing to stop you practicing before I get here."
"You sound like my piano teacher."
"Did you learn to play piano?" asked Fionh, suddenly intrigued.
"I had lessons," said Alex.
"That isn't what I asked you."
"I can play a bit," said Alex.
"I thought not," said Fionh. "Tomorrow then, and five, not four. Niall, could I have a word?"
"Talking about me behind my back again?" asked Alex, as we retreated to the corridor.
Fionh waited until I had passed through the door. "Actually, no. I want to speak to your father about something else. I'll talk to him about you when when I can tell him how hard you've worked."
"But I have worked hard…" Alex's voice was muffled as Fionh closed the door.
"You're very patient with her; I'm grateful."
"I'm not doing it for you, and I said we wouldn't talk about her behind her back," she said.
"But I wanted to ask you how she was doing? Garvin said she was improving. She is, isn't she?"
"Improvement is a relative term. Is she better? Yes. Is she ready to join the courts in her own right, no. At least not yet." She glanced towards the door. "I'm hopeful, though."
"Hopeful?"
"She's still having nightmares, Niall. She cries in the night. She puts on a brave face in front of other people, but we both know she's been through a lot."
"Will she ever be the same?"
"I doubt it. In any case, that's not what we're trying to achieve. She's changed — she's had a lot to take on in a short period. She needs to find a new equilibrium, to find her feet again without them getting swept away from under her."
"How long will that take?"
"The rest of her life, maybe? It was you I wanted to talk about, though."
"Me?"
"Yes. I'm busily giving lessons in power to your daughter and you're missing out."
"In what way?"
"I was supposed to be teaching you. Garvin asked me to talk to you about it."
"I've just seen him; he didn't say anything to me."
"No reason he should. You're progressing with your physical training, but that's only half the story. You need to learn to use your power — you have no focus, no concentration, your control is erratic — you're ruled by your emotions."
"And on the positive side…?"
She smiled, but the smile faded. "It will get you killed Niall. It took you weeks just to master your glamour enough to carry a sword without anyone noticing."
"That's more difficult than it looks."
"Warders have to control their power — not just use it but make it an extension of their will. It's a weapon that's more potent than your sword and potentially a greater weakness if it's used badly."
"I get by."
"Getting by isn't enough. Your power should be an expression of your inner self, a reflection of your determination, concentration and will-power. Use it well and you won't need to fight."
"I'm not sure my inner self needs expression."
"I'm talking about learning to use your power, Niall, not therapy sessions."
"Look, sorry but I'm too old to go back to school. I'm just trying to imagine you teaching me the way you teach Alex."
"I'm not sending you back to school, and I'm not going to be teaching you. I have my hands full with Alex and my other duties, remember? I've arranged for someone else to give you lessons later on."
"But not with you?"
"No."
"Then who's teaching me?"