Chapter 2 #3
She nods briefly, eyes darkening like ink, like she knows already, like she can sense the goodbye I haven’t the heart to utter. ‘After we’ve got the mark.’
I sweep my gaze over the grimy building we’ve now reached, unremarkable in this too tight alleyway. The door is firmly closed but every so often, I’m sure I catch the slightest hint of movement, a flutter behind the drawn curtains.
‘We can’t go in round the back,’ I say quietly. ‘These houses all have yards backing on to the row behind. It’ll have to be this door.’
I hear the gentle scraping sound of Dolly drawing a knife. She’s always seemed so strong, so fierce, untouchable. But now, knife in hand, she looks out of place. Frail and vulnerable, every inch of her eighty years.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ I say to her, dragging my gaze back to the house, this assignment. ‘You should wait in the car with Banks. I don’t want you getting hurt, or—’
‘Nonsense,’ she says, tutting. ‘Lead on, my girl.’
‘Dol—’
‘I said …’ She lowers her voice. ‘Lead. On.’ Then she regards me with a quirk of a smile, saying our words, and I can’t say no to her. ‘I will if you will.’
I push down on the door handle, then step into the dark beyond.
Inside the townhouse, I listen for any creak of floorboards.
This house feels watchful and all too silent.
There’s a reason I like carrying out the Collector’s assignments in crowded places.
I’m forgettable in a crowd. Almost invisible.
But here, there’s nowhere to hide. And possibly nowhere to run to if this mark turns on us.
All I need is a drop of their blood so the Collector can put them on his map, and follow them.
But getting that blood in the tight confines of a house like this …
‘No separating,’ I say softly to Dolly, pointing to the parlour door, then the stairs. ‘If this goes to shit, get a hobble on.’
‘Cheeky,’ she mouths back and I split a grin in the gloaming.
I nudge the parlour door open with the toe of my boot and find the room empty.
The only sign of inhabitancy is a quill pen with ink on the nib lying haphazardly on a dusty desk, a splatter of black ink as though it has just been dropped, and a letter, half written in a language I can’t read.
It looks Allowayan, the territory to the east of here, beyond the borders of our territory, Kellend, beyond even Theine, Alloway is where magic is outlawed and wielders are cast out, or executed.
A sense of wrongness prickles within me.
‘I don’t think we should be here, Dol.’
‘No,’ she says, turning to me. ‘I don’t think so either.’
Dolly smudges a finger through the ink blots, narrowing her eyes on the letter. ‘Maybe our mark was maintaining her correspondence before we came to call.’
Shivery cold brushes the back of my neck like a caress, and I take a deep breath.
‘Can you smell that? It’s all through this alleyway, but somehow stronger in here. Like copper—’
‘It’s blood,’ she says quietly. ‘Heated blood that’s cooled off.’
I swallow down the lump stuck in my throat. ‘We should bail, tell the Collector we couldn’t—’
A man’s feral shriek rents the room, cutting me off.
‘Was that …’
Dolly’s head snaps to the hallway. ‘It came from upstairs.’
I pull out my switchblade and move to the hallway. The silence is deafening and, as I place my foot on the first step of the staircase, the sound of my own heartbeat is a throbbing scream in my ears. ‘Dol, watch my back and cut anything that moves.’
On the upstairs landing we pass a door, open a crack. Dust layers everything, like this room hasn’t been touched in months. Perhaps years. Yet the rocking chair within is moving, swinging back and forth. Back and forth.
Fuck this.
I turn to Dolly and mouth, ‘We’re going.’
She nods, hobbling for the staircase and I cast a last look at the two shut doors. There’s not a single sound from either, but I know someone, or something is intensely aware of our presence in this house.
Dolly reaches the hallway as I’m halfway down the staircase. ‘Banks will have waited around the corner. Can’t get the motor car down these—’
She gasps, stumbling back from the door to the parlour and all I see is shadow, then blood. It happens so fast I barely register she’s been hurt before her fragile body slams into the wall. She blinks once, that gorgeous silk robe hanging loose from one shoulder as she garbles incoherently.
‘Dolly!’ I cry as she tries to stand, then slumps back against the wall.
I fly down the last few steps, the coppery scent so strong I have to force down a gag.
She’s got a gash, chest to stomach, her hands clutching her flesh as she struggles to breathe.
There’s a high-pitched giggle from the parlour and I whip around to find a boy standing there.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, a streak of dark blood smudged across his pale features. Dolly’s blood.
‘Oops,’ he says as I open my mouth and scream.
The boy sniffs the air, dark eyes almost hollow in the low light and I realise he may not be a boy at all. His hair is … grey. Not the ashy blonde of a fair child, but the depleted colour of age. I plant my body between him and Dolly, shaking with fear and fury. ‘Get away from her.’
The boy’s head tilts to the side and he licks his lips. ‘She doesn’t taste right anyway. Weak. But you …’ He sniffs again, little fists bunching and unbunching at his sides as he exhales. ‘You smell delicious .’
He moves faster than I can track in the narrow hallway, those hands grasping for my throat.
I slash up with my switchblade, shoving him away, and he hits the floor with a gurgling sound.
But he’s up on his feet a heartbeat later, coming at me again, mouth full of a snarl of teeth.
I kick out, my years of training with the Collector snapping into place, and catch him in the chest. He hits the doorframe of the parlour with a sickening crunch.
‘Vicious, vicious human,’ he says. ‘Maybe I won’t make it quick.’
But I don’t give him a chance to come at me again as I surge forward, connecting my fist with his face.
He sways, temporarily stunned, and I hook my foot around his ankles, tripping him to the ground.
He grunts but I don’t stop, pinning him with a foot as Dolly cries at my back, the heart, the heart, girl!
I clutch my switchblade and stab, over and over, our mingled screams shaking the very walls.
It’s only when he no longer moves that I step back, tremors racking my body.
‘A monster, a fucking monster …’ I gasp, watching as the boy shrivels to a wizened corpse, the rest of him matching the grey, aged hair on his head before turning to dust. There are creatures in this world but surely vampires are myth, the kind that hunt and thirst for human blood …
When I turn back to Dolly, I find a mess of blood and fear.
‘No …’ I breathe, moving to her side, heart crashing against my ribs, not knowing what to do, how to save her—
‘Don’t let me die here, girl,’ she pants, reaching a sticky hand up to cup my cheek. ‘Get me to Banks.’
I don’t know how, but I drag her body from that house, back down the alleyway, leaving a bloody trail in our wake.
I pull her arm over my left shoulder, clutching her to me as she moans, telling me to hurry .
A low whining begins in my ears, tinny and harsh, and it’s like I’m watching what’s happening from afar, like it’s not really happening at all and this is a nightmare, a bad dream.
‘Talk to me, Dolly,’ I keep saying in her ear, my voice cracking. ‘I’ll buy you those chocolates you like. I’ll never complain about your smoking again. Shit, I’ll buy the cigarettes for you . I’ll do anything. Just talk to me, Dolly. Stay with me, please …’
She huffs a few words, but as I drag her around the corner of the alleyway, she falls silent. Horribly silent.
I don’t stop moving until I see the motor car, then Banks, throwing open the car door, running for us.
He skids to his knees and I collapse, letting Banks cradle Dolly’s head in his lap.
She blinks up at him, eyes only for him, and in this quiet, hopeless place, it begins to rain.
I sit beside them, sobbing quietly as Banks says over and over, I love you, don’t do this, I love you …
But there’s so much blood. A person can’t lose that much. Not even a wielder could help her now, and I can do nothing but take her cold hand in mine. Then her eyes fall on me. I have to lean in, only just catching her strained whisper. ‘He’s not … your uncle. Always … the heart.’
Before I can ask her what she means, before I can beg her not to leave me, the light in Dolly’s eyes fades away.
Banks’s head falls forward, his forehead resting against Dolly’s hair, and a deep guttural sob consumes his entire being.
For the first time in my life, I see him cry.
I sit back on the cobbles as the sky opens up, the rain swelling to a storm overhead.
That tinny ringing in my ears is relentless and all I can do is stare at her unmoving face.
Banks’s keening cry is too much to bear.
It’s too real, too weak and full of anguish.
I heave a breath, my heart breaking into a thousand pieces as the street runs red with a river of rain and blood.