Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 Page 6

  ‘Lizzie,’ I called, but she didn’t stir. I tried again, louder. ‘Lizzie!’

  ‘She can’t hear you, dear. I use a sleeping spell right up until I’m ready to put them in the press. You don’t want too much panic; that sours things. It’s the grief you need, the pain, and it’s always best taken fresh. Giving them time to worry just makes things, well, stale and bitter.’ Her eyes glittered. ‘My, what a vintage you would have made when you were young, girl. What anguish, what unadulterated heartache! The loss of your father, everything you’d known overturned. What wouldn’t I have done to take your tears . . . It’s so much sweeter, a wine born of deep sorrow.’ She clicked her tongue. ‘But that grandmother of yours kept such a watch over you! How fierce she was.’ Her tone was equal parts irritation and admiration.

  ‘Wake her,’ I said. ‘Wake Lizzie up and give her to me and we’ll walk out of here. I’ll tell no one about you. Just give her to me.’ I’d have told a million lies if only I could get the little girl away safely, but of course the woman knew that, and it was clear she had no fear of me. I had so many questions and the idea that she might have answers tore at me, but I refused to be distracted, mindful of cats and curiosity.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ the woman told me. ‘Where was I? Oh, yes, your father. A reliable business partner, a talented Kinderfresser, but he could be so rash, so foolish when under pressure to fill orders. He very nearly ruined everything.’ She shook her head sadly, a you just can’t get the staff look on her face.

  ‘Zvezdomir Tepes knows I’m here,’ I lied. It didn’t matter if I screamed; no one would hear me, not down here deep below the ground. But I wasn’t going to tell her about Ziggi. If she got me, I didn’t want her sneaking up on him. ‘If I go missing, he’ll come looking and the full weight of the Council will be brought to bear.’ That sounded pretty grand, I thought, though in reality it would really mean both Bela and Ziggi.

  ‘I can handle the Council, lovie,’ she confided, and her certainty made me shiver. On the table, Lizzie twitched and the woman tut-tutted. ‘You’ve broken my concentration. Enough of this.’

  She came at me so quickly I didn’t have time to think. In my mind, she was still the sort of woman who was only dangerous if the café ran out of macaroons, but she was old, very old, and infinitely stranger and stronger. Beneath her well-kept skin was something else, something mean and hurtful that writhed and wriggled as if anxious to be seen. While I was watching the shadowplay beneath her surface she punched me in the chest with both fists. I felt her rings rip the thin cotton of my T-shirt, pierce my skin and bury themselves into the flesh.

  She cackled as I fell straight backwards and hit my skull on the concrete. My eyes closed with shock and I saw starbursts behind my lids, then blacked out briefly.

  The agony of being dragged along the smooth cold floor was what woke me; that, and the pain in my lacerated chest and pounding skull. She had hold of my ankles and was pulling me along easily, not struggling with my weight at all. She was hideously strong. When we reached the furnace, she let my legs drop, which also hurt. I lay there trying to make my body and brain work, trying to get to my damned feet and fight. At last I started looking around, and I found Lizzie’s terrified stare; with the witch’s attention elsewhere she’d woken but, playing possum, not rolled off the steel table. I tried to send comfort, hoping she’d be brave, as I got my thoughts in order.

  The old woman yanked open the door of the furnace with a great clank and the heat whooshed out. She meticulously pulled on her gloves and started chattering again, tilting her head towards me. ‘Ah, awake. Good. You’re quite tall. How am I going to fit you in? Might be a bit of a squeeze. The little ones aren’t generally any problem . . .’

  She leaned down to grab my wrists so she could heave me forward: Baba Yaga, the witch in the forest, the stepmother offering a poisoned apple. She hauled my top half up and for a moment our faces almost touched. She laughed, her breath stinking like rotten meat, and let me go, then she wrapped her hands around my waist and gathered me upwards. That was when I got my fingers to her throat and she laughed again, and kept laughing until she felt my grip tighten.

  ‘I may look Normal,’ I hissed, ‘but I’m my father’s daughter.’

  Then she was gasping for breath and taking me seriously, and I felt her nails bursting through the heatproof gloves and tearing into my back. I couldn’t stop myself screaming, but I kept squeezing, watching her face turn purple, her lips cyanotic, as her claws ripped deeper holes in me, closer to organs that would not react well to puncturing.

  Then she was went limp. My hands fell away, the agonising pain in my back making it hard to concentrate, then someone – Lizzie! – pushed the witch away from me. The woman, reviving, crashed against the open maw of the furnace, pulling Lizzie with her. I almost fell trying to reach Lizzie, but forced myself upright and managed to shove the little girl out of the way as the Winemaker, with smoke already rising from the back of her head, started to shriek. I punched her in the chest, just as she had done to me, and she overbalanced, her beautifully coiffed platinum hair blazing red and gold, in flames.

  I grabbed her ankles, lifted and shoved with all my might, and the top half of her disappeared into the oven. I jammed the rest of her in and Lizzie slammed the door shut. I slid the bolt home with shaking fingers.

  I hugged Lizzie close as we listened to the drumming of desperate heels and the beating of angry fists for a longer time than I’d have thought possible.

  Welcome to the gingerbread house.

  Chapter Seven

  As the cab crossed the Story Bridge in the soft darkness I felt every bump and dip in the road: a regular rolling rhythm of thud thud thud. My wounds ached and itched and the warm leak of blood seeped down my skin. My T-shirt was horribly sticky – the back seat was going to need some cleaning – but I wanted to get Lizzie home to her mother before I did anything else. Sleep called, but I fought it. It wasn’t only Ziggi’s rear eye intent upon me this time; the two at the front kept flicking to my image in the mirror too. I gave him a weak grin and a wave.

  ‘I know I’ve asked already, but I’m gonna repeat myself: are you okay?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m a human pincushion. I’m sorry about the mess.’

  ‘Not the first time, prob’ly not the last.’ He hit the horn as a black Mercedes merged into our lane and came a little too close to cutting off the cab’s nose. ‘When’re you gonna tell Bela?’

  ‘When I stop bleeding.’ I paused, then admitted, ‘The thing is, Ziggi, I’m not sure what to tell him . . . she knew my father. She knew about me. You think this is over?’

  He was quiet for a bit, then asked quietly, ‘Kid okay?’

  I looked down at Lizzie. Her head was on my lap, her body curled beside me. She was sucking her thumb, but I could feel tremors running through her, like a dog dreaming it was chasing a rabbit.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, thinking of all the kids who weren’t. ‘She will be.’

  Ziggi pushed a CD into the player. Harp music fluttered around us, nearly lulling me to sleep.

  It was almost midnight when we arrived at Mel’s to find her in the company of two police officers; when I’d called ahead to let her know Lizzie was safe I’d assumed the cops would be well and truly gone by the time we turned up. I should have known better. Both were young and hungry – must have been a slow night in the Normal world – and maybe they sensed there was a story not being told. While I knew they were just doing their job, their enthusiasm for asking questions felt overwhelming. While Mel was overjoyed to have her daughter back, and didn’t care how it had happened, the officers were not so willing to let things go.

  In fact, they were pretty unhappy with my inability to remember important details, like where I’d found Lizzie, and who’d put such a variety of obviously painful holes in me. They wanted to spend a lot of time talking through the evening’s events and taking notes, but I really needed to sleep. When they threatened to take me to the Watch House
so I could think about what I’d done, I insisted on my right to one phone call. They told me I wasn’t in America, but I made the call anyway, waking someone who wasn’t especially pleased to hear from me at that hour, but who did at least convince the efficient young men to stop asking me questions and go and chase real criminals.

  Quietly, Mel asked me if all the blood on me was mine; when I whispered No, she gave a short, sharp, satisfied jerk of her head. That was when I gave in to the urge to fall over. The floor was very welcoming, but Ziggi wouldn’t let me stay there.

  ‘To the hospital, my good man,’ I said weakly, giving in at last.

  ‘Like hell. We’re going where you fucking well should’ve gone in the first place.’

  *

  Louise the healer was middle-aged, motherly and pleasant, and the only indication that she was other than she appeared were the vertical slits of her pupils, which she used to great effect over the next few hours, giving me disapproving looks as she worked her magic on my pierced and battered carcase. Through the paper-thin walls of her apartment-cum-treatment rooms, I could hear Ziggi on the phone. He was filling Bela in on the evening’s fun and games, which gave me a huge sense of relief. For a while at least, I didn’t have to take responsibility for anything.

  Louise ground her teeth as I removed my shredded shirt and bloody jeans, as much at the scarring on my lower limb as at my new injuries. A lot of incense was lit, herbs were crushed and powdered and rubbed into wounds where they burned for a while before subsiding to a comforting warmth. Then she made a series of fresh cuts in my recently healed leg and poured a variety of oils – some fragrant, some very much not – into them. On the whole, there was more pain than I’d have preferred, but by the end of it – and after the micro-naps I managed in between the bits that hurt – I felt miraculously improved. When she finally let me get off the table I found I was walking pretty much without a limp, and the bone-deep ache that had been my constant companion for months was just about gone.

  It was still dark by the time Ziggi smugly delivered me home. I was so hopeful, as I scrambled out of the cab and waved farewell, that a few hours of sleep was in my near future, but then I spotted the black ’74 Porsche 911 Turbo parked a little way up the street. Before I’d even got my front door open I could smell coffee and hear someone rummaging around inside. I wanted to throw myself on the ground and cry. Only one person would dare to break in to make hot drinks.

  Bela, buried deep in the pantry, emerged with an ancient packet of Teddybear biscuits. ‘This the best you can do?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘You always used to have TimTams,’ he whined.

  The case was solved and he’d relaxed. Bela was always more pleasant, closer to human, at those moments, and I remembered what I’d first seen in him. So maybe Ziggi hadn’t been entirely right: it wasn’t that Bela wasn’t who I wanted him to be, just that the Bela I’d wanted to be with was only evident sometimes. The divide between that Bela and the ultra-focused guy I worked for was an abyss you might never climb out of.

  ‘I also used to have an arse that weighed twenty kilos all on its own.’

  He appraised me as if seeing me for the first time. ‘You look better than I thought you would.’

  ‘Ziggi’s healer is amazing. You should have made me go to her long ago.’

  He choked, and managed, ‘Because you respond so well to being told to do something . . .’

  We waited for the pot to gurgle and he put sugar in my mug, even though I’d told him a hundred times I’d given up; at least he left it black. As he carried the cups out to the darkness of the back deck, I brought up the rear with the world’s saddest-looking packet of biscuits. The chairs protested as we settled into them and I thought maybe it was time to get new ones before someone went through the worn canvas.

  ‘So, Bela, what are we going to do?’ I asked. The night felt like a bubble around us.

  ‘You know, I really hate it when you call me that,’ he said mildly.

  ‘I know. And I hate sugar in my coffee.’ But I took a sip anyway. ‘Again: what are we going to do, Bela?’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘About what?’

  ‘Her. The Winemaker. What about tracking down her clients?’

  ‘The kid’s okay,’ he said. That was apparently the refrain for the day. ‘The disappearances will stop.’

  ‘You’re not going to do anything?’ I felt the old anger raise its head and pushed it back down, determined to stop my knee-jerk reactions, no matter how justified.

  ‘What is there to do?’ he asked reasonably. ‘The beldame’s dead. I’ve told Eleanor and the other Councillors that the problem has been solved.’

  ‘When I threatened her with the Council, that old woman said she could handle them – and she wasn’t at all bothered. Doesn’t that give you pause?’

  ‘V, if the Five had anything to do with her, why would they have me – and by extension, you – investigate?’

  ‘Believe me, I’ve thought about that. If you’re a member of the Council and indulging in naughtiness, surely objecting to any investigation is going to paint a big red “Suspect Me!” sign on your chest.’ I tried to get him to understand. ‘You make your exit strategy first, just in case, but you also let things take their course and hope for the best.’

  ‘Is that why you didn’t report in?’

  I had the good grace to blush. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him; just that I knew that whatever I told him would’ve gone straight to the Five. ‘It wasn’t only her,’ I pointed out. ‘Aspasia said something similar.’

  ‘Aspasia? Person voted most likely to yank your chain?’ He gave me a disbelieving stare. ‘V, the old woman was just trying to make you despair. These things, they go away—’

  ‘Great. So the bad shit goes on tour.’ I shook my head, feeling a pulse building at the base of my skull. ‘It doesn’t stop being your – our – responsibility because it’s not in our back yard any more. She wasn’t operating in a vacuum, Bela – people were paying for that wine. And you can bet other things are being done, too.’

  He held up his hands. ‘I just meant that without the wicked witch there’s no one to ask about her buyers. And it’s not like she kept records, or at least, none that I found.’

  ‘What was her name? How long had she been here? She said she knew Grigor, Bela, that he’d worked for her.’

  ‘Well, whoever she was, no one’s admitting to knowing her. There was no handbag lying around with ID in it. And you kind of toasted her, V – if there was anything on the body, it’s ashes.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tangle of warped pearls, precious stones and melted golden metal. He dropped the mess into my palm – I thought I still felt some warmth to it and imagined the devouring flames – then ran his hands over his face. ‘Honestly, you think I wouldn’t know if a Council member was breaking our laws?’

  ‘How would you?’ I challenged. All I could hope for now was to plant a seed of doubt in him. ‘Ziggi drove by West End Library again: Her photo on the noticeboard, the newspaper piece about her donating money? It’s unreadable. It was faded before, but you can’t even make out her features now. Someone’s set an erasing spell.’

  ‘She probably set a general track-covering technique in case she had to make a quick exit. She didn’t expect to get Fassbindered.’ He paused. ‘No one ever does.’

  ‘What about the house? The filing cabinets? What about a title deed? There’s got to be some kind of documentation. No one can live without leaving any trace at all . . .’

  ‘Look,’ he sighed, ‘I arrived more than an hour after Ziggi got you and the little girl out of there. Anyone could have got in – after you broke the door – and swept the place. I can’t tell you what I don’t know, V.’

  ‘What about Sally Crown?’ I knew what I’d promised, but after seeing Lizzie laid out on a steel table and having my own flesh perforated, I wasn’t bothered about maintaining Sally’s anonymity. Besides, I wasn’t entirely s
ure that she hadn’t sent me to the gingerbread house with intent, to win some Brownie points from her boss.

  ‘The Normal girl? Gone. No sign of her.’

  I didn’t think my cash would have got her very far, but it was clear Sally wasn’t too fussy about how she earned an income. She might have had a stash elsewhere. ‘But—’

  ‘There’s nothing to go on, V. Let it go,’ he said softly. ‘You did good.’

  I was silent, and he took this for agreement, which was a sure sign that he hadn’t learned much from our time together. He went on, as if I would be easily distracted by a shiny new object to chase, ‘But that other matter I mentioned still needs attention. A missing person case, a private consultancy.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you mean “no”? It’s a job.’

  ‘I mean “no” in the traditional sense of “No, fuck off”.’ I ran a hand through my hair, then noticed I still had blood under my nails. I wasn’t sure if it was hers or mine. I badly needed a shower. ‘I’m really sick of getting stabbed, bitten, beaten and threatened with umbrellas. Umbrellas, Bela: what the hell kind of life is that?’

  ‘You haven’t been shot,’ he offered.

  ‘Yet – yet! And how does that help?’ I scratched at the new cuts on my leg, which had started itching. ‘If you hadn’t got me involved, then Lizzie never would have been in danger.’

  ‘But you couldn’t have known that – I couldn’t have known that.’ He sniffed as if insulted.

  ‘Yeah, you could. You should have had an inkling. And so should I.’ I picked at a thread on my jeans. Maybe I was being unfair. I’d resolved to be nicer to my boss; I just hadn’t realised how much of a strain it would be. We sat quietly for a bit, eating stale Teddybear biscuits and staring into the darkness, which felt somehow safer.