A Crack in Everything (4 page)

Íde, the matriarch of the mountains, hadn’t come in years. Not since her lover, Wild, died right there, at the table, poisoned by an unknown hand. They hadn’t replaced Wild because Íde would never allow it.

And the Seanchaí, the Storyteller as she was sometimes known, was no longer part of the council. She wouldn’t leave
her hall, content to sit there and dwell on the future and the past, instead of the now. Her seat at the head of the table would never be used again.

So half the council made up what was left of the council. They governed all the fae in Dubh Linn, of every kind, from the highest to the lowliest, maintaining a fragile peace. Sometimes their hand weighed heavily, and at other times it could not be felt at all.

They were not friends, not even in convenience. This gathering was about the only thing keeping them from all-out war and though it had served this purpose for more years than he could tell, it still didn’t make the atmosphere any more comfortable. No one held a grudge like one of the Aes Sídhe, the nobility of the fae. Hot or cold, they were still at war, and that meant subterfuge, espionage and a variety of colourful
assassination
attempts were all on the cards. Of course they were. Wild’s death had shown that. It was the way of the Aes Sídhe, as old as time. But equally that didn’t mean they couldn’t meet and be coolly civil. Well, almost civil. Barbed words and one-upmanship were just more weapons in this most lethal of games.

‘Well,’ Holly said at last. ‘It’s about time you got here.’

Jinx bowed his head respectfully. ‘It’s wonderful to see you, grandmother.’ He even sounded like he meant it.

Holly wasn’t fooled though. She glowered at him. ‘Probably a good idea to claim that relationship, Jinx.’

‘Then again,’ Brí interrupted, her clear, bright voice ringing
around the room, ‘maybe not. Given that he’s the child of a traitorous mother.’

‘The product of a traitor and an assassin,’ Amadán said with a chuckle. ‘Such a remarkable pedigree for a by-blow.’

Ah yes, his mother the traitor and his father the killer. It always came back to them. Jinx fought to quell the rush of anger inside him. He hadn’t even known his parents, but lived every day with their legacy and the machinations of the very council he faced now.

‘Just so long as he never comes calling at my door.’ Brí poured herself another glass of wine. ‘Blood will out. In more ways than one.’

They all knew about blood. About the spilling of it anyway.

Holly growled something like a curse and stood up, kicking her kneeling slave out of her way. He landed heavily, his face smacking noisily off the parquet floor and lay still, trying to stifle sobs.

They ignored him. It was a kindness that was somewhat unexpected. Clearly his humiliation wasn’t that important to anyone there but Holly.

She stalked towards Jinx and he almost managed not to flinch as she stopped in front of him and slapped his face so hard it snapped his head to one side and left his skin stinging.

Jinx raised his head, but kept his eyes carefully averted from hers. Deferential. Servile.

‘I have a job for you,’ she said.

‘As you command, grandmother.’

She raised her hand again, flexing he fingers as if to unsheathe claws. ‘Be careful boy, or this could quickly become very
tiresome
. Blood kin or not, I owe you nothing. My sources tell me an angel fell today, very close to Silver’s hollow. Maybe even right at the door. We want the spark left behind, Jinx. It’ll empower the touchstones for a decade or more. Quick as you can now.’

A spark? Well, they’d all be hungry for that. A taste of power, a sniff of the divine … that would make every single one of the Aes Sídhe ravenous as wolves. The power that could be drawn from one, the things that could be done, the magic it allowed the skilled and ruthless hand to wield … But that wasn’t up to him. He didn’t have a touchstone or anything like that to put it into. He wouldn’t know what to do with a spark in the first place.

But they did. Each hollow held a touchstone and they were central to the power of the Aes Sídhe. Even Silver had one, though it wasn’t as powerful as her mother’s. Holly would never allow that. They needed to be fed. That was the problem. Dreams, terror, the million emotions that could be wrung from a human were the most usual energy poured into them – but the light from an angel was the most powerful thing of all.

‘No problem.’ He didn’t even try to keep the relief from his voice. And he’d thought she wanted something difficult. If all he had to do was pick up the sorry remains of a fallen angel and—

The girl had mentioned an angel. Jinx’s breath caught like a lump in his throat. She’d glowed. That was what he’d thought as he left her. She’d
glowed
and that had snared his attention, but what if that wasn’t all? He hadn’t looked any closer. Had he missed a spark in her? She had seemed normal enough. Apart from that wretched glow. An angel wouldn’t cause that, spark or no spark.

But she’d said it … ‘
I wanted to see the angel
.’

Holly’s eyes darkened in suspicion. ‘What is it, Jinx?’

He had to cover, and quickly. Then he had to find the girl. ‘Nothing, grandmother. I’ll go right away.’

‘See that you do.’ She leaned in close and for a moment he thought she was going to kiss his cheek. His whole body stiffened in alarm and shock, but Holly’s lips barely brushed his skin. Instead, she whispered in his ear. ‘And don’t let that red-headed bitch or the old bastard get there first, understand? No one else, understand? Bring it to me and me alone. I’m not planning on sharing such power with them.’

Angels were her thing. He’d seen her in action once, torturing the creature, ripping its spark from it and leaving it no more than a ghostly mark on the walls of her hollow. She’d destroyed not one but hundreds.

Holly glared right into his eyes, a reminder of all the things she had visited on others in the past, things she had made him endure. The silver piercings chilled against his skin and the tattoos coiled tighter.

‘As you command.’

Amadán coughed loudly, clearing his throat with a rattle of phlegm. ‘Something else you should remember, boy. There’s a Grigori resident in Dublin. They don’t take kindly to us messing with their shit, you know what I mean?’

‘He’s just one man.’ Holly glowered at the interruption. ‘And even he can’t be everywhere. We’ll take what we want and he’ll just send another impotent warning.’

‘Not this time,’ Amadán told her. ‘You’ve been greedy of late. They notice. He’ll notice. You don’t want to make a Grigori angry.’

‘
He’s
not going to interfere,’ Brí said. ‘And if he does, I’ll deal with him.’

The Old Man laughed. The sound made Jinx shudder as if he was suddenly unclean. ‘Well, you should know. You interfered with him often enough. Or is that long over now?’

Brí knocked back the glass of wine. ‘Maybe I should interfere with you, Amadán.’

‘No thank you, my dear. I have standards.’

Her lemon-sucking expression tightened still further. ‘All I’m saying is he has other things to concern him just now. Life can be difficult for a family man. Especially when times are hard and money is tight. As I said, if needs be, I will deal with him.’

Holly beamed her most false and barracuda-like smile. ‘There we are then. All settled. Go on.’

Jinx bowed and backed away, keeping his whole demeanour studiously reverent. As he reached the door, slipping past
the grinning Magpies, he allowed himself to breathe again and turned to escape.

Footsteps rapped on the shining parquet flooring, something that would never be allowed in the human building, where it was covered to prevent damage. But this was not that world and no one was going to say a word to deny anyone in that room. Not if they wanted to live.

‘Jinx?’

Silver caught up with him, slipped her arm through his and smiled, leaning against him. Her scent, elderflower and hawthorn, drifted around him. To a human, it would be intoxicating and even Jinx, young by Sídhe standards, had trouble shaking it off. Silver was so much older than him, despite her appearance, and so much more powerful, the prime example of everything an Aes Sídhe should be, a princess among them. One of the most powerful of all the Sídhe except the matriarchs and the council. Why she put up with their petty rulings and restrictions and subjugated herself to them, he didn’t know. Loyalty wasn’t a natural fae trait. But she was also one of the few who had ever been kind to him, the only one who took him into her hollow and made him part of her life; she indulged him, kept him safe, misfit that he was in his own world. She was everything he wasn’t. He owed her more than he could ever repay.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes. I – I should be going.’

‘Run along then,’ she teased, but when he didn’t laugh, she
paused, examining his face closely. ‘Whatever did she say to upset you so?’

‘It’s Holly.’ That ought to have been explanation enough for her, but Silver kept staring at him, waiting. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Well, don’t be late tonight. Big crowd coming in from Cork. Tour group or something. Should be fun.’

Jinx winced. Out of town fae on the razz were notoriously out of control and Silver’s definition of fun usually included a few broken limbs among the bystanders. The club had a way of cleaning up after itself and fae of all kinds could take a lot more punishment than any mortals. Still, it could get … violent. And messy.

‘Whatever. I’ll be there. A gig’s a gig.’

He started for the door again, but Silver’s voice called him, not so brash now, not teasing any more. She almost sounded concerned.

‘Jinx?’

He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Yeah?’

‘Be careful.’

It didn’t take long to get back to the alley where he’d met Izzy. Where he’d stopped her from getting any more lost in Dubh Linn. Rescued her, even if she didn’t know it at the time.

Rescued her. That was a joke. What sort of knight in shining
armour would he make? Particularly as the armour would most likely kill him. Man-made metals burned. There was no other word for it. Not like flames. Like acid. Even those he wore every day. He had never got used to their touch, but they kept him in the desired form and his mind focused on his duty and obligations. They served their purpose. Much as he did.

The first thing to strike him was how quiet it was. Like a tunnel, one of the very old parts of the old city that wound its way in and out of worlds, real and unreal. Cobbles, and high curbs, each stone carefully shaped and worn with age, a certain elegance that was lost to the modern human world, and rapidly deteriorating even in Dubh Linn. His world. One of secrets and shadows, of mysteries that no one could fathom, and really wouldn’t care to know if they could. For just a moment she had crossed a threshold best left alone and he’d done her a kindness in seeing her out of it again. And all for a phone. Mistle’s desire for it was understandable enough to Jinx. Anything shiny and bright, anything clever and cunning, always attracted their kind. But why would Izzy come after it when she could just walk into another shop and get a brand new one, even shinier? Humans were strange creatures, and Izzy was stranger still. But his life would now be a sight easier if he hadn’t seen her out, if he’d kept her close. She’d mentioned an angel and he’d paid her no heed at the time. But even if she hadn’t seen it fall, she must have been here almost immediately afterwards. While the image still
glowed between worlds.

There was no sign of anything untoward now. Dirt and ashes, stinking rubbish, smears of something akin to old paint on the wall.

The ghost of Izzy’s presence lingered on. He toyed with it, letting it run through him, examining it. Not a scent, not really. Rather a
sense
, a ripple in reality caused by her passing through it. But if he closed his eyes and tried, he could have followed her like a bloodhound.

And something else. A crackle of lightning, ozone fizzing on the air, mounting expectation making the hairs on his arms stand to attention.

Damnation, he knew that feeling, dreaded it. All the fae did. He’d never get away in time and glamour wouldn’t work. Besides, if he ran—

Never run
, he’d been taught from childhood.
If you run, they can’t help but chase you
.

No one wanted to be that fox.

Jinx backed away, seeking the darkest corner to pull the shadows around him, a place to hide from the oncoming storm.

Wind burst through the alley, not from either end, but from its centre. Scraps of newspaper and crisp packets took wing, swirling around like demented butterflies.

Two men stood in the eye of this localised hurricane.

No, not men. Only on a first glance would anyone mistake them for men.

The nearer stepped closer to the wall, pressed a pale and slender hand to the stones and closed his eyes. For a moment all was still. Then he shook his head. His hair glistened like gold.

The second, a near mirror image of his brother but for his darker colouring, glanced at Jinx with pale, opal eyes. They’d seen him. Of course they’d seen him.