A Crack in Everything (7 page)

After the gig that afternoon she'd mentioned his name. Dylan had barely heard it, he was so concerned about her attack, about the fact she wouldn't report it, but he should have known by the way she spoke of him. Suddenly it was all clear, why Izzy was here, why she'd been in town when she'd never been a rule-breaker. Not to meet up with them. No change of heart there. Jinx was the one she'd come looking for, the guy who had rescued her earlier. It all suddenly made perfect sense.

‘Yeah. Figures.' A surge of jealousy took him by surprise. Izzy was a friend, that was all. But she'd been in danger and Jinx had swept to the rescue and all the while Dylan had been
playing a lousy afternoon promo gig in a music store for a band that was probably never going anywhere. Brilliant. Marianne had laughed and told him he'd missed his hero moment. Not that he was interested. It would be too weird. Izzy was a friend, a good friend, and more like another little sister. One he was probably closer to than his real sister.

Silver slipped her hand into his. Her touch was very cold, but delicately seductive, the touch of new snowflakes at midnight.

‘So you're a musician as well?' She stepped into his line of vision, blocking Izzy and Jinx from view. All thought of them fell away. His mind fumbled after them for a moment, and then gave up as the music in Silver's voice wrapped itself around him. She smiled and all he could think was that he wanted to see that smile every day. Every minute of every day.

‘Guitar,' he told her. The smile broadened. Her teeth were astonishingly white and a little too sharp. ‘I mean, I play the guitar.' He didn't tell her about Denzion. The band seemed a paltry thing next to her.

‘And you heard my music,' she said, twining her fingers with his and then she pulled him after her as she set off across the room towards a VIP section, heedless of the crowd. Indeed the crowd just seemed to melt out of her way. ‘That makes you special right from the start. You're what, seventeen, eighteen?'

He bristled, just as anyone would when faced with that sort of question. ‘Eighteen.'

‘Just left school? At a loose end? Watching it all change right
in front of you?' She laughed, turning back to look at him with a gleam of delight in her eye. It was one of the most dangerous things he'd ever seen.

‘Something like that,' he admitted. Because she seemed to be peering into his head and reading his thoughts. All his parents talked about were exam results, college applications and courses. ‘They want me to study law. I mean how many guitar-playing lawyers do you know?'

‘One or two,' she replied with a smile. ‘But I see what you mean. Come and play for me, Dylan. Let me hear you. Maybe I can offer you something special in return. A little deal?'

‘A … a deal?' He stumbled as he followed her, but when she glanced back he forgot his confusion. It felt like magic. Like being in the right place at the right time for once. Like he'd just walked into a dream.

‘Yes. I'm Leanán Sídhe. Do you know what that means?' He shook his head. He recognised the words as Irish, but he didn't know them. Silver gave a wriggle of something like excitement. ‘So innocent. Come on.'

Innocent? Great. That was what she thought? Before he had a chance to protest, she pushed the heavy velvet curtain aside and he was drawn into her lair.

The room beyond was deserted, luxurious and dominated by a white tree. Like some kind of willow made of marble, the branches trailed down to the ground. But this was no thing carved from stone. Vitality and power radiated from it. It was slim, like Silver, full of grace and beauty, just like her. And so
very alive.

The curtain fell behind him with a heavy sigh and he forgot his fears. Thoughts of the future, law and everything else fell away.

Dylan stared. It couldn't be real and yet he knew it was. The gap between knowing what he was seeing and knowing what reality said he could see lurched even wider.
Sídhe
, Silver had said. Like Banshees? Like
fairies
?

Before he could argue, or accuse her of winding him up, Silver spoke again and his protests were forgotten.

‘Great musicians aren't born,' Silver said. She settled herself on the edge of a divan and drew him closer. ‘They're made. You can practise all night and day, have all the natural talent you could want and be born under the luckiest star imaginable, but that won't make you great. It won't make you a legend.'

She leaned forward, her lips parting in a sensual smile.

‘But I can.'

Dylan slid to his knees in front of her, lifted his face so he could look into her wondrous eyes. If he was that good, if there was any way he could get that good, he wouldn't have to set his music aside like his parents insisted was inevitable. ‘How?'

‘I'm Leanán Sídhe, just like I told you. Some people would call me … a muse. And I can offer you a deal.'

He knew she wasn't lying, knew it in his beating heart. Knew that somehow he had stumbled into a dream. One
where he could choose his own path in life for once. In the same way he had known to follow the music. It scared him. But he couldn't back away from it.

‘What kind of deal?' He leaned in closer.

‘Will you give me anything?' she asked, her eyes filled with laughter, with promises. ‘Even if I ask for a piece of your soul? Even if you know I'd drink down your essence like sweet lilac wine?'

‘Maybe. But what sort of deal?' He wasn't sure why he was asking all these stupid questions when all he wanted to do was kiss her. He'd never wanted anyone this way. He couldn't think of anyone or anything that had ever seemed so important to him in his life, except for his music. And yet there he went, asking questions.

Luckily it didn't faze Silver. If anything, it appeared to amuse her. She tapped his nose with one delicate fingertip. ‘Three times three.' Her eyes glittered with something other than playfulness. Her breath played against his lips, as cold as her touch. ‘Three kisses, three times three years of fame, of mega-stardom fame, of talent, of creation and adoration, of some of the greatest music mankind has ever heard. Music to speak to people's hearts. Music to change lives. Music to change the world. And then – are you listening, Dylan? – then it's over. Then you're mine and mine alone. If you survive it.'

‘Nine years?'

‘Give or take. You'd be, what? Twenty-seven?'

‘Are you talking about the ‘twenty-sevens'?' Musicians so
talented that they were doomed to die, whether from bad luck, suicide, drugs or the sheer reckless speed at which they lived their lives. Musical legends and urban legends. Whispered stories no one quite believed. Not really. ‘I thought they were a myth.'

Silver smiled her enigmatic smile. ‘So am I, Dylan.' She was offering him all his dreams, and the downside? To spend the rest of his life with someone like her?

‘And what do you get?'

She sighed, her body stretching out like a cat, brushing her fingers through the leaves of the tree, along the smooth bark. ‘Life.'

‘Life?'

‘Everything needs something to sustain life. I have my tree, my touchstone, the heart of this hollow. If I didn't have this…' She sighed. ‘Well, no one can hold a hollow without a touchstone.'

‘Would you die? If something happened to the tree?'

She eyed him curiously, studying him. ‘What a strange thing to ask …' She didn't sound amused all of a sudden. Her voice suddenly held an edge of danger.

Izzy would have talked sense into him, he knew that. But here, beneath a tree growing in a basement nightclub, in another world, kneeling in front of the most beautiful and talented woman he'd ever met, sense was a rare commodity. He felt drunk on her company, high on just being with her.

And besides, Izzy was getting her own offers of dreams
come true in the form of Jinx. The one she'd come here to find.

‘What happens afterwards?' he asked, reaching out for the tree as well. ‘To me, I mean. I'm yours, but what does that mean? I don't see a load of aging musicians skulking around here. All I see is this tree.'

Silver bared her teeth. It might have been a smile, but it looked more like a snarl. Just for a moment. The moment he mentioned that creepy-looking tree.

Dylan's sense of his own body contracted, as if his skin had abruptly shrunk to be smaller than the body it contained. It stretched across his bones too tightly and his head throbbed in sudden pain. A primal sense of alarm shot through him. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't even be having this conversation. She was more dangerous than he could imagine and this deal … this deal was not a good deal. Drink, drugs, speed or disappearance … something always finished off the twenty-sevens in dramatic style. They were all dead.

Pulling free of Silver, he struggled to stand up. ‘I'm sorry,' he muttered, not even sure if the words would clear. ‘I need to find my friends.'

Anyone else would have taken it as an insult, he was sure. But it just seemed to slide off Silver. She smiled, getting to her feet.

‘Sometimes it takes time to accept these things, even if you know they're true, even if you know they're what you want. Take whatever time you need, Dylan. I'll be here. And you'll
be able to find me. You're special, Dylan, something in your blood, something in your soul, your quintessence. The music inside you. You heard my music and came to me. That's the path you're meant to follow. I'll be keeping a very close eye on you.'

Chapter Seven

Magpies

D
amnation, the girl was off again. Jinx suppressed a growl and forced his way through the crowd. It was only when he was almost at Izzy’s side that he noticed Silver blithely reeling in the only human male in the whole club. Izzy’s female friends looked on in irritation. Their obnoxious pouts faded to interest as Jinx approached.

But he didn’t have a moment to spare for them. All his attention was locked on the girl he had saved twice now – Izzy, his intended quarry.

Prey
.

She still glowed. Not a light he could see, but something he felt bone-deep. For a moment he wondered if the rest of the club and its inhabitants had blurred, or if she just stood out even sharper to his eyes.

It could be that way, Holly had told him. Sometimes when
Cú Sídhe hunted, the quarry was more defined than anything else around them.

But he wasn’t sure. There was something about her that went beyond prey, or the spark. Something … something striking he couldn’t name.

She was brighter and clearer than anything around her. It was as if some other sense he didn’t know about was picking it up, something beyond even his heightened fae senses.

Her shoulders stiffened as if she felt him watching her. She lifted her chin, the elegant curve of her neck captivating him. Her fists balled tightly at her side. A fighter then. Normally he would see it as a challenge, but here – now – it was just tragic, pathetic, even. There was no way she could fight him. No way she could fight Holly when he brought her in. But she’d try. Of course she’d try.

And fail.

That was the tragedy.

Angels had fallen to Holly. Their broken images lined the walls of her Market. The shattered images she made of them before the end. Angelic sparks filled the core of her touchstone, fuelling her magic, making her more powerful than any of the other Aes Sídhe, Brí and Amadán included. Always willing to go further in pursuit of power than anyone else. That was Holly all over.

With a jerk Izzy was off, striding towards the door before he realised that she was just going. Leaving the girls who didn’t care a fig for her right now. Leaving the boy who probably
wasn’t aware she existed at the moment, not with Silver’s full attention on him.

Jinx marched after her. If she was going outside, she was just going to make this easy. And if she was determined to make it easy, he was more than happy to oblige.

The night called him, as it always did. The moon overhead – even distant and marred by city smoke – set his blood pounding. Ancient blood, with its own memories. The narrow lanes of Dubh Linn stretched out like a maze, part of the human city and yet not, interwoven, transposed on top of the everyday world.

He knew them well. Every cobble, every alcove, every nook and cranny.

But Izzy didn’t have a clue. She turned the first corner, realised it wasn’t the way to the alley through which she’d come, and froze, gazing around herself at old brickwork, the faded rags of posters, intricately crafted grilles on the windows and set into the ground.

‘Lost?’ he asked.

At the sound of his voice, she jumped and turned, twisting like a little cat, ready for the fight. This wasn’t the girl of earlier today. Not quite. Something had changed her. The glow flickered with uncertainty.

The spark. He wanted to slap himself on the forehead. The spark was already permeating her system. Of course it would change her. It changed everything for good and ill.

‘I came looking for you. I wanted answers.’

Jinx folded his arms across his chest and her eyes followed the flex of his muscles, the lines of his tattoos moulding around them. Deep blue eyes, afraid but not helplessly so. She shouldn’t intrigue him so. Shouldn’t attract him at all. She was prey. That was all. Just prey. He waited until her eyes returned to his face. ‘Answers to what?’

‘There’s a mark on my neck. A tattoo. Like yours. How did it get there?’

This easy? Really?
He smiled, barely listening to her now she was willing to go with him. A mark on her neck? Sure. How on earth could she have got a tattoo like his?

‘Come with me. I know someone who can explain.’ Lies fell easily from a honeyed tongue to eager ears. Usually.

Suspicion hardened her face. ‘Who?’

He laughed. It was almost too ridiculous. ‘My grandmother.’ With a step forward he reached out to her. ‘Look, you shouldn’t be here. Neither you nor your friends, but we can overlook that. The Sídhe-ways aren’t for humans, but some of you still stray from time to time.’

‘Sídhe-ways?’
She forced herself to breathe, a deliberate effort on her part to stay calm. ‘Do you mean
fairies?
The Tuatha dé Danann? They’re stories my gran tells.’

‘We were the first on this island, if that’s what you mean. We’re not human. And these pathways are part of our world. Sídhe-ways. And they aren’t safe, but if you want I’ll make sure your friends are shown the way home.’

She gazed at his hand as if it might bite. ‘But not me?’ A
question, but delivered in a toneless voice. She already knew what his reply to that would be.

‘You want answers.’

Her lips tightened as she thought it through. ‘All right.’

A brave little tragedy.

The click of boot heel on stone brought Jinx around in irritation – to find the Magpie twins standing behind him.

‘Well, now, what a coincidence,’ said Mags. ‘Just the girl we were looking for.’

Pie, on the other hand, just pulled out the ugliest looking knife and smiled as he ran the flat of it across his black sleeve. It didn’t glint, which told Jinx it was cold iron, probably with a natural handle so it didn’t burn the skin right off his hand. Jinx knew Pie was rumoured to have one, but he’d never set much store by rumour.

Kind of a pity now.

‘So, what’s it going to be, dog?’ asked Mags with a sneer. ‘You going to roll over or sit up and beg? Or just run off with your tail between your legs?’ Dismissing Jinx, Mags gazed past him to Izzy. ‘Come here, love. Let’s not make this difficult.’

‘Didn’t anyone teach you about poaching?’ Jinx stepped carefully to one side, to put them off guard, he hoped. Izzy gave a gasp of dismay, but he ignored that. She thought he was betraying her. Well, she’d need to get used to that feeling anyway. Ignoring the feeling of shame, he let them step forward, saw Izzy close her eyes in fear and then tore himself free of the tight control Holly’s wards and charms continually
maintained on his form. It hurt. Her spells made sure it hurt every time, but he had to do it. He slipped his shape and the bonds holding him.

There was a soft whoosh, a burst of air from nowhere. Izzy’s hair flew back from her face and shoulders, and the scent of cinnamon and sugar melted together surrounded her. Just for a moment. It sent her stumbling back as she inhaled it, a mesmerising smell, intoxicating. Her eyes opened.

Instead of grabbing her, the twins cursed and spun around to face the spot where Jinx had been standing. One gave a low chuckle, a dangerous sound which set her skin prickling.

Where was Jinx?

A creature stood in his place, the size of a wolfhound, but whip thin and sleek as a greyhound, a blue-green silken fur covering its body marked with unnaturally curved and twisted indigo stripes. Like Jinx’s tattoos. The whole creature might have been made from Jinx’s tattoos. Points of silver flashed in the dim light, little rings on the long pointed ears, tapered back as if they flowed from its head. Studs glinted along its muzzle. Equally silver eyes opened, narrow slits, so dark in the centre. As she watched, it stretched its body out like molten metal. Claws slid from paws as broad as a human face.

As elegant as his hands.

Even as she struggled with the logic of it, reality reasserted itself, reminding her of the situation. Her heart thundered, pounding on her ribs until they ached. Her rapid breath sounded frightened even to her and her skin tightened around her frame. A metallic tang filled her throat and all around her was the creature’s scent, its sweet beguiling scent.

The twins changed their stances, shifting to something anticipating a threat for the first time. The creature stalked around Izzy, placing itself between her and them. She looked up its length, from the twitching whip of its tail, along the coiled body, the strength in those tense muscles to the great head.

A growl rippled from the creature, like the voice of a tiger.

It couldn’t be. It
couldn’t
be.

‘About time you showed some form, Jinxy-boy.’ Mags drew back his upper lip as he spoke. ‘Thought Holly made sure it hurt too much to change on a whim, so this must be important. You think you can take us both? Bad doggy.’

Pie laughed, although without mirth.

Another long, low growl came from the creature – from Jinx – one which sent a shiver of fear through her, even though she knew she was not the object of the aggression. The message was clear enough and it got through, judging from the agitation on the twins’ faces.

‘We just want the girl, Jinx,’ said Pie. ‘The old man sent us personal. You know how this goes down.’

And then they moved, so fast she saw only a blur. Black and
white streaks that raced towards her. Jinx leapt to intercept them.

‘Run!’

Not listening to the voice that couldn’t exist be damned! Izzy bolted down the alleyway, heedless of her path, moving faster than she could ever remember being able to run before. Terror did that to you, they said. The mark on the back of her neck was cold as ice, warning her of danger. It was too dark ahead and the narrow streets wound left and right. Footsteps echoed behind her and ahead of her. She flung herself around a corner and into a dead end.

With a cry of dismay, she turned around to see Pie bearing down on her, that vicious blade in his hand.

‘You’re fast, I’ll give you that. But it takes more than a mortal to escape us, even with the puppy running interference for you. Now hold still, I’ve work to do.’

‘Stay away from me.’ She tried to edge her way along the wall, hoping to dart by him given half a chance. Her foot caught on something, wood, but it scraped like metal on the cobbles beneath.

‘Pick it up,’
said the voice.
‘Defend yourself.’
As if she actually needed telling.

She grabbed it, a length of wood all right, but with some nasty looking rusty nails poking from the end. She swept it in front of her, hoping to ward him off.

Pie didn’t even flinch. ‘Here now, you’ve got something we want. While my brother’s dealing with the puppy, you’re going
to come with me. We can do that easily or I can make it pretty painful. Understand?’

It was the alley all over again, under the eye of the graffiti angel. The moment her life had turned insane. The moment shadows had started to whisper and move, the moment disembodied voices tried to tell her what to do, the moment Jinx had entered her life.

‘What is it you people think I have?’ She couldn’t keep her voice from trembling and hated the way his smile broadened at the sound, white teeth gleaming.

‘You don’t even know? Oh, that’s rich. Now, come here. Put the stick down, little girl.’ She tightened her grip, glaring at him. Jinx, where was he? What had Mags done to him? He could have been here by now, couldn’t he? She must have glanced over Pie’s shoulder looking for him. ‘Jinx? You think he’s coming to your rescue? You’re human. He’s Cú Sídhe. A hound, set on a trail by his mistress. All he’s going to do is drag you in front of her instead. And you don’t want to face Holly, little girl.’ He passed the knife from one hand to the other. It danced in front of his face, hypnotic, terrifying. ‘Holly’s
nasty
.’

Before she could react, Pie’s arm swiped the piece of wood from her hand. It clattered against the wall and she screamed, staggering back, her hand flung out before her.

Fire burst from her fingertips. Just for a moment. Long enough to make him shy back in surprise. Before she could take it in, believe it had happened, the tiny flames were gone.

A blue-green shape burst through her field of vision, taking
Pie down in a ball of snarls and curses. He gave an inarticulate shout and Jinx yelped.