A Crack in Everything (9 page)

‘How do we get out of here?’ asked Izzy, her hands balling at her sides.

Jinx pointed down the alley behind her. ‘Just head straight that way. Don’t stray from the path, even if the alley seems to turn about on you. Head straight.’

She nodded, but Dylan was already off, heading down the alleyway with angry strides, his head down.

‘Dylan,’ Silver called after him and he jerked to a halt, as if her voice tripped him. ‘My offer still stands.’

He didn’t give her an answer.

‘What offer?’ Marianne demanded, hurrying after him.

Dylan didn’t pause, just started marching forward again. ‘It doesn’t matter, Mari. Just music stuff. Like a gig. I don’t need her anyway. No more than Izzy needs the Hulk back there.’

The Hulk. Yeah, funny. Don’t get him angry.

‘
Hunk
more like,’ Clo grinned at Izzy. ‘And as for you, sneaking off with him to do dark deeds in an alley, no less.’ She slid her arm around Izzy and before she knew what was happening Izzy was all but holding her friend up. ‘Oh, wait until I tell everyone.’

She ought to be irritated, but somehow she couldn’t keep hold of the emotion. Relief at being back with them again kept washing it away. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

Her protests fell on deaf ears. ‘Oh, yeah, sure.’ Marianne gave a chuckle as they caught up. ‘His shirt just fell off. And what else?’ The dirty grin should have seen her locked up by the thought police for public indecency. ‘You picked an awesome time to start building a reputation, Izzy. Just awesome. I wish my phone had a signal here. I really do. Freaky blackspot. Come on, Facebook’s calling!’

They sped her away, towards the real world, to their Dublin far from Sídhe-space. Back to safety, she hoped. It felt safe with the three of them and she could breathe again, try to forget everything she had seen, all the madness. If she hadn’t been afraid of dropping Clodagh, or of looking even more of a fool in front of Mari, she would have run. She didn’t want to look behind her, but couldn’t help herself.

Jinx and Silver were nowhere to be seen.

The cab dropped her about ten minutes from home. No way was Izzy going to drive right up to the house, despite Dylan’s arguments. Since when had he got so protective? Besides, the meter was about to tick over. He’d been as
communicative
as a stone all the way home. Sulking or lost in thought. Once he’d checked that she hadn’t been hurt, that was that.

She walked the last part quickly enough, her hands shoved deep in her pockets, her mind on Jinx and the Magpies. On
the things they had said. On Jinx’s transformation and all the weird shit that seemed to have attached itself to her.

And on Jinx’s horror when he’d heard her name.

The mark on her neck started to tingle again as she turned into her street. Another warning? She faltered, looked up and saw the cop car parked outside her house.

Oh God, no. Something had happened. She knew it. Something terrible had happened.

Izzy broke into a sprint, tore a path up the gravel drive and scrambled to open the door. She almost fell inside and her mum burst out from the living room, pale, red-eyed, far too thin and drawn.

And yet the arms that seized her might have been made of iron.

‘Where the
hell
have you been? Oh my God, Izzy, I thought … I thought … both of you. I went to wake you, but you weren’t there and I thought—’ She drew in a shuddering breath that shook her whole body against Izzy’s. ‘Both of you in one night. Where on earth did you go?’

Her voice broke. Helpless and desperate, her mother who was always so cool and collected could no longer heave words into her mouth. She choked and pulled Izzy against her hard and held her there, shaking like she stood in the midst of an earthquake.

Over Mum’s shoulder, Izzy saw two police officers rise to their feet, their faces all solemn and filled with disguised pity.

‘I was— I just—’ Damn it, who cared right now? Mum
wouldn’t believe her anyway. ‘What happened, Mum? What is it?’

‘Your dad, love. There was an accident on the way home. Another car hit his. He’s in hospital.’

The icy flood of terror filled her again. There was nothing she could fight here. Nothing to run from or to. Nothing she could do. She was just a child.

‘But he’s okay, isn’t he?’ She looked from one grim face to the next. And finally to her mum again, to the bleak emptiness in her eyes. ‘He’s okay. Isn’t he, Mum?’

Her mother broke down into tears and strangled sobs.

Chapter Nine

The Knot

T
he stab of raw agony brought Jinx up from his seat, almost to his feet, the instinct to fight, to protect, driving him up, though he didn’t know what or where the threat was. The club was almost empty now, piped music driving out the late revellers and Silver curled up beneath her tree, nearly asleep. At the movement, she opened one eye like a sleepy cat.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know.’ He clenched his hands to fists of frustration. The pain simmered in the pit of his stomach. Not physical. The Creator knew he could handle physical pain. He’d been designed to completely change his physiology at will. If he couldn’t stand pain, he’d die every time. This pain was emotional; the fae relied on their emotions, so heightened, so
all-consuming
. Physical pain was nothing. Emotional pain was a
torture beyond bearing.

Silver pushed herself up, her feet tucked neatly beneath her. She held out her hands to him, but Jinx didn’t touch her. Didn’t dare.

‘What happened with the girl, Jinx?’

He wasn’t in the mood for this, for exposing his shame, for demonstrating what a fool he was. ‘What happened with the boy?’

‘He’s not a boy, Jinx. You’re not that much older than him yourself. He’s a young man, and a gifted musician. I could make him great. Besides, I like him. There’s something else, an unrivalled talent, a potential for so much more. He heard us from the street beyond the gate, followed the music.’

‘I don’t understand. He’s just a human.’

‘Just a human,’ she laughed. ‘You really
don’t
understand. Potential is everything. He heard my music, a boy with no fae blood, nothing magical at all. No one has done that for forty years. He’s special. Really special. But that isn’t troubling me. You and the girl … What happened out there?’

She gave him that resolute look. She wouldn’t back down. She’d keep on asking until she broke him. It was her nature, the nature of most of the women of his kind. They wouldn’t ever back down. And that thought chilled him to the bone.

‘She’s the one Holly wants,’ Jinx said. ‘The one who saw the angel and who now carries the spark.’

Silver frowned, a small, subtle line marring the perfect skin between her eyebrows. ‘And you let her go? But Holly
told you—’

‘I know.’ He all but barked the words, his composure slipping fast. He struggled to control himself again, ashamed at the outburst. ‘The twins attacked us. They’re after her too for Amadán. I fought them off. We did, I mean. She tried – God love her, she tried with an old bit of wood and nothing else. I got there just in time, but Pie had that bloody knife of his and he – he stuck me with it.’

He hung his head. As he said it, gave voice to the dreadful words, all the rage drained out of him, leaving only grief and shame, pain behind, his loss and something else. Something he couldn’t name.

‘She pulled it out, Silver. She healed me.’

Silver swallowed hard. Her throat worked too fast, as if she struggled to find words and the breath to say them, her whole body tightening.

‘Jinx, what are you saying?’

‘She pulled iron out of my body. She saved my life.’

Silver knew Jinx’s geis as well as he did. She’d been with him as his witness and his friend when Brí handed it down. He’d been too young to represent himself, to take in any of it, and there hadn’t been anyone else willing. But Silver had taken his hand, so small in hers, and told him to be brave. That she was there. That a geis meant he was Aes Sídhe and that was important. Of all people, Silver knew that those words bound him as tightly as any oath, words that sealed his fate. She had heard them laid upon him by Brí.

‘You’d hold Silver’s hand for support?’
Brí had said.
‘You poor fool. I’ll give you your geis now and remember, it binds you forever – ‘No hand but your own can save you, or it will hold you fast.’

‘But—’ Silver began now and stopped, her mouth closing to keep in unspeakable words.

Izzy owned him, all of him, body and – if only he’d had one – soul.

Silver regained some control over what she might say. ‘What about Holly? All her wards and charms on you, all those spells …’ The pain of it, yes, pain she’d make him endure a hundred times over. Every bit of silver she’d forced on him stung. Every tattoo that constrained his form with a spell was agony.

‘I had to let her go.’

‘And now?’

‘I can feel Izzy’s grief, her pain. Something terrible has happened to her.’

‘Then go to her.’

He shook his head. ‘And lead the fae world right to her door? Silver … she called herself “Gregory”. Isabel Gregory.’

It was the final nail. Silver’s face turned white and she gave a low moan of dismay. She knew. She understood what it meant. Grigori were different – watchers, balance-keepers, weapons, soldiers and custodians, tied to the horizontal plane, but beyond the petty rivalries of creatures like Aes Sídhe – and Izzy didn’t even have a clue what she was. She couldn’t know anything to be acting the way she was.

‘You have to find her, guard her. She’s so young. Maybe she
hasn’t been told. She’s going to need protection, Jinx. What if the Magpies track her down anyway, or if Holly sends someone else? She will, you know. What if she tasks Osprey next? What if Brí gets involved? If you’re tied to this girl, this Grigori with a divine spark … Jinx, if anything happens to her—’ her voice sank to a harsh whisper ‘—it could kill you too.’

‘If I’m lucky. It will draw down the wrath of the actual Grigori, perhaps even worse than that. We have to stop Holly.’

‘I’ll talk to Holly.’ If Holly would listen to anyone it would be Silver. Many Sídhe thought Silver should have stood in Holly’s place by now. Her power was enough and she was beloved by all. She might be able to work out some sort of accommodation. Diplomacy was Silver’s strength.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. If Izzy is in such pain now that you can feel it, she needs you. Go to her and guard her. Keep her safe. That’s what Cú Sídhe were created for.’

He got to his feet, but the sickened feeling clung to him like a stench. ‘We were made to hunt, to kill.’

Silver shook her head and her smile was tinged with heartbreak. ‘No. That’s what was made of you. What Holly wants you to be. But you weren’t meant to kill. The Cú Sídhe are born to protect, to be guardians. Now go reclaim that.’

On the night before her sixteenth birthday Izzy had
dreamed of a fish, leaping from the water of a fast-flowing river, swimming against the tide, determined, in spite of every bit of logic the world around it dictated, to make it upstream. A salmon. The Salmon of Knowledge who had eaten the Nine Sacred Hazelnuts which fell into Connla’s well. When she was a kid Dad used to tell her the story so she knew it at once.

The next morning he gave her a necklace, a silver salmon in Celtic knotwork, and made some crack about it helping her through her exams. A charm to help her in her impossible task, he’d called it with a smile.

Exams seemed so very far away right now. Something that belonged in a normal life, where everything ticked over from one day to the next. Like the life she used to have.

The cold efficiency of the hospital moved like a machine around Izzy. She sat in comfortless chairs and waited. Time advanced strangely, in fits and starts, dragging out minutes like the drip of golden syrup or letting hours race by like water through her fingers.

It was late morning. The sunlight told her that. Mum hadn’t even asked again where she had been. She was too distraught. Neither had the cops, which was another relief. Izzy fell asleep in the car and woke with a taste in her mouth as if something had died in there.

The thought made her cry, but she did it in silence, for fear of setting Mum off again.

The hospital wasn’t far from home, small and compact, an
old-style hospital rather than one of the new modern ones like cities in their own right. A country hospital, swallowed up by the edges of the ever-expanding city.

A nurse brought her a cup of tea at some point. Izzy drank half of it, but the rest went cold when she wasn’t paying attention.

She waited until nine to ring work from the payphone in the corridor, but there was no answer so she rang Marianne instead.

Dylan answered.

‘It’s me.’ Her voice shook like a reed in the wind.

‘Izzy? You okay? Last night was—’

‘Forget about last night.’ Her voice threatened to betray her entirely. She managed, just in time, to get it under control. It still shook. ‘Dad was in an accident. He’s … he’s in the hospital.’

There was a moment of shocked silence. ‘Shit, I’m sorry. Izzy, I— is there anything I can do?’ His voice was a rush of empathy, her friend. It made her eyes sting, her throat tighten as if in a noose.

‘I’ve got a shift in the coffee shop and I couldn’t get hold of them. Could Marianne cover for me?’

‘I’ll go get her. Hang on.’ He hesitated though, not leaving the phone line. ‘Izzy, are
you
okay?’

‘I guess. I— I don’t know. Can you ask Mari? Or get her to call in for me? Or something?’

‘No problem. Don’t worry. We’ll sort it out. I hope— I hope he’s okay. Give your mum my best …’ He trailed off with
the awkwardness of someone who had no idea what to say. ‘Izzy, I …’

‘I know. I’ll talk to you later. Promise.’ Her voice came out strangely high, strangled. She hung up before she started to cry again.

Sometimes Mum stayed with her, talking on her phone, sometimes she paced the corridor outside or talked in hushed, urgent tones with the doctors. Izzy wished she had her mobile. She wished she’d never gone out yesterday – was it only yesterday? – wished she’d never seen the wonders and horrors only to come back to this.

‘How are you doing?’

A woman hunkered down in front of her. Late afternoon sun slanted through the blinds. When had it got so late? Time twisted around them, impossible to follow. Her face was strangely delicate for one so old. Not that she looked old, not really. Mum’s age, perhaps. But her eyes were the soft blue-grey of rainclouds, and they looked ancient. Her skin was smooth and wrinkle free, so pale, like fine porcelain. Her hair, by stark contrast, was a bright, unnatural red.

‘Um, okay. I guess.’

‘Your mum’s in with your dad now, Isabel. You can go in for a moment, if you like.’

‘How is he? Is he okay?’

‘He’s sleeping just now.’

It was the way she said it that made Izzy frown. ‘Sleeping? I’m not five.’

It was a stupid thing to say, thoughtless and bitter. But she didn’t feel like being condescended to any more. She’d fought one monster, saved the life of another. Fire had danced, if only for a second or two, on the end of her fingertips.

And it was only after that her world had turned into this nightmare.

The woman gave her an odd, understanding smile.

‘He’s in a coma, dear. It’s his body’s way of giving him time to heal. Do you understand?’

Gratitude washed right through Izzy, taking the pain with it. ‘Yes. And is he— Will he—?’ Her voice threatened her as she tried to say it. All she could hear were the words she wanted to let spill out of her – words that begged, pleaded for him to be okay, for a miracle, for this to be just another nightmare like everything else seemed to be. Because it had to be. This time it had to be.

‘Time will tell. Do you want to go in? Here.’ The woman handed her a thin plastic cup half full of water. ‘Why not bring him a drink? Help him get better. Talk to him. Offer him water from the cup.’

The plastic crinkled beneath Izzy’s too-firm grip. It seemed like the most bizarre request ever. She followed the red-haired woman down the corridor to a private room. Mum sat there, sleeping gently, while on the bed lay the shell of a man.

Her father. Or what was left of him.

Mum didn’t respond as Izzy entered. Her head was inclined to one side, her eyes closed and her chest rose and fell with the
same gentle rhythm as the machines that quietly monitored Dad. Careful not to wake her, Izzy crept forwards, aware that the nurse hadn’t followed her inside. She waited by the door, watching closely, too closely.