Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 (8 page)

In the middle stood a woman.

She looked like any Ascot matron, and then I realised she really
was familiar: I had seen her face smiling out from the community noticeboard at West End Library just a matter of hours ago.
She wasn’t much different, except for the lack of a graffiti moustache. She appeared to be in her sixties, but I was fairly
certain that her true age was being artfully concealed by a combination of expensive cosmetics, a cunning glamour and a lot
of Botox. Even so, the skin on her face and neck was a little too tight, too smooth, as if it had been burned once and a lot
of effort had been made to reverse the effects; not even magic and surgery can completely conceal something like that. She
wasn’t overly tall, but she had a good figure, just a little thick around the waist. Her pale champagne dress fitted impeccably;
her hair, an elegant mix of grey and blonde, was immaculate and her eyes a twinkling blue. The get-up was completed by a diamond-encrusted
watch, a pendant shaped like the bird-and-shield design on the wine bottle seals, baroque pearl earrings and a selection of
knuckleduster rings probably worth more than my house. She looked like the kind of grandmother who wouldn’t want to be hugged
too tightly lest it wrinkle her ensemble.

‘Yes?’ she said. She didn’t say,
I’m calling the police
, which was telling. She held a pair of thick black silicon gloves somewhat at odds with her outfit.

All I could think to say was, ‘You’re not eating them?’

The glance she gave me suggested I was as stupid as I felt. ‘Oh, no, lovie. If you take their tears,’ she answered quite tenderly,
‘you can’t use the meat afterwards. It’s too dry and tough. Really, it’s either wine or veal.’ She smiled. ‘Look at you, Grigor’s
daughter, so terribly Normal but still causing trouble. Who’d have thought?’

I swallowed, a hundred questions rearing up, not the least of which was,
How did you know my father?
But I didn’t need to ask that one at least; it was easy enough to guess. I peered at the child lying
on the table in front of her and Lizzie’s terrible stillness knocked the curiosity from me. The moments before I detected
the faint rise and fall of her chest seemed endless. All I wanted to do was get her out of there.

‘Isn’t she lovely? I was ecstatic when Sally brought this one! It’s much nicer when they’re clean and content, but oh, they’re
so hard to get hold of. I will have to punish her, though, for sending you. I assume it was Sally; she’d sell her mother to
save her own skin.’ The woman didn’t wait for an answer, just beamed at me. ‘The little one smells a bit like you, you know.
I thought she might be yours. That amused me no end, the idea of harvesting Grigor’s grandchild! But when I looked closer,
I couldn’t see him anywhere in her. Still, a happy mistake; now I can take care of you, too – you’ve made some trouble for
us! Oh, maybe I won’t punish Sally after all.’

‘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.

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.