Burn Mark (8 page)

The cat flicked its tail, but its unnatural stiffness did not change. Something was missing.

Glory thought back to their first encounter, and the crooning, kissing noises she had made when cuddling the cat. She made them again. In response, the animal opened its mouth in a soundless hiss. Still crooning, Glory beckoned it down from the fence. This time it obeyed. Her finger circled the air. The cat circled on the ground. She pointed left, and the cat followed. Right, and it came back again. She laughed delightedly.

All the while, she had glimpses of a second view, colour-bleached yet impossibly vivid, teeming with movements sensed rather than seen. Her own nose twitched at scents of blood and earth. As she drew the cat across the garden, she felt the coarse scratch of concrete under its paws.

The animal drew closer. Dark stars danced at the edge of her vision. The world reeled and sparkled, and Glory fell to the floor.

When she awoke from her faint or sleep or whatever it was, it was late afternoon and the house was quiet. She was a little stiff, but otherwise fine. No heightened perceptions or shooting stars.

Could she have dreamed it? Or exaggerated and confused what she thought she’d seen? There’d been a mortifying occasion when she was eleven and got the flu, and bragged to everyone that her overheated state was the onset of fae. The memory still made her wince.

She didn’t really doubt herself, though. Whatever she had felt, and seen, and done, was
true.
It was imprinted on her soul. Its aura still hung in the air around her.

Glory went to the drawer in her bedside table, and took out the photograph she kept there. Now that everything had changed, she wondered if she would find a resemblance to the stranger in the frame . . . the face that haunted her visions of the Burning Court. The woman’s eyes were guarded, distant, even though she was smiling. It was the same in every other photo of her mother, even the ones from her wedding day. Edie Starling, thought Glory, had always had the look of someone who was preparing to leave.

Perhaps Edie had been raised that way. Her mother Cora had been the wilder of the Starling Twins; Edie’s father could have been any one of the assorted celebrities, politicians and crooks Cora was partying with at the time. When Edie turned eight, Cora had had some kind of breakdown, quarrelled with Lily, and disappeared, taking her daughter with her. Nobody heard from them for five years. When Cora finally got in contact with her sisters, it was too late. Before the three of them could meet, she was arrested by the Inquisition, and died in the course of her interrogation.

By then, Edie was thirteen. Lily adopted her and raised her in the Wednesday Coven. Edie never spoke about the five years she’d spent on the run, but Glory sometimes wondered if it had given her mother a taste for escape. All those fresh starts and disappearances, disguises and false names . . . How many lives had she lived? Could she be living a different one now? Perhaps one day Glory would dream of it, instead of the Burning Court.

Yet although Glory did not look like the wide-eyed blonde behind the glass, today she felt closer to her mother than she ever had before. The fae that sang through her body had once leapt in her mother’s veins, and those of her grandmother and great-grandmother before that.

Carefully, Glory placed the photograph on the floor. She sat beside it, cross-legged, in front of her mirror. Her ordinary brown hair was dyed to match the Starling Twins’ white-blonde and her eyes were brown too; soft in some lights, black in others. She had her father’s slightly hooked nose, but her strong brows and wide curved mouth were her own. Perhaps these features were too strong for prettiness, but if people remembered her face, it was for the right reasons.

Glory took a deep breath. Then she pulled down the neck of her T-shirt. Again, instinct took her directly to what she sought. Nestled underneath her collarbone was a small bloom the colour of midnight. It was velvet-soft, perfect; a true beauty spot.

For many hours longer, Gloriana Starling Wilde sat in front of the mirror, hand resting on the seal of fae. Her birthright and destiny.

Chapter 7

Glory woke up early the next day and for a few groggy seconds, it could have been any old Sunday morning. Then the memories hurtled back and it was like being a little kid again, getting up on her birthday or Christmas. She fizzed all over with glee.

When her cousin Candice Morgan turned witchkind in November, her parents Charlie and Kezia had thrown a party that lasted three days. Never mind that her fae was a pretty low-grade affair, and the girl was unlikely to put it to much use – she was currently undergoing her second stint at a private rehab facility in Arizona. Candice had always been a daft bimbo, and now she was a daft druggie too.

Glory was already looking forward to her own celebrations, complete with champagne and sucking-up. Ha. Even Nate would have to treat her with a bit of respect.

Because a head-witch-in-waiting should look the part, she got dressed and made-up with extra care. Base, bronzer, thick black eyeliner, hot pink lipgloss. Gold hoops and spiky boots. Her red top had a low neckline, but by stroking the mark under her collarbone, and visualising the darkness shrinking into her skin, she was able to reduce it to the size of a pinprick. She slung on a scarf anyway, just in case.

This was the first of many precautions she would have to take. Life was about to become both risky and restricted, and she needed to be prepared. Yesterday, her secret had been too new, too private, to share. Today she longed to shout the news from the rooftops – Inquisition be damned. But Auntie Angel had made her swear that she would be the first to know if Glory got the fae, and she wasn’t going to break her word.

So when, at half past nine, she tapped on her great-aunt’s door and got no response, the disappointment was crushing. She felt cheated. Where the hell had the old lady gone? There was no point asking her father, who rarely got up before lunch, and though Glory could hear laughter from the lounge, she wasn’t ready to face the rest of the coven.

As the wait stretched out her excitement began to seep away, to be replaced by frustration. She wanted action and purpose. She wanted the delicate, dangerous thrill she’d felt as her fae reached out and touched another living creature for the first time . . .

She wanted to commit witchwork.

Glory had seen Angeline at work often enough to know the ways and means of practising fae, and knew she should start with something small and tricky to detect, that wouldn’t backfire too badly if it went wrong. But she wanted to be useful too. Coolly, she considered recent coven business, looking for a gap to be filled or problem solved. Then she remembered Jimmy Warren.

Jimmy was a fence who made a living from selling stolen jewellery. Cooper Street took a cut of his profits in return for sending business his way. But last week he’d absconded, leaving the coven among his many creditors. He’d also left behind his sister, Trish. She claimed she had no idea where he’d gone. Nate, however, was planning some serious aggro to refresh her memory.

Glory liked Trish and had babysat her little girl on several occasions. She didn’t want the coven thugs to come over all heavy on her. How much better for everyone concerned, then, if she could get the information some other way . . .

An hour later Glory faced Trish Warren across the table, warming her hands on a mug of tea. Trish usually had a faded prettiness but today her face was blotchy and drawn. This was going to be easy.

Searching the household rubbish had been unpleasant, but it got results. Glory was holding the pink plastic casing of a false nail. Now she rested it on the empty packet of headache tablets in her pocket, nodding in sympathy as Trish talked about the failings of her no-good ex, and the pressures of her new bar job. She seemed glad of Glory’s company and had welcomed her into the flat without suspicion. The row of bells over the building’s entrance had been smashed up long ago; on an estate like Rockwood, witchcrime wasn’t something you bothered the authorities with.

The grubby tablecloth bore a design of yellow flowers and pink polka dots. Perfect. Under Glory’s scarf, nestling by her collar bone, she could feel the Devil’s Kiss begin to warm. She thought of its mark, purple-black, beating beneath her skin.

Glory concentrated on the tablecloth. In her mind’s eye, she recast the polka dots, so they were hot and red. She visualised gathering them up and pressing them, one after the other, into Trish’s forehead.

Trish put her hand to her brow, grimacing.

‘You all right?’

‘Bit of a twinge. I get these migraines sometimes.’

I know
, thought Glory, her finger scraping Trish’s false nail against the plastic tray from which the pills had sprung.
Pop, pop, pop,
she thought, in time to the movement of the red spots.

‘Oof. Come out of nowhere, they do.’ Her victim got up and went to fetch herself a glass of water. ‘The doctor says it’s stress. Too much on me plate. But what can I do about that?’

‘Mm. You must be worried about Jimmy too.’

Trish stiffened at the mention of her brother. However, the approaching migraine made it hard to think. ‘I s’pose,’ she mumbled.

The time had come for Glory’s other find in the rubbish. Shreds of torn-up bills, typed in red. She would use their text to spell out the bane.

Behind Trish’s back, she mouthed
Final Demand,
Last Warning,
sending the words, like the red-hot polka dots, into her target’s head. The painkillers’ plastic and foil packaging crinkled against her fingers.

‘About Jimmy,’ she said gently. ‘We’re all very anxious to find him.’

‘And like I told the coven, I don’t know where he’s gone,’ said Trish faintly.

‘But you must’ve some idea,’ Glory murmured.

Final Demand . . . red spots . . . popped foil . . .

Pop spot pop spot pop spot.

‘I need a lie-down –’

Yet somehow Trish could not move from the sink. She wanted to tell Glory to go away, but the pressure in her head was making her sluggish.

‘You’ll feel better soon,’ the girl soothed. ‘You just need to get it off your chest.’

And suddenly, Trish felt that, yes, it
would
be a relief to tell. Family loyalty was well and good, but it wasn’t as if that waster Jimmy had ever come through for her. She didn’t owe him anything.

‘Jimmy’s got a bird down Bermondsey way,’ she said woozily. ‘She works at a chippy there – The Hungry Bite. Could be he’s hiding out with her.’

Glory smiled. ‘I see.’ A bubble of pleasure rose deliciously up her spine. ‘Ta very much.’

After texting Jimmy’s whereabouts to Earl, his coven handler, Glory’s triumph began to cool. She couldn’t avoid the fact that she had inflicted pain on someone for her own ends, and although she had not taken pleasure in Trish’s discomfort, she’d definitely enjoyed the process. Now she felt ashamed. The next time she used her fae, and revelled in its giddy rush, she wanted the witchwork to be for something clean and bright. Uncompromised.

The fae wasn’t like she’d expected. In some ways, it was like her first period or first kiss, or even when she’d got drunk for the first time: the experience wasn’t quite what she was prepared for, but once it had happened, it was impossible to imagine any other way.

A touch of headache was a lot better than getting slapped around by Nate and co., she reasoned. As for Jimmy Warren’s fate once the coven caught up with him . . . well, that wasn’t Glory’s concern. He’d ripped off a lot of people and now he’d have to pay the consequences. Jimmy knew the rules. So did Trish. So did everyone.

By the time she got home, Glory had talked herself out of her misgivings. Even better, the lights were on in Auntie Angel’s living room, and the door was ajar. Glory slipped in to wait for her return.

It was a room where every object competed for attention. The surfaces were higgledy-piggledy with lace doilies and china ornaments; the lamps were beaded, the cushions were tasselled and the curtains fringed. Press cuttings and photos from the Starling Twins’ career papered the walls. Glory’s favourite was an early black and white snapshot of Cora, Lily and Angeline walking down a street arm in arm. Angeline looked so like her younger sisters in this photo that they could almost have been identical triplets. All three had platinum blonde Sixties bobs, black-rimmed eyes and nude lips, and their expressions were bright with mischief. They looked young and carefree, invincible.

She noticed that Auntie Angel had got out the glass bowl she used for scrying, and wondered who she’d been snooping on this time. Surveillance technology was so easily available these days there wasn’t much call for this kind of witchwork but, as her great-aunt said, gadgets broke, fae didn’t. Glory picked up the bowl, and was swirling the water around speculatively when its owner returned.

‘No messing with that,’ the old lady said tartly, ‘or you’ll get slops on my furnishings. I don’t remember inviting you in neither, Miss Nosy-beak.’

Then she took another look at Glory’s face. And Glory found that now the moment of revelation had arrived, she didn’t need to say anything at all.

‘It’s come, hasn’t it?’ Angeline whispered. ‘God’s own balefire, it’s
come
.’