City of Halves (19 page)

She fiddled with her keys. ‘Are you going out again? To the Wall?'

Watching her, he nodded. Then he turned and walked to the stairs, making it down the first couple.

‘Wait!'

He stopped and turned, just as the door to the flat opened. Her father stood in the doorway.

‘Dad, I just need a second.'

Her father looked between her and Regan, but didn't move.

‘Dad, just a second,
please
.'

He left the door open and walked away into the flat.

Lily crossed to the stairs and put her hand out, tugging the button on Regan's coat. She ducked her head. ‘I really am sorry.
Please don't stay angry with me.'

‘Lily!' her father shouted. ‘In here. Now.'

She looked over her shoulder for a second. When she turned back, for the second time that day, Regan was gone.

L
ily closed the flat door and leant against it for a second. Then she came into the sitting room and put her bag down.

‘So. I'm hoping Regan didn't have anything to do with you chasing to east London to take on a bunch of men who traffic young girls,' her father said. He was sitting at the counter with a glass of wine, which was not standard behaviour.

‘No,' said Lily meekly. ‘The opposite. He's furious with me. And he came and brought me home, if you want to know.'

Her father sighed, turning the base of his glass. ‘I'm not sure I do, to be honest. I don't think I'm ready for you to rely on someone else before me yet. Or this quickly.'

‘I wasn't relying on him!' Lily protested. ‘He . . . I can't explain. It's stupid.'

‘The stupid thing, Lily, is you walking into the dragon's lair on your own.'

‘It's not a dragon's lair. I wouldn't walk into one of those on my own,' she said, imagining a smoking drain off Bishopsgate.

Her father looked at her sternly. ‘But you did. Detective Evans said you were there alone. You know what these men are. You know . . .' He put a hand over his face.

Lily took a breath, but didn't answer.

He got up. ‘Look, well done for finding him. But never do it again. Ever. Do you understand?'

She nodded.

He rubbed her hair, then the side of her face, with the back of his hand. ‘You're too precious. And obviously not just to me.'

She pushed his hand away. ‘Don't overreact, Dad. And he's just mad at me for being an idiot.'

‘Lily, I may be out of the loop with relationships, but I know what people look like when they've been worried sick about someone they care about.' He shook his head. ‘I have to work.'

He went into his office. Lily pulled off her jacket and sat down in one of the comfortable chairs, letting her head drop on to the back. Her thoughts skipped back over the day and her skin crawled again. Feeling filthy, she got up and took a shower.

Back in the kitchen she worked through the hard copies of the medic's emails. He had been thorough in his observations, and it was clear that he thought Mona was an important find. Lily opened her computer and searched for as much detail as she could about Mona's father. Most of it had to be translated, and came out fairly mangled on the other side, so that it just seemed like rubbish. There was a lot of stuff about regeneration, or maybe reincarnation. It was hard to tell. Lily pursed her lips, then remembered something. Snakeskin.
His hand – the agent's hand. And the bruise
.

She tugged up her sleeve. The bruise was clearer and more vivid than ever.
It's snakeskin
.

Not for the first time, Lily cursed the fact that Regan didn't have a phone. Then a thought struck her. Her fingers hovered over the keys . . . 
Halfbreed. London. London Wall. Guardian
. She scowled at the fruitless search results, then tried a few Boolean strings.
Yes! Wait, no way . . . The Guardian, bringer of punishment, protector of the weak
.

The telephone in her father's office rang. She glanced at the time on her computer. It was almost ten. She frowned.

‘I'll be there,' Lily heard her father say. She looked up as he came out of the study. ‘I've got to go to Heathrow. Border Control want me.'

‘Again?' Lily sighed. ‘Isn't there someone else who can do it? You look tired.'

‘I
am
tired. Worn out from worrying about you today,' he said, pulling on his coat and putting things in his briefcase.

Lily got up. ‘Sorry,' she said again.

‘Hmn.' He nodded.

She handed him the tie that was discarded on the back of the sofa.

‘Thank you. Don't stay up late. I'll see you in the morning.'

‘Dad?'

‘Yes?'

‘Mum—'

He looked at her, sad. ‘Don't dig through this, Lily. I want to save you the years of unhappiness I've had.'

She summoned a smile. ‘Night, then, Dad.'

‘Night.' The door closed behind him.

Lily turned the television on and checked her emails. There was one from her best friend, Sam, asking if she wanted to meet up the following day. Sam was also bringing half the year
with her on a trip to St Paul's. Lily bit her cheek, fingers hovering over the keys, then hit ‘reply'.

I've kind of got something on
.

It only took another second for Sam to email back.

What? Chat. Now
.

Lily signed in, regretting having not made something up. Sam was already online.

Lily laughed as she typed a reply: Guy.

Sam disconnected without waiting for a reply. Lily breathed a sigh of relief and rolled her eyes.
Perhaps I should have just dropped it into the conversation that he's not human. But then again . . .

Her phone chimed, informing her of a voicemail. Reception was often hopeless in the flat. She tugged it from her jacket and looked at it; it wasn't a number she recognised. She touched the screen.

‘It's me. Meet me on Blackfriars Bridge when you get this.'

Regan
?
But he hates phones
. Lily listened to the message again. It was awkward and stilted. She got to her feet and grabbed her keys.
He doesn't have a telephone
. She listened to the message again.
Maybe he's sorry he was angry. Maybe he's not okay, like last night
.

She let herself out of the flat. It only took ten minutes to reach Blackfriars Bridge, but when she got there it was empty. A truck grumbled past, heading towards Smithfield Market. Lily checked her watch.
Almost eleven
.

She looked around, then examined the bruise on her arm again. A breeze had picked up, whipping her hair across her face. She shivered inside her jacket. A taxi went by, a man asleep
in the back seat, papers open on his lap, illuminated by the interior light.

Lily walked out into the centre of the bridge. She leant against the parapet for a minute, but the cold iron chilled her flesh through her jeans. Straightening up, she pulled out her phone, listened to the message again and then pushed the ‘call back' button. Behind her, a telephone rang.

She turned, and caught her breath.

A man almost identical to Regan was standing twenty feet away. His hair was slightly shorter and neater, and his neck was bare. He was dressed in black motorcycle leathers.

‘Hi, Lily, I'm Ellis.'

‘You . . . you're his brother. And . . . you're David Smith.'
And I am a colossal idiot
.

‘Yeah, well done.' He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. ‘I wondered if you'd get that one.'

Lily's brain burnt with questions, but fear was gripping her gut. She took a step back. ‘You tricked me. Why am I here?'

Ellis folded his arms, the icy wind ruffling his hair. ‘Well, that's the thing. We need you.'

‘Why?'

‘Come with me and I'll show you.'

‘And Vicky Shadbolt? Mona Singh? The mothwings? I'm assuming that's all down to you too.' She took his silence as confirmation. ‘What did you need them for?'

‘You haven't worked it out? Maybe you're not as clever as I thought. I'd have expected you and him to have worked it out by now.'

‘Regan?'

His mouth twisted slightly at the name.

‘Why do you look like that? He's your brother,' Lily said slowly.

He rolled his eyes. ‘He's a crusader, as out-dated as those asthmatic shopkeepers.'

‘He's trying to do what your father did.'

‘What? Die for nothing because he won't recognise the world has moved on?'

Lily swallowed. ‘Is that what happened to your father?'

He said nothing.

‘And your mother?'

Ellis looked away, then looked back at her and shook his head. ‘Sorry to have got you here under false pretences. But we're running out of time. The project needs to move ahead. Now.'

Lily pushed her phone into her pocket and zipped it up carefully. ‘I'm sorry too.'

‘You must come with me – you see that, don't you?'

‘No. Why?'

You're part of the project. We need you.'

‘I'm not part of any project.' Lily shook her head.

He smiled, this time looking genuinely amused. ‘You are.'

‘You talk as if you know me,' Lily said warily.

‘But I do,' he said.

‘No, you don't.'

He folded his arms. ‘I know your height, your weight, your blood type. That you broke your wrist in the playground when you were seven because you wanted to play with the others instead of waiting on the sidelines like you were supposed to. I know that you like Italian food and eat salted popcorn while watching old films. You've a knack for coding and hacking, but you've never let on to anyone apart from your father how good
you really are. And that little scar under your chin? You got that when you slipped rock-climbing in Scotland two years ago,
which
you shouldn't have been doing, as you well know. Putting the whole project at risk on a stupid whim.'

‘Project?'

‘Yes.' He paused. ‘Want me to go on?'

Lily swallowed and nodded.

‘I've been watching you for almost five years.'

‘For which you should seek help,' she said immediately, then paused. ‘Wait. You're apache85.'

He nodded eagerly. ‘Fantastic proxies, by the way – and that digital steganography skit you ran on Transmedia was something else. You've given me the slip more than a few times. That layered Caesar cipher on the Noble forum was you, wasn't it?'

Lily hesitated, then nodded slowly.

He smiled, satisfied, punching the air. ‘I knew it. They said it was impossible that a sixteen-year-old girl was using hexadecimal characters like that, but I
knew
it was you.'

They looked at each other.

‘The blood-banking. Is that even real?' Lily asked.

‘Your blood type is exceptionally rare, and we do bank your blood in case you need it. But, yes, we test it too.'

‘Test it for what?'

‘Everything. We thought the bandogge incident may have changed the nature of it, but it appears not. His blood hasn't affected you at all.' He shrugged. ‘It's as pure as ever.'

‘Pure?'

‘Yes. That's one of the things that's remarkable about it. No free radicals, no heavy metals, despite living in one of the most polluted cities in Europe.' He shook his head, as if in wonder.

‘The blood tests, the blood drive. It's you, isn't it?'

Ellis grinned. ‘I can't take all the credit, but yes, that's us.'

‘What is it for?'

‘Operation Harvest. The first large-scale identification of any remaining Type H females.'

‘So far, so gross. And a harvest doesn't sound much like identification to me.'

Coming over the bridge from the south was a black lowrider van. Lily turned to him, dismayed. They regarded each other warily.

‘Why do you want us? Why me? Why Vicky?'

‘You'll understand soon.'

‘You made her believe the two of you were in a relationship.'

He shrugged.

‘What about Mona Singh?'

‘Mona is already proving valuable to the project, even if the results are rather more . . . unpredictable than we had imagined. Three limbs, one too few, five limbs, one too many, you understand? But we're making real progress. And that's why we need you now. You're too important to the project to put yourself at risk the way have been doing. If only you could have stayed home with your daddy, playing your little online games. Safe and warm in the safest place in London. But no, now you're on the streets almost getting yourself killed. And it has to stop.' His tone was final.

She edged back.

‘You can't outrun me. You know that.'