Pandaemonium (8 page)

Right now, he was getting to his feet first as the train pulled in at Savoy, even though he was the stranger here. Holding out a hand to hoick me up the way he used to, frail girlie that I was.

I used to love that gesture. And cling to it, cling to him, because as often as not he was taking me into curious and frightening places, to meet curious people who were only not frightening because I was with him.

Now – well, he wasn’t frightened, but perhaps he ought to be. At any rate he was utterly out of place here, and if he wanted to pretend he was taking the lead, that was fine by me. It meant I could keep hold of his hand and see him through the tough stuff, nudge him when necessary. Push my own worries to the back of my mind, stop looking over my shoulder, focus on keeping Jacey straight. Yes.

Off the train, then, unhurriedly, letting everyone else go first because we could. Some days everybody wanted to do that, when it was a trainful of first-timers; the driver never hurried away. The doors stayed open until the last person finally found the courage to step down, or else irrevocably changed their mind and went back into the world.

Not us, not today. It wasn’t about courage, just keeping away from the world for a while. Having a place to be.

Here was the platform, like a recreation for a ’twenties movie,
SAVOY
spelled out in tiling on the wall. Original posters that were probably worth a mint, only nobody here would touch them.

One exitway, where everyone was headed. Old hands, perhaps; they didn’t dawdle, there was no reluctance in their shuffling, only the weight that the left-behind world had left on them.

Here was the stairway. Here was a boy not busking, just blowing a sad horn because that was what he did and what he could do, a boy with his face peeled off. Some Overworldly creature had taken it for a trophy, most likely, and left him with red-raw flesh exposed like dry meat at the butcher’s, with cartilage and bone and tendons showing through. He had no lips; he gripped the mouthpiece of his saxophone between his revealed teeth, which must make dentistry easier but music probably harder. I figured he had to be making some kind of seal with his tongue and the roof of his mouth – but what did I know? Maybe he wasn’t human and never had been; maybe he’d grown that way and not been hurt at all. Maybe he kept his lips behind his teeth. This was the underworld, these were the Stranded.

Beyond the boy, another brief tiled tunnel-passage led to another platform, the way the other passengers were heading. “That’s the dormitory,” I told Jacey. “Everybody builds their own nest, and we all bunk down together.”
Us too, if we stay.
I could read the unasked question on his face; I guess he could read the unspoken answer on my own. “We don’t go that way yet,” I went on, as though the whole silent conversation had been explicit, dealt with, shared. “Up first, to see Reno.”

Who’s Reno?
– it was another of those inevitable questions that he managed not to ask. I wanted to applaud, only then I’d have to let go of his hand and I didn’t want to do that.

So his effort went unrewarded, if not unappreciated, as we started up the long straight flight of stairs. There were escalators on either side, the original old wooden kind, but they didn’t actually run; I wasn’t sure they ever had, and climbing a dead escalator is no fun at all. Even with your Aspect on. I’d let that slip since the train came, just keeping it at a low maintenance level, present but not obtrusive. Not in charge.

Hell, it was never in charge. It was a tool, that was all. And not addictive, either. No way. No.

“I don’t know what it is about escalators,” I said, to distract myself as much as him. “When they’re not running, I mean. The pitch is just wrong or something. It feels unnatural, not shaped for the human body. And they’re
tiring
.”

“Says the girl who’s just run fifty miles without getting out of breath.”

“Oh, hush, that’s different. Maybe I mean mentally tiring. Maybe it’s because they’re supposed to carry you, it just feels so much more effort when they don’t. Like having to push a bike when you should be riding it, or –”

“Or having to push a conversation one way, to stop it taking you another way that you don’t want to go, maybe? Desi, when you talk about this place you always say
we
. We do this, we do that. When did you become one of these people?”

“When I had to run away from you, of course.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“I
T HAPPENS ALL
the time,” I said –
it’s not just you, not just you and me
– “that people find themselves in trouble with the Overworld. Someone’s after them, or someone’s broken their heart or taken their place, stolen their life or their reputation or their lover, and they just need space, they need to step away and hole up for a while.

“The kind of places that people go, the hostels and the hideaways, the all-night cafes and the all-night buses” – the places I’d tracked Jordan through – “there’s always someone there who knows about this place and how to get here. Where to pick up an Oyster-knife.” That’s what we call the special cards, because they slip through the cracks and open this place up to you, and maybe if you’re lucky you’ll find a pearl. “You wouldn’t ever have heard about it, because you’ve never been needy that way.” And he still wasn’t, of course, and probably I shouldn’t have brought him here, but I couldn’t have left him to the Corbies. Power or not. He might be right, that he could take them – but he might not. Asher was still dead.

If I was going to be in trouble for bringing him along, I’d find out soon enough. Here we were at the top of the stairs. No barriers here, to touch our cards against for rights of passage: straight out into the old ticketing hall, all gloss green walls and immaculate ’twenties styling, lovely ironwork everywhere: from the lamps to the balustrades to the illuminated signs to the doorhandles.

“Right,” he said. “It’s a refuge. Got it. How long can people stay?”

“As long as they like.” That boy with the sax might never leave. Where else could he go, who would take him in? What would he do? Here he had a life of sorts, a horn to blow, a place to stand. A place to sleep, among his own people, the brutalised and the terrified and the torn-apart, all the most needy refugees from the worlds above. “But it’s more than just a shelter for the homeless, it’s a sort of employment agency too. Reno likes to find places for us back in the world, where we can be safe and make a life again. Nothing’s compulsory, but – yeah. Come on. Let’s check in.”

I was fairly sure that Reno would know already that I was back, and who I’d brought in tow. Not sure how, but sure, oh, yes. Even so: new arrivals always did do this.

Down to the end of the hall, past the shuttered windows, each of them framed like a painting in tiles of darker green, each with its sign hung above on an iron curlicue bracket, proclaiming
Tickets
; down to where a full door was similarly framed, where the sign said
Stationmaster’s Office.

A quick formal rap of the knuckles on one panel of the door, though again I was quite sure that Reno knew we were here. There’s no CCTV, but even so. Reno knows everything that happens at Savoy, and a lot that doesn’t. Pretty much everything the Stranded get up to, here and elsewhere. If it’s known anywhere, if it’s knowledge, it belongs to Reno, pretty much. As we do, pretty much.

As I still do, pretty much, though it’s been years.

As I always will, a little bit, most likely. You can take the girl out of the Savoy, but.

A
NYWAY.

Rap-rap
and in we go.

The decor outside may be all bright and open and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, but the office feels pure Victorian, wood-lined and sombre. I guess that’s the way they thought offices should be back then, even when they were ready to be freethinkers with their public spaces.

Reno was behind the desk, as ever.

I still had hold of Jacey with my non-knocking hand. I wasn’t looking at him, but I didn’t need to; I could feel his sudden hesitation, I knew exactly the abrupt blink of surprise, the moment of unpreparedness, the swift recovery. Knock him back on his heels and he rocks right up again, that’s how it goes.

Probably I should have warned him, probably I should be feeling guilty. But we never do, and I never would. Not about this.

Reno said, “Not expecting a woman, huh?”

It’s her standard joke. It’s a test, I think, to see if people laugh. Learn how they laugh, meanly or forcedly or hysterically or what.

Jacey was being good. He said, “Well, it does say
Stationmaster
outside your door.” He played it as po-faced as she did, as if he was enjoying himself just as much.

Reno’s an angel, and she likes to make a pun of it. In the way of a West End theatrical angel, she invests in us and hopes for a return, even while she’s hoping never to see us again. Never to need to.

But that really is just for the pun of it. Reno really is an angel.

Or rather, she’s a woman with wings. That’s as good as it gets down under, as much as you can hope for.

Or rather, she isn’t. A woman with wings.

She used to be, but that was long ago. Somebody’s been unkind to her, cruel and unkind. She’s the other thing now, a woman without wings. But still nothing like the rest of us.

I’m guessing that they plucked her first, quill and barb: every pinfeather and every flight ripped individually out. There must have been a number of them – she’s a big woman, even sitting down she’s taller than me, and she wouldn’t have sat still for this – and they will have needed tools, pliers of some kind. But they did have tools. I know that, because plucking wasn’t enough. They cut away her wings, what they’d left of them, the naked bleeding ruins that they were; broke them, crushed the bones and hacked off what was left. What she has now are splintered stumps, just too unkindly long to hide beneath a shirt. They jut from holes she rips in anything she wears, and twitch with remembered life when she’s forgetful.

I think they must hurt her appallingly, all the time. She doesn’t show it, but even the healed skin shows brutal scars where she was torn deep inside. The visible bone, all the serrated living shards that push out through fresh scabs, fresh runs of blood like dribbles of congealed ruby – well. It doesn’t bear thinking about, so I don’t. Much.

She said, “Jacey Cathar. I never thought to see you here. I don’t imagine you’re looking for work.”

“No,” he said. “Nor shelter, actually. I only came because... because Desi brought me.” He was still tripping over the name, but still being good, making the effort. I squeezed his hand.

“Well, never mind. You’re welcome anyway.” And then she turned to me and said, “I didn’t expect to see you back. I thought we’d got you settled.”

“You did. But, you know. Stuff happens.”

“Stuff. Yes. It must do. Someone was asking after you just recently. Asking
for
you, actually. Did I know where you’d gone, how to find you. I said no.”

“Uh, thanks, Reno...”

She shrugged. And didn’t wince, but I thought that was practised. I thought a shrug was like red-hot irons in her shoulders, biting deep. “What I do. Client confidentiality. But I did think you were settled. Well, no matter. You’re here now. Make yourselves a space, settle in. Find your boy some boots if he’s staying, don’t let him make trouble if he’s not. Are you looking for another position?”

“No. Thanks, but no. I’m really not. Who was asking for me?”

“Client confidentiality,” she said again. “I can’t tell you that. Only – well. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised to see you back. Go on, now.” And her long, long arm was already reaching for a sheaf of papers in a cubby-hole, her head and her attention were already turned away.

Too busy to linger, too well-informed to gossip, too well-connected to be impressed: that was Reno, through and through. As instructed, I took my boy away to find him boots.

Poor Jacey. His day had become a succession of bewilderments, and what he was possibly – probably – thinking now were bad decisions. Especially the big ones: to come with me when I ran, and to let me choose where we ran to. Here he was off balance and unexpectedly out of his depth, feeling disrespected, disregarded, almost dismissed. He wasn’t used to playing second fiddle, to having the girl he was with seem inherently more interesting than he was. He certainly wasn’t used to being called somebody else’s boy.

And I was no help, leading him around by the hand with my thoughts all too obviously elsewhere, wondering who’d been enquiring for me here, who I needed to be afraid of now. Not the Cathars, or not directly. One of their mercenaries was still a likely choice, but that was also the lazy choice, the one that didn’t trouble to think things through. Occam’s Razor can do that to you. You make quick assumptions and act as if they’re true, and more often than not you’re right, and the times that you’re not – well. Those are the times that you can end up dead.

Dead or worse, naturally. There’s always something worse.

So I was thinking mostly about that and hardly at all about Jacey, just tugging him along like a grown-up with a little boy in tow. Until my thoughts stumbled over something I really didn’t want to think about, and that brought my head up and my mind back to where I was and what I was doing, right here and right now. I was taking Jacey utterly for granted, treating him like a tiresome duty while I considered far more important matters in the privacy of my own skull – and he was
letting
me. Allowing that to happen. Playing along.