Strangeness and Charm: The Courts of the Feyre (14 page)

  "Get lost! Shoo!" He affected a two-day stubble that was so carefully cultivated. He obviously loved himself.

  Alex, lifted her chin. The rumbling below her subsided. "Why don't you… take your stupid books and your stupid half-a-beard, and your stupid shirt with its stupid logo, and go and fuck yourself?"

  The man bristled, but he didn't leave the doorway.

  "It's a public footpath, isn't it?" she said, "You can't stop me. I've got as much right to be here as you have, prick!"

  "Right, that does it. I'm calling the police!"

  "Help yourself," she said, fussing with her hair in the windows reflection. "By the time they get here I'll be long gone and they'll think you're as big a prick as I do."

  He made a big show of going inside and picking up the phone, glaring at her through the half-reflection of the window as he punched the numbers. Alex was guessing that with the other hand he was holding the phone closed – that type were all show.

  She did look a state, though. There were black rings under her eyes from staying up until all hours, and her sweatshirt and skirt looked like they'd been trampled by elephants before she'd put them on – one of the disadvantages of getting completely soaked and then drying them by forcing all the water out.

  She glanced back at the dickhead in the shop, stuck a finger up at him for good measure and walked on. Within yards she had cloaked herself in glamour. Let the police see if they could find her – they could try. She headed for the brighter lights of Oxford Street.

 

Meetings with my boss were very different, I reflected, than when I used to have a real job. When I reached the stairs down to the training room I could hear Garvin before I could see him. He was using one of the weapons on the rubber car tyre that we used for stamina exercises, hung in the corner from a chain in the ceiling. The raw smacks as he hit the tyre travelled down the corridor as a fast percussion. He was sweating it, pushing himself. When I opened the door I realised he was doing it in pitch blackness.

  "Come in. Close the door." The percussion continued.

  I stepped inside, closing the door with a soft thud, and finding myself in darkness as the noise continued. I stood there waiting for him to finish.

  The lights flickered on leaving me blinking in the light. I realised that Garvin was behind me.

  "Just because the sound continues does not mean I'm still over there. You should know that Dogstar."

  He wandered back to the spinning tyre, swinging the long staff in curves and sweeps around and through the tyre without once touching it, this time in silence, letting his muscles cool slowly from the exertion.

  "I asked you to come and see me," he said, circling slowly around the twirling tyre but still avoiding hitting it.

  "Amber told me."

  "She said she told you twenty minutes ago. Where were you?"

  "I went to see if Alex was back."

  There was a sharp double thud. In Garvin's hand the staff had separated into a shorter staff and a long handled blade. Most of the tyre dropped to the floor, bounced once and then rocked back and forth, leaving the top section jiggling around manically on the end of the chain.

  "You cut the tyre in half," I said, stating the obvious.

  "I can always chain up another tyre," he said, sweeping the blade in a circle, and finishing with a flourish that joined it once more into a staff, "but getting another Warder at short notice is much more difficult."

  "Why do you need another Warder?"

  "Because one of them is running around after his daughter?" he suggested.

  "I… I needed to meet Katherine and I thought it best if it was done discreetly."

  "Discreetly? So you send a black limo to get her? In the middle of a housing estate?"

  "I don't know. I thought maybe…"

  "No, the problem is, you didn't think. I asked you not to see her. I asked you not to tell her Alex was alive."

  "I'm sorry, but I felt I had to."

  "A bit late for that, isn't it? You appropriate the property of the courts for your own purposes, co-opt one of Mullbrook's staff into doing your dirty work, and do something that I expressly asked you not to do…"

  "You only said it wasn't a good idea."

  "And was it? Did she take it well?"

  "Not really."

  "Well I think we can assume I was right, then, can't we?"

  "It's better that she knows."

  "Let me say something, Niall, as someone with a great deal of experience in managing the courts and dealing with humanity. It is, in fact, almost exclusively better, if people do not know. Do I make myself clear this time?"

  "I couldn't leave her like that."

  "This is not about assuaging your guilty conscience. I have a job to do and you're supposed to be helping me – instead you're making it harder."

  "She won't tell anyone."

  "Of course she'll tell someone! She's bound to, sooner or later. There'll be someone close, someone she trusts. It's like pissing in a pond. You break the banks and then it leaks into the bigger pool, before long it's in the stream and then the river and before you know it the entire ocean is tainted with piss. It's what happens."

  "I'll talk to Katherine and ask her to be discreet."

  "I think you've done enough talking, don't you? I asked you to be discreet. Asking her to keep it quiet will only stimulate her interest and encourage her to ask more questions. No more, Niall. Is that understood?"

  "I understand."

  "You said that last time. If you're not cut out to be a Warder, with all the privileges and comforts that come with it, then other arrangements can be made. If you want to be a Warder then you need to start acting like one. I gave you a job. Have you done it?"

  "Not yet."

  Garvin sighed. "There are a group of them holed up in a squat in north London, an old factory. Amber will go with you."

  "Amber?"

  "Yes, Amber. Perhaps if you see how the job should be done, you'll get on with it. I've sent Fellstamp and Fionh elsewhere. If you won't do this, Dogstar, then I'll send someone who will. Amber's waiting for you downstairs. She won't wait long. Get your kit and get moving."

  I said nothing, pressing my fist over my heart in acknowledgement and left, pulling the door shut behind me, then leaned against the wall next to the door, breathing slowly in and out. Garvin was usually the measure of control and diplomacy, but today I'd seen another side of him. If he'd sent Fellstamp and Fionh in search of some of the escapees then that was bad news. They would not treat them as carefully as I would. I needed to get on top of things if I was going to save any of these people, and keep my job.

  I also needed to talk to Katherine, which meant going against what he'd just told me. If Alex turned up at her mother's then Katherine would need to know what the situation was, otherwise she might go complaining to the authorities, or draw further unwanted attention to Alex, when what we needed was a calm, careful, approach.

  None of which were words I would normally associate with Katherine.

 

Alex always liked Oxford Street. All the top shops were there, all the ones with the clothes that her mother would never let her wear. Unsuitable clothes, matched with unwearable shoes. She loved it.

  Of course, there were the designer shops, but even wrapped in glamour she didn't think she could get in and out of one of those without drawing unwanted attention. Those shops didn't have clothes on rails, and changing rooms you could just use. You had to have an attendant and someone to tell you how marvellous you looked. Having earned her freedom she was not so willing to risk losing it again.

  Instead she wandered around the better teen shops, looking at the fashions and checking out what the other girls were wearing. Of course she could just shift her glamour and look however she wanted, but that wasn't the same as having the clothes for herself.

  She went down a rail and picked out a top with a sparkly emblem, and a short denim skirt, a skimpy tee, some leggings, and took all of it to the changing room where a stern-faced shop manager gave her a token which showed how many items she as trying on. The woman was dressed in clothes from the store, but frankly she looked too old for them.

  After a short wait in the queue, she slipped into the communal changing area. Inside, girls squeezed themselves into a variety of outfits, some with more success than others. There was a lot of chat, and a fair amount of swearing as girls found that they were no longer able to fit in a size six or whatever. One girl was fighting a losing battle with a bustier thing while her friend tried to stretch it around her. Alex smiled.

  She shed the shapeless sweatshirt and jeans and wriggled into the short skirt, pulling the zip up hard when it stuck. She pulled the sparkly top over her head, stretching it over her budding curves and smoothed it down. Only then did she look up into the mirror.

  The girl who looked back was a stranger. Alex almost looked around to see if she had caught the reflection from some other girl. Sure, she'd had a mirror in her room, and there were mirrors dotted around the courts, but this was full length widescreen. Alex blinked and her reflection blinked back.

  She caught a smug look from the girl who'd been trying to squeeze into the bustier. Alex almost told her where she could get off, but then looked again at the girl in the mirror. The sparkly top was stretched tight across her bust – too tight. It bunched into lines and left a line of pale midriff where the over-tight skirt pinched in her waist, making her look like she had a roll of puppy fat.

  Her face gave the lie to any weight gain. It was lean and angular. She brushed her cheek where the bones were outlined under the skin. Her unruly hair coiled around her fingers and she teased out the curl, wondering when this had happened to her. When did she become this bony angular waif?

  She stepped sideways as one of the other girls edged in front of her for a better view of herself; giving her attitude, like Alex was hogging the mirror. Looking around the changing room, Alex was suddenly conscious that the other girls would see the strange girl, in clothes that were too small, in a bra that bulged in the wrong places.

  Quickly, she stripped off the top, hearing the seams stretch and crackle as she pulled it over her head. She unzipped the skirt with relief and pulled on her jeans and shirt. There was no point in trying on the leggings and tee shirt – they were all too small. She tugged things back on hangers and headed out.

  She passed the token back to the woman at the changing room entrance.

  "Did you find anything you liked?" she asked.

  "S'all too small," said Alex, handing back the clothes.

  The woman took them from her and checked them before hanging them from a rail behind her.

  She turned, assessing Alex and then checking the sizes on the clothes she'd just hung up. "These are eights and you're definitely going to need a ten," she said. "What size bra are you wearing?"

  Alex told her, and the woman sighed. "It's very common with young women – you don't notice how your shape is changing. You're going to have to buy a new bra before you try anything else on," she said. "The one you're wearing is too small for you and nothing is going to fit right until you do. I'll ask one of the assistants to advise you, if you'd like?"

  "No, really," said Alex, "I'm OK."

  "Of course," she said. "You'll find lingerie in the far corner over there." She gestured towards the back corner of the store.

  "Thanks," said Alex, drifting away.

  Since she got back she'd been preoccupied, what with the birth of the baby and having lessons with Fionh. All the rules about what she could do and couldn't do – it was worse than Porton Down. Her appearance hadn't been an issue, though. Maybe it was the drugs she'd been given, but she didn't feel drugged, she just felt… different, as if she didn't quite fit in her own skin. She'd just thrown on the clothes she'd been given, only now she realised they were shapeless and baggy or just didn't fit.

  She found herself in front of another full length mirror along one of the aisles. Her hair wound in dark curls around her face and her eyes looking hard and cold. She smoothed the sweatshirt down, trying to visualise the figure underneath. A girl with a dress walked around in front of her. She stood between Alex and the mirror and held the dress up against herself.

  "Do you mind?" said Alex. "I was using that."

  The girl glanced around at her, taking in the crumpled sweatshirt and the faded jeans. "Seriously?" she said. She turned and checked the dress again.

  "Stuck up bitch," said Alex, but the girl had already moved away.

  Alex stared at herself and realised that the girl had a point. She did look a bit of a state. The jeans hung from her hips and the formless top did nothing for her. Now that she was conscious of it, her bra was too tight in all the wrong places and she felt frumpy.

  A couple of girls passed between her and the mirror, debating the merits of the skirt they had chosen for one or other of them. Alex had no one to debate with. Did anyone care how she looked? Did anyone even notice her? Standing in the middle of the shop, she felt the people moving around her. She felt each heartbeat swishing by, heard their chatter, was jostled and stepped around, but comprehensively ignored. She'd never felt so alone. Even at the worst of Porton Down, people knew you were there. They didn't just step around you.

  It came to her that she could could stop it all. She could slow every heartbeat, cause the blood not to flow. She could make it thicken and slow and they would all die, all of them.