The Key to Starveldt (22 page)

‘I have. And you’re still here.’

‘I’m the guardian. I’m always here.’

‘So you told me.’ Keeping her tone steady was an effort. Genteel though the Voice was, his existence was just so
frustrating
.

The sound of distant humming filled the darkness.

‘You are again seeking the one called Glide,’ the Voice observed. ‘This time, your suspicions are correct. He is at the warehouse.’

‘Great. Can you take us there?’

‘Have you learned the significance of the key?’

‘Yes!’ She bit back her impatience. ‘I mean, it’s been explained to me.’

The Voice considered this. ‘That is partially true. Still. I do not recommend that you proceed.’

‘You said that last time,’ Solace growled. ‘What, is something
else
on fire?’

‘No. You are safe in the Rookery.’

‘I’ll be safe when Sanguisidera and Grief are dead,’ said Solace, and a pang went through her as she realised it was true. She didn’t want to kill anyone, and Electra had been right when she said that mercy was what separated them from the Bloodkin. But how else could she ever be free? It was an ugly thought, and one she was more than willing to postpone. ‘Until that happens, all bets are off. Send us through.’

There was a whistling sound. Almost, she could believe the Voice was sighing.

‘Very well. To the warehouse. Both of you.’

The blackness vanished. As had happened in Lukin’s minaret, Solace felt a rushing sensation, as though she were swooping back into her body without ever having left it. A moment of disorientation followed: her senses didn’t work, and yet she knew that, somewhere, her free hand was moving, withdrawing the key, turning the handle, opening the door.

A square of light met her vision, dazzling and impossible. Beside her, she heard Evan suck in breath.

They stepped forward.

Gravel crunched beneath his feet. Evan stumbled, still partially blinded despite the the light being gone. Blinking rapidly, he pulled away from Solace and shielded his eyes, feeling absurdly exhilarated to be on Earth.
I left the world. And now I’m back.
The knowledge buoyed him. For a moment, he fought the urge to shout out loud.

They were directly beside the charred remains of what had once been the warehouse. It was a sobering sight. Last time he’d stood here, it had been full night, the smoke yellow-brown and sordid against the velvet sky, choking him with ash, bitterness, shock. Now it was dusk, the air crisp with the threat of winter. As he turned to Solace, he saw that she, too, was moved by their surroundings.
Or perhaps
, he thought,
she’s just happy to have missed sunset.

Out loud, he asked, ‘Assuming your vision of Glide was in real-time, you would’ve seen him yesterday afternoon, right?’

Solace jumped, startled out of her reverie. ‘Yes. I mean, I think so. It felt like the present.’

‘Good enough for me.’ Despite the selfcontainment of Solace’s thoughts, his newfound sensitivity caught the sharp tang of guilt emanating from her: acidic and red-grey, with just a touch of salt. Her mindscent, as he was coming to think of such emotions, made him feel momentarily awkward. Until Jess alluded to it, he’d all but forgotten Solace’s short-lived fling with Glide, and that, in turn, made
him
feel guilty. After Phoebe’s death, only Solace had had the courage to ask him how he’d felt. The least he could do was extend her the same courtesy.

‘Was the Voice telling the truth?’ he asked. ‘Do you think he’s still in there?’

‘Yes. I can’t imagine a disembodied presence going out of its way to be deceptive. And part of me –’ She broke off, shaking her head. ‘Part of me can almost sense him. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because of the vision.’

‘Maybe it’s because you cared for him.’

‘Maybe.’ A muscle twitched in her jaw. She laughed, softly. ‘Want to know a secret? I’ve been kissed twice in my life. Glide was the first. Part of me thinks I should regret that, because of what he’s done. But I don’t.’

‘And the second time?’

She flinched at the question, and Evan realised immediately that he’d said the wrong thing.
Idiot
! He opened his mouth to take it back, but Solace drew a shuddering breath and answered.

‘Grief.’ Her eyes were liquid obsidian. ‘In that
place
, whatever it was, when he stole me. He bit my lip.’

By dint of extreme effort, Evan managed not to swear. He wanted to say,
I wiped the blood off your eyes
, but didn’t know how to make the observation relevant. He tried a different tack. ‘Solace, if there’d been a mirror when we brought you back … you could barely talk, let alone move. What he did to you was wrong. But that doesn’t taint you. Caring for Glide doesn’t taint you, either, no matter what he did. Okay?’

It took her a moment, but she nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘Good.’ He exhaled in a rush, suddenly embarrassed, and scuffed his foot on the ground.
What I wouldn’t give for a glass of – no. Remember Harper. No drinking.
By way of distraction, he contemplated the police tape, as flimsy a barrier to curiosity as had ever been conceived. Grinning at Solace, he bowed towards the tape and flourished one arm.

‘Ladies first.’

‘Thanks ever so.’ Lifting the cordon, she ducked beneath it.

He followed close behind. Under different circumstances, he might have found the ruins fascinating – beautiful, even. What chunks of glass remained intact were smoke-mottled and warped, while the fallen steel and charred wood had gained an indigo haze in the twilight, muting their sharp edges. Debris crunched underfoot like leaf-litter in a forest, shifting and crackling. Evan wasn’t game to touch what remained of the structure, but whenever the second level had fallen – presumably sometime after the fire was quenched, as his memory was of flames licking at both – it had pulled one large section of wall askew. The bricks there hung at a precarious angle that dared his inner five-year-old to lean on it, just to see what would happen. It was haphazard, intriguing and melancholic, like an Escher sketch come to life.
Three of my friends died here. There’s nothing beautiful in that.

Ahead of him, Solace stopped. Her mindscent had gone tense and sharp, like a bowstring on the verge of release.

‘Glide?’

There was a crackling sound. Evan held his breath. For a moment, it seemed like nothing would happen. Then, with an audible sigh, Glide stepped out from behind what remained of the kitchen cupboards. His face was bruised, his shoulders stooped and his clothes were streaked with ash. Combined with his battered visage, it lent him an air of sackcloth-and-ashes penitence. Solace’s mindscent flared white-blue and butterscotch with hope, but subsided quickly, tamped down by her self-control. Glide was not so discreet. He approached them silently, limping as he favoured his left side, but now that Evan knew to look for them, his emotions clamoured like hungry dogs: icy self-recrimination, red-wet pain, even a spark of lust, but all underwritten by wrenching despair.

‘Solace.’ Glide’s voice was rough. ‘I didn’t think you’d come. When I felt you here, I thought I was dreaming. But you came back.’

The two of them stood face to face, separated by only a few centimetres. Battered by Glide’s turbulent mindscent, Evan cursed Laine for broadening his senses to such a degree that standing beside even two people was mentally discomforting. He banished the thought, struggling to concentrate. Glide was yet to acknowledge his presence, and Solace seemed to have forgotten how to speak. Every muscle in her neck and arms was tense, her feet immobile. With deliberate slowness, Glide reached out and stroked Solace’s cheek. She didn’t move, but when the traitor leaned in to kiss her, she let out a cry and stumbled backwards.

Evan intervened. ‘Hey!’

Glide jumped, turning his way for the first time.

Evan glowered. ‘We haven’t come here just so you can play kiss-and-make-up. Do you even see where we’re standing?’ He gestured at the ruins. ‘You did this. You killed our friends here.’

Glide blanched. ‘You don’t understand. It wasn’t my fault.’

‘It wasn’t?’ Solace’s voice was tight, but her emotions remained carefully mute.

Glide shook his head and swallowed. ‘No. It was Sanguisidera. She was in me, warping me, making me do things that I never –’

‘Making
you
do things?’ Evan interrupted. ‘Meaning that
you
set the fire?’

‘No!’ Glide glanced pleadingly between them, but Evan could taste the lies on him, the fear and desperation. ‘No, it was her, she pushed herself into my mind, my thoughts – I had no choice, Solace –’ he turned back to her, ‘– she took everything from me. Please. Please believe me. I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt anyone. They would have killed me.’

For what felt like an eternity, Solace stared at Glide. Her eyes were as black as Evan had ever seen them. She breathed deeply, exhaling with the sharp rhythm of contained fury. When she spoke, her voice was soft, but no less powerful for it.

‘You told me you’d been locked up, once. That your Trick showed you a dark place. That you were trapped there.’

‘Yes.’ He gulped the word.

‘Sanguisidera found you. That’s what you meant.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you never broke free, did you? She let you go. Because you agreed to help her.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know I’d come to the warehouse? All that time, were you waiting for me?’

‘No. Maybe.’ He dropped his gaze. ‘She told me what to look for, but you were always hidden. Until a few weeks ago. Yes.’ His voice was little more than a whisper. Evan felt his stomach churn with disgust, but Solace remained as still as if she’d been carved from marble.

‘When you kissed me.’ Her jaw clenched. ‘Was that you? Or did Sanguisidera ask it?’

Silence rippled through the ruins. Glide hesitated for a moment, but it was enough. Evan felt something in Solace break, a sideways wrenching that manifested in the tremor of her throat. She stepped forward and slapped Glide hard across his left cheek.

‘You cowardly, selfish bastard.’ Her voice was raw. ‘Manx was right. You’re guilty. You’ve always been guilty. You let them burn to save yourself.’

‘They didn’t feel anything.’ Glide’s green eyes were empty, like stagnant ponds. ‘It was all I could do. I made sure they didn’t feel anything.’

Evan couldn’t feel anything, either. He was numb. Despite all Sharpsoft’s warnings, part of him had never really believed that Glide was responsible for the fire. Until now, he hadn’t realised how much he’d wanted to think otherwise.

Solace’s eyes flared.

Glide began to back away. ‘Please. I can help you –’

The vampire didn’t let him finish. Whipcrack-fast, she seized his throat with one hand and squeezed. Glide gasped and choked, scratching at her grip, but Solace was too strong, too single-minded. The violence in her was taking over, hard and animal and instinctive. Shouting wordlessly, she flung Glide against the remains of a concrete pillar. There was a sickening crunch. Already damaged, the pillarfragment groaned, then caved backwards so that Glide fell to the ground, coughing and spasming. He held up his hands in a plea for mercy.

Solace paused, caught between vengeance and restraint.

Evan felt her mindscent roil with confused bloodlust. Stepping forward, he placed a hand on her shoulder. Empathy roared between them. He felt the depths of her Rarity shudder and rage, wrapped around a core of anger. It overpowered him, he was pinned beside her, powerless to move or act. But still, the words came of their own accord.

‘Solace. Lacey. Let him go.’

The spell broke. With a strangled cry, Solace turned on Evan, raining blows on his chest, but there was no power to them. All at once the strength went from her legs: she dropped, and Evan dropped too, pulling her against his chest. Relief overwhelmed him. His throat was hot and tight. Solace shook, clutching at his arms, her dark head resting against his collarbone. He felt her exhaustion, the sour dregs of her wrath and, overwhelmingly, her fear that it would consume her. Evan shuddered and closed his eyes, trying to find some emotion or thought to comfort them both, but there was none.

Nearby, Glide coughed, pushing himself into a sitting position.

‘I can help,’ he croaked again.

Solace braced against Evan’s chest, exhaling slowly. ‘You’ve done enough, Glide. More than enough. The only way you can help is by vanishing.’

Glide coughed again, deep and ragged. He stared at them through a haze of pain so thick Evan could taste it, edged with hospital disinfectant and eggshell white. Whatever Sharpsoft had done to him, colliding with the pillar hadn’t helped.

‘I know things,’ Glide said. ‘Working with Bloodkin. I heard things. About Sharpsoft.’

Solace closed her eyes. ‘Shut up.’

‘You know he’s a vampire, right? Like you? Sanguisidera turned him. Before that, he was just like me. Stronger, maybe. But our Tricks are the same. He calls it planeshifting.’

‘
Shut up
.’

But Glide was relentless. ‘Blood addiction. That’s what all her vampires have. The Bloodkin. Your mother wrote about it. I read a bit, before I gave them the book. She said almost no one ever recovered. Sharpsoft, though, he was meant to be a traitor. A double agent. So how does he feed, huh? You ever seen him eat people food? Forget it. He drinks blood. Like them. He thinks he’s like you, pretends he’s still on your side. But he’s one of them. Crazed as a bag-lady.’