Witch Fire (21 page)

The Café Grande did not live up to its name. Its gilt basketwork chairs and cloudy mirrors had seen better days. Rain drummed against the windows, drowning out the old ladies mumbling over their coffee. The hot chocolate, though, was as good as Rose had promised, and rich with unfamiliar spices.

Glory had got to the café early to gather her thoughts, even though her shift had ended at 5 a.m. and she’d had very little sleep. She didn’t know what to make of Rose, or what to expect from this second interview. But it wasn’t surprising that Rose was a little odd, considering everything she’d been through.

And here she came now. Even in the pouring rain, heads turned as she hurried across the cobblestones and into the café.

‘Ugh, this rain! Relentless!’ she exclaimed. Droplets flew as she shook out her shining hair. ‘Really, we might as well be in
Wales
.’

Glory waited as the waiter bustled up to take Rose’s order. Once they were alone, she cleared her throat.
‘
Thanks for meeting me. I’m sorry I brought up all that stuff in the club. I was just surprised to see you. The last time . . . well. You was in a pretty bad way.’

‘Ghastly,’ Rose agreed, taking a sip of chocolate.

‘I’m real sorry about what happened to your mum.’

‘Poor Mummy was a very unhappy woman, I’m afraid. I hope she’s at peace.’

Rose spoke as if her mother had been dead for years, instead of months. But, thought Glory, posh people weren’t supposed to be good at showing emotion. She nodded sympathetically.

‘Lady Merle told me what happened. About the surgery what you had to block the fae, and how it went wrong.’

‘It was a virus, the doctors think.’

‘A virus?’

‘Inflammation of the brain. It set in after we got home. Then, just as suddenly, I sort of . . . well, snapped out of it.’ She shrugged, then frowned. ‘Why were you there that night, anyway?’

Glory gave a very brief rundown of the Paterson affair. She wasn’t sure how much Rose knew of her mother’s and stepfather’s involvement. But in fact, Rose did not seem particularly interested. ‘Mm. It all sounds very exciting. I’m afraid I haven’t really kept up with things at home. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that.’

‘Your mum said the operation worked at first. What about now?’ Glory asked. ‘Has your fae come back, along with your memory and feelings and such?’

‘God no,’ Rose said with a laugh. She lifted up her hair, and displayed the white skin of her neck. There was a faded mark there, pale lilac.
‘
That’s where my Devil’s Kiss appeared. I’m clean.’

Glory would have been sceptical if it wasn’t for the photograph of the original mark that she’d seen back at Wildings, in Rose’s student file. She raised her eyebrows. ‘Clean? Does that mean I’m dirty?’

‘Not at all,’ Rose answered coolly. ‘Being a witch is probably very useful for some people. I’m sure
you’re
extremely talented at it. It was just wrong for me.’

‘Wrong like how?’

‘Like . . . a darkness.’ She paused. ‘A darkness inside me.’ She rubbed her arms and shivered. Then she leaned forward, fixed Glory with her wide violet eyes. ‘Eating me up. It’s not wrong, is it, to want to be free? To be my own self again?’

‘
’Course not,’ said Glory soothingly, though she felt uncomfortable and confused.

‘Good.’ Rose sat back slowly. Her voice had steadied. ‘At the clinic, they made very sure it was what I wanted. That’s one of the few things I remember. I did a final piece of witchwork before the operation, and it was such a relief to know I’d never have to do it again.’

‘What kind of witchwork?’

‘Oh, something small and silly. I knew I’d never miss it. Mummy always said the fae had ruined her life. In the end, the pressure got too much for her and – well, you know. What if I’d turned out the same?’ Rose was back to her brisk best. ‘Even after everything that’s happened, it all came right in the end. I mean, here I am, free to live my own life, just as Mummy always wanted.’

Glory was finding it increasingly hard to keep up with these abrupt changes of manner. ‘OK. Why Cordoba?’

‘Well, there’s nothing for me back in England, is there? I thought I’d take an early gap year, have a bit of an adventure. My boyfriend helped get me a job at Benito Vargas’s HQ. Only admin stuff, really, but it’s still interesting.’

‘But Vargas wants to bring back the Inquisition –’

Rose made an impatient gesture. ‘And why’s that so terrible? Liberal permissiveness is fine in theory, but it comes at a high price. Corruption, crime, social breakdown . . . Here,’ she said, taking a brightly coloured leaflet out of her bag. ‘Just read the Senator’s mission statement, and you’ll see. Our candidate is a man of real integrity. He wants to restore the rule of law in order to protect basic human rights – for witches and non-witches alike.’

Glory looked at the English language leaflet, and an airbrushed photograph of the Great Man. The slogan read,
Join in Security, Share in Prosperity
. Catchy.

‘I guess he don’t know you’re an ex-harpy yourself.’

‘Well, no. That might lead to awkward questions.’ Rose frowned. ‘I hope you’re not going to make an issue of this.’

‘My lips are sealed. But wouldn’t your boss want to know about Cambion? I’d have thought that something to limit the number of witches in the world would be right up his street. For example –’

Glory stopped. Rose was staring into middle distance, her teeth biting so hard into her lower lip that it was beaded with blood.

‘Hello? Rose? Er, are you OK?’

Rose blinked. ‘Sorry.’ She massaged her forehead. ‘I have these . . . blackouts sometimes. It’s like being ill again, almost.’

‘
’S’OK,’ Glory said awkwardly. ‘You’ve had a hard time. It’s probably delayed shock and such.’

‘I’m sure you’re right. Yes. Quite right.’ She dabbed her mouth delicately with a napkin. The polished smile had returned. ‘I really should get going. I’m supposed to be meeting my boyfriend, and he gets so grumpy when I’m late . . . Tell you what, there’s a party this evening, a fundraiser, at Senator Vargas’s place. Why don’t you come along? I’ll put your name on the list, and we can settle down to a
proper
talk.’

Tonight was Glory’s night off. ‘Um, OK. If you’re sure it won’t be a problem.’

‘Do you have a phone?’

Glory had recently invested in a prepaid mobile. Numbers were exchanged.

‘It’s a date!’ Rose swooped in for an air-kiss, and then she was gone.

Chapter 21

Glory’s curiosity had been piqued. There remained something a bit cold, a bit disconnected, about Rose. Perhaps it was a coping strategy, a cover for the trauma she’d gone through and could still be glimpsed in those flashes of emotional panic. Perhaps it was a side effect of losing her fae.

Then there was her work for the politician Vargas. Glory distrusted politicians on principle, and she was sure Vargas was just as shifty and greedy as the lot back home. Even so, she wasn’t going to turn down the chance to freeload at his fundraiser.

The party was at the Senator’s mansion, which was about five miles outside San Jerico. Rose had arranged to pick Glory up just after six. She arrived in a chauffeur-driven limo, from which she emerged in a cloud of perfume, wearing an emerald silk cocktail dress. Glory smoothed down her own outfit self-consciously. She’d nicked the least tarty dress from Candice’s wardrobe, a polka dot halter-neck affair, but next to Rose, she felt underdressed.

‘Here,’ said Rose, presenting her with a security pass. It had Glory’s photograph – by the look of it, it had been taken off the Carabosse website – but the name was Lorraine Stevens.
‘
The security at these events is always nightmare. Luckily for you, I’ve been helping with the invites. If anyone asks, you’re a student journalist. Lorraine works on a local paper in London.’

‘What if someone recognises me from the club?’

‘Vargas supporters don’t visit the Carabosse.’

‘You did.’

‘Ah, but I’m the exception.’

Towering walls lined with CCTV cameras enclosed the drive to Vargas’s mansion. They had to pass through three checkpoints. At each, a soldier with a sub-machine gun peered into the limo. At the last one they had to get out of the car to be patted down, and the details on their passes were radioed ahead for checking at control.

Glory was feeling increasingly uneasy. She recognised the soldier’s blood-red uniforms as belonging to the Red Knight Militia, the most thuggish of Cordoba’s private security firms. Rose’s next words didn’t make her feel any better.

‘All the staff in the house are ex-Inquisition. And all visitors, except close family, are bridled before they enter the living-quarters. With head-cages.’

‘What?
All
of ’em?’

Rose nodded. ‘Anyone over the age of twelve. It’s because of Senator Vargas’s little boy, Esteban. He’s an only child and the mother’s dead. There have been threats – witch-threats. Esteban’s going to boarding school in England next year, when he turns seven. But for now he’s a virtual prisoner.’

‘
That’s . . . terrible.’

‘It’s what happens, when the state can’t protect its own citizens. Vargas’s child isn’t the only one to be locked up this way. People are frightened.’

A section of wall swung open and the car turned off the road into a compound. The sweeping lawns were glaringly green, the house that crowned them glaringly white. A crowd of people were milling about. Smoke hovered over a huge barbecue pit on the far side of the building as young women in micro-minis sashayed back and forth with trays of drinks and canapés. On a bandstand in front of the ornamental pool, a folk band was going all out with a marimba, shakers and drums.

Rose beckoned over a waitress and got them both a glass of melon juice. ‘Cheers!’ she said, clinking her glass with Glory’s. ‘Isn’t this
fun
?’

It occurred to Glory that the last time she’d infiltrated a fancy party like this, it had been at Lord Merle’s mansion.
‘
Thanks for letting me gatecrash.’

‘Oh, I’m grateful for the company. I’m not on any kind of official duty tonight, but my boyfriend’s working. Really, you’re doing me a favour.’ Rose smiled and took her arm, leading the way to a bench among a stand of trees. ‘You know I think there’s a connection between us,’ she said. ‘I always follow my instincts. They’re never wrong.’

So maybe Rose felt it too – the tug of Starling blood in her veins. And then there was the Morgan red in her hair, the strong line of her jaw. But Glory didn’t feel ready to bring up Uncle Vince. Not directly.

‘Actually, we got connections in more ways than you’d think,’ she said. ‘I even spent a few weeks at your old school – Wildings, that is. My family sent me to keep me outta trouble.’

‘And you escaped and came here? What an exciting life you lead!’ Rose laughed admiringly. ‘It’s funny; I absolutely loathed the place, yet it proved my salvation. Wildings was where I first heard about Cambion.’

‘But you didn’t have the operation out in Switzerland, did you?’

‘I honestly can’t remember. The time immediately before my illness is mostly blank. I remember getting on the plane to go to the clinic with Mummy, but that’s about it.’

‘
There was another hospital you stayed in, back in England. The one your mum arranged. Do you remember who checked you out?’

‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten that too.’ She gave a wide, sweet smile, which Glory wasn’t entirely convinced by. Maybe Rose wasn’t sure how much she could trust Glory. Or maybe she was afraid what might happen if she spoke out.

‘I can understand,’ Glory said cautiously, ‘Cambion don’t want the wrong people taking advantage of their work. But it were a big risk you took, knowing so little about them. You was lucky to get over that brain-fever too. Could be there’s patients that don’t.’

Rose shrugged. ‘No medical procedures are a hundred per cent safe. Of course, if I’d known what the stress of it all would do to Mummy . . .’

Glory decided to take a risk of her own. ‘So what about your dad, then?’ she asked, as offhandedly as she could make it. ‘Your real dad, I mean. What’s the story there?’

‘Oh,
God
.’ Rose pulled a face. ‘It’s all frightfully murky. He was some kind of two-bit gangster, apparently. Poor Mummy always did have bad taste in men.’

‘You ain’t curious about him?’

‘No. I’m my own person.’ She looked up into the rustling leaves, and frowned.
‘
That’s important, isn’t it? To know who you are. To stay . . . real.’

Glory nodded.

‘But how does one
know
?’ Rose continued, biting her lip. ‘How can one be sure?’

‘Sure of what?’

‘Of who you are. What’s real, what’s – a – lie –’

She stopped speaking and covered her eyes with her hands. Her whole body trembled. Glory waited. Sure enough, the recovery, when it came, was swift. ‘Goodness,’ Rose exclaimed, getting to her feet. ‘I think the speeches are about to start.’ She smoothed out her skirt. ‘Come on, we don’t want to be late.’