Witch Fire (27 page)

She got to her feet and rapped on the door. It was opened by a soldier with a gun.

When she looked back at Glory, there were tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I liked you, Glory. I really did. I don’t want you to suffer. But I can see you’re past saving.’

Glory wasn’t fooled by the tears. Only Rose had had the means and opportunity to set her up. There had always been something odd about her, something wrong, right from the start. But Glory had been too soft and stupid to see the danger.

She paced around the little room but got no closer to working out where she was, let alone for how long she’d been unconscious. The shock of the bridling, in combination with the drug used to abduct her, had probably knocked her out for a good while.

Her body had now adjusted to the iron, so she decided to test it by drawing on her fae. The only result was a wave of icy nausea, and she nearly blacked out again. It would have been even worse with a head-bridle. How in hell had Rose managed it?

Fight or flee, flee or fight . . . There was nothing to make a weapon from. The chamber pot under the bed was plastic. So was the plate of refried beans and cassava bread that had been left for her on the floor. Even the bedding had some kind of plastic coating. She realised that this, and the absence of her trainers, was to prevent her using shoelaces or sheets to hang herself. A cramp of panic gripped her chest.

As a diversion, she started to inspect her bruises and scrapes, trying to be practical about it. Her dress was torn and bloodstained, and the remains of her make-up was smeared down her face. To use the washing things left out on the basin seemed a kind of defeat – as if Rose was right, and she had something to be grateful for. But she did feel slightly better after cleaning herself and eating some food. She even put on the long grey shirt that was hanging on the door. Much as she hated looking the part of a helpless prisoner, she didn’t want the soldiers eyeing her through the tatters of her dress.

These activities didn’t take long. Afterwards, she sat on the bed and tried to calm the thin continuous trembling that had set up under her skin. The light was controlled from outside and she wished she could turn it off. She would have welcomed darkness, and the illusion of hiding. She closed her eyes instead and gripped the grimy white fuzz that was all that was left of the feather Sheba had given her. It had somehow got caught in her hair.

There is a real world outside this
, she told herself,
with real people
. They will find out what’s happened, and help will arrive. It has to. It
must
.

But she could be anywhere. She could have been taken out of the country. And who would be looking for her, anyway? The cat-woman? Candice? Lucas . . . who she’d told to stay away from her for ever?

The idea of him was unbearable, and so was the hope. She knew it might already be too late. At any moment, she could be made to permanently ‘disappear’. And though they’d always wonder – Lucas, her dad, Troy, Uncle Charlie and the rest – they wouldn’t ever know what had really happened.

Yet in spite of everything, she didn’t believe this was her end. It was impossible, sitting here in her warm strong body, her beating mind, to imagine the absolute finality of death. Not this way. Not now.

The soldiers came for her about an hour after Rose left. A black hood was put over her face and her hands were tied behind her back. She was hustled up and down several stairs and round several corners at such speed she soon lost all sense of direction. The floor underfoot was polished stone and tiles. It added to her impression that she was being held in a house, rather than an institution.

When the hood came off, she found herself in a big bare room. The dark oak furniture was scuffed, but handsome, and the stucco walls were hung with moth-eaten tapestries. There was a fair-haired young man in a red military uniform at a desk. Rose was seated a little way behind him.

‘So it’s the Starling girl,’ the young man drawled. ‘I’m Lieutenant Hale. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

Before now, the most Glory had seen of Gideon Hale was a blurry photograph in a newspaper. She wasn’t as surprised to see him as she should have been. He and Lucas were connected in the same way that she and Rose were. It made a strange kind of sense that they should all come together, here at the ends of the earth.

‘Yeah, and I’ve heard about you and all.’ She spat ostentatiously on the floor.

Gideon’s lip curled. ‘Since I am the only British officer in the Red Knights, our Commander-in-Chief has delegated your interrogation to me. He and Senator Vargas agreed it would be appropriate, especially in light of our prior connection.’ His pale eyes flicked over her disdainfully. ‘By which I mean, the criminal plot formed by the Wednesday Coven and rogue elements of WICA to bring down the British Inquisition.’

‘Nice spin.’ Glory looked at Rose. She was in her smart office suit, poised to take notes. ‘Might be harder to whitewash your latest cock-up, though – the one about you recruiting an Endor witch into the militia. Or didn’t you know your girlfriend’s a hag?’

Gideon yawned. ‘Usually, prisoners save the wild accusations until a later stage in the interrogation.’

‘It’s not so much of a shocker,’ Glory continued, ‘when you take a look at the family tree. Bad blood runs deep. Yeah,’ she said to Rose, ‘turns out your old man’s Vince Morgan. That makes the two of us cousins of sorts. Small world, ain’t it?’

‘As far as I’m concerned,’ said Rose, all sorrow and solemnity, ‘my father was Lord Godfrey Merle. A great man, who died a tragic death. Mummy was already disturbed, but the fae sent her mad. Evil. And if it ever, God forbid, came to me, I’d cut it out.’ Her voice rose, throbbing. ‘I’d rather bleed to death than suffer that pollution.’

Glory wondered how she’d ever fallen for this woe-is-me act. It seemed ridiculous now. But Gideon, she was pleased to see, looked a little uncomfortable.

‘I’d watch me back, if I was you,’ she told him.

‘And if I were you, I’d hold my tongue. Else I’ll get a bridle to muzzle it.’

Glory shook her head. ‘I want to see the Senator. He’s the one who ordered my arrest. There’s some things he needs to hear –’

‘Well, he doesn’t want to see you,’ Gideon said crisply. ‘You disgust him. The next time you face him will be in court, after you’ve confessed. And you
will
confess. I’ll make sure of it.’

He paused for effect. He evidently had the same theatrical instincts as Rose.

‘
The trial will be conducted behind closed doors, since we don’t want to give you a platform to promote your vile beliefs. Young blonde girls make such photogenic martyrs.’ He leaned forward, fixing Glory with those curiously pale eyes. ‘Because your time in public will come, of course. We’ll burn you in the Plaza de la República for all Cordoba to see.’

Even though she’d known this threat was coming, Glory’s vision was briefly dappled with unsteadiness and dark. For the meantime, at least, it gave her the courage of someone with nothing to lose.

She stared straight back at Gideon, and didn’t flinch.

‘
The president will light the balefire himself,’ he went on. ‘He knows the people are out of patience. You are the symptom of a wider disease – a foreign terrorist, taking advantage of their country’s tolerance. As your flesh melts from the bone, there’ll be dancing in the streets.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps Lucas will come and watch. Lay a wreath on behalf of the British nation. Shed some discreet tears.’

Glory kept her face wooden. She knew her lack of reaction was annoying him. But she could feel the trembling starting up under her skin, and didn’t know for how long she could suppress it.

‘I’m curious about the two of you,’ Gideon continued. ‘I know Lucas spent some time undercover in your cesspit of a coven. So why is he in San Jerico? Government business? Or something personal? Could he be driven by missionary zeal to bring you to the ways of righteousness?’ He put his head to one side, considering. ‘Either way, I think he’s going to be
very
disappointed when he finds out what you’ve been up to.’

Again, no reaction. Gideon got up and came round to where Glory was standing, her hands cuffed behind her back.

‘We had to study the famous Starling Twins, back in the Inquisition’s training centre. They were a pair of deviant sluts, and you’re the same. Bringing you to the balefire will be the latest victory in a long crusade.’

She managed to laugh. ‘A crusader? Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve known rent-a-thugs like you me whole life. Paterson used you before, and Vargas is using you now. And so’s she.’ She jerked her head at Rose. ‘ ’Cept you’re too dumb to see it.’

Gideon hit her across the face, so hard her eyes watered.

‘No –’ Rose put her hands over her ears, her eyes screwed up tight. ‘I mustn’t – I can’t –’

Gideon ignored her. He took hold of Glory’s face by the chin and squeezed, hard.

‘Don’t cry, little witch-girl,’ he said softly. ‘Save it for the balefire.’

The strange thing was, if Glory hadn’t known better, she would have seen Gideon and Lucas as two sides of the same coin. They had the same kind of voice, the same kind of manner. There was even something familiar about the way Gideon wore his clothes and sat in his chair. But even if Lucas hadn’t got the fae, and had become the High Inquisitor he believed he was destined to be, he and Gideon would still have been poles apart. Different species. Glory knew that with certainty now.

Gideon only hit her once. Afterwards, she was taken back to her room and left to ‘consider her options’. A bit of mental softening-up before the main event. Rose had said nothing more, just blinked and quivered in the background.

She was put in a head-bridle. The effect of the iron was much stronger than when it was just the cuffs. A sleepy coldness flooded her veins. It took ice and water to drag out the stain of fae, fire to purge it. Fire and ice . . . It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been warned. Those dreams of the Burning Court had been a foreshadowing, after all.

Her mother had been in many of those dreams, yet during the long lonely wait that followed, Glory barely thought of Edie Starling. She wanted to think of flesh and blood people, not shadows or ghosts. The people who knew her and loved her, and had made a real difference to her life. The people who would remember her. She remembered them, and tried to be strong.

Chapter 28

Witchwork was all very well, thought Lucas, but what he really wanted was one of those cunning and sinister gadgets the agents in MI5 and 6 used. Something with poisoned needles and electroshock shooters, hidden lasers and blades.

They’re not going to kill her, he kept telling himself. They’ll want to keep her for a show-trial. I can still fix this. I will find her and save her and make things right.

In the absence of hi-tech weaponry, he had to rely on another kind of asset: inside information. They knew Glory was being held in the grounds of an abandoned sugar cane plantation. The estate had changed owners many times in the past decades but had recently been bought by one of the Red Knights’ clients. He planned to turn the place into a luxury hotel, but in the meantime allowed the militia to use it as an unofficial base. The police knew about it thanks to a tip-off from the caretaker.

Raffi had told his family that he and Lucas were spending the day trying to get help for Glory at the British Embassy. But after an off-the-record chat with one of his dad’s lieutenants, he took Lucas to the caretaker’s dilapidated bungalow on the edge of the city. At first, the man was reluctant to talk, but the wad of cash – Troy Morgan’s cash that Lucas had brought – proved very persuasive.

He told them that the estate’s owner employed him to keep an eye on the place when it was unoccupied and to tidy up after the soldiers had been there. Yes, he knew ‘bad things’ happened at the house, and he didn’t like it, but he needed the money, and what was a poor widower to do? Yesterday evening, he saw they were getting the place ready for one of their ‘special visitors’, and was told not to come into work until further notice. After another helping of cash, he drew them a map of the place, including the room where the ‘visitor’ was going to be held. He was vague on the security details, but did warn them that bundles of barbed wire had been thrown on the roof to deter sky-leapers.

A plan was already forming in Lucas’s head. It was not a particularly sophisticated one, and the risks were substantial, but it was probably his – and Glory’s – best chance. It involved purchasing camouflage trousers and a jacket of the kind the Red Knights wore while on hacienda duty, as well as night-vision binoculars, a rope, a small sledgehammer, a chisel and a crowbar. And a knife.

Map secured and shopping done, he phoned Troy to break the news. It was a relief when the call went to voicemail. Then he paid a visit to Casa de la Armonia. Once the militia discovered Candice’s connection with Glory, she might be in trouble, and he felt it only right to warn her. He also wanted to get access to Glory’s things, preferably without having to root around in the rubbish.

He found Candice and Todd loading bags into a taxi.

‘Hi, you don’t know me but I’m a friend of Glor—’

‘We don’t know anything about her,’ Candice gabbled. At the same time, Todd said, ‘It was obvious she was trouble, right from the start.’