City of Halves (18 page)

She fiddled with the zip on her jacket. ‘How did you find me?' she asked, after a long silence.

‘Stedman. Wanted to know why I was giving out his address.'

‘Oh . . . did you have to hurt him to find out where I was?'

‘Yes.'

‘Oh. Well, thanks.'

‘You are welcome,' he said, pronouncing each word clearly.

They sat, not speaking. The atmosphere was unbearable. As
they arrived back in the City, Stanley answered a mobile phone with huge keys and a plastic West Ham mascot hanging from it. He reached back and slid open the window. ‘Lucas. For you.'

Regan looked at the phone as if it smelled bad before leaning forward and taking it from Stanley. ‘Yes? Did they say why?' He nodded, looking out of the window. ‘No. No, I understand. I'll go now. Then I have to take Lily home before I go on watch. Yes, I cleared them out of Whitechapel. No, I'm fine. I'll stop by later.' He tapped the phone against the glass, putting it into the hand Stanley held up without looking. ‘Change of plan,' he said.

‘The Needle?'

‘Please.'

Stanley nodded. Regan didn't look at or speak to Lily.

‘Where are we going?' she asked.

He didn't answer. The anger was flooding off him, filling the back of the cab. Lily bit her lip and looked out of the window. ‘Where are we going?' she asked again when he didn't reply.

‘I've been summoned by the River Guardians,' he said, his voice flat.

‘Who?'

He ignored her. Soon afterwards, they rattled under Water-loo Bridge and past an abandoned pier before arriving at Cleopatra's Needle. The carved stone obelisk sat on the edge of the river, flanked by two bronze sphinxes. On the wall a ragged black cormorant dried his wings against the night, beak raised. His scaly eyelid closed slowly over one dark eye, then flicked open again, fixed on them. The gulls began to wheel and cry overhead. Lily looked up as she got out of the cab, Regan unfolding himself behind her.

Stanley drove away towards Westminster. Lily watched the
cab recede, tail lights bright in the dark, then turned back to the river.

No. Way
.

On the back of each sphinx, staring out at the river, was a smooth-skinned, beautiful woman with night-black hair. One wore her hair short, curled close to her head. Her skin was a deep black. The other had her hair in a thick oiled braid, trailing down past her hips. Her skin was a deep olive colour. They wore cotton loincloths, and heavy beaded collars hung from their throats, covering their chests down to their waists. One stood, fists clenched at her sides, staring west. The other, darker woman gazed east, sitting on the bronze rump of the sphinx, one leg pulled up, feet shod in leather thong sandals.

‘You come only now?' the black woman said, not looking at him. ‘The Clerks give us word that our prophecy has come true and
we
have to summon
you
?'

‘There was a plague demon loose in the City, Misrak. I trust you to send word if any slip through. We trust each other – we have to. And I dealt with seven today in Whitechapel.
Seven
. There's a hospital ward full of dying people because you didn't send word soon enough.
That's
why I haven't been here.'

The other woman hissed, turning to them. ‘There were dozens. Maybe hundreds. We have never seen so many.'

‘You should have told me, Delphine.'

The black woman shifted, and in a second was standing in front of him. ‘Do not presume to tell my sister what to do.' A gull's cry knifed the air. She looked up and stepped back slightly.

The other woman jumped down on to the pavement. ‘We have stopped more than a hundred in the last week. There are
other demons too. Larger, more dangerous. Our time has been taken. Our attention diverted. It is the vermin that slip our nets.'

The two women crowded in on Regan. They were both taller than him, Amazonian.

Delphine straightened up, folding her arms across her beaded chest. ‘A tanker moored out in the estuary. Hundreds of them came off it. Pouring across the water like locusts. Two days. We scoured it clean. But some got through. Our defences are breached.' She looked down at Regan. ‘As we hear are yours, warrior.'

Regan nodded. ‘Yes.'

‘They say the dragons are waking. Is it true?' Misrak's cat-eyes narrowed.

‘Yes.'

Delphine gave a piercing shriek. Lily winced. The movement drew Misrak's gaze.

She moved closer. Her voice softened. ‘This is her?'

Regan stepped to Lily's side. ‘Yes.'

Delphine turned, her gaze also on Lily. The women walked towards her as one, stooping to stare into her face. Lily looked between them. Unconsciously, her fingers reached out and found Regan's. He locked their hands, his touch reassuring. ‘It's okay, they just want to meet you, that's all.'

‘Why?' Lily's voice wasn't altogether steady. They still hadn't looked away. Misrak raised a hand and pulled a curl of Lily's hair very gently, then watched it bounce back as she released it.

‘This is the blood girl?'

‘Yes,' he said.

Delphine straightened up. ‘She is very . . . small,' she said
finally. ‘I am not sure she will restore the balance.'

‘Restore
what
balance?' Lily asked, looking up at them.

Regan put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Remember, what we talked about? That something in the City threw out the equilibrium a long time ago, and started to let in the Chaos?'

‘Yes. I remember.'

‘Well, there's kind of this idea that one day someone will come along and find out what it is.'

‘Really, sister,' Delphine said to Misrak, ‘is it possible we could be this wrong?'

Regan cleared his throat. ‘Either way, first we have to find out exactly why the balance is being
up
set.'

‘And why
is
that, brother?' Misrak was still peering at Lily.

Regan took a breath. ‘I think it's the Agency.'

Delphine pulled a face. ‘You speak of the government? Governments come and go. They are not our concern.'

‘The Agency is. They're doing something. Taking Eldritche. Mothwings are missing in droves, and now Mona. They may be experimenting on them. It's disturbing the balance even more . . . it's what's going to cause the war.'

‘What are these experiments of which you speak?' Misrak asked, taking Lily's other hand and holding it between her own. She looked at the palm, then turned her hand over and examined the back.

Regan shrugged. ‘I don't know. To find out what we are, so they can use the information for their own gain, I assume – though I don't yet know why or how.'

Both women made a noise of contempt. The traffic was limited to the odd 388 night bus now, and a few taxis zipping by. Lily no longer wondered why no one saw two half-naked
seven-foot women on the pavement.

Delphine's gaze returned to Lily. ‘So, you are come.'

‘I am?'

‘So war is coming too,' Misrak said, looking out over the water.

‘Yes,' said Regan.

‘We remember when wars were invaders, distant tribes under distant kings.' Misrak's tone was soft, and Lily realised she wasn't looking out over the Thames, but over thousands of miles, back to the desert. ‘Now some
department
upsets the world.' The contempt was plain in her face.

‘Perhaps afterwards we should claim her as our tribute? Our payment from the City for all our hard work. This little blood girl.'

Regan snatched Lily back. She stumbled into him before recovering her balance. Misrak watched them, then laughed at them.

‘Fear not. My sister jests. You keep her, brother. For now. We will tell the water and she will be watched over. It is our way.'

The two women leapt back up on to their perches. They settled cross-legged, elbows on their knees, and returned to gazing out at the river, dark and silent. The gulls split into two packs and wheeled out east and west, their cries splitting the night air.

Lily and Regan walked back towards the Temple, both with their hands in their pockets. Regan didn't speak.

‘What was all
that
about?
Blood
girl? If this is the moment where you tell me I have some sort of superpower, I want a better name than Blood Girl.'

He said nothing.

‘And the war? The war is definitely coming?'

‘Yes,' he said dully. ‘That's what they foresaw. Your arrival—'

‘Wait, my
arrival
? I haven't arrived anywhere, I've always been here. And what have I got to do with anything anyway?'

‘I don't know. I didn't make the prophecy. It's a war that may destroy the City, if we don't win it.' He shrugged, voice flat. ‘Then again, it may destroy it if we do.'

‘Should I tell Dad to leave?'

‘What would you tell him?'

‘That he has to go! Somewhere, anywhere.'

‘And he'd go without you?'

Lily halted. ‘No.'

‘Then there's no point, is there?' he bellowed, exasperated.

Lily stood, shocked. No one ever shouted at her. ‘Are you still angry with me?' she asked slowly.

‘Yes.'

‘Please don't be.'

He seemed about to walk away, then he rounded on her. ‘I went to get breakfast for us and you left.'

She stood still, mouth open, trying to form a sentence. ‘I didn't know. I thought you'd gone back to work. Or something,' she said finally, awkward.

‘So you go to the East End to try and get yourself sold as so much . . . why would you do that?' He hissed between his teeth in frustration.

‘I was trying to help Dad with the case.' This didn't appear to make any difference to how angry he was. ‘Look, I get that I made a mistake. I won't put myself in that sort of danger again.'

He pulled a face. ‘You don't understand, do you?'

‘Understand what?'

‘I live by a set of rules. You're changing them. I don't like it. And I don't want to be involved in human problems. The
squalor
of that place . . . of what you people do to each other.' He cursed, disgusted.

‘Fine,' Lily snapped and hurried to get ahead of him. ‘If you can't stand us so much, then you shouldn't have bothered getting me out of there.'

She heard his growl of frustration as he caught her easily. His fingers wound into the strap of her bag and pulled her to a halt, turning her round to face him. ‘I wasn't going to leave
you
there, was I?'

Folding her arms, Lily looked out at the grey churning water, dangerously high against the Embankment wall. The traffic flooded past them on the other side, yellow lights beaming through the icy air. ‘I don't know. You obviously think I'm a problem.'

‘You are!'

They stood, not looking at each other, neither of them willing to move.

Lily bit her lip. ‘
You're
the one giving
me
magic marbles.' She held up her wrist.

He looked away. ‘It's a talisman. It's supposed to keep you safe from any Eldritche that might try to hurt you. But it buys you nothing in your world, and I didn't realise you liked to put yourself in danger quite so much.' He bit out the words.

‘I told you I'm sorry!'

‘And it's not a marble,' he said hotly, ‘it's rock crystal.'

Lily looked at it on her wrist. ‘It's lovely, thank you.'

‘It's not meant to be
lovely
. It's meant to save your life.'

She tutted, batting that away and pushing her hands in her back pockets. ‘When you've quite finished sulking, the government offered my mother a job. When she was pregnant. She didn't take it. Said their ethics weren't clear. They were setting up some amazing new lab or something.'

At the sulking comment, he'd straightened up and folded his arms, looming over her, but as she went on he became intrigued. ‘Where?'

Lily shoved her hair back behind her ears, the talisman sparkling. ‘My father doesn't know.'

‘He needs to think, then.'

‘I know! But how can I get it out of him? “Oh, by the way, Dad, I think Mum was abducted by the government, so let me ask you a million questions about things you say you don't remember.” He'd think I'd lost the plot. And they could have moved ten times since then anyway.'

‘Did he say anything else?'

She shrugged. ‘Only that she'd been abandoned as a baby. At Wood Street police station.'

Regan looked at her sharply. ‘Wood Street? You're sure? The one with the old St Alban church tower outside?'

‘Yes. That one.' Lily looked up at him, anxious. ‘Why?'

‘That's right by where Cripplegate used to stand. It was the oldest and strongest of the gates.' He swore. ‘Perhaps she wasn't left at the police station – perhaps she was left at the gate itself, for protection.

She pushed her hands through her hair again. ‘What does it mean?'

He shook his head. ‘I don't know. Yet. Let me think. I'm missing something.'

They turned into the Temple by the south gate and passed under the gatehouse. Lily pushed her hands into her pockets. ‘So Misrak and Delphine guard the water?'

‘Yes.'

‘Like you guard the Wall?'

‘Sort of. Though they weren't born to it like I was. But, like me, they're in limbo. They're desert legends, obviously, born to guard the tombs of the dead from grave-robbers, yet they've ended up on the bank of the Thames. So now they're not of the earth, and not of the water, just like I'm a halfbreed.'

They passed the porter's box and walked up towards the flat.

‘I can go from here,' Lily said.

He shook his head.

‘You don't trust me?'

‘No.' Regan saw her to the door. ‘I want you to stay here. Stay safe. I'll have enough trouble keeping myself alive tonight.'