Burn Mark Page 15

  ‘A call from Lord Snooty. Y’know – the kid who deals our party-pills. And gave us the tip-off for the Dalton Street job.’

  ‘Has he got us another break-in?’

  ‘Dunno. His message’s all garbled. I’ll give him a bell.’

  Nate went outside to make the call. He came back looking troubled. After pacing around a bit, he went to talk to Auntie Angel. Half an hour later, and still frowning, he went out. Glory watched him go down the road, but couldn’t quite work out if he turned right or left at the end of it. He must have asked the old lady to make him an elusion. Forty minutes later, he phoned Angeline, and she left the house too.

  The two of them came back from their rendezvous with Harry mid-afternoon. This time, Nate had a swagger in his step. Earl, Patch and the boys were summoned to a conference in the basement stronghold. Auntie Angel might have insisted that Glory was included, but on this occasion she wasn’t told a thing. Nate shot her a triumphant look as he and the others trooped down the stairs.

  Glory went to sit on Number Seven’s front steps. Several of the fake perfume bottles had faulty caps, leaking their sickly contents into the lounge, and she needed some air. There were traces of vomit on the pavement below. Joe Junior, presumably. As the coven’s so-called boss, he should be leading the meeting to discuss Harry Jukes; instead, he was sleeping off his hangover. Nate probably reckoned that if he recruited a witch for the coven, he’d get to be boss for real.

  Glory scowled. Sooner or later, Nate would mess up big time, and the others would see him for the flash prat he was. Then Nate would have to be put in his place. But that was her problem – not the Inquisition’s or the police’s or WICA’s. Auntie Angel was adamant she’d fixed things up so that Cooper Street had immunity from whatever doom was heading the Morgan brothers’ way. Glory wasn’t entirely convinced. It wasn’t just her own safety she had to worry about. Nate and the rest were her responsibility too.

  Someone came out of the door and sat on the step beside her. It was her dad.

  ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘Basement conference. I weren’t invited.’

  ‘Ah. Would you want to be?’

  ‘’Course. I’m a member of this outfit, ain’t I? I shouldn’t be hanging round like a spare part. I need to do stuff.’

  Patrick stared down at his threadbare slippers. His big toe was poking out and he wiggled it reflectively.

  ‘Yes. You’re like your mum in that way.’

  Her heart leapt. Glory had decided long ago to stop asking Patrick questions about Edie, because she saw how much it hurt him. Most of her stories came from Angeline. Now she couldn’t stop herself. ‘Am I? For real?’

  ‘Edie was like no one I’ve ever known.’ Patrick was still gazing at his feet. ‘You’re brave like her, and smart. Restless too. But your mum was a very private person. She’d been hurt, you see, in her past. It made her strong in some ways, fragile in others. I – I tried to look after her. But that wasn’t enough.’

  There was nothing Patrick could have done to save Edie. As soon as Charlie Morgan had her in his sights, that was that. Soon Glory would have to tell her father the true story. It was why she’d been avoiding him over the last few days – the prospect was too wretched to contemplate. Now, however, she wondered if he might find the news a relief. Closure.

  ‘I know how important becoming a, er, witch is to you,’ he said hesitantly. ‘And I hope you get your wish. But it’s a lot . . . a lot to deal with. The pressure and so on. I think your mum . . . well, she found it tough.’

  ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. If I come to it.’ Glory tried to smile, feeling the weight of secrets inside her, an indigestible lump. ‘I just have to make sure I’m prepared.’

  ‘Prepared . . . yes . . .’ Patrick nodded slowly. ‘That reminds me – Charlie phoned. He wanted to know how you were getting on. Some research project, he said.’

  Balefire and blast him. Phoning her dad was a special kind of warning. A pointed reminder of who called the shots.

  It had been a long time since Glory had taken a problem to Patrick, but sitting side by side on the steps having a proper conversation for once, she felt the urge to confide in him. ‘Frank had a look at our books,’ she said. ‘He told Charlie that someone in Cooper Street’s on the fiddle.’

  ‘So Charlie asked you to investigate?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m pretty sure Nate’s to blame, but I need to prove it.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He was quiet for an infuriatingly long time. Then: ‘It wasn’t Nate. It was Patch.’

  Glory gawped at him.

  ‘His kid brother has a gambling problem,’ Patrick continued placidly. ‘Owes serious cash to some serious people. Patch said he’d help. Times past, he could’ve gone to Joe and asked for an advance. In this case, it seemed easier to sort things himself. So he siphoned off some cash from the Bishop’s Green depot job. It was only meant to be short-term, but when a debt someone else owed him didn’t come good, he panicked. That’s when he came to me: asked if I could fix the numbers, buy him some time. He’s been paying the money back in instalments. I should’ve known Frank would spot it.’

  ‘Damn right. You gone soft in the head or what?’ Glory got to her feet. She was more worried than angry. She liked Patch. He used to perform card tricks at her birthday parties when she was a kid, and only last week had nicked a stash of glossy magazines for her. With effort, she relaxed her tone. ‘Never mind. I’ll phone Charlie myself and sort it out.’

  Patrick scratched his unshaven chin. ‘Um, maybe I should make the call,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Or Angeline. You should be out with your friends and enjoying yourself. Not worrying about coven business.’

  ‘Somebody’s got to.’

  He looked at her with unfamiliar seriousness. ‘I know you want to find a purpose, Glory, and something to work for. But I don’t think it should be this place.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Oh . . . well . . .’ Patrick shrugged and blinked, his moment of authority already fading. ‘Nothing really changes here, does it? Same old, same old. It’s too late for us. It could be different for you.’

  No, it’s too late for me as well, thought Glory. I’ve agreed to bring a government spy into our home. Whatever happened afterwards, she knew nothing in their lives would be the same.

  Awkwardly, she bent down and kissed her dad’s bald spot. ‘I know what I’m doing,’ she said.

  CHAPTER 17

  Lucas didn’t arrive at the coven until nearly ten on Monday night. The walk from the tube took him past smart Victorian terraces and yuppie wine bars, but the closer he got to the Rockwood Estate, the more run-down the buildings and people became. At the turning to Cooper Street, two skinhead hulks on bikes that were too small for them drunkenly circled the road.

  For a moment, he couldn’t think what he was doing here. How had he got into this? It was impossible, absurd. Then he looked into a car’s cracked wing-mirror and saw Harry in the glass. Oddly, it steadied him. He was playing a part. He was wearing a costume, not clothes: loose layers over baggy jeans, as sloppy-looking as Harry himself. Whatever he did, whatever happened, was Harry’s problem. Lucas Stearne didn’t exist in this kind of world.

  The lights were on at Number Seven, and music thumping into the street. Lucas knew if he hesitated for any longer he might never go through with it. He pressed the bell.

  Nate Braddock let him in. A tight white vest set off his sun-bed tan and pumped torso. His hair was slicked back, his grin cocky, as they clasped hands in the hall. ‘Er . . . all right?’ said Lucas weakly. In his meeting with Nate and Angeline that afternoon, he’d had a script to follow. Adrenalin carried him through. But then he’d been in a public space, with Zoey close by. From here on, he was on his own.

  The hallway was stacked with all kinds of stuff – crates of booze, shoeboxes, electronic equipment that looked expensive, and cutlery sets that did not. Before he knew it, Nate was leading him into a large room filled with
people. Huge speakers pounded out drum and bass, shaking the door, the floor and the windows in their frames.

  ‘Glory!’ snapped Nate. ‘Fetch Auntie A.’

  The girl glowered – she did a lot of glowering, Lucas remembered – but did as she was told. Nate indicated Lucas should take her seat.

  He sat down, sweating slightly. The room was stuffy and smelled of unwashed clothes and hash, with a weird floral undertone. Like somebody had been spraying a particularly sickly air-freshener. Most of the space was taken up with a greasy-looking leather suite, and the largest TV and stereo Lucas had ever seen. A grizzled black man handed him a beer.

  Earl, Lucas thought, trying to match the faces to the photos in his case file. Earl was sitting by Patch, who was thickset and acne-scarred. There were two younger guys, one with a long, pimply face, the other darker, with a tattoo of a snake on his arm. They must be Chunk and Jacko, and Harry – when played by Agent Barnes – had met them briefly before. Lucas returned their nods of greeting. A middle-aged man, who in spite of his sagging jowls had a look of Nate about him, was propped up in a corner.

  Nobody said anything while they waited. They just drank, smoked and stared. The music was only switched off when Glory and Angeline returned. Lucas was interested to see that the old lady didn’t look as decrepit as before. Her wrinkly face was made up with childishly bright cosmetics, like a doll’s.

  She pointed at Nate. ‘You checked him for the dubyas?’ Her voice was firmer too.

  The three Ws were witchwork, weapons and wires. Earl patted Lucas down and searched his clothes while Nate went through his sports bag. Although Lucas was expecting this, he still tensed up. The glamour’s amulet was concealed in the strap of his cheap watch. But he had one more ready-made, hidden in the false base of a deodorant can.

  The bag didn’t contain much, since Harry was supposed to have left home in a hurry. Nate was thorough; squeezing out some toothpaste and uncapping the deodorant. Lucas held his breath. However, Nate soon moved on to more interesting objects – like the MP3 player that Earl had found.

  ‘The latest model. Sweet,’ Nate said, transferring it to his own pocket. Then he took out a switchblade and slit the bag’s lining. It didn’t take him long to pull out the grubby bundle of banknotes that had been hidden there.

  ‘It’s all I have,’ Lucas said, trying to sound both indignant and dismayed.

  ‘There’s over three hundred quid here . . . You made this from dealing our pills, I’ll bet.’

  ‘I’ve sent business your way too, remember.’

  ‘Well, bed ’n’ board here don’t come cheap. We’ll take this as down-payment.’ Nate set the wad of cash to one side. Harry’s keyring was also confiscated, and passed to Angeline. ‘A little something for your scrying-bowl, Auntie.’

  ‘You’re going to spy on me?’

  ‘Auntie’ll want to see how you’re settling in . . . and what you get up to when we’re not around.’ Nate pointed the blade of his knife at his chest, only half jokingly. ‘So mind you stay on the straight and narrow.’

  ‘All right,’ said Angeline, rapping her knuckles on the beaten-up coffee table. ‘Let’s get to the issue at hand. Everyone here knows who Harry is by now, and what he’s about –’

  ‘I’d still like to hear it from the horse’s mouth,’ Glory interrupted. She looked at Lucas unpleasantly. ‘Go on. Tell us why you’re here.’

  ‘Because I’m witchkind, I’m unregistered, and I want to keep it that way.’ Pause. ‘And if I’m going to escape the prickers, I’ll need help.’

  ‘So you, what, just upped and left home without a word?’

  ‘There was a note. I said I was going travelling. My sister’ll be relieved to get rid of me. She’s an uptight bitch and her husband’s worse – they had to take me in after Dad joined his new family in the States. Mum ran off years back. I’ve been causing them hassle ever since.’

  Did it sound too rehearsed? He assumed the coven would have already done the basic background checks. WICA hadn’t taken any chances: there was even an agent posing as Harry’s sister at an address in Fulham.

  ‘I don’ like it,’ mumbled a voice from the corner. It was Joe Junior, the so-called boss. He belched. ‘Another bloody kid who doesn’t know his bootsh from his backshide.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Dad.’ Nate shot a sly look at Glory. ‘This one can pay his way.’

  Angeline leaned forward. ‘Harry me boy, it’s time the others saw what you’ve got. Go on – show ’em what you showed me.’

  Lucas drew out from his pocket some blades of grass and a twig that had gone unnoticed during Earl’s rummaging. Licking the grass, he twined it round the twig, and rubbed the twig between his hands so it twisted back and forth. He began to whistle tunelessly, funnelling his fae out with his breath. First it stirred the loose ends of grass, then sent the faintest breeze drifting across the room. The longer he whistled, the stronger the breeze, until both grass and twig were bending like a tree in the gale. Suddenly, a miniature whirlwind whipped through the room, catching up cigarette ash and bottle tops, and blowing Glory’s bright hair around her head. It was a watered-down version of the storm that had wreaked such havoc on the MP’s office.

  His audience was enthralled. Patch laughed delightedly. Nate looked as smug as if he’d done it himself. The only people who didn’t seem impressed were Joe, drinking in the corner, and Glory. She smoothed down her hair with a grimace of annoyance. Once Lucas had got his breath back, everyone looked to Angeline. Regally, she rose to address the room.

  ‘Harry’s come to us ’cause he’s got nowhere else to go. He won’t be the first nor the last. A witch is honour bound to help their kind because fae runs thicker than blood, quicker’n water. That’s the rule my sisters and I lived by.

  ‘He needs our help, yes, but that don’t mean we’re going to get nothing in return. I’m old and I’m tired, and the sooner I start training up a successor, the better for all of us. It’s witchwork what raises Cooper Street up, and sets us apart. And though these are hard times, it’s witchwork what’ll pull us through.’

  She turned to Lucas. ‘I’ll teach you what I can, but it’s not just me you’ll be learning from. There’s a lot of experience in this room, not to say talent. You stay here, you abide by our rules and our way of doing things, and we’ll see you right.’

  It was quite a performance. When it came to his own response, however, Lucas didn’t think Harry was the eloquent type. ‘I’ll, er, do my best,’ he mumbled. ‘Thanks very much.’

  ‘Harpies,’ slurred Joe. ‘You’re all the shame. Think you’re better’n rest of ush . . . more trouble’n you’re worth . . .’

  Nobody paid him any attention. Their eyes were fixed on Angeline, who’d taken a cut-out paper doll and a needle out of her handbag. Solemnly, she passed them to Nate, who jabbed the needle into his thumb and smeared the blood on the doll. Everyone did so – even Joe eventually.

  Lucas was last. Angeline placed the bloodstained paper doll on his palm and told him his lines.

  ‘I swear loyalty to this coven and everyone in it . . .’

  As he spoke, Angeline rubbed a witchworked-twist of paper between her thumbs. It was a similar technique to the one Lucas had used in his witchkind assessment, but left the old lady huffing and puffing with effort.

  ‘. . . their blood is my blood, their bond is mine . . .’

  The doll caught alight. Lucas winced, but managed to hold his hand steady.

  ‘So may my flesh burn if I fail to keep my oath – ah –’

  The little doll flared briefly and crumbled away. His palm was tingling but unscorched.

  The men grinned and slapped each other on the back. Except for Joe, who merely belched. Dumb hoods, thought Lucas, as he dusted off his hands.

  Then he met Glory’s sardonic gaze. Superstition tugged at him. For a moment, it felt as if he really had summoned a curse.

  Once Angeline left, the music was turned up again, more beer fetched from
the fridge, and the older men began to play cards. Jacko went out for food. He came back with chips and a trio of slutty-looking girls, who proceeded to drape themselves over him, Nate and Chunk. ‘Meet Prince Harry,’ said Nate. ‘He’ll be helping us out for a while.’

  The girls screeched with laughter. ‘I’ll sit on his throne any day,’ cackled the fattest one.

  Lucas smiled politely. It was a relief when Angeline reappeared. ‘Our new recruit’s dead on his feet,’ she announced, before dropping an armful of sheets on Glory’s lap. ‘Time to show him to the penthouse. Go on – off you trot.’

  Glory got up with a flounce. Lucas picked up his bag and followed her into the hall.

  ‘So what’s your role in this set-up?’ he asked, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Housekeeping?’

  She thrust the bedding into his chest. ‘Pest control.’

  They climbed the narrow stairs up to the top of the house. What Lucas could see of the rest of the building was dark and ramshackle, and the attic was no different. It was furnished with a mattress, a sink and a stack of broken chairs. From somewhere outside, a dog howled.

  ‘This’ll be yours for as long as you’re here,’ Glory told him. ‘The toilet and shower are back on the ground floor. Or you can always piss in the sink.’

  Lucas managed not to shudder.

  ‘I’m on the other side of that.’ She pointed to the wall. ‘So I’ll give it a thump when it’s time to rise and shine. Auntie Angel wants me to give you the grand tour in the morning.’

  ‘OK. Um . . . thanks.’

  ‘All part of the service.’ Her eyes flicked over him. ‘That were a fine trick with the wind and the whistling. Seems like you’ve got this coven eating outta the palm of your hand.’

  ‘I’m just doing my job.’

  Her lip curled. ‘Well, don’t get too cocky. Making pals with the Morgans will be a different matter.’