A Hollow in the Hills

  Izzy wasn’t actually sure which was worse, the endless lectures or the punishing drills and fighting techniques. She had danced for years in primary school, ballet training, some gymnastics thrown in because she’d found it easy in comparison. This, at least, gave her a chance to keep up. Flexibility and strength she wasn’t aware she had inside her – because up until the age of thirteen she’d danced just for pleasure - resurged from muscle memory and old instincts. She had loved to dance. And then she’d given up, in that way many her age did. Not because anything happened or she’d wanted something else. She’d just fallen out of love with it. Secondary school made it harder to get to the classes, and ballet required more hours, more than she was able to give.

  If only she’d known. If only Mum and Dad – especially Dad – had told her something to keep her going.

  And now, she had terrible dreams about training, about the endless cycles of positions, blocks, defences and attacks. It infected every corner of her mind, waking and sleeping. But it was easier than the nightmares, where Holly tortured her, where Jinx despised her, where Sorath had won …

  Sometimes she felt that training to fight was all she had left, the only way she could carry on. Sometimes she threw herself into it body and soul because it was the only way to numb her mind.

  Behind Dad, in the fireplace, a door opened. The man standing there was no taller than Izzy, with hair almost as red as hers. His eyes were full of laughter, glittering with mirth, and when Dad turned around, he swept into a low and elegant bow.

  ‘Grigori, you honour us with your presence. We have just a short window, but the Storyteller will see you now.’

  Dad instantly sobered. ‘Thank you. Cudgel, isn’t it?’

  The little man looked surprised and rather delighted to be recognised. ‘Yes, sir. I am Cudgel and I have had the honour to be the Storyteller’s sworn man for forty years now. Honoured that you remember me, sir. Truly honoured. Now if you will just follow me.’

  ‘Of course. Come on, Izzy.’

  But Cudgel didn’t move. ‘Alas, I regret to inform you that the Storyteller will only see you alone. Your daughter may have a separate audience afterwards. You may even leave her instructions, if you wish.’

  ‘I’m not leaving Izzy alone.’

  ‘There is no other way, sir. Two Grigori are too much of a risk to my lady’s security, no matter how good the terms on which we find ourselves. You will please forgive us. Those are her requirements. Otherwise you are quite free to leave. Empty-handed.’

  Dad hesitated. He glanced back at Izzy and she could see the doubt in his eyes.

  I’ll be fine, she tried to tell him with a look, with the way she firmed her jaw and clenched her fists. I can handle this.

  She didn’t add, I hope.

  ‘Just give us a minute, if you will,’ said Dad and Cudgel bowed again and stepped back through the door. Dad didn’t waste any time. He crossed to Izzy and dropped his voice to a low whisper. ‘They’re probably listening so be careful. Don’t promise anything, and don’t trust anyone. She’ll ask for something – a gift, a secret – or she’ll ask you a question. Just … be careful what you think. Do you understand? You have to guard your thoughts, those things most dear to you, and be careful what you think in here.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said dubiously. She wasn’t sure what he was actually trying to say. He wasn’t being much help, twisting his words around so they wouldn’t get his meaning. She didn’t either. ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Don’t just try. This is deadly serious. Thoughts have a way of becoming real in here. And they have a way of being stolen right out of your head too. Just promise me, okay kiddo?’

  ‘I promise. But when you talk in riddles I don’t—’

  ‘It isn’t a riddle, love. It’s just what I say.’

  ‘Sir,’ Cudgel interrupted. ‘Our time is short.’

  ‘It’s okay, Dad. I’ll be careful. Promise. Go.’

  He pulled her close and ruffled her hair. ‘Good girl. See you on the other side. We’ll nip over to Burdock’s and I’ll buy you some chips.’

  He knocked on the fireplace door and it opened again. Dad squared his shoulders. Izzy watched him doing it. It made him look stronger, more dangerous, less like her dad. The Grigori walked out of the room and left her alone.

  There was only one place to go for answers on this level of magnitude. Jinx checked in with Silver, a brief phone call which surprised him more than he’d expected.

  ‘Listen to me,’ she said, her tone curt. ‘Dylan is here. He saw … he saw a ghost. I don’t know for sure what it means, but …’

  ‘Amadán said it’s the Fear.’

  She sucked in a breath of alarm. ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘That’s what he said. And the body he showed me—’

  ‘All right, all right,’ she said but she didn’t sound all right. Not in the slightest. She sounded shaken to the core. ‘Go. But keep your wits about you. They’ll be expecting you. Make sure you have a gift of some kind prepared. She’ll want something. Better make it something impersonal and physical.’ Then she hung up.

  A gift. Of course he had a gift. He carried a few trinkets with him all the time now. The tourist shops were great for them. You couldn’t ever have something for nothing. Just once, it would have been nice, just once for someone to say ‘sure, okay, why not?’ But life didn’t work that way.

  Not in his life anyway. Not among the Sídhe.

  The Luas rattled by him, the bell clanging, and he stepped into the opening of an alley to watch it go by, while the press of pedestrians surged in to fill the space where he had been. A dark alley. One thing Jinx knew, nothing good ever came out of wandering into places like that after sunset on your own.

  As he lingered at the opening, waiting for the tram to pass, he saw movement in the deepest shadows at the end of the alley. Homeless humans, probably, those lost at the edge of society, forgotten or dismissed, but nothing to concern him.

  So why did he have such a powerful urge to go down there? His body, his mind, even his soul if he actually had one – every part of him wanted to step into the shadows.

  But some small scrap of common sense stopped him.

  The Luas passed him by, its lights gone, but he couldn’t move. He felt like something had frozen him there. He couldn’t leave any more than he was willing to enter.

  ‘Always so obstinate,’ drawled a voice riddled with bored amusement. He knew it. The sound of it made his heart spasm in fright, though he didn’t show it outwardly. He couldn’t do that.

  But Osprey probably knew anyway.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked as he turned to look, but a strong arm seized his, twisting it behind him and up while at the same time propelling him around and into the alley.

  Osprey forced Jinx to his knees.

  ‘I’m delivering a message,’ said Holly’s chief assassin.

  Jinx knew better than to beg. That tended to just make Osprey worse. ‘A message?’

  ‘Holly sends her love.’

  Holly? Holly was gone. Holly had been defeated. He’d almost died and Silver had – Holly had to be gone. Everyone said it. Everyone. It was all he had.

  He tried to look up at Osprey and received a kick to his back in recompense that drove him down to the ground.

  ‘Holly’s gone,’ he said, his voice trembling, as if it didn’t believe the words he was making it say.

  Osprey laughed. ‘Did you think it was that easy? Holly’s an old power, Jinx. She isn’t defeated if you take her touchstone away. She has her ways of getting more power when she needs it. She wanted you to know that, so you can tell Silver. And she wanted you to have a present.’

  That didn’t sound good. Holly had always referred to the piercings as presents. Like he was lucky to have them. Like she was doing him a favour.

  He sucked in a series of rapid breaths and tried to make his heart stop stuttering too fast. ‘I don’t – I don’t serve Holly anymore.’

 
‘Of course you do. There’s no opt-out clause, Jinx, no way to leave her service. You know that.’

  ‘There’s death.’ It sounded idiotic the moment the words left his mouth. Osprey gave that fearsome laugh Jinx knew too well.

  ‘Such bravado. You don’t want that, kiddo. You’re way too young. Anyway—’ he leaned in close until his cheek was right against Jinx’s, warm and smooth, carrying the scent of cloves and nutmeg ‘—it doesn’t help.’

  He released Jinx, but before the Cú Sídhe could recover himself, Osprey stepped in front of him and delivered a savage kick to the stomach and up into his solar plexus. It drove Jinx’s breath from him. His muscles spasmed and he fell back, gasping for air. Before he knew what was happening, Osprey knelt astride him, pinning his arms down with his knees, holding him there helpless. He looked the same. All the fae were eternally unchanging. A sharp, hawkish face, glittering golden eyes and sleek, swept-back hair flecked with brown and white. His skin wasn’t just pale, but white too, bloodless, except for the streak of black crossing his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He grabbed Jinx’s jaw and held it in a vice-like grip, pushing his head back to expose his neck.

  ‘Hold still now. This is really going to hurt.’

  He pulled out a thin line of silver, like a wire, which wriggled and squirmed in his grip. He flicked it and snapped it out into a line, which he brought down on Jinx’s throat.

  ‘Just let it work, that’s a good boy,’ he said as Jinx struggled and kicked, gagging against the tightening band of burning metal. His body ached to change, to transform, but the thing around his neck stopped him. He could smell the stench of burning skin – his skin – and the pain of it forced a howl from him. Jinx tasted blood and vomit, tears streamed from his eyes, blinding him, and then, abruptly, it was over.

  Osprey released him, as if it was nothing more than a game. He even gave Jinx a good-natured punch to the shoulder. ‘There you go. All over. That wasn’t so bad, was it?’

  Jinx rolled onto his side, coughing, fighting to hide his agony and humiliation even if it was already too late.

  Osprey stood over him, his feathered cloak fluttering in the breeze stirred up by another tram. Sídhe women found him hopelessly attractive, at least at first. Not so much when they got to know him, when his sadism had already marked them forever. Jinx knew him far too well.

  ‘What was that?’

  But Osprey just smiled. ‘Until next time, kiddo.’

  ‘There isn’t going to be a next time.’

  Osprey shook his head, an expression that said Jinx had no idea what he was talking about. The smile was still painted on his mouth.

  ‘Ah, Jinx,’ he said darkly. ‘There’s always a next time. It’s Holly, isn’t it? She has plans for you. Mighty plans. See you.’

  He strode out into the city lights, a fluttering, threatening silhouette that Jinx couldn’t bring himself to follow. He waited until he was sure the assassin was gone and then raised shaking hands to his throat. A band of metal pressed tight against his neck and inside his guts something reared up, like a serpent waking from a long sleep, something golden and full of brightness. It burned the way a star burned, too hot, too bright. And he felt it take root, winding down within him and glowing there like an ember.

  Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

  What had Osprey infected him with? What had he done? Holly had plans all right, he knew that. But he had no idea what they were. And he had no idea what this meant.

  But Holly was gone. Holly was meant to be gone!

  He curled in on himself and tried to make it not be true. The world was never on his side.

  The ephemeral glow faded to a bleak and hollow emptiness. He didn’t know if it was gone, or if it had even been real. Another of Holly’s sadistic games, perhaps, leaving him lost. All the same it took time before he could bring himself to step out into the Dublin evening again. With his hands shoved deep in his pockets, he stalked, head down, until he reached the side of the Jervis Street Centre. And there he found the gate in the square that had once been a graveyard for the hospital, right in front of the display of gravestones lined up against the wall. He rubbed his neck again, the line still there, like wire in his skin.

  He’d ask Silver later. She was the only person he could trust to give him a straight answer. Or indeed, any answer at all.

  He knew he ought to tell her, that he should ring her again right away. But what could he say? Holly’s back? She’s as powerful as ever she was and I don’t know how?

  Oh yes, she’d love that.

  And then he’d have to admit that Osprey had done something to him, marked him, branded him somehow. He’d have to describe that feeling, not just the humiliation, but the sensations afterwards. And tell Silver that Holly had a plan for him. That she wouldn’t let him go.

  Later. He’d call her later. When he knew more. He couldn’t find the words now.

  On the other side of the gate, the world of Dubh Linn was unlit and grim. This area of the city was virtually deserted. And the building before him, a warehouse from a bygone age.

  The entrance stood empty, dark, a long snaking corridor vastly different from the entrance on the human side with its lights and pretty posters. He’d seen it once. He’d stared at it for about five minutes, unable to believe it was the same place.

  There it was a site of amusement, entertainment. They charged entry to tourists, which, fair dues, was a nice money-spinner for them. They even served coffee and cake afterwards.

  Only Dubh Linn showed this place as it really was. Dark and foreboding, terrible. Gnarled black tree roots surrounded the entrance, as if they would reach out and crush the unwary. The glass panelled door boomed like a drum when he knocked. There was no response for a few minutes and he was about to knock again when he saw a shape detach itself from the shadows on the other side. Twice as tall as he was, three times as broad. The words ‘brick’ and ‘shithouse’ sprang instantly to mind. He glanced down to see if the thing’s knuckles were actually dragging on the ground. It looked like someone had shaved a silverback gorilla and shoved it into a suit.

  The bodach stared at him – not a friendly stare – and Jinx wondered briefly if it was the uglier big brother of the one he’d fought at the Market. And if it knew what he’d done.

  But it only produced a tiny golden key from its pocket and unlocked the uneven glass door.

  ‘Welcome, Cú Sídhe. Lady Silver made the appointment so we are expecting you. If you would just wait in the antechamber while she sees her previous supplicant.’

  Jinx nodded and followed the bodach inside. He wondered where the swarm of leps who usually ran the place had got to. Bodachs were the heavies, the muscle, a good idea to have on the door, but the leps were the brains. They knew how to spin money from old leaves. She relied on them.

  Who else was visiting here this evening? But before he could ask the bodach, they reached the door to the antechamber and he found himself alone.

  It was another gate. He knew that at once. So the antechamber and presumably the Storyteller herself were located in the human world. That made sense. He’d heard she shunned Dubh Linn. After all he had heard of her, the enemies she had made, the human world was probably safer for her.

  Jinx hesitated. He didn’t want to cross over any more today, the shiver over his skin, the vibrations in the pit of his stomach, the way the silver piercings and tattoos tightened on him. It was getting worse. And now this new band at his throat. He didn’t like crossing over. Not that he’d loved it before. Before Izzy. But since then, since the summer and all that madness that should have seen him dead, he hated it even more.

  For a while, just a short while, he’d thought he had a future, but Dubh Linn and the human world of Dublin had snatched that away. It hurt him worse than Holly ever could.

  Only Silver knew the truth.

  Taking a breath he stepped through, entering the other side, the human plane, and a room designed to tease and trick the
eye. It looked like the kitchen of a country cottage in a fairytale, but one made for giants like the bodach he’d just left, or maybe his even bigger brothers.

  And worst of all, he wasn’t alone. The face that looked at him as he stepped through the door, eyes wide, mouth open in shock, almost stopped his heart.

  It was Izzy.

  Izzy Gregory.

  She froze, staring at him. The artificial lights overhead illuminated her like an apparition of something divine. Her hair flamed red, like the fire her natural mother could call up on demand, though a darker shade than Brí’s own hair. Her skin was as pale as porcelain, her bone structure clearly denoting the beauty to come as she grew. All fae traits, but that was only one half of her heritage.

  Her bright blue eyes came from her father. And she had oh-so-human freckles, like little flecks of gold all over her doll-like face. Her mouth hung open in surprise, the full lips painted a shimmering pink. The makeup was new. But then it had been almost three months.

  Months without her. Months alone.

  He hadn’t seen her in so long, it hurt to look at her now, to see the flicker of answering pain in her eyes, the tightening of her jaw as she closed her mouth and glared at him.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. He wanted to cringe when he heard the venom in her voice.

  Should have called her. Should have found a way. Should have done something. Anything. Should never have just accepted it and walked away. He silenced his racing thoughts, pushing them down into the depths of his mind where he could smother them. He had done the right thing, the only thing. It was too dangerous. Izzy shouldn’t be in his life.

  And yet here she was again.

  ‘I could ask you the same question.’

  She lifted her chin – proud and defiant, his Izzy. She always had been. A fighter to the core. ‘My father brought me. You?’

  ‘Silver sent me.’ He didn’t want to get into any more detail than that. She wouldn’t understand.

  ‘I see.’

  The uncomfortable silence turned the air to lead around them. She didn’t move, nor did he. As if neither of them wanted to be the first one to look away.