At that moment Jack thought he could have ignored Mount Vesuvius erupting only a hundred yards away. He looked down into Grace’s face and smiled, and tightened his arms around her, and slowly they recommenced twisting harmonies out across the dance floor of the Savoy Hotel to the rhythm of both music and the largest bombing raid to yet batter London.
The White Queen stood on the deck of a burning ship in St Katharine’s Docks. The entire area east of the Tower of London was ablaze, and the cargoes of wool and oils in the ships in St Katharine’s Docks had exploded, adding further fury to the inferno.
The White Queen paid no heed to the flames. She stared westwards to where she could see three couples swaying on the Savoy’s dance floor to the rhythms of the labyrinth and the beat of the bombs as they pounded down on the city.
“Grace,” the White Queen whispered, “don’t you see? Don’t you understand? Jack? Jack? Don’t you realise?”
Jack did not know how much time had passed. He was aware only of Grace in his arms, of the sweet harmonies they spun with their movements, and of the power that danced through and about them. He thought he could dance like this, with Grace, for an eternity, and leave the rest of life behind, regretting nothing.
“Look at this,” Grace whispered. “Everyone else has gone, and there remains only you and me, my parents, and your father and Ariadne, dancing across the floor.”
Jack did not care. In his world there was only Grace.
“Fancy,” she whispered, the words barely reaching him, “even the band has gone home, and we dance only to the sound of the bombs.”
That tweaked at something deep in Jack’s subconsciousness, but as soon as it disturbed him, it had gone, and Jack thought nothing more of it.
“Three Mistresses of the Labyrinth,” Grace murmured, “and three Kingmen, if you want to count my father.”
Jack remembered that day, a long time ago, almost a year, now, when he’d asked Weyland if he had Kingman powers. What was it that Weyland had answered? What?
Ah, yes.
I could not do it prettily—perhaps you might offer me further training—but do it I could. Remember also that I would bring my Darkcraft behind whatever I could do as Kingman. I could be a very, very effective—and somewhat bleak—Kingman. Jack, why do you ask?
Why had he asked? Jack could not remember. There was nothing for him at the moment but the music and Grace.
But there was no music, there was only the distant sound of bombs and destruction.
“Grace,” he said, pulling her to a halt as he stopped suddenly. “Let’s get out of here.”
The Savoy was dark, all but closed down, but the cloakroom girl had left out Grace’s coat and Jack’s hat on a chair by the counter.
“Jack,” Grace said, slipping her arms through the sleeves of her fur coat as Jack held it for her. “Why stop now? The dance was so perfect…”
He grabbed his cap, then took her hand and pulled her towards the door. “I was tired of sharing you with your parents and Silvius and Ariadne,” he said. “I wanted to find somewhere to dance more privately.” Jack had parked the Austin in the basement of the Savoy, but he did not lead her there.
Instead they walked down towards the deserted Embankment where they stopped and stared at the fires further east in the docklands and the East End. The flames were reflected along the entire length of the Thames between where they stood and the docklands, giving the impression that the entire river was aflame. Overhead Jack could hear the drone of planes, and the sharp rattle of ack-ack arching up into the night sky.
“Listen to the music of the bombs,” said Grace. “Listen to them dance.”
Jack looked at her. She was staring at the inferno raging in the docklands, her head tilted to one side and her body swaying slightly as if she was, indeed, listening to music. He tugged at her hand gently. “Grace, come with me, please.”
She turned her face towards him, and he saw the distant flames reflected in her dark blue eyes.
“No,” she whispered, “here.”
And then she stepped forward, gripping the lapels of his jacket in both hands, and lifted her face to his.
He seized her, crushing her body against his, his mouth against hers. He’d kissed her before, but never like this, and never had he had her respond like this. He had a single moment of coherent thought, where he regretted with every fibre of his being that this hadn’t happened within decent distance of a bed, then he was lost in her, in the heat of her body, the fervour of her mouth, the teasing touch of her hands which had now slid inside his shirt, the continuing magic of their shared labyrinthine power as it twisted about them.
Then, suddenly, terribly, she was pulling back from him, and once more looking to the east.
“Gods, Grace…”
Again her head tilted to one side, then she looked up, studying the clouds, and then, finally, back to him.
“The drone of the planes has gone. There are no more bombs.”
He tried to catch at her, to pull her back into his arms. “Grace, please…”
“The raid has finished, Jack.”
“Grace…”
She stepped forward and kissed him, very gently, very lingeringly, and with none of the passion she had displayed a moment earlier. “Not tonight, Jack. I’m sorry.”
“Christ, Grace.”
Again she kissed him, and he wished she’d stop that.
“Not tonight,” she said. “Soon. But not tonight.”
He sighed, wishing he could let go his arousal as easily as, apparently, Grace could let go hers. “When, then?”
“The next raid, perhaps. Then.”
He studied her carefully, all thought of lovemaking now gone. “Why then, Grace? What is the importance of waiting for the next raid?”
“Didn’t you feel it, Jack?”
He gave a soft laugh. “I felt many things tonight. Too many. It will take me a week or more to sort them out.”
Once more Grace tilted her head to the east, then up to the clouds. “My shadow sister has built a strange Game, indeed.”
“Grace? What do you know?”
She smiled, very slow, very seductive. “Why don’t I show you,” she said, “on the night of the next raid?”
He looked at her for a long moment. “I never thought I could wish so desperately for another raid.”
She laughed, and took his hand. “Come. Drive me home. Malcolm has left sandwiches out, and I am ravenous.”
NINE
The Thames and Southwark, London
Wednesday, 19th March 1941
GRACE SPEAKS
I’d felt something that night. Not just arousal—that I felt as never before—but something that danced about the corners of my mind, like a moth at a light that could never quite be caught in form and colour. Something my sister was trying to show me, but I couldn’t quite grasp.
But it had something to do with the bombs. Something to do with the pain and destruction and loss of life. Something…something to do with the air raids.
The Lord of the Faerie came to Copt Hall the next day and begged Jack to do something. The Faerie was now in desperate straits. During the previous night when Jack and I had danced to the music of the bombs, cracks had appeared in the sky of the Faerie and utter bleakness threatened to tumble through. There were shadows of fingers, the Lord of the Faerie told us, groping at the cracks. None of us knew what awaited on the other side, what was attached to those shadowy fingers, and none of us wanted to find out, either.
Jack couldn’t answer—what could he say?—and so I leaned over and took the Faerie Lord’s hand. “Soon,” I said.
“That’s not good enough,” he said, snatching his hand away from mine and leaving the room.
“Grace,” Jack whispered, “please tell me what you felt last night?”
“I felt the touch of my sister,” I said. “I felt hope.”
He gave a bitter, brittle laugh, for the Lord of the Faerie’s news—and his pain—were t
ormenting him. “Hope? From her?”
I was sitting next to him on the sofa, and I took his face in both my hands and kissed his mouth softly. “Hope from me, then.”
He rested his forehead against mine for a very long moment, then leaned back, his face a fraction more relaxed than it had been. “I want to sleep with you so badly,” he said.
I knew he didn’t refer only to sex, but to something greater. It was comfort he wanted, the comfort of entwining his life so completely with another’s that they—we—became one.
I kissed him again. “Soon,” I said.
Four days later, Hitler threw the entire Luftwaffe against London.
Jack drove us down to the Thames where, in a small dock in Southwark, we found a rowing boat.
It was late at night, and the Luftwaffe had been overhead for more than two hours.
London was ablaze.
I marvelled that the city had sustained so much damage, and yet still there was material to burn. I marvelled that the city still lived, and wondered what magic sustained it.
Not the Troy Game, surely.
The roar of the aircraft overhead, and the steady thump thump thump of the explosions was almost deafening, and yet…yet…yet still that moth hovered at the edges of my consciousness. Still I could not quite grasp what my sister was trying to tell me, to tell us.
But, oh, the music. It thrummed through my veins with every blast, it thrilled through my flesh, it made me so aware of Jack that every beat of my heart was a scream for him.
I slid my eyes to where he sat at the oars, and saw him watching me.
Do you feel it? I asked him, and he nodded. Tersely, for I think he was hesitant and he did not trust his daughter.
I was excited, and could feel no fear.
Tonight something beckoned.
Part of that something was the heart of the Shadow Game. We wanted to find it, to see it, to know it. To see if it held any answers.
My mother had told us where to look, and in the end it was simplicity itself. We had to find a spot in the centre of the river which lined up with the church of St Magnus the Martyr on the northern bank of the Thames (I tried hard not to think of the deaths of those poor women as I looked at the church, but was unable to repress a shudder of horror at their fate).
By the time we reached the spot, the docklands of London were ablaze. I thought that they had burned to the waterline four days ago, when Jack and I had danced at the Savoy, but, no, there was yet further potential for destruction and the flames reached a hundred feet into the night sky.
By this time Southwark was burning as well. The bombers had started in the east of London and then worked their way south, following the flames. We could hear them overhead, a constant drone of death and, unnervingly, with the power swirling around us, we could also sometimes hear snatches of conversation from the German cockpits as pilots exulted or exclaimed or screamed for fighter protection.
We were becoming as one with the destruction.
That moth fluttered closer, and I began to make out its features.
“We’re here,” said Jack, and I blinked, losing concentration, and the moth fluttered back into obscurity.
I looked at the water. It was running with red and orange, the colour of the flames on both sides of the banks, and it trembled with the force of the pounding explosions.
Thump thump thump…thump thump thump…thump thump thump…
And suddenly that moth was back, save now it swooped directly in front of my face, and I gasped in mingled joy and horror.
Joy at the discovery.
Horror, at all it meant.
Jack was staring at me. I leaned forward, grabbing his hands away from the oars.
Dance with me, I said.
Then, using all the power I had, and all the trust in me that Jack possessed, I summoned forth my Darkcraft and swept us both into the maelstrom dance of the bombs.
In that terrible place, that black, evil place of pain and fear and destruction, we found something completely unexpected.
A stunning new power source.
The pain and horror of the air raid.
No wonder the murders had stopped with the onset of the Blitz—the Shadow Game could gorge on the death the Luftwaffe dealt, and no longer needed the imps’ aid.
It was a vile place to be, and we exited almost as soon as we had entered. The brevity of our visit didn’t matter, what was important was that…oh, gods…even now I couldn’t voice it.
It was too frightful.
Jack had gone white—even the wash of the flames over his face couldn’t hide the fact that he’d gone as white as a sheet—and I had to look away.
I looked directly into the crypt of St Thomas’ Chapel.
I gasped, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Jack follow the direction of my eyes.
On the port side of our little rowboat the waters had opened up, as if they had become a frozen whirlpool. The sides of this still whirlpool were not smooth; instead, the water had formed steps circling down, steps in which the flames and the continuing blasts from the exploding bombs reflected back at us.
There was a stone floor at the bottom of the whirlpool, glistening with a sheen of dampness.
Jack very slowly lifted his face to mine.
“It is the floor of the crypt of St Thomas,” I said, needlessly.
“Grace,” he said, “what did you just do? How did you—”
“Will you take me back to the shore?” I said. I didn’t want to answer those questions just yet.
He glanced up at the sky, and then eastwards. “The night is yet young for the Luftwaffe,” he remarked, and I knew then that he was as attuned to that terrible Danse Macabre as I.
“I know,” I said, and from the look in his eyes, I knew he understood what I wanted. We had to close that final bridge between us tonight, as man and woman, and as Kingman and Mistress of the Labyrinth. We had to do it tonight, while the power rang about us. “The raid will go on for many hours yet.”
Our boat rocked, and we both looked back to where a moment before the steps to the sunken crypt had been.
Now there was nothing but the gently lapping waters of the Thames, and the death and destruction mirrored in its face.
The crypt would wait for another night.
“Take me back to shore, Jack.”
He hesitated a moment longer, then he put his hands back to the oars.
Jack had parked close to the river, but I led him straight past the car into the back alleys of Southwark. The bombing was to the south and east of us; I knew now that tonight it would not touch this section of London where we were.
He caught up with me, taking my elbow, pulling me to a halt.
“Grace, tell me that this isn’t as terrible as I think it is. I don’t want this night to be…”
Terrible.
Here and now was a horrific time to have this conversation, but was there ever going to be a good time? I closed my eyes briefly, prayed for courage and the wisdom to find the right words, and began to speak of what we had both experienced in the rowboat.
“The Shadow Game is so powerful that for us to wield it would be to kill us.”
He didn’t respond, just stared at me as if he didn’t want to hear any more.
“I said that I thought my sister—” his face twisted at that, as if “sister” was too generous a word to use “—may have provided a means for us to use it, and live.”
He looked away, and I didn’t blame him. My sister the White Queen had provided a means, a source of power for Jack and me that served two purposes: to protect us against the power of the Shadow Game; and to infuse that Game with such added power that it would be sure to destroy my other sister, Catling, the Troy Game incarnate.
The problem was that the means was so ghastly—the power of the air raids that battered London.
“Jack,” I said as gently as I dared, “a Mistress of the Labyrinth and a Kingman use the twisting harmonies of creation to build a
Game, and creation is and has always been a mix of the good and the appalling and the sheer unfair. That is what life is about.”
“Don’t preach to me about life.”
The words were bitter, but the tone not, and so I pressed on.
“We have to use whatever power is available to us, Jack. We must. The Troy Game is too powerful to be destroyed with the gentle harmonies of daisies and peonies.”
He gave a soft laugh at that, and I was never so grateful for anything in my life.
“Ah, I shouldn’t complain,” he said, “for who was responsible for the monstrosity of the Troy Game in the first instance? It is just that…that…”
And neither of us could speak the unspeakable at that moment. The Shadow Game had not needed to feed, to sustain itself, until Jack returned to London and its Kingman and Mistress were finally in place. On Jack’s return the Game appeared as a shadow hanging over the city, and to manage that it had needed sustenance—thus the murders. When the Blitz began it could feed properly. Even worse than that knowledge was that if the White Queen had created the Shadow Game as a means to deal with the Troy Game, then she had also created the power source by which it fed. The power source which the Game’s Kingman and Mistress needed to access in order to work the Game.
My sister the White Queen was responsible for World War II. All this time we had thought to blame Catling, but it wasn’t Catling’s fault at all. The war and all its horrors was the construction of the White Queen.
That is what we both found so terrible; the only means to create the power by which to destroy the Troy Game was through the creation of such horrifying destruction and suffering.
Millions would die, were dying, all for Jack’s and my benefit.
We walked for a while in silence. Silence between us, that is, for the dreadful sounds of the air raid continued—the screaming of the bombs and the crump of their blasts; the shocks of explosions; the roar and terror of the conflagrations to our east and north. The part of Southwark that we walked, in the west, had been spared the bombing, so none of the fires or bomb blasts were close to us.