Blue Angel Read online

  Ward had gone quiet, her keys still. The shouting piped up again. “Ms Kuranes, are you hurt?”

  Ignoring her, Pax heaved the trapdoor fully open and shone the light down a set of wooden steps. It meant going underground again, not a day after last time. She took a breath. It was this or get locked up by the government. At best.

  Pax swivelled round and probed the steps with her feet, then shimmied down on her backside. She pulled the trapdoor down after her as she descended. Such a bad idea, stupid as hell. The stairs led into a narrow room, barely high enough to stand in. She scanned the phone from side to side, revealing a couple of wooden beams and four bare brick walls. A few metres of space. Nothing else.

  What was worse than stumbling back into the Sunken City, Pax realised, was stumbling into a dead end, when all that woman above needed to do was find the right key. She gritted her teeth, listening for Ward. The agent had stopped pleading, which meant she was focusing more determinedly on getting in.

  Pax scanned the walls again and realised her fingers were tingling hard. Her chest was heating up. There was no way this room was connected to the Sunken City, or anything else, but she had a strange sensation that it wasn’t just a cellar. There was something nearby. Behind her...

  Pax turned, eyes widening. It wasn’t there before. It couldn’t have been, she’d have seen its light. A foot-wide square on the brickwork, bathed in a soft blue glow.

  Pax’s mouth dropped open as she moved towards it. This was where Apothel’s secrets lay – she knew it – Letty could apologise later. But she didn’t like the irrational way she knew it. The blue screen was connected to the thing that had tried to drain her. These ominous panels had sucked energy through the underground chamber as she’d writhed in pain on the floor. Were the weird feelings of the morning real? A connection on some level?

  Pax raised a tentative hand, drawn mindlessly towards the blue patch.

  When she touched it, the screen moved, and she jumped back with a gasp. It had vibrated, she was sure. Up and down, maybe just an inch, but definitely a response to her touch. It was still again. But the brickwork under it shifted. There was a sound like nails on a chalkboard as a deep scratch appeared. It grew, a line scraping down. Then up, at an angle. Slowly spelling out a letter. A childish scrawl, angular and lopsided.

  Who?

  It was communicating with her. Apothel’s Blue Angel. And, in that instant, it didn’t know it was communicating with her.

  The brickwork shifted again. The lines closed up, the old brick reforming like it had been unchanged for decades. Just like Barton had described. You needed to scratch into the blue screen yourself to communicate. Another message formed as Pax watched.

  Everyone gone

  Was it a trick? Holly Barton said they had encountered a screen, so the Blue Angel must’ve known Barton was still around. Though it might not have realised he survived the night, after the various problems they’d all run into.

  There was one other person the Angel might believe was out there, though, who it might be willing to do business with. Pax took out the scooter’s key and lifted it to the blue screen as the second message faded into nothing. Her hand shook as she scratched into the bricks. A messy line, followed by another.

  Rufa...

  Before she could finish, her letters disappeared. The response formed.

  Taken

  So it knew something of current affairs. But it couldn’t be the Ministry themselves, could it? It would’ve known Barton wasn’t gone. She took a chance, quickly scratching in her answer.

  Escaped

  Her letters faded, leaving the brick blank again. What could she ask to trap this Angel? To figure out who or at least where it was?

  A noise came above, a metallic rattle, followed by a curse. Another failed attempt from Ward. The bricks shifted.

  Why here?

  The words faded, and Pax sucked her lower lip. Only one way to get the Angel talking, most likely. Play the same game they’d always played. She scratched in:

  Help?

  The words faded. Come on. Give me something.

  Ward shouted above. Back to trying to reason with her.

  The Blue Angel’s response formed slowly as Pax watched:

  Chaucer Crescent

  Pax frowned. Directory enquiries, like Barton had said. It was offering her glo? What did it expect Rufaizu to do with that? She quickly scratched a response:

  Why?

  Her word disappeared but no answer came. Something squeaked, loudly, above, and Ward’s voice came through again. Closer. She’d got in. Her footsteps thunked through the hall.

  Pax took a step back, eyes on the ceiling. If she waited for the right moment – if Ward went into the other room before checking here – she might slip past. She moved to the steps and paused, noticing new words had appeared in the blue screen.

  Not him

  She stared at the fading words. It took a moment to appreciate the weight of the message. The blue screen vibrated. Whoever it was had figured her out. Before she’d scarcely processed that, her vision suddenly blurred, a hot pain flaring in her chest. A jolt shot through her and she gagged. Her vision went white before blazing with a waking dream of rapid images. Tunnels, brick walls, metal rails – sparks of lightning – she closed her eyes fearfully, almost falling to a knee. Was it the screen itself? Sending out some psychic attack?

  She took a step back and her hand found the stairs, supporting herself from falling. The images kept flashing behind her eyelids – jumping shadows, splitting metal. They faded as quickly as they came, but she understood them. Something had happened – she was seeing it happen. Or feeling it, at least. She even knew where. Not exactly, but the direction. Across the city. Somewhere south?

  Ward’s voice came desperately above, closer. “Where are you?”

  Pax tried to focus on it, blinking heavily. The pain diffused as she refocused on the cellar’s shadows. The faint blue glowing square on the wall. It was responsible somehow, it had done this to her – the timing wasn’t a coincidence. As she stared, the feeling subsiding, the screen made a noise. A hiss, like a valve opening.

  Her eyes opened wider, and her heart pounded – this time from simple fear. Something was coming out of the screen. A dark shape, rolling over itself. Oozing like an oily custard, with a rotten egg stink.

  She backed further around the steps.

  The glutinous mass twisted in the shadows, pivoting from where it was attached to the wall, rearing its slimy front up like a worm testing the air.

  Pax dived up the stairs, slamming her head and shoulders into the trapdoor. It flew up and bounced back, catching her on the head again, and she slipped on the steps. As she glanced back into the gloom, the phone light caught the top edge of the sluglike creature, on the floor now. Sliding towards her.

  13

  Sam tensed as Pax Kuranes shot out of the dark in a cursing panic, running from something. The woman skidded to a halt, clocking the open door and Sam before it.

  “Wait!” Sam shouted, as Pax bolted. Sam was nearer, quicker, and threw a hand ahead. As Pax reached the doorway, the steel bulkhead slammed shut. She smacked into it and grappled with the handle as Sam jammed the key in. Pax’s fingers clawed at her as she turned the key, but the lock clunked into place. Snatching the keys back, ducking away from Pax’s grabbing hands, Sam took quick steps back. Now to take charge –

  “You lunatic!” Pax shouted. “Open the fucking door!”

  Sam held up Landon’s fistful of keys like a weapon. “Ms Kuranes, you need to –”

  “You’re locking us in with it!” Pax pointed sharply, baring her teeth. “Open the door.”

  Sam looked from the shadows back to Pax. The woman was a poker player, an actor, of sorts. “I can’t let you leave. You need to answer some questions.”

  “Questions?” Pax threw the word back at her. “There’s –”

  Something squeaked and both women froze. Pax’s eyes found the rear door, and
Sam followed the glance. There was nothing there. MEE-cordoned properties were cleared out, sealed off. No matter what had been here before, this place had to be empty. The squeak came again, with a light bang, a door rattling on its hinges. Low, at ground level.

  “There’s no...” Sam started, but couldn’t say it out loud. An entrance to the Sunken City? Something coming up? That wasn’t possible. But Pax was here for a reason.

  “Give me the keys,” Pax said, pressed against the door, hand outstretched.

  “What is it?”

  The door beyond moved again, pushed up and bounced back down.

  “Give me the fucking keys!” Pax shouted.

  “Tell me what you’re doing here!” Sam spun on her. “Do you have any idea the trouble you’ve caused?”

  Pax’s face expressed a primal rage at the mere suggestion of answering questions. Sam didn’t falter. This woman would explain.

  The trapdoor squeaked again, and this time didn’t bang back down. It landed on something soft. Whatever was underneath was finally pushing out. The floor groaned as something slid heavily over it.

  “Look,” Pax said, urgently, “there’s a blue screen, in the cellar – it released something –”

  “Blue screen?” Sam said. The phrase fired up a memory; something from old Sunken City lore, to do with Apothel. He’d made claims about blue screens, hadn’t he? He wrote on walls, with no evidence of anything writing back. One of the many reasons the MEE brushed him off as mad. But there was definitely something moving. Coming closer.

  “Get us out of here!” Pax roared, slamming both her hands into the metal and making Sam jump as the slap rang through the room.

  The sliding drew closer, out into the corridor that connected the hall to the back rooms. The light from the hole in the roof gave the scantest outline of something shifting in the shadows. Low but thick. Rolling like a tiny stream of molten lava.

  “What is that,” said Sam, gaping. She’d seen nothing like it in the MEE databases. As it crept into the hallway, it was slowly revealed. A foot high, maybe a metre long, pulsing along the floor. Sam barely had time to react when she heard Pax move. The other woman slammed into her, and she hit the floor hard as Pax grabbed at the keys. They flew from Sam’s hand. Through the air, down with a clatter, sliding right up to the approaching shape.

  Pax froze, straddling Sam. They stared together, breathing deeply from the brief scuffle. Reacting to the sound, the thing changed direction, slightly, to roll into the keys. As its molten flesh touched the metal, the keys steamed and hissed and started melting.

  “Jesus Christ,” Pax gasped.

  “What – what –” Sam stuttered.

  The shape moved over the keys’ remains as they bubbled down like boiled butter. It was coming closer again. Pax kicked off Sam and scrambled to a window. Sam pushed herself up, darting her eyes between Pax, clawing at the window frame, and the sliding shape. It had changed direction again, slurping towards Pax.

  “Fucking do something!” Pax screamed at Sam.

  “I can’t!” Sam screamed back, moving towards a different wall. She didn’t have a gun, didn’t have anything. She wasn’t supposed to be here.

  The sludge kept advancing, backing Pax into a corner, inching closer and closer.

  “Get away from me you fucker!” Pax roared.

  The sky seemed to open on Pax’s command, with a crack of thunder that shook the room. Sam threw her hands over her ears, screaming again. The creature exploded in a cloud of black powder, which hung in the air like flour. Sam lowered her hands, ears ringing, as the powder settled on the empty floorboards. Part of it was still there, a shadow of twitching ooze, but the majority had been vaporised.

  Sam looked questioningly at Pax, mouth open. Pax was looking up, though, towards the hole in the roof. A muffled voice came through the ringing, and Sam shook her head to try and focus.

  “Oh my God,” she gasped, spotting the two-inch figure perched on the edge of the roof, a miniature man silhouetted against the sky. Heavy-set and oddly inelegant. The long, thin object sticking out from his side smoked like a used matchstick.

  “Now, here’s what’s going to happen,” a male voice came down, a dry monotone; small, but clear even at this distance. “The young lady’s going to exit freely, and come with me, and you’ll stay right where you are.”

  Sam looked to Pax, who didn’t look convinced herself. Finally calm for a moment, Sam studied her face, in the dramatic half-light from the hole in the ceiling. Pax had big staring eyes and softly rounded features, countered by a boyish grubbiness and dirty skin. A tatty imitation leather coat, faux fur lining. She looked defiant rather than defeated, after their panicked scuffle. She must’ve fired up every cylinder of Casaria’s weird interests; the sort of tough, night-dwelling person Casaria had once imagined Sam to be. Pax had been dragged into this by him, but she was here on her own initiative now. Provoking things under the ground. Sam’s eyes shifted back towards the remains of the creature, as Pax said to the Fae, “Letty sent you?”

  “She called,” the man replied. “The door...”

  “It’s locked.”

  “Lady, hand her the keys.”

  “I guess you got here too late to see the keys get liquefied? So unless you’ve got a ladder...”

  “What –” Sam started. Her hand was raised, shakily pointing at the black smear on the floor. “What was that?”

  “Co-operate,” the fairy said, “or you join it.”

  Pax exhaled a curse. Sam’s eyes ran dumbly from the tiny shape back to Pax. She had her arms folded – regaining her composure and apparently none too pleased about the fairy’s threats. She suggested, “How about you use that thunder-stick to blow out a window?”

  The fairy considered it, then said, “I’ll handle it.” He popped off the roof and glided into the room. Sam stared with awe. Though he was rotund, and his small wings looked inadequate for his weight, he moved as weightlessly as a bee. He flew between Sam and Pax, down to the handle of the metal door, where he landed.

  “Got a name?” Pax said.

  “Rolarn,” he answered.

  Pax hummed satisfaction. She turned to Sam, as though she wanted to share something, but changed her mind when she met the agent’s eyes. The fairy fluttered off the handle and inspected the keyhole. He rummaged in a pocket.

  “Um…” Sam took a tentative step forward. Her hands were still shaking. Her voice shook, too. “Excuse me – my – I’m Ward. Sam Ward – I’ve been –”

  The man stopped. “One step closer and you lose your knees.”

  Sam looked down at her legs. She didn’t doubt the gun could tear her in half, from what it had done to the molten creature. The casual way he said it made it all the more threatening. All the emails she’d sent – all her ideas, her dreams of creating a dialogue – now she had finally met a Fae and this –

  “Stand clear,” the man said, and gave them no time to react. There was a bang, the volume of a firecracker, and white smoke poured out of the keyhole. The fairy flew up and away.

  “Try it.”

  “Wait!” Sam blurted out. “You can’t just go!”

  Pax’s hand drifted towards the door handle, slow and deliberate. “And yet...”

  “You’re with the Fae – this is huge – I’ve been trying for three years to create a dialogue –”

  “So take a hint,” Pax said, opening the door.

  “I believe you, okay!” Sam hurried to say it. “You saw a blue screen down there, okay! Whatever you’re doing, we can work together! Look at this place.” She gestured to the hall with its horrible lattice of mad scratches. “You’re trailing Apothel, he wasn’t well.”

  Pax gave Sam an assaying look. “And you would know?”

  “Please,” Sam said. “Whatever you’re up to, however you’ve hooked up with the Fae, I need to –”

  “What you need,” the tiny man hovered up with his gun across his waist, “is to be quiet.”

  Sam held
her tongue. She’d got funding for IS on the theory that the Fae weren’t as violent or unreasonable as rumour had it. Maybe they were.

  When Pax swung the door open, a gust of air stirred the dusty remains of the molten creature. Pax stepped out with the fairy, and Sam moved after them for one last plea. “Do you know where Casaria is? Tell me that, at least!”

  Pax looked back, surprised. After a moment’s confusion, she said, “I haven’t seen him since he helped us last night. If he’s got any sense he’s a long way from you.”

  Sam shook her head, “He came in – was debriefed –”

  “That’s enough,” Rolarn cut in.

  With the shotgun aimed at her head, Sam didn’t say another word.

  Pax had paused. “You took him back in, and now he’s missing?”

  Sam nodded, barely moving.

  “And you’re asking me? You people are bullshit. I saw the thing you call the praelucente, sucking energy. It tried to drain me and an innocent damn teenager. It drains people as they travel on the Tube, it drains them in their own homes. But you believe sometimes – somehow – that’s helpful. You’re ignorant of the fact someone or something is using that energy, moving that energy, and until you admit that you don’t get to ask me another fucking thing.”

  Sam stared, silent, and the fierce look on Pax’s face said she’d given up all that she was willing to. She shook her head and ducked out into the daylight.

  14

  It was all very well that Darren and Grace were idling in bed, but Holly was fit and ready. She regretted that she hadn’t simply gone with Pax on the ropey scooter. The next best course of action hardly felt as adventurous: trawling the internet for information. She’d gone from learning precious little about the supposed gas leak, and precious little about the supposed government ministry, to exploring the origins of the Ordshaw Underground. She had discovered the K&S Line had an eccentric history traceable to the end of the Victorian era, and started scribbling down ideas, when a high-pitched bark made her sit up straight. It was close: the other side of the wall.