Herbie Brennan - Faerie Lord

‘Ah, there you are,’ said Henry.

Against Hodge’s furious protests, Henry bundled him into the cat-carrier. ‘It’s for your own good,’ he hissed, sucking one thumb where the brute had drawn blood. ‘You really don’t want to hang around here.’ It was going to be a pain racing off to Mr Fogarty’s house to feed Hodge in the middle of exams, but he couldn’t see any alternative. He knew his mother.

As he waited for the bus, Henry thought about Charlie and what she’d said about not going out together any more. He was surprised how little upset he felt. He’d been close friends with Charlie ever since they were little kids, but the romantic interest had started less than a year ago and to be absolutely honest, Charlie had been keener about that than he was.

The bus journey was a nightmare. Hodge wailed all the way and several passengers took to staring at Henry as if he was committing murder. But he settled once they left the bus, and by the time Henry was carrying him along Mr Fogarty’s cul-de-sac he was looking around through the mesh of the carrier as if he recognised the place.

Mr Fogarty’s house, the last one on the street, was looking distinctly the worse for wear despite Henry’s best efforts. Most of the trouble dated back to the days of Mr Fogarty’s own occupancy – he’d pasted brown paper on the bottom panes of the downstairs windows to stop people looking in, seldom bothered with minor repairs and had a habit of leaving half-eaten hamburgers to rot down the side of his sofa. Now it was unoccupied, the process of decay was visibly accelerating. Even if Henry hadn’t been planning to leave, it would make sense to sell the place before it fell down.

He carried the caged Hodge to the front door and let himself in – he had his own set of keys. Then he walked through to the kitchen, set the carrier on the floor and unlatched the side. Hodge stretched, looked around suspiciously, then walked out slowly.

‘Do you want your Whiskas now or would you prefer to go out the back and kill everything that moves?’ Henry asked him conversationally. Hodge walked to the back door and sat down facing it. He waited patiently. ‘So it’s the killing fields, is it?’ Henry said. He walked over, shot the bolt, then unlocked the back door.

Two strangers were standing on the lawn outside.

Henry frowned. He wasn’t anything like as paranoid as Mr Fogarty, but the back garden was private property and he couldn’t see any reason for these two to be poking around.

The man was in his mid-thirties, stockily built with a shock of red hair that was turning prematurely grey. He had on a sharp green suit and suede shoes. The girl seemed a lot younger. She might have been his daughter, except she was dressed in a blouse, skirt and coat that looked as if they’d come from Oxfam.

‘Can I help you?’ Henry asked coolly.

It was like one of those scenes from a movie where everything goes into slow motion and movement seems to leave trails. The man turned (slowly) towards him. ‘Henry…?’ he said.

The girl turned towards him just as slowly. ‘Henry!’ she exclaimed. He watched the smile begin to spread like a pouring of honey, illuminating her face, transforming her into a radiant beauty.

They stared at him expectantly. Henry felt a curious emptiness in the pit of his stomach. He stared back at them blankly. Now he could see her face, he knew the girl, of course. ‘Nymph?’ he whispered.

‘Henry!’ the man said again. He began to grin and the grin told Henry at once who he was, although it was impossible.

Henry felt his jaw begin to drop and stared and stared until eventually he said what he had to say, what he knew to be true even though it wasn’t true, couldn’t possibly be true.

‘Pyrgus?’ Henry said.

‘You’re old!’ Henry blurted. It was stupid, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. They were sitting round the table in Mr Fogarty’s kitchen. Hodge had jumped onto Nymph’s lap and was curled purring while he had his ears tickled. Close up, Pyrgus still looked in his thirties, maybe even late thirties. Henry found himself wondering if this was some sort of spell thing, set up as a disguise.

‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ Pyrgus said. ‘But I know what you mean.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Henry asked. What he really wanted to ask was why they were wearing ordinary clothes, Pyrgus in particular: his suit could have come from Marks and Sparks. Henry had never seen them wearing gear like that before. Clothes in the Realm were generally a bit medieval-looking and Forest Faeries like Nymph wore Grecian-style tunics, nearly always in green. ‘Why are you dressed in – ’ he pulled the word out of two-year-old depths ’ – Analogue clothes?’

‘I have to live here,’ Pyrgus said, as if that answered everything. He caught Henry’s expression and grinned again, a little sheepishly this time. ‘Nymph came with me because we got married.’

For a long beat Henry gaped in stunned amazement; then he exploded, ‘Married?’ He looked at Nymph, who smiled a little. ‘The two of you are married?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. Very shortly after you last saw us actually.’

‘You can’t be married,’ Henry said. ‘Not really.’ But he was grinning all over his face. He liked Nymph and she was perfect for Pyrgus. The way Pyrgus looked had to be a spell thing. He glanced at Nymph. ‘Don’t you miss the forest?’

‘There are forests in this world,’ Nymph said calmly. ‘A wife must be at her husband’s side.’

Charlie mightn’t go along with that one, Henry thought. She’d taken to feminism in a big way over the last six months and kept talking about independence and equality and the way women were oppressed by traditional values. Which Henry sort of agreed with really, although to be honest it wasn’t on his mind much of the time. ‘Is the age business… like, some sort of magic thing?’ he asked, returning to an earlier thought.

The smile on Pyrgus’s face disappeared as if he’d thrown a switch. ‘It’s an illness, Henry,’ he said softly. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

Chalkhill was dressed in a shocking-pink silk knicker-bocker suit with fashionably clashing electric-blue suede knee boots and a sweet little lime-green slithskin apron. Brimstone stared at him in distaste. ‘Were you followed?’ he asked.

‘No, of course not,’ Chalkhill said. ‘I took precautions.’ He smiled broadly. The spell coatings on his teeth flashed and sparked and played a cheery tune. ‘Isn’t this fun? The old team back together again. Really, Silas, I’m so excited I could dance.’

‘Have you brought the money?’ Brimstone asked drily.

‘In my knickers,’ Chalkhill said. He caught Brimstone’s blank look and added, ‘In case somebody tried to steal it.’

They were waiting together on the doorstep of a lonely, tree-shrouded mansion set in the outer reaches of the Cretch. There was a legend that it had once belonged to the Master Vampire Krantas, and whether or not this was really true, it certainly looked the part. Gothic towers and spires reached for the sky like spindly fingers. From somewhere deep inside, a bell was tolling hollowly.

‘I thought you’d given up that nonsense,’ Brimstone muttered.

‘What nonsense?’

‘The camp act,’ Brimstone said. ‘It may have served some purpose when you were spying for Lord Hairstreak, but everybody knows it’s just a performance now.’

Chalkhill sighed. ‘Perhaps, but the performance has become a part of me.’ He glanced philosophically into the middle distance. ‘It may be that life itself is a great actor seeking parts to play. It may be -’

‘Just don’t try it on with the Brotherhood,’ Brimstone told him.