Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

It sounded like a mixed blessing, but Megan clearly thought she was wishing the best for my daughter. Her words also brought to mind the conversation I'd had with Kareesh the day before, when we'd been bargaining. She'd offered to tell me whether I would be a grandfather and I had thought that what she was offering to me was the chance to know whether my daughter would survive to become a mother. Perhaps, though, it had been more than that. Perhaps the trade I had refused was to discover whether my daughter could become a mother. Either way, I had chosen to receive the vision instead.

"Look," I said. "I'd better go. If you see Blackbird, could you tell her I was looking for her?"

Megan stood up and tucked her cigarette tin into her bag. "Stick around and she'll find you," she said.

"What makes you say that?"

"Trust me. I know."

She wouldn't be drawn any further on the subject, so I bade her farewell and went back to the bakery to buy breakfast. The savoury pasty came hot in a paper bag and I was suddenly famished. It was all I could do to wait until it had cooled enough not to burn my tongue. Running around in the small hours of the morning had left me starving.

I walked through the arcade eating my pasty and then dropped the paper bag into a bin before walking out onto the cobbled road up to the Underground Station to see if I could leave a message for Blackbird with Kareesh.

As I crossed the junction with Floral Street I was shoved sideways.

"Betcha thought you wouldn't see me again too soon, didn't ya?"

I stumbled across the uneven cobbles and turned to face my assailant. The long black coat and overuse of eyeliner gave it away. It was Fenlock.

I backed slowly away from the tall black-garbed figure down the side-road, holding my hands up in a placatory gesture.

"Hello, Fenlock. Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. It was a misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding is it?" he jeered, pushing me again with a suddenness that took me off guard. I stumbled backwards on the uneven footing.

"Sent me on a merry chase, didn't ya? I bet you and her were havin' a laugh at our expense, weren't ya?"

"That was Blackbird." I scanned the road behind him.

There were people walking past, but none of them noticed my predicament. I glanced backwards to see if anyone was there but at this time of day these side roads were deserted. An empty white van was parked a little way off and that was all the cover there was.

"Well, she's not here to protect ya now, is she, bumpkin?" He loomed forward, appearing to grow in size as he approached. I backed away. He leapt towards me and grabbed me by the throat, practically lifting me from my feet. I grabbed at the hand clamped around my throat, gargling as he squeezed at my windpipe. I battered at his arm, making wild swings for his face and kicking at his ankles. He was oblivious to my thrashing and steered me sideways into an alley.

He thrust me backwards down the alley and I staggered down the passage away from him. A glance behind told me this was a dead end. He was going to murder me.

I pulled my wallet from my pocket. "Look, you can have this. It's all I have." I held it out, warily.

He swatted it aside, and it ricocheted off the wall and bounced onto the ground.

"Too late for that," he announced. "Ya should have thought of that before, shouldn't ya?" He stepped over the wallet as I backed down the alley.

"I don't have anything else!" I protested.

He launched forward and scooped me up by the neck, swinging me around until I thumped into the wall. I swung a punch at his face and it connected with his nose, but he just laughed it off, his hand squeezing my windpipe.

With my screams strangling in my throat, I tore at his hand with my fingernails, gouging into his skin. His muscles felt like steel hawsers.

I felt my toes leave the pavement as I dangled from his hand. He scraped me upwards against the brickwork, then carelessly lifted me back off the wall and slammed me back against it, jangling my wits. I tried to kick him, thrashing wildly in his grip. He barely noticed.

"Shall we shake ya and see what falls out?" he chuckled and slammed me against the wall again.

Spots were appearing before my eyes. If he didn't let go of my throat soon, I would pass out. In a flash of inspiration I grabbed his hand with both of mine and wrenched at the core of power within me.

Forget me!

The jolt went down my arms but the command rolled off him like water off the back of a spoon.

"Feisty, eh? I like 'em feisty!" He lifted me back off the wall, shook me like a rag doll and slammed me back, leaving me disoriented and parched for air. He was going to kill me.

I was starting to black out. Lights played around the edge of my vision. Spots mingled in and the alley went dim. The light was fading around me. I clawed at his grip, drawing blood but not breaking his grip.

"Huh?" His voice came to me as an echo, far away.

The moment of distraction was what I needed. I reached deep inside, forging a connection with the darkness, desperate to do something, anything.

In response I felt a deepening, an opening to a cold empty core in my being. Hungry darkness emptied into me.

His scream echoed in my ears, piercing and anguished. Its harshness needling into my brain. Fenlock tried to wrench his hand away but my fingers were still clawed around his wrist, nails embedded in the flesh. As he staggered back, I scraped down the wall, my feet thumping against the ground, jarring me.

I opened my eyes to find everything dappled with moonlit shade.

My glow filled the alley.

Fenlock was trying to back away from me, his arm still clamped in my grip. Something had changed. Something had shifted. He was looking at his arm with astonishment, as if a harmless insect had stung him. No, more than that — wounded him. My hands were black against the pale of his skin and his veins stood out dark on his arms.

"You fu-" His eyes lifted to my face and he froze.

He registered shock and then something else I didn't recognise; a kind of fascinated horror. I felt a hot wire of energy coursing down his arm into mine, lighting up senses I hadn't known existed. It sparked an unrecognised hunger that sang to me. The darkness flooded into me like a tidal rush and I yielded to it.

Fenlock shrieked again, this time in abject terror. He thrashed, trying to free his arm, flailing wildly and screaming like a banshee. My fingers dug into the flesh, the grip tightening in reflex, sinking into the skin as the heat flowed down his arm into mine. He pushed at my face with his free hand but then snatched his hand back as if it had been burned. He yanked at his arm but the strength had gone out of him. Though he jerked wildly against my grip, the tide was inexorable. The blackness spread into his bloodstream following the arteries to his heart. His flesh hollowed, his muscles and sinews standing out on his frame like a starved man. His voice broke into a cracked wail, his skin went sallow and his cheeks sank into his face in front of me. Repelled by the horror of his affliction, I tried to release him, but my fingers were cramped into spasm around his wrist. With a will of their own they bit into his flesh, refusing to release him.

In the last moments, he slumped against me, his papery cheek pressed unwillingly next to mine, my own frame the only thing holding him erect. His form dissolved in my hands, his flesh desiccating to ash, his clothes collapsing into a pile of powdery rags and collapsing to the floor. I stood there, little understanding what had happened, staring at the dust falling through my fingers and trying to comprehend what I had just done.

I expected to be breathless, battered and bruised. Fenlock had beaten me, thrown me against the wall and half-choked the life from me. He'd been going to kill me, but now there was nothing, just dust and rags. My glow faded and daylight returned to the alley.