Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

I told her about climbing over the balcony and running away with my rucksack, then getting arrested and being taken back to the flat by the police.

"You went back? Willingly?"

"They weren't going to accept no for an answer. Besides, there wasn't much I could do."

"You wouldn't have got me back in there," she said.

"They went first. They checked every room with me coming after."

"That wouldn't bother her. She could have been in the flat all the time and they'd never have seen her until it was too late."

"Her?"

"The Fey that came after you was female, though the body she inhabited may just as easily have been male. A door wouldn't stop her normally but she was using a human body."

"Why wouldn't the door stop her? I sealed it with magic. It worked."

"You sealed the door shut, which was well done, but a shade isn't entirely corporeal. They can dissolve into things, entering through the tiniest crack. They're almost impossible to kill because you can't touch them. In darkness they can lurk in any shadow. She could have been in your flat all the time you were there and you'd never have known."

"She called me 'brother'. She said, 'Brother, open the door.' It was really creepy."

"You didn't tell me that before."

"I didn't remember. I was trying to climb out of a first floor window at the time. Why did she call me that?"

"I'll explain in a moment. So you went back inside?"

"The officers went in first. There was no sign of her in the flat but the walls and ceiling were covered in mould. The police wanted me to explain it, but what could I tell them?"

"It was darkspore."

"The mould?"

"That's how I knew the Fey that came for you was female. She used darkspore to weaken the door so she could go through it after you sealed it shut. That's a gift that only a shade can use."

"I think one of them found her. While we were upstairs in the flat, two of the policemen went around to the back garden. She was hiding in the hedge."

"She must have wanted them to find her. They would never have seen her if she didn't want them to."

"I think she used the mould on him. That, what did you call it, darkspore?"

"Darkspore spreads by touch. It will run over any surface until it reaches flesh."

"And then what?"

"It consumes wherever it touches."

Her words were cold and quiet and I thought about how close I had come to reaching out and testing that black stain with my fingertip. I shivered involuntarily, remembering the sound of strange manic laughter drifting up though my window over the screams of the policeman. I thought about the other officers and the firemen that had been called to the flat.

"There was a fire engine," I told her. "I think it was sent to my flat to deal with the darkspore. Will they be able to contain it?"

"The darkspore will revert to mould once she withdraws her power," she said, "and she wouldn't have stayed long. The news would be too important to delay for the sake of a little fun."

She had a strange idea of what constituted fun. I thought about my ruined door and my mould-stained walls. I wondered whether I would ever be able to return there now it was filled with the memories of spreading blackness and the sounds from the garden.

"When the screaming started, that's when I ran. I kept running until I couldn't run anymore."

"If she had really wanted you, she would have had you. Maybe she changed her mind about you once she saw the gallowfyre?" The question was more to herself than to me.

"You said that before. What's gallowfyre? Is that what my glow is called?"

"Will you show it to me?"

"What, now?"

"Call it forth, but stay down there where I can see you."

I closed my eyes and concentrated on reaching inwards. The darkness answered and the room chilled suddenly, a fickle breeze shifted in the room, drawn up the stairs from below. I heard Blackbird's sharply indrawn breath. When I opened my eyes the room was dim with the speckled light shifting in milky waves on the wall in front of me. My hands were black against the wall.

Blackbird's voice was soft behind me. "Dismiss it. Get rid of it, please." She sounded over-keen for me to stop when I had only just called it, but something in her tone told me it would be wise to indulge her. I released it and it died, the light in the room returning to normal.

"Do you remember I told you that the creature pursuing you was one of the Untainted?"

"Was that what came after me last night?"

"The Seventh Court of the Feyre are the Untainted. They are the one court that has never mingled its bloodlines with humans. They regard all the other courts as being tainted by the stain of humanity, a refuge for mongrels and half-breeds like you, and like me. We are the reason for their exile from this world."

"We are?"

"The Feyre were a dying race. They lost the ability to reproduce and their numbers were dwindling."

"What happened to them?"

"They were the victim of politics."

"What?"

"Politics led the Feyre into a selective breeding programme that spanned millennia, a side effect of which is that they have become infertile. Children among the Feyre are rare indeed. Their numbers plummeted until there were barely enough to survive extinction. Then they discovered that the union with humanity was fertile. It gave them new hope."

"So that's how I came to have a Fey ancestor?"

"In all likelihood, yes. The Seventh Court rebelled, though. They said that humanity would dilute Fey blood until all that remained were petty conjurers and snake-oil merchants. It caused a schism. In a desperate move, they tried to eliminate the half-breeds, all in one night. Fortunately the alarm was raised before they could complete their task. There was a bloody and brutal skirmish which the Untainted lost. They escaped to a world apart, exiled from their own kin. Now they return to complete the job they started, one mongrel at a time."

"What has this got to do with me?"

"As darkspore is a gift of the shades, Rabbit, gallowfyre is a gift of the wraiths. Only male wraithkin can summon it."

"I don't get it. If the only ones who can call gallowfyre are the wraithkin, and the wraithkin are the Untainted, then how did I inherit the ability to call it?"

"You shouldn't be able to, but we've seen you do it. One of your ancestors must have been wraithkin."

"I thought you said they don't breed with humans?"

"Until this day I would have said that with my hand over my heart."

"I still don't see how it could be, though. I mean, they must have, mustn't they? One of the Untainted must have… you know?"

"All I know, Rabbit, is you shouldn't be able to do that. You can rise now, if you wish."

"You're not going to kill me?"

"You summoned gallowfyre, Rabbit. When the Seventh Court rebelled, gallowfyre was used by the Untainted to drive a wedge into the armed ranks of the other courts. Those that didn't flee in terror had the life sucked out of them until their dried husks fell from the air. I took a grave risk letting you call it, but if you wanted to kill me, you could have done it then. You are who you say. Get up."

She didn't sound very pleased about it, but I settled for being able to stand up. I leant against the wall and stumbled to my feet. Cold from kneeling on the hard floor had seeped into my joints and I tried to rub some warmth back into them.

"The path I took you on yesterday was deliberately long," she continued. "After I left you at Leicester Square last night I retraced our steps and set wards along the path so I would know if you followed it again."

I suddenly realised why we had taken such a circuitous route the day before.

"You set me up."

"I set the Untainted up. If it retained some of your knowledge then it was possible it would try to follow the route back to Kareesh, seeking to kill her. She is one of the oldest and the opportunity to eliminate her would be a hard temptation to resist."