Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

Blackbird, who had been looking at me with an expression of exasperation, suddenly focused back on the man.

"A quick rent? Do you mean a quit rent?"

"It could have been. Yes, that was it. I thought it sounded funny."

"Why would there be a quit rent?" she said to herself.

"He said the Ceremony of the Quit Rents is held every year at the Royal Courts across the road and if you wanted to know more about this building, you should be asking there. Apparently the ground for this building is owned by the British Crown and the Corporation of London pay a quit rent for it. They have information over at the Royal Courts and you should enquire there." He showed us a victorious smile, revealing uneven teeth stained by heavy smoking.

Blackbird thanked him for his help, while my attention was drawn to a bank of monitors set up on a side-bench. They were obviously used to monitor the security cameras and they depicted various views of the exterior of the building. One of them, though, had been adapted back to its original purpose and was showing a twenty-four hour news programme.

It had suddenly flashed up with a photo-fit picture of a middle-aged man with a scrolling caption underneath. The caption said this was a picture of a man police urgently wanted to interview in connection with the death of an officer in West London that morning.

It wasn't a good likeness. The hair was too dark and the forehead too high, but there was no mistaking the image.

It was me.

The photo-fit picture on the television was unmistakably of me. I grabbed Blackbird's wrist.

"We need to go," I told her

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Now." I let a note of urgency register in my voice.

She glanced at me and then thanked the security man again for his help.

"Will your friend be all right?" he called through the glass at our retreating backs.

"He'll be fine. Thanks for the information," Blackbird called back as we pushed outside.

Once out on the wide paving, she steered me away from the entrance and under the nearby trees, away from the security cameras.

"Are you unwell?"

"I've got a bit of a headache, but no, I'm OK."

"The nausea hasn't returned? You're not seeing spots or blurred vision?"

"No. It's something else." I told her about the picture on the television. "There was no mistake, they're broadcasting pictures of me. Anyone we meet may have seen the pictures and report me to the authorities. It's all getting out of hand."

"They're bound to be looking for you, in the circumstances."

"Maybe it would be for the best if I turned myself in. They must have figured out by now that I had nothing to do with the death of that officer. I was just an innocent bystander."

"And you think they'll just accept that, do you?"

"It's the truth."

"Yes, but it's not all of the truth, is it?"

"Well, I'm not going to tell them everything, obviously."

"So what are you going to say? You can't lie to them. Not convincingly."

"I just won't mention it."

"An officer was killed, Rabbit. Do you think they won't want every detail? These people are trained to take statements from witnesses and they won't stop until all their questions have answers. How long do you think it will be before you tell them about what was on your stairs? How long before you're trying to explain about dying on the Underground, the Feyre, the Untainted, and me."

"Oh, so you're just worried I'll drag you into it, is that it?"

"Don't be stupid. What can you tell them? You don't know enough to give me away."

"Yes, and you made sure of that, didn't you?"

She sighed, exasperated with me.

"Don't read into it more than there is, Rabbit. The police are the least of my worries. Yes, it would be inconvenient if I had to abandon my present life and start again, but I've disappeared before and I can do it again if need be."

"You'd just abandon me."

"You're the one who wants to give himself up."

"I have to. It's only a matter of time before someone recognises me. It's better to give myself up than to be caught running. Don't you see?"

She looked at me with pity. "Poor Rabbit. You still don't get it, do you?"

"Get what?"

"Even if you tell them everything, they're not going to believe you."

"They'll have to."

"You didn't believe me when I explained it to you, and you were the person it happened to."

"Then I'll show them. They can't deny the evidence of their own eyes."

She laughed. "Oh, that'll get their attention. Enough to convince them you are nowhere near as innocent as you protest."

"But if I show them. If I summon my glow — what did you call it, gallowfyre? — then they'll have to believe me."

"They'll believe what they want to believe. You can show them gallowfyre and what you can do with it and that will do more than anything else to convince them you are a danger to yourself and others. They will do what they always do."

"Which is what?"

"They will protect the public from the danger as they perceive it and they will avenge the death of their own. They will lock you away."

"They can't do that. No jury in the land will convict me just for being there when it happened. I wasn't even in the garden."

"No jury will ever come to hear of it. An assessment will be made by experts. They will make a recommendation to the court. A court order will be served and you will never see the light of day again."

"You can't just imprison people without charges, not in this country. Not since the Magna Carta. What about habeas corpus?"

"You won't go to prison. You're not a criminal and you won't be charged with anything. You'll go to a hospital. A special hospital where the nurses wear iron keys round their necks, the doors have iron locks and the patients are kept constantly sedated for their own good. Is that how you want to spend the rest of your unnaturally long life, drugged up to the eyeballs?

"I don't think it will come to that."

"Don't you? An officer died. They are not going to be satisfied with vague answers and platitudes."

I thought about the scenario she had painted. Unfortunately, it sounded all too realistic.

"Do they really have hospitals like that?"

"Fey genes got mixed up with humanity's a long time ago. For the most part it results in people like Megan who never really get noticed. Occasionally, though, the genes come out strongly, as in your own case."

"There are others like me?"

"Of course there are. The genes pop up in every generation. It's pretty rare, so for the most part no one notices. If they are weak then it is usually explained away as something else; a talent for sailing in light winds or an ability to light fires maybe. Mostly people's gifts come out in puberty, but Fey genes can be fickle. They can express themselves at any time, in any circumstance. How do you think you would feel if you woke one night to find that when you looked in the mirror, it wasn't your face looking back? Or how about if your belongings started to take on strange and perverse properties? What if you started to see flashes of the possible futures of people you touched? Would you be able to keep it to yourself? Or would you start telling people not to take the last bus home or to stay away from blonde people? What do we call people like that, Rabbit? What do we call people who behave in ways we don't understand?"

"We call them psychics. Clairvoyants."

"No, they're the rational ones. They are the ones who learn to cope with it and find a way to live. What do we call the others; the ones who see things no one else sees, hear things no one else hears?"

"We call them crazy."

"And what do we do with the crazy people?"

"We keep them safe, away from everyone else."