Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

"That will do."

"Are you going to stay with Jerry until then?" Claire asked.

"Jerry will be OK for now. Her hold on him is broken. I think he'll be safe enough. It's you I'm worried about."

"Me?"

"Without you we can't get the nail and without the nail all the rest is for nothing. If the worst came to the worst we could get someone else to play Remembrancer, but you don't have a successor, do you, Claire?"

"I didn't think I needed one until recently."

"There'll be time to think about that later. For now, we need to keep you safe."

"Will it be OK to go back to my flat?" She looked worried now.

"Probably, though it might be best if Niall and I checked it out first."

"Very well. What will you do then? Do you want to stay the night?"

"Are you sure you don't mind us being in your home?"

"I'd rather you and Niall were with me than I was on my own, given what you've said. It's only a sofa bed, but it's comfortable enough for a night."

"Then we will stay the night with you. Thank you."

"Give me two minutes to call for a cab and let Elizabeth know where we're going." She turned away, then paused. "You are OK with a cab, aren't you?"

"Yes. That's how we got here."

She smiled. "Of course."

We waited while Claire took her leave of the people across the corridor. A glance through the open door showed Jerry sitting up, his daughter perched on the bed beside him, pale but smiling. When Claire came back, Elizabeth was with her.

"I wanted to thank you, both of you, for what you did for us," she said.

"You're welcome."

"You said there would be a price to pay?" She sounded hesitant, as if she was unsure what form that price might take.

"I did, and if it hadn't have been for Niall's quick thinking the price would be a sight higher. We were lucky."

"I think I know that now. Who would have believed? Well, anyway." She shook her head.

"If your husband is at the ceremony on Tuesday, then I will take the debt as paid," Blackbird told her.

"He'll be there. I don't think you could prevent him. Still, I feel I owe you."

"Don't offer more than you are asked for, Elizabeth," Blackbird told her. "There are those that will take all you have and more besides, if you let them."

"Well, thanks then, from all of us."

We said our goodbye and followed Claire down to reception. While Claire handed in her security badge we slipped easily past the receptionist and waited outside for her to follow. She joined us on the pavement and after a few moments a minicab pulled up alongside the kerb. Claire sat in the front with the driver while we took the back seat. We were driven through the darkened streets without speaking, each wrapped in our own thoughts. After a while, Blackbird's hand sought mine and I held it. It was easier in the dark when I couldn't see how old and wrinkled it was.

When we got to the flat, Blackbird went inside first. She walked around, trailing her fingers on the surfaces and walking softly as if listening for something. She vanished into the other rooms while we waited in the hallway.

When she reappeared she nodded. "They have not been here."

Claire pushed the door closed behind us, locking it and bolting it.

"There, that should hold them." She looked at me. "It will hold them, won't it?"

"Here, let me." I placed my hand on the door. It was more solid than the internal door to my bedroom, but I sealed it in the same way, imagining nails driven deep into the wall around it, sealing it shut. "That will give us some time if they come tonight."

"Time for what?" she asked.

"To run," I told her. "Is there another way out?"

"There's a fire door at the back of the kitchen with stairs down."

"Then we'd better seal that too. A way out is a way in."

"What if they come to both doors at once?"

"Then we have a problem. Try not to worry about it."

Claire gave me a wan smile and then busied herself putting away her things and getting towels and bedding for us. I sat on the sofa, politely refusing offers of hot chocolate and cheese sandwiches while Blackbird followed her around, collecting guest towels and sheets. I would not have thought it possible for someone to fall asleep amid such a commotion, but I must have nodded off. When I opened my eyes, Blackbird was sitting quietly on the floor next to the sofa that I had been sleeping on, watching me. Someone had put a quilt over me at some point and it was tangled around my legs.

"Hello," I said, blearily.

"Hello." Her voice was soft and almost inaudible.

"Have you been there long?" I asked her.

She looked comfortable enough, cross-legged on the rug, her elbows resting on her knees, chin on her hands.

"A little while."

I stretched the muscles that had tightened from sleeping in an awkward position, sticking my bare feet out from under the quilt.

"Are you OK? Did I steal the bed? You should have woken me.

"You looked so peaceful there. I thought I'd let you sleep."

"Have you had any sleep?"

"Not really. I napped for a while."

"What time is it?"

"It's nearly ten o'clock. If you hadn't stirred soon I would have woken you."

"I don't remember falling asleep."

"I went into the kitchen with Claire and when I came back you were snoring."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Don't be, you needed it."

Having woken up a bit more, I took another look at her. It was the older Blackbird but she looked different. She certainly didn't look as tired as I would have done after only a couple of hours sleep.

"Are you OK?" I repeated. "You look different."

"It's my glamour. It's changed a little."

"It looks fine," I reassured her.

"Too fine. I've lost about ten years."

That was what was different. She definitely looked younger. I remembered it had taken me a while to notice a similar change in myself yesterday.

"Why?"

"I'm having difficulty maintaining it. I keep slipping back into habits I lost long ago, things I thought I'd left behind. I haven't lost control of it since I was a child, but I'm definitely having problems now."

"Why?"

"I don't know." It wasn't quite the truth.

I pushed myself upright, scrubbing my hands through my hair, trying to clear my head.

"It's about time Veronica had an accident," she told me.

"What?"

"Or perhaps she should get an offer from an obscure American university to go and teach history there."

"I don't understand. You're leaving?" I couldn't believe she was saying this to me.

"No, silly. I'm not leaving. I'm just changing."

"But why?"

"Well, for one thing I can't carry on as Veronica with a boyfriend who looks thirty years younger than me without causing a bit of a scandal, can I?"

"I suppose not." At least she wasn't leaving.

"And then there's my glamour. If I can't reliably maintain it then my options are limited, at least as far as mixing in with society is concerned."

"But why wouldn't you be able to maintain it? You always have before."

"I'm not sure." Again, there was the half-truth.

"Blackbird, what are you not telling me?" It was going to be easier to just ask outright.

She was silent for a long while and I began to think she wasn't going to answer. I pushed my fingers through my hair, trying to gather my wits together.

"It can happen," she said. "I've been hiding, as Kareesh calls it, posing as Veronica for forty or more years now. Before that there was another lady, just as acceptable and unremarkable. There was lots of confusion after the Second World War, so it wasn't difficult to appear with few records and no papers. When she got too old to work, I swapped her for Veronica. The original Veronica died of a drug overdose in the Sixties. She was bright enough to be university material and alone enough so that she wouldn't be missed. It was easy to bring her life down to London and carry it on."