Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

"Oh no," said Claire. "Look at the mess."

With the fear dispelled, Claire walked forward and stood in the doorway, surveying the damage.

The double doors into the Remembrancer's office had been flung open, the bookshelves pulled over and pictures pulled from the walls and smashed on the floor. It looked like someone had jumped up and down on them, buckling the frames and tearing the canvasses.

"I don't understand. How could this happen? We're supposed to have security."

"Not against intruders like these," said Blackbird.

"I need to call them. They're supposed to check these offices overnight."

"Don't blame them," I told her. "Can you imagine what walking down that corridor would have been like in the dark on your own?"

"But why didn't they raise the alarm?"

"For what reason?" Blackbird asked her. "Because they were scared? Because one particular corridor was triggering an irrational fear of the dark? Security guards are supposed to be immune from that sort of thing. I can't see anyone admitting they wouldn't check certain offices just because it was making the hairs on the back of their neck stand on end."

"Still, they ought to have done something."

"It's probably just as well they didn't. Can you imagine what would have happened if someone had disturbed the people that did this? At least all you have to do is clear up from the vandalism. There aren't any corpses."

"You have a point. I'd better let security know, though. They'll need to notify the police."

"Before you call in the police, we need the nail. If it's still here?"

"It should be in the safe at the back there." She began edging around the broken desk to get to the cupboard at the back of the office.

"Stop."

The words were out of my mouth before I was even conscious of the prickling sensation down my spine.

Claire paused. "Is something wrong?"

"Don't you feel it?" I glanced at Blackbird who raised her eyebrows.

"I don't feel anything. What is it?"

"There's something here."

"Are you sure it's not just the remnants of the fear warding? It can take a while to dissipate?"

"No. It got stronger as Claire went towards the cupboard with the safe in it. It's not the same. Claire, can you retrace your steps back to us?"

"I think so. I can't see anything odd, though. It all looks fine."

"Just do as I say. Call it intuition," I told her.

She negotiated her way back to us and then looked faintly bemused when nothing happened. "It looked fine to me," she repeated.

I followed the route she'd taken, taking each step slowly and carefully, looking for the telltale prickling that had alerted me. Something in the room was causing the sensation and I was trying to trace the source. As I came to the desk and began to edge around the bent leg, the unpleasant tingling returned, but as Claire had said, there was no sign of any barrier.

I was about to place my hand on the leg of the upturned desk so I could slip past it when a jolt in my hand stopped me.

My hand was almost touching the metal, and where I had been about to grasp there was a tiny movement. A small cluster of tiny lightless spots were migrating across the surface to where my hand would be. The movement was slow and it was only the prickling sensation that alerted me to it. I snatched my hand away and the spots immediately halted. Then they spread out, slowly edging away from each other, until they formed a perfect ring across the corner of the metal surface.

The last time I had seen spots like that, they were in my flat. They had run across the walls and ceiling and then eaten through the wood of my bedroom door until it was rotted through.

It was darkspore.

The vandalised office was not as randomly wrecked as I had thought.

Reaching sideways I lifted a torn leaf of paper from a ripped volume left on the top of a filing cabinet and held it between finger and thumb. I edged it forward until it just touched the edge of the black circle on the leg of the upturned desk. As soon as it touched the surface, the black spread onto the paper, running along it like a flame. Immediately I let go and it fell towards the floor, covered by the infecting mould.

I edged back from the desk to where Blackbird and Claire were waiting.

"It's darkspore. She's left spots of it in the office. I thought the vandalism was random. I thought they had taken out their frustrations on the office and left the room in this state as a warning, a kind of symbol as to what was to come. I was wrong. It's a trap. She was expecting us to come here and she left it so anyone who touched the furniture would be infected with darkspore."

"What's darkspore?" asked Claire.

"Never mind," I told her. "Just don't get any of it on you."

"It's more than a trap," said Blackbird. "The darkspore isn't her creature. It's her. It has her sense, her feeling. It can't see or hear but what it knows, she knows. If it had got onto one of us then she would know it, wherever she is."

"It could be everywhere," I told her. "It could be on any surface anywhere in this room; outside even."

"No. Like all Fey gifts it has its limits. The more of herself she left here, the more she is weakened. In time it will die without her. She spreads herself thinly to do this and it's a sign of desperation. It will only be in the places she thinks are important, the places she doesn't want us to reach."

"The safe containing the nail is behind there," confirmed Claire, "inside the cupboard on the floor."

"Could she have taken the nail already?" I asked.

"It's a very old safe; they keep offering to replace it with a new one, but it only contains a few documents, some petty cash and the items for the ceremony. The locking mechanism is partly iron, though. We keep it as a guard against, well, against your kind."

"So the nail should still be there."

"That makes sense," said Blackbird. "If she couldn't reach it then she would make sure we couldn't either. Hence the darkspore. We can't let her win, Niall."

"I know. How do I get into the safe? Is it a combination?"

"You'll need this key," said Claire holding out a long, double-sided brass key, the complex pattern of teeth attesting to the security of the safe.

I took it from her and considered my options. I could drag the desk aside and pick my way through the detritus scattered on the floor, but it would be like walking through a minefield. The thought of making the slightest contact with the darkspore made my insides turn cold. The noises from my garden were still haunting me.

"You said it's still part of her?" I asked Blackbird.

"Yes. She'll know if it touches you. If even the tiniest speck-"

"Good. Take Claire out into the corridor."

"Why, what are you planning?"

"Why do I have to go outside?" said Claire.

"Just do what I ask. I don't know how much I can control it."

"Niall, the last time you tried something like this we nearly ended up in next week."

"This is different. We're going to fight fire with fire."

"You can't do that here. It's not exactly subtle. People are going to notice." She glanced at Claire, none too subtly.

"What will I notice?" said Claire.

"Do you have another idea?" I asked Blackbird.

"Maybe I could use the knife, burn it out," she said.

"And burn the building down with it? With all these books and paper? The fire would almost certainly spread and if you miss a speck, just a tiny mote, then it's all for nothing. At least my way we get all of it in one go."

"It's her, Niall. She's going to feel it as if she were here. And you can't reach all of her, only the parts she left behind. She'll know you were here and she will hate you with a vengeance."

"You forget, I was in that glade with her. I stood there helpless, with my teeth chattering, while she helped herself. She thought she was being clever, leaving traces of herself, but now the tables are turned. So she'll know it was me? Good, I want her to."