Rebellion

“DO I NEED to tell you I have a bad feeling about this?” asked Alice.

“No, but I doubt that’s going to stop you.” Mallory’s voice was flat.

“You’re not taking this particularly seriously, are you?”

“Well, perhaps you’d care to tell me how I should be taking it?” He slid the spring he was cleaning back into the body of his gun and set the whole thing down on the table, wiping his hands with a cloth. “I think it’s insanity, but I’m not doing it for me, am I?” He lowered his voice, and looked over his shoulder towards the door. Vin had stepped out ‘for some air’ a little while before, and Castor and Pollux had between them removed Florence and Xaphan. So it was just Alice and Mallory, sitting side by side on the moth-eaten sofa.

“It doesn’t sound like it’s his fault...”

“And it’s not. But that isn’t the point. Vin feels responsible. He’s convinced that this is something to do with Jester helping him with Purson. I think there’s more to it than that, but he’s stubborn, and a miserable git when he’s moping about something. He’s bad enough over Sari.”

“What happened?”

“Shouldn’t have said that, should I?” He screwed up his nose. Alice ignored him.

“She left him?”

“You could say that.” He picked up another piece of the gun, and began slotting it back together, talking as he worked. “Sari’s a bit of an odd one. They’ve been dancing around each other as long as anyone can remember, but after hell, I think she finally thought she’d give him a shot.”

“Which he blew by torturing a Fallen in the basement.”

“Pretty much.”

“She’s got a point. I can’t say I’d be keen on my boyfriend going in for torture.”

“Right. Who’d do something like that, anyway?”

Alice hit him with a cushion, a little harder than was probably necessary. It was all she had.

For a while, the only sounds were the clicks of Mallory reassembling his Colt. Eventually, he sat back, the gun resting on the table in one piece, and rolled his neck. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“Cleaned it, you mean?”

“That too.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Sometimes. But I was trying to give you a chance to get on with your life. Remember what that’s like?”

“Not really.”

“I mean it. You don’t want to get any more tangled up with us than you need to be. It doesn’t usually end well, in case you hadn’t noticed...”

“I noticed.”

“Exactly. I wanted to give you at least a shot at being... normal. As normal as you get, anyway,” he said, nudging her in the ribs. She smiled, but he carried on. “I felt I owed it to you. And what do you do with that chance? You get into fights with the Fallen, and go and work for the Angel of Death. Only you, Alice. Only you.”

“Is that why you came back?”

“Something like that.” The corners of his eyes creased with the beginnings of a smile.

“And what about you? Are you going to tell me about the magic grey hair? Don’t think I forgot.”

“Subtle, aren’t you? It’s not good, put it that way. We’re ageing.”

“And you shouldn’t be, right?”

“Yes and no. Everything ages. We just do it very, very slowly. Or should do.”

“It’s the Fallen, isn’t it? Something changed.”

“They’re winning. That’s what. They’re in control. In spite of everything we’ve done – or maybe because of it – they’re in control.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means all bets are off.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Served Cold

FORFAX SNAPPED HIS fingers and Kim the waitress jumped to attention. He didn’t bother to speak, simply jabbed at a stack of glasses and a bottle, and she scrabbled to get them onto the tray and to follow him. He spun on his heel and strode off through the bar, his shiny black shoes clicking on the floor and the end of his cane tapping alongside him as he walked. The boss had been in a foul mood all night, and she didn’t want to be the one to get on his bad side – not after yesterday, when he’d broken one of the dancers’ jaws with the pommel of his cane. She’d been ‘out of time,’ he’d said as he straightened his sleeves afterwards, leaving her in a whimpering heap on the floor.

The bar was busy – more so than usual – and rowdy, much more than usual. Everyone in there seemed louder, drunker, less steady on their feet then they should have been, and the air was thick with the smell of spilled beer and stale sweat. It wasn’t a glamorous place to work at the best of times, with its sticky floor and stickier bathroom tiles, but it paid the rent. Just about.

Kim scurried after her employer, weaving between bodies and trying to keep the back of Forfax’s head in sight. His oiled hair gleamed under the spotlights as they passed the dancers, heading for a narrow black door to the side of the stage marked ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY – STRICTLY NO ADMITTANCE.’ He punched a code into the numerical lock and kicked the door open, not bothering to check whether she was behind him. She lunged for the opening, just managing to get the toe of her shoe into the gap before the door swung shut. Something in her foot went crunch, but there wasn’t time to worry about it. Forfax was walking; and when Forfax walked, you followed.

Behind the door lay a warren of passageways and storage areas, most of them hardly used. Back here, everything smelt damp and green, and stains crawled along the walls. The wiring had corroded in more places than it hadn’t, and rats scuttled along the corridor alongside her as she fought to keep the tray steady. The sound of their claws on the floor made her shudder.

The footsteps ahead of her had stopped, and Kim almost dropped the tray as Forfax’s face loomed out of the darkness at her. “Is there a problem?” he asked, his pointed nose and pale skin making him look almost vampiric in the gloom.

“No,” she said, her voice sounding small.

“Good. I don’t want to keep him waiting.” And with that, he turned again and was off, whistling as he walked, his cane tap-tap-tapping on the bare concrete.

Kim decided to hand in her notice tomorrow.

Many twists, turns and rats later, the corridor came to an end at a doorway hung with a plastic strip curtain. The broad strips slapped at her bare shoulders as she pushed through them after him. She had never been this far behind the bar: the furthest she’d ever had to go, the furthest she’d ever been allowed to go, was to the storeroom where they kept the bottles. She hadn’t even known all this was back here, and the slightly sick feeling in the pit of her stomach suggested that might not have been such a bad thing.

Striding ahead, Forfax was making his way through some sort of warehouse. Wooden crates and pallets were stacked ten feet high, towering above her head, and soon she had lost sight of her boss and could do little more than blindly follow the sound of his whistle through the maze.

She emerged from the walls of crates to a scene which could only be described as ‘unexpected.’ The space opened up, the ceiling disappearing into the dark, and from somewhere high above came the sound of shuffling feathers and cooing pigeons. Directly in front of her were two high-backed leather armchairs, placed with their backs to her, and between them a small wooden table. There was also a standard lamp with an old-fashioned tasselled shade, which was lit, although she could quite clearly see the plug lying loose on the concrete.