Vowed (7 page)

I open my mouth to explain that the Blackharts and Spooks never ever work a case together but the Beast fumbles his stick. I catch it before it hits the ground and hand it back to him. It
happens quickly, but by the time I’m ready to raise my argument, the moment’s passed and Suola stands by the door, her hand resting on the handle.

‘I expect your answers by dawn,’ she says. ‘I will send Melusine for your answer. Be at the
Cutty Sark
pier by dawn, regardless of your answer.’ She turns away
but swings around a moment later. ‘Oh, and one more thing: I want you both. If either one of you decides against taking this on, the other cannot continue it alone. Is that clear?’

The night air is cool against my skin as we step out of the club. I push my fringe back and take a deep breath to clear my mind before turning to look at Dante.

‘How did you know?’ I ask him. ‘How did you know that I would be at tonight’s meeting too?’ No one told me that the meeting would be about partnering up on the same
case, so who told him?

Dante’s expression is a bit smug. ‘I have my sources.’

‘You could have warned me.’ I scowl at an inoffensive rubbish bin and just about refrain from kicking it. I hate having stuff kept from me.

I realize a few metres down the road that he’s been herding me away from the club without my noticing. I stop and frown at him.

‘I don’t want to work with you.’

He shrugs. ‘Then we tell Melusine when we see her in Greenwich at dawn in a few hours.’

I bare my teeth at him in frustration, a bad habit I’ve picked up from Aiden. ‘You are irritating.’

‘Suola seemed to like me well enough.’

Argh! Was he that dumb?

‘I think what we need to do is to get you sober and we can talk about the kids going missing.’ He moves past me and beckons me to follow him. ‘There’s an all-night cafe
around the corner that I know of. They do great coffee.’

‘Why would you think I’ve been drinking?’ I ask him, annoyed by the assumption but tempted by ‘great coffee’.

‘I watched you down three bottles of whatever that barman gave you. Either you are far more hard core than anyone I’ve ever met or your metabolism is screwed up.’

I start laughing and it stops him in his tracks. He turns around and frowns at me.

‘What did I say that’s so funny?’

‘You! You think I’ve been drinking? I wish I could let you go on believing that. It would do wonders for my street cred but, no, the stuff I was “downing” was bottled
holy water.’

‘You’re lying.’

I shrug as I catch up with him. ‘Believe whatever you like.’

He falls in next to me and I try not to notice how his stride matches mine. The night air is warm and breathless and I push irritably at my fringe, which has grown just a tiny bit longer than is
comfortable.

‘Where is this amazing coffee shop?’ I ask him.

‘Just there.’ I turn to look and I swear I’ve never seen this place before – or if I had, it’s never made much of an impression. It looks like a normal
all-day-breakfast caff: the sort that makes its money from white van drivers stopping in for giant mugs of tea and artery-clogging breakfasts.

‘Lead on,’ I say and follow him across the road. The place is brightly lit and we choose seats by the window. The waitress, with a name badge reading
Hilary
, takes our
orders for drinks and saunters off. We’re the only people in here.

Dante places his folder on the table between us, his long fingers with their neatly trimmed nails tapping a rhythm on the cover. ‘I think we should take on this case.’

‘Why?’ I counter. ‘Why do you think that? Why isn’t she talking to our respective’ – I do air quotes – ‘
organizations
about it directly?
Let them decide?’

‘I think her curiosity has got the better of her. She wanted to meet us, like she said. I’ve worked on two jobs for her now and seem to have impressed her. I’m sure that
whatever it is you’ve done has impressed her too.’

My lip curls.
Whatever I’ve done?
The way he spoke made it sound as if maybe I had tracked down some of her favourite chocolates. I bite back a retort and refuse to be lured into
talking about any of the Blackhart jobs we’ve done for Suola – or anyone of the others, for that matter.

‘Your drinks,’ Hilary the waitress says, putting the mugs down in front of us. My coffee looks and smells like poison and I sigh in relief. ‘If you want anything else, just
shout. I’m at the back, just over there.’ She points to the counter where there’s a small desk set up before she moves off again.

‘It’s a big deal that she came here in person, right?’ Dante asks me as he stirs far too much sugar into his milky tea. ‘I think we should feel flattered.’

‘It’s as big as the Pope coming to your church for a service,’ I say. ‘I choose to be scared. There’s something else that’s going on, another game altogether,
and we don’t know what it is.’ The coffee is strong and bitter and it hits the spot perfectly.

‘So that’s why you’re not even going to look at the file?’

‘Five children have been taken from their homes during the night. No sign of an intruder. No one caught on the CCTV cameras around the estate, no one woke up, no eyewitnesses, nothing. The
children are all under eight years of age.’

He looks at me in surprise. ‘You’ve heard of this before?’

‘No. It’s what I read in the file when she gave it to us.’

‘You have an eidetic memory?’

‘No.’ How do I explain my magic? What I see, I SEE completely? ‘I just have a good head for facts.’

He grunts and opens the file, turning it sideways so we can both see it, ignoring the fact that I was also provided with a file.

He flips through the pages as I watch, occasionally sipping my coffee. There is something . . . something. It hits me and I pull the file closer. I feel my curiosity being
piqued when I look at the dates the children were taken.

‘You seeing something?’

‘Maybe.’ I get up out of my chair. ‘I need to talk to my uncle.’

He stays seated as I leave the cafe. I stand outside to call Uncle Andrew’s number.

‘Kit?’ Uncle Andrew rumbles. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine, sir. I’ve just come out of the meeting with her majesty
and
I have all my limbs.’

His chuckle makes me smile. ‘What did she want?’

‘She wants us to investigate the disappearances of some children in South London. Brixton.’

‘I think she’s just had the file sent through. Hold on.’ There are a few moments of silence but I hear him hitting the keyboard. ‘I count five.’

‘Exactly. All in the past two years. Notice the dates.’

There’s a small pause. ‘You thinking ritual?’

‘Could be.’ I look over my shoulder and watch Dante chatting to the waitress, pointing at the menu. ‘She’s also wanting me to work with a Spook. I’m with him now.
We’re talking about the job.’

‘Absolutely not. Walk away.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I tell you to. They are dangerous, Kit. They toy with things they know very little about.’

‘Jamie told me my dad was a Spook. I don’t think he meant to. It just came out.’

‘That idiot.’ Uncle Andrew exhales heavily. ‘I’m sorry, Kit. There’s so much that you don’t know about your mum and dad. I promise you, come Christmas,
we’ll sit down and have a proper long talk about it.’

‘Is that why you don’t want to work with the Spook Squad? Because of my dad?’

‘Partly, but there are other reasons as well, Kit. They are part of the government and the government is never quite comfortable with things it’s unable to contain and
predict.’

‘These kids, Uncle Andrew. They need someone to look out for them, figure out where they’ve gone to, who’s taking them, you know?’

‘So investigate it. But by yourself.’

‘Suola said she wants us both working on the case. And if the one doesn’t want to do it, the other can’t investigate either.’

‘That makes things difficult.’

I sigh and rub the curve of my eyebrow. ‘I know. Nothing can stop me from investigating this on my own.’

‘Actually, Suola can. If you turn down this investigation and she gives it to someone else, you are bound by our laws to walk away from it. If you investigate, there will be
repercussions.’

‘So I’m stuck either way.’

‘When do you give her your answer?’

‘Dawn. It’s a few hours away.’

‘What’s the Spook saying about this?’

I look back to where Dante’s now watching me through the shop window. He waves at me and I turn my back on him, just in case he can read lips.

‘He seems keen. Actually, he came by yesterday already, at home, to introduce himself. He knew that Suola had invited me to a meeting, I realized that tonight when I saw him.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘Young. Maybe Marc and Megan’s age.’

‘What do you think of him?’

‘I think he’s cheeky.’ My sigh is irritable. ‘I don’t know anything about him, at all. But I get the impression he knows a lot about me and us, as a
family.’

‘Let me do some sleuthing on my side. I’ll call you.’

I turn and go back into the cafe.

‘I took the liberty of ordering some pancakes,’ Dante says as I slide back into the booth. ‘If you don’t want them, that’s fine.’

‘I can eat,’ I reply and put my phone down on the table next to me so I can drink more coffee.

‘What did your uncle say?’

‘He’s going to call back. He’s not keen for us to work together either.’

‘You Blackharts are stubborn.’

I spread my hands wide. ‘Never pretended otherwise.’

‘You are pretty confident for someone your age.’ Dante narrows his eyes at me. ‘How old are you anyway? Sixteen?’

‘Seventeen.’ I hate telling people how old I am. It makes me feel exposed, as if I’m lacking because I’m not older.

He whistles. ‘Wow. You can legally drive.’

I open my mouth to ask him why he was suddenly being a dick, then Hilary turns up with plates laden with pancakes and crispy bacon and maple syrup. She leaves the plates with us and comes back
with two more mugs.

‘Looks like you kids need this,’ she says, smiling not unkindly at me, before heading back to her small table.

‘You’re being a complete pain,’ I tell him, choosing not swear.

‘I’ve been told I excel at being a pain.’ He bends his dark head over the pancakes and takes a whiff. ‘These are really good, by the way.’

‘You come here often, then?’

‘At least once a week.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Okay, maybe I was told by another colleague that these are good.’

‘What other colleague?’

Dante raises his fork and waves it between us. ‘Uh huh. If real questions are being asked, you have to play along.’

I hesitate only for a second. ‘Fine.’

The look he gives me is one of triumph. I decide I really hate him.

‘I’ll go first. How is it that you’re out on a school night?’

His question is designed to annoy. ‘I have private tuition. Both my cousin Kyle and I do.’ I chew my pancakes and bacon and have to admit that they’re good. ‘My turn now.
How old are you?’

‘Twenty. I’ll be twenty-one in December. Why does your family dislike the HMDSDI so much? We’re doing the same job.’

‘You work for the government, doing its dirty jobs when there are things that your local police forces can’t handle. You are an interested outside party. The Blackharts work closely
with the leaders of the Otherwhere and police their denizens in the Frontier. We try to prevent bad things from happening.’ I raise my eyebrows at him. ‘Now me. You’re really
young to be a Spook. How does that work?’

‘I was sixteen when I came across my first supernatural creature. It was after a mate’s party and we were all pretty wasted, staggering to the nearest Tube station. I looked up this
alleyway we were passing and saw these two guys fighting. One guy was huge, the other was normal sized. I went to help and got an eyeful of something with claws and teeth.’ Dante pauses for a
second so he can take a sip of his tea. ‘I was instantly sober. I know a bit of martial arts so I laid into the thing and it gave the other guy the chance to get his taser out. Afterwards he
handed me his business card and told me to call him when I finished school. And I did. I’ve been with the agency for two years now.’

‘You Saw the creature?’ I’m sure he can hear the different tone I use to inflect in the word ‘Saw’ and he understands what I mean.

‘Yes.’ He looks thoughtful. ‘I was pretty drunk at the time and apparently alcohol allows some people to See creatures like the Fae.’

‘That is extreme but true.’ I’ve read books about stuff like this in the past, when someone stumbling home after a night at the local free house would see fairies dancing on a
local hill. They’d investigate and disappear, maybe reappearing twenty years down the line, oblivious that any time had passed at all.

Dante nods and watches me as I mop up the last bit of syrup with a slice of pancake. I don’t know where to start trying to figure out more about this guy.

‘So, you don’t have true Sight?’

He shakes his head. ‘The story goes that when I was little I used to have a lot of imaginary friends and I would know things were about to happen before they occured. My friends freaked
out on me when it became obvious I
knew stuff
no one else did. I was brought up in a monastery school until I was seven, and the priests had one of their deliverance priests pray over me.
He asked for my
gifts
to be taken from me until I was old enough to understand how they worked and not hurt anyone with them.’

This was heavy stuff: a mixture of theology and weirdness that I didn’t fully comprehend myself. But, as far as I understood, the true Sight is usually hereditary – something I and
the Blackharts share. But if it’s not understood by the parents, the kid often gets shipped off to visit psychiatrists. There, normality is forced on the poor child, along with a suitcase of
drugs to prevent them from ever being remotely normal. A lot of parents talk about imaginary friends in hushed tones and sometimes even, as in Dante’s case, priests are called in to perform
exorcisms if things get completely out of hand.