Archon's Queen (29 page)

rembling hands portioned out breakfast among four plates. Anna edged up on her seat, ready to jump up and offer help if Penny seemed to need it. The blue-haired girl sat with folded arms and the imperious pout of a child dragged out of sleep early on a day with no school. Spawny slouched forward in his chair, both hands in his pockets. The shirtless skeleton stared with intensity at the incoming meal as a length of drool worked its way into his dense scrub of chest hair.

“Buck up, Twee,” said Spawny.

“Don’t call me that.” Faye leaned back as Penny put food in front of everyone. “My name is Faye.”

Spawny winked. “You’ll always be cute li’l Twee round ‘ere.”

The girl narrowed her eyes at him and jabbed a fork in a sausage.

How’s Penny holding up? Is there anything I can do?

Anna’s voice startled his half-awake brain; he almost fell out of the chair in a fit of flailing. His sudden reaction drew a startled yelp from Penny and a disinterested sidelong glance from Faye. After a breath, Penny sat. Spawny fell upon the food straight away, as if he had to scarf it down in thirty seconds or lose it all.

“Damn, Pen, nang brekky.”

Penny abandoned her half-hearted attempt at nibbling eggs. “Don’t thank me, thank Anna. She paid for it.”

“Mazing you found a place wot’ll send shoeboxes to us ‘ere.” He inhaled half a sausage in one bite, the ecstasy of food preempting whatever else he wanted to say.

With a smirk at the faces he made, Anna cut hers into bite-sized bits. “Any place will send delivery bots anywhere, if you pay for the risk fee.”

“The Boys use bots for target practice sometimes,” muttered Penny.

“What’d you nick?” blurted Faye, still not having touched a bite.

“Sod-all. I ‘ad some work.” Anna sensed the look on the girl’s face. “No, not that kind of work, some corporate fuckery, strictly legit.”

Penny looked up. “Kinnel, Anna. You’re not in with Carroll again, are you?”

Anna looked down at her potatoes. “Maybe.”

Faye appeared more interested in pushing bits of Omplus around her plate than eating it.

Penny leaned toward her. “G’won eat. That’s as close to real eggs as you can get without ownin’ a chicken.”

“Oi, Luv, there any more?” Spawny smiled, like a great hairy four-year-old begging for seconds. “What’s wrong with ‘er then?”

“Leave her be,” said Anna. “She’s thirteen, away from home, scared witless…”

Faye blushed. With both Anna and Penny patting her on the shoulders, she forced herself to eat a little.

Penny got up, tossing two leftover sausages into the pot with the rest of the eggs.

The girl’s glance shifted to Penny without her head moving. “What’re you so shivery about?”

Penny almost dropped the pan at the question. “Don’t bother about me, eat your brekky.”

Anna answered in a flat tone. “We were attacked in an alley.”

The pan of Omplus crashed into the table, the impact came close to spilling the bowl of gravy mushrooms.

“You needn’t worry the child with that,” said Penny, shivering into her seat.

Anna looked at a clean streak following a crack through the grimy window. “Pen… She’s thirteen. It’s not all faeries and unicorns anymore.”

“I know…” Penny stared at her food. “She’s got somewhere to go home to. No need to traumatize her.”

Anna shifted in her seat, face going florid crimson. “I’m sorry, Penny. I… shouldn’t have waited so long. I… It’s my fault.” She looked up, watery eyes locked on watery eyes.
I should’ve killed those bastards before they laid a hand on you. I’m so, so sorry.

Penny burst into tears. “Anna… Don’t blame yourself.”

“She’s right,” said Spawny. “If’n she stays out ‘ere, it’ll be ‘er soon enough bent over a rubbish can wif someone grabbin’ quim.”

Faye froze, staring at her plate. After a brief silence, she stormed out of the kitchen.

“You had to say
that,
didn’t you?” Anna scowled. “You’ll make a brilliant dad someday.”

Penny propped her face on her hands, hiding behind her untamed hair. “I don’t blame you, Pix. You had to hide your… um… Yeah.”

“Pen?”

She parted her hair like a stage curtain, sniffling. “Yeah?”

“You gonna be okay?”

“As okay as I can be, what with Spawny almost getting’ killed, ‘aving a Crossmen tear my smalls off, and watching you kill three men.”

A distant door slammed.

“Kinda terrifying, actually,” said Spawny, his emotionless face snapping into a smile. “In a good way.”

“You’ve been there for me every step for ten years… I couldn’t just stand there and let them―” Anna sniffled.

Spawny extricated himself from the kitchen as Penny walked around the table to comfort her friend. Anna held on, and they cried on each other’s shoulders for a good ten minutes. Neither paid much attention to the muted cheering of a stadium of Frictionless fans in the living room.

Once Penny calmed down and went to sit with Spawny, Anna got up, gathered Faye’s unfinished food, and tiptoed back to her apartment.

She found Faye hiding between the bed and the wall in a full on cry. Anna set the food on the nightstand and sat on the bed with her back facing, quiet until it became apparent the girl would not speak first.

“Don’t mind him, kiddo. He doesn’t know what happened to you.” Anna lowered her voice. “Was me what got bent over the rubbish bin that night. Living out here makes you wanna give up. I was going to just lie there and let him.” She remained quiet for a moment. “I couldn’t let ‘em do it to Penny.”

“He’s an ass.” Faye muttered.

“I’m not gonna lie to you. He was tryin’ to scare ya into wantin’ to go home to your folks. We all think you deserve a real life.”

“They don’t want me. They think I’m a liar.”

“Twee…”

A small hand bashed the nightstand. “Don’t call me that.”

“Look, Faye. They might be idiots but they―”

“They don’t believe me.” The girl lunged to her feet, kicking the side of the bed. “Mr. Bell did that to me… just what Spawny said, and they think I made it all up for attention.”

“Want me to kill ‘im then?”

Faye was quiet for a full minute until a little whisper slid through her teeth. “What? Did you just ask me if I wanted you to kill him?”

Anna sat still as stone, save for the small bundle of lint she rolled betwixt her thumb and forefinger. Back and forth it went; she watched, unblinking. Little fibers split apart from the mass as it moved. The girl walked in front of her, red-eyed.

“Yes. Do you want Bell dead for what he did to you? Could you go home if he was gone?”

Faye sank onto the bed, sitting next to her. “You’re not bloody serious?”

“I don’t care what ‘appens to me. My life is already down the pan.” Her thumb traced over the faint red footprint from the last dose of zoom. “I don’t want you with me in the same gutter, you still have a future. Besides, I’ll probably get away with it.”
I’m good at making accidents.

“No.” Faye shook her with both hands. “I’d rather be here with you than home and ‘ave you rottin’ in some jail. Bell’s a piece of shit, but it’s not worth what’ll ‘appen to you for it.”

Anna at last made eye contact, hers every bit as puffy as Faye’s. The lump in her throat grew. “You need to go back to your folks. I want to help. You have parents that still love you, even if they are obtuse about it. My dad wanted to kill me. I had no choice but to run away. I don’t want you to make a mistake that’ll ruin your whole life.”

Faye saw it in her eyes, the guilt and shame. “Did they?”

“The Crossmen just got handsy. Old Bill showed up before it got to that point, almost arrested us for public indecency.”

“What? Arrested
you?
You were almost raped!” Faye gasped.

Hands clasped, Anna looked down. “We’re Covs, Faye. We don’t matter. If you stay out here, it’s only a question of when. What Bell did to you is horrible, inexcusable, and I’ll kill him for it―but worse waits for you here. Go home.”

Faye sniffled. “I don’t want to look at him. He lives right next door.”

She pulled the girl into a hug, patting her on the back. “Don’t worry about ‘im, luv.”

The girl sobbed on her, letting out a burden of shame and guilt. Anna did her best to comfort her, sitting in silence for some time after the tears stopped.

“You need to finish your brekky. I worked hard for the credits, almost got shot for it. Eat.”

“What? Shot?”

Anna handed her the plate. “I never went to university. I either gotta wag my tits or work for interesting people. You really need to get―”

“Pixie?” Penny yelled from her apartment. “Get in here now. You have to see this.”

They scurried across the hall, finding her pointing at the vid. A bored Spawny bemoaned the interruption of his Frictionless match.

“Play it again from the start.” Penny playfully swatted at the back of his head.

He flailed. “Oi, knock it off, woman. Calm the feck down.”

She grinned and went to swat him again. He caught her wrist and pulled her over the couch into his lap.

A tiny holographic panel appeared by Spawny’s hand as he swiped a finger across the progress bar. Scrolling text identified it as the hourly news update.

“The Metropolitan Police today released these images taken from a triple murder in downtown London. Three members of the ‘Crossmen’ street gang were found shot dead in an alley behind Zaimi’s Restaurant.”

The feed zoomed in, showing the three men that had attacked them. Lying where they had remembered them, but with additional ventilation. All of the bodies had been shot, once each in the approximate center of the forehead. The conspicuous electrical scoring on the one man’s chest was gone.

“The execution-style shooting is just one in the latest series of violent incidents involving inner-city gangs. Chief Inspector Edmond Green had this to say…”

The image shifted to that of a middle-aged man in uniform with half-grey brown hair. Thick and tall cheeks wagged as he spoke out from under a curtain of diaphanous white eyebrows.

“At the moment, we are attributing this to a retributory attack conducted by either the East End Boys or Clan Brannagh. The violence in this case appears to be related to territorial disputes among rival organized groups and we do not feel it represents a significant threat to the law-abiding public.”

The reporter, a wan fellow in his later forties, came back to the view seated behind a desk. “There you have Chief Inspector Edmond Green with the Met―”

The holographic panel flickered and imploded to a tiny point, leaving silence and darkness in the corner where it had been a second ago. Spawny looked at the two women, his finger still stuck through the intangible power button.

Penny shivered and held on to Spawny. Anna reached over and held her hand, trying to calm her nerves. Faye, not wanting to be alone, sat on the arm of the couch.

“What the devil was that?” Penny looked back and forth between them. “Those men weren’t shot… Anna…” She stopped herself, realizing the girl was there.

Spawny ran a hand up and down her back. “Not the first time you’ve seen news changed for easier digestion?”

Anna glanced at the window, having thought she had seen something moving. “What ‘appened in that alley was some gangbangers killed some other gangbangers. That’s all the Propers can ‘andle, and that’s all Old Bill will allow them to know.”

Spawny set about muttering reassurances to Penny about how no Crossmen walked away from the scuffle, and how none of them would be coming after her. Anna found herself amid a three-way hug.

“Geez, you guys should just have a threesome and get it over with.” Faye grumbled.

“Capital idea, lass! G’won back to Pixie’s flat so we can get on with it.”

Anna smirked at him. “Honestly… I’d rather you knocked that bit off. It’d be like havin’ a shag with me brother.”

Spawny made a pained grimace halfway between a cringe and a smile. “Never thought of it that way.”

“Anna, you know he’s just sayin’ that. He’s not serious.” Penny, head in his lap, looked up at him. “You’re not serious, right?”

“Course not.” Spawny huffed.

Anna moved to the edge of their bed, the only other seat in their ‘living room.’ Faye followed, sitting close. Everyone was quiet for a few minutes until Spawny flicked the mute off and the sounds of a goal horn rang out. Penny’s sniffling twisted at Anna’s gut.

“I’m thinkin’ of gettin’ a regular job. I don’t want to dance anymore.”

“Are you blushing?” Penny shifted upright, leaning on Spawny.

“Probably.” The charcoal figures flashed through her mind in series, her voice lilted between a whisper and speech. “I don’t want to feel like that again.”

Penny tilted her head. “What’ll you do then?”

Anna shrugged. “Heard Sainsbury’s is lookin’ for cashiers or stock people.”

“That’s the um, hydroponic joint, innit? The one wit’ tha real ‘spensive shite.” Spawny embraced Penny from behind. “‘Ow bout we just cuddle tonight then?”

With a grin, she turned and kissed him before looking back to Anna. “The green apron will suit you I think. Better to be seen in public with that than your last work uniform.”