Being good.
I glanced up at him, and just that little physical gesture was deeply familiar and deeply wrong, both at once: like a sudden startling reminder of how much had changed this morning, between one boy and another. Jordan was shorter than me. And not with me any more, and maybe hunting me by now, and that was what I really didn’t want to think about. So: right here, right now. Think about Jacey instead.
He was waiting exactly for that glance, that moment when I remembered that he was there, and that he mattered. He met it with a smile, as though I were the one suddenly being good. Living up to expectations, shaving with Occam’s Razor.
I said, “Why aren’t you spitting mad?”
He shrugged. “Too easy.” His version of
that’s the lazy choice
. “And, look.” His hand swung mine back and forth. “You’re here, and we’re having an adventure. That’s got to be worth something. I guess we’ll find out later, just how much.”
I didn’t think it was worth all his lovely cars and his fancy bikes; I was damn sure it wasn’t worth his life, which was the other thing he’d flung into the balance. Knowingly or not. But, yes. Something. It really hadn’t occurred to me before that perhaps all this time, he’d been missing me as sharply as I missed him. All the time he chased me, all the time I ran. Both of us spinning dizzy around the same black hole.
I said, “We need to talk,” I needed to tell him everything, I owed him that at least. Lay out the razor and the other blades, see what amounted to a shave. “Not up here, though. This isn’t the place to start claiming private space or special privileges.” Especially not with him. “Come on, boy. Boots.”
H
ERE WAS ANOTHER
door, one with no illuminated sign, nothing to draw the public’s attention. Beside it, though, was another hatch like the ticket-windows, similarly boarded up. This one, its sign said
Lost Property.
Jacey looked up at that, and balked before I could get him through the door. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“Nope, not at all.”
“Second-hand boots?”
“Second-foot, I think you mean – but probably not. This isn’t charity gear. This is the stuff the charity shops don’t see.” I tugged at him tentatively, but he still wasn’t moving. I may have rolled my eyes a little, but it wasn’t really his fault. He’d probably never had to consider putting something on his precious body that had been used before. So I bit back
well, if you’d really rather go barefoot
– no point giving hostages to fortune; it would be all too easy for him to say
yes, I would
– and instead I said, “What you don’t know, Jacey” –
among the vast scads of things that you don’t know, a few of which I guess I get to teach you
– “is that everything that gets lost or dropped or left behind anywhere in the London transport system is all routed to the same place. Tube, buses, black cabs, it doesn’t matter. Some of it goes through the police first, some of it sits in local offices for a week or so; then it heads for Baker Street. There’s a normal-looking storefront at street level and vasty underground rooms beneath, all stuffed with stuff.
“They keep things for three months, and do what they can to reunite them with their owners; but you’d be amazed what doesn’t get claimed. Eventually, that all goes for auction or else to charity.
“Except that Reno has her own people in the system, people who passed through here themselves until she found a place for them outside. Savoyards, we’re everywhere. And the Baker Street Irregulars divert what they can, what they think she can use. It’s another kind of charity, I guess, but – no. Not second-hand boots. You’ll see.”
He was still looking unconvinced. I just opened the door and beckoned him through.
O
NE THING ABOUT
building underground, there’s plenty of space. That unassuming door led into a long windowless store-room, lined and mazed with shelving. Shelves and shelves.
There were boxes and boxes all along the shelves, and every box was labelled. Shirts and jeans and skirts and underwear, all scrupulously clean. We knew; we did the work, picking and sorting and laundering, pressing and folding and boxing away. With labels. Often the laundering wasn’t strictly necessary; much of this was new. Fresh from the shop, in its original wrapping, mislaid or forgotten and somehow never asked for. Of course people lose brollies and bras, but they lose ballgowns too. And wedding-rings and keys and brooches, yes – and telescopes and dartboards and voodoo masks and wheelchairs and you wouldn’t believe what else.
We all knew our way around in here. We all did our stints, helping newcomers to find what they needed, hunting things down for ourselves. Making free, dressing to impress or dressing up to play, whatever. It wasn’t always solemn and it surely wasn’t uniform.
On the lower shelves, boxes and boxes of shoes and boots. Most of them new, unworn; many of them costly. Men’s and women’s and children’s too, divided that way just for convenience. Some who came this way were indeterminate or uncertain or very certain indeed about how they meant to dress. Not all the skirts and stilettos went to girls.
Poor Jacey, he was still very uncertain. Charity boots. I didn’t suppose for a moment that he’d ever tried to walk a step in someone else’s shoes, and now he thought he had to. But we found his size and he picked through a few boxes reluctantly, and then with growing enthusiasm as he began to understand, as brand names peeped through tissue-paper. Soon enough we found one pair that he allowed that he could bear to wear; and he sat on the floor in new socks and gamely tried them on, laced them up, held his hand out to me for a teasing tug up. I just gripped him palm to palm and let him do the work, pulling against my solidity.
He blinked a little, as he rose. His body still remembered how mine used to be; he hadn’t bargained for my Aspect, even that shred of it I was holding on to. I was a lot more solid, apparently, than he had budgeted for.
Still. He stamped his feet, paced back and forth, tried not to grin as soft leather folded itself around his feet. “Well,” he said, “I suppose that’ll throw the dogs off my scent.” And then, “Are there any dogs down there?”
“Bound to be.” I was just playing along, but chances were there’d be some werewolves among the Stranded. Or other shapeshifters, but those were the most common. I guess dog-kinds still seek out humankind for company or comfort. Cats walk by themselves, and birds can always fly away from trouble.
“Come on, then. Let’s go and measure their confusion.”
“Hang on. We’ll find you a jacket first, just in case.”
“In case of what? It’s not going to rain today.”
No, but you may not be going home today. Or tomorrow, or the next day after. You may not have a home to go to any more.
Granted that he could always go to his parents, or any number of other houses, and know that he’d be taken in and looked after – but I couldn’t. My best guess said that I was being hunted twice, by Jordan and the Cathars’ mercenaries. That made two good reasons not to go to any of Jacey’s regular hang-outs. I’d just be too easy to find, and I really didn’t want to bring any more trouble down on him or his.
“In case you need the pockets,” I said lightly. “Start lifting those boxes down, will you, tall boy? There’s a hierarchy of clothing, and jackets are the peak of the pyramid, top shelf material. Don’t ask me in what world it makes sense to put the heaviest things highest up. That’s just what we do. Really I guess we ought to get a rack and hang them, but I don’t know where we’d put it...”
Linen jackets, leather jackets. Nothing suited, until I found what looked like a genuine World War Two sheepskin flying jacket, worn and warm and romantic. Definitely second-hand, but. He protested, and I made him try it on anyway. As soon as the weight of it embraced him, he stopped fussing. Even before he saw the mirror on the back of the door, and checked out what he looked like.
The last of the few, that was what he looked like. Tousled and diffident and indomitable, like a mighty schoolboy.
Disturbingly much like the boy he’d been when we'd first entangled each other’s lives.
That was something else not to be thinking about. I opened one more box on a shelf by the door, and started filling his useful pockets with useful things.
“Hey, what...?”
“What? Just because we’re Stranded here, doesn’t mean we have to beg like monks. Whatever we find, whatever comes in, Reno lets us use – and most of us don’t go out much, so there’s not much use for cash, so...” So there was money in the box here, money for the taking. I wasn’t touching it, but he needed cash to feel comfortable. He could pay it back later, if it hung on his conscience. I’d show him how.
Folding money, then, a wad of notes taken uncounted from a fatter wad, all the cash that accumulates from jackets and jeans, pockets and purses and other stranger places; and a wallet to keep it in, people are always losing wallets; and a Swiss Army knife because he’s a boy and besides you never can tell when a tool may be actually handy. And a pay-as-you-go phone all loaded up with credit, in case I lost him and he had to call for help or for a friend or for a taxi. A bubble-strip of painkillers in case of need – someone else’s need, most likely; his kind aren’t much bothered by headaches – and a notebook and pen in case he felt old-fashioned.
And then I was about done, but apparently he wasn’t. He reached an arm above the mirror, and hooked down one of a dozen caps that hung up there.
Tried it on, checked the mirror, jauntified the angle and turned to me.
“What do you think?”
“Oh, absolutely. I think you need that.” I did think it, too. He needed something that he’d picked out for himself. I didn’t think a cap would cut it for long, but as a stopgap it was a fine idea.
And besides, it made him just that little bit more anonymous, less easy to spot; and besides, he did look really rather wonderful in it. Actually, I thought we looked really rather wonderful together, in the mirror there – but then, I always had thought so.
And besides, Jordan did hair of many colours, dyed or shaven, but he never wore a hat. That was good too, one more way to underscore the difference between one boy and another.
I didn’t need it – it was the last thing I needed, the last thing that would ever happen, that I should confuse one Jay with another – but even so. Visual signals. Good to have.
Oh, yes.
Not thinking about that or the need for that, oh, no.
“Come on, then. Down we go.”
This time, going down, we did use the dead escalator rather than the stairs. Because I was in the lead, and because the pitch of those steps was still wrong and would give each of us something else to think about, keep us rooted just a little in our bodies. Even if the effect was only marginal for both of us, given my Aspect and his – well. I don’t like to say
natural superiority
, but. There it was. His body came easily to him. He danced down that escalator behind me, and grinned when I turned around, and said, “Why do they call it an escalator, anyway? The last thing it does is speed anybody up.”
“I dunno. I guess when they’re working, they escalate people’s progress through the building, as an average, traffic management; some people are slow on stairs, going up or coming down. Never mind. Come and see the dorm.”
The boy with no face was still blowing his melancholy riff. He was new since my day, but it felt like he had properly belonged there for ever, like nothing ever changed for him or for us or for anyone. I was here, wasn’t I? Even with Jacey physically at my side instead of just oppressively in my head and frighteningly behind me, it wasn’t that different. Hunted on the outside, hiding in here. Wondering just how to get away.
Last time, I’d found an answer – but it hadn’t lasted long. I was here, wasn’t I? And not on false pretences, not faking it. If the Cathars called it off, there was still Jordan; if Jordan decided that he really didn’t care, there were still the Corbies, and whoever else had been set on my trail and unleashed.
Maybe Jacey could talk to the Corbies; they might listen to him – but they’d broken into his home and chased him out. They’d made him run away. Or I had, but it came to the same thing in the end. I didn’t think he was in a talking mood, as far as the Corbies were concerned.
Besides, he thought he could take them. He might be right – but I didn’t want to give him the chance to find out he was wrong. The way that Asher did, that sudden brutal revelation that even the immortals aren’t actually that. Not even the young ones who ought to be immortal anyway, who often think they are.
It was odd, finding myself protective of Jacey, trying to keep him safe against his own worse judgement. I used to think that he’d keep me, safe and protected for ever. Then I fled him in terror: down the nights and down the days, down the arches of the years. I thought he was Death incarnate, or the promise of it. His father’s representative. I thought he carried Hell in his back pocket, and would take me there.
I get things wrong, too. Turned out that was Asher, and he did that and he died for it.
Now it was Jordan, and I could die for it. If he could be bothered.
Turns out Hell is a heritable condition. Who knew?
W
E TURNED RIGHT
by Little Boy Blue, and let his horn-music wash us down the short connecting passageway into the dormitory at Savoy.