Sixty-One Nails Part 22

"Don't!" She threw her hand back, warding me off.

"Don't touch me."

"I'm sorry, I didn't think-"

"You can't help it. It's what you are."

Her shoulders shook.

"I can't change what I am."

"I know. But that's why I wanted to kill you. Part of me still wants to." She stood apart and I watched her cry.

Sometimes Alex hates me. She rails against me and screams and shouts and stamps about as if she can't contain the fury within her. Then she cries and screams again and I try and stay calm and soothe her. And when her anger is spent, she won't let me touch her, won't let me hold her. So I wait. And when the storm has finally blown itself out and she's calm again, I open my arms and she'll come and press her head against my chest and accept comfort from me.

I waited until Blackbird had calmed herself and then I opened my arms in that way to her, knowing that, being Fey, touch had other connotations to her than to my daughter but wanting to offer her that simple gesture against her pain. Her grief was wrapped about her like a veil and it was beyond me not to offer some comfort. She hesitated at this human gesture and I thought she would turn away from me again.

Instead, she shook her head. "No, I'm all right, really. It's just that I've never told anyone that before. Kareesh and Gramawl knew but I've never told anyone else. Only with you being..." She dried up.

"Yes." I dropped my hands back to my sides, awkwardly. At least I knew why she pulled away. She blew her nose on the dishevelled hanky and stuffed it back into her pocket, looking up at me. "So now what?" she lifted her chin, making a bold effort to put the weight of the past aside. Eyes still puffy, she was determined to move on, rather than dwell on what had been.

"I don't know. I was hoping you'd be able to tell me. "

"The building over the way, there. You said it was the one in your vision. What about it?"

"I don't know. It was mixed up with a whole load of other stuff. I just know it's the one. In the vision there was a sign by the main door carved into the stone, that's all. "

"What does it say? "

"I don't know. I couldn't see it clearly. "

"We should go and look then. "

"Are you sure you're up to this?"

"I'm fine." She broke into a half smile. "I thought I was over it, it was all such a long time ago, but when you summoned the gallowfyre... it brought it all back. I know it's wrong to blame you, but... "

"You still do."

"I don't blame you. I don't. It just feels like I should. "

"Because of what I am?" I rubbed at where the point of the knife had pressed under my chin, feeling the break in the skin.

"The rational part of me knows you aren't him and could never have been him. It's just my feelings haven't caught up with the rest of me yet.

"I understand. Sort of."

"We should go and have a look at this building of yours. Maybe the writing on the doorway will tell us something."

I accepted her change of subject and she turned away from the window, straightening her coat, and took the stairway down to ground level. I tagged along, down and through the darkening pa.s.sage to the heavy street door. Blackbird turned the catch, shot back the bolt and opened the door, spilling daylight into the corridor. We stepped out onto the pavement along the Strand, attracting only mildly curious stares from pa.s.sers-by. Blackbird let me past and then stood at door, masking what she was doing with her body. It made a low crunk sound and when she tested it again, it was locked. I stepped across the wide pavement and turned to look at where we had emerged. A sign along the base of the arched window above the street declared it to be the Strand Station of the Piccadilly Railway. "I've never heard of a Strand Station," I told her. "In fact, I didn't know there was a tube station here at all. "

"There isn't. The line was supposed to go through under the Thames but the extension was never built. This is as far as they managed."

She turned and walked brusquely off down the Strand with me trailing after her. Then she slowed, allowing me to catch up so we could walk alongside each other. It was a small concession, given what she'd told me.

We crossed the busy road when the traffic thinned momentarily and continued across the road down the side of Australia House. The building was roughly triangular in plan, being the easterly point at the end of the long crescent formed by Aldwych alongside the Strand. There were doors for the public set along the side of the building with notices about opening times for the issuing of visas and other doc.u.ments. Posters of Ayer's Rock, Uhuru or whatever it was called, adorned the walls inside.

We followed the pavement past these until we came to the blunted point of the triangle where the Strand opened out into a wide thoroughfare. A church faced us across the broad paved area where the trees were shedding, the leaves whirling around in a fickle breeze. Turning back, the entrance to Australia House was impressive with tall stone pillars and heavy iron gates folded back against the wall inside the entrance porch. To either side of the doorway, stone statues graced the entrance, while high above the gates a bronze sculpture of heroic figures on untamed horses adorned the frontage. Inside the doorway there were letters picked out in gold, carved into the door pillar where I knew they would be. Blackbird leaned down to inspect the writing. "What does it say?" I asked.

"It says the stone was laid in..." She translated the

Roman numerals. "1913. Does that mean anything to you?"

"No. Should it?"

"Are you sure? It must have some significance or you wouldn't have seen it in the vision."

"Well, perhaps it's not the building that's significant. Maybe we're supposed to meet someone here, or find something?"

I looked around at the roads, busy with pa.s.sing traffic. No one approached us with a secret code word or a mysterious package. There was a distinct absence of things with clues written on them.

"Do you see anything else that looks familiar?" Blackbird asked.

"Not really. The sign is the right one, but it's just a carving showing when this was built."

I found myself conscious of the huge ornamental iron gates turned back against the wall on each side of the entrance. They were beautifully made and I couldn't help feeling there was something significant about them.

"I wonder what was here before this was built," she mused. "I don't remember anything particularly special."

"Even if there was something, it was demolished a hundred years ago to make way for this." I watched the gates, feeling that somehow they were also watching me.

"That isn't a very long time, really. I can't recall that there was anything particular here, though it was a pretty rough area. I'm sure I would remember. "

"So, where does that leave us?"

"It leaves us asking why, I suppose." Blackbird scanned the surrounding buildings.

The gates definitely had my attention. Were they the thing I was supposed to find here? Were they the clue we were looking for? I found myself reaching out to touch the dark ironwork. "Perhaps if we ask at th- NO!"

My hand touched the metalwork and a jolt went through me like a lightning bolt. I remember something slamming into my arm and the trees above me spinning, then cras.h.i.+ng onto my back on the paving. My breath went out of me and the back of my skull banged against the concrete. For a moment, everything went black.

When I came to, Blackbird was leaning over me. She'd moved me onto my side and had her palm pressed against my forehead. Despite that, a dizzying nausea welled up in me and I threw up the remains of my pasty on the paving slabs. Blackbird leant back until the retching stopped and then handed me a practical hanky. It was still damp. "Are you all right?"

I nodded weakly, wiping my mouth with it. At least I thought I was OK. I did a mental check for broken bones. My arm was numb where I had touched the gate and the nerves in my hand were jangling.