Shadows on the Border

Chapter 1: Vagrant

Chapter 1: Vagrant

Will

Reece wasn’t going to be here, but Sergeant William Grant was glumly going through the motions. Searching the empty munitions factory where the man had once worked was a very long shot. They had to check it out though and his team had drawn the short straw. The others had gone to visit the man’s mother again. Their murderer wouldn’t be there, either, but it had to be done. Procedure. Reece had gone to ground and they’d be lucky if they caught hair nor hide of him this side of the end of the world.

He sent Sedman and Triggs round to the front entrance with the big doors that opened on to the wharf and he took the side entrance. The brisk wind off the river cut through him like a knife, despite the early summer sun that had appeared as the smog dispersed. He was pleased to get into the shelter of the person-sized archway. The steel doorway was heavily chained and barred and he drew the keys he’d got from the owner out of his pocket and picked up the padlock. It hadn’t been opened recently. It was touched with rust and when he turned the key, the lock was stiff and solid under his fingers. No-one had entered this way recently.

The tumblers clicked round and he divested the heavy door of all its trappings and pushed it open. It swung easily despite the weight and clanged back against the unfinished brickwork inside. The noise filled the echoing stillness like a ringing bell.

No-one here. Nothing here, in fact. It was a large, high room with skylights—all the better to see to make the bullets to kill you with, he thought absently. The machinery had been taken out and sold, either to other companies or for scrap. It even smelled empty, if such a thing could be said.

At one end there was a huge archway set into the brickwork that let through to another section of the factory and then another he could see opened onto the wharf. At the other end was another person-sized door that he assumed led to offices or break rooms for the munitions workers. He meandered toward it in a desultory fashion. Reece wasn’t here, and he hadn’t ever been here. But. Procedure. Will went a lot on procedure these days. He found it combated the more esoteric parts of his job that came up from time to time.

The door was ajar, and he toed it open. There were a few sets of old overalls hanging on pegs along one wall, a couple of dusty chairs, and another pile of overalls or some-such in the corner.

It took him a moment to realize there was someone curled up in them. Damn it. He’d been hoping to get home at a reasonable time, not chase a murderer across the docks in his second-best boots.

“Oi!” he said, unenthusiastically. He was trying to cultivate a more policeman-like vocabulary.

Nothing happened, so he tried again, moving closer carefully. “Hey. Wake up!” He poked the body with his foot. He was half hoping the person was dead. However, at that point, the vagrant unfolded from the heap of dirty rags in a graceful roll of uncurling limbs. Will peddled backward, rapidly and unsteadily, and then found his feet again.

Instead of the unshaven face and dubious dental hygiene he was expecting, he was faced with a very tall, very cross looking blond-haired girl, holding a very long, very sharp looking knife in an impressively steady hand. Will went for his service revolver.

He’d left it at the station.

Luckily the girl seemed as surprised as he was, and they stared at each other, immobile.

Then he noticed that the face was heavier featured and the brows bushier than a woman would have. “You’re not a girl,” Will eventually concluded. And then realized he’d spoken aloud.

“No. I am not a girl,” the…person…replied.

It was a very long knife and the hand holding it was impressively steady. Will shifted on the balls of his feet a tiny amount, getting ready in case the chap came at him. In response, the knife was raised a little.

After another pause and some more eye contact, the light voice said, “Who are you? And what do you want of me?” He didn’t sound like a maniac, but Will didn’t like being questioned at knifepoint. He’d had a couple of go-rounds with German counter-intelligence before he’d invalided out in 1915 and hadn’t enjoyed it much back then, either.

“I’m a police officer. If you could put the knife down, sir. Please.”

Another speaking pause.

“A Police Officer? A Man of the Law?”

“Er, yes. I suppose. The knife, sir?”

“You are seeking a person in particular?”

Will looked at him. Really looked at him this time, both with his eyes and his othersense. And drew in a breath.

“Bloody hell,” he said, flatly. “You’re not human.”

It was a Creature! He could feel the same not-quite-normal tingle of power from it and now that he knew, even in the dim light of the warehouse he could see the slightly too-pale skin, the too-fine features under that silver-white hair. And the not-quite-right eyes. Something about their color and what looked like an inner eyelid that blinked across at reptilian intervals whilst the gaze stayed steadily on him, behind the equally steady knife.

But it didn’t look like the Creature they had apprehended at St Katherine’s Dock a few months ago. It was beautiful, in a fey sort of way. The opposite of the twisted claws and muzzle he would have recognized first off. And that Creature’s energy had felt heavy. Greasy and oily on his tongue as he had touched it. This one felt brighter. Clean, like the edge of the knife it wielded. A tangle of music and light.

He shivered and withdrew his othersense, quickly shielding himself.

The Creature watched him curiously, head slightly tilted as if it was listening. “You work kias,” it said, eventually, knife still up.

“Kias?”

“From the Shimmer. You were touching me.”

Will didn’t say anything. What was there to say? All his personal experience and the experience of those who had taught him, told him that very shortly he would be having his throat ripped to shreds and his brain dissolved by this thing’s bare hands. And he didn’t think he stood much chance against the knife, either. But trying to take the knife was probably preferable to turning his back and running. He still had occasional nightmares about the corpses from their last big case, with their ripped-out throats. He silently cursed his own bright idea to comb the old factories in search of his errant wife murderer.

He shifted his weight very slightly again. If he was quick, he might be able to get under the knife and grab the thing’s arm. Its bones were thin and fine where they stuck out from the shirt arrangement it was wearing and there were no claws. It was worth a try.

Three breaths, a sideways feint, and he jumped forward. He grabbed for the thing’s knife arm, got his hand around it, swung and pushed…and found himself face down on the dirty floor, arms twisted up behind him, and the thing astride him. He kicked upward at its back in the approved fashion, to no avail. For such a willowy creature it was incredibly solid.

“I do not wish to hurt you,” it said in its musical voice, from above him.

“You are hurting me!” His face was grinding in the dirt and his right shoulder felt like it was dislocated. A distant part of him mourned his overcoat and the knees of his trousers. He’d fallen on his hat.

“I will let you go, and we will talk?” It eased the painful grip slightly.

The pain was making him pant and he was going to start to cough in a minute. He could feel it coming.

“Yes, yes, fine…” And there it was. He curled up and just rode it out until it was over, eyes watering, cough after cough racking through him, internally cursing his lungs, the war, gas, the collective Allied governments, and the rest of it. The thing could have started to eat him from the toes upward and he’d not have been able to twitch.

However, it didn’t take the opportunity to stab him or rip his throat out, which was what he’d been quietly dreading ever since he’d realized it wasn’t human. Instead, it knelt beside him on the floor and pulled him semi-upright, across its thighs and against its chest, with one of those thin arms holding him in place. By the time the coughing episode was over he was done in. He rested there for a bit, gasping like a fish freshly caught, while it made humming noises above him. It smelled odd. Like sand and the cacti they grew in the hot greenhouses at Kew.

Finally, he wiped the tears and snot off his face with the back of his hand and jerked away from it, so he was kneeling upright. From there, he pushed himself to his hands and knees and then to his feet, and leaned against the dirty brick wall, staring down at it. It stayed on the floor, looking up at him. Closer to it and in the better light near the open door, he could see why he’d mistaken it for a girl. It was willowy and fine-featured for a man and it had pale silver or white hair that it wore in a messy plaited tail that hung down its back. It was dressed in leathers of some kind, like tight motorcycling breeches, with a floating undershirt topped by a sleeveless jerkin, all dark colors that he couldn’t make out very well. Across it’s back was some sort of contraption of webbing that he supposed was to hold the long, wide-bladed knife that was lying on the floor beside it. It must have dropped it during their brief fight.

He wiped his sleeve across his nose and face—there was no hope for his overcoat—and they stared at each other again.

“My name is Fenn,” it said, finally. Another pause. And then, “I do not wish to fight.”

It appeared to be telling the truth. It could have taken him out without any trouble any time in the last ten or fifteen minutes and could probably still do so, given the state of his breathing and the fact that he couldn’t stay upright without bracing his hands either side of him against the scraping brickwork.

“Grant,” he said, finally. “Will Grant.” He was still breathing pretty hard.

There was another pause.

“I would put Alaress away.” It gestured to the knife on the ground. “Do not be alarmed.”

Will was about as alarmed as he could possibly be, so he just nodded, wincing at his jarred shoulder. “All right.”

It kept its eyes on him as it slowly bent to pick the knife up. Then, all in one movement, it shoved it in the webbing between its shoulder blades and stood upright again.

They regarded each other in silence.

It was probably as tall as he was, he thought, looking at it. Its eyes were a striking kind of light green, like beech leaves in the early spring, dimming a little when that second eyelid flicked across and back. It had high cheekbones and a heart-shaped face. He really couldn’t tell whether it was male or female. He supposed that didn’t really matter. It was a Creature.

“You are sick?” it asked eventually, head c*****g to one side again in the same movement it had made before, like a dog listening to the post being pushed through the letterbox and trying to decide whether to bite the postman’s hand.

“Yes. No. Not any longer.” He floundered at the unexpected question.

It stared at him some more. “I have not met a human here yet,” it offered, eventually. “I have been looking for a safe nest.”

It looked to one side, through the door to his right. “Your friends come.” It twisted on its heel, stepped away from him in a curl of leather and linen, took two steps forward, and seemed to blur in his vision. He blinked. It wasn’t there.

By the time Sedman and Triggs came through the door, he had slid down the wall and was grasping his knees, breathing hard. He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened.

“I think I fell and hit my head,” he said. “Bloody lungs.”

They helped him up.

“Any sign of our Mister Reece?” asked Sedman.

“Not that I saw. What about you?”

“No. Nothing. Although, it looks like someone’s been kipping over here.” He gestured toward a pile of rags in the corner.

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it. Worth coming back tonight for a look.” He had himself upright now and was starting to feel better. He was covered in cooling sweat. Why had that been? He hadn’t been running. Had he? Perhaps he had been. He seemed to have wrenched his shoulder when he went down. He rolled it, meditatively.

“Come on. Let’s move on. It’ll be dark soon.”