Authors: Rachel Green
“I don’t want to.” Her mother folded her arms.
Felicia took a few deep breaths before she got out of the car and opened her mother’s door. “We’re here now, Mother, and you are coming in. I don’t know what your problem is and I don’t want to know. All I care about is that you show a little compassion for the daughter you abandoned twelve years ago.”
Patricia stared resolutely out of the windscreen and Felicia tried hard to control her temper, reaching inside to unbuckle the seatbelt. “I swear, if you don’t get out of this car I’m going to fetch an orderly and have you committed.”
Patricia slapped her.
Felicia looked up at her mother’s face in shock, her vision fading to monochrome. Patricia’s face, under the thick powder and concealer, was composed of scales like a reptile. Felicia jumped back, hitting her head on the door frame.
Her mother, in shades of gray, said nothing, and merely stared out at her before reaching to pull the car door closed. The click of the locks infuriated Felicia even more, but she couldn’t bear to look at the thing pretending to be her mother.
She fled to the bench where she and Julie had sat last time. There were more people about than there had been–unusual for a Sunday morning.
Felicia rubbed her eyes. Her vision had improved, but lack of color was too great a sacrifice for the lack of glasses. The people, each in a gray suit or gray hospital gown paid her little attention, each of them seemingly in their own internal world. She frowned. None of them had any scent.
Julie waited at the bench. She looked up as Felicia approached, her blind eyes staring directly at her sister. “I wasn’t expecting you today. Not after your visit on Thursday.” Her face creased. “What’s the matter?”
Felicia gulped. On her sister’s shoulder sat a small, gray-scaled goblin like the one she’d seen in Harold’s kitchen. Its long snout was filled with dozens of tiny, needle-sharp teeth and it had bipedal legs that hung down. Its hooves rested on the curve of her breast and its tail wrapped around her neck. It glared at her, rubbing its face with tiny monkey-like hands.
“Felicia?”
Felicia tore her gaze away from the tiny nightmare and squeezed her eyes shut. What the hell was that thing? Was that what Julie called “Wrack”? It looked like Harold’s little goblin. Was her sister’s madness infectious? Was it familial? She gave herself a few moments for her heart to stop pounding and opened her eyes. It was still there.
She had to keep calm. Julie could sense subterfuge. She did her best to smile. “Nothing. I’ve got Mother in the car.”
“She’s a liar!” The imp dug his claws into Julie’s shoulder and hissed. “She can see me.”
“You can see him?” Julie’s face creased. “All these years I’ve been stuck here hearing his voice, and only now do I discover I’m not mad?”
“That...thing is Wrack?” Felicia looked her sister in her dead eyes. “You’re not mad, Julie, or if you are then I am as well. My eyesight has come back but I can only see in black and white.”
“But you can see Wrack?” Julie gripped her arm. “What else do you see? How many of them are there?”
“Just people.” Felicia glanced around. “No more of these things.”
“I told you she was another one.” The creature leaned close to Julie’s ear. “She’s just evolved. I know what she is.”
“What do you mean, evolved?” Felicia glared at it. “Another one of what?”
“Another of the Changed.” Julie leaned forward to whisper. “Without Wrack I’d have been totally insane years ago, but even with him here they get through.”
“You told her my name! Names have power.”
“What does it matter?” Julie let go and leaned back. “She can see you. That counts for far more than my telling her your name. Besides, I told her your name yesterday. I’m not mad.” She looked at Felicia again, the flicker of a smile lifting the corners of her mouth. “I’m not mad!”
“
Shh
!” Felicia lowered her voice to a whisper. “No, you’re not mad. I’m sorry I never knew before.”
“Why do you know now? How come you can see the things I’ve been hearing?”
“Oh.” Felicia stopped short. “Something happened to Mother. I can see scales under her makeup.”
“I know.” Julie stretched “I don’t want to see the old witch. She locked me up in here and forgot about me. She never once sent me so much as a card since Daddy died.”
“Why do you hate each other so much?”
“She’s one of us. One of the Changed.” Julie reached out for Felicia’s hand, hitting the bench twice until she found it. “When I lost my sight, I found that I could hear things. Ghosts, Felicia. Ghosts and creatures like Wrack.” She leaned forward and dropped her voice. “Angels too. And demons.”
“I don’t believe this.” Felicia held her head in her hands and closed her eyes.
“Sorry.” Julie gave a bark of laughter. “Welcome to my own personal hell. I’ll ask them to give us a twin room, shall I?”
“Why? I’m not mad, and neither are you.”
“Try to convince other people of that when they think you’re talking to yourself at the bus stop. If it wasn’t for Wrack...”
“Why? What does Wrack do for you?”
“He keeps me sane.” Julie reached up to stroke the imp under the chin. “He keeps all the others away from me so I can get some peace.”
The creature began to purr, but still kept an eye on Felicia.
“Where did you meet him? He seems quite...attached to you.”
“He came in with another patient, but they were always arguing. When... What was his name?”
“Terry.” The imp changed position, twisting his head. Felicia could hear the bones cracking. “He was such a tosser.”
“Terry, yes. When Terry came in, he was quite violent and a lot of the staff were frightened of him. They sedated him and gave him electro-convulsive therapy, pronounced him cured and sent him home.”
“I didn’t like the electrics.” Wrack’s tail curled and uncurled as he spoke. “They played havoc with my sleep patterns.”
“So there he was, wandering around the wards looking for someone to talk to, and he found me.”
“This would be about two years ago?”
Julie nodded. “That’s right. The World Cup was on television. How did you know that?”
“That was when the hospital wrote to me to say that you were ‘responding to treatment’ and had calmed down considerably but still needed further observation.”
“Wrack began keeping away the ghosts. They don’t mean any harm but there are so many of them, all trying to talk at once. It’s bedlam in here, sometimes.”
“I’m going to get you out. You can come and live with me.”
“With you?” Julie gave a bark of laughter. “You’d hate me after five minutes.”
Chapter 9
Felicia ran along the hospital paths, past the rose beds and the shrubbery, the privet hedges and the sculpted yews. She’d always used running as a means of clearing her head and discarding what was unimportant. Her father had taught her as much when she still lived at home. “Exercise clears the mind,” he used to say. “Keep up, Felicia.” Now her head was spinning with Julie’s revelations. What was a Changed and why had it happened to her? She wanted to go back to when life was ordinary.
The matron at the hospital had been unsympathetic about getting her sister discharged. There was a lot of paperwork involved, and she was not in a position to help her fill out forms. Felicia would have to make an appointment with Julie’s consultant, who wasn’t available on a Sunday. Even doctors, apparently, had homes and families.
By the time she’d finished, all the talk of release forms and care procedures had given Felicia a headache. The scar on her shoulder throbbed.
So she ran, ignoring Julie on the bench, to the poplar trees at the edge of the grounds. It had all started with the sex on Friday night. The girl with the broken tooth had infected her.
She reached the trees. Running was cathartic and her thoughts were running faster than she. What was the girl’s name? Gemma?
Felicia tripped and fell, sprawling onto the hard ground with the full weight of her body. “Damn.” She spat blood onto the baked earth and put a hand to her bruised lip. She stood, wincing at the pain from her cut leg. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to go running in a long skirt.
She had no warning of the branch that hit her in the face. She fell backward, smacking the ground and narrowly missing a stone that would have cracked her head in two. The world went gray again as her anger flared and a man appeared right where she’d been standing.
“What the hell?” Felicia stumbled back, raising her fists, but the man laughed and dropped the branch.
“Hold it!” His voice had a melodic timbre. “I had to provoke your gift.”
“Who the hell are you?” Felicia stood, her heart pumping, ready to run.
The figure stepped closer. He was taller than Felicia by several inches and had one of those faces that looked anywhere between forty and sixty, full of crow’s feet and laughter lines. His gray hair was cut short in a tonsure and she was put in mind of Derek Jacobi wearing a fifties-style suit. “Someone amused by your repetitive speech. I thought you possessed of more education.”
“You still haven’t said who you are.” Felicia’s hands clenched.
“Have a guess.” He stretched his arms and white wings unfolded from its shoulder blades.
Felicia gaped. “You’re an angel?”
“Perhaps.” The white feathers changed to dark membrane stretched over a skeletal frame. “Or a demon.” The wings turned gray, then brown. “Or something in between. I am Taliel. Your grandmother called me Tally.”
“You knew my grandmother?”
“Intimately.” Taliel stepped closer, his form shifting into that of a young man. “We were lovers, once, a long time ago. She had my child.”
“Aunty Glad? That explains a lot.”
“No.” Taliel looked toward the hospital. “Your mother. Your mother is nephilim, which means a child of the elohim, the host of God.”
Felicia frowned. “What does that make me? Is what’s happening to me your fault?”
Taliel shrugged. “Genetically, yes, though the child of a nephilim can remain mundane. Something triggered your change.”
“Someone.”
Taliel nodded. “Or someone, yes. The question is why?”
* * * *
Felicia awoke in the street, her head pounding, her body sore. Why was she lying on the ground? Where was Julie? What was that tantalizing smell? She stumbled to her feet, brushing off the worst of the dust and dirt from her clothes. She had no idea where her car was but her head was pounding enough for a bottle full of mescal worms to have taken residence. The sky had deepened to a shade of Prussian blue and the streetlights were flickering on.
One thing she was certain of was she’d lost several hours of time. It was already dark. She remembered meeting Taliel but since then, nothing.
She ran her tongue across her lip, looking for the bruise, but her lips were full and whole, and her leg bore no trace of the cut she’d received when she had fallen. A hand to the forehead revealed no wound from Taliel’s branch either, though her fingernails scraped off traces of dried blood, proving she hadn’t dreamt the whole exchange.
Where was she?
She blinked, and the world shifted into pinpoint focus in monochrome. Splashes of color intruded–lines and trails marking where people had walked, dogs and cats had prowled and a thin green line along the gutter where a rat had run. Bright splashes of yellow overlaid the trails where dogs had urinated.
She caught the scent of children’s sweat and ice cream, and knew where she was. The Royal Park was over to the east, the gallery north. Familiar territory. There was a dance club two streets away.
Felicia began walking. She wanted something, but was unsure what. Food perhaps, or sex. Her thoughts crowded into each other. Sex was food, wasn’t it? She increased her pace, her strides lengthening. Prey was food.
She entered the club with barely a glance at the doormen, dropping money on the counter without even checking the amount. They allowed her in without comment.
Felicia could smell the heat of desire emanating from the groups of dancers, their lust a deep red tinged with the mauve of desire. It was almost a living organism in itself and she followed it to the upper floors, the crush of velvet overwhelming and intoxicating. All the pseudo-vampires and potential suicides were lined with a swirl of yellow need.