"Who are you?"
"You don't recognise me? That's weird, because I recognise you. How is it that my dreams don't know who I am?"
"Your dreams?"
He started walking slowly around the ring of thorns, speaking as he went. "Yeah. I'm dreaming. I must be. It's the only way I'd come up with this weird shit."
I turned, following his movement. I was beginning to think I did recognise him.
"We did meet, didn't we?"
"Course we did. You were with that weird woman at the hospital, the fake witch."
I remembered then. This was Claire's friend who had been at the hospital last year when the Queen's Remembrancer had been taken ill. He was the friend who'd been in charge of security, the one with connections.
"You still think she's a fake?" I asked.
"You're not trying to tell me you think she's for real? I mean, I know you're a dream, but try and stay a bit believable."
"Claire's friend. The secret squirrel. Sam Veldon." I had the name at last.
"Friend no longer. Your witchy woman saw to that. Claire rang me the other day, you know?"
"I know."
"Course you do." He continued walking.
"How did you know I come from Kent?" I asked. I was sure it hadn't been mentioned in our original encounter.
"It's in the file. When she mentioned your name, I looked you up. She said you needed my help. Bloody cheek if you ask me. Personally I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire, but I wanted to know why she was asking."
"And what did you discover?"
"Red flags. You're quite the celebrity these days, you know. Apprehend with caution, may be armed, possibly dangerous. You don't look dangerous."
"It says armed?"
"That's what it says on the file. I didn't write it." He completed his circuit around the glade, and continued without breaking step. "You were tagged amber after that policeman died last year. I didn't know you killed a policeman."
"I didn't. They didn't even charge me."
"Not what it says now. You've been hiked to red, possible murder, possible terrorist. Notify if seen."
"Will you tell them?"
"What, that you were in my dream? You think I'm nuts?"
"You're talking to me now," I pointed out.
"Got nothin' better to do. I'm asleep en't I?"
"Are you?"
"Course I am. Coulda done with prettier company than you, though. No offence, like."
"None taken. What else did the file say?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Well, me, since it's about me."
"Can't say. I've signed the official secrets." He tapped the side of his nose knowingly.
"Not even in your dream? I could be an extension of your subconscious, here to help you reach some hidden insight."
"You could be full of bollocks, sounds like." He laughed.
"Why do you think you're here then?"
"To puzzle it out, I s'pose."
"Puzzle what out?"
"The file references. They don't make sense."
"Which file references?"
"The one on your file and the one on hers."
"Who?"
"Alexandra, this daughter of yours. The one who's missing."
"She has a file too?"
"Course she does. Major incident, three dead at the scene. Sewer explosion. Biological contamination. It's all in there."
"Did it say where she is?"
"That's the thing. It's a B reference. So's yours."
"What's a B reference?"
"A reference starting with B. Other than that, no idea. Never come across one before. I asked one of the archive bunnies."
"You have bunnies?"
"The girls in Archives, or Knowledge Management, I think they call it now. Pity you're not like one of them. This could be a very different kinda dream."
"Think you're in with a chance, do you?"
"Nah, they're all married. Makes things difficult, doesn't it?"
"I wouldn't know."
"Yeah, right. Her indoors might look in her tea leaves and put the eye on you."
"Tell me about the archive bunnies."
"What, the blonde or the redhead?"
"No, about what they said."
"You're not much fun, are you?"
"You said they were B references."
"Yeah, I thought they were messing me about, y'know? B references? Load of bollocks, like a long stand, or a left-handed screwdriver."
"They like to wind you up, do they? I can see why."
"Turns out it's kosher. The file references are all centrally allocated. They usually go with who owns the case, or the suspect. I know the ones for criminal investigation, terror suspects, organised crime, military, drugs, counter-intelligence – all of that, but I'd never seen a B reference before"
"So what did they say?"
"They have this whole Mulder and Scully routine, you know? Alien spacecraft, ghost stories, spooky houses, telepathy? They reckon it's all in the files if you know where to look."
"And that's what's in Alex's file."
"They reckon all the B files are weird shit. They all have some
unexplained
thing, going way back."
"Way back where?"
"Into the stacks. Into the paper archives before they computerised everything. They have B files going back so far you have to go into a special room to see them. It's all temperature-controlled and humidified."
"So what's a B file?"
"Oh, they're into the full act now, aren't they? Rolling their eyes and telling me I don't have clearance, they'll have to kill me if they tell me."
"They wouldn't tell you, would they?"
"No. But I found out anyway."
"You did?"
"Sure. What do I look like? Cabbage?"
"So go on then, tell me."
"Why? I don't owe you anything. You've never given me anything but shit."
"I'm just a dream, though, aren't I?"
"Yeah, well, I don't owe a dream much either. Go screw yourself."
"No, Sam. It's you who's screwed."
"Yeah? You and whose army?"
"I don't need an army. You've forgotten where you are."
I moved to intercept him. He stopped, stepped back, balanced on the balls of his feet. I knew enough to know that he was ready to fight, even if it was a dream.
"You've got the wrong idea, Sam. I'm not going to punch you. I don't have to."
Standing facing him, out of range of fists or feet, I reached inwards and connected with the core of magic within me. It flared into life, dark shadows spilling outward. My skin went black and lightless, reflecting not even the dim light of the pinprick stars. Dappled moonlight swirled across the grass where no moon shone. Sam backed away, an expression of disbelief and distaste on his face. It was the wrong thing to do.
The briars behind him wound out and coiled around his legs, tugging at him. He tried to fend off the barbed strands with one hand, only to find it tangled and snagged. He yanked at the hand and it came away streaked and bloody.
"I'm not your dream, Sam. I'm your nightmare."
With an inhuman grunt, he fell sideways and dragged himself away from the briar, across the frozen grass, while the thorns tore his trousers and bit into the flesh of his legs.
"You're a freak!" he shouted. "A fucking freak!" With a wrench he freed himself and rolled away across the grass. He pushed himself up to his knees.
"There's nowhere to run, Sam, not here. And you're not leaving till I say you are."
He pushed himself up to his feet and dropped into a fighting stance, fists bunched and held tight against him. He dodged in, jabbing out fast.
I was in no mood to play games. I swatted the first punch away, stepped sideways and stamped my booted foot hard on the back of his calf. He collapsed and I hit him hard, once, with my elbow on the side of the head, making sure he went down. I hadn't trained for nine months to be sucker-punched by an amateur, and I wasn't fighting for style, I was fighting for effect.
He rolled on to the grass, curled up, groaning. I wasn't even out of breath. The violence felt good, a kind of release for the anger I had bottled up inside. He lay rubbing his temple with his hand. I could see he was watching me, though, waiting for an opportunity to lash out.
"You think that's grass you're lying on, do you?"
Taking its cue from my words, the grass began to lengthen into strands, weaving its way around him, knotting together and tying him down. Panicked into action, he tried to rise, only to find himself caught by the tangle. He fell back as the grass lengthened and wove around him.
"Agh, get it off, get it off!" He thrashed and struggled, but couldn't free himself.
It knotted around his throat and dragged him down into the fresh green sward.
"It's strangling me," he choked out.
I recalled the gallowfyre, feeling it withdraw back into the core of magic within me. The glade returned to pinpricked starlit grey. The sound of Sam's struggles faded as the shoots knotted together.
I looked down at him. "No. Once again, Sam Veldon, you do not understand. It doesn't want to kill you. It wants you alive so that you can be slowly absorbed into the ground and every ounce of you can be digested. You will be fertiliser, every last drop of you."
I walked away, hearing the struggles behind me diminish as he was wound tighter into the grass. Ahead of me the path opened up so I could leave.
"Wait. For God's sake, help me!" he croaked.
"Help you, Sam Veldon? Why should I do that? Wasn't that your phrase – you wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire?"
"It's getting in my skin! You can't leave me here. It's inhuman!"
I paused. For the first time since the moment I first discovered my fey heritage, I looked at myself and what I'd become. "What makes you think," I asked him, "that I regard that as a problem?"
There was a gargled, choking cough and then a spitting, strangled cry. "It's in my mouth. You have to help me. Please?" His voice tailed off.
Standing there, with my back turned, I could not walk away and leave him, not and live with myself. No matter how I tried to deny my own humanity – however I might like to be fey-hearted, I was not. I could not abandon him.
I walked slowly back across the glade. There was a mound of new grass, strangely like the fairy rings you sometimes see. As I got closer I found his form almost completely subsumed into the strands. They knotted and twisted, pinning him down like a grass-tied Gulliver tangled into a verdant Lilliput. His eyes darted sideways, wide with panic, but he was unable to move even his head.
"Are you beginning to understand now, Sam Veldon? I asked for your help and you told me where to go. Would you now ask for mine?"
His eyes widened, imploring me. A low mumbling sound came from beneath the grass.
"Very well. Perhaps you will consider my requests more seriously in future."
I stood back and addressed the glade. "Release him."
The briar tangles around me rustled and quivered, but Sam was not released. I had thrown it a lifeline, and granted a reprieve. With him tangled there it could survive for a very long time indeed. It would not release him easily.
"Release him and I will see to it that you are rewarded."
The words died in the still air. I could still hear Sam fruitlessly trying to struggle against the fibrous bonds.
I reached inside and released the power within me once again. Gallowfyre spilled out, dappling the glade in the moonlight. In the still air, the shifting, sliding glimmer was incongruous, as if made by the wrong kind of tree in the wrong place.
"I said, release him."
There was only further rustling. Sam remained trapped under the grass. The glade had refused the carrot. Now we would try the stick.
Blackbird told me that gallowfyre is an expression of my inner self, the core of magic that makes me fey. To me it was more like a creature that lived inside me, a creature with appetites. I opened myself to the power and my call was answered. Into the dappled light, wriggling tendrils of darkness emerged, sparking with deep violet at their unseen edges, hinting at writhing tentacles unseen.
They were shadows in shadow, barely visible. They threaded into the grass, seeking downwards into cracks in frost-hardened soil. Each was an exploring thread of power, a questing tongue. Whether as an extension of self or by some inner communication, I knew where they licked and what they tasted. I found Sam, cold and sweaty, streaked with green juices, red from weals and oozing from cuts. Beneath him was the ice-cold ground, and beneath that was a darker presence, hugging close to the warmth leaching into the soil. I drew back a tendril and then launched it, stinging the hidden presence, biting into it with cold, energy-leaching darkness of gallowfyre.
It recoiled from the touch, squirming downwards into the frozen loam, vanishing into the soil. The grass around Sam relaxed and parted. An arm came free and he tugged at the strands until he could push himself up with an elbow. He pulled grass from his hair and from across his face, then yanked at it where it tangled his legs until he was in a frenzy of wrenching and tugging, throwing shreds of grass in all directions. He rolled over on one side and then crawled away from the spot. He did not collapse back on to it, though, but knelt up, brushing the remnant shreds from the tatters of his clothes.