“About what?”
“About how certain countries should progress and develop. Not England though. The father of your leader is hardly an anglophile.”
“He’s titled and revered for his services to his country. I think you must be mistaken.” It was an easy lie.
She smirked. “Then you don’t know anything about him.”
I stand now, smile and thank her.
She looks perturbed but I don’t stop to give her an explanation.
She’s just told me more than she’ll realise.
* * *
There are days when London is the armpit of England and I’d rather be anywhere else than the smog filled city. The pavements are crawling with a mix of suits and tourists; architectural features line the pavements, yet homelessness and poverty shade them. The sea is always too far away and tonight it’s further than the miles it actually is.
It’s the end of January, and the anniversary of the death of Guy Fawkes. He was tortured to death in the Tower of London as a traitor, accused of trying to blow up parliament. November fifth saw Bonfire Night, the date used to burn effigies of Guy and set off fireworks, mimicking an old Pagan festival under the guise of celebrating a death. Blood thirsty when you thought about it.
But today was the actual anniversary of when he died.
A traitor to the crown.
I left William in his study, fending off the advice that he should consider a different approach to the upcoming talks, or face a possible vote of no confidence. My job had been done and I was free to leave, my piece as his advisor said although I doubted he take any of it. I knew why he’d been voted in; the one connection we had.
I cut through the alleyways and narrow side streets, my backpack on my back and my suit crumpled inside of it, because I only really wear it when I think it’s necessary. I’m now in jeans and a hoodie, my jaw covered in more than a shadow of stubble and if I was in the mood, today has been the sort of day when I’d go to one of my discreet establishments where I could watch someone I wanted to be, see the power exchange between two people and have them call the name of a god that doesn’t exist.
But tonight I don’t want that. I just want Blair.
There have been been rushed messages, half a phone call where neither of us were in a place where we could speak, and our words were about deals and meetings and places.
Not us.
Because we were becoming an us. And us plus one, one who wasn’t there. One who was missing.
The night blackens, a sky smothered in a used candle wick. This time is when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest and the night creatures walk the streets in the shadows, those people for whom the day is when they can’t be seen.
Vampires.
The lot of us, of a sort.
Ones without teeth, but still feared.
I don’t sense the person who’s arm ends up round my throat, which means he’s good.
It’s a tight warmth, constriction. A choke hold.
The blade of the knife glistens and it’s his sharp inhalation of the London fumes that gives me my break, a moment where his grip lessens a fraction and I whack my head back against his face and then grab his wrist.
There’s a tussle for the knife and we fall to the floor. I save thoughts of Ben and Blair because this could be my last chance to think of them and I don’t want it to be that. They’re my reason to fight. To breathe. To live.
She can’t lose both of us. All of us. Because her dad’s not good and it’s only time.
I don’t breath.
I don’t hesitate.
I take the knife as my attacker barters for power, the element we all search for, and then he reaches to his ankle for where I know another weapon will be.
