Page 36

Chapter 36

I waited until Matilda was fully visible. She hadn’t blasted the mud out of the way like last time but dived through it like it was water and she was an Olympic swimmer.

She met my eyes then held up her hands in front of her like paws and started to hop like a rabbit. Everyone’s a comedian. She was mid-hop when her eyes focused on the box in my hands. As she stopped hopping and lunged for it, I hastily pushed it forward before her talons could catch my skin. She ripped off the top and started gobbling down the treats like she hadn’t eaten for a year.

I sat on a nearby rock and waited. Watching her silver teeth flash was disturbing, so I focused instead on watching the cookies and cakes disappear from the box. When she’d finished she handed me the empty box, which I thought was interesting. She knew from last time that it wasn’t good to eat and she knew that I’d dispose of it for her .

I folded it up while Matilda settled next to me on the rock, sprawling against it like it was a comfy sofa. I wasn’t sure how to start, mainly because I didn’t know how well she understood English.

My mum might have been on my shit list, but she’d always insisted that everything went better if you were polite and I agreed with her. So, open with politeness. ‘How are you, Matilda?’

She looked at me blankly, either not understanding the question or the concept behind it. Had nobody ever asked her how she was before? I cleared my throat and tried again. ‘I was worried. Were you safe when the mine blew up?’

She squinted then looked at the place where the outer structure of the mine was missing. ‘Big noise,’ she nodded, her willow-like hair swaying as she moved. ‘Mountain wobble and shake!’

‘Yes. That was the explosion.’

She cocked her head. ‘Explosion bad,’ she grunted.

‘I agree. It was very bad. Many people died and others were badly hurt. And the mine was damaged.’

She nodded. We sat in silence for a moment while I cast around for a way to segue into the purpose of my visit. In the interests of brevity, I decided to go for broke. ‘Matilda, have you seen strange men in the mountain? Men not from here hanging around the mine?’

She squinted at me again as she tried to understand. I clarified, ‘We saw men with guns go into an underground tunnel that probably comes out in the mine. Do you know about them?’

Her expression darkened. ‘They mean. No bring sugar snack.’

My heart gave a loud thump. Yes, she knew about them. ‘Yes, very mean. Very bad men.’

She gave a clear harrumph. ‘They no let Matilda go to secret place. Not their say where Matilda go!’

The surprise clearly showed on my face, because she lifted one of her large hands and touched one of my eyebrows with a metal claw. I froze. ‘Hair over eyes, jump like rabbit.’ She laughed. ‘You two rabbit!’

‘They’re called eyebrows,’ I explained and wiggled them for her. She laughed harder. She didn’t have eyebrows, so facial hair must have looked alien to her, much like her metal claws did to me.

With another wheeze she got herself under control, though she still looked amused. At least she wasn’t trying to rip my throat out, which was a vast improvement on my worst-case scenario. When she’d finally calmed down, I asked ‘Matilda, why can’t you go to the secret place?’

She glowered. ‘Bad magic. No like. Burns.’

Bad magic? I frowned. What could burn a creature made out of pure earth magic? Did the MIB have a ward around their installation? ‘How does it burn you?’ I asked.

‘Bad magic! You no listen.’

I backpedalled. ‘I did listen, I just can’t imagine magic strong enough to hurt you.’

She gave me a measured look as she probably tried to figure out if I were lying. Finally she nodded. ‘Matilda very strong magic. This magic not as strong as Matilda, just bad .’ She made an odd gesture with her claws, a pinching motions above her head. Maybe the magic around the secret place felt like static, or pins and needles – or worse.

I let that go and moved on. ‘Do the mean men come into the mine itself?’

‘They in mine.’ I could tell she didn’t understand the question.

‘Do you know who killed the dwarves, Matilda?’ She looked at me blankly. ‘Did you take the dwarves’ heads?’

Matilda exploded in sudden movement that nearly made me piss my pants. I stayed very, very still as she jumped up and down and threw her arms about in fury. Rocks and dirt flew in all directions. ‘Stolen!’ She howled. She pulled her hair and her ears turned red. ‘Bad men take. Steal from Matilda! ’

‘Matilda, what did they steal from you?’ I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I had to be certain.

‘They go to cave and take my prizes.’

I remembered the heads lining her cave. How had the MIB even gotten into it? And why would they steal the skulls? My brain sluggishly connected the dots: the skulls on the pikes had been old: the MIB had stolen them from Matilda. ‘They took your skulls?’

‘Yes!’ she wailed.

‘Where did the skulls come from?’

‘They are mine!’

‘I know they’re yours – you showed them to me. But where did you get them?’

‘ My people.’

‘They were hag skulls?’ That made no sense: hags were supposedly made of pure earth magic, not something that would leave behind a skeleton.

Her frustration was evident. ‘No.’ She searched for a word. ‘Husband, husband family, friends. My people .’

‘You were married?’ My voice was incredulous so I hastily added, ‘Are there male hags?’

She settled back down enough to laugh again. ‘Bunny silly. No, hags always female.’ She puffed her chest out with pride. ‘Husband was vampire.’

Now that , I could relate to. ‘Nice,’ I said, holding my hand up for a high-five. She stared at it and I let it drop awkwardly.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, still staring at my hand which was now folded on my lap. ‘He good husband. He kill many for me.’

Well, I guessed we all defined what made a spouse ‘good’ in different ways. I offered a weak smile.

Matilda had had a vampire husband? How did that even happen? Her appearance wasn’t even humanoid – did the vampire have a thing about metal teeth? And the academy had taught me that a hag’s appearance could vary from humanoid to downright alien. Could Matilda change her appearance at will?

I thought back to her den and her ‘family’. There’d been hundreds of skulls in that cave; some were probably dwarves – the ones she appeared to have stolen – but the rest were her friends and family? How long ago had her husband died? And what had killed him?

‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Matilda. I didn’t know your husband had died.’ Or that she’d even had one.

She sat back down on the stone, her short legs swinging. ‘Long ago,’ she said but her expression was wistful.

‘Why keep the skulls?’ I asked.

She looked at me like I was stupid. ‘They family.’

My heart ached for her; she must be so lonely now. ‘Have you always lived in Portlock?’ I asked curiously.

She shrugged. ‘I live many places. Family came with me.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Long, long time.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking, how did your husband die?’

She looked away and I grimaced. I hadn’t meant to upset her. ‘The Sdonalyasna kill him,’ she said finally. ‘Before many people come.’

I’d never heard that word, but my heart beat hard once. Was she talking about the beast beyond? Did she know what it was?

‘What is the Sdonalyasna?’ I said, trying to pronounce the word carefully but probably failing.

She gave me an odd look. ‘You know! Everyone know. Can’t come in now.’ She cackled again.

My God, she knew what the beast beyond the barrier was! Or, at the very least, she’d given it a name. Maybe I could use that to find more information – and more importantly, it might give me a hint as to what Shadow was. And maybe, just maybe, I might learn how to defeat it because there was a prophecy that apparently had my name on it .

The words were etched into my memory: When the flame-born guardian descends to the night, the veiled city’s mysteries will unfold. Thrice shall the cursed wolf’s mournful howl sound, heralding the coming of the shadow beast. Love shall be her beacon and with its power, the city might endure the destruction that comes.’ Thanks for that, Mum.

Sdonalyasna. The word sounded like it could be native, but I realized that finding the language and the specific native group it came from might be incredibly hard.

I supposed I could start with Thomas; he’d said he was Inupiaq, from somewhere up north like Danny from the academy. But the beast beyond the barrier was definitely a southern Alaskan creature.

I didn’t know what group Stan was from, but since he’d been raised mostly by Gunnar and Sigrid, I doubted he’d retained much of his native culture. There were representatives of several native groups from this part of the state in Portlock: Anissa and Edgy were Alutiiq or Sugpiak, which was the group of natives that had lived in Portlock when the attacks first happened. Maybe it was an Alutiiq word; I’d ask them if Thomas didn’t know.

There were also Haida and Tlingit tribal members in town, as well as some Athabascan, Dena’ina, Tsimshian and Eyak, but I didn’t have friends in any of those groups. I grimaced; it might be a word none of them knew. My best bet was Matilda, and she wasn’t the easiest to understand.

I was both excited and frustrated. Matilda had come from somewhere with a vampire husband, dragging the skulls from his family and their friends, and had ended up in Portlock when it was fairly uninhabited. During the scare that had resulted in the barrier being built, the beast had killed her husband. At least that was how I was putting her story together.

Matilda interrupted my musings. ‘Rabbit girl, you stop mean men?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Bring more sugar snack. Matilda want back secret place.’

‘Where is secret place?’ I asked her.

She pointed down at the hill. ‘In.’ She tapped her chest pointedly. ‘ My place. I want back.’

‘Could you show me and my friends where to go so we can stop the mean men?’

She squinted at me. ‘Bring sugar snack?’

‘Yes, I’ll bring you more treats’

‘Matilda show you.’

‘And my friends too?’ I gestured to the others by the vehicles. They were watching us, looking tense. I made an effort to appear relaxed.

She grunted. ‘And friends,’ she agreed grudgingly.

‘Thank you. We’ll come back tomorrow. Okay? ’

‘Matilda listen for call.’ As she melted into the ground, she pointed to where an eyebrow should have been on her face and laughed to herself. Surely her vampire husband had eyebrows? Maybe he’d waggled them at her to make her laugh. I was surprised how much that made my heart ache and I swore I’d waggle them every time I saw her.

I waved to Thomas, Gunnar and Sidnee to show them I was done, then returned to them. ‘What did she say?’ Sidnee burst out before anyone else could.

‘She knows where they are in the mine – it’s her “secret place”. It sounds like they have a ward or some kind of field around the spot, so Matilda can’t get in. She wants us to get in and stop them.’ I paused. ‘And we need to bring her more doughnuts. We have the council meeting soon, so I suggested we come back tomorrow. I’ll put in an order at the bakery.’

Gunnar looked around; everything was still and dark. ‘There’s nothing we can do here now. Might as well head back, get the council meeting over and done with, then we all have a party to go to, right, Sidnee?’

Her answering smile was faint. ‘I’m not sure…’ she started. ‘So many died. A party seems … crass.’

Gunnar shook his head firmly. ‘It’s what we need. Besides, if we’re under surveillance from the MIB, it’ll be the perfect smokescreen. They’ll see us partying and think we’ve written off the explosion as an accident. They’ll think they’re in the clear, and when their guard is down, we’ll attack.’ He smiled broadly, but there was nothing friendly about his expression.

Sidnee nodded. ‘Okay, if you’re sure. I’ll send out a message to say that the party is still on.’ She chewed her lip. ‘Can you drop me at the hotel on the way to the council meeting? I don’t need to be there for that, do I?’

Gunnar shook his head. ‘Neither of you do. I’ll go and report back. I know how much you love to get ready for these things.’

On the surface his comment appeared sexist, but the truth was he knew us too well. We did love to get ready. Out here in the wilds of Alaska, it was rare to have an occasion to dress up, so we went all out when we did. My excitement was building; you could take the girl out of the London clubbing scene, but you couldn’t take the London clubbing scene out of the girl.

Gunnar, Connor and Thomas got into one vehicle, Sidnee and I took the other and we all headed back to town, destination party central. I couldn’t wait. It was, quite literally, time to let my hair down.

Because if we faced the MIB tomorrow, it might well be the last party I’d ever enjoy.