Chapter Two

Dilly flew through the air toward the skinny boy. He skidded along the floor toward her. The invisible force of his Glamour was pulling them together like two celestial bodies that were destined for collision. Dilly’s limbs flailed as she searched desperately for balance, for purchase. For gravity!

Dilly ducked her head to the left and into her chest. She nearly dodged it, but ultimately felt the stinging crunch of the impossible force behind his fist, the force of two human bodies colliding at terminal velocity, concentrated into the right-hand-side of her face. Her head sang with agony. It was only a glancing blow. He barely grazed her. But, without purchse for her feet, it was enough to send Dilly into an uncontrolled pirouette. She spun in the air for what felt like an eternity. Dizzy and sore. Then, gravity reclaimed her. She hit the floor. Her left arm bounced off the ground as her spinning form collided with the cobblestones. Pain shot up through her arm and shoulder as she lay prone on the floor. The wet cobblestoens fizzled and hissed as Dillys’ resting hands, boiling with her Glamour, lay in the water pooling among them.

“Faaaark” she could hear from the unruly crowd, “Scratch! Scratch!”, “Fuck you, Red!”, “BELDAM!  BELDAM!”. The onlookers roared.

Every Glamour was different, Dilly could generate heat in her body. Others could spit poison, become water, detach limbs. Anything, really. Dilly had even once met a glam-house girl who could read the thoughts of others. Most Glamours had a condition, or ‘bar’, a pledge to be met before the Glamour could be used. The more unnatural the glamour, the stronger the bar on it’s use.

 This kid seemed to be able to cause an attraction between the two of them. It was powerful, what was his pledge? What was the bar to his Glamour?

The pulse in Dillys ears drowned out the jeers. Her left arm was probably broken, no time to worry about that now though. She needed to think, and quick.

“REYCK” his voice bellowed the feral noise from behind her. Dilly could feel her head lift off the cobbles, her right cheek was being pulled away from her gum. It was as if a fisherman’s hook had caught the inside of her cheek. He was Glamming her again.

Dillys’ mind raced. She was being pulled by her face, by the exact spot he had struck. Her left arm, the place he had first touched her, was a symphony of pain. She could barely move her fingers and she couldn’t feel if there was a Glam-force being exerted on it. But, the limb dragged limply on the floor as she was being pulled to her feet by her face.  It seemed he was only exerting a force over the last place he touched. She would then, Dilly concluded, meet his hand face-first. Maybe that was his Glamour’s bar. Maybe, he had to touch her to activate it and could only control the last thing his hand had touched.  She’d have to bet on it.

Dilly’s neck creaked. She tensed all of her back muscles as the full weight of her body hung from her head, a head that was accelerating towards her assailants’ fist. Her feet dragged along the floor and she kicked, lightly, off the cobbled floor and spun around so that she was facing her direction of travel. He was sprinting toward her. Dilly poured all of her Glamour into her right hand, the only one she could move, and raised it. She burned as hot as she could. She could her the air fizzing and cracking as her fist singed the atmosphere. she could smell steel.

He aimed at her head, just as Dilly expected. Her right palm intercepted the blow, blocking it. She didn’t quite manage to grab his arm, as she had intended, but it didn’t matter. She briefly felt the flesh of his forearm soften and melt between her fingertips before he wrenched it away. He squealed as the two of them spun out, through the air and onto the cold hard ground. Dilly landed clumsily onto the balls of her feet and fell into a roll toward the oldiron gate. The tall girl standing by it yelped and moved out of her way. The boy skidded on his hands and knees back toward the bulk of the onlookers.

Dilly’s vision reddened, she was burning hot now. Her breath misted in front of her. Wind whipped and eddied around her as the warmer air from the cavern behind her fought to replace the cold air, artificially cooled by her Glamour, that now surrounded Dilly. The wind rushed past her ears. The squalling air overpowered the jeers and calls of the mob that circled them. Over it all though she could hear the boy’s squeals of agony. He was rolling on the floor clutching his arm just below the seared flesh.

“I’ll GUT YOU!! I’ll SKIN YOU ALIVE YOU RED-EYED  SKUNT!!” The boy screamed at her as he got to his feet, he turned to the raucous mob behind him, gesturing. The mob swayed as they vied for a better view of the combat, they pushed and shoved one another as they jostled for a prime position. All expect one, a massive, older man stood still. He maintained a body length from the perimeter of the crowd. Dilly met his gaze, he was staring at her. He was powerful and broad. He had tanned skin and scruffy black hair, around his head was wrapped a dark brown bandage that covered his left eye. His wiry black hair escaped the haphazard head wrapping as a weed might burst through abandoned masonry. He wore a thick, white cotton shirt. He was scruffy, but his clothes weren’t dirty, he was too clean for a slummer. Dilly could tell he was not from. The Shades. He leant his weight on two crutches, one thrust up under each armpit. His right leg was missing below the knee. The splayed crutches gave him an uncanny silhoette; a bulky triangle.  His expression was unreadable. Was he a Ganger? He didn’t look like one. An onlooker? Would he intervene, could this one legged man save her?

The crowd jostled again and Dilly lost sight of the one-legged man. One of the onlookers threw something to the floor next to the boy as he bellowed and shouted. It shone and glistened in the lowering sunlight. He bent down to pick it up, his eyes fixed on Dilly. A Blade. The boy raised it over his head with his good arm and turned back to the baying mob.

Dillys’ heart sank. What had she thought would happen, even if she managed to beat him? They wouldn’t let her leave. She couldn’t fight them all. She wavered, feeling the crushing weight, the hopelessness, of her plight. She’d been in plenty of fights before, but not like this. Not with Gangers. With her aching, trembling left hand she found herself fumbling with the carcasses tied to her waist. 

Dilly exhaled. All of this for a few dead vermin? As her confidence waned, colours other than red returned to her vision, Dilly felt the heat begin to ebb from her clenched fist.

Her thoughts suddenly snapped to Argentines’s hovel. Of the boys. Of the baby boy without a name who would never know his parents; who might never even get to know the failing Argentine. Of a father that, if she died here, would never know her fury at being abandoned. A father who would never explain his actions to her. In her mind, a pair of glowing green eyes, her fathers, looked back at her. Fury flared Dilly’s glamour once more.

Argentines’ shawl flapped in the buffeting wind around Dilly. She stretched her right hand out to the side, away from the flapping fabric, a sphere of air around her fist hissed and steamed. A tiny vapour trail snaked upward into the dying light. Even fully outstretched, she could feel the blistering heat from her fist on her face.

“WRECK” The boy bellowed again. Their last interaction had ended with her right hand touching his, now burnt, forearm.  If Dilly’s assessment was correct, their limbs, the two things that touched, would be pulled together once more by his Glamour. Dilly’s right hand snapped in front of her. She was yanked forward as if she were a child being reprimanded. Her feet staggered behind her, trying to keep up, until the acceleration became too much and the toes of her jackboots skidded along the wet stones below. Her injured  left arm flopped limply at her side.

The boy held his burned right arm, the arm Dilly had last touched,  out to the side. Dilly saw the blade brandished in his left hand. Eyes fixed on her, he ran across the make-shift battleground that the circling mob had created.

“WRECK!”  Barely half-a-bodies’ length before they collided, he screamed again. The Glam-force on her fist disappeared and her trajectory dropped as gravity, and her momentum, took over. To the right, out of the corner of her eye, she could see him move. He was thrusting the knife toward her back.  With her arm now free from the Glamour, Dilly kicked off the floor, spinning her furious fist around toward him. She was too far away to hit him. He had made sure of that.

But that didn’t matter. Her gamble had paid off. If he hadn’t ceased his pull then her Glamoured fist would have met his forearm again. To save his arm, he had no choice but to quell his Glamour and attack while her hand was as far away as possible. And, when he was screaming and pleading with his cohort for a weapon, he hadn’t noticed her Glamour fade. He hadn’t noticed her fumble the corpse of the tiny Craw off her belt, with her damaged left hand, and conceal it in her searing fist.

As Dilly spun, she thew the tiny corpse with a flick of her wrist. It smoked and, with a flash, burst into flames as the air rushed around it; no longer smothered by her palm.

Dilly relished the look of surprise on his pin-prick eyes. He dodged it easily, of course, but it was enough to stay his hand. It created just enough space between Dilly and his knife that he missed her with the swinging blade.

Their momentum carried them past each other and they both rolled clumsily across the ground. The flaming bird bounced and rolled limply to the left of Dilly, the fire sputtered and died on the wet ground. Acrid smoke from the oils on the birds’ scorched feathers filled the air.

Dilly forced herself to her feet. Her face hurt. Her left arm hurt. Her knees and hips hurt. Her ankle hurt. She was covered in scrapes and bruises from her continued impacts with the unforgiving city street. But, by Dilly’s guess, she had evened the odds just a little. In that last exchange, he hadn’t touched her. If she was correct, this was a bar on his Glamour and he wouldn’t be able to pull her until he made-good on his pledge to touch her again. Therefore the next exchange was just Dilly, her Glamour, the boy and his blade.

“SCRATCH!! SRATCH!! SCRATCH!!” The onlookers chanted. That must be his name, Dilly thought. They circled one another, he held the blade in his left hand between Dilly and himself. He stood side-on, his burn-ruined right arm concealed behind him.

Dilly’s ears rang. The taste of blood and iron rushed into her mouth. It made her dizzy. It was the most powerful Glamour she had ever sensed, was it coming from the boy?

“Alright, Alright stop this now!” A man’s voice drifted over the chanting crowd. It was loud enough for them to hear, but it wasn’t a shout. The chorus of  “SCRATCH, SCRATCH” died out and the rabble parted. A tall, figure walked into the circle.

He had short black hair and his skin was a deep red. He wore black trousers that were pinched around the base of his thighs, his feet were the talons of a bird-of-prey.  He had no arms, instead two enormous wings sprouted from his shoulders like that of a red Craw. Each red-feathered wing was twice the size of a man.

It was all Dilly could do not to scream. She knew this stained man, everyone knew of this man, he was ‘Red’ Beldam, one of the Seven Sinners; wanted outlaws with bounties offered by the Papalcy for their capture. He was wanted, dead or alive. The only sinner with a higher bounty than Beldam was Alofax, ‘the most wanted man in the world’, and Alofax had been assumed dead for years. This was the most dangerous man in the Shades.

Beldam looked back-and-forth between Scratch and Dilly, his coal-black eyes bore into them both. Behind Beldam, to his right, came a slim blond girl, she wore a red bandana around her forehead and a long brown dress that covered almost every inch of her skin. A pale skinned, light haired man stood to her left. He carried a firearm that was pointed squarely at Dilly. He looked down the barrel at Dilly, his eyes never left her. These two followers might be glamoured, or even  stained, a lot of Gangers were. Dilly couldn’t tell. She certainly couldnt sense it over the powerful iron taste of Beldams’ Stain.

“We leave the City for a week and come back to find you losing a fight with some slummer, Hangabout?” Beldam boomed.

“She…sh … she started…” Scratch began. Beldam turned to face him, his taloned feet bit into the cobblestones as he spread his wings; with one beat of them he knocked both Dilly and Scratch onto their backsides. Dust and dirt eddied around them both.

“From what I saw, was quite a show from both of ya.” Beldam said. He was smiling, his teeth a bright white that contrasted the deep red hue of his skin and feathers. “You’ve got spunk, Scratch, you can take your initiation, we will set a date.” Beldam looked the boy up and down.  “But… go get cleaned up at the ‘alf ‘ouse you’re a fukkin state”. Coughing, Scratch picked himself up with the help of one of the onlookers. He didn’t look back at Dilly.

Beldam turned to look at Dilly. “As for you” He looked her up and down too, Dilly fought the urge to cough as the dust and dirt settled around them. “We like Glams, and you’re plenty scrappy. Could always use a bruiser. You gave that little shit an ‘iding and I know he can throw down better than most. If you want, you can take an initiation too. If you pass, you can join. What’s your name?” As the words came out of Beldams’ mouth, the light haired man lowered the firearm that he had pointed at Dilly until this point.

“D…Dilly..”

“Beldam’s Dilly” Said Beldam “Got a nice ring to it, d’ya think?” He smiled and then turned his back to her “Now, get out of my sight before I change my mind”.

***

Dilly staggered though the alley. She was alone now, but could still hear Beldam barking instructions from the alley over. Every fibre of her body ached. She clutched her left arm in her right and started to shiver as her body shed the adrenaline that had been coursing through her bloodstream. She was vulnerable and needed to get back home via the main streets. There was less chance of her being jumped that way. She wasn’t safe, not just yet.

The sun was setting. Dilly limped along the alley that connected to ride street. Home was only a five stretch walk from there. As Dilly walked past one of the rat-runs that led off from the alley, she froze. Something caught her eye, an ominous triangle. Standing silent among the shadows, staring at her from underneath his bandaged head, was the one-legged man. 

Dilly forced herself to move. The voyeur was probably just some creep from the Lowers waiting for the glam-houses to open, she told herself. With her head down, Dilly watched her feet trudge one in front of the other. She listened for the sound of a wooden crutch on cobblestones, she didn’t dare look back. The only footsteps she heard in the quiet alley were her own. He didn’t follow her. 

Ride street loomed in front of her and she could hear the crackle and hubub of the evenings commerce. As she slunk into the milling traffic, she couldn’t shake the thought that today was not the first time she had seen this one legged man.

***

Dilly staggered through the clunky front door, she was damp from the drizzling rain that had punctuated the end of her journey. Argentine looked up from the large timber table, babe in arms. Dilly couldn’t meet her gaze, she knew what she must look like and she couldn’t bring herself to look upon the old woman’s face.

“ Rosie!” Argentine cried “What happened to you?”. She leapt up and over to Dilly, the infant boy was nestled expertly in Argetines’ left arm. Dilly clumsily tried to take off the shawl using only her right hand.

“Let me do that.” Argentine fussed “Huster! Huster where are you, boy?”   The door shut behind Dilly and, with her free arm, Argentine pulled the shawl over Dillys’ head. Argentine groaned.

Only now did Dilly see the extent of her injuries. Her left arm was starting to purple and, judging by the pain, her left eye probably wasn’t much better. She was covered in cuts and her white top had turned a pinkish brown. The paltry fruits of her days’ hunting hung from the rope around her waist.

“Tell me this wasn’t all for a few mangy rats, Rose?” Argentine seethed, taking a step back to look at her.

Dilly kicked off her wet boots and trudged silently over to the table. She placed the vermin on the table and looked back at Argentine for the first time since coming into the house, she forced a smile.

“At least its not mushrooms eh?” Dilly said.

“Holy colours Dil, what happened?” Huster asked as he entered the kitchen from his room. “You’re hurt!”. He glanced at the rats and single plump pigeon on the table and walked up to her.

“All things considered,” Dilly said. “I got off rather lightly, I bumped into the Children-of-Beldam by the Fleet Oldgate,” Dilly looked up from her navel and met Husters’ gaze. “Gave as good as I got, mind. You should see the other guy”

Huster laughed nervously “are …are you serious?” He asked. “You’re lucky to be alive, Dil. Those guys are serious, Colours!”

Argentine silently watched the two of them. Dilly winced as Huster touched her arm.

“Can you move it?” Huster asked. Dilly raised her arm, albeit slowly, and wiggled her fingers. She could raise it, but couldn’t bend it.

“I don’t I think you’ve broken it” Huster said. “But I think you’ve dislocated your elbow.”

“Yeah, I think so too.” Dilly said “Do you remember what to do?”

Huster nodded as he took her left hand in his, placed his right hand just above the elbow and firmly pulled it up to her shoulder.

“Ughh” Dilly grunted as Huster stepped back. She moved her left arm, it seemed to have worked.

“Well done, Hus” Dilly said

“Yes, well done Huster.” Argentine added. “Take the babe for a bit and keep the boys out of the kitchen, will you? I need to have a little chat with Rose. Babe’s just fed and should sleep for at least another half or so” She handed the bundled baby to Huster, who looked a mixture of terrified and proud to be given the responsibility before Argentine ushered him back into his bedroom.

“Lets bring those into the kitchen, ” Argentine said “They’ll make a fine ‘sup”.

Dilly limped over to the table and picked up the game with her good hand. Her spirits sunk. She had overused her Glamour. With the adrenaline gone, she could now feel the exhaustion washing over her, she felt numb. Her throat wobbled as she blinked back tears. She could not face the thought of a snide lecture from Argentine.

Dilly placed the rats next to Argentine who had drawn her knife off its hanger to begin skinning the carcasses. Dilly slumped against the counter, too tired to stand straight.

“I’m not going to lecture you, Rosie,” Argentine  said, looking out of the small kitchen window. “I uh… I just wanted to say …..well…. I just wanted to apologise.”

Dilly looked up at her, Argentine looked out of the window at the early evening dusk and avoided Dilly’s gaze. “You got hurt today helping me.” Her voice broke, just a little. She was speaking slowly and choosing each word carefully. “I’m sorry, Rose.”

“What are you on about?” Dilly whispered.

“Theres something else I need to show you, Something I’ve….. kept from you”. Argentine looked down at her feet before turning on her heel and moving as quickly as her old frame would allow over to the far corner of the room. She bent down and started fussing at one of the floorboards. Once her nail caught under the wood, the board came up easily. She pulled a small stained-wood box from under the floor. “Ever since you came here, Rosie, for the past thirteen years or so, I’ve had a……..how should I say it?…a little…helper.” Argentine opened the box, the lid separated from the bottom by way of a simple hinge. The inside of the box was decorated in red cloth with a mottled criss-cross pattern of dark red thorns or maybe crosses, Dilly couldn’t quite make it out. What she could see, however, was a hundred or so gold coins; over a thousand marks, Dilly estimated. They were each stained in what looked like blood.

“Colours!” Exclaimed Dilly “Where did you get all that? A helper? You don’t mean a Gang-lender’s blood money surely!? I mean, they are literally covered in blood. Colours of Hell!”

“No no no it’s nothing like that” Argentine said. “I’m not really sure how to explain it but…….shortly after I found you, within the year or so, this box appeared on top of the note you were holding.”

“Note?” Dilly asked.

Argentine took a browned sheet of paper from the box and passed it to Dilly. Dilly cupped the paper in both hands and stared down at it.

“You found me with a note? What do the words say?” She asked as she began to unfold the aged paper.

Dilly couldn’t read the words, but she could tell they were not like the small printed black words of the papalcy broadsheets, instead they were larger and smudged. As if they had been written with a charcoal.

“I … I don’t know what the words say, Rosie. I’m sorry. Ive never shown it to anyone else. There’s a drawing at the bottom.”

Dilly continued to turn the sheet out in her hand to reveal a small drawing of a flower at the bottom of the words.

“Every year since the first time, money has appeared in it, equal to the Churches tithe, almost to the mark. This year is no different. It’s a Glamour, I think, I can tell when the money arrives as the air tastes like steel…” Argentine looked down at her feet. “Im sorry, I should not have kept this from you.” Argentine looked up, Dilly had her back turned and was looking out of the window. The last of the evenings light skewed her shadow back into the kitchen and over Argentine.

“I was holding this note?” asked Dilly.

“Yes”

“And a glamour sent the box to the letter?” Dilly’s fatigue let her emotion leak into her fists. They began to glow and flicker, they threw a dancing criss-cross of shadows across the kitchen.

“Yes, I think so Rose, I’m sorry. I was worried if I told you then the money would…” Argentines’ breath misted in front of her face. The temperature in the small room plummeted.

“Every year. Since you found me. Glammed-money has appeared in that box.” Dilly pointed to the open box on the table. Petals of frost bloomed on the kitchen window. “That box, which glammed itself to a note that I was holding when you found me . And, again. This year. Money has appeared in it?”

“Rose, I’m sorry I should have said, I…” Argentine took a step back, Dilly’s back was still turned but the red light from her eyes now lit up the room.

“You know what this means …. don’t you?” Dilly turned to face Argentine, her eyes two red suns burning in their sockets, her face an ivory smile. Dilly stepped forward, towering over the frail old woman.

Her voice a whisper, Dilly croaked;

“….My Daddy …is still alive….” 

Dilly fell into Argentines arms, and sobbed.

***

Dillys’ lungs and mouth were full of acrid smoke. Flames licked around her. He stood over her, tall, strong. His face a muddy blur, his hair, like hers, red like fire. It almost seemed to flicker like a flame. His other features were lost to her memory; no face, and every face, as is only possible in a dream. Dilly could discern nothing of his features. Nothing, but his eyes. They were two searing pools of green glamour that bore into her. Then, he turned to look away. He was pointing at something.

Dilly woke with a start and sat bolt upright. The floorboards under her legs creaked as she put her hands down to support her slouching sit. 

She could still see her father in her minds-eye as she lit her cigarette and inhaled. The afterimage of two green eyes bore into the back of her skull.

It was the usual dream. A memory, Dilly was sure, of her father before they had been separated. Until now, Dilly had always woken up while he looked at her. Bit today, he turned away, to point at something. He was showing her something. It was almost as if the note had unlocked a little more of the memory.

Dilly reached for her father’s note and delicately turned it over in her hands. She stared at the faded, scratchy words.

Almost no one in the shades could read, and there was no way of telling if those that claimed they could were telling the truth. Such learning was reserved for the Nobles and students at the university.

To learn what the note said, she would have to go to the university to find someone trustworthy to read it for her.

Dilly’s attention was drawn, once again, to the the drawing of the flower at the bottom of the page.

It was a small, clumsy sketch; no bigger than her thumb. The stem was drawn in the same scratchy way as the words. But, the petals were a bright red. It was in stark contrast with the rest of the sketch, they had been formed with a splash of ink or paint, it was beautiful and unlike any flower Dilly had ever seen.

She wondered if the flower had a name.

Chapter Three