The Curse

THE CURSE

I like to imagine there were more of us in the beginning. Not many, I suppose. But more than there are now.

We look like everyone else. Sometimes we act like everyone else. In many ways, we are like everyone else. We are everywhere, on every street. We live in a way you might consider normal, provided you don’t look too hard.

Not all of us know what we are. Some of us die without ever knowing. Some of us know, and we never get caught. Either way, we’re out there.

Trust me.

I had lived in London – Islington, officially – since I was eight years old. I attended a private school for girls, leaving at sixteen to work. That was in the year 2056. My father thought I would lead a simple life; that I was bright but unambitious, complacent with whatever work life threw at me.

My father, as usual, was wrong.

From the age of sixteen, I had worked in the criminal underworld of the Scion Citadel of London. I worked among ruthless gangs of clairvoyants, all fighting to live and thrive in a syndicate headed by the Underlord. Pushed to the edge of society, we were forced into crime to prosper.

And so we became more hated. We made their worst fears true.

I had my place in the chaos. I was a mollisher, no less – second in command to Jaxon Hall, better known as the White Binder, the mime-lord who ruled the district of I-4. There were six of us in his direct employ. We called ourselves the Seven Seals.

My father believed I was an assistant at an oxygen bar – an uninspired choice of occupation, but a legal one. The truth would probably have killed him.

I was nineteen years old the day my life changed. By that time, my syndicate name was notorious – the Pale Dreamer, heir of the White Binder, renowned for being the only known dreamwalker.

After a trying week among my fellow criminals, I had planned to spend a few days with my father. Jaxon could never understand why I bothered – for him, there was nothing worth our time outside the syndicate – but he didn’t have a living family, to my knowledge. London could have crafted him from candle wax and hair, for all I knew.

It was raining that day. The day my life changed – not for the first time, but for ever.

In the gloom of the den, I lay on a couch, wired up to life support. Physically, I was in Seven Dials. My perception was some way north, in Marylebone.

I said I was a dreamwalker. Let me clarify. Among the many strains of clairvoyance, mine was especially intricate. In its simplest form, it allowed me to reach farther into the æther than other voyants. I wasn’t a mind reader – more a mind radar, hypersensitive to the spirit world. My gift attuned me to it for about a mile outside myself.

When strangers arrived on our streets, I knew first. Nobody could hide from me. Consequently, Jaxon used me as a surveillance tool.

All clairvoyance was prohibited, but the kind that made money was downright depravity. For those caught dabbling in mime-crime (as we called it among ourselves), the official method of execution was nitrogen asphyxiation. There were still public hangings, naturally, and torture for certain sorts of high treason.

I committed high treason just by breathing.

But I digress.

Back to that day. I was tracking an elusive visitor to the area – a strange and remarkable dreamscape, which had appeared twice before. Jaxon had been stumped by my description of it. From the layering of defences, I would have said it was centuries old, but that couldn’t be right. This had to be a voyant of unprecedented strength.

Jaxon was suspicious. By rights, a newcomer to his section of the citadel should have announced themself by now, but there had been nothing.

I had sensed it again while I drifted that day. Jaxon would be furious if I lost it.

Find the one who treads so brazenly on our turf, darling. I will have this insult answered.

Thousands of dreamscapes thronged the nearby districts. I strained to keep tabs on the one that stood out. It drew my attention through the æther like a lantern – quickly, as if the stranger could sense me, as I sensed them.

It was slipping out of range. I should have pulled back a while ago, but this stranger had Jaxon unusually perturbed. If any of us mentioned it, he would sink into a sullen mood, often for days.

I forced my perception to its very limit, pulling against the constraints of my physical location, but it was too late. One moment the dreamscape was there; the next the æther seemed to swallow it, and it was gone.

Someone was shaking me. I let out a faint sound of protest, and they stopped.

My silver cord – the link between the body and the spirit – was unusually flexible, letting me sense dreamscapes at a distance. Now it snapped my awareness back into place. As soon as I opened my eyes, Danica shone a torch into them.

Danica Panić, our resident genius – an engineer and unclassified fury, second only to Jaxon in intellect. She was three years older than me and had all the charm and sensitivity of a punch to the nose.

‘Rise and shine,’ she said. ‘What day is it?’

‘Friday,’ I rasped.

‘Very good.’

Danica switched off the life machine. I unfastened my oxygen mask.

The garret of our den came into focus. The building was a secret cave of contraband – penny dreadfuls, stacks of forbidden pamphlets, all manner of trinkets from the black market. This was the only place in the world where I could read and watch and do whatever I liked.

‘I don’t feel great.’ I rubbed my brow. ‘How long was I drifting?’

When Danica was ominously silent, I checked the timer on the machine. It stabilised me when I sensed the æther at long range, providing a safety net in case I ever went too far. Jaxon wanted me to learn to force my spirit from my body, but to date, I had failed. I was content with that.

‘Dani,’ I said, seeing the digits, ‘are you trying to kill me?’

‘Yes, actually.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘Jax told me to leave you for an hour,’ she said. ‘What did you find?’

‘That dreamscape is back.’ I sat up, a familiar headache swelling. ‘I still can’t get a clear read on it. I think it was heading towards Park Square.’

‘I’ll send Zeke.’ Danica reached for her phone. ‘I hear Jaxon gave you the weekend off. How did you swing that?’

‘Psychological reasons.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means you and your contraptions are driving me mad.’

She dealt me a dark look. ‘My contraptions are what keep you alive, ingrate. I could always let your sad excuse for an encephalon dry up.’

‘I have no idea what you just said.’

‘I know.’

Danica handed me my beaten leather boots. I pulled them on, then retrieved my peaked hat. She offered my revolver, but I declined.

‘I take it you’ll update Jax,’ I said. She grunted. ‘Where is everyone?’

‘Zeke is now looking for your stranger. Nadine is at a séance in Cheapside,’ she said, distracted by her phone. ‘Eliza had an episode.’

An unsolicited possession. ‘Was it Pieter?’

‘No. Her new muse.’

‘Has Nick checked on her?’

Danica shook her head. ‘Jaxon took him out for dinner.’

‘He said he would drive me to Islington.’

‘They’re at Chat’s, I think. You should go over there.’

‘It’s fine.’ I tucked my hair into my hat. ‘I’d hate to interrupt their huddle.’

‘You can’t go by train now. It’s too late,’ Danica said. ‘Don’t you have to go through Inquisitors Cross?’

‘Yes, but I’ll be past the turnstiles. I’ve never seen an Underguard at Leicester Square.’ I stood. ‘Breakfast on Monday?’

‘Unless something more interesting than you crops up.’ Danica glanced at the clock. ‘Don’t die.’

‘I won’t. See you on Monday.’

I swung on my jacket and made for the door, greeting the spirit in the corner. Pieter gave a dull hum in reply. Being dead sometimes got to him.

Pieter was a muse, the spirit of the Dutch artist Pieter Claesz, found by a binder in Haarlem and traded along the ley line into Scion. Eliza – our medium – would let him possess her now and again, allowing her to paint a masterpiece. When she was done, I would flog it to unwary collectors at the black market.

Spirits could be temperamental, of course. Sometimes we could go for months without a painting. Even when we did get one, it left Eliza drained for days.

I locked the door behind me, glad to see the rain had stopped. The streetlamps were luminous blue, the moon a smirk of white.

Seven Dials was always lively on a Friday night. Airlift, the local oxygen bar, overflowed with laughing amaurotics. To my right, one of our couriers sat by the sundial pillar, the heart and namesake of the district. The rain had washed its six blue faces.

The courier gave me a nod. I returned it. As I walked down Monmouth Street, I subtly called a spool of ghosts to my side.

London had so much death in its history, it was hard to find a spot without spirits. They could be hostile, or willing to help. I liked to keep a few to hand when I went out at night, in case of Vigiles.

The amaurotics in that bar were none the wiser. They were the normal ones, the naturals – the people Scion was built to protect from unnaturals like me, who conversed with the dead. I strode away from them.

‘Fortune for a bob,’ came a whisper. I stopped. ‘Best oracle in London, I promise you. A bob or two for a poor busker?’

The voice belonged to a thin man, huddled in an equally thin jacket. I read his aura. Not an oracle, but a soothsayer. I shot a glance over my shoulder before I yanked him into the nearest doorway.

‘You’re not an oracle, but you are loud,’ I said, my voice low and dark. ‘We’re surrounded by amaurotics, you fool. Are you off the cot?’

His eyes flared wide. ‘Pale Dreamer,’ he said, his voice rough. ‘Please, don’t tell the White Binder I lied. I just wanted—’

‘You need to go before he sees you.’ I dug into my pocket and crushed a few notes into his hand. ‘Get out of here. Use this for a doss.’

‘Thank you.’

He slipped the notes into his jacket. I watched him leave, wondering if he had meant to beg for a place in the syndicate.

If so, he had chosen the wrong district. Any voyant who wanted to ply their trade here would first have to seek permission from Jaxon, and he rarely gave it. I was among the lucky ones, to work in Seven Dials.

Leicester Square was mercifully quiet. I had missed rush hour. As usual, most of the commuters were amaurotic. They had no auras to put them in danger.

Underguards came on duty at six to monitor the transport network. Like the rest of the Night Vigilance Division, they were uniformed voyants, bound to serve Scion for thirty years before submitting to execution. For some, that was easier than fighting to survive longer.

Their main duty was to hunt their own. Unlike amaurotics, they could see auras. That made them essential to Scion.

I had never considered joining. There was cruelty among voyants, but I could never condemn anyone to a miserable death on the Lychgate.

Still, occasionally, when I had worked hard for days and Jaxon forgot to pay me, I was tempted.

There were no Underguards to be seen. I scanned my travel permit, releasing my spool. Ghosts resented being taken too far from their haunts, and spot checks on the trains were rare – once you were past the turnstiles, the risk of detection plummeted.

As I descended, my headache grew worse. I was in no mood for the busy interchange at Inquisitors Cross, but I couldn’t face Jaxon. He would only try to wheedle me out of visiting my father.

I reached the platform with a few minutes to spare. The prerecorded voice of Scarlett Burnish came through the speakers: ‘The next train is northbound to Inquisitors Cross. Please have your identity cards and travel permits ready for inspection. Thank you, and have a pleasant evening.’

What I wanted was a quiet evening. Jaxon had run me ragged all week. He only gave me a lunch break if he was feeling generous, an event as rare as blue apples these days. Seeing my father was always an agony of evasions and small talk, but he let me sleep in for as long as I wanted. I would have a hot bath and call it a night.

A message appeared on the screens that lined the platform, black text on a white background. The other commuters barely looked up, even as it lit their faces.

RDT: RADIESTHESIC DETECTION TECHNOLOGY

‘In a citadel as populous as London,’the voice of Scarlett Burnish said, ‘there is a high probability that you may be travelling with unnatural individuals.’

A dumbshow of silhouettes appeared on the screen, each representing a denizen. One turned red, and the others backed away.

‘RDT Senshield is now being trialled in Paddington Terminal and the Westminster Archon. By 2061, we aim to have Senshield installed in all Underground stations in I Cohort, allowing us to reduce the number of unnatural guards in the capital. Visit Paddington or ask an SVD officer for more information.’

The notice disappeared, replaced by adverts, but it played on my mind.

Scion only brought out its unnatural officers at night. From sunrise until dusk, it was relatively safe for voyants to walk the streets of London. That was when the Sunlight Vigilance Division patrolled the citadel. They were amaurotic, unable to sense us.

Senshield would change that. According to Scion, it could detect aura – the connection between a voyant and the æther. If there wasn’t a major delay to their plans, even amaurotic officers would soon be armed with the ability to see us. The entire NVD would be retired, depriving voyants of any chance to live within the law.

So far, the Unnatural Assembly had ignored the matter. The mime-lords and mime-queens of the citadel apparently had greater concerns.

A moist hand gripped my wrist. I tensed.

‘Commuting, are we?’

Another voyant had come up behind me, dark hair falling to his shoulders from beneath a bowler hat. I had missed his dreamscape among all the others, but I could have recognised him just from his stink.

‘Underlord,’ I said stiffly.

‘Pale Dreamer.’ His grip tightened. ‘Your mime-lord has crossed me for the last time.’

‘What, by winning a game?’

‘Nobody cheats me in my own den.’

‘Good thing nobody has.’ I waited for an amaurotic woman to pass. ‘I’m honoured you’d come all this way to badger me, but surely the head of the syndicate has better things to do. Cleaning your teeth would be a good start.’

Look, I never claimed to be sensible.

‘Oh, no. I wanted to see you in person.’ Hector kept his voice low. ‘Jaxon has been feathering a nest of troublemakers. I know what he plans. All seven of you have grown far too bold – and you the downiest of all, Pale Dreamer. It’s past time he paid for his insolence.’

‘Excuse me.’ The woman had clocked us. ‘Is everything all right?’

I nodded, forcing a smile. Hector mimicked. Even the Underlord wasn’t fool enough to conduct underworld business in front of amaurotics.

‘London belongs to me. Learn your place,’ he whispered. ‘Have a safe journey.’

With that, the Underlord was gone. I drew my cuff over my reddened wrist.

I had to watch my step – and my tongue – around Hector. As Underlord, he ruled over the entire syndicate. Most of my gang stayed out of his followers’ way, but Jaxon treated him with open contempt. I also liked to win at cards, and certain lackeys did not enjoy losing.

If he ever cornered me without an audience of amaurotics, I was dead.

I boarded the train and held on to a handrail. It soon arrived at Inquisitors Cross, where a web of lines took denizens all over the citadel. It was a cold and sterile maze, full of security cameras. On any other night, I would have walked, but I was already late for dinner.

The next platform was almost deserted. When my eastbound train arrived, I sank into a vacant seat. There was just one other person in the carriage – a seer, reading the Daily Descendant. I took out my data pad and opened an approved novel.

Without a spool, my only real protection was to look as normal as possible. Jaxon was not without enemies, and plenty of voyants knew me as his mollisher.

As I flicked through the pages, I kept one eye on the seer. I could tell I was on his radar, too – but since he had neither beaten me senseless nor shown any sign of respect, he probably had no idea who I was.

I switched to a digital copy of the Descendant, the only sanctioned newspaper in Scion. The typical news glowered back at me. Two young men hanged (on trumped-up charges); a penny gaff shut down in I-3. A feature about the spike in free-world tourism to London and Paris. A letter from a reader, praising the cohesion and stability of the nine countries in the Republic of Scion.

Almost two centuries it had been growing. Scion had been established to end the scourge of clairvoyance. It had taken its first steps in 1901, when five murders had been pinned on Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria. According to the official story, he had drawn on a source of indeterminate evil, bringing clairvoyance – unnaturalness – upon the world. Soon it had spread across the continents, infecting and warping those it touched.

That year, the monarchy had been overthrown. An ostensible republic had been established in its place, built to hunt unnaturals. According to a new generation of officials, all crime and vice was our doing. Within a few years, this system of government was called Scion. It remained a republic only in name – no opposition, no elections.

Over decades, a voyant underworld had developed, forming a cutthroat syndicate. To protect ourselves, we had grown hard and cruel. Since then, Scion had worked even harder to root us out.

Once Senshield was installed across the citadel, the syndicate would collapse. We had two years to act, but with Hector as Underlord, I doubted we could save ourselves. His reign had brought nothing but corruption.

It had been fun while it lasted.

The train went past three stops without incident. I had just closed the Descendant when the lights went out, and the train came to a sudden halt. The other passenger straightened in his seat.

‘They’re going to search the train.’

I tried to reply, but suddenly my tongue was a thick piece of folded cloth.

‘To maintain a regular service, this train will be held here for a short time,’the voice of Scarlett Burnish said. ‘Thank you for your cooperation.’

We both looked out of the window, seeing only the tunnel wall and our own reflections. Just ahead, I sensed two dreamscapes. A door must have opened somewhere in the darkness.

‘We have to do something.’ The seer got up. ‘What are you?’

I still couldn’t speak.

‘I know you’re voyant,’ he pressed. ‘Don’t just sit there. We can fight.’ He wiped his brow with his sleeve. ‘Of all the days for a spot check—’

Just then, two beams of light shone into the carriage. The other voyant retreated at once.

This could not be happening.

I could not be this unlucky.

They stepped inside. A summoner and his backup, a medium, both in black uniforms with scarlet accents, helmets with visors that covered their eyes. The doors hissed shut in their wake.

The Underguards went to the seer first. The train resumed its journey, inching on with the lights dimmed.

‘Name,’ one of them said.

‘Linwood,’ the seer whispered. ‘Please. I can pay you.’

‘I don’t think so.’ The helmet distorted his voice. ‘We had a report of an unnatural travelling on this line, but it seems we’ll be hanging two with one rope.’

‘Tell us where you were going,’ the backup said. ‘A séance?’

‘I was visiting my daughter in hospital. She has cystic fibrosis,’ Linwood said. ‘I have the necessary permit from—’

‘Get up,’ the first Underguard barked at me. I stood. ‘Where’s your identity card?’

I slowly reached into my coat for it. He pointed his scanner, reading my notes from the database: Paige Eva Mahoney, born in 2040. A resident of I-5, employed in I-4. Five foot nine. No distinctive features but dark lips, probably caused by excessive smoking.

I had never smoked in my life.

‘Mahoney.’ His voice held a familiar disdain. ‘Show me your travel permit.’

Once I had found it, I handed it over. He was going through the motions, forcing me to do the same, but this was a mockery of justice. It didn’t matter who I was or where I was going.

I was still a dead woman.

‘An attendant at an oxygen bar. Not with that aura,’ he said. ‘Who issued this permit?’

It took me a moment to find my voice: ‘Bill Bunbury, my supervisor.’

He angled his torch into my eyes. All I could do was let him.

‘No spirit sight,’ he stated. ‘An oracle, I’d say.’

‘I haven’t seen an oracle in years,’ said the backup. ‘We’ll make a killing from this.’

Most voyants mistook me for an oracle. The auras were the same colour.

All at once, Linwood made a break for the door. He threw a spirit at the Underguards – not just any spirit, but a guardian angel. The backup shouted as the angel crunched into him, sending him to the floor in a heap.

The summoner was fast. Before anyone could move, he had mustered a spool of poltergeists. I backed away, my heart pounding.

‘Don’t move,’ the summoner warned us.

Linwood stared him down. He was in his forties, small and wiry, brown hair greying at the temples.

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘why did a summoner of your talent turn on his own kind?’

The Underguard said nothing. I wished I could ask the same question, but my voice was still caught in my throat, my nerves unravelling.

Eleven years of hiding in plain sight, and it could end right here.

‘That helmet can’t hide what you are,’ Linwood said. ‘Those poltergeists certainly know.’

Their presence raised goosebumps all over me. I had rarely seen anyone control one poltergeist, let alone a trio. Linwood was right – the syndicate would have snatched this man up.

Which meant he was an Underguard because he liked eating his own.

As the angel rallied for a second attack, the poltergeists circled their Underguard. I could hardly breathe, with so much pressure in the æther.

‘Come with us quietly,’ the Underguard said, ‘and they might not torture you.’

‘Let them try.’ Linwood raised a hand. ‘I fear no man with angels at my side.’

He flung his angel back down the carriage. The poltergeists flew to meet it, the collision scalding my sixth sense. I broke out in a cold sweat.

Linwood had some mettle, for a seer in a crumpled suit. The other Underguard, recovered from the shock, was now reciting the threnody – a series of words that compelled spirits to leave. The angel turned. They would need to know its name to banish it, but so long as that chant went on, it would be distracted.

Spirit, be gone into the æther. All is settled. All debts are paid …

If Linwood lost this battle, I would be detained as well. I saw myself in the Tower, on the waterboard, ascending the gallows …

As the poltergeists converged on Linwood, my vision trembled at the edges. I homed in on the Underguards – on their dreamscapes, close to mine; on the spirits within those dreamscapes, two flames inside a pair of lanterns.

A black tide overwhelmed me. I heard my body hit the ground.

That was the last thing I heard.

The summoner never saw it coming. Before I knew what I was doing, I was in his dreamscape, and my spirit was charging straight into his, and then I was hurling it into the æther. I followed it into the dark. Before his crony could draw breath, I had slammed into him as well.

I snapped back into my own skin.

A moment passed. I drew one slow breath, realising I was on the floor. My ears rang, and I tasted metal. Swallowing, I tried to sit up.

Pain erupted in my head. I had never felt anything like it in my life; it was hot knives through both eye sockets, fire in the very nerves of my brain, leaving me heaving in panic. Even my vision crackled, laced with shivering white light. I clamped my fists on both sides of my skull.

Whatever I had just done, I was never doing it again.

The train must be getting near the next station. Little by little, I managed to get on to my hands and knees. Every finger and limb felt loose.

‘Linwood—’

I crawled to his side. Shining my phone on his face, I saw his broken neck, scarred with silver. The poltergeists had killed him and gone. I had to speak the threnody, or he would haunt this carriage. Fumbling in the pockets of his coat, I found his identity card.

‘William Linwood,’ I said, my voice quaking, ‘be gone into the æther. All is settled. All debts are paid. You need not dwell among the living now.’

His spirit was nearby. The æther quietened as both he and his angel faded.

I used a handrail to get to my feet. My clammy palm could hardly grip it. A few feet away, the summoner lay dead.

The other Underguard was on his back. I stepped closer and brushed his dreamscape. When I understood, I made a strangled sound.

I hadn’t pushed his spirit all the way from his body. It was trapped in the outermost ring of his mind – the fifth circle, the darkest, the very brink of death. His silver cord might not have broken, but I had stretched it far enough that all his sanity was gone.

I sank to my knees beside him and found the switch on the side of his helmet, lifting the visor. He looked vacantly at the ceiling, a ribbon of saliva slithering down his chin.

As I stared at him, he focused on my face. With his last flicker of lucidity, he rasped out two faint words:

‘Kill me.’

Tears spilled down my cheeks. I placed my cold hands on his shoulders and steeled myself for a mercy kill.

When the next station came into view, I was farther along the train, waiting. As soon as the doors opened, I stepped out and got straight into the nearest lift. By the time a group of passengers discovered the scene, one man in that carriage was still breathing.

I was gone.