The doors hissed closed and the train hummed before it swept away, leaving us on the platform with the fast-dissipating crowd.
“Second thoughts?” came Marsden’s voice from a shadowed corner.
“This is seriously wigging me out,” Michael muttered to me.
“Just stick with me,” I replied.
Marsden was lurking in his corner, gleams of ghostly white the only sign of him in the darkness. “You and me, we’re the same ruddy thing,” he hissed, furious. “Should have been your dad’s job, but he bunked it and that left you. That monster what’s been stalking one of us for his own all these years, he’s coming for you now. I can see his marks on you—and yes, I see. Clear as you do in this half-a-place.” He stepped forward into a slice of light that silvered his face as if it were made of ice. He folded his cane and tucked it into a pocket of his long moleskin coat. Then he closed the distance between us, growing misty and indistinct as he did.
Implications and connections rushed together in my head. His shattered aura, his almost ghostly appearance on my phone camera, “. one of us,” “same ruddy thing. ” Marsden was a Greywalker.
Michael jerked beside me and I put my hand on his arm to stop him bolting. “You’ve seen worse today. Don’t let him scare you.” Immersed in the Grey as he was, Marsden was no physical threat to us so long as we stayed on the corporeal side of the line.
“Your father thought he’d gone mad—as do we all at first. I gouged me own eyes out, thinking it was them what made me see things that couldn’t be. But it’s not these eyes,” he added, jabbing a phantom finger at my face, “that sees this place. It’s another set entirely, and I didn’t stop seeing monsters, no more shall you, girl. At least you’re not runnin’, but you’re trailing your coat and you don’t even know what manner of thing may be stalking you or what it means to do. You are in enemy territory. It called you here, it forced you, it dangled bait. And you came. Now what will you do? Pitch yourself into its arms?”
He stepped through me, giving a bitter laugh and sending bone-deep cold through my body. My chest ached, and I choked on some frozen terror that exploded through me and then passed as quickly as Marsden stepped away.
“You are a babe in the woods.”
I would not give him the satisfaction of fear or even anger. I turned with deliberate care to face Marsden’s new position. Michael shook beside me and I held his arm in a tight grip at my side. I hoped it reassured him, but more than that, I couldn’t risk him running.
“Do you practice to be such an asshole? Or does it come naturally?” I sneered.
Michael giggled without sounding hysterical. Good: I was defusing the situation. He’d had more than enough freak show for one day.
“Marsden, you want to talk to me, do it like a human.”
The man firmed up, sliding back out of the Grey. “Are you ready to listen, then?”
I nodded. “After I put this kid somewhere safe.”
“Hey!” Michael objected, squirming in my grasp. “I’m eighteen!”
“Old enough to drink doesn’t make you adult, boy,” Marsden said.
Michael bridled in my grip. “Don’t argue,” I advised. “This is not the time to split hairs.” He grumbled under his breath but stopped wriggling, and I let go of his arm. “Where can we go?”
Marsden shrugged. “It’s not me they’re after and I doubt you’d feel safe enough in my abode. You’re not entirely sure about me, are you?”
“You got that right.”
“Where are we?” Michael asked, looking around. No more trains or passengers had come through since we’d stepped onto the platform, which seemed a little odd until I looked around.
The platform hadn’t been in use in ages. The only lights were safety lights in the tunnel and an occasional gleam from something above us. I could hear trains nearby, but when one did finally rush though, it didn’t even slow. The station had an arched roof and sides that were tiled in soft greens and brown. The signs were all tiled in place, too, but they’d faded badly with time. It looked like something from a WWII movie, and the ghosts in it were dressed in the clothing of the early twentieth century, ignoring us without a care.
“Oh, wow,” Michael started, answering his own question, “it’s a ghost station.”
“A what?” I asked, startled.
“An abandoned station on the Underground. I’ve heard of them. How—?”
“You’re in the company of two people for whom the paranormal is the normal, and you can ask a cloth-eared question like that?” Marsden hooted.
“Back off him, Marsden,” I started, but Michael closed with the older man and glared at him.
“Step off, sunshine. I thought I saw my brother hacked to pieces today. Then I found out he was a golem. Then I got chased by creep azoids, and now you want to rag me for being a little freaked? Well, bugger you!”
Marsden gave him a feral grin. “You’ll do,” he said.
“Fine,” I said. “Now, where can we go from here? I doubt there’s going to be another train stopping for us.”
CHAPTER 29
Michael had been looking around while Marsden and I talked and now said, “This says Down Street Station.” He pointed to a sign tiled into the wall. “The only M Down Street I know is near Green Park. But. that’s the Piccadilly line. We were on the Circle line. ”
“Weirder things have happened today than that,” I reminded him. “Do you think we can get out of here?”
“Yeah, I think so. There’s a sign for an emergency exit. We can try it.”
We headed for the steel mesh door Michael indicated at the end of the platform and pushed. It opened with a mild complaint of hinges onto a steep staircase that looked a lot newer than the station. We started up and kept climbing for what seemed a very long time. Finally we came to another door and had to push very hard. It creaked open reluctantly, and I poked my head out first, scanning for vampires and other things that might lie in wait.
Just the usual ghosts, Grey, and humans lay beyond the door, and we emerged onto Piccadilly with the door clanking locked behind us. Michael pointed to our right.
“That’s Hyde Park Corner! Hey, we’re close to my garage!”
“Garage?” I questioned. I knew most people didn’t have private cars in London, except for the collection I’d seen in Clerkenwell that the vampires shared.
“Yeah, where I keep the bikes—well, it’s Loren’s, really. It’s just an old horse stall, but he might have left the key to his boat there. We can borrow it—he won’t care.”
“A boat,” I said doubtfully.
“On Regent’s Canal. No one would look for us on a narrow boat!”
Marsden and I had to agree that it was unlikely anyone would stumble upon us in such a place—especially since it was on water, which vampires tend to dislike and ghosts rarely haunt unless they are on the shore or on a boat themselves.
Michael led the way north and a bit west.
Marsden turned his head toward him as we went, as if he were peering at the boy with his empty eyes. “Your mate has a horse stall in Mayfair?”
“It’s his sister’s place.” Michael blushed, keeping his eyes averted from the disconcerting face beside him. “Loren’s family has money—like the kind of money even rich people think is a lot of money.”
We went a few more blocks into a very nice, old residential neighborhood until Michael stopped in front of a long row of connected houses with tiny yards in front. Then he led the way up a short alley to a green-painted door in what looked more like a shed than a stable. The door certainly wasn’t wide enough for any sort of car. Michael dug his keys from his pocket and used one on the padlock attached to the door’s hasp and handle assembly. The door swung open to show a tiny space packed full of motorcycles and repair gear. There was barely room to step in and move the bikes.
“The Ducatis and the Enfield are his. Mine are the BSAs,” Michael said, rummaging through a rack of keys on the wall. “I meant to take the Comet to a rally in a couple of weeks, but I’m guessing that’s not going to happen.”