The good news was that the Tate Modern wasn’t particularly locked up. The bad news was that it was one of the most public areas of the city, and we were breaking in on a Saturday afternoon.
“Here’s the plan.” Said Rachel, over a map scribbled on the back of her receipt, “The building is a Djinn and Upper Court outpost, joint forces, like NATO. Places like these are like webs. Lots of paths, lots of confusion. Among them, This one’s probably the most manageable, two different factions means that they had to dumb it down a bit.
“Stephen and Lev, you two get yourselves here, quickly and quietly. It’s the communications centre of the outpost. The Upper Court uses something like tech, I trust you to figure it out quick enough. Break it, fuck up their ability to communicate, and give the next team- Lennie, Robin and Jodie, their entrance. You go in the front, and you go loud. We’re going for a distraction, so you’ll be feinting towards the weapons repository, here.” Jodie passed magic cells around while Rachel talked, with metal rings attached by a short chain. I winced looking at them, they were one of Katrine’s designs. Each cell took hours to build, and then over a week of consistent charging to fill it up. “Clip the ring onto the cell and throw it, far as you can. They’re loud,” she said. “Right.” Rachel continued, “Chloe and I will accompany Stephen and Lev to the communications office and from there, with the cover of the distraction, go for the barracks, where the leader is likely to be. We kill them, we get out, and everyone meets at the rendezvous.” She pointed to a space off the receipt. “Portal back into the real world, and Amy and Maria catch us and bring us back, before the Uppers have a chance to follow us.”
The Tate Modern seemed to loom over us, judging as we walked in. We’d make our way to the bathrooms in intervals of five minutes. Crammed into a disabled stall, we portalled into the fae realm.
My hands were sticky when I came to, the rat creature still tacky on my arms. Guthrie was near me, tired and grimy. Her clothes had changed, but she still held the spear, puzzled. We were in some kind of closet, A slit at eye level, past Lennie, gave me a glimpse of outside. The familiar hiss of footsteps and paper shuffling, like the Lower Court, but through it all was a wheezing, churning sound from below. Rachel grasped my shoulder, her nails were sharper here. The others were already breaking into groups, ready to go. “There are tunnels in the walls we can go through” said Robin, probing the back of the wall, “For when the highest-ranking fairies come and the grunts need to stay out of sight.” His fingers caught on a latch by his ankle, and the entire wall turned open. “Teams A and B, that way, Jodie and Lennie on me.” He said and started down to the right.
The base clearly hadn’t been visited in a while. There was no dust in the fae realm, but the tunnels had an air of disuse about them. The walls were matte silver, none of the pearlescent sheen of the public areas had crept in, and the beams that marked every 20 feet of movement were angular, functional. Rachel rook us down each tunnel, sticking to the left whenever we came to a junction on all but a few cases. I followed, trying to ignore the walls that seemed to reach out to grab me. Every time I thought of air I remembered once again that there was none, and for a few seconds I’d gulp at emptiness, the Upper Court choking me, before managing to catch myself. I’d never been claustrophobic before, but the echo of life through to walls just off to my left made the walls close in more and more. Following Rachel in silence was all I could do to avoid panicking, but the building itself never stopped trying to push me over the delicate balance I’d found.
“This one.” Rachel said in the middle of one of the tunnels. I looked around for some kind of latch, but there was nothing to be seen. Nothing, that was, until Rachel twisted a section of wall out of the way, revealing a crevice of a handle just large enough to wedge her fingers into. We emerged into some kind of basement, a black, dark room. Whatever invisible lighting made the tunnels and rooms visible hadn’t deigned to make itself known here, and even the light on my phone seemed afraid to stretch more than a few feet in front of me.
“Lev, get that panel over there, Rach, send a message back to the others. Two minutes.” Said stephen, walking off into the darkness like it was the easiest thing in the world.
“Wait, isn’t there some way to turn on the lights?”
“What do you mean?” said Lev “It’s fine”
“I can’t see anything.”
“We see better in the dark.” Stephen said, from the darkness.”Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I can describe it for you if you want.”
“Sure.” I stepped, tentatively, into the darkness, towards Rachel’s voice.
“The room’s about five meters on each side, the communications center is in the middle. It’s not pretty. Stop, take a few steps to your left, that’s good. There’s a few pipes coming out of it, so careful not to trip on them, one’s about three steps ahead of you, there you go. The centre is kind of like a six-foot tall heart, except it’s dry and kinda bluish. It’s about a foot off to your right if you need support.” I had no desire to touch it, and made my way to Rachel. She put a hand on my shoulder to guide me in, taking it off when I was firmly in position. I could hear her. Not breathing, not specifically moving, just the silent sound of her existence. “We listen out for some commotion, then we go.” She said. I checked my weapons. A knife strapped to each leg and a handgun, finally in a proper harness rather than stuffed in my belt like the world’s least threatening gangster. I reached out and my fingertips brushed the wall, moving closer I lay my body against it, listening to the gentle rustle beyond. If I closed my eyes, even though that made no difference, and emptied my mind, I could almost imagine it was like a field of long grass.
There was an explosion from off in the distance and everyone stopped. For a moment there was only the echo of rubble, as each figure recalibrated, and then rushed off to their new destination. The sound was louder now, orders and briefing barked and confirmed in moments. Even the chaos seemed orderly. I prayed that Guthrie was still safe. Rachel whistled a shrill call and from the darkness came a dry squelch, and the din of wheezing from below stopped, Stephen was doing something to the communications centre. Rachel slid open a peephole and peered out, the thin rectangle of light refusing to enter the room. “All clear.” She said, and reached for a latch, “Chloe, on me.”
“Stray.” I said. She looked at me. “We’re on a mission, it’s Stray.”
The corridors were even larger without people, yet the feeling of claustrophobia was stronger than ever. I followed Rachel, whispering directions to me and hugging the right wall for the most part. She’d been right, the building was like a web. I could just about work out what section of the Tate Modern each area matched, but the geography was inhuman. Hallways appeared out of seemingly nowhere, with no discernible rhythm, like an anthill. Dug out to be functional and quick, but ugly. Every step we took was heavy and loud compared to the movements of the fairies, and echoed around me. Rachel had us following a line in the wall, purple, about waist height. It was like every other line in the wall, unless you were looking for it. “Stop.” She hissed. “Squad of five, next hallway on the left. You cover and I’ll -Shit!” She tried to grab me, but an unseen force got to me first and pulled me to the ceiling.
Rachel spun around immediately, the squad she’d identified rounded the corner with spears at the ready. I hardly had time to consider the idea that she’d sold us out before she launched herself at them. Two steps, then she threw herself into the air. A heavy, six-foot long wolf landed. The force turned me over to face the ceiling and I saw two creatures, jinn, armoured and standing on the ceiling. The one grabbing me had a knife in their other hand and the other pointed a spear at me. I grabbed their gauntletted arm with both hands, fire burst from one and kinetic force from the other. The fire did nothing, but the bracelet launched me away from the guard. I hit the ground upright, staying that way by some miracle, and looked up. One guard was shaking out their arm and picking his spear up off the ceiling- down off the ceiling? The other had moved. I glanced around, they were on the floor now, and coming for me. I dodged two attacks from the knife, kicking myself away on the third to recalibrate. There were no gaps in the faceplate, I couldn’t blind them with fire. “You’re being a really shitty host, you know that?” It was a long shot, but maybe there was some obscure efrit rule against killing guests. The armour reformed itself around the jinn, the metal of the helmet turning into a curved, dangerous scimitar leaving a veil that split to reveal deep blue skin. My two knives seemed useless by comparison. The jinn was indistinct, noseless with a twisted sense of determination. They had a short cloud of hair that licked around them like black flames. “You are an intruder” they said, bringing the scimiter up to their cheek, point aimed at my chest, “and I am not beholden to fairy laws of hospitality.”
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I shot fire at them, but they dodged to the left and came up underneath my arm, I barely forced the curve of the scimitar away from me before it bisected me. The jinn barreled into me, off centre from the blast, and we both went to ground. I whipped my hand around till I felt metal and shot again. The armour was thin, and the jinn was light, I crashed into the wall and they skittered down the hallway. The next guard dropped from the ceiling, a spear materialising out of nowhere. What did I know about spears? Fuck all, that’s what, and my eyes were going bleary from magic use. I raised my gun and started shooting, The spear had taken a lot of armour to make, and their head and arms were exposed, wrapped in ochre cloth. They dodged the first shot, but blocked the second, sending the tip of the spear flying. The jinn settled back into its stance and narrowed two pale, white eyes. The spear formed back up, jagged, as if to make a point, leaving the left heel open. The hand I’d blasted was blackened and shrivelled, but still functional, that was something. The first blast I’d done, it had been powerful, more powerful than it should have been. Was that a result of being in the this world? No, the blasts I’d sent off in the last few seconds weren’t nearly as powerful. And the armour was shrivelled, not burnt.
The crunch and yelps behind me told me that Rachel was doing fine, but the second jinn had gotten back up as well, a black charred rot in the chest where I had blasted them, worse than anything my fire could do. It was two on one, and I was barely capable of taking them on evenly. I had a plan, but it was a terrible plan. Spears and swords were melee weapons and these were skilled fighters, As long as I kept them at bay with blasts and shots, I would be safe. Before I got the chance to question my choices, I dropped my gun and ran at them.
I’d learned fast, I realised. With another month of practice I might be able to dodge the attacks that came my way. I didn’t have another month, so I used the bracelet to blast them away and dived. My vision vigetted down to a pinprick, but I barreled into them, pushing them back, tripping. I reached out, falling, to grab anything I could through the darkness, and as some thin metal pierced my thigh I did. Too soft to be armour, the uncovered leg. With my gloved hand I reached down the hallway and burned.
Blue flesh shrunk under my hand like a sponge, and after a half second of sheer flame, it was brittle enough to break off. Some unbothered part of my mind made a note to tell Katrine about this, but I kept burning, the magic draining from the jinn into the glove, then out again. The other jinn was caught in it and howled in pain, animalistic.
Wolflike.
Rachel.
I diverted the last of the energy from the dying jinn into my necklace and sprung up to my good leg. My vision was in full technicolour now, and I saw flames of every colour swirl around the hallways. And in them, a six foot long wolf matted with the clear, machinelike ichor of Upper Court fairies, a guard in her jaws, fur burnt off in tufts and charred to ash.
I ran over to her, tearing off my glove. My necklace could save her, if I could just get to her, but the fire had caught. Whatever the place was made out of, it was flammable. Heat hit me like a wall as flames licked purple and green around me, and I couldn’t get closer. The wolf started to howl, and as she shrunk down to a woman I saw the extent of it. She couldn’t have been naked, because her skin was gone, repleaced by a bubbling coating of blackened char. The sockets of her eyes shook frantically, pouring the melted whites down her cheeks like tears.
She looked in my direction, or what she guessed to be my direction, and hissed with the last breath to leave her lungs. “Lower. Fucking. Bitch.”
I turned and ran. The mission was off, Rachel was dead. I needed to find Guthrie and the others and get out. My head nearly split with pain to think that. Rachel had told me the way, in case we’d gotten split up. Follow the purple line. The purple line took me through the fire, but the thought of not doing it hurt more than the flames. With my bracelet I blasted a gap in the fire, and nearly collapsed from the effort. One of the corpses was near me, I touched it and drew in magic. These were creatures of essentially pure magic, they were better batteries than I could ever make. The one I’d drained had their armour still intact, the other had melted into a statue. I broke off a bracer and tested it. Pure magic, again. I blasted a hole in the fire and ran through, blasting again and again and again to hold them back. I felt a pang of guilt crossing by Rachel’s body, but she would have been too far gone anyway. It was the mission, Sid’s voice told me, people died sometimes. At least now we had evidence of Upper Court meddling.
The purple line took me for what felt like half a mile, around corners and through loops. I limped, the necklace couldn’t close these wounds, only keep them from getting worse. My voice was raspy from the heat, but by the time I got to the double doors I’d been calling out for Jodie long enough that I knew I could form words. The double doors were bolted five ways and twice my height. The bracer had mostly wasted away to silver sand by that point, but I drew in the last dregs of its magic crumbling the metal between my fingers. For a moment I was tempted to pull some of the magic of the building itself into me, strengthen myself, but the magic was strange, foreign. It held the taint of the upper court, and I didn’t want to be torn into pieces, or worse, become aligned with them.
The doors flew off their hinges and hit the back wall, sending a web of cracks into the ceiling. The room was unlike the rest of the outpost, it was yellow and luxurious, sofas and beds were strewn about. There was a pit in my stomach looking at it, like it was just not right. It looked like something orientalist, fake. A perception of arabia that didn’t exist, heightened in all the wrong ways. I’d thought the jinn represented the islamic part of london, but there were far more people to misrepresent the religion than there were people to practice it. The Jinn had adapted, it seemed. More jinn, five of them, faced me in a crescent. Behind them was what appeared to be an Efrit, seven feet of black sheen, cracked through with gold and ruby. He had two sets of arms and stood naked save for a red loincloth, panic on his face.
My energy was gone. The fires had exhausted me, I was running dry on magic, and five more of the creatures I’d barely cheated my way past two of were ready for me. I fell to my knees and let go of the clump of sand I’d been holding onto.
“It’s okay.” said Guthrie, as I drifted off. “It’s okay, I‘m here.” louder, no longer just in my imagination. I opened my eyes, three of the jinn were dashed against the wall, and I was in her arms. “You’re alive. Thank fuck.” She lowered me to the ground and pulled one of the cells from my back pocket. “Too sma- explosion” I tried to say, but my mouth was dry.
“I really fucking hope this works.” She twisted one of the wires into a point and stabbed it into her neck.
Watching Guthrie for the next few moments, I realised how people believed in gods. She’d always used magic, in every strike and every move, nudging her body in tiny ways, but now she moved like a force possessing her own body. She was the eye in a storm of metal, bodies and clear machine ichor, and as the next wave of Upper Court soldiers and Jinn ran past me without noticing she grew only more powerful. Metal crunched between her hands and weapons flew, I hadn’t seen her move near the Efrit but he was pinned to the wall, bleeding orange out through three spears. She moved out of the room, and started down the hallway. I followed, limping, weak, as she fought. I was the calm of the storm now, she was the tempest, sweeping through tens, hundreds of fairies and jinn. Sometimes she looked like she was in two, even three places at once, every move painting the air with clear oil. She was beautiful. She was terrifying.
Guthrie started to flag when we got in view of the rendezvous, but the outpost stopped throwing soldiers at us. We carried each other to the point, a clearing in some trees by a river that ran the wrong way, and portalled back. I would have to explain so much to the wolves. To Sid. To Dotty.
Sitting in the car on the ride out of town, listening to the wolves mourn in silence and to Jodie try not to throw up, I didn’t care about any of that.
I drifted into sleep, then out. Then back in, and dreamed of nothing.