Shireen nodded and we stood for a while in silence. “All right,” I said at last. “What do you want, Shireen? You said that after I’d seen all of this, there was something you were going to ask from me. What is it?”
“I want you to help Rachel,” Shireen said. “Redeem her.”
I stared at Shireen. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Shireen shook her head.
“You want me to do what? Save her soul?”
“Something like that.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff?”
“When you’ve been a disembodied soul in someone else’s body for ten years it changes your attitudes a bit.”
“She killed you!”
“I still love her,” Shireen said simply. “She was my best friend and I never stopped caring about her, even after everything. I know what she did but you haven’t seen how much she’s suffered for it. Besides, if anyone’s got the right to decide whether she deserves to be forgiven, don’t you think it should be me?”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. “Will you help me?” Shireen asked.
“Shireen . . .” I dropped into my chair and covered my eyes, resting my head in one hand. “What do you expect me to do? You said it yourself, she hates me. And that was before she saw me spying on her. Now she’s moved me up to ‘kill on sight.’”
“I don’t think she’ll try to kill you,” Shireen said. “Not again.”
I stared at Shireen. “Are you serious?”
“She’s never actually tried to kill you before,” Shireen said. “Not really. The only reason she did this time was . . . well, she lost control a bit.”
“A bit?”
Shireen clasped her hands and gave me a hopeful look. “I’m pretty sure I can talk her around for next time.”
“Have you considered,” I said carefully, “that hanging around in Rachel’s head for ten years might have messed up your standards a little?”
“Maybe,” Shireen said. “But this is what I want. I’m not changing my mind on this one, Alex. If you want me to keep helping you, this is the price.”
I looked at Shireen for a long time. “You know there’s no guarantee she’s going to listen to me,” I said at last. “Or anyone. If she makes a decision I can’t stop her.”
“I know.”
I stayed silent for a little while then shook my head. “I can’t promise anything,” I said at last. “Not yet. I understand why you want this, but . . . Look, tell me something. How the hell did Rachel find me?”
“She’s always been able to,” Shireen said. “Didn’t you notice?”
I started to answer, then stopped. When I’d seen Rachel last year at the British Museum I’d been in the shadows wearing my mist cloak. Rachel’s two companions, Cinder and Khazad, hadn’t noticed a thing . . . but Rachel had. She hadn’t found me but it had been close, and every time since then that I’d spied on her the same thing had happened. “Why?” I said.
“Do you remember the first time you went to Elsewhere?” Shireen said. “The very first time?”
“Yeah.” It had been Richard who’d shown us how to do it. The four of us had travelled there together—me, Shireen, Tobruk, and Rachel. It had been a memorable trip.
“When you go to Elsewhere with another person, it leaves a connection,” Shireen said. “I think when Rachel Harvested me something happened that strengthened that somehow. She can sense you and you can sense her.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Last autumn, when you were working for Belthas,” Shireen said. “You found Rachel and Cinder just by walking around London. Didn’t you ever wonder why that worked?”
I hadn’t, not until Shireen mentioned it. “So she can find me through my mist cloak?”
“The cloak makes it harder,” Shireen said. “I think the reason she could do it was that you were actually in her memories. It intensified the connection, at least for a little while. She must have traced the link.”
“Then don’t take this personally,” I said, “but I’m never doing anything like that again.”
“I understand.”
We stood in silence for a while, listening to the buzz of conversation, then I shook my head, pulling my thoughts back to the present. “So all of this was for nothing. Catherine was dead all along and there’s nothing that’ll stop Will from coming after me.”
“You know the truth now.”
“And you couldn’t have just told me?” I looked at Shireen. “You knew what had happened to Catherine. You could have told me I was wasting my time.”
“You think learning how I died is a waste of time?” Shireen said quietly. She didn’t raise her voice, but her eyes sparked and something in them made me want to draw back. “You don’t think what happens to me and Rachel is important? I’ve helped you every time you’ve needed it. You think that’s all I’m here for, doing you favours and then disappearing when you don’t need me? I might be just a shadow but I’m not your slave. You don’t have the right to tell me what to do.”
I looked away, feeling a flash of shame. “I’m sorry,” I said at last. “That wasn’t what I meant. But Will and the Nightstalkers are still out there and they’re still after me. I know that for you this is the most important thing in the world, but you don’t have to worry about getting killed in your sleep.”
“This is more important than Will and the Nightstalkers,” Shireen said, and her voice was utterly certain. “They’re a short-term problem.”
“Short-term?”
“You’ve faced worse,” Shireen said. “So has Rachel. They’re not going to be around in the long term but she will be. You needed to know this, you needed to see it, so that you understood. And yes, it was dangerous, but I’m not sorry for doing it. It was worth the risk.”
Easy for you to say, I thought, but didn’t say it out loud. For the first time since meeting Shireen’s shade, I felt I was starting to understand her. She had her own priorities and to me they might seem crazy, but from her point of view they made sense and now that I had some idea of what they were I could deal with her. It wasn’t like it was the first time I’d had to work with someone with a skewed point of view . . . and somewhere at the back of my mind I couldn’t help but wonder if our points of view might not be so different after all. “Anything you can do to help?”
“I can’t fight for you,” Shireen said. “Not in your world. But there’s a place I can show you. You won’t enjoy it but it might help you find something you’ve been looking for for a long time.”
Chapter 12
I came awake to realise someone was talking. Just the knowledge that I wasn’t alone sent a spike of fear and adrenaline through my system, and in an instant I was fully alert. I could smell stale air and unwashed clothes, and from the shuffling of footsteps I could tell there was another person near me. Without moving any other part of my body, I opened my eyes.
There was a man standing a few feet away. He wore an ancient stained greatcoat over dirty torn clothes, and from his smell neither he nor his clothes had had a wash in a long time. Straggly grey hair framed bleary eyes and a face prematurely aged. “—you doing here?” he was saying. “Huh? What you doing here?”
I stared back at him, motionless. “This is mine,” he said. “You don’t get to sleep here, see? It’s mine. What you doing here?” When I didn’t answer he took a step forward, his voice gaining a little confidence. “My mates are coming back. They’re going to be angry. This is mine, see? You shouldn’t be here.” His manner was halfway between pleading and threatening, and when I still didn’t answer it began to edge towards threatening. “You know who I am? I know people, I do. No one messes with me.” He took another step, moving to poke me with his foot. “You—”
I caught his ankle with my left hand as my right came out from under my cloak in a flash of steel. Before the man could react I had my knife pressed against his leg, the point digging through his trousers towards the upper thigh, where the femoral artery runs close to the skin. He tried to jerk away but I clung on and he nearly fell backwards. “Hey man!” he said, his voice squeaking suddenly. “Why—”