The Girl With Pink Hair: Pt. 07

My apologies to anyone expecting to pick this up and get a quick fix. To understand what's going on you'll need to start quite a long way back! This is the finale to the story (at present) and I decided it couldn't be split so it's a lot longer than the other instalments. I hope it's worthy of your time.

For clarification, voices in single quotes and italics are internal dialogue. Voices in double quotes and italics are spoken aloud by avatars - most of the time. It's a bit of a struggle with the limited formatting options to accurately represent who is speaking and how. If I were to rewrite this, I'd try to use other identifiers to make it clearer.

As ever, any resemblance to persons living or dead is co-incidental. Constructive criticism is very welcome.

Recap

In "The Girl With Pink Hair: Pt 6" our heroes are still in hiding despite gaining some allies. Jess telephones her mother to try to re-establish contact with potentially sympathetic members of the Folk. She tells her mother of the creation of the Trinity and receives a baffling assurance that everything will be fine!

While Jess is doing this, Alan is on other business and Elena is hunting for cheap clothes. She evades a kidnap attempt and discovers that their friends from back home have tracked them down. She sends them away, fearing that they will be at risk if they stay with the Trinity.

Alan is not so lucky and is taken hostage to act as bait for Elena. Jess asks her magpies to find him, and the pair subsequently set off to rescue him. He is the captive of a team of Americans flown in to detain and/or eliminate the Trinity. However, they haven't reckoned on the Trinity's capabilities and some of the estate toughs arrive to complicate matters. In escaping, Elena performs two miracles, cementing her reputation as the Queen.

Later that evening, she has another eldritch dream and meets Leviathan, another avatar but this time entirely her own creation. Unhappily, she concludes that the only way she can only find out if her companions' affections are genuine is to abandon the situation and fracture the narrative entirely.

***

Fracture

Chalk Farm 4pm 6 ^th June

Walking away from the apartment was the hardest thing Elena had ever had to do. The bond called and begged and pleaded and going against it was wrong on so many levels that Elena stumbled into town in a kind of psychic agony. She had steeled herself for a terrible fracture, an emotional sundering that would leave her bereaved, but it didn't happen. Instead, their bond stretched and grew thin but did not break. Instead, it pulled, making her footsteps leaden and her thoughts broken.

She managed to maintain enough control to buy a train ticket to London. Expecting the service to go to Liverpool Street, she was thoroughly unsettled when, after forty numb and uncomfortable minutes in a carriage without functioning air con, it disgorged her into Fenchurch Street station. The place was completely unfamiliar, and Elena stood for a few moments blinking at her surroundings before following the general drift of people heading down the platform for the exit.

She was similarly disconcerted to find there was no Underground connection and once outside in the small and airless plaza she looked around trying to get her bearings. The sun blazed down and not far away, the Gherkin towered over its surroundings. She stared at the light sparking off the metal and glass obelisk. Judging by the position of the sun, the enormous tower was north of her, which meant that the river couldn't be far away in the opposite direction. Elena had a vague memory that Tower Hill Tube station must be nearby, although she would have been hard put to say why.

A short walk brought her out by the Tower of London, which must have been the reason for remembering the location. Reassured to discover that she was still functioning at some basic level of competency, she bought a ticket to Chalk Farm at the Tube station and perched on the standing seat at the end of the carriage for the two stops to Moorgate, where she changed to the Northern Line to her destination.

Once out of the station and on to the street, she used her phone to find a smallish, non-chain, estate agent. Checking her reflection in the shop windows she decided she was reasonably respectable and summoned enough courage to push open the door. A young woman, late twenties perhaps, conservatively dressed in sleeveless blouse and skirt with a shawl draped around her shoulders, rose to greet her.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for two apartments for a short let, possibly only a month."

The woman's eyebrows rose. "Two?"

"Yes, one for me and one ... for a friend."

There was a short pause as the other considered this statement. "Are you sure you wouldn't be better off using something like AirBnb?"

"No, I need ... anonymity." Elena wrapped her arms around herself.

The estate agent considered Elena with intelligent brown eyes and drummed her fingers on the countertop. "Am I right in thinking that one would be, say, more public than the other?"

Elena nodded. "I'd use my credit card for that one."

The strangeness of this request did not appear to faze the professional, and perhaps some of the Queen's authority lingered, though Her Majesty had been silent since Elena left the safe house. After a moment or two, she came to a decision and reached for a file. Thumbing through it she pulled out a sheet of paper. She thumbed a bit more and produced a second.

"What about these? One's in Bloomsbury. It's a bit shabby but it's cheap for the area. The other is a block that still in the late stages of refurbishment. Technically it's not yet ready for rent and it's not on our website. Half the lets are empty but it's secure."

She put her head on one side, wondering if her assessment of the needs of the woman in front of her were correct. "How do you want to pay? Is money an issue?"

On the appearance of the money clip, her eyes widened. "Like that is it?" At Elena's brief nod the agent smiled. "I'm Julia, I'll get you sorted and drive you round."

Elena's shoulders slumped, she swayed on her feet and Julia hurriedly directed her to a chair and fetched her a cup of water.

***

The apartment was ideal. The entrance came out on to a cool and shady gated courtyard. There were three locked doors to pass through before the apartment proper. Had she but known it, it was in an area reasonably equidistant from the closest fiefdoms of the sixteen Families that counted London as a base. It may have been her new abilities starting to act to protect her - or it may have been blind luck. In any case it was fortuitous in preventing anyone from tracking her down too quickly or worse, laying claim.

Julia gave her the keys and a card with her professional details and her personal number scribbled on it. "Anything you need, let me know."

She smiled at Elena's bright eyes and let herself out, leaving Elena alone in the cold white silence of the apartment. Sitting on the small sofa and staring out at the houses opposite as the light faded, she was still blank in her head. Eventually she got up and went into the bedroom, lay down on the bed and sobbed until sleep came.

***

Temporary bolt-hole 7 ^th - 8 ^th June

Over the next couple of days, she sortied into the outernet to gather the essentials and try and root herself in the ordinary. And every so often, she would allow herself to think about Jess and Alan and their bond would quiver gently. She knew that wherever they were, they would know that she was thinking of them and sometimes there was an answering pulse, a tentative reaching out, a 'how are you? Are you alright?' And behind that, the bulwark of their love. This was generally the cue for her to bury her face in her hands and try to blot out her aching loneliness. There was no great fracture it was true, instead it was a void in the very centre of her, a creeping dread that she might never be whole again.

***

Temporary bolt-hole 3pm 9 ^th June

Although she had gone to some trouble to conceal her whereabouts, Elena was a novice in the arts of skulduggery. She was savvy enough to know that her subterfuge wouldn't last long. Unfortunately, she was also largely in the dark about the capabilities of the Folk and was unaware that, to her two lovers, she was a pole to which they always pointed.

Sometimes Jess and Alan's light touch surveillance was rather more than that. A loose grouping of disaffected members of the Families carried out the first assassination attempt within a week and Alan grudgingly conceded that it was quite well planned and executed given their relative inexperience.

Around the same time as the two matrons of the Families were taking their tea and Eccles cakes, the Sword made short work of the operatives, despite some grumbling at having to promise not to kill anyone without good cause. After the last one had been safely corralled and delivered to the vacant house they'd used as an impromptu jail, Jess dropped off a key with a disconcerted Centrist administrator who couldn't understand how she'd managed to gain access to her office without being detained.

"Make sure this reaches the right people," Jess said, as she turned to go.

The baffled officer looked at the key and discovered that there was a label attached that listed an address. A little after that, several Families discovered that their daughters had not been model citizens.

***

Swiss Cottage Underground station 11am 11 ^th June

A day or two after that, Elena failed to register a scuffle behind her on the Underground platform at Swiss Cottage as she waited for the train into Bond Street. She was used to being jostled during peak times and thought nothing of the fuss. Her fellow passengers looked up from their phones to register a middle-aged woman being escorted away by two other women in uniform.

The Queen, however, was not unaware of what had been about to be attempted. If she had had physical form, one might have seen her mouth twist, and her brows draw down. This was becoming a nuisance.

As Elena sought the anonymity and white noise of crowds, the Queen received some intelligence from her spymaster. His host had speculated on the existence of a back channel of communication between the avatars and he was both right and wrong. It is in the nature of a story that anything is possible as long as it is consistent with the narrative. The Queen now knew certain things that the Shadow knew, although how that came about is anyone's guess. Answers on a postcard, please.

The Queen was resolved to send an unequivocal message and Elena was too fragile to act. Therefore, She was going to do something that She had promised not to do. Well, not quite promised exactly.

'What is your intention?' rumbled Leviathan.

Metaphysically, the Queen jumped. 'Must you do that?' She exclaimed peevishly. She glared at him, and he returned her gaze urbanely. She gathered Herself with an effort. She would be unable to act unless he stood aside.

'Our adversaries are clearly not getting the message. I need to impress upon them that we will brook no interference.'

He considered Her for a few moments in his irritatingly calm manner and then he grunted. 'Agreed.'

She stared at him incredulously. 'That's it?'

'I will keep her distracted while you do what is necessary.'

'Yes!' She hissed, and something of the Her original purpose expressed itself in Her feral glee. Leviathan inclined his head fractionally in acknowledgment. When weapons are deployed, there needs to be a certain level of commitment after all.

Without further ado, She steered Elena to somewhere much quieter.

'As Jessica is fond of saying, we can go wherever we like!' She thought to herself.

When the Queen was certain that no eyes fell upon them, Elena's form rippled as if seen through heat haze, and disappeared. She returned to reality in the form of the Queen in the small kitchen of their temporary apartment and settled down to wait. She knew it wouldn't be long.

***

Temporary bolt-hole 3pm 11 ^th June

A young woman let herself into the apartment. She swiftly made her way to the panel that housed the boiler. The package in her leather rucksack would facilitate a gas explosion during the night. The sort of thing that happened once or twice a year in this country. Closing the panel, she turned to go.

"In here," said a voice.

She froze. The target was out! The team had confirmed it. The apartment was supposed to be empty! The operative was suddenly conscious of a nightmarish predator. Her bowels quaked.

"Come along, let's see you," the voice commanded, and she found her feet carrying her into the kitchen where the Queen leaned against the worktop. The intruder moaned at the terrible weight of the Queen's authority and desperately, she tried for her gun.

A regal eyebrow was raised in amusement.

"Well, I can't fault you for trying and your training must have been exemplary for you to even think of it, but I can't allow it. Sit down."

Once they were both seated, the Queen looked at the other and pursed Her lips.

"This is getting to be a nuisance. My host is fragile and can't be doing with this so you're going to convey a message to your superiors."

Finding her voice, the young woman quavered, "What do you want me to say?"

"Say?" The Queen looked puzzled but then laughed. "Poor choice of words. Perhaps I should have said you're going to be the conduit for the message."

"What message?"

The Queen's brows drew down. "That I'm quite cross."

She felt for the connections between the young woman and her superiors. Once assured that She had the full measure of their network, She cracked it like a whip.

Dozens of individuals at all levels of seniority, even some within the ranks of the Centrists and Adventists, changed the course of their lives in a moment, abandoning their principles, their responsibilities, their posts. Leaderless and rudderless, the organisation flailed, aware that it had been compromised, but only dimly aware how.

The assassin rocked as she felt the Queen's authority work through her. She was also conscious that the Queen was acting to protect her from that terrible power, without which she had no doubt she would have been left a mindless husk. Her respect for Elena Kowalski increased by several orders of magnitude.

In moments it was over, and the Queen smiled at her.

"You know the usual penalty for this sort of thing?"

Remarkably, the young woman felt no fear. "Yes."

"I could require you to throw yourself out of the window," the Queen said, sunnily. "But it would be dreadfully messy, so I rather think not. However, a change of occupation is in order, don't you think?"

Her visitor nodded.

"You may go."

***

When the agent let herself out of the apartment, the Queen walked to the small sofa in the living area and sat down. Exchanging a virtual nod with Leviathan , She relaxed into the background as her host returned to sapience.

"What the-" Elena exclaimed as she looked around at her surroundings. Then she buried her head in her hands. "I am in trouble."

'But less trouble than you were,' thought the Queen to herself.

***

In certain quarters there was consternation.

"Now what? We didn't expect Elena to fold now! The whole political apparatus is in disarray, Tony Masters' little nest of vipers is still stinking the place out. The Americans will be back eventually, there's no doubt of that. Even the goddam Irish are sniffing the air! What are we going to do?"

"I don't think there's anything we can do!" her companion snapped. "I don't know what's going on with the Queen, but She's made it quite clear that Elena is off limits to everyone, including Alan and Jess, who is at her wits end, by the way, thank you for asking."

***

Temporary bolt-hole 5pm 15 ^th June

Unaware of her recent peril, Elena continued to move through her routine; part of her gloomily aware that she was merely existing. Cooking was perfunctory. The act had too many memories bound up in it. Occasionally her gaze would rest on the drawer where she kept her spices and then move on.

However, her nearest and dearest were not idle. Ralph Kowalski had had his suspicions when his daughter suddenly went radio silent. While the call from Joan Calamar had been somewhat reassuring, he felt that an awful lot was being withheld. His inability to contact either Jess or his daughter was concerning.

One afternoon, his mobile buzzed with a text from a withheld number. The message consisted of an address.

"What is it, Ralph?" Alice asked.

"Scam call," he answered promptly, not sure why he was lying to his wife. Getting to his feet, he trotted into the hall and collected his car keys from the tray on the dresser before pulling a light summer jacket from the rack in the porch. As his wife heard the front door open, she looked up from her magazine.

"Ralph? Ralph! Where are you going?" she called.

"Out," he replied vaguely. "Need to do something."

He drove up to north London, parked a few streets over from the given location and then loitered as unobtrusively as he could until Elena appeared. He sighed with relief and then frowned. Her appearance was ... careworn, as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders. He waited for another few moments before hurrying after her. She was sufficiently distracted not to notice when he tailgated her through the secure doors to the block. Taking the stairs, he paced the lift, praying it wouldn't be too far up. He peered through the door to the corridor to make note of which apartment she accessed.

Knocking on the door he waited until he heard her fumbling with the lock and stepped back a pace or two. There was a strange expression on her face, as if she couldn't quite believe that he was actually there. His aura was all gold and gunmetal blue hazed with deep coral. Paternal pride and fatherly love made real. The pink reminded her powerfully of Jess' hair, and her heart gave an enormous lurch. He folded her in his arms as if she were ten years old again and she mourned her loss in great wracking sobs.

Eventually they sat at her kitchen table with mugs of tea, Elena still red eyed and puffy cheeked.

Ralph Kowalski sat back in his chair and looked his daughter in the eye. "Tell me what happened."

"You know what happened, Dad. I met a waitress, fell in love, got my PhD and then it all went sideways."

He leaned forward and put his arms on the table. "Now, tell me the rest." His stare pinned her in place.

She looked at him for a long moment and then to her amazement, the Queen tiptoed out from where she'd been hiding and nodded. Then it was as if a dam broke, and it all came tumbling out in non sequiturs and more tears.

Through it all her father said nothing, merely nodding encouragement from time to time. When eventually she ran dry, they sat in silence for a bit and then he said, "I don't suppose you have any vodka?"

It was the middle of the afternoon but somehow it seemed like the right thing to do. Elena found the shot glasses and retrieved the bottle from the freezer.

"Na Zdrowie!" her father said, and they both drained their glasses.

"Christ!" spluttered Elena, eyes watering as she banged her glass on the table.