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"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I'm saying. You wouldn't want anything to happen to your boy, would you?"
"Who are you? And don't give me some crap about being a friend of the family. You're not."
"No, I'm not. But you know me. Or my name at least."
"Who are you?"
"What if I told you that we're related. Family."
"I'd ask you how."
"And I'd say through your father," Seth said, playing the game.
"Again, I'd ask how."
"Then I'd tell you how your father was my brother."
Boone shook his head. "Not funny. Now stop taking the piss and fuck off out of here, you're not welcome anymore."
Seth nodded his head, his smile almost affable. "Shame. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. I'm only going to say this once, no second chances, Boone. My name is Seth Lockwood. I am a lot older than I look, you are my nephew. If you don't forget everything you read in that letter, your boy will die, because I want this chain broken. I want to come home. And I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to make that happen. This doesn't have to get any worse than it already is, that's the thing. All you need to do is walk away. Burn that letter. Move on and live happily ever fucking after. Do we have an understanding?"
"Fuck you. Just fuck you." Boone's voice spiraled. People started looking their way through the corkscrew curls of cigarette smoke. "Get the fuck out of here before I lose my temper and do something you'll regret."
"I take it that's a no? All right." Seth shook his head. He looked across the bar at the young Barclay. He really didn't want any more blood on his hands, not if it could be avoided. Looking at the kid was like looking at himself. "Last chance," he said. "Agree that this ends here and I'll walk away. Promise that you will stop looking for us, Eleanor and me, and I'll go happily."
"Are you out of your fucking mind?"
"Probably," he said. "I'll even give you this to seal the deal." Seth took a set of keys out of his pocket and offered them to Boone. He hadn't thought it through, but it made sense. Sometimes it wasn't about breaking bones, just getting people to see things your way. Money tended to make that happen. "It's a flat, in Rotherhithe. I haven't been back there in a long time, but I've gone to great pains to keep it, even paying a housekeeper to clean once a month, although nothing is ever out of place. It's across the street from The Angel. You'll recognize the name on the door. Think of it as an inheritance you didn't know was coming to you. It's got to be worth a lot of money now."
He dropped the keys in Boone's hand even as his nephew said, "I don't want them."
"Do the smart thing. Close your fingers around them. Make a fist. Hold them really tight. Drink to your dad, then walk out of here and forget the letter, forget his obsession with Eleanor, forget me, move into your nice new place down by the water, hell, give it to your boy as a wedding present when the time comes, just walk out of here and live. You can do that, can't you?"
But of course he couldn't. He could no more let go of the family obsession than Seth could turn over a new leaf and live the life of a virtuous man. The rot had eaten into him a long time ago. He wasn't about to change now. He walked out of that place, through the rain-drenched streets of London, thinking how
little stuff had really changed, how things were only different on the surface despite all of the flashing lights and fast cars and the endless circus of noise, back to the oblique and slipped back through the fissure into Glass Town. He was only there a few moments, long enough to summon the Reel. All he'd needed to do was feed the kid a name, as the candle flickered inside the spinning drum, and visualize the face of his victim, planting it in what passed for the Reel's mind. He sealed the pact with blood, drawing a few drops from his wrist with a piece of broken glass before he turned the Reel loose.
A couple of years had passed in the time it took him to return, long enough for Boone to have forgotten his threat, long enough for Barclay to have started his own family, ensuring the bloodline would live on. Even with Barclay Raines dead there would be kin in London.
He could live with that.
Seth followed the Reel kid as it prowled from street to street, sniffing the air like some ghostly bloodhound. Static roared out of its mouth as it called a challenge to the rising sun. Each fresh burst of white noise reminded Seth of the Reel's true nature. The pair attracted strange looks from those not too busy to see them, but Seth didn't let that bother him. This was about buying himself a chance at a normal life; about breaking the chain; about ending his exile and starting life anew; it was about finding peace, finally. But more than anything--and this was hard for him to admit to himself--it was about winning. About beating his brother once and forever. Because Seth Lockwood did not lose. Not now. Not ever.
The kid walked into a new part of town, a housing estate filled with hopes and dreams of fresh starts, neatly parceled-off lawns and paved garden paths. The sign on the green welcomed visitors to The Rothery. Seth followed the kid as the Reel phased into and out of existence like a flickering flame.
So, this was where Boone had ended up?
He'd seen worse places.
The front door to one of the houses in the horseshoe of bright and shiny glass doors and leaded windows on Albion Close opened and Barclay Raines emerged, shouting over his shoulder that he was just nipping out for a packet of cigarettes.
"They'll be the death of you," Seth said, much to his own amusement as the kid followed Barclay to the corner store. He followed a couple of steps behind, and watched as the young man went in.
"Wait," he told the Reel. It inclined its head, listening, obeying. Seth went inside. It was a small shop, with jars of candies and toffees and striped mints on display, newspapers laid out on the counter, and a few everyday essentials on the shelves. Barclay was in conversation with the shopkeeper. For last words they were inconsequential, a back-and-forth about the game the night before. Something and nothing. Seth joined them at the counter.
"Can I help you, mate?" the shopkeeper asked with a welcoming smile.
