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For a moment, he was a boy again, falling out of a tree he'd climbed with his cousins, when he'd first heard such a cracking sound. For a long moment, the world had felt strange and wrong, but then the pain had hit and he'd known nothing else.
Wystan waited for the pain to overwhelm him now as it had then, but there was nothing. Just a silly gargoyle lying prone on the store room floor, in what should have been a puddle of water, but...wasn't. He hadn't imagined the water, had he?
Tacey held a large metal cylinder with a sort of hose coming out the top, instead of a bucket, like he'd expected. Invisible water? Or water that disappeared after it put the fire out? Or maybe it had all turned to steam? Hard to tell with the amount of smoke in the room.
Tacey found him some replacement clothes, for his own pants had not survived the fire, and helped him dress. Still discombobulated by the fire and the feeling of wrongness, he followed her out into the café, only to stop dead as he realised they were not alone. Rory held tight to the boy Ben's hand, though the boy himself was staring avidly at Wystan.
Before Wystan could warn her, she'd introduced him, and Ben's questions turned pointed.
Wystan needed to get out of there. He mumbled something about needing to clean up, but Tacey wouldn't let him. So he suggested he go out to wait in the car instead, which Tacey did allow.
Only the moment Wystan was out of sight, he slipped inside the nearest wall, and headed out to the courtyard, where the bottle of lamp oil must have come from. The place was empty, but the smell of lamp oil lingered, so he followed it. Through the boarding house, out the front door and around the corner, to where a large, red carriage was parked. No, a car. That's what Tacey called her horseless carriage, though this was a behemoth compared to her phaeton, and it growled like it was a living beast that meant to eat some of the nearby pedestrians for supper.
The growl turned into a roar as the car drove off, and Wystan launched himself into the air to follow...only to plummet back down to the roof when his wings wouldn't hold him. What in heaven's name?
He tore away what remained of his worn shirt, only to discover his wings lay in tatters. Ah, that's what that breaking sound had been – his wings shattering between the onslaught of fire on one side, and ice on the other. Now, after saving Tacey from the fire, he was forced to watch, powerless, as the man who'd put her life in danger sped away.
He did not relish failure, and he looked forward even less to telling Tacey he hadn't caught the culprit. But he was honour bound to tell her, all the same, so he slipped between the walls back to the café, only to find her talking to an unfamiliar man in a police uniform.
No, two of them, saying they would visit the man. Tonight.
Wystan had a chance to redeem himself, to turn his failure into something better. He would not lose this chance. Instead of confessing to Tacey, he followed the police officers, through the walls of the boarding house as they questioned the receptionist and some of the lodgers, none of whom claimed to have seen anything, before they returned to the watch house, where their vehicle was parked. The police got in, and Wystan leaped lightly onto the roof, then held on tight all the way to the house where the large red car was parked.
The police officers paid the car no heed, merely walking past it to the front door of the grand house, knocking on it as though they had every right to be there, instead of being sent to the servants' entrance, for surely a house as large as this required staff to run it.
Wystan touched the hood of the car, under which he knew the engine lay. Sure enough, it was warm to the touch. This was the same car he'd seen parked around the corner from Tacey's café. The car he'd tried to kill her with.
And the man at the door, waving his hands as he talked to the police, was most definitely Rory's father. The man she'd begged him to protect her from.
Wystan couldn't hear their conversation from here, so he slipped between the walls of the mansion to creep closer.
"I told you, I've been here all afternoon. I was just about to head out to get takeout for dinner. After the slop they served in prison, I'm still a sucker for a good pizza."
The police officers both stiffened. "You've recently been released from prison?"
The man grinned. "Yeah, don't you watch the news? Terrible miscarriage of justice. When my girlfriend got pregnant to force me into marrying her and I wouldn't, she tried to commit suicide instead, but failed, and framed me for murder instead. The police bought it, the judge and jury bought it, and there I was, an innocent victim, languishing in prison for five long years while the crazy bitch who put me there spent all day drinking coffee with her girlfriends, playing mum to the daughter she tricked me into conceiving and telling lies about me to everyone. I bet that's why you're here, isn't it? Did Tacita tell you I was bothering her? That I did something? Because she's either a really good liar or she's delusional, and either way, hardly a fit mother. I'll be doing her a favour if I take our daughter away from her. Definitely doing the girl a favour. Who knows? Maybe she'll feel so guilty about what she did to me that she'll actually follow through on the suicide this time. Do everybody a favour."
"Mr Masters..."
The police officers stumbled all over each other, a mixture of shock at what he'd said and garbled apologies for what he'd suffered.
What he'd said he suffered...
The man's story was similar enough to Tacey's to suggest there might be some truth in it...yet the details were so vastly different, only one of them could be the truth. If this man was right and Tacey might try to kill herself, then Wystan belonged at her side, where he could protect her. But if Tacey had told the truth and this man had tried to kill her – not just in the past, but tonight at the café – then the greatest danger to her was this man before him. If Wystan kept watch over him, he'd be able to stop him before he could hurt Tacey or Rory.
The man slammed the door, and the police headed back to their car.
Wystan had to choose – go back to Tacey, or stay here?
"Stupid pigs," the man muttered. "They'll believe anything. Pity the café fire didn't kill her. They'd have said something if she was dead, just to see my reaction. Just like last time, when she wouldn't die, either. But that bitch can't be immortal. Her luck's going to run out sometime, and when it does, I'll have the insurance policy to come and collect. I'm coming for you, bitch, because you owe me a big, fat pay check."
Wystan clenched his fists. Of course Tacey had been telling the truth. This bastard had not only tried to kill her in the past, but he wanted to do so even more now. For money, as though he needed it, living in such a grand house. Greedy bastard.
Well, Wystan would just have to change his mind, then. Because if this walloper tried to hurt Rory or Tacey again, Wystan was going to rip his head off. After he tore off his limbs, and any other parts he was particularly attached to. Nobody hurt his family, or at least the one he was sworn to protect.
THIRTY-SIX
The one night she really felt she needed a man's protection, and Wystan wasn't there. She'd gone outside and checked the roof, and she'd even called his name a couple of times from the veranda, but still Tacey got no answer.
