Darker London

The call came through when Daria was wrangling a pasta bake into the oven, the voice from her phone on the bench announced Lily calling. "Crap," she said, since Agatha, in her carrier on Daria's front, was also starting to cry. "Alexa, answer that," she said, closing the oven with her hip. Getting something that could answer phone calls without Daria needing to use her hands had been one of the best decisions in her life. And worst, sometimes, because a, Phoebe and Cassandra both knew how to use it and b, the names Alexa, Agatha and Alastair were a fucking mission to keep straight.

"Hi Lily, I'm just making dinner - crap," she said again, realising that the oven itself wasn't on but the stovetop still was. "You're on speaker but no one else is around."

"I need you to come here," Lily sounded distinctly un-Lily-like, that is, audibly upset. "Right now."

( ... )

There were reasons why Daria had never read a mystery novel where the main character was eight months pregnant with twins. She thought this, bitterly, as she tried to heave herself toward Lily's hospital and figure out exactly what had happened. There was a reason women got downgraded to backup characters when they got this big.

Daria had been real fucking tempted to downgrade herself and stay in bed. Her hips ached so bad today, and the Braxton Hicks contractions kept coming (making her panic, every time, but never turning into actual labour.) She’d slept about three hours before Phoebe had wandered into her room, woke her up to tell her she’d thrown up, but it was okay it was in the toilet and she felt better now so Mummy could go back to sleep.

( ... )

Daria dropped her go bag onto a chair just inside the door of Lily’s room, and Aloysha sat firmly on a similar chair just outside the door. The room itself was closer to a hotel room than a hospital one with all the furnishings, although the scrubbed clean air of the place carried a distinctly hospital smell. There were an enormous bunch of lillies on the table beside Lily’s bed.

A whole waterfall of pillows was piled up behind her, and she sat with a book closed in her lap but with her thumb holding a place; she’d been reading it some time ago and was planning to get back to it, soon, when her thoughts stopped rushing her. Technically she hadn’t been alone, as Aleric had left her with several of his most trusted guards, and there’d been the hourly checks by the nurses, but when Daria barged into the room she realised just how much it meant that someone was here that wasn’t being paid.

( ... )

Josie escaped the house and walked away, her head a storm of Stephie’s You are stronger than every bad things inside you countered with Josie’s I am every bad thing inside me countered with Ko’s I wish we found you first all repeating in a maddening round in her head.

She knew she’d fucked up. She could barely find the logic now that had led to her pinning Stephie down, or what had compelled her to try scare the living daylights out of her.

Because I’m shit – that was the obvious answer. Trash, just human trash or not even that, nothing better than a leech, an angry leech who ruined everything she gave a shit about. Of course she didn’t want Stephie to hate her, but she knew she deserved to have Stephie hate her.

( ... )

On the one hand, Miles was pissed off. Noon was such a fucking inconvenient time to meet on a Monday. He had class. He had, up until now, perfect attendance. He had hours of work to do and Aleric’s stupid wife had to go and pick noon for whatever clandestine meeting she was arranging.

On the other hand, Miles was scared. He knew the scale of the favour he owed Lily. He’d been raised to fully comprehend the power at work here. Eight lives, he owed her, in return for the faction of slavers that Lily’s men had murdered. One in front of Miles own eyes.

Eight lives, for Astrid’s one.

( ... )

The knock on the door came late one evening. The time on Miles’s laptop said it was ten after ten.

His study was on the ground floor, at the back of the house. The windows looked out over the small garden and the fence that separated his house from Astrid’s. The door to the study looked down the hall, where the front door loomed menacingly. It wasn’t Astrid at the door, because Astrid was upstairs in her terribly wallpapered room. It wasn’t Josie at the door, because why the fuck would Josie knock? Miles frowned in the direction of the front door, and ignored it.

( ... )

Daria hosted brunches.

Every weekend, on Saturday or Sunday, she opened up the house and extended out their long table, piled up with food and orange juice and iced mint water and - most of the time - had a bottle of bubbles for mimosas.

As a general rule, you didn't need to be invited; everyone was welcome, but the Brunchers (a noun coined by herself) did change, and Daria tried to keep everyone generally up to date with who was showing up that week. She was part of so many social groups and there were some combinations of people that were just... unwise. If Lily was attending, Daria would suggest gently that perhaps Allanah skip this week. "Ah yes," Allanah had said after the first time, rolling her eyes. "Mustn't cross the streams."

Daria powerfully adored Allanah.

( ... )

Sundays were very important to Illyana Drescher, formerly Nikolovica. Sundays were the most important.

She rose early, leaving her husband sleeping beside her. Aleric rarely came to bed early on Saturday nights, and Lily had long since given up pestering him about it, and about accompanying her to Church. He came often enough to satisfy her belief that he was still a Christian, as befitted her husband and any member of her family, but she had come to terms years ago with the fact that he would never be as devout as she was. That was not unusual. She found that men were often more involved with themselves than with God, that women were the ones who safeguarded the family spirituality.

( ... )

The car was as big and as hulking as the men inside it, though if Miles was going to be drawing comparisons between men and vehicles, he would have said he was less afraid of being hit by the car. There was absolutely no question that he was going to climb into the back when it pulled up beside him on his way to his own car, after his meeting with his supervisor. The door swung open and Miles took one look at the man in the back, waiting for him, and got in without fuss.

“Afternoon gentlemen,” he said. “Thanks for the lift. My car is in student parking B.”

( ... )

Miles wasn’t joking when he told Zoe he was going to find someone more competent to help find Astrid. At least, he desperately hoped that it wouldn’t turn into a joke. The possibility was always there. Asking for help from his family was always going to be a risk, always going to feel like stretching his neck across a chopping block and hoping no one would swing a sword.

Little Moscow was a last ditch effort, he knew, but he’d run out of ditches. He was tired, worn, badly scarred, and desperate. All of this showed, he was sure, despite his efforts to cover it all up. All of it showed. These people were career criminals; they were fluent in body language. Aleric knew he was desperate the moment he walked into his office, and relished in his crisis.

But there was nothing Miles could offer that Aleric wanted, and he was not about use his resources searching for a girl when he couldn’t see anything worth getting in return.

( ... )