Pandaemonium by Ben Macallan

cut it for long, but as a stopgap it was a fine idea.
    And besides, it made him just that little bit more anonymous, less easy to spot; and besides, he did look really rather wonderful in it. Actually, I thought we looked really rather wonderful together, in the mirror there – but then, I always had thought so.
    And besides, Jordan did hair of many colours, dyed or shaven, but he never wore a hat. That was good too, one more way to underscore the difference between one boy and another.
    I didn’t need it – it was the last thing I needed, the last thing that would ever happen, that I should confuse one Jay with another – but even so. Visual signals. Good to have.
    Oh, yes.
    Not thinking about that or the need for that, oh, no.
    “Come on, then. Down we go.”
    This time, going down, we did use the dead escalator rather than the stairs. Because I was in the lead, and because the pitch of those steps was still wrong and would give each of us something else to think about, keep us rooted just a little in our bodies. Even if the effect was only marginal for both of us, given my Aspect and his – well. I don’t like to say natural superiority , but. There it was. His body came easily to him. He danced down that escalator behind me, and grinned when I turned around, and said, “Why do they call it an escalator, anyway? The last thing it does is speed anybody up.”
    “I dunno. I guess when they’re working, they escalate people’s progress through the building, as an average, traffic management; some people are slow on stairs, going up or coming down. Never mind. Come and see the dorm.”
    The boy with no face was still blowing his melancholy riff. He was new since my day, but it felt like he had properly belonged there for ever, like nothing ever changed for him or for us or for anyone. I was here, wasn’t I? Even with Jacey physically at my side instead of just oppressively in my head and frighteningly behind me, it wasn’t that different. Hunted on the outside, hiding in here. Wondering just how to get away.
    Last time, I’d found an answer – but it hadn’t lasted long. I was here, wasn’t I? And not on false pretences, not faking it. If the Cathars called it off, there was still Jordan; if Jordan decided that he really didn’t care, there were still the Corbies, and whoever else had been set on my trail and unleashed.
    Maybe Jacey could talk to the Corbies; they might listen to him – but they’d broken into his home and chased him out. They’d made him run away. Or I had, but it came to the same thing in the end. I didn’t think he was in a talking mood, as far as the Corbies were concerned.
    Besides, he thought he could take them. He might be right – but I didn’t want to give him the chance to find out he was wrong. The way that Asher did, that sudden brutal revelation that even the immortals aren’t actually that. Not even the young ones who ought to be immortal anyway, who often think they are.
    It was odd, finding myself protective of Jacey, trying to keep him safe against his own worse judgement. I used to think that he’d keep me, safe and protected for ever. Then I fled him in terror: down the nights and down the days, down the arches of the years. I thought he was Death incarnate, or the promise of it. His father’s representative. I thought he carried Hell in his back pocket, and would take me there.
    I get things wrong, too. Turned out that was Asher, and he did that and he died for it.
    Now it was Jordan, and I could die for it. If he could be bothered.
    Turns out Hell is a heritable condition. Who knew?
     
     
    W E TURNED RIGHT by Little Boy Blue, and let his horn-music wash us down the short connecting passageway into the dormitory at Savoy.
    Onto the other platform, if you want to put it that way. It hadn’t ever been used for trains, but it did still look the part.
    Actually, mostly what it looked like was Henry Moore’s wartime sketches, back when people used Tube stations