Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 by Angela Slatter Page B

A glass and steel wall kept land and empty air apart. About thirty of them stood in a loose
     arrow formation, hands by their sides, faces lifted to the moon, mouths moving in unison. They were all dressed differently
     – anything else would have screamed ‘cult’ – but without exception each was beautiful. Just behind every one I could see a
     sort of shimmer effect: the hidden wings.
    As I neared, I focused on the woman at the tip of the arrow. She was older than her companions, although still enduringly
     lovely, ageing gracefully with high cheekbones and a firm jaw. Others looked like extremely well preserved forties, a few
     in their thirties, but the majority of them appeared to be young, late teens, early twenties. Many of these creatures were
     ancient enough to have seen the Fall of Troy, but this was a relatively new nest, just over a hundred years old, in a small
     community, owing to a general exodus when the proscription against human hors d’oeuvres came into effect.
    I stopped a courteous distance from them and waited for the song to finish. Slowly the notes dropped away like leaves fallen
     from a height, and as the music died, so the colour was restored to the cityscape. Then thirty heads turned to pin me with
     luminous stares until one broke from the group, a glaring adolescent, and approached me.
    ‘You’re not welcome. This time is private.’
    Mindful of Ziggi’s advice, I dipped my head respectfully. ‘I understand, and I wouldn’t interrupt if it were not important.’
     I turned and locked gazes with the oldest. ‘I’m Verity Fassbinder. May I speak with you?’
    She didn’t answer immediately and I tugged a sheet of paper from between the pages of the bestiary. McIntyre had emailed me
     the photo, which I’d printed off in black and white, hoping it might not look so bad. ‘I think you might be missing someone.’
    A long moment passed before she assented and I loosed a relieved breath. The crowd parted with reluctance; they were nervous,
     no doubt about it, and there was something they couldn’t hide. Their fear had a smell, a scent of warm wet feathers.
    I reached the matriarch and handed her the photograph.
    It was just a headshot, and the face had been cleaned up as well as they could. She almost seemed to be sleeping, but it was
     a leaden, hopeless kind of slumber. The woman looked at the image, her expression contorting, and pushed a fist against her
     mouth to stop any sound. Two of the older females supported her to a bench and I kept pace, refusing to surrender my position
     to the press of bodies, and hustled my way onto the seat next to her. Shaking, she stared at the photo.
    Her child?
    ‘She was found early this morning at Waterfront Place,’ I said, gently. ‘She’d fallen.’
    ‘No siren falls!’ At least three voices joined in outrage until the woman beside me held up her hand for silence.
    ‘We know of you. What is your interest in this?’ she asked, amethyst eyes fixed on my green ones.
    It’s always a bit nerve-wracking when your reputation precedes you.
    ‘Well, if you know of me, then you’ll know it’s what I do.’ I cleared my throat. ‘The Normals call me in when things are a
     bit strange, and the Council expects me to help keep the peace among our kind.’
    ‘We’re not
your
kind,’ she said, her voice low with contempt. Sirens might like to hold themselves apart, but they are just a subset of the
     Weyrd. However, opening that particular can of worms wasn’t going to get me very far, so I swallowed the urge to correct her.
    ‘I know that and you know that, but the Normals, not so much. So I have been given the job of finding out who she was and
     what happened to her. I’d appreciate any help you could offer.’
    She paused for so long I thought the answer was going to be a big fat ‘No’, but then, rather surprisingly, she said, ‘Serena
     Kallos. Her name was Serena Kallos.’
    ‘
Serena Kallos?
’ Dumbfounded, I felt the blood