The Key (71 page)

The way he says it makes her believe it.

‘You, too,’ she whispers.

He smiles a little and kisses her again. The kiss is deeper this time. His free hand moves up the inside of her thigh.

The way he caresses her feels different from when she has done it herself, and she wonders if she should do something for him, but then she relaxes and allows herself to be swept along by his touch.

Gustaf has condoms in a drawer and she realises that he had hoped that this would happen, that he wanted to be prepared.

It doesn’t hurt. It mostly feels strange but in an enticing way. She would like to find out more. Everything is so new. Just being close to him like this is overwhelming.

Afterwards she lies close to him and he holds her; he laughs a little.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Your cheeks are burning,’ he says.

Minoo smiles. She feels so calm.

‘Why did we wait so long?’ she asks.

‘You never had the time,’ he says. She hears the smile in his voice.

She hasn’t got time now either. But she refuses to think about that. Her arm rests on his chest. Her leg is lightly hooked around his. She wishes she could stay like this for all eternity. That nothing would ever happen, not ever.

She used to be baffled by people who said they’d like to stop time.

Now she understands. Now, she is happy.

‘Vanessa?’

It’s Anna-Karin’s voice. Vanessa opens her eyes. She and Anna-Karin are sitting on the back seat of Nicolaus’s car.

‘We’ve arrived.’

Vanessa massages her neck. It is stiff and tender. She looks out at Törnros Road. She has slept the whole way, ever since they left the fast-food place just outside Västerås. It was only an hour or so ago, but she feels as if she has slept for ever and would like to keep sleeping for ever more.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Nicolaus says.

Vanessa opens her mouth to say something like,
Isn’t that a bit over the top?
, but changes her mind. Where Olivia is concerned, no security measures are over the top.

Linnéa opens the passenger door to the cold outside world. She folds the seat back to let Vanessa crawl out.

‘It’s fucking freezing,’ Linnéa says. She pulls out a packet of cigarettes. Vanessa feels calm radiating from her. It has been there ever since they left Västerås. It is wonderful to share it. To simply look at each other and let all questions rest for a while.

Something cold lightly touches Vanessa’s forehead and she looks up.

‘Wow,’ Linnéa says.

Large snowflakes fall from the dark sky and dance towards the ground. Snow in September.

Vanessa looks at Linnéa. A few white flakes have landed on her black fringe. Everything is so quiet.

‘Vanessa?’ Nicolaus says from the other side of the car.

‘Coming.’

As she walks with Nicolaus towards the front door, the snowfall gets heavier. She stretches to bring life into her body.

‘What a day,’ Nicolaus says as they step into the lift.

‘You can say that again,’ Vanessa agrees. ‘Do you think the Council is going to kick our doors in tonight and lock us up?’

The lift doors close slowly. Vanessa presses level 5.

‘They won’t let it pass,’ Nicolaus says. ‘But what you did was right.’

The lift shudders and starts.

‘I have lived for four hundred years,’ Nicolaus continues. ‘Very rarely have I seen justice being done in society.’

He looks seriously at her.

‘You and Anna-Karin were very courageous today. You are very brave, Vanessa. I don’t remember ever having told you that I think so.’

‘I don’t believe you have.’

‘High time, then.’

‘Come to think of it, I’ve never apologised to you for calling you “creepy” the first time we met,’ Vanessa says.

‘I have a feeling I didn’t make a good impression,’ he smiles.

The doors open to the landing.

‘Perhaps you had better wait here,’ Vanessa tells him. ‘Then you don’t have to play Linnéa’s uncle, I mean.’

Nicolaus looks embarrassed. She understands that he’s as reluctant as she is to watch her mum trying to chat him up.

‘Ring the doorbell if something happens,’ she says.

She walks into the flat, closes the door, turns the light on, kicks her shoes off, but keeps her jacket on. She tries to make a list in her head of what she should pack to take with her to Minoo’s.

The light is on in the kitchen and there’s a strong smell of frying. Mum is listening to an old power ballad that’s playing in the sitting room.

‘We won!’ Vanessa calls out. She walks towards the music. ‘They’ve been put away!’

She steps into the darkened sitting room. The stereo is giving off a faint, greenish light. Mum is asleep on the sofa. Frasse lies on the floor at her feet. The smell of frying is stronger in here.

Frasse.

He is far too still.

His eyes are wide open.

His tongue is hanging out.

The smell is coming from him.

Not frying food. Burnt flesh.

Vanessa stands as if frozen to the spot.

‘Mum,’ she whispers. ‘Mum …’

‘Calm down,’ a voice says.

In the corner of her eye, Vanessa sees something moving in the darkness between the windows. A figure, dressed in black, steps into the light from the hall and pulls back her hood. Her face is covered in white powder and framed by blue hair.

‘Your mum is alive,’ Olivia says. ‘So far.’

She holds out her hands, turns her palms up and makes blue sparks flash between her fingers. Her face looks ghostly in the cold light.

Vanessa’s terror seems to make her skin shrink and tighten around her.

‘I’m sorry about the dog,’ Olivia says. ‘I like animals a whole lot better than people. But he tried to bite me.’

She aims a flash at the stereo. It crackles and dies.

‘Do you have any idea what a pain it’s been, waiting for you and having to listen to your mum’s shitty music?’

Vanessa looks at Mum. Her eyes are closed and her mouth is open, but she is breathing.

‘She’s asleep. Sort of,’ Olivia says. ‘She seems like a really nice person. Pretty stupid though. I just said that I’m a mate of yours and she let me in, just like that. She’ll wake up again if you stay cool.’

‘You mean, if I stay cool until you’ve murdered me?’

Olivia smiles and Vanessa notices that new teeth are filling the gaps where the old ones had fallen out. The Council has looked after its prisoner very well.

‘Let’s talk a little first,’ Olivia says. ‘It’s been ages since I spoke to anyone at all. Apart from the demons, of course, and they aren’t exactly a laugh a minute. Just now they’re furious with me for not getting on with it. Killing you, that is.’

Vanessa is so grateful Melvin isn’t here tonight; that he is with Nicke this week.

‘You’re
V
, aren’t you?’ Olivia says.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘
V
. In Linnéa’s diary. I managed to get my hands on it a few times. She was totally obsessing over this
V
. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. And figured it must be you. She was so worried about you at the spring equinox party.’

‘I know nothing about all that.’ Vanessa tries to empty her voice of emotion.

Olivia laughs a little.

‘Whatever. The point is, I know that Linnéa is in love with you. And that’s why I’m going to kill you first. Then I can tell her about it.’

She smiles in a superior manner. It looks so ghoulishly theatrical that Vanessa half expects Olivia to throw her head back and burst into evil laughter any minute now. She would be ridiculous if she wasn’t so dangerous.

‘Olivia, listen,’ Vanessa says. ‘The demons tricked you.’

‘I know that,’ Olivia says, making little flashes run up her wrists. ‘They tricked me and then they dumped me. And left me alone with the Council. But then I started dreaming about them again. They wanted me to return and I decided to forgive them.’

The flashes leap up her arms and run down her body.

‘I don’t give a shit that they lied. The power they give me is real. And I’ll use it to help them open the portal.’

The blue light dances over her face and magic fills the room. The hall light flickers.

‘If you do, you’ll start the apocalypse,’ Vanessa says. ‘You won’t survive.’

‘I know I won’t. But I’ll take the whole world with me when I go.’

Olivia smiles and Vanessa knows there’s nothing she can say to stop her. She needs to stall until she can figure out what to do. Olivia must keep talking. It’s lucky that she is in such a chatty mood.

‘But why do you want that?’

‘There’s nothing left for me here. Elias is dead and sooner or later the Council will trap me again. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as Walter’s guinea pig.’

‘Walter?’

The flashes of lightning swarm down Olivia’s arms again and collect in her hands. The light is so intense that Vanessa’s eyes hurt.

‘The boss of the Council. For a while he wanted me to be the metal witch in his circle. He’s obviously an idiot.’

Vanessa agrees. How could Walter think that Minoo would join the same circle as Olivia?

‘I mean, it’s not like you can replace the Chosen Ones,’ Olivia says.

Vanessa stares at her. She tries to get her head around what Olivia is saying.

‘In that case, you and the demons might as well give up. Three of us are already dead, if you haven’t noticed.’

This time there is nothing theatrical about the grin on Olivia’s face. It’s genuine.

‘So you don’t know?’ The sparks around her hands are growing ever stronger and more intense. The lights in the kitchen go out.

‘And now you’ll never know,’ she adds.

Vanessa is blinded by the bolt of lightning coming towards her.

* * *

Vanessa’s scream fills Linnéa’s head and puts her into a state of total shock. Then the scream stops abruptly.

Through the falling snow, she sees the lights go out in all the windows in Vanessa’s building.

Then, blue light illuminates the sitting-room window of Vanessa’s flat.

She understands and drops her cigarette.

‘Anna-Karin!’ she shouts in the direction of the car. ‘It’s Olivia!’

She runs towards the house, her stupid preppy shoes slipping on the thin layer of snow. She bursts into the dark stairwell, and finds her way upstairs in the light of her mobile display. She clings to the handrail as she speeds up, slips again, hurries on.

Vanessa!
She shouts in her head.
Vanessa, answer!

There is an answer.

Olivia is here! Be careful!

Vanessa is alive.

When Linnéa reaches the fifth floor, she tastes blood in her mouth. Nicolaus is standing outside Vanessa’s door. He has turned on his mobile display.

Olivia is in there
, Linnéa thinks.

He looks shaken. The sound of Anna-Karin’s steps echo in the stairwell.

Linnéa tries the door handle. Locked. Of course. At Vanessa’s place, the door locks automatically when you shut it.

Anna-Karin
, Linnéa thinks.
Hurry up!

* * *

Vanessa smells burning. Where the lightning struck the wall just to the left of her head, the burnt scar is smoking.

Olivia didn’t miss her. She’s just having fun. Now she makes more electrical discharges crawl up her arms.

But Olivia doesn’t know that the others are here.

Vanessa senses Linnéa’s energy outside the front door; Anna-Karin’s is halfway up the stairs.

Vanessa releases all her power. It grows inside her into a howling storm that she can hardly control.

Press the doorbell
, she thinks to Linnéa.

The sound of the bell slices through the air. Olivia turns towards the sound and Vanessa hurls the storm at her.

Olivia is thrown violently backwards, hits the base of her spine against the windowsill and sinks to the floor. The windowpane behind her is blown out by the gust. Shattered glass and bits of broken flowerpots whirl in the darkness outside.

Vanessa rushes to her mother but stumbles on Frasse’s body. She mustn’t think about him now. Mustn’t think at all. She slides into invisibility, leans over and places one of her Mum’s limp arms around her neck, pulls her into invisibility and away from the sofa.

‘Nessa?’ Mum mutters faintly.

Vanessa shushes her, although Olivia shouldn’t be able to hear them.

A lightning bolt strikes the sofa and forms a black, smoking crater in the upholstery.

Olivia has got up and is standing in front of the empty window opening; snowflakes are spiralling into the room.

‘Where are you?’ she screams.

She sends a bolt at the doorway to the hall and Vanessa realises that she mustn’t try to get Mum out by that route.

Somebody is thumping on the door. She senses Anna-Karin’s energy just outside on the landing.

‘Get your fat mate to stop sending me sodding control thoughts!’ Olivia shouts.

She can resist Anna-Karin
, Vanessa thinks, as she drags Mum towards her own room.
Don’t come in
.

We’re fucking well coming in!
Linnéa thinks.

Lightning zooms just above Vanessa’s head and hits a framed photo of herself as a little girl. It crashes to the floor. Vanessa hauls Mum into her room. Mum has fainted again and her limp body is so heavy that Vanessa isn’t sure she can handle it. She drags Mum by her arms across the floor and shoves her under the bed, hoping that she’s not hurting her. The moment Vanessa lets go, Mum will become visible again, but at least she’s hidden.

‘Come out!’ Olivia screams. Vanessa hears the sizzling electric sound; sees lightning fill the sitting room.

A crash from the front door, then another one. The others will soon get in. Vanessa can’t let Olivia injure them.

She runs back into the sitting room. When she is invisible, her footsteps are inaudible. Olivia is walking towards the hall with the lightning twisting around her arms like glittering snakes.

Vanessa’s fist hits Olivia’s face. She hears the satisfying
crack!
as something breaks, and then feels a shooting pain from her own hand, so sharp that she is jolted out of invisibility. Olivia’s face is contorted by rage and blood is rushing from her nose down over her bared teeth. She looks grotesque.