Mist (Sapphire & Steel fanfic) 2/?
It was an old house, in a land where there were all too many old houses. Sapphire stood outside for some minutes, looking up at the weathered red brick of the façade, the ivy clinging to the pores of the building’s mortar skin, and the pointed window frames and doorway which were self-conscious, dangerous echoes of a much older age.
“What is it?” said a voice behind her, without preamble.
Nice to see you too, Steel, and how are you? “Gothic revival architecture. Look, those pointed window frames, and doors. This house was built one hundred and twenty-two years ago, but it deliberately incorporates elements of a much earlier style.”
“Marvellous.”
“All the houses around here are the same, though. This area in this city is known for it. I don’t think the mixture of old and new has anything to do with what’s happening.”
“And what is happening?”
“I can’t tell yet.”
“But it is in there?”
She tasted the atmosphere. All around was an odd kind of quietness. Through a thickening mist she could see the faint bulk of nearby houses, tall and indistinct. She reached out to feel the people inside, expecting to get a impression of human lives burrowed into each building. Instead, the whole street felt empty. It was disconcerting. She laid her hand against the wall of the house before them, getting nothing under her fingers but the cold, rough texture of brick. “That’s strange.”
He pounced immediately. “What’s strange?”
“Everything is muffled. I can’t sense anyone inside.”
“Maybe she’s already dead then.”
“Maybe,” said Sapphire. She wasn’t going to commit herself to anything. She stood back from the wall and folded her arms, avoiding eye contact with Steel, waiting for him to make a decision about their next move.
“Let’s find out,” he said, tried the central doorknob carefully, then felt around the lock.
Sapphire let him try this for a moment - he was trying to learn the technique, but obviously he hadn’t got there yet - then intervened. “There’s a mortice lock, here, and a Yale lock, up here. The mortice lock hasn’t been turned. The Yale lock has six pins. You need to line them up.” She took his hand, and spread his fingers over the membrane of wood that covered the locking mechanism.
His arm stiffened. “I know that,” he said, shaking her off. There was a very faint click as the pins rotated.
She withdrew, tucking her hands back under her arms as Steel pushed the door open silently. The only way to cope with this was to ignore it, to blur her vision and pretend she couldn’t see what was happening. She had hoped that it would be all right this time, but if it wasn’t going to be then she would just have to carry on anyway.
She followed him across the threshold into an empty hallway, where she stood unmoving for a few moments and tried to get a sense of the surroundings. The hall was wide and gloomy, lit only through panels of windows around the main front door. One broad staircase led up, and she had the feeling of another, smaller set of stairs going down at the end of a narrow passage leading towards the back of the house. The floor was made of old, chipped quarry tiles - original, reflecting the tread of many decades - and partly covered by a worn carpet of indeterminate colour. The atmosphere was stale, with a faint tincture of synthetic perfume somewhere above.
Well?
I’m still not sure. She didn’t have to see his expression to feel his impatience.
You can’t tell whether this girl is in this house or not?
I told you, there’s something interfering.
With what?
With everything. It’s as if everything’s muffled.
“Are you sure?”
Startled to hear his voice, she looked around. He was staring at her hard. “What?”
“Is something interfering, or could it be you? I mean, I’d say you’d been having some difficulty concentrating lately, wouldn’t you?”
She was at a loss to answer, but she held his gaze - trying with her eyes to make him snap out of it and back into their old, hard-won understanding. She had not realised before that it had not been mutual, that it had depended on his good will, and now something had gone wrong she had no idea how to put it right. She had not changed.
“All right,” he said, breaking away. “Let’s do it the old fashioned way. You search this floor, I’ll start upstairs.”
“There are more stairs. Going down. Wait a moment.” She touched his arm to stop him in his progress towards the main staircase. “There is something. Down there.” She indicated the passage beside the staircase.
Steel gestured to her to follow in silence. The passage led to a jumbled area at the back of the house, where there had once been another staircase. She could feel the remains of the upward pathway, a ghostly image, as they passed through where it had been. She paused to analyse it, but the strength of the impression eluded her as she pursued it.
What? Steel demanded.
Nothing much. There used to be another staircase here, that’s all. Probably for the servants.
Steel glanced up, evidently decided that it was unimportant, then looked around. I thought you said there was a way down?
There is. There are steps behind that door.
And what else is behind that door?
Sapphire laid her hands against the panels. She did not like the way her perceptions seemed to sink into nothingness, as if the sensation faded as she pressed. Usually, when there was a barrier, it was a hard, yielding, obvious thing that could be leaned against and sometimes breached. This was vague, confusing, impenetrable. There’s something very wrong.
Of course there’s something wrong, that’s why we’re here. After a pause he asked, Is it down there? Is it safe to open the door?
I can’t tell. She gave up and stood back, getting a tangible cold blast of impatience as he brushed her aside to throw open the door. Steel believed in abrupt confrontation when faced with an uncertain situation.
The door opened onto steep stone steps, leading down into a kitchen. She gained an immediate bird’s eye view of a large, shabbily furnished basement room, with red flagstone tiles, dilapidated appliances and old, cheap, ill-fitting units, before she stopped in astonishment.
Standing at the foot of the stair was Jet, looking exactly as Jet always looked except that it was a very long time indeed since Sapphire had met her on an assignment. The unexpected incongruity of seeing her in these surroundings, dressed for work, gave her something near to a shock. She could certainly sense Steel’s immediate reaction of disquiet.
“Steel,” said Jet, clearly as surprised as they were but managing to sound accusing nonetheless.
“Jet,” said Steel, going down to her level.
“Well, what are you doing here? This is my assignment.”
“No. No, it’s mine.” He looked round at Sapphire. “Ours.”
Sapphire came down the stairs. “Hello, Jet. Where’s Copper?”
“I - don’t know.”
“Is everything all right?”
“I think so! I haven’t seen her, I haven’t been able to find her - Steel! I’ve got things under control, I don’t understand why you’re here. There must be some mistake.”
“There’s no mistake. Sapphire and I were assigned. We’ve been briefed. Maybe you should go.”
“That might be a bit difficult.”
“Why?”
“You didn’t notice the large and obvious barrier surrounding this house?”
“We’ve only just arrived,” said Steel after a momentary hesitation, and Sapphire could feel his eyes on her.
“I’ve only just arrived, I don’t seem to have my partner with me, but I’ve still managed to work out that we’re cut off.”
“Cut off from what?”
“From the world out there - and from home.”
Jet and Steel were attempting to outstare each other with definite mutual annoyance, and Sapphire felt an uncharitable twinge of pleasure that she was now not the only one on the receiving end of Steel’s ill temper. It was, however, a most unusual situation and she could understand that they should both feel aggrieved. Jet was a senior operator, like Steel, and she would normally direct an investigation with the support of her partner Copper. She was certainly not supposed to turn up on another team’s assignment like some specialist, it was an extraordinary waste of resources if nothing else.
“Maybe they’ve sent all four of us,” Sapphire suggested, trying to soften the atmosphere. “Copper could be here somewhere, let’s search the house.”
She was ignored. “I told them,” said Steel, giving up on the interlocking stare first. “I made my feelings clear.”
“Oh, I see,” said Jet sharply. “Well probably they assumed that after - how long? - you might have acquired some perspective. Even forgiven and forgotten, who knows.”
“I don’t forget.”
“Yes you do.”
“Excuse me!”
Sapphire started and refocused her attention with a blink. From behind an alcove beneath the stairs, a young woman emerged. She looked to be in her early twenties, with long hair braided into a single thick pleat and a flushed, bare face. She was very far advanced in pregnancy, ripe, swollen and soft.
“Will you all please go away? Now?”
And Jet, who was closest to the girl, was only just in time to catch her as she buckled to her knees.
It was Jet, too, who ended up carrying her in her arms up the steep cellar steps to the living room of the house, while Sapphire went ahead to check that the room was secure and Steel hovered behind her ready to catch them both in the awkwardness of the girl’s bulk made Jet stumble. Stumbling, however - even in heels - was too undignified an action for Jet and something Sapphire was sure she never did in public. The living room, which was directly off the main hall, seemed unaffected directly for the moment. Sapphire went to the long bay windows and looked out with misgivings at a solid wall of white mist. She felt Steel join her.
“The barrier?” he asked in a low voice.
It was something more like his usual tone. She glanced round at him, realising that she was rather desperate to see any hint of softening in his expression.
“We were out there a few minutes ago,” he added. “Right outside the front door.”
“I doubt we could get out there now. I doubt it would be a good idea to try.”
He made a non-committed grunt which told her that this would not be ruled out as a possibility. “Draw the curtains,” he said. “We don’t need to sit and look at it.”
The curtains were ancient crushed velveteen drapes. Steel snapped his fingers at the central light and the bulb clicked to life. Jet had deposited the girl on a large, extremely battered sofa, and propped a pillow under her head. The girl had been stirring fitfully, but Jet touched the side of her neck delicately and her eyes closed again.
Steel looked down at her. “She’s going to have a child, isn’t she?”
“Ah! You noticed. Well done.”
“Soon?”
“Very soon, I’d say.”
“And we can’t get her out of here.”
“Not until we repair the time break, almost certainly.”
“That’s why you’re here then. You know about that sort of thing.”
“I know a little, but I’m hardly an expert. Why not Gold?”
“Maybe she’s busy. It’s an emergency, you were the only one with healing skills free.”
“That makes sense,” said Sapphire, hoping she was striking a delicate balance between supporting Steel and not antagonising Jet.
“I’m sorry,” said Jet, rising to her feet, “but it makes no sense. I am not a specialist. I am not getting into a situation again where I’m expected to take orders from you.”
“Can’t we just - “ Sapphire began helplessly, but she was shouted down by Steel.
“Take orders from me? What are you talking about? You never took orders from me. Stay here, look after the girl and try to stay out of trouble. Sapphire!”
He stalked out of the room, letting the door bang.
Sapphire turned and saw that the girl - Josephine Mitchell, she recalled in distraction - was sitting straight up and wide awake.
Go and help Steel search the house, said Jet, calmly. I’ll question the girl. Don’t go outside and don’t open any windows, for now.
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