Prologue

Alison Wright was a pretty young woman, perfect prey. She could have been a model, or a porn star, no one would know which to think. No one would have thought that she was eking out a living by braiding girls hair in the streets, selling pretty woven bracelets that she made herself. No one would have thought that she was sleeping rough on park benches or in cramped doorways. The only thing anyone knew about her was her name.

The perfect prey.

Even the way she moved made her easy to target. So easy to take, just to snatch off the streets. She would be the eldest out of all of them so far, and with her looks she would be just right for what they wanted.

They watched her, gathering up her merchandise and the blanket she had laid everything on, pocketing the little money she had made in the thick grey duffle coat, which had once been white. She stood and shrugged the cold away, wrapping the long scarf round her neck as many times as possible, her long curly blonde hair covering her ears. The needle marks on her arms would make her easy to bend to their will. She always kept her arms covered; she didn’t want to chase away business. She pushed the blanket and bracelets in to a dusty backpack and walked away from the spot on the pavement where she had been.

They followed her.

It was getting dark; she was hungry, heading towards a takeaway. It seemed she had gained enough money to eat. Not enough money for what she wanted. She left the takeaway ten minutes later, clutching a little white bag and heading towards her favourite alleyway. She would be alone down there, no one to see her.

The perfect place.

She walked briskly, not wanting to hang around, her prime objective to get in the warm and the dark away from being watched. But the voyeurs knew where she was going; she couldn’t hide from them no matter how hard she tried. She ducked into a little alleyway, dominated by bins and what else anyone cared to throw away. But she felt safe there, alone, calm. Her backpack fell to the ground and she huddled down in a corner, her fingers opening the back and pulling out a little piece of prawn toast. She munched on it, an expression on her face of pure bliss.

The perfect moment.

They moved. She screamed.

Silence descended on Kings Street. Alison Wright was gone.

The only witness an ugly raven sitting upon a lamp, before with a squawk; it took off into the night.

“Now, are you sure that the coin isn’t behind your ear?” of course it’s not; it’s up my sleeve, I thought to myself and smirked as the little kid in front of me looked up innocently and shook his head. “Are you sure?” I moved my hand forwards and clicked my fingers behind his ear, slipping the coin up into my fingers in the blink of an eye, and drew it back. There was a smattering of applause from the group of four, thank you, thank you very much you smug bastards, I thought to myself as I took a small bow. The people who stood in front of me lived in nice comfy houses and ate wonderful food. I slept in doorways and enjoyed a feast of whatever I could find in the rubbish bins or could buy with my money which I accumulated from this petty trade. Of course it was my only real talent, unless you count the bizarre ability I had to climb any wall you presented me with – that my friends is talent. Yet you couldn’t exactly get a lot of money from climbing walls, so I was reduced to standing on street corners flogging my own little talents to gain money from the punters.

Said punters, annoying people in warm clothes who made me cringe with envy, seemed amused by the fact that this fourteen year old girl was performing slight of hand with so much ease. What could I say; I’d had a lot of practise. I’d performed my first trick when I was five, that thing with the cards and doing the ‘pick a card’ trick. Needless to say since then I had somewhat gained a bit more of a menagerie of illusions and neat little tricks which were enough to gain a few ‘oooos’ and ‘ahhhs’. But I had more talent than that, after all some magic tricks are bigger than a pack of cards. I could, if I wanted, make it seem as if I’d disappeared into thin air, or turned myself into a cat. It was all down to timing and planning. So of course I didn’t have time in general to do such things on a street corner, the fuzz delighted in coming along and telling me to move on.

“Do another one!” the little boy begged. I raised my eyebrow, and grinned, placing the coin back into my pocket.

“Another eh?” I pulled out a packet of cards, and began to shuffle them absently, “What kind of trick would you like to see? Something special?” The boy nodded and laughed. He was cute really, about four years old, even at that age I was homeless, I was born and raised on the streets of London, I’ve never known any different. Well, there was this one month when I managed to find this nice cubby hole in a hotel cupboard, set up nice I was until they found me, boxed my ears and sent me on my way. Eh, who needs somewhere like that anyway? The streets are my home, always will be, and as such I know my way round this city like the back of my hand. I didn’t watch the cards, and began to send them flying back and forth between my hands. More applause, I blinked, cut it out you fools I ain’t done anything yet, I thought bitterly. Then suddenly the cards flew out of my hands all over the ground, I feigned looking shocked, “Now I wonder how that happened,”

I bent down and started picking them up, the boy helped me,

“Here, I bet I could tell you what every card is as I pick it up,” the deck was marked of course I could tell, but they couldn’t. I picked up every card, all with their backs facing up towards me; I flicked up the first one, looking straight at the back, the face of it peering right at the onlookers. “Eight of hearts,” the next card, “King of clubs,” next card, “Ten of clubs,” I went through the first ten. I had every one right. The people clapped again. I grinned and placed the cards back in my pocket. “Thank you ladies and gentlemen and now for my final trick, I would like to ask for your participation.” I looked over the three adults, avoiding looking at the kid otherwise this time I’d probably feel guilt. These guys were innocent, amused, easy to trick. They had money, I had none. Time to gain a little dosh. “You sir,” he looked like the dad. “Is that a new tie?” he nodded at me, “Would you mind if I borrowed it for a moment?” he blinked but began to untie it and handed it to me. I produced a pair of scissors from my pockets which seemed a lot bigger than they were. In truth, I just had a hell of a lot of pockets in this coat. One of the tricks of the trade. The man took a step forwards,

“Now look here kid,” he began, right as I cut into the tie. He raised his eyebrows, his mouth widening in horror and giving me a rather unattractive view of his tonsils. “How dare you!” he growled, and snatched the tie from me, completely unharmed. He blinked and stared in amazement. “How did you do that?”

I grinned charmingly up at him and tapped the side of my nose,

“A great magician never reveals their secrets sir.” I was smiling for two reasons, one to keep up the act; two because I now had the guy’s wallet nestled in my pocket snug as a bug. My hand was in said pocket now, my fingers shifting through his money, quickly scooping up the notes which were in there and hiding them up my sleeve. He’d never know, and as they let their son place a pound coin in my little pot, they moved on, and I placed the wallet back in his pocket. Smooth as a snake. I looked down at the pot, hmmm, I’d managed to gain about five pounds today, not bad really considering I could pop to the nearby chippy and get some half decent food with that. As for the money which was in my sleeve, well that would be for emergencies, or to help me mates out if they didn’t get enough trade today.

I grabbed my sign from the floor, which on one side read ‘Ace the Astounding!’ And on the other ‘beware the newt’ was scrawled, courtesy of Chip and his collection of old biros. Chip was my unofficial boyfriend, we’d known each other for about ten years now, he was a street urchin like me, and two years older, sixteen or ‘ ‘legal’ as he calls it. Legal or not he looks after me, and wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, but God help anyone who tries to lay a hand on this sacred vessel, Chip’s a dab hand with a flick knife. He made some very interesting rearrangements on a guy’s face who tried to pick me up the other week thinking I was someone who’d do him a ‘favour’. The interesting thing was the guy thought I was a dude. Man would he have been disappointed. If the fact that Chip was my boyfriend didn’t give it away, I’m a girl, a female, a member of the opposite sex, say it how you will.

The name’s Ace, just Ace, I don’t have a last name. I don’t think I ever did really, my mum was a ‘special favours’ woman and I was the result of one man who didn’t know about something which stopped pregnancy happening. I’m not an idiot, I know how things work. I can read as well, Chip taught me, though my writing is a little shaky. I began to whistle as I walked along, heading back to ‘camp’. We had a home base see, where we all stayed, that is me and Chip, Love and Hades and Yuca, we’re all one big family and stay together. It wasn’t that far away and I knew that I’d see one of them there, we always had to leave someone behind because otherwise the only belongings we had could be taken off of us and we couldn’t have that. I think it was Love who was staying behind today, couldn’t be sure though.

Love and Hades are an unofficial couple too, they’re older though, Hades is eighteen and Love is nineteen, looking at them you wouldn’t think they’d be able to stand each other let alone share a mattress together. But they do, there’s an attachment there which doesn’t need to be spoken. Even in the way they glare at each other you can see something special.

I didn’t take long for me to reach the place I call home. It was an alleyway, nothing unusual about that, but it was wired off, a few boxes scattered here and there in front of the wire. I casually walked up to the fence and when no one was looking shoved a box aside. There was a hole, just big enough to wriggle through, cut into the wire. I pushed my sign through and soon crawled in after it, moving the box back with my fingers and disappearing into the shadows. Disappearing is what we’re best at. We’ve all got our little talents, mine being with magic and illusions, Chip’s got a gift with talking to people, Hades has an attachment with birds, Love is…well her name gives it away, a seductress and Yuca…just freaks people out really. She’s lovely but she’s not half weird. I chuckled to myself at the thought and looked at our home.

It wasn’t anything special, but to us, it was. It was made up really of old bits of wood, anything we could find, but we’d even struck it lucky when someone lobbed a mattress over our fence. We take turns sleeping on it. It was hidden in the furthest corner of the alley, with a shelter over the top of it made out of corrugated iron; there were various nooks and crannies, and little areas for sleeping for the rest of us, each little shelters in their own right. I looked at it fondly, and then I spotted Love sitting in a corner, her fingers turning the pages of an old comic book which I knew she had read a hundred times at least. She’s the main money earner for us, she gets guys into rooms, works her magic and leaves with their money without giving them what they wanted. It’s great, a master of disguise in her own right that girl, none of her victims have ever seen what she really looks like. It’s funny really, the mistress of seduction was a comic book fan, Superman specifically. She looked up and beamed at me,

“Hey Ace how’s it goin’?” she asked placing the comic back underneath a box we kept newspapers and magazines under, it’s amazing what people throw away. She had a smile which could brighten anyone’s day she really did. I gave her a quick smirk and sat down beside her, tossing the sign on top of a bin.

“Alrigh’ actually, got a fiver from the punters,” I grinned mischievously, “And, I got this,” I flicked my wrist, my fingers snapping, a bundle of ten pound notes appearing between my fingers. She gazed at the money and laughed,

“Aw you Ace are a jack of clubs you really are,”

“An Ace of Spades rather,” I joked with her.

“’ere you lot stop making such a racket,” Chip was back, his grinning face suddenly appearing as he crawled through the entrance to our little community, “We managed this place for six years don’t wanna cut it short do we?” he chuckled. He was dragging something behind him, a bag perhaps, but no he was pulling a shallow cardboard box behind him. “Lookie at the swagger ol’ Chip has found us,” he swung the box around to face Love and myself and recovered the entrance. Inside the box, was fruit, bananas, apples, pears, everything you could imagine. I stared at it as if he had just opened a treasure chest,

“Where did ya get all this?” I breathed, literally licking my lips. Chip ruffled my short hair,

“Ol’ Barney up at the fruit place owed me for cleanin’ up his store the other week, his regular cleaner was off ill and instead of payin meh money he gave me this bounty.” It was a bounty indeed, my hand reached towards a peach, with its soft skin I was positively aching to sink my teeth in to it. But Chip swatted my hand gently with a newspaper which he has grasped in his other hand, “Come on Acey darlin’ share and share alike, we’ll wait until Hades and Yuca gets back from their rounds.” I nodded reluctantly, sticking my tongue out at him. “An’ you watch your tongue girly, who knows what I might do with it.”

I grinned,

“All the better to snog you with,” I teased and lent back against the wall. It was hard to believe at times that I was fourteen, what with the way I acted at any rate. It had to be said I had no problems with being intimate with Chip; of course we’d never gone all the way. I had some morals and he did too. We would wait, until it got too much. Hades and Love were as active as you could get, the two often enjoying a midnight romp. It could be annoying at times, but who were we to tell them to keep it down and stop enjoying themselves? Chip grinned and came to sit down next to me, I suppose in most peoples eyes he wasn’t the most attractive man on the planet, but in my eyes, he was the only one. With thick tight brown curls, a tall skinny frame and wonky nose from it being broken so many times, it was a matter of taste, but other people always seemed to find him attractive, but that was the fun of it, because he was all mine. Even if it was unofficial.

He pecked my cheek,

“So how the Ace been today eh?” I showed him the money and he grinned, you could almost see little pound signs appear in his eyes like what happens in cartoons, “I swear there is no end to your talents,” I grinned at him and huddled against him for warmth. London was not a warm place especially in the middle of the winter, snow hadn’t begun falling yet, but it would soon. It was almost unbearable then, but we’d survived many winters and we’d survive this one. “No ‘orrible men try to steal you away from me today then,” he smirked, but I could see the commitment in his eyes to me. We didn’t just have affection for each other, there was a pledge between us, like blood brothers, we’d done that and all, the swapping of blood. Messy.

“Not today Chip, I was safe.” I beamed at him. I’d never quite been able to place what his accent was, he’d completely forgotten he had one; it was rather cockney sounding, whatever it was it made my insides go all gooey whenever he spoke.

“That’s good then,” he said ruffled my hair again. My hair was short, messy and far too blond for its own good. Literally, it was brightest blonde and in winter, well it was practically white. I was naturally pale anyway from mal-nutrition and all that lark, so even with my watery blue eyes I looked like a ghost. Most people took me for a boy, what with the way I dress and act, we figured it’d be that bit safer for me that way, a young girl on the streets, who knew what could happen to me. Yuca no one worried about, before she hit the streets she was trained in judo, and at six foot tall and eighteen years old, she was rather intimidating even if she was thin as a rake, and as for Love…

I shook my head,

“Any knowin’ when Yuca and Hades’ll be back?” I asked snuggling even closer to Chip who put a protective arm around me, rubbing my arms to keep me warm. Love shook her head and out of habit looked down at the broken watch on her wrist. Out of all of us, Hades was the only one with a working watch, having found it like two weeks ago in Trafalgar, dropped it someone had, never look a gift horse in the mouth as they say, so we kept it.

“I reckon they’ll be back soon Duck,” she always called me that. Duck, it had stuck because on the day we met I was being chased by one of those annoying little birds. I hate them, it was a sarcastic joke she had made and had become a nickname for me. I nodded and stared at brick wall in front of me. Yuca had this weird habit of drawing on the walls in chalk, the rain would come and wash the drawings away and she’d begin again. She was great at drawing, able to do anything, she could make a killing if she took it up all professional like, but there ain’t one of us which would give up this life now. It’s our life, even if we are living out of boxes and wood.

Almost as if on cue the box was moved once again and the long, lean spider like figure of Yuca scuttled into the area closely followed by Hades, tall with scruffy black hair and a hooked nose he, again, was a matter of personal taste.

“Evening,” Yuca’s smooth voice commented as she stood and straightened her clothing, it was a futile effort really, our clothes were always crumpled. She was the tallest out of all of us, Hades being five foot eleven about I should think, Chip was a tiny bit short than that, Love was taller than me and I was about five six, all average heights for out of the ordinary people.

“Hey Yuca,” I said and waved at her as she walked over to us and sat down opposite me, her eyes falling on the feast which Chip had presented us with.

“Someone has had a fruitful day,” she said, there was no hint of humour in that voice and we knew she wasn’t trying to be clever. She was incredibly hard to read, we could never tell what Yuca was thinking. Hades finally managed to settle down on the other side of Love, sitting just to the left of her. They didn’t kiss, didn’t hug or anything, they just stared at each other for a minute or so before nodding, and that was more intimate than the deepest kiss between them.

“So!” I annouced a bit too loudly, “Can we eat now? Huh? Huh? Can we?” I was being annoying on purpose and when Chip clamped a hand over my mouth his lips moving next to my ear I couldn’t help but grin behind his palm,
“Shush now Ace yeah? Want us to get caught here do ya? Wouldn’t be good would it,” he pulled his hand away and reached into the box, grabbing a banana, “Would be best ta eat a majority of this lot now, don’t want it to spoil do we?” so we dug in. I grabbed that peach I had had my eye on. It tasted so damn good, I watched as expressions of bliss found their ways onto my friends faces, all except Hades who looked at his apple suspiciously as if it might suddenly bite him. Hades was probably the most special out of all of us; he had a real affinity with birds. They followed him, he talked to them. As I thought about it, a pigeon fluttered down out of no where to land on his shoulder, it cooed as he fed it little pieces of apple. The day I was getting chased by those ducks he stopped them chasing me, and that’s when he met Love, it was hardly love at first sight. They hated each other at first, but after one particularly heated argument between them one night, let’s just say that male female relations were incredibly active and I slept with my fingers plugged in my ears.

“Well this has been a good day,” Love said happily as she munched on some cherries, “We got this wonderful feast and Ace managed to gain us a lil bit of insurance.” I showed everyone the money. There was at least sixty quid there, that could feed us for ages, “You know, with that we might be able ta buy one of those little camping stove things,” she said thoughtfully, “That’ll be handy…we could actually eat some hot food, I think I’ve almost forgotten what it tastes like, and even then it’d be good for warmth wouldn’t it? All ya need is some matches,”

“And paraffin, we’d need that,” I reminded her.

“And paraffin,” her face seemed bright with the idea. It would be nice to actually feel some warmth for a change. The clothes we had kept us from freezing, but you had no telling when the weather was going to get worse here, you had to keep ahead. We all nodded around at each other, “So a stove it is? All in favour!” we all raised our hands, save for Hades who was nibbling on his apple looking thoughtful. “Sup darling? Not quite sure on the idea?” Love asked, her eyes a little wider than normal.

Hades shrugged and continued eating, staring at a spot on the wall which he seemed to find particularly interesting. Yuca may have been the weird one out of us, but Hades barely talked. He did on occasion, and if he had to, but other than that he seemed to try and avoid it. Probably because he didn’t speak the best English, but bloody hell did he have a gorgeous voice. He’s French, even if he does look a bit like a raven, he has the most fascinating voice I’ve ever heard, he speaks English, well enough that you can understand him but bad enough that he’s had his fair share of mockings from it. He told me about his life once, about before he came to England, he had a good family, kind parents, but he wanted independence, to set up a life on his own, so he came here to London. It all went downhill from that point on and six years ago he joined me and Chip’s little group, two years later so did Love, and only six months ago did we meet Yuca.

Yuca herself was peeling an orange, keeping the skin in a neat pile to her side and humming to herself, she often did that, habit I suppose.

“So we’re getting a stove then,” I concluded, ignoring Hades’ silence. Everyone nodded save for the one clothed in black. I gave them all a small grin, “Seems my pick pocketing ways may have saved us from gettin’ too cold this winter.” Chip popped a cherry in my mouth,

“That they have darlin’ that they have,” it was all happy families as we ate our way through the fruit, all knowing that we’d probably have indigestion in the morning and not caring, when Yuca spoke up,

“Another girl been taken last night,” we all looked up at her. Children kept disappearing from the streets, not all homeless either, some snatched right from under their parents noses.

“Who?”

“Alison, you know that girl who tried to make us give her some form of drug which we didn’t actually possess at the time?” yeah we all knew her. None of us were drug users, not anymore, Yuca used to be, but we managed to get her to kick it. It was a long process and we knew it still hung over her like a shadow; she’d been clean for four months now. Two months, that’s how long she’d been with us before that, and she’d trusted and liked us enough to break a habit which she had endured for three years. That’s strength, that’s commitment.

“Yeah? What she just disappeared?” I stared at her wide eyed. Yuca nodded, she pulled a few newspapers loose from the box we kept them under and crumpled them into a ball. She flicked her old lighter and it sparked to life, the flame soon catching onto the newspaper. She held it a moment before dropping on the ground. We all stared at the flames, she had done it to give us light, and she held something close to the small fire,

“See?” in her hand was one of the weird little bracelet things which Alison used to sell, “Found it in that alleyway she squatted in, she weren’t there, neither was her stuff and no one’s seen her since, someone heard screaming down that alley the other night. I reckon they took her.” There was silence amongst us before I finally managed to pluck up the courage to ask

“Who’s they?” I knew the kids were disappearing, homeless kids more than the ones with families, by my reckoning Alison was the oldest kid I heard of going missing; she was nineteen, only just a kid still. I shook my head and shrunk back into Chip’s protective embrace.
“That’s the thing, no one knows see, “Yuca pushed the bracelet back inside her pocket, “Police have been searching and all for the missing known kids, us lot they’re not worried about, but someone heard Alison scream and so they been searching. They know someone’s been stealing kids, I think I could be the forces themselves, explains why nothings been found.” She lent back against the wall, and pulled out an old fashioned pipe from her pocket, she tapped tobacco into it and lit it with a match. Yuca liked fire; hence why she carried matches and a lighter, there was no way we were going to let her near that stove when we got it.

The fire light flickered; I pushed a few more pieces of newspaper into the flames to keep it going. The smoke which rose from Yuca’s pipe hung on the air and I felt some sudden shiver flash through my spine.

“You alrigh’ Ace?” Chip asked, you could hear the worry in his voice,

“I’m fine,” I muttered, was I? I guess I was scared of all this, no clue why it was all happening, it had been going on for weeks now, perhaps a month. At least twenty kids to my knowing had gone, and that was just the family kids, if you added us homeless missings on to that list you’d have well over fifty. The homeless, we work as a network, we all know each other, know each others turf, it don’t stop people moving in on our area at times but we fight them off. We’d heard whenever someone had gone missing. The disappearances were getting closer and closer to the street we were on, St. James’ street, well just off it anyway. I closed my eyes and lent against Chip, “It’s all weird though ain’t it? I mean just out of the blue kids goin’ missing and everything.”

“I’ll never let anyone take ya Ace,” Chip muttered, leaning his head on mine, “None of ya.”

Thunder rumbled over head, droplets of rain falling from the sky, we watched as they fell onto our fire, making it hiss,

“Looks like we’re in for a load of rain tonight,” I muttered. I liked rain but sleeping in it was no fun. Everyone began moving gathering things up to make sure they didn’t get wet. We had a stock of discarded umbrellas which we had managed to nick from round the back of a shop – stock they hadn’t been able to sell and wouldn’t miss. It didn’t take us long to open at least twenty, positioning them over our belongings and over ourselves. Chip and I huddled up against the wall together, under our little wooden shelter, an umbrella opened up through a hole in it we’d never managed to fix.

“I mean it Ace; I won’t let anyone take you,”

“I know you do.” He smiled, and pointed over at Yuca – whenever it rained she fell asleep, it was one of those unexplained phenomenon, like aliens or cheese. I looked up at him, the rain falling outside making that horrible patting sound against the sheet of iron over the top of Love and Hades – their turn with the mattress. “Hey,” he gazed down at me, “You know I love ya right?” a wonderful rouge blush spread throughout his cheeks,

“Yeah?”

“Just making sure.” He grinned and wrapped both his arms around me, as I changed position to sit on his lap, he placed his chin on my shoulder, we stared out into the rain. The night was young, the night was wet, and I had a horrible feeling that by the morning, things would be much much worse.