"There's just one thing I'm not clear about?" The Gunner asked with caution.
Nick sighed again, the questions would never end but she couldn't blame their curiosity. Nick knew if she was in their position she would be asking the exact same questions. It was hard to answer such questions though as many were hidden within mystery themselves, some which even after all these years Nick had not figured out.
"Go on" she replied.
"Why did the Walker save you at all? Wouldn't it have just been easier for you to err…well, die? Not that I would have wanted you to die. I'm just saying if you did. But I'm glad you didn't. It would have been awful if you'd-"
"You're rambling now Gunner" Nick chuckled.
"Err, right" he replied whilst straightening up, brushing some dust of his long coat.
Nick paused thinking about the question.
"It depends what you're opinion of the word 'dead' means. If you ask someone who's been cursed they might say they died the moment they got cursed. They felt like their soul got torn apart or ripped out of them. They believe that none of the person they used to be remains inside them anymore."
The Gunner looked aghast. George had turned a slightly paler shade.
"Do you believe that?" said Edie.
The question flummoxed Nick for a moment.
"I don't know what to believe. But make me choose and I suppose, no, I don't. I still have my memories from when I was…normal." The word hit her chest like a knife. "Yes, I follow the word of the Stone but out of fear, not loyalty. Please remember that if anything. I believe I am still alive. Still Human. But I also make mistakes, like humans. I've done things I regret. Not always on behalf of the Stone either. This curse isn't an excuse to do evil. The Walker, yes he is a bad person but you have no idea how much the Stone can play with a person's mind. Anyway…I guess you're version of 'dead' meant no heart beat, yes?"
The Gunner just nodded, unable to say anything.
"The Stone needs people to do its bidding. Taints can only get so much done. They lack intelligence, intuition and instinct. A human on the other hand, is a lot more useful. Humans can be tactful, deceitful and more important, vulnerable. It makes them easy to manipulate. The Stone wants an army of followers so it can hopefully one day be freed. You saw what damage it can do when the Darkness was let loose. I'm telling you though, that was only a fraction of its true potential. In layman's terms, the Stone needs us alive. We're no good to it dead. It also believes that death would be an easy release. A get out of jail free card. No, it wants us to suffer. The immortality we have is just a brutal reminder of what we have to face everyday. The longer we're like this, the less like our real selves we are, we get corrupted and are more likely to do exactly what the Stone wants us to do."
Another silence.
"I need a drink" the Gunner said when all the information got too much to bare and swiftly got up and walked out of the room.
"I think I'll join you" George shouted after him and wandered out of the room as well. He was glad to be having a break, he needed the air. What he was learning about the Stone was really quite something. He didn't think that Nick would be so informative. He felt sorry for her. Her life was just one big conspiracy, one master plan thought up by the Stone.
The room felt a lot smaller now the two of them had left. Edie felt slightly uncomfortable wherever she looked. She felt Nick's eyes gaze upon her. The room they were sitting in was the only one on the ground floor. Nick waited until she had heard the cluttering of George and the Gunner's footsteps move upstairs.
"There's something I haven't told you, Edie". Nick took a deep breath. "I didn't know whether to tell you in front of them or not."
Edie didn't like where this was heading. She shifted uncomfortably. She didn't like how the two of them seemed so far apart, but yet strangely familiar. There was something about Nick, something Edie couldn't quite put her finger on, that made her very anxious. They had both been brought into this world due to forces they had no influence on. George had unwillingly fallen but ultimately caused his predicament. For them, there was no choice, it was based on a coded sequence running through their blood. It was their DNA. Their coincidence or their destiny. Nick was very much in league with dark forces, so much so that Edie could almost see Nick's own dark side playing on the surface. There was something very wrong about it but Edie couldn't help being attracted. She searched her soul for answers. Maybe it was because she had died. Died and come back. She had felt the blackish nightmare of evil, the suave gathering of dark roots in her heart. They blinded her informed moral sense of good and right into inky obscurity. A strange vagueness that she shared and harboured commonalities with the hidden complexities of the girl looking back at her.
"The Stone didn't just curse me because I was a Glint. It was something else as well. About who my Father was."
Edie was dumbfounded. It was as if this story never ended. It just kept piling on the load and what seemed like the climax was just another cliff edge that needed to be climbed to reach the top. But the layers were peeling away and it must soon be at the core of knowledge.
"Who was your Father?" she asked, a slither of nerves starting to play on her voice box.
"Well that's not really the important part." Nick said. Edie looked confused. "There is a law, long fore-told by people in this unLondon. It has long since been lost and only known by some as a myth. The law goes that if a maiden is born from a Glint and Master Maker, then that child will have the power un-knowest to most, and the ability to defeat the Darkness will ensue. So when I said who my father was, I should have really said what. My Dad was a Master Maker".
"No" breathed Edie.
What Nick was saying couldn't possibly be true. As Edie had just recently found out, her and George shared the same Dad, a Dad which had passed his Maker abilities on to both of them. That would make Edie the daughter of a Glint and a Master Maker.
"So what you're saying is…" Edie hesitated.
"You have the power to defeat the Stone" Nick concluded.
