Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) (18 page)

She slumped down on a rock in her usual couldn’t-care-less manner, but Church knew she wanted him to join her. He sat close, feeling her body slowly come to rest against him. “Nature girl, eh?” He mentioned the unusual desktop wallpaper of interlinking trees he had seen on her portable computer not long after they met. “You nearly took my head off when I asked you about that before, but it was an environmental thing, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, you’re so sharp. It’s an Earth First design.”

“What’s that?”

“A radical environmental group. I’m a member. We believe in taking action where it’s called for, like when some developer is ripping up ancient woodland or some farmer’s trying to make a fast buck growing GM foods.”

This surprised him. “You’re good at keeping secrets, aren’t you? I didn’t think you believed in anything.”

“Everybody has to have something to believe in. And that’s mine.” She adjusted her sunglasses slightly, then let her fingers stray to her scar tissue. “So do you still think I have something to do with Little Miss …” She caught herself. “… with Ruth disappearing?”

“I never said I thought that.”

“No. You never say much of anything that’s important.” There was a sharp edge of bitterness in her voice.

“It was just seeing you with all that blood. I knew you weren’t getting on-“

“So naturally I’d go and slit her throat and hide the body. That makes a lot of sense. For the leader of this sorry little clan, you really are a moron.” She sighed. “I just want a little trust, you know. Is that too much to ask? I know I’ve not gone out of my way to endear myself like some perky, eager-to-please telesales girl, but that’s my way. You should be able to see through that.”

“I’m sorry. I-“

“Everybody else can act like a moron, but I have high expectations for you.”

Her words contained a weight of emotion that was in conflict with the blandness of the surface meaning; so much, it was almost too charged for him to deal with. He felt attracted to her, cared for her, certainly, but beyond that he had no idea what she meant to him. The pressure of events made his own deep feelings seem like a foreign language to him.

He searched deep in himself for some kind of comfort to give her, but all he could do was put his arm around her shoulders and pull her closer. That simple act appeared enough to satisfy her, and that made him feel even more guilty.

“So what do you reckon our chances are?” Veitch clambered on to an outcropping of rock, his muscular body compensating for the buffeting of the wind; he was fearless despite the precariousness of his position. “You know, of finding her alive?”

“I can tell you care for her a great deal.” Shavi smiled mischievously; he knew his words would plunge Veitch into a clumsy attempt to talk about his emotions.

“She’s a good kid.” Veitch kept his gaze fixed on the landscape spread out before them.

“And you feel that way even though she treated you so harshly for killing her uncle?”

“I deserved it. I did kill him. Are you going to answer the bleedin’ question or not?”

Shavi squatted down on his haunches and absently began to trace the cracks in the rock. “I have hope.”

“You know, I’m going to kill the bastard who did that to her.”

“Revenge never does much good, Ryan.”

“It makes me feel good. Do you reckon Blondie had anything to do with it?” He glanced over to where Church and Laura were sitting.

“I do not know. My instinct says probably not.”

“I just want to be doing something. All this sitting around is driving me crazy.” He found a pebble and hurled it with venom far out across the landscape. After he had watched the descent of its arc, he said, “After we find her … if we find her … do you think, you know, me and her could ever get together? I know we’re chalk and cheese and all that, but you never know, do you?”

“No, you never know.” Shavi watched Veitch fondly; for all his rage and barely repressed violence, at times he seemed like a child; inside him Shavi could sense a good heart beating, filled with values that were almost old-fashioned.

Veitch laughed. “I don’t know why I’m talking about stuff like this to a queen.”

For the first time Shavi sensed there was no edge to the slur; in fact, it was almost good-natured. “I don’t-“

“Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re going to say. Men, women, they’re all the same to you.”

“And emotions are all the same as well, whoever you care for.”

Veitch eyed him thoughtfully for a second, said nothing.

Shavi came over and sat next to him on the rock. “There is a belief in many cultures that we create who we are through will alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“That we are not a product of breeding or environment. That if we wish ourselves to be a hero or a great lover, and wish hard enough, than we will transform ourselves into our heart’s desire.”

Veitch thought about this for a second. “And if we mope around thinking we’re a nothing, loser, stupid, small-time crook, then that’s what we end up as well.”

“Exactly.”

“So why are you telling me this?”

Shavi shrugged. “I just want to help.”

Veitch looked at him curiously, but before he could speak, Tom wandered up to them along a muddy path worn into the scrub. Shavi and Veitch made no attempt to read his mood; at times his thought processes were as alien as those of the Tuatha De Danann or the Fomorii.

“‘s up?” Veitch asked.

“I can’t find any sign of the gate to the Well.” Tom stood next to them, as detached as ever.

“You didn’t have any problem down in Cornwall,” Veitch noted.

“The power here has been dormant for a long time. There are no structures or standing stones to keep it focused. It may even be extinct.”

“So, what? We’re wasting our time? Those haunts wouldn’t have bothered mentioning the place if that was the case.”

“The Aborigines have a similar view of an earth energy. In fact, it is an extremely widespread cultural belief around the world.” Shavi brushed his wind-whipped hair from his eyes. “The Aborigines call it djang, the creative energy from which the world was formed. In their stories of the Dreamtime, djang spirit beings transformed into things in the landscape-rocks and trees, bushes and pools. That residue was always there so the people could tap into their spiritual well at any moment. And like the ley lines we have discussed before, there were dreaming tracks and song lines linking sacred sites. But the djang could also be conjured up with correct, traditional dances and rituals.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Your shamanic abilities are very potent. Do you think you could find the dreaming tracks that would lead us to the source?”

“If I have that ability I do not know how to access it. Yet.”

Veitch noticed Shavi’s faint smile and tapped him firmly on the chestbone. “But you could learn!”

“Possibly. Given time-“

Tom shook his head. “We have little time for you to fritter away meditating. You’ll need to do what shamans have done throughout history when they were searching for information or guidance.”

Shavi looked at him, puzzled.

“Ask the spirits of the dead.”

They made their way down from Arthur’s Seat in the early afternoon. The day had grown cloudy and thunderheads backing up in the east suggested a storm was approaching. Just off the comforting modernity of Princes Street they located a small cafe where they discussed Tom’s suggestion.

“Why are you asking Shavi to do it?” Church asked Tom between sips of a steaming espresso. “You seemed to have a good-enough handle on it when you called up the spirits at Gairloch.”

“To continually contact the dead allows them to learn to notice you. And then they will never leave you alone.” Tom’s tone suggested this was not a good thing.

“So it’s all right for the Shav-ster to set himself up for a lifetime’s haunting, but you have to protect yourself,” Laura said sharply. “You sound like one of those First World War generals sending the boys off to die.”

“I may be remarkably talented,” Tom replied acidly, “but Shavi is the one with true shamanistic abilities. He is more able to cope with the repercussions.”

Laura began to protest, but Shavi held up his hand to silence her. “Tom is correct. I fully understand my responsibilities. It is the role of the best able to do all they can for the collective, whatever the outcome.”

“You sure you’re all right with this?” Veitch said with a note of concern. “Nobody ought to be bleedin’ bullied into doing something they don’t want.”

“I will not deny that the prospect is unnerving, but then everything about life at the moment is very frightening. There are no longer any certainties.” Shavi smiled to himself. “Perhaps there never were. I have had difficulty adjusting to my new-found abilities.” His face darkened. “On the way to Skye, when I gained control of the sea serpent, I felt like my mind had been spiked. That sense of losing control, of finding yourself in something so alien, it was like waking entombed beneath the earth, of giving up your body and never knowing if you could ever get back …” His voice drifted away, but after a moment his smile returned. “It was a little like dying. But now I am resurrected.”

Laura snorted derisively. “You’re saying something like that isn’t going to screw you up forever? Yeah, right.”

“Only if I let it. The shadow is still there, the fears. But not to do something because of fear is even worse.”

Laura’s expression suggested she didn’t understand a word he was saying. She focused on her cappuccino.

“Okay, it’s agreed,” Church said. “But where’s all this going to take place?”

“Somewhere suitable,” Tom replied. “Somewhere regularly frequented by the dead.”

Laura threw the guide book across the table. “It’s all in there,” she said with an odd note to her voice. “God help you, you poor bastard.”

Early evening sunlight streamed into the hotel bedroom, catching dust motes in languid flight. Through the open window came the gritty sounds of the city, rumbling and honking with optimism and stability; the normality was powerfully soothing. Church and Laura lounged in the tangled sheets, listening to their subsiding heartbeats, daydreaming of the way the world used to be. The sweat dried slowly on their skin as they held each other silently. For a long while nothing moved.

Even then Church couldn’t find complete peace. The thoughts that had been creeping up on him since that evening on the quayside at Kyleakin had gathered pace; of Niamh and the kiss that had filled his entire being, almost forgotten in the upheaval of Ruth’s disappearance; of Laura and her slowly revealing deep affection for him; of his own strained ambivalence. For too long it had seemed like events were uncontrollable and now he was beginning to feel his personal life was going the same way. After so many months trapped in the sphere of his grief and guilt over Marianne’s death, his emotional landscape was an uncharted territory. He knew he felt an attraction to Niamh, but whether it was physical or emotional, or even pure curiosity, he wasn’t entirely sure. And the same with Laura-why couldn’t he read what he felt about her? The only time he was truly in tune with her was during that moment in sex when his conscious mind switched off and the shadow person at the heart of him took over.

“What are you thinking about?”

He glanced down to see her eyes ranging over his face. “Life, death, and all things in between.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

He slid down and threw one arm across his eyes; the darkness was comforting. “What did you think I was thinking about?”

“It would have been nice if you’d said, me.”

“Sorry.” There was a stress-induced unnecessary sharpness in his voice which he instantly regretted.

He felt Laura’s muscles tense next to him and a second later she had levered herself up on her elbow to fix an incisive eye on him. “What’s on your mind?”

“What isn’t? The weight of the responsibility on our shoulders. All that bullshit the spy told us last night-I can’t get it out of my head, even though I know I should. The fact that I’m eaten up with vengeance for whoever it was killed Marianne and your mum.” He caught himself. “You’ve never told me how you feel about that.”

“I don’t feel anything. I’m not even numb. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it wasn’t me who did it to the old bitch-at least I can still look at myself in the mirror-but it’s not as if I’m tearing myself apart that she’s dead. After all she did.” She shifted self-consciously to hide the original set of scars on her back.

The tone of her words made him feel uncomfortable. “That sounds a little-“

“What? Cold? Psychotic? Don’t criticise me. You don’t know anything about my life.”

“I’m trying-“

“Not hard enough.”

He suddenly felt angry that he constantly had to pussyfoot around her; it was more strain that he didn’t need. He knew she had her own problems-the rumbling trauma from the scars Callow had inflicted on her face, the doubts over why Cernunnos had marked her-but all of them had problems and no one else acted like a spoiled brat.

They sat in silence for five minutes watching the dust motes dance in a sunbeam, and when she spoke again she sounded calmer. “Anything else on your mind?”

He paused for a long time, then admitted it aloud, to himself as much as to her. “That I should be sending us all to look for Ruth instead of-“

“What? Trying to save the world and everyone in it? That makes sense.” Another whiplash in her voice; he felt the irritation rise again.

“I’m on your side. Why do you always give me such a bad time?”

“I’m having a bad life.”

“It’s not all about you, you know,” he snapped. “I sit here with my thoughts and I can’t even tell who I am any more. Thanks to that stuff I drank from the Danann cauldron, sometimes I think I can hear alien voices chattering at the back of my head, saying things I can’t understand but I know they’re terrible. Then everything flips on its head and I feel the rumblings of whatever the Fomorii did to me with the Roisin Dubh, deep in the same place-“

“Well, boo-hoo for you.”

Unable to contain the building rage any longer, he hammered his fist into the mattress. “Shit, why am I here?”