Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) (49 page)

“Okay, okay!” Church held up his hands to calm the bickering. “Let’s see what we can do.”

As they filed out into the sunlit street, Shavi hung back until he caught Church’s eye. They stood behind in the pub doorway while the others went off to explore the village. The air was already hot and filled with clouds of butterflies drawn by the heavy perfume of the roses. Bees buzzed lazily from bloom to bloom.

Church could see from Shavi’s expression it wasn’t going to be good news. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I find this very hard to say,” Shavi began hesitantly, “but as soon as we have finished our duties here I am afraid I will have to leave.”

Church’s heart sank. “You can’t leave, Shavi! For God’s sake …” He floundered around for the correct words. “We’re relying on you. You’re the backbone of the whole team. The only stable one among us!”

“I fear you are not doing yourself or any of the others justice. Please do not make this difficult for me. I understand my responsibilities to you and all, and to the mission destiny has delivered to us. It is just-“

“What?” There was an unnecessary hardness to Church’s voice.

“It was I who freed Maponus. And every life that is cut down by his hand is on my conscience.”

“Look, we asked you to seek him out and free him. You couldn’t have-“

Shavi held up a hand to silence his friend. “Whether I knew what I was unleashing or not is immaterial. I certainly exhibited arrogance in my approach which allowed me to be manipulated. Even without apportioning blame, any deaths are my deaths. I have to do something to make amends-“

“Like what?”

“Help to imprison him again.”

“Shavi, with all due respect, what can you do? It took a collection of the most powerful people in the land to bind him originally. And not all of them survived.”

“I do not know what I can do. But if there is a chance that I can do anything I have to seize it. I will seek out the Bone Inspector and offer my help. Perhaps the two of us can find some way-“

“Shavi, I’m not having any of this.”

Shavi smiled. “This goes far beyond our friendship and your leadership, Jack. I am burdened by this responsibility.”

Church tried to dredge up some relevant argument. He felt massive failure for all of them staring him in the face. “The Pendragon Spirit called us together to complement each other with our abilities. Losing you would be like losing an arm-there’s no way we’d be able to carry on.”

“I am not leaving forever, Jack. Just until I have found a solution. Then I will return to help in-“

“Okay, stay a little longer. Take some time to weigh things up-“

“I have-“

“No, listen. The woman in the Watchtower who set us on this path originally. Her name’s Niamh. There’s some kind of bond between us. Before you make any move, let me contact her. She might have a solution. For God’s sake, Maponus is one of their own. They have to help!”

Shavi looked unsure.

“I’m not asking you to change your mind. Just defer it until I’ve tried this path. “

Shavi nodded politely. “All right. I will do that.”

As Church watched Shavi wander down the summery street towards the others, he couldn’t escape the feeling that the burdens which had been placed on him as leader were growing with each day. Sooner or later he knew he would be found lacking.

“We should question all the information we’ve been given. Go back to first principles.” Ruth checked the list of victims Max had given her. She was enjoying the opportunity to use her naturally incisive abilities on a problem rather than dwelling on the queasiness and weakness that afflicted her too often now.

Tom sighed in a manner which suggested he could barely find the energy for the task at hand.

Ruth knew him too well to rise to the bait. “I think I’ve found out your special ability, Tom,” she said without raising her eyes from the list.

“Oh?”

“Directional irritation. You turn it on, pick out a target, boom.” He snorted in such a comically affronted way Ruth couldn’t help a smile. “Look,” she continued, “we know nothing about these things. If the information is flawed, any response we decide on could be flawed too. And that might be the fatal flaw.”

He shrugged dismissively. “There are more important things-“

“Don’t start that again. We’ve made the decision. Let’s stick to it.”

He snatched the list from her and compared the addresses to the village around him. “At least the last three are in the same area. We can turn this around quickly.”

With Laura and Veitch talking to some of the villagers who had seen the creatures and Shavi already at the house of the first victim, Mrs. Ransom, they headed off to the cluster of other victims. The addresses were all in the vicinity of Recton Close, where the drunk Jimmy Oldfield had lived and died. His council house stood empty, the garden gate wide open, one window shattered from what was probably a randomly thrown stone; one of the local kids, Ruth guessed.

Not too far away they could see the house of the previous night’s victim. The curtains were tightly drawn. They thought it best not to trouble the recently bereaved mother and instead concentrated on the neigbours of Oldfield and the other two people who had died.

There was little to distinguish those who had been taken. Oldfield might have been an alcoholic, but he was fondly regarded by those who lived in the small pocket of sixties housing. Of the other two, a young milkman who had been laid off by the local dairy just before the troubles and a middle-aged cleaning woman who worked at some of the more well-to-do houses, there was little to suggest they would have been foolish enough to allow access to their houses after dark.

Ruth and Tom pored over the information they had gathered on a bench overlooking the village green. “It’s too much of a coincidence to think all these people could have mistakenly let those things in,” Ruth said. “And that poor woman last night … She’d seen at first hand what could happen with her neighbours-“

“Unless the child opened the door,” Tom ventured.

“Maybe these things are some sort of sirens,” Ruth mused. “Something about them hypnotises people into letting them in.”

“Possibly. But Ryan said the door he inspected last night had been broken open.”

Ruth chewed on her knuckle, watching the ducks waddle down to the pond in the centre of the green. It was quiet and lazy in the late-morning sun and there was no sign anywhere across the picture-postcard village of any of the suffering that descended on it with nightfall. “Then everyone niust be mistaken,” she said. “These creatures have to be able to get in when they want.” Even as she said it something didn’t seem quite right, but whatever it was stayed hidden in her subconscious.

“No, I cannot stress strongly enough that these creatures cannot get into any property that is shut off. Even a closed but not locked door seems to deter them.” Sir Richard stood erect and still, as if he were on parade outside the sprawling, detached house of Mrs. Ransom at the far end of the High Street. The residence was cool beneath the shade of several mature trees around the lowwalled front garden, while the building itself was covered in a sweet-smelling mass of clematis.

Shavi nodded politely. “I hope you do not mind me going over this again-“

“No, no, old chap, not at all.” Sir Richard adjusted the Panama hat that shaded his eyes. “I know you’re only trying to help. But, really, we have got a very efficient defence force here. We’ve done everything in our power to protect the village. As to those creatures, well, I’ve watched them with my own eyes, and I am a very well-trained observer. I am in no doubt of their limitations.”

“Then how can-“

“No idea at all. People make mistakes, leave a door ajar at twilight. It’s easily done.” There was a note of sadness in his voice.

Shavi looked up at the dark face of the large, old house. “A lovely property.”

“It certainly is. Been in the Ransom family for generations. Sadly Alma was the last of the line. I come down here every now and again to keep an eye on the old place, make sure the local yobs don’t start tearing it apart. It’s a very, very sad situation.”

“She was the first?”

He nodded. “An awful wake-up call to all of us.” He motioned to the rambling, well-heeled properties that lay all around. “You think you’re impregnable here, in this beautiful countryside, and this historic village. It was such a safe haven away from the rigours of modern society. I retired here after I lost my seat at the last election. Somewhere to tend the roses, enjoy a relaxing life for a change. And now …” His words dried up.

“Everyone has suffered,” Shavi agreed, “all across the country, but people are finding ways to survive.”

“True. Very true. It has been an extraordinarily testing time, but I cannot stress enough how much my faith in human nature has been restored. The way everyone in the village pulled together once we understood the nature of the threat facing us. It’s been the Blitz spirit all over again.” His eyes grew moist as he looked around the quiet street. “I fear for the future, though. If things carry on as they are, all of this could be swept away. It’s not fair at all, is it? What’s to become of us?”

After the surprising kiss in Callander, Church had been wary of having any further contact with Niamh, but he couldn’t see any alternative. Shavi was the backbone of the team: resilient, dependable in every circumstance, fully aware of all his obligations; they couldn’t afford to lose him. The real problem was how he should contact her. He had no idea how the system of transfer worked between Otherworld and what he laughingly called the real world, nor what the abilities of the Tuatha De Danann were in hearing communication between the two places. Were they as omnipotent as some of them sometimes appeared? Would it be enough just to call her name? She had, after all, stressed the bond between them; perhaps that was enough.

In the end he decided at least to make things a little easier. He asked around the village for any site that carried folk tales of fairies or supernatural activity. An old woman directed him to a small, overgrown mound on the outskirts where she had seen “the wee folk” playing one night when she was a girl.

He sat on the summit and closed his eyes, feeling the sun hot on the back of his neck. His instinct told him he needed to be in tune with the spiritual power of the blue fire, although he was unsure of attempting it without Tom around to guide him. But after a few minutes trying to clear his mind, he found it surprisingly easy. Perhaps it was a skill that grew commonplace with repetition, or perhaps it was simply that the blue fire was stronger in the land since his success at Edinburgh, but as soon as he could concentrate he was aware of the tracings of power shimmering across the countryside, casting a sapphire tinge across the golden corn, adding new depth to the rich, green grass. When he finally felt he had tapped into it, he whispered her name. At first there was nothing; and not for the first twenty minutes. But just when he was about to give up, a strange vibration hummed in the air, like the sound around an electricity sub-station. An instant later she was standing before him, her smile as mysterious and deep as the ocean.

“You called, Jack. I came.”

Before her, he was suddenly aware he felt awkward and faintly embarrassed, his emotions and thoughts stumbling over each other like a schoolboy before his secret sweetheart. “I need help.”

She nodded, her eyes heavy-lidded. She took his hand and led him down to the warm grass. As he sat, she leaned near to him, not quite touching, but close enough so that he was constantly aware of her presence; close enough for him easily to breathe in that pleasing aroma of lime and mint. “Why are you interested in me?” He hadn’t meant to ask the question, but it had appeared on his lips almost magically.

She gave a soothing, melodious laugh, as if it were the most ridiculous question in the world. He enjoyed the way her eyes crinkled, her face innocently lit up. In that moment it was hard to see her as one of a race so alien they treated people with oblique contempt. “I have seen you grow, Jack. I was there, in the half-light, the moment you were born. I saw your potential take shape, your good heart grow stronger. I stood a whisper away the first time you cried from hurt emotion. I saw you develop decency and honesty and love for your fellow man. I saw you suffer broken hearts, and persevere even at that terrible point when you felt your world was coming to an end. And you came through, Jack. You became the best you could be. So few Fragile Creatures can say that. And I was there in every moment, so much a part of your life in the highs and the lows that I knew every secret thought, every half-wish and barely remembered dream. I was a part of you, Jack. No one knows you better. No one.” There was almost a pleading quality to her voice.

“But I don’t know you.”

“No. No, you do not.” And now sadness, so fragilely potent he almost felt it. She looked away briefly, too much going on behind her eyes for him to see.

“What is it you are saying, Niamh?”

“There is nothing I can say. I merely reveal to you the slightest fragment of the minutest strand of my feelings. Our races are as far apart as Otherworld and here. And as close. No good has ever come of any bond forged between the two. One passes so quickly, the other goes on forever, both are bound in tears.”

Her voice filled him with a deep melancholy. For the first time, in her eyes, in her body language, the way she held her mouth, he could see how deeply she felt for him and it was monumentally shocking. To be loved so much and not know it was astounding, and truly moving, to such a degree he felt he should seek deep within him to see if there was any way he could repay such a profound investment. But all he found inside was confusion. He thought of Laura and the desperate scramble of emotions he felt around her. And, oddly, Ruth, whom he thought he considered a friend, but when he attempted to examine his emotional response he found it was too complex and deep-seated. And now this woman, who was so open and honest, she was like a cool desert oasis he wanted to dive into and slough off all the corruption that had mired him over the weeks and years.