Dead of Light (37 page)

You thought I was my sister, right? Till you remembered that she was dead. And then you didn't know what to think, was this a ghost come to visit or an enemy or what? Couldn't be cattle, no cattle would be so foolish as to stray so close...

“Well, it's me,” I said, momentarily generous, hauling him out of a hole. “So what's with the roadblock?”

“Big stuff going down,” he said, vague and full of import; though in fact all he was telling me was
I don't know, I just follow orders, me.
“Cousin James asked us himself. Seal off the town, he said, don't let anyone in or out. That includes you,” he added, frowning. “Must do. You shouldn't be out anyway, it's not safe for you...”
Go home and hide with the cattle
, he was saying now; and no, he really didn't know a thing, did he? Just a good soldier, doing what he was told. If I'd been Jamie, or Lamartine, or any cousin but me, he'd have let me through; me being me, no chance. The family name was a passport, sure, but not by itself enough. Talent was the key, and this door wasn't going to open without it; and obviously there'd been no leaks dripped down to Cousin Conor, Uncle James hadn't let slip a word about his windows. No surprise there. He'd probably told his glazier it was a sonic boom.

He might be a pompous bastard, but James was nothing else if not efficient. If he'd closed this road, he'd have closed them all; God knew there were cousins enough, through all the cadet branches of the family. If I went down to the river and drove along the footpath, there'd be someone even there to stop me, I'd lay money on it.

There must still be ways to escape; even Uncle James couldn't isolate a town this large in a single night. I could climb fences, scramble through hedges, surf the trains if they were running. If not I could steal a boat or play chicken with the bypass traffic. I could certainly get out, if I tried hard enough.

If nobody caught me trying.

But I'd be lucky, more than lucky if I found a way to take the bike with me; and I didn't want to leave it. Apart from the convenience and the simple speed, the sweet get-me-out-of-here! spirit of the thing, it was turning into a talisman for me. Riding it, I was Hazel's representative on earth and the instrument of her revenge; I carried her letters-of-marque, I was privileged and potent. I didn't want to lose that, even temporarily. Knowing what I had to do, not knowing if I could ever bring myself to do it, I needed all the help I could get, and help from my hard sister was more valuable than most.

“Go on,” Conor said, roughly authoritative. “Get yourself home, and leave family business to those of us with the strength to handle it.”

Oh, that was cocky, from him; but I let it pass. Not much else I could do, in all honesty. I even managed a humiliating nod of submission as I turned and went back to the bike. Uncle James' punctured dignity might yet work to my advantage; it's always useful to be underestimated.

o0o

No speed in me now. I didn't know what to do; driving laps of the town would simply be asking for trouble. I thought again about seeking shelter with friends, and again I rejected it. I just couldn't tell how much talent there was ranged against me; for all I knew my enemy could have a witch-finder's nose, sensitive enough to sniff me out wherever I holed up.
Fe fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a Macallan man.
Poor poetry, but a poorer prognosis for me if it were possible and true.

I drove slowly, indecisively back to the brow of the hill, and pulled up in the middle of the empty road. All the town lay spread out below me, shimmering with light and all of it useless to me — or so I assumed, thinking regretfully that it was too bad there was no way to store sunlight and carry it around in my pockets like ammunition for a later date in the dark.

But then again I saw nightfire where I wasn't expecting it; and this no roadblock, no. This was a beacon and a rallying-cry, blazing bright against the pollution of a whole city's neon and sodium glare. Not one man's work, surely. Even the strongest of my family couldn't light up the town alone.

What it was, was the tip of the spire on St Dominic's, Father Hamish's own church. There was an ancient iron weathercock up there, the gift of an eighteenth-century relative of mine, who held the whole parish in his gift; it was shaped like a phoenix, and that bird was in the fire right enough tonight, though I didn't think it was going to rise in the morning.

It burned incandescent, like a brand in the night, like a summoning; and I couldn't see for the fierce shine of it, but the metal that made it must be writhing and collapsing in the chill of the fire, undoing itself as it burned.

I'd have been worried for the spire, for the church itself, except that nothing that acted to Hamish's loss was going to worry me. And besides, if the clan were gathering, they'd see the building safe. Enough to make such a nightfire, there must be enough also to control it.

And that many of my blood, all in the one place — there'd be enough there to see me safe also. Protection in numbers; it was isolation that was dangerous. Each of my cousins who'd been attacked, had been attacked alone.

So down the hill I went, and for the first time in years I went to church.

o0o

Cars again, once more so many cars, crowded onto the hardstanding in front of the church and lining the street beyond the fence, both sides: their numbers alone spoke of crisis, and never mind the sheen on their blank windows as the glass reflected the nightfire glare from the steeple above.

Being on a bike was good, even a big bike. I could wind my way between the skew-parked cars, bump sacriligeously over the turf that sheltered so many ex-Macallans and other citizens of this town that there wasn't room for more, hadn't even been room for Marty or for Hazel, and finally hoick it onto its stand close to Jamie's jeep likewise heretically parked on bone-containing grass. Nearby a small side door stood open in the high wall of the church, letting a cool creamy light and the hiss of muted voices slither out.

One of the cars I'd wangled the Beamer past had been a big Volvo. Couldn't truthfully tell the colour in the weird light back there, but there wasn't really any question in my mind.
Where were you when I wanted you?
I growled silently, casting a last look back at its smug solidity before I walked unhesitatingly in through the old iron-studded door, down a short corridor and so into the church proper, where I was swamped once more with memory.

o0o

Too many Sundays, all the bloody Sundays of my childhood I'd been brought to this dim temple to sit through Mass. Right at the front they set us kids, with our parents in the pew behind to clip our ears if we fidgeted or whispered. Which of course we did, religiously. Sharp pains and boredom were my abiding recollections, coupled with the height and chill and sheer weight of stone arching above me.

Wouldn't be bored tonight, though pain was not at all impossible and perhaps very high on the agenda.

It was still heavy and cold in there, despite so many people. Vaulting ambition had raised this church too high, spread it too wide. It was cathedral sized, and all my family couldn't have come close to filling it, even if half the tough young cousins weren't out manning Uncle James' roadblocks.

It still smelled of smoking candles and incense and dusty velvet, of polish and flowers and overbearingly of stone; and it still swallowed the sharpness of sound, muffled voices to a whisper and wove them together into a background hiss of interference, nothing more.

o0o

I walked in, and that familiar hiss faded slowly. One by one they saw me, and stopped talking; and that was the helmet and leathers once more, some of them surely were taking me for Hazel come again to prove true all their hopes of resurrection. More would simply be startled by a dark unknown, disturbed by anonymity in this place where every face was known.

I enjoyed that moment, lingered a little in the cool pleasure of it before I lifted the helmet off and let them see me.

A collective sigh, and the many whispers started up again:
only Benedict, for God's sake, and what's he doing here walking in on us like that, what does he think he's playing at?

Wasn't often I'd had all my family talking about me at once. I could almost have enjoyed that also, except for the occasion and the cold feeling in my bones that was actually nothing at all to do with the ambient temperature at church.

I held the helmet under my arm, and looked around. Saw that most, maybe all of the men had brought their womenfolk along; there was enough simple space here that even so many clashing auras wouldn't sicken the stomach of anyone accustomed to being with Macallans.

Some of the faces in the nearer pews nodded to me when I glanced their way; one or two even managed a smile. Others just looked disgruntled, or looked away.

Hamish was standing by the altar in full vestments, talking to Uncle James. He'd turned his broad back to me, all the acknowledgement I was going to get from him.

But I wasn't here for Uncle James, nor for my mother, whom I spotted now over by one of the fat stone pillars that supported the wagon-vaulted roof. She waved nervously; I lifted a hand in response, but that was auto-pilot. My eyes and my mind had moved on already.

Moved on, and found the man I was watching for coming towards me up the nearest aisle.

“Benedict. I'm surprised to see you here...”

“Hullo, Uncle Allan,” I said. “You've been avoiding me.”

“Well,” he said quietly, calmly, “wouldn't you have done the same, in the circumstances? Or no, obviously you wouldn't, because here you are,” touching my arm to be certain of it, assuring himself that I was no fetch in this place of mystery. “But perhaps you should have done, mm?”

“Perhaps I should,” I agreed, just as quietly. “Might have been more sensible. But then I never did have much sense, when it came to my favourite uncle. I never could stay away from you.”

“Ah, Ben. I got your message,” so he must have been home, though probably not until sunset or later, my cautious uncle. Must have gone home, talked to Jess, walked or trotted or maybe even run upstairs to find what I'd left for him; and I wondered whether it had hurt him as much as it had hurt me, the splintered, mangled wreck that I'd made of that sleek and shining beauty, his old and precious microscope. “What are we going to do with you, eh?”

“Something pretty disgusting, I imagine.”

He laughed shortly, and his hand closed more firmly on my arm, no casual touch this time. “Let's go outside, shall we? Where we can talk without being interrupted?”

“No,” I said, “let's not.” It was dark out there, dark and clear, all the rainclouds of the afternoon perversely blown away again. I'd sooner stay in here where no starlight could penetrate, where even the moon was only ever the dimmest of globes distorted by old stained glass and no use to anyone.

“Ben, lad,” and he maybe said something more then, he most likely did; but I wasn't listening any more. Even at the cost of my life, I was suddenly and appallingly distracted.

Because my father came in, my own Christless father came to church tugging Carol by the wrist, and she was sweating and fearful at his side when she should have been a mile away from here and safely under a duvet behind locked doors; and there was a swallowed cry from a pew at the back and suddenly footsteps rushing forward, and that was
Laura
, for God's sake, and what the fuck was going on?

I wasn't the only one distracted. Uncle Allan also was watching the girls, his attention crucially wrenched away from me; which gave me the chance to wrench my arm from his grasp and run.

Not far, only over to the doorway, where my father stood smugly posing with his captive and sneering at Laura as if she were nothing more, just a couple of heifers herded in for butchery or sacrifice or God alone knew what. But again I wasn't the only one, and I didn't get there first though I was closer.

Jamie must have been sitting with Laura way up at the back, or else standing with her round behind a pillar somewhere nice and private. Now he came hurtling down faster than either reason or respect would suggest to a nicely-brought-up ex-altar boy in his parish church and surrounded by his family.

No doubts about him, but a dispassionate observer might have found some amusement in laying bets, whether I was running to Laura or to Carol. Lord knows, I was far from certain myself, though not by any means dispassionate. It didn't matter, though, it wasn't a choice I had to make. We arrived in order, Laura and then Jamie and then me; Laura hugged Carol close, Jamie didn't so much hug them both as brake himself against their bodies, and they were all three so wrapped up in each other by the time I arrived, there was neither space nor need for me.

So I turned on my father instead, fear and frustration both driving me as I snarled, “You get your hands off her!” as I chopped down hard at where his hand was still locked like a cuff around Carol's wrist.

“Mind your temper, son,” my father said mockingly, snatching his fingers back with rare sweet timing so that the edge of my palm sliced only through empty air and I was left looking and feeling stupid. I glanced to the side, where my cousin and my friends had their heads tightly together, and there was still no room for me; and I gave a shrug of surrender, and just said, “What's she doing here, anyway? Where the hell did you find her?”

“Language, boy. You're in church, remember.” He was well into father-mode here, and loving it. “I found her at your place, actually. I was looking for you. You weren't there but she was, hammering on the door like nobody's business; so I thought I'd bring her along. Thought she might tell us where you were. If we asked nicely.”

All the hair on my body prickled at his soft smile then, and it was nothing to do with my standing so close. If I hadn't seen the flare of nightfire on the spire and the opportunity to hide right up front, to take shelter in the open — well, I'd seen my family asking questions, once or twice. Like any self-respecting inquisitors, they never believed a claim of ignorance.