Entangled (7 page)

Fifth problem: feeling all these things, seeing and experiencing all these things, was she herself alive or dead? Back at home after her OxyContin overdose, later in the emergency room, and passing through the tunnel of light, Leoni had felt as though she had acquired some sort of transparent and insubstantial aerial body – and, accompanying it, a certain inexplicable joy of freedom. But here things were different. Every sense told her she was in a body of flesh again, weighed down by gravity, no longer a creature of the air. She was wearing a sleeveless knee-length tunic of rough plain cloth, knotted at the waist with rope. She couldn’t remember putting this garment on, so where had it come from? Some place with no style was the only thing that could be said for sure.

‘You used to come to me,’ Leoni told the Angel. She realised it sounded like an accusation. ‘You saved my life that year, when I was twelve …’

‘When your father was raping you …’

‘I think I would have gone mad if you hadn’t been there. But then you never came back.’ Leoni couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice. ‘Why didn’t you come back?’

‘I couldn’t reach you any more. Your parents suppressed your ability to leave your earthly body.’

‘But you’ve reached me now …’

‘Because you have left your earthly body again. In fact, Leoni, as things presently stand, that body is dead …’

‘Dead?’

‘Dead,’ the Angel repeated. Her expression changed, becoming stern and forbidding. ‘To be born in the human form is a precious gift, and you have squandered it. Even though it is not your time. Even though I have a purpose for you to fulfil.’ Her beautiful features softened a little and there was a note of disappointment in her voice: ‘I had such plans for you, Leoni, and now they hang in the balance. Doctors are trying to restart your heart. If they have the skill to revive you, and if your own will is strong, then you may return to the land of the living. If they cannot do so, or if your will is weak, then I am here to guide you onwards …’

Leoni felt blind panic overtaking her, making her want to scream and stamp her feet. ‘I’M NOT READY TO BE GUIDED ONWARDS,’ she shouted. ‘I don’t even want to
hear
about onwards! My will is strong and it isn’t my time, OK? You said it. I have things to do. Please, lady, if you’re really an angel I’m begging you – PLEASE send me back.’

As though Leoni’s wish were a signal, there came a peal of thunder out of the clear sky and two things happened.

First, one of the trees under which the cow-beetles were grazing became animated and bent double. The scissor blades of a huge beak revealed themselves amidst the camouflage of leaflike feathers, and the suckling calf was seized from beside its mother and lifted high into the air, mewling and bleating. The beak tilted skywards and closed with a loud
clack.
Two of the calf’s six legs were severed and fell to the ground, spouting a clear fluid, its body disappeared with a gulping sound into the open maw of the monstrous predator, and the twenty cow-beetles, bellowing in terror, stampeded towards the horizon.

The second thing that happened was that the whirling tunnel of light that had brought Leoni to this strange and scary place reopened right beside her and she felt herself being drawn towards it. The Blue Angel held up one hand in salutation: ‘Well done,’ she said. ‘You’re going back.’ Her expression became urgent: ‘But I must see you again. Make the veil between worlds thin and I’ll show you Jack.’

Jack!

Leoni was inside the mouth of the tunnel now and being pulled through it. ‘How do I make the veil between worlds thin?’ she yelled.

‘Ask your doctor,’ came the faint answer. Then Leoni was swept away and the Angel was gone.

The return journey through the tunnel was much faster than the outbound trip. In fact, it was a bit like being flushed down a gigantic toilet. After some final nauseating swirls and a long drop through empty space, Leoni found herself back in the emergency room, hovering near the ceiling, as light and transparent as a soap bubble once again. Her first thought was that this was so much better than being marooned in a world with horrible tree-sized birds of prey, and she was filled with an ineffable sense of joy and a tremendous surge of light and restless energy.

A quick glance at the monitors.
Hooray.
Her ECG wasn’t flatlining any more. The docs were still working on her, though. Hmm, one of them – in his mid-thirties,
really
good-looking – was charging up the paddles of the electric-shock machine …
Wham!
As her meat body writhed and jumped she sensed its breath and warmth and felt its pain.

Leoni recoiled in surprise and flew straight through the wall of the emergency room, down a maze of corridors, and found herself in what seemed to be the main reception area of the hospital. There she dodged behind the desk, obeying an irrational desire to hide, and floated a few inches above the floor. She noticed that the receptionist, a model of efficiency in a severe charcoal business suit, was wearing incongruous orange sneakers with striped purple and green laces.

Whoomf!
The doc must have zapped her with the paddles a second time and she was impelled back to the emergency room where she hovered right over her body.

She could hear the high-pitched tone of the electric-shock generator charging up and then
wham!
– another painful jolt – and she was back inside her body, like a fish returning to water.

Her eyes fluttered open. ‘Hello, Leoni,’ she heard the doctor saying. ‘Welcome back to the land of the living.’

She examined his face and tried to speak, but her voice was slurred, as though she were drunk. She tried again: ‘The land of the living?’

The doctor’s soft brown eyes turned quizzical: ‘Yes?’

She was bone weary. ‘You’re not going to believe me,’ she said, ‘but five minutes ago I met an angel who called it the exact same thing.’

As Grigo, Duma and Vik continued their slow and undignified descent of the hill, the Uglies lost interest in them, reassembled and resumed their march. Ria followed Brindle as he shuffled over to join the column and fell into step beside him.

She had no particular plan. Probably she’d head home soon. She just needed to think a few things through first.

She glanced at the huge shambling creatures marching all around her. They’d been heading roughly west and continued to do so at a faster and more urgent pace than before. Now it was obvious who the leader was – the giant yellow-toothed male who had rescued her in the valley. His grey hair and grizzled white beard marked him out as an elder, although he had the knotted muscles of a brave in his prime. He radiated fierce physical power but it was coupled with the same gentleness and delicacy of manner she’d found in Brindle.

Ria decided the Uglies made a poor first impression because of how they looked and smelled. But, once you saw past that, they were, in fact, quite amazing.

She’d never paid much attention to the outlandish claims put about by Murgh’s faction. She knew from her own (very infrequent) encounters with Uglies on her – very frequent – rabbit-hunting trips that there weren’t many of them around. Certainly not thousands of them as Murgh claimed. She knew they weren’t wiping out all the game. She had never known them to be violent or in the least bit threatening, even when she’d once passed a big male in a remote spot where he might easily have attacked her. And for all these reasons, though she had no proof, Ria was also sure the Uglies weren’t bloodthirsty cannibals who relished human flesh. It was just another phoney excuse for murdering them and stealing their hunting grounds.

She had forgotten that Brindle could read her mind, but now he
replied to her thoughts with a great wave of anguish: ‘You know truth! So why do you accept? Why let Clan murder Uglies?’

Ria was quick to object: ‘Hold on, Brindle. What just happened this morning? I saw three of my Clan trying to murder
you
and I stopped them. Remember? I risked my
life
to stop them. You told me I was a hero for doing that.’

Brindle looked contrite: ‘Yes. You are hero. Very sorry. What you saw with own eyes you stopped.’ Then he frowned: ‘But I mean why stay silent when you know Clan are killing Uglies – not just one Ugly, but every Ugly they find? Why not stop that?’

‘Because I can’t stop it, Brindle. I’m female and sixteen. No one gives a fuck what I say about anything.’

When Brindle made no reply Ria returned to her thoughts, and to the second problem that was bothering her, namely Sulpa.

He was an outlander for sure, so how had he gained influence over three high-ranking youths of the Clan?

With Grigo involved it was a safe bet that something underhand was going on. And Grigo’s mission to kill Uglies made it very likely the whole thing was also connected to his father. It was well known that Murgh had challenged the traditional leadership of the assembly of elders. Could his son’s loose talk of Sulpa hint at an alliance with another tribe – not only to kill Uglies but also to snatch overall power within the Clan? With men like Murgh and his thugs, Ria thought, the possibility of such treachery couldn’t be ruled out.

She had to get back to camp and tell Hond and Rill what she suspected.

The Uglies were streaming along the floor of a glen she’d never explored before, reminding her she was getting further away from camp with every step. She checked the sky. High sun had already passed. She was about to tell Brindle of her decision to turn back – although of course he knew all her thoughts – when he put a warning hand on her arm and pointed to the ridge line a few hundred paces above them.

Two savage-looking men stood there, huge and naked, with shaggy shoulder-length hair. Ria saw both of them were smeared with fresh blood and knew from their pale skin and strange weapons they weren’t from the Clan or from any of the neighbouring tribes.

Were the splashes of gore glistening on their hard muscular bodies
from Grigo, Duma and Vik? The three youths had been hobbled and defenceless, Ria reflected. They would have been easy to kill.

In a smooth whirl of motion one of the bloodstained men unslung a wooden baton and a bundle of short spears hanging across his shoulders, locked a spear into the baton, drew back his right arm, rolled at the hips and launched the missile down the slope of the valley. It made an eerie whistling sound as it flew. Tipped with a heavy flint spike it crunched with horrible force into the side of a big Ugly in the third rank of the column, passed straight through his body amidst gouts of blood, and lodged itself deep between the ribs of the brave next to him.

Both Uglies went down, dead in an instant, and the entire column stopped in its tracks as though stunned.

Taking his time, looking relaxed and confident, the second naked warrior on the ridge line unslung his own baton and spears and coiled his muscular body to throw.

When Leoni spoke of the Angel she thought she saw a strange expression cross the doctor’s face; it lasted a few seconds before he got it under control. ‘I do believe you,’ he said, ‘but right now you need to take it easy. We nearly lost you in here …’

‘I died and went someplace else …’

‘It was touch and go, Leoni, but you’re a fighter and we got you back.’

She smiled and suddenly sleep stole up on her, overwhelming her like a superior force.

The next twenty-four hours passed in a blur as Leoni progressed through the recovery and critical care units and thence into a plush convalescent suite overlooking the leafy gardens of the hospital. If Mom and Dad had spent any time at her bedside right after she came out of the ER she hadn’t noticed them, but now a smiling middle-aged nurse brought her the happy tidings they were on their way.