Icefall (16 page)

‘It's the middle of the afternoon, Murlainn.'

‘So?'

I grinned. ‘I want to wait till Sionnach brings Lauren home. Get thee behind me.'

‘Any time, lover. Don't be long.'

*   *   *

In the end, I took too long. He was asleep when I finally crept upstairs to check on him, but I was glad. He needed sleep. That sneaking dream of Kate's hadn't been the first, but most of his nightmares came from his own subconscious. Every night I'd hear his shallow breathing, feel the tension in his muscles, and slide into his mind to find it full of murder and blood and betrayal. Feeling me there, he'd roll over into my arms, hunting desperately for comfort, and I'd give it to him gladly, and I'd hold him till dawn with our minds bound up in one another.

But this time I was delayed because an hour after Seth left me, Sionnach came home with Lauren. Hannah was coming downstairs as Sionnach closed the door, and she hesitated on the bottom step. Lauren ignored her, pushing past to go upstairs in silence. But she turned, just briefly, and I saw her eyes. And I was shocked.

Fear: that was fear. I still couldn't read her mind, which perplexed me as much as ever, but I knew fear when it stared me in the face.

All right. Even that was understandable. Lauren had to be with us, there was nowhere else for her to go, but what must she have thought of us? Seth and Sionnach were both frightening to look at. Even I had wicked scars on my hand: hacked into my palm where I'd broken Kate's thrall with spikes of silver, slashed across the base of my finger where I'd ripped it with my own teeth to escape a kelpie.

Let's face it: we weren't very normal.

‘Lauren,' I said. ‘Are you okay?'

I bit my tongue, too late. Stupid, stupid question.

She studied my face, then nodded abruptly. ‘Yeah.'

‘We were worried.'

‘Yeah. I was fine.'

Hannah fidgeted. Sionnach gave a small shrug.

‘If we can help,' I began.

‘I don't think so. Do you?'

Hannah opened her mouth, but I silenced her with a warning glance.

Sighing, Lauren averted her eyes. ‘Look, it's nice of you to let me stay here. But I want to be left alone. Okay?'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘I just … we'd just like to help. If we can. Ever.'

Her gaze met mine, and I was stunned yet again by the dark forbidding blankness of that compartment in her head. If I'd thought Aileen would get her to open up, I'd been a fool. If anything, she'd withdrawn even further since her aunt's arrival. Aileen had taken Lauren shopping, she'd taken her to lunch and coffee and even to a tactfully-selected movie, but maybe that was the trouble. Maybe she never talked to the girl at all. Maybe, to be fair, she was no better around grief and horror and confusion than the rest of us were.

‘What are you thinking?' I said softly, and half to myself.

‘I bet you'd like to know.'

Lauren turned and ran upstairs, awkwardly, her arms wrapped around her stomach as if she were holding herself together.

I licked my lips, uneasy. ‘Sionnach, where was Lauren this time?'

He chucked his keys onto the table, shrugged off his jacket, unbelted his sword. ‘That old hotel. You know it? The Caledonian.'

I wrinkled my nose. ‘Dump with a fancy name? It's derelict.'

‘That's it.'

‘What on earth was she doing there?'

‘Having a fag or ten,' he growled. ‘And a couple of Breezers.'

I was more than taken aback. The Caledonian was due for demolition, for heaven's sake. It was a soulless, deserted shell, and it hadn't been a lot better when it was open for business. There was nothing in it even worth stealing.

‘I suppose she's alone there,' I said doubtfully. ‘Nobody to bother her.'

‘I don't like the place,' said Sionnach. ‘I don't like her being there.'

‘The last week,' said Hannah, ‘she's acting the arse. I'm sorry.'

‘They killed her mother,' said Sionnach. ‘How would you feel?'

‘I'd quite like somebody to kill mine. Lauren's been like this since the pointless cow got here.'

I tried not to smile. Hannah had been through a lot, she'd changed a lot, but deep down she was still Hannah: scathing, cynical, tactless. Hard as nails, and I was glad. She was holding onto her soul, that was the main thing. In other ways she was as soft as butter left out in the sun.

‘You've got every right to be hard on your mother, but go easy on Lauren,' I said. ‘Remember when you found out your dad was dead? How you felt?'

Sionnach raised an eyebrow. Hannah folded her arms.

‘Yeah,' she said. ‘I wasn't all that rational. Pretty angry, actually. Remember that? Remember how I nearly destroyed everyone in a five-mile radius?'

I opened my mouth, but couldn't think of a retort. Sionnach examined his boots.

‘We didn't do anything to Lauren,' I said at last. ‘We didn't kill her family.'

‘Seth didn't kill my dad either,' pointed out Hannah. ‘But I wanted to think he did.'

‘Yes, but…'

‘I hated him. I hated you all and I wanted you hurt.' She twisted a shining strand of coppery red hair round her finger. ‘Bear it in mind, that's all I'm saying.' Turning, she stalked upstairs after Lauren. ‘Oh, Finn?'

‘Uh-huh.'

‘It's not red and it's not copper. It's strawberry blonde.'

 

Rory

His father was in a fantastic mood. Which was nice, thought Rory, given that that grew less and less common with every passing day, but maybe it was down to Seth quitting the job he'd hated. The
latest
job he'd hated. He'd fairly bounced into Rory's room that morning, brandishing his phone in one hand and his car keys in the other.

‘Laochan, you have got to listen to this voicemail! It's hilarious.'

Scrambling up and shoving aside the duvet, Rory had taken the phone and listened. Given that he was still rubbing sleep from his eyes, he didn't find the message quite as funny as Seth had, but he grew a slow grin all the same.

‘Gocaman. On a mobile!' Seth scratched his temple. ‘I know he's too far away to tell me direct, but honestly, have you ever—'

‘Shut up, I'm listening.' Rory jammed a finger in his other ear, concentrating. The Watcher's message certainly wasn't easy to follow.

‘—
and I know it will—ach, bugger this machine with a two-by-four to the seventh dimension—it will be of interest to you, Murlainn, and—are you still functioning, the gods damn you? Why are you dead?'
A series of cheerful peeping keyboard tones. ‘—
is faulty. My message may not reach you, Murlainn. But the creature is here. I do not wish to kill it. Oh, what is the point of you?'
The recording grew echoey as Gocaman hit the speaker button by mistake. ‘
Be at my watergate within a day and my own horse may be able keep it here. Otherwise—You are as much use as a chocolate sword in hell.'

The line went dead. Rory made a face, staring at the phone.

Seth choked on a laugh. ‘I don't think the last bit's aimed at me. I mean, I don't
think
it is.'

‘Would you shut up, Dad? I missed the first bit.'

‘
To listen to this message again, press 1—
'

Rory pressed 1, but it was hopeless; Seth was still talking over it. ‘A kelpie came through the watergate! At the Fairy Loch. He thinks it's your filly! You want it?'

Rory killed the phone and stared at him. ‘You mean it?'

‘Of course I mean it. We've got twenty four hours. Get in the car!'

*   *   *

The pines had always been massive, densely planted and impossibly high, so it was hard to tell if they'd grown at all. The Fairy Loch looked just as it always had: dank and still, as if the sun never reached the water, and the feeble patches of white sky seemed very distant. Branch-filtered light gleamed on tiny ripples as a fish surfaced, then sank back. A remnant of breeze stirred the scraggy reeds.

Seth closed the gate and let the catch click gently into place. His buoyant mood had subsided a little since they'd parked the car on the verge by the wood. ‘Don't go near the water,' he said softly.

‘I wasn't born yesterday,' Rory pointed out.

‘Sorry. Always seems like it to me.' Seth clasped his hand round his son's forearm. ‘Can you hear anything?'

‘No…'

‘No. Me either. Bit worrying.' Seth frowned into the trees.

‘He's probably sitting in his hut trying to work out the phone.'

‘Or hitting it over and over again with a rock. No, I don't think so.' Seth pushed aside a stray pine bough and made his way on down the slope. ‘Goc's been edgy lately. I thought I'd have a sword at my throat by now.'

Rory followed. ‘Also, I thought he was trying to restrain a kelpie for twenty-four hours.'

‘Yeah. You'd think we'd hear that.' Seth shrugged off his leather jacket and slung it over a stump, freeing his way to the blade strapped snugly on his back.

The hut's tin roof glimmered dully through the foliage. Without a word Seth put an arm out to halt Rory. ‘He isn't here,' he murmured.

‘Where would he go?'

‘You try. I don't even feel a block.'

Something tickled the base of Rory's skull, and it wasn't a communication. He shook off the crawling sensation of fear. ~
Gocaman?

The call sounded forlorn in his own head, and it got no reply. Rory waited as long as he dared, and a few seconds longer. Then he blocked, swiftly and totally.

‘You're right,' he whispered. ‘But there's something.'

‘Yes. It's the horse.'

Rory shot his father a look that was half-admiring, half-resentful. ‘Will I ever get the hang of that?'

‘Yes, once she's yours.' Seth moved towards the hut, unsheathing the blade from his back. ‘Remember. Get on it, stay on it, don't let it go into the water.'

‘“
If it goes into the water, you're dead.”
Uh-huh.'

‘Oh. Am I repeating myself in my old age?'

‘A lot.' Rory grinned.

‘Anyway, you're not going to drown in a watergate, but you'd go straight through from here to the other side. That would not be good. You'd still be dead pretty quickly.'

‘I know. How are kelpies getting through anyway?'

Seth frowned. ‘I was wondering not so much the how. I was wondering why.'

‘If Gocaman isn't here,' said Rory, ‘the kelpie won't have stayed. It'll either have gone to town to eat people, or it'll have gone back home.'

‘If Gocaman's not here,' said Seth, ‘it's because he's dead.'

A chill swept down Rory's backbone as Seth softly pushed open the door of the hut. For all the rust, it didn't creak at all.

‘Nobody,' murmured Seth, backing out. ‘I'm going to check the trees.'

Just as he said it, Rory heard the lowest of growls. His eyes met his father's, and he jerked his head towards a thicket of thorny scrub and bracken halfway up the slope. Where the ground levelled off briefly, a pale shadow moved and something glinted. Seth slowly turned his head as the white horse paced forward.

The mare's eyes glowed deep green as it snuffed Seth's hair. Seth stayed quite still as Rory eased past him and extended a hand.

‘Rory…' he began.

‘'S'all right. I think she remembers me.'

‘From when you were a
baby
? Like bloody elephants they are,' muttered Seth as the horse let Rory slip his fingers into her silvery mane. ‘Where's Gocaman?'

‘Dad,' said Rory. ‘Dad, look.'

The mare had craned her neck round. She whickered, nibbling the mane of a second horse as it emerged from the scrub. The newcomer, her coat a soft dove-grey, scratched at the white mare's neck with her teeth.

Rory stared at it, half in disbelief. He'd seen it as a foal, not long after he'd failed to tame the kelpie his father had chosen for him: the rogue that was its dam. He'd lived every night with the dream of seeing this one again, but he'd never actually considered what he'd do if he did. He couldn't help wishing he'd done more forward planning.

‘Get on it,' muttered Seth out of the side of his mouth. ‘Get on, stay on, find its mind—'

‘Dad.' Rory gave him a look. ‘Leave it out.'

He approached the younger horse from the side, feet soft in the ragged grass, keeping his eyes locked on its blank ones so that he was reflected in the greenish-black sheen of them. Reaching his fingers to its crest, he rubbed it gently. One ear flicked forward; the kelpie bared its teeth and curled back its top lip and sucked in his scent. When it blew, Rory shut his eyes tight and let the hot breath blast his face.

He blinked his eyes open again, pushed his ruffled hair back from his forehead.

‘Hello, you,' he growled.

‘What are you—' began Seth, but his voice dried as Rory carefully hoisted himself onto the animal's back. It shied once, twisted to watch him, and tossed its mane, striking at the damp earth with a hoof. Rory lurched forward, unbalanced, then righted himself.

A shudder went down the filly's backbone, and she shook herself violently. With a snort of curiosity, she bounded forward into a flying trot, flinging Rory backwards. Once again he leaned forward into her movement.

‘Bloody hell,' breathed Seth, and then his voice was lost to Rory as the filly bounded into a smooth canter. Arching her neck, she circled the loch, sending gouts of mud flying from among the reeds. Rory moved with her, accustomed to her stride already, and pressed his cheek to her warm neck. She smelt of loch water and weed; there were fronds of it tangled in her mane. Rory grinned, shut his eyes and sank his mind into hers.