Ravens Gathering (34 page)

If the Raven was preparing to leave, it stood to reason that
he wouldn’t have followed them.  On foot, the fastest way to the clearing
was along the path Martin and Tanya had taken the first day he was in the
village.  Taking those concepts into consideration, it seemed reasonable
to assume that they would be safe to return along the track by which they had
left.  It had the added advantage of allowing them to turn off and head
part way into the woods.  This would leave them a shorter distance to
walk, as Martin had found out when Ian brought him that way the previous morning.

When they passed the row of cottages at the edge of the
village, they could see two of the front doors had been left open.  Light
from the hallways spilled out on to the street.  Martin recognised his
family home, but wasn’t sure about the other one.

“The
Dakins
,” Claire said, in
answer to his unspoken question.

“I know you don’t want to tell Mr Gates here what’s going
on,” Collins said.  “But can you at least fill me in on what he already
knows?”

“In all honesty, Inspector, you wouldn’t believe us if we
did.”  The voice came from behind him.

He turned in his seat.  Squeezed in with the
McLeans
, movement was awkward, so he couldn’t adjust his
position well enough to see the man who was speaking.  Low down on the
floor and with the streetlights casting moving shadows as they passed by, both
men seemed to be little more than dark and blurry outlines.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you believe in sorcery?”

“Are you telling me this is about witchcraft?  Are we
about to interrupt some kind of pagan ceremony? 
Wicker Man
kind of
stuff?”

“I think that proves the point,” the voice said.

For a moment Collins thought the comment was directed at
him.  Then he heard the other amorphous form respond.  “I think
you’re right.”

“Are you two taking the piss?”  He was finding this
more than just a little annoying, bearing in mind that it wasn’t that long ago
when he’d risked his life to help Gates and the
McLeans
to escape - and at the insistence of these four people from a farm that didn’t
appear on the map.

“And he’s definitely not going up to the clearing,” the
first voice added conversationally.  “Too much anger.”

“What the
fuck
are you talking about?”

Beside him, he felt Tanya McLean flinch.  He suspected
more at the tone than the words themselves.  He was sorry for that. 
She had already gone through a bad experience, and he didn’t want to make it
worse.  But the blokes in the back were talking in riddles and sounded as
if they were making fun of him.  He was happy enough to be the butt of a
joke in the right circumstances, but as far as he could tell, at least half a
dozen soldiers had been killed within the last hour and an atomic bomb had been
stolen in the last twenty-four.  Leaving aside the death of the dog, he
suspected there was more yet to be uncovered, none of it pleasant.  The brutality
and the ruthlessness of whoever was responsible should be enough to have them
all on guard and pulling together as a team.  Not taking the bloody
piss
!

One of the men leaned forward, his face materialising in the
half light.  He could see it was Mason, and as he spoke Collins realised
he had been the first to speak.

“Forgive me, Inspector,” he said calmly.  “It wasn’t my
intention to upset you.  But you have to know that the creature we are
facing tonight...”

“I didn’t notice
you
doing much of the facing,”
Collins snapped irritably.

Mason raised his hands in a gentle gesture of
supplication.  “I was speaking figuratively, Inspector.  I’ll try to
choose my words more carefully.”

Collins slumped back against the door.  “Fuck!” he
said, though it was more of a mutter.  Mason’s composure was frustrating,
yet it had also knocked the legs out from under his anger.

They had turned off the main road now, and the light from
outside had virtually disappeared.

“I wanted to make a point, Inspector, and I went about it
the wrong way.  Any one of us here in this vehicle has the possibility of
coming face to face with that creature.”  Collins felt Tanya pull away
from him.  He suspected she was looking for comfort from her husband,
though as he was still unconscious he could only be effective in the same way
as a teddy bear would be against the bogey man in the middle of the
night.  “It feeds off anger.  And rage.  And hate and
pain.  Any negative feeling you have, Inspector, will make you less effective. 
You know that from your own experience.  If you’re resentful, or jealous,
or bitter or angry, you can’t function as efficiently.  When you go up
against criminals, you give them an edge if you’re suffering from any of those
emotions, don’t you?”

Mason paused, but Collins didn’t respond.  Just waited.

“Experiencing those feelings doesn’t just give the Raven an
edge.  He feeds off it.  Your weakness makes him stronger.  It’s
what you might call a double whammy.  That’s why we can’t let you go in.”

“You can’t stop me,” Collins protested.

“Yes we can,” Mason said with a confidence that left Collins
in no doubt that he meant it.  “But it would be better for us all if you
simply accepted what I am saying as fact.”

“That this...Raven...that you keep referring to is basically
some kind of supernatural being?”

“Something like that.”

Years of police work had put him up against all kinds of
villains.  There were some things he’d witnessed that he couldn’t take
home with him.  Those memories had to be stored in a separate compartment
in his mind, locked away where they couldn’t get out and scramble his brains –
and his life – for good.  And there were times when he did wonder whether
the bastards that had committed those crimes were truly human at all.  But
they were.  The evidence showed it.  Whatever it was that had caused
them to visit so much violence on others – and the shrinks had plenty of
factors they could throw in to explain their behaviour – in the end they were
just nasty people.  And so was the Raven.

That didn’t mean he shouldn’t be treated with caution. 
But an armed response unit sounded like a more effective solution than trying
to stay calm.

“You’re not going to go along with this, are you,
Inspector?”

Up ahead, they caught the first glimpses of the converted
barns.  As they did, the headlights suddenly went out.  Distracted by
that, Collins didn’t notice Mason lean a little further over the back of the
seat, his hand outstretched.

Cutting the lights made sense, although it puzzled Martin
for a moment.  They were getting closer to the woods, and Adam didn’t want
to warn the Raven that they were on their way.  What surprised Martin was
the fact that Adam didn’t slow down.  There was some light coming from one
or two of the barns, but not enough to provide a clear view of the track ahead
of them.  In spite of this, the Land Rover eased through the bends
effortlessly.  Martin peered at Adam, trying to work out how he was doing
it, but in the darkness he couldn’t make out his features at all.  Then
they were turning off the track and passing between the trees.  The engine
note changed as Adam shifted down the gears, careful to keep the revs
down.  No point in turning the lights off then announcing your presence
with a roaring engine.  They slowed down as they negotiated the
trees.  More often than not, Martin was only aware of them as they
appeared in the side windows – and sometimes not even then.

Behind him all was quiet.  He didn’t know what had
happened to Collins, but he guessed Mason had decided to shut him up for a
while.

He leaned closer to Claire.  “I’m sorry about earlier,”
he said, keeping his voice low.  It seemed strangely intimate. 
Though the idea of intimacy was strange to him anyway, he realised.

“Don’t worry about it.  I do understand.”  She’d
turned her face towards him.  He knew because he felt her breath on his
cheek.

“I wish
I
did.”

Her hand touched his, squeezed it gently.  “You
will.”  She didn’t make it sound as if his understanding was something to
look forward to.

Resting his head against her shoulder, he reflected on the
roller coaster of emotions he’d experienced in the last hour or so.  After
years of resentment – albeit suppressed – how was it that he suddenly cared so
much about his family?  He thought he’d come back for an explanation, or
possibly revenge.  And less than an hour ago, he’d been desperate to exact
that revenge.  But now he just wanted to save them from whatever fate the
Raven had in store.  His only doubt was whether he was up to it.

Mason’s words to Collins kept going through his mind. 
The chances were that he would be angry or frightened or any of those other
negative emotions.  If that would only serve to make the Raven stronger,
what chance would he have against him?

The Land Rover slowed some more, then Adam turned it sharply
to the right and stopped.

“That’s as close as I dare take her,” he said. 
“Ideally I’d like to turn around so we’re facing the other way, but I don’t
even want to show reversing lights.”

Martin looked past Claire through the passenger
window.  In the distance there was a faint orange glow.  It
flickered, as fires do.

Adam placed his hand on Martin’s shoulder.  “You’re on
your own now,” he said flatly.

Claire opened the door.  It creaked in the stillness of
the night, but no demons came rushing out of the darkness to attack them. 
Martin followed her out, and was struck by the chill in the air.  He
hadn’t been aware of it earlier.  Then again, he and Collins had been
running and carrying Ian between them.  Stepping out from the warmth of a
vehicle filled with seven others made it more noticeable.

They walked away from the Land Rover, towards the
firelight.  He felt Claire’s hand in his.  It seemed right.

Starlight shone down through the trees, offering limited illumination. 
It was enough for him to see her face, though.  She looked
concerned.  He hoped it was for him.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.  It was an
admission he didn’t want to make in front of the others.  Somehow he felt
safe with her.

She lifted her hand to his face.  “You will when you
get there.”  She said it with a confidence that he certainly didn’t feel
was warranted.  Yet he took strength from it.

“Will you be here for me when I get back?”

A sad look crossed her face.  “That could be very complicated,
Martin.”

He grinned and, for a moment, he looked the image of the
cocksure surfer dude he had cultivated over the years.  Nodding his head
in the direction of the clearing, he quipped: “And you think this isn’t?”

It took a moment.  She hesitated before smiling back at
him.  Then she hugged him and told him what he wanted to hear.

They had parked about half a mile from the clearing. 
In daylight, he guessed it would have taken him about ten minutes to walk to
it.  After tripping over several fallen branches and tree roots, he
decided against trying to match that.

The high he’d felt when he left Claire fell away
rapidly.  As he made his way through the woods, he was reminded of the
dream.  Or rather, the memory of that night in nineteen sixty-four. 
No clothes to find this time.  But he knew that was only because he was
following a different path.  There were similarities, though.  The
trees partially illuminated by the moonlight; the scurrying of creatures on
different sides of him; the occasional glimpse of birds in the branches. 
And up ahead, the glow of the fire growing larger as he moved nearer.

Before long, he began to wonder how much was reality, and
how much was the memory.  The sensations he felt were identical to those he’d
experienced during twenty five years of nightmares.  Apprehension was an
understatement; terror very much an overstatement.  He knew there was
physical danger.  The Raven was more than capable of killing him.  Or
worse.  But he wasn’t concerned about that as much as he was about what he
was going to find when he reached the clearing.  Which was how he’d felt
before.  The difference this time was that he had already seen some of it.

In spite of that, just as he had when he was eight, he kept
on, slowly but surely making his way towards the fire.  Still a few
hundred yards away, a gust of wind blew in his direction, and he momentarily
felt the warmth of the flames.  Sound came with it.  Muffled
voices.  They sounded subdued.  A product of the distance or the
Raven’s control over them?  He couldn’t tell.

He could see movement, silhouettes and shadows shifting
around the flames.  His throat seemed to tighten.  It was the
prospect of what he might see.  The image of his mother laid out on the
ground flashed into his mind.  He made a conscious effort to push it
aside.  But it shot back in as soon as he relaxed.  She had been in
her thirties when he’d seen her like that.  A disturbing enough
vision.  What if she was like it again?  He didn’t know her age, but
knew she must have been around sixty.  She looked older though.

Then the humour kicked in.

What the fuck am I thinking?  Her age isn’t the
important thing here.  She’s my mum!

And he couldn’t help himself.  He chuckled.  Just
for a moment.  But it was enough.  It broke the spell.  The
image of Anne Gates submitting to a sexual act was banished from his
mind.  At least until he reached the clearing.  The thought sobered
him, but the images stayed away.

Even though there was no wind, he began to hear sounds from
the clearing.  Voices again.  A few words that he couldn’t make
out.  Muted and brief.  There was no dialogue.  More like
instructions being given.  And there was the crackle of burning wood, and
the rustle of leaves.  He guessed they were on the ground and being pushed
around by feet moving through them.

The trees suddenly seemed to part before him as if they were
being pulled aside by some supernatural power.  Startled, he stopped
moving, and as he did so the trees did too.  It was an optical illusion, he
realised, a result of the angle from which he’d approached the clearing. 
But it meant he had an unobstructed view of the fire now.  Figures seemed
to be dancing on the far side of the clearing.  He could make out their
heads and shoulders over the top of the fire.  As they turned, swaying in
time to music only they seemed to hear, the firelight reflected off their naked
skin.

Reluctantly, he stepped forward again, forcing himself
nearer.  The gap between the trees opened still further, revealing more of
the clearing.  He saw the Raven.  Because he was dressed, he stood
out from the others.  He had discarded the clothes he’d been wearing at
the house, but the new ones were familiar to Martin.  In this light, it
was impossible to tell the colour.  Everything he had on was dark: the
long cloak, the shirt, trousers and boots.  They might have been black or
brown or possibly even blue.  Black seemed the most likely.  The only
lightness came from the pale face, which currently looked very self-satisfied,
and from a chain that hung around his neck, its links flickering with reflected
firelight.  Something dangled from the chain, but from this distance
Martin couldn’t make it out.

A few moments passed before he realised that he was focusing
on the Raven to avoid having to look at everything else.  He was now less
than twenty yards from the edge of the clearing.  There was nothing in the
way to obscure his view.  Swallowing hard, he braced himself.

He’d assumed that seeing his mother performing a sexual act
with someone else would be his worst nightmare.  As he took in what was
actually happening, he realised that it would have been a blessing.  With
all his senses reeling, he was oblivious to the Raven’s attention turning
towards him.