The Book of Storms (26 page)

If he took his hand off his head, the hail would rip into his skin, slicing it apart with its blades of ice. But if he didn't, the storm would never stop. It didn't sound like it was ever going to slacken and move on or give up at all.

And just at the moment he decided to let himself fall forward onto Shimny's neck and see whether he could reach into his pocket by protecting his face in the choking safety of her mane, he felt hands pulling him off the pony's back. They were cold hands, but he was too cold himself to notice.

Then something was shielding him, square between the driving wind and his crouched body. Shimny squealed and tried to run; she kicked him by accident as she trampled the ground behind him but then stopped, silent and still.

And Danny looked up into a face he had never seen before. It was the face of his father and mother. It was Aunt Kathleen's face, Tom's face, Abel Korsakof's face. It had the muzzle of a slavering dog; the patient, long eyes of a horse; the pointed nose of a cat. It was swallows and worms, rivers and axes, all rolled into one. And it was the face of a stranger, with white skin and black hair.

Even through the darkness, Danny could see its every feature. The cheekbones, the pale jaw, the hard black eyes. The thin, cruel mouth, with its nasty grin. And he could see, exactly, how he himself appeared before this creature, how small and twisted and miserable he looked.

“Wrong storm,” said Sammael. “Yours is still miles away. But I won't hurt you, don't worry. All I want is what's mine.”

CHAPTER 17

SAMMAEL

Danny's hands tightened instinctively around—what? Each other? The stick? Shimny's reins?

The truth was, he didn't know what was underneath his palms anymore; couldn't think about any sensation except the one his eyes were experiencing: looking at Sammael.

Because Sammael wasn't ugly. He wasn't horrendous. The sight of him didn't make Danny's stomach scream and turn liquid, or the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and pierce his skin like pins. His eyes were those of a kind father. The way he was standing, holding his coat out against the rain and the wind, shielding Danny from all the pain he'd just felt—it was just what his mum had always done when he'd been smaller—closed him in and protected him with her body.

And Sammael was speaking like a normal person.

“The book,” he was saying. “The Book of Storms. Hand it over.”

Danny couldn't tear his eyes away from Sammael's face. Those eyes—that thin smile—they should be
evil.
They should be making him shake in fear. His heart was throwing itself about his rib cage like a frenzied lion, but the rest of him was perfectly happy. Why wasn't he more afraid?

“The Book of Storms?” said Sammael again.

Shouldn't he be asking for the stick? Abel Korsakof had said he'd want the stick. He'd asked Korsakof to kill Danny long before Danny had found the Book of Storms.

“What?” asked Danny, not sure he'd heard right.

Sammael looked up to the sky; the rain slackened off. The thunder took to growling gently, like a crouched dog.

“The Book of Storms,” repeated Sammael. “It's mine and I want it back. Surely you can agree that's fair?”

“But—” Danny stopped himself. Should he even mention the stick? Maybe Sammael had forgotten all about it.

But looking at him, he didn't seem the type to have ever forgotten anything. Maybe he just didn't want it anymore. Was this really what Danny had been running from all this time? Maybe this was why people said you should face your fears—they were nothing when you looked them in the eye like this.

“Must I repeat it again?” asked Sammael. “The book's mine and I made it. I lent it to Abel Korsakof for the duration of his life. We even signed a contract over it, which I can show you if you really feel the need. Now the old man's dead and I'd like my book back, please.”

He let go of the side of his coat and held out his long, thin hand toward Danny.

The bag on Danny's back began to grow warm. He didn't want to take it off; it would leave a horrid cold patch.

“Why do you want it?” he asked. His heart began to gallop, but he was surprised to find that his lungs were still full and clear.

“I told you, it's mine,” repeated Sammael. “If I took your schoolbooks, you'd want them back, wouldn't you?”

“And you'll call off the storms if I give it to you? Stop chasing me?”

“Of course,” said Sammael. “I've got better things to do than run around after little boys who don't know what they're doing.”

“Yeah, I bet you do,” said Danny. “Like figuring out how to make massive storms and hurt people.”

“No one
makes
storms,” said Sammael. “I can play around with a bit of weather, for sure, and I can make it hail on you until it pushes your eyes out of the back of your skull. But, then, you've stolen something from me and I'd like it back, so I think that's fair enough. Most people don't steal from me. They've got more sense.”

He didn't smile as he said this. Danny looked at the outstretched hand.

“What'll you do if I don't?” he asked. “You can't kill me, can you?”

“I wouldn't be so sure,” said Sammael. “There's usually a way around everything. It just takes time to find it, that's all. But that isn't what I'll do first. First I'll kill your parents. Oh, I know you think I can't kill, but there are ways.”

Danny's heart stopped. He looked around for them; were they somewhere here, held in ropes and chains? Had Sammael brought them along to taunt him?

No—all around was just the black night, sweating with light rain. No parents.

“Where are they?” he asked. His voice shrank in desperation.

“Not here yet,” said Sammael. “But they're within my control. You know that I used a storm to take them away. I wasn't interested in killing them then—I just wanted to forcefully dissuade them from their delusions of megalomania. They were planning on going to Korsakof's today, did you know that? They thought that because your sister died, they could go on some kind of crusade against nature and learn how to suppress storms. Frankly, they wouldn't have had much success. But it was the
idea
of it that I found so despicable. What's wrong with
widening
your horizons? Why do you humans always have to work so hard at closing them down? But they're still spinning around inside a twister; it would be easy to arrange something fatal for them. You're welcome to risk it, of course, if you really want to keep hold of that book. Although given that I made it and I know exactly how it works, I can't believe that it would have told you much about anything
you
wanted to know. Has it?”

Danny wanted to lie. He wanted to say, Yeah, it's told me
everything
about who you are and how to take all your powers away, just so he could see what expression those words would bring to Sammael's face. But Sammael wouldn't really believe him. And his parents—they had to survive. More than any amount of petty satisfaction, they had to survive. He couldn't risk making Sammael angrier.

It was time to back down. Give over the book, trust Sammael. Abel Korsakof had said he always keeps his word.

“But what did they ever do to you?” Danny asked. “It isn't wrong to want to make things better.”

“Better? What's better? Your parents don't love storms, like Korsakof, or want to be impressed at how powerful and magnificent storms can be. They wanted to
stop
them, to
calm them down
. Can you imagine? A world without storms—a calm, safe world where nothing ever happens to threaten anybody, and all you people just go about your dull, ordinary little lives, doing dull and ordinary and
safe
things?”

Danny couldn't imagine it, because it would be a world in which Emma would be alive, not him, and her parents would never leave her alone in the middle of the night, and she'd never be standing on a hillside in the darkness talking to the most terrifying, most fascinating creature she had ever seen.

“But it's only because of Emma,” he said. “They only want to stop other people dying the way she did. They'll never stop wanting that.”

Sammael smiled thinly. “But after this recent experience, even they might think twice about leaving their only son orphaned and alone, don't you think? There's not much crusading you can do if you're dead. Now give me the book.”

“If I give it to you, will they be safe?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Sammael.

Most people might have said, “Trust me.” But not Sammael. He held all the cards already. Danny needed his whole life back—his parents, his freedom, his normality. All Sammael wanted was a book.

Danny shrugged his shoulders out of the bag straps and brought his bag to the front. He unzipped it. Miraculously, the contents were still dry: the Book of Storms must have kept the rain away from the two notebooks. Looking at the top edge of his parents' notebook made his stomach wake up for the first time in minutes; it stirred and gave a small sob. That notebook seemed old and familiar now, though he hadn't even read it much. But it was a part of him—it had a record of his birth in it, it mentioned his sister. It had been written by people who'd made him, who'd loved and cherished him. The Book of Storms might know what he'd done in the past two days, but
how
it knew was a mystery. It sat, black and alien, no part of a world he could explain or understand.

Danny reached into the bag, took hold of the book, and pulled it out. There, in the night, it didn't seem quite solid—the edges bled a little into the darkness around them.

He looked up at Sammael and hesitated.

“Who
are
you?” he whispered.

“Don't you know?”

“I think I should, but … I don't.”

Sammael raised an eyebrow and then let it fall again. “I'm anything you've never thought of,” he said simply. “I'm all that no human could ever be. I'm infinite.
You
'll learn to spend your life doing what other people tell you to do, and they'll tell you that to go outside certain limits is bad. Because that's where
I
am. I've spent a long time trying to open people's eyes. But now I know there's no point. Because now I know
everything
that you are, and I know that you, being human, will never even
want
to know the same about me. So just give me the book and we'll be done.”

Danny gazed at him one last time. He did want to know. He wanted very much to know how he could fear and not fear, how he could want to run from something and also want to reach out and touch it, how he could see a face that looked like sunshine and hatred both at the same time.

The rain picked up again. It was cold on his back—the brief respite had let him thaw enough to feel pain once more.

Sammael's hand was still stretched out to him, motionless.

Danny rubbed the corner of the Book of Storms, memorizing the papery warmth that seemed to remain dry whatever the weather.

And then he held it out. Sammael's fingers closed over it and took the book away from him.

Sammael put a hand on the cover and looked at his book. For a second, his fingers tightened, then he opened the cover.

What did he read on those pages? Could he read anything at all in this black, raining night? Danny thought he probably could, from the way he was staring down at the book. He turned a few pages.

“You've had quite an adventure,” he said. There was nothing fatherly about his voice now.

“Where are my parents?” said Danny. “You said you'd give them back if I gave you the book.”

“No I didn't,” said Sammael.

“Yes you did!”

Danny's guts began to bubble.

“I said I'd kill them if you didn't give me the book,” said Sammael, still reading. “The devil's in the details—ever heard that phrase?”

“Give it back!” said Danny, reaching up. “Give it back, you cheat!”

Sammael stopped reading and looked at him. “I never cheat,” he said. “I never cheat anyone out of anything they've asked for. It's they who cheat themselves, by being stupid. I said your parents would be safe. Did I once say I would give them to you? No. Did I say I would give you
anything
in return for
my
book? No. Did I tell you I'd let
you
live if you gave it to me?”

“Yes, you did!” shouted Danny, springing forward and clutching at Shimny's reins. “You said you wouldn't kill me if I gave it to you! You definitely said that! And you can't, anyway—I've got the stick! It protects me from you. I know that much!”

“It protects you from the storms,” said Sammael. “But
nothing
can protect you from this.”