Tide (34 page)

“Gran,” she murmured, troubled at what she had been told.

And then the scene dissolved.

She was back in the hellish mess of Midnight Hall and Mairead was in front of her again, caressing her face. Somebody was screaming. Nicholas was screaming. Sarah fixed her eyes on Mairead, silently pleading for help, and then the world ebbed away.

Nicholas had seen Sarah falling, and with impossible effort he’d steadied himself. He moved away from the wall, yelling in the ancient language, ordering the Mermen to take hold of Sarah, to lay her in a corner of the room where she would be unharmed, to guard her. She was his chosen bride, she must be saved.

The Mermen heard him, but they showed no sign of obeying his orders.

And then, the voice in his head.

You’re going to die, and so is Sarah. You sealed her fate with your choice.

“No! Sarah!” Nicholas clutched at his head again, fighting the fire that was consuming him.

Had you not betrayed me, she would have been spared.

“Sarah!” Nicholas’s brain was burning, scorching. He could no longer see anything but painful bursts of lightning piercing deep darkness. His forehead was bruised and bloody from where he’d banged it against the wall.

The effort to keep conscious was draining him. He must not give into it. He knew that soon he wouldn’t be able to stand, but still he called and pleaded in the ancient language, desperately hoping that the Mermen would listen, though by now he knew in his heart that all hope was gone.

It seemed as if the Surari were pausing. Hearing Nicholas’s crazed screaming, Sean turned his back on the Merman nearest him and followed the black-eyed man’s gaze. Sarah was unconscious on the floor, and he started running towards her, tracing flailing symbols in the air. Immediately the Surari mobilized. Sean knew that it was the wrong decision to run, and he knew that he couldn’t run fast enough, but he had to try. The nearest Surari reached him in two long strides, took hold of him and sank its teeth into his arm, keeping them there and sucking, savouring the taste. Sean collapsed from the pain of it, unable to reach Sarah.

The pain in his head was so strong that Nicholas could see nothing – but he forced himself to raise his arms, and it worked. He felt the blue sparks flickering from the tops of his fingers again. Relieved, he opened his eyes, and although he was looking at where he knew his hands were, he still saw nothing but darkness.

Panicked, he began spinning, flicking his hands at random, directing the flames at the curtains, the rugs, the tablecloth, until the whole room was ablaze. A terrible cry passed his lips, a cry of pain and rage and despair, and made every creature in the room, human or Surari, stop and listen in horror.

The slight pause was enough, and one by one the Mermen went up in flames – they seemed to burn as fast as kindling, melting and crackling, pouring into liquid fat and disappearing into ashes.

Finally free, Sean limped to Sarah, wading through the puddles of Blackwater mixed with ash, and squatted beside her. With great effort, and despite all his bruises, he gathered her in his arms. She was slowly coming back to her senses.

“Sarah. We need to get out. It’s all on fire!”

“Nicholas?”

A flaming curtain fell from the window in front of Sean’s feet, nearly setting them both alight. Sean jumped back with a scream. “We need to go, Sarah. Now. I’m sorry.”

“No!”

“Sarah! We’ll all die!” Sean took her by the shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. “Look around you! We have to save ourselves.” Blue flames danced around them, enveloping everything they touched.

Sarah nodded miserably.

Nicholas. Forgive me.

Sean and Sarah started their slow progress towards the window, towards safety and fresh air. “Elodie! Niall! Niall! Winter! Out now!” Sean yelled over and over again.

On hearing Sean’s voice over the last of the incinerated Mermen’s screams, Niall shook himself. He took hold of Mike’s body – he wouldn’t let him burn, he wouldn’t leave his friend – and lifted him over his shoulder.

“Winter!” he called. “Elodie!”

He looked behind him, but the smoke was now so thick that he couldn’t breathe, and he could barely see. Suddenly, Elodie appeared in front of him, choking, her body wracked with coughs. To his horror, he saw that the bandages on her arms were on fire. He pushed her roughly through the broken windows before negotiating the jagged shards of glass around the window frames, Mike’s weight throwing him off balance.

Through the smoke billowing into the night sky, he saw Elodie rolling on the grass, trying to put the fires all over her body out. She lay on the grass for a moment, panting, holding her blackened arms.

“Elodie! Help!”

Niall was struggling to push Mike’s heavy body through the jagged holes in the window. He was coughing violently, and his eyes were streaming with tears. She jumped to her feet, taking hold of Mike and helping Niall to lay him on the grass a safe distance from the house.

“Are you OK? Your arms,” croaked Niall, wiping his eyes on his sleeves.

“I’m fine. It didn’t burn the skin. Oh my God.” She knelt by Mike’s body, lowering her ear to his mouth, calling his name.

Niall shook his head. “He isn’t unconscious. He’s dead.”

“It was him. It was him, then,” she murmured. Her eyes met Niall’s, and they mirrored each other’s pain.

But Elodie shook herself. “Winter, Sean and Sarah are still inside, I’m going to get them.” She stood up, facing the inferno that was now the dining room in which they had started their Christmas dinner not long before.

“I’m coming with you.”

With a final look at Mike’s body, they prepared themselves to race inside again, but a wall of toxic smoke and the blast of terrible heat forced them back. Niall and Elodie looked at each other again. There was no way they could return inside.

“They’re gone,” Elodie cried, and clasped her hands to her mouth.

“Elodie! Look!” Niall was pointing at something pale moving carefully out of one of the far windows. They ran closer. It was a white hand, clutching the broken glass.

“I’m coming!” called Niall. He grabbed the fingers, holding them firmly as they groped along the glass. It was a woman’s hand. Sarah’s? Winter’s? He couldn’t make it out. Another hand appeared, and a pair of bleeding arms, and finally, a silvery head covered in ashes.

It was Winter, her hair blackened and singed, her skin red raw where the flames had burnt her.

“Niall?”

“I’m here. I’m here. Come on.” Niall helped her up and out, not caring about whether he cut his own arms or not.

Winter staggered free and lay down on the grass, panting and coughing up black blood.

“Thank God,” murmured Elodie. But she couldn’t rest. “Sean! Sarah!” she kept calling, to no avail.

Once he was sure that Winter’s breathing was steady and that she could stand – and run if need be – Niall joined Elodie once more, as close to the house as they could get in the face of the scorching heat. They called frantically. No reply. Just licks of blue flame darting out of the windows.

“They’re gone. Sean and Sarah are gone,” Niall whispered in disbelief. He pushed his hands through his filthy hair and turned away.

Mike. Sean. Sarah. Nicholas.

Dead.

Niall felt a wave of despair sweep him. It was all over.

Elodie appeared by his side and took his hand. Instinctively, he took her in his arms, gesturing to Winter to join them. The three of them stood close together, clinging to each other, watching the house being reduced to ash and rubble.

And then there was the sound of shattering glass and, in disbelief, they watched as two blackened shapes threw themselves out of the farthest window, followed by hungry blue tongues of flame. They lay on the ground a few yards from the house, skin cut, eyes weeping, coughing, heaving, snatching ragged, short, painful breaths. But alive.

It was Sean and Sarah.

As soon as she could draw enough breath to speak, Sarah tried to scramble to her feet. “Nicholas!” she screamed. “Nicholas is still inside!”

“There’s nothing we can do!” Sean restrained her, but she struggled to be let go until he encircled her in his arms, pinning her to him, refusing to let her re-enter the building. Finally she stopped struggling and turned away, weeping with frustration.

And then she saw the body.

One of them hadn’t made it.

Sean walked over and knelt, taking in the frozen, livid features of his friend. Mike, lying terribly, terribly still, his body broken and his soul gone. Sean whispered his name over and over, louder with each call, and then he screamed, all his fury pouring into the terrible sound.

Sean’s cry of rage was joined by sounds of sadness from the others as they all began to take in the enormity of what had happened. And as they stood there, a million little flakes started falling on and around them all, resting delicately on their stricken faces and their bloodied hands. They stood there, in shock, the heat of the burning house coming against the frozen December air.

And then, as the fire in the house consumed itself, as the snow kept falling, a black figure appeared silhouetted against the white sky – black hair, black face, eyes crazed with pain.

“Nicholas!” cried Sarah. She ran to him and held him, but he was too heavy. They fell together on the grass. “You’re alive!”

“I can’t die in fire,” whispered Nicholas through parched, charred lips. “Because I. Am. Fire,” he added slowly, as if to remind himself of his identity. He fell supine on the slowly growing mantle of snow.

Sarah bent over him and touched his face, his hair, feeling his features with her fingers and sweeping the ash from his skin. Something was wrong, she knew it. Something was very wrong, and it would never be right again.

Nicholas kept blinking, his eyes streaming from the ash and the smoke, but he wasn’t focusing. His eyes were sweeping all around, darting towards the sky, the ground, not quite resting anywhere or on anything. Sarah’s heart missed a beat.

She looked into his eyes, and that’s when she realized what had happened to him.

Nicholas was blind.

The last words I said to you

Weren’t even words at all

Sean

He was the best Gamekeeper I knew. But before being a Gamekeeper, he was my friend. Mike had sacrificed everything for our mission, as if he’d had no other life at all, nothing but the fight alongside the Secret Families. We all toss and turn under our burdens, we all complain and pity ourselves – every second thought of ours starts with
I
. I want, I need, I wish. Mike had forgotten all about his needs and desires. He was the one among us who lived for the world, not for himself.

And now, he is the one who lies wrapped in a white sheet on the snowy ground.

Sarah and Elodie have prepared him, washed him, dressed him. All his wounds are nearly invisible. He seems asleep, peaceful.

Niall is quiet now, calm, but his eyes are red, and his hands curled into fists. I can sense the anger rolling off him, an acidic, half-burnt scent that is completely out of place on Niall, who’s usually so mellow. I think he has changed forever, like Sarah did when Leigh died.

Elodie has her hand in mine, our hair getting damp under the snowfall; Winter is standing beside Niall, her arms and legs bare in her cotton dress. Sarah is not with us. She’s with Nicholas, who’s been hurt in the fight in a way we can’t quite understand. They’re in Nicholas’s room, curtains closed.

We’re all bruised, wounded, limping – a band of survivors still bleeding from the battle. I can’t quite believe it all happened just a few hours ago. The flames extinguished themselves as quickly as they had started, sparing the rest of Midnight Hall. Only the grand hall was destroyed, a blackened shell coated with foul-smelling grease and melted glass.

I say a few words to try and steady us, but my voice sounds feeble and distant in this dreamy white landscape. Not loud enough to tell the world what a tragedy it is to have lost Mike, how cold, how black everything is now. Or maybe words aren’t necessary.

And then Niall starts singing, the Irish Gaelic words running off his tongue like a waterfall. He sings the saddest song I’ve ever heard. Once the song has died away, Niall recites the words in English so that we can all understand his last tribute to Mike. His words are punctuated by our soft sobbing:

Many a night both wet and dry

Weather of the seven elements

He would find for me a rocky shelter

Where I would take refuge

They let your blood yesterday

Great is my sorrow, great

Our tears mix with falling snowflakes as we gently lift Mike up and place him in the cradle we have dug for him in the soft, not yet frozen soil of Islay.

“So far from home,” whispers Winter.

Everyone is silent and shivering as we walk back inside. Everything is covered in ash and debris, and the windows on one side of the house are empty and black like blind eyes. Sarah is walking slowly down the stairs, a smudge of ash on her cheek.

“How is he?” whispers Elodie.

Sarah shakes her head. It’s enough of an answer. Right on cue, a half-cry comes from upstairs. It’s Nicholas. “Leave him,” says Sarah. “There is nothing – nothing – you can do to help him.”

I rake my fingers through my hair. “We need to go back to the mainland, but it’s too early to leave now. We will wait until morning, as planned. Niall has arranged a lift with the trawlermen.”

Sarah nods.

“We need to get Nicholas on his feet and out of here. I’ll go see him.” My voice is still hoarse and broken.

“Be gentle, please, Sean. He’s in agony.” Sarah begs me. But she doesn’t stop me.

“He might be in agony, but worse may be to come, so we still need to go, Sarah.” I don’t have kinder words for Nicholas now. All I can think of is that, unlike Mike, he’s not six feet under.