Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2) (49 page)

His voice was smooth and seductive, and James felt sick at the sound of it. How easy it would be to fall under its sweet spell.

He blinked. The itch had gone, suddenly and totally. His knees almost buckled, and he stumbled forward toward the desk.

Is this it, then? Have I really gone mad?

“No, not mad,” the man said, grinning such that a mouthful of shining sharp teeth glowed in the light. “You’ve woken up, is all. Now you’re seeing, really seeing.”

Did he just read my mind?

“Don’t let it fool you. It’s just a parlour trick,” the man said. His eyes glimmered with amusement.

James stepped closer, drawn forward by his mesmerising gaze. “Who are you?”

“I’m so glad you asked that, because I love this part.” He kicked his feet off the desk and stood up, tracing its edge and running his fingertips over the brass crest. His hands took flight over his head and he began gesticulating grandly, his voice lyrical and otherworldly. “I am no one thing. I’ve walked alien forests in a cloak of tar, bringing darkness to purple skies, and those between the trees called me Nightfall. Elsewhere I’ve walked the coast of an endless ocean in the guise of a wolf. Over mountaintops made islands by the thickest clouds, I’ve flown as the Raven. The eons have given me many names. I am Shadow, I am the Eventide, I am the Shroud and the Veil, Jet and Sable, Obsidian and Sloe. Of all things touched by darkness, take your pick, for all have known my hand.”

He came to stand in front of James and took a low bow. “You may call me Fol, and I need your help,” he finished.

James stared dumbly. “My help?”

“I’m on a mission.” He placed a long-nailed alabaster hand on James’s shoulder. “I’ve been waiting years for you to finally wake up.”

James grimaced. The hand on his shoulder was cold, colder even than the arctic air of the cavern. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. James’s breath puffed up between them. When the man replied, his breath did not.

“Quite.” He gestured to the desk and the stool before it. “Step into my office, take a seat.” He seemed perpetually amused, but James didn’t get the joke. He sat without resistance, resigned to the absurdity of it all.

The man sighed as he propped his feet back up on the desk and relaxed back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “It’s not often I get to put my feet up,” he said. Then the amused twinkle in his eyes flashed out like a candle extinguished. “I’ve been watching you and yours since things around here hit the fan. I’ve seen what your blond-haired friend has done with a bad lot. You only see a few like that in a long stretch. I knew I could trust him to keep you breathing until you were ready.”

“You’re talking about Alex?”

“Don’t worry yourself. He doesn’t know any more about me than you. In fact, you’re the world expert on all things Fol as of now.”

“Lucky me.”

Fol barked. “And he has a sense of humour! Things aren’t all bad, after all.”

James couldn’t help twitching. His laughter wasn’t comforting at all, but unsettling. He wasn’t sure whether Fol was about to clap him on the back or stab him to death. He had that way about him, endearing yet dangerous. And what of all this, anyway? How could any of it be real? The torches in the tunnel seemed to burn without fail, and the air in here was colder than he would have thought possible.

“I’m either crazy, or …”

“Or there’s something else been going on all this time that nobody told you about,” Fol said, his lip thrust mockingly.

James shook his head. “Or something else nobody else knew about,” he muttered.

Fol seemed pleased. “You’re sharper than you look, Wonderboy. No wonder you’re the one I need.”

“Stop stalling,” James snapped. “I’m here. I’m not raving about how stupid and crazy all this is because I’m keeping it bottled. But if I’m here for some reason then tell me now, or I’m out of here.” The anger came thick and fast, stemming from newfound desperation to get back to Beth. The itch had been smothering those feelings, and now the itch was gone he couldn’t believe he had really left her. He had left her.

Fol held up his hands. “Fair’s fair.” He dropped his feet from the table once more and leaned forward over the desk. Again, his fingers traced the crest of the pendulum, and James’s heart skipped a beat when he focused on it. Then Fol took a breath and nodded as though having made a decision. “Things are broken,” he said.

James waited for more, but Fol was staring at him hard. “Broken?”

“That’s right. Big things. We’re talking cosmic-scale shitstorm, here.” He jerked his head to the tunnel. “You might have noticed things aren’t quite as they should be. Six billion missing people tends to give most people an inkling of that.”

James sat up straighter. “You know what happened at the End?”

Fol shook his head, his sharp teeth glinting as he grinned in derision. “Can’t believe you people call it the End. This is just the beginning, boy. Things are set to get a hell of a lot worse. And not just for this place. Things are setting to go to hell just about everywhere.”

“So far as we know, it already has. We haven’t heard from the rest of the world since I’ve been alive.”

Fol shook his head in irritation. Suddenly, the sardonic humour was gone. “I’m not talking about this puny world. All that sea and land and sky you see in front of your eyes is nothing—
nothing—
compared to what I’m talking about. I’m talking about
everywhere
, James. All where, all times, all worlds. Something’s knocked it all wobbly, and it’s all going to come crashing down if we don’t do something to stop it.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Look who’s talking. Who’d believe you if you told them about what you’ve seen already?”

“Alex would believe me.”

Fol sat back in his chair. “I need you, James. You’re special.”

James grunted. “I’ve had people tell me that since I could walk. What’s so special about a bookworm who keeps pigeons for friends?”

“Don’t play dumb. You’re different, and I know you know it. Something that’s been asleep inside you has woken up, something that you can’t explain and can’t control. You know things you shouldn’t.” It must have showed on James’s face because Fol looked pleased. “It’s destiny.”

“Alex told me all about destiny. And I’ve spent my whole life trying to live up to it.”

“I’m not talking about whatever you idiots have been doing, your little
mission
. I’m talking about real destiny, a real mission. I’m talking about saving the bloody universe, kid.”

James drew a long sigh.

Just another man with an agenda, looking for a pawn. I’m sick of being somebody else’s tool.

“I can’t. I have responsibilities.” He was thinking of Lucian, Agatha, Lincoln and the Creeks back home, all scrabbling to deal with those slimy Malverston wannabes because of him. And Beth, always Beth, drowning in their perverted stares. “I have people who need me.” He would kill every one of them as soon as he got back if they had so much as smelled her hair. He could feel their hot blood on his hands already. “I have business that needs doing.”

Fol was looked at him in a way that made James feel as though he was being read, front to back, every bit of him probed and catalogued. “You’re exactly what I need,” he said quietly. His eyes weren’t glittering anymore. They were as dark and matte as the obsidian rock above their heads. “You’ve already made the first step. Sacrificing the girl … I didn’t think you had it in you. But you did it. Taking the next step will be easier.”

James was on his feet before he had fully computed Fol’s words. Then he was gripping the pallid figure by the collar, at the same time furious and terrified—terrified because he sensed Fol could eviscerate him with a single twitch, but not caring. “What did you say?” he said, his voice shaking.

For the first time, Fol looked unsettled. “The girl. Your little Beth Tarbuck. You gave her up, James, and I have to say I doubted you had it in you—”

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” James roared, flinging the stool back so hard that it exploded into splinters against the far wall.

Fol’s face fell. “He didn’t tell you,” he muttered. Then he shook his head. “Son of a bitch is cold.”

“Didn’t tell me what?”

Fol’s smile slid slowly from his face. “Destiny catches up with everyone in the end, James. And hers just caught up with her.” He grunted. “The fat mayor’s coming for her head. And it looks like your fearless leader’s been keeping it to himself.”

James dropped Fol’s collar and bounded across the cavern in a few enormous strides. His legs were no longer possessed by the itch, but something altogether more powerful: a primal, basic power deep inside every person that could only be awakened by a certain kind of fear—the fear of losing somebody they couldn’t live without.

“James!” Fol was on his feet. He looked alarmed, the dark marks under his eyes suddenly grey instead of black. “You can’t. I need you. We all need you. The End … it really is just the first hiccough. If you don’t come with me now, we might lose our only chance to put things right. They’re all still out there, James. All those people, all those lives. We can save them, and everyone else.”

James shivered even through all his terror and fury. “They’re still alive?” he uttered, frozen mid-stride. “All of them?”

Fol’s eyes glimmered. James could see he wasn’t a predator at all, not really. He was only a messenger of a much higher power. “Help me,” he said.

For a moment James mouthed, his mind a hive of deafening buzzing. But then Beth’s face emerged from the sludge, and he shook his head. “I can’t,” he gasped, and then he was running back along the tunnel, his breath coming in mindless seething gasps, his fingers clasped into fists.

“James!” Fol cried.

James didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. His hands were bunched into claws, and he was going to use them to tear the heart right out of Alexander Cain’s chest.

The temperature dropped fast as they ascended. At first Norman thought it was the sight of the snowy peak thousands of feet above, but he soon realised it was the icy bite of the coastal winds. The mountain chain that formed the backbone of the county shielded most of it from the elements, creating the permanent blanket of fog that rolled down their slopes off the Atlantic. But Dreymont’s Peak stood in the path of a valley that cut right through to the ocean side.

The mountainside was steep and harsh, carpeted with shining boulders that looked like scorched glass, thrusting up from the deep heather and boggy moorland and puncturing the clouds.

It had taken Norman this long to notice because of the storm of Echoes and muddy thoughts prying into his mind from all directions. Macabre sensations plagued him along with myriad Echoes, each of them stronger and more vivid than the last. Men, women and children from bygone eras passed in their droves, reliving countless snippets of lost happenings. He couldn’t ignore them like before; they were everywhere.

He had thought for a while that he had finally snapped, that he might in fact be lying on the roadside kicking in delirium and foaming at the mouth. But that just didn’t seem right. The sights and sounds were real and visceral, so much so that he couldn’t bring himself to doubt he was in the here and now. And there was also the pain: it was gone.

He hadn’t felt a single twinge since they had crossed into Radden County. Instead he was left with the cold—but he didn’t dare imagine it was the same cold the others felt from the mountainside gale. The surreal bone chill was now so strong it burned his insides.

He couldn’t help but be reminded of the raging cold the elders described when they spoke about the End. All the survivors had felt it.

Am I feeling what they felt all that time ago? Is this place really different, somehow?

Whatever was going on, it wasn’t normal, and the others were blind to it. He was just as alone here as he had been back in Canary Wharf.

I hate this place. I’ve been here five minutes and I hate it,
he thought bitterly. Even being free of pain wasn’t worth the crawling feeling in his gut, like he’d eaten a vat of earthworms.

Let’s just get this done and get out of here.

“Wind like this could freeze piss before it hit the ground,” John DeGray shouted above the high whistle, holding his coat tight about him and leaning low on his mount.

Richard was consulting the map Lincoln and Latif had drawn for them, and pointed ahead, farther up the steep slopes.

Norman nodded and waved them on, hiding his face behind the collar of his coat to screen his face from the wind. He hoped their destination wasn’t too far up because the gradient looked as though it only increased closer to the peak, and the horses were already having trouble. He didn’t like the sound of approaching potentially hostile land on foot, especially if the enemy held the high ground. In terms of military tactics, what they were doing was already outrageous enough. They were ragged and worn, each of them travel weary and weak and hungry, uncertain of the terrain. If they were attacked, they wouldn’t have a clue where to run. And if the route downhill was cut off with an ambush, then that would be that.