Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) (7 page)

Despite her words, Church couldn’t stop the guilt growing stronger. The Tuatha De Danann had been right in their brutal assessment of his worth; it was his own weaknesses that had dragged them down. If he had told the others about the visitations of Marianne’s spirit, about the Kiss of Frost that had corrupted him and brought about the Danann’s contempt, the world might have been saved.

“Did you ever hear Beyond the Sea?” he asked, staring into the chopping black waves.

“Is that by one of those dead, old white guys you enjoy so much? Some Sinatra shit?”

“Bobby Darin.” He didn’t rise to the bait. “It’s the best metaphor for death I’ve ever heard. Just a simple little song, but when you think about it in those terms it becomes almost profound.” He sang a few bars: “Somewhere beyond the sea, somewhere waiting for me, my lover stands on golden sands. So sad, but so optimistic. I’d never really thought about it like that until just now, you know, about it talking about what lies beyond death-“

“Or it could just be a simple little song.” The comment would normally have been concluded with some note of mockery or contempt, but when none came he turned to look at her. Laura’s face was still and thoughtful, and when she spoke again her voice was uncommonly hesitant. “How do you feel?”

“What do you mean?”

“All that stuff floating around inside …” She was skating around the edge of an issue that was so monumental it was almost impossible to put it into perspective.

“I feel okay, under the circumstances. Different, though I’m not sure how. Sometimes I get a wave of cold when the Fomorii corruption seems to get the upper hand. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got liquid gold in my veins, thanks to whatever the Danann did to me. The rest of the time I just feel like me.”

“Must be a real head-fuck to die and get reborn.”

“Yes.” In his darker moments he wondered if it meant he was still human, still alive, even, in any sense that people understood. How could you die and then come back? What scars did that leave on the soul, if such a thing existed? And what did it mean for the rules that were supposed to give a structure to existence? He combatted such black thoughts by trying to consider his rebirth an opportunity to leave the past and all his weaknesses behind, to become something much more valuable. It was the only way to stop himself from cracking up.

“When you died, you know, what was it like? Inside?” It was obvious Laura wasn’t about to let the subject drop. Though her face remained impassive, there was a deep gravitas at the back of her eyes that showed how much the issue meant to her.

He threw his mind back to when he was lying half in the stream, his blood mingling with the water, his body racked with pain. “Like slipping into a hot bath and just carrying on down and down.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “And after that?”

He winced. “I don’t remember.”

“Nothing at all?”

His sigh was uncomfortable. “Just fragments … nothing that makes sense. And it’s all breaking up like a dream after you wake.”

“But you remember something?”

“Just something that looked like a big church.” There was a sharpness to his voice that he regretted, but couldn’t control. “Or a cathedral. Massive, going right up past the clouds. That’s it.”

“Okay, I won’t bug you about it any more.” She made to leave, but he caught her arm and pulled her back. She gave a wry smile. “Getting frisky?” Before he could answer, she pushed him back off the wall and followed him down.

“You ever wonder why there aren’t any bodies?” Ryan Veitch put his street-hard shoulder muscles to the rear door of the grocery shop and heaved one final time; it burst open with a crack.

“I don’t want to think about that.” Ruth Gallagher looked around uncomfortably. Even though she knew they were the only ones in the area and that the laws of the land probably didn’t hold much sway any longer, she still didn’t feel right breaking and entering.

Veitch didn’t have any such qualms. His increasingly long hair hid his expression from her as he headed through the doorway, but she could have sworn he was actually enjoying it. Inside the store her fears were confirmed when the makeshift torch illuminated his hard, handsome features; he was grinning. “I’ll be happier when the power comes back on,” he said.

“Maybe it’s gone for good this time,” Ruth said morosely, as she reluctantly followed him in. Cartons of tins and breakfast cereals were piled around and it smelled warmly of fruit and bread. “Enough of the talk. Just get the provisions we need and let’s get out of here.”

“I like to talk. Anyway, who’s going to rumble us here?”

Ruth pushed past him with a flick of her head that sent her long, brown hair flying. She began to fill a dustbin bag with packets of muesli. “Perhaps we should leave a note for the owner. Tell him why we took the stuff. Offer to pay him back-“

Veitch gave a derisory snort. “You’re living in cloud cuckoo land, you. Get real. He’s not coming back. None of the poor bastards are. The Fomorii have hauled them off to their larder.”

Ruth glared at him, but his words made her feel numb and she quickly returned to her petty pilfering.

Veitch helped her halfheartedly and then said out of the blue, “Are we going to start getting on?”

“We’re stuck in this together. We don’t have any option.”

“That’s not good enough.”

Her eyes flashed. “Well-“

“No, listen to me. I know I’ve done some bad things in my life, but you can’t keep on blaming me for what happened to your old man-“

“How can you say that! You shot my uncle!” As she turned to face him her elbow clipped a box of Special K and sent it flying across the storeroom; all the emotions which she had bottled up for so long rumbled to the surface. She fought to hold back tears that seemed to come too easily, then said, “I’m sorry. I heard what the Danann said-“

“That’s right! It wasn’t my fault. They made me do it, like they made all of us suffer.”

Ruth remembered the horror she felt when the Danann explained how all five of them had been forced to experience death as some sort of preparation for the destiny that had been mapped out for them.

“I might be a stupid little two-bit crook, but I’ve never killed anybody in my life before!” Veitch continued. “I’m not that kind of bloke. I wish you could know how much it screwed me up when I saw I’d shot your uncle …” He winced at the memory. “Listen, all I want to do, all I’ve ever wanted to do in my life, is do something that’s right, you know what I mean? Be a good guy for a change. But even when I try, it seems to go wrong. I just want a chance to show what I can do.”

His pleading was so heartfelt, Ruth couldn’t help feeling sympathy.

“Because I like you,” he continued. “I like all of you. You’re all trying to do the right thing, whatever it might mean to you, and I’ve never been around people like that before. I don’t want you all thinking bad of me all the time.”

Ruth read the emotions on his face for a long moment, then returned to her packing. “Okay,” she said. “I forgive you. But it’s not going to be forgotten just like that-“

“I know. I just want a chance.”

“You’ve got it.”

She could feel him staring at her like he couldn’t believe what she had said, and then he started loading up his bag with gusto. Once they’d got everything they might need for a few days, they headed back out. As they slipped away from the shadows at the back of the shop, a dark shape flashed out of the sky and circled them, drawing closer. Veitch was instantly alert, ready for defence.

“It’s okay,” Ruth said. The owl, her gifted companion, glided down and landed on her shoulder; she winced as its talons bit into her flesh, then pushed her head to one side for fear it would start flapping its wings. It was the first time it had come close enough for her to touch. The owl turned its eerie, blinking eyes on Veitch, who was grinning broadly.

“What’s his name?” He reached out a hand, but the owl snapped its beak in the direction of his fingers and he withdrew sharply.

“Who says it’s a he?”

“Well what’s its fucking name then?”

“It hasn’t got a name.” She paused. “Not one that I know, anyway.”

“Well, don’t you think you should give him one? Or her. It. If it’s going to be on the team-“

“Maybe I’ll ask it later.” Her eyes sparkled.

Veitch looked at her for a second or two, but he couldn’t tell if she was serious or teasing him. He decided to opt for the latter and responded in kind with a faint smirk. “Witch.”

“Fuckhead.”

Their eyes locked for a long moment, then they burst out laughing. Turning, they threw the bags over their shoulders and marched towards the seafront.

“So what exactly can you do?” Veitch said.

Ruth shrugged. “I don’t know yet. It’s like spending all your life as a man and then someone coming up to you and telling you you’re actually a woman. How do you get your head round something as monumental as that? How can you comprehend you’ve been chosen by the gods for some task?”

“Sounds pretty cool to me. I wouldn’t mind.”

“You might think differently if it actually happened to you. It’s hard enough understanding that the world’s changed. That different rules operate now, fundamental rules, about the way everything works. The woman I met in the Lake District-“

“The old magic-biddy?”

“The Wiccan. She’d spent years practising certain rites and not getting anywhere. Then, earlier this year, she woke up and suddenly found out things happened. At her command.”

“What kind of things?”

“Altering the weather. Controlling animals …” Ruth had a sudden flashback to the spirit-flight she experienced and was surprised at the depth of her yearning to savour it again. “I don’t think it’s a matter of having any kind of power. It’s just an aptitude for controlling things. Like physicists bending nuclear power to their will. You have to learn how to access it.”

“Any luck so far?”

“I haven’t really tried. I’m a little nervous.”

“I read sex helps with magic.” He didn’t look at her, but she could sense his grin.

“Don’t go down that road. You’re still on probation.”

“Okay. Just offering my services if you need me.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather put my eyes out.”

For a brief moment the wind shifted and the omnipresent stink of burning was replaced by the salty aroma of the sea and the heady tang of green hills. They both stopped and breathed deeply.

The fire roared as Tom threw on another broken dining chair, the glow painting a dull red over his wire-rimmed spectacles. Shavi sat cross-legged in front of his tent, staring deep into the flames. His long hair hung limp around his face, his perfect Asian features so still he could have been a mannequin. Wiping the sweat from his brow, Tom eyed him surreptitiously as he turned from the blaze.

“It was a terrible experience, but you gained wisdom from it.” He adjusted the elastic band holding his grey ponytail in place.

Shavi’s eyes flickered, as if he were waking from a dream. “At the moment that seems little consolation.”

“There’s always a price to pay for knowledge. What you did was a great leap forward in your abilities.” Tom sat next to him, but far enough away so as not to encroach on the invisible barrier Shavi had placed around himself.

“I feel something has broken inside, deep in my head. Only I cannot tell exactly what. I simply feel different, damaged.”

“You projected your consciousness, your very self, out of your body and into an unthinking beast. It was a triumph of your shamanistic abilities. Unfortunately there will be short-term repercussions-“

“I have no wish to talk about it further.” Shavi fell silent for a few minutes, then said, “I am sorry. I am being very insensitive. What I have experienced is nothing compared to your suffering over the centuries in Otherworld.”

“It wasn’t centuries when I was there.” Tom paused. “Although it felt like it.”

“And was the wisdom you gained from your experience worthwhile?”

Tom looked away into the night.

“What does your power of prophecy say for us, True Thomas?” Shavi lay back so he could watch the stars twinkling through the gaps in the smoke. He felt a twinge of deep regret that his experience with the serpent on the crossing to Skye had left him with such a black depression that he could no longer truly appreciate them.

“There are hard times ahead.”

“Even Ryan could have predicted that.”

“It’s not as if I see the future rolled out before me like a map. There are flashes, glimpses through different windows on a winding staircase. I prefer not to say too much. Guessing at the meaning of a future image can alter the way one would react in the present.”

“Do you know who will live and who will die?” Shavi’s voice floated up hollowly.

Tom remained silent.

A second later they heard the sound of the others approaching up the road from Kyleakin. Church had his arm around Laura’s shoulders, while Ruth and Witch carried the bags of provisions. They were all laughing at a joke.

“Come on, you old git. It won’t ruin your image if you smile. It’s not as if you’re going to get any more wrinkles,” Laura shouted to Tom. He looked away haughtily.

Shavi forced a smile. “Any fine food for dinner?”

Ruth upended her bin bag. “Beans, fruit salad, muesli, pasta or any combination of the above.”

“Better get your cauldron on then,” Laura said to her tartly.

“There’s meat for those who eat it.” Tom motioned to a brace of pheasants that lay on the outskirts of the camp.

“How the hell did you get those?” Veitch asked in amazement. He picked up one by the claws and searched for any kind of injury.

“Don’t ask him that,” Church said. “It’ll just give him a chance to put on his mysterious-but-wise Yoda routine.”

“Well, meat for me.” Veitch threw the bird down. Laura wrinkled her nose in distaste.

While Tom set about preparing the birds, Ruth got out the cooking utensils they had picked up from the camping shop where they’d also, in Laura’s words, liberated the tents. Tom jointed the pheasants with his Swiss Army Knife and they cooked quickly over the campfire, while Veitch prepared pasta and beans to accompany them.