Second Night (27 page)

The gap was almost closed between the two vessels when all sound was suddenly sucked out of the night. Frozen in the dreadful moment of silence, he saw a small, open boat with a red sail pass under the bows. It was carved into the likeness of a heavily-scaled serpent, high-prowed with the tail curling over the stern as though the carving ran the length of the keel. A man stood at the helm, his face clearly visible under the lights as he tacked up the river against the wind. For a split second Caz thought it was Jasper, and then he saw that the man was stocky and red-bearded.

Rain and storm rushed between them and the boat disappeared. The ferries passed in a distorted world without sound or feeling. Small details were crazily amplified. Masses shrank to pinpoints. Caz had no feeling in his feet. His hand passed through the billboard on the railings. He had no sensation of his heart beating.

Have I disappeared too?
he wondered fearfully.

The ferry docked. The ramp was let down and the traffic sped away into the farthest reaches of the Western Peninsula. The deckhand who had seen the bird noticed the solitary passenger still standing by the rail on the upper deck. He ran up the steps and tapped the cloaked figure on the shoulder. There was no response.

The man stood in front of him, gesturing, but Caz's eyes were blank. The mouth, inches from his face, looked huge. Great globs of saliva dripped from black and white teeth as the tongue slapped up and down. The finger jabbing into his chest was a gigantic sausage sprouting spiny black hairs around a slab of pitted nail.

‘Flying high, are you, buye?' said the man, not expecting any kind of a sensible answer. ‘Stupid sod, you're so far out of it, you don't hear a word I say, do you?' He turned the nutter around and pushed him down the steps to the passenger gangway. ‘Here's where you get off. Watch where you're going, don't trip over the bloody chain and don't fly back this way until you're straight!'

Caz followed the line of eyes jumping out at him from the fat brown serpent writhing up the slipway, until they twisted into a mass of knots and disappeared into a gaping cavern under the road. He was wondering if he should follow them when a well-remembered voice called out to him, deep and resonant. The Galdramerr was dancing star-bright against the shadows. Before her, thrust upright into the grassy verge, the spear burst into flame.

The full force of the raging night crashed back into his awareness as he grasped the blazing shaft. Raw energy bellowed through every cell in his body, his heart swelled and the rune ignited. He leapt onto Valkyrjan's back. The battle frenzy throbbed once more in his veins, and he threw back his head and laughed. The lights of the little town went out.

He shouted. ‘Go, Kyri! Go!'

She leapt forward, but this was no star-ride to World Tree. The mystery of the universal worlds was here and now – present time, present place – pulsating on the brink where worlds collide and mesh.

They left the road and headed for the wide countryside, running south and west, scenting the sea. Villages swept by. Fields and fences flashed briefly under the crystal fire trailing luminous in Valkyrjan's wake. Horses cried out and pounded their stable doors. Cattle scattered. Sheep fled. Summoned, the ocean lifted its mighty shoulders. White-crested, a giant wave gathered up and rolled landward, thirsting to feast upon the shell-strewn beaches and coves under the wind-savaged headlands.

When time began in the depths of the young firmament, the first and the greatest of all stars glimmered, flared and shone, and was snuffed out. But life was seeded and found momentum. The first-born, the giants, claimed the glimmering ghost-light of that star's passing for their own, and no god or hero who came after had greater claim.

That light lit the bowels of Naglfar, the giant's monstrous ship fashioned from the nails ripped from the fingers of dead men – the same light but ghastly. It was stained with the shreds of the mouldering flesh of those who were not heroes, whose shields and spears did not hang under the great roof beams in mighty Valhall. The vast and creaking sail was wrought in the likeness of a colossal warrior bound by his entrails to the mast, his hands grasping the length of the spar. The great wings of his lungs, spilled out from his axe-hewn ribs and spread across his back, were taut with the hot breath of Múspell from where the ship was come.

Naglfar rode the boiling foam, breasting the towering black wave. The bellowing of giants rose above the raging of wind and weather as Valkyrjan bore Heartbiter, young and proud, to the cliffs' edge. Dazzling, the Galdramerr reared, calling her challenge. The steersman roared. The oarsmen, belched forth from living rock and wielding the thigh bones of some forgotten beast, thrust their gargantuan blades to breach the wall of water. Pinned to the prow, the skeletal head of a gigantic raven rammed the cliff face, its gaping beak tearing into earth and tree and stone.

Caz raised the burning spear, the rune blazed, but Valkyrjan sprang back. Too late he recognised the tiny figure trapped where the surf drew back from the rocks far below. A huge hand, half formed and flaming, whipped a white-hot chain over the bows of the ship to pluck Franklin Wylde from the sea and toss him, shrieking, to the one who straddled the raven head. Jasper's face he wore, this Son of Laufey, and Jasper's voice he used to taunt his brother as he casually ripped out their grandfather's fingernails. But the malice was the tormentor's own.

‘We await you, Heartbiter!'

Caz caught a glimpse of glittering eyes before the wave crashed down and Kyri leapt for the cliff path. Her light was put out. The spear was cold. The ship had vanished. His grandfather was taken and there was no longer any doubt of the identity of his pursuer. Only a son of giants could ride the prow of Naglfar. Only the God could unleash the Trickster from his bonds.

I've got Loki after me!

CHAPTER 46

The boys were sharing an outside room at the hotel. Jasper had left the door unlocked. Caz shook him awake.

‘Have you been here all night?' he demanded.

Jasper sat straight up, shaking his head, disoriented. ‘What? What?'

Caz gripped him by the shoulders. ‘I said, have you been here all night?'

Jasper's eyes came into focus.

‘Oh it's you,' he said, yawning. ‘Of course I have.' He pushed Caz's hands away and fell back onto the pillow, pulling it over his head. ‘I'm asleep. Get lost.'

‘No, you're not.'

‘Where's Stat?'

‘She's not here. Wake up!'

Jasper remembered where he was and groaned. ‘Is it time to go to the hospital already?'

‘You don't have to go to the hospital.'

The head came out from under the pillow. ‘Is he dead then?'

‘Yes.'

‘What a relief!' Jasper threw back the covers and lurched out of bed to the bathroom. He turned the cold tap full on in the shower and stood, gasping, under the rush of water until he was fully awake.

Caz gave him a towel.

‘Thanks.' He stripped off his t-shirt and threw it into the washbasin and sat on the toilet with the towel over his head. The tiled floor was saturated with water.

‘What time is it?' he asked.

‘About five o'clock.'

‘Did the poor old git say anything before he went?'

‘No.'

‘So he really has gone then?'

‘Yes. Did you have any weird dreams last night?'

Jasper lifted the flap of the towel and draped it round his forehead. He stretched and yawned and grinned.

‘None I'm ready to talk to you about,' he said smugly.

‘But not bad dreams?'

‘Not this buye, bro.' He noticed Caz's hair and jacket were dripping. ‘Why are you wet?'

‘I walked down from Rame.'

Jasper rolled his eyes. ‘Didn't the taxi know where to find this place then?'

‘I needed some air.'

‘Well, I guess you had enough and to spare, wandering about up there on a night like this.'

Caz shrugged. ‘The rain's just about stopped now, and the wind's died right down. It'll be fine this morning.'

Their eyes met.

Jasper sighed. ‘Yes, tough stuff's better done in the sun, so they say. I wonder how long the waiting list is down at the bod shop? The sooner the old git's cindered the better. I suppose we'd better find out if Jeb Hardy and his boat are still in the land of the living.'

‘That's up to you,' said Caz. ‘I'm on the train out of here as soon as I can get Ma to take me to Plymouth.'

Jasper opened his mouth to argue and shut it again.

‘You're right, you've done your bit,' he conceded. He pointed to the mirror behind the washbasin. ‘But look at yourself, bro. You look like a convict. You'll be getting yourself arrested turning up in the big city like that. Borrow my razor and tidy yourself up a bit before you go. The least you can do is spare old Dais a heart attack the minute you get back.'

She's seen worse,
Caz thought wearily.
Why did the spook ship take Grandpa? Was it because of Kyri and me? Did we bring it here? Did it take Dad too? Is that why Grandpa burned the boat? Is that why Loki's after me?

He stripped off his wet clothes and stood in the shower, lathering his chin. Sleep was fast becoming an immediate priority.

Jasper stood up. He pee'd noisily into the pan and burped.

‘Ah, that's better,' he said grandly.

Caz was already packed and standing on the terrace, drinking coffee, when Jemima got back from her early morning walk on the beach. She went up the steps and stood beside him at the rail looking out over the water. The sea was calm in the shelter of the Sound, licking gently at the deep-rose and purple, and occasionally green-streaked, rocks buttressing the Cornish fishing villages clear of the tides. The storm had gnawed afresh at their stony roots, grinding the rubble in its mighty molars and spitting the fragments across the jewelled sands. The wrack was washed up in even lines, knotted into the shingle.

‘Are you okay?' she asked.

He shrugged. ‘Why not?'

‘Where are the others?'

‘Phoning people.'

The sky was gradually brightening under the thin mottling of yellow cloud. Immediately below them, gulls were diving over something washed up on the rocks. A crow swooped down, stabbing at them with its thick beak. They circled, squabbling and crying, as it settled to feed.

‘I love the sea after a storm,' she said quietly. ‘Why don't we walk up on Rame Head after breakfast?'

‘I'm not staying. I'm going back on the train this morning.'

Jemima sighed. ‘Lucky you! When I was little I used to think the sea needed me but of course it doesn't. Nothing's the same here any more.'

‘That's because we don't belong here any more.'

‘I suppose we don't,' she agreed sadly. She lowered her voice. ‘Was it the same as when Dad died? Was it sad?'

He knew what she was hinting at. ‘Not at all. He just died and his curse went with him.'

‘Is that how curses really work?'

Caz looked down into her anxious face. ‘You've got to believe in them to make them happen.'

‘Do you believe in them?'

He smiled. ‘No. Now we can go home and get on with our lives. We don't ever have to come back here again.'

‘Except that there's the funeral to do first,' she said fretfully. ‘Why does it have to take a week to cremate someone? I've spent all my money and there's no one left here that I know. I can't spend a week sitting in the cemetery talking to Grandma Em.'

‘You don't have to stay. Come back with me.'

‘What about school?'

‘We're the grieving grandkids. As far as school's concerned we're stuck down here until we can get back.'

‘Ma might tell them.'

‘No, she won't, I'll tell her not to. We'll go first class and I'll treat you to a posh lunch in London on the way.'

Jemima's eyes shone. ‘What about paying for the ticket?'

‘I've got plenty of money. There won't be any hassle.'

‘Are you staying up at the house?'

‘Of course.'

‘Do you think Daisy would let me stay there as well? Just this one time, for a treat?'

‘Why not? There're enough empty rooms. But what about Sara?'

‘She won't care. She likes having the lodge to herself. She said so.'

‘She did,' Caz agreed. ‘So come up to the house.'

‘Will Daisy mind if the cats want to come too?'

‘She'll be so glad to have us back she won't even notice. I'll talk to Ma. It'll be okay. Go and get your stuff together.'

‘I'll go and do it right now!'

She got to the top of the steps and turned back with the Jemima-determined look in her eyes. Pointing to where their old family house stood out on the promontory dividing Cawsand from the neighbouring village, she said hotly, ‘We do belong here, Caz! I'm going to go to university and make sure I get a brilliant job with masses of cash, so that I can buy back our house and get a boat. My children will have the most amazing holidays with all the fun that Grandpa never let us have when he was alive. I'm going to tell Jas to put his ashes in the dustbin. The sea's too good for him!'

She stomped down the steps. A door slammed behind her. Caz poured another coffee. The last of the cloud dissolved away and the sea was washed clear blue. The crow had disappeared.

CHAPTER 47

They returned to a feast presided over by a delighted Sir Jonas, and the news that Delilah, the white-eyed swan, was back on the lake.

‘She's still pecking at the others and chasing them half across the water when I'm down there with the feed-bucket,' said John. ‘You'd think she'd never been away.'

Daisy's weekend of brooding anxiety was forgotten the minute she picked up the call from Jemima to say they were coming home. Sara was summoned from the library and John was sent post haste to Matt Poole's farm across the village to buy cream and eggs and home-cured ham. A fat pheasant that had been hanging in the shed for a week, was plucked and stuffed and set to roast after the bread came out of the oven. The manor kitchen spun in a whirlwind of feverish activity until well into the afternoon, culminating in the production of two large bowls of Daisy's famous chocolate mousse that was laced with cognac to a level more appropriate to the midwinter festivities than a humble Monday evening in early November.