Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) (40 page)

I stepped back, back towards the first watergate. What use would it be? Suil was not watching now, he was back at the cottage with Teallach and the Wolf, talking himself out of trouble. I
hoped.

‘What a funny place to find a couple of runts.’ The voice was dry and cracked, but I heard a thin tongue flick out to lick thin lips. ‘I think the little girl doesn’t
like the dark.’

‘’M not little.’ Hannah spat frantically, gagged and retched again.

‘Big enough to die.’ It giggled. ‘They’re all big enough to die.’

I put out an arm to touch the damp icy wall of the cavern. My brain felt as if it was dissolving in panic and I was afraid I might fall. ‘Don’t kill her,’ I said.

‘Oh, don’t be silly.’

No. Don’t be silly. I scratched hard at the side of my head, trying to think straight. Fleetingly I thought of all the times I’d skipped weapons practice. Rather less fleetingly, I
thought of the sword my father had tried to give me six months ago.

W
ould it kill you to try a little diplomacy?

‘Let her go back to the watergate and I’ll last as long as you want me to.’
And let her take her chances with the Wolf.

‘Let me think.’ I heard its fingernail scratch the side of its papery scalp in a mocking echo of me. ‘No.’

I swallowed. ‘If you take me back to Kate,’ I said, ‘you won’t get near me, you know that? You’ll get no fun at all.’

‘I’m
well
aware of that. That’s why I’m not taking you back.’

A funny relief surged through my bones. At least Kate wouldn’t get me, then. At least we’d have beaten her.
Oh please make it quick, then. At least make it quick.

‘I want you to know something.’ A chuckle rattled. ‘What I’m about to do, I’m doing for your brother. We like him, you know.’

I didn’t get to ask him what that meant. There was a strangled screech of fury and terror off to my right. Hannah must have lunged for the creature, but she couldn’t see and she had
no idea what the thing was anyway. I saw its eyes swivel, felt the air stir, and she was flung back against the tunnel wall. I heard the cough of breath knocked out of her body.
She’s
okay. Stunned, is all. Maybe it’ll forget her now, maybe...

The glinting eyes vanished, and the air went still and silent.

Then a skeletal arm draped across my shoulders, making me jump. I wondered how much the bite of the blade would hurt. More, if I struggled, but I couldn’t not fight it. I shut my eyes and
clenched my fists and waited for my moment.
Its face. Go for its face, get its eyes out–

‘You know what upsets me most about you people? It’s the
condescension.
It’s the
prejudice.
’

I couldn’t breathe for the thrashing of my heartbeat in my throat.

‘You think we’re so straightforward, don’t you? You think we have a one-track mind.’

‘You’re a Lammyr, for gods’ sake!’

It went on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘You think you’re the only ones with a little sophistication.’ It sighed dramatically, and I could practically hear its eyes rolling in
its head.

Bone-dry lips brushed my earlobe. ‘We can think for ourselves, little boy. We can play the game as well as you or Kate can. And wouldn’t life and death be boring if we were
all’ – its thin tongue flicked into my ear – ‘
predictable
?’

There was such strength in the wiry things. I’d had no idea. It shoved me to the ground with one hand, and my legs went out from under me like twigs. Gasping, I rolled over, goggling up
into the darkness, trying to find its eyes. I wanted to see it coming. I wanted a chance. Just a tiny chance,
oh please you gods–

A soft frightened moan from Hannah, the scrape of her shoe on rock. I tensed, turned, swung back. No other sound but my own high-pitched breathing.

I scrambled up to crouch on all fours. I held my breath, hard as it was.

Nothing.

‘Hannah?’ I rasped.

The shuffling sound of her crawling across the rocky ground, and then her body was in my arms and she was almost strangling the life out of me. I managed to dislodge her arm from my throat, but
I didn’t let her pull away; I hugged her head against me, tightly.

‘I think it’s gone.’ Her voice was barely more than a squeak. ‘It’s gone, Rory. It let us go.’

‘Now see what you made me do?’ The Wolf shook his head sorrowfully as he quietly closed the cottage door and walked back towards the rowan, rattling the handcuff
keys.

Seth stared at the sky beyond the branches as the Wolf released him, then locked his wrists behind his back again. ‘Was that necessary?’

‘Not necessary,’ said the Wolf, ‘but fun. Getting sentimental in your old age, Murlainn? You’re not quite the man I thought you were.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

Seth shut his eyes for a moment. He was more shaken than he wanted the Wolf to know. The Watcher’s death reverberated in his head, grating against his brain. It hurt in all the places he
hadn’t been kicked already.

Suil had only reached his mind out at the last moment, unwilling to die alone, but Seth had barely even given him that much. Only a touch, for a fraction of an instant, while the Wolf was
distracted with the killings. Quick as a dragonfly, and then his block was back up, but he’d felt the Watcher’s dying moment ripple up his spine and into the nape of his neck, and
he’d been unable to repress a violent shudder.

The Wolf had seen that shudder, but by then Seth’s block was back up. It was too late for Kilrevin to get into his mind, but the man knew he’d missed a chance. Seth thought
he’d probably pay for that later.

‘I see you’re on your own.’ He grinned at the Wolf. ‘Missed Rory, did you?’

‘If I was in your position, Murlainn? I’d keep my fatuous observations to myself.’ Wiping his bloody fingers on the lining of Conal’s jacket, the Wolf yanked him to his
feet. ‘What now, Murlainn? I don’t know where your son’s gone, but he’s on his own now. And he’s lost the horse.’

‘That was a smart move. And he’ll find help somewhere else.’

‘Without dropping his block?’ The Wolf smirked. ‘And even if he does, is Rory that ruthless? He knows by now that anyone who helps him is a dead man walking.’

‘Like you.’ Seth’s hatred momentarily got the better of his common sense. ‘Like you, Kilrevin.’

The Wolf gazed at him for long penetrating seconds. ‘Maybe I can persuade you to call that son of yours.’ His eyes glittered with visible evil. ‘Or have a lot of fun trying.
It’d cheer me up, Murlainn, so stop pushing your luck.’

Seth looked away, in case the fear that crawled across his scalp, lifting his hair at the roots, was somehow visible in his eyes. ‘Don’t waste your time.’

‘Don’t you waste your life, what’s left of it.’ The Wolf pinched his earlobe playfully. ‘Good. We understand each other.’

Oh, Rory,
run
, Seth thought dully.
Just run
.

I would sell my soul for one more hour in the dun. One more hour in that warm solid bed with the goosedown quilt. They could tar and feather me if they liked, they could tear
my skin off in strips. Just one hour’s sleep afterwards, that was all I asked.

The other side of the mountains, that’s where Rory said we were. He seemed happy. I didn’t care where we were any more, I was just glad to be far from that second watergate in the
depths of the earth. I never wanted to be anywhere but the open air again. Fragments of cloud were caught on the hills and when I looked back over my shoulder, the highest tops were swathed in it.
As we made our stumbling way down into the valley, sun slanted between the dark layers of cloud and the forest tops, painting everything gold. Very pretty. I only knew that night was coming on
again, and that I wanted to be far away from the hills when it arrived.

‘Where are we?’ I mumbled.

‘Not far from Tornashee. The Wolf’s gonnae be spitting rivets. He was chasing us west and we’ve gone east. We’ve come out behind him.’ Rory actually giggled.

‘No. I mean, are we on the right side of the Veil? I lost count.’

He gave me a dark look. ‘We’re on the wrong side of the Veil. Which is the right side for now.’

I rubbed my eyes. ‘Fine. Whatever.’

N
ot far
was clearly a relative concept. There wasn’t any sign of civilisation; all I knew was that the air was warmer and the midge-clouds were thickening along with the
trees and the twilight.

And then the road was there in front of us, looming out of nowhere, and Rory shoved me back as cars roared past in both directions. When the engine sounds faded he raised his finger to his lips
and checked the road; then he seized my hand and pelted across the tarmac. He yanked me after him into the trees beyond the verge, grabbing and shoving me up and over a wire fence so that I could
do nothing but climb and drop over. I felt my feet sink in soft squelching grasses, and when I blinked at the half-dark sky, it was almost blotted out by black fir-tops.

A branch caught my cheek painfully; I shoved it aside with a choice curse.

‘Sorry,’ muttered Rory. Somehow he was back in front of me.

I dodged the next branch just in time, and grabbed it. That made me stagger forward, and suddenly I was up to my knees in freezing water. ‘Yikes.’

‘I’d get back from that. You’ll be pulled through. It’s a watergate.’

Hurriedly I stumbled back, weeds catching at my legs. Right enough, the water felt draggingly heavy even at this depth. I found a flaking stump of rotten wood and sat down, my feet well clear of
the water. High up behind me, I heard intermittent traffic on the road.

Even under the canopy of the trees, there was a sheen of half-light on the little loch’s surface. I could make out rocks, a broken signpost, a wrecked rowing boat half-submerged at the far
shore.

‘Don’t go near the water,’ Rory told me. ‘I bet Kate’s got guards on all the opposite watergates.’

‘She has,’ said a raspy voice.

I squealed: embarrassing but true. I hadn’t even seen the hut behind us. Now there was a man standing there with his hands in his pockets: a gruesome old tramp wearing a battered hat, a
long leather coat and glasses stuck together with sellotape.

‘Hi, Gocaman,’ said Rory. ‘I thought she might have.’

‘So the last thing you want is to get pulled through. I’ll get it.’

‘Get what?’ said Rory suspiciously.

‘The gun. Do you think I was born yesterday?’

Rory’s teeth flashed in the darkness. ‘Hardly.’

‘Gun?’ I squeaked.

‘Nils Laszlo’s. Jed ended up with it.’ Rory shrugged. ‘Long story. No use to Jed on the other side, so he put it back here.’

‘You are a dark horse,’ I muttered. ‘I’d no idea you had a plan.’

‘I’ve
always
got a plan.’

‘Liar.’

The deadbeat tramp was wading forward into the reedy fringes of the water, the ripples spreading till they lapped as little waves on the far shore. There was a thin cord wrapped round one of his
wrists, and when I followed it back with my eyes I saw the other silky end of it bound round a pine trunk.

‘Are you sure you won’t–’ began Rory.

‘Not sure, but I’ve a better chance than you,’ growled Gocaman. He tugged on the cord as if making sure of it, then turned and crouched to his waist in the water.

‘This bank,’ he muttered. ‘I showed your brother the best place.’

He was rummaging in the murky water under a small overhang, his face creased with concentration. Suddenly he brightened, and tugged out a plastic parcel smothered in weed and mud.

He brandished it as he waded ashore, then drew a knife from his belt. Rory tore at the plastic wrapping as the old tramp cut and sawed.

‘Didn’t mess about with the wrapping, did he?’ grumbled Gocaman, peeling off yet another layer of bubble wrap and disconsolately popping a few blisters before tossing it aside.
‘The boy had foresight, I’ll give him that.’

With a flourish Rory ripped off the last layer of plastic bag, and something dark and gleaming tumbled to the ground.

We all stared at it. Rory lifted it with trembling fingers.

‘You think you can use that, Peacemaker?’ Gocaman sounded sceptical.

Rory shrugged. ‘Better than ending up a rib roast.’

‘Your father might come here.’

Rory sat back on his haunches. ‘Have you heard anything of him?’ There was only the slightest crack in his voice.

‘Nothing. He’ll be blocking, of course, or he’d be dead. But he’ll find you. Eventually he’ll find you. Just hold out, and keep away from the Wolf and
watergates.’ The tramp made a face. ‘Suil’s dead, did you know? His lover too.’

I put a hand over my mouth to stop myself letting out a sob of shocked fright. Rory stiffened.

‘He killed a
Watcher
?’

‘He’s Alasdair Kilrevin. He’ll kill anything.’ Gocaman shrugged. ‘Best thing for Teallach, in the end. And Watchers don’t bind, but I think Suil would have
followed anyway.’ He stared aside, at the still surface of the lochan. ‘You could stay here with me, of course.’

I wasn’t averse to that idea, but Rory shook his head violently.

‘Can’t. The Wolf’d come first, and he’d just kill you. He does it to everyone else.’

The tramp sounded exasperated as he adjusted his glasses. ‘I would like to be with you. You know I can’t leave here.’

‘Exactly. So thanks, but we’ve got to go.’

‘Not to Tornashee, you don’t. It’s the first place the Wolf looked for you, and it’s the first place he will come when he doubles back.’

Rory’s shoulders slumped a little. I’m pretty sure mine did too. I’d envisaged a roof, and beds. ‘Where, then?’

‘Where else will your father know to look for you? Where can you keep the Wolf at bay till he finds you?’ Gocaman tightened his lips in something like a smile. ‘Riddle me that,
Laochan.’

Rory smiled. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know where.’

‘Then go there.’

Rory had begun to reach for his hand when Gocaman seized hold of his. He put his dry lips to it, then pressed Rory’s hand to his forehead.

‘Good luck to you, Laochan. You’ll need it. And run now, boy. Run very fast.’