Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) (44 page)

Seth lifted his head, shocked. ‘Don’t–’

‘So I’m claiming her.’ Rory folded his arms. ‘I’ll kill Kate for you, Murlainn.’

‘Laochan, don’t say–’ Seth’s voice dried.

‘Too late. For what she’s done to us, Murlainn? She’s mine. Hannah’s my witness.’

Seth’s lips parted, but he couldn’t speak for a long moment. Then he rubbed his hands across his face.

‘Success at last, boy. We’ve made a killer of you.’ There was acid regret in his voice. ‘And nothing has made me sadder in my life.’

‘I’ll live, won’t I?’ Rory stood up. ‘I’ll go and get some more wood.’

‘I’ll be finished in a minute...’ I began.

‘I said I’ll get more wood.’ He set off at a jog across the slope.

I unpicked a bit of the sealed flesh on the arm-wound; no need really, but Seth was tough, and I was glad to have something to do in the silence.

‘Tell me about Eili,’ I blurted at last. Anything to take his mind off his son.

‘What about her?’ he snapped.

‘Okay. Thing is, I know she didn’t like me. I know it was all about my father. She was using me. But…’ I took a breath. ‘She loved my father, didn’t she? I
mean, to the point of lunacy. And I suppose he loved her.’

‘More than his own life. She wasn’t always like – like that.
Ow.
’ He winced. ‘Anyway, I think she did like you. You were a part of him, but that
wasn’t all of it. You’re a healer. Maybe she sensed it. You’re a lot like her.’

‘God help me.’

He gave a low laugh. ‘Eili would have shoved that big tosser over the cliff too.’

I blushed. ‘I didn’t know I was going to do that, I swear. But I’m still glad I did it.’

‘Are you?’

I let myself meet his eyes. I licked my lips. ‘Yes.’

‘Girl, you’re a Sithe to your marrow.’ He sighed and slumped back as I let his arm go. ‘I wish your father was around. He was better than most of us at staying
human.’

‘I bet birds would suddenly appear every time he was near.’ I pinched his arm very lightly. ‘Say something horrible about him.’

‘Gladly.’ He gave me a twisted grin. ‘He’d a filthy temper. Used to beat the lights out of me when I was bad. Not just when I was ten, either. Make you feel
better?’

‘No. You probably deserved it.’

‘Oh, sure. Always.’

I shuffled back and put my arms round my knees. ‘And he was unfaithful, wasn’t he? Why did he sleep with my mother if he loved Eili so much?’

‘Oh, Hannah, I don’t know. We’re none of us very faithful. It’s not like that for us; we live an awful lot of years.’ He wrinkled his battered nose. ‘Conal
was away from Eili a decade at a time. He was the perfect gentle knight, so he was, but even a big boy scout like your father gets lonely. I did, and I don’t even like people very
much.’

I grinned at the tone of his voice. ‘You loved Rory’s mother, didn’t you? Everybody says so, even Finn. Conal couldn’t have loved my mother.’ I added sourly,
‘Believe me, he couldn’t.’

‘You must have, once. Even if you don’t remember. Maybe you still do.’

‘Huh. You were right the first time, I don’t remember.’

Seth sighed and let it go. ‘Yeah. Look, I’m sorry you didn’t know Conal but it wasn’t his decision. I’d stake my life on that. He’d never have left you if
he’d known, he’d never have done what I did to Rory. He’d have stuck around and loved you, okay?’

I wiped the back of my hand violently across my face. ‘I wish there was an afterlife so I could see him.’

‘Me too. But there isn’t. Hi Rory.’

‘Dad. Sorry.’

He hadn’t brought any wood. He slumped down beside Seth.

‘I hope you don’t regret what you said, because it’s too late now. You’re buggered.’

‘No,’ said Rory. ‘I don’t. We should go.’

Seth flicked his hair, just catching his scalp enough to make Rory wince. ‘Glad you’re back. Wouldn’t put it past you to go through the Veil without us. You had that look on
your face. Tell me something.’ Seth batted my hand away. ‘Hannah, that’s just a bruise. Leave me, I’m fine. Rory, why isn’t the world full of holes where you’ve
torn it?’

Rory shrugged. ‘I seal them up.’

‘You do?’ Seth looked startled.

‘Course I do. And if I don’t bother, which I usually don’t, they heal by themselves.

I could almost see the cogs turning in Seth’s head.

Rory made a face. ‘Now if I knew what else to do with it, we’d be laughing.’

‘Oh, snap out of that.’ Seth stood up too sharply, and staggered. ‘You’re not the only one.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Rory kicked earth violently over the dying fire.

‘Listen, I ached to be dun Captain. Soon as I had it, I knew it was beyond me. I don’t know where to start any more than you do, but I’ve had to. And I’ll have to finish
it, because I
haven’t got a choice
. There’s no-one else to do it. And it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference that it’s a lost cause.’

‘Stop it!’ I snapped. ‘Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help. Or you!’ I aimed the last bit at Rory.

I expected Seth to bite my head off. Instead he hooted with laughter.

‘Hear her, Laochan? She’s right, but so am I. Hannah, it’s been a lost cause since we lost your father. Doesn’t mean I’m giving up.’ Turning away, Seth limped
towards the slope. ‘Lost or not, it’s a cause worth fighting for. And if there was nothing worth fighting for, there’d be nothing worth living for. Life wouldn’t be worth
living by bloody definition. So do what you can and stop agonising, right? And if you’ll keep your girlfriend at bay,
we need to go home.
’

He took the slope at a limping run, the idiot. ‘Slow down,’ I yelled.

Hesitating, Seth glanced over his shoulder and jerked his thumb towards the sheerest part of the cliff. ‘You think he’s dead?’

‘Well, I was kind of
assuming
he was.’

‘Well, that’s what I did, a lot of centuries ago. I’m not jumping to any conclusions now.’

Fine; that got me moving.

I took a lot longer getting back down the hill than Seth or Rory, though Seth was a wreck and Rory looked as if he expected to have to catch him any minute when he fell. They waited impatiently,
watching me slide backwards on my stomach, eyes shut tight, hands clutching the grass white-knuckled. Ten metres above them I stopped. I could not move another inch.

‘What’s with you?’ Seth called up crossly.

‘I’m
fine
,’ I snapped.

My eyes were shut, but I could hear Rory muttering to his father, then a brief argument, and then I heard Seth climb doggedly back up the slope. Sod him, I would
not
feel guilty. I
hadn’t
asked
him to come.

He slumped beside me, wincing, and untwisted my fingers from a clump of heather. ‘This figures.’

‘What figures?’ I glared sidelong at him.

‘Your father was scared of heights too.’ There was a note of satisfaction in his voice.

‘I’m not scared.’

‘Lucky girl. I was scared the last few days.’

I scowled. There was a good chance he was taking the mickey and I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. ‘Well, I’m
not
.’

‘That’s good, very good.’ He squeezed my fingers. ‘You won’t have any call to be brave.’

He didn’t let go of my hand, though, sliding down alongside me till I was on completely flat ground. Then he yanked me to my feet.

‘Don’t let me rush you, Hannah. We’ve only got a world to save.’

The black horse came back first. I told my father I’d only call it if he rode it himself, but I might as well have told the mountains to squat down and let us walk
over.

‘I’ve got my own.’

‘Oh, yeah? How are you going to get him back?’

‘Just call Finn’s.’

I shouldn’t have been surprised that the black cantered into sight before we’d walked three miles. When it was called, it found a way, and fast. The kelpies knew the watergates
better than we did, my father pointed out, even if they couldn’t climb down a cliff to reach one underground.

The black hooked its head fondly over my shoulder and whickered right in my ear, pacing alongside us. ‘I still wish you’d get on it,’ I said. ‘You need a ride more than I
do.’

Seth pointed at a car ahead of us, slewed across the end of the pitted track. ‘There’s mine. Or it will be soon.’ He swung open the driver’s side door and released the
boot lock. I stared as he hefted the spare tyre with a gasp of pain, then reached into the hollow where it had lain, and drew out his bridle.

‘When did you put that there?’ said Hannah. She looked pale and suspicious and a little bit sick.

My father didn’t look at her. ‘When I got shot of the horse. At Tornashee.’

‘You needn’t feel bad,’ I muttered to her. ‘It was his choice.’

‘Bit of a gamble, choosing which car,’ said Seth. ‘But I thought he’d like this one. If he’d gone for the motorbike I’d have been in trouble. But that was
unlikely with me in tow, and I planned to be in tow pretty fast. Oh, knock it off,’ he growled at Hannah. ‘I told you I wouldn’t let you die. But it wasn’t you I owed. So
wipe that guilty look off your face.’

She rolled her eyes at me. ‘He’s got a lovely way with a sentiment.’ There was a tiny catch there in her voice, though.

‘So anyway, I hid the bridle before I went into the house. Had to leave my sword in a shed at Tornashee, but we’ll cross that rickety bridge when… ah!’

The black horse lifted its head and gave a screaming whinny of excitement, and a second later we heard the thunder of hooves. The blue roan looked as happy as a week-old foal in a clover field.
It scrabbled to a halt, canting sideways so that it nearly knocked Seth flying, whinnying with crazy delight as it hooked its head over his shoulder.

My father wrapped his arms round its neck and buried his face in its warm pearly skin. ‘Hello, my love.’ His voice was muffled. ‘Did you really stay so close? You didn’t
even wait for me to call, you lovely big bastard.’

‘See?’ Hannah nudged me. ‘Deeply emotional turn of phrase.’

My father’s turns of phrase were getting a lot more emotional, not to mention obscene, by the time we’d put enough miles behind us. Any breaks he allowed us for food or rest seemed
to be over before they began, and I didn’t dare ask Hannah how much her backside hurt. She wasn’t used to so much riding at all, let alone the bareback kind, and her only escape was in
fitful dozes that never lasted long.

I couldn’t blame Seth for his urgency. It was a day and a night before we saw the western islands above the blue line of the sea, and I knew that in his head he was measuring the damage
that might be done to his clann in that time. Besides, the time could be longer than we knew; I’d heard the tales as often as any Sithe, the horror stories about what happened when the time
warped and the years slipped lethally out of sync. My father had once had
a bad experience
.

That was all I knew, of course. He didn’t ever talk about it, not even on that endless hard ride through the eternally shadowed hill passes and along rivers, down stony gullies where the
horses almost had to slide on their haunches. He didn’t ever go into the details and I didn’t expect it now, not even when he let us stop, let us eat, let us snatch a twenty
minutes’ sleep in the very darkest hours on offer.

But I knew, all the same. I knew, despite Kate and her vicious severing spell. I knew he was thinking about time, and the capriciousness of it, and I knew the fear twisted in his belly like a
spear.

My arse was never going to be the same. By the time we’d ridden as far westwards as we could, I was sure it had worn down to nothing more than a scrawny jut of stripped
bone. Still, I couldn’t possibly be as tired as I felt. I kept slapping myself awake because I was too vain to drool on the back of Rory’s t-shirt.

At first, where the land ran out, the gouge in the coastline was only a shadow, a line in the earth; but abruptly, as Seth reined in the roan, emptiness opened in front of us, and I thought it
would swallow us all.

I leaned over Rory’s shoulder, suspicious. ‘This isn’t where the dun is. It’s nothing like it.’

‘No. I can’t get through at the dun,’ he said. ‘Told you. It’s a fortress.’

Seth stroked the roan’s neck. ‘Must have seemed sensible to the witches who wove the Veil, but it was a bit stupid in retrospect. It’s the same as anything: a curtain, a
fishing net, a spider web. You weave it tighter in one place, it’ll rip in another. It has to give somewhere, it’s elementary physics. That’s why the damn thing’s falling
apart.’ Seth blew out a sigh. ‘And Kate will have the dun surrounded. We haven’t a hope in hell of getting through.’

‘So, uh... you’ve brought us where?’

Fifty metres below us lay a sea loch, a bolt of wrinkled blue silk. And only a mile or more beyond that water did the land begin again. With some trepidation I slid off the black’s back. I
could barely walk, and I knew I was shaking, and Rory clasped his hand around my wrist. I managed a couple of nervous steps.

On the only visible strip of beach below us and a little way to the left, a single heron stood motionless on a brown expanse of sea wrack. I swallowed. The shoreline where it stood didn’t
run out; it just disappeared beneath us, because there was no angle to the cliff at all. It was a straight unbroken plunge to the loch below, and beyond the loch’s mouth the dying light was
luminous on a metallic sea. My head swam and I took a quick step back.

‘Where are we going now, then?’

Seth swung his leg over the roan’s neck and jumped down, then unbuckled the throatlash of its bridle. ‘Down there.’

‘Yeah, right, listen,’ I began, with all the aggression I could muster. ‘I don’t know why you’re taking that bridle off because we’re going to have to find
another way round and we
might as well ride.
There’s nothing left of my poor arse to hurt, believe me.’

‘Believe
me
, there isn’t another way,’ said Seth curtly. ‘Horses don’t climb.’

‘There’s a happy coincidence. Neither do I.’

‘Yes, you do.’

I shook my head, but when I stepped back I bumped into Rory. He put his arms round me but he didn’t open his mouth in my defence, the tosser.