The Burning Man, page 13
part #2 of Kingdom of the Serpent Series
Jerzy returned with a leather-bound box. He tripped and the glittering contents skidded across the flags, cruel blades all, with barbs and serrations and razor edges.
‘Cool move, Jerzy,’ Mallory muttered.
Jerzy frantically gathered up the knives and Mallory took them out of Rhiannon’s view. He selected the one he thought would be quickest and cleanest and hid it behind his back.
‘Still a chance to back out,’ he said.
Tears swam in her eyes, but she indicated for him to continue.
‘I’d do the same in your position. You’re very brave.’
Mallory rested the edge of the knife on her wrist. It was cool, her skin smooth and delicately shaded. He fought to stop his hand from shaking.
The next five minutes were lost to him. He vaguely remembered the sounds that came out of her, but they would return to haunt him during the nights to come.
Then he turned, holding it, and what brought it all home was Jerzy, the jester, usually filled with life and dance, on his knees, sobbing hysterically, yet still grinning through it: an image of the insanity to which they had all been brought.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Rhiannon, her head slumped on her chest, but he couldn’t bring himself to look directly at her. At the box, he placed the stiffening hand on the spot the Caraprix had shown him. The lid sprang open with a flash of blue sparks, and there was the sword, calling to him. In his hand, it felt warm, easing his pain. With one sweep, he severed the clasp that held the iron sheath in place. The second sweep cut the chains and Rhiannon fell into his arms. She was barely conscious.
Mallory laid her on the flags and took another of the kitchen knives to cut the thread sealing her lips. But as the first stitch was severed, her eyes fluttered shut and her head lolled to one side.
Jerzy leaned forward to test the shallowness of her breath. ‘A secondary enchantment. When you cut the thread, it put her into the Sleep Like Death.’
‘So she couldn’t tell us what happened,’ Mallory said bitterly. ‘Can we help her?’
‘Perhaps. Back at the Court of the Soaring Spirit – Math the Sorcerer could help.’
As Mallory carried her through her desolate home, a cold desire for revenge filled him. Nothing would deter him from it.
10
In the warm womb of her room, Sophie lay back on the cushions before the fire and watched the cat move across the furniture, its shadow sometimes swelling to panther-size. Sophie had summoned it with her will alone, and while she had tried to pretend it was a normal animal, she only had to glance into the depths of its eyes to know the truth.
It was a simple trick, a testing of limits to see if she was still able to manipulate the Craft, and her skill had exceeded her hopes. It was a product of memory and emotion. Regaining the knowledge of who she really was – artist, romantic, wanderer – and bringing Mallory back into her heart had opened up the wondrous landscape of her abilities.
Pleased with herself, she left the room and made her way along the cramped, dark corridors, still flushed with love from her sudden and surprising reconnection with Mallory. As she reached the level of the main court rooms, she heard the sound of crying. Cautiously, she entered the stifling heat of one of the chambers and found Niamh curled up in a chair so large it made her look fragile and childlike, her head buried in her arms.
Sophie hesitated, then ventured in. ‘Is everything all right?’
With red-rimmed eyes, Niamh forced a smile and quickly tried to regain her composure. ‘For most of my long existence, I have never cried. Church taught me how to, along with many other things, and I will always remember him for that.’
‘You were close?’
Niamh motioned for Sophie to join her. ‘I loved him in a way I have not loved anyone before. But his heart always belonged to another.’
‘Ruth.’
Niamh nodded. ‘Brothers and Sisters of Dragons have their own special gravity. At least, that is what I tell myself.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘Now I have other matters to concern me.’
‘The war?’
‘It threatens all the Golden Ones have ever held dear. My people are in disarray. The Great Courts have never worked easily together. Now any failure to unite will lead to our complete destruction. Yet still they will not talk.’
‘There’s something else on your mind, I can tell.’
‘Your Craft gives you great perception. My brother is missing again, and I fear he may have fallen into the hands of the Enemy. Others, too, are missing. The Morrigan, of course. Math has not been seen for …’ She waved a hand wearily. ‘I am afraid the Enemy has infiltrated the Court of the Soaring Spirit. That no one here is safe. What kind of a queen am I to allow that to happen? In my darker moments, I believe I do not have the ability to lead. I wonder if I should give up my title for the sake of my people. Let someone else take charge, someone better suited to lead in these trying times.’
‘Church told us all about you. No one could do a better job.’
‘You are kind, as befits a Sister of Dragons. But still, the weight of these days lies heavily on me.’ She dried her eyes, but her face remained taut. ‘I am troubled by too many mysteries. My own existence … I have dreams that I died. I cannot recall how I returned to the Far Lands from your world.’ Unsettled, she leaned towards Sophie in confidence. ‘And now I am all alone.’
‘You’re not alone. We’ll stand by you, in the way that you’ve always stood by us.’
This appeared to soothe Niamh, for she smiled warmly. They were interrupted by the crash of the door as Caitlin marched in.
‘You’ve got to see this,’ she announced.
Sophie and Niamh followed Caitlin up onto the palace’s ramparts. In the north, fire flickered in the sky near the horizon.
‘What is it?’ Sophie asked.
‘A candle, calling someone home.’ Caitlin handed Sophie a brass spyglass.
The distant flame sharpened into focus. It was the burning outline of a man. Sophie estimated it must have been hundreds of feet high.
Behind then, Niamh began to mutter, ‘They are bringing him back. They are bringing him back.’
‘Bringing who back?’ Sophie asked.
But Niamh appeared to be in a trance where something was speaking through her.
The wind carried the bitter smell of ashes, and the air of disaster drawing closer.
11
Instinctively, the guards averted their gaze or squirmed involuntarily as the Libertarian strode through the Heathrow Security Annexe. He knew they registered him as a blur of static on the periphery of their vision, an anomaly that their brains couldn’t quite comprehend – unless he decided otherwise, or they were spider-ridden, of course, and then they had no choice but to see him, in all his glory.
In his room, the senior officer who had been tasered by Hunter was already sweating heavily in anticipation. He glanced nervously at the Libertarian as he entered, swallowed hard, couldn’t find any words.
‘Get rid of them,’ the Libertarian said.
The man jumped from his chair and dismissed the guards. ‘There was another one …’he began hesitantly.
‘Excuses are so tiresome.’
The senior officer flinched as the Libertarian raised his hand to brush back his own hair. He said thoughtfully, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. Not yet, anyway. Too messy. All those questions, doubts – it’s not conducive to the smooth running of reality. Maybe later, when you’re away from here, and I’m bored.’ He flopped into the officer’s chair and swung his feet onto the desk. ‘Two groups of Brothers and Sisters of Dragons infesting the place. That is rather an irritation.’
‘They won’t get far—’
‘Oh, they will. They’re clever and instinctive and, quite often, counterintuitive. Your breed is not built to deal with that approach.’ The Libertarian removed his sunglasses to clean off a spackle of blood. ‘If I could only remember what happens in the coming months, things would be so much easier. But there’s too much static.’ He rapped the side of his head. ‘Still, it all turns out nice, so—’ He started. ‘Are you still here? Go on, run along, before I change my mind and dismantle you.’
Alone with his thoughts, the Libertarian felt unusually uneasy. Memories of the future, memories of the past, intertwined, conflicted. Why was he thinking about the person he had been? Those days were long gone, and their loss had never really concerned him until the last few hours.
He thought of a deep, passionate kiss at the point of waking, a caress, whispered words, and he shuddered. Long gone, and glad of it.
‘Who. Am. I?’ he said to the empty room. ‘I. Am. Who?’ A palindromic existence in time.
Choosing activity to still his thoughts, he jumped to his feet. ‘I think I will tag along for a little while.’ He hummed to himself. ‘See what sparkling notions are dancing in the heads of those Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.’ Any analysis would have told him it was not the wisest course, but he was pulled by his own currents. And as if to reassure himself, he added: ‘One death at the appropriate moment is all that it will take to drive them to the point of collapse. And I know exactly which one.’
12
Stillness suffused the hotel. The snow of the high country had swept indoors, blanketing everything. Hunter was on his feet, the fuzzy torpor of the alcohol already gone.
‘Chill out, killer. It’s only a stopped clock.’ Dreamy and drunk, Laura stretched like a cat.
‘It’s affecting you. Fight it.’
The sharpness of his words cut through her hazy state. ‘Shit. That was weird … trippy.’
Hunter took in the details of the scene quickly. The crackling of the fire was barely audible and appeared to be coming from the end of a long tunnel. The light had an odd cast; shadows fell from no obvious source.
Laura tentatively touched the glistening wall. ‘Frost,’ she said, puzzled.
‘Stay with me,’ Hunter ordered.
‘Now you’re confusing me with someone who does what they’re told.’ She stepped closer to Hunter nonetheless.
At the bar, the barman was nowhere to be seen. Nor was the heavily bearded, red-faced drinker who only a few minutes earlier had lurched from the restaurant to start downing the hotel’s strong lager.
‘I thought I saw Shavi and Tom come in.’ Laura turned slowly. ‘I can sense that grumpy old git within fifty yards. They couldn’t have slipped by us.’
‘The frost on the walls is growing thicker,’ Hunter noted, ‘but the room isn’t getting any colder.’ He leaned over the bar. A bloody smear ran from where the barman had been standing into the back rooms. ‘So. We could follow that into obvious danger or we could walk away,’ he said.
‘As self-preservation is my default setting, I don’t think I need to answer that,’ Laura said. ‘But as being a thick-headed man is your thing, I can see which way this is going to go.’
Hunter stepped behind the bar.
‘I just hope that as you lie dying you’re tormented by guilt that you sacrificed a young and innocent woman,’ she said.
‘You can be quiet now.’
‘And you can take that gun you’ve got tucked away and shove it up your—’
Hunter pushed open the door to the back rooms to reveal the barman lying butchered in one corner. It looked as if he’d been attacked with an axe.
Laura glanced away. ‘Well, Shavi is going to be pissed off.’
‘Nice show of compassion. Very endearing.’
Hunter noted there was only one door leading down to what he presumed was the cellar.
Laura followed his gaze. ‘Why would you want to go down there?’
‘The other one might still be alive.’
‘I thought Church was the one who did the right thing.’
‘You really don’t know me. I’m a sensitive soul underneath this sexy and charismatic exterior.’
A flight of wooden steps led down into the dark cellar. The only sound was a distant creaking. Hunter flicked the light switch and a single bare bulb came on somewhere out of sight. It was barely enough to hold back the shadows. The creaking grew louder when they reached the foot of the stairs.
Rounding into the main area of the cellar, they saw the bearded drinker hanging by his neck from an oily rope attached to a hook in a beam. He was naked. His body was covered with runes cut into the skin with a sharp knife. Laura pressed a hand over her nose and mouth to keep out the salty butcher’s shop smell. Hunter first made sure the rest of the cellar was empty, then examined the body.
‘Ritual marks,’ he said. ‘Don’t know how they could have been carved so quickly.’
‘Because time doesn’t mean anything here. It’s like a bit of the Other-world has crossed over. Those runes – they look Viking.’
‘You’ve seen them before?’
‘I belong to an environmental group – Earth First. A couple of blokes in my chapter are Odinists. They’ve got those runes tattooed on their chests.’
Hunter tried to make sense of the markings. ‘Patterns,’ he mused.
‘What?’
‘Everywhere. Patterns. Numbers – five. Names. Symbols. Systems. All of them repeating.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Almost as if they were programmed in.’
‘When you’ve got your head out of your arse, can we actually turn our attention to who did this?’
The eyes of the hanged man snapped open, the whites crimson with broken blood vessels. Laura leaped back with a curse.
‘You woke them,’ the corpse said in heavily accented English. ‘You crossed into their Great Dominion. You woke them!’ It thrashed its legs around in fury, the ligature biting into its neck, the eyes bulging.
Hunter unconsciously stepped in front of Laura to protect her. ‘All right – slightly weird, but here we go. Who did this to you?’
A sickening laugh rattled in the hanging man’s constricted throat. ‘He will get you next. They all will!’
The eyes snapped shut and the animation left the body. The creaking rope gradually stilled.
‘I hate this life,’ Laura said.
Hunter grabbed her hand and hauled her towards the stairs. ‘We have to find the others. ‘“They all will”,’ he said. ‘How many of them are here?’
13
As Shavi and Tom entered the lounge, they realised Hunter and Laura were no longer where they had been. The haunting atmosphere grated on senses attuned to the Otherworldly.
‘What do you see?’ Shavi asked.
‘Nothing. I can’t move beyond this moment. You?’
Shavi felt the alien eye squirming in his head with a life of its own, but no images flashed into his mind. ‘This does not feel like the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders.’
Cautiously, they moved from the frosted lounge up the wide pine stairs to the first floor. Their rooms were on the second, but they were stopped in their tracks by thick greenery. Along the walls of the corridor stretched branches of fir and juniper, their resinous aroma heavy in the air. Ivy hung from the ceiling and dense moss obscured the floor.
‘Laura?’ Shavi said.
Tom snorted. ‘She barely knows what she’s capable of doing.’
‘I think whatever did this expects us to venture in there. That would be a mistake.’
‘For once one of you lot speaks some sense.’ Tom moved towards the next flight of stairs.
Before Shavi could follow he was gripped by a honeyed feeling rising from his groin. A night with his boyfriend Lee, shortly before Lee’s death, eased from his memory. Sensual, warm, gentle touches growing harder. Then a shiver of remembrance from a time before, an older woman kissing him deeply, embracing him between her thighs. And then he was enveloped in sex with Laura beneath the summery stars of a Glastonbury sky. He loved her. He loved them all.
His erection was hard, his heart pounding. Desire flooded through him, swamping all other thoughts. He walked into the corridor where alien, powerfully scented blooms were now sprouting. The moss was soft and soothing beneath his feet.
‘Where are you going, you bloody idiot?’ Tom called.
The distant voice was a distraction that Shavi ignored. Amongst the vegetation, his arousal became even more intense. He was vaguely aware of Tom grabbing his arm and trying to drag him back, until the grip was relinquished as Tom also fell under the spell. Side by side, they progressed along the corridor until they were deep in the scent of pine and flowers, and there was no sign of the hotel.
Rounding a corner, they came upon a cool grove in which a woman stood. Her features swam, but long before they settled into an image of ravishing beauty, both Shavi and Tom knew she was the most sexually attractive woman they had ever seen. Long, golden hair cascaded past her shoulders. Her lips were full and parted in a teasing smile. She wore a semi-transparent white dress, belted at the hips, that revealed and then hid the figure beneath.
‘I see the blue light in you.’ Her voice was low and warm. ‘Strange trespassers, indeed.’
‘Who are you?’ Shavi asked.
‘I live in the ice and the fire, in the roar of battle and the silence of the bedroom, in the pulse of the blood, in forests, in passion.’ She looked from Shavi to Tom, pleased with her control over them. ‘Those of your kind called me Freyja, once of the Vanir, now of the Aesir.’
‘Freyja,’ Tom repeated. Shavi felt his companion struggling. Why fight? Tom thought. Why not give in to the sensual delight?
‘For so long we have slept in the Halls of the Dead,’ she said. ‘But now you have woken us. What made you think you could enter our Great Dominion unbidden?’
‘They are Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.’ Tom’s voice was small, wavering. ‘Champions of Existence. They go where they please.’
Shavi found her laughter even more arousing. But Tom’s resistance had cast a shadow upon the golden world that now existed inside him. ‘If … if we should have asked your permission to come here, then I apologise,’ Shavi said hesitantly. ‘But our safe passage is imperative. We are on a mission of the greatest importance.’
Freyja came closer, and closer still, moving her lips to within a fraction of an inch from Shavi’s cheek, smelling his musk. It was all he could do to contain the heat rising in him.
