by Amanda Fleet
“Rick’s here to apologise,” said Finn, his voice hard. He perched on the edge of the squashy sofa, and I sat next to him, keeping my eyes on Rick.
“I am sorry if you feel that I have jeopardised our friendship by associating with Stephen.”
My breathing deepened. Rick’s body. Not Rick’s voice. Not his speech patterns. Not him.
“You know the history,” cut in Finn. “I don’t know why you’re hanging round with him. He threatened Rea again, the moment he was out.”
“I did not know that he had threatened you.” A sinister smile inched across Rick’s face.
“I told you last Sunday,” I said.
Rick shook his head, amused.
“No. Maybe I didn’t tell you,” I added softly.
Rick’s face darkened. “I also wondered if you wanted more tattoos?”
My brain scrambled through several things in a flash. Rick would have said tats; the black liquid that Guides used to bind their victims to them in life and in death; Stephen was sporting a new tattoo; the robotic way Stephen had obeyed Rick in the gym.
“No,” I said, before Finn could have a chance to speak. “Anyway, you seem to have given up on the place. You’ve not been there all week. That’s not like you.”
“Business to attend to. But I should be there again soon.”
“Well, we’re both fine thanks. Neither of us need any more tats.”
An awkward silence developed. I wanted Rick to go but he seemed settled. I could hardly bear to be in the same room as him, but if I left, would Finn be okay?
“I’ve got that hoodie of yours.” Finn stood up.
My heart galloped. Was Finn going to leave me alone with him, after everything I’d said?
He was. He thought this was Rick, who might be acting weirdly, but would no more hurt me than Finn would. I opened my mouth to say something but Rick’s gaze snapped to me and he shook his head almost imperceptibly, wriggling his fingers as if drumming them slowly on an imaginary table.
Was he threatening Finn?
“Yes. I would like that back. Thank you.”
Finn shot him a puzzled look then looked at me. “Back in a second.”
As soon as he was out of the door, Rick turned to me. “Let us stop pretending, Aeron.”
I caught my breath as Rick’s face and body morphed to reveal the demon Aegyir in his full cadaverous horror. His red eyes flashed. “I thought when I was released that it would have been impossible to find you, but it has been so easy.”
I swallowed.
“It has taken me a few bodies to be able to get so close to you, but here I am. In your house.”
In a smooth movement, he rose and crossed the room. I shot to my feet but he caught my wrist, holding me back, pressing the index finger of his other hand against my forehead.
I gasped, my head flooding with images of fighting. Blood; the clang of metal on metal; screams; shouts; men falling. I felt helpless. Unable to break away from Aegyir and unable to save anyone in the battle.
I staggered away the moment he released me. The door was immediately behind me and I rattled through it and sprinted to the kitchen. Aegyir followed. I backed away, before colliding with the worktop. Aegyir moved to stand directly in front of me, trapping me.
“You betrayed me, Aeron. You promised me The Realm.”
I groped behind me, hoping there was knife I could grab. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
A sardonic smile inched across his lips. “Liar. You know exactly what I am talking about, Aeron. You made me a lot of promises. Time to keep them. You will open the portal for me.”
“I don’t know what or where that is and even if I did, I can’t open it.” I didn’t know if I wanted Finn to come back and wallop Rick, or whether I wanted him to stay safe upstairs.
“You misunderstand me. It was not a request.”
“I said, I don’t know where it is or how to open it.”
My fingers curled around a knife and I brandished it in front of me. Aegyir laughed. “Do you remember nothing? That will not have any effect on me.”
My brain skipped over the image of the decapitated body with three daggers in it. Were there more knives within easy reach? Aegyir stepped closer. I saw a shadow move in the hallway behind him.
“Do try to remember, Aeron.” Aegyir’s face almost touched mine, his fetid breath coating my skin. “Your amnesia is most irritating.”
“Your hoodie,” said Finn from the hallway. “Rick.”
As Finn entered the kitchen, Aegyir reformed as Rick and stepped back. I saw Finn blanch further. “Rea? You okay?”
“She is fine. There was a large spider that ran across her. I killed it for her.”
Finn knew damn well that if a large spider had run across me, I’d have scooped it up and thrown it outside myself.
“Rick’s just leaving,” I said. I didn’t know what would happen if Aegyir was determined not to leave. Would he kill us both right here, right now? Was there any chance that Finn could pin him down? Or that either of us could stab him? However much I knew he was Aegyir, he looked like Rick and there was no way either of us could kill him.
I was hyperventilating so much my fingers began to tingle. A cold sweat trickled down my spine.
Rick stepped back. “I shall see you around. Reagan.”
I pushed past Finn to escort Rick out, fastening the locks and bolts as soon as the door was closed behind him. Finn joined me almost immediately. “What the hell was that thing?” He was chalk-white. “Aegyir?”
“Yes.” My legs wobbled and I grabbed the end of the banisters to support myself.
“So where the hell is Rick?”
My legs gave way and I crumpled to the floor and wrapped my arms around my knees. “He’s probably dead.”
Finn gawped at me, his breathing juddering to a halt. “What?”
I rested my forehead on my arms, crying. “I think he’s dead. All the other times my charm has glowed, the people were found dead. The bodies at the quarry. I’ve been hoping that Aegyir’s just been looking like Rick and that Rick’s okay, but…”
My sobs choked my voice. The only way Aegyir could be sure that only one person looking like Rick was walking around town was to remove the original. And he would want Rick’s vitality.
Finn sat next to me, his arm sliding around my shoulders as I wept, his sniffs telling me that he was close to tears.
“Okay, so now do you believe me?” I said.
He cradled me tight against him, his voice thick when he spoke. “Yeah. Crazy as it is, I think I believe you. What the hell is it doing here? What does it want with us? How do we make it go away?”
I burrowed against him, feeling his heart thump against my cheek. “I don’t know why it’s here, but it’s something to do with me. It thinks I’m this Aeron person. And I don’t think we can make it go away. I think we have to kill it.”
Finn tipped me back to look at me, his eyes wide. “Tell me everything you know.”
***
Two coffees later, Finn knew everything I did. I wasn’t sure if he believed all of it but he couldn’t deny that Rick had morphed into some hideous demon and back, before his very eyes. I’d told him everything that Aegyir had said to me, everything I’d read so far in the book and what I’d seen in the visions, both just now when Aegyir had drilled his finger into my forehead and when the shadow had come over me when I was on the bike.
It was late on Sunday afternoon and we sat on the battered sofa, the book on the table in front of us. Finn blew his cheeks out, his gaze resting on the book. I knew what he was thinking. He had no way of independently verifying anything of what I’d told him. Everything had come from a book that only I could read, or from visions only I had seen. He thought I could have written the book, albeit subconsciously. The only thing that had brought him round to thinking I wasn’t mad or hallucinating, was the fact he’d seen Rick shape-shift.
“So why do you think Aegyir is here?”
Finn asked. “Why is he after you?”
“He wants me to open a portal, but I have no idea what or where that is. I assume it’s a portal to the Realm.” I shrugged. “He talked about me betraying him and him wanting revenge on me for that.”
“But it’s not you who betrayed him. It must be someone or something that looks like you. Whoever it is in the book. It’s this Aeron person he really wants, surely? I mean, it can’t be you! I’ve known you since you were fourteen. And you may have had a rough start in life, but it didn’t involve life-stealing demons!”
He was right, but I wasn’t sure we’d be able to convince Aegyir that I wasn’t Aeron.
“We should tell the police,” said Finn.
“What, that there’s a shape-shifting demon marauding around the place? You think they’re going to stick three daggers into him and lop his head off?”
Finn gaped. “You think we are?”
I closed my eyes, fingering my brow. “No. But what can the police do? If it is a shape-shifting demon?”
“Lock him up for murder? Let’s call the hotline. Say we think that the person in the CCTV is Rick.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He pulled his phone out and hunted about for the piece of paper I’d scribbled the number on, finding it bundled together with some receipts on the deep windowsill. He came back to the sofa, absently tucking an arm around me as he made the call. I waited, chewing my thumbnail. It was only as Finn rang off that I realised what a huge mistake we might have made.
“Suppose the police go and talk to Rick,” I said. “They won’t arrest him there and then, surely? So what’s to stop him shape-shifting to another person? Then we’d never know what Aegyir looked like.”
All we’d have done would be to make him angry and effectively invisible. Shit!
“We need to find out why he’s after this person that looks like you,” said Finn. “Maybe then we can work out how to convince him it’s not you.” He chewed the inside of his lip. “Answer me honestly, Rea. Could you have written that book?”
I breathed deeply. “Honestly? No. I don’t remember ever buying a blank book like that and the runes are printed. And although the drawings look like mine, the style isn’t right. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like when people are verifying paintings. Everyone draws or paints in a different way and that doesn’t look like the way I draw. And although I fully accept I could have drawn stuff in my sleep, I’m not a tidy person. I’d have left stuff out. Or I’d have woken up. Or I’d have woken you up. And I’d have written it in English, not runes.”
“So how come you can read the runes?” Finn tucked his feet up on the sofa and swivelled to face me.
I scrubbed a hand through my hair. “I have no idea. I didn’t think I could and then as I looked at them, the stories came to me. It’s not written in English. It’s not that one symbol represents A or anything like that. It’s like a different voice in my head, but although it’s not English, I know what they’re saying. I can’t explain.”
“Read it out to me? I don’t know what any of it says.”
“Okay.” I flipped the book open to the next chapter.
Aeron
The Elected Successor, Faran, was married to Aeron of the house of Wymond. As wife of the Elected Successor, she was the second most powerful woman in The Realm but this power was not enough for her. She wanted to rule The Realm without her husband. She was not willing to wait, and left The Realm to make a pact with Aegyir. She betrayed The Realm by opening the portal for Aegyir to allow him to enter and overthrow the First Lord and the Elected Successor. She promised Aegyir that The Realm would be unprepared for his attack and that he would rule The Realm with her.
Aeron invited Aegyir in and he attacked The Realm with thirteen other Guides and those from Outside whom he had enslaved. Many of The Realm were killed before the Guardians could control Aegyir. Most families lost sons and daughters, fathers and mothers. The thirteen Guides were dispersed and trapped in vessels. The slaves were killed. Eventually Faran, Lord Eredan and Aeron formed the triad and Aegyir was defeated. He was sealed in a vessel and cast from The Realm to be contained within the earth Outside, from which he would never escape.
The traitor Aeron was charged and tried for her crimes against The Realm. At her trial, Aeron confessed that she had invited Aegyir into The Realm and that she had promised him that he would rule The Realm with her after they had overthrown the First Lord and the Elected Successor. She swore that she had invited Aegyir in as part of a plan with Orian of the house of Hadwen, to trick Aegyir into entering The Realm so that he could be defeated. She swore that she had believed that Orian was preparing the Guardians so that Aegyir would be defeated when he entered The Realm. She accused Orian of treachery. Orian renounced all of her claims. The Council found Aeron guilty of all charges and she was sentenced to hang. Before she was hanged, the Elected Successor requested that her sentence be commuted to banishment. She was cast out of The Realm and forbidden from returning for all eternity.
The pictures that accompanied the text were of Aeron, who bore more than a passing resemblance to me, and Faran, the Elected Successor, who was the spitting image of my hunk in my dreams.
I closed the cover and put the book on the table.
“Well, I guess we know why Aegyir wants revenge on Aeron,” said Finn, sitting back and scraping his hands over his face. “She sounds like a real piece of work!”
A horrible feeling wriggled in my belly. It didn’t feel right.
“But in earlier stories, she was worried about the Outside and wanting to help them to defeat Aegyir.”
“She doesn’t seem to want that any more!”
“She’s being described by the people who banished her. The victor always writes the history.” I folded my arms.
He cocked his head. “She invited a demon into their land and he killed a whole heap of the people there. They may have a point.”
“Aegyir thinks it’s me. That I’m Aeron,” I said, my voice wobbly.
Finn bunted along the sofa and slipped his arm around me. “I know she looks like you, and you’re not an average-looking woman, but how can it be you? I know you can be forgetful at times, but even you would remember if you’d invited a demon into another world and he’d slaughtered a load of people! He’s seen a tall, black-haired woman with green eyes, and thought, ‘I know someone like that’.”
He smiled lopsidedly at me, trying to reassure me. I rested my face against his shoulder. The visions I’d had of the battles rushed back to me, only they felt closer to memories than visions.
Maybe Aegyir had put them in my head when he touched me. I rubbed my cheekbone against Finn. “What do we do?” I knew he wouldn’t have an answer but I needed to ask.
“Let’s see what the police do. They may lock him up.”
“And if they don’t?”
He kissed my hair. “Face that if we get to it.”
***
After dinner, Finn sat on the sofa, hunched over his knees. “Rick’s dead, isn’t he?”
He chewed his lip, not far from tears and I scooted down the sofa to sit next to him, sliding my arm around his back and leaning him towards me. His best friend, dead. I knew how that felt. It was years since Sarah’s death and it still hurt me to my core. Was losing your best friend to a demon, better or worse than finding their body crumpled on rocks? Would Finn ever get over this? I could still see Sarah’s battered shape, painted indelibly on the backs of my eyelids, even after all this time. Would Finn ever be able to forget seeing his best friend morphing into a demon and back? I wasn’t sure I would.
I squeezed him, my voice catching. “I’m sorry, but I think so.”
“I need to run.”
The last thing I wanted right then was to go out running. Scratch that – the last thing I needed was for Finn to go out running on his own and for Aegyir to find him.
“Okay.” My palm circled his back.
He straightened, dragging his hands through h
is hair and leaving it in unruly clumps. “No, Rea. I really need to run. I’ll leave you behind.”
“I don’t want you going out on your own.”
He faced me, his brow crinkling. “I can handle myself!”
I tried not to see the pictures of balls of light being ripped out of people’s chests. “Against anyone other than Aegyir, I’d agree. But not him.”
Finn scratched his cheek, his eyes on me. “And you reckon you’re a match for him, if I’m not?”
“I didn’t quite mean it like that. Maybe we are a match. And anyway, would you rather I was left on my own?”
A cheap shot, but it worked.
“Of course not!”
“Then I’ll get my kit and try to keep up.”
Boy, had he needed to run! We ran for miles, at a pace I struggled to manage. Only the fear of one of us being out alone kept pushing me on. Finn seemed as if he was lost in his thoughts and normally this would mean he was blissed out on a runners’ high. I wasn’t so sure he was in a happy place today.
As we turned down the path that led back to the cottage we saw Billy’s red Honda parked next to our shed.
“Shit,” muttered Finn.
We should have thought about what effect calling the police would have had on Billy. As we jogged to a stop at the door, Billy got out of his car. He looked as if he’d lost several pounds, the shadows in his face were so deep.
“Hi, Finn, Reagan. I’m sorry to bother you at home on a Sunday, but I need to talk to someone.”
“Sure. Come in. Come in,” said Finn, kicking the mud off his trainers.
I scanned my bracelet. Plain opalescent bead. No danger. This was actually Billy then.
Finn made coffee while I took a pint of water through to the lounge to sit with Billy. His usual bluff demeanour had been replaced by bewilderment and he hunched forwards on the seat, his hands clasped together on his knees. I listened to Finn clattering about in the kitchen, wondering what to say to Billy. There was absolutely no way I could tell him what had happened, but surely, if he’d spent any time with Rick recently, he’d know there was something seriously amiss. Aegyir might be conjuring Rick’s image, but he had none of Rick’s character.
