by Amanda Fleet
I drew my sword and Aegyir turned to me, snarling, eyes burning red. Before he could speak, the clatter of boots filled the hall as Guardians streamed in, swords drawn. Behind me, other demons entered – on the back of Aegyir’s invite – along with many of his slaves. In the confusion, Aegyir grabbed me, holding me in front of him as a shield.
“You might wonder how I am here,” he said, his voice silky, facing the gathered throng. “Well, I was invited.”
He hurled me away from him and lashed out at the Guardians closest to him. I turned and saw my family running to me.
Aegyir killed them all before they reached me, his hand outstretched, reaching into them and ripping their light out. Mother. Father. My sister Cia. And my little brother Torfan.
I stared at the ceiling, half expecting to be bleeding again. I felt around the top of my head and found a lump like an egg there.
“Morning, Finn.”
“Morning. When are you gonna get that lazy arse of yours out for a run?”
I laughed. “You coming?”
“Wish I could, my love. Wish I could. Go hit the hills.”
I rolled on to my side and gazed at him. “Are you in Chaos?”
His brow creased. “I’m here. Go for a run. Clear your head. Get some fresh air.”
I couldn’t face going up the path past the rock face and the boulder, so I ran the long route to the quarry – out on the main road and then up the hill to reach the track that led to the disused end of the quarry – the end loved by dog-walkers and runners. Near the end where the first bodies had been found and where the police had told people to avoid. Finn and I had run this route hundreds of times. The paths gave multiple routes through the grass and scrubby bushes and trees that covered the worked-out area. I had no intention of going to the bit where Aegyir had been so prolific in his hunting; I meant to skirt the edge of that and cut down to the road.
As I reached a long, winding path that descended steadily back towards the main road, I could see blue and white tape fluttering in the breeze, barring the route, a few metres on from where I was and after the turn I would be taking. A solitary policeman was standing guard and I jogged up to him.
“Hi. What’s happened?”
“There’s been another incident. I’m sorry, I can’t tell you about it.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I wondered if Rick’s body had finally been found, but he never came up here. All the bodies found near here had been of people out walking or running. I peered down the path but was none the wiser. There was no one down there, but a large area was taped off and a square white tent covered the side of the path. The policeman cleared his throat to chivvy me away and I took the hint.
Back at the cottage, I stretched, showered and changed, before booting up the laptop and searching the internet. After the recent spate of bodies found anywhere but the quarry, the body of a middle-aged man and of his dog had been found just off the long path I’d been on. The dog had been torn apart but the man had no visible injuries. The police were treating the death as suspicious and linked to the earlier deaths, but beyond that, there were few details. No name had been released. The bodies had been found on Monday evening by another dog-walker and the reports seemed to imply that the victim had died either some time on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning. The police repeated their advice to stay away from the area.
I rubbed the back of my neck. Yet another ‘meal’ for Aegyir? Yet another death I was responsible for?
I closed the laptop down and checked the time. Alison was coming soon to help choose Finn’s outfit. I glanced across to the sofa. Finn sat in his usual corner, his feet tucked up, wearing thick sports socks with a hole in the left toe.
“What do you want to wear?” I asked. “Does your suit even fit you?”
“Don’t know. Doubt it. It’s not very me either. I mean, what image do you have of me? Jeans and a sweatshirt?”
I laughed. That was exactly what he was wearing now. “Yeah. But I think your mum will cavil at the thought!”
“Mm… But there’s no wake so who will see?”
“When did you last wear your suit?”
“Grandpa’s funeral.”
“I don’t think you’ll get your shoulders in the jacket.”
“Nah, I won’t. Jaysus, that would be embarrassing, Mr What’s His Face the funeral guy struggling to jam me into it.”
My throat thickened. “Finn, don’t.”
“Sorry. The trousers will fit. What about them plus a shirt and tie?”
“Still not very you.”
“With my Superman boxers on underneath?”
There was a knock on the door before I could reply. I scrubbed my hands over my face and went to answer it.
Alison had thick foundation on the side of her face. It was probably convincing no one but her.
“Has Rory hit you again?” I asked bluntly.
“Oh, no. No. I, um…”
She stared at me with china-blue eyes like her son’s and said nothing. This wasn’t the time to talk to her about leaving Rory. It wasn’t only me who had lost their protector, and I had neither money nor security to offer her.
We went up to the bedroom which looked like a bomb had exploded in it. I picked up my running kit and clothes and stuffed them into the laundry basket. I hadn’t yet done any laundry since Finn had died. I couldn’t bear to wash the smell of Finn out of anything.
I pulled his suit trousers out of the wardrobe, trying not to cry. “What about these, with a white shirt and a tie?”
“Does he have a tie?” said Alison, surprised.
“Er, he has two. A black one and one with a pattern on.”
“Perhaps the black one?”
Again, not very Finn, but considering it was a funeral, maybe more appropriate. I found it and we packed the trousers, a shirt and the tie into a bag. I sneaked the Superman boxers in and a pair of novelty socks while Alison’s back was turned.
“I can drop it around tomorrow if you want?” It was about time I began shouldering a bit more of the burden.
“Have you seen him yet?”
I caught my breath, then realised she meant at the funeral home and shook my head. I wasn’t sure I would. I wanted different memories.
“Have you found a picture for the funeral?” Alison asked, her eyes picking over the mess in the room.
“Not yet. I’ll find one tonight and take it in on a stick with the clothes.”
“Thank you.” Her brow creased. “Do you know where Finn’s rosary is?”
“He doesn’t have one. Well, not here. Not as far as I know.”
Finn hadn’t been to Mass since before he’d left home and he sure as hell didn’t say his rosary with me. I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure that he would want to be buried with one but said nothing.
Alison seemed to be mentally checking things off a list and I waited. She looked up at last. “Well, I’d better run. Thanks for taking the clothes in.”
“Did you want a tea? Coffee?”
She hesitated before agreeing. We pattered back downstairs and I filled the kettle to make coffees. We’d just sat down in the lounge to drink them when there was a sharp rapping at the front door. I frowned, not expecting anyone.
“Sorry. Let me go and see who that is.”
When I opened the door, my breath shuddered in my chest. “Rick. What do you want?”
I wanted to rip his head off.
“You know what I want, Aeron. And you did ask to see me.”
He smiled eerily and I stepped out of the house, pulling the door shut behind me. He leaned back so that he could see in the window.
“Who will you sacrifice next?” he said. “Her? Billy?”
I glowered at him, my fingers itching to punch him.
“Perhaps I will start with Billy. And then the woman in your house. A wave of death, rippling out from you.”
I thought quickly. My plan was to try to kill Aegyir after Finn’s funeral, but how did I hold him
off until then?
“You forgot my second message,” I said. “I’ll open the portal on Friday. Once I’ve buried Finn. If you go near anyone before then, the deal’s off.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why should I wait? I could drag you there now.”
“And achieve what? Why should I open it under duress when I’ve said I’ll open it on Friday? You can’t kill me and you need a Guardian to open the portal. Good luck with finding another one. The deal is Friday. You touch anyone before then, the deal is off. You threaten me again, the deal is off.”
Aegyir scrutinised me and I forced myself to stand firm. “I do not need a Guardian if I am strong enough. Perhaps if you will not open it for me now, I will build enough strength to force my way in. Beginning with her.”
“And the Realm will see. Do you think the Scouts won’t notice the flood of deaths? There are no plagues any more. People don’t tend to die in their hundreds or thousands any longer. Did you want to call out all of the Guardians?”
Aegyir averted his gaze, a scowl settling. “Why have you changed your mind, Aeron? Why will you open the portal on Friday for me?”
“Because I know you’ll kill everyone if I don’t. You killed Finn. I don’t want anyone else close to me to die if I can prevent it. And the Realm owes me nothing. My loyalties are with this world and I have no desire to see it slaughtered merely to delay an inevitable attack on the Realm.”
I turned back to the door. As my fingers touched the doorknob, Aegyir grabbed my shoulder and spun me round, slamming my back against the wall.
“You will not betray me a second time,” he hissed, his face close, his eyes red.
I glanced down the lane. Lena had just arrived home and was staring at us from her doorway.
“Everything okay, Reagan?” she called, one hand pausing as she unlocked the door, her phone in her other hand.
“Everything’s fine. Rick’s just leaving.”
I pushed Aegyir away from me and glared at him until he bowed his head a fraction and strode towards the gate in the field at the end of the lane. Lena still watched me. “You sure everything’s okay? Was he hassling you?”
I smiled, my heart rate beginning to settle. “It’s fine. He was being a jerk. Thanks for asking.”
I pushed the door open and returned to the lounge.
“Was that Rick?” asked Alison, moving back from the window, her mug of coffee still in her hand. She must have been watching everything.
“Yeah. He was just coming to say he was sorry about Finn.” I hoped she hadn’t seen the red eyes and the cold body-language.
“You should have invited him in. I like Rick.”
My mouth turned to sandpaper at her words and my eyes shot to my charm. Not glowing.
“He couldn’t stay.”
“He’ll be there on Friday, won’t he? He’s Finn’s best friend.”
“Yes, I think so.”
But if ‘Rick’ went within ten feet of Alison, I would kill him.
She drained her mug. “I need to get back. Thank you for taking Finn’s clothes in.”
She hugged me tightly at the door, until I thought I would crack. When I took the mugs back to the kitchen, I saw Finn, still in jeans and a sweatshirt, leaning against the kitchen sink. He bit his lips. He’d seen his mum’s face.
“You think Aegyir will wait until Friday?”
I stuck my bottom lip out. “I don’t know. I said that if he killed anyone before then or if he threatened me again, I wouldn’t open the portal. He said the other night that he can’t kill me.” I ground to a halt for a moment before being able to continue. “He needs me.”
“Are you really sure about Friday?”
I sighed. “No. But I’m sure that I don’t have anything left in this world.”
We lapsed into silence.
“I don’t know,” he said, casting around him. “I’m gone a few days and this place is like a bomb site.”
I smiled ruefully. Finn was the tidiest person I knew and the place was normally spotless. It only had four rooms and keeping on top of it shouldn’t have been a major operation but as I looked around, I acknowledged he had a point and got to work. I blitzed my way round the cottage, vacuuming the carpets in the lounge, hall and bedroom, and washing the floors in the kitchen and bathroom. I cleaned the sinks, scrubbed the shower and loo and put some laundry on. Just my stuff. Finn was conspicuous by his absence during this rare flurry of domesticity from me.
Finished, I settled down in the now pristine lounge with a coffee and my laptop to choose a picture of Finn for the funeral.
“Do you have any where I’ve got all my clothes on?” he asked, reappearing and settling next to me to peer over my shoulder.
“Yes! Plenty.” Though in fairness, I did have quite a lot of him half-naked.
“Good. I’m not sure Father O’Keefe would cope otherwise.”
We sifted through folder upon folder of pictures, focusing on reasonably recent ones. If I’d thought that choosing clothes for him for Friday was heart-breaking, this was unimaginably worse.
After a lot of crying, I had a shortlist of five.
“Not that one. I’ve got a goofy look on my face,” said Finn, as I scrolled through them. I deleted it from the list.
“What about this one?”
“Hm. Maybe.”
Eventually we settled on one where he had his lopsided smile and was wearing a blue top which emphasised his eyes. I saved it to a memory-stick and closed the laptop down, tears sliding down my face.
Three more days.
25
The door closed behind me, the bell jangling as it did; overly cheerful, considering. The air outside was cold and fresh in comparison with the stuffy interior of the funeral directors. Perhaps the breeze would blow the sickly-sweet smell of lilies out of my clothes. I’d taken the bag of clothes and the picture in but hadn’t been able to bear it in there for long. I certainly hadn’t been able to see Finn or his coffin. I also hadn’t expected to be given a bag containing the clothes that Finn had been wearing to hospital and I wasn’t sure what to do with them.
My tasks for the day done, I was at a loose end. I should be practising self-defence ready for Friday, but who with? I couldn’t face going to the gym and didn’t know who to ask even if I did. I could go for another run, but it was going to get dark soon, and anyway, I wasn’t as big a fan of it as Finn had been.
Two days to prepare. Should I write a will? Didn’t they need to be done officially and cost money? Who would witness my signature on it? The neighbours? I barely had anything worth leaving and I had official next of kin, even if I hated some of them. I huffed out my breath. Helen and John might as well have everything. They’d throw it away in all likelihood. The only thing that concerned me was Finn’s bike. I didn’t want anyone to have it. It was Finn’s.
“Good afternoon, Aeron.”
Aegyir, wearing Rick’s image again, had fallen into step with me.
I scowled at him. “I told you Friday. Let me bury my dead.”
He said nothing. We walked on together and I scanned the buildings ahead for CCTV cameras. When we reached the corner, I checked sightlines and stopped abruptly.
“Where’s Rick’s body? Why are you still looking like him?”
Aegyir faced me. The only hints that he wasn’t Rick were the red glint in his eyes and the fact that my charm was burning blue.
“His body will never be found. It consumes too much vitality to wear someone’s form whom I have not killed.”
That figured. He’d killed and then mimicked the others until their bodies had been found, then moved to a new victim and a new form. If Rick’s body was found, Aegyir could no longer walk the streets looking like him. A lump formed in my throat. If Aegyir gave up looking like Rick and moved on again, Rick’s family would never know he was dead. People would report him missing. They could have years wondering what had happened to him.
A thought almost felled me. I had more than enough rage in
me to slaughter Aegyir, but anyone else? What if he rocked up looking like Finn?
“Leave me alone, Aegyir. You’ve waited this long for your revenge. Another two days won’t matter. Leave me alone, or I’ll start screaming and draw a lot of attention.”
My eyes indicated the CCTV camera above us, before dropping back to glare at him.
“I said, leave me alone!” I yelled, causing several passers-by to stop and turn.
Aegyir glanced around. A middle-aged man hurried towards us, eyes darting from me to Aegyir.
“Is everything okay?”
Aegyir glowered at the man and then at me. “Friday.” He stalked away, heading away from the more populated area of town.
“Thank you,” I said, gratefully, turning to the man. “He keeps pestering me. He won’t get the message that I’m not interested.”
The man stared at Aegyir’s disappearing back. “Be careful. He looks dodgy.”
My stomach clenched. I hoped I hadn’t just signed his death warrant too, just for having come to help me.
***
Almost as soon as I got back to the cottage, there was a knock at the door. I sighed. Who now?
When I swung the door open, I found Ösk and Lena, with Mike and Polly from next door almost hiding behind them.
“Hi,” I said.
“Oh, Rea, we’ve been meaning to come over for a couple of days. We’re so sorry about Finn,” said Lena, stepping in and pulling me into a hug, her necklaces clinking. She was in her on-duty clothes – smart skirt with fine knitwear on top and a neat gold watch wrapping her wrist rather than a leather cuff.
Ösk waved at me over her shoulder, looking like he’d just been starring in an Icelandic TV drama. A thick patterned sweater sat atop cord trousers and chunky boots. He jammed his hands back in his pockets. Mike and Polly looked as if they didn’t want to be there, lurking at the back and fidgeting. I stood back to let them all in and they trooped after me to the lounge.
“Let me grab some chairs from the kitchen,” I said.
Mike beat me to it. I suspect he didn’t want to be there at all but felt as if he should come. Lena and Ösk sat on the sofa, Polly took the chair and Mike and I ended up on the two wooden chairs from the kitchen.
