* * *
Fire and blood, blood and fire. It was Saturday. He was missing six days.
And on the seventh day…
~ Chapter Seven ~
At exactly 10.28 a.m. (real world time – B.S.T) Sunday morning, Cindy received the news that she had been waiting for. Denny had died. Died in his sleep, in fact. The last way anyone would have expected him to go. It was almost funny really. At least, it was to Cindy, who had certainly acquired a god’s sense of humour.
She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly. At last! She was now safe – forever. All her years of careful planning had paid off beautifully. It had all been rather quick at the end.
She dismissed the minion with a nod. He had his instructions; he was to dispose of the body, throw it into the sea, or dig him a grave if he was sentimental, she did not care. She told him where it was. It was safe enough now. Up until now, her minions had been monitoring him from a safe distance. She had kept his actual location a secret from them; a moment’s curiosity could ruin everything and they were only human after all. She wondered idly who had won the pool. She knew that bets had been placed on where he was actually being kept.
The minion left her with alacrity. None of them liked to be in her presence for too long.
By 10.30, she was back in the real world, breathing the real air. A moment to savour. She would have the old house torn down, and build a palace in its place, right over the time/space vortex. Her palace would move from place to place as the house had once done. But not in secret as before. Her power would be visible – tangible. People were going to bow down before her and tremble at her name.
But first things first, she would have to evict the remaining incumbents of the house first. Perhaps she would keep Tamar, though. She could have the bottle on her mantelpiece.*. The thought made her laugh and laugh.
*[Years earlier Tamar had sacrificed her freedom and returned willingly to the slavery of the bottle in return for the power to bring Denny, Stiles and Cindy herself back from the dead. As he had before, Denny had managed to free her eventually by making a sacrifice of his own.]
* * *
The house was just as she remembered it but emptier, of course. She found Hecaté on the veranda holding a very familiar bottle and looking grief stricken.
‘As well she might,’ thought Cindy. The only one left – apart from the impostor. ‘I always forget about him.’
Hecaté looked up at Cindy with an expressionless face. ‘So you have returned at last,’ she said in a chilling monotone. ‘We have been expecting you?’
Cindy looked contemptuously at the bottle that Hecaté could never be the one to open. And there was no one else. The grief on Hecaté’s face told her that.
‘We?’ she said scornfully.
‘Look behind you,’ said Hecaté, standing up and letting the bottle crash to the ground.
With a cold chill, Cindy slowly turned.
‘Hello Cindy,’ said Denny. ‘Miss me?’ He touched her cheek softly.
Oh, it was not fair! He had not changed at all in all these years; he looked exactly the same as she remembered him. Her heart gave a treacherous lurch.
‘Apparently,’ said Tamar ironically.
Cindy had not even seen her, nor had she noticed Stiles and Jack who had come out from the house, nor did she appear to hear Tamar’s remark.
She was backing away from Denny with a look of desperation on her face. ‘No, no, you’re dead.’ she cried, and threw her hands up in front of her face, trying not to see him.
‘Not for a lack of trying,’ he said. He took her hands away from her face and held her gaze. ‘Did you really think that we didn’t know what you were doing, Cindy?’ he said. ‘We knew all the time, ever since Finvarra died. We knew that was your doing. Give it up Cindy. It’s over. Think of your son. What is this doing to him? Don’t you care at all?’
‘My son?’ she said blankly. She could not tear her gaze from his.
‘Where is he Cindy? Where is your son?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said truthfully. He had not come home the night before, and she had not cared sufficiently to wonder where he was. But her mind was elsewhere. ‘No, no, no, no, no, no…’
‘Stop now, Cindy,’ he said. ‘It’s time to stop all this. You’ve lost, but maybe that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.’
He gave her a smile, a gentle, heartbreaking smile. The same smile that had stopped Tamar’s heart the first time she had met him. Her gaze softened; all the fight seemed to suddenly drain out of her, and the cold light faded from her eyes. ‘Oh Denny,’ she said.
Then she pulled sharply away from him. ‘No, no, no, no, no, no,’ she shrieked. She looked down at her hand in horror. The golden Ring was glowing like molten fire; smoke was rising from her finger.
Denny panicked as he realised what was happening. ‘The Ring Cindy. Take off the Ring. Take it off. Take it off now! Oh Christ!’
But Cindy was muttering to herself. ‘I don’t love him, don’t love him. Don’t, don’t …’ But it was too late.
Her face contorted as if she were in some terrible agony, and she threw back her head and gave out a high pitched banshee-like scream that went on and on and on.
Denny was knocked backwards by the sheer weight of the terrible noise. Even Tamar threw herself on the ground and covered her ears, and Stiles ran for cover. Then Cindy vanished, and the sound stopped abruptly like a radio being switched off.
Denny covered his face with his hands. ‘What have I done?’ he said. ‘What have I done?
‘What have you done?’
Everyone turned. Iffie was standing at the gate. But it was not she who had spoken.
‘What have you done?’ asked Ashtoreth in a cold voice.
‘Dad!’ Iffie ran to Denny and flung her arms around him. ‘You’re back.’
Denny patted her on the back distractedly. He kept his eyes on Ashtoreth. They all did.
A look of angry confusion came over Ashtoreth’s face. ‘This – this is your father?’ he spluttered. ‘But it – it can’t be. You’re good. I know you are. How can this evil man be your father?’
‘Hey,’ said Iffie indignantly. ‘My Dad’s not evil.’
‘Shhh Iffie,’ said Denny, putting a protective arm around her and drawing her away.
Ashtoreth was advancing on them with a look of ferocious wrath on his face. ‘He destroyed my mother. I saw him.’
‘No he didn’t – did you Dad?’
‘Go inside Iffie,’ said Denny. Iffie stayed where she was.
‘My mother was always afraid that you would destroy her with your evil and now you have.’
‘Dad?’
‘Murderer!’ shrieked Ashtoreth.
‘You can talk,’ said Denny mildly. ‘You tried to kill me, didn’t you? If we hadn’t known you were coming, you might have even succeeded too. I have to give you credit, it was a masterful plan.’
‘Destroying evil isn’t murder.’
Iffie gasped. Oh God, it was true?
Ashtoreth suddenly seemed to grow larger. Great white wings sprouted from his back, and he advanced on Denny who pushed Iffie behind him.
He held out a hand. ‘Stay back son,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to have to hurt you.’
Ashtoreth hesitated, and suddenly Jack, his own Faerie wings spread, leapt in between Ashtoreth and Denny. ‘Go away,’ he said menacingly. ‘Leave us alone.’
They faced off, these estranged brothers, for a few moments and then Ashtoreth backed away, but it was clearly Denny he was afraid of, even though he had made no aggressive moves.
‘Betrayed,’ he said looking at Iffie. ‘My mother murdered,’ he spat at Denny. ‘And as for you!’ He turned to Jack. ‘You who dare still, to wear my face … You have not seen the last of me,’ he threatened. ‘I will have my revenge.’ And he vanished in a rather showy flash of light.
‘Like mother like son,’ said Stiles.
‘I think he means it,’ said Denny.
> ~ Chapter Eight ~
It had been Tamar (of course) who had figured it out. The large white feather in Finvarra’s room had convinced her that a real angelic presence had been there. And they all knew about Cindy’s son. It had suddenly become horribly clear to Tamar why Cindy had come back for him.
Not an angel, in fact, but the legendary Nephilim. Such a creature – the child of a fallen angel and a mortal woman – had not been born upon the earth since the beginning. Before even Tamar’s time. Therefore, they had no idea what to expect. The powers of the Nephilim were not well known, and what little data was available seemed to consist mainly of wild stories of giant men who were sent by Satan to interrupt human development and corrupt the pure human bloodlines. A kind of early genetic experiment. Satan was contacted and denied it vehemently. Tamar, for one, believed him. He had never been that interested in the corruption of humans, despite the stories. Besides, they all knew how this particular Nephilim had come to be born.
However, knowing that Cindy had finally opened her war with them gave them an advantage. From that moment on, although it had been too late to save Finvarra, they were one step ahead of every move she made. Although she did not know it.
It would remain on open question whether or not Cindy’s spy would have been spotted by them (hiding out in the form of a particularly ugly standard lamp) if they had not been half expecting him. But the fact was that he was, and when Denny got his hands on him, he turned on Cindy faster than a weathercock in a hurricane. From that moment on, he was working for them. The other spies that had been discovered within the house had been kept in careful ignorance of their discovery and allowed only to see what they were supposed to see.
When Denny was swept away by the tidal wave, Tamar was, at first, genuinely fooled. Her intention to enslave herself back in the Djinn bottle, in order to save him was only thwarted by the forceful urging of Stiles and Hecaté that he was still alive.
If that were truly the case, a simple wish should find him. Tamar had contacts – and she agreed to put off her decision until they had tried using them. An un-emancipated Djinn was procured (against Hecaté’s better judgement – the Djinn were notorious tricksters as Tamar knew better than anyone. But as Tamar said, they had to try something to discover Denny’s fate.) And when it was discovered that he was still alive, Cindy’s turncoat spy was enlisted to release him at the right moment, i.e. right after he told Cindy (through an intermediary, whom he had enlisted on Tamar’s behalf, since he was not allowed to go back to her palace himself after being out in the world) that Denny had died.
It was, the spy had assured them, the only way to get the location out of her. Even the Djinn had not been able to trace his whereabouts and Cindy had kept that information close to her chest.
* * *
It had been a damn close thing in the end. Had Cindy been given the news that Denny had died before she might reasonably expect to hear about it, she would probably have been suspicious and might even have checked on the information and, therefore, found out that she had been lied to and, from that, judge that she had been exposed, and she would undoubtedly have killed the minion too. But, had they left it too long, he might have really died before the spy could get to him.
Denny – his body at least – had been washed up on the shore of a small coral promontory in the middle of the Mediterranean, not even an island; it was certainly not on any map. But where his mind had been was anybody’s guess.
‘Somewhere far away,’ said the minion, who only vaguely understood what had happened (and Tamar knew that this much at least was true, or else she would have been able to find him easily) but what he was sure of was that waking him would be easy. That was the reason, so he had heard, that Cindy allowed no one to go near him, or even to know where he was since, for as long as he was still alive, the slightest contact would revive him immediately. Cindy’s minions, it appeared, had known a damn sight more about what was going on than she had ever guessed. Minions have ears too it seems (and feelings of being underappreciated – Denny really had not had to threaten him all that much to get him to switch sides.)
On the smallest events does the fate of men hang.
Had the feather never been shed in Finvarra’s room, giving cause for doubt, not only about Finvarra’s demise, but also any other suspicious circumstance that might occur (and to Stiles at least, every circumstance was suspicious) there could be no doubt that she would have won.
And Denny, even though he knew that the Nephilim was after them, still never saw him coming. Without the help of the spy in Cindy’s ranks he would not have escaped the dreamscape. Ashtoreth had been right about that. Even the Djinn that Tamar had used could not do more than reveal Denny’s fate. He did not even know for certain where Denny was only that he was alive – somewhere. Nor was he able, any more than anyone else, to locate Cindy’s hiding place. That remained a mystery.
Cindy’s fears that she could have been traced back to her hiding place through the capture of one of her spies had proved unfounded. Tamar had tried, but Cindy had covered her tracks better than she realised, even her own servants had no idea where she was. The irony of this was that she could have been spying on them in perfect security for years. Had she known about Iphigenia, things might have gone very differently for her.
A child is leverage; Cindy had had Tamar’s child within her grasp and never known it. And, had she known about the existence of a child, she might not have anticipated Tamar’s reaction to the loss of Denny so incorrectly. A more circumspect Tamar was a new development, a direct result of motherhood. Her uncharacteristic hesitation towards drastic action (thus giving Stiles time to convince her otherwise) had all been for Iffie’s sake. And finally, it had been Iffie herself who had unwittingly saved the life of Stiles, by occupying Ashtoreth’s attention on the night he was due to murder him.
Denny for one, and Tamar for another wanted an explanation about this.
‘We we’re just talking Dad, honestly,’ said Iffie. She had been devastated to learn that the boy she had spent so much time with, had liked, had been the murderer of Jack’s father, and worse, had tried to, and almost succeeded in, killing her own father.
Tamar was inclined to blame herself. Had Iffie and Jack known the story of Cindy’s defection in the first place, maybe this would not have happened. However, as Denny pointed out, there was no excuse for going off secretly with young men – whoever they were, without telling anyone.
And why, when she learned his identity, did she tell no one about that either? They could have warned her, had they known.
Iffie agreed to it all. She had been wrong – foolish – arrogant. Here, Jack stepped up in her defence. He too had known, he said, and had also kept his mouth shut.
‘He tried to stop me,’ said Iffie. ‘I wouldn’t listen. I thought I could help him. We can help him right Dad? He’s family, whatever he’s done. He’s messed up Dad, and now I think I know why. His mother’s crazy.’
Tamar and Denny looked at each other.
‘She’s not crazy,’ said Tamar. ‘She’s bitter and hurt and under the influence of a power that she was never meant to have.’
‘It’s my fault really,’ said Denny.
‘Dad?’ Iffie was startled.
‘A woman scorned,’ said Tamar. ‘This was about vengeance. Cindy’s vengeance.’
‘I never meant to hurt her,’ said Denny.
‘What are you saying?’ said Jack, leaping to his feet angrily. ‘Why did my father die? Why did my mother leave?’ He turned on Denny viciously. ‘What did you do to her? What did she want vengeance for? Tell me.’ And he pounded Denny with his fists.
Tamar dragged him away. ‘Don’t hit him,’ she said. ‘He didn’t do anything.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Denny. ‘I did do something.’
‘I don’t want to know,’ said Tamar quickly. ‘Ever.’
‘Perhaps it’s not as bad as you imagine,’ said Denny.
‘I don�
�t imagine, I never do, and I don’t want to hear it, please Denny don’t.’
Jack and Iffie were now staring at them both in bewilderment. Like all teenagers do when it finally becomes apparent that their elders actually had lives before they were born.
‘I knew she loved me,’ said Denny softly, ‘but I didn’t want to face it. Perhaps if I had … You were gone, and I didn’t know if you were ever coming back. I was lonely and hurting. I made a mistake. Not … not the big one, not that. But enough. Enough to hurt her. And then I just pretended like it had never happened. I didn’t know what else to do. And she seemed okay. I thought …’
‘Thought you’d got away with it?’ said Tamar tersely.
‘Yes, I suppose so. I know all this is my fault.’
‘It’s not you know,’ said Jack surprisingly.
‘No it isn’t,’ agreed Tamar. ‘And I bet … Oh I just bet she threw herself at you. Just when you were at your lowest ebb. You might just as well say it’s my fault for leaving.’
‘It’s no one’s fault,’ said Jack. ‘It’s just a big mess as far as I can tell. My father loved her – she loved you – and you loved Tamar. Broken hearts all round. But nobody’s fault. You can’t pick who you love. Can you? She should have known better.’
‘He’s right you know,’ said Tamar. ‘And you were right too. What I imagined was worse than the truth. I wish I’d let you tell me years ago.
‘Well, this is all very cathartic,’ she said with a touch of her usual sharpness. ‘Big group hugs and all that. But the fact is, the story doesn’t end there. It’s actually what Cindy did next, not what made her do it, that’s important.’
‘What did she do?’ asked Iffie curiously.
‘Do you know your Wagner?’ asked Denny.
‘Er, yes, you know you insisted on a classical education, but what …?’
‘Assume its all true,’ said Tamar. ‘Cindy stole the Rheingold. And that one was my fault.’
‘Bloody hell!’ said Jack.
Rise Of The Nephilim (The Tamar Black Saga) Page 6
