But Ferrets Can Never Hurt Me

by Nhys Glover

  Not far away, in a gulley filled with gorse, a quad-bike was hiding. By then I was exhausted. My struggles were as useless as those of a worm on a hook. Breathing was difficult too, as the big hand not only closed off most of the air to my mouth but to my blocked nose as well. I was growing light-headed.

  My captor made fast work of slapping duct-tape over my mouth and applying handcuffs. Once he climbed on the quad, which was an all-terrain vehicle commonly used by local farmers to muster their sheep on the moor, he made me climb on behind him.

  Then we were off, hurtling back down the hill at a speed that was dangerous and scary. Had the others heard it? The kids would have, and hopefully noticed I was gone by now. Would they go for help? But no-one could catch us, not on foot.

  At the bottom of the hill we’d spent the last hour climbing, my captor turned onto the main road that wound around to the other side of that same hill. Some of our people would be trying to get up behind Watkins and his men as they made their upward sweep towards the monster.

  What was my captor doing? Were we going to come up behind the Watkins Clan as well? Would there be time for Jake to see what was happening and make an attempt to get me off the ATV? I hoped not. Any crazy attempt at a rescue could get him killed. I didn’t know why I’d been taken, but it wasn’t worth Jake dying for.

  How had they known where I’d be? How could the man have been waiting in the dark for me like that, almost as if he knew I was coming?

  A memory flashed into my mind with sickening clarity. Of course they knew. We had Jason with his precognitive Gift, but Arthur Watkins had been gathering a stable of Gifted people over the years. One or more of them would be sure to have the same precognitive ability.

  God, it must be incredibly accurate to have accounted for all the possibilities. Mason coming to tell us...

  My heart turned over in my chest. Had he come to steal the book at all, or was that another ploy designed to get me just where they wanted me?

  Yet if they had such people, why had I been able to slip out of their hands so easily when I was kidnapped the first time? It didn’t make any sense.

  The big question now was, if they had Gifted seers who had foretold the events of this night, was the outcome also predestined? If so, why was Jason taking his people toward their downfall?

  Another sickening thought fought to be acknowledged. What if Jason didn’t have the Gift? What if he was with Watkins, and his job was to gather us all up like sheep to the slaughter.

  No, no, no, I couldn’t take it if yet another person I trusted betrayed me. Betrayed us!

  No, it had to be something else. Maybe there were several possible outcomes and each seer saw one of the possibilities. I’d seen Sliding Doors, I knew about the probable futures Quantum Physics talked about.

  At any given moment there were many different possible paths and in every moment we picked one, collapsing the other possibilities and creating yet more along the new timeline. Of course, one little change, like not making a train as the doors slide closed, could change a whole life.

  So Jason and the other seers had seen different possible futures. Which one we eventually followed was anyone’s guess at this point.

  By the time I’d considered this, we’d begun climbing Morgan’s Hill from the other side. The sound of the engine was loud and jarring. I was sure every person on the hill tonight could hear us coming. But would my people know I was a captive on the vehicle or would they assume it was another Watkins bringing up the rear and dive into hiding?

  Whatever their thoughts and actions, I didn’t see anyone until the line of torch-wielding Watkinses came into sight. No one seemed surprised to see us as we reached them and turned off the engine.

  Rough hands pulled me from the vehicle and began dragging me along with them up the hill. I could see a young geeky man nearby carrying an electronic screen. On it were spots of colour arranged in a way that reminded me of an ordinance map. But some of the colours were pulsing and moving. The light at the bottom of the screen, for instance, was particularly bright and fluid. I guessed it was a recording of the electromagnetic energy being emitted by the line of spellcasters. One of the other coloured splotches was much darker and redder than the rest. We seemed to be moving in its direction.

  No, wait, it was moving in ours!

  “Any problems?” An old man asked my captor, who’d taken up one of my arms to help drag me along.

  “None. Went like clockwork. Just as predicted,” came the smug response.

  The elderly man walked a little behind and to the left of me, studying me like I was an animal in the zoo. “Ah, Miss Wimple. You are quite the conundrum. You defy prediction so often. No wonder my son had such trouble with you. Of course, he is a fool, a power-hungry fool.” He looked ahead and to his right at a man I vaguely recognised as William Watkins. “I should have known better than to put him in charge of such a crucial piece of the action. Yet it all worked out as predicted in the end, didn’t it? You are here with us, the natural Guardian of the Way. With you at our side we will succeed. It has been predicted.”

  I would have spat in his face had my mouth not been covered. Instead, I sent him a scathing glare and pointedly turned my head forward to watch the crisscrossing of beams from the torches that illuminated our path.

  He laughed, not seeming to care if he made noise or not. Of course, it didn’t matter if he made noise because the rumble of chanting was going on all around us, anyway.

  Glancing across at the screen, I could see we were fast approaching the pulsing red blob, or we were approaching each other. Fear closed off my throat, and I got light-headed again. Had they not been hauling me along with them, I would have fallen. As it was, I was being dragged along by the elbows, my feet scrapping across the coarse and rocky ground as if I was unconscious.

  Scrambling to get my feet under me, to get even the smallest amount of control over my actions, I focused and pushed myself up with my arms. Once on my feet again, the going was easier. I could tell my captors on either side thought so too, because their grips loosened from agonising to just plain painful.

  “It’s here!” The man holding the screen yelled.

  The chant instantly changed to something different. They’d drawn it to them and now they were going to cage it.

  If they succeeded, who knew what might happen? Yes, Mrs Mitchell and Jason had both told me that wild things from other densities couldn’t be used. They were random and unpredictable. It was going to be hard enough to herd it back to the gateway, so it could be sucked back in. But to capture and then try to use it? That seemed an impossible feat.

  Yet this old man had spent the last... what? Forty years or more of his life... working towards this end. He must have all his bases covered. He must know so much more than the rest of us did.

  Ahead, I saw a strange distortion in the air. Like heat haze or a ripple in a clear pool. Gasping, I realised what it must be. And it was huge, at least the size of a house. I craned my head back, trying to see the top of the distortion.

  There it was, the place where the stars looked normal again.

  I took an involuntary step back, but the hands tightened on me again, keeping me in place. But at least we’d stopped moving forward. Unfortunately, it was still coming our way.

  The chant grew louder and louder, and I heard when it lost its confidence. Arthur Watkins yelled for them to hold to their purpose, and the dozen or so men did as they were told.

  For a moment more the confident chanting went on. Then, to my left, flames streaked out, splitting the night sky like a flamethrower. I heard an agonised scream. A man on fire broke from the line.

  The chant lost its potency as chaos ensued. Fire flamed out to the right and then to the left. I looked at the wobbly screen and wanted to scream as well. The red blob was racing directly towards us now. Those closest to me knew it too. My arms were suddenly free. I turned to run as they did.

  Suddenly, I was knocked off my feet and collided with t
he rough ground, one shoulder taking the impact of the fall. But muscle memory had me rolling with the fall as Jake had taught me, so it wasn’t as jarring as it could have been. Almost immediately I was ready to scramble to my feet again.

  A ball of flames licked out above me, and I heard more screams as the running men closest to me ignited. If I hadn’t been knocked over, I would have been set alight as well.

  Trembling, I curled up in a ball, unsure what to do next. Everywhere I looked there was fire. The heat of it was searing the hairs on my arms. My lungs filled with smoke. My eyes felt dry, yet blurry with tears. Men screamed and ran, fell and rolled, trying to put out the flames. But none of it did any good. The intensity of the inferno was too much. The extent of it too great.

  The distortion, which had been getting closer, seemed to suddenly change direction. It was no longer coming right at me. Now it was turning off to the left. I heard chanting from a long way away. Confident, loud, chanting.

  A hard hand came down on my arm. I struggled frantically to escape it, screaming behind my taped lips, desperate to get away. How was there anyone left alive in all this fiery hell?

  “Alfie, it’s me!”

  I knew that voice. Jake? It was Jake? How could it be Jake in the middle of this scorched hell? Through tear-blurred eyes I made out what looked like his outline.

  I stopped struggling. Strong arms scooped me up. Jake began striding away from the hell with me in his arms. The further we went, the cooler it became.

  That’s when I began to shake. My body was wracked with convulsive shivering. I went from burning up to icy cold in a matter of moments. Only the warmth of Jake’s body kept me from freezing over completely.

  After we were well away from the fire and, I assumed, the dragon, Jake lowered me to the ground. I was still so cold. When Jake ripped off the tape over my mouth I drew in several shuddering breaths and tried to stop crying. Or was it just the smoke that had my eyes watering? I didn’t know. I suppose I didn’t care.

  Someone held a bottle of water to my lips and I swallowed down long gulps of it. Someone else worked on the handcuffs, and they soon fell away. I wrapped my arms around Jake’s neck. Had he been the one to free my hands? It was hard to tell in the chaos going on around me.

  As I clung to Jake, breathing in the familiar, beloved smell of him, a fleece jacket was wrapped around my shoulders. The cold began to abate. The shivering eased.

  “Alfie!” I heard dual voices cry.

  I looked up from Jake’s neck to see Bryce and Danielle racing toward me. They threw their arms around me, sandwiching me in tight between them and Jake. I had never felt so safe.

  I was safe.

  Sometime later the Mitchells moved away. By then I was toastie warm.

  “You take her on the ATV,” someone said.

  Jason? It sounded like Jason, though his voice was hoarser.

  Jake picked me up and carried me over to the vehicle that had brought me to Watkins. Their line must have left the vehicle behind and ours had reached it. Jake put me down so he could climb onto the very different machine to the one he was used to. I unsteadily climbed on behind him. Though I really didn’t want the drama of flying down the hillside on this machine again, I wasn’t about to be separated from Jake. Not now. Not ever, if I had any say in it.

  Closing my eyes, I fought to focus on the here and now. I had Jake’s hard, warm body in front of me. I had the throbbing engine bouncing and bucking beneath me. I had the cool air, star-filled sky, and the moon that was so big it seemed impossibly huge, hanging there just on the top of the next hill. This was my reality. It wasn’t back there in the inferno. It wasn’t watching men scream and burn and die around me. It wasn’t fear so great it closed off my throat so I was choking. None of that was now or here.

  Bit by bit, I calmed down. By the time we reached the carpark and Jake’s bike, my legs were strong enough to hold me up again. Climbing off the ATV, I drew in a deep lungful of air. I’d thought my lungs burned, but they felt fine now I was getting cool, fresh air into them.

  Jake turned on the seat of the ATV and drew me in between his legs. His palms cupped either side of my face, his dark eyes staring into mine with a desperation I could barely credit.

  “Your face is black. Are you burned at all?”

  It wasn’t quite the words of undying love I’d expected to hear, but they were still sweet.

  “No, I don’t think so,” I croaked.

  He drew me in to tenderly kiss my blackened cheek. “You have to stop scarin’ the life outta me, Firecracker.”

  I felt my cheeks heat at that particular term of endearment. It reminded me of how easily this man could bring me to climax, and how noisy I was about it.

  He laughed, possibly picking up on my embarrassment. “You just faced down an invisible fire-breathing dragon and you blush because I call you Firecracker? Oh, Alfie love, you’re really somethin’ different.”

  “What happened?” I croaked.

  “All that can wait until I get you home. This has been one hell of a night.”

  “The others?”

  I really ought to stop talking. My throat was becoming more and more raspy and sore. Like the worst flu ever.

  “They’ll make their way down and go home. Don’t worry about them. And before you ask, none of Watkins’ crew survived. Not that we could see.”

  I nodded, reliving the horror of it all over again. Jake kissed my lips, driving the images from my mind intentionally. He was good at that.

  When we pulled apart, he climbed off the ATV and led me to his bike. This vehicle held no bad memories for me, and I happily climbed on the back behind Jake.

  Home. Had any word ever sounded so good?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I lay curled up at Jake’s side in my bed after a hot and sudsy shower. Jake had done all the work, even washing my hair, which was the most erotic experience ever. Pity I was too exhausted to make the most of it.

  Daphne sat on the bedside table looking down at me with concern. For once she looked much older than me.

  “I’m so glad you’re all right, darling lass. So glad!” she kept saying.

  “Tell me,” I rasped, turning my eyes up to Jake.

  He smelled so good I wanted to eat him up, but I needed answers more.

  “I’m not sure I have all the answers. Maybe Jason can give them to you tomorrow. He seemed to know a hell of a lot more than he was sayin’. I didn’t know you were gone until the quad-bike roared past us, and I saw what I thought was you on the back of it, eyes so big they dwarfed your face.

  “I started to run after it, but Jason, who’d kept me close, stopped me. He said something like, ‘Your time will come to save her. Wait.’ You know my thoughts on that predestined crap, so it took a bit for him to talk me down.

  “As we got closer we saw the line of them, all with torches crisscrossing the ground. Jason said they were fools. The light was what infuriated it. Drove it mad. I could see you were being dragged between two big bruisers. Again, I was ready to race in and save you. But something inside me told me to hold off and wait.

  “Then the fires and the screaming started. I was terrified for you. Jasesaid something like. ‘We need your daemon.’ I didn’t have a clue what he meant. I don’t know anybody called Damon. All I knew was I had to get to you before you went up in flames. ‘Knock her down now!’ Jaseyelled.

  “I heard Squib yell, ‘Right!’ as if he was accepting the order. I hadn’t even known he was there. The next thing I knew you were free and about to run back towards us. Then you fell just as the flames streaked across from right to left, setting everyone still standing on fire.

  “I was already running by then. I got to you and carried you out. The rest you know.”

  I lay quietly for a moment, thinking things through. “So Jason told Squib to knock me over just in time to save me from the fire that took the others out?” I was barely rasping at all now.

  “I suppose so. I haven’t hear
d him since he said, ‘Right.’ If that was actually what he said. The chanting had started up by then, and I wasn’t really paying attention. The whole thing was do-lally.”

  “A daemon is a kind of guardian angel or spirit,” Daphne said thoughtfully. “Calling Squib your guardian angel is a stretch. But if he did what Jason said, he would have short-circuited. For much longer this time. I hope he’s all right.”

  “My albatross, more like,” Jake said with a cynical smile. “And I’m sure he’s fine.”

  “How do you know about albatrosses?” I asked with amusement.

  “You mean the one in Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner? One of Johnno’s men was into poetry. He made me learn long passages because it was a good way to develop memory. I can still remember some of it. ‘Water, water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink. Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.’”

  I shook my head. “You amaze me sometimes, you really do. Who’d have thought a cage fighting bad boy could quote Coleridge?”

  “Jason knew what was going to happen? He knew you would be kidnapped?” Daphne pressed, getting us back on track.

  “That’s what it seemed like. But I’ll kill the bastard for putting you in danger, if that’s the case,” Jake growled.

  “I think Arthur Watkins had his own seers. He seemed to know ahead of time where I’d be. Of course, he may have made some of it happen by having Mason come here and tell us. It seemed like he thought he needed me there for the spells to work.”

  “I’m glad Jason took him or I might have decided to finish what I started,” Jake admitted.

  He was referring to Mason’s arrest shortly after we got home. The con-artist had looked somewhat dazed and a little grateful to be taken away. I had to wonder what Daphne had done to him.

  “If they had seers like Jason, how is it they didn’t know they were all going to have a fiery end?” Daphne asked.

  “I think some might have,” I answered thoughtfully. “But Arthur was no better at listening to the naysayers than his son William. And there may have always been two possible outcomes. I was the wildcard though. Arthur said I never did what was predicted.