Lice are hardly the biggest problems though. The Hall’s in a ropey state. And the rest of Castle Howard. And Yorkshire. And—you get the idea. Better here than the south, I suppose. Though that’s always been true, if you believe the rumours. I never got to London before it was levelled. Wanted to see Big Ben and Buckingham Palace, go on a red bus. Oh well. Seen a lot of other stuff, I suppose. Mum says it’s “hardened” me and she hates that I never got to finish being a kid. Sometimes, she stares at my face, dead intense, like she’s searching for something. She finally told me what it was last weekend: fear. I’m too “detached,” apparently. Like some big house in the middle of nowhere. Like here.
“I get scared,” I told her.
“You don’t show it. Having no fear isn’t healthy.”
“I just don’t show it like Pen always does.”
Now, Pen groans. “Can’t you just kick the door down, you stupid mare? You’ve got four legs and four arms, fucksake.”
If I had hackles, they’d be up—and there are folk with hackles—Fenrir’s lot. You don’t mess with them.
“Don’t call me that, and anyway not at the moment, I haven’t.” I lift up my shirt and show her the buds where my extra arms sometimes put in an appearance. They’re sore today, them and the nubs at my hips, which means I’m due on. Explains the comfort eating too. I pluck another ear of barley from the bale I’m sitting on and pop it in my mouth. Two seconds later, I spit it back out as something crashes against the back wall. “Proper battle out there now.”
Pen fair leaps across the stable to press her ear to the wall but she doesn’t shout out. We both know better than that.
They used to keep Thoroughbreds in these stables. And workhorses. But there are none of either in here anymore. Food took precedence over transport a few years ago. Mum made me eat some for the iron. Dried strips it was, like that American stuff—jerky. Did me no good; I threw up after. I tried to tell her it was basically cannibalism, but she wasn’t having any of it, especially since the limb thing had just happened, and it wasn’t like now. I only lose a little blood now each month when they emerge, my body knows what it’s dealing with. The first time, well… I remember the pain and waking up and a pile of ruined sheets in the corner of the room, but not much else.
I’d like to point out at this juncture that my dad didn’t know he was part deity when he and Mum conceived me. He most likely knows now, just like everyone does. “Dei-trippers” the media called us when the Shift occurred: that magic moment when everyone’s heritage was revealed. And I’m not just talking Norse. You name the god type, their distant relatives are now very aware of what they are. Dad’s ancestry may just account for his god-like behaviour: descend from on high, shag a mortal, fuck off back to your parallel plane of existence and watch the tiny-people drama unfold.
Pretty dramatic today.
I’ve lost track of what the factions are all fighting about. You can try and follow it when news bulletins get through, but I don’t know if the reporters understand it themselves. The only common factor is the descendant-killing. We’re like Pokémon—gotta catch us all! if you want to destroy the root. There’s rumours some original Roman god carked it a couple of months ago. Immortality only goes so far, it turns out.
I get up off the bale and press my eye to an old cable hole in the stable wall. Outside, the air’s dense with smoke, but trampled in the mud a few metres away, I can see a body. Literally, a body, oozing red into the murk of the yard. The head and limbs have been torn off—probably eaten as part of some ritual. Fenrir’s lot do that as well.
My stomach’s roiling now, but that’s okay, I’ve got used to not listening to the bits of me that’ll slow me down if I let them.
An almighty bang sounds from the door, which ripples inward, before bouncing back.
Pen bursts into another round of tears and hugs her bump. Fucksake.
“What are you crying about?” I ask. “It’s holding. Told you, Onkel’s charmed this place.”
“How long?” she sobs. “And what about Mum? We should’ve gone back to the Hall when all this shit started.”
My insides twist. “Shut up.”
“But—”
“I said, shut the fuck up. Mum’ll be fine. She’ll be in the safe-room under the cellar.”
The door heaves inward again, the wood warping. It splinters. Just a little. And there’s a definite sag as it returns to its normal position. Shit.
A voice like hoar frost snarls outside, “What’s in there? Can you tell? We need to find the child before the Yarburgh contingent arrive. I have it on good authority it’s here. I want that snivelling shitbag’s head under my foot and his immortality ripped from the fucking fabric of the universe by sunset.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” another voice replies. “I’ll do a closer check.”
I hear loud sniffs, and a pattering like the feet of thousands of huge ants over the walls. Something dark, shiny and metallic skitters across my peephole and I start backwards.
“Anything?” the first voice asks.
“No, Ma’am, but I think this is the work of an Original.”
A too-long silence, then, “Which one; him?”
“Hard to say, there’s so much happening.”
Pen whispers, “What faction is it?”
I shrug. “Could be Hephaistians—they’ve got metal search bugs. You’re right, we need to get out of here. They’re looking for a little kid; we need to let the others know.”
“Shit, there’s only five on the estate since the last raid!”
“I know. Listen, we’ll wait ’til this lot clear off—if they clear off—and I’ll try and break us out. Just don’t go into labour or anything daft, okay?”
If Pen had been pregnant at sixteen and ready to pop at seventeen five years ago, everyone would’ve thrown their hands up and rolled their eyes and made comments about young mothers and the state of society and education. We threw a party when she and Saqib announced they were expecting. A big one.
A couple of people have told me I should choose someone and try now that I’m sixteen but I’d rather be locked in an overflowing septic tank for the day than try it with a bloke, even to give humanity a few more years.
The battle noises are moving northward, across the fields. The crops. Bastards. Last winter was tough and it’s harvest time now. Everything was ready to be brought in. I’ll be okay: I can survive on grass if push comes to shove, but some of the folk here, especially the full-morts, might not make it.
Outside, the group shifts. They don’t test the door again, but there are mutterings even I can’t hear. This is one time I wish Onkel would show up and be all badass, but it looks like I’m fairly low on the scale of favouritism. He’s never told me exactly how many newly discovered relatives he has scattered across the globe, but I’m willing to bet it’s quite a few.
The footsteps of the group outside are fading away and the explosions nearby have stopped too. I rub at the prickly patch on my chest again. Hope it’s not something new.
“Come on then!” Pen gestures at the door. “Do your…whatever.”
“Not there. They’ll look for signs of that if they come back.” I pull a bale aside where I know the brickwork’s in bad shape. “Here. We’ll have to crawl. And I can’t promise this place’ll be safe next time.”
I plea silently to Onkel and give the wall a hard backward kick. The shockwave flings me across the barn. Shaking my head, I haul myself to my feet and return. The wall’s bent outward a little a least, but it’s not enough and I punch it. Pain and frustration trigger my extra limbs; they tear out of my hips and my ribcage as I’m flung into the air again. My t-shirt, already fieldwork-stained beyond repair, adds four splashes of blood to its colour palette and thank Gods I wore a skirt today.
With my back to the wall again and still gasping from the fierce burning in my joints, I jump, and Pen wide-eyes me as I kick all four legs against the same spot. The bricks give way and a fierce red glow and sm
oke begin to twist in through the gap like something out of a bad horror movie. My aim’s definitely more accurate than the last time I sprouted. Everything still hurts and my chest is itching even more, but job done.
I go to scratch, but my brain can’t decide which hand to use and I give it up as a bad idea. No new sounds issue from outside, just the distant rumble of crop destruction. I can pick out the slightly sweeter scent of wheat and oats burning and my mouth becomes as confused as my hands: dry one second, salivating like a good ‘un the next.
Having tested the hole to make sure Loki’s field is broken, I kneel down and inch out into the red gloom, extra limbs tucked tight at my sides. It’s like being some kind of human-spider-horse hybrid. You can see why all those superheroes in the old comics stop at the powers of just one animal. Any more than that and it just becomes an unholy fucking mess.
Pen remains silent as she struggles through and gets to her feet. A series of skidmarks from the mud have raked across her bump; it looks like some wild thing’s taken a swipe at her. She’s breathing hard, her eyes are glazed and she looks grey. Is she on the verge of passing out? I point in the direction of the Hall, put a finger to my lips and take her hand, give it a squeeze. Most days, I feel like the big sister.
“Face forward, yeah? Eyes off the ground. There’ll be… Well, there could be folk we know.”
She just nods.
My ears twitch forward automatically in the open air, listening for anything suspicious. Hate that. Useful, but I hate it. Just a bit too horse-ish. Like the whole grass thing. Folk’ve told me it doesn’t show, but I’m sure they’re just sparing my feelings.
As we skirt the north wall of the yard, I keep my eyes off the ground, where I know there’ll be dead and dying. After the cacophony we’ve endured for hours, the quiet’s a shock. Sweat rolls in waves down me; it was a hot August day even before the battle started. I need water. We both need water. Pen lets out a tiny yelp.
“What?” I hiss.
“Kelly.”
I don’t look. Kel’s a full-mort and we’ve been in the same dorm together for three years, one of the old royal suites. Really liked her. I was hoping… I swallow hard, but I don’t look.
“They’ve burned her eyes out, Vez, and her chest—she—”
I don’t look. “She dead?”
No reply.
“Keep moving, Pen.”
My vision’s blurred with tears. Kelly, fucksake. I hope we do meet up with whoever did it, because I’ll kick their sorry arses into another dimension.
“Why here? We weren’t doing anyone any harm.”
The itching in my chest has turned into a burning and there’s a pressure too, where the halves of my collar bone meet. Great. Either I’m having a heart attack or this is definitely something new.
We need to get through the old Boar Garden and in through the south wing of the Hall. The once-was topiary dotted about what were pristine lawns and are now vegetable plots, is ragged with neglect and heavy with dark ash. As we pick our way across, most of the drooping bushes look like huge ravens, flapping through the smoke towards us. My ears jerk forward. Someone’s coming. The sound takes on a form, a shadow setting the smoke to a swirl around itself as it gets closer. Pen grips my hand tighter. We’ve nowhere to run. A familiar voice drifts with the smoke. “Penny?”
Pen yells as Saqib emerges from the mist, and runs—as well as she can in her state—to throw her arms around him. Pangs run through me as I think about Kel again. I shake them out.
Saqib’s thin face is more drawn than usual when he and Pen finally separate. His hand rests on her stomach a moment.
“Is Mum okay?” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he replies. “Yeah, she’s fine. A lot of people aren’t though. Where were you?”
“Stable block. Onkel’s charmed it so I’m safe in there. His idea of a sense of humour.”
Saqib rolls his eyes then jerks his head in the direction of the Hall. “Come on, we’d better get back inside. They might have left people behind.”
“Who were they?” I ask as we set off again at a brisk trot.
“All sorts. I reckon they’ve got one Original in charge, but they all had different powers. They weren’t really after us; they were toying.” He blinks. “Some of the things they did to the bodies… Our jumbles managed to give them a run for their money, but they only left because they were bored, I think.”
“No, they were looking for someone: a child.”
“Oh. Oh, so that’s why…they got three of the kids. I don’t know about the others.”
We all go into shock at the ice-cold facts for a moment, then Pen mutters, “Fingers crossed.” And then she looks at me, brow wrinkled, because I’m rubbing my chest again.
I’m not imagining it, there’s some kind of lump there. Fuck.
Saqib notices too. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, I’ve just—there’s something there, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Most likely an extra head,” Pen says, grim.
“Thanks a bloody bunch.”
“Well, good ol’ Sleip had four, didn’t he?”
“Not helping.”
We’re at one of the functioning Hall doors. Saqib turns the doorknob, pushes it open.
Genuinely shocked, I hiss, “Why didn’t you lock it when you came out?” That would have seemed petty before the Shift, but now it’s the rule: always secure whatever you can as much as you can. So something’s wrong; Saqib’s one of the most security conscious of us all. I grasp Pen’s hand, bring us both to a halt.
“What?” she asks.
“He wouldn’t forget.”
Saqib turns, eyebrows raised. “What is it?”
“You don’t forget. To lock the door. You don’t.”
He sighs. “Damn, knew I’d miss something.”
And he cracks open.
Literally, cracks open; sheds his skin and flesh as Pen lets out a scream and a thing unfolds from the centre of the mess. It’s all glistening spine at first, then torso, limbs, a tail emerge. The whole thing’s skeletal; the eyes in its monstrous skull are two pits of nothing so deep and dark they could suck you in and spit you out halfway across the universe if you looked too long. On top of the skull, a mass of whip-like bones twist and writhe.
It turns its full gaze on us and Pen stops screaming, freezes, her skin greying even more.
“Pen?” I grab her. She feels cold, but her heart’s beating wildly.
“She can’t hear you.” The creature’s voice is like two slabs of granite grinding against each other.
“What have you done?” More alarm bells ring inside me. “What—Was that Saqib? Did you—or did you just make yourself look like him?”
As the monster’s otherwise toothless mouth spreads and opens to a grin, two sets of enormous fangs unfurl. “I can count the great Atë among my forebears—may her path be lined with the bones of the righteous. Your friend proved very amusing before I dispatched him. And satisfying after that.”
“So he’s…” Shit. “Where’s everyone else?”
The creature raises its hand, the fingers of which are tipped with huge straight claws. It strokes my cheek and gives me a look of what might be pity.
“Sleeping below,” it replies. “I was hoping to take you there for a look. Fear makes adrenalin and adrenalin adds a piquancy I can’t describe. Your sister would have been quite the gourmet treat. Not you though. We have other plans for you.”
Now I need to vomit. The sensation in my chest becomes a purer pain and my brain buzzes with questions about what these “plans” might be, but more importantly…
“Where’s Mum?”
The grin widens and its owner leans forward to hiss in my ear. “Don’t worry, we didn’t waste her. We won’t waste anyone. It’s not often we find so much food in one place. Our leaders let us eat our fill and later, when the smoke has cleared, we will all return, eat the rest and tell stories of our glorious battle by the light of the hea
vens.”
A gorgonite. That’s what this is. Whatever it says about its heritage…a touch of Medusa, maybe. Definitely. I mean, look at Pen. Look at her… Stop crying. Look at Pen. Look at your sister… Mum’s gone? Everyone’s gone? What does this thing want with me? I hurt so much inside I’m starting to wonder if my own body’s going to be ripped open.
The creature cocks its head. “Fascinating. We’ll keep your sister alive, for now, I think. It always helps to have a bargaining chip in these circum—”
Its voice is drowned out by a scream. My own. I don’t know whether it’s my voice or the feeling of my chest splitting open but it’s the only thing I can hear. Falling to my knees, I lean forward and let my four arms take the strain of whatever’s forcing me open. I can see something emerging and then, like someone’s thrown a switch, my eyes stop working. The impression of what I last saw is still there, but even that’s fading. I’m conscious of being grabbed by the scruff of my neck, lifted up, and then the switch is thrown back on and my vision powers up as I swing back and forth in the gorgonite’s grasp, my feet catching on the path every few running steps.
What I see is crazy, though. No human brain is built to see 360 degrees all at once, but that’s what I think I’m seeing—the fug of smoke, the side of the gorgonite, the Hall and the garden and behind us and to the side and—and I have to shut my eyes because it’s too much. My shoulders ache like they’re supporting an extra weight and, dreading what I’m fairly certain I’ll find, I raise my hands and press my four palms against four heads. They’re all human, but there’s four of them. Front, back, left, right. I can feel the rush of air on all of them now.
I have never hated my ancestors so much.
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