Aninka and Taziel stumbled after Lahash into a maelstrom of wings and light and deafening sound. Aninka was too astonished to be frightened. She’d never seen anything like this; pure chaos. Where was Othman? What the hell had he been doing up here?
Lahash turned to her, pointed. ‘Over there!’
She could barely hear his voice, but looked in the direction he pointed. She saw the staggering form of a woman, who was helping a man escape the clearing. Her heart nearly stopped. Even though she couldn’t see his face, she recognised him immediately. ‘Pev!’ She couldn’t help shouting out the name.
‘Too late for that!’ Lahash said. He tried to run after their fleeing quarry, but the riot of birds swooped down to snag in his hair, peck at his body and face.
Aninka saw him lashing out with his arms. She crouched down on the edge of the circle, Taziel held against her.
‘He has become,’ Taziel whispered against her neck.
She didn’t question him. Her guts felt as if they were being pulled upwards, and soon she might vomit herself inside out. A violent wind plucked at her body, trying to toss her up into the swirling air with invisible hands. Desperately, she reached out to clutch the tough stems of bracken around the circle, trying to anchor herself to the earth. Taziel cringed against her. Through slitted eyes, Aninka saw Lahash’s suit jacket flapping about his body as he slipped and stumbled across the clearing. If he doesn’t grab hold of something, he’ll be taken, she thought, and called his name. He glanced back briefly.
The Kerubim had been lured from their play with the dead woman’s remains, but as soon as they approached the vortex of light, they were sucked upwards. At first, their strident song was joyful as they cavorted through the maelstrom, but then, as their spiritual fabric began to disintegrate in the wake of the flame, their song became a blood-chilling symphony of howls and shrieks. Streaks of their shining substance broke away and streamed upwards.
Aninka was determined not to follow them. She had not come all this way to die like this, without even confronting the object of her pain and love. Everything in the clearing was being dragged towards the sky now: she saw twisting bodies, trees, ferns, soil, stones. Lahash, she was relieved to see, had wrapped his arms around a large tree on the left of the clearing. She hoped it would hold. ‘Taz, we have to try and go backwards,’ she said, even though the thought of trying to move was terrifying. Relinquishing their anchor might mean immediate death. Just as Aninka plucked up the courage to let go of one fistful of ferns, which were beginning to come loose from the ground, everything stopped.
The silence, the stillness was abrupt, immediate and total.
Whatever energies this place had contained were now thoroughly expelled. All power had left it.
Shakily, Lahash stood up, and smoothed his hair in rather an embarrassed manner, like a cat. After a moment, he came over to Taziel and Aninka. ‘Well, Taz?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s he gone?’ The unbelievable experiences of the last few minutes might never have happened.
Taziel, still shuddering against Aninka, merely moaned.
Lahash reached down and pulled Taziel upright. ‘Speak! Concentrate! Where’s Othman?’
Taziel’s head lolled sideways. Aninka was afraid he was dying. ‘Oh, let him go!’ she cried. ‘This is all too much!’
Lahash ignored her. ‘Taz! Pull yourself together!’
Aninka leapt up and attempted to wrest Taziel from Lahash’s hold. ‘Leave him alone!’
Lahash bared his teeth at her. ‘Shut up! We have to keep searching! We can’t let him go.’ But he relinquished Taziel into her arms.
Aninka held Taziel close. His flesh felt cold. ‘Who is Peverel Othman?’ she asked in a low voice. ‘Why is he so important? What the hell happened here?’
Lahash made an irritated gesture, then rubbed his face with his hands. Energy seemed to be leaking away from him. The lust to pursue was fading. ‘Who is he? You wouldn’t understand. Don’t even ask.’
Aninka objected to his condescending tone. ‘How dare you! We, more than you, appreciate what kind of creature Peverel Othman really is!’
Lahash gave her a narrow glance. ‘Oh do you...?’ His voice was flat.
Taziel pulled himself away from Aninka. ‘Don’t fight,’ he said. ‘Stop shouting, for fuck’s sake!’
‘Are you all right?’ Aninka asked. Her hands reached for him, but Taziel only gave her his hand.
‘I’m fine. Things have become clear, however.’ He fixed Lahash with a surprisingly steady eye. ‘Peverel Othman is far more than we knew, isn’t he? We were too blind, too wrapped up in the mundane world we inhabited to realise. The clues were there all along, but we’d denied our past and shut ourselves away from the truth. Peverel Othman is an incarnation of the Watcher Shemyaza. Isn’t that right, carnifex?’
‘What?’ Aninka said. ‘What do you mean?’
Lahash studied Taziel through slitted eyes. ‘Did you know that all the time?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Sometimes I suspected, simply because Pev got into such crazy states about himself, and I probed his mind to try and help him. I picked up images, which I thought were... metaphorical. They had to be. I was suspicious when Enniel called upon Shemyaza at High Crag to guide us to Othman.’ He looked at Aninka. ‘I should have been more persistent in questioning Enniel.’ He glanced back at Lahash. ‘The Parzupheim have known about Othman for a while, haven’t they?’
Lahash exhaled impatiently, glanced away, then back to Taziel. ‘Yes. It is something they’ve feared. There have always been prophecies that Shemyaza would return, and that his advent will have catastrophic consequences.’
Aninka couldn’t help laughing. ‘Listen to you two! Othman is Shemyaza? Are you mad? That’s not possible.’
‘It’s true,’ Taziel said. ‘Tell her, Lahash. Tell her it’s true.’
Lahash looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘Physically, Peverel Othman has not lived for thousands of years, but his consciousness is the enduring soul of Shemyaza. At least, that is what is suspected. He has been monitored.’
‘But why?’ Aninka felt too exhausted to expand her question. There were too many questions. She could try to scoff at what she’d heard, tell herself it was nothing more than foolish beliefs dredged up from a long dead past, yet she had just seen with her own eyes the most incredible things. Was the existence of Shemyaza in flesh any less credible?
‘There will come a time,’ Lahash said, ‘when Shemyaza is vital to this world. But this incarnation is warped. It was thought best to contain it or kill it, to allow the soul to go free and inhabit a new host. Also, when the time of reckoning comes, the Parzupheim want Shemyaza to be firmly under their control.’
Taziel shook his head. ‘We’ll never catch him, Lahash. We have to let him go. We’ll only snare him when the time is right, and that’s not now.’
‘I have people to report to,’ Lahash said. He glanced uncertainly across the clearing in the direction Shemyaza and his companion had taken. ‘I can’t just let him get away.’
Taziel said nothing, but began walking back down the hill in the direction they’d come from. ‘It’s all over here now,’ he said. ‘Leave it, Lahash. There’s nothing we can do. Believe me, I know it! Shemyaza has already left this place.’
Aninka followed him down, took his arm. ‘Taz, this is all too weird. I can’t believe it.’
‘They knew what he was,’ Taziel said. ‘They always knew. They just didn’t see fit to inform us. How did they ever think we could do anything? How? It’s insane. We’re lucky to be alive.’
‘So he’ll just go on now, killing and destroying? Taz, we can’t allow that!’
‘It’s beyond our abilities to control,’ Taziel answered. ‘He’s scorched us, Ninka. We are just memories of his power.’
Emma drove the old car, Daniel in the passenger seat beside her. They’d grabbed very little from the cottage and had had to restrain Lily who’d gone crazy about leaving her cats behind. Emma had been the on
e to release the scrawny chickens from their run at the back of the house. They would have to survive as best they could.
The twins were in the back of the car with him. What should she call him now? Was he still Peverel Othman? The being of light he’d briefly become at the High Place had faded now. His skin was grey and cold, but at least he was alive. She had felt the fragility of his soul as she’d carried him from the woods. He was so tall yet she’d been able to carry him in her arms like a child, or else like a man might carry a woman from danger. She’d wondered then whether he was dead. Dead from grief. But no, he was still breathing.
‘We are a family now,’ Daniel said.
Emma glanced at him. ‘Are we? Light me a cigarette.’
She looked in the rearview mirror, saw Lily with her arms round him crying on his shoulder. Owen was sitting there staring straight ahead. Emma hoped the boy’s mind hadn’t been irreparably damaged. She didn’t want to have to cope with anything like that. Daniel seemed to have become childlike. His voice sounded very young, although his eyes had become far too old. They’d been through too much, these kids. She took the cigarette from Daniel’s outstretched hand. ‘Thanks.’
‘Ishtahar made us a family,’ Daniel said. ‘You are the housekeeper and I am the vizier.’
‘Right.’ Emma sucked hungrily on the cigarette. She wanted to tell Daniel to shut up. ‘Get some sleep.’
‘I’m not tired.’ Daniel leaned back against his seat. ‘Is my father dead? I hope Verity will be all right. How will she get out of the cellar?’
Emma was grateful he didn’t suggest they go back to see to it themselves. ‘She’ll be fine. Someone will find her. Someone will come looking. The police probably.’
‘I have a new father now,’ Daniel said. He looked over the seat, then back at Emma. ‘He is Shemyaza.’
‘I know. Just relax, Daniel. You’ve had a very bizarre experience.’
The car glides along the twisting country lanes. There is a dim light inside. The woman driving the car concentrates on the road. The boy beside her is considering destinies. He knows that eventually Shemyaza will recognise him as his the vizier and prophet, as he always has been. Daniel, around whom the lions lay down, who spoke with angels. As for Lily and Owen, their function is to help Shemyaza fulfil his own destiny. Emma has the role of defender. She will be their guardian and their weapon.
The car glides onwards into darkness. A woman’s face can be seen through the windscreen, frowning hard. Draw back. A woman’s face becomes the face of a lioness. Sekhmet. Goddess of War. Protectress.
Chapter Thirty-Six
November 3rd: Little Moor
The unnatural heat had left the village, and cold had swept in in its wake. Verity had to put on her thickest coat before going out to the makeshift aviary that she and Raven had constructed the day after the Night of Terror. Outside, the garden looked enchanted, covered in frost. Verity whistled as she crackled her way over the lawn, leaving a green trail in the grass. Hearing her tune, Raven came bounding out of the shrubbery, jumping up around her legs like a large dog. Verity laughed, put down her basket of bird food, and squatted down to take the cat in her arms. ‘I love you,’ she said, burying her face in the fur of his shoulders, kissing the hard muscles beneath.
‘And I you,’ he replied, before uttering a feline chirrup and pulling away from her, to dance on ahead towards the aviary.
Verity had never experienced so complete a love as she felt for Raven. Last night, in the warmth of their bed, he had told her his true name, but it was difficult to pronounce, so she knew she would rarely use it. Sometimes, in the delirium of their love-making, she might remember it and sing it, but not in the clear, hard light of day.
He had come to her in the night of terror and darkness, smashing down the door of the cellar to reach her. She had looked up, sick from pain and fever, to see his tall body standing at the top of the stairs, wrapped in a fringed, green robe. She had never beheld such majesty and power in any living thing. ‘I knew you would come,’ she managed to say. He had leapt down the stairs in a single bound, his eyes full of fury and love. His rough tongue had licked her wounds, bringing a healing warmth to her body.
‘Don’t leave me,’ she’d said to him softly as he’d carried her back to her life.
‘Never,’ he’d answered fiercely, and she knew he meant it.
The aftermath of the night left lingering echoes in Little Moor. There were deaths to be mourned. Nothing would ever be the same, but in some way the villagers knew they were free now. They would look to Verity for support, instinctively aware her position in their community had changed. She was a guardian now.
On the day after the event, Lily’s cats had come creeping down the lane to Low Mede, to take up stations of entreaty around the kitchen door. Since then, they had become residents.
Raven had taken Verity to Long Eden, wearing his cat shape, as he never appeared before others as a man. He had taken her inside the house and showed her everything.
‘If you want this, it is yours,’ he told her. ‘No-one else will come for it.’
Verity had walked around the echoing, empty rooms, and for a while imagined herself living there, but the fantasy was short-lived. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It will never be my home.’
On the night of the feast of Yule, Verity knew that she would gather the villagers together, and lead them to Long Eden. In the cold darkness, they would chant for the rebirth of the Sun King and burn the house down. It might take several days to burn completely, but at the end, its great stones would fall inward, hiding forever the dark secrets of the underground chambers.
Verity also knew that soon new people would come to live at The White House. Barney Eager would not feel able to live in Little Moor after his wife had been mysteriously murdered in the woods. The new people would be young and enthusiastic. They would encourage tourists to come to the village, and no-one would stop them.
Although Barbara Eager had not survived the night of terror, Louis had. What was left to Verity was a human husk, in which very little of her father remained. Still, she would care for him, wash his body, feed him, and wheel his chair out into the garden when it was fine. Raven had told her he would take a long time to die because of what Peverel Othman had done to him. Sometimes, Verity would feel pity for Louis, but mostly, she would feel nothing. Caring for him was a duty; she would not neglect it.
Verity opened the aviary and stepped inside. Raven sat down on the frosted grass and began to wash himself, content to wait outside. A myriad of brightly coloured birds lifted in a throng and blew about Verity’s head like a shimmering flag of cloth. Their high songs filled her head and she held out her hands for them to land upon her. Souls. The birds were souls. Released from the belly of the earth, the spirits of all who had died in the laboratories of the Murkasters and who had been released on the night of penance. Verity was their guardian now. She knew that gradually the birds would disappear as they were taken one by one to the place that had been denied them, but until that time, she would care for them herself. The birds nestled in her hair, fashioning a living head-dress of feathers and bright, bead eyes. Perhaps, in a way, she really had become a queen of the dead, as once her dreams had prophesied.
Verity closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of the little claws tickling her scalp. She thought of Daniel, her brother. Raven had assured her he was alive, but she was worried about him. She would never forgive Louis for what he’d done. There were now photos of Daniel all over the house, put up on the walls mainly to discomfort Louis, whom Verity felt had to be reminded constantly of his part in Daniel’s disappearance. She knew nearly all the details of what had happened on the night of terror, and why, because Raven had told her. She knew that Louis would have stood by and let Daniel be killed. Greed, she thought, he was so greedy, but stupid too.
Having fed the birds, Verity let herself out of the aviary and went back towards the house. She had a busy day ahead of her: a morning meeting with the women
of the village and, later, a sitting of the Little Moor council, of which she had hastily been elected secretary. As she approached the house, she heard the telephone ringing. Mrs Roan had not yet arrived, so muttering in impatience, Verity increased her pace. She ran into the hall and threw down her basket on hall table, lifting the phone. Raven bounded half-way up the stairs and sat looking at her intently through the banisters.
‘Hello,’ Verity said, in her most aloof tone.
‘Vez?’ The voice was weak, distant. There was a lot of interference on the line.
Verity pushed her hair back behind her ears. ‘Dan? Daniel? Is that you?’
‘Yes. Are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes. Daniel, where are you?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he answered. ‘I’m OK.’
‘But what happened...?’
‘I can’t talk. I just wanted to let you know I was still alive.’
‘Dan! Daniel!’
‘Take care.’ The line went dead.
‘He hung up,’ Verity said to Raven. She felt like crying, but instead began to laugh. ‘He hung up.’
Raven was a sinuous, manly form draped over the stairs, resting his head on one hand. His tail switched lazily against the carpet. ‘You will hear from him again,’ he said.
‘Will I?’ Verity wearily climbed the stairs and lay down with her head against Raven’s chest. Wan sunlight came into the hall, kindling fire in the gleam of the polished wood on floor and walls. Time ticked slowly by, and Verity became aware of a sense of imminence, but there were no holy feet walking towards Little Moor.
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