The blade-armed woman charges at me. I laugh, kneel down, and punch her once in the face. The force throws her up. She topples up—down, smashing into the roof of a building.
Then somebody else stands before me. I make to fight. But, no . . .
It is her . . .
The Woman of Starlight . . .
The woman around which all the stars, all the universes, all of reality revolves.
I fall to my knees and now the Other seeps from me. I shrink down and my teeth retract and my muscles return to their normal shape. I shrink and shrink until I feel small.
I make to step toward Lila, sweet Lila. I barely take two steps before the exhaustion hits me. The strength that filled me moments ago is forgotten. I collapse.
I lie there, eyes heavy, as the power of the Other is torn from me. Through my half-closed eyes, I see the fire-haired Woman of Starlight.
She is the most beautiful woman who has ever lived, I think, and then I sink into oblivion.
I don’t know when I’ll wake. Hours, days, weeks, years . . .
Chapter Eighteen
Lila
I don’t have time to register what’s just happened. No sooner does Tooth collapse in front of me—shrinking down from his godly form—than the doors to the school burst open.
Teachers and students charge out onto the soot-black concrete. I am reminded of footage of cows breaking out of their enclosures and stampeding aimlessly. I watch as kids and teachers sprint onto the street. I look deeper into the crowd and that’s when I spot her. She’s strong, I think. But then, she’s always been strong, ever since she was a baby.
Casey, clutching her book bag to her chest, doesn’t run like the rest of them. When the others are out of her way, she totters out with searching eyes, looking over the carnage. Her gaze moves up and she spots me. She doesn’t scream, cry, or call out; she simply walks toward me. But I can’t stay as calm as her. I charge at her and fall to my knees. This close, I see that she’s numb, not fearless. Her calm is more like shellshock.
She doesn’t have time to say two words before I wrap my arms around her and pull her close.
“You’re alive. Thank God. You’re alive. Oh, Casey. Sweet girl. You’re alive.”
“The world’s gone all upside-down, Auntie,” Casey mutters into my shirt. “There was a man and he had fire in his hands and then he blew up the doors and we all ran into the gymnasium and we thought he had a gun but . . .” She stops, taking a deep breath. “But it wasn’t a gun and then we hid and then it went quiet so Mr. Brown crept to the window and told us that it was safe. So we ran.” She takes another breath.
I kiss her on the cheek and stroke her hair, tangled and fire-red. “What’s happening, Auntie? Everything is very strange.”
What’s happening? Now there’s a question. I pause, wondering how I can tell her about the witches and the wizards and the hounds and the fire-creatures. And about the Woman of Starlight, the shimmering in my belly, and the demi-god who’s suddenly an irrevocably important part of my life. But of course I won’t tell her. If it makes my head ache with the magnitude of it, it will explode hers.
I kiss her on the forehead. “You need to do as Auntie says. That’s what’s happening. Be a good girl and hold onto Auntie’s hand.”
I lead her to the car—past Tooth’s prostrate body—and open the back door. I pick her up and place her in her highchair, strap her in, and give her another kiss. She is the only shred of family I have left. If she died . . . But it’s best not to think about that. She smiles up at me, a soft smile tinged with tragedy. She looks so much like her father in this moment I almost weep. She has the same knowing in her too-young eyes, the same ability—curse—to comprehend the incomprehensible acts of grownups. That’s what happens when a kid knows heartache too soon.
“You look different, Auntie,” she says. The only sign she’s scared is the way she holds onto her book bag, as though it’s a buoy and she’s adrift in the ocean.
I’m about to climb into the car when my eyes drift to Tooth, out cold, limbs splayed, face pressed into the concrete. And utterly naked. His body looks strong, taut, his skin pulled tight over his muscles. He’s wounded in dozens of places from where the power stretched him, made him into something else, something larger and deadlier than any man.
I need to get Casey out of here, but as I look at Tooth, I realize I can’t leave him.
“Wait here, honey.”
“Are there more baddies? Where are the police?”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Auntie just has to help this nice man into the car.”
“The naked man?” Casey says.
“Yes, don’t look at him, okay, honey?”
“There’s a blanket in the trunk,” she says. Before I can stop her, she undoes her belt, hops from the car, and walks around to the trunk. I watch in disbelief—and pride at her strength, pride at how capable she is, far more capable than I ever was at that age—as she opens the trunk and takes out the heavy brown blanket she sometimes covers herself with when it’s cold.
“Here.” She holds it up with both hands, just like she holds up paintings she’s done in art class, proud, hoping for me to be impressed.
I ruffle her hair. “Well done, sweetie,” I say. She beams. I take the blanket and drop it on the passenger-side seat. “Now be a good girl and get back into your highchair, okay?”
She nods and hops back into the chair.
I go to Tooth. Dimly, from the town proper, I hear cackles and screams. They dance over my skin like the hands of a lecherous long-fingered man. I shiver. And then I kneel beside Tooth and, with an effort, roll him onto his back. I try not to look down at his naked body, but I do and despite everything, there’s a twinge inside of me. Whether it’s lust or starlight, I don’t know.
“Tooth,” I say. I prod him in the cheek. He doesn’t move, doesn’t show any sign of being alive except for the subtle rise and fall of his chest. “Tooth.” I poke him again.
He just lies there, eyes closed, wounded skin knitting slowly. The starlight inside of me jumps through the air between us and rests against his skin, speeding up the healing, but I sense his tiredness. Bone-deep tiredness.
He’s not waking up any time soon.
Gritting my teeth, I hook my hands under his armpits. I’m going to have to drag him across the concrete, scraping his skin even more. But I have no choice. The alternative is to wait here for the rest of the Horde. You could leave him, the survivor in me hisses. Casey is the most important person, Lila. You know that. Why waste time here, saving him? He can take care of himself. Just leave now and when he wakes up, he’ll find you. He found you once; he can do it again. Think how easy it would be to leave him. Get Casey somewhere safe.
I force the voice far back in my mind until it is a faint whisper. I can’t leave him. No, that’s a lie. I could leave him, but I won’t. He fought for me. What sort of person would I be if I left him now?
My muscles strain as I drag him. Stones cut into his skin. He bleeds. I keep pulling. My legs roar out against me and the muscles in my back tighten and twist. I pull and pull until his head rests against the car. Then I bend my knees, thinking, this is going to hurt a lot, and lift him off the floor. I was right; the pain of lifting somebody so heavy, corded with layer upon layer of muscle, is immense.
“Do you want the blanket, Auntie? I can give you the blanket.”
“In a . . . moment . . .” I breathe.
I drop him into the seat. Casey thrusts the blanket at me and I take it and drape it over him.
Okay, I think, walking around to the driver’s side of the car. Okay, now we hide. And wait.
“Are you strapped in, sweetie?” I say, glancing in the rear-view mirror.
“Yes!” Casey tugs at her belt, proving it to me.
“Good girl.”
“Where are we going?” she asks, as I reverse the car.
I grip the wheel, realizing I don’t know. We can’t go to my apartment. I may have a
masking spell on me, but surely there are Horde who are capable of working out where my apartment is. I can’t go to Mom and Dad’s old place. It’s under new ownership and, anyway, it’s too close to the town proper. I search my mind. Isaac, I think. Yes, Isaac’s old apartment, rundown and yet to be auctioned off. It’s close enough for me to get to, but far enough away that, maybe, the Horde won’t stumble upon us.
I’m about to drive when I remember the convenience store.
I climb out of the car.
“Where are you going?” Casey says, worry in her high-pitched voice.
“Auntie has to get some supplies.”
Who knows how long we’ll be there?
I run into the store, grab a rucksack, and take tins of food and bottles of water from the shelves. I fill the bag until it is heavy and return to the car. On my way out, I snatch a tin-opener.
“Are we going camping?” Casey says, as I put the car into gear.
“Something like that.”
We screech away.
Chapter Nineteen
Tooth
My dreams are scattered across all the ages of this world.
I am aware, dim and faraway, that somebody is pulling me. Into a car, out of a car, up a flight of stairs, through a door. The person is panting and their fingernails dig into my skin. But they’re full of love, too. Or something close to love. I sense it like the echo of an echo in the dream.
But then the dream takes hold of me with clawing talons and I am hurled into Victorian England.
I am a bodyguard for a noblewoman of great renown. I do not love this woman—I cannot love anybody until the Woman of Starlight is breathed into this side of the Other—but I care for her as one cares for a sister. Her husband beats her and I kill him, under shade of night, burying his body beneath the oak tree on the estate. An investigation is conducted and the Horde get wind that I am involved. A chancer comes, a warlock who wants to prove his worth. He kidnaps the lady of the house. I snap his neck and bury him beside the husband. I stay with the lady until she dies of typhus in the early eighteen-eighties. Then I am no longer Nathanial Smith, but Tooth once again. I leave, I roam . . .
My dream throws me back, back, back . . .
I am clad in a suit of glistening armor.
I fight the Black Death. And people think the Black Death is caused by rats! Ha! I know the truth and I set off on my journey to find the Dark Mage who sits atop his tower on the northernmost peak of Scotland, drinking Other-tinged wine and throwing out pestilence across the mountains. He is protected by Horde and now, in the dream, they charge at me. Zombies, mostly, but one or two vampires and even some witches. All of them gathering around the Dark Mage, known to them as the Second Coming, and desperate to keep the Black Death’s hold on the country strong. It takes me years to fight my way through them and even when the Dark Mage is dead and buried, the Death continues. A woman, a survivor, wants to marry me. But I decline. She is not the Woman of Starlight. To be with anybody else would make me a traitor, even if the Woman is not yet born, will not be born for almost one-thousand years.
Somewhere, faraway, a woman whispers: “We have to be quiet, sweetie.”
“Is he okay, Auntie?”
“Yes, he’s just resting. Getting better.”
Is it her? Excitement rushes through me. I try and rise from the dream. I’m knocked down by the hand of the all-father. You drunk of the Other! Now rest, foolish Tooth!
Where am I . . .
Who am I . . .
My lives flit across my mind like a bird’s shadowed wings, both real and unreal. I have been this man and that man, taken part in this and that adventure. Samurai, assassin, knight, wanderer, revolutionary, berserker, warlord, peacekeeper, protector, murderer . . . and on and on until I am not one man but many. But that is a lie. Because all through the frantic spinning of my lives, the Woman of Starlight has anchored me to one identity. Tooth. No matter who I became, no matter what adventures burn their consequences into my person, I am Tooth, and I am waiting for the Woman of Starlight.
“Will he wake up?” a girl asks, her voice soft and young, but threaded with strength. “He won’t die, will he?” The girl seems to care for me, but her voice is too far away, carried upon the breeze of time and dispersing too soon.
“He’ll be fine. He’s strong, sweetie. He’s very strong.”
It’s her! I claw at the fabric of the dream. It’s her. I need to get to her. I need to get her away from the Horde. But as I rise up through the mist of unconsciousness, the all-father batters me down. You are too weak!
I collapse to the earth.
Where am I?
A field in Iceland, lying at the center of a great battle. My hands are covered in blood and carmine tears slide down my forehead and into my eyes. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and roll onto my side and look across the battlefield. Wargs and wolves and bears and hybrids and vampires and eagles and witches and warlocks lay scattered like autumn leaves. My chest heaves. I am bathed in blood. But I am tired and I sleep. I don’t need sleep, not usually. Unless I touch the Other. But then it is not sleep. It is the all-father snatching me from this world until I am strong enough to reenter it. How long do I sink from this side of the Other? Two months, I think. Two months and then I wake in the same field, a farmer looking down at me.
Are you a man or a god? the all-father whispers. That is the great question of your life, isn’t it, Tooth?
“No,” I breathe, staring across the bloodied field. As I watch, a dream-flower breaks through the copper soil and spreads its petals. “There is only one thing which defines me, all-father, and it is the Woman of Starlight. Everything before her is playacting. None of it matters.”
You love her, the all-father sighs.
“Of course I do. How could I not? Her starlight speaks to me.”
I fear your love for her will bring you to ruin. Not today, not tomorrow, not in the next fifty or sixty years of this world, even. But one day, far from now, your love for her will be too great. It will cause you to do monstrous things.
I laugh darkly. “I will do anything for her. You should know that already.”
I do, the all-father says. And that is what I fear.
I try to stand, but when I look down my legs are naught but shredded flesh. I try to reach up, but my arms are the same, useless flaps of blood and gore.
I laugh again. “You are forcing me to rest.”
I am, the all-father replies. The Other waits for no man, not even you.
I roll over and my lives splash over me like waves, but I don’t feel them. I close my eyes and I see her face. Fire-haired, forest-eyed, a woman of nature, a woman of the universe, a Woman of Starlight, the woman who will make all of it worth it.
“He just said something in his sleep, Auntie,” the girl says. Her voice is excited. I wonder how long it’s been since she last spoke, but time is tough thing to judge when you’re walking the tightrope between worlds.
“What did he say?” the Woman of Starlight responds.
“He was talking really quiet like people do in their sleep and then he said something about a woman made of stars and how much he loves her. He says he loves her more than somebody called the all-father and he loves her more than all his lives and he loves her so much that he would die for her if he could. If he could because he said he couldn’t die, but he would for her.”
Chapter Twenty
Lila
Five days, trapped in Isaac’s apartment, with nothing to eat but the canned food I took from the store.
The apartment is a series of cells. The walls are bare of wallpaper and the floors are bare of carpet. There is no furniture, just long stretches of stone floor. Isaac got into some debt before he died, compounded by Mom and Dad’s debt which he was only just able to pay off, and the second he was proclaimed officially deceased the vultures were in here picking the place clean. They took everything and were on the verge of selling when a serious mold problem was discovered in t
he living room. Then they were meant to refurbish it and sell it on. But it’s just sat here, forgotten. A bare, empty, damp sigil of my dead brother.
Casey doesn’t recognize the apartment. She was three years old the last time she was here and it looked much different then. I just tell her we have to be quiet. The toilet doesn’t work properly but, remarkably, the plumbing is still connected to the taps. The water comes out grimy and black, but I fill a bucket and manual flush the toilet, so there’s that small—tiny, infinitesimal—victory. I wash Casey every evening with bottled water.
Tooth lies in Casey’s old bedroom on the floor. Casey and I sleep huddled in our coats on the opposite side of the room. We only venture out to go to the toilet. Otherwise, this becomes our world.
Five days, and they scream.
Night and day, the screaming goes on, sounding from the the town and seeping into the ruined apartment. The rest of the building is deserted. I think about moving us to one of the other apartments, but terror grips me when I think about moving Tooth. Ruined or not, a mess or not, this was Isaac’s home and there’s some small comfort in that.
The Horde scream, a thousand screams of a thousand horrors, and the survivors scream with them. The window in Casey’s bedroom is boarded up, but I cut a tiny hole in it with a nail-file and peek through it. Every so often, a beast lopes past, a lumbering werewolf or a growling bear, but they never glance at the apartment. The masking spell Tooth cast on me worked, then. And I’m guessing the smell of mold overpowers whatever smells we kick into the air.
I sit against the wall with my knees to my chin, my arms draped around Casey, reminding her every so often that we have to be extra quiet. And I watch Tooth. Wait for him to wake up. Casey sits beside him often, holding his hand and talking to him. “Mr. Tooth, you’ll get better soon.” “Don’t worry, Mr. Tooth, when I feel sick Auntie always tells me I’ll be right as rain before I know it.” “Wakey, wakey, Mr. Tooth!” Sometimes Tooth murmurs in his sleep. Sometimes he is dead-silent.
Tooth: An Alpha Like No Other (A Song of Starlight Book 1) Page 6
