by Jane Godman
“Process of deduction,” Gethin explained. “Once Lilly described the man she had seen at Meyer’s funeral and again in the village, everything fell into place. Well, almost everything.”
I glanced down at Ceri to see how she was reacting to this stark reintroduction to her father. Like Gethin, she did not seem outwardly surprised. Her face was as pale as an early snowdrop, and her hand clung more tightly to mine. Because she didn’t say them out loud, I was the only person to hear her words.
“The Hunter.”
I knew at once that she was right. A wave of shame at my earlier certainty about Gethin washed over me. Bryn Taran was indeed the evil presence who pursued us during our nightmare hours. The realisation that I finally knew his identity did not make me feel any better. The Hunter had caught up with and cornered us at last.
“You’ve been keeping yourself busy since we last met, Bryn,” Gethin remarked, still in that light, conversational tone.
“Oh, you know how it is,” Bryn responded chattily, following Gethin’s lead. “One does one’s poor best. Of course we can’t all be obscenely wealthy captains of industry like yourself. Some of us have to earn our crust.”
“Is that what this was all about? Money?” Gethin allowed a note of disgust to creep into his voice. “You could have come to me. It’s not like it would have been the first time.”
Bryn’s eyes darkened like hell’s pathway. I was having a hard time focusing on their poisoned depths. “I expect it would comfort you to believe that money was my motive. Being the good brother—the rich, successful one—you can have no idea how much I hated coming to you, cap in hand, to ask for help. No, my motive was far purer. This is about the glory of my master!”
Gethin smiled, but there was no warmth in his expression. “But how galling it must be for you to be unable to join your new master and take your accolades. Because you can’t do that, can you, Bryn? Until this damning letter has been found you can’t go to Hitler and declare your allegiance. Even the elite within the Reich must have baulked at the prospect of that sort of publicity just as they are trying to woo the British public! Slaughter Jews, homosexuals and gypsies and our government will continue to affirm it’s none of our business, but sacrifice a few chickens, slit the throat of the odd goat or two, in the name of Satan, and the tide of public opinion may well turn. Crowley found the whole situation hugely entertaining when I met him this morning. He confirmed what I already suspected. That you were alive and well and back in this country. And, once you returned, you couldn’t stay away from Taran House or resist the chance to pay your respects to Satan, your old master.”
“You were always too plebeian, brother dear, to appreciate the true potential of the house.” Bryn turned away and directed a piercing look at me. “And how nice to finally meet the divine Lilly.” The words were scrupulously polite and admiring, but something in them made my flesh crawl. Physically, his likeness to Gethin unnerved me. Because I knew him through my dream, the blackness of his soul shone through the skin-deep similarities.
“We’ve already met. Many times.”
“Of course, we have. We know each other so well already.” The Hunter leered at me, and I felt my knees tremble. “And if it wasn’t for your irksome Romany bodyguard, we could have got to know each other even better.” It was a reference to the night I’d ventured into the clock tower—into his lair—and sensed his presence behind me. I shuddered to think what might have happened if Vidor had not followed me. “And you are even more delectably seductive close up. No wonder Gethin here has been going around with that idiotic, drooling grin on his face. But, Miss Divine, I warned you to get out of my house, and you didn’t heed my words.”
“I don’t understand why you wanted me to leave before you found the letter.” I challenged him. “If, as you believed, I did have it, surely I would have taken it with me when I left Taran House?”
“I warned you to leave because you were starting to get on my nerves. I wanted you out of my house because you were changing it, sanitising its soul, taking away its true personality.” His eyes still scanned my face. “Middle-class values. I hoped someone with your physical attributes might have been endowed with a little more imagination. I would love to show you that there are other values to be enjoyed.”
“I have been trying to make Taran House into a family home for your daughter,” I told him angrily. I wished Ceri did not have to see or hear any of this, but she was remarkably composed.
“Ah, yes.” His eyes flickered over Ceri with mild interest. “It transpires, however, that I don’t have a daughter, after all. Just a minor matter that Christina omitted to mention to either of us, brother dear. You look shocked, which leads me to believe that Christina was telling the truth—not one of her favourite pastimes—when she assured me that was the case. She had already burned all her bridges with you, Gethin, and entered wholeheartedly into a liaison with me when she found out she was expecting. So deciding that one twin was as good as another…” An unholy smile flickered across his face. “Which was simply not true of us, was it? She threw herself into the whole pregnant-on-the-wedding-night-baby-born-early thing. Christina should have been on the stage. But I bear you no grudges. Indeed, let me be the first to offer my congratulations, my dear Gethin. So sad that you will have no time to get to know your daughter in this life.”
“When did Christina tell you this?” Gethin asked.
“Oh, a few months ago. I expect I might have got round to mentioning it to you sooner or later. It has hardly been the most pressing matter on my mind recently, you understand.”
“But Christina rang me the day of the crash, and she was afraid of something.” Gethin’s lips were tight and pale with pain.
“She never could mind her own business,” Bryn said tersely. “She heard rumours and kept prying and poking around until she uncovered the story of the letter. All the silly bitch cared about was maintaining her position as a diplomat’s wife! Once she knew it all, of course, she had to go. I couldn’t trust her to keep that yapping mouth of hers closed.” His expression was mildly annoyed. “It was just a question of how. And then she announced her intention of flying back here, running to the waiting arms of her first love. The poor sap who was her latest lover got more than he bargained for when he offered to drive her to the airport, I can tell you. At least he’s got himself a nice resting place on a pretty Welsh hillside with Miss Divine here putting flowers on his grave.”
“And I suppose you, having faked your death so successfully, have a new identity lined up in the Fatherland once you have located the letter?” Gethin asked.
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Whether I take that up, or whether it turns out I have been wandering the continent in a state of amnesia these last few months, rather depends on the outcome of this enchanting encounter. I may just regain my faculties and return—the grieving widower—to my valley home.” He turned those pain-darkened eyes back to me. “Which is why I need that letter, Miss Divine.”
“I’ve already told him.” I gestured to Fischer, who stood to one side, listening to the exchange with a detached air. “I don’t have it.”
“Then, since I am fairly sure it is in the building somewhere, Taran House must burn again.” He ignored my gasp of horror. “Come now, Miss Divine, this foolish sentiment over bricks and mortar does you no credit! It is not the house that matters, it is the location.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You are wrong. Taran House has reclaimed the land on which it stands and stamped its own memories on this valley.” I sounded like Reverend Lewis, and I was proud of the fact.
“How dreadfully poetic,” he drawled in a voice of extreme boredom. “Nevertheless, consider this to be in the nature of an ultimatum. Hand over the letter, or this place of hauntings and sorrows that you seem to love so much will be no more.”
I turned to look at Gethin, beseeching him to believe me. A slight
softening of the expression around his eyes told me that he did. The fog, creeping in on silent haunches, was waist high now. Its eerie, milky sheen illuminated our faces with an opaque glow. Rising from its swirling depths, a sour, deathly perfume stung my nostrils. I sensed that Ceri could feel it, but Fischer appeared not to notice. I knew that Bryn Taran, the Hunter, must be aware of it too. I wasn’t sure about Gethin. The realisation that he shared some of our psychic bond was too new and sudden.
“What do you propose to do now, mein Herr?” Bryn turned away from me to Fischer.
“Shoot them,” Fischer replied without emotion.
“German efficiency.” Bryn cocked an indulgent eyebrow toward Gethin and said, in a soft undertone, “You can’t beat it, brother dear. If you weren’t about to die, I’d advise you to go back and tell your government colleagues not to bother trying. Of course, Fischer here thinks I don’t know that he also has orders to shoot me once the letter has been found. So dreadfully predictable, these Teutonic types.” Turning back to Fischer, he said, “I have another, rather more creative, solution, old chap. One which won’t leave any messy loose ends such as bodies with bullets in them lying around on the mountainside.”
He raised his head, the veins standing proud in the taut skin of his neck. The expression on his face revealed he was caught in a no-man’s-land between pain and ecstasy. I understood his intention and a cold hand of dread seized me.
“You are evil,” I cried out despairingly.
“You say it like it’s a bad thing.” He shook his head sadly at me and then turned back in mute supplication to the skies. But there was nothing heavenly about his stance or his motive.
I wondered if we could stop him from calling forth the lights and the visions within them, but Ceri knew differently.
“They are already here,” she said in my mind, and Gethin stared down at her in surprise. Ceri raised a hand into the swirling, glowing vapours. “I can feel them.”
“You can’t control them,” I warned Bryn.
His expression was loathsome and gloating. “Perhaps I don’t want to. I belong to them. Or do they own me? It’s the same thing. There is a certain glorious symmetry about ending it this way.”
As he spoke, within the shroud of mist mysterious lights danced and flew. Gradually, the indistinct shapes became ghostly forms. Incandescent wraiths wailed and wrung despairing hands, proud knights held bloodied swords aloft and nameless unearthly creatures hissed to us their tales of living death. Despite all of this, my fears were calmed by something deep within the swirling phosphorescence. One of the figures, still hazy, seemed almost familiar to me. A lump rose to my throat, preventing me from calling out to him. Could it be? Had Ricky come to my aid exactly when I needed him most?
Ceri’s voice distracted me. She spoke out loud, instead of in my mind. “I can see my mother.” Her hand gripped mine tightly.
I knew in that instant I was not mistaken about Ricky. Somehow he and Christina knew we were in danger, and they had come to us. They were part of this parade of lost souls who had been summoned onto the hillside this night. Whether they could assist us or not remained to be seen. Would the forces of evil within that incandescent fog prevail over those of good? I had a feeling we would soon find out.
One group of shapes, larger and clearer than the rest, formed into a gliding, snarling pack of hellhounds and began to advance. Their eyes glowed with hell’s own fire, and they shivered with hunger and despair. I held Ceri close on one side and Gethin leaned heavily against me on the other. We clung together in terror.
Another dog mounted the ridge and ran toward us. This one was huge and black as midnight. It immediately took up a protective stance in front of us. But this warm, solid shape was no phantom. Gratefully, I placed my hand on the soft fur of Shucky’s head.
“I told you he would come.” Ceri’s voice whispered within the inner reaches of my mind.
The onslaught continued. Shrieking mad curses at the skies, the deathly figures whirled and played while the bloodthirsty hounds edged ever closer. One of the pack broke the formation and darted toward us, but Shucky stood firm and true, hackles rising proudly, a low warning growl vibrating through him. The creature slunk away and turned instead toward Fischer and Bryn Taran. Spitting hatred, the others followed its lead. Fischer began to back nervously away, heading for the mountain path.
“Stand your ground, you fool!” Bryn yelled above the brutal baying. “If they scent fear, you are lost.”
The words were ripped from him and flung aside in the fury. Fischer, blind panic stamped across his features, broke into a run. The hell-curs, driven to a point beyond frenzy, flew at him. I turned Ceri’s face into my side so that she could not see, but nothing could protect her from the sounds of the dogs ripping the flesh from Fischer’s screaming body. When they had finished with him, his lifeless form was enfolded into the cold embrace of the lights. Far from slaking their hunger, the pack was maddened by its shared bloodlust.
Bryn Taran sank to his knees, raising his hands in entreaty. His face betrayed his supreme arrogance, his belief that his unearthly master would protect him. But he had not revered the huntsmen. By attempting to use the hunt for his own evil purposes, he had not honoured the souls of the dead. Too late, he realised what we already knew. Their retribution would be awful. And final. He covered his face with his hands. It was not a prayer he muttered as they descended upon him; the invocation he offered up to Satan was no protection. This assault was quicker. The dogs had rehearsed on Fischer and their skills were finely honed now. Bryn Taran did not last long once the pack leader had sunk its teeth into his throat. The savage throng left the bloody pulp of his undead body and returned to us, circling hungrily, teeth bared to show their dripping, crimson fangs. Shucky drew himself up to his full height, and Gethin tried to push Ceri and me into the cottage. I shook my head; the noise was too great for words. The cottage walls would not protect us. Our only hope lay not in physical strength or stone barriers, but in the psychic power we shared.
“They will retreat if we show them our respect,” I told Ceri quietly, without words.
“Lilly…” Gethin’s voice forestalled me and I realized he too had shared in our psychic communication.
“It’s the only way.”
Hands clasped, Ceri and I stepped forward and faced the dogs. Shucky stayed a pace or two in front of us, his deep growl rumbling through the ground. And, just as we had done when we summoned the lights, we began to think them back to whence they came. A howl of protest rent the night sky as the pagan shades within the mist sensed our intention.
Two of the dogs dived at us, and I felt, rather than saw, Gethin move to get between them and us. Shucky was there before him. He hurled himself upon the maddened creatures and a wild death fight ensued. The lights began to flicker and fade. Shrieks became moans and then whispers. I saw Ricky, or what I believed was Ricky, raise his hand in a final farewell.
The lord of the hunt gave his command, and the thunderous hounds retreated back into their phosphorescent mist. Bryn Taran, a look of confusion on his ravaged features, rose and joined the throng of undead followers. A welcome cloak of silence and darkness fell.
Poor Shucky’s lifeless body was flung carelessly down in brutal agony at our feet. The hellhounds had exacted an absolute, ghastly retribution.
“The legend was right,” I said tearfully, stooping to stroke his silky ears. “One of us did not survive the night.”
“Don’t cry, Lilly.” Ceri knelt and pressed a kiss to Shucky’s head. “He has done what he came here to do. He protected us when we needed him. Now he’ll go and help someone else.”
Our attention was drawn away from our devoted friend as Gethin staggered and then pitched forward onto his knees. I hurried over to him, relieved to find that my makeshift dressings were still in place and the bleeding seemed to have stopped. How on earth was I to get him down i
nto the valley and to safety? His eyelids fluttered weakly, as I pondered this question, and with an effort, I managed to support him back into the cottage. He was shivering uncontrollably now. I slid my own jacket off and draped it around his shoulders, but it made no difference. He was close to losing consciousness when Ceri called out that she could see lights at the edge of the ridge.
“What now?” I muttered crossly. “I suppose Herr Hitler himself is here to demand that blasted letter from me.”
My words penetrated the blanket of Gethin’s pain and a trace of his old smile flickered. Heartened, I went to the door. I never expected to be quite so happy to see Vidor’s cavernous features, which were grimly accentuated by the light of the torch he carried. He was followed by two Romany youths.
“Anika, she see the bad lights and say we must find you,” one of them said. “She much worry.”
I didn’t care whether he liked it or not. With a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh, I hurried over to Vidor and gave him a quick, self-conscious hug. He looked down at me from his superior height, his face expressionless. Perhaps the evening’s events had made me over-emotional, but I got the impression he wasn’t displeased. One thing that my time in the valley had taught me was that friendship and heroes come in unlikely packages.
I supervised as, between them, Vidor and his companions lifted Gethin and began to carry him carefully down the slope. I hesitated, not quite ready to follow them. I couldn’t leave Shucky alone up here. But, when I turned to where he had fallen, the gallant dog’s body had vanished.
Chapter Sixteen
Gethin’s eyes were closed and I thought he was asleep. He wasn’t. “I’m not going to hospital,” he informed the doctor.
“Knives are dangerous things,” the doctor said sternly, as though he might have stabbed himself as a bit of a lark.
“There are other even more dangerous things in this house,” Gethin replied, opening one eye and looking directly at me.
