His ears appeared to be steaming, but Death knew that it was smoke. Whatever made up Sammael sometimes combusted when he got very angry. But he couldn’t harm Death.
She supported Abel Korsakof’s corpse on her knee and reached up to push her silver hair back from her face.
“It is the law of the universe,” she said. “There’s no way I could bring him back—he touched some kind of storm fire. It burned his life away, protecting its owner. But he knew it would, and he still wanted to let it. I guess he knew that you’d try again to make him kill that boy and he didn’t want to. So he sacrificed himself rather than become a tool for killing innocent children.”
Death fixed her stare on Sammael. Not that it would make any difference at all whether she approved of him or not, but sometimes she had to let him know.
“We both know he was wrong, don’t we?” she went on, grimly. “We both know that you can’t make anybody kill, you can only suggest it and wait to see if they do. We both know that if you killed anyone, I wouldn’t take them anywhere.”
Sammael glared back at her and then smiled. It was a smile that curled the corners of his thin lips up into a tight arc and stopped just below his eyes.
“You forget,” he said, “that I’m a lot cleverer than you.”
“And you forget,” said Death, letting her eyes relax back to their usual red, “that I’m stubborn and consistent and I know what you’re up to.”
“But you don’t,” said Sammael. “For every way that I’ve ever tried to do anything, I’ve got at least a thousand more up my sleeve. I could list a million ways in which I’ve managed to cheat you over the ages.”
“You leave that boy alone,” said Death. “And you leave storms alone, whatever you’re trying to do with them. You’re playing with fire.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” said Sammael. “And with storm fire, actually. Except I’m not playing. I mean it. And soon those wretched, ungrateful humans will know how much I mean it.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out an acorn.
“Do you want to see what I can do with taros?” he asked.
Without waiting for an answer, he threw the acorn onto the floor, then cast a few grains of sand on top of it and clicked his fingers.
“Kalia,” he said. “Get out. A long way.”
The lurcher shot from the shed. Sammael gave her a few seconds, then raised his eyebrows to Death and looked up at the shed roof.
“‘Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough.…’” he said.
It wasn’t a single bolt of lightning, or even a few. A torrent of electricity spewed from the sky, pouring down in a blinding river. What had once been Abel Korsakof’s shed erupted into a castle of flames.
“Lightning?” said Death as they faced each other through the fire, which neither could feel. “Very impressive.”
“Ha!” said Sammael.
And the castle of Korsakof’s shed roared up into the tumbling lightning, seeming to feed on it like a bird swallowing a dangled worm. Blazing into a golden fireball, it gulped and spat and chewed, reaching out to the trees, to the little cottage, to the hedges, and to the sign that hung in the old oak, devouring them in a single bright flare. Within seconds, Puddleton Lane End had become a great black scar, and Storm Cottage a smoking skeleton.
Sammael shrugged and the fire stopped. Death was watching him closely, trying to work out what he’d done.
“Only an acorn,” said Sammael. “Plenty more where that came from.”
“It’s just fire,” said Death. “I’ve seen worse.”
Sammael smiled again. This time it reached his eyes, and even Death wanted to shiver.
“And another corpse for you in the cottage,” he said. “Old lady. And even if you say I killed her, you’ll find it a lot easier to take her away than to try and piece her back together. She was killed by storm fire, don’t you know.”
He turned on his heel and went to fetch Kalia. It was infuriating that the boy had gotten hold of that taro; storm fire couldn’t kill a creature protected by such a thing. But there were still plenty of other ways. He had a good idea for the next attempt, which would hopefully be the last one. And then he could get on with collecting more taros. Shame to have wasted one flattening a shed and a single old woman, but it had been worth it to see the surprise on Death’s smug face.
* * *
Sammael reached the farm in seconds, unlocked the door, and found his way upstairs. He crouched down by the woman’s bedside. Another ugly one. She had a wide, flat face and toffee-colored hair, and she looked like she’d spent her life in a cowshed too close to the back ends of the cattle.
He got a few grains of sand out of his pocket. He always kept a handful in there, but his supplies were getting low—it would soon be time to go back to his room and get some more. Dropping the sand onto the woman’s face, he watched it dissolve into her skin.
“There are logs in the bed,” he said. “Logs in the yellow bedroom bed. Logs that need chopping in two. And when you’ve spent a lifetime chopping logs, you know exactly how to do it, don’t you? You could pretty much do it in your sleep.”
He stood back and watched her rise. Her eyes were open but sightless. She walked as calmly as if she’d been awake, knowing exactly how many steps to take to reach the doorway. Then she headed off down the stairs.
Down the stairs and toward the barn, where the axes were kept.
CHAPTER 8
MIDNIGHT
Death was dancing with Abel Korsakof, her tears falling freely to the ground in great streams. They formed puddles so deep that the dancers were soon splashing, except, whereas Death seemed to dance with greater relish as she kicked up spray, Abel Korsakof was dragging his feet, weak against the depth of water.
Soon Death was holding Abel’s body entirely in her arms, holding him upright to stop him from sinking. But the old man was a deadweight. His legs splayed out, catching on the waves and causing Death to trip. She gathered him up under the knees and cradled him. His head lolled back, and his arms swung out into the high-flung water as if reaching for something so tiny that the only hope he had of catching it was to sweep through every inch of air. But whatever it was, he wasn’t finding it—all the swinging and swiping was only pushing Death further off balance, causing her to stagger hopelessly about in her lake of tears.
* * *
And then Death dropped Abel Korsakof. With a great splash he fell into the pool, and Danny woke up, sure that the sound in his ears must be more than part of a dream, waiting for his brain to clear and reassure him that it wasn’t.
Clarity came but brought with it a terrible silence that crawled across every inch of his skin until it had prickled into a carpet of goose bumps.
There was something in his room, he was sure of it.
His own breath, normally so silent, began to catch at the hairs in his nostrils and whistle softly like the wind down a chimney. The more he listened to it, the louder it became, so that he was sure he wouldn’t hear any tiny sounds of danger unless he held his breath.
After he’d stopped breathing, the pounding of his heart filled his ears, blood rushing round his eardrums in a pulsing rhythm. It set off a high-pitched, electronic whine that made him clench his fists under the duvet and screw his eyes shut, trying to will the sound away.
When he opened them again, the room seemed even blacker.
He saw a silver glint in a shaft of moonlight, and some vital instinct possessed his body for just long enough to make him throw himself to one side as it flickered. There was a whisper, a rush, a silent swing, and the shrieking, screaming, spine-piercing howl of every nerve under Danny’s skin as for an endless moment everything in the room flashed myriads of color and the air turned to molten gold.
The axe thudded into the mattress beside him, pinning down the yellow covers under which he lay.
* * *
Danny couldn’t move. For a second he feared that he, too, had been pinioned to the mattre
ss, but through the darkness he saw that the lumpy shape of the axe head was next to his shoulder. Cold air was emanating from the metal. He wasn’t bleeding, nothing hurt. But his heart was beating as though it were the size of a bucket.
The bedroom door swung shut. And something hung in the air: a trace of flowery scent. A scent so impossible that Danny knew he must be imagining it: there was no way his aunt would ever have played such a trick on him. His eyes must be inventing that whisk of white nightgown disappearing into the shadows.
Slowly he pulled himself away from the axe, inch by inch, until he had crept so far over the edge of the bed that there wasn’t enough of him left on it to balance and he fell onto the floor.
From whichever place he looked at it, the axe was still there.
With an enormous effort he overcame the paralysis in his limbs and posted them, one by one, underneath his body. For a moment it seemed the safest way to be, curled up as tight as a hedgehog, but without an armor of spines on his own back he knew it wouldn’t be safe for long. He scrambled to his feet.
The axe had not moved.
Danny switched on the light. The axe was Aunt Kathleen’s wood-cutting axe, the two-handed monstrosity that Danny couldn’t even lift. He had watched Jake, the hired hand with muscles like bricks, felling a tree with it the summer before. It was an old warrior, and it had fallen blade-down right where Danny’s chest should have been.
He must have bitten his tongue in the fall: the sharp lemon taste of blood filled his mouth. His legs still wouldn’t hold him—either he must move now or he would fall like Abel Korsakof onto the hard, cold floor and Death would gather him up in her arms.
Danny’s hands scrabbled frantically over the door until he found the handle and yanked it open. He ran into the passage outside and stood for another few seconds in the moonlight. The air seemed five degrees warmer than it had been in his room; it was a living air, a breathing air, soft and gentle. And he thought, The air in my room was cold. It was full of … of … full of …
But the only word he could think of to describe the difference was a single name that stayed mute on his lips and threatened him with terror if he dared speak it out loud.
* * *
“Danny?” Tom took his binoculars away from his eyes, seeing Danny come out of his room. Danny leapt, as startled as a rabbit at the sound of a gunshot. “Were you having a nightmare?”
“What?” Danny’s eyes didn’t seem quite focused.
“I just saw Mum coming out of your room. Were you having a nightmare?”
Danny didn’t answer. Standing in a shaft of moonlight wearing Tom’s old pajamas, he looked very small and thin.
“There’s badgers in the yard,” said Tom. “A whole family. Come and have a look.”
He held out his binoculars. Danny was staring at the blank wall, his palms pressed against the plaster behind him. Even through the half light, Tom could see that he was shivering.
“Hey, Dan.” Tom took a few steps toward him, and Danny flinched, then swallowed. “Danny, you okay?”
Danny shook his head rapidly. “Look,” he whispered. “In there.” He pointed back toward the doorway of the yellow bedroom.
Tom put his head around the door. There was enough moonlight that he didn’t have to switch the light on to see the axe; it sat embedded in the duvet, bathed in patches of silver and shadow.
He withdrew his head and took a closer look at Danny. He hadn’t thought his small cousin could even lift that axe, never mind carry it upstairs.
“What did you bring that inside for?” he asked.
Danny’s knees, exhausted from all the shivering, gave way again. He slid down the plastered wall and seemed to sigh with relief when he no longer had to worry about controlling his limbs. They were apparently not quite trustworthy.
“I have to go,” Danny mumbled. “It’s not safe here. They’re watching.… I don’t know where to go, though.… They’re everywhere.…”
“Who’s everywhere? What are you talking about?”
“Everything’s everywhere. I don’t know what wants to kill me and what doesn’t. Maybe my parents are already dead.…”
“Dead? I thought you said they went away.… They can’t be dead. What on earth are you talking about, Danny? Danny?” Tom crouched down, binoculars still hanging from his hand.
Danny looked as though he were slipping into a trance. “And now he’s trying to kill me.… I dreamed about Death and Abel Korsakof, and they were drowning in this massive lake.…” His eyes rolled up into his head.
Tom, who had seen plenty of death on the farm but never much shock, had no idea what was happening. Danny’s body began to knock against the floor as it shuddered.
“Danny! Danny!” Tom reached out to shake him by the shoulders. “Come on, wake up! It’s just a bad dream, that’s all! Tell me about it! Come on, Danny. Danny! I won’t be cross if you’re having me on. ’Cos you don’t look like you are … but you’re scaring me, Danny. Come on, stop it. Wake up!”
Danny’s eyes rolled back down, and he stared at Tom as though he were staring into the mouth of hell.
“He’s trying to kill me, Tom. He knows where I am. I can’t go back in there.”
“Okay,” said Tom, relieved back to his old sturdy self by the refocusing of Danny’s eyes. There would be time for explanations in the morning. “You can sleep in my room, if you like.”
“No, no! You don’t understand! I’ve got to leave! To go somewhere else! Oh, but there’ll be nowhere, not by now. Why wasn’t I careful? It told me to be careful. The most important thing, it said…”
Seeing Danny’s eyes rolling skyward again, Tom straightened up and yanked him onto his feet. There was only one way he knew to calm anybody down, and that was to go outside, to feel the living world around your body, the sharp sky above and the solid earth below. Half pulling, half carrying his cousin down the stairs, Tom unlatched the back door and dragged him out into the night.
At once Danny seemed to revive. He looked around at the house, the hulked shapes of the farmyard buildings, the stars that simmered in the heavens.
“Feeling better?” asked Tom, sitting him down on an upturned bucket.
Danny nodded.
“Good. Now explain.”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you about,” said Danny.
“Well, yeah,” said Tom. “I get that. What’s going on?”
“The old man I went to see … he … he…” Danny swallowed hard. “He died. Don’t ask me how. But he gave me a map. It might help me find my parents, but I can’t understand it. I’m not good at maps and stuff.”
“Okay, let me have a look,” said Tom.
“It’s … back in the bedroom.”
Tom looked at him. “I’ll get it,” he said. “As long as you tell me everything. And I mean everything. Wait here.”
Tom disappeared through the door. Now that Danny was fully conscious and calming down again, he knew that he needed the stick back. He needed more eyes, and the stick could give them to him. It was the only weapon he had against an enemy he couldn’t even picture.
And he wanted Mitz. She’d have kept him warm while he was sitting in the yard in his pajamas, waiting for Tom. She’d have kept away the shadows that lurked around the barns and outbuildings. Not that he was frightened of shadows. But still.
Tom came back with Danny’s school trousers and sweater.
“You’ll feel better when you’re warm,” he said. “Put ’em on.”
Tom was right. Warmth did amazing things to you. The moment Danny pulled them on over his pajamas, he felt braver somehow. Maybe this was what knights felt like when they put armor on: like they had a shield against the world. Except that they actually did. And he didn’t.
He showed Tom the map. Tom had picked up a small flashlight, which didn’t give off much more light than the moon, but they could see the scrawled lines clearly enough.
The “map” consisted of a wobbly blob with the words “G
reat Butford woods” scribbled inside it. Over the writing Abel Korsakof had also drawn a number of lines across the blob and a small square with an X in it. Danny had no idea what the lines were supposed to represent, except clearly the X must mark the spot where the Book of Storms was.
“So, this is Great Butford woods,” said Tom. “Yeah, it’s about that shape—I’ve been there before. And these are the paths that run through it. I remember this one that starts at the southeast corner; it’s the way you go into the woods from the path behind the village green. It comes out at the top of Sentry Hill. There.” He ran his finger over one of the lines and stopped at the top of the paper. “But what’s the square with the X? Is that where you think your folks are?”
Of course Tom understood the map. Danny had never been out for a walk with Tom where Tom didn’t know every inch of the paths and hillsides. He would have been a proper wild man of the woods if he’d had a long tangly beard and not been so keen on hanging out with the Young Farmers.
“He said it was a ‘blind,’” said Danny. “I guess he meant a bird blind.”
“Or a badger blind.” Tom grinned. “Well, that’s fine, we can get there easy. I’ll ask Mum to take us when you’re back from school tomorrow. I’m supposed to be studying, but my next exam isn’t till Friday, so she won’t mind.”
At the mention of Aunt Kathleen, Danny’s shoulders froze into his spine. He couldn’t see her again. She had tried to kill him.
“No…” he whispered. “She mustn’t know.…”
“Of course she’ll have to know,” said Tom. “If your parents aren’t here, she’s supposed to look after you.”
Danny could only shake his head, hoping it might somehow convey his desperation. He needed to find out exactly what was going on. He needed the stick. Aunt Katheen wasn’t on his side—that much was clear.
“Have you ever heard,” he asked Tom, “of someone called Sammael?”
“No,” said Tom, looking at him curiously. “How about you start from the beginning?”
* * *
So Danny did. And Tom didn’t believe a word of it. Oh, he believed that something had happened to make Danny’s parents temporarily uncontactable, and he believed that Danny had managed to find his way to Abel Korsakof’s house. But the rest—the storm, the stick, the cat, the Book of Storms—Tom listened to it all with a small smile that indicated he knew full well that Danny was making the whole thing up. Even the bit about Mitz didn’t get him any closer to wanting to believe it. Danny would have thought that talking animals were just the kind of thing that Tom would be interested in. He was mad about animals, always looking out for badgers or talking to his cows, scratching their backs and calling them “Old Lady.”
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