‘Ucch,’ I rasped.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Just look.’
I rolled my head to the right, as far as his grip allowed. It must have been tighter than it felt, because my vision was distorted, obscuring my view of the castle. The air seemed torn, like I was seeing double, and I started to panic.
‘Don’t kill me,’ I squeaked.
‘Don’t be such an idiot.’ He rolled off me and stood up, dusting himself down.
Staggering up, rubbing my throat, I backed away from him. ‘I’m going now. Don’t follow me.’
He smiled. ‘Where you gonnae go?’
My breath hurt high up in my throat. I swallowed and made myself breathe more deeply; then, trying to keep one eye on him, I turned a full, slow circle. I wasn’t seeing double any more, but I wasn’t seeing anything familiar either.
I’d been right. The castle looked a lot better as a forbidding ruin, and I wondered who could have imagined interactive keyboards and overspill car parking in this context. The chain link fencing was gone, and so were the signs. The loch at my feet was a black menacing stillness. I could have been in another place entirely. The illusion was perfect.
‘How did you do that?’ I whispered.
Rory chewed his lip. ‘I’m not supposed to, of course. But what’s the point of being able to do something if you never get to do it?’
I was sure we’d done that one in Ethics, and I believe the moral dodginess of stage hypnosis had actually come up. Sadly I couldn’t remember the upshot of the discussion, since I’d bunked off the second period for a fag.
He grinned. ‘I knew I was going to get on with you.’
I gave him a sidelong suspicious look and sat down heavily on the nearest rock. I decided I wouldn’t indulge him by asking.
‘Impressed?’ he prodded. ‘Bet you don’t know anybody else who can tear the Veil. What’s your name, Red?’
‘Hannah Falconer,’ I snapped. ‘Call me Red again and I’ll rip out your throat. Now. Shut up and let me think.’ I thought for all of two seconds. ‘Click your fingers.’
‘What?’
‘I have to get home. Click your fingers. Isn’t that how it works?’
‘No. How what works?’
‘Hypnosis.’
‘It’s not hyp – it’s not that.’ He blinked. ‘Don’t be mad.’
‘Don’t piss me about or I’ll tear your pretty head off.’ I thought hard and wished I had a cigarette. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the shimmer in the air, and the fleeting glimpses of car park beyond it. I moved my head. The car park disappeared. And reappeared.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d be okay with this. And I do know the safe places.’
I moved my head again, and shifted my mind sideways while I was at it. I wondered what had been in that beer. ‘The safe. Places. There are places that aren’t?’
‘Well. There’s a war on, after all.’
My eyes darted to the derelict castle, the deserted moor, the louring sky and the black forbidding loch. Rory and I might be the only human beings in a hundred miles, except for the sliver of car park that was starting to blur and fade. As I watched, it vanished altogether, and that was when I remembered the curtain that never was, the curtain he’d drawn back and shuffled behind. The one I’d explained to the enraged Sionnach when he returned looking for Rory; Sionnach, who had called me inventive names but who had never once accused me of lying. Who had, with what I had considered outrageous gullibility, believed every word I told him.
I felt sick. Invisible curtains, homicidal horses, a landscape from a hundred years ago. The beer had finally got to me; either that, or this was for real.
Yet when I tried to be surprised I found I couldn’t; it was like I’d always known about this, somewhere in the back of my mind, and I’d just forgotten.
‘So,’ said Rory, and blew his hair out of his eyes. ‘Want to come home with me?’
The only reason I went with him – or rather, after him, since he strode off as if I had no choice, which of course I didn’t, since I had no idea how to get back to The Paddocks – was pity.
‘What’s your dad going to do?’ I asked him as we stumbled down a heathery slope. Well, I stumbled.
‘Nothing. He’ll probably leave it to my brother.’
‘What, he’ll get your brother to leather your arse?’
‘Nah, that would be preferable. I’ll get an earful. All my mother’s sacrifices, how disappointed he is in me, that sort of thing. And Dad getting shot saving my backside, that’s his favourite bit.’
‘Well, I don’t think it’s… what?’ I don’t think I’d ever done a proper double take before.
‘Unless Dad’s really mad about the horse. Which he will be. Sorry about that, by the way.’
I shrugged. ‘It was only a horse.’
‘It’s my father’s horse. Nearly killed you. I really am sorry.’
‘God. Sometimes I think a father would be just too complicated.’
‘Well, yours can’t have been that complicated if he just buggered off.’
I stopped dead. ‘What?’
He turned, a flush creeping across his cheekbones. ‘Sorry.’
It all made instant, blinding, nauseating sense. ‘Did Lauren put you up to this? Did she?’ I clenched fists and teeth.
‘No!’ He squinted hard, eyes boring into mine. ‘I – is she your cousin?’
‘You little shit.’ I flew at him, and he caught my wrists just before they tore into his face. He danced backwards, ducking my headbutt.
‘I don’t know Lauren!’ he yelled, wrestling me to the ground. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
I was flat on my back again, humiliated and in pain, a heather root digging into my kidneys. Rory knelt on my chest, pinning my arms above my head. I was going to kill him. Kill him.
‘Don’t. Do that.’ He was out of breath. ‘’S my father’s job.’
‘What?’
‘Killing me.’ He hissed a breath through his teeth. ‘Shit, you’re strong. Your back, it’s sore. I’m sorry. I’ll let you get up if you don’t kill me.’
Even as he said it, a fierce twinge went through my body from that sharp hard root. I flinched and twisted.
‘Stop wriggling, you’re hurting yourself. Ow.’
The root stopped hurting just as he cried out.
I froze. A tide of panic was rising in my throat and I thought I might vomit. I wasn’t myself any more. I mean I literally wasn’t. I could feel my fingers clamped round my wrists, and my ribcage pinned beneath my knee, except that it wasn’t my knee, and it wasn’t my ribcage or my fingers or my wrists, and just then the root dug into my back again but it was only half as sore–
I screamed.
His weight was off me and he scrabbled backwards, his face a vision of guilt.
‘What is it? I’m sorry. What?’
I could hardly breathe. ‘My head. You’re in my head.’
He didn’t argue, didn’t deny it, didn’t even laugh. He just got unsteadily to his feet, ran his hands through his unruly hair and shrugged.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you–’
‘What?’
‘I thought you wouldn’t mind.’
The breath felt as if it would never entirely return to my lungs. At last I barked, ‘That’s NOT EXACTLY THE POINT.’
He swore miserably. ‘Oh shit. Oh shit, you can’t do it, can you? I’m sorry.’
‘Stop saying you’re sorry. Sit down. Let me think. If I can do that in private?’ I glared at him. ‘Sit down and shut up.’
He did, very sharply. He tugged at a handful of rough grass and ripped it loose.
‘So how did you…’ I felt like slapping him, but I was afraid to now. ‘How…’
‘I dunno.’ Rory dug a stone out of the peat and tossed it into the loch. ‘How do you breathe?’
‘I breathe because I’m supposed to. Because it’s natural.’
He gave me an odd l
ook. ‘But so’s – oh, never mind.’
‘Don’t do it again. Just don’t.’
‘You sound like my brother. You’ll like him.’
‘I doubt that. I don’t think I’ll be meeting him. Take me home. Take me home right now.’
‘Aw, don’t be like that. I’ll–’
I never got to find out what he’d do. Something slammed into the ground between us and stuck there quivering, singing faintly with its own vibration, the late light shimmering off satiny steel. Rory leaped to his feet with a yell, and I fell backwards into a peat pool.
I didn’t want to open my eyes but I was too terrified not to. I creased them open a slit. Against the bright sky I saw the belly of a horse; there was a silver sword-tip at my own stomach, all ready to open it up. Rory’s anxious eyes pleaded as he reached for me, and was prodded away by the blade.
‘Sionnach, you’ve hurt her. Let me–’
‘Nice try. As if I’d take my eyes off you again.’
‘Sionn–’
‘Pick her up. This time, you little arse, you’re going straight to your father.’
As it happened, Sionnach hadn’t hurt me, though I thought for about twenty seconds I was going to die of fright. I was shaking when Rory was finally allowed to pull me to my feet and out from under the horse, and I was sodden and mud-stained, and as the wind rose and bit through my thin wet clothes, I hated Rory more than I hated anyone in the world, even Sionnach. Even Marty.
And that lasted as long as it took him to say, ‘Sionnach, let her ride, at least.’
The man with the scarred face glanced down at me with disdain, but he reached down a hand. I ignored it, so he grabbed my arm and yanked me off my feet. I felt the world turn over, and then I was dumped, straddled, in front of him on his horse, so hard it brought brief tears to my eyes.
‘Feck,’ I exclaimed through gritted teeth. ‘Don’t take it out on me.’
The man said nothing, and even Rory, walking at the horse’s side, could only shoot me a dumb glance of sympathy.
I didn’t like having Sionnach at my back, and a sword at his. He might think he could thump Rory with impunity, but he needn’t try it on with me. I hated his unsmiling face and his surly silence; I hated him. I was furious with Rory for getting me into this in the first place; and I did not want to go wherever it was we were going. Over and over I wished myself back at The Paddocks, with nothing to fear but Groper Marty’s fingers and Sheena’s tongue.
Funny that despite the cold and the wet and the terror, I wasn’t persuading myself.
‘Hannah,’ muttered Rory, tugging at my leg. ‘There, look.’
I tore my gaze from the horse’s mane and made myself look in the direction of his nod. I sucked in a breath of surprise. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this compact walled town. It rambled over a craggy headland as if it had grown there all by itself, the stone walls following every swell and dip of the land. Silver bays glittered to the north and south, and the western walls rose from a cliff that fell sheer to the sea below. It was hard to tell where the building ended and the land began.
Below the landward side ragged sheep and stocky black cattle cropped the grass under a summer sun, but a good part of the grazing land had been taken over by what looked like a twenty-five-a-side football match. One woman put her foot on the ball to pause the game while the players watched us in silence.
‘Oh, yes,’ Sionnach growled, ‘You’re in disgrace, Rory Bhan.’
The guard at the gate – despite his ordinary jeans and torn jumper I don’t know what else you’d call him, with his sword on his back and his lethal stare – signalled us through with a jerk of his head. Inside the walls, when I stopped staring nervously backwards at him, the first thing I noticed was the depressing absence of mobile phone masts. The only sign of civilisation was a cluster of wind turbines circling in the sea breeze. Oh God.
Sionnach nudged the horse into a trot to climb a winding unpaved alley, its hooves ringing on bare stone, so when it came to a dead halt I was flung forward, and barely caught myself from sliding humiliatingly down its neck. Rory didn’t look at me. He was staring at something, with an odd mixture of dread, defiance and adoration.
In front of a central hall, a stream was channelled through a courtyard, pooling in a stone basin at the centre. A man was stooped over it with his back to us, stripped to the waist and scooping water over his face. I was glad he couldn’t see me because I couldn’t take my eyes off his back. I’d never seen anything like it.
There was a tattoo on his left shoulder, intricately beautiful knotwork tapering to a point on his bicep, but it was distorted by hideous scars that covered his whole back. He looked like the scratching post of a giant cat but at least those ugly gouges looked old and healed. The two puckered holes between his shoulder blades were vicious and raw, as if they might split open any second and bleed him dry. I swear I could almost see blood and nerves and shattered veins moving beneath the thin chafed skin. They looked like raw pain made into flesh, so they did.
‘I find it beyond incredible,’ said the man, ‘that you would do this again.’
Propped against the horse’s shoulder, Rory swallowed hard. ‘Dad…’
‘Please don’t say you’re sorry. You lie like that, I don’t know if I could stop myself hitting you.’ Rory’s father stood up straight, easing his shoulders. Reaching for the shirt beside him he pulled it over his head, raked long fingers through his black hair, and turned.
The bones of his face were as sharp as knives, his eyes in their shadowy sockets grey like Rory’s, though that was as close as they came to a family resemblance. These ones weren’t warm or friendly, they were hard and dark and silver-lit. He wasn’t very tall, he was spare and lightly-built, but he was all rangy muscle. And he couldn’t be as young as he looked, not with a son Rory’s age. I could see where Rory got his looks, but not his personality, or the kind light in his eyes.
Now that I couldn’t see the man’s scarred back, I had space to notice the black dog that lay close to his feet in the shadow by the wall, a huge maned thing. Its yellow eyes were fixed on me and I didn’t like the look in them any more than I liked the look in its owner’s. Rory’s father leaned back on the low wall of the reservoir and folded his arms across his chest.
‘I, uh... I couldn’t leave without Hannah.’ Rory shot me a pleading look. ‘She was in, uh... trouble. I promised I’d–’
‘This close.’ A muscle moved in his father’s throat as he held up finger and thumb. ‘You and a slap.’
They watched each other for about a century and a half, the whole place eerily silent, till the man unfolded his arms and beckoned Rory.
Rory approached to well within slapping distance. His eyes were on his father’s, big and round and grey, but the spaniel look he used on Sionnach wasn’t there. Clearly he didn’t think it even worth trying on this one.
I held my breath and shut one eye, expecting the thump of a fist on flesh, but all the man did was take Rory’s head gently in one hand, pulling him into a fierce embrace. Pressing his cheek to Rory’s wind-tousled hair, he took a breath that sounded equal parts anger, fear and pure relief.
The father’s eyes opened once and looked at me, expressionless, then he closed them again as if he couldn’t bear the intrusion of another human being. Blowing out a sigh, I shifted from foot to foot. It was an awkward moment and I was glad when the man kissed Rory’s head and pushed him roughly away.
‘And who’s she?’
Rory’s whole face had brightened, as if the humiliation of his return and the stares of his neighbours had never happened. He said – or I thought he said – ‘She is right!’
His father scowled. ‘What?’
‘Seriously. Dad, look at her eyes. Really look. She’s one of us!’
The man stepped closer to me, staring so hard into my eyes my own vision blurred. ‘So she is. Halfbreed, I’m thinking.’ He sounded less than impressed. ‘What am I supposed to
do with her, Rory? You going to bring back every mongrel runt you find?’
I gasped, balling my fists. ‘Who you calling a runt?’
‘Runt my arse,’ said Rory proudly, earning a light clip on the ear. ‘She’s Hannah. This is my dad, Hannah.’
‘Hello, Rory’s dad,’ I said. ‘You know smacking’s child abuse?’
‘My name’s Seth, if you want to use it.’
‘I’ll think about it.’ Perhaps, on balance, I wouldn’t risk the smacking remark again. Just as I decided that, a grin lit his face, then was gone.
‘I’m sorry my son nearly killed you.’
‘It was only a fuc…’ One look at his face stopped me short, and I sighed. ‘It was only a horse.’
‘It was my horse. Rory, go and see Jed, he’s worried about you. I’ll take the girl home.’ Seth began to turn, then hesitated. He frowned at me.
I wanted to run; it was just that I couldn’t. A vision of Marty flashed through my brain and froze me with humiliating terror. I think I shut my eyes.
When I opened them again Rory’s father was standing close enough to touch me, but he didn’t. His eyebrows drew together in puzzlement and his teeth bit into his lower lip.
‘That man,’ he said. ‘He’s not your father.’
I shook my head violently. ‘Stop that. Get out.’ I jumped back, and that’s when I spotted the woman behind him.
She’d approached in silence and now she stood there watching me, her arms folded. Short-cropped dark red hair, golden brown eyes, the most extraordinarily beautiful face I’d ever seen. Seth must have seen my eyes widen, because he glanced over his shoulder. Then back at me. He shook his head as if dismissing a thought.
‘Why don’t you stay?’ he said.
I breathed hard. ‘What?’
‘You won’t find him anywhere else. Probably.’
Tears sprang to my eyes and I blinked furiously, gritting my teeth. ‘I’m not looking,’ I hissed.
‘Yes, you are. He’s from here, you know that?’
‘Stop it! That’s my business! It’s my – father!’
Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) Page 5
