The Age of Scorpio

by Gavin Smith

  She cried out as the ash haft of the spear became burning hot. Britha let go. She had felt the demon in the weapon awaken. It wanted to bury itself in flesh and bathe in blood. It wanted to drink the champion’s death and revel in it, even if he was one of theirs now.

  The man staggered towards her.

  ‘Die!’ she screamed at him, putting every bit of her will behind the word. Too intent on the curse, she did not move quickly enough to avoid the powerful backhanded slash of his sword. It drew a line of burning blood up her torso from right to left. She stumbled back, falling hard. Already she could feel the poison on the blade coursing through her.

  The light went as he towered over her, dragging her spear in his flesh. He reached down and managed to yank it out, tearing so much of his flesh it looked like his chest had caved in. Even through the pain Britha felt horror at what she saw. The end of her spear was wriggling tendrils of bloody metal. It looked alive. The warrior dropped the spear and tumbled forward like a felled tree, crashing through the platform and into the water. Despite the pain, Britha rolled onto her side to stare into the dark water. She stared for a long time. He did not surface. He has gone to feed his god, Britha thought. She felt hot and feverish. Under her skin her flesh burned.

  Britha had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but she had woken to find the wound no better, although the cold night air had gone some way towards cooling her fever. She felt like there had been a war and her body had been the battlefield.

  The sword wound had been deep but not deep enough to kill. It was puckered, wide, as if the flesh had torn itself open in the path of the sword. She had managed to hold it together long enough to start a fire in the hearth of the closest crannog, using the embers held in the horseshoe fungus. It too had a carving of the fish god. She did not like the way it stared at her. She wondered if it was working against her healing magics.

  She had also managed to find some mead and had washed the wound out with the boiled liquid. She had passed out screaming doing this. When she came to again, she knew she did not have much time. She was already having to swat flies away from the gash. The knife she had taken from one of the dead warriors was red in the fire now. She picked it up and felt the heat coming from the blade. At that moment she feared nothing more than the red-hot blade of the knife but she knew she had to do it in one go. If she lost consciousness the flies would get into the wound, it would fester and she would die. Even after she’d cauterised the wound, she knew her chances of surviving were not great.

  She tried to surprise herself. Suddenly she pressed the knife to the wound. She wondered if her screams made the sea god himself cringe far beneath the water.

  There were no flies, no crow-black wings. Perhaps they felt how unnatural she had become, tainted by the Otherworld in some way she did not understand. She felt exhausted. The wound throbbed but was the manageable side of agony. She was very hungry, frail and emaciated. Looking at her body, she had lost a lot of weight again. Skin was stretched across bone.

  She ate what supplies she had left. She scavenged and found more. What she ate she did not think a normal person would even be able to contain. Dimly she realised that she had not shat since before the red beach. She began to fill out again after she had consumed enough smoked fish and salted pork, lamb and beef to feed many people. She had been eating for hours.

  A thought that had occurred to her on the red beach came to her again. She had tried to force the idea from her mind. It was the darkest of magics taught in the groves only when winter came, when animal innards festooned the branches of the oaks and blood watered the land.

  Britha still knew almost nothing of them. Only what little Bress and Cliodna had told her. That they were slaves to a god and that they brought the madness of the moonstruck with them. It was not enough. She needed more. She needed to know where they were going. It would be more difficult if they were to sail across the sea, perhaps south to the kingdoms of the dark-skinned people the Pecht had sometimes traded with, or north back to their icy home.

  She knew a way to steal knowledge but she did not wish to use it. Recovering from the wound had weakened her and these kinds of magics took their toll. They would stain her, make her less than other folk, but it was her people at stake, the people that she had sworn to protect.

  Chanting to herself, hoping that her tattoos would offer enough protection to ward away the Goddodin’s sea god, she waded into the water. Every time she dived down into the dark water she feared the god of the carved effigies she had seen would find her. Eventually she found the body, her sight better underwater than she remembered. She managed to hold her breath for a long time and tie a rope around him. The huge warrior’s body was heavier than she thought, but with strength that surprised herself she dragged it onto the beach.

  Naked, so that her tattoos could protect her, she had drawn with woad on her skin. The symbols would tell her body and mind what to do when she was lost in the vision. They were the magics that would steal knowledge from the dead champion. She had made do without the correct herbs to burn but she had said the words. Ancient words that allowed her to force her will on man, woman, beast, the land and the sky.

  Her sickle would have been better, particularly since it had been bathed in her blood, and blood magic was the strongest of all, even more so than fire magic, but that had been lost on the red beach. The iron knife that had seared her flesh would have to do. She reached down to the champion’s body and cut the first slice of meat off. She held it to her face, steeled herself and opened her mouth. She had eaten raw meat before but it was all she could do not to vomit. She swallowed, stealing some of his power, looking for his knowledge, looking for what the demon inside him knew.

  It was like swallowing fire. The fit hit her in a burning wave as she threw herself into violent contortions on the ground, screaming.

  12

  Now

  The young Asian guy staring at her had one of those strange hairstyles that seemed to involve gluing your non-symmetrical hair to your head and, at least in this case, then sleeping on it. It took a few moments for Beth to remember where she was. What she couldn’t work out was who this guy was and why he was staring at her so angrily. His shirt and shorts were obviously what he wore to bed, but both came from what Beth vaguely recognised as designer labels.

  ‘Hello . . .?’ Beth tried.

  ‘So you’re a Luckwicke, are you? Gosh, how lucky we are to have another Luckwicke in our house.’ His voice full of effeminate sarcasm. Beth was pretty sure he was gay. He was certainly attractive enough. Beautiful skin, sensual dark eyes, slender, almost petite frame. Typical, she thought. Clearly he knew Talia and hated her. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to her. The sensual eyes were filled with anger as he leaned in close to Beth, who was just desperately trying to wake up.

  ‘Listen to me, bull dyke,’ he began.

  I’m not a lesbian, Beth thought in mental protest but kept it to herself.

  ‘I know Maude thought that Talia was the coolest thing ever and a good friend, but I know that fucking little bitch was trying to turn her out! Try anything like that and you’ll have me to answer to. Understand?’

  ‘Er . . . yes,’ Beth said.

  ‘Now I want you the fuck out of my house and stay away from

  Maude, you understand me?’

  Beth would have liked to say something, to stand up for her sister, to defend herself, but she could see his point. He and Maude were presumably just two more of her sister’s victims.

  ‘Fair enough,’ she said and sat up in her sleeping bag. It was pretty much the archetypal student flat, patched and worn furniture, a mixture of band and young male heart-throb posters on the walls. Perhaps a bit more effort had been put into decorating the place, a bit of cheap glamour used to good effect. She found her combats and grabbed them. The pretty young man was glaring at her, arms crossed. ‘A bit of privacy?’ she asked.

  ‘As if I’d be interested in anythi
ng you have to—’

  ‘Uday, are you being nice?’ Maude said, coming into the lounge in novelty pyjamas that Beth thought made her look like a gothic Dalmatian.

  ‘No,’ Uday said pettishly. Maude handed him and Beth cups of tea.

  ‘Thanks,’ Beth said.

  ‘She was just going,’ Uday said pointedly. Maude turned to Beth.

  ‘Have you got anywhere to go?’

  ‘Home?’ Uday suggested.

  What a good idea, Beth thought. ‘Just got to sort out a few things first—’

  ‘What, because your bitch sister blew herself up?’ Uday interrupted. Beth turned to stare at him. Uday, to his credit, met the glare and held it. Maude’s face began to crumple into tears. Uday’s face softened as he put an arm around her. ‘Oh darling, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I was just being a bitch.’ Uday glared at Beth as if this was all her fault.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she said and unzipped the sleeping bag, standing up to pull her combats on. Maude reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Look, you don’t have to go. You can stay here for a while.’

  ‘No, she can’t!’ Uday all but screamed. Maude turned to fix him with a stern glare.

  ‘Uday, you’re being horrible. Just because you never like Tal—’

  ‘Because she was a heinous bitch!’

  ‘Uday,’ Beth said quietly. He turned to glare at her, daring Beth to speak. ‘My sister wasn’t a very nice person, I know that perhaps more than anyone. But she’s dead, so please don’t talk about her like that. I wouldn’t do it to you if the positions were reversed.’

  Uday stared at her. ‘She fuck you over as well?’ he finally asked.

  Beth thought about this. They both seemed nice. Close. Uday was clearly just a protective friend. Beth had the choice of how much to tell them, but she really didn’t like letting anyone in, not when she hadn’t known them for a long time. Trust did not come easy to her.

  ‘She testified against me at my trial after I hurt her boyfriend, who nearly beat her to death,’ Beth said. It felt like a massive gamble. It felt like she was opening herself up to attack. She decided not to tell them that she’d killed her sister’s boyfriend. Maude looked shocked. Beth didn’t think what she had just told her gelled with the girl’s image of Talia.

  ‘Okay, you can stay. But just for a little while. I fucking hate freeloaders.’ Uday finally said.

  ‘Yaaay!’ Maude said. They were just children, Beth thought, and I’m not a freeloader.

  Beth walked over to the window and looked out onto a broad tree-lined road. The houses were all three or four storeys, many of them converted into flats, and she thought it must have been a wealthy area at some point in Southsea’s past.

  ‘Do you know where I can get some work?’ she asked.

  Beth guessed the amusements on the pier looked better lit up at night. During the day you saw the cracks. It was an odd place: a mixture of bright plastic, irritating jingles, peeling paint and frayed, stained carpets, the smell of fried food and brutal concrete buildings that reminded her of home. The main building had what looked like a flying saucer on top of it. Bright plastic pirates and animal-headed characters enticed children onto the rides and parted parents from their money.

  The guy she had spoken to was called Ted. A large man, he had seemed cheerful enough, but Beth felt there was an edge behind the happy fat-guy demeanour, that he was not someone you messed around with even if the constant cigarettes he smoked made him short of breath. It made sense if he had been running this place for as long as he claimed. He had clocked her for what she was straight away.

  ‘You’ve been inside,’ he said. Beth hadn’t seen the point in lying. She had just nodded.

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You mess with children?’ She just glared at him angrily. He was studying her. Coming to his own decision, looking for the reaction not the words. After all, anyone who had hurt children probably wouldn’t admit to it. ‘Got a temper?’ he finally said, apparently content that she didn’t mess with children. Beth gave his question some thought.

  ‘I worked doors. I’m used to putting up with a lot of shit before I blow.’

  Ted watched her some more.

  ‘Well, we can always use someone who can look after themselves round here. Thing is, you look desperate to me.’

  ‘I’m not desperate; I need the money. Who doesn’t? Look, you don’t know me, that’s fine, but I don’t need much and I work hard.’

  ‘I can’t have people sleeping here,’ he said, but she knew that meant he would hire her. She could kick in some money to Maude and Uday and get a little money behind her for a place of her own if she was going to be here that long.

  ‘I’ve got a place. I’m not on the street or anything.’

  Ted’s face brightened and he shook her hand.

  ‘Start tomorrow. Be ready for long days of screaming kids and longer nights of drunk older kids.’

  Beth nodded. It felt good to be working again.

  Beth had used a little more of the precious money that her dad had given her to celebrate. She had bought herself some fish and chips and a can of decent bitter and gone down to the empty pebble beach. She looked over the slate-grey water. She could see artificial islands with buildings on them and beyond them, the Isle of Wight. It wasn’t the sea proper. She knew that. It was a channel called the Solent. She didn’t care. With the ships and the boats it was the sea to her.

  A fierce wind caught her hair, whipping it around as nearby a hovercraft swept up the beach to land by a small passenger terminal. She watched as a big passenger ferry left for some place she would probably never visit. She hoped that everyone on board wouldn’t just enjoy where they were going, but take pleasure in being able to do the very journey itself. She watched some kind of warship – it looked high-tech to her eyes, violent – coming into the port, disappearing between Old Portsmouth and Gosport into the harbour, presumably towards the naval dockyards.

  She liked it here, she decided. Maybe it was because it was a change. Somewhere different where you didn’t get to see the same old faces age in front of you. Where everyone didn’t know what you had done. Or maybe it was just because it was open: the air could get to you here; you weren’t trapped in a valley. Beth had no doubt that this town had its problems, just like everywhere else, but she didn’t feel the same air of defeat she felt at home.

  Late evening but still warm. Port Solent was obviously a new development. Shops, cafes and restaurants, surrounded by high-rise luxury apartment blocks for whoever passed for the beautiful people of Portsmouth, Beth assumed. She always felt like an outsider in places like this. She had been waiting outside the address that Maude had given her for over an hour, waiting for someone to go in.

  Finally a man walked past her, not even registering her existence, and keyed the number into the door. Beth waited until it was just about to click shut and slid her fingers into the tiny gap to stop the door from locking. The guy had his back to her walking down the hall. She slipped into the apartment building.

  In the lift Beth tried to get the words of her favourite revenge song out of her head. This was about information, not revenge, she told herself.

  Beth had chosen the bayonet purely for intimidation. Size is everything, she thought. She knocked on the door. It was a secure building, so he would be expecting a neighbour, someone safe; he wouldn’t have a chain on the door or check the peephole. She hoped. The door opened.

  He was attractive, but it was the sort of attractive that made Beth immediately suspicious. To Beth he was a chameleon, an actor who made himself into whatever was required for him to accomplish his job of getting the young and attractive to service the older and wealthier. The nice clothes were doubtless accompanied by the right words, the comforting smile. He wasn’t just a pimp and dealer; he was a pusher. He talked people into the vices that he profited from. There was nothing real about people like this, as far as Beth was concerned
.

  She saw his look of confusion change to one of suspicion. She had to do this quickly and quietly. This was the sort of place where people would actually phone the police, and they’d turn up, probably quickly.

  He started to close the door. She pushed it hard, knocking him back. She was in, kicking the door closed behind her, her great-grandfather’s bayonet in her hand. Grab him by the face. Keep moving. Keep him off balance. Let him see the knife, then let him feel it on the skin of his throat.

  ‘Very quietly or I cut you,’ she hissed. He looked more angry than frightened. That wasn’t what she wanted. He tried to scream through her fingers as she drew a line of red down the skin under his cheekbone. He started to struggle. ‘I will fucking stab you!’ she told him. He stopped struggling. ‘Are you going to keep it down?’ He nodded warily. She took her hand away but kept the point of the blade pressed into the skin of his throat.

  ‘I know people,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t, and they don’t know me. They won’t know you if I cut your fucking face off.’ She had to convince him she meant it. ‘I’m Talia Luckwicke’s sister.’ There was the fear she wanted. It was the start of a very bad night for William Arbogast.

  Beth had kicked his legs out from under him, taken him to the ground and then straddled him, ignoring his look of distaste, her knees pinning his arms. She kept the blade at his throat.

  ‘I’m just looking for information. I’m going to get it. All you need to do is decide how much I’m going to have to cut you before I find out what I need to know.’

  ‘Look, fuck you and fuck your whore—’

  She hit him in the nose, broke it, blood spurting down his face, his head thumping into the tile flooring. Beth brought her fist back. She knew she was just going to keep hitting him and hitting him. It was war. She knew this feeling, Beth was almost gone. She had to get control, had to . . .

  Arbogast’s vision was red and blurred; he felt sick. He shook his head, recovering, looking up at the mad girl with a big knife. He knew that look. Seen it in the eyes of his clients who liked to hurt the merchandise. He’d seen it in McGurk’s eyes.