by Sue Tingey
‘Dickhead,’ I muttered.
Jamie glanced my way. ‘Pardon?’
‘Philip,’ I told him, ‘a complete dickhead.’
‘I won’t say I told you so.’
‘Huh.’ I went back to the journal, hoping for some clue of where in Sussex this country estate was.
By the time the boys had finished eating and Jamie had paid our bill with my credit card – that was still working, at least – I’d made it through Philip’s first evening at the estate and the morning of the following day. For the first time I sensed disquiet in Philip’s writing.
He was surprised by some of the other guests, not at all the type of person he was expecting Persephone to be associating with. There were a couple of older ladies he charmingly described: ‘They looked like two of the three witches from Macbeth: one was at least a hundred and ten, totally blind, and with very few teeth. The other was stick-thin and walked ramrod-straight – she had to be going on ninety. They spent the whole morning cackling and braying – I’m surprised they had the strength to be so raucous.’
Another strange couple, a man and a woman so covered with tattoos that he couldn’t see an inch of naked skin between the two of them. They had so many piercings he wondered how they’d get through a metal detector.
And there was a tall, gaunt man with a ritually scarred face who could have been an African tribesman. Is he the bokor? I wondered.
‘Still nothing?’ Jamie asked as we walked to the car.
‘Only that this Persephone character has some sort of huge country pile in Sussex and has the strangest of friends.’
‘Philip still enamoured?’
‘He was up until dinner Saturday evening. I finished where he was just about to get showered and dressed.’
‘He was writing it all down in real time?’
‘Sometimes the morning after, but the weekend I’m reading now, he’s had a quick scribble here and there.’
‘For someone who only just started to keep a journal he seems a bit obsessive.’
‘He’s certainly obsessive about himself.’
Jamie opened the door and I clambered inside. ‘Where to now?’ I asked as Pyrites hopped up onto my lap.
‘Until Kayla returns with some news, all we’ve got is the journal, so maybe we should just sit here while you read on.’
‘Jamie, we don’t have the time to sit around! We’ve used up almost twenty-four of our forty-eight hours—’
‘But there haven’t been any plagues or pestilence, so we still have time, which is better than the alternative.’
‘I guess.’ I opened the journal and started skimming every page, desperately hoping something would catch my eye – and something did: just a few pages after I’d stopped reading, Philip’s neat navy recollections came to an abrupt end.
I peered down at his last few words, a feeling of foreboding stealing over me. His last entry read, OMG, what have I done? What the fuck have I done?
I went back and read the pages that led up to Philip’s exclamation, but they told me nothing at all: he’d gone down to dinner, chatted with a few of the guests at pre-dinner drinks, was most gratified to find he’d been seated next to Persephone, and spent most of the evening chatting to her.
At ten-thirty Persephone had announced ‘an entertainment’. Philip wrote, ‘We’ve all been told to retire to our rooms to freshen up and be back downstairs by eleven-fifteen.’ He was in a frenzy of anticipation. I guessed it was after the aforesaid ‘entertainment’ that Philip had returned to write his last ever entry. I had a sneaky suspicion Amaliel had something to do with it.
Jamie and my guards were all of the same opinion: Philip had belatedly realised he’d sold his soul. So now our only chance was if Kayla had found out anything useful.
‘Why isn’t she back yet?’ I muttered.
‘Lucky,’ Jamie said, ‘Kayla’s dead – what else can possibly happen to her?’
‘I can’t help it. If Jinx—’ I gasped, and felt like I’d been struck blind for a moment, as all I could see was black …
Then I was kneeling in front of a figure wearing a long black hooded robe and a honeyed feminine voice was saying, ‘Why not give in? The pain will stop. Give in, and you can begin to live again. Give in, and I’ll free you from all torment.’
Jinx groaned, and when I looked down I saw maroon arms wrapped around his upper body; maroon thighs and knees. I was surrounded by blue light – someone had mentioned blue light earlier.
‘Deathbringer, let me bring you peace,’ the woman said, and she let the robe slip down her body to pool around her feet on the grey stone floor.
I could see her long tanned legs, but Jinx wouldn’t look up; in fact, he hunched down further, his long hair loose and forming a veil between him and her.
‘Look at me,’ she said.
His head moved from side to side. ‘No,’ he gasped. ‘No.’
‘Your lover is dead. What harm could there be to take a little solace from me?’
He groaned again, and I joined him.
She scooped up the robe, her own long black hair hiding her face as she bent. ‘You may not come to me willingly now, but tomorrow or the next day you will, and then I will have you crawl across broken glass before I let you have a taste of me.’
Jinx shivered, and I heard Kayla calling, ‘Lucky, Lucky! Wake up! I know where Amaliel is – I know where he’s keeping Jinx.’
Nine
My eyes snapped open and I was back in the car and Kayla was repeating, ‘Lucky, I know where Jinx is.’ She was peering at me between the driver and passenger seats.
‘He’s with that dreadful woman,’ I said.
‘What?’ both Jamie and Kayla said.
‘Kayla’s back,’ I told Jamie.
‘By “that dreadful woman”, I assume you mean Persephone?’ Jamie said.
‘How do you know about her?’ Kayla asked.
‘Philip’s journal; I found it at his flat.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Jamie asked.
‘I was talking to Kayla,’ I said, a little more sharply than I’d intended. ‘I just had another vision.’
‘Of Jinx?’
‘He’s in a bad way, and he’s surrounded by blue light. Someone mentioned it before.’
‘Blue Fire,’ Jamie said. He looked away and ran his hand through his hair, which was enough to tell me it was bad news. ‘This Persephone must be the real deal if she’s bound Jinx to this world with a binding spell. Blue Fire is as effective as any cage.’
‘But you said that Amaliel was trying to bind Jinx?’
‘A different thing altogether: she has bound Jinx’s body by incarcerating him in Blue Fire. Amaliel was trying to bind Jinx’s spirit, to take away his free will.’
‘Either one alone is bad enough, but both together is not good news.’
‘I wondered how they could possibly torture the Deathbringer without risking death itself,’ Vaybian said.
I looked at him.
‘If he’s trapped within the fire, they can reach in with iron and steel to inflict the torture without him being able to touch them.’
‘You all knew this – why didn’t you tell me?’ I said, staring at each of them in turn.
‘We didn’t want to worry you, Mistress,’ Shenanigans said.
‘Anyway, Amaliel’s daemon could have been lying,’ Kerfuffle added. ‘I’ve not heard of a human being able to conjure Blue Fire for’ – the little daemon blew through pursed lips – ‘oh, a century or more.’
‘Crowley,’ Jamie supplied, ‘just under a century ago, although that might have been rumour.’
‘If anyone could’ve, it probably would’ve been him,’ Kerfuffle agreed.
‘Well, if you saw it with your own eyes, I guess it must be true,’ Jamie said.
‘It is true,’ Kayla told me. ‘I saw him too, but I don’t think he could see me. He was in too much …’ She looked at my face and stuttered to a stop.
‘Too mu
ch what?’
She hesitated, but seeing my ‘don’t shit with me’ look, decided it wasn’t worth trying to hide anything. ‘He was in pain, but you already knew that.’
‘So much pain he couldn’t see you?’
‘I’m not sure, but it could’ve had something to do with the Blue Fire. It’s powerful stuff.’
‘Right,’ I said, ‘so we know Jinx is alive, we know he’s hurting and we know he still has some free will. Can you lead us to where he is?’
‘Yes,’ Kayla said, sounding determined, ‘I know exactly where he is.’ She hesitated. ‘You’re not going to like this: I’ve been there before.’
‘Where?’
‘This Persephone’s place.’
‘When could you possibly have been there before?’
Her expression was grim. ‘You know I told you I slipped into this world when some group of weirdos tried calling up a daemon?’ She didn’t wait for me to reply. ‘Well, they were using the same country pile – I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. It was my first sight of the Overlands.’
‘You’re joking?’ I said, that sinking feeling telling me she wasn’t.
‘I wish I was, because there was a familiar face there too.’
‘What’s happening?’ Jamie asked, but I shushed him; I needed Kayla’s story first.
‘There was a ritually scarred man who could be the bokor Philip told you about …’
I let out the deep breath I was holding. ‘You sort of gave the impression that after your appearance, their Satanist days were over …’
‘Obviously I was wrong.’
‘Do you think they were trying to call up Amaliel, but got you instead?’ I asked at last.
‘If they were calling Amaliel they would have had to know his daemon name – but I know they didn’t close the doorway between the worlds. They were too afraid after I came through, and those who still could, ran … Amaliel may well have slipped through behind me, and that would explain his link to the scar-faced man.’
‘He promised the remaining Satanists power.’
‘And probably revenge.’
*
After I explained what Kayla had discovered, there were a lot of very glum faces, and Kerfuffle started muttering, ‘Not good, not good at all’ until Vaybian told him to shut up; Jamie had to step in to stop fists flying.
There was some argument about what we should do once we reached the place, which was on the borders of Ashdown Forest, remote enough that no one would particularly notice the comings and goings of Satanists and devil worshipers – or daemons, for that matter.
‘We can’t just go marching straight in and demand that they hand over the Deathbringer,’ Kerfuffle said.
‘And there’s the small matter of Amaliel wanting to capture Mistress Lucky,’ Shenanigans pointed out.
‘And the Guardian, if at all possible,’ Kerfuffle added.
‘Well, we as sure as hell can’t just do nothing,’ I said. ‘If Amaliel does manage to take away Jinx’s free will we’ll all be in trouble.’
‘Maybe we should let the Guardians deal with this,’ Vaybian suggested.
‘No,’ I said, crossing my arms. ‘That is not an option.’
‘It may not be an option you want to consider, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t one,’ Vaybian said.
‘Lucky, I know you don’t want to hear this, but Vaybian may be right,’ Kayla said.
‘No.’
‘The place is overrun with Sicarii, not to mention this Persephone woman’s followers – and then there’s Amaliel; he’s slipperier than a barrel-full of eels.’
‘I cannot just give up on Jinx. He wouldn’t give up on me.’
‘It’s strange that he can’t feel you when he could before,’ Jamie said. ‘I wonder why that is?’
‘He thinks I’m dead – maybe he’s not allowing himself to feel anything much.’
‘I don’t understand this connection,’ Vaybian said. ‘How are you connected to him but not the Guardian?’
I instantly knew where Jamie’s mind would be going: he’d think it was because I loved Jinx more than I did him, which was one hundred per cent not true. I might be angry with him, but that didn’t stop me loving him; that was one of the other reasons I was feeling so shitty.
‘Blood,’ I told him, then told them what Kayla had told me.
‘That explains a lot,’ Jamie said, and he did look a little happier for knowing the reason.
‘How many men does Amaliel have at his beck and call?’ I asked Kayla.
‘More than thirty Sicarii: twelve grey and another twenty or so of their disciples. Then there are Persephone’s people: she has her own coven of thirteen, including her, then hired help, about ten or so.’
‘Hired help?’
‘Thugs mainly.’
Jamie was worried; he kept giving me sideways looks as he drove, his forehead creased into a frown. I loved him more than was good for me, and I was pretty sure he loved me too, but he had responsibilities to his world and the Overlands. I understood that, I really did. Unfortunately, it meant when it came to Jinx, his loyalties would be divided. And on top of everything, it looked like we’d totally underestimated Amaliel: we knew he had what was left of his Sicarii followers, but we’d never imagined he’d have a human army of Satanists and thugs … which could cause Jamie yet another problem. He was meant to protect human life, but Persephone and her followers were probably just as dangerous as Amaliel and the Sicarii.
*
The name Ashdown Forest was a bit of a misnomer: the road was flanked by heath, not forest, and in some places I could see for miles across the bracken and grasses before any trees came into sight. It had a desolate beauty; if Pyrites had really been a dog I could have walked him for hours. Oh, for the ordinary life – then I thought of life without Jamie and Jinx, and I knew I could never do ordinary again.
Kayla directed us down a narrow lane which ended abruptly in a T-junction at a high arched gate surrounded on either side by six-foot-high brick walls. A brass plaque on the wall identified it as Demeter House.
‘Not much of an imagination this one,’ Kerfuffle said. ‘Demeter was Persephone’s mother.’
I twisted around. ‘Was there – is there – such a person?’
‘Greek mythology, that’s all.’
‘How do you know so much about it?’
‘I’ve been going back and forth between the lands for a very long time,’ was all he said.
I sat back in my seat and immediately spotted the security camera above the gate. I didn’t want us drawing attention to ourselves quite yet, so I directed Jamie to turn left and keep driving. The lane followed the wall of the estate for a good few hundred yards before red brick was replaced by a tall, dark green hedge, the boundary to a neighbouring farm and stable block.
‘What do we do now?’ Kubeck asked.
‘Turn around and see what’s along the other way,’ Jamie said, and executed a very neat three-point turn.
‘If they’ve got someone monitoring the camera they might notice us coming back for a second look,’ I said.
‘They’ll assume we’re lost tourists,’ Jamie said.
‘No, if they’re a bunch of Satanists planning world domination, they’ll be suspicious as hell. Anyway, they’ll know we’re coming.’
‘I doubt they’ll believe we’ve found them so quickly.’
‘Amaliel will,’ I said.
As we drove back along the lane we came face to face with a Jaguar, and had to pull onto the verge to let it pass. A few minutes behind it was a limousine, and when I peered through the side window, I saw a very old woman with milky blue eyes sitting in the back. Her lips were curled into an almost manic grin, which did nothing to calm me.
‘What day is it today?’ I asked, trying to get my thoughts in order.
‘Monday, I believe,’ Jamie replied.
And at last I had something to smile about. ‘Persephone’s houseguests are going home!’ And as if to
prove the point, we pulled aside to let another flashy car pass by.
‘Most of these people might be like Philip, with jobs and families to get to,’ Jamie said, his own smile returning.
‘So, maybe she won’t have such an army until next weekend?’ It was a lot to assume, but I knew how we could check. ‘Kayla, can you go and take a look? Try and get a rough idea of who’s staying and who’s going?’ She gave me a grin and was gone.
We reached the gate as it was opening to let another couple of vehicles out, but we just drove past and continued along the lane the other way.
Jamie stopped when he found a convenient lay-by and swivelled around to face us all.
‘Walls and hedges won’t keep us out,’ he started, ‘but Amaliel will know that.’
‘Once the humans have left he’ll have his Sicarii patrolling,’ Vaybian said.
‘There’ll still be some humans,’ I told them. ‘A huge place like this doesn’t run itself, and there’ll probably be a few guests who don’t have jobs or families to take them home.’
‘I’m willing to bet Joseph and Gabriel won’t be going anywhere,’ Jamie said.
‘Who do you think we really have to worry about,’ I asked, ‘other than Amaliel?’
Jamie thought for a minute. ‘Persephone could be the one with power, or she might just be part of the honey pot they used to entice Philip. Joseph used the promise of wealth, power and success, and she used sex.’
‘It could be she has no real power at all,’ Kerfuffle said. ‘It could be Amaliel who conjured up the Blue Fire.’
‘He’s more than capable, I’m sure,’ Shenanigans added.
‘Uncle Davna was pretty sure Amaliel was going to use some kind of dark magic to hold and imprison souls within the crystals,’ Kubeck said, ‘but Blue Fire …?’
‘Who do you think the other crystals and cages were for?’ I asked.
But none of us could begin to guess.
It started to rain: a light patter on the roof of the car which gradually crescendoed until we had to raise our voices to make ourselves heard. The light had almost gone, though much earlier than it should for the time of year, and the wind was buffeting the van back and forth as the rain lashed down against the window screen, making it almost impossible to see outside.
