by Sue Tingey
Amaliel returned his attention to me, unaware of what was happening behind him. ‘I have had enough of your parlour tricks,’ he said, ‘and your interference.’
The figures began to rise up as he strode towards me, but they were like newborns taking their first steps: they were slow and shaky. He raised his right hand up above his head. ‘You will not escape me this time.’ And he was right; the black creatures would never reach me in time. He loomed over me, eyes glowing as he drew back his hand – and then he was spinning away from me, locked in battle once again with the creature that had once been Philip. How he’d managed to get up and balance on one leg I had no idea, but although he was falling all over the place as he fought to cling onto Amaliel, he wasn’t giving up. He knew what he was doing: he was giving me time – giving the creatures from beyond the veil time.
While Philip held Amaliel with one hand, he battered at his head with the other, clawing at the cowl covering his face. Amaliel struggled, returning blow for blow, hissing and gurgling as he fought to release his arm from Philip’s grasp – then he tried a different tack, grabbing hold of the fingers clenched around his arm and peeling them back, ignoring the crack of snapping bone. Philip was still fighting, but it was a losing battle, and with a final crack of splintering bone, Amaliel was free.
Philip crashed to the floor, his broken leg collapsing beneath him, and Amaliel lifted his arm in triumph, the knife aimed at Philip’s upturned face.
The blow never fell. Black slime wrapped itself around Amaliel’s hand, rapidly consuming his arm, and he began to scream, a high-pitched screech that really hurt my ears. More creatures swarmed across the chamber to surround him, and strangely enough, the mass parted to stream either side of Philip, leaving him where he had fallen. They had only one target, it appeared, and that was Amaliel.
The creatures scooped him up and lifted his struggling body above their heads, then carried him back towards the cavernous black hole from whence they came. The more he fought, the more he sank into them. They wrapped themselves around his extremities, and then his body, until he was as much a figure made of tar as they were.
When they reached the entrance to their world, the membrane stretched out towards them and sucked them back in until they and Amaliel disappeared into the shimmering mess with a final sucking slurp. Amaliel was gone – and so was my mother.
The doorway pulsated and surged for a few moments more, and then, with a slap, it disappeared – and Philip and I were all alone.
Most of the lamps had blown out and there was very little light in the chamber, except for that from the brazier, which was fast burning to ashes. I really didn’t want to find myself sitting in the chamber alone with Philip when all the lights finally went out.
‘Noooo,’ Philip cried, and he began to crawl across the dais towards me.
I was confused. Why hadn’t they taken him? Was this to be his lot? I didn’t know what to say; I didn’t know what to do.
‘Helllpp meeee.’
‘Philip, I—’
But the chamber began to fill with light, and where before there had been the dark, unwelcoming place to where Amaliel had been taken, now a golden light began to seep out across the floor, and Philip turned towards it. ‘Luuckky?’
I was nonplussed – I had been so sure he was destined for the other place … but golden figures filled the entrance to the other side and the tinkling, happy voices I’d heard before began to call to him. But he needed to be set free from his decaying body and I didn’t know the words.
‘Luuckky?’
‘I don’t know how,’ I whispered. He had saved me, but I didn’t know how to save him.
‘Luuckky!’
Think, Lucky, think, I told myself.
The voices that had been calling Philip’s name began to cry, ‘Soulseer, Soulseer …’
Philip began to crawl towards the light, his broken bones scraping against the stone, and I really hoped he couldn’t feel the agonising pain. ‘Please, release this man,’ I whispered. ‘Please set him free.’ The ring on my finger flared and I was bathed in warm light.
Philip crawled a few feet more, then with a moan his limbs gave away beneath him and he collapsed into a lifeless heap. The voices fell silent, then there was a shimmer above where he’d fallen and a wispy figure rose up and gradually took shape until the immaculate and handsome man I’d first met floated above his decaying carcase.
Philip looked back at me. ‘Why?’ he asked.
I wasn’t sure what to say. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I guess maybe they think you suffered enough – or it could be that when it really mattered, you did what was right.’
His shoulders slumped and he bowed his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I am truly sorry.’
And I believed him, and clearly they did too, for the voices began to sing again, and when he walked into the light he was surrounded by glowing figures, welcoming him. I saw him turn and raise a hand in farewell and then he was gone and the doorway slowly closed, and with it went most of the light.
All I had to see by were the dying embers of one of the braziers and a solitary torch at the far end of the cavern. Unfortunately, I was still tied to the altar, and the knife had fallen off the side of the platform.
I was trapped.
I sat back down on the floor and started to try and gnaw away at the plastic. It was at an impossibly awkward angle, which didn’t help, and was so tight it was digging into my wrist, making my fingers numb. I reckoned I could probably chew my way through eventually, but after only a few minutes my teeth were hurting and my jaw was aching.
I lost all track of time as I focused on getting free; I didn’t dare let myself think of my mother – to have had her snatched away from me once again was just too hard.
I might have been chewing at the damn tie for ten minutes, twenty minutes or even an hour; the only thing I was certain of was that it was getting darker, and if I didn’t free myself soon I was going to have to find my way out in the pitch-black.
Eventually it occurred to me that I’d probably have a better chance of escaping if I gnawed away at my own flesh. I eyed up my wrist in the gloom, but I couldn’t. A little voice inside my head said, ‘Then you’re going to die here alone in the dark.’ I closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths.
‘Come on, Lucky. You can do this. You can do this,’ I told myself, and lowered my mouth to my wrist.
‘Lucky? Are you there?’
Had I heard a voice calling? I sat up straight, ears straining – was I imagining things?
‘Lucky?’
With a shout I got up onto my knees. There across the cavern were two figures I loved so very much.
‘Over here,’ I called, and within a couple of ticks I was free.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ I asked.
‘There was a surge of power. We knew it had to be you,’ Jamie said.
And suddenly I was caught up in a threesome hug that was bordering on painful, so tightly were they holding onto me, but I didn’t care: I was alive and in their arms and there was no place I’d rather be.
Twenty-Four
We went back to my cottage, and as I packed things up and collected the few bits and pieces I’d really missed while in the Underlands, the boys watched the news coverage of the incident at Mount Vesuvius, which was certainly causing a lot of debate.
Video footage was played over and over again while various ‘experts’ dissected it, piece by piece. The Italian authorities were going along the same line as the British government had over the River Thames affair, all agreeing it was a stunt by environmentalists, trying to make their point … not that anyone knew quite which point.
But the bystanders who were interviewed were having none of it, and I stopped what I was doing to watch this. The woman I’d seen cross herself told the reporters and anyone else who would listen that they had all been saved by three of God’s heavenly angels, and the Angel Gabriel himself had chased Satan back i
nto the fiery pit.
The authorities closed ranks, and that would probably have been that, except someone dragged a couple of geologists out of their academic lairs, and that made the whole thing blow up again. They were adamant volcanoes didn’t erupt that way; there had been no seismic activity recorded before or after the event. They had studied all the video footage available, and what they had seen was impossible; volcanoes didn’t suddenly start to erupt and then abruptly stop in such a way.
The conspiracy theorists said it was a hoax by the Catholic Church and the world leaders stuck staunchly with the environmental terrorism story, but the people who were on Vesuvius that day, who saw it happen first hand, refused to be swayed.
‘If you’d been there, you’d understand,’ a young man said. ‘You could feel their power. You could feel something miraculous was about to happen.’
My Jinx, the old Jinx, would have found it all hilariously funny. The Jinx I had brought back from Naples watched it with grim concentration.
*
We arrived back in the Underlands in a night-darkened yard surrounded by flickering lamplight somewhere near Baltheza’s court.
‘We’ll join the others here,’ Jamie whispered. ‘I don’t want to meet the rest of the Guardians until we’re ready, so we must lie low.’
‘Jamie, about the Guardians—’ But I was interrupted by a door slamming and the sound of boots on cobblestones echoing through the quiet night. A moment later I heard Shenanigans shout out somewhere very close by, and as I turned my head to look back, Pasqual stepped from the shadows. His smile was one of triumph as he raised a crossbow, took aim and fired it directly at me.
Jinx shouted, ‘No!’ and pulled me to one side as someone else barged me in the shoulder, sending me flying. There was a thud and a groan, and then I was lying on the ground, Vaybian sprawled across me. Something hot and wet was seeping through my T-shirt.
I screamed, ‘Vaybian!’ and looked up to see Pasqual reloading his weapon, his face dark with anger.
He lifted it again and took aim.
‘You sanctimonious arsehole,’ I shrieked, and my inner daemon obviously agreed, because when I threw up my hand my mother’s ring began to glow, my body shuddered and the air pulsed outwards, throwing Pasqual backwards and smashing him against the inn’s wall. The crossbow misfired, sending the bolt shooting into the air over our heads as Pasqual slid down the stonework, leaving a bloody trail behind him. I didn’t care if he was dead or not; I was only concerned about the green daemon lying across my legs.
Jinx rolled Vaybian carefully onto his back and we both kneeled beside him. The bolt had pierced the left-hand side of his chest and blood was pumping out of him at an alarming rate. I looked across at Jinx. ‘Is there nothing we can do?’
He shook his head. ‘Death waits by his shoulder.’
Vaybian’s eyes flickered open. ‘My lady Kayla,’ he gasped, ‘may I see her – one more time?’
Jinx reached into his pocket and pulled out the phial. He lifted Vaybian’s hand and wrapped his fingers around the chain, holding it up so the dying daemon could see the blue crystal.
Vaybian smiled. ‘My lady,’ he whispered.
‘Release her,’ Jamie said, dropping down beside me.
‘I don’t know that I can—’
‘He’s dying, Lucky. You must try.’
I looked down at my hands and concentrated, trying to repeat the feeling I’d had when I’d released Kayla from the Blue Fire, hoping being trapped in the blue crystal might be similar. Nothing happened for a few seconds, then I felt my body growing warm and when I looked up I could see myself reflected in Jinx’s eyes: a glowing creature with a golden light flowing from her skin.
The light enveloped us and the crystal began to whirl around and around on its chain, and as it spun it began to blaze with a light so white its image was imprinted on my retinas even when I closed my eyes. The crystal stopped, then began to spin back the other way.
‘Kayla,’ I whispered. ‘Kayla—’ and with a flash the crystal exploded into a cloud of sparkling fairy dust that swirled up into the night above us and started spinning into a column of glistening particles that gradually flowed together, forming a tall, feminine figure.
‘Kayla …’ Vaybian was smiling, but his voice was growing weak. ‘My Lady.’
And then she was there. Jinx and Jamie stood, making room for her to kneel at her lover’s side.
‘Vaybian,’ she said, and rested her hand on his, even though he surely couldn’t have felt it.
‘My Kayla – together again, at last.’ He smiled up at her and she leaned down to kiss his lips. When she pulled away from him he looked the happiest I’d ever seen him, though the light was already dying from his eyes. There was a shimmer of emerald above him, and—
—he was gone.
Kayla looked up at me, her misery palpable.
‘Lucky, it’s time to let her go,’ Jamie murmured.
‘Kayla—’
But before I could say another word, the air grew heavy, the lamps around the courtyard flickered and a small pinprick of light appeared in the corner. It grew into a slit, light pouring from it.
I heard gasps; when I looked around the courtyard, it was suddenly filled with daemons. I was surrounded by my guard, all with weapons drawn, who were separating me from a line of Guardians also bearing arms. Notably, Peter and Charles were standing shoulder to shoulder with my friends.
From the Guardians’ expressions I thought it unlikely they were about to start a fight. They too could see the light, and the emotions crossing their faces ranged from fear to joy to awe. I wondered how they could all see it – then I heard Jinx chanting, and I understood: Amaliel had cursed Kayla to hold her within the crystal; I had set her free from her prison and now Jinx was setting her free from the curse.
Kayla stared towards the light, then back to me, indecision written all over her face. ‘Lucky, I can’t—’
‘You must,’ I said. ‘You owe it to Vaybian – more importantly, you owe it to yourself.’
‘Oh, my darling,’ she said, and rested her cheek against mine for a moment before kissing me. It might have been imagination or wishful thinking but I felt her lips against mine. ‘Keep her safe,’ she said, turning to Jinx and Jamie.
‘We will,’ Jamie said. ‘I swear it.’
‘And I,’ Jinx agreed.
The courtyard was now alight with the golden glow and we could hear the laughter and singing. Golden figures stood in the opening, waiting for Kayla to cross, and amongst them I saw a figure I knew, who called out, ‘Kayla!’
When she saw him her face lit up into a smile.
‘It’s time,’ I told her. ‘Go to him.’
She ran her fingers across my cheek. ‘You won’t forget me.’
‘Never,’ I said. ‘I love you.’ I had to force back the sobs. There would be time later; I didn’t want to give her any excuse to stay. She had given up so much for me, and so had Vaybian. It was their turn to be happy.
‘Goodbye, my darling,’ Kayla said. ‘I’ll love you always.’
Her fingers trailed down my arm and I lifted my hand, wishing I could feel her skin against mine just one more time. Her fingertips finally slipped off mine and she glided towards the light. She hesitated just outside the opening, closing her eyes and bathing in the golden rays. She had never looked more beautiful.
She stepped into the light and golden arms stretched out to welcome her. The singing became louder and the laughing more joyous as Kayla walked into Vaybian’s embrace, then she turned and looked at me. She gave me one last smile and mouthed, ‘I love you.’ The light flared for a moment more, then the tear began to close until it was little more than a black line seeping gold, then the light was gone and the line drew into itself until it vanished, leaving me to mourn not only for Kayla, but for the mother I’d never had a chance to know.
Unfortunately there were some who had other ideas. Pasqual was not dead. As the horrible little tu
rd scrabbled across the yard to try and retrieve his crossbow, Kubeck grabbed him by the wings and hauled him off the ground.
‘And where do you think you’re going?’
‘Put me down—!’ He screamed. ‘Put me down this instant! I am the Guardian – you go against the Veteribus if you go against me!’
‘You are not the Guardian to us,’ I said, and the rest of my daemon guard drew close, flanking me.
‘Or me,’ said Jinx. ‘Only the true Guardian is part of the Trinity, and I can tell you one thing for certain: it’s not you.’
The rest of the Guardians exchanged anxious looks, and I could see their problem: what they had been told was not necessarily the truth.
‘I was always led to believe that the Guardian was born, not made by giving a daemon a title,’ Charles said, nailing his colours firmly to the mast.
‘The Veteribus—’ Pasqual began to shout.
‘The Veteribus say quite a few things,’ Jinx said, his eyes glowing in the lamplight, ‘but I for one shan’t be quite so willing to take their utterings at face-value.’
‘You have been sentenced to death,’ Pasqual said.
‘By whom?’
Pasqual licked his lips and didn’t look quite so sure of himself.
‘And what of my fine feathered friend?’ Jinx asked.
‘The Keeper has told us the Veteribus are calling him a traitor,’ Peter said, with an apologetic grimace at Jamie.
‘And the Soulseer?’
‘A fraud,’ Charles said.
‘And what do you gentlemen say to that?’ Jinx asked, his eyes resting on each of the angels in turn before finally looking directly at Pasqual.
