The Road to Bedlam

by Mike Shevdon

  The wind was cold now, chilling the water that had soaked into my trousers and sleeves, and I pressed my hand to my side. I didn't think I'd broken anything but I would have bruises to match anything I'd acquired in training. The three men gathered ahead of me under the electric lights in the cabin. The occasional red-point glow of a cigarette glowed through the dirty glass. They ignored me, intent on the water ahead, but even so I kept my concealment close.

  The diesel engine thrummed in a slow rhythm as I looked back over the stern, watching the harbour wall recede and the town lights come on behind us. Above the hills, the last light flared under the wispy clouds, turning them pink, then purple. I turned my back on the town.

  If Shelley was on board, it wasn't obvious where. I crept forward, using my magic to hide me, and climbed on to the raised half-deck behind the cabin to peek inside. Lights on the instrument panel illuminated the faces of the men, staring forward. There was no banter or chat. Each stood apart, unable or unwilling to break the mood. To one side were steps leading down into the bow of the boat. If I wanted to get to them I would need to go through the men and even if I were invisible they would notice me. Treading carefully and avoiding the line of sight from the cabin, I crept forward up on to the bow area. There were hatch coverings opening down into the bows, but no obvious catches to release them. I slid forward on my belly, pressing my ear to the nearest hatch while I watched the men to make sure they stayed in the cabin. All I could hear was the thrum of the engine and the hiss and hush as the bow thrust into the waves. I slid backwards, retreating to the stern while the light died over the hilltops behind us and the foam merged back into the dark water.

  I didn't have long to wait. The boat began turning, drawing a slow arc with the luminous foam of the wake. It steered a half circle until it faced back towards the town. The engine died, and the wind died with it, the boat drifting on the rocking swell.

  The men were active now, busy in the cabin and under the foredeck. I watched two of them carry out a long bundle between them, guided by the third. It kicked and struggled, and the two men swore that they would drop her over the side if she wasn't still. That was when I knew I had not been wrong.

  She struggled again and one of them dropped an end, uttering a profanity.

  "Keep hold of her, Freddy."

  Freddy tried to catch her legs, but each time she kicked and thrashed.

  The other shoved him aside, picked her up bodily and threw her over his shoulder. He kept one arm wrapped round her legs while she grunted and wriggled. She wasn't making it easy; good for her.

  The lights on the gantry above the cabin blazed into life, illuminating the bow of the boat. Another man emerged from the cabin, dressed in orange waterproofs, flicking a cigarette butt into the water with a practised gesture. His hair was grey and his face lined. He looked vaguely familiar.

  They had brought this girl – and she was a girl, younger than any of the other missing young women, barely more than a child – out on to the open sea. For what? Even after long days of searching, of investigation, of rebuffed enquiries and cold shoulders, I still had no idea what they were doing. Was this some dark perversion shared between these three? Were they planning to rape her and then toss her over the side? I crept up on to the half deck, up behind the aerials and the lights where the shadows would hide me. From there, the boat rocked like a giant cradle beneath me. I watched them take the girl to the bow and lower her carefully to the deck. If they meant to harm her, why were they treating her so gently?

  The older man came forward and bid the others stand back. I recognised the voice. I knew this man. I had met him in the past few days. The hard tone, low and rough, was distinctive. He took a bright blade from his belt and slashed into the silver-grey tape wrapping the bundle. The bundle kicked out, but he was careful. In moments she was struggling free from the coarse blankets in which she'd been rolled, pulling away sticky strands of tape. She tugged at the tape over her mouth and ripped it away in a single swipe.

  "You BASTARDS!"

  The man with the rough voice stepped forward. "Now then. No need for a foul tongue."

  "You fucking bastards. My dad's gonna have you, I'm tellin' ya. He's gonna do you proper!"

  She struggled to her feet. I admired her spirit. These were big men, used to rough work. They could pick her up in one hand, easy, but she was undaunted. She shook out her hair and wrapped her cardigan close around her.

  "You bedda take me back, right now! You're all in deep shit."

  The leader stepped up to her and casually backhanded her across the face. There was a yelp as her head snapped back and she went down, curled into the bow against further blows. I would have intervened then, but he stepped back again, leaving her.

  "I told you to keep a civil tongue," he growled.

  Shelley was crying softly, a snuffling noise that showed just how thin the bravado was. She pushed herself up with one arm, pressing her hand to the side of her face where he'd hit her.

  "My dad… my dad… he'll…"

  "He won't do nothin'. You just wait. When he sees how we turn things round he'll do precisely nothing."

  "He'll fuck you up good," she muttered into her hand.

  He stepped forward again and my hand slipped down to my belt, and my sword. My fingers found nothing. My sword was lying on my bed, back in the guest house, disguised as an umbrella.

  She shrank back, but he didn't hit her, though the warning was clear.

  "He won't, because his girl's going to be a star. She's going to save the town. She's gonna be at front of all the parades and in all the papers. She'll be headline news."

  Shelley snuffled to herself, then said, "What?"

  "You're going to be a heroine, just like in the stories. You, Shelley Hopkins, your name will go down in history. It'll be recorded in the museums and the archives and passed down from generation to generation."

  It came to me then, where I had seen him. He was the rain-soaked figure in the museum. He had come in as I left, and held the door open for me. What had the

  museum curator said? "Back again, Ted?"

  He stepped forward and she cowered back, but he grabbed the front of her clothes and almost dragged her to her feet. He stood her up and then straightened her clothes while she stood and shivered in the night air.

  "It's all in the archives, if you've a mind to look. This isn't the first time we've had it tough and it won't be the last. Ravensby's special. We all know it that lives here. We feel it in our bones, we know it when we breathe the air. The town has survived far worse."

  "Can I go back now?" Shelley's voice sounded very small.

  "Back? Of course you can go back. This is why we brought you here, so that you can see the town, so you know why it's important."

  He stepped up to her and turned her shoulders to face the shore.

  "There, lass. That's what you've come for." He pointed towards the thin strip of lights dancing and winking at the horizon's edge.

  "I want to go home," she said with a sniff.

  "Then go. We won't stop you."

  She looked back at him. "You have to take me back."

  "Me? No, lass. You don't need me. You are the sea's chosen, the bride of the deep, the Sea Queen of Ravensby. You could walk back if you had a mind to."

  "Walk?" The word hung in the air. She flicked her eyes to the shore and back to his face. "We're a mile out. It's deep water."

  "Not for you. You're pure. You are the maiden of the deep."

  "Yeah," said one of the two younger men. "That's where the others went wrong."

  There was a pause. She said in a small voice, "What others?"

  He took her by the shoulders and turned her so that no matter how she twisted she was facing the shore.

  "Look, girl. Look!"

  "The others weren't worthy, were they, Jake?" said the other younger man.

  Jake shook his head. "Tonight is special. Ted, Freddy and me have waited all year for this. It's the solstice –
the longest day, shortest night. If it can be done, it'll be done now."

  "Of course it can be done." said Ted. "This is what the records tell us. When the town is at the nadir, when all is lost, the sun will find the zenith and the dark of the moon will shine upon the chosen. Do you see a moon, girl? Do ya?"

  Shelley wasn't looking for the moon. She was shaking her head and saying, "No, no, no," over and over again.

  "The dark of the moon. You hear? The spirit of the sea shall rise and claim his bride, taking her to him for life and love, so that the town may thrive once more. A maiden shall walk among them, a queen, crowned of the deep, and she shall live long and happy and have many children to follow in his line. Thus the town is reborn. There, d'ya see? You can't fail."

  Shelley shook her head. "You're mad. You're fucking mental, all of you."

  Ted answered her. "No lass. We're sane. We're the only ones with the guts to do it. The rest of them are spineless, gutless, feckless. They'd rather stand and watch the town die than do something about it. Well, we're doing something. We found the cure. It's not far. You'll be home in time for supper. All you have to do is step over." He steered her by the shoulders to a gap in the rail opened up by Jake in front of her.

  It was time to intervene. I knew what had happened to Gillian and Trudy. I knew what they'd done to them. I knew why I would never find them. I was unarmed but for what I had to do I didn't need weapons. I thought of Gillian's photo, her hair framing her head like a halo. I thought about what they had made her do and it was all I could do to control the anger that boiled up inside of me. I wanted revenge, and I wanted Gillian to share it.

  It's not that hard, once you have the knack of it. Glamour is like a comfortable skin. Gillian was not as tall as me, nor as well built, but my anger fuelled the change and I did not find it hard. I only had the one photo, but after weeks in the water it didn't have to be accurate.

  I visualised the unconscious grace. I took the image captured by the flash of a camera. I held that image close and embraced it, drawing it to me. To that I added the sallow pallor of death and the blue-lipped pout of a bloated corpse. I tangled sea-weed in her hair and made her clothes ripped and ragged. I left the water dripping from her, fresh from the deep. The Gillian I made was beyond life, beyond hope.

  The men were intent on the girl, backs to me so that my climbing down to the deck would have gone unnoticed even had I not been cloaked in magic. Only when I stood behind them did I drop the concealment and reveal myself. The voice I imagined was soft, cracked by salt, hoarse from the water.

  "Leave her alone."

  The words were softly spoken, but they came from where no one should be standing. They all turned, snapping around at the sound.

  The closest made the connection first.

  "You. It can't be. We drowned you." He pointed, but his finger shook.

  "I came back. Let her be." The voice was a hushed whisper, a sibilant accusation.

  Shelley's face was frozen in a rictus of absolute horror. She put her hand up to her mouth and bit into her finger to stifle the scream.

  "You did wrong," I whispered to the men. "Let her go."

  Shelley did the one thing I did not expect.

  TWENTY-ONE

  She pulled away and jumped into the water.

  They must have seen the change in expression as surprise and shock crossed my face when Shelley jumped. It changed the mood in an instant. Freddy, the one who'd said the others weren't worthy, pulled at his belt. A wickedly long blade emerged. "'Bout time you went back where you came from," he said.

  He leapt forward, driving the blade upwards into my stomach in a gutting stroke. My training kicked in, and I swivelled sideways from the blade and caught the wrist, twisting it so that he gasped with pain. There was no time for finesse. In the water, even in the middle of summer, Shelley would not last long. The well of power within me opened and I felt my muscles flood with heat. I flicked my wrist and felt the bones torsion, then snap.

  "Aieeee!"

  The knife rattled to the floor.

  Using his broken forearm to turn him to me, I pivoted and hit him hard with the flat of my hand under the chin. His head snapped up and he catapulted backwards. Catching the rail with the back of his legs, he tumbled over into the water. There was a splash and his scream was silenced as he went under.

  As fast as he vanished, Jake and Ted moved either side of me, Ted wielding a heavy crowbar and Jake holding a long wooden-handled pole with a steel hook at one end. Jake moved first, making the mistake of trying to swing the pole at me rather then using it to thrust. I stepped inside the swing, twisting around and turning him so it put him between me and Ted's crowbar. I punched the shaft of the pole back into his throat. There was a crunching noise and he gagged and coughed. His hands went slack on the pole and I used his momentum to swing him around so that he crashed sideways into the rail. A shove with my shoulder and he joined Freddy in the water.

  I half saw the blur as the crowbar swung down at my head. Twisting sideways, I felt the air shiver against my cheek as it flew past my face, slamming with a loud clang into the rail where I had been a moment before. Ted was so close his spittle spattered my face as he roared in animal rage. He dropped the crowbar and grasped at my throat, forcing me back on to the rail. I grabbed his wrists, his arm muscles bunching under my hands as he tried to close his grip on my windpipe and thrust me over the rail.

  There was no time to wrestle. I summoned gallowfyre, the dark power of the wraithkin.

  My skin fell into blackness and the air suddenly chilled, all semblance with Gillian falling away. Flickering moonlight covered the deck where there was no moon, swimming and swaying, exaggerating the movement of the boat.

  His face registered shock as a hungry tide swelled within me and coursed down my arms into the skin of his wrist. He shrieked as the cold bit into him, jerking in spasms as he tried to wrench his hands away. My hands clamped on to his wrists, leaching dark power into his skin. He tried vainly to headbutt me but suddenly his strength failed him. The grip faded as black threads of power found his veins and followed them to his heart. His skin sank inwards upon his frame and he fell to his knees, all colour blanched from his skin as it withered on his skeletal frame. I released him and he fell backwards, all life sucked out of him. I kicked what was left through the gap in the rail and it fell with a light splash and sank.

  The deck was clear. Three men, less than thirty seconds. My heart pounded in my chest, but I was not breathless. It wasn't a fight. It was a massacre.

  I pulled myself back from contemplating what I had just done. My body felt fuelled, burning with energy, but I had just killed three men. They might have de served it, what they'd done might justify it, but I had killed them. There was no time to think about what that made me.

  Turning back to the rail, I searched the water. I could hear splashing away to my left as the boat rocked on the swell, the grunts and shouts identifying them as the men who had gone over. I could not see Shelley. The moonless night cast flickering starlight on to the water, made worse by the glimmering gallowfyre. I recalled the power and it slid back within me like an ocean creature sliding back beneath the waves. The worst of the shifting glimmering vanished, but I still could not see Shelley. She had jumped straight in, but surely she hadn't swum far?

  I ran back to the cabin. They had all this radar and technology, surely that would show me where she was? There were banks of switches and battered console screens arrayed behind the wheel, but I had no idea how any of it worked. It looked as if it was all switched off and I could not see an obvious way to activate it. Even if I turned it on, would I understand what it was telling me?

  I ran back to the rail and worked my way along it, looking for signs of something in the dark water.

  "Shelley? Can you hear me?"

  There was no response.

  I knew she would not last long in the cold water. All the crap about her being the maiden of the deep, saving the town, had be
en just that – crap. Shelley was just a girl and she would drown like any other if I didn't find her soon. I needed some way of finding her in the water. I had all this power, I must be able to do something.

  Then I knew what I needed to do. I moved to the bow of the boat, standing where she'd stood looking out over the water to the town. I reached within and opened myself to the well within me. I felt it dilate and an answering pulse that thrummed through my veins. I began drawing in power.