It was the recoil – her power slamming into him – that threw him hard against one barred wall of the cage. He heard the crack as his head hit the bars. And then it all went dark.
55
IN A MEDIEVAL castle that really didn’t exist enough to be anywhere in particular, somewhere on the third floor, in a bedroom hung with tapestries over dark wooden walls, in a four poster bed with delicate white linens, a woman wearing a white silk shirt, expensive underwear and a pair of stockings sat up too fast. ‘Oh, about time too!’
Lilith took a couple of seconds to realise she was at home. ‘And, really, I am so bored with this.’
She reached up and pushed her hands through her hair and the fuzzy tangles became smoothly conditioned tresses. She sighed with delight as she felt each cuticle slip into place. When she looked up, the room was different: light and contemporary, Chrome and off-white and blonde wood. She was high up, a penthouse apartment. When she looked out of the big plate windows that covered one wall, she saw the Thames. London landmarks: the Eye, in the east St Paul’s, winking at her in the dusk. She looked west, the Houses of Parliament. Big Ben.
That rings a bell.
Lilith gave a bark of a laugh at her own weak joke.
Oh, that’s why I’m awake. The little bastard is in trouble.
Without much thought, Lilith pulled a broomstick out of the air and, with it between her thighs, sprinted across the apartment and leapt straight through the enormous picture window.
Iris and Alfie were standing in the cage; the Divine’s headless body lay on one side and Blake’s was on the other. Iris was standing back a little, letting Alfie examine him. She let her gaze flicker over to Sabrina who was standing on the other side of the room, near to where Vikram was still encased in a bubbling field of energy. Keeping Vikram prisoner seemed to be quite demanding, as Sabrina sounded weary when she said, ‘Are they both dead?’
Alfie straightened up and turned. ‘His neck’s broken. And that’s without all the power of the Divine dissipating through his body. He didn’t stand a chance.’
What a guy.
When Iris heard that familiar echoey voice in her head, she turned, excepting to see the ghost of her dead brother Matt. In fact, she had chastisement ready for him on her lips – something about where he had been all this time. But, when she turned, the dead man walking she saw standing just outside the cage wasn’t Matt.
‘Blake? Oh, God, no.’
Seems like a girl like you is kind of greedy when it comes to personal demons, huh?
Iris turned back to the body on the floor. Alfie was crouched back over it, ignoring her. She turned back to Blake – the Blake who had to be a figment of her imagination. ‘You are not haunting me, Blake.’
Nah, course not. It’s just your overactive imagination again. What’s the root of it this time? Just can’t let me go? Racked with guilt over me biting the bullet?
Iris frowned. ‘Maybe it’s my need for some kind of damn explanation. You’re his son? You’re Dr Tobias’s son? I met your parents. They came to the wedding.’
Yeah. You just met them the once, didn’t you?
‘Yes.’
And you didn’t think that was odd?
‘Maybe, a little, with you there was a lot of odd.’
Iris realised that Alfie had come over to her and was stroking her arm saying, ‘Iris, are you OK?’
She brushed him away. ‘Just a minute.’
I never knew he wasn’t my father. That guy. The one you met. My mother’s husband. Maybe he didn’t know. When I was eighteen, just before I went to university – I was going to go to University College in London, really excited – he turned up. Dr Tobias. I got home from my last day of school and there he was. Said he had stuff to tell me.
‘And what did he tell you?’
Everything. The big reveal. Lycs and vamps. Witches and magic. How he was an Ancient Beast. The warrior wolf. His plans to find the wolf that would kill the Ancient Beasts and protect the Silver Crown. He knew he’d be the first to go. He’d read that somewhere. He thought if he could protect himself the rest of the Silver Crown would be safe. Safe from you, Iris, as it turns out.
Iris inhaled, realising something that felt like a shattering inside her. ‘He wanted to protect the Silver Crown because they controlled the Divine Wolf, didn’t he? He knew that when I came along and destroyed them it would all fall apart.’
Blake shrugged. Well, he never said that to me. I don’t know.
‘I do,’ Iris whispered. ‘It’s all my fault. I caused this.’
Blake was staring at Iris. He shook his head slightly. Iris felt a thick tightness at the back of her throat. ‘Oh, God.’
And then a loud haughty voice shouted, ‘OK. I’m here! Where is he?’
Iris looked up to see Lilith marching through the door, but, before she got anywhere near them, before Iris could even say anything, Sabrina shouted quickly, ‘I got the prince for you so you can’t do anything bad to me.’
Lilith stopped and turned. ‘Sabrina! Oh fuck, when I passed out, did my . . .?
Sabrina shrugged. ‘Yeah. Kind of. A bit.’
Lilith sighed heavily then looked up at Vikram trapped in the magical bubble. ‘Oh, God, and he got out too. OK, OK, hang on, darling.’ She shouted the last part of her statement in the general direction of Iris, Blake and Alfie.
What? What? Hang on. Are you here to help me, or what? Lilith!
Lilith, who had been stalking over to Sabrina, turned and looked right at Blake’s ghost. ‘I said, in a minute.’
Blake rolled his eyes as Lilith walked over to Sabrina. Just before she reached her, Sabrina suddenly yelled out in pain. ‘I can’t – I can’t hold him.’
The bubble containing Vikram suddenly looked a lot thinner. Lilith whirled around and shot her arms up, flanking Sabrina in exactly the same position. Another wave of energy shot from her palms and wrapped itself around Vikram.
‘Damn,’ Lilith shouted as if she had been burnt. ‘He’s so strong.’
Iris looked at Blake. ‘So, what . . .?’
What’s Vikram?
‘Yeah.’
Well, he looks like a vamp and he smells like a vamp and he keeps out of daylight like a vamp . . .
‘But he isn’t a vamp?’
Blake screwed up his face. No he is, but . . . Right, before the vamps cut themselves off from humans, all kinds of weird stuff went on. Mostly stuff done by vamps and humans to lycs and witches, but it cut all kinds of ways. Loads of humans tried to control lycs and vamps to make weapons. Didn’t try that so much with witches. Humans don’t get to control witches very often.
Iris thought she saw Blake preening as he said this.
But there was a lot of stuff about getting lycs bitten by vamps to see if they could then be a sort of bestial vamp. Vamps have psychic abilities. Some stronger, some weaker. Some uber, uber – like Darius Cole. The idea was that if the lyc had a vamp handle on brain control they could be conscious when they changed. Mongrels.
‘Fuck. An army of rational Beasts. Like what the Divine wanted.’
That’s always the dream isn’t it? Werewolves you can control. Command.
‘It didn’t work though?’
Nah. I got books and books on it. The poor puppy dogs just died. As if the vamp teeth were silver. Now weirdly your little nursey and her blood cleaning – that might’ve done it. But I digress . . . It didn’t work, and then, one day, somehow, some vamps got their hands on him up there.
Blake pointed at Vikram, now being held by a straining Sabrina and Lilith. He seemed to be fighting inside his bubble, shouting and kicking out.
‘And what’s he?’ said Iris.
‘He’s an Ancient Beast. Number twelve. The one who was missing.’
‘I thought the Divine was number twelve.’
She is. She is now. She had to take his place after he was bitten. It has to be twelve, you see, for the Silver Crown’s power to work. That’s why the Doc, why Dad ha
d to keep attending the meetings. And that’s why when they lost the prince – Vikram – they had to use the Divine. Before that, I think they kept her permanently in some kind of suspended animation on account of her being such a dangerous insane mega-bitch.
‘But when they lost the prince, how come they didn’t just get his eldest living cub to ascend, like they did with Alfie?’
The story is he never had any cubs. Never bit. Ancient Beasts are conscious when they change, remember. Soppy old thing didn’t want to do it. He’s always portrayed as the runt of the Ancient Beasts. The prince is a kind of sarcastic nickname. ’Course, once he’d taken the vamp bite, it was a different story. He was ferocious and scary. Some people say he went to Transylvania and inspired Dracula stories, but that’s probably bollocks. But he certainly is strong. Look at him fighting two fucking witches.
‘So what happened to him? Back then I mean?’
Oh, they caught him in the end. Lycs and vamps together. Lycs took custody. Locked him up in a witch prison. Seems like Lilith was the one holding his key.
‘So how’d he get out?’
How the fuck should I know?
Iris was about to say something back to Blake, something about him seeming to know everything else about what was going on, but Lilith, who was sweating with the work of containing Vikram, turned and shouted, ‘Iris. When did you last see Matthew?’
Iris frowned. ‘Matthew?’
‘Your dead brother’s ghost,’ shouted another voice. It was Cate, who had just come barrelling, skidding down the stairs. Without stopping or looking around, she lifted her hands and started shooting energy into the bubble holding Vikram.
‘Yes. I know. I know who he is.’
‘When did you last see him?’ shouted Lilith.
The power from the three witches was getting noisier, a fizzing roar now.
‘Um, at Cobalt.’
‘Before I opened the morphial connector?’
‘Um, yes.’
‘And you haven’t seen him since?’
‘No.’
‘Fuck!’ Lilith shouted. ‘He got through her gateway.’
‘He got through my what?’
Lilith turned a little towards Iris. ‘Vikram has been sealed in a witch prison for over two hundred years. Not in the temporary holding zone like Sabrina – locked up tight deep within it, never getting free. But I let him out, briefly, to help prime you for the morphial connector. I had total control over him. You were never in danger . . .’
‘When he took me out the night before full moon.’
You needed a vamp to make Iris psychy enough for the connector and you decided to use The Prince! Blake looked incredulous.
‘Yes,’ said Lilith. ‘Why not? He was the easiest vamp for me to find. I knew just where he was. No reason to think I couldn’t shut him right back up again after. Well . . . Except, OK, somehow, he must have realised you had a psychic opening. The fact you see your brother’s ghost. He used that. Sucked Matthew out of your mind and sent him back instead.’
‘But he works for Cobalt?’
Oh, God, Iris. No he doesn’t. Just ’cause he wanders around there. He’s a vamp. He can go where he likes. He can even control who can see him.
Iris looked at Vikram, twisting in the bubble. It didn’t seem real. First he had been a normal bloke. Well, a normal vampire-hunting bloke. Then a vamp. Then a vamp and a lyc. Then a vamp and an Ancient Beast. And now . . . Now he was ‘Matthew?’
‘He’s not Matthew. Not exactly. He’s using your connection to Matthew to exist outside the prison dimension. Matthew must be trapped there in his place. But, if you call Matthew to you, and if, at the same time, we force him back, we might be able to reverse their places again.’
‘But I don’t call Matthew. He’s just a hallucination.’
Lilith gave Iris a look so terrifying she felt sorrier for Blake than she ever had. ‘Call. Him.’
Iris closed her eyes. Strangely, though Alfie was right by her, she felt the threads of the morphial connector. ‘Matt?’
She saw him, like a flash, a rush of images and knowledge. He was in a small gold cage, suspended in darkness. He looked cold and confused.
Iris? Iris, is that you? Oh, God, Iris. I think I made it to hell.
‘You need to come back.’
I don’t know how.
Iris felt him. Felt the connection between them. It wasn’t like the morphial connector. It was something deeper, stronger. Twins, together in the womb, two tiny bodies wrapped around each other for nine long months. She knew Matt was real. The Matt she saw. The Matt she’d always seen. He wasn’t a hallucination. Wasn’t guilt. He was real. Death couldn’t divide them.
Iris reached out. She felt her hand pass through something and then she saw it in front of her as she looked at Matt, tight and scared in his cage.
She opened the door of the gold cage. The black void was suddenly like a cold sucking rush. Somewhere she saw Vikram’s face, huge and ghostly all around them, like smoke in the dark. She grabbed Matt and pulled.
56
WHEN IRIS OPENED her eyes she was lying on the floor of the Silver Cage, still next to Blake’s body. She rolled over slightly and saw Lilith, Cate and Alfie standing over it.
‘He knew,’ Lilith was saying. ‘He knew he was the heir all along. He could have seen that prophecy at any time.’
‘Who knows how much he knew, or how long he knew it,’ said Cate.
Iris lifted her head. ‘He knew he was going to die? To pay the price?’
‘I’ll tell you what he did know,’ said Lilith’s tight haughty voice. ‘He knew that there aren’t many surefire ways to cheat a magical prophesied death except . . .’
‘A witch’s binding,’ said Iris.
Lilith reached out and touched Blake’s cheek. ‘Come on, baby, you don’t get away from me that easily.’
Blake’s eyelids fluttered and opened. He looked at Lilith and then over at Iris. ‘Oh, it’s my better half. So witch-binding really is that strong, huh?’
‘No,’ Alfie said, sounding almost angry, as he straightened and pulled away from the huddle around Blake. ‘You’re joking. He cannot be alive. He took all the Divine’s power and dissipated it.’
‘Iris took the power of eleven Ancient Beasts through her body.’
‘Yes well,’ said Alfie, ‘that doesn’t make any sense either. There’s no way she could be able to live with that sort of power without protection.’
‘Iris doesn’t have any protection. Except you. Except loving you. Otherwise the power of eleven Ancient Beasts would have killed her. You’re a werewolf and a very strong one at that. You gave her the support. Even when you were under the thrall of the Divine. You kept her alive. I know you don’t believe in werewolf life mates. And, frankly, I’ve always thought it a bit of a strange trope for a species so prone to sluttishness. But you two have a bond. Now more than ever. She’s bound to you. All that power is still inside her. It’ll take a century for it to all leak out of her through you and dissipate. She needs you to keep it stable. If you die, she dies.’
Iris nodded, shocked.
‘Woah,’ said Alfie softly.
‘Yeah.’ Lilith grinned. ‘How’s that for some life mating?’
Alfie grinned and walked over to Iris. He reached out to her with one big beefy arm and pulled her to her feet. As he took her into his familiar embrace, he said, ‘Thank you for rescuing me.’
‘Oh, that was nothing,’ Iris whispered into his mouth as he pressed a kiss on to her. Then several more.
Alfie took his time, nuzzling her, grating his very prickly stubbled chin over her cheeks and neck. She sighed and gasped, jelly-putty in his arms. He slipped his teeth over her jawline and bit down. Her legs were water.
‘And I’m sorry,’ he said, finding her ear again and licking it once before continuing, ‘that I, well, you know, chained you up in that cavern.’
‘Well,’ said Iris, stiffening a little at the sore spot of the m
emory, ‘like I said, I understand. Thrall.’
‘That’s always what fucks it up for us,’ he murmured. ‘Thrall. I don’t know how you can go on trusting me. Not when you know how werewolf loyalty can be. If I get caught thralled to some other Beast . . .’
‘Well, you won’t,’ said a voice behind Alfie.
Alfie turned and moved a little and Iris saw Blake standing behind them.
‘Look, Blake, I know you know a lot about lycans and prophecies and shit, but . . .’
Blake shrugged, as Alfie trailed off. ‘Not that. You won’t get thralled again because there are no other lycs who can thrall you. You’re top of the tree, Alfie. The most powerful lyc in the world.’
‘I am?’
‘Sure, you’re an Ancient Beast, aren’t you? Heir to Tobias. Which kind of makes you my brother or something, but that’s just gross considering we had sex that time.’
‘What?’ said Alfie.
‘I’ll let Iris explain all that later. But you are the only Ancient Beast left alive since Vixy did her thing. And with no Divine either, well, you’re it. Top dog.’ Blake paused and pulled out his tobacco. ‘Well, apart from Prince Vik. But he’s been sealed forever in a witch-prison dimension. They were meant to stick Sabrina back in there too, but she appears to have done a runner.’
‘But he escaped from there once,’ Iris said, pushing Alfie’s fingers away from the teasing spot on her jawline. ‘Why can’t they just kill him? I’ll kill him. I’m meant to. The prophecy . . .’
Blake made a face. ‘Well, witches don’t go in for so much just killing. Anyway, what did he ever do to you, Iris? He was on your side.’
‘What do you mean? I have to kill him. He’s an Ancient Beast.’
‘Yes and the last time you killed a batch of Ancient Beasts you let the Divine Wolf loose on the world. I mean, Iris, just ’cause something’s in a prophecy doesn’t necessarily mean it’s such a great thing to do. How would you even kill him? He’s lyc and vamp.’
‘Why are you talking me out of this? I thought you were all about killing lycs?’
Blake had rolled his cigarette now. He placed it in his mouth and lit a match by pinching the head tight and dragging his fingernails over it. It flared and he sucked his roll-up to life. ‘I thought I was all about interrogating them, but it’s shades of grey, Iris. That’s all I’m saying. Shades of grey. There’s no real reason to kill Vikram, but there’s no way he can safely be allowed on earth. You’re just pissed off at him because he bit you.’
The Silver Cage Page 22
