Relics--The Folded Land

by Tim Lebbon

  Meloy tensed and Lilou grabbed his arm, digging in with her nails. She felt the muscles there, solid and knotted, ready to uncoil. She had seen the rage this man could unleash, but Gregor’s exploits were legendary. Here was the Kin-killer.

  “Let the girl go,” Lilou said. “She’s no Kin.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Gregor said. “And why does that matter?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I don’t share my secrets.”

  “’Course not,” Meloy said. “Piece of shit like you—”

  Gregor flicked the knife. Sammi squealed, then bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. Her left ear dripped blood.

  “Leave her, and we let you go,” Meloy said.

  Gregor glared at him. “Why’s this your fight, human?”

  “As human as you, fuck face.”

  “See here!” Gregor said, pulling down his lower eyelid. “See here!” He swept the same hand through his hair, revealing the nubs of horns. “Does this look human?”

  Meloy said nothing, for which Lilou was glad. Maybe he was learning a level of control.

  “She’s got nothing for you to take,” she said.

  Gregor didn’t reply. He backed toward his vehicle and climbed in through the passenger door, pulling the girl in behind him. Keeping the knife at her throat, he scrambled across into the driver’s seat and pulled her into the seat beside him.

  “Shut the door,” he said, and she obeyed.

  Lilou leapt over the ditch, her movement light and graceful. The Kin-killer watched her every move, and behind her she sensed Meloy taking advantage of his distraction, slipping across the ditch and behind the car.

  The engine roared and the car leapt back, clipping Meloy and sending him sprawling into the dust.

  Lilou glanced his way as he rolled, and he came up onto his knees and nodded her way. Bumped and bloodied, he was not badly injured.

  The car powered away along the road, throwing up a cloud of dust that hung in the still morning air.

  “Now what?” Meloy asked.

  “Now we call the cavalry, and hope we can catch up,” Lilou said, and she thought, Now we follow him up into the hills. If the wretched wraith they’d quizzed was telling the truth, Gregor was on his way to the fairy, taking the girl along as some sort of prize.

  21

  Vince’s phone rang and Angela snatched it from between his legs while he drove.

  “Yeah,” she said. Then, “Fuck!” She paused for a while. “You’re sure?” Another pause. “Okay, we’ll pick you up.” She dropped the phone into her own lap.

  “What?” Vince asked.

  “Left here, head west. Lilou and Meloy spotted her.” After a moment she added, “Gregor’s got her. They’re driving for the hills.”

  Vince dropped a gear and swung the Jeep around a corner, powering along the road and heading for the edge of town. They had been cruising Danville for over an hour, and the sudden burst of speed made him feel as if they finally were taking action, instead of treading water.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  “He’s holding a knife to her throat.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything,” Vince said, but he knew it was a stupid thing to say, and he cursed himself for it. It was as bad as saying, Everything will be all right, when he knew there was a good chance it wouldn’t. Gregor was a cold-blooded murderer whose kill rate had increased drastically over the past few days. Only last night he’d added two police officers to his score sheet. He wasn’t a man troubled by taking lives.

  The cloudy issue here was whether or not Sammi was Kin, but even that might not matter.

  “Faster,” Angela said.

  Vince knew he had to take care. They’d seen several police cruisers around town, and suspicions would be heightened by the recent murders of fellow officers. They were lucky they hadn’t been stopped and questioned already. The town was small enough for officers to notice strangers, but big enough for strangers to have plenty of reasons to visit. Perhaps they had luck on their side.

  Angela navigated using a map on her phone. She spoke in short, clipped sentences, and anxiety came off her in waves. Impatience, too. She knew that every passing second put Sammi in deeper danger, so Vince made sure as he drove that he grasped every moment.

  A few minutes later they left town and headed for the hills, passing between rolling fields of fruit trees speckled here and there with distant farmsteads. They spotted Lilou and Meloy jogging along the road ahead of them, and Vince barely stopped long enough for them to jump into the rear seat.

  Ahara appeared as a shade between them.

  “Fucker’s got her,” Meloy said.

  “Who is he?” Angela asked.

  “Freak who thinks he’s Kin,” Meloy said.

  “You saw through that?” Lilou asked.

  “Of course,” he said, as if offended. “He’s as much Kin as I am.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Vince asked.

  “Catch them, stop him hurting Sammi,” Angela said. She glanced across at him, eyebrows raised as if to say, What else?

  “And then into the hills,” Lilou said. “We have to protect the fairy from Gregor, too.” Something about the way she said it troubled Vince. He looked in the rearview mirror, shifting slightly so that he could see Lilou. She caught his eye and looked away.

  She was lying.

  This wasn’t about protecting the fairy at all. He didn’t think her real goal was to save Sammi, either, or even stop Gregor.

  “Into the hills,” Ahara said, “and somewhere very different.”

  “Faster,” Angela said. “Faster, Vince.”

  Vince gave it some gas.

  * * *

  Sammi had never been so terrified. Even that time at the hospital, when she and her father had arrived after her mother’s crash, it hadn’t been like this. They’d both known that something terrible had happened, and walking through the automatic doors the breath of the hospital had whispered the truth in sterile, bleached awfulness. The fear had been keen, the terror of what was to come, but they had faced it together. Hand in hand, hearts beating as one. The doctor’s voice had barely matched his mouth.

  Thinking of that time now, Sammi realized how alike the doctor and Old Itch had been. Both were harbingers of doom, in their own way.

  She had escaped from Old Itch, though. If only the words that doctor had muttered had been escapable.

  Yet this was worse, because looming around the danger she was in were the doubts about her father. She wanted to ask this man what he’d meant when he said her father was dead. She wanted to ask if he had killed him. She wished she’d seen through Old Itch’s lies earlier, shaken herself from the stupor, run home. She wished.

  Sammi sobbed silent tears as the man drove with one hand, the other still holding the knife to her throat. Balanced on the armrest between them was a plastic bowl of water. The feather he had pointed at her floated there, and no matter which way the water slurped and splashed from the car’s movements, the feather pointed in the same direction. Sammi couldn’t help looking down at it. There was something otherworldly about it, as if it had a life of its own.

  She couldn’t plead with him. There would be nothing to gain. She had to keep her wits and watch for any advantage, any chance she might have of escaping him and his knife.

  The blade still hovered close to her throat, but it was dipping lower now. The angle of his arm must be uncomfortable, maybe even painful. They’d been driving for five minutes, maybe more, and she hoped that her stillness was lulling him into a sense of control.

  Trying not to move her head, she looked around the interior of the car. She hadn’t heard the locks click into place, which meant that she would be able to open her own door. There was nothing she could use as a weapon. The man kept his eyes on the road, only glancing down at the floating feather when they came to a junction, a driveway, or a forest track. If she made a move, she thought she’d have a second or two to get her right arm up between
the blade and her throat. He wouldn’t see her moving her arm to begin with, and even if he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, she would be quick.

  Sammi couldn’t help imagining the quick jerk of his arm, her skin parting, the cold metal slicing through flesh and opening her up to the outside. She might scream, or it might emerge as a bubbling gasp. She might be able to fight back, or perhaps the shock would freeze her, allowing him two or three sawing motions which would sever everything vital.

  How long would it take her to bleed out, to die in this seat? Perhaps he’d open the door and shove her from the car while it was still moving. Would she feel the impact of her body hitting the road and rolling into the ditch? Would she land face up, or die lying face down in the dirt?

  Dad, she thought. Mom. What do I do now?

  It was the thought of her mother that brought out the fight in her.

  Looking to the left without turning her head, she waited until he was staring ahead at the road before nudging the plastic bowl with her left elbow. It spilled onto the floor at Gregor’s feet.

  “Fuck!” he shouted. Still gripping the wheel, he moved the knife from her throat and leaned down, reaching for the feather where it swilled around on spilled water.

  By the time he realized his mistake, Sammi was going for him. She slammed her fist into his face, scratched across his right eye, then grabbed at his hair and shoved hard, banging his head on the door. Twisting in the seat she reached with her right hand, closing it around his wrist as he brought up the knife from between his feet. She had the advantage, her whole weight bearing down on his arm.

  The car jumped, skidded, and then she felt the moment of smoothness as the front wheels lost contact with the road surface.

  Sammi’s whole world shook as the vehicle slammed nose-first into the ditch beside the road. The engine revved wildly, then stalled and cut out. The impact caused her to lose her grip on Gregor’s hair and arm, and she scrambled back across her seat and reached for the door handle.

  Gregor stirred, blinking rapidly as blood dripped into his eyes from a cut across his forehead. The impact had slammed his head into the steering wheel.

  It was lucky for Sammi that the airbags hadn’t deployed. Maybe he’d disabled them. She opened the door and fell out onto her back in the road, kicking with her feet to get clear of the tilted car, imagining it bursting into flames and freeing her of the threat of that terrible man.

  No such luck. He came for her out of her passenger door, a blood-smeared demon, snarling and still gripping the curved blade in his right hand.

  Sammi rolled onto her hands and knees and went to stand, but something stood in front of her. A tall something with thick, heavily haired legs and the largest feet she had ever seen.

  Cow, she thought. Buffalo. Elephant. But none of that rang true. As she lifted her head to look a weight pressed onto her back and forced her down onto her stomach. It didn’t push too hard, did not hurt, but she had the feeling that the life could be crushed from her in a matter of seconds. Breathing in a shuddering breath, Sammi smelled a primal, spiced aroma.

  “Gregor,” a deep voice said, rumbling down into her chest.

  “Jace Tan,” Gregor said.

  And then he began to cry.

  22

  On his thirteenth visit to that small private island, Gregor sits at the water’s edge despairing of ever seeing the water-thing or Jace Tan.

  “The Script is here.”

  Gregor jumps and spins, but there are only deep shadows behind him.

  “You can’t see me,” the voice says. It is deep and powerful, a vibration through the ground. Gregor suspects that there will be ripples rolling from the island every time he speaks.

  “You came back,” Gregor says, and he can’t hide the relief in his voice.

  “You’re going to do something for me,” Jace Tan says.

  “I’m not sure…” Gregor trails off.

  “You are sure. You’ve been sure from the first strange ripple you saw in the marsh. From the first shadows that passed across your dreams. From the first time you considered leaving home and finding more of the world, finding the world that few others know.”

  I’m not sure… if he’s right, Gregor thinks, but there is no arguing with that voice. No questioning its weight.

  “I’ll leave the Script to you now, and you can take it and begin your journey,” Jace Tan says.

  “I want to see more,” Gregor replies. “I want to know more. It’s not fair, only being given a glimpse. It’s not right.”

  “I agree,” Jace Tan says. “Not fair, not right. You will see and know more, Gregor, over the coming months and years. You’ll also have to take up a knife. A weapon for me, and for you.”

  Gregor shrugs uncertainly.

  “Who are you?” he asks.

  “I’ve told you my name.”

  Gregor pauses before asking the next question, not sure if he wants the answer.

  “What are you?”

  “Old. Too old. You have to travel the world, because I no longer can.”

  An object lands beside Gregor, a short metal tube.

  “I’ll return to you when it’s done,” Jace Tan says. “Perhaps then you can see me.”

  “But—”

  A rustle, a flurry of movement, a heavy splash, and then the presence is gone, leaving a deep, dark hole in Gregor’s life.

  * * *

  Gregor had imagined the owner of that voice a thousand times, building up an image in his mind of what such a great, powerful old man Jace Tan might look like. It was never anything like this.

  The figure stood proud in the sunlight, naked but for a skirt of heavy red cloth. One great foot pressed the girl down onto the road. He stood nine or ten feet tall, his dark skin weathered by time and age, scarred and marked by conflict. In all his years hunting and killing Kin of all shapes and sizes, Gregor had never seen anything like him. He wiped blood from his eyes and stood, leaning back against the crashed car. He could only stare.

  “My name is Mallian,” the huge man said. His face was beautiful but severe, and Gregor imagined an age of rage having sharpened those soft features, drawing his brow into a vicious ridge, his eyes into deep piercing pits. He exuded anger. It was a pressure in the air, a gravity tugging everyone and everything toward him to meet the judgement he would hand out.

  “Mallian,” Gregor said, dropping to one knee. “My lord. My life.”

  “Is it finished?” Mallian asked. His lips might have twitched, but they would surely never smile.

  “Almost.”

  “Almost,” Mallian said. “The time is close. Closer than ever before… and you tell me almost.”

  “I… I’ve been trying my best.” Gregor looked at Mallian’s foot, so large that it covered the girl’s entire back. She twitched, but couldn’t move from where he had her pinned. He could crush her with one small step.

  “You’ve had a rich few days,” Mallian said.

  “Yes. Richer than all the past three years, but I’m still looking for…”

  Gregor’s words trailed off as he noticed for the first time the shapes behind Mallian, both in the road and sheltered within the shadows of fruit trees and hanging vines. One was a small man with simple dark clothing and flaming red hair. Gregor would never forget his own run-in with a piskie. The man stared at him, and Gregor tore his gaze away, unwilling to become pixie-led.

  An old woman stood in the road thirty feet behind Mallian, still as a statue but for the breath that misted at her mouth. She wore a necklace of pale objects that might have been bones. Beside the road, hunched down, was a large creature that resembled an otter. Between blinks it changed to a woman, an otter, a woman again, and the changes were so rapid that Gregor believed they must have been in his perception of her rather than literal. He had heard of the kooshdakhaa, one of many animal spirits of the North American continent, but this was his first time seeing one.

  Hiding in the fruit bushes was a large hairy ma
n, peering out between plants. Gregor couldn’t quite distinguish his scale, but thought he was almost as large as Mallian. Sasquatch? Perhaps. Of all the Kin he had met and studied, it was ironic that this most popular of the mythical beasts was the one in which he had never found cause to believe.

  “You’ve brought friends,” Gregor said.

  “We all need friends,” Mallian said. He looked down at the girl beneath his foot. For a second Gregor thought he was going to bear down and crush the life from her, but instead he removed his foot and scooped her up, a single huge hand closing around her waist. He raised her to eye level, examined her, then approached Gregor with the girl hanging by his side. She was limp and unmoving.

  “Do you still carry the Script?”

  “Of course!” Gregor said. The idea of not having it with him was as ridiculous as traveling without his backpack full of Kin prizes… or his feet, or his hands. They were all an integral part of him.

  “How close are you?” Mallian asked. “What else do you need?”

  “Only two parts,” Gregor said. “A witch’s third ear and eye, and—”

  “The blood of a fairy’s second heart,” Mallian said, nodding. “And that’s so close.”

  “Up in the hills,” Gregor said. “I was going there. I’ve been following the trail.” He nodded at the girl. “She’s one of the twice-struck, and she’ll get me there.”

  “You’ve been doing wonderful work, Gregor,” Mallian said. “I’m here to help you finish your task.” He looked over his shoulder and muttered something. Though the old woman wasn’t close, she seemed to hear his whispered words, tilting her head. Her eyes widened. She glanced left and right, as if assessing her position. Others closed in around her—the small pixie, the otter woman, now in human form. The hairy man emerged from the crops and strode over the ditch onto the road. He wasn’t as tall as Gregor had first thought, but he was stocky and strong, muscles built on muscles. He wore loose trousers and a rough shirt. His face was leathery and inhuman.

  “This is Jilaria Bran,” Gregor said as the old woman came closer. “She has something of what you need.”