The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten

by S. A. Ashdown

  17

  A Meeting With Raphael

  Lorenzo raced into the night, after the thing that was the wind, and yet could not be – a man, no, a boy – can’t be a force of nature. Yet Lorenzo clawed the air, reaching out for the substance-less. The front lawn was smooth and even, but Lorenzo had the impression of sliding downhill, with the familiar scent of Theo chasing after him. Why? What did the warlock want? Couldn’t he see he was hunting here?

  Soon Lorenzo was turning in circles, the pinpoints of stars blurring in his vision as he spun. Where has he gone? It was no use, Raphael was everywhere and nowhere. The boy’s scent was the breeze, its crispness clinging in his nostrils and coating his palate. That answered one question at least: Nature had built Raphael.

  And Theo, his movements seemed to whip up this ghostly wind that Lorenzo knew without words was his prey, becoming a gale that lashed at Theo’s green cloak. He tried to understand what was happening, but the dots veered away from each other, refusing connection. One thing was certain, the distortion in matter that Lorenzo was experiencing was born from the interplay between Theo and Raphael, the escape, and the chase, a hunt at a cosmic level that Lorenzo couldn’t fathom. The ground was still shifting when the warlock caught up with him back at the church, and they heard the shouts of Penny’s coven in the near-distance.

  ‘Why are you following me?’

  Theo stepped into the church’s silhouette. ‘I’m not following you. I’m following Raphael.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Let’s say I have a vested interest in keeping him safe.’

  ‘You said I could meet him. Where’s he gone?’

  Theo paused, thinking. ‘I’m not his keeper. Give me a minute, I can Anchor myself and I’ll be able to find him. I’ll need you to keep the coven out of my way.’ He tugged at the clasp on his cloak, which Lorenzo had noticed looked a lot like a hammer. He interrupted him as Theo pressed his eyes shut.

  ‘Don’t bother. The wind’s dropped. I can find him.’

  ‘How?’ Theo asked, shooting him a quizzical look.

  ‘Can’t you see the gold dust?’ It littered the pathway where they stood, a delicate dusting of snow that led into the church. It sounded nuts to Lorenzo, even as he asked the question. To his surprise, Theo shook his head, answering seriously.

  ‘I can when I’m Anchored. I’m surprised you can see it though.’

  Lorenzo didn’t wait to ask what Theo meant by ‘Anchored’ and headed towards the entrance porch, the warlock keeping pace, the night air flattened without Raphael’s wind. That was until they reached the arched doorway revealing the partially collapsed tower. Inside, birds sang in chorus from a hidden nest. ‘Maybe everyone sees it.’

  ‘No,’ said Theo, peering into the ruins, now a courtyard, noting the potted plants and stone bench, and in the corner, a water feature constructed from broken pottery. ‘My father and uncle have no idea Raphael is living on our estate. If they can’t see the gold, I don’t think there’s much hope for anyone else.’

  ‘Then what makes us so special?’

  Theo bit down on his lip too hard, drawing blood. What’s he trying to hide? Lorenzo thought, but suddenly he wasn’t thinking at all, only feeling, feeling very focused on that beating heart, on those strong arteries pulsing so close to him. His jaw ached as his fangs pushed out from their hiding place in the roof of his mouth, so he clenched his fists and concentrated on the cracked paving underfoot.

  ‘I know why I can see it. Your abilities remain a mystery,’ said Theo.

  ‘So you can because…’

  ‘Can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Then why say it in the first place?’

  Theo huffed but said nothing. Lorenzo grinned. ‘You can’t help yourself, can you? You have to answer a direct question even when you know you shouldn’t.’

  ‘Remember that lightning bolt? It’s still got your name on it.’

  Lorenzo peered around the courtyard. Raphael, where are you? Body heat radiated from the corner, underneath a wall of ivy sprawling up the cracks in the tower. At last, he was so close. ‘Theo, do us a favour and stop Penny coming in here.’ Before he could object, Lorenzo added, ‘Neither of us want her interrupting, right? And you promised me a meeting with Raphael. Unless you’re no longer interested in my professor.’

  ‘I don’t want her here anymore than you do,’ said Theo, turning round and placing his Scandinavian bulk on the threshold of the doorway. Unlike Penny and her followers, Theo said nothing, made no attempts to chant or even light a candle. One moment there was a doorway, the next moment a flat, stone wall. The roof was a problem – there wasn’t one, but Theo soon fixed that. An electric crackle snapped around the perimeter, scaling the crumbling stone, and forming a cage above their heads. They could see the night sky, but when a loose stone hit the barrier, it went flying off into space, as if it had been ejected out of a cannon. Lorenzo whistled. ‘Sweet. How long will it hold?’

  ‘Indefinitely.’ For the first time the vampire and the warlock exchanged a genuine grin, even if it was one of conspiracy. ‘But if you hurt Raphael that electricity up there will treat you like a death-row inmate strapped to the chair.’

  ‘Fine. There I was thinking we were having a moment.’ Lorenzo stalked over to the corner, aware that Penny, Malachi, and the coven had them surrounded on the outside. He couldn’t hear them anymore though as Theo’s barrier was soundproof.

  ‘Alright, me’ansum?’ Lorenzo said. No reply. ‘You know, I never got the chance to answer your question, Raphael,’ Lorenzo said, aiming his best sing-song tone into the ivy patch that concealed the boy. ‘I do want to meet you. Really I do.’

  ‘Why?’ A whisper could hold so much. Surprise, accusation, bemusement, bewilderment. All these things in one word.

  ‘You can’t be ignorant of your attraction?’ asked Lorenzo, feeling distinctly lyrical now he was inches from his prize. ‘The very promise held in your veins, the brutal purity in your very existence? Raphael the Pre-Raphaelite beauty. Perhaps in your innocence you don’t understand the absence that gnaws away in the centre of me like a shroud separating me from a true life.’

  ‘What is that to me?’ This time his whisper was breathless.

  ‘We desire what we lack,’ said Lorenzo, dropping down into his husky purr, ‘you are one with the creation, the wind itself. When you ran away – again – you offered that truth to me.’

  ‘I run when chased. I offered nothing.’

  ‘I chase everything. Did you know even spiders avoid me now? It’s as if the animals die when I show up they’re so quiet. When they see me, they even stop breathing until I pass. I can’t feel connected to the earth anymore. I can’t taste anything but blood. Then you show up and I sense it as shadows sense light, the wholeness in your flesh. How can a boy have galaxies for eyes? You see the world through a haze of amethyst and stars. I know now that I can taste life again. I can taste you.’

  Raphael appeared naked from the waist up, ivy wrapped around his wrists, ants marching up his smooth forearms. ‘I cannot return what you have lost, young vampire, I didn’t steal it from you.’

  ‘You can give me your blood. Don’t make me take it.’

  ‘You cannot take from me unless it is given freely.’

  The yearning sank into Lorenzo’s gut. We’ll see about that. His fingers curled, pained and contracting with hunger. He lunged at Raphael but suddenly he was pinned against the stone, bound by a thick ivy rope. He struggled but it was useless. Raphael had done this – the stardust-boy’s magic fastened him here, but where was he now? Running his fingers through trickling water as it streamed from upturned pottery jugs.

  ‘I can’t move.’ Raphael pretended not to hear him. Theo smirked, but Lorenzo ignored it. ‘Let me go. Please.’

  ‘Do you promise to be a gentleman?’

  ‘Yes, I promise.’ The ivy spat him out, but he remained immobile, trying to figure out what to do next. ‘You’re a tease, Raphael. You came to me, re
member?’

  ‘I didn’t come so you could rape me.’

  ‘Rape you? What are you talking about? Ugh.’

  Raphael glided over to the bench and sat down, his spine erect and hands folded in his lap. ‘You tried to force yourself on me without consent. The fact you wanted blood and not my body is irrelevant. It’s a violation nonetheless.’

  ‘Then why meet with me?’

  ‘To help Theo keep his promise.’

  Theo interrupted. ‘So my father’s wards aren’t worth the blood they’re written in, and you’re privy to all my private conversations. Perfect.’

  Raphael glanced up at him. ‘I have a vested interest in you too, Clemensen.’

  The situation was disintegrating fast, and Lorenzo was losing his chance. ‘I don’t care why you want to keep Theo’s promises, Raphael, just that you decided to meet me.’

  ‘Shut up, Lorenzo. Raphael, what do you mean?’

  Raphael traced a finger in the pool of water, causing a ripple to pass over the surface. ‘I know who – what – you are, Clemensen.’

  The atmosphere shifted instantly, and Theo shook, fear and rage storming in the opal whirlpool of his eyes. ‘This meeting is over!’ he shouted, and Raphael danced from his grasp as Theo rushed to grab him. The electric cage hissed overhead as the boy melted into the air, escaping through the open roof, unfazed by the barrier. Lorenzo roared at Theo, who he could only define as a ‘frenemy’. One moment he’d set up the only chance Lorenzo had of getting to the mysterious being he so coveted, and the next he ruined it.

  ‘No! Theo, get him back!’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Lorenzo stormed over and met him face to face. ‘Yes, you can.’

  ‘No. I. Can’t. I did what you asked. Not my fault you messed it up by jumping him.’

  ‘Oh, piss off,’ said Lorenzo, backing away, too upset to think. The blood had been so close. So fucking close. When he turned around again, Theo had fizzled away, vanishing like Raphael, taking his magical barrier with him.

  Within a blink, the courtyard was flooded with witches and warlocks, but he was numb in his heart and alone in his mind. Since being a vampire, he’d been ex-communicated from the living, and even though his heart was still beating, his limbs were cold. I am half-dead already, he thought. I need him. I need Raphael.

  Lorenzo ignored their questions – where’s Theo, who was that kid – and scorned Malachi’s invitation to go hunting after them both, absconding instead into the night. There was no point in hunting air.

  He found his girlfriend in her room – crying. Her mother was dying; the tumour had grown. Lorenzo held Jean-Ashley in leaden arms, wondering where his love for her had gone. In that moment, he was stone, his only thought that Anna was lucky that she would die, because that meant she was truly alive.

  18

  Dreaming Of The Dead

  I told Mum about my dream. She told me I was stressed about my exams, but I know better.

  Ava glanced over the sentence she’d written in her handmade journal, one of many she’d filled since her childhood, and scratched it out. This Book of Dreams she’d created was volume six and the pages brimmed with scribbles, snatches of song lyrics, and ideas. But recently, the entries were getting weirder.

  Usually, Ava cruised through her days half-knowing what to expect; whom she’d bump into, when a car alarm would trigger. She often picked up her mobile before it even rang. Chaotic and random events were nothing of the sort. In fact, Ava found them to be delicately structured, a cobweb of faces and places, accidents and chance, stitched together with a higher purpose only apparent to that invisible creature in the centre of the web. Ava believed this creature was God, but didn’t connect it to any particular belief system. God to Ava was a point of orientation, an unfathomable concept that provided a focus, a stage for life to play upon. She knew little about what God was made from. She only had feelings and sometimes her visions.

  I’m not stressed about my exams, Ava wrote, denying the lie as the ink dried on the page. Her whole bedroom smelt of it, thanks to the overstuffed bookcases on either side of the bed, and the printer in the corner that churned out her coursework and essays – and copies of her songs. It helped to see it all in print. When she wrote things down, forcing the ideas out of her head and on to a page, things made sense. The cobweb exposed a few extra strands, caught in the light of written revelation. I am stressed. It’s more than that. I’m disturbed.

  Ava chided herself for being melodramatic; she hadn’t meant it that way. A long time had passed since she had questioned her sanity. Once her mother had told Ava that she took after her grandmother – who’d had visions her whole life – it had all fallen into place. Acceptance followed quickly, and Ava was Ava. Ava had visions. Ava knew things. Her mother had called it ‘Precognition’ all those years ago. It went under many different names. Psychic. Witch. Clairvoyant. Freak. Oh, the list was so long. Most normal folk would call her a charlatan if she bothered to tell them the truth about her abilities. ‘Why haven’t you won the lottery then?’ Their accusations disguised as questions.

  Because it doesn’t work like that. I have no control over it. It’s always the little things. Not enough to prove to anyone but me. That was her exact response when the guy in the coffee shop had asked – during the date he’d squeezed in with her on his lunch break – after she’d taken the chance and hoped he might believe her. He didn’t ask for a second date. The following day he’d made her coffee and smiled instead at the girl behind her in the queue. It was so frustrating.

  Ava sighed, threw her journal onto her bed, and skimmed the creaky floorboards, pausing before her mirror, which reflected both her and the low beams above her head. She resisted the urge to stoop; although she loved the two-up two-down cottage she and her mum called home, the lack of headroom was growing old.

  Perversely, she enjoyed twirling in front of the mirror, pouting and making faces. It didn’t seem to matter that she thought her nose was slightly too big, or that the residual spot-scars on her cheek marred her skin like fairy rings that had lost their glow. Every week she was asked out on a date by a guy on campus. Sometimes she only had to take her Westie for a walk through Oakley Park and she’d meet a middle-aged man reading his paper on the bench, who’d soon try to catch her attention. Ava didn’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings, or judge too quickly, so she usually said, ‘yes, I’ll go out with you for a drink’, though she never really understood their attention. There’d been some boyfriends who lasted a few months, but nothing that would cause her to rush home, her cheeks burning with passionate fire, desperate to tell her mum about.

  ‘I’m always alone,’ Ava said to her reflection, running her fingers through her silky hair, dyed in subtle hues that resonated with a rainbow. She puckered her lips in a faux kiss. ‘Life is one predicable soap-opera, and I’m the only one sitting on the couch watching the screen.’ Not one of her boyfriends had truly surprised her. They’d always been so… so… vanilla. No one challenged her. Still, that wasn’t really their fault.

  It was hers.

  Deflated, she crawled over the flowery, pink bedspread that matched the pattern on her curtains, and buried her face in her pillows. She brooded over the past, each miserably boring date, the same round of questions and suggestions, ad nauseam. The gropes, the glazed-over look she got when she started talking about her music, how she found her inspiration. The polite smiles of young men, who were only thinking of one thing, only cared about one result. Such short attention spans.

  Talking of which, she thought, yawning into the soft fabric pressing into her face. She fell asleep before she could finish her thought.

  I’m here again. Down in the muck, where the red-haired woman is crying, a pile of leaves around her. As I walk over and extend my hand, she peeks through her fingers, one green eye perusing me, assessing my appearance. There always comes the point when a decision is made. The woman recognises me and stands, smiles broadly, though her cheeks are st
ained with dirt and tears. She opens her arms to me and calls me ‘daughter’ but we both understand she doesn’t mean literally. I embrace her, and I’m sure this part is a memory; an actual woman I once hugged, someone who cared about me. But I don’t know who she is.

  And yet, I say, ‘Hello, Isobel,’ as if my mouth has access to facts my brain doesn’t. I’m used to that in dreams, though. Her clothes smell like lavender, and as I focus on it, the scent is overpowering, itching my nose.

  ‘Daughter, I have something to tell you. Something you must do.’

  ‘Yes,’ I always say, ‘what is it?’

  ‘My son loves too much. He trusts too easily.’ This she tells me every night.

  ‘Yes, but what do you want from me?’ She buries her nails into my arms and squeezes the flesh, not to hurt me, but to strengthen my attention, which is prone to waning when I’m asleep.

  ‘When the time comes, he will need you. Protect him.’

  ‘Who? Who?’ The question echoes through the woods, but this time something new happens. Now she is falling, screaming. It’s a wail of dread and panic, desperation, and my heart smashes against my rib cage as her body is dashed against an outcrop of rock. For a while, the roar of the waves echoes her final words. Or, I should say, final word. Theo.

  I see a child in his room, sitting on a rocking horse and crying. Rocking back and forth, sobbing, compulsive in his motion, unable to stop despite his misery. I run to him, try to pick him up and hold him to my chest, but I’m a child myself, with little chubby arms and tiny hands. So I get on the horse and we rock together, his golden curls brushing my nose. We cry together. We grow together from toddlers to young children. He is older now. Strong even. But still he cries.

  When I wake up, my pillow is soaked with salty tears. ‘Theo,’ I breathe into the night. ‘I’m here.’