by Bill Bennett
The microwave alarm tinked and Gummi pulled the pizza onto a plate. It didn’t stay there long. He began to chomp into the thick cheese-filled crust like a lion attacking fallen prey. Grease dribbled down his chin. With one finger he mopped it up and licked it clean. Gummi was messy in almost every aspect of his life, except when it came to his work and his food. Takeout tubs and containers he would throw anywhere, bottles and cans too, but when it came to the last morsel stuck to a plate or some gravy on a piece of silverware, he always felt dutybound to lick it clean. He drew the line when it came to food slopped on his clothing, which he would let lie. Often for weeks. This he regarded as an essential part of his brand.
He was about to gulp down the last slice of the pizza when he looked up. Freddie stood at the door to the canteen, staring at him.
‘Gummi,’ he said, ‘how’d you like to come with me and Joe on a road trip?’
He shook his head. ‘I hate open spaces. And I’m not good with sunlight.’
‘We’ve got a rescue job to do. Angela.’ He added, ‘And we need you.’
Gummi looked over at Freddie. He really did hate travelling anywhere. His natural state was stasis. He relished inertia and he worshipped the much maligned condition of torpor. Some of his best ideas came out of it. Usually in front of a screen. Preferably with a box of Krispy Kremes at his side. But they did actually need him to work the Dragon Knot map. And if he could save Angela? How cool would that be! And he might even get to meet her daughter. He’d have to make sure he got a selfie.
CHAPTER 6
Skyhawk sat on a stone bench on the edge of the cliff and looked out over plains way below. A slivered moon cast a ghostly aura over the dark breathing land. In the distance he could see a thread of light cutting across the flat desert expanse. The highway. A tarred capillary of rushing noise and metal and rubber, carrying vehicles full of hope or fear or anger or love, each heading somewhere in search of something, or someone, or someplace better than the place they’d just been.
Skyhawk had sat on this very bench many times with his father, who’d told him of the times before the highway scarred their land, before the casinos scarred their people, before the church folk walked into their village with their good book and best intentions, before their home became a walk-through for tourists, a time when there was only the earth and the sky, and the creatures and beasts, and the sacred worlds of their gods and ancestors.
They lived in those times by their understanding of the forces of nature. They listened to its rhythms, they watched its cycles, they celebrated its ebbs and flows. They ate from its soil and branches and drank from its lakes and streams. They took shelter from its wrath and they harvested its bounty. They respected and worshipped its immutability, its constancy, its oneness. And they survived, because they found harmony with that oneness.
It wasn’t like that anymore.
The only time those in his village looked up to the sky now was to see if it was going to rain, because that would mean fewer tourists and a slow day selling trinkets. Even then the folk in Skyhawk’s village mostly got their weather information from their smartphones. There was little connection anymore to the elemental forces that had shaped them as a people, as a nation, as a culture. Skyhawk was one of the few that had maintained that connection and each day as a park ranger he found time to pay respect to the natural world around him and to commune with the spirit world.
He was his father’s son and that meant he had powers. Shamanic powers. But just like Lily, they were still buds in spring, waiting to fully blossom.
His mother walked out of the house, came over and sat beside him. She looked exhausted – as though she’d done battle with forces that had tested her limits of endurance and skill.
‘I have done all I can, so now we’ll just have to wait and see,’ she said. ‘I’ve used a potion my granmama taught me. I hope it’ll draw out the black magic poison. I haven’t seen this kind of thing for many many years.’
‘Will she be okay?’ Skyhawk asked.
Maddy paused, staring out over the flatlands way below.
‘Her soul is still in her body. While it stays there, she has a chance. If it leaves, then it will be more difficult, and I will have to try and sing it back. That’s all I’ll be able to do. But it hasn’t come to that yet. She is very strong. Her soul is very strong. She has lived many many lifetimes, I can see that in her. She has been here many times before. And I suspect it is not her time to leave, not just yet. She still has work to do here. But this poison is very potent. It is very … persuasive. We will soon see who wins this argument.’
‘What can I do to help?’
‘There is nothing you can do. We have to wait to see if her life force is stronger than the needs of the black spirit.’ She hesitated, and then said, ‘There’s no need to tell me what happened to you both. That’s not important. What is important is that I see your two soul energies beginning to wrap together like cords into rope, becoming stronger than your separate twine. I sense you and she have a purpose together, but I must ask you, is this what you really want, son? To be wound into rope with someone else? You are a free spirit, that’s why we named you as we did.’
Skyhawk paused, then said, ‘Pa told me before he died that there would be a time soon when the sun would be lost behind a cloud, a cloud so thick and black it would settle over the land and bring night to the day. He said it would boil with storm and lightning, and thunder would beat like war drums. And everywhere there would be fire, he said. It would spring from the ground like from a fountain. He called it a “conflagration”, and said many people would die.’ Skyhawk looked across at his mother. ‘If it happens, I’ll need help to fight it. Perhaps the girl will be that help.’
Maddy took her son’s hand. ‘You have your father’s sight and his warrior spirit. But you must be careful. You do not know this girl. You do not know her purpose, and whether your purpose and hers are in one line. Perhaps they’re not. Already she has put you into danger. You don’t need to fight her battles. As your father said, you will have your own battles to fight.’
‘Perhaps my battles and her battles are the one battle.’ Skyhawk smiled. ‘Papa gave me a special gift, Ma, and I know the responsibilities that come with it. I believe the girl has been given a similar gift, perhaps from her ma. So if this conflagration is the one battle – the biggest battle this world has faced in recent times, if what my father said turns out to be true – then maybe we do share a common purpose and destiny. I don’t know. But yes, I see our energies starting to bind together and it’s not something I will stop. It’s something I like very much.’
Maddy stared out over the plain with faraway eyes, as if she was seeing what was to come. ‘Don’t let your “liking” of this girl take you from your path. She is strong, as I’ve said, and she will grow into a beautiful woman who will turn the head of any man. Even with her sickness I can see she has powers and abilities that are not of the known world. If these powers grow within her she will soon be a force to be reckoned with. As will you, my son, as you grow older. All I’m saying is be careful. Don’t let your young man’s eye distract you from what you are meant to do. Our people will need you. But if it is true, what your father said about the black cloud and the fires, then that is something which will come to our land too, to our very homes, and yes, it is not something you can battle on your own. That much I know.’
She looked out over the desert, stretching out to the horizon, and said, ‘Your father saw things and he was never wrong. The darkness will come. That I know. And this I know too – the girl is light. She is so full of light, she is blinding. That is what you will need. You will need light.’
Later, he heard her singing.
He’d fallen asleep on the stone bench and his mother’s wailing voice woke him. The moon was now high in the night sky. In rising it had grown smaller, thinner, more severe. Somehow it had become cold and hard, like a brittle sliver of ice. He walked back inside.
The
main living room was full of a wafting smoke that rose from a metal pot, dangling from a blackened hook. Inside, a thick glutinous brew bubbled and popped. Skyhawk’s mother stood at an opened window which looked out over the plains way below. She wailed into the night, as if calling back a lost soul – which in fact was exactly what she was doing. Her eyes were closed, her fists were clenched, her brow was knitted tight in concentration. She was singing some kind of mantra, repetitive and simple. It had a strange spellbinding quality, hypnotic, and the lilting words looped out the window like a lasso trying to catch a wayward sigh.
Skyhawk looked across at Lily, who lay on a handwoven rug spread over the kitchen table. She was swaddled in blankets, but her shoulders were laid bare. Poultices made from moss and leaves covered the poisonous wounds inflicted by one of the shapeshifting witches who had become a giant scorpion.
Skyhawk walked over to her, sat down by the table and took her hand. It felt deathly cold. Inhumanly cold. He interlaced his fingers with hers, as if to try and get as much of his body heat into her as possible. Her skin was alabaster white, except for some freckles on her cheeks and nose. Her hair was rusty red, her green eyes were closed, her upturned nose was taking in air that slowly, almost imperceptibly, raised and lowered her chest.
He stared at her, transfixed. She’s too beautiful to die, he thought.
The scratching woke him. At the door. Scratch scratch scratch. He glanced across at Lily, still in a poison-induced coma, their fingers still intertwined. Her skin was white, her touch cold. He looked out the window, to check the time. The moon was descending – the stars had shifted. To anyone else, it would mean nothing. Very few people would even be aware of the arcing of the stars. The moon, yes, but not the stars. To Skyhawk, though, it meant everything. Where he was in the world, what time it was, what season it was. Two hours had elapsed. That would make it about 12.30 a.m.
The room was filled with smoke from a fire that had retreated to embers. It provided the only light – ghostly, pulsating, blushing the walls the colour of blood. In a stationary rocking chair on the other side of the room, Skyhawk’s mother slept.
Scratch scratch scratch.
And the sound of huffing.
Like a dog. More than a dog. No ordinary dog made sounds like that. This was something other than a dog.
Maddy’s eyes sprung open and she was at the door in a flash. Like she’d never been asleep. Skyhawk stepped beside her, his hunting knife drawn. His mother glanced over at him, signalled him not to say a word. She put her palm to the door, using it like a stethoscope to try and read the vibrations coming through the thick oak panel. She looked back at her son, her eyes hooded, wisdom eclipsing fear, her eyes glinting red in the embered light.
She put her head back and howled. Like a wild cat.
The cry went through the door, out into the night, out into the village, into every home, into every heart. And then she stood back from the door and waited. And Skyhawk stepped back into shadow and prepared himself.
They appeared out of the dark. First one or two, then a dozen, then more. Some held rakes, some held scythes, some carried ropes and netting and a few carried knives. The dog at the door, the massive pit bull, turned to them and growled. It was a sound of rage and fury, but also of delight at what was to come. The lips curled back to reveal green mottled gums, and slimy teeth, and slinging bubbled saliva.
Bess loved these moments. When the fools thought they had the best of her. Before their courage liquefied into sheer screaming terror. When they still clung to the misguided belief that she was just a dog. Garden implements, and nets, and pathetic little cutting blades. Were they serious? Did they really think they were a match for her? She growled again and the sound seemed to shake the very ground beneath their feet. It was a deep low guttural sound that seemed to come from the very essence of evil. From a place not of this earthly plane.
They hesitated. They faltered. Bess could see fear in some of their eyes. She could smell it too, oozing out from the sweat that suddenly trickled down their backs, or from under their arms, or from the quickened breath out their dry mouths.
She began to select her first victim. There was one man in front, stupidly braver than the rest; his eyes still held courage. He was holding a scythe. The fool. Did he really believe he could hurt her with his puny little reaper? He would be first. She would leap, faster than he could believe, faster than the eye would allow, and she would tear out his throat. Crush his windpipe. He would be dead in seconds. There was a younger man slightly behind him. Perhaps his son? He would be the second. She would go for his heart. Rip it out of his chest, gulp it down in front of them all. If that didn’t send them running, then she would charge into the crowd, go wild, feast on the lot of them. It had been a while since she’d gorged on human flesh. This would be fun.
The crowd of villagers began to part and fall away. Cowards, she thought, as they stepped back into the shadows. A few measly growls, a show of teeth and you flee? What sort of people are you? Men? You call yourselves men? Have you read my mind? Do you know what’s in store for you? Have you seen the carnage that’s about to happen? Have you tasted the blood already? Have you heard the screams?
As they melted back into the darkness, a form appeared further back, a golden ghostly form, materialising out of the deepest shadows. It began to take shape as it slowly and silently moved forward into the light.
Bess growled again – louder this time, with more ferocity. And within that growl there was a roar of defiance. And within that defiance there was a tremor of fear. What was this thing that dared to confront her? Why was it stepping forward when the others were pushing back? She bared her teeth, opened her massive jaws again. The hair down her back bristled into a mohawk, signalling she was ready to fight. Come to me, baby, she thought. Come to me and I will enjoy tearing you to pieces. I will savour you in your vain-glorious stupidity.
Still, though, there was fear. And doubt. What was it? Man or beast? Why had it not turned and fled, like the others?
It came forward. Was it witless? Could it not see that it was approaching certain death? That the dog before it was primed to kill? That it would not hesitate in tearing whatever it was into bloody chunks of flesh and bone?
Bess realised that she still had her back to the door of the boy’s house. If there were to be a fight, she needed space. She needed to scurry back into the square so that she couldn’t be trapped. She crab-walked around, keeping her gaze fixed on whatever it was that was emerging out of the dark. It seemed to be growing in size as it approached, and it seemed also to glow in the dark – a luminescent gold, shimmering as if from its own internal light source. Impossible, Bess thought. It’s just the moonlight.
There were adobe mud houses on three sides of the square. In the centre was an old tree, misshapen by an incessant sculpturing wind. On the fourth side of the square was a scenic lookout on the edge of a clifftop that dropped near vertically to a parking lot way down below. There was space enough for a fight, Bess thought. But it wouldn’t come to that. Whatever it was that was approaching her was obviously ignorant of what it would be confronting and as soon as it realised, it too would cut and run like the others.
Bess let out a full-throated roar that was less defiant now, more a challenge. A battle cry. The sound stirred her, bolstered her courage, boosted her will. Because still deep down there was a seed of doubt. Who was this person that placed no value on his mortal soul? Who was prepared to die – and for what? To protect the village? To protect the girl? What was the girl to them? Surely she meant nothing. She wasn’t one of them. Most of those fools with their toy weapons wouldn’t even know who she was. So why this stupid show of support? It didn’t matter. She would get rid of this pest, this halfwit that dared to challenge her. She would tear him to pieces, gorge on his heart, then bust down the door and do the same to the girl. And that boy too. Get rid of them both. Kritta would be delighted.
The pit bull peered into the shadows.
&
nbsp; At what was coming towards her.
What was it?
Man or beast?
Into the light stepped her adversary – a huge and regal golden mountain lion. It returned her roar with an even greater roar that almost thrust Bess back a few paces. The sound rattled every cell in her body.
The creature was enormous. Larger than a mountain lion should be. Bess noticed that its jaws were twice as big as hers and its teeth were like sabres. She looked down at its paws and saw claws the size of boning knives and just as sharp. Its eyes were dancing flecks of golden flame, holding hers in thrall. She pulled her gaze away. These were not the eyes of an earthly creature, these were the eyes of a spirit beast. An ephemera.
Bess was brave but she wasn’t stupid. She knew immediately this wasn’t a fight she could win. Even though she was a familiar and an energetic extension of her host Kritta, she was also flesh and blood and could be injured, or killed. And being a familiar, any injury to her was an injury to her host. If she died, a part of Kritta would die as well. She couldn’t allow that to happen.
She bolted. There was a gap between the houses, a track that she bounded towards in a flash. But the cat was faster. It wheeled around and blocked her way – roaring in fury, exposing those sword-like teeth. Bess skittered back, swung around fast to the other side of the square – to a path leading to the church. But the beast was there again, on its two hind legs now, front paws out, its claws extended, slicing the air in front of her, forcing her back.
She turned to the third side of the square, an open market area that she raced towards, moving faster than she could think, but the cat was even faster. She skidded to a stop, now facing the cat. She was breathing hard. Her chest heaving. The mountain lion was still, its eyes like fire pits of golden light, ageless, timeless, fearless. It roared again and the ferocity of the blast rippled the flesh on her cheeks, pushed back her ears, forced her to blink and blink again.
