by Bill Bennett
‘That’s so cool. What a job. It must be so beautiful.’ Lily loved the sound of his voice. It was soft and gentle. But it was sending her to sleep again.
‘Yes, it is. It’s incredible. Nature is incredible.’
She was fighting to keep awake. ‘So what else do you do? I mean, what else are you?’
Skyhawk smiled at the question. ‘What else am I?’
‘Yes, everyone is more than just their job. What are you?’
He hesitated. ‘My father was a shaman. And his father before him too. And his father also. We go back many many generations, all from the one village. The Needle. So that’s what I am, or at least that’s what I’m becoming, in the same way you’re becoming a witch.’
Lily looked over at him. ‘A shaman? What’s a shaman?’
Skyhawk stared at the road ahead, two tunnels of light burrowing into black tar. ‘It’s hard to explain without making it sound … kind of cheap. It’s a sacred thing. You could say it’s spiritual. Shamans can connect to the spirit world. They can communicate with ancestors, get messages, they can heal, they can see what’s coming. And they have a unique connection to Mother Earth and all its spirit world.’
‘Wow,’ Lily said. ‘And that’s what you are?’
‘Not yet. I’m still learning the ways. I hope one day to develop all those skills. I have it in me, with my ancestry, but it takes a lot of work.’
‘So is there someone, kind of, like, teaching you?’ To Lily, this was fascinating. She could see so many parallels between the two of them.
‘Yes, there’s an elderly man. A wise man. He lives in another village near the Casino. Lives in a trailer actually. He’s very old, probably close to a hundred, but no one really knows, not even him. They call him Old One. He’s always been old. Maybe he’ll never die. But he teaches me. We drive out to the park, go hiking, camp out. I’ve been learning a lot from him. He’s amazing. But before that, it was my father. He taught me pretty much from birth.’
Lily felt a sudden pang of jealousy. If only her parents had done the same – taught her witchcraft from birth. She’d be way more advanced than she was now. And she’d be able to use the wand and the Cygnet charm. Instead, they chose to give her a normal childhood and keep everything secret. She still felt resentment, as though her younger years had been a lie.
‘What about you?’ Skyhawk asked, throwing her a glance.
‘What am I? Or do I have a boyfriend?’
He laughed. ‘Both, I guess.’
‘Well, you know what I am. Right at this moment you probably know better than anyone, seeing as how our souls have been out partying. And as for the boyfriend?’ Lily hesitated. She didn’t want to tell him that the sum total of her romantic life was a complete and utter zero. The only boy recently that had made any kind of dent in her affections had been Kevin Johnstone and that had been wishful thinking on her part more than anything. But he wasn’t an option anymore anyway, what with him possibly being a witch – one of those Golden Order witches.
‘No, not at the moment,’ Lily said, exhaustion finally starting to sweep over her like an incoming wave rushing up a beach.
‘I mean, I know a boy,’ she said, thinking that she might use her wishful-thinking relationship with Kevin Johnstone to stop Skyhawk thinking that she was a teenage spinster. ‘But he’s not like a boyfriend boyfriend.’ She was babbling again, she realised. Her tiredness was making her run off at the mouth. She couldn’t stop herself. ‘I mean, actually, he’s a bit of a jerk. He’s, like, really up himself. But he’s a friend, or at least he was a friend. But not anymore. So no, technically speaking, I wouldn’t say I have a boyfriend boyfriend. You could say I’m totally boyfriend-less.’
My God! Did she just say that? She immediately felt embarrassed, as though she’d just thrown herself at Skyhawk’s feet, pleading, Please, take me. Take me. I’m available.
Skyhawk glanced across at her, smiling. Understanding. ‘That’s good to know,’ he said. Then added gently, ‘How about you get some shut-eye?’
She shut her eye. And the other one too.
It was that dream again, that haunting dream, of running down a shadowed stone corridor, flaming torches guttering in brackets on the walls as she fled past, darkness behind. Within that darkness was the beast, the two-headed beast, chasing her, relentlessly, huffing and snorting, the sound of its cloven hooves ringing off the walls and age-old stone underfoot, the goat and the boar, tusks and horns, and evil all around.
She bounded around a corridor and instead of an oak door ahead of her, as in her past dreams, there was a stairwell descending into darkness. There was nowhere else to go but down, into the depths.
She went down, two steps at a time.
Her breathing hard.
Her heart pounding in her chest, in her ears.
There were no torches here, no light, but she could see, somehow she could see, dim as it was.
There was a foul mustiness to the air, like it hadn’t moved in a hundred years, like she’d climbed down into a tomb that had been shut for eons. There was the stale smell of death, but death that had long since decayed and turned to dust. And it was hot. How could it be hot?
She was running down another corridor of wide stone paving, walls chipped from rock, a wall up ahead and a turn into another corridor, then another turn, and then … she stopped, her breath catching up to her. Sweat pouring in tiny rivulets down her body, her face, her arms. Why was it so hot down here?
Ahead of her were two massive doors. Oak banded with iron, studded with bronze. Two massive rings as handles.
She heard the beast behind, she smelt its putrid odour. The sound of its hooves filling the dark. Its huffing breath echoing, bouncing off stone. She rushed up, grabbed the rings, heaved both doors open. The smell of dust and death gushed out at her. She almost gagged.
Inside were rows upon rows of shelves, divided into open-ended boxes, each containing something … what was it? What were in these hundreds, no – thousands of boxes, stacked so high they disappeared into darkness, the rows so long they fell off into infinite black?
She stepped forward, reaching up into one of the boxes, then pulled out … a scroll. A goatskin parchment, rolled up. She unfurled it and looked down on … ancient pen-scratched writing. It was some form of contract, signed in blood. And then she knew – it was a contract for a person’s soul. A pact, made with Satan. This vast cavernous space was filled with more rows of shelving than she could see, with probably hundreds of thousands of boxes, and each contained a soul contract with the devil.
Underneath the floor burned hot. The air seemed to be alive with flame – flickering fire that was there, but not there. Like it existed in a dimension that she was only partly privy to.
She turned.
Because the beast was upon her.
Its eyes, all four of them, red with flame.
Its flared nostrils, all four of them, snorting steam.
She turned and ran down between the rows of shelving.
The fire parting before her.
Behind her, the beast chasing her down.
Lily woke, but not quite. Sleep pulled at her, wanting to drag her back, back to that nightmare. Back to that beast. She fought to swim towards the surface of wakefulness. Where she would be safe. Away from the fire and the dust of death.
She was vaguely aware of the car, of them slowing, the engine shifting down gears, of Skyhawk beside her suddenly alert.
She broke to the surface, woke with a start. ‘What’s up?’ she asked.
Skyhawk nodded to a rest area up ahead. A car was parked, headlights on, and a woman was walking back and forth in and out of the glare of the lights. Even from a distance Lily could see it was the tiny biker woman – the one the detective had called Kritta Kredlich. What shocked Lily, though, was the car – the Mustang convertible. She’d seen that car many times before at school and at parties and dances around Mill Valley. It belonged to Kevin Johnstone.
As they sl
owed down Kritta stared across at them, squinting against the glare of the convertible’s headlights, and Lily immediately ducked down. Had the biker girl seen them? Or had she been blinded by the headlights.
As they passed the rest area she felt the telltale rush of stinging bees in her hand, but she also felt something else in her heart – something warm and benign, a sense of comfort and love. It seemed familiar to her, that feeling. She tried to recall when she’d last felt that energy. It had been recently.
Skyhawk accelerated.
‘No, slow down,’ Lily said. ‘Turn around.’
‘Turn around?’
‘I want you to go back.’
Skyhawk looked over at her. ‘Lily, we need to get as far away from them as fast as possible.’
‘I felt something. I want to go back.’
Lily suddenly remembered the last time she’d felt that sensation of benign energy, of love and comfort. It was when Luna, in the cave after her initiation, had opened up her mother’s old Samsonite case and showed her The Book of Light. Could that biker girl possibly be carrying the book in Kevin’s car? Had she found it in the hidden chamber in the cave and taken it with her? And was Kevin with her too? Was he driving? Lily hadn’t had a chance to see.
She needed to go back and find out. And if The Book of Light was in the car, she had to get it back somehow. She remembered what her mom had said in the letter she left in the motel the night she went back to the farm to retrieve the book. It is your birthright, your ancestry, and your destiny. I cannot stress too greatly that it must never get into the hands of our adversaries.
‘Lily, right now the priority’s got to be your mom,’ Skyhawk said quietly.
Lily glanced out the window at the sliver of moon. He was right, of course. They couldn’t afford to waste any time. But if that woman did have The Book of Light, then her mom would want her to try and get it back. And Lily also wanted to know if Kevin Johnstone was in that car, or if the biker witch had stolen it. Was KJ in cahoots with the Golden Order in this horrific plan to kill her mother? To sacrifice her to Satan?
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Let’s go back.’
Skyhawk nodded, then turned off his headlights and did a U-turn. He drove slowly back, and about a hundred yards from the rest stop he found a dirt track off the side of the road. He drove in until the SUV was hidden from sight, then he stopped.
‘Let’s walk back from here,’ he said.
Keeping to the undergrowth, staying out of sight, they walked silently back towards the rest stop. They stopped in the woods, hidden from view, on the other side of the road, where they could see through to where Kritta had parked. As they watched, a huge golden eagle landed by the convertible. It was the same bird Lily had seen hovering above their vegetable garden that Saturday morning of the farmers’ market, the day her mom disappeared. It was also the same bird that had attacked her and Skyhawk in the foothills of the Chalk Mountains, on their way up to meet Luna.
To Lily’s utter amazement, the bird suddenly turned into a woman – a tall dark-skinned woman. She looked like an African huntress. Lily immediately recognised her as one of the two women that had been with Kritta that morning they walked through the market, looking for her mom.
The tall woman got into the convertible. Kritta looked around, as if sensing a presence she wasn’t fully conscious of, then she hopped in too – on the passenger’s side – and the convertible drove off, the engine roaring, the sound of tires crunching gravel as the car wheeled out of the rest area back onto the road.
Lily and Skyhawk stood and watched as the red tail-lights bled into the dark.
‘Did you see who was driving?’ Lily asked. Could it have possibly been Kevin Johnstone? she wondered.
Skyhawk shook his head. ‘It was too dark. I couldn’t see.’
‘Come on, let’s follow,’ Lily turned to run back to their vehicle.
Skyhawk grabbed her. ‘Lily, wait. We have to go to the mine. Your mother. That’s the most important thing here, not following them. We’ll just be wasting more time.’
‘I think they’ve got the book.’
‘The book?’
‘My mom’s book. The Book of Light. I think it’s in their car. I felt it.’
‘You felt it?’
‘I felt it. In my heart. I can’t explain it any better than that,’ said Lily. ‘They somehow must have found it in the cave. Come on!’ She pulled at his shirt to go.
Skyhawk hung back. ‘Okay, even if we do get this book, what then? What’s more important, the book or your mom?’
‘It’s got spells and magic stuff in it that I could use to help save her.’ Lily knew as soon as she said this that it was naive.
‘Could you?’ Skyhawk asked. ‘You’d know how to do that?’
Lily looked up at him, hesitating. Of course he was right. She probably wouldn’t know how to unlock the power of the spells in the book. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I know every minute counts right now, but if the book is in that car, and we can get it, then it might save us a lot of time later on, at the mine. You might be right, I might not know how to use those spells, but then again, without it we might have no chance at all of saving Mom.’
‘Okay, but don’t forget that woman has tried to kill you a couple of times now. She’s a skilled witch with all sorts of powers we don’t even know about. You saw how she changed that bird into a woman. We’re dealing with stuff here that’s way out of our league. And if she catches you, then your mom’s as good as dead too, because you’re her only chance of getting out of this alive.’
‘I have to try. And if it gets too tricky or risky, then we’ll bail. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Skyhawk said, then he smiled. ‘You’re determined, aren’t you. Determined and brave.’
‘I’m the daughter of my mother, that’s all,’ she said. Then she took his hand and they ran back to the car, Lily enjoying the sensation of his touch, the roughness of his palm, the strength of his fingers.
A few hours later they spotted the Mustang parked in a cheap roadside motel, outside a room. Skyhawk slowed, turned in and pulled up in shadows at the far end of the motel’s parking lot. He turned off the engine and they stared at the car.
How many of them are there? Lily wondered. At the rest stop, what with the glare of the Mustang’s headlights and everything happening so fast, she’d only managed to see Kritta and the tall African woman. Was Kevin Johnstone with them? And what about the third one, that small stocky woman who looked like a bulldog and had been with them at the market, then later at the motel when they tried to bust into her room? Where was she? Could there be four of them in all?
And if so, were they in two rooms, or one? Or how many? If KJ was with them, was he sharing a room with that Kritta woman? Lily flushed at the thought. Surely not. She was older than him. But then again, Lily thought, he did have a reputation for going with older women. She wasn’t here to find out about Kevin Johnstone, though, she was here to see if The Book of Light was in the back of that Mustang. And if it was, then could they retrieve it without the Kritta woman finding out?
Skyhawk took his long-bladed hunting knife from the SUV’s glove compartment, strapped it onto the belt around his waist. He looked over at Lily. ‘You sure you want to do this?’ he asked.
Lily nodded. ‘Give me your knife,’ she said.
Skyhawk paused, then flipped the knife around so that he held it by the blade and offered the handle to her. She took it, got out of the car and walked off. He followed her over to a nearby grove of trees.
‘Give me a hand,’ she said, looking up at the tree. ‘I need a hand up.’
Skyhawk leaned over and cupped his hands, and with Lily still holding the knife and resting her other hand on his shoulder, she put one foot in his clasped hands then as he jettisoned her upwards, she leapt and grabbed hold of a large branch with her one free hand. With the other she began to use the knife to saw into the branch where it joined the tree’s trunk. As she cut deeper, her weight
began to wrench it from the tree and she fell to the ground, landing nimbly with a length of wood as tall as she, and as thick as a man’s forearm. She then used the knife to whittle away the smaller branches and twigs at one end, and then she fashioned the other end, torn from the tree, into a lethal point, like a spearhead.
Finally satisfied, she handed the knife back to Skyhawk, who had watched the whole process with fascination and a certain admiration – then she twirled and parried the staff through the air in a series of swift and deadly aikido moves. In her hands the branch ripped from a tree had become a weapon that could maim or kill.
‘Now I’m ready,’ she said to Skyhawk and, leading the way, she stepped out of the shadows and began to walk towards the Mustang.
CHAPTER 16
Marley didn’t like this at all. Walking into the square at this time of night, one crippled tree at its centre that looked like a skin-and-bone crone, bent against the wind, daring them to enter the village.
Marley felt trapped, cornered. They had no backup, nowhere to run if it all went to crap. They’d climbed to the top of this God almighty column of rock, with precipitous drops of hundreds of feet on all sides and the only exit point being the way they’d come, on that winding track from the parking lot. All her instincts told her to get the hell out of there fast. But what then? Where would they go? This was their only real live lead.
Marley had been concerned about Olivier on the climb. He’d found it extremely difficult. In the dark, with the use of only one eye and with his painkillers starting to wear off, he’d struggled. She’d tried to help him a couple of times but he’d stubbornly refused. His male French pride was such that he could never countenance help from a woman, much less an American woman.
But now they were walking into the village square, with not a soul stirring and no lights on in any of the houses, feeling like all eyes were upon them, as though they were being watched behind the drawn curtains and closed shutters. Again Marley asked herself, Why am I here? Why am I doing this? Why had she put herself into a situation where, if it all went to crap, she’d be on her own? She’d be treated like a regular civilian, not the veteran detective she was – simply because she wasn’t on official business – technically she was on vacation and out of her home state, out of her jurisdiction.
