“Such a hardship,” I said and turned around to kiss him.
By the time the soup boiled over, he had me up against the sink again. Maybe it was the aftershocks of the fear I had felt earlier. Maybe it was this ever-growing fondness I was feeling for him.
But I couldn’t stop kissing him—couldn’t hold in the shivers that went through me after every touch. We forgot the soup boiling on the stove, forgot the storm outside, and went stumbling together for the sofa, discarding clothes in our wake.
We eventually ate singed soup huddled up around the kitchen table and left the dirty bowls for tomorrow.
Curled up on the sofa in his arms, watching the reflections of the candles in the dim windows, I finally asked, “You can hear them?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
HE WAS quiet for a while, running his hand slowly up and down my back. Then he said, “Ever since I was a child. It’s why my granddad taught me to laugh at a storm. He said they’re the sort to have more respect for defiance than fear.”
“You were frightened?”
“Hearing them whenever the wind picked up? Yeah. I was always glad that Katie couldn’t.” He stopped, his eyes widening as if he had surprised himself. He was so careful about what he said about her. I wondered how much more was waiting to slip out.
He shook his head a little, then went on, “Granddad could hear them. My father can’t. Mum can—it’s one of the reasons she doesn’t like coming up here. It offends her sense of reason, I think.”
“I can understand that,” I said wryly. “What are they? Are they the same ones who ride down to the river every night?”
He shrugged. “Hard to say. No one here… we don’t talk about them. I couldn’t even tell you who else in the village can hear them. Seems odd to think there’s two sets of riders out there in the same night, though. I reckon the storms get them riled up enough to leave their usual path.”
“Over the border?”
“Still on a hot trod.” He was quiet for a moment but added, almost reluctantly, “My granddad had it from his granddad who had it from his that they were Elliots, riding up to Hermitage to take their stolen bairns back from the wicked old lord.”
I shivered. With the power out, that world—where stories passed down the generations rather than over the internet—seemed closer than it ever had before. Then the import of his words struck me. “Chasing after lost children. You don’t think…?”
“I don’t think they’re taking the children, no.” He closed his eyes, ducked his face into the crook of my neck, and whispered, “I heard them riding, the night before—before the crash. Round and round the house, as if they were warning me.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I told him, kissing the top of his head. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I knew the stories. I should have remembered.”
I thought differently. Whatever had happened at Vainguard tonight, it hadn’t been a warning. It had been a confrontation—the riders had put themselves between me and whatever haunted Vainguard. They had guarded me; perhaps they had given Katie one more night safe at home, protected from whatever was hunting her.
I didn’t think that would help, though, so I just leaned down and kissed him fiercely, trying to remind him that life without her wasn’t all bad.
He made a surprised noise into my mouth, but then his hands closed around my shoulders and he returned my kiss, just as needy. When we eventually pulled apart, he was breathing hard, his chest heaving beneath me, and there was something in his eyes, something both surprised and tender.
He cupped his hand around the back of my head and murmured, “Take me to bed, lover.”
The endearment made me shiver. I scrambled to my feet and held out my hand. He took it, his gaze not leaving my face. “We’ll need a candle.”
I picked up the holder nearest me, amused when I realised it was a flowery saucer which had probably never been meant for such use. Its edges were warm, but not too much to hold, and I lit our way to bed and set it on the wide sill of his bedroom window.
When I turned around again, he was already naked, the golden candlelight dancing across every curve of muscle. He smiled at me and held his arms open. “Come here.”
I went, already fumbling at my own clothes, and he pulled me into his kiss.
IF ANY ghostly riders passed by again that night, we did not hear them. We were too lost in each other, in slow kisses and tender touches and the steady thrust of his body against mine.
WHEN WE woke, the storm was over, and the wind was still. Pale early light seeped in the window, and Niall was sleeping warmly behind me, his arm thrown across my chest and his hand over my heart. The candle on the windowsill had burnt out, and it belatedly occurred to me that we shouldn’t have left so many burning downstairs.
When I tried to slide out of bed, Niall mumbled against the back of my neck, sleepy and disgruntled.
“Just checking we haven’t burnt half the house down,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
It was quiet downstairs, the air faintly scented with wax. A couple of the bigger candles were still flickering wanly against the light of dawn, but the rest were out. I blew out the last ones, glad we no longer needed them, and stretched slowly, easing every ache in my body and smiling at the memory of how I’d earned them. The clock on the oven was out, but the one on the wall said it was barely past four. I wandered to the window and looked out, wondering if there would be any sign of the tumult of the night—hoofprints slammed into the mud, perhaps, or a trampled hedge.
There was nothing there, save Vainguard.
Even it looked quiet this morning, deceptively benign.
How much of what had happened last night had been simply my own overwrought imagination?
But no. Niall had heard the riders too.
“Leon?”
He’d made it to the top of the stairs, bleary-eyed and naked, his hair on end.
I smiled up at him, impossibly charmed. “On my way.”
His arms wrapped around me as soon as I made it to the landing, and he towed me back to bed with wordless grumbles. I went willingly, snuggled back into his embrace, and let him pull the sheets back over us. He wrapped his arm around me again, thrust his thigh between mine, and made a low, contented sound.
Then, within a breath, he was asleep again, his breath slow and hot against my neck. I put my hand over his, interlacing our fingers, and smiled. I liked him—liked him so much I was halfway to putting another name on it.
But I could not stay at Vainguard, and what future did we have in that case?
Refusing to spoil the moment with such thoughts, I closed my eyes, listened to him breathe, and drifted back to sleep.
WE WERE woken again by the doorbell, followed by a hard rap on the door.
“Fuck off,” Niall muttered vaguely, but the bell rang again, loud and insistent.
He swung out of bed, still swearing, and stomped out of the room. I heard him drag up the window on the landing, and yell, “What?”
There came a quick exchange of conversation, and he came back, his face grim. I was sitting up by then, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
“Lucy,” he said.
“Who?”
“Police. Get dressed.”
He was dragging his own jeans on, and I scrabbled for my own clothes. “What? What do they want?”
“She didn’t say. Not going to be good after a night like that, though.”
We were downstairs within a minute, and it was only after I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in the hall mirror, sleepy and barefoot, that I realised how obvious it was how we’d spent our night. Well, it was none of their business. All the same, I was a little self-conscious, especially as Niall had turned scowling and taciturn.
How many times had the police come to his door after Katie?
“Go and put the kettle on,” I said to him. “I’ll find out what they want.”
He blinked at me as if he was surprised I would offer, the
n nodded sharply, turning away.
I went to the door. The woman outside was a community police officer, young and solemn-faced. I said, “Come in. Kettle’s on. How can we help today?”
“You’re Mr Kwarteng, staying at the guesthouse?”
“I am. Got caught here last night. Not sure my car survived the experience.”
The woman gave me a quick smile which wasn’t as sympathetic as it could have been. “I’m afraid I’m here for a reason. One of the boys staying in your guesthouse has been missing since last night. We need your permission to look around Vainguard. His parents thought he might be here.”
“Of course,” I said, horrified. “My God—is it Mac or Doug? What happened?”
“Not sure yet. Might be a false alarm.” She looked over my shoulder at Niall. “Fiona walked over and asked me to come here while they’re checking the farm. If none of us finds him—the older lad, by the way—I’ll get in touch with Hawick and get a search party organised.”
I grabbed my shoes from where they were lying in the middle of the hallway and shoved them on. “Mac took shelter in the barn when he was caught out in the rain the other day. I hate to think he might have spent all night there, but if the storm spooked him….” Given everything I had heard and run from, I wouldn’t blame him for being too scared to move. “And I have to admit I didn’t lock up last night. The power was off, and I wasn’t willing to fight with the locks in the dark.”
Her expression lightened. “He could be inside?”
“He could,” I said uneasily. I didn’t like that idea. Vainguard was no place for a child to be left alone. I managed a smile nonetheless. “There’s even a couple of very dusty beds in there, so hopefully we’ll find him fast asleep somewhere.”
We headed up the drive, Niall falling in beside me, torch in hand. We exchanged worried looks, and then he engaged the officer in conversation—Lucy, it turned out, lived with her parents on the farm between Vainguard and the guesthouse and obviously knew Niall well. I left them to talk, worry creeping up my spine as I looked ahead to Vainguard looming over us. Was it possible for a building to look smug? Was I reading too much into it?
But there had been riders on the storm last night, and I had believed that something wicked was coming our way. And now Mac was missing.
I hoped desperately that we would simply find him asleep, either here or in some other barn, but I couldn’t help remembering Martyn Armstrong’s album and its record of lost children.
As we came into the courtyard, Lucy whistled and Niall said, “Damn.”
I winced.
My poor car was in even worse shape than I’d thought. The fallen pole had slammed down hard enough to crush the roof on the driver’s side and dent the front bonnet. Glass glittered around the tyres, and the torn ends of the powerline spread across the remains of the windscreen like groping fingers.
“Should report that,” Lucy observed. “Whole village is out, mind, so it’s probably not live right now, but I wouldn’t want to risk getting near.”
“No shit,” I said. “Glad I saw the line was down before I got any closer.”
Niall’s arm closed tightly around my shoulder, but all he said was, “I’m glad you didn’t leave a few minutes earlier.”
Lucy nodded, though I saw her gaze flicker to Niall’s protective arm. “Looks like you had a lucky escape. Let’s hope our missing lad was lucky too.”
But there had been nothing lucky in last night’s storm. The barn, when we checked it, was empty—the same heavy quiet which always haunted it. This time, looking around the abandoned stalls, I couldn’t help imagining the Armstrong boys and their friends, huddled out here on a night like last night. I shivered.
“What’s that?” Niall said sharply, swinging his torch up. Something small and dark was sitting on the edge of the hayloft.
“Is that a phone?” Lucy asked, hurrying forward. “Give me a boost, Niall.”
Niall obliged, lifting her up so she could see into the hayloft. She grabbed the little dark rectangle and shook her head. “No one up here.”
Niall put her down, and she held out her find. “Tablet, I think, or—”
“That’s Mac’s Kindle,” I said, recognising it with a sinking heart. “But how did it get up there. He’s not that tall.”
Some weird quirk of the acoustics caught my voice and threw it back to us in a whispery echo, “Not at all, not at all.”
“Could have chucked it up there,” Niall said.
I shook my head. “Kid loves that thing.”
Lucy was looking increasingly grim. “Let’s look inside the house.”
I led them back across the courtyard, swinging by to check the door to the bungalow, which was still locked. The main door to Vainguard was ajar, and I hesitated in front of it, remembering that the man in the red hat had stood right here last night. Who—or what—was he?
Then the smell hit me.
It’s not a smell you can ever forget, even after decades without coming face-to-face with violent death. I took an instinctive step back, into the overcast morning, and Niall caught me, his hand warm on my shoulder. I turned to meet his gaze and saw the moment when he smelt it too. His eyes widened, and his shoulders tensed as if ready for a fight.
“What is that?” Lucy asked, wrinkling her nose.
I took a deep breath, bracing myself and pushed the door open with my shoulder. The day was too dark to see much inside the covered yard, but I saw the dark smear on the ground.
“Torch,” I said to Niall.
Lucy went tense at something in my voice. I didn’t care. Mac and Doug weren’t technically children under my care, but they were close enough that I felt responsible for them. That meant that my own fears had to go away until I had dealt with the situation in front of me. I switched the torch on, swinging it round to light up the ground.
Wide dark smears of blood led towards the chapel. The door was open, and something was huddled there—something bloodied and unmoving and unrecognisable as human.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I THOUGHT of Mac teasing his brother in the back of the car and looking up at me as he said, “You heard them.”
Behind me, Lucy gagged, then said, “Out. Both of you.”
“But—” I started, not sure what I was about to say. This felt like my responsibility.
“No. I’m calling for backup.” She swallowed. “And I’m going to check if he’s….”
“Luce,” Niall said gently. “He’s not.”
“I have to check. Stay here. Give me the torch.”
She came out a few moments later, her hand clapped over her mouth and all the colour gone from her cheeks. She made it to the gutter outside the bungalow before she doubled over retching. Niall went to her and rubbed her back, but I couldn’t move.
We’d been warned. The riders hadn’t been there for me.
But we hadn’t listened, and now Mac—quiet, earnest Mac—was….
It was my fault. I’d known that something was wrong here, and I hadn’t warned the Elliots away—had brought them here instead.
Niall came over to me. “You holding together?”
I nodded, not sure if it was the truth. “You?” This had to be bringing back bad memories.
He gave me the same sort of curt nod, and reached out, tugging me closer. I wasn’t expecting him to wrap his arms around me, but I hugged him back instinctively. He rested his face against my shoulder, breathing in deeply, and I tucked my own head down, closing my eyes. It didn’t make the horrible thing inside Vainguard go away, but suddenly I felt like I might be strong enough to cope.
Niall released me after a few seconds, and turned back to Lucy. She was on her phone, pacing up and down. She looked up at us, and asked, “Is there ever any signal?”
“Only when the Wi-Fi’s up,” I said. “Nearest point without is down by the river.”
“Shit,” she muttered. “I have to get through to Hawick.”
“No one comes in here,�
�� Niall said. “Get to a phone.”
“Well, someone clearly did,” she snapped, then put her hand over her eyes. “Sorry. You’re right. But I can’t leave you here. I have to secure the scene.”
“Then we’ll all drive down the station,” Niall said. “You need statements from us too, aye? We can sit there while you get in touch with backup.”
“I can lock the doors,” I offered.
She looked between us, clearly debating what to do. It occurred to me then that this must be far beyond her normal duties—she probably spent most of her time breaking up fights and dealing with vandalism. Then she nodded.
So, we locked the door to the barmkin, closing in that horrible bloody thing.
The village was quiet this morning, huddled under dark skies. As we came down towards it, I could see the river spreading out over the empty fields to the east and reaching up to the west, across the pretty little green behind the houses to lap at the steps of the grey bungalows. Very few people were moving, and those who were seemed to be carrying sandbags.
“Could be worse,” Niall said from behind the wheel. “If it doesn’t rain any more, the sandbags should be enough. That’s as bad as it gets in summer.”
I didn’t want to talk about flood precautions, not when there was a ravaged body sitting in Vainguard, but Niall seemed to have fixed on this as a safe topic. He talked at me about flooding until we’d parked behind Lucy outside the little fire station, which was the distribution point for sandbags. An older man in a Day-Glo jacket gave Lucy a cheerful wave, and she smiled at him sickly.
“Have we got power?”
“Generator’s on.”
“Phones?”
“Landline’s down, and the mobile signal’s iffy.”
She turned to us. “Stay here. I’m going to find a signal.”
When she came back, there was a hint of relief on her face. “Help’s on its way. I’m heading back out there now to wait for them. Can I have the keys?”
Something Wicked This Way Comes Page 20