Something Wicked This Way Comes

by Amy Rae Durreson

  Doug went hurtling out the other side of the circle, where Dora had the sense to reach out an arm and grab him before he went headlong down the side of the hill. Mac was on his heels, and for a second I thought he was going to cross our chain and everything we had done would be for nothing.

  Then he fell back hard enough that he lost his footing, smacking into the mossy ground. He scrabbled his way to his feet and tested the way forward again. I could see Dora’s wide frightened eyes, but she kept Doug in the curve of one arm and clung to her boyfriend with the other hand. Mac approached her slowly.

  Niall’s hammer rang fast and hard against the hot metal of the last link, welding the ends together.

  Mac almost reached Dora, but then took two steps back, as if he were a magnet repelled by its twin.

  Behind me, Lyall Elliot said angrily, “What the hell is going on here? Mac! Doug!”

  Mac spun round and—faster than seemed natural—he flung himself across the circle, straight towards where Niall was still pounding on the chain. I saw the same rage and loathing in his face that I had seen every time the redcap looked at me, and I stepped between him and Niall, throwing up my arm in defence.

  He screamed and there was something in that scream which was closer to the night-time cry of an owl than any human voice.

  “Mac!” Lyall said as I lowered my arm. It was the same wrist where I wore Margaret Elliot’s band.

  “Done,” Niall said, straightening up and reaching for my hand. He dropped the still glowing chain to the chipped flint of the path and rolled his shoulders out, blocking Lyall Elliot where he was trying to push past us. He stretched out his other hand towards Terri, standing beside him, as he said, grave and calm, “Your son is free to leave this circle if he can pass over the iron from which it is forged.”

  Mac, still on his hands and knees, hissed at him, his eyes glittering.

  “Mac, come out of there. Now.”

  Michelle, coming up behind him, said, “Lyall, don’t.”

  “Did you know about this?”

  All around the circle, people, emboldened by Mac’s inability to pass, were beginning to whisper. I ignored them. I could still hear the sound of horses drawing nearer and nearer, though they were not visible and nothing disturbed the grass where it swayed in the wind.

  “Peter,” I said. “We need to do this now.”

  “It’s not sunset yet.”

  “Yes, it is,” Jeannie said. She had brought a walker to lean on, but her shoulders were still straight. She raised her hand and pointed west.

  The sun was blazing upon the horizon, its light rising off the distant, misty hills like a ring of fire. As I caught my breath, that light too began to sink into shadow.

  And with its fading came the dead.

  The first hint of it I had was a small cold hand in mine. I looked down, and Frank Armstrong looked up at me, his face solemn. He said, “It’s time now.”

  Lyall Elliot made a gasping sound, and I looked up to see all the lost children standing by the places where their names were woven into the chain. The only child missing was Katie, and I knew that she too would soon be with us.

  For the ancient Elliots, too, were visible now, riding their dark horses through the dusk to join us. They slowed as they reached Niall. He nodded to them, as one soldier might to another. Then he reached out and lifted Katie from where she sat before their leader’s saddle, setting her down between himself and his ex-wife. Terri let out a terrible, choking gasp, but when Niall took one of Katie’s pale hands, she too reached out.

  Niall took my hand as well, and on my other side, Frank reached out towards Felix. Michelle went plunging around the outside of the ring to where Doug was standing with Dora and a little boy who looked up at his grown sister in silent fascination. Lyall followed, still quiet.

  Behind us, the riders directed their horses into a second circle, and I thought it was because they feared we would break and they would be, yet again, the last defence against the evil we all faced.

  In the circle, very softly, the thing inside Mac began to laugh. It was a child’s laugh, but there was nothing innocent in it. I know I wasn’t the only one who shivered.

  Then the Elliot growled, “Prest, speke thy prayeris.”

  Peter cleared his throat, then began to speak, awkwardly at first, but then with gathering confidence. “Almighty God, heavenly Father…”

  Around the circle, people were reaching to clasp their hands across the last gaps. As Peter’s prayers rolled out into the deepening night, we stood together, the living and the dead, the children and those who still mourned them, and listened as the spirit’s laughter faded under Peter’s onslaught of words. I may not have been a believer, but the evil we faced came from a time of faith. That’s my best explanation for what happened next. As we all watched, something began to rise from Mac’s mouth as your breath steams on a cold day. This cloud, however, grew and grew in the midst of the ring, never touching the edges, until Mac suddenly fell to his knees, coughing. He looked up, his eyes streaming, and said, “Mom?”

  And in that second, the mist coalesced behind him and the redcap was there, gnarled and dirty and blazing with hatred. It grinned at me, baring its sharp teeth, and raised its clawed hand.

  I didn’t think. My only instinct was to stop this from happening to yet another innocent. I threw myself into the circle, swinging my own arm round to backhand the redcap. Its teeth scraped my wrist, but my blow hit it hard enough to lift it from its feet.

  It came at me anyway, shrieking shrill enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck, and I held Margaret’s band in front of me like a shield.

  The redcap flinched back, and I snapped, “Mac! Go!”

  He went scrambling towards the edge of the circle, and I moved again to intercept the redcap, using its fear of the band—the only weapon I had—to ward it away. My heart was pounding, and I was beginning to realise what a stupid thing I had done. Had I broken the circle?

  I didn’t dare risk finding out. I had to keep this thing at bay.

  At least two people were calling my name, but I couldn’t spare them any attention.

  Then Niall’s voice went booming out, rich with annoyance, “For God’s sake, man! Pray!”

  A breath later, Peter did, picking up the prayer he had abandoned. “I place all heaven with its power…”

  The redcap flinched.

  I might not know this prayer, but others clearly did. Around the circle, a few more voices joined Peter. The redcap took a step away from me, and dropped to a crouch, pressing its narrow hands to its ears.

  “And the winds with their swiftness along their path, and the sea with its deepness, and the rocks with their steepness, and the earth with its starkness….”

  The demon was crying.

  I had not thought evil things could weep.

  “All these I place, by God’s almighty help and grace, between ourselves and the powers of darkness.”

  Peter paused, and I don’t know if he was really done, but into that sudden moment of quiet an older, rougher voice spoke. “Margaret Elliot.”

  Another rider, next to him in the ring, added, “John o’ Long Sike.”

  “Tam Forster.”

  “Mary Elliot.”

  “Jennet Nixon.”

  These were the names of Redcap’s first victims, I realised with a shudder—the names first used to bind it in this circle. There were a lot of them, far more than the twenty-one we had recorded since 1944. They went twice around the circle before they were done.

  There was an expectant silence, and although most of my attention was on the redcap trapped in the circle with me, I could see all the riders staring down at our new circle. Then Felix sighed gustily and snapped out, loud and clear, “Frank Armstrong.”

  A moment later, Valerie said, “Albert Billings.”

  Jeannie’s voice cracked. “Ronnie Parfitt.” He was standing right by her, the boy who never grew up and his frail, elderly sister.

>   We went around the circle again, the modern names with the old. It was dark now, and the only light came from the moon and the faint glow of the forge behind the circle. I could no longer see the names stamped onto the band around my wrist, but I could feel them when I rubbed my thumb across them. With every name, I felt a little more righteous anger rise in me. So many deaths, so much loss, and the cause of it crouched across the circle from me, flinching at every new name.

  Good. Let it feel even a little of the suffering it had caused. We would bury the names so deep this time that they would never be found again, and it would be bound here for all eternity, never to hurt another innocent.

  But I didn’t just want it bound. I wanted it dead. I wanted to bring the cold iron around my wrist down on its bloodied cap and split its head open so it hurt before it died.

  Perhaps it was influencing me, as Jeannie claimed it had influenced her on that fateful day in 1944. If it was, though, it was merely calling up something familiar in me, a rage I had not unleashed in decades. It had killed my parents and turned me into a wild, angry child—a vicious child, an unwanted child, a boy with a knife.

  Niall’s voice was oddly subdued as he said, very softly, “Katie Forster.”

  And the circle was complete. I half expected the redcap to vanish there and then, but it stayed.

  A horse stamped. Someone was trying to muffle their tears and someone else was breathing raggedly.

  The silence turned awkward and unsure.

  In the same moment Peter drew breath, I raised my hand to strike.

  And then I stopped.

  Because I hadn’t stayed the boy with the knife. I had become an Eilbeck boy. And although that was no longer the pure, unsullied thing I once loved, it still had power. I wasn’t a vicious child now. I was a teacher. My job wasn’t to punish the wicked but to see the potential in even the most unlikely child.

  And I was good at it. I was good at it because I had been first the boy with the knife and then an Eilbeck kid.

  And whatever may have happened in the past, there’s one thing every modern Eilbeck kid believes in—that I believe in—as ardently as Peter feels his faith.

  It takes an Eilbeck kid to truly believe in second chances.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  I DIDN’T want to have thought that. I wanted the simplicity of vengeance. But it’s the sort of thing you can’t unthink.

  Slowly, reluctantly, I lowered my hand and said, “Who are you?”

  I wasn’t even sure if it was intelligent enough to speak, now it was out of Mac’s body. But it surprised me, a voice rasping out of it that was half-whine, half-growl. It said, as if the word hurt, “Robin.”

  “What are you?” Was it barely more than an animal, a rabid beast that needed to be put down? Or was it conscious of the horrors it had inflicted?

  “Vengeance…. Wrath…. Thirst….” It was panting by the end of the three words. I wasn’t willing to be merciful, even if I had stayed my own revenge.

  “Whose vengeance?”

  “My… master’s.”

  “Who is your master?”

  “William… de Soulis.”

  I saw a ripple of horror go through the riders in the outer circle at the name. I couldn’t see any of their faces now—only dark silhouettes against the moon-washed sky.

  “William de Soulis is dead.”

  “But I am… still bound.”

  “To do what?”

  “Kill the bairns of… the Elliots and all who follow them… or walk freely in their land.” It grinned at me, some of the cunning back in its eyes. “Kill them… take their blood… the Elliots deserve no future.”

  “Why?” I demanded, sickened.

  “Because they killed his bairn.”

  I froze.

  In the same moment, the Elliot leader burst into speech, loud and furious. I still couldn’t understand more than the odd word, but I let my attention switch to him.

  The redcap leapt.

  It was on me before I could react, its claws digging my arms as it snapped at my face. I tried to shove it away, but it had me tight. And I knew that my parents’ fate—the death I had long escaped—had caught up with me at last.

  Then it yelled, its back arching, and its grip loosening. I hurled it off, bringing the iron band up again, and it dropped back, hissing at me.

  Three links of iron chain lay between it and me—one of the spare pieces we had brought up with us. I called, trying to pretend I wasn’t hurt and shaken, “Nice throw.”

  “Anytime,” Niall growled back, and immediately I felt less afraid. I might be in here with a monster, but someone had my back.

  The Elliot started to speak again, hard, fast, and angry.

  Niall said, “Oh hell.”

  “Did you understand that?” I called to him. The redcap was starting to creep closer again, and I moved sideways, holding up my wrist, which was beginning to ache under the weight of the band. We circled each other warily.

  Niall said grimly, “Not all of it, but enough. Margaret Elliot wasn’t murdered at all. She died in childbed.”

  Oh hell, indeed.

  “She was thirteen.”

  Now it was the living adults who all gasped or shuddered in disgust. The Elliot began to speak again, and bit by bit, Niall made sense of it.

  “And the child was an unholy thing—whatever that means—got by evil. They took it down to the river bank and laid it on the ling and—Jesus wept—they left it there. And he says that by dusk, it no longer cried. And the guards on watch said that de Soulis came by moonlight and took its body away, and they never heard word of it receiving any Christian burial.”

  “What did he do with the body?” I wondered aloud.

  The redcap answered me. “He gave me flesh.”

  For a moment, I couldn’t speak, and the quality of the silence changed. Everyone was listening, and I swallowed hard and forced myself to speak.

  “What were you before that?” I had seen the damage he had done in this form. How much blood and fear had he spread across the Borders without the constraints of a body?

  He surprised me again. “I was the wind over the ling… the curlew’s cry… the first frost on the sward.”

  Now I understood it all. I had drawn a distinction once between the supernatural and mere petty human evil. I had been wrong. All this had begun, both times, with crimes committed against children. I might be surrounded by ghosts, but this had nothing to do with unearthly evil. It was, in the end, simply another tale of man’s inhumanity to man, reaching back generation after generation.

  This creature in front of me had killed and killed again, but it hadn’t been the woman who disciplined and humiliated the girls in her care or the man who had taken pleasure in beating the boys he was supposed to protect. This creature hadn’t raped a child or left a crying baby out to die.

  I’ve been a boy with a knife, and this is what I know: having that weapon in your hand, whatever weapon it may be, changes you. Knowing that it’s there for you to use makes it possible—even alluring—to actually use it. The power of the killing thing in your hand is a heady one, one that makes you forget consequences, forget that the people without that power matter as much as you. Only it’s not the weapon that does that. It’s the power it gives you over others.

  But the choice of how to use your power is always yours. You choose whether to pick up the knife, whether to meet an unhappy, angry child with cruelty or kindness. The knife—or your status—might grant you power, but you can’t blame the knife for the way you wield it, no matter how powerful it makes you feel.

  Could I look at this vicious thing in front of me and not blame it for the use its master made of it, for the deaths it kept causing?

  For the death of my parents.

  It wouldn’t be forgiveness. I didn’t quite have that in me. It would simply be a shift back to what I had believed all my life—that horrible, bitter luck had killed them, that nothing was to blame but the terrible combi
nation of events that had taken them down that road, past that wall, on a day when the ice was too dangerous to cross safely.

  On a day when the ancient ripples of a dead sorcerer’s vengeance had washed across our path with deadly effect.

  The redcap and I were still circling each other slowly, so I asked, watching it carefully, “Why do you still wear this body? Why not return to the wind?”

  It stopped, and some of the bitter loathing seemed to fade from its eyes. Then it said, almost forlornly, “Too much blood.”

  And it took off its cap and offered it to me.

  I could see the stain the cap left behind, a dark slick that ran greasily through hair already matted and stiff with filth. It left marks on his hands as well, wet smudges which, turning into thin rivulets, dripped from his fingers to the moss below. I could smell it, too, over the hot metal scent of the forge and the damp green sweetness of the heathery hilltops.

  It was dripping with blood.

  There was the faintest hint of a smirk on the redcap’s lips, a glint of cunning in its eyes, and whatever it had once been, it was made of pure malice now.

  But sometimes the greatest risk—and the greatest gift you can give—is undeserved trust. Felix and the others who worked with him at Eilbeck had given that to me. Kasia had. Peter had when he acknowledged a wild, angry boy with a knife as his brother.

  Martyn Armstrong had when he left Vainguard’s terrible legacy to me.

  So I took the cap.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  THE WET weight of it dragged my hands down, and I fell to one knee. It was heavy with more liquid than it could possibly hold.

  The redcap’s lips parted, lips curving up in a faint smile.

  And the bloodlust hit me.

  The smell changed first—no longer heavy and metallic, but rich and appetising. The cold seep of blood across my hands no longer felt like slime, but pleasantly smooth. The weight was a comfort, not a burden, and I rose back to my feet, looking across at the redcap.

  I wanted to kill it—to press my fingers into its eyeballs until they burst, then hook my thumbs into its empty eye sockets and rip the flesh from its skull. I wanted to shove my fist down its throat and tear my way through muscle and sinew until I felt its heart throbbing against my curved palm, then close my fist and feel it burst against my skin, hot and slick.