Verity accepted the steaming brew and sipped from the cup. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She wasn’t bewitched.
“Even though I'm blood, I don't see the real Melantha,” Leo continued. “My relationship's too weak. I see an attractive woman, but folk like you, Verity, well you’re powerless to resist.”
Verity looked at Leo. “I wasn’t bewitched,” she said, indignant.
“Then what would you call it?” Leo asked.
“I wouldn’t call it anything.”
“She just tried to kill you, and you would have just stood there and let her.” He snorted loudly.
Verity looked out of the window at the dark clouds, her thoughts a jumble of emotions.
“So how come you know so goddamn much?” she asked.
Leo coughed. “I was once a member of Melantha’s tribe, that’s how. But I realised what we were doing was wrong a long time ago.”
Verity ground her teeth. She didn't know what to believe any more. “Can’t we just talk to her? Sort this out?”
“She’ll kill you rather than talk to you.”
“There must be something. If we could just find her.”
Zen stared out of the window, his expression as dark as the sky. “Well, I've got a feeling she’ll find us before we find her.”
CHAPTER 17
Melantha was disappointed with Zen. She had hoped he would help her, especially when he sympathised with her plight, but when it came down to it, he had a weak stomach for such things.
The fire sizzled and hissed as the rain tried to dampen it, but the coals were too fierce to be sated, just like the flames of her hatred.
Melantha sat beneath an awning and turned a spit; the succulent smell of hedgehog filled the air with a pork aroma. Behind her, sheltering beneath the caravan, the dog creature whined and licked its chops. She cut a titbit off the meat and tossed it across. The creature caught it in mid-flight, its sharp teeth clamping down.
Her thoughts turned to her mother, Adara.
Their life had consisted of moving from one place to another, either of their own volition, or forced to move on, always following the righteous path of revenge, from region to region; country to country, wherever the book led them.
Although not blessed with her mother's good looks, Melantha did inherit her guile. And while her mother exacted her revenge more by trickery and fraud, subverting families, Melantha took a darker, bloodier route.
She killed her first person when only fifteen.
And she remembered it well ...
Adara was in the village, while Melantha tended the fire and prepared the vegetables for dinner.
The black horse that pulled the brightly painted caravan chewed on the grass and shook its mane, swatting at the incessant flies with its tail. Although other Roma were converting to modern caravans and four wheel drive vehicles, Melantha's mother was a traditionalist, the vurdo a family heirloom, imbued not only with generations of family history, but also with their blood.
They’d made camp on the edge of a small village. Some of the locals threatened them, but their threats were hollow, too afraid of the myths that perpetuated the gypsy kind (couldn't they curse you, give you the evil eye, didn't they steal babies and eat them). Melantha's mother did nothing to discourage such myths. Instead, she courted favour with them, using the superstitious fears of people to her advantage. But there were always those who weren't discouraged by such things, those who came in the night and threw stones at the caravan; those same ones threw insults and cheap innuendo during the day. Nevertheless, if they hoped to offend Melantha's mother with their liberal accusations, they were very much mistaken.
After she finished peeling the vegetables, Melantha started to feel bored, so she decided to head towards the village to see if she could find her mother.
Hay bales were stacked in the fields, ready to be collected and stored in the barn, winter-feed for the cattle that grazed in the next field. Melantha loved the smell of freshly mown grass. Wholesome, earthy, the sort of smell that epitomised summer.
Birds sang in the hedgerows, but Melantha startled them as she skipped past, cutting their sweet song off in mid note.
Before she reached the edge of the village, Melantha noticed a group of teenage boys and a girl playing around a barn. Hoping to avoid them, she ducked behind the hedge as a voice called out.
“Hey, you, over there. What you doin'?”
Melantha sheepishly stood up. “Nothing,” she replied, starting to walk on.
“Hold on,” a gangly boy with a riot of red hair said as he ran towards her. “You're one o' them gyps, ain't ya.”
“Fuckin' thieving bastards,” said a boy wearing a leather jacket as black as his hair.
Melantha felt a palpable air of menace and hatred. She tried her best to ignore the teenage gang, but they persisted.
A sprightly girl with her brown hair in a ponytail and wearing blue shorts and a white T-shirt grabbed Melantha's shoulder. “We're talking to you. Don't you know it's rude to ignore people?”
Melantha wanted to reply that it was just as rude to accost people, but surrounded, she kept her mouth shut. She wasn't stupid.
“Careful, Meg, she'll put the gypsy curse on ya,” the ginger haired boy said, laughing.
“Yeah,” a boy with short-cropped hair and acne said. “Haven't you heard? She'll turn you into a toad, and then you'll need a handsome prince to kiss you.”
“Well, that counts you lot out then,” Meg replied, laughing.
Melantha attempted to carry on walking, but the five teenagers surrounded her.
“Hey, we ain't finished with you yet,” leather jacket said.
“You on the way to rob someone's house?” acne boy asked.
“Why don't you just get back on the horse you rode in on and mosey on out of here,” Meg said. “We don't want your sort round here.”
“I just want to be left alone.” Her heart thundered and she felt light-headed.
“Well, I think we need to teach her a lesson, don't you?” acne boy said, looking round at his peers for support.
“Please, just let me go,” Melantha cried, tears welling in her eyes.
“Look, the gyps cryin' now,” leather jacket said, laughing cruelly. “Well, let's give her something to really cry about, hey.” He grabbed Melantha's arms and twisted them behind her back.
Melantha screamed. Acne boy lunged at her, and Melantha tried to kick him, but she missed and he dropped down and grabbed her legs. The next thing she knew, they all grabbed hold of her and carried her towards the barn. Melantha struggled and bucked to no avail. Four of them carried her, while Meg held a hand over her mouth. She could feel their fingers dig into her flesh, ragged nails leaving half-moon indents on her wrists and ankles.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. Meg's fingers pinched her nose; she could hardly breathe. She snatched breaths through her mouth, tasting the stagnant aroma of stale cigarettes. She felt her face go red; felt about ready to pass out.
Bales of hay decorated the barn, rearranged like giant bricks to form a small fort. They had also constructed crude thrones of hay around which the remains of chocolate bars and cans of pop were scattered like discarded gifts from visiting dignitaries. The group carried Melantha into the fortification and dropped her on the ground. Dust and bits of hay filled the air and Melantha sneezed. Overhead, she could see a low ceiling that separated the floor above. A ladder that looked like a wooden spine granted access to it.
Before she moved, four of the gang grabbed her arms and legs and pinned her down, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't break free.
She looked up, her vision blurred by tears that made her assailants seem ethereal. But the pain felt very real. A rough hand grabbed bunches of her skirt, other hands pawing at her breasts.
“The gyps love a good fuckin',” one of the boys said, pulling Melantha’s undergarments down.
“'S all they're good for,” another one replied, laughing.
Disturbed from its roost, an owl hooted. The sound chilled her to the bone; synonymous with death among Roma folklore. She heard the flap of wings as it took flight, and she wished she could join it in fleeing. Why were they doing this to her? What had she ever done to them? She shouted for help, but no one came.
Although she couldn't see clearly through the tears, she could still feel and as one of the boys climbed on top of her and spread her legs, she screamed until her throat ached. It didn't stop him. She felt the cold leather jacket against her skin. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, drawing blood. The pain felt incredible and she almost passed out, wished she had, then she wouldn't have to feel what he was doing to her.
When he’d finished, he rolled off, panting. Melantha felt the others relax their grip.
“You've fucked her into a coma,” one of the boys said.
“That's 'cus I've got such a big dick.”
“No, that's because you are a big dick,” Meg replied.
She heard movement around her as the gang made to leave.
“That'll teach her.”
“Yeah, fuckin' dirty gyps. You'd better hope you don't catch something now, Mikey.”
Melantha opened her eyes. She felt as though something had shrivelled up and died inside. The world now seemed different. Cold and hard. Adara once told her that 'you have to experience the dark, to appreciate the light', and she didn’t feel it could get any darker.
She began to sit up, felt something warm and sticky running down her thigh. She felt sick. She rubbed her eyes to clear her vision. Skirt bunched up around her thighs, she felt dirty and pulled it down.
Why had they done this to her?
The teenagers were in the doorway, lighting cigarettes, laughing and joking. Melantha could see leather jacket, Mikey, sucking on a cigarette and an all-consuming anger ran through her veins.
Without even thinking, she bounced to her feet and grabbed a double-pronged pitchfork from the wall. Then she charged, her lips pursed and legs still shaking. She saw Mikey turn as she screamed, saw the satisfying look of fear on his face. Too slow to react, she felt the prongs slide into his abdomen, what little resistance they met overcome by her speed and intensity. She rammed the pitchfork home, revelling in the feeling of power. Mikey gurgled, the cigarette falling from his mouth.
Someone screamed.
Melantha pushed the prongs right through his body, forcing him back, spearing him to the wooden wall. Mikey hung with his head drooping as though wondering what protruded from his body.
The acrid sting of smoke filled her nostrils as Mikey’s cigarette ignited strands of hay scattered on the ground.
Acne face shouted something unintelligible, and the girl pointed at Mikey, her mouth open in dumb shock.
Melantha retreated into the barn. The flames grew insistent, licking at the walls of the make-believe fort. Smoke rose in grey swirls and Melantha coughed. She needed to get out, but she couldn't leave by the front doors. She looked up at the floor above and saw an open door at the back of the barn and she climbed the rickety ladder, wafting the smoke from her eyes. Although high up, she lowered herself down through the door and hung for a moment, her arms aching with the strain. Unable to hold on any longer, she closed her eyes and let go, heart in her throat. She hit the ground and rolled to absorb the shock.
Without waiting around, she ran for the hedge at the rear of the barn and hid among the foliage, peering from behind the leaves so she could watch the barn burn.
The flames spread, igniting something in Melantha.
You have to experience the dark, to appreciate the light.
She watched the teenagers run across the field, began to understand what her mother had been trying to teach her: the gadje were not to be trusted.
Too afraid to move from her hiding place, she basked in the glow of the flames for a long while before returning to the camp to tell her mother what had happened, and how it hadn't been her fault.
But the villagers had beaten her to it.
Her mother hung from a tree.
Neck stretched by the weight of her body, Adara’s tongue lolled from her mouth while her eyes bulged out of their sockets. She slowly revolved, the wind teasing her black hair.
To make sure she died, they had punctured her body with a knife, the congealed blood leaving a strange, lurid pattern across the grass. A swarm of flies buzzed around the corpse, alighting on Adara's face where blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
Melantha collapsed to her knees and looked up at her mother, too shocked to move. She didn't know how long she stayed there, but darkness held dominion by the time she shifted, and her mother's image was burned on her retina.
She painted some of her mother's blood on the caravan, letting it mingle with the blood of her ancestors, imbuing the caravan with her essence, and then she buried her mother in the shade of the tree in an unmarked grave.
Her tutelage was complete.
From that day on, nothing would ever be the same; she had experienced the dark.
After she’d buried her mother, Melantha rode out of the village under cover of darkness, heading for the nearest 'thin place'. It took two days to reach her destination, and although tired, she didn't hesitate in using her mother’s lessons to breach the divide between worlds.
Denizens of debauchery and masters of the macabre inhabited the dark warrens that led to the lighthouse, and although terrified, she continued on, driven by anger. For the first time, she knew why her mother and her clan did what they did, but she was upset that it took a rape and her mother's death to make her see the light.
It took years to discover what she needed to know; years in which she experienced things beyond belief; unimaginable pain where she lost what remained of her humanity, but it only took nine months to give birth to the son that resulted from the rape.
She kept the baby with her for a while, letting his screams mingle with those of the Shadowland. But Melantha still had a lot to learn and the baby was a nuisance, so she breached the divide and placed him in the custody of a couple of hippies camped near the 'thin place'. Addled by drugs, they accepted the baby without question.
The beings that inhabited the Shadowland came from hundreds, perhaps thousands of worlds. Some beings were physical, others ethereal, some carbon based, others composed of substances that didn't exist in Melantha's world. Some were beautiful, others hideous. All had reasons for being in the Shadowland.
And eventually, Melantha found hers …
CHAPTER 18
Melantha heard the rumble of an engine and she looked up from the flames on which she meditated to see a Range Rover pull into the field, towing a large, white caravan.
Clouds roiled overhead and rain lashed down with biblical ferocity. What few sheep remained out in the field had hunkered down for the night, the rest having taken shelter beneath a large tree, the expanding trunk of which dislodged bricks in the drystone wall built in front of it.
The door of the vehicle opened and a large man sporting a black moustache jumped down. “Droboy tume Romale,” he said, his jowls wobbling as he marched across the field towards the fire. Long, curly black hair bounced around his shoulders. “Is that really you, little Melantha?”
“Nais Tuke,” Melantha replied. “Barrabas. Yes it’s me.” She watched him settle himself by the fire, his eyes fixed on the flames. She liked the fear she commanded. Being a distant blood relative, Barrabas wouldn't be bewitched, and she wouldn’t be able to compel him to do anything, but he would still be awed, perhaps even a little afraid. She didn't know what he saw when he looked at her, but it seemed to scare him.
She noticed movement in the back of the Range Rover, another door opened, and a woman scurried around the side of the caravan and disappeared.
“My wife, she ...” Barrabas held his hands up.
“I understand,” Melantha said.
Bar
rabas nodded and pulled a pouch of tobacco out of his shirt pocket. He rolled himself a cigarette with the deftness of a magician and then he pulled a burning stick from the fire to light it.
As he sat puffing away, he said, “The others should arrive soon. Messages were left at the vurmas, the usual places.”
Melantha nodded. On the outside, she appeared calm, but her stomach churned. She couldn't let anything interfere with her plans, not now. Not after all those years acquiring her power.
“Have you got everything planned?” Barrabas asked as he warmed his hands over the fire.
Melantha nodded. “Yes.” She hoped he couldn't tell by her voice that she was lying. The Shadowland inhabitants were the sort of people parents warned their children about. The stuff of nightmares; monsters that lurked beneath the bed, the noise with no visible source, the shadows that danced on the periphery. And you couldn't make absolute plans against such adversaries.
“Good, good,” Barrabas said, puffing on his cigarette. “I wouldn't like to think we weren’t prepared.” He stared at the flames for a moment, and then said, “When I saw your message at the vurma, it surprised me. I’d heard the stories, but I never believed. I thought you were dead!”
Melantha nodded and smiled. Her skin felt tight where the scars knitted her flesh. “As good as, Barrabas, as good as.”
The flames threw dancing shadows around the campsite, wraiths that caught the eye and danced to the crackle of burning wood. Melantha watched them; imagined it was the custodians of the Shadowland, taunting her and she shivered. The bravado she usually reflected started to waver. She wondered whether other great warriors felt the same before going into battle, because that's what this was: ground zero, the front line, apocalypse, and the final curtain.
As she settled back to await her people, Melantha knew one way or another, the end was nigh.
CHAPTER 19
Zen watched the wind shred the clouds, revealing the momentary glimpse of a Cheshire cat moon that looked down with a knowing grin. It didn't fill him with confidence. He tightened his grip on the carrier bag of money. Now that he had it, he didn’t want to lose it.
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