Halton Cray (Shadows of the World Book 1)

by N. B. Roberts

  ‘I remember him. I couldn’t forget.’

  ‘And do you remember the man you saw with me the other day? The one whose hand I shook. You asked if you knew him.’

  ‘Him! That was him!’

  ‘It took months to rid him of the demon. Perhaps it would have been quicker if I’d gotten a good exorcist. But these things generally make a mess and get noticed, and too good an exorcist would certainly have noticed me. I handled it myself; doing what demons hate most. I confined its host as much as possible. The irony in that is remarkable, since the spirit has confined itself within the host, in order to play out its desires physically. I prevented that. After keeping him long enough confined I offered it a way out. I’m sure I bored it to tears by keeping it restrained so long – what fun could it have, what things could it do?’

  ‘When you say you offered it a way out?’

  ‘I showed it my demon. When you saw it in the mirror, you didn’t just see my Mr Hyde, you saw the plane on which it resides. Without realising it you saw a doorway to another world.’

  I briefly interrupted him here to assure him that while that demon was in my sight, I hadn’t examined anything else in the mirror.

  ‘It’s not a doorway that you could enter through, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ I rolled my eyes.

  ‘By placing a mirror in that room, on the floor, and standing over it, I opened a doorway to that world the demon could pass back into. I pulled Seth onto it so that our demons were face to face. It had an opportunity to let go of Seth, which it did, detaching itself and falling away. I stepped aside to close it up. Once the man began to recover, he started telling me what he could remember, which is what I’ve told you. He also has some gaps in his recollection of the past five months. But I’m glad he remembered where Johan took him, and so I know where the bastard is!’

  ‘You’re going after him?’ I edged forward in my seat.

  ‘Certainly!’

  ‘Please don’t– you might get hurt!’

  ‘Hurt by that arrogant fiend – not a chance! What shall I do; wait until he sends another junior to try something new on me? Don’t get yourself in a state, Alex. I won’t do anything for now. Right now, you’re my only concern.’

  ‘Has Seth gone back to the States?’

  ‘Don’t change the subject. You’d still care if I got hurt?’

  ‘I already gave that away. Please answer my question.’

  ‘He’s staying nearby, at The Horseman’s Inn. He’s not quite ready to go back. He fears Johan finding him. He’s not a coward, just very much outmatched. I never thought I’d have any more reason to go after Johan than I already had. The reasons are mounting still. I am finally starting to see that I am meant to find and stop him.’ He paused to look at me. ‘I feel that the task falls to me. What do you make of that?’

  ‘Of what – destiny, you mean?’

  ‘You’ve spoken of coincidences and fate before. I want to hear your opinion on it.’

  ‘Those opinions might change,’ I said, ‘with everything you’ve just told me.’

  ‘It won’t change your belief in fate.’

  ‘No, it won’t.’ I shook my head. ‘I think sometimes events are played out so curiously and precisely, it can’t be mere coincidence. It’s just too well orchestrated.’

  ‘By who?’

  ‘By Life, I suppose. I do occasionally go against that because I want to believe in choice.’

  ‘In free will?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So where does your belief in fate fit in there?’

  ‘Is there a point to all this?’

  ‘Bear with me, Alex. My point is around the corner.’

  I sighed. ‘Maybe you’ve always been destined to stop Johan, but the right time hasn’t come yet. Maybe it was Seth’s fate to experience a demonic possession. I’m starting to believe we are predestined to do certain things. I don’t mean every detail has to go according to plan, but we must accomplish the milestones. Between those I reckon you can do pretty much anything you like as long as you hit the right spot when the time comes. If you’re not on the right track to hit a milestone you’ll be forced there, by something I don’t understand.’

  ‘The stick?’ he asked. ‘That sounds like the carrot and the stick theory.’

  ‘I suppose that’s what I’m more prone to believe, if I believe in any destiny at all. If you don’t believe in the stick, you’ll probably call it coincidence. That’s my belief.’

  ‘It’s always interested me to think of it in that way, Alex, but I yet retain my human faults; on this subject fickleness in particular. I’m happy to believe in fate when the circumstances serve my purpose and delight me. However, it’s easy to rebel against those once strong beliefs when events starve your family; leave you destitute; send you to foreign lands, and make you a monster into the bargain. – I never saw my mother and sister again. I’ve no idea how they suffered and died. Yet I am to live forever with that, with no peace of mind on that score. How can I easily believe in fate? Unless there is more to discover.’

  ‘It sounds like you wrestle with it, which proves your belief.’

  ‘Just so. That’s what torments me. I can’t believe it with such acceptance.’

  ‘I only make room for the possibility,’ I said, ‘because on the one hand what’s the point in making choices in life if it’s only meant to go one way? Then again, I’ve always had this nagging question, when something happened that I knew was going to happen – and I don’t mean by probability or a good guess – but I sensed it would happen unexpectedly. I wondered for a long time whether I’d predicted it or whether I somehow made it happen.’

  ‘You, Cassandra, predict?’ He smirked. ‘But, that’s only two ways of looking at it. You’re limiting your choices. You’ve already decided that these are the only explanations for this strange phenomenon. Is it absolute, so black and white? Is the answer always just yes or no?’

  ‘Not always.’

  ‘So why make the answers to this question simply one or the other, and then force yourself to choose between them?’

  ‘Because it’s all I could think of, I guess. I see your point.’ I met his stare more easily. ‘So what’s your take on it?’

  ‘A million ideas! We don’t know nearly enough about the universe we live in, or ourselves for that matter. But on one thing we must agree, Alex: your coming here to work was fate. It was fate that we met and fell in love.’

  ‘Perhaps, for whatever purpose.’ I got to my feet.

  He straightened up.

  I pointed to the bathroom. ‘I just need to…’

  His face composed.

  The bathroom looked bulldozed, with a badly cracked basin and chunks missing round the edge of the avocado bath. Some of the pipes that ran from under the sink had replacement plastic cylinders fitted at lengths in them.

  Thom was deep in thought when I returned. Neither of us spoke for a while. I’d retaken my seat and sat there stiffly, musing quite seriously on my own sanity, and whether the Cray really was the asylum he’d once teased.

  ‘You look tired, Alex. I think you’ve had enough.’

  I nodded and instinctively rose again from the sofa.

  ‘You mustn’t go!’ he blasted, in some shock. He was up, faster than I could make out, positioning himself with his back against the door. ‘You can stay here, have a lie down and get some sleep. But you mustn’t leave!’

  ‘I’m very tired, but I can’t sleep,’ I told him, calmly. My mind was still running riot with everything I’d heard and the numerous questions I had. I’d never be able to sleep. I wasn’t sure how far he’d go to stop me leaving though. I wanted to cool him as best I could.

  ‘Speaking of sleep,’ I said, kneeling on the sofa to look out the window again, into the night. ‘Do you – sleep that is?’

  ‘Not in there!’ His voice was at my ear, as if he spoke directly into it, but he hadn’t moved from the door.

  ‘W
here?’

  ‘The mausoleum. That’s what you’re staring at, isn’t it?’

  At this point he came to my side to look out of the window.

  ‘I have very limited eyesight compared with you. I can’t see the mausoleum from here in the dark. I don’t suppose it’s strange you should assume that’s what I meant. Your kind don’t sleep upside-down in vaults then?’

  He laughed. ‘Who’d want to sleep in a crypt anyway? With all those rotten old bones and spiders. Besides, it’s most likely consecrated. I only sleep for an hour or two at a time. I usually take this nap around dawn. Now I should tell you, Alexandra, although this may come as a shock, I actually sleep in a bed, in a room specifically for this purpose.’ He pointed it out. ‘Freaky, isn’t it? Do you want to see?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘What happens if you don’t sleep?’

  ‘I get cranky.’

  It was some minutes before he seemed relaxed enough to retake his chair.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking, Alex. You’re weighing things up but I don’t know which of all the terrible things they are. Are you considering making a dash for the exit? Not that it would do you much good! Or are you weighing up which is worse: that I’m a monster, or that I’m a liar who’s deceived you?’

  It was about time I faced the truth of what he’d confessed earlier.

  ‘What you told me before about stealing that man’s identity – your first name’s not even Thom, is it?’

  ‘It’s not.’

  I nodded slowly. He sat there silently for some time.

  ‘You’re not going to ask me what my real name is?’

  ‘What’s in a name?’ I muttered. ‘No, for now anyway, it’s better I don’t know.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ He stood up and edged forward.

  I shook my head, refusing both to answer his question and for him to come too close.

  ‘You’re never going to forgive me are you?’

  I’d already forgiven him for what he was. It was hardly his fault. The fact that he’d lied would take longer to overlook, though I understood the many-sided necessity of it. The truth was that now I understood him better I had no doubt I would fall deeper in love with him. As for pulling myself away, I couldn’t imagine life without him. Worryingly, I found myself thinking up ways we could be together on more equal terms. I was no longer Shelley’s fiend, but my own Doctor Frankenstein. I began taking all the bits I liked and sewing them together to make one whole of what I wanted, disposing of all the bad in a black pocket in the back of my mind. If I allowed myself, I could forget the consequences of what I was actually doing, permitting to unleash another beast on to the world. I could become so engrossed in this moment of madness that I would forget the regrets I was sure to have later. Just the fact I had even considered it made me jump back ten feet from the thought. As long as I was able to remain my mortal self, I believed without a doubt we could still be together.

  Twenty-seven

  BUTTERFLIES

  ‘There’s not one world above, far as these straining eyes can see, where Wisdom ever laughed at Love, or Virtue crouched to Infamy.’

  – Emily Brontё, How Clear She Shines

  He stayed back and spoke softly. ‘I’ve only just found you, Alex. I’m terrified of losing you; that you’re going to end things between us. You’re going to say you can’t be a part of me, because of the things I’ve done and must do. If you’re concerned about staying here, at Halton Cray, where gossips continue abusing my name – where I’m rumoured to being a fiend, ghost and ghoul, we can leave together. Have you ever been abroad, Alex?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You’d love Europe. Not too far from home, but a decade easily spent discovering it. After which time we could come back, if you like, for when you’re ready.’

  ‘When I’m ready?’

  ‘Ready to stay with me, properly.’

  ‘Stay with you properly?’ I whispered, my voice faltering.

  ‘Alex, stop recapping, please! I would never ask you to become like me, not for years to come. Unless, of course, you’re happy to sooner? But, no, I can see you don’t like the idea. It’s not something you’re likely to get used to within a few hours.’

  Horror gagged me. A thread of calm came undone, unravelling the fabric of acceptance I’d just woven, and fraying it into panic. Surely, it was just a passing thought for him too, and would soon reveal itself a terrible idea!

  ‘You know, some butterflies only live a few days?’ he said, a little randomly. ‘Even though their lifecycle began months before, its instars to achieve complete metamorphosis, as larva, caterpillar, and chrysalis. They finally begin to really live as a butterfly, and when that time comes, it only lasts a few days. Some moths only live for one day. It’s all they know. I can relate to it, having the experience I’ve had as human and as what I am now. I’m telling you, Alex, that time passes quicker when you have forever to live it – just as it is shorter for the butterfly. You’ll be gone sooner than you can understand, in my time. Imagine you fell in love with someone who only had a day to live! How would you feel about that? What if you could do something about it?’

  ‘I understand that I’m the butterfly in this scenario,’ I said, ‘but I don’t understand how my lifespan can be compared to a few days?’

  ‘You’re not meant to understand it. You can’t understand it through explanation. I’m trying to give you an idea by comparison,’ he spoke rapidly. ‘How can you comprehend what I feel in my time when you are stuck in yours? Time passes quicker for me because I have so much of it.’

  ‘Do you mean that you see everything speeded up? I mean, in comparison to how it was before? Does my watch tick faster?’

  ‘It feels speeded up. No, the clock ticks the same, but instead of the feeling that yesterday was yesterday, it’s more like a second ago. I don’t expect you to understand that.’ He finished in a tone as though he’d been trying to explain the theory of relativity to a small child. However, I wasn’t done on that subject yet.

  ‘So it’s just how it seems? Is that important when it isn’t really that way at all?’

  ‘How can I teach myself to live by your clock? I can’t, because I live by mine. I have forever, and you don’t. I want you to have forever, Alex, with me. The lifespan I have is optional to you, yours to me isn’t. If it were I would take it in a heartbeat!’

  I didn’t respond to that for a moment. Without getting on to other matters about living as he did, such as drinking human blood, stalking Death, having a demon usurp me, et cetera, I gave a response to the subject in hand.

  ‘I don’t want to live forever,’ I said, simply, and a little sadly.

  ‘You think that forever would be, what, boring? The idea of eternity only pained me when I was doomed to spend it alone, when I thought I could never have any sort of life. It is just a lifespan, not painfully drawn out. Once you know it, you understand it; you become it. Do you know how much I love you, Alexandra? I can’t bear the thought of losing you! I can never follow you on. I know it sounds selfish, it is selfish, but I won’t wait around for you to die!’ He rubbed his face and looked away, annoyed, but unsurprised to see me shaking my head.

  One truth was that he wasn’t used to having things any other way but his own.

  ‘But why would you want me now,’ he re-joined. ‘Perhaps you don’t love me at all.’

  ‘Why? Because I won’t sacrifice my life and agree to become that Thing for you? That wouldn’t be love, Thom.’

  ‘Then what would it be?’

  ‘Infatuation, probably. Acute fear of being alone and a desperation to be wanted mixed up and labelled as love. If you asked me to commit a murder for you, to prove my love, I wouldn’t do it. But that would hardly mean I didn’t love you. If I can’t remain true to myself, what is there for you to love in me?’

  ‘Wait – where are you going?’

  ‘I’m stiff,’ I mumbled on rising from the sofa, rouse
d to something like vexation. ‘I need to stretch myself and– and think!’

  ‘Perhaps you need time to get used to the idea?’

  Much as I did love him, I couldn’t choose to be that Thing, either to please him or any part of myself. It would be cruel to give him hope. Besides, I felt he might try me, harass me, talk me into it. I was sure he wouldn’t trick me, but I admit a sensation yet kindled a fear. He might consider it eventually, perhaps after attempts to persuade me had failed. I didn’t truly believe him capable, but I couldn’t take that risk. As he’d said, desperation makes you carry out things you wouldn’t normally do.

  ‘I don’t want that life,’ I whispered hard, decisively. ‘To live like that! It’s not what I want. I wish we could be together in any other way. But I won’t choose that – I won’t!’

  ‘Do you intend to leave me, Alex? Take care how you answer!’ His voice sharpened; he was ready to react badly.

  I found my eyes wandering over to the door. He went and stood with his back up against it.

  ‘I don’t want to leave you – but I will have to.’

  ‘I won’t lose you!’ His nose wrinkled. ‘Alex– Alex, I can make you mine!’

  ‘I know you’re not capable of that.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate desperation! Given the right conditions, anyone is capable of anything.’

  Impulsively, I shook my head.

  ‘Don’t try me, Alex. I will have you! – I will!’

  He was wild-eyed. His forehead fiercely overcast. I didn’t want to look at him like this, but maintaining eye contact was essential to avoid attack. If I looked away, flinched, recoiled, fled, I would be demonstrating a weakness. Instinct told me this. However, instinct did not drive Thom like it does the tiger or the panther. Despite staring him out he sprung and was at my side in a blink. In urgency he arrested my arms. Even with the passion glowing in his endlessly black eyes, I felt the carefulness in his grip – that his formidable strength could, if he wished, crush my bones to powder. His hands moved to my waist, pulling me to him. He leant forward, his teeth bared and set. This only aided my resolve – I wouldn’t be frightened into anything.