Halton Cray (Shadows of the World Book 1)

by N. B. Roberts

  He squeezed me tighter. ‘My own name should have been Irony! These mad opinions of yours are one of the many reasons I love you so much; and it’s those that’ll keep us apart now! Alex? Alex, is this where we part ways?’

  ‘Yes–’ I barely got this word out of my throat. ‘This is where we part ways.’

  ‘And how am I supposed to let you go?’

  ‘Because you promised me.’

  He rolled his eyes and tried to smile with little success. ‘I knew I’d regret that!’ He lifted my chin with his finger and turned his eyes away a moment, as if contemplating another way to convince me. It was useless to try and he knew it. Though he didn’t plead, his eyes were devastatingly sad.

  ‘I’ll never see you again,’ he choked out in a whisper. In the corner of his eye, I saw a globule of blood, and as it grew, it fell and trickled down his cheek, staining his pale skin with a streak of crimson.

  Pressing myself against him, I shed my tears on his chest as he hugged me tighter. I was about to tell him it was meant to be this way. But it wasn’t true; he wasn’t meant to be left behind. I wasn’t meant to go anywhere without him.

  ‘So stubborn!’ he said, as I sobbed. ‘I promised you, Alex, I wouldn’t interfere. I’m envious of everything belonging to the place you’re going. It’s so hard to think of never seeing you again.’

  ‘Then don’t believe that, Thom. Believe that death cannot divide us.’

  ‘Then find a way back to me! Promise me, Alex – swear it! You’ll come back and haunt me? Try! But wherever you go – on the other side – you will think of me?’

  ‘Oh!’ I cried harder. ‘I could never forget you! I swear!’

  ‘And when Death arrives, when it happens, will you let me hold your hand?’

  Before I could answer, his voice slammed, ‘It’s here!’

  Thirty

  MORTALITY

  ‘The thought of Death, to one near Death is dreadful, oh, ’tis a fearful thing to be no more, or if to be, to wander after Death; to walk, as Spirits do, in Brakes of Day; and when the Darkness comes, to glide in Paths that lead to Graves.’

  – John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee, Oedipus

  It took everything I had to pull myself from him. He grabbed my hand firmly in his and turned me to face the direction of Death’s approach. On the other side of the road, something moved in and out of the shadows. The fog remained too thick for me to discern any more than just the figure of a man. He crossed the road insouciantly towards us, and seemed from here very ordinary. Wearing a dark quilted down jacket, zipped up, his hands buried in the front pockets. I did not expect a robe & scythe and I wasn’t disappointed. His hood was up and drawn low to obscure his face, though I could distinguish the outline of his eyes. As he stepped up from the road onto the pavement where we stood, he unsheathed a hand and drew back his hood to reveal who he was, or at least appeared to be. Though a part of me expected to see this, I still took a step back in surprise.

  Thom tugged at my hand, as if hoping it was a sign I’d changed my mind. I couldn’t. I stood firm and swallowed those feelings Death was conjuring up. Because faithful to Thom’s account of its custom to personify departed loved-ones, Death was now the physical embodiment of someone I’d known; someone I’d loved. Certainly all the world is a stage, and here was Death in costume. It was to ease the journey – my transition. I knew that face he sported immediately; it had imprinted itself on my memory.

  Death stepped towards me in the stolen image of that still face I’d last seen in an open casket. Everything about him resembled my father, a perfect clone. From his cropped red hair, a shade darker than mine, and his thick beard, to those grey-blue eyes which mirrored my own; right down to the tiniest details, like the open pores in his skin and odd strands of grey in his hair. If I’d been ignorant of Death’s personifications, I might have believed it truly was him. That my memory of his funeral – his body laid out against the satin lining of his coffin – was some kind of implanted memory. I could even remember the fine points of his lifeless but colourful face, and the way he’d looked asleep. I was so young when he died. He was in truth a stranger to me now. Though somewhere inside me, a little girl still waited for daddy to come home. Still loving him; still missing him; and she never grew up, but slowly forgot herself. And he never came back.

  How could Death think that this was someone I would run into the arms of? But I suppose that that’s exactly what I would have done, if not for knowing undoubtedly that it wasn’t my dad. What a conflict of feelings! To hate Death who stood there in the image of someone I should love, ready to snatch my world from me, and deprive Thom of some happiness.

  As he drew nearer, I caught the intense scent of him that soon hung at my nostrils. He even imitated the smell of my father, so accurately; his body scent beneath the layer of an early-nineties aftershave. What could more arouse a memory than a scent? It was so intrusive how Death had unlimited access to my memories – more access than I had consciously – to use against me in this way. What terrible trickery! I recalled again that last kiss my dad had placed on my cheek. I still remembered his voice and the way he would look at me when it was time for bed. Here was the Angel of Death looking at me through those eyes. I saw now that they reminded me of Thom’s, too. Emptiness sat behind them with that lack of a soul; the depths of time without end.

  Thom, invisible to Death, switched hands with me and roped his other arm around my waist, as if ready to shield me from impending doom. My belief in meant to be had seriously come into question; this was not meant to be. I couldn’t stay for him and he couldn’t come with me.

  Just a few yards away I suddenly knew that Death’s touch would mean I’d slipped on the pavement; it would move me ten yards to my right, to get hit by the car – the car I could now hear racing in the distance – as if I’d jumped out in front of it. I knew from what Thom had told me: Death had that ability to balance timing perfectly for his needs. I began to panic; I didn’t want to die. Death had come to take me. Other than via Thom, I knew now that nothing could prevent this.

  Death stood before me, blind to the vampire’s presence, and in an exact recording of my father’s voice spoke –

  ‘Lexi,’ he pronounced the variant my father had used in my infancy, in a tone that expressed he’d missed me. Death’s cloned hand rose to my shoulder with his index finger outstretched. My hand tightened on Thom’s, and the engine of my demise grew louder in my ears, as it sped up the road behind us. I already knew what the poor driver would say to the paramedic who couldn’t save me, something like ‘she came out of nowhere.’

  Thom edged at my side; I heard him whisper that he loved me. I had no time to reply. It was as if Death had put a spell on me. His fake fingers hovered before me, though didn’t touch me, as if they were playing something. Like a puppeteer, holding something yet unseen, he moved it in a way to distract or hypnotise me. To that I felt my heavy eyes close. In an instant, I could no longer feel Thom’s hand, and then I could no longer remember his name, or mine. I couldn’t remember anything.

  My life did not file away in a slideshow of pictures beneath my eyelids. No flash of my past, no memories or moments to remain for, or to keep me back. All I could feel was that laid in front of me, and that behind was erased. I could see it was getting lighter. The colour turquoise seeped into the light and clouded it like paint swirled in water. I could no longer physically feel my body or the ground beneath it, as if it had fallen away from me. I was leaving it behind. I felt a wonderful freedom of it, from a prison of flesh and bone. I was going somewhere, through light and sound, without moving, as if the universe moved instead of me. Sounds all around me softly penetrated my senses in notes I didn’t know, perhaps only comparable to circling the rim of a wet glass with your fingertip. The turquoise space was boundless and the slightest feeling of pressure came over me, similar to being suspended in a great volume of water. I was aware of having no body in this infinite, waterless ocean; and it had no surface.
>
  I could see panoramically: everywhere all at once with no focal point. It was busy with small flutters and kinks of movement. They resembled waves on a rolling sea with wisps of prismatic light, as if caught by a ray of the sun. These waves were within this waterless ocean. I knew instinctively that I was one of these waves – that each one was a soul. Countless souls! I knew they were moving through me as I through them. I found that some were familiar: I had known them before now, in another life. Those that were unfamiliar, and there were many, I knew I’d never known them. But I felt part of them, as one great volume of consciousness, spanning space and time, in the Eternal Now. We all felt simultaneously a euphoric sense of freedom, peace, bliss, and calm curiosity. Not yet reaching nirvana, just anticipating it. Those familiar souls drew me to them. I felt they were ready to take me somewhere new, somewhere deeper and farther, as if they were handing me over at a crossing point. Amidst them remained a soul that was unlike the others, an anonymous swell that held no movement. It was not awake here or a part of this great consciousness. It was unconscious and would not move with us, but remain here alone. As if fixed at this borderline it was unable to go on or turn back. It gave off no curls of light like the others did, and its edges were stretched and uneven as if they had been torn. I couldn’t tell whether it was a familiar soul – whether I’d known it from my life before; the life I couldn’t now remember. I would be leaving this one behind. I didn’t want to leave it. I moved through it and instantly I heard a distant, familiar noise; a voice deep and strong –

  ‘She’s gone; O deadly Marks-Man, in the heart!

  Yet in the Pangs of Death she grasps my Hand:

  Her Lips too tremble, as if she would speak her last farewell.’

  With the voice came a reel of familiar images. I began to remember.

  ‘Thom!’ I opened my eyes. My skin wrapped me once more, with the concrete beneath my feet. Did I speak aloud? He couldn’t have heard me, as he stroked my cheek, kissed my lips, and whispered honeyed words in my ear –

  ‘Thou art not conquered! Beauty’s ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, and death’s pale flag is not advanced there.’

  I couldn’t stem the tears coursing my face. His hand still locked about mine; the soulless man I loved. I turned to him and he looked at me with confusion and relief fused into one powerful expression.

  ‘You came back? You’re not a ghost?’ His hands clamped the sides of my face.

  I put my hands on his. ‘I’m no ghost. I’m here.’

  Death remained before me with an aspect of dissatisfaction on his borrowed face.

  ‘I can choose?’ I stammered. The car – my death-trap – with driver unscathed, zoomed past unwittingly with windows down, music blaring.

  ‘I can refuse you if I want to?’ I muttered to myself. ‘And Death shall have no dominion!’

  ‘And Death shall have no dominion!’ echoed Thom, following this up with a nervous bout of laughter.

  Death looked begrudgingly disappointed, remaining as that imitation of my dad. His phoney hand fell down in failure. He would not attempt to touch me; he could not, because I had refused, merely by realising that I had that choice. And I chose to stay.

  It had all been in a few seconds. From the moment I left my body and Death had shown me the way, until I reopened my eyes, barely any time had passed.

  ‘And you saw what I saw, didn’t you?’ I asked him, knowing that he had, for he had shown it to me. He had taken me there.

  Unaware that Thom stood at my side, still he said nothing. He didn’t move either; just stared blankly, as if he’d switched off. I felt that he wouldn’t leave my side until I consented for him to take me. I knew he could too. As Thom had said before, he was omnipresent: he could do his other work even as he stood here with me. But what would happen to me now? Could he trick me in other ways? He could control the events that would cause death, but only if I assented first? A million questions raced through my mind. There were people in the world that survived catastrophic events, as if by a miracle. Perhaps it just wasn’t their time, or had they refused too? Death looked disappointed, but not surprised. Were there others in the world who knew and had refused to part with their soul? A simple knowledge of biology no longer factored in this equation. I’d seen too much to dismiss the possibility that the body could live longer if the mind chose to use it. But what would it look like if you continued to reject Death? Could the mind keep the body in good condition even? Perhaps just the eyes would still tell the truth of what lay behind the lie, as the mirror tells the truth about Thom.

  One thing I understood: Death’s power was limited. It could dazzle and distract; take you far enough to forget. But until you consented, it couldn’t deliver you from the land of the living to the land of the dead. Thom’s soul had reminded me of my life, and in that moment, I went with what I wanted: to stay with him.

  I hugged closer to Thom who still looked at me in confusion. Did he know that I’d touched his torn soul? He had no idea of what was going through my mind. I turned my eyes on Death.

  ‘I know you cause the demise when someone’s time comes. I also know you can’t direct the soulless. They kill without your knowledge. So you’ve no control over when their victims die, even though it conflicts with your orders, right?’

  No response.

  ‘And their victims have other points in time when they were supposed to die, on your list?’

  During the silence, I snuck a look at Thom; he seemed hopeful and desperate simultaneously.

  ‘I know you saw that unconscious soul, too,’ I continued. ‘That soul you never took in the first place. So how long did he truly have left to live? When was his number up, according to your orders?’

  Death spoke at last, and in keeping with his disguise, his voice remained in that flawless replica of my father’s.

  ‘It wasn’t his time. Even so, according to your material clocks, it was long ago. He would be dead by now in any event. His soul’s already been taken. I’ve nothing to do with re-embodiment.’

  ‘Liar!’ scoffed Thom, inaudible to Death. ‘Alex, it can do it!’

  I looked on to Death’s lent eyes and repeated Thom’s words with less irritation. But my voice changed without my realising it. I’d passed through the grave and returned with true knowledge of my free will. A little tipsy on power, and knowing he could do it, I became demanding.

  ‘Return his soul so that he can live the remainder of his life, however long or short that is according to your clocks, not ours. When that time is past I will give my consent on that day, too.’

  ‘This is your time.’

  I raised my chin. ‘Evidently, it is not. You’ll still get one soul at your right time.’

  Death kept still, as like that familiar corpse from the coffin in my childhood. He looked at me so silently, as if trying to feed my mind with his thoughts. And if I were to guess, I would guess that Death’s message to me was ‘do not dare imagine I have no dominion whatsoever.’

  Death looked to roughly where Thom stood, though not exactly. ‘I know you’re there,’ he whispered chillingly through my father’s beard. ‘You scavenge off my table regularly enough. I know you’re there.’ He looked back to me. ‘On one condition will I agree to reward him his soul as part of your proposed bargain.’

  ‘Name it!’

  ‘An end must come to the one who made him, who yet interferes with my work; let him make and take no more from my list.’

  ‘Tell him,’ said Thom in angst, ‘to consider it done. If he swears he’ll return my soul, I will find a way to stop Johan! – Alex, whatever it takes.’

  I turned my eyes on Death and told him.

  I expected a response of some sort, to seal the deal. Not another sound issued from him. Death pulled up his hood, reburied those hands in his pockets, and walked backwards as if he was on a slow rewind setting. I stared after him until he disappeared back into the fog across the road from where he’d emerged.

 
; Thom turned and pulled me against him. ‘I thought I’d lost you!’ He stroked my face and gazed into my eyes. ‘But in true Alexian style, with a death-defying love for me, you chose to stay by my side!’ He smiled and planted rapturous kisses on my lips before adjoining, ‘You argued with Grim for me, Alex – fearlessly – and suddenly I have a chance to walk amongst the living once more. Come on!’ He led me by the hand.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘To get my car. I’m driving you home and then I’m off to see Seth, to convince him to help me. I need to leave the country immediately.’

  ‘I thought you went to Manhattan already?’

  ‘And I suppose, Cassandra, you found that out by divination?’

  ‘I got an email from Stacey.’

  ‘And do you know what I went there to do?’

  ‘To find Johan.’

  ‘And I saw him, Alex, in the dead-flesh.’ He set his teeth.

  ‘You really saw him? And you went there to–?’

  He seemed reluctant to say more.

  I stopped still and folded my arms.

  ‘I’d lost you, Alex. My world was turning backwards once again. I was like a boat without an anchor; I felt as lost as I had in Ireland years ago. For all the misery Johan caused me, the time had come to execute my revenge. I had Seth’s assurance at where he was living. The timing was right to take action. So I told Seth I was going, as he was still building the courage to go back. I told him my purpose and promised to accompany him home. I wasn’t in a mood to be gracious about it. I told him bluntly –