Bloodstone

by Gillian Philip

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t?’

  ‘You can imagine... when he brought Rory. When he found me here. He didn’t understand that I... wanted to stay.’

  ‘Jesus. I bet he didn’t.’

  Silently Finn picked at her nails. ‘There was a time... listen. Him and Conal, they both used to be her men. They believed in her. I don’t know what’s gone wrong but it’s politics, that’s all. Stupid politics.’

  He rubbed his eyes, exhausted. ‘Finn...’

  ‘Seth’s come back to her. It doesn’t matter what I think of him or...’ Gently she stroked his bruised face. ‘Or even what you think. He’d never do anything to hurt Conal.’

  He studied her face sadly. ‘And neither would you.’

  ‘Of course neither would I! I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Be better if they talked to one another, wouldn’t it?’

  Jed rolled his eyes and went back to hunting Rory’s scalp for nonexistent lice, but then something struck him, and he narrowed his eyes at her throat. ‘What happened to your other necklace?’

  Absently she touched the pendant, and glanced down. The crude raven’s-talon was sharp and hollow, the chunk of emerald gone. Perhaps to stop the claw pricking her skin, it lay against a slender toothed leaf, delicately carved out of polished wood and strung on a woven thong.

  ‘Oh, the stone. It fell out. The setting was loose, remember?’ She grinned. ‘Rush job.’

  ‘Yes...’

  ‘Kate’s got the emerald. She’s going to get Gealach to set it properly.’

  ‘Nothing could be easier,’ said Kate’s laughing voice. ‘I can fix a lot of things now.’ She sat down and put an arm round Finn’s shoulders.

  Jed’s disbelief must have shown on his face, because Kate wagged a finger at him.

  ‘I adore Cù Chaorach, but he is such a one for giving one side of a story.’

  ‘I suppose most people are such ones for that.’

  Her lips thinned disapprovingly as her arm tightened on Finn’s shoulders. ‘Conal loved Finn’s father; her father loved him. But Conal led Aonghas to his death for his own obsessions. Cù Chaorach is a noble man, and a bonny fighter, and he means well. But he can be the most selfish of brutes.’

  Finn seemed to start at that. ‘He’s not selfish—’

  ‘No, dear one.’ Kate tutted mischievously. ‘And he isn’t the violent type.’

  Finn blushed and gave her an embarrassed grin. ‘I know, I know.’

  Jed’s lip twisted in disbelief. ‘Finn?’

  ‘Oh honestly, young man. Finn isn’t stupid. I don’t know what Cù Chaorach’s told you, but I’m not on some mass suicide mission.’

  He pressed his cheek to Rory’s hair, unwilling to meet her alarmingly brilliant eyes.

  ‘Jed, my people love me. You think that’s because I ask it of them? Oh, please. My people love me because I indulge their whims. Why shouldn’t I?’ Kate smirked with satisfaction. ‘I gave them their desires in the first place. Give your people what they want, Jed, and they’ll always want what you give them. And I can do the same for your people. I’ve wanted to help them for so long, but how can I do that when they’re barely aware of me? The full-mortals, listen to me? They can’t even see me.’

  If he could have stuck his fingers in his ears he would have, but he had a feeling that would be a tactical error. ‘So why’d you have to come after my brother?’ he muttered.

  ‘Come after him! Heavens, you have such a pejorative way of speaking.’ Kate sniffed disdainfully. ‘Would you have let me persuade you? Your bandit friends would have had my throat cut before I could get a word out.’

  ‘So you just stole him.’

  ‘Oh, hardly. His father gave him to me. Which, as it happens, was precisely what was predicted. His parents were supposed to give him up voluntarily. And they both did!’

  ‘My mother didn’t—’

  ‘Yes, dear, of course she did. She gave him up for a fix. What did she think would happen to him if anything became of her? For heaven’s sake! Thank goodness you were there, Jed. Although Skinshanks would have looked after him well enough, if you hadn’t arrived.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Jed rubbed his temples. ‘You weren’t looking for him, or you’d just have taken him. You were looking for a stone.’

  Kate fluttered an elegant hand. ‘Yes, yes, but I always had my suspicions. Which were confirmed by an oracle, ooh... two centuries ago? I had to wait for the blessed creature, of course, and it took me a little time to trace the right child. But heavens, you could have knocked me down with a chicken feather when I found out who’d fathered it.’

  Jed couldn’t speak. His head was too full of Skinshanks, and the smile on its face when Jed had turned up at the last minute and rescued Rory. No wonder the Lammyr hadn’t looked very bothered. They’d had a contingency plan, and Jed was it.

  Kate draped an arm around each of them. ‘I was fond of Finn’s grandmother, and I miss the old dear, but I always had more imagination than she did. She couldn’t see past magic rocks, that was Leonora’s trouble.’

  Jed peered past her at Finn, waiting for her to leap to her grandmother’s defence, but all she did was smile a little sadly. For God’s sake...

  ‘Well. Now that Rory’s in my keeping, he can help me remove that choking shroud of a Veil. We’ll work at it together, as he grows. Then the full-mortals will see me as my own people do; I can make them as happy and secure as I’ve made my Sithe.’ Kate sighed. ‘Your people live in a prison of fear and doubt, Jed, but I can free them. See?’ He felt Kate’s warm breath on his skin as she leaned over him. ‘I’ll protect you full-mortals from your enemies. I’ll let you see who your real enemies are.’

  The gist of it seemed reasonable, logical even. He couldn’t imagine why it was wrong; so wrong, it was as if every word she spoke was misshapen, spelt and spoken backwards. Shaking his head violently, he remembered something beyond Kate’s words, something of her that seemed more real: cruelty, and bright malice.

  ‘Finn,’ he said, craning past Kate once more. ‘Do you remember Cuthag?’

  She frowned. ‘Who?’

  Oh shit.

  ‘If the Veil goes,’ he said, turning sharply back to Kate, ‘we’ll see people like Finn properly. That what you mean by showing us who our enemies are?’

  Kate’s breath caught in her throat, as if she was mildly exasperated. Then she relaxed, and turned her focus only on Finn.

  ‘Finn knows the Veil has kept her hidden. It’s made her a nobody. Well, Finn, you’re not a nobody. You’re a Sithe! Think about it, Finn! Those dull-wits who think they’re better than you, those girls who make your life a misery! Wouldn’t you like to get your own back?’ Kate trailed a finger along her jawline. ‘You’re a lovely girl. Why should you stay unseen while those cattle preen themselves? You can be top dog for a change. You can be queen of your circle.’

  Jed shrank back in disbelief. Finn, he thought. Finn. You know fine you aren’t lovely. You bitched about it often enough. You laughed about it.

  ‘The Veil is a moth-eaten rag. We’ve crossed over everywhere, we cross-breed more and more, and now their kind have begun to come to us.’ Kate glanced at Laszlo, back in the shadows. ‘The Veil’s going to die, but we’ll turn that to our advantage, won’t we, Finn? We won’t go down with it. We’ll join with the full-mortals on our own terms.’

  Kate tipped Finn’s chin so she could look directly into her eyes, and for a moment Jed knew how it was. Those slender fingers, cool and dry against the skin, the touch of them travelling through the jaw and into the skull.

  ‘It’s dead skin,’ Kate murmured. ‘It’s already rotting. Even if Conal was right, the Veil’s death is inevitable. It’s only madness that fights the inevitable. Madness.’

  And Jed remembered what it looked like: Conal’s wild face as he seized Rory, Conal striking Seth almost hard enough to snap his neck, Conal cursing the night sky like a lunatic. There was the bitter rage of Eili, too: the pointless waste of four
hundred years could make you mad. For a crystalline moment, Jed believed that absolutely.

  It lasted fractions of a second; that was all. But in the same instant, he saw how it was for Finn.

  People lied to Finn. They’d done it all her life. How would she recognise a lie? She didn’t know what one looked like.

  Oh, Finn. His stomach turned over.

  Kate nodded. ‘Finn sees it perfectly clearly. Our two worlds are like parallel rivers. Rivers always join, forge a channel together. One day the worlds will collide, and this side will be swallowed up, but so what? There’s a watersmeet at Tornashee, but does the smaller river vanish? No! It’s absorbed in the larger one. There’s turbulence, and dangerous water, and then?’ She stroked Finn’s cheek as she smiled. ‘Clear brown water, and the sound of the trees, and birdsong, and cool shade. It’s beautiful.’ She took a small, sad breath. ‘Conal taught you to swim there, didn’t he?’

  Finn nodded, unspeaking.

  ‘You love him. That’s understandable. He’s been your father since he lost you your own.’ Kate’s voice held infinite melancholy. ‘Ah, Finn, Conal can be saved.’

  The battle was lost, but Jed flailed one more time. ‘Finn...’

  Kate spun and faced him, righteous anger lighting her eyes with gold.

  ‘You see, Jed? That’s why Finn will stay with me. She’ll stay. Because together we’ll save Cù Chaorach.’

  ‘Ed! Down!’ Rory hammered Jed’s shoulder with furious fists.

  When Jed had first picked up his brother, he’d had no intention of ever putting him down. But over the long hours since they’d come here, he’d had to. Hours? It could be days. He had only his own body clock to go by, since his cheap watch had never recovered from its soaking and there were no windows in this warren. He and Rory had slept and eaten when they felt like it. No-one had tried to snatch Rory away, and gradually Jed’s confidence was returning. He could let Rory go more than a metre from him, for – oh, whole minutes at a time. Now, reluctantly, he set the squalling child on the ground, and was rewarded with instant silence.

  Jed stuck close behind him as the toddler trudged down a new corridor. There didn’t seem to be much chance of getting lost, anyway. Either they’d lose their bearings in these tortuous caverns – in which case Kate would be bound to send Laszlo after them – or they’d find a route to the outside world, which was frankly too much to hope for.

  The passage opened into a bare rock-walled space where water fell in a spray into a clear greenish pool. At the pool’s edge lay a black wolf, its yellow eyes fixed on them. Jed came to a shocked halt, but Rory marched heedlessly forward. Only when he was about to plunge feet-first into the pool did Jed run forward to grab him. Branndair lifted his head but made no sound.

  Seth stood barefoot but fully clothed beneath the fall of water, eyes closed, his jeans and white shirt soaked, singing quietly to himself: a lilting tune Jed’s mother used to sing. My Lagan Love. Had Seth taught it to her, or had she taught him? Suddenly Jed couldn’t stand the sound of it. Hatred tightened his guts. Seth would leave him nothing of her, in the end, not even some old song. Nothing.

  Falling silent, Seth shut his eyes tighter, turned his face up to the hard lash of the water, and let it wash out his mouth in a fountaining spray. Jed began to back away, then hesitated, heart thudding. He wanted to know how Seth could do it. Stab Conal in the back. Seduce Mila. Steal her baby, the baby he’d abandoned, and give him to that slapper of a witch for the sake of politics.

  Seth spat out a mouthful of water, shoved his hands through his hair and without opening his eyes said, ‘Have you a weapon with you?’

  If only. Remembering the pistol in his belt, Jed gritted his teeth. ‘Not one that works.’

  ‘Ah.’ Seth tipped his head forward, opening eyes that were starred with silver light. The right one opened properly. The left one was still swollen, bruised horribly by Conal’s blow. Stepping out of the pool, Seth glanced down at the child squirming in Jed’s arms. ‘At the risk of my own throat, I suggest you find one. And don’t turn your back on Laszlo. Not ever.’

  Jed frowned, curiosity overcoming his hate. ‘Laszlo’s not going to bother with me.’

  ‘He will. Kate knows it, but she leaves me to do her dirty protection work.’ Seth spat again into the pool. ‘Laszlo’s afraid of you. And fear makes men do terrible things.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing against Laszlo,’ said Jed. ‘You’re a different matter.’

  ‘Right. Well, allegedly,’ said Seth with a sarcastic grin, ‘Laszlo will never be killed by a Sithe. He’ll be killed by a full-mortal like himself.’

  ‘I see.’ Jed paused, thinking about that for a moment. ‘There’s a lot of us about.’

  ‘Yes, though not many over here. And he’s done enough killing in his time to make plenty of enemies.’ Seth shrugged. ‘Of course it’s all bollocks. Witchcraft, superstition, whatever. Don’t talk to me about prophecies.’ His lip curled in hatred. ‘I’ve had enough of those to last me three Sithe lifetimes. The point is, Laszlo believes it.’

  That made Jed shiver. ‘He had every chance to kill me on the way here, and he didn’t.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dare. Skinshanks wants you.’

  Jed froze. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s bored with Laszlo. Taken him as far as it can. Wants a new protégé, and you’re it; it’s had its eye on you for a long time. It’s already worked on you, from a distance.’ Seth shrugged. ‘Well, what Skinshanks wants, Kate’ll give. Good luck with that.’

  Jed found himself holding Rory tighter. ‘But that means Laszlo won’t—’

  ‘Oh yeah, he will if he gets a chance. He’ll slide a kitchen knife between your shoulder blades and apologise for being clumsy.’

  Jed swallowed, his throat dry. ‘Why would you care?’

  Seth’s eyes strayed to Rory. ‘I thought I’d made that perfectly clear.’

  Rory squealed, delighted to have some more adult attention, and kicked free of Jed’s too-close hold. Cursing, Jed made a grab for him, but he was a fast mover for a toddler. He collided with Seth’s legs and was thrilled to be swept up in his strong hands.

  Breathing hard, Jed decided that if the man so much as looked at Rory the wrong way he’d take his eyes out with his bare fingers. But Seth only held the baby at arm’s length, gazing at him as if looking for a little bit of himself. Rory’s eyes were wide and fascinated as he returned the stare. Stretching out a stubby hand he touched Seth’s bruised eye, and the man flinched in surprise.

  ‘Ouchy,’ said Rory, and grabbed Seth’s neck, hauling him in for a proper hug.

  A look of utter shock was on Seth’s face, and he would have dropped Rory to the stone floor had the child not locked himself so securely round his neck. Seth pressed his face to Rory’s, so close that his black eyelashes brushed the small cheekbone, and his arms closed in on the little body to hold him far more tightly than Jed thought was necessary.

  Seth crouched to set the child down, pushing him gently back in Jed’s direction. Jed lifted him. Rory’s clothes were soaked now, and Jed was on the point of saying something vicious about Seth’s carelessness, but one look at the man’s unguarded face stopped him. Instead he said softly: ‘Why did you do it?’

  Seth stood up, his gaze chilling. ‘Partly because of you, you’ll be sorry to hear. Kate’s been trying to entice me back.’ He grinned ironically. ‘That bitch-queen plays a long game. She was very subtle. But I wouldn’t have done it, you know.’

  ‘Wouldn’t?’ Jed’s mouth was dry.

  ‘No. But then you came out with that ghetto remark of yours. I thought a lot about that. Why should we live in a ghetto, after all? It’s your kind need to be controlled and corralled, not ours.’

  ‘But I thought... you’ll all be destroyed.’

  ‘It’s one theory. Me, I think we’re strong enough, clever enough to survive the worst. But only if we do it on our own terms.’

  Those words echoed. He remembered Kate saying them.

>   ‘You know, I saw Belsen, Cuilean. I saw it liberated. It made quite an impression. I’ve been all over; I’m quite the world traveller. Rwanda, Kosovo, Sierra Leone. Have you heard of those? Did they register with you?’

  ‘Kind of...’

  ‘Quite. Kind of. Anyway, when I got tired of being a soldier I joined the police, and I ended up pulling the corpse of a six-year-old child out of a ditch.’ He smiled coldly. ‘You never stop, do you? If the Veil rots away, what in the name of the gods will we do? The thought of it turns my guts to ice. We’ll need someone strong, someone who’ll protect us. Someone as ruthless as you people are. Because, gods, you are. Do you have any idea how much I’ve seen of you? You kill your own children. Your children kill children.’

  ‘Not all of us.’ Jed decided Seth was a little more insane than Conal.

  ‘More than enough.’ Seth shrugged. ‘You’re beyond belief, or you would be if I hadn’t seen the evidence. Well, with Kate in charge we might just be all right. Kate’s nothing if not ruthless. She’s wicked, but she’s one of us.’

  ‘I’m amazed you can even touch her. After my mum.’

  ‘Don’t push it, Cuilean.’ There was a snarl in Seth’s throat, fading to silence. ‘Though it sometimes amazes me too.’

  ‘Kate doesn’t care about you!’

  ‘It never once occurred to me that she did.’

  ‘I don’t mean just you. She doesn’t care about any of you. Nobody but herself!’

  ‘True, and of course I know now why she targeted me and not Conal.’ Seth eyed his baby son with a tight smile. ‘It was never going to be my superior charms, was it? But Kate’s got the right idea, you see. Caring’s so overrated. I’ve been alive a long time, Cuilean.’ The pitch of his voice rose. ‘Have you any idea how much love you can give and take in a life that long?’

  Jed tensed, but the man only shrugged, his voice cooling again.

  ‘Caring. Loving. What do they get you but grief and horror and death? Conal cares, and what has it got him? Exile, and a rage he can’t control any more.’ Seth’s teeth bared, but it wasn’t what Jed would call a smile. ‘It used to be so easy, Cuilean. I used to draw in the Veil as if I was pulling a hat down over my eyes. Now I try to seize it and it disintegrates where I touch it, or vanishes like a mist-phantom. I wore out the last of my kindness keeping you and your family protected. Now I’ve had enough. This way it’s our own choice. I’d rather take my chances with Kate than wait around for the Veil to dissolve and for everything I’ve ever loved to vanish.’