Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2)

by Mark Chadbourn

  “She’s a good kid.” Veitch kept his gaze fixed on the landscape spread out before them.

  “And you feel that way even though she treated you so harshly for killing her uncle?”

  “I deserved it. I did kill him. Are you going to answer the bleedin’ question or not?”

  Shavi squatted down on his haunches and absently began to trace the cracks in the rock. “I have hope.”

  “You know, I’m going to kill the bastard who did that to her.”

  “Revenge never does much good, Ryan.”

  “It makes me feel good. Do you reckon Blondie had anything to do with it?” He glanced over to where Church and Laura were sitting.

  “I do not know. My instinct says probably not.”

  “I just want to be doing something. All this sitting around is driving me crazy.” He found a pebble and hurled it with venom far out across the landscape. After he had watched the descent of its arc, he said, “After we find her … if we find her … do you think, you know, me and her could ever get together? I know we’re chalk and cheese and all that, but you never know, do you?”

  “No, you never know.” Shavi watched Veitch fondly; for all his rage and barely repressed violence, at times he seemed like a child; inside him Shavi could sense a good heart beating, filled with values that were almost old-fashioned.

  Veitch laughed. “I don’t know why I’m talking about stuff like this to a queen.”

  For the first time Shavi sensed there was no edge to the slur; in fact, it was almost good-natured. “I don’t-“

  “Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re going to say. Men, women, they’re all the same to you.”

  “And emotions are all the same as well, whoever you care for.”

  Veitch eyed him thoughtfully for a second, said nothing.

  Shavi came over and sat next to him on the rock. “There is a belief in many cultures that we create who we are through will alone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That we are not a product of breeding or environment. That if we wish ourselves to be a hero or a great lover, and wish hard enough, than we will transform ourselves into our heart’s desire.”

  Veitch thought about this for a second. “And if we mope around thinking we’re a nothing, loser, stupid, small-time crook, then that’s what we end up as well.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So why are you telling me this?”

  Shavi shrugged. “I just want to help.”

  Veitch looked at him curiously, but before he could speak, Tom wandered up to them along a muddy path worn into the scrub. Shavi and Veitch made no attempt to read his mood; at times his thought processes were as alien as those of the Tuatha De Danann or the Fomorii.

  “‘s up?” Veitch asked.

  “I can’t find any sign of the gate to the Well.” Tom stood next to them, as detached as ever.

  “You didn’t have any problem down in Cornwall,” Veitch noted.

  “The power here has been dormant for a long time. There are no structures or standing stones to keep it focused. It may even be extinct.”

  “So, what? We’re wasting our time? Those haunts wouldn’t have bothered mentioning the place if that was the case.”

  “The Aborigines have a similar view of an earth energy. In fact, it is an extremely widespread cultural belief around the world.” Shavi brushed his wind-whipped hair from his eyes. “The Aborigines call it djang, the creative energy from which the world was formed. In their stories of the Dreamtime, djang spirit beings transformed into things in the landscape-rocks and trees, bushes and pools. That residue was always there so the people could tap into their spiritual well at any moment. And like the ley lines we have discussed before, there were dreaming tracks and song lines linking sacred sites. But the djang could also be conjured up with correct, traditional dances and rituals.”

  Tom’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Your shamanic abilities are very potent. Do you think you could find the dreaming tracks that would lead us to the source?”

  “If I have that ability I do not know how to access it. Yet.”

  Veitch noticed Shavi’s faint smile and tapped him firmly on the chestbone. “But you could learn!”

  “Possibly. Given time-“

  Tom shook his head. “We have little time for you to fritter away meditating. You’ll need to do what shamans have done throughout history when they were searching for information or guidance.”

  Shavi looked at him, puzzled.

  “Ask the spirits of the dead.”

  They made their way down from Arthur’s Seat in the early afternoon. The day had grown cloudy and thunderheads backing up in the east suggested a storm was approaching. Just off the comforting modernity of Princes Street they located a small cafe where they discussed Tom’s suggestion.

  “Why are you asking Shavi to do it?” Church asked Tom between sips of a steaming espresso. “You seemed to have a good-enough handle on it when you called up the spirits at Gairloch.”

  “To continually contact the dead allows them to learn to notice you. And then they will never leave you alone.” Tom’s tone suggested this was not a good thing.

  “So it’s all right for the Shav-ster to set himself up for a lifetime’s haunting, but you have to protect yourself,” Laura said sharply. “You sound like one of those First World War generals sending the boys off to die.”

  “I may be remarkably talented,” Tom replied acidly, “but Shavi is the one with true shamanistic abilities. He is more able to cope with the repercussions.”

  Laura began to protest, but Shavi held up his hand to silence her. “Tom is correct. I fully understand my responsibilities. It is the role of the best able to do all they can for the collective, whatever the outcome.”

  “You sure you’re all right with this?” Veitch said with a note of concern. “Nobody ought to be bleedin’ bullied into doing something they don’t want.”

  “I will not deny that the prospect is unnerving, but then everything about life at the moment is very frightening. There are no longer any certainties.” Shavi smiled to himself. “Perhaps there never were. I have had difficulty adjusting to my new-found abilities.” His face darkened. “On the way to Skye, when I gained control of the sea serpent, I felt like my mind had been spiked. That sense of losing control, of finding yourself in something so alien, it was like waking entombed beneath the earth, of giving up your body and never knowing if you could ever get back …” His voice drifted away, but after a moment his smile returned. “It was a little like dying. But now I am resurrected.”

  Laura snorted derisively. “You’re saying something like that isn’t going to screw you up forever? Yeah, right.”

  “Only if I let it. The shadow is still there, the fears. But not to do something because of fear is even worse.”

  Laura’s expression suggested she didn’t understand a word he was saying. She focused on her cappuccino.

  “Okay, it’s agreed,” Church said. “But where’s all this going to take place?”

  “Somewhere suitable,” Tom replied. “Somewhere regularly frequented by the dead.”

  Laura threw the guide book across the table. “It’s all in there,” she said with an odd note to her voice. “God help you, you poor bastard.”

  Early evening sunlight streamed into the hotel bedroom, catching dust motes in languid flight. Through the open window came the gritty sounds of the city, rumbling and honking with optimism and stability; the normality was powerfully soothing. Church and Laura lounged in the tangled sheets, listening to their subsiding heartbeats, daydreaming of the way the world used to be. The sweat dried slowly on their skin as they held each other silently. For a long while nothing moved.

  Even then Church couldn’t find complete peace. The thoughts that had been creeping up on him since that evening on the quayside at Kyleakin had gathered pace; of Niamh and the kiss that had filled his entire being, almost forgotten in the upheaval of Ruth’s disappearance; of Laura and her slo
wly revealing deep affection for him; of his own strained ambivalence. For too long it had seemed like events were uncontrollable and now he was beginning to feel his personal life was going the same way. After so many months trapped in the sphere of his grief and guilt over Marianne’s death, his emotional landscape was an uncharted territory. He knew he felt an attraction to Niamh, but whether it was physical or emotional, or even pure curiosity, he wasn’t entirely sure. And the same with Laura-why couldn’t he read what he felt about her? The only time he was truly in tune with her was during that moment in sex when his conscious mind switched off and the shadow person at the heart of him took over.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  He glanced down to see her eyes ranging over his face. “Life, death, and all things in between.”

  She nodded thoughtfully.

  He slid down and threw one arm across his eyes; the darkness was comforting. “What did you think I was thinking about?”

  “It would have been nice if you’d said, me.”

  “Sorry.” There was a stress-induced unnecessary sharpness in his voice which he instantly regretted.

  He felt Laura’s muscles tense next to him and a second later she had levered herself up on her elbow to fix an incisive eye on him. “What’s on your mind?”

  “What isn’t? The weight of the responsibility on our shoulders. All that bullshit the spy told us last night-I can’t get it out of my head, even though I know I should. The fact that I’m eaten up with vengeance for whoever it was killed Marianne and your mum.” He caught himself. “You’ve never told me how you feel about that.”

  “I don’t feel anything. I’m not even numb. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it wasn’t me who did it to the old bitch-at least I can still look at myself in the mirror-but it’s not as if I’m tearing myself apart that she’s dead. After all she did.” She shifted self-consciously to hide the original set of scars on her back.

  The tone of her words made him feel uncomfortable. “That sounds a little-“

  “What? Cold? Psychotic? Don’t criticise me. You don’t know anything about my life.”

  “I’m trying-“

  “Not hard enough.”

  He suddenly felt angry that he constantly had to pussyfoot around her; it was more strain that he didn’t need. He knew she had her own problems-the rumbling trauma from the scars Callow had inflicted on her face, the doubts over why Cernunnos had marked her-but all of them had problems and no one else acted like a spoiled brat.

  They sat in silence for five minutes watching the dust motes dance in a sunbeam, and when she spoke again she sounded calmer. “Anything else on your mind?”

  He paused for a long time, then admitted it aloud, to himself as much as to her. “That I should be sending us all to look for Ruth instead of-“

  “What? Trying to save the world and everyone in it? That makes sense.” Another whiplash in her voice; he felt the irritation rise again.

  “I’m on your side. Why do you always give me such a bad time?”

  “I’m having a bad life.”

  “It’s not all about you, you know,” he snapped. “I sit here with my thoughts and I can’t even tell who I am any more. Thanks to that stuff I drank from the Danann cauldron, sometimes I think I can hear alien voices chattering at the back of my head, saying things I can’t understand but I know they’re terrible. Then everything flips on its head and I feel the rumblings of whatever the Fomorii did to me with the Roisin Dubh, deep in the same place-“

  “Well, boo-hoo for you.”

  Unable to contain the building rage any longer, he hammered his fist into the mattress. “Shit, why am I here?”

  “Yes, why are you here?” She gave him a harsh shove to the other side of the bed. By the time he’d turned back, angrily, she was out and starting to get dressed. He wanted to shout at her, that she was the one destroying the relationship, but then her mask of cold aloofness dropped slightly and he saw the hurt burning away underneath. He had never seen such emotion in her face before.

  The shock of it calmed him instantly. “Look, I’m sorry. We’re all under a tremendous strain.”

  She muttered something under her breath as she marched to the door, then turned and said, “Go fuck yourself,” before slamming it behind her.

  Laura hated the way she had to blink away tears of anger and hurt as she marched out of the hotel. For years she’d been good at battening down any emotion so that even those closest to her had no idea what she was thinking. But now it seemed as if the stopper had come out of the bottle and wouldn’t go back in again. And Church seemed to have a particular talent for painfully extracting feelings, even when he wasn’t trying; and somehow that made the process hurt even more.

  However much she tried to pretend to herself she didn’t like him, she realised she felt something closer to a childish ideal of love than anything else she had experienced in her life. At first she had hoped it was purely sexual, like so many of her previous relationships. Then she wished it was born of circumstances; of fear; of desperation. But it wasn’t. Emotionally she’d suffered enough at the hands of her parents. And now everything was happening just as she’d feared.

  She headed directly towards Princes Street, hoping to lose herself in some of the trendy bars which were still doing a roaring trade. Shavi and Tom, who had been in search of psychoactive substances for their respective rituals, hailed her as they returned to the hotel. She pretended she hadn’t seen them.

  She opted for the noisiest, most crowded bar and forced her way to the front to buy a Red Stripe. Although her attitude never wavered, it wasn’t long before the locals were trying to pick her up. She fended a few off with acid comments, but as the drink took hold a little company that was interested in her seemed increasingly attractive.

  For the next two hours she found herself at the centre of a group of young men and women whose only concern in life appeared to be having a good time. The conversation was sharp and witty, the jokes raucous, the flirtation charged. There was no talk of darkness or death. Laura found herself gravitating increasingly towards two of the most powerful characters in the group: Will had short brown hair and blue eyes that were gently mocking, a supremely confident demeanour and a certain sexual charisma; Andy was more openly loud and humorous, taller and bigger-boned, with corkscrew hair and a wispy goatee.

  After a long, sparring conversation, Will grinned at Andy knowingly before turning to Laura. “So, you up for going on somewhere else?”

  “Subtle. Wouldn’t happen to be your sweaty, beery bedroom, would it?” Laura sipped on her beer, enjoying the game.

  “You’ve got me all wrong.” Will’s grin suggested she hadn’t got him as wrong as he’d like her to think. “We’re going on to a club. Great fucking place. Different venue every week. Cool fucking crowd. Good beats. You’ll like it.”

  “Ah, I don’t know … I’m getting a bit old for clubs. I’m usually tucked up long before now with something hot and comforting.”

  “You can’t pull out on us now. Or we’ll have to call you a big, blonde, soft, southern saddo.” Andy pushed his face into hers in a mock challenge.

  “There might be another way we can convince you,” Will interjected. “Come to the toilet with us.”

  “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

  He took her by the hand and led her through the crowded bar to the toilets at the back. Laura whistled at the men at the urinals before they herded her into a cubicle. Once the door was locked Will surreptitiously pulled out a small plastic bag from his Levi’s pocket. Inside were five or six yellow capsules.

  “Es?” Laura said.

  “Like none you’ve ever tasted before. The best MDMA cut with a little something extra. Same loved-up strength with a little more trips. Straight off the boat from the States.” Will waved the bag in front of her face. “Our gift to you, just to show you how much we want you along.”

  The sight of the Ecstasy made her suddenly uneasy. Too many
unpleasant memories surfaced of the months she’d spent in Salisbury and Bristol blasted out of her head, driving herself to the brink with a wilful disregard for her own health, both mental and physical, before she’d finally cleaned herself up. Drugs weren’t good for her; or rather, she wasn’t good for drugs; and she didn’t want to go down that road again. But she’d had enough of all the repression and fear of the last few months. She wanted to celebrate life with abandon, forget Church and the stupid mission that was ruining her life, forget who she really was. She just wanted to have fun.

  She dipped her hand in the bag and then, fighting back the nagging doubts, she popped one of the capsules on to her tongue. “Let the good times roll,” she said with a grin.

  The grim shadows that gripped the Old Town by day had merged seamlessly into the oppressive darkness of night as Shavi made his way cautiously along the Royal Mile. He had attempted to put on a brave face for the sake of the others, but he felt a nugget of dread heavy within him. Each new experience since he had discovered his aptitude for the mystical and the spiritual seemed to have taken him another step away from the light of humanity into a tenebrous zone from where he feared he would never be able to return. All he had to see him through was an outsider resilience honed through the disenfranchised days of his youth. He hoped it was enough.

  He started as the slam of a door echoed along the length of the near-deserted street. Someone emerged from one of the pubs further down the way, glanced around uneasily at the gloom, as if surprised by the lateness of the hour, then broke into a jog towards the bright lights of North Bridge.

  Shavi sucked in a deep breath to calm himself. He had read and reread the guide book entry for his destination, but its terrible story had done little to ease his anxieties. The handful of mushrooms taken to enhance the shamanic experience hadn’t helped either. At the cobblestoned Heart of Midlothian at Parliament Square he paused briefly and spat, as custom dictated, to ward off the spirits of those executed at the old Tolbooth Prison. It might have been ineffective-the customs of the Unseen World were unknowable-but he thought it wise to proceed with caution; he had no desire to be confronted by the spectral severed heads of those dispatched and later exhibited in the area.