The Road to Bedlam cotf-2

by Mike Shevdon

  I heaved huge gulps of it down, not caring when salt washed into my mouth, making me cough and retch. With one arm I pulled in the rope and wound it around my arm, lifting Shelley up to me. She rose beside me, limp and inert in the water. I wrapped one arm around her chest and hauled myself in with the rope, towing her along, snatching each length of rope to draw us back to the boat. I reached the hull and we floated alongside until we came to the rope mesh hanging down.

  Tangling my arm in the mesh I hung there suspended, pulling her cold body in beside me, supporting her, holding her face above the wash of the waves.

  I needed to get us both out of the water.

  I tugged the knot from my waist and wound the rope under her arms, two, three times, twisting and tying it with fumbling fingers. I leached what power I had left into my muscles and hauled myself up the mesh on to the rail. As I released my grip on the rope, she slipped away again, but then I had my hands free. Pulling the rope hand over hand, I dragged her back to me. Reaching down I caught hold of the rope around her chest and with a huge effort heaved her bodily from the waves, water streaming from her hair like a sodden ragdoll. I hauled her up to me, hugging her close, until she toppled over the rail on to the deck. Landing like a badly-netted catch, she sprawled across me.

  I needed to lie there and breathe, but there was no time. Shelley lay across me, lifeless and limp. I pushed myself up and cradled her in my lap. In the harsh lights her face was ashen, her lips blue. I found myself suddenly wishing that I had done a first aid course or at least knew something medically useful. Wasn't there a position for recovery or a German manoeuvre I could do? Or was that choking? Surely the boat would have a medical kit, but looking down at her I couldn't help wondering if she was beyond that.

  I rolled her on to her back and pulled apart her blouse, popping buttons with a bodice-ripping tug. I half-hoped she would open her eyes and slap my face for being so presumptuous, but she lay inert while I pressed my ear to her chest, listening for a heartbeat. Whatever faint pulse might be there, it was obscured by the rumble of diesel from the idling engines. I sat across her hips and pressed my hands, one on top of the other, on to her breast bone, gently at first, then harder. A gout of water spurted from her mouth. I quickly rolled her on to her side while she spasmed and coughed, retching. She subsided but did not stir, lying as flaccid and limp as she had before. I pressed my ear to her chest again, but could still hear nothing over the engine.

  Leaving her momentarily I ran back to the cabin and switched off everything, plunging the boat into darkness and silence as the engine sputtered to a halt. I returned to Shelley and listened to her chest again. The heartbeat that sounded loudest was my own. I put my ear to her mouth, hoping for a breath, feeling only the water chilling on my skin.

  I tried pumping her chest again, but nothing more came up. I desperately needed help. Even assuming I could pilot the boat back to shore, it would take too long when Shelley needed aid now. Would the men in the water know what to do? Would they help her if they could? Or would they be more interested in covering their tracks than saving their victim? They had brought three girls out here, trying to invoke a half-understood folktale. Two of the girls were already dead. I could not let that happen to the third.

  At that moment, I suddenly saw the whole thing. I knew what they were trying to do. They had it all wrong, as I'd had it all wrong. My own failure to see what had been in front of me almost led me to under stand their actions – not to forgive – but at least to understand. Of course there were maidens of the deep, I had seen them.

  The spirit of the sea shall rise and claim his bride, taking her to him for life and love, so that the town may thrive once more.

  I had seen them in the museum, the faces of the maidens captured in sepia, the Sea Queens of Ravensby. What had the man said? His grandmother lived till her nineties and beyond, was related to half the town through children and grandchildren. But there had been no mention of a father. The picture was alone, unaccompanied. Where was the husband?

  A maiden shall walk among them, a queen, crowned of the deep, and she shall live long and happy and have many children to follow in his line.

  And when that life was over, when the Sea Queens of Ravensby finally succumbed to age and ultimately death, their skulls would find their way to a cave on the beach where they would be honoured for long years to come. I had seen them, met them, all of them. I knew who the father was.

  Even Greg Makepeace – I had wondered at that pulse of power when we first shook hands. I knew he had fey blood, but never asked where it came from. He told me anyway, when I asked him whether he had been called to work here.

  Not sure you'd call it that. I was born here. Maybe I just came home.

  A local lad with local blood and fey power running through his veins.

  I found warm drops running down my cheeks. Brushing them away, I realised they were tears – hot tears of frustration. All the anger at having my daughter stolen from me, of having her life destroyed, just as this young girl's life was being destroyed, welled up in me. All the frustration at how people wreaked havoc upon each other's lives with half-understood ideas and wrong conclusions formed like a hard knot in my throat. Cradling her limp form in my arms, I stood and staggered forward with her to the bow. Shelley draped between my arms, her long hair dripping on to the deck. I lifted my face and screamed to the silent stars.

  "No!"

  The well of power within me pulsed in answer, responding to my need. It opened into a dark vortex, a whirling spiral inside me, sucking power from the air, the water, the boat, the waves, the wind. Everything chilled to bone-numbing cold. Frost rimed the rails of the boat, forming white and luminous on every surface. Ice crystals sparkled in Shelley's hair and eyebrows. Energy collapsed into me, faster and stronger, answering that single word of denial.

  There was a single crack and the whole sky flashed white. A huge cloud formed visibly over me, a massive thunderhead built from the frozen air. Another flash, the answering boom only a second behind. For a microsecond I could see the whole coast outlined in stark contrast. Raffmir's words came back to me. Yo u can go there if you can see it. You can step behind the curtain of reality and push through.

  I fed my core with energy, pouring heat and warmth into it until my bones creaked and my joints ached. Waiting for the flash, I hugged Shelley tight to me, holding her cold wet form against my skin. I could feel the static building, a thread of tingling connection between the boat and the cloud above us. When the flash came, I kept my eyes open, letting the image of the coast and the beach burn into my retina. Then I stepped forward beyond the curtain of reality into my own flash.

  The sea washed against the shingle beach, the soft hush and draw of the water on the stones telling me where we were, while my eyes still blinked luminous dots. I staggered forward as the rumble and boom of the thunder followed after me, echoing down the shore. Collapsing to my knees, I began to lower Shelley gently to the ground.

  "Come!" I shouted, my voice cracking from salt and exhaustion. "I have brought her to you."

  I could no longer support her weight and we sagged to the sand.

  "Come," I repeated.

  My eyes were closed but I felt his approach. The tingling that spread across my skin was no natural chill. Whether he came from the cave or the beach or somewhere else, I could not have said, but I knew he was there.

  "You must help her," I said. "She needs you. You know the sea. You know its ways. She's been sorely used."

  "This is not the way." His voice was wary, but did not hold the warning of our first meeting.

  "You said… you said it must be soon. It's tonight, on a moon-dark solstice. It has to be tonight, doesn't it?"

  "She must come willingly. She is not even conscious. Look at her."

  "She will be willing. She will… once she knows. She wants to live. She wants it so badly. You must see that."

  The lightning flashed out in the bay, the dark thunder rumbling beh
ind only a second later. He waited until it had subsided.

  "She's fading, give her to me."

  He knelt in the sand opposite me, offering his arms. I lifted her, easing her into his embrace.

  "How is she called?" He looked down into her pallid face, lit only by starlight.

  "Her name's Shelley. It may be short for something. I don't know what."

  He leaned down, his lips almost brushing hers, and spoke her name.

  "Shelley."

  Then he pressed his lips to hers in a slow gentle kiss, withdrawing slowly as he watched her face. She remained inert for a long moment and then jerked suddenly, coughing and retching in his embrace, spewing dark water over him from her mouth and nose, drawing great heaving raw breaths, struggling to be free while he held her gently, unconcerned with her wretched state.

  Gradually she subsided, her breathing becoming regular and rhythmic, as she clung to him until she could open her eyes. She looked up into his face.

  "Shelley," he said again.

  She stared up at him. "I dreamed," she said slowly, her voice cracked from salt and coughing. "I dreamed you swam down for me."

  He smiled down into her face and there was the hint of an answering smile there. He stood easily, lifting her in his arms like a child, holding her gently. "You are chilled through," he said. "Come. There is a warm pool. It will ease you."

  He turned and walked away towards the gap in the cliff where the caves were. Neither of them acknowledged me in the slightest. I might as well not have existed. For a second I wondered whether I had done the right thing. I wondered whether this was really what Shelley needed, but then I realised that, more than anything else, Shelley needed a chance at life.

  I picked myself up and brushed the shingle from my trousers. My jacket was already stiffening with sea-water and sweat. I would need to find Greg, but not until I had at least showered off the salt. I wondered whether my spare clothes had come back from the laundry yet. I trudged across the shingle, only noticing at the last minute the shadow that lingered near the bank up to the road.

  "Why," I asked, "do you always turn up when I am soaking wet, cold and tired?"

  Raffmir stepped forwards into the light and smiled. He wore a long Edwardian jacket and a white ruffled shirt, making him appear oddly out of time, but he wore it comfortably and easily.

  "Perhaps that is the wrong question," he said. "Perhaps the question should be, why are you always tired, cold and wet whenever we meet? For the life of me, I cannot think of a good reason for it."

  "If all you've come for is to gloat, Raffmir, you know where you can stuff it."

  I climbed the bank up to the road, using tufts of coarse grass to pull myself up.

  "Gloating is furthest from my mind, I assure you. I came for you."

  I stopped and turned. He stepped lithely up the bank towards me. In his hand was the long black scabbard of a sword.

  "You swore an oath not to harm me."

  "So I did, and I intend to keep it." He held out the sword. "You will be needing this."

  I turned away. "It's a bit late for that now."

  "On the contrary, it is exactly the time for it. Come, we must depart immediately. We cannot be late."

  "Late? What for?"

  "We have an appointment that must be kept or all will come awry."

  "Raffmir, I'm cold and wet. I need a shower. I need fresh clothes and dry boots and some hot food inside me. After that you can tell me about appointments. OK?"

  "No. Now is the moment of choice. The midnight of the solstice is upon us. There is barely enough time. Either you come with me now and I will keep my promise to return your daughter to you…"

  The grin had gone. He held out the scabbard, hilt vertical, for me to take.

  "…or your daughter will die tonight."

  TWENTY-TWO

  It was an unexpected kindness, Blackbird thought, for Ben Highsmith to collect her from the station. It meant she didn't have to bother with hitching a ride or finding a late bus. She didn't usually carry more than coins, having little use for money, and the train ticket had cost her most of her reserves.

  When she'd called from the payphone she'd been worried she would run out of change, but Ben had insisted on calling her straight back and then said he would collect her inside half an hour. She wondered what she had done to deserve such good treatment, when she was already feeling guilty at bringing them the trouble that would surely follow. Still, once she had the broken Quick Knife, the blade she and Niall had left in Ben's keeping last year, she would be safe. No fey could stand against it. They could barely abide its presence.

  When she told Ben what she wanted on the phone, he'd been reluctant to part with it, but had agreed to collect her all the same. He said they could talk about it over some tea.

  The tea was on the table and the whole family gathered round, but the conversation still hadn't turned to the knife. Lisa sat close to Ben, her grandfather, ever happy in his shadow. She was a little taller and if anything a little leaner than she had been when they'd been here last year. James, her older brother, had filled out since Blackbird had last seen him and lost some of his puppy fat. He still had the downturned mouth of his mother, but had acquired some of his father's bulk. Their parents, Jeff and Meg, sat across the table, steaming mugs of tea in their hands.

  Jeff had barely spoken since her arrival. When he'd asked Ben where Blackbird was going to sleep, Ben had just shrugged and said, "You tell me."

  It was one of the questions they hadn't yet addressed. This house was filled with iron. It was in the walls, nailed into the beams and built into the fabric. It was the safest place Blackbird could think of, given who was coming after her, but she wasn't comfortable here either. It wasn't her magic that was reacting – she knew it was dormant and would not return until the baby was born – but even so the house felt unwelcoming to her, as if it hummed a sour note. It made the ache in her back worse, the skin on her elbows itch. She wasn't sure if she could rest here.

  She realised that she'd missed a question from Meg, but it didn't matter as she continued her monologue without need of confirmation.

  "Running about in that condition, what's that man of yours thinking?" said Meg.

  "It's not his fault." Blackbird defended Niall. "He's been sent away on business."

  "A fine business that means leaving a pregnant woman to look after herself. Must be due any day, surely?"

  "It certainly feels like it," she agreed.

  Meg must have caught the fleeting expression of trepidation in her eyes because she reached across and patted her hand.

  "It's always scary the first time. It'll be over before you know and you'll have the babe in your arms. A boy, you say? Did that show up on the scan?"

  "Not exactly," said Blackbird.

  She could see the questions forming on Meg's face – when was the scan? What had it shown, who was her doctor? All questions she couldn't answer.

  Slam! The kitchen door rattled in its frame at some heavy impact.

  The room went deathly quiet. Everyone stared at the door.

  "What the hell…?" Ben and Jeff were on their feet.

  "What was that?" said Lisa, sounding suddenly small and nervous.

  "Jeff?" said Meg.

  "Dunno," said Jeff. "The dogs are out, aren't they? They'd bark if someone came." He went to the door.

  "Don't open it," said Meg.

  "I agree with her," said Blackbird.

  Jeff hooked an iron chain across the back of the door before cracking the door open. "Oh shit!"

  He closed the door, slipped off the chain, then opened the door again. A body sprawled across the threshold, fur the colour of burnt toffee, eyes dark and open wide, neck at an odd angle.

  "Oh shit! It's Topaz. Look what they've done to him!"

  He picked the dog up, cradling it in his arms. "Look, Meg."

  Lisa ran to her father, tears streaming down her face. Jeff kicked the door closed behind him and laid the d
og on the kitchen table. A pink tongue lolled out between its teeth.

  Lisa stroked the dog's ear back from over his eyes. "What happened to him, Dad? Who would do that?"

  "It's Deefnir. He's here," said Blackbird. "Ben, get me the knife."

  Meg interrupted, "Where's the other one? Where's Tasha?"

  "Don't worry about the bloody dog," said Blackbird. "Get me the Quick Knife."

  "What do you want with it?" asked Ben. "It won't save the dogs now."

  Blackbird stood up. "It's a message, the oldest kind. He wants me, and he'll go through all of you to get me."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm fed up with running. I'm done with hiding. If he wants me, he can come and get me. Get me the Quick Knife, Ben. I'm going to finish this."

  "You can't fight anyone in your condition. You're crazy," said Ben.

  "I can with the Quick Knife. It will give me the edge I need, in both senses. Bring it to me."

  "You can't fight anyone in that condition," said Meg.

  "You don't understand," said Blackbird, quietly. "This is only the beginning. It's the way it's been done since before there were towns or cities, before kings or queens. First the dogs, the guardians of the settlement. Then the old people, the experience, the knowledge. Next the children, the hope for the future, any chance of reprieve. Finally the adults, until there's only one left to carry the story. He'll make them run until they can't run any further, until their hearts burst and their bones are broken, until there's just enough life left to tell the tale. He'll kill all of you, every one, and he'll still come for me. Now get me the damned knife!"

  "Call the police," said Meg. "Never mind, I'll do it." She reached for the phone.

  The air chilled suddenly and the lights went out. In the sudden silence, the fridge stuttered to a halt. Over the doorways, the mistletoe hung there glowed green, flickering with pale fire.

  "Oh shit," said James, "there goes the power."

  In the dim light Ben went to the dresser and opened the drawer. He took out a hardwood box and laid it on the table next to the dog.