The Devil's Poetry

by Louise Cole

  Wulf spat on the dusty concrete. “They all deserve it.”

  “I will not invite a massacre. We would have no chance against an army anyway. Thirty Cadaveri with a handful of knives between us?”

  “We can get weapons.”

  “Who here can use them? Any fool can kill one little girl, but a solider? That takes training, discipline. We have only a handful with any experience.” He turned to the old man still crooning by the fire. “What were you in your previous life, Seer?”

  The Seer sucked his teeth as he considered. “Sad, I think.”

  Cyrus snorted and turned back to Wulf. “And you want us to start a war.”

  “Coward.” Wulf spat the word in his face.

  Cyrus launched himself at Wulf. Wulf was younger and faster, but Cyrus’s sheer bulk threw them both against the breezeblock.

  “Understand this,” he growled. His face pressed so close to Wulf’s, he could smell his unwashed breath. It was like meat on the turn. “I do not care about your vengeance. I do not care about your war with the world. We have one objective here: stop that reading. That means either securing the book or killing the girl.”

  He spun away, barely aware of Wulf crumpling to the floor behind him. Cyrus strode to the fire and kicked the Seer savagely. The old fool fell backward, arms flailing in front of his face.

  “Look harder!” Cyrus bellowed. “At the first sign of music, the first note, I want us there. We kill the girl, we take the book, and then we can stop.” His voice dropped. He spat each word onto the ground. “And there will be no more.”

  ***

  The news reported more troop movements in South Korea and two more blasts in UK city centers. One was a bomb in a multi-story car park, which seemed to cause more damage to the structure than to people, and the other happened on a double-decker bus. There were images of people bleeding on a Manchester street. I felt bad for them, but I couldn’t watch any more. It’s not like I could help. Sickened, I turned it off.

  Dad was out at his Friday dominoes bash at The Woodman which meant cheese on toast for me, but I pushed the greasy plate away untouched.

  I sat on the bed holding the small blue book in my hands. I needed to get rid of it. Scenes from the day kept playing through my mind, mixed with the mind-numbing terror of what had happened at the barn, and images of my mother’s face. It was all too much. I didn’t know what Mr. Portman wanted, or these white-eyed assassins, but Amber was right—it was all some horrible mistake, and I needed them gone. There were too many real, terrible things happening to understand why anyone would care so much about a book.

  At school, after Jason had attacked him, Gavin had looked . . . not frightened, so much as bereft. Like he’d lost something he could never find again.

  God, I needed a distraction from my own head. I stroked the book’s leather cover. What made it so valuable?

  It was rubbish, all of it. I loved books, but even I couldn’t see how any book could be worth killing for. Then again, I couldn’t understand what the bombers were killing for either. Would anything seem like a good enough reason to massacre people you didn’t even know?

  I stood up and fiddled with the lock on my garden door, snapping it shut and tugging on it, again and again, to prove it would hold. Like it would matter anyway. If someone wanted in, they’d smash the glass. My hands shook.

  Stop. Just stop.

  I forced myself to sit down again and picked up the book.

  I had to give it back. I wanted nothing to do with any of it. Once I no longer had it, why would the white-eyed guys bother with me? Mr. Portman had to be wrong. But a treacherous voice in my head said Maybe they were at the club for the book, but it was me they were watching.

  I shook my head. OK, this way madness lies. I picked up the phone to ring Amber. I put it back down. I couldn’t ring Amber. This had already caused her enough grief. It had barely been two hours since I’d repeated what Mr. Portman said about the fire, assured her we wouldn’t be locked up for arson. Or worse. The thought of those creatures burning sickened me, and my hands trembled.

  If only I could figure out how it all fit together and why the book was important. Well, read it, stupid. It’s only a book. That’s what they’re for, right?

  Mr. Portman’s voice echoed in my head, “Don’t read it. Just keep it safe.”

  I flipped open the leather cover with my forefinger and saw an explosion of color. The inside shone with a fierce warmth, gold and red twining about the words of the prologue like echoes of the big bang.

  Read it. It’s yours. It belongs to you.

  Whoa, wait. It’s not mine. It has nothing to do with me.

  It is yours. You feel it.

  My fingers crept out over the pages, my palm flattened them back. I closed my eyes, and the bright colors of the illustrations still shone through my eyelids like northern lights.

  Just once. That’s all. Read the whole thing through once, and give it back.

  I opened my eyes and began to read.

  “I speak of love and truth,

  Of hearts and hands that are one with their intent.

  My words are the tattoo of the beating heart.

  I read the elements and the ether,

  The nothing within the all.

  I read dust and water into living glory,

  Fire and air to flame-lit story . . .”

  It was kind of lovely, really. I imagined the words blooming into a new world, so close I could touch it. I felt myself relaxing into the rhythm, even as it changed tempo and danced in unexpected directions.

  “The plunge of whale, the arc of eagle wing

  Call to the depths of ocean,

  Reply to the vault of sky.

  The root leaf bud which feeds on sky-tossed fire . . . ”

  As poetry, it was all over the place. Most of it was fluent, simple, modern. Other parts jumped in tone and language that seemed almost Anglo-Saxon.

  “The bright red sun

  Riven with the blood of the warrior

  And risen from the rack of childbirth

  Clouded by the ambitions of men

  And drowned forever in the ring of metal

  The rear of horse and the wrath of arms.”

  I saw the horse rear, its hooves striking the air above my head. A drop of something splashed my face. When I wiped it, my palm came away red.

  I shook the image away, and looked at my hand again. Lily white. Now I was seeing things. Great.

  Anyway, it all changes too much. Too many styles, too many different periods referenced, I thought. It has to be a hoax, something designed to look old and valuable.

  So why were people prepared to kill for it? Creatures driven back by its poetry? What book could do that?

  I was letting my imagination run away with me. Read it, don’t live it.

  But logic couldn’t compete with the words. They sucked me in, transported me. The music filled my mind. I held the words in my mouth, tasted them, let them run down my skin like juice. Deserts flew below me, turning green, as glaciers melted and rivers ran through the valleys, birds soared and the oceans ran at the land, kissing and grabbing. Men sat outside tents, under trees, and marched through squares. Children played, as the words washed around them and over them, changing scenes like the water changed the earth.

  A distant thudding sounded like a drumbeat, a herald of war. Boom. I read another line and waited for the drum to match my heartbeat. Boom. I poured more words, sunlight splintering on distant mountaintops, and, in the valley below, soldiers lying face down in clothes the color of wet sand. I paused again for the beat . . . but it didn’t come.

  The shift in rhythm startled me. Boom. There it was—but not from the poetry. What was I thinking? Of course it couldn’t be the poetry. Someone was banging on the door. In the gloom, I blinked. I felt like I had just woken up. When did it get so dark?

  Hastily dropping the book in my underwear drawer, I hurried down the hall to the front door. A tall, slim shape hove
red on the other side, distorted by the frosted glass.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Callie,” a muffled voice replied. “It’s me. Alec.”

  My hand dropped off the handle. Alec? What in hell did Alec want? Very slowly, I slid back the chain and turned the latch.

  “Yes?” I asked, forcing myself to open the door wide and not peer at him through a grudging sliver like an old lady.

  “Erm . . .” He shifted his feet, accidentally kicked a piece of gravel near his shoe and then deliberately toed it away. Stalling. “Can I talk to you, please?”

  The urge to say no and shut the door in his face was so strong it tingled in my fingertips. I chided myself for being petty. Hear the guy out fairly, I heard Amber telling me. Then boot his sorry ass out of the house.

  “Sure.” I padded back to my room. Alec knew the way. “So,” I said as I sat on my bed. “What’s up?”

  He watched his trailing shoelaces carefully as if they would magically retie themselves any moment. “I owe you an apology. For dissing you.”

  OK. I hadn’t seen that coming. It was a good start. About six months too late, but hey. A tiny treacherous hope flickered in me: did he still like me?

  God, sometimes I despised myself.

  “I miss talking to you,” he continued.

  I miss you, too, I wanted to say. The real you, the you from last summer. The sweet, slightly vulnerable, relaxed Alec. The one who’d played me Buzzcocks songs, and had told me he’d loved astronomy until his dad had told him all the stars he could see were dead now, and he was too sad to look anymore.

  Careful Callie, I warned myself. That wasn’t the real Alec. That was a guy on holiday from himself, a guy whose friends were all on summer breaks and who was at a loose end. A guy who used you.

  The sardonic, popular, superficial git at school? That’s the real Alec.

  “Who I am at school, that’s . . . that’s not the real me,” he said, like he’d read my mind.

  God, was I that transparent?

  He crouched down suddenly, put his hands on my knees. “You know that.”

  I smacked his hands off me. “Alec, if you want to talk to me, you can do it at school.” I glanced at my underwear drawer, impatient to get back to my book.

  “I can’t. You know I can’t.” He said it flatly. Almost sadly. He clambered to his feet. “Your friends are . . .”

  “Not cool enough for you?” I snarled.

  “I was going to say more forgiving than mine.”

  I took a breath. “If you don’t like your friends, change them, Alec. It’s your choice to be dating an airhead.”

  “Jessica isn’t that bad,” he said hotly.

  “Wow, what a ringing endorsement,” I replied. “Clearly we are talking about the same girl. The one who, in biology, thought DNA were finalists at Battle of the Bands?” Soo bitchy of me, but the truth was . . . he’d crushed me. I remembered everything about the evening when he’d kissed me—the purple tingeing the meadow grass and the burble of the river like a thousand happy voices. The look in his eyes, at once soft and possessive.

  And he’d passed me over for her. Pretty. Cool. Thick as a plank.

  I remembered the humiliation when I’d bounced into school and said “Hi!” to him, and he’d just looked at me like I was nothing. Like I was no one. He didn’t say anything cruel, didn’t make fun. He’d said nothing at all. Just turned and walked away.

  Like I wasn’t even worth an explanation.

  School life bubbled on around me. There was no terrible moment where everyone pointed and laughed. But by the end of the day, they all knew. The whispers had gone around like a spring breeze into every corner. They all knew plain, geeky little Callie had thought she’d stood a chance with someone way out of her league and had been slapped down.

  I might not have let it show, but those first few days I’d struggled to even make it through the doors. I didn’t even care that others had laughed at me—hell, I’d never been particularly popular. What ate at me was that I didn’t understand. I didn’t get how he could be so lovely and have just been lying to me all along. Why? Who does that?

  Never again. I didn’t need someone to ignore me. I had my dad for that.

  “I think we’re done, Alec. You’ve made your choices pretty clear.” I stood, went over to the bedroom door, and opened it wide.

  He ran his hands through his hair. “Callie, I didn’t use you. Not you.” His voice took on a desperate edge. “I need Jessica.”

  A thud came from outside, but anger bloomed in my chest, and I took no notice. “Oh, spare me!” I snapped. I didn’t still care enough to be this angry. Did I?

  “No, really!” he yelled. His eyes were wide suddenly, a little wild. “I need her to get out of conscription. Her dad has two spaces in his factory with essential-worker status, one for Jess—”

  “And one for her boyfriend,” I finished. Disgust clogged my throat. That poor girl. A wave of hatred washed over me. How could he treat women like this, like a convenience? I knew suddenly that Alec would crush every heart he touched, because he didn’t get it. He didn’t see anything but himself.

  Alec moved toward the door and then stopped. I watched him, hatred bubbling from my every pore. “Get out,” I snarled. “You disgust me.”

  “I need that job, Callie. I’m too scared to go to war.” His voice was a desperate whimper, like his heart was breaking. Beyond pathetic. “I wanted you to know, if I had a choice—I love you.”

  My head filled with an intense fog, a blinding sorrow. How could he be so cruel? To toss me love like a secondhand tissue? My chest burned, and I scrambled to find something, some weapon, some way of driving him out of my house, out of my heart—

  I heard glass shatter and Alec cry out. Strong hands wrenched my shoulders, and I was smashed against the wall. Pain skewered through my head and back. My head reeled—was that blood?—and I peered through my confusion to see dark figures bearing down on me. One cast around the room, sweeping things off my bureau, then my mantelpiece. Alec huddled under the window whimpering.

  The creature in front of me leaned down. It looked like a man, but it had the eyes of a dead shark, the irises a creamy white. Its gray-skinned hand gripped a curved dagger with a gleaming silver edge. He gave a thin smile and raised it high.

  Chapter 5

  I was going to die, and I didn’t care. There was a terrible hollowness inside me, an unbearable loneliness. Cold grief squeezed the air from my lungs. Everything was meaningless.

  Make it stop.

  Reality hit me like a cold shower, and I screamed, high enough to curdle milk, as the creature fell toward me. It took a moment to realize it was dead, a long blade being withdrawn from its back. A man stood over me, silhouetted against the window. I couldn’t see his face and yet—

  “Mr. Portman?” My voice was broken, less than a whisper.

  “Get up. Get in my truck. Go now.” His voice was harsh, commanding.

  “There are bodies.” I looked around me in horror, seeing three of the black-clothed heaps lying prone against the wardrobe, the bed. And one on top of me, its sallow, twisted face still glaring at me with hatred. Its outstretched hand was filthy, the nails so grimy they looked black in the gloom. It stank like a sewer. I screamed again and started to kick frantically to free my legs. Mr. Portman pulled it off me and flung it aside.

  “Callie. Get up. We have to get to the truck.”

  I stood, my legs trembling under me. “Alec.” I couldn’t see him anywhere. “Where’s Alec?”

  “He ran.”

  I took a moment to digest this. Real romantic hero, running away and leaving me to die. So much for love. I crushed it down. Think practically, Callie. “Was he hurt?”

  Mr. Portman shrugged. “Sprinted pretty well.”

  “Are they likely to hurt him?”

  “No. It’s you they want.”

  “Because I have your book.” I felt very cold and clear, the way an icy wind wakes you whe
n you step outside at night.

  “Yes.”

  “Then take it back. Here.” I started scrabbling wildly through drawers. I couldn’t remember where I’d left it. My hands shook, and a big patch of my left arm could still feel the cold filthy grip of that thing . . .

  “Callie, calm down. We need to leave.” He slammed the garden door and bolted it. “My truck’s out front. Let’s go.”

  “You need to take the book. I don’t want it.”

  He caught my hands gently. Clothes spilled around my feet from my frantic searching. “It’s too late for that,” he said. “You read from it, didn’t you?”

  I nodded, seeing the fields and ocean and armies spill from its pages. Such a little book to hold so much, I thought. “I don’t feel very well,” I muttered.

  Mr. Portman pulled my eyelid back and then suddenly picked me up like a child, his arm under my knees. He lay me down gently on the bed.

  “Hang on for a few minutes, Callie, while I get some help.” He pulled out his mobile and spoke to someone, but my head throbbed, and I didn’t bother to listen. I kept my eyes shut so I couldn’t see the bodies on the floor.

  After a little while, Mr. Portman said, “OK, Callie, we’re good to go. Can you walk?”

  I opened my eyes and tried to smile. “I’m way too heavy to carry, I know that.”

  “No,” he said, completely serious. “You’re not. I do, however, need my arms free for fighting.”

  He hustled me out of the front door to a double-seat pickup and almost lifted me into the front. I could feel eyes on me, every hair on my arms standing sentinel. I slid down the seat until I was almost in the footwell.

  The night crackled and hummed around me. I leaped with every snap of a twig or hoot of an owl. I felt every scurry of mouse and soft shock of moth against the window as if they were inside me. I closed my eyes and tried to remember what it felt like to be warm.

  ***

  Cyrus watched the soldier scythe through two Cadaveri and leap through the open door. Cyrus limped around the side of the house. He would have the advantage of weight, but he was no match for the speed of a trained assassin. It was still possible that either the book or the girl would be unguarded. Destroying either one would serve his purpose.