Spirit

by Daniela Sacerdoti

  “There is only one way to kill him. One weak spot. Everybody has one, don’t they?”

  Sean said nothing, but his eyes went instinctively to Nicholas’ throat, where the blood was pulsing beneath the skin. Yes, everybody has a weak spot.

  “My father is a spirit, his life force permanently confined in one place, this place. But he can will his spirit to become different shapes.”

  “As in, real shapes? Physical shapes?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes. His power is such that he can make these shapes tangible, becoming a physical body, more or less. Say he decides to be a bull. Then his horns can gut a bear in an instant.”

  Sarah’s eyes widened at the mention of horns. What monster awaited them? She met Sean’s gaze and for a moment, they shared the same fear.

  “When he takes the form of lava, he burns. He does have a physical presence. And in the middle of it sits his essence. His soul, whatever you want to call it. That’s where we can hurt him. And only when he stops changing form, when his shape is definite, even just for a few moments, that’s when he’s weakest and it’s best to strike.”

  “Are you talking blades or Secret powers, or what? Can you stab the King of Shadows?” Sean sniggered. “Just like that?”

  “Yes. You can stab him or pierce him with an arrow, and you can use Secret powers on him. If these are enough to actually kill him, I don’t know, but they can certainly hurt him. His weakest point is between the eyes. Strike there. But first we need to get through the Guardians around his dwelling. They are part of his Valaya in the Shadow World, and they are more frightening and fiercer than any demon you’ve seen yet. Some will attack our bodies, some our minds.”

  “Our minds?” Sean asked.

  “Psychic attacks. Ever experienced one?”

  Sean’s heart skipped a beat. He had. In Japan. And he didn’t want to recall it. He said nothing. “We need to try our utmost to stay together and face the King of Shadows together. It might be that a blade or an arrow or our own individual powers . . . and skills,” he corrected himself quickly, “are not enough.”

  Sarah nodded. “All of us together will have more of a chance than any of us individually,” she repeated, trying to sound matter-of-fact, but a terrible memory ran through her mind: the battle of the Mermen on Islay. Back then, it had been impossible to stay together. What were the chances of them being able to now? The vision of one of them – maybe herself, or Sean, or Niall, or Elodie – standing alone in front of the King of Shadows cut her mind, and she was afraid.

  22

  The Memory of the Sea

  When all that’s left between us

  Is silence and longing

  Winter was brushing Lucrezia’s hair, softly following the long, fair strands with a silver brush. It was her third day there, and already she was fond of the ailing girl, so much so that the housekeeper had allowed her to see to Lucrezia’s needs, under her watchful gaze, of course.

  Since Winter had arrived, Lucrezia had made no mention of talking to her friends in the Shadow World, and her hopes to somehow contact Niall were crumbling.

  A few days before, Vendramin had taken her into his study, where she’d sat surrounded by hanging tapestries and swords and various weapons, as if she’d entered another era. The two had chatted before the topic quickly descended to thoughts of her friends and Guglielmo Vendramin’s son.

  “And your friends are there to kill the King of Shadows and end all this?” Vendramin asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Can we help them?”

  “If Lucrezia opens another iris, yes, I suppose. Can we ask her?”

  “Lucrezia’s ways are mysterious. She decides when she is ready to help us, to speak to us. She sends my son Alvise hunting wherever she thinks he’s needed. We cannot rush her.”

  “Alvise? The blond boy with the bow and arrow?”

  “Yes,” Vendramin replied, and looked down, suddenly reserved, as if his feelings for his son were too deep, too raw for her to see.

  “You must be very proud of him,” Winter said gently.

  His eyes gleamed as he leaned forward in his chair. The two were seated on leather armchairs as soft as butter before a log fire. “I certainly am,” Vendramin responded. “And your parents must be proud of you.”

  “My mother is dead. My father is in the sea somewhere,” said Winter without sadness. She had a calm sense of acceptance for the way life unfolded.

  “Lucrezia said you’d help us speak to my son and the others in the Shadow World.”

  “I’m not sure what she meant, Lord Vendramin. If there’s anything I can do to help you I will, but I don’t know how.”

  “Conte Vendramin, actually. My family are fond of grand titles. Some good they’ll do us when every one of us are dead, the victims of a demon’s bite.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s not going to happen.”

  Vendramin stood in front of the window, looking over the Grand Canal. “Only last year we never dreamed this would happen.” He opened his arms. “We never thought the Secret Families would have been decimated, entire generations dead, but here we are.”

  Winter lowered her head. She wasn’t sure what to say. Her heart and soul screamed at her to hope. They pulled her towards the light; it was her nature. But this man who’d seen so much, lost so much, was draining the last of her strength.

  Winter cleared her throat. “I’d like to spend some more time with Lucrezia, if it’s okay with you. Maybe she’ll speak to me. Maybe I can find out what she meant.” She paused. “Maybe together we can contact Alvise . . . and Niall in the Shadow World.” Winter’s heart skipped a beat at saying his name.

  Vendramin nodded. “Yes. Please do. I’ll tell Cosima you are allowed at her side even without her supervision.”

  “Thank you,” Winter said. Hesitantly, she walked to the elderly man and placed a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t pull away.

  23

  A Feast of Souls

  You feed off me and I let you

  It’s a slow death and yet

  We call this love

  Sean sat upright, his back against a tree and his eyes burning from lack of sleep. The light was cold and livid, and the sky wintry white. He wondered why the Bialoweza forest was under snow in the human world, but not this one – and why there seemed to be a few hours’ difference between human time and shadow time. Or so they thought. But who knew? Maybe time here ran faster, or slower. Maybe it’d be like in one of those fairy tales in Harry’s book, where a man went to a fairy feast and when he returned to his home three hundred years had passed. He wondered how many other little differences there were between the two worlds that they might not notice now but that would later come to haunt them.

  A thought hit him: they were all being given the chance to experience how human beings used to live before the Secret Families rose, when there was only one world and the Surari ruled it. Before the Secret children, the human tribes were constantly besieged, their lives so full of danger that they had no time left for anything but survival. It must have been like this – cold and dark and frightening. No shelter and never feeling quite safe enough for sleep.

  Which sounded a lot like his life as a Gamekeeper, really.

  Sean closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. His body was battered and bruised, aching in ways he never thought possible, and the lack of sleep was slowly wearing him out. He feared he’d become so weary that he would not be able to think clearly, and would end up making the wrong decisions. But he had to keep going.

  Absent-mindedly, he scratched his neck. Something wriggled against his skin. He scratched again. Suddenly, he let out a small groan and jumped to his feet, ripping his own jacket off in a frenzy.

  “Demon-leeches!” he shouted. “Wake up!”

  “Sean!” Sarah screamed, on her feet at once, her hands already scalding. She saw he was bare-chested, his clothes in a heap on the grass. She followed his gaze to the nest of clothes. Something was struggling
beneath them, something tiny and black and writhing.

  “Stay away!” Sean shouted, opening his arms to stop his friends from getting too close to the creature. He took a step back but it was too late. The demon had appeared from beneath the heap of clothes and bounded towards him with deadly speed, attaching itself to his skin. He ripped it off just one instant before it managed to sink its teeth into him, and kept tearing at his collarbone, scratching his skin. He took hold of his sgian-dubh and began murmuring words, gazing around to spot more demon-leeches. Not far away, Niall had started singing his deadly song, his eyes half-closed, arms outstretched. As he sang, a strange, unnatural wind made the trees shiver. Sean turned to face Sarah and saw something writhing in her hair, black against black. He leapt, but Elodie was faster. She ripped the Surari off Sarah’s hair, taking a lock of her hair with it. They watched in horror as the creature squirmed on the ground, black hairs – Sarah’s – trailing from its body.

  Niall’s song was slowly killing it as it gasped like a fish out of water, with its round mouth full of minuscule suckers open and ready to attach itself. Sarah threw herself at the creature, ready to finish it off and melt it into Blackwater – but two things happened at once: another leech fell from a branch and bit Niall’s neck, interrupting his song, and the Surari on the ground, free from the torture of the song, righted itself before Sarah could touch it – towards Elodie’s face. On impulse, Sarah threw herself in front of Elodie, and the demon landed on Sarah’s neck, sinking into her skin with a horrible squelch.

  Niall tore the leech away before it could properly attach itself, but his song had been interrupted so abruptly that he stood in a daze, panting, trying to summon his power once more.

  On the ground, Sarah clawed at her neck as the Surari’s black body swelled with her blood. Elodie kneeled beside her at once. She knew she couldn’t place her lips on the creature as it would simply attach itself to her mouth, but she went to stab it with her dagger. She was about to lower the blade when another demon-leech fell on her head, and she missed. She jumped up, horrified. The Surari fell to the earth but pounced as soon as it landed, attaching itself to her thigh . . . and then the creature fell off her and onto the ground.

  It didn’t want her blood.

  Then, the realisation hit her. Everything slowed down around Elodie, as if the world was suddenly in slow motion. The Surari knew. It knew that her blood was tainted, ruined. She didn’t need any more proof now.

  As Niall’s song rose higher and grew more lethal, Elodie winced and covered her ears. A few seconds later and the leech was still.

  Exhausted, Sarah had fainted, her eyes rolling back as more and more blood drained from her. Sean’s hands were moving faster and faster, sweat rolling off his forehead and into his eyes, the terrible knowledge that Sarah was being bled dry intensifying the power of the runes. Scarlet ribbons began appearing in the air, and one of them wrapped itself around the demon on Sarah’s neck, strangling it slowly, growing tighter and tighter. Finally its suckers began to lose their grip . . . when suddenly Sean felt something bite his bare back. He screamed and his sgian-dubh fell, the runes interrupted. The demon-leech bit Sarah’s unconscious body with renewed hunger.

  “They’re falling off the trees! Get away from the trees!” Sean yelled, throwing himself against some rocks jutting out of the mossy undergrowth. He banged his back against the rocks, ignoring the pain in his ribs, until he felt the demon-leech being squashed and broken, a gush of blood – some of which was his – soaking his back.

  “Come away!” Alvise echoed Sean’s words, and led Niall and Micol to a small clearing removed from the danger. But it was a mistake. Niall’s song came to a halt as he was dragged out of his trance, and a leech crept under his jacket. Niall screamed as the Surari sank its suckers into his back and began draining him at once.

  Without hesitation, Alvise went to Niall, helping him remove his jacket and fleece. He shuddered when the leech appeared. The demon attacking Niall was fat with Niall’s blood, already as big as a rat. It looked different from the others, bigger, its skin thick and leathery. Niall doubled over in pain, while Alvise grabbed an arrow from his quiver and started stabbing the demon-leech with it. His arrow could not pierce the creature’s skin, and the Surari didn’t move an inch. It was as if the steel arrowhead wasn’t even causing it pain. Niall whimpered and fell face down on the undergrowth, the creature sucking his life away.

  Alvise growled in frustration. He unsheathed his pugnale – his dagger – and tried piercing it again, to no avail. He tried prising it off, pulling it with all his strength . . . but nothing worked. Its skin seemed thicker and stronger than any other leech, a leathery hide that protected it from blades and arrowheads, and its suckers’ grip seemed unbreakable.

  “Sean! Sarah! Help!” he called, but there was no reply.

  “Sarah is on the ground!” Micol cried, intermittent charges of a million colours buzzing off her in her fear and distress; no demon-leech could attach itself to her without ending up burnt to a crisp.

  “Micol! Help him!” Alvise pleaded.

  “I can’t! I’d kill Niall along with the demon!”

  “We have no choice but to try,” Alvise yelled back. “He doesn’t have long. Micol, you have to!”

  “Alvise,” Niall coughed with bloodless lips, his grey eyes closing, shadowed by long black lashes. And Alvise’s heart broke in two.

  A memory appeared in his mind – a long, warm summer evening in Venice a few years before. The Flynns had come to visit their family. Their parents had Secret business to attend to and a ball had been organised in their honour. They were all gathered in the gilded, frescoed ballroom of Palazzo Vendramin, the men in white ties or the ancestral attire of their families; the women in evening dresses, bright and colourful like spring flowers. And then Niall appeared down the grand stairs, in between with his parents, his auburn hair down to his shoulders, his eyes a colour Alvise had never seen – dark grey, like soft steel. He was wearing jeans and a white shirt – he’d refused evening dress. Alvise remembered the ripple in his heart as he saw Niall stepping down those stairs, a half smile dancing on his lips . . .

  Now Micol was shaking. “I can’t do this, Alvise . . . please don’t make me . . .”

  “Micol, listen to me,” Alvise said, looking her straight in the eye. He went to take her by the shoulders, but her electrical armour prevented anyone from touching her, and Alvise’s hands hung empty. “It’s his last chance,” he begged once again. “Look.” Micol followed his gaze. The demon-leech was swollen and tight with Niall’s blood, but its body kept expanding to accommodate more. It wouldn’t stop until there was nothing left.

  A small sob left the girl’s lips. He was right. There was no other way.

  She placed her sparkling hands on Niall’s back, closed her eyes, and let go of an electrical charge with a soft buzz and a flash of orange. Niall’s body tensed and jumped, and Micol removed her hands, horrified. What was she doing? His heart would stop, and it’d be all her fault.

  But his heart would stop anyway if they couldn’t remove the creature.

  Steeling herself, she hit him once more, twice, until the demon-leech shrivelled up and fell off. An overwhelming stench of burning flesh filled the air, smoke coming off its black, swollen body. Micol let herself fall alongside Niall, without daring to touch him again. Alvise was on him at once, turning him around gently, placing his fingers on Niall’s throat.

  “Wake up. Please wake up,” Micol whispered, tears drying up on her scalding skin as soon as they trickled out of her eyes.

  Elodie recovered herself. The creature didn’t want her blood? Then she could use her power. Sean was lying prone, the demon-leech drinking his blood in pulsing gulps. Elodie placed her poisonous lips on its skin, gagging in revulsion at the feeling of the slick, wet hide against her mouth. It was strong. It didn’t stop guzzling down Sean’s blood, even as it was being slowly poisoned by Elodie.

  Elodie gasped for air, but
she didn’t lift her lips from the demon sucking away Sean’s life. Where is Nicholas, she asked herself in despair while her life force ebbed slowly into the venomous kiss. She felt weaker and weaker, her head spinning as she closed her eyes and a small prayer left her heart. Don’t let Sean die.

  Finally, just as she thought she couldn’t take any more, she felt the Surari move slightly, loosening its grip. With a noise that was half growl, half sob, Elodie prised it off, and it detached itself from Sean with a wet, sloshing sound.

  She dried the black slush from her lips with her sleeve and watched in disgust while the leech pulsed like a ripped-out heart, opening and closing its round mouth, until it was immobile. Only then did she let herself fall forward, her head on Sean’s chest, listening to his faintly beating heart. She was so tired. She was always so tired . . .

  “Elodie,” whispered Sean, but she couldn’t move. He wrapped his arms around her and they lay together for a moment. Until a whimper made Elodie lift her head and roll herself away from Sean.

  She gasped as a terrible scene appeared in front of her: Nicholas lay on the ground, covered in demon-leeches. On his neck, his arms, his legs. He lay open like in a crucifixion, his eyes closed and his face to the ruthless sky. Mustering the last of her strength, Elodie dragged herself on her hands and knees towards Nicholas and started placing her deadly kiss onto the creatures.

  Sean pulled himself toward Nicholas too, dizzy from the loss of blood. He’d lost his sgian-dubh, he realised with dismay. He was lost without it. He began scrambling around when finally he saw a glint of silver in a branch. He lifted himself on his toes to reach his blade, and he saw them. The tree was full of leeches, dozing on the branches. His breaths coming out in ragged pants, expecting to be hit at any moment, Sean retrieved his sgian-dubh and began tracing his runes.

  Sarah’s consciousness was ebbing and flowing, until finally she came to her senses. It took her a moment to realise what she was seeing – Nicholas on the ground, leeches all over him; Elodie poisoning them; and Sean, looking up at the tree, his hands weaving slow runes.