Bloodstone: 2 (Rebel Angels)

by Gillian Philip

  Would that be such a bad thing?

  He didn’t know where the sneaking whisper came from. Himself, presumably, since it was only in his own head, but he’d never have anticipated the thought could be so seductive.

  Freedom, he thought. No responsibility, no trouble, no love. He could make something of himself, make something of his life. Mila could manage without him; she could certainly manage without Rory, since she’d soon forget he’d ever existed. And Rory? Rory would be better off in care than he would with a junkie dam.

  And what kind of a word was dam? And how had it got in his head?

  And how had any of this crap got in his head?

  Worst of all, why was he so hideously sure it had all happened already?

  Fear iced Jed’s spine, and he ran.

  He pelted along the tarmac faster than he’d ever run from a security guard, ignoring the speeding traffic, almost running under a braking BMW. But he might have been running in a dream: his legs wouldn’t work, the air felt thick as honey, he couldn’t go fast enough. His focus narrowed to the town perimeter, to grey streets and bleak concrete. The roads were cluttered now, and he barged through crowds, ignoring the yells. His lungs were rasping when he swung into the alleyway that led to his own back door.

  The stupid gate was stuck as usual. He leaped for the top of the fence, caught it, and clambered over, dropping down on the other side and fumbling in his pocket for the back door key.

  The lanky dealer had his fingers on the handle of the outer shared door, but when he caught sight of Jed he released it, sighing, and stepped back out of the way. Jed searched more desperately for the door key, ignoring that flickering malevolent grin. It was hard not to look.

  ‘Now, this is an interesting development.’

  The dealer smiled again, and nausea gripped Jed’s gut. He was almost screaming with frustration by the time his trembling fingers closed on the key, and he could hardly fit it in the door. The cadaverous laugh behind him sounded like a boot stamping on dry twigs, but at least it put steel in his bones. He wrenched the door open.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, he closed his mouth against the stench, almost choking on lungfuls of ammonia and piss and... sickness. The landlady was on the shared landing, and Jed bounced off her as he leaped up the last three stairs, shoving her aside.

  She staggered, then bristled. ‘I’ve called the police. That wean ought to be in care.’ Her nasal voice rose to a yell. ‘It’s been screaming all morning!’

  Flinging open the flat door, he slammed it in her face.

  Jed stood still. There was Rory’s echoing screaming, and there was the awful stink of vomit. That was all he could take in: that and his mother, face down on the floor. Her head was turned so that one brown eye was looking right at him.

  ‘Mila?’ He started to crouch down, but hesitated. ‘Mum?’

  Uncertainty in his head, ice in his heart, denial in his gut. And behind it all, distant sirens.

  Only one clear knowledge: there was only one of them he could take care of for now. Snatching up Rory’s fleece and yanking it down over his screaming head, he gathered the child into his arms. God, the little bugger was sodden and he stank. Jed stuck a nappy in his pocket.

  Rory buried his face in Jed’s neck, his screams already fading to hiccuping sobs. Jed hesitated, hand cupping his head. He wanted to check on his mother again but there was no point looking. No time to look. He wouldn’t look.

  He bolted.

  The stairs made him dizzy now that he had Rory, making him stumble with every step. The scrawny pusher was gone but the landlady was in the yard, peering out of the gate that now swung wide and loose on rusted hinges. Jed barged her aside, ignoring her shouts of fury and then no longer hearing them at all because he was already running, the sirens beating on his eardrums.

  He ducked out of the alleyway as the ambulance swerved into the street, but its driver ignored him and he ran behind it. At the corner there were more sirens. They were coming from two directions at the T junction and he doubled back, half stumbling. Three emergency vehicles for his mother? Even to Jed it seemed like overkill.

  At the opposite end of the street he heard them again, echoing off the concrete pillars of the shopping arcade. He couldn’t even tell where they were coming from. People were staring but he didn’t know where to go, which way to turn. He gave a ragged yell of frustration.

  ‘Oy, you. Stop!’

  Ducking under a broken fence, he sprinted across a patch of waste ground. He knew his territory but it was awkward carrying Rory, arms locked so tight around Jed’s neck. But he wouldn’t, couldn’t leave him. Like he’d left Mila...no. He batted away the image of her, so still and badly-angled.

  At the end of a narrow strip of waste ground he paused at the main road, heart hammering. Shutting his eyes briefly, he darted from his hole, but they were ahead: a policeman, hatless, and two women, one in police uniform and one in a black turtleneck and a cheap red blazer. They came towards him, Red Blazer at the front, and slowed as he came to a halt, gasping. She held her hand towards him, eyes brightly intent.

  ‘Come on, son, cool it.’ The policeman’s voice was low, authoritative, the kind of voice you instinctively trusted. ‘Let us help you and the baby. Come on.’

  He looked at the cop, and he looked at the woman. Her face was fanatical; almost hungry.

  Jed spun and ran again. There was nowhere left to go but out of town. The perimeter seemed far away when he heard the shouts behind him, but he got there faster than he could have hoped, Rory clinging like a throttling vine. Horns blared, tyres screeched, and the speed of the cars made him hesitate, but only for a moment; then he was across the bypass and running hard into the countryside.

  He halted, gulping for air, then ran again. The pursuit was still behind: Jesus, why did they have to mind so much? He fought to get breath, hauling in sobbing lungfuls that tore at his chest. Sirens again, somewhere ahead, herding him. Why so many? Why would they give such a damn?

  His strength failed him at the gate of the Fairy Loch and he leaned against it, sucking air into his lungs though it stung and ached. He tilted his head back and stared up, all out of hope. There was no way to get Rory safely across the wire: his baby flesh would catch and tear. Jed rubbed his eyes against his brother’s damp blond hair, the fight gone out of him, and slumped against the gate.

  It sagged wide open; he only just caught himself from falling.

  How stupid. It was so funny he nearly laughed, hysterically. He’d been shinning over a gate with a broken padlock for months. Well, it didn’t matter now. It was a hopeless place to hide, but he barged in anyway, ignoring the inner voice that screamed at him to turn back. It was a place to be cornered, a place to be caught.

  Then again, so was the road.

  In the shadow of the pines he stopped and waited, hoping the cops were a superstitious lot who’d pass by the Fairy Loch. It was a forlorn hope, but if he pressed further in, hid in the undergrowth, they might give it only a cursory check. He couldn’t stay this close to the fence.

  He staggered down the slope and deeper into the wood. The tramp was nowhere in sight, and just as well. Caught between a psychopath and social services, Jed wasn’t sure what he’d do.

  Above and behind him, the gate rattled.

  Breathing shallow and fast, he fought the welling terror. He was going to jail, and Rory into care, and he would never see his brother again, and very suddenly that did matter, mattered terribly. Cold wrenching fear drove him on, even though it was pointless; after all, without Finn the loch was no use to him: nothing but a dank, freezing drowning-pit.

  ‘All right, son. Calm down, now. There’s nowhere for you to go. We want to help.’

  He couldn’t see the man in the murk, but the words felt like a lie and that put steel in his spine. He backed, searching the trees with a narrowed gaze, and one foot sank up to the ankle in freezing water. Rory whimpered and clutched him tighter.

  ‘Come on, la
ddie. Give up. It’s not worth it.’

  He backed further, almost against his will, but he couldn’t bear to give in to them, not yet. Up at the gate there were more urgent shouts, the crunch of tyres and the slam of car doors. So many.

  He was up to his waist without even thinking about it, then to his chest. Feathers and fans of ice had formed on the water’s surface and the cold snatched his breath away. Though Rory was in the water too, he was very quiet, grip tighter than ever, breathing ragged. Christ, thought Jed with rising panicked fury: if he had a gun he’d shoot the bast...

  ... bastards.

  He put numb fingers to the pistol in his belt.

  It wasn’t useless here. There were rounds in the magazine: Seth had shown him. He’d shown him how to cock the gun. Seth had shown him how to loose the safety catch and squeeze the trigger.

  And he hadn’t even realised.

  ‘Ed,’ whispered Rory. He pressed his cheek to Jed’s and blew a raspberry at his ear.

  Jed shook himself. Madness. He could no more shoot somebody than get through this loch. The stupid gun was probably ruined by the water anyway. He buried his face in Rory’s neck and clutched him tightly.

  That was when a figure broke out of the trees and stumbled to a halt in the weeds. Steel-coloured eyes behind thick glasses widened as the tramp stared at him in shock.

  Jed could only stare back, wondering what death would feel like. Then he thought he knew, because something like waterweed snaked up, snagging his legs and waist.

  The world receded in a rush of terrible blackness, and he was yanked beneath the surface into a cold and deafening void.

  If Laszlo didn’t kill the girl, I was going to do it for him.

  Finn was more frightening in her absence than she’d ever been in the flesh. Sionnach and Torc and I were wasting our time persuading Conal she was gone, and there was no point looking further; it took Eili to knock some sense into him, and then she got an earful for her trouble. But after hours of combing the woods he did, at last, acknowledge it was useless.

  ‘Laszlo’s got her,’ I said. ‘Must have.’

  ‘Thanks for that statement of the bleeding obvious,’ he gritted.

  ‘You’re welcome. Now let’s get to the dun. We can’t help her any other way and we’ve wasted enough time.’

  ‘It’s gonna be hard work getting back to the dun,’ pointed out Torc. ‘They’ve had plenty of time to get extra patrols out and they know where we are.’

  ‘I can’t go, not yet. I can’t leave her.’

  ‘You haven’t got a choice,’ said Eili crisply. ‘Sorry. At least the boy’s gone; that’s one less complication.’

  ‘What does she want with Finn? Finn can’t hurt Kate. Can’t help her.’

  ‘Took her to spite you?’ suggested Eili.

  And since that was the honest truth, he couldn’t argue. It was the wrong thing to say, though, in so many ways. He was too silent, scratching manically at the scars on his arm though they must have stopped itching centuries ago.

  ‘We’ve wasted too much time,’ he said at last.

  ‘Just what I—’

  ‘No. I mean we’ve wasted too much time in these woods. The dun’s two days’ ride away; to hell with that. We need to get her back before Laszlo gets her to Kate’s caverns; if we can’t do that we’ll think of something later. Once she’s in there, the entire fecking clan won’t be able to get her out.’

  ‘Cù Chaorach, that’s—’

  ‘Eili, don’t say the next word,’ he spat. ‘I’m not leaving her. Kate wants me to come and get her; if I don’t, she’ll hang her.’

  ‘We could at least call for reinforcements. Even at this distance Torc can call Sulaire...’

  ‘Yeah? Has he tried lately?’

  Torc reddened as we stared glumly at him. He didn’t even have to reply.

  ‘See?’ said Conal bitterly. ‘I don’t know how Kate’s doing it, but she is. We’re cut off. Get used to it.’ He grabbed a handful of the black’s mane. ‘Now I’m going to get my goddaughter. Anyone coming?’

  I hated that we were split again, but it would have been stupid not to maximize our chances. Eili insisted on riding at Conal’s side, and Torc went with them; I was happy to be in the quiet company of Sionnach, who anyway was the best tracker.

  ‘So help me, I wish I’d killed Laszlo when I had the chance,’ I said.

  Sionnach laughed dryly. ‘You’ll get another. If your brother doesn’t get to him first.’

  I wished I felt so optimistic. Gods, how I’d hated having Laszlo in my crosshairs, with trigger-squeezing forbidden by some bureaucrat in a distant office, someone who understood the politics better than I did, but had never watched the man at work. I kicked myself daily for that. I kicked myself almost as hard as I had when I tracked his movements again, when I finally thought I’d run him to earth and found only his seventy-eight hostages from that last village.

  Well, not them, not as such. The remains of them, hacked to pulp and jumbled in their mass grave.

  I shook my head free of the memory yet again. ‘By the way,’ I added, ‘don’t underestimate him. He’s better with a blade than he ought to be.’

  ‘Not as good as Conal,’ said Sionnach.

  ‘Loyal of you,’ I said bitchily, ‘but I wouldn’t bet on it. Being a homicidal maniac doesn’t disqualify you from the Olympics. He took a gold.’

  Sionnach reined in his horse very abruptly, sniffing the air.

  ‘What?’ I half-drew my sword.

  He shook his head. ‘Not close. But something’s around that wasn’t there before.’

  ‘Oh, gods. Don’t tell me.’

  ‘Fine.’ He gave me a rueful grin. ~ I won’t say a word. Something breached the watergate again.

  The strange sensation was breathing. That was it; and it was only strange because he hadn’t expected to be doing it. Jed’s fingers scrabbled on slick weed and wet stones as he raised himself to a kneeling position and vomited into the shallow water. It wasn’t water he was throwing up, he noticed. It was his last meal and exhaustion and terror, and once his stomach had finished heaving he felt a lot better.

  Rory. He staggered to his feet.

  Thank God. Rory was on the beach, laughing his bright blond head off as he flung handfuls of gritty sand at the water. Bending half-double, Jed waited for the spasms in his gut to fade. The sky was dark grey and menacing, but Rory’s lank hair gleamed like sunlit barley. The child – if it was Rory – didn’t even seem so scrawny, as if he had plumped up nicely in the water. Suspicion rippled through Jed’s innards.

  Rory peered up, puzzled. Then a broad grin showed familiar baby teeth and he clambered upright and waddled towards his brother. ‘Ed!’ he shouted.

  Jed fell on his knees to hug him. Oh, his backside was soaking and he stank of piss. Poor brat: it was Rory all right. Swiftly he changed the disintegrating nappy; God knew what he was going to do next time. Jed tugged the wet jeans back up over his bottom and stood up.

  Feeling the first spatters of rain on his arms, he smiled at the infant. ‘We have to go, angel.’

  Curtains of rain swept across the skyline, blurring the horizon and shrouding the ruined castle on its spit of land. For half a minute Jed could see it, then it was gone. The weather was closing in, and not just rainclouds. With them there was something else, something he could feel in his stomach and bones.

  Hazarding a guess at the direction he climbed up off the beach and set out through the heather, Rory on his hip, but even the child’s bright mood couldn’t outlast the rain that started to lash them within a hundred metres of the beach. In seconds Jed was soaked through, and Rory cuddled into him, water running off his head and down Jed’s neck. He started to whimper.

  ‘Hush,’ Jed murmured automatically, though he didn’t exactly see why the boy should, since he felt like whimpering himself. He was alone and friendless and sorry for himself, and now he was almost sure he was going the wrong way. Still, no point turning back no
w. Tightening his grip on Rory, he ploughed on.

  Within minutes the horizon vanished altogether, as if a giant thumb had smudged it off a watercolour landscape, and then time ceased to make sense at all. All Jed knew was the squelch of his feet in his shoes and the subdued hiss of the rain. Boredom, exhaustion and drenching cold were his life: he was completely disoriented and had no idea how many miles he’d covered. An hour, two hours passed, and then he gave up looking at his watch, because its face was misted over by the rain.

  He might as well press on: it was better than retracing his steps, and anyway, if he stopped he knew he might never start walking again. His calves ached from struggling through the heather, but he was shivering violently.

  Because of Rory he couldn’t even wipe his eyes clear; water sluiced down his face and the constant blinking had a hypnotic effect. Out of sheer spite the wind had risen and was lashing the rain straight into him. What he really wanted to do was lie down in the heather and rest. He wanted it so badly he was on the point of doing it, despite the horrible sensation that crept over him as the day darkened.

  He was being stalked. He couldn’t see it but he could feel it. It was something in no particular hurry, something that was happy to wait and mock his efforts. Hostile Intent, he thought, remembering Pooh Bear and the Woozles, the last bedtime story he’d read Rory from a stolen book. He wanted to giggle. He wanted to cry. He wanted to go home.

  Oh, it didn’t matter any more. It occurred to him that whatever the Hostile Thing was, he’d hate to prolong its fun at his expense. He might as well stop and sit down with Rory on the bristly heather and wait. He didn’t even feel so cold any more.

  Just as his feet faltered, he heard something familiar. At first it was only a fragment of his imagination, then it was a rhythmic pounding beneath his feet. He should run, he knew, but running belonged to another time and place: a place where running had seemed to matter more.