Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels)

by Gillian Philip

  ‘Yes. And don’t ask me again if I’m sure.’

  ‘Too late. We’re bound, love of my heart.’ He laughed unsteadily, then exhaled through his teeth. ‘Now come with me. And leave that bloody bird where it is.’

  HANNAH

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Sionnach’s lip curled as he flung open the door.

  The air between us had its very own wind chill factor. He held a chisel in his hand and he was turning it as if he’d like to make a walnut inlay in my face. Oh, Sionnach understood me, and I understood him.

  Behind him there was an intake of breath, then Eili stepped forward. ‘Sionnach, it’s all right. I’ve been expecting her. Come in, Hannah.’

  I edged warily round Sionnach, then blew him a kiss. Sionnach neither turned away nor blushed. He oozed all the welcome of a Saltcoats winter.

  ‘Oh-kay,’ I said under my breath.

  ‘Hannah.’ Eili spoke my name on an icy exhalation. ‘Sionnach, love. Leave us.’

  To be honest I was afraid to look back at him, so I waited till the door closed and I sensed he’d gone. Eili I was not afraid of. I glowered at her.

  ‘Why have you come?’ asked Eili. She poured herself a tumbler of neat whisky, then lifted it to her lips. Brandishing the bottle, she said: ‘Do you?’

  About to shake my head, I hesitated and gave her a brief nod. It felt like a challenge. Sure enough Eili poured me a glass, straight-faced, but I had the distinct sense she was laughing at me.

  I scowled round the room. It was sparsely furnished, but it was all Eili and it made me shiver. The stone walls were bare of pictures, the wood floor gleamed. A wrist-slitting song played softly, its sleeve laid neatly aside, and the rest of Eili’s CDs were stacked in perfect order beside it, instead of spilling haphazardly over the shelf like everybody else’s. A pale beechwood desk held a neat pile of papers anchored by a sword-hilt paperweight, a stack of leatherbound books and a row of silver-framed photographs with their backs to me.

  Parasites. The Sithe didn’t object to technology, it seemed; they just couldn’t be bothered making it themselves.

  Eili was wearing that unsettling smirk of hers. ‘We can always get what we need from you, Hannah, can’t we? Within reason. Guns don’t work, but crossbows do. We like the modern kind. Sionnach is very good with them. So was Cù Chaorach. He used to say…’ She stopped, a muscle working in her throat.

  I eyed her. ‘Was that your boyfriend? Seth’s brother? I thought his name was…’

  ‘Conal,’ said Eili. ‘Conal.’

  It hadn’t occurred to me to feel sorry for the glacial bitch, but the grief on her face was intolerable. I looked away.

  ‘Cù Chaorach. It was his Sithe name. His true name.’ Recovering, Eili laughed. ‘Funny how much importance we attach to names, when something is just what it is. You can call Seth Murlainn – a falcon – or you can call him Bloody Traitor. You can call Rory Bloodstone, or you can call him whatever Sithe name is eventually found in him. What they are is what they always were. You can call me Bitch, as Iolaire did today, or Witch, as some do. I am neither Bitch nor Witch. I am only Eili, who loved the man I loved. That’s all I am. I am always the same.’

  ‘Not to hear your brother tell it.’ All the blood must have drained from my face, because I felt as if I was floating: and not in a good way. This wasn’t going as I’d planned it, because the woman was stark staring bonkers, and for the first time I appreciated Sionnach. I’d have liked him back now, all right. At least he was sane, at least he could control his sister. That smile Eili wore was not a bit sane, but I returned it anyway.

  ‘We take what we want from you and leave the rest. If we want your life, we go to your world and live it. Some don’t ever come back, like Finn’s poor mother, but she was mad with grief by that time. Most of us know when we’re well off. We don’t take more than we need from your world, any more than we do from our own. Don’t you think that’s a fine principle? Ah, yes, you do.’

  Eili was right there in my mind, and I hated it, hated it, but I wasn’t about to argue. Quarrelling with Eili, I decided, wouldn’t be like quarrelling with Rory or even Seth. I tried to keep my frantic thoughts on a leash.

  ‘Are you afraid of me, Hannah? Don’t be, I’m only trying to explain. Would I give up riding wild? Would I give up the right to fight and kill for my love, give all that up for a bit of technology?’

  ‘See, you’re scaring me now,’ I said. ‘One minute you make sense, and then you say something else and it’s like your brain’s on the blink and your mind’s taken some weird diversion and you scare me.’

  ‘I don’t like it on your side.’ Eli turned her glass, the crystal sending glints across her skin. ‘It’s corrupting. Just look at you.’

  She was smiling again and I wished she’d stop. ‘What are you doing to Rory’s father?’ I blurted.

  ‘Nothing he doesn’t deserve.’

  ‘Look.’ I slammed down the glass. Its base cracked, but it was empty anyway. ‘Rory’s alone except for you lot and all you do is hurt him. Especially you. You hurt his father and you hurt him. He loves his father. I mean, God knows why, but he does, and you’re to stop it. Whatever it is you’re doing. Stop it, or I’ll…’

  Eili threw back her head and laughed. ‘Oh, this is more fun than I even thought it’d be. Or what? What will you do?’

  I gulped convulsively. ‘I’ll throw up.’

  ‘Through there.’ Eili jerked a thumb. ‘Balcony.’

  I made a dash for it, banging my elbow hard on the window frame as I stumbled. Just made it. One glass of whisky, I thought in abject humiliation. A big glass, certainly. And it was rough stuff, an awful lot rougher than the vodka I bought by the quarter bottle to mix with Sprite and drink in the park with my gang. But still.

  Then I remembered what else today had made me gag, and the image was so awful I retched again.

  When I slumped against the balustrade Eili sat down beside me, rubbing my back. ‘That took guts. Pity you threw them right up.’ There was laughter in her voice.

  I was groggy, my vision was blurred, but I felt sober. I hauled myself up, rubbing my temples, and stumbled back to the main room.

  ‘Seth has lived ever such a long time, Hannah. Did Rory tell you? He looks in his twenties, doesn’t he? But if you knew how long he’s really lived, you might think it’s been quite long enough.’

  Rory had told me; I just hadn’t believed it. I believed it now, all right, coming from this insane woman. ‘How? How do you live so long?’

  ‘We, Hannah. You’re one of us. With your mother’s blood you won’t live as long as Seth or me, but you’ll live a long time. I’ll have to warn you of the pitfalls.’

  ‘Pitfalls.’ I didn’t like her choice of word, in view of the height of that balcony, and I dearly hoped I was going to live longer than tonight.

  ‘Our cells work better than full-mortal cells. They don’t decay the same way, they don’t multiply out of control. Wonderful immune systems, DNA that doesn’t mutate.’ She sighed happily. ‘We don’t get to grow old, though. It’s how we’ve evolved. Reproduction is so ageing. Maybe the full mortals got fertility in exchange for being so pathetically short-lived.’

  My lips parted, because I could breathe better that way. I was very, very afraid of Eili now, and at that point I was convinced I was going to die. It was the easy, fond way Eili talked about short lives and sudden death. It was the silver light in her eye and the way it gleamed.

  ‘I’m so glad you came tonight.’

  I tucked a strand of sweaty hair behind my ear, once again more furious than afraid. ‘Took an instant dislike to me, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Turning her glass, Eili smiled oddly.

  ‘Why?’ Whatever it was, she was milking it. ‘And why did you help me stay here, if you don’t even like me?’

  ‘Because of your father.’

  I felt myself sway, like the breath had been sucked out of me. ‘What do you know about my father?’
r />   ‘What wouldn’t I?’

  I gritted my teeth. ‘You’re only trying to hurt me.’

  ‘Yes, I am. Though I suppose it isn’t your fault.’ Eili studied me closely, the horrible smile finally gone, and I felt a trickle of true fear. ‘Wouldn’t I recognise his face?’

  ‘Don’t you dare! Don’t!’

  Eili turned to the beechwood desk and picked up one of the photographs, holding it out. I fisted my hands at my sides. I didn’t want to take it from her.

  ‘Conal had a digital camera. It was a craze of his for a while.’ She touched the photograph fondly. ‘I kept some of the prints. See? It’s the eyes, of course.’ She held it up hard to my face.

  Seth’s eyes, Seth’s eyes, and I knew in an instant why I’d found them so troubling. These weren’t Seth’s eyes at all, but... they were. Eili forced the picture into my hands, closed my frozen fingers round the frame. It trembled in my grip. The fair-haired man in the picture was turning, caught off guard, a sword and a whetstone in his hands. I was scared to look but I had to. I had to study every curve and plane and texture of the angular face that smiled a little shyly at the lens.

  ‘Oh, I knew your face,’ said Eili. She was turning every single photograph to face me. ‘The face of my own lover.’

  It wasn’t how I’d imagined it would be, our eyes meeting. Still, I’d always known I’d recognise him straight away. Gazing at his beautiful grey eyes I began to cry, and Eili watched me without pity.

  ‘Now,’ said Eili calmly, holding out another picture. ‘Look at this one.’

  This one was very different. The same man – the man with spiky dark blond hair and high beautiful cheekbones and Seth’s eyes – was slouched on a sofa, a baby clinging like a tiny ape on his chest. The baby was three or four months old, an unattractive little thing with a tangle of coarse black hair. It was fast asleep and the man’s left hand rested on its back, holding it protectively against him. His right hand held a crime paperback, but he wasn’t reading. He had caught sight of the camera and his slanted gaze was cool and slightly resentful, as if photography was an unwelcome intrusion.

  Eili’s forefinger jabbed at the black-haired baby. ‘That’s Finn.’

  ‘Finn.’ It came out on a shocked breath. Violent jealousy made my head throb.

  ‘Yes,’ said Eili thoughtfully. ‘It’s not my favourite picture either, but I kept it. Perhaps just to remind me there was something else he loved, besides me.’

  But at least he did love you, I thought, as fury chilled my veins. At least he knew you. Conal MacGregor. Conal. I mouthed his name silently, practicing the consonants on my tongue, then wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

  ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’ Eili smiled properly at last, and took my hand. ‘And now I’m going to tell you how it happened. And all about the man who killed him.’

  FINN

  It was still dark when I woke, so I knew I hadn’t slept long. I lay still, sleepily content, blinking at the stone fireplace. So familiar, that fireplace and these walls: funny how the room had looked so different when we closed the door tonight and smiled sheepishly at one another. It’s yours now, he’d said: yours as well as mine. Like my mind and my body and my heart. Those too.

  A tremor lingered on my skin, a warm aching memory of his touch. I reached behind me for the body that had curled against mine as I fell asleep, but even as I did, I registered his absence. Tensing, I reached out with my mind, and breathed again. He was near. He was in the room. It was fine.

  I sensed this was how it would be from now on, that I would grow familiar with the deep night. Though the fire was unlit the air was suffocatingly warm, even with the windows open, but the moon shadows were still and cold. I raised my head.

  The brilliant moonlight cast Seth’s shadow across the timber floor, across the woven rugs that were leached of all their colours. He stood motionless by the central window, his shoulder propped against the bevelled stone, arms folded as he stared out into the moonlit night.

  I curled up, tugging linen sheets around me. ‘Seth?’

  ‘Go back to sleep.’ He spoke through a clenched jaw.

  For a moment I found it impossible to speak. ‘Not without you,’ I said at last.

  ‘Jed is awake too.’ His voice was distant and dispassionate as he stared out at the silver landscape. It was nothing like the voice that had whispered to me, had cried out my name in the earlier darkness, and it made me shiver. ‘Finn, go back to sleep. One day you’ll have demons of your own, and then you’ll be glad of what sleep you got before.’

  I slipped hesitantly off the bed and went to him. Seth glanced at me, then gave a mirthless laugh before rolling his head round to press his forehead to the cold stone. ‘Finn, are you never going to take good advice?’

  ‘You’re not my Captain in this room.’

  He shook his head; then his face darkened and he pressed his forehead against the stone again. I reached out, but though I’d stroked my fingertips across the scars not long before, had wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pulled him fiercely against me, now he flinched away from even the threat of my touch.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Leave me alone.’

  Anger tightened the muscles around my lungs so that I could hardly breathe. I laced my fingers into his hair to turn his face to me, then took it in my hands. There were tears at the corner of his eyes, and I wiped them away with my thumbs. He’d done that for me once, a very long time ago, and the memory was sudden and piercing. ‘It’s like this? Every night?’

  He gave a dry laugh and pressed his forehead to mine. Its heat was intense but I made myself stay still. ‘More or less. It’s a long time since she last made me cry. She knows, Finn. Didn’t I tell you she’d go spare?’

  I pulled back a little, examining his body. His arms and chest were hacked about with the superficial scars of four hundred years. There were layers of them, some fainter, some more recent. If you bothered to count them, you could probably date him like a tree. The line of his obliques was distorted by a deep ugly dent below his ribcage that hadn’t been there thirteen years ago. I raised my hand to push the black hair away from his ear to see again what I’d seen earlier, the straight clean line of the top of his ear where a centimetre of it had been sliced off, and the long corresponding scar on the side of his scalp. He didn’t flick me away as I thought he might, only folded his arms and studied my eyes.

  ‘I bet it takes a lot to make you cry,’ I said.

  He smiled. Then his pupils dilated and his lips parted in shock. He flung the palm of his hand up against my forehead and shoved me away. ‘Get out. Get out! Don’t be stupid.’

  Too late. Recoiling, I yelped once like a scalded dog before my breath stopped in my lungs. When I breathed again it was through clenched teeth. It wasn’t my pain but I could feel the echo of it even now between my shoulder blades.

  I swore on a high breath.

  ‘You numpty.’ He cupped my head in one hand and drew my face into the hollow of his shoulder. I could taste his skin against my gritted teeth, could feel the sting of pity in my heart turning to a wintry rage.

  ‘If it wasn’t for Rory,’ he said, almost to himself, ‘I’d have met her long ago. I’d put an end to it one way or the other, but there’s Rory. And now there’s you and I’ve made you a promise.’ His thumb stroked the back of my head idly. ‘I can’t take the gamble.’

  The casual touch of his thumb against my scalp at last began to calm me down, loosening my rage-clenched jaw. ‘I’ll kill her for you.’

  He pushed me away. ‘You will not. Will not. If I ever have to kill her it’ll be on my hands, no-one else’s.’ His fingers tightened in my hair. ‘When my brother needed an end made to him Eili had to do it, because I was up to my neck in shame. His blood is on my hands, Finn. I won’t have his lover’s too. Not unless it runs off my own blade.’

  I’d never heard that dead note in his voice. ‘I hate her,’ I whispered.

  S
eth pulled me back against him. ‘Don’t do that.’ His voice gentled. ‘She’s loyal to Conal, and she spared him a terrible death. Of course it warped her.’

  ‘That was a long time ago. I’m grateful to her, okay?’ I hissed. ‘But Conal wouldn’t want her kind of loyalty. She’s warped all right. She’s a hater.’

  ‘So don’t turn into one yourself. Then she would have beaten you. And me.’

  Hesitantly I kissed his lower lip. He let me, his breathing quickening with happiness and lust. ‘And there’s another thing anyway. You’re not good enough, Dorsal Finn.’ His teeth flashed. ‘She’d slice you like a ham.’

  I bit his lip hard, making him wince. ‘I’m not good enough yet.’

  ‘Yet,’ he agreed with a wary grin, touching a thumb to his lip. ‘Anything you say. I’ve taken enough of a hammering for one night.’ Thoughtfully he said, ‘She’s finished for now.’

  ‘So come back to bed.’ I took his hand. ‘Only, Seth? There’s a bloody great wolf in it.’

  ‘Aw, Finn.’ He gave me a spaniel look. ‘He isn’t well. And he’s only at the foot of it.’

  ‘Two words, Seth. No. Fecking. Way.’

  ‘That’s three. Just a few nights, Finn. I promise. Then he’s back on the hearth rug.’

  ‘If he isn’t, the raven gets to roost on the headboard.’

  ‘Oh, gods.’ He looked heavenwards. ‘What have I let myself in for?’

  The first grey fingers of dawn were silvering the window ledge an hour later before I was sure Seth was deeply asleep, enough for me to risk a glance at Branndair. The wolf’s yellow eye was open, looking right at me.

  Cautiously I craned my head over Seth’s arm to get a better look. There was crystal clarity in that eyeball. Not much sign of a concussion now. I opened my mind to the wolf.

  In a pig’s ear you’re not well, I told him.