Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels)

by Gillian Philip

  ‘Me? You’re the sonofabitch, you little bastard!’ Right in front of us the shadow grabbed the bridle’s cheekpiece, fists clenched, teeth bared, eyes flashing cold and silver. Gods, her eyelight was developing fast.

  ‘Hannah, let go!’ Fear for her made me wrench the horse’s mouth, and it squealed in fury.

  ‘I don’t have to! He’s more mine than he is yours!’

  Even as she said it the horse’s rage subsided to quiet snorts, and it nudged her, almost making her stumble. But she recovered, put her arms round its great head and glared up at me.

  ‘You go without me, you go without my father’s horse.’

  ‘You – that’s no choice!’

  ‘No indeed.’ She brandished something in her fist. ‘And I hate bloody rabbit.’

  Silence. There was an air of smugness to her as she flourished the scrap of rabbit under the horse’s nose; it took it delicately in its jaws, then lifted its head, snapped and swallowed.

  Hannah stroked its glossy neck. ‘You’re a good horse. You’re a very good horse.’

  I was angry and resentful and relieved all at once. ‘Did this bastard horse call you?’

  Her teeth flashed in the lightening dawn.

  So did the horse’s.

  SETH

  The headache started in the back of his neck and went all the way to the top of his skull, but there were two separate points of pain behind his eyes. It was a beauty. Seth didn’t think he’d ever had a headache like it, and that was saying something.

  As awareness crept through his body, he began to feel all the other places where it hurt. There were a lot of them, some pretty sensitive. That wasn’t just one whack on his head. The bastard had taken the opportunity to give him a good kicking while he lay there, and Seth knew it. He knew it intimately and painfully.

  He was face down and prostrate on the floor – not the most dignified position – but at least it was his own floor. At least he felt at home. He’d always liked that polished oak planking. He didn’t much want to think about anything but that, but of course he had to. Shifting slightly, he tried to sit up.

  Complete failure. When he tried to move his hands, they wouldn’t budge from behind his back, even when he tugged hard at his wrists. The slightest movement sent lances of pain through his head from one side to the other and back again, so he stopped trying. Instead he lowered his head gently back to the floor and turned it very, very slowly to face the other way. And there was the Wolf of Kilrevin, whistling soundlessly at the bathroom mirror as he trimmed his ragged facial hair to a chic little goatee.

  ‘Okay, I’m alive,’ Seth said, blinking. He smiled brightly at the Wolf, which hurt a lot in all sorts of ways. ‘Am I alive for a reason?’

  Catching his eye in the mirror, the Wolf returned his smile. ‘Yup.’

  Seth closed an eye. ‘Am I going to stay alive?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ He bit his lip thoughtfully. ‘Tell me about it, then.’

  ‘As if.’ The Wolf took a pair of nail scissors and sliced carefully through each of his braids, close to his scalp, dropping the discarded hair in the basin. ‘I’ve seen all the movies too, you know. Explaining your evil schemes to the hero is never a good idea.’

  ‘Hero is a bit of a stretch,’ said Seth drolly. ‘But it’s sweet that you know you’re evil.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll make me blush. I’m a pragmatist, that’s all.’ The Wolf examined himself in the mirror. ‘I might take you back to Kate eventually. She’d love to hang and draw you in sight of your own dun. On the other hand, that’s never a good idea either, is it? Plotting an extravagant death that you might get out of. So I’ll probably slit your throat right here.’

  ‘Eventually,’ Seth put in quickly.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, eventually.’ The Wolf laughed. ‘Don’t panic, Murlainn.’

  As the adrenalin rush subsided, another bolt of pain went through his head and he winced. Ouch, he told himself. Take it easy. He pressed his forehead to the cool floor. ‘People need to stop whacking me on the head,’ he muttered. ‘It’s not good for me.’

  The Wolf guffawed. ‘Happens a lot, does it?’

  ‘What? You and everybody else. My father, my brother, Torc.’ He eyed the Wolf. ‘Finn.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Murlainn.’ The Wolf half-turned. ‘Sorry about your lover. Nothing personal.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Well. All right, it was. But business is business, too.’

  Seth was still smiling. ‘If I hadn’t thought you were dead, I’d have had you long ago.’

  ‘Still hold that against me, do you?’ said the Wolf. ‘Your father?’

  ‘Why would I hold it against you?’ His father probably wouldn’t have bothered with him however long he’d lived, but it would’ve been nice if Griogair had had the option. Bitterness, hatred, regret: Seth bit them all back, and shrugged as best he could with his hands locked behind him. ‘Be as much use as Reultan’s daughter having a grudge against cancer. It’s what you are, isn’t it? It’s just what you do.’

  The Wolf sighed and grinned. ‘You’re so evolved. You know, I like you, Murlainn. I always liked you. I always thought we had a lot in common.’ Amiably he nudged Seth’s bruised ribs with his foot. ‘That was a convincing death I had, wasn’t it? It’s a local legend, now. My poor lads, they got a bit of a shock when the devil arrived. Heh! It was them he came for, and he looked a lot like me!’ He laughed helplessly for a while. ‘I’m surprised you bought it, though, Murlainn. You’re not a sucker for a supernatural yarn.’

  ‘I know,’ said Seth. But he’d wanted it to be true, so he’d let himself believe it. Let that be a lesson for the future, if he lived to see one. ‘I always said I wanted to see your corpse.’

  ‘Ah, you won’t be seeing that now. Missed your chance, and you won’t be getting another.’ He leaned down to chuck Seth annoyingly under the chin. ‘Too bad for your lover you didn’t finish it years ago.’

  Seth clenched his teeth and kept smiling. ‘Actually? She’s alive.’

  ‘Alive?’ The Wolf’s eyes widened in disappointment. ‘How’d she manage that? Looks like I missed a chance too, but I’ll make up for it.’ He gave Seth a meaningful grin. ‘And by that time Kate won’t have to be sweating with nerves that you’ll turn up. ’Cause you won’t be turning up. Eh?’ He laughed.

  ‘Maybe.’ Seth laughed too. ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘I really do like you, Murlainn. You are so civilised.’

  ‘Well. My brother had a temper, and look where it got him. By the way, if these are my old police handcuffs, I’ll be mortified.’

  ‘Found them in a drawer.’ The Wolf laid down the scissors, his ragged hair cropped shorter and drawn into a little ponytail at the back. ‘Theft of Her Full-Mortal Majesty’s property, Murlainn! I’ll bet you regret it now.’

  ‘Yeah.’ It was indeed galling. Seth rested his cheek on the floor as the Wolf took in his new look: the smooth-shaven throat, the well-shaped beard, the absence of the greasy braids. ‘That’s better.’ Seth closed one eye. ‘In fact, that’s a good look. Only, uh… lose the ponytail.’

  ‘You think?’ Shrugging, the Wolf took a razor to the ponytail. ‘Better?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Seth’s arms were starting to ache almost as badly as his head.

  The Wolf flicked a switch on Conal’s electric razor and began to shave his head even closer. Seth wished he’d make his mind up. He wondered what Leonie would have said about the mess in the sink; even the Wolf might have backed off in the face of that old trout’s slow-burning temper, and if she was here he’d never be stuffing one of her chamois jewellery rolls into his pocket. As for what Conal would have made of the Wolf nicking his leather jacket... and one of Seth’s favourite t-shirts. It was tight on the Wolf’s big frame, and he was going to end up ripping it.

  ‘Why aren’t you looting your own house? I take it you’ve got one.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ The Wolf turned this way and that, admiring himself.
‘Jings, even Cù Chaorach was a bit on the rangy side.’ Tugging at the jacket, he finally left it unfastened. ‘Ah, your brother was a bigger man than you in every way. Very much the runt of Griogair’s litter, weren’t you, Murlainn?’

  Seth bit his cheek, but said nothing.

  The Wolf grinned, knowing he’d touched a nerve. ‘And my house is in Edinburgh, way too far away. Georgian New Town. I liked those as soon as they put them up.’

  ‘Oh. Nice.’ Seth was impressed despite himself. ‘But your castle’s full of tartan tat, Rory tells me.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I know. But it’s lucrative.’ The Wolf grinned as he put the final touches to his goatee. ‘No entrepreneurial spirit, you MacGregors. This side of the Veil my castle looks a lot better than your dun, let me tell you. Have you seen your dun on this side, Murlainn?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said in a bored voice.

  ‘It’s nothing but a heap of overgrown rocks! The sheep graze it! The tourists climb it to photograph the bay, and they don’t even know what they’re standing on!’ The Wolf laughed. ‘Maybe I can turn it into a Heritage Destination. Would you like me to do that in your memory?’ The Wolf grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head up. ‘I’d give you a mention in the guidebook. You and your father and your sainted brother. Only a footnote, mind you! Will you like that, Murlainn? Being a footnote?’

  Seth spat as hard as he could, managing to get a drop of spittle on the Wolf’s nice new beard. His eyes darkening with rage, the Wolf dropped his head sharply so that his jaw banged hard on the floorboards. His conversational voice took on a sinister edge. ‘That’s a wily little rat you’ve sired, Murlainn.’

  ‘I know.’ Seth spat blood onto the polished oak. Sorry, Leonie, he thought. ‘Great, isn’t he?’

  ‘Not so great he’ll avoid me for long. But it’ll be fun.’ The Wolf winked. The bastard knew how much Seth’s arms and head and the rest of him hurt, and he was having the time of his misspent life. Now the Wolf decided to twist the knife.

  ‘You can’t See Rory, can you?’

  No, he couldn’t, and he’d done a bit of weeping and banging his head against the barn wall when his confident calls to his son had turned to disbelief and then panic and finally to despair. It was unlikely he’d See Rory on the wrong side of the Veil, but once they were both on the same side, nothing but death or sorcery should keep their minds apart. And since he’d never heard of a sorcery like it, for a dark and hideous half-hour he had let himself believe the worst.

  Now he turned his bloodied head away and stared at the wall, silent. It was long minutes before he stopped the pointless sulking and said: ‘How is Kate doing that?’

  The Wolf chuckled with delight. ‘Oh, Murlainn, I’ve been dying to see how you’d react. I’ve got to tell you this bit. I’m a well-travelled man, you know?’

  ‘Go on, then. I know you’re going to show me your snaps.’

  ‘Uzbekistan, Syria, Equatorial Guinea, all over the place. Busman’s holidays, really.’

  ‘I’m surprised we never bumped into each other.’

  ‘Oh, we wouldn’t have been drinking in the same mess, Murlainn. I did keep occasional tabs on your career. Careers. Anyway, there’s more Sithe blood over here than you’d think, isn’t there? I met a lot of it. In some bad places. Bad for them, not for me.’

  Seth stayed silent, thinking. Nothing constructive.

  ‘If they survived me and all I could do, I let them go. I’m merciful, Murlainn, and besides, they served me better that way. Do you know what they’d do then? To my enemies, their friends? It’s not that they liked me better than they had. They were me, that’s all. They didn’t care any more.’

  ‘I don’t know what happens to your soul when you rip out someone else’s,’ murmured Seth. ‘Go on. What does happen?’

  ‘Cheeky. What do I want with a soul anyway? I had something far, far better, and that was time. A glut of it, and a glut of captives. They don’t do early release in those places, Murlainn. I had time to learn new tricks, and if a person doesn’t know he’s half-Sithe, he doesn’t know how to block, right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Seth, thinking of Hannah, and missing her a surprising amount.

  ‘I developed some ideas I’d had. The mind’s a fragile thing when it’s unguarded. It’s barely even witchcraft, really. You can practically snip a link with blunt nail scissors, if you know what you’re doing. Even a strong link. A family one, or a bonding link.’

  ‘No,’ said Seth, pointlessly. An exclamation of rage, not a denial.

  ‘Kate always accused me of a lack of subtlety, which is funny. D’you know that thing witches can do? Sucking out a dying man’s strength and taking it? If she can’t get a person to give up their soul, that’s what she’ll do. Gods, that’s made her powerful, but on the whole she gets the soul too.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She’s been taking souls out of people for centuries, but it took me to refine her methods. Me and my experiments! It’s like pulling off a plaster, Murlainn. Hurts more if you do it slowly.’

  ‘She needs your consent if she’s going to take your soul. Even I know that.’

  ‘Sure, but she’s not actually taking them, is she? Not these ones. That’s the beauty of my new trick! You cut a link and they just leak out, a little at a time, till they’re gone. A tiny little pinprick in the artery of the soul, Murlainn. Ew! It makes me shiver.’

  Seth too. The first searing pain of the cut, when he hadn’t know what was happening, had faded now, but the emptiness was the unbearable thing.

  ‘I’m curious. Is there any witchcraft she won’t bloody her hands on?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. So, d’you want to know how it’s done? All you need is a piece of the people involved. Blood, hair, body fluids... well, Kate had some of yours. And you don’t need to ask how she got it, eh?’ He nudged Seth’s ribs and winked. ‘And you know how Kate likes a long game. So she always saves playing pieces. She’s had a lock of Rory’s hair since he was a baby. Since you handed him over to her.’

  Seth wanted to be sick. It was never going to stop coming back to haunt him. ‘You can’t See him either, Kilrevin.’

  ‘No, that’s true.’ The Wolf eyed himself in the mirror and straightened a sleeve. ‘He blocks very well, doesn’t he? Wily little rat, like I said. But we’ll find him, Murlainn, don’t you worry. Rory has to ask for help some time.’

  ‘You talk a lot of mince,’ said Seth. ‘And when I have my way, you’re going to be mince.’

  The Wolf’s foot lashed out viciously, catching the side of his head. Through the intense shock of pain, Seth cursed his own stupidity. ‘You’re not going to have your way, Murlainn. Those days are so gone. Now. Get your block down.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Get it down.’ The sole of the Wolf’s boot pressed lightly on the back of his neck.

  Seth swore at him.

  ‘I can make you do it.’

  ‘I’ve kept my block up through worse than you can do.’

  ‘Oh, don’t bet on it.’ The Wolf smirked and gave him a casual kick between the legs. ‘Ach, don’t worry. I can’t be bothered. It’s not like you have a hope in hell. Keep your worthless thoughts to yourself.’

  When he got his breath back, Seth said: ‘You thought you’d beaten my father, Kilrevin, four hundred years ago. But you hadn’t.’

  ‘It took a little longer than I expected,’ hissed the Wolf, his foot hovering alarmingly close to Seth’s temple, ‘because I left a little bit of him behind. Thank you for reminding me. I won’t be leaving any little living remnants of you, not once Kate’s got what she needs from him.’ The Wolf wrinkled his nose. ‘Poor little rat.’

  Seth smiled up at him levelly, and thought: That’s it, pal. You’re going to die.

  The Wolf did not hear it, of course. ‘Now, let’s get down to business.’ Sighing, he grabbed the handcuffs and hauled Seth to his feet, then gripped him by the shoulder and swung him round. Seth felt the sharp point of a sword tip
in the small of his back.

  ‘Call your son, Murlainn.’

  ‘What? Did that last conversation not happen?’ Seth took an involuntary breath as the blade point dug into his flesh.

  ‘Don’t go thinking we’re stupid, Murlainn, or crude. You’re to call him via me. I’ll be very much in the background, so don’t fret; he won’t even know I’m there.’ The Wolf’s voice grew colder. ‘Call your son.’

  Seth glanced back over his shoulder, managing to curl his lip in a half-decent sneer. ‘Oh, piss off.’

  The sword pressed deeper, and he felt the warm trickle of blood on his skin. It didn’t hurt much yet, but he knew it was going to. Closing his eyes, he breathed hard through his nose.

  ‘You are wasting your time,’ he said expressionlessly. ‘I’m not going to call him. Under any circumstances. Any.’

  The sword-tip twisted in his flesh, and he winced. ‘You’re scared, Murlainn,’ said the Wolf softly. ‘You’re very scared of me.’

  ‘Of course I’m scared.’ Seth spat on the ground and snarled the foulest insult he could think of. ‘But I’m not going to call my son. So think of something else.’

  The Wolf paused, uncertain for the first time. Seth’s block was total. He hated being unable to See, hated it, but the Wolf must not get in, must not, and so the block had to stay. The silence stretched till he thought his beating heart might explode.

  ‘You know I can hurt you, Murlainn,’ the Wolf said at last. ‘You know how much I can damage you, and I don’t have to kill you. I’ve a very fine touch. Your spinal cord...’

  ‘I’m sure. I said, think of something else. That is, if you can get your imagination round the fact that I’m not going to help you kill my son.’ Seth spat again, partly out of contempt and partly because the terror tasted sour in his mouth.

  The Wolf watched him. Block or no block, Seth could feel his cold black eyes between his shoulder blades. And then he felt the point of cold steel slide out of his flesh.

  ‘Very well, Murlainn,’ said the Wolf silkily. ‘We’ll do this together. Let’s take a little road trip.’