Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels)

by Gillian Philip

  His voice strained, Seth said: ‘The usual thing now, Florence, is you seal the cut.’

  She grinned at him and he grinned back, and her fingers closed none too gently around the lips of the wound and pressed them together.

  Rory swore, expressively.

  ‘Language, laddie,’ said Seth absently, wincing as he touched the sealed wound.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hannah as she drew her hand tentatively away and stared at the congealed blood. ‘I’m pretty surprised myself.’

  ‘You could knock me down with a feather,’ said Seth, flinching as he sat up. ‘But maybe that’s not so surprising.’

  Hannah put her hand to his face, frowning, and traced the gaping gash the Wolf had drawn down the side of it. Seth watched her, eyes silver and intent, and her fingers trembled as she pinched the edges of the cut together.

  She seemed to have lost the knack. Cursing, she lost her concentration and had to begin again. When she drew back, the scar like messy amateur stitching, she was weak and weepy.

  She spat a curse. ‘Shut up. Stop looking at me. Shut up.’

  Seth went on looking at her, with a lot of amusement, but he put his hand to her face, wiping the tears with his thumb. ‘You’ll feel rubbish for a bit,’ he said comfortingly. ‘You’ve only just discovered it. It takes a lot out of you. You’ve had no practice.’

  Blinking hard, she shoved herself up and away from him. Leaning on Rory’s shoulder, Seth hauled himself up. He was white and shaking but he was on his feet. ‘We have to go,’ he said.

  ‘You need some rest,’ said Rory, staring at him.

  ‘Rory, I need rest and I need a shave and I need to hear what’s happened to you. I need Finn,’ he said a little desperately, and half to himself. ‘But you can’t always get what you need.’

  ‘Do you ever listen to a single word your son says?’

  For a second, Rory thought she was going to punch his father right in the face. Then Hannah’s fist unclenched, and she seized Seth’s shoulder and shoved him back to the ground.

  ‘He said. You need. A rest. Now shut your overworked gob. Nursey’s orders.’

  HANNAH

  ‘Gods’ sake,’ grumbled Seth. ‘We’re working against time here.’

  ‘And a fine lot of use you’d be to anyone in your state.’ I tucked my lighter back into my jeans pocket and poked more chocolate wrappers into the pile of sticks. The fire roared up; I never knew I was such a girl scout. ‘You start charging around like a maniac, your belly’ll open right back up.’

  ‘And how do you know?’

  ‘Stupid question.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘How would I know how I know?’

  ‘And why have you got a lighter?’

  ‘Another stupid question. I’ve given up anyway. You’re not well off for corner shops in fairyland. Oh for Christ’s sake, get closer to the fire. You’re freezing.’

  ‘Rory, is she this bossy all the time?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Get used to it. And I’m on her side. I haven’t forgiven you for nearly getting yourself killed. Deliberately.’

  ‘Well,’ said Seth huffily, ‘I wasn’t about to let him murder Hannah. If there was an afterlife, my brother wouldn’t let me live to enjoy it.’

  My guts twisted with guilt, so ‘We can move on,’ I said sweetly, ‘when you start talking sense.’

  ‘Oh, you’re welcome. Don’t mention it. Ow.’

  ‘Well, sit still! I don’t know how you expect me to fix you when you keep fidgeting.’ I shut one eye and chewed my lip as I tried to re-fix his slashed face. I’d already had to open it up again twice.

  ‘I’m bored and my clann need me and I want to get going.’

  ‘Your clann would rather have you breathing. You big kid.’

  Really, he was still on a high. The pair of them were. Rory hadn’t stopped grinning since he’d heard Finn was still alive. Nothing to do with the fact that Eili wasn’t, or so I tried to tell myself.

  The big smirk was still on his face when he said, ‘Something I’ve got to say to you, Dad.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. Those things I said. I didn’t–’

  ‘Sod that. I didn’t believe a word of it.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure. I mean, if we still had any kind of a connection–’

  Rory crumpled another piece of paper and dropped it onto the fire, and when he looked up I realised for the first time that his smile was taut and hard and lethally cruel. Smile of a soul that doesn’t care any more, I thought out of nowhere, and I clamped my hand over my mouth.

  Rory cocked his head and smiled at me. Just for a moment, he reminded me of Eili, and I’d rather have seen him weep.

  ‘Kate’s cut us,’ he told me. ‘She’s split us. I can’t See him and he can’t See me. Which brings me to what I was going to say.’

  Seth lifted his head, shocked. ‘Don’t–’

  ‘So I’m claiming her.’ Rory folded his arms. ‘I’ll kill Kate for you, Murlainn.’

  ‘Laochan, don’t say–’ Seth’s voice dried.

  ‘Too late. For what she’s done to us, Murlainn? She’s mine. Hannah’s my witness.’

  Seth’s lips parted, but he couldn’t speak for a long moment. Then he rubbed his hands across his face.

  ‘Success at last, boy. We’ve made a killer of you.’ There was acid regret in his voice. ‘And nothing has made me sadder in my life.’

  ‘I’ll live, won’t I?’ Rory stood up. ‘I’ll go and get some more wood.’

  ‘I’ll be finished in a minute...’ I began.

  ‘I said I’ll get more wood.’ He set off at a jog across the slope.

  I unpicked a bit of the sealed flesh on the arm-wound; no need really, but Seth was tough, and I was glad to have something to do in the silence.

  ‘Tell me about Eili,’ I blurted at last. Anything to take his mind off his son.

  ‘What about her?’ he snapped.

  ‘Okay. Thing is, I know she didn’t like me. I know it was all about my father. She was using me. But…’ I took a breath. ‘She loved my father, didn’t she? I mean, to the point of lunacy. And I suppose he loved her.’

  ‘More than his own life. She wasn’t always like – like that. Ow.’ He winced. ‘Anyway, I think she did like you. You were a part of him, but that wasn’t all of it. You’re a healer. Maybe she sensed it. You’re a lot like her.’

  ‘God help me.’

  He gave a low laugh. ‘Eili would have shoved that big tosser over the cliff too.’

  I blushed. ‘I didn’t know I was going to do that, I swear. But I’m still glad I did it.’

  ‘Are you?’

  I let myself meet his eyes. I licked my lips. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Girl, you’re a Sithe to your marrow.’ He sighed and slumped back as I let his arm go. ‘I wish your father was around. He was better than most of us at staying human.’

  ‘I bet birds would suddenly appear every time he was near.’ I pinched his arm very lightly. ‘Say something horrible about him.’

  ‘Gladly.’ He gave me a twisted grin. ‘He’d a filthy temper. Used to beat the lights out of me when I was bad. Not just when I was ten, either. Make you feel better?’

  ‘No. You probably deserved it.’

  ‘Oh, sure. Always.’

  I shuffled back and put my arms round my knees. ‘And he was unfaithful, wasn’t he? Why did he sleep with my mother if he loved Eili so much?’

  ‘Oh, Hannah, I don’t know. We’re none of us very faithful. It’s not like that for us; we live an awful lot of years.’ He wrinkled his battered nose. ‘Conal was away from Eili a decade at a time. He was the perfect gentle knight, so he was, but even a big boy scout like your father gets lonely. I did, and I don’t even like people very much.’

  I grinned at the tone of his voice. ‘You loved Rory’s mother, didn’t you? Everybody says so, even Finn. Conal couldn’t have loved my mother.’ I added sourly, ‘Believe me, he couldn’t.’

  ‘You must have, once. Even if you don’t remember. Maybe you
still do.’

  ‘Huh. You were right the first time, I don’t remember.’

  Seth sighed and let it go. ‘Yeah. Look, I’m sorry you didn’t know Conal but it wasn’t his decision. I’d stake my life on that. He’d never have left you if he’d known, he’d never have done what I did to Rory. He’d have stuck around and loved you, okay?’

  I wiped the back of my hand violently across my face. ‘I wish there was an afterlife so I could see him.’

  ‘Me too. But there isn’t. Hi Rory.’

  ‘Dad. Sorry.’

  He hadn’t brought any wood. He slumped down beside Seth.

  ‘I hope you don’t regret what you said, because it’s too late now. You’re buggered.’

  ‘No,’ said Rory. ‘I don’t. We should go.’

  Seth flicked his hair, just catching his scalp enough to make Rory wince. ‘Glad you’re back. Wouldn’t put it past you to go through the Veil without us. You had that look on your face. Tell me something.’ Seth batted my hand away. ‘Hannah, that’s just a bruise. Leave me, I’m fine. Rory, why isn’t the world full of holes where you’ve torn it?’

  Rory shrugged. ‘I seal them up.’

  ‘You do?’ Seth looked startled.

  ‘Course I do. And if I don’t bother, which I usually don’t, they heal by themselves.

  I could almost see the cogs turning in Seth’s head.

  Rory made a face. ‘Now if I knew what else to do with it, we’d be laughing.’

  ‘Oh, snap out of that.’ Seth stood up too sharply, and staggered. ‘You’re not the only one.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Rory kicked earth violently over the dying fire.

  ‘Listen, I ached to be dun Captain. Soon as I had it, I knew it was beyond me. I don’t know where to start any more than you do, but I’ve had to. And I’ll have to finish it, because I haven’t got a choice. There’s no-one else to do it. And it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference that it’s a lost cause.’

  ‘Stop it!’ I snapped. ‘Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help. Or you!’ I aimed the last bit at Rory.

  I expected Seth to bite my head off. Instead he hooted with laughter.

  ‘Hear her, Laochan? She’s right, but so am I. Hannah, it’s been a lost cause since we lost your father. Doesn’t mean I’m giving up.’ Turning away, Seth limped towards the slope. ‘Lost or not, it’s a cause worth fighting for. And if there was nothing worth fighting for, there’d be nothing worth living for. Life wouldn’t be worth living by bloody definition. So do what you can and stop agonising, right? And if you’ll keep your girlfriend at bay, we need to go home.’

  He took the slope at a limping run, the idiot. ‘Slow down,’ I yelled.

  Hesitating, Seth glanced over his shoulder and jerked his thumb towards the sheerest part of the cliff. ‘You think he’s dead?’

  ‘Well, I was kind of assuming he was.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I did, a lot of centuries ago. I’m not jumping to any conclusions now.’

  Fine; that got me moving.

  I took a lot longer getting back down the hill than Seth or Rory, though Seth was a wreck and Rory looked as if he expected to have to catch him any minute when he fell. They waited impatiently, watching me slide backwards on my stomach, eyes shut tight, hands clutching the grass white-knuckled. Ten metres above them I stopped. I could not move another inch.

  ‘What’s with you?’ Seth called up crossly.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I snapped.

  My eyes were shut, but I could hear Rory muttering to his father, then a brief argument, and then I heard Seth climb doggedly back up the slope. Sod him, I would not feel guilty. I hadn’t asked him to come.

  He slumped beside me, wincing, and untwisted my fingers from a clump of heather. ‘This figures.’

  ‘What figures?’ I glared sidelong at him.

  ‘Your father was scared of heights too.’ There was a note of satisfaction in his voice.

  ‘I’m not scared.’

  ‘Lucky girl. I was scared the last few days.’

  I scowled. There was a good chance he was taking the mickey and I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. ‘Well, I’m not.’

  ‘That’s good, very good.’ He squeezed my fingers. ‘You won’t have any call to be brave.’

  He didn’t let go of my hand, though, sliding down alongside me till I was on completely flat ground. Then he yanked me to my feet.

  ‘Don’t let me rush you, Hannah. We’ve only got a world to save.’

  RORY

  The black horse came back first. I told my father I’d only call it if he rode it himself, but I might as well have told the mountains to squat down and let us walk over.

  ‘I’ve got my own.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? How are you going to get him back?’

  ‘Just call Finn’s.’

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that the black cantered into sight before we’d walked three miles. When it was called, it found a way, and fast. The kelpies knew the watergates better than we did, my father pointed out, even if they couldn’t climb down a cliff to reach one underground.

  The black hooked its head fondly over my shoulder and whickered right in my ear, pacing alongside us. ‘I still wish you’d get on it,’ I said. ‘You need a ride more than I do.’

  Seth pointed at a car ahead of us, slewed across the end of the pitted track. ‘There’s mine. Or it will be soon.’ He swung open the driver’s side door and released the boot lock. I stared as he hefted the spare tyre with a gasp of pain, then reached into the hollow where it had lain, and drew out his bridle.

  ‘When did you put that there?’ said Hannah. She looked pale and suspicious and a little bit sick.

  My father didn’t look at her. ‘When I got shot of the horse. At Tornashee.’

  ‘You needn’t feel bad,’ I muttered to her. ‘It was his choice.’

  ‘Bit of a gamble, choosing which car,’ said Seth. ‘But I thought he’d like this one. If he’d gone for the motorbike I’d have been in trouble. But that was unlikely with me in tow, and I planned to be in tow pretty fast. Oh, knock it off,’ he growled at Hannah. ‘I told you I wouldn’t let you die. But it wasn’t you I owed. So wipe that guilty look off your face.’

  She rolled her eyes at me. ‘He’s got a lovely way with a sentiment.’ There was a tiny catch there in her voice, though.

  ‘So anyway, I hid the bridle before I went into the house. Had to leave my sword in a shed at Tornashee, but we’ll cross that rickety bridge when… ah!’

  The black horse lifted its head and gave a screaming whinny of excitement, and a second later we heard the thunder of hooves. The blue roan looked as happy as a week-old foal in a clover field. It scrabbled to a halt, canting sideways so that it nearly knocked Seth flying, whinnying with crazy delight as it hooked its head over his shoulder.

  My father wrapped his arms round its neck and buried his face in its warm pearly skin. ‘Hello, my love.’ His voice was muffled. ‘Did you really stay so close? You didn’t even wait for me to call, you lovely big bastard.’

  ‘See?’ Hannah nudged me. ‘Deeply emotional turn of phrase.’

  My father’s turns of phrase were getting a lot more emotional, not to mention obscene, by the time we’d put enough miles behind us. Any breaks he allowed us for food or rest seemed to be over before they began, and I didn’t dare ask Hannah how much her backside hurt. She wasn’t used to so much riding at all, let alone the bareback kind, and her only escape was in fitful dozes that never lasted long.

  I couldn’t blame Seth for his urgency. It was a day and a night before we saw the western islands above the blue line of the sea, and I knew that in his head he was measuring the damage that might be done to his clann in that time. Besides, the time could be longer than we knew; I’d heard the tales as often as any Sithe, the horror stories about what happened when the time warped and the years slipped lethally out of sync. My father had once had a bad experience.

  That was all
I knew, of course. He didn’t ever talk about it, not even on that endless hard ride through the eternally shadowed hill passes and along rivers, down stony gullies where the horses almost had to slide on their haunches. He didn’t ever go into the details and I didn’t expect it now, not even when he let us stop, let us eat, let us snatch a twenty minutes’ sleep in the very darkest hours on offer.

  But I knew, all the same. I knew, despite Kate and her vicious severing spell. I knew he was thinking about time, and the capriciousness of it, and I knew the fear twisted in his belly like a spear.

  HANNAH

  My arse was never going to be the same. By the time we’d ridden as far westwards as we could, I was sure it had worn down to nothing more than a scrawny jut of stripped bone. Still, I couldn’t possibly be as tired as I felt. I kept slapping myself awake because I was too vain to drool on the back of Rory’s t-shirt.

  At first, where the land ran out, the gouge in the coastline was only a shadow, a line in the earth; but abruptly, as Seth reined in the roan, emptiness opened in front of us, and I thought it would swallow us all.

  I leaned over Rory’s shoulder, suspicious. ‘This isn’t where the dun is. It’s nothing like it.’

  ‘No. I can’t get through at the dun,’ he said. ‘Told you. It’s a fortress.’

  Seth stroked the roan’s neck. ‘Must have seemed sensible to the witches who wove the Veil, but it was a bit stupid in retrospect. It’s the same as anything: a curtain, a fishing net, a spider web. You weave it tighter in one place, it’ll rip in another. It has to give somewhere, it’s elementary physics. That’s why the damn thing’s falling apart.’ Seth blew out a sigh. ‘And Kate will have the dun surrounded. We haven’t a hope in hell of getting through.’

  ‘So, uh... you’ve brought us where?’

  Fifty metres below us lay a sea loch, a bolt of wrinkled blue silk. And only a mile or more beyond that water did the land begin again. With some trepidation I slid off the black’s back. I could barely walk, and I knew I was shaking, and Rory clasped his hand around my wrist. I managed a couple of nervous steps.