Belle shook out her dark waves and rolled her shoulders. She looked younger suddenly. ‘Sometimes it takes a name to bring order to disarray.’ She held up her glass. ‘Now we have you to fight for us. Cheers.’
“Cheers,’ said Ava and Isis.
‘Skol,’ I said, and took a sip. ‘Here’s hoping that I won’t have to lead a rebellion from prison.’
Belle slipped her hand around Isis’s waist and pulled her close. ‘We all hope that. Is it true the Tuscan vampire is representing you?’
‘Michele De Laurentis. Yes. My coven is committed to justice.’
Belle and Isis exchanged a sceptical glance. ‘Be cautious with whom you trust, Theo,’ said Belle. ‘The Italians consider this a bloodfeud. They keep two of our kind hostage to keep us at bay – and out of their plans.’
A long shiver slithered down my spine. ‘The servants,’ I whispered.
‘The nephews of Magna Helen and Magnus Eagal.’ Isis smacked her full lips together and fiddled with the top button on her navy dress. ‘Release them to us, Theo – a sign of good will.’
Penny told me they have no family. She lied.
‘They’re Enthraled,’ I said. ‘I can’t undo that magic without risking their minds.’
‘You lead the coven, don’t you?’ Isis pressed. ‘Command—’
‘Malachi is not a warlock. He hasn’t sworn a single oath to me.’ I knocked back the champagne and nudged Ava, who drank the crisp, bubbly liquid, her glass joining mine on the counter. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ I said, aware of the sharp edge to my voice. I didn’t like feeling cornered. ‘Make sure your people are ready to mobilise.’
Belle nodded as I took Ava’s hand, ready to go. ‘I’m on the jury, Theo. You will have allies in the court. Not as many as we hoped, but some.’
I didn’t tell her I was counting on Michele to work his own brand of magic and get the charges dropped. I also didn’t tell her that even if I was found guilty, I had no intention of going to prison.
Even if that meant revealing myself. Penny was right about one thing; the time to end Akhen’s reign had come.
After stepping out onto the cobbled streets of the Old Town, we spotted Grace and violin Stuart again, this time waiting in line at a swish Italian restaurant. ‘Fancy crashing their date?’
‘Let me guess,’ laughed Ava, ‘you’re hungry?’
I kissed her hard on the mouth. ‘Starving.’
Arm-in-arm, we crossed the street and crept up on the couple, bathed in the warm glow emanating from the restaurant. They both looked faintly relieved we’d interrupted their awkward silence; Stuart took his hands out of his pockets to shake my hand and Grace’s leather jacket crinkled as she cuddled Ava. ‘Double date?’
Grace shrugged and waggled her eyebrows. Stuart smiled at her. ‘Why not?’ they said.
We ate well, soon lost in laughter and excruciating stories of live performances gone wrong. It turned out that Stuart wasn’t so bashful after a few drinks, and it made a change to relax like this, without witches and spells and revolutions. I smelt the spicy scent of Pneuma in the restaurant that night, and on occasion, a stranger nodded from across the room, but I soon forgot, devouring spaghetti to rival Maria’s, along with half of Ava’s calzone. Grace eyed me with disgust. ‘Good genetics,’ I said.
‘You never told me he was such a pig,’ she accused Ava.
‘Hey!’ I protested. ‘I always thought myself more a horse.’
‘You mean a stallion,’ said Ava, giving me a tiresome glance.
I gripped her leg. ‘See? She knows.’
Stuart stared at Grace with hungry eyes. ‘At least you’re not a vampire like that Lorenzo,’ Grace said, and Ava and I almost choked. ‘He sucked me dry, emotionally, you know? I’m never doing that to myself again.’ She patted Stuart’s hand. ‘I need someone more stable.’
‘Stable!’ I snorted. Blank faces. ‘Stallion? Stable? Oh, never mind.’
The visions left Ava alone for the remainder of the evening. Perhaps Frigg decided she’d done enough for that day, though I was peeved she’d gone off like that with a woman she hardly knew. What if it had been a trick?
‘Life is risk,’ she said, as we walked to the taxi rank. I was far too drunk to attempt reverse astral projection with Ava in tow, and I wanted be alone with her for longer. Our driver took us around the outskirts of Hellingstead Hall and I felt a stabbing pain in my heart as I peered out of the window, picking out the floodlights burning the shadows from the driveway. I longed to take Ava there, to reclaim it on behalf of our lost childhood, but I couldn’t.
We went to her cottage instead. Lolita was huddled up on the sofa in her pyjamas, asleep with a remote control in her hand, Tina curled up at her feet. Ava covered her with a blanket and we retreated upstairs. Our giggles became quick kisses, and these slowed, deepened. Hands, buttons, clasps, the tumble onto the bed. Her skin was supple and smooth as I moved over it, exploring each peak, and the valley of her neck. Summer heat mingled with our passion, the darkness cloaking the senses and numbing the mind. Two animals, twisted in the sheets.
‘If that’s how heathens do it,’ Ava said, after we fell away from one another, ‘I think I’m converting.’
I laughed. It rumbled in my chest and filled the room, and it felt like all my Viking ancestors were laughing with me. I held her hand and slept.
34
A World Within You
Lorenzo awoke in the setting sun, the birds’ bedtime calls coarse compared to the tune in his heart. He lifted his arm and gazed at the glitter Raphael had left upon his skin. The boy, the Elder, the sprite, the cosmos itself – smiling up at him.
If Raphael shed stardust, his blood was the star’s fiery core.
Oh, so delicious. Lorenzo laughed, and his laughter patterned the air. He ran his fingers through it, and his senses wrapped up within each other, just as he lay entwined with his lover.
Bright sparks danced over the vines. ‘Are those fairies?’ Lorenzo asked, and the question itself had an aroma, like a daffodil.
‘A common misconception,’ said Raphael – or a butterfly, or the wind – Lorenzo wasn’t sure. ‘Those sparks are the vine’s thoughts.’
Of course, it made total sense. How hadn’t he clocked that before? Mmmm…was he floating now? The sky seemed touching distance away. He leaned to the side and pulled something from his leather jacket.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a necklace I bought in Alfheim.’ The deep pink-and-blue, scalloped seashells glowed in the sunlight like a torch under a nail. He fastened it around Raphael’s neck. ‘A present for you,’ he said, lingering on the soft flesh, that tender cleft under the sprite’s chin. ‘Nikolaj suggested the merchant at Goldenstone Market saw me coming a mile away.’
‘Thank you.’ Raphael lifted the shell necklace to his straight nose and inhaled. ‘I miss Alfheim,’ he whispered.
‘You’ve been there?’
‘Oh yes. The Fae hosted me for many years.’
‘When—’
Ah, so hard not to bite the finger that hushed him. ‘Lorenzo?’ Raphael kissed his cheek. His body hummed. ‘Did my blood help you remember what happened?’
‘No.’ It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this connection, as if Raphael had plugged him back into life’s main circuit. The current flowed from his veins, fizzing over his bones, sewing together the fractured pieces of his soul. ‘Unicorns, rainbows, oh, the flowers everywhere.’
Oh God, this was so much better than the time he and Jean-Ashley had tried acid. That had been a car crash. This was sublime.
Raphael giggled, and Lorenzo’s bliss supernovaed.
This boy, he was the world.
35
Countdown
The next morning Menelaus woke us from our steamy slumber, hammering on the door. I dashed downstairs in just my underwear, Ava rushing behind as she slipped on a silky dressing-grown that narrowly covered her bottom. ‘Odin, Thor—’
‘It
’s important.’ He eyed Ava and cleared his throat. ‘Sorry to disturb you.’
‘Come in, Menelaus,’ Ava said, ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
He didn’t wait for tea to tell me what he’d seen. While Ava and I had been rolling around in bed, Menelaus had been tracking Malachi and Penny into the Mendips. ‘Lorenzo wasn’t with them. He was in the bell tower when I left.’
‘But the other night, when he went missing,’ I said, puzzling it out, ‘he could have been with them.’ Like the Hellingstead Hair Raids, I thought. ‘He never remembers.’
Menelaus grimaced as he guzzled the mug of tea Ava gave him. He looked exhausted, the skin beneath his eyes bruised purple. He didn’t smell so good either. ‘I wasn’t sure where you were,’ he said, ‘so I came here first. Don’t really want to face them.’ He stretched and yawned. ‘Another thing. Penny and Malachi were pretty friendly last night, if you catch my drift?’
‘No way!’
‘Seriously?’ Ava chimed in. ‘But they always seem like they hate each other.’
‘Love and hate.’ Menelaus shrugged. ‘Fine line.’ He looked at me for a little too long.
Ava went to get dressed and Menelaus left, after I assured him I’d look into it. I was certain the killings had something to do with the spell Penny was planning – the one I supported, in theory.
But she had lied to me repeatedly, about what she was willing to do, about not acting without my approval. The Thor’s hammer pendant I’d given her felt like a mockery; I had no authority over those witches – not really. Their plans were set long before I was in the picture.
Ava was brushing out her hair when I surfaced from the bathroom. ‘I need to make a potion,’ I said, ‘for Penny. In case she proves impossible to stop.’
Ava frowned as she tugged at a knot. ‘Oh, and I have some Fae-dust for you,’ I added, summoning the little silver case from where I’d stashed it in the attic. ‘Keep it with you at all times. If someone attacks you, throw it at them.’
‘And what? Say hocus pocus?’
‘Hope for the best.’ She ran her fingers over the lid but I stopped her before she could open it. ‘I wouldn’t, don’t want to inhale it. Magical hay fever is a bitch, so Uncle Nikolaj once said.’
I held her, touching up the barrier spell I had placed on her vanilla skin, back when Malachi had threatened her when she’d shown up for a party at the Old Vicarage – the first time I’d spoken to her in eleven years. ‘I must go and check on the coven and Lorenzo. And feed Fenrir.’
We kissed goodbye, and I held her in my arms for a moment, nose buried in her hair.
When I returned to the vicarage, Malachi was waiting below the attic stairs. ‘Clemensen,’ he snarled, ‘where’s Lorenzo?’
I poked my head through the trapdoor. ‘Do you miss him?’ I said, flashing an innocent smile. ‘I guess slaughtering people just isn’t the same without him, hey?’
Malachi glared, honey-eyes murderous. ‘Whatever do you mean, warlock?’ Out slid his eerily long fangs. ‘These canines have been good little puppies.’
Fenrir growled from beside my ear. Then he licked it. ‘So you weren’t on Black Down last night, sending three men to Hel, and necking Penny?’
His snarl froze right on his smug face. If he wasn’t so pale, I’m sure the blood would’ve drained out too. I thought he’d attack, scream; he crouched slightly, curling in his fingers, a vampire reflex. Then he laughed, straightened, and folded his arms. ‘I believe I have the right to remain silent,’ he said, his tone mocking.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘be that as it may, I have some demands in return for my silence, chum.’
He seemed a lump of stone. ‘Fight me like a man,’ he said at last, ‘instead of hiding behind your spells.’
I scoffed. ‘Men die. Warlocks, not so much.’
‘Funny, in my experience warlocks contain blood and guts like all the rest. I’ll concede, however, that they are tastier.’ He licked his lips, his nose twitching with mischief. For a moment, I actually considered liking the bastard.
I lowered the attic steps though he didn’t need it, a symbolic gesture in our little game. Fenrir bit at Malachi’s heels as he barged into the attic. ‘Like what I’ve done to the place?’ I asked, shooting a bolt at Malachi’s hand as he made to shove Fenrir away.
He hissed. ‘A bit twee for my liking,’ he said, shaking it out.
I shrugged. ‘We all have different tastes.’
‘Mine span the rainbow.’ He smirked, his threat clear.
‘Don’t mention Ava. We keep this between us.’
He stalked around the room, avoiding the sunlight pooling around the attic windows. ‘Who is your source?’ he asked.
‘I don’t trust you, vampire. That is source enough.’
‘Like that, is it?’ He seemed vaguely disappointed. ‘Name your price,’ he said.
I stood in the sunlight, enjoying its natural barrier of protection. This had unsettled him and I was sure he was unused to bargaining. He needed what Menelaus had witnessed kept a secret, for whatever reason, and that included his relationship with Penny.
Penny, who’d always shot those lustful glances my way. Is that why he disliked me so much? ‘I’m not raising a single soldier from the Underworld, no matter my fate, if you kill anyone else, or associate with Lorenzo in any way before the trial is over, got that?’
Despite the fury flushing his neck, he nodded. ‘Doable.’
‘Swear it.’
He held up his right hand. ‘I swear it on Loki himself.’
That there, those very words, should’ve warned me what was coming, but hindsight alone grants reliable wisdom. ‘Good,’ I said. ‘One last thing.’
‘What?’ he grunted.
‘Remove the Enthralment from the hostages. I will escort them safely back to their families.’
‘Hostages?’ he said. I folded my arms. ‘My, you are a nosy warlock, aren’t you? And here I was thinking you were as ditzy and gullible as Auntie Elspeth.’
It took all my self-control not to yank him into that sunlight. I wish I had. ‘Dismissed,’ I said, throwing my palms forward. The attic door swung open, and Malachi went sailing on the current of magic, tumbling helplessly downstairs. Fenrir yapped and wagged his tale, his claws a pitter-patter against the floor.
‘You like a little magic, do you, boy?’ He scampered over to me and I heaved him up into my arms. ‘You must be my power animal,’ I mused, ‘sent to me by the gods.’ He nuzzled my neck with his wet nose. ‘Yes, definitely. You smell like something from another realm.’
I felt a pang for my uncle. He’d been a great Sarrow warrior once, back in his own land. You should be here for this fight, Onkel.
One week until my trial, and it flew by. After I debriefed the poor servants, I delivered them to a delighted Belle and Isis. Ava frequented the shop, giving readings, and we caught up in the evenings to eat and make love, and remember that we were young and should be happy.
We also attended another meeting with the Pneuma, hashing out the possible outcomes and, after some quarrelling, putting them in touch with my father. I avoided Hellingstead Hall, striving to forget the pain the mere sight of it conjured, but that Hamstone manor was in my blood, my family’s magic smeared across its boundaries and enriching the soil. The amulet was also there.
Lorenzo hardly left the bell tower. I caught him feeding on Raphael twice; I didn’t exactly knock before entering. They seemed blissful, at peace, entangled in each other’s arms. Despite the dread building in my chest – the foreboding – I was happy for them.
That dread increased when Ava said that her readings centred on the disturbing dreams plaguing the people of Hellingstead, young and old, Pneuma and sapien alike. ‘It’s like something’s in the water,’ she said. We’d been watching the local news with Lolita – who had recovered from Frigg’s possession, although she spoke little – when the newsreader reported a spike in admissions to Hellingstead Hospital’s psychiatric facility.
‘No wonder,’ Lolita said, shivering on the sofa.
In a vain attempt to distract ourselves, we ordered a curry that night, but the delivery guy just stared at me as I handed him the cash. ‘No charge for you, sir,’ he said, and retreated backwards through the picket fence, even though I’d never seen him before in my life.
‘It’s getting really weird out there,’ I said.
On Friday, I wrote a letter to my grandfather, Alastair, who I hadn’t seen since my mother’s funeral. It took hours to compose. As a child, I believed he hated me because I reminded him of Mum, and maybe that’s true, but I think he hated Espen more.
I am afraid, I wrote, after telling him about the trial, and I don’t know what the future holds. Maybe the Braecs and Clemensens should never have mixed, but you are always my kin. This solstice, I shall pray for my mother and aunt, and for you, Grandfather. The Norns of Fate have been unkind to us all, but I hope to change all that, with help from my cousin too. I had hesitated, wondering what he knew about Menelaus. May the light of the Nine Realms be with you. –Theo.
Sealing the envelope with magic-infused wax – a trick I’d learned from Father – I sent it through the ether to Alastair’s home, deep in the Highlands. Only he would be able to open it.
When I wasn’t with Ava I was with Michele, preparing for the trial and planning our defence. Father refused to let him inside Hellingstead Hall, but he secured a phone line so he could at least pump the prisoners for whatever intel they had. The old vampire wasn’t forthcoming about details, but by this point I trusted our aims coincided; although he wanted to raise the Hordes of Hel, this court case gave him a challenge to savour. He planned to embarrass the Praetoriani, using its own Codes to free its quarry – me.
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