‘Someone she knew as a lover?’ Sam asked.
‘Almost certainly. At least we know it wasn’t one of her lot, since he didn’t have blond hair and blue eyes.’
No, thought Sam. Dark hair and dark eyes put him in the younger set. One of my lot. So who would she know well enough not to suspect? Enough to love, even? But then, Freya’s loved so many. Even me, in her own quaint way. Prohibited love always had a certain attraction for her.
Privately Sam began listing Freya’s many lovers in his family. Primes – apart from me: Seth, Jehovah, Thor, Helios, Apollo. Seconds: Gawain, Jason, Mark. Two of whom are dead. Thirds: Rhys, Alrim, Saul. Numerous others who don’t know who it was they loved. And after that I lose touch. Shit, with that on my record – remembering the raven – no wonder I’m under surveillance. The only prime around with dark hair, dark eyes, a reputation for swordsmanship and a ruthless inclination towards survival. Seth and Jehovah have my colouring – but why would they kill Freya? Whereas I – I’m the ideal scapegoat. And even if I don’t have a motive, I’ve enough history for people to think they perceive one.
But I wasn’t there. I can prove it.
‘It’s a narrow field of suspects, but a hard one to search. Do we know where any of them are?’
‘Rhys, Alrim and Saul are all growing old, being third generation. One of them’s seventy and he’s already going grey.’ Adam gave a disregarding laugh, as though grey hair were something he only imagined. ‘As the surviving second, Mark is still under Jehovah’s firm wing.’
Sam swore. ‘That makes him about as accessible as opening a can of solid diamond with a Swiss army knife.’
‘There are others who fit the description, you know. I don’t have records on many of them. But there have been a few who’ve had it off with her.’
‘List them, then,’ Sam said abruptly. Hearing all those names duly recited, he felt sickened. He hated Adam’s crude turn of phrase even more; its injustice rankled. Freya was love, Freya was life. No one could be surprised that she’d had as a lover just about everyone who came near her. And the coward who’d killed her hadn’t even had the guts to use his own weapon, instead of dragon bone. Freya had trusted him, too. Freya had never learnt not to trust.
‘When’s the funeral?’
‘Tomorrow evening. Family’s wasting no time in getting her back up to Heaven. Her mother is furious.’
Sam rose to go, but Adam shot out his arm to restrain him. He didn’t actually touch Sam – he was too intimidated for that. ‘It’s a closed funeral. Old school only. Just the Valhalla bunch.’
Sam was silent as he slung the bag on his back. Turning to leave, he merely said, ‘You’ve been very helpful, Adamarus.’
The train journey to Devon was a long one. On such a short winter’s day Sam didn’t expect to arrive before nightfall. The carriage was full: tired-looking business people in suits, a noisy group of students, a mother and her two complaining children. Resisting the temptation to go first class and avoid the incessant whining of children, he sat facing the sunset and watched without seeing as the English landscape rushed past. Large wet fields between the thinning suburbs. The odd farmhouse, brick and timber, then stone, in which the lights burned early. Then the outrage of other cities, huge factories forcing billows of chemical smoke from their metal chimneys. The vast car parks by the stations, the large neighbouring Safeway’s and Tesco’s. The empty sidings. The burrows torn in the embankments by rabbits.
Sam saw all of this, but registered nothing. His mind was fixed on Freya, and his memories.
Close, were you?
I liked her, certainly.
He’d known her back in the old days; and that was how he’d always remember her. She carried a staff around which ivy coiled, and her long fair hair was crowned with more ivy that twined around her brow. The kindest and most beautiful of women, standing by a river singing her songs to a perfect world.
But when he met her afterwards, she wasn’t in that world, and neither was he. It was when the war raging in Heaven was at its worst. And if there was war in Heaven, whether between traditional combatants like Valhalla and Olympus or Elysium and Arcadia, or between such new and unexpected factions as Nirvana or Shangri-La, you could be sure of repercussions on Earth. Sometimes it was simply a matter of war in Heaven tapping the resources of Earth – weapons, manpower – in order to eliminate their enemies’ allies there as well as in Heaven itself. More often it was down to basic human empathy. Mortals’ awareness was tragically underdeveloped, but still they could sense it when the creatures of Heaven were fighting – the deaths of all those angels, avatars, valkyries and seraphim echoed back to Earth, and in their unconscious way the humans knew. And they also fought. It was infectious. Regrettably, too, what they lacked in Heavenly magic they made up for in sheer destructive ingenuity.
A siren was wailing. The streets were empty, save for rats running through the collapsed buildings. The sky was full of smoke and he could hear the rumble of planes and the distant thud of bombs.
Why had he come here? With the whole world to wander, why here? What was Sam Linnfer with his boyish smile, aka one Sebastian Teufel, doing in ruined Berlin at the height of the 1944 air raids?
He knew the answer already. He’d come because he needed to convince himself. He’d come because he’d seen what one country had done to so many millions of people, and wanted to reassure himself that this place was still human. He’d come because, after four years of fighting in France for the French, he’d seen the tables turn and felt bound to help the losing side. He’d come because, deep inside, some part of him that still wandered in that perfect world back in the good old times had known that this was just a shadow of the war in Heaven. It was his responsibility to lighten this shadow in whatever way he could.
The air raid receded and the people of Berlin began to come up out of their shelters. In scenes like these, not so long ago he’d helped dig bodies out from the ruins of homes in Dover and London, or kept injured people alive with a touch of his magic. Even if their sufferings weren’t due to him, they were the fault of his family and therefore a responsibility passed down to him. Helping these people was what he saw as duty. Sam had been neither born nor bred to this ideal. But, like several other human words, it helped justify actions prompted in him merely by impulse.
He came upon a crew of firefighters struggling before a burning ruin. They were trying to work their hose before the blaze caught the few nearby houses left intact. Sam stood across the road, gazing at the fire, his eyes distant. As he stared the flames seemed to shrink. Eventually there were just a few burning embers, which died as he clenched his fists. The whole process had taken him ten minutes of concentration.
Ten minutes of standing exposed and dumb.
‘Papers!’
A Brownshirt officer, uniformed, his shiny buttons silly in the ruined street. He was holding out his hand imperiously. Sam dug around and produced his papers. The man flicked through them, looking ready for a fight on any pretext. A single flaw in Sam’s documents, one look out of place, and Sam might be forced to get mythological. Which would be embarrassing.
But the papers, as Sam had known, were perfect. Unfortunately though, his look of dowdy submission was badly out of practice, and he peered at the Brownshirt with unabashed curiosity.
Sure enough, this made the man angry.
‘What are you doing here, just staring?’
‘I don’t have anywhere to go.’
Another voice. ‘You can come with me.’
The speaker was blonde, tall and wearing a long coat unscathed by any of the hardship around her. But this wasn’t what attracted Sam’s attention. He’d long ago learnt that outside appearance was only useful for mundane matters. Mostly what counted was the glow he might perceive on the inside. And here he was, seeing a prime in the same street, in the same town. He couldn’t quite believe it.
Freya had zapped the charm up to full voltage, and it quickly won out. Within a mi
nute she had taken the unresisting Sam by the arm and was dragging him down the street. ‘Where’s the nearest Portal?’ she asked quietly.
‘Bomb dropped on it last night.’
‘We’re in danger – not from humans. There are people here fighting another war.’
Sam felt his guts churn. ‘What are we talking about?’
‘There are five Firedancers on my trail. Now that Valhalla’s fallen, this was the only place I could think of where Firedancers stood a higher chance of dying than me… What are you doing here?’
‘I’m everywhere in this shadow world. Isn’t that the story? These Firedancers – has anyone bothered to send some after me?’
‘You don’t merit the attention. The battle is for Heaven, not Earth.’
There was the clatter of a roof tile falling. A sound common enough, but Sam’s head snapped up; Freya too looked quickly around. A shadow disappeared over a rooftop and suddenly they felt very alone. They were some way off now from the wail of fire engines, and the voices of people clambering out of their cellars to discover that everything they’d called their own was destroyed. Close by was a shattered railway station, carriages still at the platforms with all their glass blown out. A tape surrounding the skeletal building declared, ‘Danger – Unexploded Bomb’.
‘They’re in the station,’ whispered Sam.
‘They don’t know what you are. They’re on your territory now.’
He smiled wryly. ‘You expect me to be your knight errant?’
She put a hand up to her hair, fastened in a tight bun, and pulled from it a narrow stick. The bun stayed in place, supported by other means, but looking at the stick the word that came to Sam’s mind was: needle. Its end was gleaming and seemed very sharp. The thing was made out of a dark, dark metal, and he had a feeling it would be poisoned.
‘Will you?’ asked Freya softly.
He made a flicking movement with his right hand, and there was a slim, silver dagger in it. Another gesture and it was gone. ‘Why should I help you?’ he asked, eyes not leaving her face.
‘Because I’m not one of those who’s harmed you. Because you know that Firedancers are only used by the bad ones among us. Because it’s cowardice, sending Firedancers against a prime. Because no one from Family has spoken to you for far too long.’
Sam considered this. Of course, she could be trying very subtly to influence him with her unique power. But it was rare to be greeted with such open honesty, especially by anyone from his extensive family. For too long he’d not been spoken to in such a reasonable, friendly way by one of his own. He said, ‘Fair enough. Give me five minutes to get into the station.’
She nodded, breathless with anticipation. Though her face was taut and she held the needle tightly, poised to strike, her eyes were sick at what must be done. Sam, on the other hand, was already moving with cat-like determination. He had no qualms about killing Firedancers.
The train was passing over a river. Sam closed his eyes as the hills of now were lost in a flare of sunlight. The sky was pink, with brilliant shadows cast across the belly of the clouds. Back in that bombed-out station, he’d had no need to help Freya. But what made her special was that she’d not cared what the others had said. She’d taken him at face value, and listened to what he had to say. He’d been honoured to risk his life tor her. That was Freya’s magic, her greatest weapon. And she’d never realised how recklessly she wielded it.
The station had been deserted. Glass was sprayed across the platform and the fire crews hadn’t even begun a clear-up. Twisted metal hung down on all sides, like blackened and burnt lianas in a chaotic jungle. Not a soul moved.
Through a feat of climbing and guesswork Sam had found his way to what remained of a gantry overlooking the station. He heaved himself through a shattered window, landing with the faintest clang on the gantry’s metal platform below. It creaked ominously, and somewhere there was the thunk, thunk of bricks falling. But it held.
Edging along, dagger ready in his hand, he peered down into the main concourse, straining to find his adversaries. He pressed his back against the nearest wall and willed himself to hear them. Below, on a floor strewn with fallen tiles, a crater held an unexploded bomb counting the seconds until destiny.
Sam heard it. The faint thump of a boot on the gantry platform. Then he felt it, the faint tensing of metal beneath him as a foot was raised, fell, was raised again. Heading towards him. Five yards. Three. Two. In the shadows someone – or thing – had stopped less than a yard away, breathing fast.
Overhead, something else moved. Too late Sam cursed himself for a fool – Firedancers always attacked in twos. A lithe shape, masked in executioner’s red, swung from the torn rafters above and struck, his red feet impacting sharply with Sam’s chest and knocking him back. At the same moment his comrade whirled round the corner, gloved hands bright with fire. The flame sprang up around Sam and sought to burn him. As the second Firedancer landed neatly on the platform, which creaked in loud distress, Sam staggered to his feet, shaking himself like a dog to be rid of the fire. He emerged unscorched as it flew from him in drops. Both Firedancers struck at once, each lunging forward with a knife of white bone. But Sam was ready for them. Seeing dragon-bone death stab towards his throat, he raised his arms. Both knives exploded in their owners’ hands, turning in an instant to dust.
The Firedancers were unmoved. From a standing jump one leapt three feet into the air and grasped a beam above, swinging his legs to catch Sam’s exposed face. Just in time Sam ducked and twisted. With his back to the second Firedancer he knocked into the creature, ramming him towards the edge of the gantry. Again the metal platform creaked. Then trembled. But by now both Firedancers knew their game. As one struggled with Sam, trying to lock his arms and feet in place, the other delivered a ringing blow across his face, then another to the side of the head that sent Sam staggering.
Sparks seemed to fly across Sam’s eyes. Then he felt mortar dust crumbling on his fingers, and out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed metal bolts loose in their socket, which in turn strained against brickwork held together by little more than inertia. Willing himself to ignore his attackers he struck instead at the brickwork behind him. Part of the wall exploded outwards, clattered down a rooftop and bounced with a far-off sound into the street below.
It was enough. The socket popped loose, and the platform lurched violently to one side. For a sickening couple of seconds it paused, then slid a little way, and finally turned over and crashed on to the ticket hall below. It was a fall no Firedancer could survive. No man, neither.
At least, no human.
Sam had come to himself in an alien bed. He felt bruised all over and his right arm and leg tingled from newly regenerating. Pain coursed through most of his body. He tried to sit up, and instantly regretted it.
The next thing that struck him was the heat. And the flies – something else he didn’t associate with Berlin in the autumn.
‘Welcome back,’ said a cheerful voice. ‘That was a nasty selection of breaks you had to mend there.’
‘I’m out of practice with Firedancers,’ he said, feeling twice his lengthy age.
Freya hadn’t got off lightly either. There were lines down her bare arms where the Firedancers had managed to scorch her, and one side of her face was bright pink.
‘Where are we?’
‘Spain. I Waywalked us here.’
He nearly fell out of bed with surprise. ‘Through the Way of Heaven?’
‘Don’t worry, no one spotted you.’
‘That was extraordinarily stupid!’
‘I owed you. You killed their leader.’ Freya never seemed to take offence. Everything in her eyes was either light or dark. To her, a Daughter of Time and Love, even the blackest of blacks should be offered a second chance.
That was when the war in Heaven was at its worst. Eventually the Queens had intervened. The official Wives of Time – Love, War, Wisdom, Night, Day, Chaos, Order, Belief – had taken their warr
ing children in hand and drawn up treaties to guard the new borders. For a brief while there was peace in Heaven.
Peace which has been broken by the death of Freya. Only now did Sam feel the full impact of this. There would be feuds in Heaven, some of which would carry through to Earth, as these things always did. But what were the dangers these days, in this time of nuclear and bacterial warfare?
The more he thought, the more desperate he became to know what Freya had wanted to tell him.
It was late when Sam arrived in Holcombe. The village wore isolation like a protective cloak against a hostile world. The hedges in front of the whitewashed cottages were obsessively trimmed, and several homes had contrived to keep a thatched roof. On the one main street the few shops were in immaculate repair lest people gave up and went instead to Sainsbury’s and Boots in the nearby market town. Holcombe was a pensioners’ village – quaint, quiet and self-consciously remote. Every cottage had a name, and as the bus emptied outside the post office the driver wished at least half his passengers a goodnight, Mrs Walsham, goodbye Mrs Leigh. Sam felt that the village’s politeness too was an act of defiance against the outside world.
Waywalkers: Number 1 in Series Page 3