Sixty-One Nails cotf-1

by Mike Shevdon

"I am not suggesting we trade one for the other. Your daughter's presence will tempt her away from your husband. Blood calls to blood, as I told you. At the moment when that becomes apparent, I will have the opportunity to distract her and we should be able to pull them both back without getting caught."

  "Who do you mean 'her'?" Claire asked.

  "Niall knows of whom I speak." I had been standing in the corner unnoticed, but now they all focused on me. "Niall has stood where your husband now stands."

  "Have you?" Claire asked.

  I realised, then, what Blackbird meant when she said Jerry was lost. I knew where he was. He was standing in the cold glade, bare feet prickled by pine needles, surrounded by a ring of thorns. He was listening to a voice as dry as dust, trapped there by a woman dressed all in grey, arms held open in a chilling embrace.

  "She won't let him go," I told them. "She'll leech the warmth from his bones until nothing remains."

  "I'll do it," said Deborah.

  "You will not!" Elizabeth snapped.

  "It's my choice. Isn't it?" she said to Blackbird.

  "Understand what you risk," Blackbird said to her. "If she touches you she can bind you there and we will have lost both of you."

  Elizabeth moved to stand next to her daughter. "I couldn't bear to lose both of you. I simply couldn't."

  "There's no one else, is there?" said Deborah. "If I can't bring him back, then no one can. He would do the same for me, whatever the risk. You know he would."

  Elizabeth shook her head, staring up into her daughter's face as if she couldn't believe the words were coming from her mouth. Then she turned away, still shaking her head. Claire stepped forwards, drawing Elizabeth away from the bed.

  "It's better than sitting here watching him waste away," Deborah said to her mother's back.

  "When I call him back," Blackbird explained to Deborah, "the one holding him will know it. She won't release him without a fight, so she will come to claim him back. She won't be able to materialise fully so she should be weak. When she appears, you distract her, make her see you. She will understand the tie of blood, and hopefully that will be enough for her to try and take you both. When she does, the ties on your father will be weak enough to break. If we can close the circle while her hold on him is weakened then we can break her hold on him before she can get her claws into you. Once her hold is broken, there's nothing to anchor her here. She won't be able to stay.

  "What if she doesn't want me?"

  "She's old, arrogant and greedy. Don't worry, she'll want you. Just don't let her touch you, understand?"

  Elizabeth stepped forward again. "Don't let her do this. Let me do it. I'm his wife. That should count for something."

  "It does, but it's not the same. If you do it then there's every chance she will go for your daughter anyway. Blood calls to blood. It always has and always will."

  "I must be able to do something."

  "Stick to the plan and we'll be fine. Distract your daughter at the wrong moment and you could lose your husband and your daughter forever." She turned to me. "Niall, can you pull the bed out from the wall a little?"

  I nodded and took the brakes off the bed so that it would wheel forward. Blackbird pulled the flowers unceremoniously from the vase on the side table and dumped them on the floor in the corner. Then she walked in a slow circle, dribbling water from the vase onto the floor but leaving a gap at the end of the bed.

  "This is the gap we have to close, once he's free. Stay in the circle. Don't let her tempt you out of it."

  "Do we have to be in the circle too?" Elizabeth indicated herself, Claire and I.

  "She won't notice you as long as you don't make any noise or touch any of us. You should be fine." She completed the partial circle and returned to stand next to Deborah.

  "Are you ready?" she asked her.

  Deborah looked at her mother and then back at Blackbird. "I'm ready."

  Blackbird dipped into her bag and produced a long thin spike of yellow bone. "Give me your hand."

  Deborah looked warily at the spike and then hesitantly offered her hand. Blackbird took it by the fleshy part at the base of the thumb and stabbed the point of the bone into the flesh of her thumb, eliciting a gasp of pain and a corresponding flinch from her mother. Blackbird screwed the bone into the thumb.

  "Shit!" Deborah hissed, trying to pull back the thumb, but Blackbird held it. She waited until the pain was livid on her face and then released her. She lifted Jerry's hand and pricked his thumb with the point, squeezing the thumb until the blood welled in a ruby drop.

  "There, now mix your blood with his so she won't fail to see the connection."

  Blood welled freely from Deborah's thumb, leaving a thin trail of drops across the cover as she reached to smear her own blood into that of her father's.

  This done, Blackbird took hold of Deborah's shoulders and steered her around to stand with her back to the doorway. Deborah stood there, sucking her thumb.

  Blackbird moved Elizabeth and Claire into the far corner of the room, away from her daughter. "Stay in the corners and keep calm and you'll get him back. Niall, the same applies to you. Don't attract her attention, understand?"

  I nodded, manoeuvring back into the other corner, away from the circle.

  "OK," she said, "are we all ready?" We all nodded in turn.

  Blackbird took the hand of the man on the bed and used the tip of her finger to wipe the welling blood from his thumb. She held up the finger and then slowly licked the blood from the tip.

  As soon as her tongue touched the blood, something changed. The lights began to flicker and buzz, filling the room with an uncertain green cast. Expectancy built in the air. I could taste copper in my mouth as if it had been me that licked the finger.

  Blackbird spoke, and the words sounded thick, as if the metallic taste of blood on her tongue made the words difficult to form.

  "By his blood I bind him,

  By his seed I summon him,

  By his flesh I find him,

  She who holds him,

  Accept the price of blood and pain,

  And let him find his way home."

  After each phrase, the temperature dropped until the room was as chill as an autumn dawn. The lights blinked, emitting greenish pulses that only served to deepen the shadows in the corners of the room. That last word – "home" – hung in the air, heavy with anticipation. It weighed in the room like a still pendulum, and then stirred. The sound of an indrawn breath brought everyone's attention to the figure on the bed. His chest rose and his eyes opened.

  "Jerry?" Elizabeth's voice held sudden hope and she tried to go to him, but Claire held her back. Blackbird's sudden shake of the head was filled with warning.

  "Beth?" His voice was hoarse after his long silence. It was as if he could hear her but not see her. His head moved and his eyes scanned across without seeing the figures around him.

  At the sound of his voice, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Another presence had entered the room. The lights dimmed further as a tall figure paled into visibility in front of us at the end of the bed, just beyond the opening in the circle.

  Swathed in grey, she stood, arms lifted wide apart. Her long hair shadowed her face, falling over the shoulders in a silvergrey mantle. The pleats in her gown fell to the floor so her dress draped the ground. Her head was bowed, as if in contemplation, her insubstantial form rippled in a breeze we did not feel. The room became still; not the heavy torpor that Blackbird had summoned but the brittle stiffness of hoarfrost under a starlit sky.

  Elizabeth backed into the corner, feeling, as I did, the chill waves coming from the figure, her expression showing sudden realisation at the cold force we had summoned. My hand found its way, unwittingly to the handle of the knife under my coat. There was a light crackling sound and I saw the water on the floor around the bed had frozen, forming a ring of milky frozen droplets.

  "Deborah?" Blackbird's voice was a whisper across the bed. "Let a little
of your blood fall upon the floor inside the circle."

  Deborah was transfixed by the woman. Slowly she drew her thumb from her mouth with a tiny sound, like a kiss. At the noise, the head of the ghostly woman lifted, scenting her. Deborah looked towards Blackbird, who nodded encouragement.

  She held out her thumb and the jagged gouge welled visibly again with blood. A single fat droplet fell and spattered on the tiles.

  The figure's head jerked across to focus on Deborah, who stepped back under the intensity of that gaze. The figure strengthened, coalescing, becoming more solid by the second. She allowed her arms to fall and the rustling of her gown gave her more substance. She stepped forwards towards the circle and, as she did, I saw that Blackbird had the vase held high, ready to dash it on the floor at the feet of the grey figure to seal the circle ahead of her.

  At the same moment, a shadow crossed the frosted glass of the door. Like the grey figure it became more solid until the bulky shape of Sam was outlined in the glass. He pushed the door open and leaned in.

  "There's something up with the power. They have an emergency generator, but– What the hell?"

  Deborah twisted around to warn him back but the words never reached her lips. The grey figure swept around the bed and grabbed her hair, jerking upwards so she cried out. Without thinking, I pulled the Dead Knife from my belt and launched myself forward, and stabbed it into the grey woman's back.

  There was a yell as Deborah was thrown backwards into the wall, bouncing off with a force that shook the room. Her feet skidded on the thin-crusted ice and she sprawled onto the floor. The grey figure whirled around, the force of it jerking the knife from my grasp and sending it skittering loose across the floor.

  "You!" The tall grey woman turned her attention to me, apparently unharmed by the knife. She reached towards me and I backed away, trying to evade her grasping fingers as she reached to catch hold of my jacket. She advanced, backing me into the corner.

  I slid down the wall trying to evade her. In the shadows of her hair I could see the feral gleam of her eyes and the white of her teeth as she realised she had me cornered.

  "Nowhere to run, little brother." Her voice was soft, her tone sure. She reached slowly down to my face as if to caress my cheek with her clawed nails.

  There was a crash from behind her. For a moment her smile stayed and then faltered. She whipped around to see the shards of the vase, the water from it sealing the circle behind her. Immediately, she started to fade. She knotted her hands in front of her face and let out an anguished cry, the scream of a predator denied the prey. It hung in the room as her form lost substance and dissolved. Sprawled in the corner, I watched the very last glimpse of her fade away. The room held its breath, waiting to see if she would return. The lights flickered and buzzed and the room blinked back to hospital brightness.

  "Beth?"

  The man on the bed was trying to sit up, weak but conscious and aware of those around him.

  Elizabeth went to rush forward and was held back once more by Claire, who looked to Blackbird for the all-clear. Blackbird nodded and she released her. She rushed around the bed to where Deborah was lifting herself stiffly from the floor. As she pulled herself to her feet, her mother reached her.

  "Are you hurt?"

  "I don't think so. Nothing's broken." Her voice sounded shaky and thin.

  "Deborah?" The man's voice was scratchy from disuse. "What are you doing under the bed? And what have you done to your hair?"

  "My hair?" Unconsciously, her hand went to the back of her head where her hair had been grabbed. It was drained of all colour, white as cotton and brittle as hay. As her hand pushed through it, the white fell away like ash, leaving only ragged tufts close to her head. She looked at the grey smudges on her fingers where her hair was powdering. Her hand began to shake.

  Elizabeth pulled her close, whispering, "It doesn't matter. You're safe, now." Deborah stared at the fine grey smudges on her hands. Elizabeth addressed Blackbird. "She is safe now, isn't she?"

  Blackbird nodded, releasing a long breath.

  In the doorway, Sam stepped fully into the room. "What happened? Where…?" He looked around the room, trying to make sense of what he'd seen.

  Blackbird walked around the splintered pottery and helped me up from the floor.

  "Did she touch you?" she asked.

  I shook my head, accepting her help.

  "I thought I told you not to attract her attention."

  "She was here, in this room. You said she would be weak."

  "Yes, I did say that, didn't I? It looks like the barrier's even closer to collapse than we thought."

  "Did anyone else see a woman in here?" Sam asked.

  Blackbird turned slowly towards him and then looked around the room with exaggerated care.

  "I think you'll find, Sam-who-keeps-secrets, that no one saw anything."

  He looked at Elizabeth, who was hugging her daughter while she tried to stop trembling. She shook her head. He looked at me and I shrugged. He turned to Claire.

  "Don't ask me, Sam. You won't like the answer." She looked at him levelly, daring him to push it.

  "What the hell happened in here?" he demanded. "The electricity was all over the place, she's lost half a head of hair, there's ice on the floor; look, it's still melting. What happened?"

  "I broke a vase," said Blackbird. "You'd better get a dustpan and brush before someone hurts themselves."

  I walked over to where Elizabeth was hugging Deborah and collected the knife from the floor, being careful to keep my body between the knife and Sam so he wouldn't see the blade darken at my touch, and I concealed it in my belt once more.

  "Is she going to be OK?" I asked Elizabeth.

  "Thanks to you. If you hadn't, well, I hate to think what might have happened."

  "What's the matter with you people? Can't you see this is all some sort of scam?" he demanded.

  "Make up your mind, Sam," said Blackbird, "Either it's a scam and nothing happened or there was something and you missed it. Which is it to be?"

  "You think you're clever, don't you?" He pointed his finger at Blackbird. Claire tried to get between them but he resisted her. "You think you can pull a fast one, but I know you're hiding something. I can smell it."

  "You're too smart for me," Blackbird confirmed. "You're right, we are hiding something. But even if it ran up behind you and bit you in the behind, you wouldn't recognise it for what it is. Go home, Sam."

  "Don't tell me what to do."

  "Sam, please?" Claire was trying to calm him down, but it only made him more angry.

  "I thought you wanted my help, Claire. I thought you wanted me here. Instead you're conspiring with this charlatan. What am I supposed to think?"

  "You're not supposed to think anything," she told him, "and I'm sorry now I even asked you here. Knowing the kind of work you do I thought you would understand, but you don't, do you? It's OK for you to have secrets but you can't bear it when anyone else does. It didn't work before, Sam, and I thought that was because you always put your work before me. But that's not it, is it? It's not your work. It's you."

  He stood there, shaking his head. "I thought I knew you."

  "No, Sam. You never tried to know me. Do as she says. Go home."

  He looked from one of us to the next, searching for some clue, ending finally back with Claire.

  "If I leave, I'm not coming back."

  "That's right, Sam. You're not."

  "Fine. If that's the way you want it." He turned back to the door, wrenched it open and stormed out, slamming it behind him so hard it made the glass rattle in the frame. In the silence that followed we could hear his footsteps fading down the corridor.

  Claire turned back to us, her stern expression fading, become hurt and vulnerable with the shock of what she'd done.

  Elizabeth stood. "Claire, I'm so sorry. This is all because of us."

  "No. It was over a long time ago between us. I just didn't have the guts to admit it.
" Her eyes watered, but she brushed away the tears with the back of her hand and straightened her jacket, turning to Jerry who was still looking gaunt and pale on the bed. She smiled weakly.

  "Will Jerry be all right now? Will that woman come back?" She addressed the question to Blackbird.

  "Thanks to Deborah, Jerry is safe for the moment. Get a good meal inside him and a night's rest and he'll be fine. He'll need his strength for the ceremony on Tuesday."

  "I don't need sleep," he said. "I feel like I've slept for a week already."

  "I'm not sure the doctor will discharge him by then," said Elizabeth. "They'll probably want to do some more tests."

  "He doesn't need tests. There's nothing wrong with him that food and rest won't remedy. But without the ceremony to reinforce the barrier, the woman who was here will be able to come and go as she pleases and there will be little any of us can do to prevent her. The way she sees it, she was denied what was rightfully hers and without the barrier, she will surely return to claim her prize. You saw how she came right into the room? That means the barrier is close to collapse."

  "What can we do?" Elizabeth asked.

  "We need the sixty-first nail. With that we can restore the Quick Knife to the ceremony and reinforce the barrier. If Jerry doesn't perform the ceremony this year, with the re-forged knife, then the barrier will fail."

  She looked at each of them in turn.

  "And now you know what happens if it does."

  TWENTY-FOUR

  We tidied up the room as best we could, replacing the bed against the wall and pushing the pieces of the broken vase into a pile before informing the medical staff that Jerry was awake. Deborah told the nurse that her father had smashed the vase when he had woke suddenly and she'd cut her thumb trying to remove a fragment from his. This explanation was received with a degree of scepticism and the nurse kept trying not to look at Deborah's hair, but in the absence of any other explanation she simply dressed both cuts.

  She took Jerry's blood pressure and measured his temperature, concluding that he'd awoken from a shallow coma and told us she would have one of the doctors come and give him a full examination.