I’ll never be alone again. Not for a second. Somehow, the thought didn’t comfort me. But depression wasn’t my natural state. Compared to my father, I’m a bubbling ray of sunshine. He’d been different before my mother died, not so suspicious. But our secret is dangerous. Now I was that secret – that living cauldron of magic – I believed my mother paid for it with her life.
The thought was too painful. I got up and walked to the bay window – my favourite brooding spot – which overlooked a wild meadow at the front of the house. Beyond grass be-speckled with yellow buttercups and blossoming wildflowers, and the giant ash tree where I’d gotten my first broken wrist, lived normal people, doing normal things. Such as going on dates. Getting girlfriends. Heck, getting laid. Jobs. Money. Cars. Fun. So close. A zillion miles away – and drowned in the torrential rain caused by my magic. My beloved view was drifting away from me, lost on a sea of water.
A soft knock on the door. I turned as Uncle Nikolaj barged through, burdened with a tray of baked goods. ‘Good morning,’ he grinned, and I caught a waft of honey oatcakes as he approached. ‘You look like—’
‘Like I just died.’
‘Oh, it happens to all of us.’ He thrust the tray into my chest and tucked a long, blond strand behind his single, pointed ear. Uncle Nikolaj, I should explain, is half Elf. At around thirty, he’s not much older than me, but he’s been thirty for a – really – long time. I live with him and my father in the once medieval town of Hellingstead, in Somerset, but my father’s family hail from Norway originally.
‘You mean you were once the Gatekeeper of the Lífkelda too.’
Nik gestured to the array of baked treats, the golden oatcakes his signature. ‘Yes, so I know you’re starving. Eat. Sugar is perfect fuel.’
I bit into one and groaned as the sweet butter melted on my tongue. ‘Where’s Father?’ I asked.
‘In the library. He thought you needed space.’ Nikolaj flopped onto my bed and wagged his finger. ‘But your wise Uncle knows you need feeding. On that note, so do I.’ He closed his bright green eyes and frowned. I winced as static crackled against my hands as the tray vanished, reappearing on Nikolaj’s lap. By the time I reached the bed, he’d scoffed a flapjack.
‘Crumbs,’ I said, brushing down the duvet.
We ate together for a few moments, and I thought about how casually he’d just defied physics. Nik, being a Clemensen, was also half warlock, like me, though my father and I are full-blooded. A warlock, if you don’t know, is a male witch. The Clemensens are one family belonging to a sect of humans with extra abilities, who can use magic or are affected by it. We refer to each other as Pneuma, but those amongst us who have corrupted their gifts we call varmint, like vermin. I guess every society has its criminals – those who don’t care who they hurt.
The Clemensens are a powerful Pneuma clan, but I’m not talking about politics. Our ancestors drew strength from careful matches, breeding hard bodies able to manipulate a volatile cocktail of magic – a gauntlet passed to each generation. It wasn’t vanity that drove the improvements, it was necessity. The Clemensens’ survival meant everything. It still did.
‘Is this really a big deal?’ I said, breaking the silence. ‘I can’t believe that I can make any difference to the world.’ I pointed to the window. ‘I don’t feel like I’m causing that rain.’
Nik sighed, chucking a half-eaten biscuit back onto the tray, and scooted round to face me.
‘The earth may need us, Theo, but its climate suffers every time the next Clemensen takes up the Gatekeeper mantle. Earthquakes, flash floods, volcanic eruptions. We don’t cause these disasters. The Gatekeeper does. You’re not one and the same, it highjacks your body and soul until you provide it with a new host.’
I shivered.
‘But don’t feel bad, hey? When your father came of age at twenty-one, he caused an avalanche in his mountain village back in Norway. Espen likes to pretend he was on holiday in Scotland when he met your mother, but really, he was running away from his fate. It turned out your mother wanted to escape hers as well.’
‘So they settled in Somerset,’ I said. Nik nodded. ‘Did anyone die in that avalanche?’ I asked, as the rain hammered against the roof and windows. With all Hellingstead’s hills, valleys, and ancient drainage systems, the town was under siege because of me. I hope no one has been caught in a flash flood and drowned.
‘Espen never told me, but I heard rumours that a body was found.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
He patted me so hard on the back I almost choked on the remains of my third oatcake. ‘Whatever happens, Theo, promise me you won’t run away.’
I scoffed. ‘Unlikely. Father won’t even let me out of the house without a chaperone.’
‘What? You mean you don’t like hitting the town with your stylish uncle?’ His face crumpled in mock shock, and I rewarded his teasing with a punch in the arm.
‘When have we ever “hit the town”? Besides, our little town is soaked through. I’m staying on the second floor until I have Noah on speed-dial.’
‘Noah, nice chap.’
‘Come off it, Uncle, you may be pre-war, but you’re not that old.’
Nikolaj wiggled his eyebrows and pretended to count.
‘Stop it,’ I laughed, but again I remembered my ‘inheritance’ and the humour evaporated. ‘Why didn’t Father ever tell me? Why didn’t you tell me, Nik? Why keep my destiny a secret until it literally killed me?’ I struggled to keep the hostility from seeping into my words.
Nikolaj shot a longing look at the door. My uncle shied away from confrontation at the best of times, so I held onto his wrist as a warning not to scarper, and he sighed.
‘Theo, it wasn’t my job. I advised Espen to tell you sooner, but he refused. He argued that it was safer this way, in case the Guardians of the Praetoriani got to you before your birthday.’
‘So, you’re saying before, like two days ago, I was too young to be told? That patronising—’
Uncle Nik jabbed my arm. ‘Theo! Your father is a little…’
I jumped on his hesitation. ‘Paranoid, superior, hypocritical?’
‘Protective. Can you blame him after what happened to your mother?’
I glared at him. ‘Oh yeah, and what would that be? He hardly told me anything about the night she died.’
‘The details will do you no good. Suffice to say, Espen has cause to mistrust the Praetoriani.’
‘I blamed him for not bringing Mum back for years,’ I confessed. ‘I always wanted Father’s powers, so I could do it myself.’ My jaw tensed at the irony. Most boys idolise their father I guess, but mine could fizz in and out of rooms and summon the sun from the clouds. When I was a toddler and tried to run away from him, the grass would wrap around my ankles and bind me in place, preventing me from slipping into one of our many ornamental ponds. There was nothing he couldn’t do.
Except bring my mother back.
I’d dwelt in a family halved for eleven years, doubting this claim, as he toppled from the pedestal I had placed him on. I was sure if he’d tried hard enough, if he hadn’t been so paranoid about the Guardians watching our every move, Isobel Clemensen could return. Why, I’d asked him, couldn’t we resurrect her and run away back to our stronghold in Norway? Why, when he was so powerful, wouldn’t he tell those stupid Guardians to sod off?
‘Now you understand how dangerous that would be…’ Nikolaj said, breaking my reverie.
I shrugged. ‘I was a boy. I wanted his power. I didn’t understand the price.’ The price that, on my birthday, the Gatekeeper beast had left Father and slithered into me, granting my secret desire and taking away the freedom to chart my own destiny in one fell swoop.
Be careful what you wish for I guess.
My hand hovered over the library’s doorknob, the lion-knocker protruding from the polished wood with a gaping jaw.
‘Theodore.’ Father threw his voice like a ventriloquist, deceptively close, from inside the library.
>
I swear Hellingstead Hall is rigged with an automated alarm system, wired into his brain. Surely no one could be all-knowing, not even a Clemensen warlock.
After Nikolaj’s visit, I’d ventured from my sanctuary – my chambers, comprising a bedroom, a bathroom, and a reading room that overlooked the rear gardens, occupied the upper west-wing of the house – into Father’s domain.
I stepped inside, an immense conclave of texts greeting me with their inky hymns from bookcases that soared into the rafters, three floors high. Pockets of Tiffany reading lamps – a relic of a mother’s touch – bathed the library with a light as soft as candle flame.
Defying Father’s knowledge of my whereabouts, I shrank back, masking my face and coppery-golden hair in the groove of darkness to the side of the door. It was a pointless exercise. We both knew each other’s location.
‘Please, Father, drop the “Theodore”. It’s Theo,’ I said.
Bookshelves intersected the tapestried carpet dividing the library in half, carving out a private study in the left corner of the library, in front of the floor-to-ceiling mullion windows at the back. I stalked along the carpet, curving past the fireplace between the windows, and approached his monstrous mahogany desk. The matching chair could have been mistaken for a throne, wider and taller than him – and he was all legs, arms, and hewn muscle. It looked ridiculous.
‘What’s so terrible about the name your mother gave you?’ he huffed, adjusting his cloak over his shoulders.
He’d conditioned me into automatic obedience, so I stood at attention in front of his desk. Annoyed with myself, I slouched my broad shoulders, trying to act as disaffected as possible. ‘You have no consideration for my street cred.’
He thumped his fist against the wood, a rustle of paper shifting under the force of the blow. I flinched. His trademark smirk dented his cheek. ‘What does a Clemensen care about “street credit?’
I rolled my eyes into the back of my skull. ‘Credibility, Father, not “credit”. Have you never read that quote amongst your thousand books? No man is an island. Some of us need a social life.’
He continued as if I hadn’t replied, ‘The ancient clans of the North rule this hemisphere.’ Blah. ‘The hoi polloi of the supernatural world look to us for guidance.’ Blah. ‘Your name is entirely appropriate.’ Blah.
‘Only this hemisphere?’ I snorted. ‘And I think the proper term for them is the Pneuma, Dad.’
He hated it when I called him Dad. He prickled. I returned a pointed look. At last, his frown smoothed out. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
Just when I was on the verge of bashing him on the head with the heftiest book in the library, he went all soft and gooey and caring, and I was back in nappies, staring up at him with awestruck, googly eyes, craving his attention. I sighed and slid into the rickety old chair behind my knees. It was a joke compared to Father’s throne, but I guess he liked the not-so-subtle power play on the rare occasions we had visitors, and the even rarer occasions they were permitted into his study.
‘How do I feel? Like the plague has tag-teamed with influenza and mugged me.’ As I sat teetering on the wobbly legs, I realised how clammy my skin was, how many strands of curly, buttery hair stuck to the back of my neck. ‘I’m death warmed up.’
Father cringed.
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’ I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him waiting for me to come back to life, limp and cold in his arms. For a moment, he was alone in the world, separated from his wife and son. Oh, great. He hadn’t even said anything and he’d made me feel guilty again.
I swallowed hard, and feigning melancholy, moaned in a way only a son can to his father, dragging up classics from my teenage years such as ‘I’m so bored’ and ‘I have no life’ ending with a record that had gone platinum in my own head: ‘I need to get out of here, Father.’
A steady eyebrow rose. ‘Have you forgotten the storm clouds overhead? Where do you propose to go?’
‘There’s no point being as powerful as the Norse gods when you won’t even let me outside!’
‘Don’t raise your voice.’
‘Why not? Are the Guardians about to descend upon us like a nest of bats?’ I pointed theatrically up into the rafters. I recoiled as Father’s pen snapped in his bear-like hands, spilling ink over the papers on his desk, and on his nail-bitten fingers. It was those kinds of reactions that made me so suspicious. Why did the mere mention of them make him so angry?
A tide of unspoken words and confessions contorted his stern features. They smoothed out, a raging torrent slowly becoming a millpond. He cleaned himself with a napkin and acted as if nothing had happened. ‘Outside, hey? We have a perfectly good barn in the garden.’
I face-planted the desk, fingers twisting around my hair. ‘I’m kidding, Theodore… Theo. Go if you must. I hear the Red Hawk has an open mic night tomorrow. Why don’t you go along?’
I searched his sky-blue eyes. They had glittered once, a thousand iridescent shades, as Uncle Nikolaj’s had during his stint as the bearer of the world’s magic. I was stardust then, yet to be born. Now it was my turn to be the Gatekeeper of the Lífkelda, my eyes shimmered opal, as if I’d bought some of that stardust with me. ‘Really? Alone?’
He nodded. ‘You’re of age, why not?’
As tempting as it was to tie Father to his throne and examine him for the plague-flu combo, I dashed out with the swiftness of Hermod, the Norse messenger god. Permission for fun? I wasn’t about to hang around and let him retract a gem like that.
As the library door swung shut, I felt uneasy; our conversation had unravelled like a rug across a floor, and I’d walked blithely in the direction Father pointed me. My elation turned to confusion in the short journey back to my room. Who’d told him about the open mic night? Father stepped foot outside Hellingstead Hall about as often as he let people in – that is, he didn’t. Was it possible my brief death prompted him to put neuroticism to one side? Unlikely. I expected him to be more protective than ever.
Let it go, Theo. I smiled to myself. I’m gonna meet actual, normal people.
It did not work out that way.
I’d let my father and ridiculously old, Elven uncle dictate my style for too long. I would walk into the Red Hawk in a lush green cloak and silk tunic right about the time hell froze over.
I tried to ignore the fact I could probably make hell freeze over.
‘Hmm…’ I shoved my head into my vast, antique wardrobe, trying not to think too hard about Narnia, and pulled out reams of clothing, chucking the rejects onto the floorboards of my bedroom.
What would Mum tell me to wear? That feeling – that if I walked downstairs, I’d find her whipping up pancakes in the kitchen, her flaming red loops gathered on her head, strays framing her moss-green eyes and generous mouth – I could never shake. I still remembered her slender figure and the softness of her chest, the cushions upon which I’d wept and laughed. Even on an off day, Mum belonged with the fashionistas in a Paris boutique, or with movie stars sipping cappuccinos in the heart of Rome.
I didn’t stray far from silk, choosing an Italian shirt Nikolaj had sent to me after his last trip to Europe – of which he took many, and for apparently top-secret purposes. Black jeans and leather shoes completed the outfit.
I descended the grand entrance stairway, hand hovering over the bespoke bannister – my uncle’s handiwork – made from an ancient tree pillaged from Alfheim. Also known as the Summer-Lands, Alfheim was one of the Nine Realms supported by the great World Tree, Yggdrasil, and home to Elves and Fae.
I missed out the creaky steps, avoiding Father in case he retracted his permission slip before I left. His goodwill was fickle like that. But Father appeared by the heavy front door, his body knitting itself together out of atoms, conglomerating into a mass of familiar features and limbs. I had yet to master that skill – and that made it infuriating.
‘Who are you, my jailor? Move aside unless you want to be slain at sword po
int.’
‘More like a gatekeeper.’
‘Ex-Gatekeeper,’ I smirked.
He folded his arms as my uncle arrived at his side. Father was tall, but Nikolaj towered over him. High, amber-dusted cheekbones and deep, seaweed eyes betrayed inhuman ferocity common to his father’s Elvish race. Nikolaj had inherited one pointed ear from him, and it poked out from his glossy, straw-coloured hair, softening his otherwise severe features into something princely and playful. His other ear was more human – Clemensen in fact – although it peaked a little at the tip as if for symmetry’s sake.
‘Ha! Espen is an old dragon. All puff and no flame. I grant thee free passage, Nevø.’
‘I’ll avoid patricide then.’
‘A wise decision; you’ll never get blood out of that shirt.’
Father grabbed my arm as I attempted to slip between them. ‘Be back by midnight. And for the sake of Odin, Thor, and Freyr, take a decent raincoat and an umbrella.’
‘No need to invoke our gods, Father. How about I take the Jag instead? Even Cinderella needed her carriage, right?’
Father stalked off muttering to himself, but Uncle Nikolaj, bless him, slipped the keys into my pocket and shoved me out the door with a hearty pat on the back. I broke into a run through the rain, cowering under the hood of my coat, which was ridiculous because I was causing the rainfall. I reached the garage on the sweeping bend in the driveway and liberated the Jag.
Alone at last, I sped into the night. I tried to imagine going home in a few hours’ time but couldn’t. I didn’t want to. Later, when I looked back on that night, I realised it was the start of one long getaway. The warning sirens were there, flashing in my rear-view mirror as if in a high-speed police chase. Pursued by my demons, by genetic destiny, I drove.
2
The Red Hawk
Twilight clawed through solid cloud, ripping open rain-swelled bowels to spew over our already waterlogged town. The Jag glided downhill along Market Road and the easy motion brightened my mood. It wasn’t a coincidence that just then a swift gale drove the cloud-bank away, allowing the setting sun a brief chance before it was beat. Try not to be too chipper, Theo, otherwise you might cause a drought next.
The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten Page 2