I connected my phone to the car’s speakers, craving a background chorus to provide suitable levels of drama to my bid for freedom. Sometimes only Viking metal will do. I whistled along to tales of pillage and plunder, as the fir trees bordering my family’s estate ran at my windows, threatening to claw me back.
Suddenly, I was released from its clutches, sailing past the Old High Street with its cobbled pavements and atmospheric shops, a blur of sandy Hamstone and timber. When I was little, I called it ‘Rocky Road’ and was embarrassingly old when my parents convinced me that was a flavour of ice-cream. At least I didn’t get confused and call Piccadilly Circus ‘Little Pig in a Circus’ like…
Like…
Who? Who used to say that? I couldn’t remember. The tyres screeched round the final bend. Ahead, gleaming under gas-effect lighting, its fierce talons curling around the sign, a deep scarlet hawk swung violently in the wind.
The pub’s carpark was already crammed. I found an available – if slightly illegal – spot near an alleyway and followed the other patrons towards the noise of reverberating instruments. A group of us streamed together through the head-bangingly low doorway of the Red Hawk.
This place breathed magic. Nikolaj had told me it was owned by a witch-couple, not powerful, but fun and with good business sense to boot. They bathed the low ceilings in bursts of lamps and clever illuminations, made the seating comfortable, and the service instant and amicable. Every corner of the pub emanated laughter, as if someone had a tape of the canned variety hidden behind the bar.
Despite my fear that the crowd would turn and stare at my entrance, judging my worth, no one even noticed I was there. Just another body to add to the eclectic mix.
Friends, Pneuma, Countrymen. My nostrils flared as I surveyed the crowd. A lot of regular Johns and Janes milled about the pub, but the air also exuded a spicy scent unique to Pneuma. And where the Pneuma went, the varmint were sure to follow.
Energy seethed through my body, an electric current fizzling over the surface of my skin. I made a distracted attempt at controlling it. Since my birthday, each moment pulsed with unseen energy demanding to be expended. I wasn’t ready to unleash my full powers onto the world yet. I kind of liked the sight of grassy meadows and terra firma, and had no desire to build an ark to assuage my guilt for accidentally drowning everyone.
Constant fidgeting helped to disperse it. My teeth often chattered and I was fast becoming liable to tics. It made me wonder how the hell my father had hidden the physical symptoms of being the Gatekeeper from me for so long. It explained the obsessive restoration work of Hellingstead Hall he’d taken on using labour – not magic – and the three rounds of the estate he made every morning jogging. I had horrific visions of doing the same for the next twenty years, an ageing Espen watching on from the window in the library, nodding knowingly, Uncle Nikolaj still a perfect blond against my father’s greyed hair.
Maybe I’ll try meditation.
I arrived at the bar, nabbing a stool, and waved to catch the attention of one of the pretty barmaids. A Red Hawk logo branded her black shirt, drawing out the colour of her vibrant, ginger curls. Her bright blue eyes weren’t enough to keep my own from noticing her long legs, sleeked by tights.
Over the din of the live band in the far corner, I combined sign language and smiling flirtatiously to order a pint of Hawk Ale. They made it in-house on a conjoined property, and you could taste the magic fermented together with the hops, at least I could, considering I currently embodied the world’s only source of the stuff. Magic that is, not hops.
The barmaid, Grace – name-tag pinned exactly at breast level – winked at me before sailing off down the length of the bar like a captain taking the helm of her ship. I imagined her wearing a pirate hat and long boots, the lyrics I’d sung along to in the car infusing my fantasies, and ungentlemanly twitches of the non-magical kind started, so I focused my attention on the other patrons.
Naturally, I was jealous of the equal distribution of winking Grace handed out to all the men, but it was when she blushed at the young lad several seats down from me that I really examined the object of her affection. From the roots of his hair to his boots, he alternated between black and grey. I thought I’d mastered bedhead, but this guy was pro-expert. Ruffled like a raven’s feathers, with a few streaks of premature silver hairs, it complemented his pearly-grey irises. His gravelly voice sliced through the air, Grace his target.
‘Lorenzo!’ She waggled her eyebrows. ‘I’ll ask the boss if I can get out early, now go away.’
His smile was chilling. Wide and feral, his teeth almost biting into his bottom lip. I had to double-take. Those canines were definitely pointed. Damn it. A vampire could rat me out, right? This hot shot must’ve noticed my staring by now, and only the prophetic goddess, Frigg, knew what unearthly substances he smelt on me. I gripped my tankard in my palms.
Don’t look at him. Don’t attract attention. I tried to remember the last sighting of a vampire in Hellingstead. As so many were varmint, they usually stayed away from these parts as the HQ of the Praetoriani – the Pneuma equivalent of a police force – was stationed in Hellingstead. They were run by the Praefecti, a pompous quasi-government, who were like those self-righteous hall monitors in school. Even the good guys resented them.
No vampires, not for bloody ages. I smirked to myself at the bad pun. I like bad puns.
I observed Lorenzo. The foreign twang to his name boosted his bar-appeal, but he seemed bored by the gawks he was getting from the other barmaids, who seemed intrigued by his exchange with Grace.
I retreated at warp speed into the dense crowd behind me, thankful to lose sight of the bar. After being battered around an impromptu dance-floor I glanced back over my shoulder. Lorenzo no longer occupied his stool. Hoping he’d gone, I slipped into a booth in a dark corner, as far from the little stage as I could get, and downed my ale.
‘Clemensens. They all share the same stink.’
Shocked, I peered into the shadows. Across the table, a man who made Lorenzo look like a cute puppy grinned at me, baring longer fangs than could possibly fit in his mouth. I froze under his mocking, honey-coloured stare.
Lorenzo’s gravelly voice accosted my left ear. ‘What, Issey Miyake?’
‘Don’t be thick, kid.’ His lyrical Italian accent jarred with an expression that incinerated my confidence. The most pathetic part? I couldn’t stop thinking, Someone knows my name. Someone knows my name. I was clearly starved of friends as a kid, and we won’t even discuss adulthood.
‘Like the promise of spring. Sickening, isn’t it?’ I flinched when Mr. Scary Long Fangs whipped out his hand over the table, waiting for me to shake it. He smiled at me again, his face plastered in amusement. I didn’t know what the hell he found so funny, probably seeing an all-powerful warlock shit himself, but I swallowed hard and took it. His hand was warm, different from the whole cold-and-dead shebang you read about in books. Father had told me enough stories; the vampire’s warmth meant he’d fed like a banqueting king on the poor souls of Hellingstead.
‘Vampires,’ I beamed. ‘They’re all dickheads.’
I jolted as another face came into view, accompanied by a hair-raising cackle, this time a female with heavily made-up lashes and a long, French braid that disappeared behind her shoulders. ‘Malachi, let go of him. Our coven has use for a warlock who can still hold an athamé.’
Really, really stupidly, I said, ‘Clemensens don’t need ceremonial knives.’ We don’t need anything. We’re living magic.
The trio went dead still until this Malachi very slowly retracted his claw-like nails from my flesh. ‘Interesting,’ he murmured, and a metallic scent lingered in the air.
Better change the subject, otherwise this will bite me in the arse. ‘So, Lorenzo. Grace, huh? What do you intend to do with her after she finishes work?’
‘Have dinner with her.’
I’d walked into that one. ‘Not with candlelight and soft music I’m guessing.
’
Lorenzo shrugged, throwing a venomous glance towards Malachi that made me pay attention. ‘There’s only one woman I light candles for.’
I visualised Lorenzo standing in St. Michael’s Church, less than two miles west, striking a match for a tea-light on a table of memorial flames, tears staining his cheeks. My mouth opened before my cerebral cortex kicked in – again – and I said, ‘Ditto.’
It was when he asked, ‘So you have a maid too?’ that I realised how far my dart flew past the bullseye.
‘You mean like a girlfriend? No, I meant my mother.’
‘Give me a break,’ laughed Malachi, ‘what is it with witches and warlocks and mourning the dead? Sapiens die, get it? Move on.’
‘Your mum’s dead?’
I faced into the heaving pub, avoiding eye contact, trying to figure out what to say. My father would nail me to a cross if he found out how much I’d divulged to these strangers – two dubious vamps and a goth-witch – within two minutes flat. Hey, yes, you’re right, I’m a Clemensen, which makes me Theo. By the way, we have a short cut to access magic, and yeah, my mum’s dead. What else do you need? My Pincode? I know! I’ll give you my signature and a scan of my retina. Duh.
You see, my social skills were sorely underdeveloped. The only two people I interacted with knew everything about me already. Isolation had been Father’s way of keeping me safe, but his stifling protection had an unintended consequence; I had no talent for deception.
‘Warlocks honour their ancestors,’ I evaded. ‘That might be hard for immortals to understand when the afterlife is irrelevant.’ I glared at Malachi before flicking my focus to Lorenzo, ‘But then again, I don’t get why you’re flirting with a barmaid when you have a girl already.’
Malachi usurped Lorenzo’s chance to retaliate. ‘Because one’s for fucking and one’s for food.’
‘I thought vampires were into both at the same time.’ Really, my pop-culture knowledge was more Buffy than boffin; telly had inspired my stereotypes better than Father’s dusty library books.
Lorenzo’s fingers tightened around his tankard, leaving dents in the metal. ‘I don’t shit – or fuck – where I eat, okay?’
‘Sure.’ Curiosity won out and I used my training to prod gently at the alien energy that had bound my body and soul to the life-spring of Yggdrasil. I was the valve, allowing magic to flow across the earth. Time to discover if this invader could speak. Why is Lorenzo angry?
A jumble of whispers filled my head, blasting emotion through my heart and solar plexus. ‘Why are you looking so smug, Clemensen?’ Malachi looked as if he were about to spit on the floor.
‘Because Lorenzo’s in love.’
The dented tankard skittered across the round table, spraying dregs of ale over the three of us. Lorenzo leaped over me – a mere pebble in his path – and with a guttural hiss, shoved his way through the crowd, his stamps unintentionally beating in time with the music. The patrons near the door parted for him as he stormed outside the Red Hawk.
I raised an eyebrow at Malachi. The witch was studying me, so I studied her back, deciding that she looked like a curvier and paler Lara Croft. ‘You touched a nerve,’ she smirked.
Every sensible bone in my body told me to escape these two but my butt stayed stuck to the sofa. What were my options? Go home to my condescending father and another smug lecture about how he was right to keep me from everyone remotely dangerous? No. Thank. You.
‘So, you mentioned a coven? Who are you anyway?’
‘Why, do you want to get to know me?’ Her voice kissed my ear with an icy chill. She leaned forward. I wondered what her relationship to Malachi was, as they seemed separated by a membrane of mutual disdain.
I shrugged. ‘Seems only fair you tell me your name. You know mine.’
‘I only know your surname.’
Lie. If she were a witch worth her salt, she’d know the whole Clemensen family tree hanging blindfolded from the top of Yggdrasil. We had mythic status thanks to the variety in our Pneuma DNA. Like royalty, we lived aloof, but always watched. I’m not boasting – it’s merely a fact. She would’ve deduced my identity the moment Malachi had mentioned my surname, if she didn’t know already.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘and I know nothing about you.’
She stuck out her chin, not answering. I wasn’t about to engage in a series of empty exchanges. ‘Fine, be like that.’ Malachi was giving me the creeps anyway, so I stood and palmed off the fine spray of ale on my expensive silk shirt, before scooping the curls from my neck.
I quickly patted them back into place when Malachi’s broad nose broadened even more, flaring so much I half-expected a plume of smoke to come puffing out. ‘I need a drink.’ I said, hoping I hadn’t verbalised his thoughts.
I sequestered another pint before stumbling and spilling half of it at the foot of the small stage, but at least I watched the jazz pianist’s vibrant performance. For a while, I swayed with the crowd enjoying the music.
That’s when she arrived. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she took over the newly vacated stage. Her beauty struck me so hard I felt dazed. Yet her presence jarred, as if her dreamy features didn’t belong here, in this pub, but somewhere else. I couldn’t breathe. A series of twitches ran up my face. Charming.
Who is she? Such a simple question, but the answer needed to be profound, as resonant as the chords she plucked on her guitar, which she strummed with mismatched, painted nails. Introducing herself with a fruity, country accent into the microphone as ‘Ava Wallace. Singer. Songwriter,’ she had me spellbound.
All worries of Malachi, and what Lorenzo wanted with Grace, melted away. I heard her voice alone, a flood of silken-laced lyrics pouring like hot treacle in the space between us, sweet and burning. I wasn’t sure if she could see me, even if a girl like her would look twice in my direction. But the soft light caught her hair, dyed into shimmering rainbow colours, mulberry-purple cascading down to flame-licked gold tips, echoing the tones of her amber necklace. She sat on that stool, her dress flowing over the sides, her feet encased in fur-lined boots with flowers in the stitching. I’d never wanted a girl so much, never felt so marooned from everyone else in the world. Because I didn’t need to think it, I just knew that if she were mine she would be in mortal danger.
There was something unusual about her, but my magical radar failed to stir. Ava wasn’t vampire, nor witch. I couldn’t sense any Elvish, nor the protean blood of the shapeshifters. But she was different. It was in the words she sang:
When I close my eyes, I see clearly,
When I close my mind, I think freely,
The truth evades a reaching grasp,
When I turn inside, it’s there at last.
It’s not what you say it’s how you say it, right? Her song sparked a match in the caves below thought. A clandestine message hidden in lyrics, meant for me, encoded in déjà vu. Yet, she hadn’t once brought her eyes from the stage. Ava was lost inside the melody.
Ava described me; if you split me open, you’d spill a whole lot of truth – and secrets. I wanted to climb into her skin, to hear her thoughts as she raised her head and spotted me ready to fall at her feet, each note winding me closer to her. I wanted…
Time slipped away, then so did she, pausing to thank the crowd and drop in the name of her album, What Lies Beneath. She floated off the stage into an applauding audience, her acoustic slung over her shoulder. I might never see her again.
I scoured the bobbing crowd for her rainbow hair as a gust of harrowing wind surged through the door. I slung back my ale, not tasting a drop, and charged outside into the pouring rain.
Where had she gone? Had I imagined her? The street was busy with smokers huddled under the nearby bus stop, tipsy sapiens thronging the pavement, spreading out on their journeys home. I spent several minutes searching the crowd to no avail, as the swell of revellers increased as the pub kicked them out.
‘Lorenzo, if you can hear me, I want to talk to you.’ That
was a Great Big Fib. What I did want, however, was to make sure no pissy vampires intercepted Ava Wallace on her passage home. If Lorenzo or Malachi had noticed her, a beautiful, vulnerable, human woman, what was to stop them pouncing on her from the rooftops?
Me.
I repeated my request while fishing for my keys. The back of my neck tingled as I reached the alleyway where I had illegally stashed Father’s Jag. Telling him I’d been clamped was a scarier prospect than facing Lorenzo alone out here at night, but no one had touched it. My luck was in – almost. I made a strangled sound when Lorenzo appeared, skin translucent as ice, muddy boots planted on the hood of the car. So help me, Odin, if he scuffs the paintwork…
‘What the hell do you want?’
‘Great. Straight to the point. I admire that.’
Great, Theo, go with appeasement, that always works out well. I felt like Chamberlain eyeing up Hitler’s military bulk, hoping to avoid battle by compliments. I bit my lip, trying to think of something to say, difficult when Lorenzo was staring down at me, a solid bulk of Pneuma – or varmint – powered muscle, blood smeared across the edge of his thumb as if he’d cleaned his mouth on it. I checked my Rolex — a birthday present from Uncle Nikolaj who’d obviously felt bad about hiding the Gatekeeper secret. Enough time had passed for Grace to end her shift and meet up with her date. Lorenzo had bitten someone. Where was Grace now?
‘Flattery will get you everywhere.’ He landed on the concrete, all feline and scary, smirking at me as if I were the dumbest dummy in the Class of Dumb-Dumbs. He picked his nails with his fangs, turning his face away from the glow of the streetlamp. We circled each other, the humdrum of voices moving away from the Red Hawk a backdrop to our perfect silence.
The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten Page 3