Ava took the glass, examining it from all angles. ‘There’s a really confused tourist out there right now.’
‘I wouldn’t worry. She obviously had one too many. Taste it.’
She removed the umbrella and cautiously sipped the liquid. ‘Does this make you my genie?’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘Sounds like a nice game to play.’
‘Magic takes its toll eventually.’
‘Who makes these rules, Theo? Why has the universe given you an incredible gift but punishes you for using it?’
‘Take it up with the gods. They roll the dice. Or spin the threads. Mixed metaphors give me a headache.’ I poured myself a glass of wine and took a sip. Turns out those Tuscan vampires produce excellent vino. Who knew, perhaps they nurtured the soil with blood.
Ava relaxed in a high-backed chair while I placed the needle on a record. Lyrical jazz filled the silence.
Ava instantly started singing. I listened for a while, captivated by the way she moved her body.
After the track finished, I rose to my feet and offered my hand. She took it, leaving her drink with mine on the little card table. ‘Ava…’
She smiled as if she kenned my thoughts. We spun again and I caught her. ‘This isn’t a game to me.’
‘Dancing?’
‘No. You’re the only woman I have been close to since my mum died.’
She stalled, mid-sway. A flinch, almost imperceptible. Perhaps before the Gatekeeper had endowed its supreme vision, I wouldn’t have noticed. She might as well have punched my heart.
‘It’s not the same for me yet,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen the photographs, but I don’t share your memories. I need more than fragments to feel what you want.’
I slid my fingers up her neck. Her hair spilled over my arm. She rested the weight of her head into my palm as my other hand grazed her hip. ‘I haven’t told you how I got my memories back.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You told me it happened in Alfheim.’
‘My uncle threw me in the Eternal Spring. That healed my body. But my mind was trapped in the Underworld.’
Ava shook her head enough for her hair to shimmer in the candlelight. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘Odin, Thor, and Freyr as my witnesses.’
She whistled, her breath fluttering my shirt. ‘Did you meet Hades?’
‘Nah. Just Persephone and Hecate – or Hel. Mad bitches, the pair of them.’ I think she found that funny, or maybe that shallow burst of laughter echoed her nerves. ‘To save Anna, I had to swim in the River Lethe – the river of forgetting. If I hadn’t been drowning in the Eternal Spring at that moment, I would’ve gone mad.’
‘I don’t understand. If it was the river of forgetting, then—’
‘To forget something, you have to remember it first.’
‘Oh.’
I tilted her chin and caught her lips with mine. Warmth seeped between us. Carrying this pain was no gift to pass on; knowing our history only mocked me for losing it. Not my fault – Father stole my only friend.
But pain is a step up from ignorance. ‘Reach out to me again,’ I whispered, kissing her along her jaw, ‘let my magic find you and return what was taken from us. Our past. Our future.’ As if summoned from the shadows, the frosted-wing fairies – the Donne di Fuori – danced like falling snowflakes in my vision. Ava smiled, oblivious. I mentally banished them; who knew what information they might share with Penny or the rest of the coven.
My palm crackled.
That’s new.
Ava leant back, finding my hand with her own. Her nails were as soft and pink as her kiss.
It crackled again. Sparks diffused down my forearm.
‘Talk about electricity.’ I smiled.
She smiled back. ‘Are you usually a human battery?’
‘Sparks fly when you’re falling in love.’ My voice cracked a little.
This girl was an expert at the arched brow. At least she didn’t laugh at me. So quiet, Ava wrapped her arms around my hips. Could she hear my thundering heart? The sparks sounded like melting wax as they spread across my body. It didn’t hurt either of us, which made me wonder what the discharge really was. We swayed together, in time with the music. ‘I remembered you like jazz,’ I whispered.
‘You chose my favourite artist.’
‘See? Destiny.’
‘I want to be as sure as you, Theo. I’ve never dated someone who’s so desperate to love me.’
I cringed. ‘I prefer “persistent”.’
This time Ava kissed me. ‘You literally wear your feelings on your sleeve, don’t you?’ She held up my wrist for closer inspection and we discovered that the sparks followed her finger as she traced imaginary shapes over my skin. I picked up her wrist, the one with the ouroboros tattoo, and scattered the sparks over her arm.
‘We missed enough time together for pretence.’
‘Make me remember.’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’ I lifted her, her ankles hooking around my back. My body shook as I carried her towards the bed, and I was glad I’d tied my curls back so they didn’t get in the way. I wanted to see that rainbow splayed over my sheets, to take my time studying its subtleties.
Ava propped herself on her elbows. It took me a little too long to undo the top buttons of her dress. ‘Theo,’ she said, voice hoarse, ‘can I ask you something?’
I didn’t want questions. I dived to kiss her where the fabric had finally fallen open, but she stopped my lips with her fingers. ‘I know you’ve been isolated. Is…is this your first time?’
Odin, Thor, and Freyr. Now wasn’t the time for a crisis of confidence. ‘Ask me afterwards.’ The soft curve of her arms and breasts provided enough heat to burn away awkwardness. I was more than ready. ‘You dreamed about me,’ I whispered, following her up the bed. ‘Dream about me again. I promise you’ll find the truth this time.’
She helped me lift my shirt over my head. I threw it halfway across the attic. The crackling intensified, spreading over her body, as well. She writhed out of her clothes. ‘It tickles.’ She giggled. ‘I can feel it everywhere. It’s like, oh God…’
Ava’s eyes widened, caramel brown. I let my weight bear down on her. We both groaned, and laughed, and then I was nose to nose with her, azure sparks jumping between us.
That fire inside me, the alien energy, the Gatekeeper, it snapped into action. Every touch, every caress stoked it further. Particles of time collided, the earth seemed to pause on its orbit. We were entwined, hidden in the attic, and yet lying on the cliff tops near Hellingstead Hall, the sun burning in my eyes. As we found our rhythm, whispers filled our surreal bubble.
It’s over here, Theo. It’s a whale!
It’s just driftwood.
It’s not, it’s a beached whale!
Ava laughed through a spasm. I took that as a good sign.
Ava, you ate all the strawberries. Mum wanted them for jam!
Did not. Pick more.
They don’t grow on trees, you know.
Yeah they do; your garden’s magic.
‘You were so greedy.’ I caught her earlobe between my teeth.
She drew her feet up my spine and squeezed her thighs. ‘I still am.’
Suddenly, I was on my back with a vision of Ava’s hair spilling over her breasts. The memories flowed so quickly then, racing beside us as we rode towards the end. It was like outrunning a tide about to cut you off. I bit my lip and pushed her back onto the pillows. The candles near the bed had burned lower than the rest. I could hardly see her but for the static cocooning us.
The tide got me. ‘Odin, Thor, and Freyr!’
‘God help me!’
We burst out laughing, but her joy tumbled into tears. They sizzled over her hot cheeks. ‘Oh, Theo,’ she gasped, and rolled onto her front. Her sobs were muffled by the pillow. ‘I remember your father calling us into his study. And then I just walked away with my mother.’
I rubbed her shoulder
. ‘It hurts, doesn’t it?’
Ava nodded. Waking up to the past was grief in reverse. I’d faced that shock alone, thanks to Raphael, who’d given me a piece of the larger picture. Now I knew he’d stolen my amulet, I wondered if his motivation had been distraction rather than compassion.
‘I didn’t mean to make you cry.’
She slid up to her knees, hugging the pillow to her belly. ‘You said that to me before, when you hid my doll for hide and seek and couldn’t remember where you’d put it.’ She had that glazed look of shock. Hot, sticky tears ruined her complexion but I didn’t care. It meant she cared.
‘Wait here,’ I said. Ava watched me as I retreated from the bed and unlocked the antique chest I had transported from my old bedroom. ‘You can thank the River Lethe.’ I opened the secret compartment, moving a few books out of the way, and retrieved it, wrapped in one of my old T-shirts.
She took the parcel and peeled back the swaddle. The doll’s delicate face peeked out, and she touched it tenderly, as she would a child’s. ‘Oh, Theo…’
‘She might be a little worse for wear. I found her behind a loose brick in the wall.’
Ava hugged the doll to her chest and shook her head. ‘Years have passed since I walked through that door this evening.’ She glanced over to the other side of the attic. ‘Yet they haven’t.’ I laid on my elbow and motioned for her to join me. ‘I haven’t asked you how you feel.’
‘Sore,’ I said.
‘And?’
‘Content. How was it for you?’ It seemed ridiculous asking her something so mundane after what we had shared.
Ava paused. ‘Electrifying.’
I chuckled. Happy and naïve, I thought I’d won her.
She wasn’t a prize to win.
9
Meeting in the Marsh
Raphael’s glitter swirled with the hills and valleys, scattered along the jagged rocks defending the coast. Lorenzo ran, the sea breeze funnelling around him, hunting for these clues, nuggets of treasure to be collected along the way. He stopped, briefly, to watch the sun sink into the water, setting it aflame; the farther he got from Hellingstead, the better the weather became.
Checking his sunglasses were in place, Lorenzo crouched on the grassy bank not far from the coastal road. Even the soil possessed an element he’d never perceived as a sapien – a fine golden grain similar to Raphael’s dust. Is he made from the bones of the earth? Lorenzo peered into the amber sky; he could smell the night leering over the horizon. Or perhaps Raphael’s made of the stars.
He thrust his hand into his jeans and crunched the bamboo leaves from Menelaus’s office between his fingers. Raphael’s scent promised ecstasy and salvation, his blood an antithesis to Lorenzo’s vampiric yearning. No one teased him like that boy. Every living thing sought him out – even the undead.
Lorenzo glided down rock onto a beach, over pebbles and sand, until the sea turned into a river, cutting inland. Finding a bridge would be a deviation too far, so Lorenzo swam, strong enough to resist the tide, but he arrived wet and bogged down in marshland. Electricity cables ran across these fields and wild meadows, with roads somewhere in the distance. He felt quietly hemmed in by the hills of Somerset; a nearby sign confirmed these were the Mendips and the Quantocks, hugged by moorland.
Raphael’s journey ended here. Lorenzo spun fast on the spot and moisture flew from his clothes. It dried him enough. He stalked the wetland, flowering rush and purple loosestrife brushing against his legs, awed by the scene unfolding before him – a witness to a fairy tale.
Sky larks and swallows swarmed the figure steeped in wildflowers, while dragonflies hovered over the boy’s skin. Butterflies rested on the sloped surface of Raphael’s shoulders and head, an organic crenelation.
A rippling tide of animals crashed onto the island that was Raphael. They flowed away from Lorenzo as he passed, drawing apart like a biblical sea. Lorenzo approached Raphael with a kind of religious devotion, overwhelmed by the spectacle. It wasn’t exactly usual for badgers and water voles to congregate in the same space.
The boy had yet to acknowledge his presence. He did not run. He did not need to. The fact made Lorenzo curious and maddened at once; catch and release, hunter and prey, what did it matter when the prey had no reason to fear?
The birds drowned out the sky above Raphael’s head. So close now, an arm’s length away. Since joining the ranks of the Pneuma, animals had avoided Lorenzo, but the boy’s presence emboldened them. Ducks waddled over to peck at his ankles, robins chirped and rushed at his face. Ants left Raphael to crawl up his leg and bite. The onslaught continued while the boy watched in silence.
Despite being a killer, Lorenzo couldn’t bring himself to kick a duck. ‘There’s only so much I can take, Raphael! Don’t make me start breaking necks!’
Raphael’s fingers unfurled like petals from his palm and warmed Lorenzo’s flesh like sunlight.
One touch.
The wild army retreated, sailing back over the meadow. The birds settled, forming a ring ten feet away. ‘Thanks.’
‘My children are protective. Do they have reason to be defensive, Dark Elf?’
‘You know what I really am.’
‘Of course. The cursed offspring of Alfheim have ravaged the earth almost as long as I have protected it.’
Lorenzo edged forward, yet the space between them remained the same. How does he do that? ‘How old are you?’
‘Calendars are a recent invention…perhaps I should be carbon-dated?’ Raphael’s natural pout quivered, a laugh that didn’t quite reach the lips.
‘Are you making a joke?’
‘My creatures are blessed company – but they do not laugh. Sometimes I miss it.’
Their pause fell like a hush over the landscape. ‘Chimpanzees laugh, right? Hang out with them. I can imagine you swinging through the jungle like Mowgli.’
That giggle – like boats chiming in a harbour. Red tears rose to the corners of Lorenzo’s eyes. When had the butterflies left the boy’s shoulders and migrated to his stomach? What is he doing to me? He recalled the tales of sailors dashed on rocks after heeding a siren’s call, their fates echoing the collision he craved with Raphael.
‘Your blood,’ he blurted, ‘Raphael – firefly – I want it.’
His face, a fiction of perfection, betrayed its humanity as those amethyst eyes misted, almost morose. ‘I live in harmony with the earth. That is what you crave. Not my blood.’
‘You’re my link to what I’ve lost. I sensed it the moment I saw you, watching me in the Red Hawk. You never told me why you were there.’
Raphael shrugged, dislodging a few butterflies. ‘Your professor wanted me to keep an eye on you.’
‘He wants to talk to you this time.’
‘I will return to Hellingstead soon. I have…a duty…’ It didn’t feel right to prompt him; Raphael burned like a flickering candle under the darkening sky, chirping to himself. ‘As do you…a girlfriend?’
‘Not easy to maintain a relationship with someone you want to eat.’ Lorenzo unlaced his wet boots and shook them off, treading the grass around Raphael. ‘See, I felt most alive at the point before death. I realised in a moment, the blessings of finality. That suffering and desire are cured by our last breath. Does that make sense to you – the boy who is a stranger to death, yet haunted by the living?’
‘I am not the only creature cursed with infinity. My cycle cannot end until the cycle of life is assured.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means you don’t have to seek me, Lorenzo. I go nowhere.’
‘Yet you dissipate like a cloud under the sun.’ He leaned closer to Raphael. ‘And your blood is the salt of the earth.’
‘I am not your bliss, vampire. Salvation lies within your own soul.’
‘There’s nothing inside me but need. I am raw lust embodied.’ When talking to Raphael, conversation had a way of turning into poetry. Being scrutinised by several hundred beaks and bills only ad
ded to the sensation that this was a performance, a play unravelling on the salt marshes, a natural spectacle.
‘And blameless for your actions?’
Such a sweet, moon-white face. I hate him. God, I want him.
Lorenzo clenched his fists. ‘I cannot control my desire.’
‘But you want to control the world. Make it fair? How can that be, vampire? We can only control our thoughts and our actions. Nothing else is in our grasp. Stop striving. Until you control yourself, your fangs will not pierce my skin.’
‘Are you worried I’ll kill you?’
‘Death isn’t fated for me.’
‘Then I can control these urges if I have your blood. Give it to me and I won’t need to hurt anyone else.’
‘A poor incentive, Dark Elf. It is your duty to rid yourself of the scent of death. Until you reject Hel’s stain, I cannot permit you to pollute my veins with her dark blood…’
Lorenzo spun away and covered his mouth. Easier to let his fangs sink into his lower lip than risk Raphael’s protectors attacking him again. Composing himself, he turned back. Please don’t be gone, he thought, and for once his luck stayed fast. ‘Drinking blood isn’t an exact science.’ He wanted to shout but the boy appeared more ethereal by the second. ‘I have to learn not to drink too fast – too much. I didn’t ask for this.’ He hesitated. ‘I wasn’t born a killer.’
Just reborn one.
A little indent creased Raphael’s forehead. The tiniest frown Lorenzo had ever seen, matched by a dainty pout. The world had so many layers, in constant flux, a subtle gradient only apparent to his vampire senses. Watching the boy – whose eyes were cavern-deep and feather-light at the same time – it felt as if the earth was recreating itself before him, a microcosm in human form. ‘I…know,’ Raphael said.
‘Ava told me. Do you know who she is?’
Raphael nodded.
‘She said you saw Malachi kill me.’
Raphael held out his palm upturned, and a nearby bird darted for it. He ruffled the contented bird’s head, stopping to remove a beetle trying to crawl up his nose. ‘I did.’
The moment Ava had revealed her vision, the anger had built. Now he had the chance to ask the question, to make the accusation. ‘Why didn’t you stop him? You, who can do almost anything!’
The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten Page 38