by Tim Lebbon
“Good for her,” he said. “No one should go through what Grace has put us through. So, how did you and the girl get back in?”
“A portal cast by Grace,” Vince said. “But we’re blind until we go through, and I’m worried Mallian will see us. We’ll walk straight into him, and Grace, and that’ll be the end of it. When we do go back we need an element of surprise, and something to fight him with.”
“Sammi needs time,” Angela said. “Mallian used arcane magic, a glamour maybe only he knew. Sammi thinks she might be able to break it, but...”
“But she’s young, and is still finding her Kin way,” Shashahanna said. Her voice was low but loud.
“What is she?” Dastion asked.
“She’s not sure,” Angela said.
The three Kin fell silent, and Vince sensed their distrust. He almost told them. Honesty would be the best answer, surely? But if he told these tortured, angry Kin that Sammi was a fairy, they might trust her as little as they trusted Grace. And they might hate her as much.
“We think she’s a nymph,” Angela said. “We knew one, a friend of ours, and Mallian just murdered her.”
“He did?”
“She was his oldest friend and she went against him.”
Dastion looked past Vince and Angela towards the trees where they’d left Sammi poring over the relics.
“So she needs time,” Dastion said. “How do we give her that?”
“Somehow we have to slow Mallian down,” Vince said. “Do something that’ll upset his plans, if only for a while. He’ll have called other Kin to him—he has a cohort that has always believed in Ascent, and I’m sure they’d have been waiting for his return—and once they’re there...”
“He’ll go out into the world,” Shashahanna said.
“Yeah, and with a fairy at the head of his army,” Dastion said. He looked around him at the Fold slowly descending into chaos. “All I want to do is dig.”
“And you will again,” Vince said. “That’s what we’re fighting for. Your freedom to do what you want. And humanity’s freedom to co-exist with the Kin, even if it doesn’t know of your existence.”
“Most of it doesn’t know,” Shashahanna said.
Vince smiled. “Some of us who do have given up our lives to fight for you.” He looked at Angela and his smile fell when he saw the sadness in her eyes. We’ve lost our old life forever, he thought.
“We’re still together,” she whispered, and her tentative smile revived his.
“So we need to get back to the world and try to disrupt Mallian, stop him from leaving,” Dastion said. “And the only way back is through a new portal, formed by the fairy that he now controls, and which will likely drop us all right into the hands of Mallian and his forces.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Vince said. “I figure we run out fighting.”
“And die.” Dastion rubbed his beard. “Well, I’ll throw this out there for starters—I’ve found something deep down I think might help us.”
“Found what?” Angela asked.
Dastion smiled for the first time, and it lit up his face. His beard lifted and parted, his eyes squinted tight, and his ruddy cheeks peered through their hairy camouflage.
“Maybe another way.”
25
Bone waited on the borders of green and grey for Mallian to rise, for death to come. He had always existed on the fringes, knowing he was different, sired by a creature few humans would understand or even believe in. From his traumatic childhood onwards he had never known how to handle that, so he had spent his life searching for similar creatures. As a child he had known three, so as he grew older he held onto the logic that where there were three there were thirty, and three hundred, and maybe many, many more.
When he found such creatures he never told the people he worked for of the encounter. A few times, knowing how dangerous the Kin were, he had killed them. Given freedom, they might eventually have been captured or revealed, and then the world of the Kin would have become a much more public affair. He didn’t like what he had done, wasn’t proud. He’d spent his life ensuring that they remained a secret, so that his own troubling, strange powers remained a secret also. It was ironic that to protect these creatures he’d had to kill a few of them, to keep humans safe from them, and to keep the world of the Kin a secret.
He hadn’t told his handlers of those occasions, either.
He fed Jordan an occasional lead, sent her a relic here and there, collected eyewitness statements and accounts. He made sure that each year of his employ he gave them something, but never enough. Working for them gave him the freedom and funding to travel and search, but he always ensured that the truth eluded them. Once they knew for sure of the existence of living Kin, it would only be a matter of time before they came after him.
With Mallian, everything had changed. Bone had never seen anything like him. Even the most dangerous Kin he had ever come across were shadowy figures, perpetuating myth and legend and living beneath the radar of human perception, their murders spread out and irregular.
Mallian was something very different, and very dangerous.
That was why Bone had called Jordan, and why he waited now for the end to come.
Looking down into the stark grey valley, he tried to catch sight of any movement that might indicate what Mallian would do next. He felt an urgent, deep guilt at letting his father and the other two infected Kin loose from their containment. If the Kovo infection transferred to other Kin, Mallian’s forces would be boosted even more. And with the fairy under his control, his capabilities were already difficult to gauge. Seeing what she had done to Lilou made Bone sick with dread.
He glanced at his watch, looked at the sky. Dusk was falling, and in darkness the Kin became more confident. He knew that from experience. Mallian’s confidence was already boosted, and there was no telling when he’d be ready to emerge from Longford valley to reveal himself to the world.
He’ll have a plan, Bone thought. He won’t just march across the countryside. There are small communities nearby, but no city for twenty miles. He’ll have an aim in mind. And he was patient. If what Vince and Angela said was true, the Nephilim had been trapped in the Fold for two years or more, and he would not rush his plan for Ascent. He’d make sure it went just right.
Reinforcements. He’ll make sure he has an army, not only for the power it’ll afford him, but for the spectacle. He didn’t know a lot about the Nephilim’s intentions for Ascent, and Angela and Vince hadn’t revealed much about it, but a revelation of the Kin would surely require an event that would shake the world. The more reinforcement, the better.
He paced along the defining line between green grass and trees and dried grey reservoir bed, knowing he should head back down to confront the danger, but terrified to do so.
His father had given him one of his last breaths to escape and survive. The last thing he’d have wanted was for Bone to return and die in that desolate place.
He’d wait and see what happened, and for the army to arrive. He’d wait for death to come to him.
* * *
When Bone saw movement, it wasn’t from the direction he’d expected. He caught the glint of fading sunlight on glass from the corner of his eye, then spotted the vehicle moving slowly along a road higher up the valley side. It crested the top and started down, and Bone set out at a steady jog to meet it.
He edged uphill so that the colourless valley was out of sight to his left, but he could still smell the dust of that place, and still feel the weight of danger influencing his every move.
He aimed for the narrow lane heading down the hillside through the trees. Running, he experienced a sudden flashback that almost made him lose his footing—three trucks laden with army personnel heading down this same road many years and a lifetime ago, while the young Bone hid in amongst the trees, looking for a way out yet terrified at escaping. He’d left his mother and father behind, and no little boy really wants to run away from his parents,
however certain he is that they are dead.
The memory brought him up short. This was the same road, though very different now, and the car heading his way was on its own. He started running again, and when he reached the road he crouched down beside a fallen tree, looking uphill at where the holed, weed-covered track disappeared behind a roll in the hillside. He could see the splash of headlamps dancing through the trees up there as the vehicle drew closer, and from where he was he could decide whether or not to reveal himself when it passed him by.
It was a police cruiser. Bone tensed, crouched down again, mind whirring. What the hell were the cops doing here now? As the cruiser drew close he stood and waited beside the road, hand held up in a friendly wave.
The car stopped, engine still running, and the passenger door opened. The man who uncurled from the car must have been six and a half feet tall and over two hundred pounds. He was anything from forty to sixty years old, and several scars across his cheek and nose showed that he had taken care of himself, probably several times. Bone didn’t like to think what had happened to the people who’d put them there.
In the driver’s seat was a female cop. The way she looked at him made Bone even more cautious of her than the huge man. He scanned the man’s uniform for a badge, didn’t see the one he sought, then saw something else. Body-cam. All cops wore them now, of course, recording footage on a rolling basis in case any incident needed reviewing. He looked at the driver again and caught sight of the sheriff’s badge on her jacket, light from the dash reflecting off it.
“Help you, son?” the cop asked. It was strange being referred to as son by a man probably younger than him. Bone had been on the road for much of his life, and he’d had enough experience with strangers—and with the police—to know that this likely indicated a man who was not intending to be his friend. This was a business-like greeting, from someone who could snap Bone in half with one hand.
“Just wondering what the problem is, Officer.”
The sheriff’s face lit up inside the cruiser as she looked at a display screen. She glanced up at Bone, then back down at the screen.
“No problem. Just a routine drive-by.” The man scratched his head and sighed, as if doing so was a great effort. “Our patch just grew a lot bigger when the dam went. The sheriff says we’ve gotta patrol the borders of the old valley, make sure no one’s making off with any souvenirs.”
Bone wondered what souvenirs he might be thinking of. Some mud, perhaps. An occasional dead tree. A rock.
“Me, I’d much rather stay away from the old place. Went under when I was a kid, but I heard stories about Longford made me want to stay away.”
“What stories?” Bone asked, but the officer took no notice. He bent almost double to look in the cruiser window and exchange some words with the sheriff inside. When he stood again, he appeared more at ease.
“Guess you’re Bone.”
Bone blinked in surprise. Jordan wouldn’t have called in the police, surely? Not after what he’d told her. But then it all came together and made sense, and he felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. She hadn’t believed him.
Maybe he should have thrown her one or two living Kin over the years, after all.
“Been asked to check in on you,” the sheriff said, leaning from the window. “Couple of my guys who were keeping watch over this place turned tail, said they saw and heard some weird stuff down on the valley floor. Booming noises, flashing lights... things that looked like people but acted like wild animals.” She scrutinised him up and down. “That wouldn’t have been you, would it?”
“What were you told?” Bone asked, and both cops hardened. They were used to doing the asking, not the answering.
“Thing is, I like being in charge,” the sheriff continued. “Dane here, he likes me being in charge too. It’s why I chose this district, ’cos it’s small and the population’s generally pretty decent. Had a bar fight last year, maybe the year before. Bunch of kids took to fucking in strangers’ gardens for a thrill three years back. Let them, I say, but the law’s the law, and no one wants to see teenagers bumping uglies when you’re serving up dinner, right?”
Bone wasn’t sure if she was asking for a response, so he said nothing.
“Dog,” Dane said.
“Oh yeah,” the sheriff said. “A dog was stolen a couple months ago. See, fuck all happens here, so I don’t like it when there’re strange sounds and things that upset my guys. And I don’t like getting calls from people like your friend Jordan. It upsets my balance and gives me the shits.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“So you just jump in the back with us, and we’ll head down into the valley to see what’s up.”
“No,” Bone said. “Bad idea.”
“You wanna tell your boss that?”
“Yes,” he said.
The sheriff and Dane glanced at each other then stared at him.
“Really, it’s a bad idea,” Bone said. “There are... dogs down there, wild dogs. With rabies.”
“Dogs,” Dane said.
“Not according to your boss,” the sheriff said. “She reckoned there was a group of drug takers and thieves making the old Longford their home, and you’d got mixed up with them and needed our help. What are you, DEA?”
Bone shook his head.
Her eyes opened wider. “Fed?”
Bone sighed. He couldn’t let these people go down there, not without a proper warning of what they were up against. And he didn’t want to go there with them. He’d called Jordan to send the army, not two sarcastic cops who’d rather be eating each other back at their pissant little precinct.
“In the car,” the sheriff said.
Bone tensed, ready to run. He saw Dane do the same, the big man’s eyes going wide in anticipation of the chase. His hand fell down to the taser on his belt.
“Car,” Dane said.
Bone could run. He’d known these hillsides once, but he wasn’t a young boy anymore, and there were no hollow trees for him to hide in now.
Besides, Jordan hadn’t believed him. She’d sent these two to check his claims. If he went with them, maybe they’d have a chance of pulling back and getting the fuck out as soon as they saw what he had seen. They’d have Mallian on their body-cams, and he’d be able to show that footage to Jordan.
He nodded, walked to the police cruiser, and sat in the back. Dane slammed the door and got in, and the sheriff drove them on their way.
“You’ll have to be careful,” Bone said.
“Of the dogs or the junkies?” Dane asked, and he chuckled.
“What’s your name?” Bone asked the driver.
“Sheriff,” she said.
He sat back and closed his eyes. If Jordan was sending these cops to test the water, the army was not yet on its way.
He had to make sure it would be soon.
* * *
The sheriff parked the car at the edge of the old reservoir. The lane ended there, and though before it had wound down the hillside towards Longford, now it was part of the grey mass of drying reservoir bed and muddy pools. Further distant the river still meandered through the valley, and to their far right, shielded now by the falling dusk, the old dam cast a broken guard. Fading sunlight did little to give colour to the greyness. As shadows emerged and coalesced, it looked more like a moonscape than ever.
“Can’t hear those dogs,” Dane said, tilting his head through the open window. “Don’t smell no dope.”
The sheriff wasn’t laughing. She was watching Bone in the rearview mirror, frowning. Maybe she’s starting to believe something’s really wrong, he thought.
“Take the shotgun,” she said.
“Seriously?”
Still not taking her eyes off Bone, she nodded. Dane unlocked the shotgun secured between the front two seats. He held it awkwardly, as if he’d hardly used it before. He’d stopped making quips.
“Coming?” the sheriff asked.
“No,” Bone said. He’d mad
e a decision. To prove to Jordan that what he’d said about Mallian and the infected Kin was true, he had to prove it to these cops as well, and do so without getting them killed. Venturing down there would doom them all. “We can’t go down into the valley.”
“What have you really seen?” she asked. “It’s not rabid dogs or drug users, is it?”
“Neither of those, no. We just need to get something on camera to show my superior and then—”
“Lily!” Dane said. “Something out there.”
Bone’s heartbeat immediately jumped. He stared through the security grille and out the front windscreen, past where the road ended and onto the flatter expanse of grey. Nothing moved.
“You better tell us what’s out there quickly, Bonham, or we’re straight back to the station and—”
“There!” Bone said. “Ahead and to the right.” It wasn’t Mallian, Bone knew that right away. Maybe it was what his father had become. The shape was small and fast, darting right to left down the hillside, little more than a shadow.
“Deer,” Dane said.
“Deer don’t move like that,” the sheriff said. With one more glance at Bone, she opened her door and left the cruiser. When Dane did the same, Bone reached for the door handle and realised his error. He was locked inside. Of course he was.
“Don’t go too far!” he called. “Just get something on camera and then—”
Dane slammed the door and walked into the cruiser’s headlights. The sheriff was off to the left, aside from the lights and at the edge of the grey, shielding her eyes and looking down into the valley. Dane stood with the shotgun held in one hand by his leg, casual and confident.
Bone rattled the door handle.
Something flitted past the car. It scraped claws across metal as it went, causing a piercing shriek, and as Dane and the sheriff spun around it disappeared into the trees to the right.
Bone watched it go. It was Francine the werewolf. He wound his window down and beckoned Dane back to him.
“Quietly!” he said. “Quick and quiet, they’re playing with you, you have to—”