by D B Nielsen
‘No,’ I agreed, searching in the kitchen for a dog treat to give to Indy and, failing that, finding a packet of opened stale tea biscuits in the back of the pantry, obviously left behind by one of my younger siblings. The frantic whipping of his tail was all the thanks I needed. ‘No, but we knew that when we got involved in this quest.’
Her expression one of puzzlement, Fi said slowly, ‘It’s kind of weird though. I’m not quite certain why they would target Isabella. The Fravashi could have gone after Mum or Dad, or even the brats, so why her?’
I wrinkled my nose in confusion. I hadn’t thought of it like that. ‘Maybe because she was with St. John and me at the British Library when we viewed RSPA 230. The Fravashi might think she’s somehow involved with us because of it, or has a greater knowledge than St. John or Dad about the Scroll, given her background in sacred texts.’
‘Maybe,’ Fi replied but, from her tone, I could tell she still remained unconvinced.
I had my misgivings too, but just hoped Isabella didn’t share with my father’s former colleague a similar genetic inheritance – whilst Isabella wasn’t my favourite person, I certainly didn’t want her being used by Semyaza as an incubator or walking womb – no one deserved that fate.
‘Look,’ I tried to keep my voice as even as possible, ‘let’s just wait to find out what St. John and Dad have to report about the attack on Isabella and the opinions of the joint task force when they come home tonight. Maybe they’ll be able to shed some new light on the matter.’
But I might have spoken too soon as both Fi and I were in for a surprise when my father and St. John finally made it home.
Dinner had been a quiet affair – so quiet that the clinking of cutlery could be heard over the muted conversation as we ate Mum’s home-cooked chicken and leek pie. The shrill ringing of the phone interrupted our meal but it only turned out to be one of the mothers from Jasmine’s dance class, asking if Mum could perform a favour and chauffeur her daughter the following Monday. There was no word from Dad or St. John.
Jasmine and Alex were abnormally subdued by the tense mood, evident as Alex knew not to protest when Mum made him remove his Lego from the dining table while he ate his dinner. And, after their chocolate chip ice cream, they were sent to bed early, tucked in without the customary bedtime story.
Both my father and St. John had missed our family meal and there was still no phone call from either of them by the time we had washed up the dirty dishes. But neither Fi nor I could go to bed. By ten o’clock, I felt restless in my own skin and the minutes seemed to drag by – even the late film on television, an action thriller I’d missed at the cinemas which had come out during my Finals, failed to hold my attention.
It must have been close to midnight when we heard Dad’s car coming down the drive. Mum was there first, opening the front door, as Fi and I assembled at the bottom of the stairs. ‘They’re back. Thank God.’
My Dad suddenly stood there on the threshold, running a hand wearily through his salt-and-pepper hair as he said by way of explanation, ‘St. John’s got Isabella with him. They’ll be here shortly. I thought it best if she stays with us a couple of days. Let her recover after her ordeal. She doesn’t have any family in London.’
He took my mother’s answer for granted, knowing she would naturally support his Good Samaritan gesture. Concerned, I opened my mouth to voice a flood of questions but he immediately cut me off with, ‘That’s all I can tell you for now.’
It frustrated me, but there was nothing I could do about it. At least for now.
Fi hovered by my side, remaining silent as my father moved further into the light of the entrance hall. It took my mother less than a minute to assess Dad’s current condition – his weariness, his anxiety for his family and colleagues, his shortness of temper caused by the protracted time spent with the authorities – but already she wore a look of consternation and was trying to soothe his worries. I overheard my parents discussing warming up some food and laying out fresh bedding for our guest but I felt strangely disconnected from their polite hospitality. Then Dad muttered something about the stolen artefact linked to the inexplicable attacks in a baffled, low voice – so low I didn’t quite catch the words – and I realised that this entire business with the Seed and all that had recently happened was perplexing to them both.
That said a lot.
We had been uprooted from our former lives, which was nothing new living with a distinguished archaeologist who risked danger in war torn nations in the Middle East to preserve their cultural heritage, but nothing could have prepared us for this experience, not even all my father’s years of discoveries and digs, and time spent amongst armed UN peacekeepers and self-important, starched bureaucrats.
And I wondered how much longer Fi and I could keep our secrets.
Through the open front door, I caught of glimpse of movement, a flash of headlights sweeping through the Manor’s gates in the distance. A moment later, St. John’s sleek black Audi ground to a halt behind Dad’s BMW. Turning off the engine, St. John gracefully leapt out from the driver’s seat and quickly moved around to the passenger side to assist Isabella out of the car. He’d left the door on the driver’s side wide open, emphasising his sense of urgency, and light flooded the car’s interior, displaying a wan-looking, young woman whose pale beauty was haunting and waiflike and all the more arresting.
I wanted to run outside to meet them, but suddenly had lost the ability to move. Fi noticed my strange reaction and, taking my hand, led me like a child towards the car.
‘Here!’ Without bothering to greet us, St. John tossed his car keys to my sister. She deftly caught them in her left hand, letting me go with a brief squeeze of my arm as she moved past us and crossed to the driver’s side. ‘Park the car round the back, thanks Fi.’
I don’t know how my sister might have felt about being ordered around like a hotel valet but St. John was preoccupied as he helped Isabella slowly to her feet. His attentiveness towards the Ice Queen bordered on the obsessive, like a man possessed. Yet it was easy to see why. Isabella emerged with bowed platinum blonde head, leaning heavily against my fiancé for support – still a lovely yet somewhat bedraggled vision, her sudden fragility prominent in the way her body knit with St. John’s. Indivisible from one another.
A pang of jealousy hit me. Followed immediately by self-reproach.
Fi had already thrown the car into gear and was driving it round the back; an arc of light beamed upon our small party as she reversed and skirted round Dad’s BMW before rounding the corner. As the Audi disappeared into the darkness, I saw St. John’s face briefly illuminated – how exhausted and discouraged he looked. No, not discouraged. Something else. As in the British Library, his motions were peculiarly mechanical for so graceful a Nephilim. His stance, steel beneath the stillness.
It was beyond strange that St. John had still failed to acknowledge my presence in the courtyard – especially after our intimacy and loving only a matter of hours earlier. It was as if I were suddenly invisible.
As I was left by myself to observe the couple before me, I couldn’t fail to notice the unnatural pallor of St. John’s skin in the moonlight and the unearthly darkness within his eyes. I wasn’t quite certain if St. John was himself in that moment – he appeared somewhat unstable and his exclusive concentration on the Ice Queen left me with a faint unease.
Then, swiftly, those green eyes swivelled to fixate upon me – or was it a point beyond me? – with such intensity that I glanced over my shoulder, my heart pounding loudly in my ears.
Squinting into the darkness, I saw nothing. It made me shiver uncontrollably, though I wasn’t in the least bit cold. Yet St. John had looked tortured to his very core. By now, thoroughly frightened, I wondered what he had seen in the empty moonlit air.
I would have gone to him then and asked him, reassured him somehow of I knew not what, but the moment was over.
He had, by this time, resumed his sole focus on the captivating Isabell
a Donnatelli. Looking slightly the worse for wear but, as far as I could tell, uninjured, Isabella was welcomed into our house by my mother who hung by the front door.
‘Come in, come in. Make yourself at home. You poor thing ...’ Mum’s voice carried as she reached out to support Isabella on her right with St. John shouldering her left side, and they slowly made their way into the Manor House.
Standing outside in solitude, I paused to stare up at the hushed, starry night sky, at the miracle of unveiled bright stars. I found myself yielding to weariness and my own need for peace and quiet. My head hurt. It felt like the onset of a migraine and I wondered if, like my father and St. John, I was also exhausted from the day’s stresses. Then, resignedly, I took up the rear, following in St John’s and Isabella’s wake; her cloying, designer perfume wafting behind her and making me want to sneeze.
I was the last to enter the Manor House. And that’s when I felt it. Even as I stepped over the threshold. Something had shifted inside the house. Some indefinable quality.
Unexpectedly afraid, I moved away from the others and sought out its source. Turning distracted eyes towards the direction of the drawing room, I stumbled forward.
Power great enough to shatter mountains surged fitfully as I entered the darkened room. A ribbon of remaining golden light winked in the corner then slowly unfurled, dissipating into thin air.
‘You feel it too, don’t you?’ murmured the strained, familiar voice of my twin, coming up to stand behind me. ‘Something’s really off.’
Turning to her, I shook my head in horror as an unimaginable gulf opened up between worlds and St. John’s powerful blessing of protection, which he’d placed on the Manor House at Christmas, was released from its moorings.
‘How–? What–? What’s happening?’ Fi drew in a sharp breath. ‘Do you hear that?’
Stillness deafened my ears, and the cosy drawing room was all at once filled with an oppressive gloom.
Then the creaking of the trees with their shady branches could be heard and seen as they trembled in silhouette, tapping upon the window, through the gap in the curtains.
‘St. John’s blessing has been removed,’ I whispered above the wind hissing through the cracks and gaps of the old house. Funny how I’d never noticed its age until now.
Stealthily, the whisper of chill air stirred memories in the Manor’s aged vents and ancient floorboards, dry and lifeless after its previous warmth.
Fi sensed it too, as the next words that came out of my sister’s mouth were ominous. ‘“Something wicked this way comes.” Sage ... I think it’s already here.’
Chilled through by apprehension, I tugged on her arm, tightening my grip as I forced her to cross to the window, drawing back its heavy curtain, and look out at what we had failed to notice stirring in the garden beyond its sheltering barrier.
We recoiled in unison.
A stain of living darkness slithered over the lawn and across the driveway, rippling like the cloak of blackened night, eerily detached from the natural shadows cast by the moonlight. Even as we watched, the thing slid, spectre-like, along the gravelled path and towards the front door where it moved beyond our view.
‘Come on, we need to find St. John,’ I said, my attention snapping back from the dark blot outside.
To her credit, Fi didn’t question my order and we flew into the entranceway where we’d last seen my fiancé, together with Isabella and my parents.
It was eerily empty.
‘Oh, fu–!’ Fi’s invective was lost as I took to my heels.
Furiously hastening to the kitchen, I searched for St. John, only to find my mother alone, wiping down the kitchen counter and putting the last of the leftovers in the fridge, preparing to turn in for the night.
‘Where is everybody?’ Fi asked, her urgent words coming out in a rush of breath.
Startled, my mother’s amber coloured eyes met mine. But her expression was curiously still and blank.
‘Why aren’t you girls in bed?’ she said. And her voice didn’t sound like Mum; it was too slow, too heavy. It was as if she was dragging the words up from submerged depths.
Fi and I exchanged worried glances.
‘Mum ... we’re going to bed soon ... I just wanted to say goodnight to St. John first.’ I chose my words carefully, my tone soothing – as if I was dealing with a frightened child still caught in the grips of a nightmare or found sleepwalking. ‘Where’s St. John? And Dad? And Isabella?’
Her eyes were sudden pools of panic. ‘I d-d-don’t know ... I mean ... I think ... Isabella ... has retired to her room. She was ... exhausted from her ordeal. Yes ... yes, that’s right.’ Mum paused uncertainly, struggling with herself. ‘And your father went up to bed when St. John left to drive back to London. He thought ... he said ... St. John said to tell–’ Her eyelids fluttered down as her mind drifted, then her focus snapped up to mine again. ‘Why aren’t you girls in bed?’
I felt sick and shaky.
Fi’s eyes narrowed as she tensed beside me. ‘Er ... we’re going to bed soon, Mum ...’
‘Oh ... that’s good, dear.’ Twisting the tea towel she held into knots, Mum appeared overwhelmed and suddenly vulnerable.
And I realised I’d seen this reaction before.
Fi grabbed me by the elbow and roughly wheeled me about, towing me back into the empty hallway.
‘Finn,’ she breathed.
I looked at her sharply, knowing we were running out of time to deal with the dark thing that threatened us and in no mood to play guessing games. ‘What?’
‘Finn behaved like this,’ she hissed at me under her breath. ‘At Satis House. That last time. With Semyaza.’
Light dawned and I nodded convulsively, saying, ‘So did St. John. But more recently ... when we visited the British Library. And just now in the courtyard ...’
And it was true – that was what I had finally managed to put together – that St. John had sported a suddenly cold, blank remoteness in his expression, a stiffness in the way he held himself, so uncharacteristic for him.
The overhead light in the hallway suddenly spluttered as if there was a power surge. Staring up at it, it grew brighter still, too bright, like the light bulb was channelling the surge of electricity. Then suddenly it blew out with a loud POP and Fi and I ducked for cover as the room plunged into darkness.
‘Shit!’ Fi swore, more shocked than scared.
‘Fi, try to get Mum upstairs. And call Gabriel as soon as you can.’ My voice was tight with dread. ‘I’m going outside.’
Fi shot up straight, her hands flailing around in the air. ‘Are you crazy? It’s suicide! You don’t know what’s out there! And where’s that bloody Anakim of yours? He’s just gone and left us!’
I didn’t dare think about that too much, because St. John’s abrupt abandonment loomed over my head, making me queasy. But perhaps that was something else – the effects of what I’d been feeling earlier, similar to what Mum was going through now, similar to St. John. And, as I came to this awareness, my migraine intensified a hundredfold.
A word whispered through my mind. Poisoned.
But how? Certainly not like the Anakim who had guarded me at the museum.
Knowing I didn’t have time for this now, I blinked the disturbing thoughts away – they could wait till my family were safe and out of immediate danger. Instead, I said to Fi, ‘You forget that I’m linked to the Seed, Fi. I’ll be fine. Today is not my day to die.’
But still she glanced at me with real concern. ‘Okay, okay. I’ll do as you say. But don’t do anything stupid until I join you.’
I gave a wry smile in agreement.
‘Just hurry!’ I warned her and set off without further ado, before I began to doubt my course of action too.
Rather than retracing my steps, I carefully eased my slim frame through the open gap in the back door and hurriedly locked it behind me. My muscles were as tense as bowstrings, anticipating an attack, but my head ached less in the crisp night air
. Somehow, in the thicket of my fear, I must have bitten my lip as I could taste blood. Ignoring the sharp taste, I let my eyes adjust to the night blindness and crept across to the cover of the garage, crouching behind the shed for a moment, keeping well away from the house.
I had a plan.
The low whining and odd, angry bark coming from the kennel alerted me to Indy’s desperation to be let out. Though he wasn’t much in the way of protection, I knew he would do his best to defend me against the darkness. His heavy panting and excited yelps greeted me as I unlatched the door to the dog run and he leapt past me, immediately starting up a deep growl.
‘Shhh,’ I hissed, stroking the soft, warm fur at his throat. It seemed to do the trick, calming him.
Rising from my haunches, I snuck towards the canopy of silver birch trees. Darkness layered on darkness to form a cover for my clandestine activities. Looking back over my shoulder, the Manor House had a haunted air amongst the midnight shadows.
Nothing stirred.
Keeping a sharp eye out for any sign of the dark thing, I moved behind the frontline of trees, standing as they were like soldiers. The woods sloped down, curving around the geometry of the house. I followed the path of least resistance, careful not to step heavily on bracken. I hoped to improve my view of the house under the perfect stillness of a midnight, moonlit sky with its silvery traces of patterned starlight. Brisk with concentration, I studied every brick, every stone, every rose bush, every tree, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. At first.
At one point, I froze. Heart pounding out of control, I was aware of swift movement and heard a rustling noise close by. My fists clutched empty air reflexively. But I’d only startled a badger. Grabbing at Indy’s collar to restrain him, I was afraid he would go haring off after the creature but instead, miraculously, he showed no interest in the nocturnal wildlife. His instincts, like mine, were attuned to bigger prey.
Foolishly, I hadn’t thought to bring a weapon – a kitchen knife, a pair of sharp scissors, anything. Berating myself, I had to concede that my plan hadn’t been well thought out, after all. But I had no choice now but to keep going.