by Bill Bennett
What on earth is he doing here? Lily wondered.
‘Who is he?’ Skyhawk asked, watching her stare at the car as it disappeared around the corner.
‘He’s the father of that boy back at the motel last night,’ Lily said, getting into the SUV. ‘I bet you anything he’s going to the mine too.’
Skyhawk slipped in behind the wheel. ‘Did he recognise you?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I look so different now.’ She’d lost a lot of weight since the initiation and on those few occasions when she’d caught sight of herself in a mirror she’d been shocked by how much she’d changed, physically.
Skyhawk pulled away from the curb. ‘We’ll hang back a bit. Give him some distance. At some point though I’m going to want to floor it, to make up time. If we pass him you’ll just have to duck down. You cool with that?’
Lily nodded. Was he Baphomet too? she wondered. Had he been a part of this plan to take her mom right from the start? And was Kevin his co-conspirator?
They drove up to the main street and turned in the same direction as Kevin’s father had turned. They began heading out of town. The road was straight, with very little traffic, but they couldn’t see the maroon Lexus up ahead. Had he taken another turn? Where had he gone?
‘I don’t see him,’ Skyhawk said and he accelerated.
As shadows lengthened across the road, Skyhawk left the interstate and followed a series of smaller backroads until he found a dirt track which led to a large lake. Lily earlier had said that she didn’t want to spend another night in a motel. She didn’t want to put Skyhawk through another night of discomfort. So he’d found a camping store and bought some basic gear, and some food to cook up later. With the sun setting behind them, he took the SUV off the track and wound his way through undergrowth and stands of thick brush until they finally emerged by the edge of a beautiful calm lake, a couple of miles in from the highway. They stopped under a grove of trees on the lake’s grassy banks – a perfect hideaway. Lily looked out over the lake – its mirrored surface was a sheet of darkening crimson, rippled occasionally by leaping fish.
They collected firewood and Skyhawk soon had a blaze going. He pulled up a couple of logs so they could sit facing the water, and as night began to wrap itself softly around them he cooked up ribs and potatoes and they ate in comfortable silence.
A mist started to settle on the water, and a chill began to seep into Lily’s bones. She shivered. Skyhawk noticed, and he moved over and sat close beside her. Without even putting his arm around her, she immediately felt warmer. As the gloom of evening deepened, Lily watched the last remnant of the moon, the slimmest edge of silver, rise over a wooded ridge shrouded in veils of shifting mist. In two nights it would be a new moon. Full dark.
She had to blink hard to stop her tears, because at times the love she felt for her mother so completely overwhelmed her that all she felt like doing was curling up into a fetal ball and crying. She reminded herself that she was now a witch, an initiated witch, and that self pity was an indulgence she could no longer afford. Bawling her eyes out wouldn’t get her mom back.
She looked over at Skyhawk. He sat cross-legged, using his huge feather-hilted knife to whittle two branches that he’d found nearby. Every now and then he tapped them against a rock, and listened to the sound.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Making drumsticks,’ he said, and pounded out a deft rat-a-tat-tat against the rock. It sounded unlike anything Lily had ever heard. It seemed to have a subliminal power that she couldn’t fully comprehend.
‘It sounds amazing,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ He playfully tapped the drumsticks on her thigh. It sent a tremble through her body.
‘Wow. What did you do just then?’ she laughed. ‘That felt incredible.’
Skyhawk smiled. ‘My father taught me how to use the drum. He was a walker.’
‘What do you mean?’
Skyhawk took one of the drumsticks and made a circle in the dirt. ‘We believe there are three worlds,’ he said, then he made a second circle, partly overlapping the first, then a third circle with a small section of it overlapping both the first circle and the second.
He pointed to the first of the circles. ‘This is the place of our spirit world, where our guides, our wise ones, our gods and ancestors live. In your culture, you’d probably call them guardian angels. We call it the Upper World.’
He pointed to the lowest of the circles. ‘Then there’s Under World,’ he said. ‘That’s a place of instinct, an animal world where your spirit guides are often creatures or beasts. It’s also the world of the dead, and you need to know what you’re doing when you go there because you can call up the wrong spirits and bring them out into the real world if you’re not careful. That can be very dangerous.
‘The real world is this, the Middle World, our world as we know it,’ he said, pointing to the largest of the circles, the one in the centre. ‘But even in the Middle World there are hidden places and mysteries if you know where to look, and how to get there.’
Skyhawk pointed to the area where the three circles overlapped. ‘This is the path we use to walk between the three worlds. That’s what my father could do, he could walk this path. He was a walker.’
Lily looked up at Skyhawk. ‘Can you?’
He smiled. ‘I can walk some of the way, but not the full way. It takes many, many years and great wisdom, and that’s not something that comes quickly or easily.’
‘And what about those?’ she asked, pointing to the drumsticks.
‘These?’ Skyhawk unfurled another burst of drumbeat on the rock, longer this time. The sound was hypnotic. ‘These help take us there. On that path. The drumbeat is like a heartbeat, it raises our spirit so we can start our journey.’
‘Have you been there? To this Upper World?’
‘Sometimes they give me a day pass, but I’m not yet an adept. An adept gets a season pass and a Wise One gets lifetime membership.’ He smiled, and Lily felt that should he ever tread that path to the Upper World, then she’d want to go with him, by his side.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Lily suddenly asked, turning to him. ‘Why aren’t you back at work getting on with your life?’
He laughed. ‘Maybe this is getting on with my life.’
‘What do you mean?’
Skyhawk hesitated. Firelight flickered across his face. ‘This is not about Freddie, and it’s not even about you. It’s about something else.’
‘What?’ she asked.
‘This is something I have to do for my father.’
‘For your father?’
Skyhawk nodded. ‘Before he died, he saw a darkness coming, and I think this is the start of it. If these black witches kill your mother, and if they kill you, and if they get a hold of that Book of Light of yours, then Cygnet could well die too and then there’ll be nothing stopping them. And the world will fall into a deep cold shadow. I promised my father I’d do all in my power to stop that from happening.’
‘I don’t want to save the world,’ Lily said. ‘I just want to get my mom back and go back to how everything was before. Before any of this happened.’
Skyhawk smiled. ‘You know that’s not possible,’ he said gently. ‘It’s not possible for you to go back, not anymore. Me neither. We’ve both gone beyond that.’
He hesitated. ‘What are you scared of?’
Lily smiled at the question. ‘What am I scared of?’ She thought about it, then said, ‘I’m not scared of dying. I’m scared that my mom might die, but I don’t care if I die. That doesn’t scare me …’
‘How come? Isn’t everyone scared of dying?’
‘Are you?’
‘Sure. It’s the unknown. Death is the ultimate unknown. We’re all scared of the unknown.’
‘It doesn’t scare me,’ said Lily quietly. ‘It’s the known that scares me.’
‘The known? What do you mean?’
‘What’s out there. Those witches. This
… Unholy, that’s coming up. That’s known. And it scares the living crap out of me. But beyond that, the only thing that really scares me is being alone.’
‘You’ll never be alone.’
‘Yes, I will. I could be alone next week. If my mother dies I have no one. I loved my father more than I can ever put into words. When I was growing up I spent more time with him than my mom. Probably because she was running Cygnet, but I never knew that then. It was me and Dad, most of the time. He was a really cool dad. We had fun. All the amazing memories I have of my childhood were because of my dad. And then they killed him. Then it was me and mom. And when we went into hiding, even though I hated it, being on the run all the time, it was an intense catch-up time for both of us. Like, we really became like sisters. We were inseparable. Best friends. And even though I was angry with her a lot of the time because we were always on the move, now when I think back on it I wouldn’t take back that time for anything. And now they have her. And by this time next week, she could be gone too. And then I’ll be alone. Completely alone. And that scares me.’
She was trembling.
Not with fear, but with emotion. He took her hand and held it. She turned to him, their faces close. Too close. Not close enough. The smell of him. The light on his face. His smile. Those huge huge eyes.
They kissed.
His lips firm yet soft, melting.
Her first real kiss.
She felt a sudden shivering tingle throughout her body, a strange sense of exquisite exhilaration and a terrifying sense of loss of control that sent her head spinning somewhere out into the night.
She’d always wondered what her first serious kiss would be like, and who it would be with, and now it was happening with this brave yet gentle boy who seemed to have stepped into her life so lightly, without fuss or fanfare, at just the moment when she needed him. He was so different from any boy she’d ever met and yet he was so absolutely right for her.
Even though she’d had schoolgirl crushes, like that up-himself snake Kevin Johnstone, Lily had always rejected the thought of having a long-term boyfriend. She’d regarded it as a sign of feminine weakness. All the boys she’d ever met, who could have been likely candidates for her heart, were either too geeky, too sporty, too dumb or so self-centred they simply held no interest for her. She’d never met a boy she felt would be worth the effort.
And now here she was, her heart and soul melting over a kiss from someone she could not label. And she knew that if she wasn’t careful, she could soon very easily find herself falling in love with him.
If I haven’t already, she thought.
She pulled away. But she kept holding his hands.
Her body was still trembling.
He was looking at her, holding her face with his gaze.
‘We should get an early night,’ he said softly, his eyes never leaving hers.
She nodded. Transfixed. She didn’t want to move from the spot. She wanted him to kiss her again.
But he didn’t.
So she kissed him.
And this time their bodies folded into one another like they belonged, like they’d always belonged, and his mouth opened, and so did hers, and she felt his tongue exploring, his hands caressing her, his fingers on her flesh, and she felt the strength of his body, tensing, hard, and she thrummed inside, like she was being pulled tight, tighter, ready to burst.
She gently pushed him away.
‘I have to go to bed,’ she laughed.
He smiled and nodded.
She stood and they walked over to the vehicle. He opened the back door for her, took off his jacket and rolled it up.
‘Use this for a pillow,’ he said, handing it to her.
‘Where will you sleep?’
‘By the fire, under the stars.’
He leaned forward, kissed her gently on the lips again, then turned and walked away.
In the morning, when he woke, something felt wrong.
The sun was cresting the lake, sending heavenly shafts of soft golden light out across the water, which was so still it was a perfect mirror to the sky above and the woods around. Brightly coloured birds were flying from tree to tree, singing up a symphony, and the air was fresh and clean and crisp. It was a beautiful morning. He’d slept heavily. All the exhaustion and tension from the last couple of days had finally caught up with him and he’d had one of the deepest sleeps he could remember. And now he’d woken up full of energy, refreshed, ready to tackle the last day’s drive to the mine.
Yet still something felt wrong.
He walked over to the car and peered inside.
Lily was gone.
CHAPTER 23
It was the first day of the fair and already there were hundreds of families wandering around, children excited and chattering, anxious moms and dads trying to stop their kids from running off, farmers and cattlemen in their cleanest stetsons and best boots and largest belt buckles striding through going somewhere important, sideshow hustlers trying to cajole passers-by into chancing their luck at a three-ball throw-down for a puffy pink panda bear or taking a shot at a line of marching ducks with an airgun that had long since lost any semblance of accuracy.
Joe pulled into the carpark.
Gummi was agitated. ‘What am I supposed to be looking for?’ he said, churlishly.
‘Anything suspicious,’ said Freddie.
‘What did your contact say exactly?’ Marley asked, as they all got out of the car.
‘She said that she had intel that there was going to be a significant disturbance here,’ Freddie said as they headed for the fairground entrance gates. ‘And that it was going to be spectacular.’
‘By “major disturbance”, what do you mean exactly?’ Marley asked.
‘Major loss of life. Like some kind of terrorist activity, such as a vehicle ramming into a crowd of people, or a mass shooting, or a bomb,’ said Freddie. ‘Something that’s going to cause a diversion of law enforcement officers and emergency services.’
Gummi blanched. ‘Great,’ he said unenthusiastically. ‘And you want me to stay here and try and stop whatever it is they’re going to do?’
‘We need to get to the mine, Gummi,’ Freddie said. ‘You’re our only option.’ Then he added, ‘If you were to prevent this, then Angela, and Lily too, would thank you personally when all this is over.’
‘Personally?’ Gummi asked, brightening.
‘Lily would probably even give you a kiss,’ Freddie said.
Gummi found himself blushing at the thought and quickly turned away. ‘That’s if I’m not run over by a truck, or shot down in a hail of bullets.’
‘Or blown up into a thousand pieces,’ Joe added, flatly.
‘Yes, thank you, Joe,’ said Gummi.
‘No problem,’ said Joe.
‘There’s certainly that distinct possibility, yes,’ Freddie said, as they entered the fairground. ‘But that’s how heroes are made, Gummi. And you want to be a hero, don’t you?’
‘Actually, no. That’s the last thing I want to be.’
‘That’s something a true hero would say,’ said Freddie.
They walked on, deeper into the fairground. Deeper into the crowds. Gummi looked around at all the fun-seekers and couples holding hands, at the produce stands and the distant Ferris wheel that was the centrepiece of the amusement park section of the fair, at the cowboys as they headed to the buckjumping yards with their girlfriends in tow giggling excitedly, at the businessmen here to do deals in their jeans and sports jackets and their shiny Cuban-heeled boots, at all the possible ways Baphomet could cause mass death and destruction.
Who would expect a terrorist-style attack here, in the Charleston State Fair? How would they strike? It would be spectacular, Kee had told Freddie, and Kee was never wrong. But spectacular in what way? That could mean anything.
‘We leave the fat boy here to get killed and we now get going, to the mine, no?’ Olivier said, turning back to Freddie and Joe.
But there
was no Freddie and Joe.
They were gone.
‘Damn it!’ said Olivier, and he ran off, Marley a few paces behind, racing back, pushing through the crowds, dodging and weaving around families and strollers and couples holding hands, Olivier cursing as a delivery truck suddenly blocked their path. They skittered around it and rushed back through the entrance gates, back to the carpark where they pulled up breathlessly to see the Jeep Cherokee driving away, spitting gravel, heading out fast.
‘The bastard!’ Olivier said, and punched the air.
‘This was just a ploy, wasn’t it,’ Olivier said, as he strode up to Gummi. He was trying his best to control his temper and stop himself from shouting, particularly in such a crowded public place, but it was obvious he was white hot with fury. ‘This is all total bullshit, this “major disturbance”. What crap! Nothing’s going to happen here. Your witch-boss made up some bullshit story and used you to dump us here so he could get to the mine without us.’
‘No, I don’t think doc would do that,’ Gummi said, anxiously. He was anxious that Freddie could be right about the disturbance and he was anxious that the cop could be right too. He didn’t like the thought that Freddie could have used him as part of a ploy to rid him of the two police officers.
‘Olivier,’ Marley said, in a quieter tone meant to lower the temperature of the conversation, ‘there just might be something in this threat.’
Olivier turned on her. ‘Yes, but when and where, and what do we look for? We have no source that is what you say “credible”. We can alert security here but what do we tell them? That we have a tip from a bunch of witches that another bunch of witches is going to make a major disturbance? Whatever that means? And they will want our credentials and they will see that we are out of our jurisdiction here and we have zero authority. The whole thing will be a complete waste of time.’ He looked around, pursing his lips.
Marley knew that this meant he had more to say and he was on the edge of really letting fly.
‘The fact is, Marls, that we have been set up to be stranded, to look like idiots. Let’s get out of here,’ he said, turning to go. ‘We go into town, pick up a rental, leave this fat boy to save the world and we get our asses up to that mine as quickly as –’