The Burning Man kots-2, page 5
part #2 of Kingdom of the Serpent Series
Hunter tapped his spoon on the Formica table. ‘So essentially I no longer have any choice about getting involved in this madness.’
‘Correct. The Hunter has become the hunted.’
‘Nice joke. You know I can actually kill a man with this spoon?’
‘The smell of testosterone is overpowering.’
‘Where do you come into this? Are you the Grandpa of Dragons?’
Tom eyed Hunter over the rim of his coffee cup. ‘I have an interest in your success, shall we say. I accompanied Master Churchill for several hundred years-’
‘You wear it well.’
‘-most of it spent in the timeless Otherworld. The war has affected everything. It has destroyed lives, changed the course of time, shifted reality once, perhaps on many occasions. The stakes are the highest imaginable-’
‘Survival? That’s what it usually comes down to.’
‘On one level. The survival of our dreams for a better world, for meaning, for humanity finally to attain its true potential.’
‘So why am I so special?’
‘Yes, hard to believe, isn’t it?’ Tom sipped his coffee and smacked his lips. ‘The story goes that at the start of everything, two powerful opposing forces were created. Call them Good and Evil, if you want to be stupid. Dark and Light, in symbolic terms. The Dark got the upper hand and decided how the universe should be, and it got to rule it. That explains why there’s Evil in the world, because if the universe was ruled by Good, Evil would not be tolerated. That’s the essence of Gnostic thinking.’
‘Okay — Good, Evil, Light, Dark. I think I can get my head round that.’
Tom kept one eye on the door. ‘When the Light and the Dark were formed, slivers of Light were embedded in all humanity. It’s the key to our salvation — if we use that Light we can oppose the Dark, and turn things around for the universe. And those slivers of Light go by another name around these parts. The Pendragon Spirit.’
‘And that’s what links the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons.’
‘You lot get to access what everyone has hidden within them. That’s what makes you champions of Life, whether you want to be or not.’
‘Not a very good story, is it?’ Hunter finished his espresso and ordered another.
‘I’m just repeating what I’ve been told. Who knows what the truth is?’
‘So there’s a little group of us — a few plucky guerrillas — hoping to overthrow the evil god of the universe.’ Hunter considered that for a moment. ‘I like those odds.’
‘You’ll fit right in.’
‘You’re saying the Enemy won’t let me walk away. That I don’t have a choice about getting involved in this.’
‘You always have a choice. You just have to be prepared to live with the consequences.’
‘Basically, it’s suicide whichever way I turn.’
‘Death’s not all it’s cracked up to be.’
Hunter saw a shift in the impassive edifice of Tom’s face. ‘What?’
Tom looked into the black depths of his coffee and mused, almost to himself, ‘Sometimes I dream of my death. I remember the details of it as clearly as if it really happened. Yet here I am.’ Absently, he stirred in another sugar. ‘I feel out of joint and I don’t know why.’
Hunter watched cars pass the window in a wet haze of reflected light. Piccadilly Circus throbbed with the comfortable rhythms of steady life, red, amber, green, red, amber, green. Yet now he found his attention drawn beyond the surface to details he had never found a need to recognise before: the movement of mysterious shadows across the upper storeys of a building; the sudden, frightened expression on the face of a passer-by, as if a terrible secret had been whispered into their ear; vibrations permeating the walls and floor that felt like a distant heartbeat. He knew then and there that no good would come.
3
Church held Ruth’s sweat-slick body tightly to him. Through the thin walls of the rooming house they could hear Laura singing a Basement Jaxx song loudly, with scant regard for any other occupants.
‘How long do you think we can keep doing this?’ Ruth asked sleepily.
‘What, having sex?’
She looked up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. ‘Running. Hiding. Trying to stay one step ahead of the Enemy.’
‘We’re not doing so badly.’
‘We’ve been lucky. Sticking to ley lines, staying at any vaguely safe place we can find en route. Church, it’s not sustainable. Sooner or later we’re going to get caught out.’ She nuzzled into his neck. ‘I’m just being pragmatic. The Blue Fire can hide us from the Enemy’s view, but it doesn’t make us indestructible. It’s not just the Void, or the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders, or any of the supernatural things lined up against us. There’s plenty of normal people working for the Enemy, too. We don’t know who we can trust. We only need to get flagged up on some CCTV camera, or pulled over for jumping a red light …’ Her voice trailed away wearily, but then she surprised him with a long, deep kiss. ‘I still wouldn’t trade this for the world, though,’ she added softly.
‘You’re sure?’
‘I was so lonely in that fake life the Void gave me. I knew I was missing something really important, but I just didn’t know what it was. I suppose that was all part of the punishment.’
‘You still can’t remember anything from before it all changed? Us together?’
‘Not the detail. But the emotional memory is getting stronger all the time. If I wanted to get all girly I’d say I feel love, that real aching need to be together, just not the reasons how or why that love came about. Does that make sense?’
It did. ‘Maybe the memories will come back once the Void’s illusion fades completely.’
‘I hope so.’ She pulled the duvet around her shoulders and receded into it. ‘Church, do you think Veitch did something to us?’
He knew what she meant: that moment when Ryan Veitch had impaled himself on his own sword in Cornwall and a bolt of black lightning burst through all three of them. ‘If he did, it hasn’t worked. Don’t worry about it.’
She smiled, nodded, but Church could see she was still worrying. ‘I’m going to get a shower.’ She gave him another kiss and skipped to the bathroom.
Church turned to the pack of tarot cards on the bedside cabinet. They were a unique set left for him by Niamh, his long-time companion from the Tuatha De Danann, who had been worshipped as gods by the Celtic people. This pack had a fifth suit beyond the familiar cups, wands, swords and coins — ravens. ‘Eaters of the dead, messengers of the gods,’ Niamh had told him. The fifth suit was usually denied to humans because it had the ability to contact higher powers. To examine the workings of Existence.
The cards had helped save his life. In the moment of his greatest need, they had allowed a point of contact with mysterious beings far higher up the scale than the Tuatha De Danann who had hinted at a great role for Church in some sprawling, mysterious scheme.
Since then he had repeatedly tried to use the cards to contact those higher powers without even a glimmer of success, but somehow, he was sure there was a trick he was missing. He laid them out on the bed in the spread he had seen Niamh using. Three cards in and he knew the situation had changed. Each of the cards was a raven. He continued to turn over the cards. All ravens. An involuntary shiver rippled through him, the uneasy sensation of brushing against the unknown. As he laid the final card, a jolt of energy leaped from the image of the raven into his fingers and he recoiled sharply. With anticipation, he waited for something else to happen, but there was nothing beyond an odd feeling permeating the room.
A knock at the door made him start. Shavi came in, looking exhausted.
‘I have conducted three consecutive rituals. The residents of the Invisible World can be unpleasant, troublesome, and will not give out even the smallest and most inconsequential piece of information unless they are backed into a corner.’ Shavi sat on the end of the bed and ran his fingers through his long hair. The rituals of contact took so much out of him sometimes that he could not even stand afterwards, yet he never complained. ‘Yet I truly believe they do not know where our two mysterious targets are, and that troubles me.’
‘Stands to reason that if they’re a threat to the Void, they’re going to be well hidden.’
‘There has to be a way of locating them. We just have not found it yet.’
‘We could cross over to the Otherworld. Try to find someone there who could help.’
‘Yes. Perhaps your friend Niamh.’
The mention of her name flushed Church with hope. Niamh had helped him in his darkest moment, and he had repaid her by saving her life. He wondered if he should tell the others about his near-hallucinatory experience when he had shifted the Axis of Existence, changing the course of history. Niamh and Tom now lived when they should have died. Yet it felt too monumental to express, and so unreal that the facts of what had truly happened were elusive. Perhaps it had all been a dream and Tom and Niamh were still dead. But if they had survived, he had achieved something remarkable, and perhaps paid Niamh back for the centuries of love she had offered him that he had never returned.
Shavi went to the window and looked over the wet rooftops of North London. ‘I wonder where Hunter is. I hope he is safe,’ he mused.
As he turned the matter over in his mind, Church decided on a compromise. ‘We send Mallory, Sophie and Caitlin to Otherworld. They can ask Niamh to help — she’ll understand if I’m not there. The Extinction Shears are with the Market of Wishful Spirit over there, the Keys are over here. It makes sense for us to split up. And they can hook up with all the other Brothers and Sisters of Dragons in T’ir n’a n’Og.’
‘The ones you saved from this world?’
‘The ones I saved from Veitch.’
‘I still do not understand how he could go from being one of us … one of the Five, a champion of Life … to causing slaughter on such a grand scale.’
‘We were all screwed up to some degree, but Veitch was worse. Somehow the Void twisted his own insecurities into something awful.’
‘And he always loved Ruth.’
Church flinched; there it was.
Shavi read Church’s thoughts. ‘Veitch is dead now. We do not have to worry about him any more.’
‘He made sure his legacy would stick around for ever,’ Church said bitterly.
Shavi clapped an arm around Church’s shoulders. ‘We are together now. Stronger than we ever were alone. We must not forget that. I will tell the others of your plan.’
As Shavi left, Ruth returned from her shower, naturally attractive with a scrubbed face and her hair pulled back. Church opened the window and they kneeled before it. The clouds had started to clear and the moon illuminated a silvery path across the wet rooftops.
Ruth rested an arm across his shoulders. ‘It’s a grim world out there. You really think we can make a difference?’
‘We did once. We brought the magic back when the world needed it. That was one battle in a much bigger war, and there will be victories and set-backs, but-’
‘We can do it again.’
A shooting star blazed across the quadrant of sky visible between the clouds. Church had a vague impression of seeing one before in a similar situation, but it was lost in his fractured memory.
‘I think we need to make the most of what we’ve got here and now,’ he said. ‘We’ll deal with what’s to come when we get there.’
4
‘You feel it, too. That sense of being disconnected.’ Sophie sat cross-legged on the bed.
Mallory couldn’t take his eyes off her. She had an entrancing, ethereal quality that was completely mysterious to him, yet at the same time strangely familiar. After so long being denied contact with her in the Steelguard offices, the mix was heady and compelling.
‘What are you smiling at?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. We’ve just been dragged out of our lives and told we’re the ultimate sleeper agents. “Disconnected” doesn’t even begin to cover it.’
Caitlin turned from the window where she had been keeping watch. Her eyes gleamed. ‘Isn’t this better?’ She gave an excited laugh. ‘I think there’s something wrong with me. All this danger, and I’m just buzzing! This beats repping beauty products up and down the country.’
‘When I was cleaning toilets I used to dream of repping beauty products.’ Mallory studied Caitlin’s face. Behind the sparkle of her excitement, there was a shadow of abiding sadness.
‘Oh, you two have had it so hard,’ Sophie said. ‘Try living with several million pounds of someone else’s money hanging over your conscience.’
Shavi interrupted them. ‘Church has decided on a plan of action,’ he said, ‘but it will mean the three of you operating alone.’
‘Seriously, who put him in charge?’ Mallory asked.
‘Existence.’ Shavi smiled. ‘Besides, he has earned it.’
Shavi carefully explained about the Far Lands and how it was possible to cross over at certain points, before fielding their incredulous questions. Once acceptance had set in, he detailed what was expected of them. ‘Are you ready to take on the responsibility?’ he asked.
‘You might think your little group has the monopoly on the hero thing,’ Mallory said, ‘but we’re going to be better.’
‘Ah, a competitive spirit. That should add an edge to the proceedings,’ Shavi said, without even a hint of competition in return.
‘Hang on.’ Caitlin had returned to the window. ‘Something’s happening outside.’
5
With her iPod on, Laura sang out loudly. All the others were worried about what lay ahead. Not her. Going out in a blaze of glory was better than spending her days flipping burgers and filling her nights with drugs and sex in a futile attempt to find some kind of meaning in her life.
Her bouncing on the bed came to a gradual halt as she noticed a flock of black birds framed in the skylight. There were more of them than she had ever seen in one place before, and they appeared to be circling the building.
Clambering onto a chair, she opened the skylight and peered out. Ravens, and they were everywhere, perched on chimneys, the pitch of roofs, in gutters, and flying in that enormous black cloud. But not one of them made a single sound.
The sight unnerved her and she slammed the skylight shut, but her fear was quickly forgotten in the shock of seeing her room transformed. Vegetation obscured the walls, window and door. Clusters of acorns hung from oak branches. Holly grew across the cheap dressing table, and the bed was now a bower of ivy and mistletoe.
‘Daughter.’ The voice rolled out like a summer tide hitting the beach.
Laura fought the hammering of her heart and scanned the room. And there it was, in one corner, given away only by its red eyes. The figure was constructed of the same dense vegetation and merged perfectly into the background. Yet for all the wild strangeness, the leaf-face was unmistakably benign. It was the face carved into the stone and wood of medieval churches, the echo of the greenwood and the magical power of fertility.
‘Who are you?’ she asked with as much bravura as she could muster.
‘In your heart, you know, daughter.’
Laura felt the ghost of that knowledge at the back of her mind, infuriatingly just out of reach. ‘The Green Man?’ she ventured.
‘That is one of my names. Fragile Creatures have known me by many others. I have long watched over your people from the depths of the great forests, and I have guided and helped where I could. The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons have always been close to me. And you, daughter, have been closest of all.’
Laura felt a burning on her hand. The circle of interlocking leaves etched on her skin glowed a faint green. She had presumed it was a discreet tattoo, though she didn’t recall getting it.
‘The memory is lost to you, daughter, but you gave yourself to me and I changed you, to better prepare you for the arduous road ahead.’
Conflicting emotions threatened to tear Laura apart: fear and comfort, the desire to flee and to fall into the green embrace. This was the source of her unique ability to control plants and trees. ‘What do you want?’
‘Know this: the Devourer of All Things is aware of you, daughter, and of what you plan. It cannot abide the Blue Fire being returned to the land. My people flee — it will not allow them to remain in case they aid you. Soon, I too must slip into the long winter-sleep to preserve my power. But there may be other allies in the Great Dominions. Seek them out.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
The Green Man became tense, his leaves and branches shuddering. ‘You must leave this place quickly, daughter. Danger approaches.’ He motioned towards the skylight where the ravens pecked against the glass. ‘See. The Morvren know. They have come to accompany the Giant-Killer on his final journey. From now on, he will be known as Raven King.’
‘Church?’ Laura looked from the Green Man to the ravens, not comprehending.
‘Run, daughter,’ he said insistently. ‘Run!’
6
Church looked out of the window at the ravens, remembering a time more than a thousand years earlier when he had been told that the ravens and their premonition of death would follow him.
‘I’m scared,’ he realised as he watched the birds fly. ‘I never was before.’
‘Scared of what?’ Ruth asked.
‘When it was just me on my own, I’d take risks, do whatever needed to be done, even if it meant putting myself in danger. Now I’ve got something to lose. You.’
Ruth fell silent for a moment. ‘That’s bad.’
‘That’s bad. That’s good. That’s bad.’ Church shook his head, confused.
Mallory burst in, startling them. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. Now.’
‘What is it?’
‘Police. They’ve closed off the street, doing house-to-house.’
