We work our way round to the front of the house. It’s still early, before midnight. Rose is in the garden of a house across the road. She doesn’t giggle as I explain the situation, but she doesn’t want to give up either. She thinks she can work it. All the Hunters enter and leave through the front door. She’ll shadow the next Hunter to arrive and listen for the password.
Now I’m at the back of the house again, leaning against a tree on the edge of the wood. There’s no fence but there is a lawn that stops just before the trees.
Rose and Gabriel are round the front.
The house is divided into two apartments: the upper one on the first and second floors is occupied by several Hunters; the lower one by Clay. From what I can make out Clay has an office and a bedroom at the back. I can see several Hunters moving around in their apartment; if they are going in and out they’re not using the back door, or the windows for that matter.
The weather is warm but overcast and a fine drizzle has started to fall.
I asked Rose what to do if something goes wrong.
She smiled. ‘Escape if you can. Run. If you can’t run, kill as many as you can. They killed your ancestors and they will do everything to kill you, Nathan. Kill them all.’ She kissed my cheek and said sweetly, ‘When you’ve killed them all, then you won’t need to run any more.’
I don’t want to kill anyone. If it came down to kill or be killed, I’d fight for sure but I’d try not to kill. But then again if it was Clay or Kieran …
What was I thinking about?
Rose appears beside me. She has come through the garden using her mist, her Gift. She evaporates like mist and so does my memory of her. Even as you watch her, you forget about her. It’s strange … confusing. But if she touches you, skin on skin, the confusion goes, and while she’s touching you she’s visible. It’s hard to work with her because of the mist and you can’t keep hold of her hand all the time. Gabriel says that the best way to work with her is not to watch her at all but to know what she will do and look away while she clothes herself in her mist so that your thoughts remain clear.
Rose asks, ‘How many Hunters are in there?’
‘Four upstairs.’ And none of them have Kieran’s bulk. ‘I think Clay’s in his office.’
‘I’ll wait here until he goes to bed, then I’ll go round the front and in. I listened in and heard the password. “Red rain”.’
Nice!
‘By the way, I think there’s a cellar,’ I tell her. ‘There’s a grate in the ground to the left of the house. A light came on earlier. I think Clay was down there.’
‘A good place to keep weapons.’
‘Maybe. If I was Clay …’ What would I do? ‘… I’d keep the Fairborn near me. But he has guns to store for his troops, I guess; guns, bullets, whatever. So maybe …’
‘Anything else?’
‘If I’m at the back, how will I know that you are out of there?’
‘Don’t wait here. When I go in, you go round the front and wait with your boyfriend.’
‘Do you know how irritating you are, Rose?’
She giggles softly.
I nudge her and nod to the house. The light in the office has gone out. A few seconds later the light from the cellar comes on.
‘Is he putting his weapons away for the night?’ Rose wonders.
And I know the answer. ‘No. He’s a Hunter. He never sleeps without them.’
‘Under his pillow then.’
‘I have the feeling he sleeps with his boots on and the Fairborn strapped to his thigh.’
‘I like a challenge.’
The cellar light goes off and the bedroom light comes on. A shadow. Two shadows. Clay and his girlfriend move around, come together, kiss, separate. Clay’s shadow goes. The office light comes on again.
‘And I thought it was going to get romantic,’ Rose says.
I watch the shadow in Clay’s bedroom, the way it moves, and how familiar it seems.
It’s much later when the office light goes off. Clay moves to the bedroom and that light goes out too.
‘See you the other side,’ Rose says, and she skips lightly up the garden in full view of the house. A mist covers her and I’m wondering if I saw her at all. I tell myself that she has gone to the front of the house and is slipping in.
I go into the wood to work my way round to the front in a wide circle, cutting between two houses way up the road and heading back to Gabriel. I move slowly. There’s no rush, though really I’ve no idea how long Rose will be. But I want to be sure that I don’t make any stupid mistakes. I get the feeling that the Hunters are relaxed near the house. They’ve switched off or at least lowered their guard a little, never imagining anyone – any witch – would attempt to break in.
Gabriel is in the garden of the house opposite Clay’s. He doesn’t speak but glances at me as I move next to him. He watches the house. I watch behind us.
Nothing happens.
No cars, no Hunters coming or going. It must be two in the morning by now.