53
Christmas at Sea
The untold stories
And how they end
A vast oak table stood in the middle of an ancient hall, covered in red silk and as many flickering candles as Sarah could find. Seven chairs, seven people and seven sets of secrets and hopes and fears.
On one side, a black-haired man burning with fear, white-as-snow hands clutching the napkin on his lap in terrible anticipation, and beside him a tall, fair woman with bandaged arms and weary eyes.
At the opposite side, a girl with silver hair, placid and beautiful and brimming with kindness, beside a man whose grey eyes always smiled, and a dark-skinned man between them, his desires and hopes well hidden away, buried beneath selflessness and duty, strong and loyal as the roots of a tree.
At either end of the table, the ones with the invisible chain between them – Sarah’s hair flowed down her back in a sweet-scented stream, the scars on Sean’s arms shone white in the light of the candles against his bronzed skin. Unspoken words went back and forth between them, hands that longed to meet and a story interrupted.
And then, in a shower of glass, the Mermen came.
At last, thought Nicholas, and rose slowly, readying himself to fight. Because he, like Sarah, had finally made his choice.
54
Things That Come Ashore
Teeth and bones and flesh
Fragile like glass
Soft as clay
The million different ways
To break a human body
The windows exploded in a shower of glass, shards falling all around them and darting across the polished floor. A foul, rotting smell filled the air, and through the broken windows the Mermen made their inexorable way inside the Hall, waddling, arms outstretched to grab, teeth bared to bite. There were too many to count, shuffling along the floor under the golden light of the chandelier.
They prepared themselves in a heartbeat. Sarah was poised to leap, her eyes shimmering with the Midnight gaze, hands ready. Sean had his sgian-dubh in his hand faster than the eye could see; Mike drew his gun. Niall stepped back slightly, and started humming softly; Elodie’s lips began to take on a deadly shade of blue, quickly turning to black.
Only Winter remained sitting, momentarily frozen, her whole body, every bit of her screaming for the water. Out of the sea she was just like any other human being, no powers, no Gamekeeper’s training – just the instinct to survive and an innate, animal courage. And that’s what kicked in. A split second later she was standing too, ready to fight with all she had.
After the shattering of the windows, there were no sounds but the Surari’s gurgling breath, their fins dragging over the floor as they spread across the room, and Niall’s soft humming. The Islay night enveloped them in darkness and silence.
And then it began. It was relentless, and bloody, and painful. The Mermen were thumping and breaking and biting soft flesh, moans of agony and exertion and fear exploded into the air like thousands of fireworks. It didn’t take long for Sarah and her friends to realize what was really happening: the sea’s power itself had been unleashed, and they were about to be overwhelmed. It didn’t take long for Niall’s song to be interrupted, for Elodie to be trapped in a fight she couldn’t win, for Mike’s gun to be knocked out of his hand, and for Winter, the weakest of the pack, to be isolated and cornered. A wave of despair swept the room, and for a moment, the end looked near, the fight as short as it’d been savage.
But suddenly red ribbons began to fly about the room, spurting from Sean’s runes like bloody streams, and soon his power was clear for all to see. Mermen fell all around, cut by an invisible blade, as Sean’s movements got faster and sharper, the ribbons dancing and slicing. The Surari were taken aback for a moment, and Niall had the time to jump to the table, raising himself above the battle long enough to resume his humming. Elodie, agile and quick as a cat despite the pain she was in, twisted out of one of the Merman’s grasp and started working with Sean so that every time he floored one of their attackers, she would jump on it and give it her deadly kiss. The creatures writhed and contorted for a few instants, gasping for air, their mother-of-pearl skin turning darker, their eyeballs bulging and their gills pulsating frantically in their death throes.
By now Sarah was everywhere, her eyes shining emerald and lethal – Elodie could actually see a flash of green wherever Sarah went. The instant she felt that the Midnight gaze had paralyzed a weakened Surari, she grasped it with her toxic hands, dissolving the hideous creatures one by one. A thin film of Blackwater began to cover the floor, engulfing and suffocating the little sea creatures – the eels and crabs and unnamed slimy things that came from the deep, carried on land by the Mermen, were thrashing in it, suffocating slowly. It was as if the sea had turned black and poisonous, flooding Midnight Hall.
Niall’s song strengthened, rising in volume and power. He flinched as he watched a Merman throw Mike to the floor and bite a chunk out of his leg. But nothing stopped the song. It was all Niall could do. His voice became increasingly high-pitched and painful and deadly, reaching Mike’s attacker just as the Merman was preparing to bite Mike’s face off. It folded into itself, holding its head, while Mike crawled across the room to grab his gun and fire it, once, twice.
To his dismay, the bullets lodged into the Surari’s translucent skin but didn’t reach its insides. Its skin might have looked deceivingly thin and scaly, but it was as thick as an elephant’s hide. The discovery made Mike moan in despair. All he could do was aim at their eyes, and so he did. One Merman fell, its face blown off, but before he could fire again, another Merman grabbed him with all its strength and threw Mike to the wet, blackened floor.
A Surari climbed over the table and grabbed Niall’s legs, throwing him down on the hard wooden surface. His song came to an abrupt halt as his mouth filled with blood and he fell in a sea of broken crockery and splattered food, the Merman still holding onto his legs. Niall braced himself for the bite: and it came, excruciating, as the Surari sank his teeth into his thigh.
“Niall!” As the song was interrupted, Elodie had instinctively looked at the table to check on him. She threw herself on the Surari holding Niall down and stabbed it repeatedly. She grabbed its head and placed a poisonous kiss on its lips, the Merman’s sharp teeth cutting Elodie’s mouth, and her blue lips were smeared with red.
“Are you OK?” she asked Niall when the demon had fallen, wiping her mouth and wincing in pain.
Niall nodded and spat out two teeth. Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye, and gasped. Winter had been holding her own in every way she could. Her arms were lined with deep cuts and her hair was dripping with Blackwater, but she didn’t seem mortally wounded. A Surari was standing in front of her, and they were looking at each other – the Merman baring its teeth, anticipating the taste of her flesh, Winter trying to stop herself from shaking, trying to stop her legs from buckling, trying to pretend she was unafraid. Suddenly, with newfound courage she leapt on the Surari, a strange sound coming from the back of her throat. It was a call the Merman recognized – a seal call.
Infuriated, it grabbed her by the shoulders and sank its teeth into her chest. Winter screamed in pain and terror, but Niall was already on the Surari, the magic song streaming from his mouth, the notes spurting into the air like blood from an open wound. Elodie was close behind.
Agonized, the Merman let Winter go, and both covered their ears, hit by the full force of the song. Elodie took her chance and, with a graceful leap, bent over the Merman, kissing it and killing it in seconds.
The sounds of battle were retreating.
Niall stopped singing and took Winter in his arms. They clung to each other, breathless, surveying the horrific scene. A Merman had just dissolved under Sarah’s touch, another one was writhing on the floor in its final moments, Sean standing over it, panting in fury. Another one lay dead, a bullet hole between its eyes. Mermen corpses lay everywhere, lapped by the mixture of blood and Blackwater on the floor. The last of the dying Surari became still, one after the other.
For a few seconds Sarah and her friends allowed themselves to breathe, looking around in the sudden calm.
Could it be?
Could they have made it? Could they have survived such a merciless attack?
And then gurgling, shuffling, and what was left of the windows shattered. Another deadly wave of Mermen erupted into the hall. Icy panic shot through Sean’s veins as only one thought filled his mind: This is the night we die.
55
One Soul
Like many before me
Beneath the waves, beneath the crosses:
I’ll never see my home again
A merman ripped Winter from Niall’s arms, ready to bite. A suffocated sound came out of Niall’s throat. He was faced with a terrible choice, with Mike on one side and Winter on the other, and him in the middle, scrambling to get the song going again, and failing.
In the terrible instant before the Surari crowded in on him, Mike saw Winter’s predicament. There was no doubt in his mind as to what to do. He pinned his eyes onto the Merman’s.
“Hey, you! Damn bastard fish! And you!” he screamed at another Merman making its way through the wrecked window. “Come and get me!”
“Mike! No!” Niall yelled, surging forward to help his friend.
But Mike’s words stopped him. “Don’t you dare, man. Go help Winter. Now!”
Niall knew his friend was right. He threw himself on the Merman that was pinning Winter to the floor, and stabbed him over and over again with the knife he’d grabbed from the table.
With a howl of pure fury, Winter grabbed the Merman’s head and pushed her fingers into its eyes, scooping out its eyeballs with a shudder of revulsion. The Merman jerked backwards, convulsing on the floor, scraping at its head with its hands, dark, foul-smelling liquid pouring out of its empty eye sockets.
Niall had barely got his bearings before two Mermen threw him aside. One of them grabbed Winter’s leg and took a bite out of her calf, then threw her face first into a puddle of Blackwater. The other ripped into Niall’s back, lifting him off the floor by his shoulders. Niall roared in fury, until finally he swept into the song again, every bit as deafening as before. The Mermen fell to the ground, rolling in agony, covering their ears with their hands. Niall fell heavily, released by his captor, still screaming and singing and howling the deadliest sound that had ever come out of his mouth.
Elodie lost no time, kneeling beside the fallen Mermen, delivering her deadly kisses – two, four, six Mermen fell unconscious and died, touched by Elodie’s poisonous lips. But soon Niall’s song got too much even for her. She slid underneath the table and covered her ears with her hands, blood dripping through her fingers.
Sean pulled her out of the other side with one hand, while the other was still tracing the runes with the last of his energy, sending deadly ribbons hurtling through the air. Niall’s song was hurting him too. “God, Niall, stop!” he shouted, though he knew that their lives depended on it.
The only one who seemed unaffected by the song was Sarah, who kept placing her hands on fallen Mermen, her eyes closed, pressing their bodies until their skin starting to weep and ooze away. One after the other, Sarah dissolved them, utterly focused on what she needed to do.
Elodie and Sean huddled by the wall, unable to move, grimacing with the pain. Sean’s ears were now bleeding heavily too. But Niall would not give up. They had been caught out once, he would not let that happen again. He kept going as long as he could, slowly folding into himself as his body weakened and the spell drained the last of his strength.
The song turned into a final terrible wail, and then silence. Niall lay mute and panting on the ground. For a few seconds there was no movement in the room except terrified eyes darting, trying to work out where the danger would come from next. The only noise was heavy breathing. In the sudden calm, two uninjured Mermen moved swiftly towards where Mike was lying. One of them bent over him, grabbed him by the hair, and then dropped him, in full view of the others.
Mike lay lifeless, his throat ripped open.
Niall let out a shout of grief and anger. He crawled towards the fallen body and shook Mike’s shoulders, trying not to acknowledge the terrible thought that kept forcing itself into his mind.
Mike is dead.
No.
Mike is dead.
No, no!
“Look out! Niall!” yelled Sarah.
A Surari grabbed him from behind, shaking him and squeezing him so hard he couldn’t breathe. He had no energy and no breath left to sing, and the knife was out of reach, stuck into a dead Merman. In his head he was already dead, alongside Mike. But then Nicholas was standing there, his hands raised, blue flames flowing from his fingers and enveloping the Merman. The Surari caught fire immediately, as if it’d been doused in fuel, blackening and curling up at once. Niall was astonished to see the look on Nicholas’s face as he looked down at Mike’s dead body. The sparks from his fingers faded. He dropped his head into his hands.
This is it. It has started, Nicholas told himself.
The brain fury in all its might – not the headaches that had been tormenting him. This was the real thing.
“No! Stop! Please, stop!” he begged in a daze of blinding pain, clawing at his scalp. It was as if acid were being poured through his eyes, burning through his skin, his bones, and the soft tissue of his brain. Every breath was crippling, every blink like dying a thousand deaths, until he shut his eyes and curled up into a ball, unable to do anything but wail.
And then when he thought that the pain could not get worse, the King of Shadows – his father – unleashed the full force of his power on his own son, driving him through acute pain into near madness. Nicholas shuddered and screamed, a scream that chilled everyone’s blood, drawing their attention from the remaining Mermen.
“Nicholas!” Sarah was facing a hideous Merman whose hands were woven with seaweed, and whose face was encrusted with sea anemones. She too wondered where he had been all this time. She shook her head briefly – she had to concentrate, summon the Midnight gaze, and quickly – but her eyes couldn’t focus, not with Nicholas screaming like that. She had never heard anything like it.
Summoning all her remaining strength she finally looked at the Surari with all the force of her Midnight eyes, and incredibly the Merman faltered, scrambling blindly at her with its slippery hands. Sarah took hold of both its hands at once, and for a second it looked almost as if they were dancing – and then the Merman’s skin began to weep and blacken, until its arms dissolved with a splash, and its head, its body, its legs followed, gushing across the wooden floor in a black puddle.
Breathing heavily, Sarah surveyed the scene. Many Mermen were dead, but there were many others still standing, waiting for the humans to fall. Sean was badly wounded, Elodie looked utterly exhausted. Nicholas, to her horror, had begun to bang his head against the wall, and Niall … Niall was crying. Her eyes met his across the room and she raised herself to go to him. But Nicholas needed her first. She had to stop him injuring himself, splitting his head open against the wall. What had happened to him?
She was sure that the way across the room to reach him was clear – but almost immediately a Merman halted her in her tracks, punching the air out of her lungs, and throwing her to the floor. As she landed, she felt something breaking – the ribs she’d cracked only a few weeks before, probably. The pain was so intense she almost fainted. She braced herself for a kick or another vicious punch. But instead of the ghastly face of one of her attackers she saw the innocent little girl with long blonde hair. The girl she’d seen the night of her scrying spell. Everything fell silent.
“Mairead,” she mouthed.
“Remember,” said the little girl, and her voice resounded clear and composed in the sudden silence.
Not a second passed before Sarah found herself standing on the beach. She was a child again, eight years old, the wind blowing on her face, and someone holding her hand. She looked up. It was her grandmother, Morag Midnight. The scene twirled and danced around her, and suddenly the beach vanished and they were in her grandmother’s room. She was showing Sarah something. A book.
“A storm is coming, and it will hit before long. If you have no other choice left, and you have to read this book, death might not be far away.”
“Gran,” she murmured, troubled at what she had been told.
And then the scene dissolved.
She was back in the hellish mess of Midnight Hall and Mairead was in front of her again, caressing her face. Somebody was screaming. Nicholas was screaming. Sarah fixed her eyes on Mairead, silently pleading for help, and then the world ebbed away.
Nicholas had seen Sarah falling, and with impossible effort he’d steadied himself. He moved away from the wall, yelling in the ancient language, ordering the Mermen to take hold of Sarah, to lay her in a corner of the room where she would be unharmed, to guard her. She was his chosen bride, she must be saved.
The Mermen heard him, but they showed no sign of obeying his orders.
And then, the voice in his head.
You’re going to die, and so is Sarah. You sealed her fate with your choice.
“No! Sarah!” Nicholas clutched at his head again, fighting the fire that was consuming him.
Had you not betrayed me, she would have been spared.
“Sarah!” Nicholas’s brain was burning, scorching. He could no longer see anything but painful bursts of lightning piercing deep darkness. His forehead was bruised and bloody from where he’d banged it against the wall.
The effort to keep conscious was draining him. He must not give into it. He knew that soon he wouldn’t be able to stand, but still he called and pleaded in the ancient language, desperately hoping that the Mermen would listen, though by now he knew in his heart that all hope was gone.
It seemed as if the Surari were pausing. Hearing Nicholas’s crazed screaming, Sean turned his back on the Merman nearest him and followed the black-eyed man’s gaze. Sarah was unconscious on the floor, and he started running towards her, tracing flailing symbols in the air. Immediately the Surari mobilized. Sean knew that it was the wrong decision to run, and he knew that he couldn’t run fast enough, but he had to try. The nearest Surari reached him in two long strides, took hold of him and sank its teeth into his arm, keeping them there and sucking, savouring the taste. Sean collapsed from the pain of it, unable to reach Sarah.
The pain in his head was so strong that Nicholas could see nothing – but he forced himself to raise his arms, and it worked. He felt the blue sparks flickering from the tops of his fingers again. Relieved, he opened his eyes, and although he was looking at where he knew his hands were, he still saw nothing but darkness.
Panicked, he began spinning, flicking his hands at random, directing the flames at the curtains, the rugs, the tablecloth, until the whole room was ablaze. A terrible cry passed his lips, a cry of pain and rage and despair, and made every creature in the room, human or Surari, stop and listen in horror.
The slight pause was enough, and one by one the Mermen went up in flames – they seemed to burn as fast as kindling, melting and crackling, pouring into liquid fat and disappearing into ashes.
Finally free, Sean limped to Sarah, wading through the puddles of Blackwater mixed with ash, and squatted beside her. With great effort, and despite all his bruises, he gathered her in his arms. She was slowly coming back to her senses.
“Sarah. We need to get out. It’s all on fire!”
“Nicholas?”
A flaming curtain fell from the window in front of Sean’s feet, nearly setting them both alight. Sean jumped back with a scream. “We need to go, Sarah. Now. I’m sorry.”
“No!”
“Sarah! We’ll all die!” Sean took her by the shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. “Look around you! We have to save ourselves.” Blue flames danced around them, enveloping everything they touched.
Sarah nodded miserably.
Nicholas. Forgive me.
Sean and Sarah started their slow progress towards the window, towards safety and fresh air. “Elodie! Niall! Niall! Winter! Out now!” Sean yelled over and over again.
On hearing Sean’s voice over the last of the incinerated Mermen’s screams, Niall shook himself. He took hold of Mike’s body – he wouldn’t let him burn, he wouldn’t leave his friend – and lifted him over his shoulder.
“Winter!” he called. “Elodie!”
He looked behind him, but the smoke was now so thick that he couldn’t breathe, and he could barely see. Suddenly, Elodie appeared in front of him, choking, her body wracked with coughs. To his horror, he saw that the bandages on her arms were on fire. He pushed her roughly through the broken windows before negotiating the jagged shards of glass around the window frames, Mike’s weight throwing him off balance.
Through the smoke billowing into the night sky, he saw Elodie rolling on the grass, trying to put the fires all over her body out. She lay on the grass for a moment, panting, holding her blackened arms.
“Elodie! Help!”
Niall was struggling to push Mike’s heavy body through the jagged holes in the window. He was coughing violently, and his eyes were streaming with tears. She jumped to her feet, taking hold of Mike and helping Niall to lay him on the grass a safe distance from the house.
“Are you OK? Your arms,” croaked Niall, wiping his eyes on his sleeves.
“I’m fine. It didn’t burn the skin. Oh my God.” She knelt by Mike’s body, lowering her ear to his mouth, calling his name.
Niall shook his head. “He isn’t unconscious. He’s dead.”
“It was him. It was him, then,” she murmured. Her eyes met Niall’s, and they mirrored each other’s pain.
But Elodie shook herself. “Winter, Sean and Sarah are still inside, I’m going to get them.” She stood up, facing the inferno that was now the dining room in which they had started their Christmas dinner not long before.
“I’m coming with you.”
With a final look at Mike’s body, they prepared themselves to race inside again, but a wall of toxic smoke and the blast of terrible heat forced them back. Niall and Elodie looked at each other again. There was no way they could return inside.
“They’re gone,” Elodie cried, and clasped her hands to her mouth.
“Elodie! Look!” Niall was pointing at something pale moving carefully out of one of the far windows. They ran closer. It was a white hand, clutching the broken glass.
“I’m coming!” called Niall. He grabbed the fingers, holding them firmly as they groped along the glass. It was a woman’s hand. Sarah’s? Winter’s? He couldn’t make it out. Another hand appeared, and a pair of bleeding arms, and finally, a silvery head covered in ashes.
It was Winter, her hair blackened and singed, her skin red raw where the flames had burnt her.
“Niall?”
“I’m here. I’m here. Come on.” Niall helped her up and out, not caring about whether he cut his own arms or not.
Winter staggered free and lay down on the grass, panting and coughing up black blood.
“Thank God,” murmured Elodie. But she couldn’t rest. “Sean! Sarah!” she kept calling, to no avail.
Once he was sure that Winter’s breathing was steady and that she could stand – and run if need be – Niall joined Elodie once more, as close to the house as they could get in the face of the scorching heat. They called frantically. No reply. Just licks of blue flame darting out of the windows.
“They’re gone. Sean and Sarah are gone,” Niall whispered in disbelief. He pushed his hands through his filthy hair and turned away.
Mike. Sean. Sarah. Nicholas.
Dead.
Niall felt a wave of despair sweep him. It was all over.
Elodie appeared by his side and took his hand. Instinctively, he took her in his arms, gesturing to Winter to join them. The three of them stood close together, clinging to each other, watching the house being reduced to ash and rubble.
And then there was the sound of shattering glass and, in disbelief, they watched as two blackened shapes threw themselves out of the farthest window, followed by hungry blue tongues of flame. They lay on the ground a few yards from the house, skin cut, eyes weeping, coughing, heaving, snatching ragged, short, painful breaths. But alive.
It was Sean and Sarah.
As soon as she could draw enough breath to speak, Sarah tried to scramble to her feet. “Nicholas!” she screamed. “Nicholas is still inside!”
“There’s nothing we can do!” Sean restrained her, but she struggled to be let go until he encircled her in his arms, pinning her to him, refusing to let her re-enter the building. Finally she stopped struggling and turned away, weeping with frustration.
And then she saw the body.
One of them hadn’t made it.
Sean walked over and knelt, taking in the frozen, livid features of his friend. Mike, lying terribly, terribly still, his body broken and his soul gone. Sean whispered his name over and over, louder with each call, and then he screamed, all his fury pouring into the terrible sound.
Sean’s cry of rage was joined by sounds of sadness from the others as they all began to take in the enormity of what had happened. And as they stood there, a million little flakes started falling on and around them all, resting delicately on their stricken faces and their bloodied hands. They stood there, in shock, the heat of the burning house coming against the frozen December air.
And then, as the fire in the house consumed itself, as the snow kept falling, a black figure appeared silhouetted against the white sky – black hair, black face, eyes crazed with pain.
“Nicholas!” cried Sarah. She ran to him and held him, but he was too heavy. They fell together on the grass. “You’re alive!”
“I can’t die in fire,” whispered Nicholas through parched, charred lips. “Because I. Am. Fire,” he added slowly, as if to remind himself of his identity. He fell supine on the slowly growing mantle of snow.
Sarah bent over him and touched his face, his hair, feeling his features with her fingers and sweeping the ash from his skin. Something was wrong, she knew it. Something was very wrong, and it would never be right again.
Nicholas kept blinking, his eyes streaming from the ash and the smoke, but he wasn’t focusing. His eyes were sweeping all around, darting towards the sky, the ground, not quite resting anywhere or on anything. Sarah’s heart missed a beat.
She looked into his eyes, and that’s when she realized what had happened to him.
Nicholas was blind.
56
Like a River to the Sea
The last words I said to you
Weren’t even words at all
Sean
He was the best Gamekeeper I knew. But before being a Gamekeeper, he was my friend. Mike had sacrificed everything for our mission, as if he’d had no other life at all, nothing but the fight alongside the Secret Families. We all toss and turn under our burdens, we all complain and pity ourselves – every second thought of ours starts with I. I want, I need, I wish. Mike had forgotten all about his needs and desires. He was the one among us who lived for the world, not for himself.
And now, he is the one who lies wrapped in a white sheet on the snowy ground.
Sarah and Elodie have prepared him, washed him, dressed him. All his wounds are nearly invisible. He seems asleep, peaceful.
Niall is quiet now, calm, but his eyes are red, and his hands curled into fists. I can sense the anger rolling off him, an acidic, half-burnt scent that is completely out of place on Niall, who’s usually so mellow. I think he has changed forever, like Sarah did when Leigh died.
Elodie has her hand in mine, our hair getting damp under the snowfall; Winter is standing beside Niall, her arms and legs bare in her cotton dress. Sarah is not with us. She’s with Nicholas, who’s been hurt in the fight in a way we can’t quite understand. They’re in Nicholas’s room, curtains closed.
We’re all bruised, wounded, limping – a band of survivors still bleeding from the battle. I can’t quite believe it all happened just a few hours ago. The flames extinguished themselves as quickly as they had started, sparing the rest of Midnight Hall. Only the grand hall was destroyed, a blackened shell coated with foul-smelling grease and melted glass.
I say a few words to try and steady us, but my voice sounds feeble and distant in this dreamy white landscape. Not loud enough to tell the world what a tragedy it is to have lost Mike, how cold, how black everything is now. Or maybe words aren’t necessary.
And then Niall starts singing, the Irish Gaelic words running off his tongue like a waterfall. He sings the saddest song I’ve ever heard. Once the song has died away, Niall recites the words in English so that we can all understand his last tribute to Mike. His words are punctuated by our soft sobbing:
Many a night both wet and dry
Weather of the seven elements
He would find for me a rocky shelter
Where I would take refuge
They let your blood yesterday
Great is my sorrow, great
Our tears mix with falling snowflakes as we gently lift Mike up and place him in the cradle we have dug for him in the soft, not yet frozen soil of Islay.
“So far from home,” whispers Winter.
Everyone is silent and shivering as we walk back inside. Everything is covered in ash and debris, and the windows on one side of the house are empty and black like blind eyes. Sarah is walking slowly down the stairs, a smudge of ash on her cheek.
“How is he?” whispers Elodie.
Sarah shakes her head. It’s enough of an answer. Right on cue, a half-cry comes from upstairs. It’s Nicholas. “Leave him,” says Sarah. “There is nothing – nothing – you can do to help him.”
I rake my fingers through my hair. “We need to go back to the mainland, but it’s too early to leave now. We will wait until morning, as planned. Niall has arranged a lift with the trawlermen.”
Sarah nods.
“We need to get Nicholas on his feet and out of here. I’ll go see him.” My voice is still hoarse and broken.
“Be gentle, please, Sean. He’s in agony.” Sarah begs me. But she doesn’t stop me.
“He might be in agony, but worse may be to come, so we still need to go, Sarah.” I don’t have kinder words for Nicholas now. All I can think of is that, unlike Mike, he’s not six feet under.
Sarah and Elodie follow me upstairs. Quietly, I make my way into Nicholas’s room. His body is shuddering with the intensity of his sobs, his face hidden in a pillow.
“I can’t take this anymore, Sean. Please kill me,” he slurs, without showing his face. I’m horrified. The powerful, arrogant Nicholas is begging like a little boy. What’s going on? I look to Sarah, who has her hands clasped over her mouth.
“Nicholas, what’s happening?” I ask.
He cradles his head in his hands and moans softly.
Sarah kneels beside his bed. “There must be a way for us to help you. Please, Nicholas. You must know something.”
He sits up suddenly, still holding his head. “I made my choice! I made my choice!” he yells, as if he’s hallucinating.
“What choice? What choice did you make?” I take him by the shoulders, and he strikes out at random, catching my nose. A warm gush of blood flows over my hands, but I signal Sarah to leave me be. I was already in pretty bad shape after tonight’s attack. One more ache won’t change the score much.
“You’re all dead!” he screams. “And so am I!”
I can see now that he’s delirious with pain. There’s no making sense out of him.
Sarah is distraught. “Nicholas, please.”
“My father is coming!”
“Who is it, Nicholas? Who is your father?” I press him.
“The King of Shadows!” he screams, issuing a heartbreaking wail.
We still, remembering Niall and Winter’s words from only a few hours earlier. But what can he mean? There was no mention of a son of the King of Shadows?
He looks up for a long instant, his blind eyes open and staring, and then he shudders. Blood is flowing from his nostrils and his mouth, and, horribly, out of his eyes – it’s as if he’s exploding from the inside. In perfect silence, as if drowned in his own blood, he falls against the pillow, unconscious.
“Nicholas! No!” Sarah kneels on the floorboards beside the bed, clinging to him. “Oh my God, he’s dead! Nicholas! No!”
Elodie is shivering so violently that her teeth are chattering. “Nicholas,” she calls despairingly.
My hand is on his neck at once, checking his pulse. “He’s not dead.”
Sarah sobs in relief.
“Help me.”
We prop him up, peeling the drenched sheets from his body, wiping him clean, remaking the bed with fresh linen Sarah’s found in the cupboard.
“What’s happening to him? Sean, please help him,” Sarah begs.
“I don’t know what’s going on. This started during the battle, didn’t it? He was in pain while fighting the Mermen. I thought it was the attack, but maybe it’s something else?”
Sarah is wringing her fingers. “He kept shouting. He kept saying ‘I made my choice,’ as if he was talking to someone.”
“Sean.” There’s an edge to Elodie’s voice that makes me look up at once. “He might not be delirious.”
“What do you mean?”
“He told us the King of Shadows is his father.”
“Clearly he doesn’t know what he’s saying!” protests Sarah, an arm across Nicholas’s chest as if to defend him.
But Elodie is adamant. “This pain he’s suffering. This … burning up in his head. Where else have we seen it, Sean?”
I feel ill. “Members of the Valaya.”
Elodie nods.
“This makes no sense. You make no sense!” Sarah yells. “Get out! You always wanted him dead!” she screams at me, her face smeared with blood and tears.
“Sarah,” I begin, but all of a sudden Nicholas’s voice – the one we’re familiar with – interrupts me.
“Why am I alive?”
He has opened his eyes. They’re blacker than night, his face whiter than the sheets Sarah’s arranging around him. He looks like a man who has come back from the dead.
“Nicholas,” whispers Sarah, a hint of fear in her voice.
“The pain is gone. Why did he not kill me?”
“Who? Who are you talking about?”
“My father. The King of Shadows,” he murmurs.
Sarah’s face seems to crumple in despair, and then it turns expressionless, blank. She lifts her arm and stands back.
“Now or never, Nicholas Donal, if that is your name. Who are you?” I force the words out, almost scared to hear the response.
But Nicholas is beaten to the truth by Elodie.
“You are the Enemy’s son,” she says, anger seething from her voice.
“Yes.” Nicholas barely has the energy to speak. His battered, bloodied face could have been through the Apocalypse.
My hand is on my sgian-dubh at once. “You betrayed us. You just sat there while Niall and Winter told us all about the book they found in the library, and you said nothing! You let the demons come!” I spat.
“No. I saved you,” he whispers, barely audible. “And my father will kill me because of that. I thought he would have done so already, but I’m still alive,” he whispers, as if the fact surprises him.
“Why did you do it?” Elodie’s voice is as cold as the snow outside.
“Because I made a choice. You helped me make it, Elodie. I won’t help my father kill anymore.”
I fight the impulse to bury my sgian-dubh straight into his heart. This liar killed Mike as surely as if he’d shot him in the head.
“I know what you’re thinking, Sean. But I’m the only chance you have.”
I laugh. “How selfless you are. You want to be kept alive for our good! You pathetic bastard.” But I know he’s telling the truth. I know he’s not imploring us to keep him alive. He’s imploring us to keep ourselves alive.
Elodie’s eyes are fixed on Nicholas’s. “You saved me. Twice. It was your father, wasn’t it, who ordered the ravens on me?”
“Yes.”
“But you stopped them.”
“Yes.”
My anger is all-consuming, I’m sure I could burst into flames at any minute. “Your father started all this. Your father killed them all. Harry, Mike, all the Secret heirs around the world.”
“I want to stop him. I’m going to take you to him. The gate the book described is in an ancient forest, hundreds of miles from here. We need to head east.”
Elodie and I look at each other. I’m chilled at the cold fury in her eyes.
“How do we know you’re not lying? That you can be trusted? That you won’t turn on us? What is your word to us after all this?” I ask bitterly.
“Do you have a choice, Sean? You want this destruction to end, don’t you?”
“Shut up. Now.”
Elodie and I turn at Sarah’s biting words. We’ve been so absorbed in what was happening that we’ve forgotten all about her. She’s been standing there, at a distance from us. Her eyes are shining bright green, sharp as two blades, cutting whoever looks into them, and I see that her hands are raised, ready to hit.
“You lied to me all this time.”
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” Nicholas begins. His face crumples.
“You lied to me, you pretended you loved me! Why did you not just kill me straight away? Why did you not kill us all! Did you want to play with us a little bit longer?” she hisses through gritted teeth.
“You were never supposed to die, Sarah. You were chosen as my bride.”
An icy shudder runs down my spine and I hear myself unleash a deep growl. Over my dead body!
Then Sarah strides over to the bed. “As your what? Are you insane? The bride of the … Prince of Shadows, or whoever you are? What is this, some crazy fairy tale?”
Nicholas is gripped by a coughing fit so hard he might choke. And it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if he did. There’s a bluish tinge to his cheeks, and his breathing is fast and shallow.
“Stay awake, Nicholas. Don’t you close your eyes!” Sarah’s tone is deadly. Nicholas shivers. He’s losing consciousness again.
“Look at me!” Sarah shouts, and then she pounces on him, her hands in front of her. Elodie and I grab her at once, holding her back. In the scuffle Elodie cries out in pain.
“You can’t kill him, Sarah. As much as you want to – and believe me, so do I – we need him alive!” We’re holding Sarah from behind, trying to avoid her deadly eyes.
“His father killed my parents! And Harry! He’s killing us all!”
“We need him to take us to the Enemy. Think, Sarah, think! Don’t let your rage win, Sarah. Think of what’s best. Don’t let your rage win.” I repeat, like a mantra. Eventually Sarah’s body softens in our grip.
Elodie unwraps her arms from round her waist, letting me hold her alone.
“You’re not a man. And you’re not a demon. You’re a monster,” Sarah whispers. Nicholas has his eyes closed, too weak to reply, too weak to move. “You can let me go, Sean. I won’t touch him,” she adds, composed.
I free Sarah from my hold, and Elodie takes her other arm, keeping her face turned away from Sarah’s. “Come on. Come with me.”
Sarah allows Elodie to lead her away, but at the threshold she turns around. “Why me, Nicholas? Why?” Her voice is laden with fury, and hurt.
“My father chose you among the heirs. You are the most powerful Dreamer of your generation. And your blood is still strong.”
“Still” strong? What does that mean?
Nicholas looks like a wax mannequin, white but for the blood that stains his face, still, nearly lifeless. I wish I could strangle him with my own hands.
“Get up and get dressed,” I say instead. “We’re leaving this place, and soon.”
Sarah is standing at the bottom of the stairs, her hands over her face. It’s so surreal to see the lovely, pristine stone floors strewn with ash and debris, and where the great hall used to be – the room that Sarah always modestly called the living room – is a blackened, gaping hole.
“Sarah.”
“I just can’t believe it, Sean. I can’t believe it.”
“I know. I know.”
“I thought you were just jealous of him.”
I nodded. “I was. But there was something else as well. I often thought he could be corrupt, I wondered whether he was collaborating with the Sabha. That maybe he was a member of a Valaya himself. I knew there was something about him that didn’t quite add up. But I could never, ever have suspected that.”
“The King of Shadows is his father,” Sarah hisses. “How is this even possible?”
“I have no idea, Sarah.”
She abruptly turns on her heels. “I need to get out.”
“I’m coming with you.” I’m expecting her to protest, but she doesn’t. I grab coats for both of us and follow her outside. We stand together in the snow that has covered the grass at the back of the house. The snow is still falling. Sarah is looking towards the beach and the water, a million dancing snowflakes falling silently on the sand and the sea. Dawn is seeping through the clouds, turning the sky a light purple.
“I’ve been close to him all this time, Sean. I never suspected …”
“It’s not your fault. He deceived you.”
“I feel sick.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Oh.” She takes a few steps, and starts retching. She falls to her knees, her black hair even blacker against the snow.
I brush her hair away from her face, holding it clear until she’s finished. She’s very pale, and a film of cold sweat covers her forehead.
“I left him,” she tells me quietly.
“What?”
“It was after you said we could never be together. Because of all that genetic crap.”
“That wasn’t crap. That’s the way things are,” I whisper. My heart is in pieces.
“Great. Just great. First I fall for you …”
I hold my breath. I wasn’t just imagining it, then. “But I couldn’t have you, and then I found out you betrayed me,” she continued. “Then I end up with Nicholas, and it turns out that he’s a monster. What else now?”
“Did you …”
“What?”
“Did you love Nicholas? Really?”
She frowns and sighs heavily. “I thought I did, but there was always something. I don’t know, something wrong. Whenever he was around I felt … I couldn’t think clearly. It was as if he controlled my thoughts.”
“And I wasn’t there to kick his face in.” Anger is making my hands shake.
“I had sent you away.”
That was true. “I should have done something, though.” I raise my head as we speak. I see Niall in the kitchen, looking out of the big glass windows. Winter is standing beside him, her silver hair strewn over his arm, her head resting on his shoulder. For a second, Niall looks like an old man. My heart skips a beat. Now that Mike is gone, nothing will ever be the same.
“Things had changed, though,” Sarah continues. “Since we’d come to Islay he didn’t seem to have the same effect on me, confusing my thoughts, I mean.”
The snow is falling thick and fast around us, resting on Sarah’s face, on her black coat. A sliver of sunlight is shining on the sea. “He was much more worried about things, always seemed to be upset about something. Not as confident as he used to be. Not as arrogant.” She shrugs. “I wonder what brought all this on. This … repenting thing. Deciding to turn against his father to help us. Who knows?” Sarah shivers, wrapping her arms around herself.
“We’d better go. You’re freezing. I’ll make Nicholas coffee – that should wake him up fast. And then I suppose we have to trust him to take us to where his father is. At least we know now what we’re up against.”
I can’t even begin to think about all that now. I’m set to go, and I turn to head for the house, but Sarah puts a hand on my arm, stopping me. “Sean? He said my blood is still strong. What did he mean?”
“Maybe he was talking about your powers. The Blackwater?”
“Yes. That must be it. The most powerful Dreamer, he said. Some good it does me.”
Before I can stop myself, I take her hand in mine. “Why did you leave Nicholas?” I ask, hoping and praying for the answer I want.
“Because I love someone else,” she whispers. Our eyes meet for a second, and what I wouldn’t give to put my lips on hers.
“I thought about the message Harry left in the fairy-tale book.” She interrupts my thoughts.
“Yes?”
“It occurred to me, ‘Morag’ in Gaelic means Sarah. The message is about me, not about my grandmother. Watch over Sarah, she’s the key. That’s what it meant,” she whispers, and walks away, letting go of my hand. Our fingers hold on for a second. Her soft scent lingers in the air, and as she goes, I feel like a part of me has just been cut off.
But my heart is beating wildly. Sarah doesn’t love Nicholas. She loves somebody else.
And I know it’s me.
It’s the answer I’ve dreamt of, but not an answer on which I can act.
I watch her walk through the falling snow towards the broken house. There’s a cold, hard splinter in my heart. It’s her absence. I feel it when I breathe, when I walk, when I speak. It’s lodged in there and shows no sign of vanishing. But I’m right about us not being able to be together, I know I’m right. However painful and unbearable that might feel.
I curse the Secret Families for never having told me I couldn’t be with a Secret. I curse my own blood for being all wrong. Everything is wrong. While Sarah and I were falling for each other life has been mocking us.
I stand in the snow for a little longer, going over the conversation earlier between Sarah and me, when she told me what she’d discovered about my parents.
The truth about my parents, Amelia Campbell and Allan Hannay, has blown me apart. Would it have been better if I hadn’t ever known? Sarah thought she was doing the right thing by telling me. But I’m not sure. Should I say I’m bitter for what was denied to me, my rightful inheritance, my place in the world?
My parents, a proper family.
The truth is, I never knew, and I never suspected. I thought it’d been the Gamekeeper training that taught me how to use the runes, how to move under a mantle of invisibility. I suppose I should have noticed that no other Gamekeeper I knew had talents as special as mine. I would have noticed had I not been so busy doing my bloody job. Harry did say a couple of times that the way I used the runes was special, but he never made a big deal of it. Now I know why. I was never to know of my half-Secret, bastard blood.
They lived in a different world, Stewart Midnight, Morag, and Amelia. My mother. A world of old prejudice and suspicion, set in ways as ancient as this rugged rock they call Islay. They exiled my mother, and for what? So she fell in love with someone who wasn’t of her kind. She failed the Secret Family, she failed them all. And because of this, they destroyed her.
The irony is, she ended up having no more children, so their plan didn’t work. Her powers weren’t passed on anyway, not to any proper Secret heir, I mean. Just me, the mongrel.
And because of my parentage, I can never be with the woman I love.
Before I head inside I turn around one last time to look at the little snowy mound where we’ve buried Mike, shimmering faintly in the lilac light of morning. I bet he never thought he, a man from Louisiana, would end up buried on a Scottish island. An unmarked grave, for now. Just for now.
I’ll come back and see that you get a proper burial, Mike. I’ll come back and see you.