‘No. No, it’s not OK,’ comes another, new voice. ‘It’s not OK to let him do something he never wanted to do, while you hide here with the thing that could stop it all.’
I look at the photo on the shelf. Mary went and got it from storage earlier in the week. I hadn’t asked her to, and so I think she was a bit nervous when she handed it over. My heart thumped when I saw what it was, and I was all ready to start shouting about privacy, and how dare she, and then there they were, there we were, standing at the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, all glowing and windblown, grins on our faces. I look like Mum. Same smile, same long, narrow nose. But my colouring, that pale wispiness, that’s all from Dad.
‘What would you do?’ I whisper now, looking at them.
But I already know. I already know, because he already tried, and I saw him do it, in the mirror. And I might be angry with him for doing it, but it also makes me proud of him. He tried. He tried to change things for the better. Maybe it didn’t work. Maybe it went horribly wrong. But he tried. And then he died, saving me. And so now there’s nothing else to lose.
I shove some socks on, and my boots, grab the book from the highest shelf, and on impulse the little catapult. Then I creep down the silent, dark stairs. Mika greets me at the bottom, winds around my ankles. ‘Gotta go,’ I whisper, reaching down to stroke him. ‘Hunting to be done.’
He grins, and I let myself out and run through the bitter night up the hill to the yellow house, where my friend is fighting, fighting, fighting, till he’s forgotten who he is, and everything he ever wanted to be.
‘Bavar!’ I shout, as he strikes out again and again, the raksasa pawing the ground, shrieking as it tries to advance, every move it makes thwarted by Bavar. He turns to me, his breath coming hard and fast, dark eyes glittering. He sees me, and he doesn’t.
The raksasa plunges away from him, gathering speed and taking to the air with a flap of its enormous, bat-like wings. Bavar shouts up at it with words I don’t understand, and the creature wheels in the sky and turns back to us, plunging down, its red body gleaming. There’s a stench of sulphur as it opens its mouth and howls at us, its amber eyes fixed on me. Bavar runs to stand before me and stretches up. A shuddering roar makes my head spin, and then he catches hold of one of its wings and casts it down with a great thud on the frozen ground. They circle each other, fury sparking in the air between them, and then he launches himself at it and there’s a horrible tussle that seems to go on forever, as they fight where it is still, in the shadows. And then it stops, and Bavar turns to me, still roaring.
‘Stop!’ I shout, as he stalks towards me. The sky darkens above us, the air freezes without the heat of the creature’s breath, and my friend is lost in shadows and all the things he feared he’d be.
He howls, his eyes wide and full of madness.
So I shoot him with the catapult.
I’m a pretty good shot with a catapult, turns out.
The sky is dark, scattered with stars. Don’t often see the stars here – more often rolling clouds and far-off fires of monster worlds. My head aches. My whole body aches. What was I doing?
‘Bavar?’ Angel’s face looms over me.
‘You shot me.’
‘It was just a little stone.’
‘So you stoned me.’ I’m so tired. The ground is freezing, but I can’t bring myself to move. The cold is soothing against the back of my head, and I know there are conversations to come, conversations I’d rather just not have. Angel frowns. ‘Isn’t that what they used to do in medieval times?’ I ask, wondering if I can divert her.
‘Not with catapults.’ She hauls at me, and I sit up. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do.’ She looks at the catapult, and then back at me. ‘You’re fine now, anyway. You weren’t before.’
‘You made them go away,’ I say, looking around. I can’t remember the last time it was quiet out here. Even when they’re not striking, they’re there, just behind the clouds, making my blood cold. The sky is dark above us now.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ she says. ‘You fought it off.’
‘There are usually more,’ I say. Then I see the book in her hands. ‘You brought it here?’
‘We can’t keep hiding from it. And you said you didn’t want to be a fighter.’
That was before I knew there would be a price, and she would have to pay it. She’s already paid too much for my family’s mistakes.
‘Maybe they sense the book,’ she murmurs now, looking up at the sky. ‘Maybe they don’t like it. You should keep it here.’
‘No, we can’t do that.’
‘So tell me why.’
‘The book has the spell. The spell . . . I don’t know. I don’t really understand it. But it won’t be good, Angel. There’ll be consequences if we use it.’
‘But you don’t really know. So let’s go and ask your grandfather. Let’s show him the book.’
‘No.’
‘Yes,’ she says, standing and marching to the front door. ‘Come on.’
‘Angel!’
She walks up to me, her eyes bright. ‘You don’t frighten me, Bavar. Even your most hideous fighter self is not going to stop me from doing this, especially since I know you don’t want to be like that. I am going to find out what this book is all about, and how we can work the spell. If you don’t want to do it with me, you can just stay out here in the cold.’
She runs up the steps, and the door opens with a creak, and the ancestors call her name, and for a moment I wonder what would happen if I did just stay out here in the cold, my forehead stinging, the stars singing all around me.
And then I traipse after her, up the steps and into the huge old house where I notice nobody shouts my name.
‘Ingrates,’ I mutter as I follow her up the stairs. ‘She’s not staying, you know. She’s just on a mission. I’m the one who’s been fighting; you should all be cheering me along.’
The bust is covered in that old yellow tablecloth. I whip it off, and Bavar’s grandfather blinks with a metallic clink.
‘Angel! Back again! And Bavar – you’re not looking so happy, my boy . . . What’s that you have there?’ He leans forward on his post, the light catching sudden wrinkles in his forehead as it furrows.
‘A book of my dad’s. It has a spell in it.’
‘A spell, yes. I can feel it. Show me. SHOW me!’
I open the book, leafing through until I find the right page. Hold it up to him. His eyes glow as he reads, and Bavar goes to stand by the bookcase in the corner, looking out of the window.
‘In lacrimis angelorum,’ the deep voice rumbles. ‘The tears of angels . . .’
‘Don’t read it out loud!’ Bavar snaps.
Bronze eyes stare at him, and they have a bit of a silent stand-off, which his grandfather wins. Bavar retreats to his bookcase.
‘Well, it’s simple,’ says the bronze, a while later, when my arms are trembling from holding the book up.
Bavar folds his arms.
‘You must appear before the void, and you must give it blood, and TEARS, and your heart’s truth. But there’s a line here about sacrifice, which I don’t quite understand . . .’