Bloodstone (4 page)

I couldn’t go through the loch till this skulking little thief was out of the way. I didn’t trust the boy not to notice me; he was too close, too antsy, too suspicious. His nerves
almost crackled inside his skin. I looked longingly at the watergate, glassy, inky with shadows and night. He was polluting it with his fear.

What had driven him here? Mischief? Boredom? Desperation? I wondered once more what he imagined he could thieve from the ramshackle hut, the one hardly anyone noticed, the one that blended into
the wood as if it had grown there.

Any shine had long rusted off its tin roof. A faint sky was visible beyond it, a patch of black cloud tinged with orange, but the sickly urban twilight didn’t penetrate the trees. That
unnerved the boy. Good.

The old tramp had left earlier, I knew that. I’d watched him myself, striding away from his shack, the plank door swinging shut behind him and bouncing off its rotting frame. He walked off
in the only shabby clothes he owned, shrouded in his long filthy leather coat. His hard arrogant face was half-hidden as always, by the brim of a water-stained hat, by thick-lensed glasses taped at
the hinges.

I’d waited, silent and patient, till I knew he’d gone. I wasn’t scared of the old bastard, but I didn’t want him to see me go through the Veil to the other side. I
didn’t like other people knowing my business, never have.

And then I’d spotted the boy, sidling through the murk, an eye to the main chance. I’d almost laughed out loud. The idiot child.

Now he slunk closer to the shack; holding his hand over his nostrils against the loch-stench. It was so alien to him. He wanted exhaust fumes and concrete, that boy. He needed more shops than
could ever get to know his face; a big, swarming jungle to hide in.

I blinked. How would I know that? I wasn’t even interested. It was as if there was so much of him, it spilled over and leached into me; a strong mind but an ill-controlled one.

All right, now I was curious. And arrogant, of course, arrogant as I ever was. And there was time to kill, and another human mind to invade, and trouble to forestall or to provoke. Could I help
it if, centuries into my erratic exile, I still got bored?

Oh, to hell with honour and privacy and my brother’s moral scruples. Like pulling on a coat that was only a little too small, I slipped inside the boy’s mind.

He shoved open the plank door, grabbing it to stop it banging, and had to stifle a yelp when a splinter pierced the base of his thumb. That hurt me as it hurt him; give me a
hand of my own and I’d have slapped him.

But I wasn’t him. I could feel him, hear him, I was tangled up in him, but I wasn’t... him. I was still separate, somehow, as if I was hanging onto the side of a speeding car and
I’d fall off if I lost my grip. Something was wrong. Gods, I was confused.

Still arrogant, though. Still too nosy to leave.

He eased out the splinter with his teeth, tasting blood. Smelling it, too, and suddenly he was ambushed by a sense that the loch too was all black blood, clotted and still and stinking. I felt
his cold fear, his hatred of the water, and I didn’t like it.

Stop that, child.

He obeyed without knowing it. Shaking off a tremor, he searched the shack. Nothing. He wanted to spit at the waste of time, and I felt much the same. Nothing but a plastic-and-steel chair that
looked like it had come off a landfill, and a rickety formica table, and a couple of empty beer cans, and half a supermarket loaf, and a few grey blankets. And that pile of rags in the corner.

As he reached to unravel those his hand was shaking, and he growled under his breath. Stupid, to be scared of shadow and silence. There were worse things in the world; I knew he knew it. Annoyed
enough to be careless, he lifted the rag-bundle and shook it, and something clattered dully to the floor.

It glinted. Through his eyes I stared at it, mildly curious, while he began to panic.

His thoughts were quick enough, I grant him: the loaf was ready-sliced, and the blade was long, too long for gutting fish. Its honed edge caught all the light there was, a lethal intense glow.
The handle was mottled with thick dark stains and when he touched it, a sensation shivered up his arm.

This was a boy who knew what bloodstains looked like.

The thought of the police flitted through his head as he turned the knife with a fingertip. It only flitted, though, and was gone.
Forget it.
He couldn’t tell the police, he
couldn’t tell anyone. He’d forget he’d seen this, forget he’d ever come in here—

Something behind us creaked. His breath caught in our lungs. Both of us knew the door had opened, even before the cold night air hit his shoulder blades.

He didn’t want to turn.

Oh, Jesus.

But he had to. I made him do it. Very slowly, he turned.

His breathing was the only sound in the place. He couldn’t seem to do it silently. He sucked it in as a high whine and it came out the same way.

The blade’s light bounced off the tramp’s glasses, obscuring his eyes. But just for a moment, the man looked stupefied.

We each took our chance: I was out of his head like a bolt of lightning, back to watching from the darkness; the boy just bolted. Shouting with terror, he barged full-on into the tramp, making
him stagger aside. Shoving, scrabbling away, he stumbled out into the dank air and ran.

He blundered through the trees, unable to find a path. I should have stayed with him, helped; but I couldn’t. Not now the tramp was back. I had my own agenda; the boy was on his own.
Clumsy and hopeless, he slipped, stumbled up through twining grass and sucking water.

And all the time, he knew it was coming

I sucked in a breath. What? I wasn’t in his head, but I knew what he was thinking.

Any moment now: the clutch of a hand and the bite of a blade

Gods, I’d got too close, I knew his mind. I put my hands over my ears and tried to block him out.

He wouldn’t hear the tramp coming

There’s nothing to be afraid of, I wanted to scream. Leave me alone. Run and be safe. Get out of my sight and my life and my head...

He wouldn’t hear the tramp—

He did, though. As he fell against the wire, tore his flesh on the barbs, he heard the roar of the tramp’s laughter, as loud as I did. When he dragged himself over the fence and fell hard
to the roadside, the boy picked himself up and ran again, and ran, just like I told him.

And I knew, because I heard it too. For far too long, I went on hearing it. Until he stumbled, crying, to his own home, the laughter echoed in his head like the last thing he or I would ever
hear.

Was I scared, or fascinated, or both? I hated to think it was the former, but I’d never felt a full-mortal mind like that one: all random aggression and fear, spiking
like bolts of static, untamed, and so out of control it could leak into mine without permission. I wanted to know where that mind came from. And not being one to fight my urges, I decided to
postpone my trip through the watergate, and find out.

Nothing changes, especially not me.

He’d walked a long way from home, and he ran much of the way back. I didn’t know if that was an achievement or not, because it was hard to tell his age. He had the face and the frame
of a child, no more than twelve or thirteen; but his eyes were ancient and wary, and his mouth was a tight line. I wondered which of the peaceniks at the disused base had fathered him.

They put the airbase there for the big open skies and the clear northern weather. I knew it during a war, when Shackleton bombers lumbered nightly into the sky. Later, when the world grew fatter
and more complacent and less fond of wars, it acquired its own peace camp. The hippies must have liked it better than the air force did, because when the base closed and the planes were
decommissioned, they bought their piece of land from an apathetic Ministry of Defence and turned it into a ramshackle settlement: the kind of place where they grew their own lentil casseroles and
knitted their clothes out of cat hair.

It wasn’t much to look at: some caravans, some eco-homes with grass roofs; a tiny pottery studio; children’s swings and a climbing frame. They got their power from small wind
turbines and solar panels, and that was interesting enough for me to make mental notes, though not so interesting as the people. They sold driftwood sculptures and dreamcatchers and Tai Chi
classes, but they lived mostly off money brought in by discontented rich kids in search of fun and meaning. That was all I knew about the place when I followed the boy there in the darkness.

In theory the community members were equals, but you could spot the first among them straight away. He was a big man, broad as well as tall, with wild dark hair and a greying beard and high
colour on his prominent cheekbones. His physical presence wasn’t all that gave him away; most of them that warm night were clustered round an open barbecue, drinking beer, and it was the big
man who sat at the apex of the semicircle. He was first to help himself to bottles from the crate, and the others glanced at him constantly, smiled for his approval, deferred to him.

I thought the boy was heading towards him, at first, but no: there was a woman at the big man’s side, and he sat down on the sandy ground beside her. I liked her immediately: a mischievous
face, a wide smile, and long blonde hair that reminded me nostalgically of Orach. The big guy wasn’t touching her, but she leaned towards him and his arm lay proprietorially across the back
of her low canvas chair.

Never let it be said that I walked away from a challenge.

On the surface at least the group was famously easygoing, and its members changed and moved on constantly. That made it easy enough to sidle into the semicircle of drinkers and act like
I’d been invited, like I’d always been there. Anyway, I wasn’t noticeable. I didn’t stand out. It was the big advantage of the Veil, or one of them.

So I had to wonder why the big man’s brilliant eyes fixed on me straight away.

I blinked, smiled, laughed at a joke from the girl on my left as if I’d known her for at least a dozen years. I raised my bottle in deferential salute to the big guy. He didn’t
react, but went on watching me for long seconds, then turned casually back to the blonde.

I didn’t like him.

He seemed reluctant to detach himself from her. Still, he can’t have thought me much of a threat, or he wouldn’t have stood up to take a walkabout through his people like some
bulletproof autocrat, and he wouldn’t have let himself be distracted by a conversation with a tall skinny man whose face I couldn’t see. But by that time I was on my third beer: just
enough to give me an even bigger sense of entitlement.

The boy took no notice of me as I sat at his mother’s side, and I didn’t encourage him. There was still something intriguingly strong about his mind, but he was tired, and he
didn’t know what he was up against. His perceptions were easy to deflect, and not many minutes later he got to his feet and went off with some other kids to do what kids do. Take drugs, break
windows, whatever. The blonde blew him a kiss as he left, laughing when he blushed and tried not to grin back. Such an effortless mother-child bond.

I leaned across and chinked my bottle against hers. ‘Hi.’

She smiled as she turned, a little startled. ‘Oh! I didn’t see you there.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I get that all the time.’

‘Can’t think why,’ she said, and bit her lip, and grinned.

So I knew I was in like Flynn.