Mist & Whispers (30 page)

By the time she was finished healing him she realised why Harrion had looked so sickly in Castor’s Glen. Healing took a lot of energy, and after healing Agro
and
Lorcan, she was now feeling extremely woozy.

Exhausted, she keeled over on the floor beside him. A minute went by before either of them spoke.

‘Do you think life will ever be normal again?’ she whispered.

‘No,’ he breathed back simply, slipping his hand in hers. The hint of a smile brightened his eyes. She smiled back at him and closed her fingers around his hand.

‘Anya?’ The voice was Michael’s, and when she looked up, he was standing on a balcony above them, glaring at her.

She sat up abruptly, her head feeling the rush of weakness that still had hold of her.

‘In a friendlier mood now, are we?’ Michael said, his cold eyes darting between her and Lorcan.

‘What do you mean?’ She noticed how rough her ex looked, covered in cuts and bruises.

‘You! All I was trying to do was get you out of danger and you threw me into a bloody wall! It was like you were possessed or something! I’ve grazed all my back, thank you very much, not that you care.’ He was acting all wounded and defensive, his arms crossed like an irritated school teacher. He raised a finger at her, gesturing to give him a minute, and stepped out of sight.

She tried to make sense of the fight in the Grand Hall. She wasn’t herself after drinking the Dark Blood and everything in those moments was still blurry. She did remember something grabbing her; it must have been him.

Michael came out from a passage way just left of the temple doors where Lorcan and Anya were now standing. ‘I’m sorry, Michael. Eleazar made me drink Dark Blood. I guess I reacted badly to it – maybe it was something to do with my blood being mixed with Theone’s. Are you ok?’

‘I’m fine. Clearly not as well as yourself, but I can’t complain.’ Again, he gave Lorcan a small look as he spoke.

‘What happened in the Library?’

‘Sheer luck! That’s what happened in the library! The way the walls fell down on Tim and Wolfond, a pillar stopped them from getting crushed beneath the rubble. Tim didn’t even have a scratch on him. Well, he did, but not fresh ones. They were all old ones from yesterday at Toldess Pass.’ He looked at Lorcan, his eyes so narrow they were almost shut. ‘We were attacked by skeletal monsters yesterday. I saved Anya’s life.’ His tone was triumphant.

‘Thank you,’ Lorcan said plainly, staring back at Michael.

It was obvious Michael didn’t know how to react to Lorcan’s reply. His expression flitted between injured, annoyed and angry all at once.

‘Michael!’ She had no patience for silly battles of masculinity. ‘The library?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, straightening himself up. ‘Something distracted the giants – Harrion said there was a fire across the town, there was smoke everywhere.’

‘That was me and Steph, before the animal-woman came.’

‘Animal-woman?’ It was Michael’s turn to sound dubious.

‘Yes, an animal-woman. A traitorous bitch, but an animal-woman all the same.’ Michael looked puzzled, but there would be more time for explanation later. ‘Where’s Tim?’

‘He’s up there,’ Michael said, nodding toward the balcony. ‘He’s trying to get Steph to snap out of it, but it’s not working.’

Anya closed her eyes and smiled. It felt like a miracle the four of them were still alive and back together again. ‘It’ll wear off. We just have to keep her safe in the mean time.’

Outside, the Black Dragon shrieked and flames lit up a nearby stained glass window, showering the trio with rainbow colours.

Michael ran to the window. ‘Bloody great! There’s a freaking dragon out there now!’

‘We know. We were taking shelter in here,’ Anya said, joining him for a look out at their hungry assailant.

‘Well, can’t he talk to it? Tell it we mean no harm or whatever dragon’s say to each other?’

‘Michael!’ Anya blurted in horror.

‘It’s ok, Anya,’ Lorcan said, touching her arm softly as if it might stop her from flying off the handle.

It didn’t. Lorcan might have been used to such offensive assumptions, but he shouldn’t have been. ‘He was cursed, that doesn’t make him the Dragon Whisperer!’ Lorcan gave her a side glance, clearly not understanding the reference. ‘Do you really have to be so ignorant all the time?’

‘Being stuck in a place filled with all kinds of crazy stuff we all thought was make-believe does not make me ignorant, it just makes me a fool. A fool to have ever followed you on this stupid whim of yours! You drove Faust completely mad, Macken died to keep you safe – that is the dragon that killed him, for God’s sake!’ he yelled, pointing out the window. ‘Tell me, Anya, what is it going to take before you give up and just accept, your mother is never coming back for you, with or without your stupid bookshop? How many more of us are going to have to die?’

Michael’s words hit a nerve. Her eyes welled but she bit the tears back.

‘Hey,’ Lorcan stepped in, ‘leave her alone. She’s done more for this place than anyone else has in the last eighteen years.’

‘Uh, and you! Don’t even try starting with me! I’ve seen the way you are with her, and frankly, it’s inappropriate – no, it’s beyond inappropriate, it’s disgusting! If you were seventeen eighteen years ago, then that makes you... makes you far too old to be sniffing around her. She’s only sixteen!’

Anya heard angry footsteps storming down the stairs and turned to find Tim headed straight for them with Steph, still blank and grey, following him, hand in hand. He marched straight past them, plainly furious.

‘Tim!’ she said, a little surprised by his behaviour. ‘What are you doing?’

‘What am
I
doing?’ he cried, turning on his heel. He looked around, exasperated. ‘What are
you
doing? You know there is a dragon out there, don’t you? Or is all your arguing drowning out the sounds of it trying to smash its way in here to kill us all?’

Anya had never heard Tim talk like that before. She was stunned.

‘I was just – ’ Michael started, but Tim cut him off.

‘I don’t want to hear it. I’m done! You know the craziest thing in all of this is that nothing you’re arguing about even matters! We
all
made a choice to follow that riddle. None of us knew it would turn out like this but now it has we just have to man-up and deal with it. I love this girl,’ he continued, glancing back at
Steph, ‘and I’ll be damned before I let anything happen to her. You can stay here and carry on being petty, but I’m finding a way out of this place that isn’t going to get us barbequed or crushed to death. I’ve been there once already today and I’m not wearing that t-shirt again!’

He stalked off further into the temple.

‘Tim,’ Anya called after him. ‘I’m sorry.’

He sighed and looked back over his shoulder. ‘Don’t apologise. Just put it right.’

She felt terrible. Tim was so right. Fighting with Michael every time he said something she didn’t like wasn’t getting them anywhere. As hard as it was to be around him, and as mixed as her feelings were towards him, she had to put everything to one side and focus on how to get everyone back home safe.

‘Lorcan, can you give us a minute?’

Lorcan gave Michael a look, as if meant to warn him, then followed after Tim and Steph.

She turned to Michael, who was nursing a scolded expression. His arms were firmly tucked into one another. She knew he didn’t have the capacity to form a long-standing truce, but if they could just make it out of Virtfirth, they could at least take reconciliation one day at a time.

‘I don’t like fighting with you, Michael.’

‘And what, you think I enjoy fighting with you?’ He unfolded his arms and took hold of her hands. ‘This isn’t easy for me, you know. Being here with you everyday but not actually
with
you. I don’t mean to be a jerk, but it’s killing me, Anya.’ He traced the line of freckles across her cheek with his fingertips. When he acted like this around her, when he let his guard down, it confused her. All these old feelings would rush back in, like an emotional flood gate. But it wasn’t right to be thinking about that stuff.

‘Our lives are on the line here,’ she said, moving his hand away from her face. ‘We have to focus on what we came to do. We can talk all you want once this is all over, but if we can’t work together, we’ll end up tearing everything apart.’

‘And what about him? I’m losing you to him, I can feel it.’

‘Michael, you lied to me.
You
lost my trust; it was nothing he did.’

‘But you still love me,’ he said, his eyes dewy. ‘I know you still love me.’

Anya sighed, exhausted by this mess they called a – what? A friendship? A relationship? ‘I don’t know how I feel. You’re just going to have to give me time.’

‘Tell me you don’t love me anymore and I’ll back off.’

She covered her face in her hands. This conversation was not going how she’d hoped.

‘See,’ his tears were actually falling now. ‘You can’t tell me because you do still love me, don’t you?’

‘Michael, you were the first person I ever really trusted, and you broke that trust. It hurts. I
need
time.’

He nodded, scraping his sorrow from his face. ‘Just tell me one thing?’ She raised her eyebrows, inviting the question, although after she wished she hadn’t. ‘Do you have feelings for him?

She shook her head, not as an answer but in tiring of the inquest. ‘I can’t think about that right now.’

A pained roar came from deep within the temple. ‘ANYA, RUN!’

It was Lorcan.

And she did, only not in the direction she knew he meant. She ran to him, following the sound of his roars through the temple. She slipped through the doorway into the west tower where she felt something grab her.

She tried to fight against the hands that had her, but quickly realised they weren’t hands at all. They were paws, padded and clawed, and each the size of her middle. They were black and half wasted to bone, despite their strong hold.

She froze, not daring a glance behind her at her captor. She already knew what had hold of her.

S
OMEWHERE CLOSE BEHIND
her, Michael was whimpering, and she knew as the Omen carried her through the temple, he too had been caught by one of Morcades’ ghouls.

The Omens dragged them into a small room in the temple’s west tower. It looked like a place where someone would go to pray quietly. An altar stood at one end, octagonal like almost every man-made structure in Virtfirth, and a statue of a man, frozen as he leapt into battle, stood just behind it. A deep, musty smell of incense clung to the air.

Anya struggled in the grip of the bear paws, trying to get a better look of the room. Inside, another Omen was standing over Lorcan, glaring down at him as he writhed on the floor, its eyes alive with fury. A bald man, dressed in floor length robes held Tim close to him, a sacrificial knife to his neck. Steph was laid out on the floor, a fresh cut on her face, bleeding black blood, and just as dazed and confused as before.

Anya tried to shout and scream for them to leave Lorcan and Tim alone, but try as she might, she couldn’t make a single sound.

‘Your words have no power in the presence of the Omens. They are the keepers of order in Damnare, they can crush a soul, as well you can see,’ the robed man said, gesturing to Lorcan. ‘You have brought war into our house, and because of you and your grizzly companion, Brother Lestor is dead.’ Anya remembered the silver haired man who tried to stab Wolfond in the back. He wore robes much like the man in front of them now. ‘So, we must pray. We must make an offering to Osgar, the God of War, to come to us in our hour of need. A sacrifice of blood.’

The robed man then began to utter something in a strange language. Rhythmic and intense, the words he spoke bounced and rolled off his tongue. They made little sense to her, but when another two Omens came out of the shadows she realised he must be speaking their tongue.

The Omens took hold of Tim and dragged him to the altar. He did not struggle as they tied him down. Instead, his fearful, pleading eyes fell on Anya. He made a quick glance towards Steph and then looked back at her, and she knew instantly what he was thinking.

He wasn’t thinking of himself. He was thinking of Steph. He wanted Anya to do whatever it took to get Steph out of there.

She could feel her chest heaving, her heart tumbling round and round inside.

The robed man who, by this point Anya had deduced was a priest, began lighting candles around the base of the God’s statue.

A blink, and the room was empty. She was alone now but the threat of danger was still very real. She hurried across the room to the altar, and as if she’d always known of its existence, she pulled it back to reveal a hidden passage way. She gave one last look at the door behind her then disappeared underground.

Another blink and everything was as it had been. Lorcan was crumpled on the ground still crying out in agony, she and Michael were still in the Omen’s clutches, and Tim was still laid out across the altar.

It took her a second to realise what had happened. Just as she had seen the riddle parchment in the lantern back in Erimus Hall, Anya had been shown a way out. The hows and whys she’d worry about later.

She took in the room again, this time looking for anything that would help them.

Tim’s sword was lying on the ground across the room. The priest must have disarmed him before Lorcan had cried out to them.

She still felt a little rough after healing Lorcan, but Theone’s magic was still in her blood, albeit weaker than before. She couldn’t move her head enough to catch Michael’s eye, so whatever she was going to do, she’d have to do it all by herself.

The priest began painting Tim’s face with red markings.

She focused on the sword and willed it to move.

Across the room the sword shook, but between the sound of the priest’s chants and Lorcan’s cries of pain, neither the priest nor the Omens noticed it.

The priest took his knife to Tim’s tunic, dragging it through the fabric until his chest was bared before the God of War.

Her heart hammered against her chest. It was do or die.

She concentrated harder than she had ever done upon the sword. The same moment the priest took his knife to Tim’s chest, the sword flew towards the Omen that had hold of Anya. Her breath held, she leaned away from the Omen, and the sword ploughed through its neck, skimming her shoulder in the process.

Tim’s howl burst into her ears as she dropped to the ground. Without hesitation, she reached for the dagger that she had stowed among the ribbons of her tattered white dress and flung it straight at the Priest.

Miraculously, it hit its target perfectly and the Priest staggered away from Tim, his hands clutched around the dagger’s hilt, right by his heart.

Anya made a leap towards Tim, who was now oozing blood, but she was intercepted by another Omen. An intense, crushing pain bore down on her. She tried to keep going, to get to Tim, but she hadn’t enough strength left to fight against it. Her pain barriers gave way and she let out a terrific roar of her own.

Through the pain, she was aware a scuffle was ensuing around her but it was so intense, she couldn’t breathe let alone make out what was happening.     

Suddenly, the pain ceased. She stumbled trying to get up too quick, then managed to get herself to the table where Tim lay. He was still conscious, still bleeding, but the cut wasn’t as deep as she’d first thought. He would be ok... maybe. They were still surrounded by Omens.

She grabbed the priest’s knife from Tim’s blood soaked stomach and turned, ready to attack. Michael was buckling to his knees now, no doubt suffering the same excruciation she herself had just endured. Three Omens lay dead around them; one she had killed with Tim’s sword, the other two Michael must have taken down himself before another had taken hold of his soul. Anya launched herself at the beast, slashing the dagger at every potential killing spot. With its grotesque cloven hoof, the Omen swatted her away as if she was a fly, and she collided with Lorcan.

She rolled back over and jammed the knife in the ankle of the beast, and it let out an almighty screech. A second was all it took for Michael to return to his feet and plunge his sword deep into the Omen’s feathered stomach. A splatter of black blood and the creature fell to its end.

The last remaining Omen, the one who’d been keeping Lorcan down and out of the fray, raised his hand at Michael, and once again, Michael hit the ground.

Anya tried for the knife. It was still jammed the creature she’d just killed. She remembered Harrion summoning her trainers in the forest, and a breath later, the knife was in her hand. Without another second elapsing, she drove the blade between the equestrian ribs of the final Omen and watched as the light vanished from its black eyes.

She collapsed, back flat to the ground, panting in time with her racing heart. Behind her, Michael was untying Tim from the altar.

As she lay there, she thought she could feel blood in her hair, but when she looked round, she could see that it wasn’t blood at all. Black water was rising from the stone beneath, and pooling around her and her friends.

She clambered back to her feet, sure then that more of Morcades’ soldiers were on the way, but something else entirely happened. The bodies of beasts they’d slain deliquesced, melting into the inky water, and were carried away as the water disappeared.

She breathed a great sigh of relief. ‘Is everyone alright?’ she asked, even though she knew the answer would be
no
. ‘Jeez, Tim, let me have a look at that!’

Tim’s chest was dripping red with blood. A symbol had been cut into his skin, above his heart.

‘No, Anya, it’s fine, honestly. It’s not as bad as it looks. Save your energy, we might need it again soon.’

‘I hope not,’ Michael shivered.

Lorcan was dragging himself back up from the ground. By the way he was moving – stiff and almost elderly – his soul must have taken more of a beating than either hers or Michael’s. Steph was still laid out on the floor, her cheek split and bruised. Anya went to her and helped her up.

She was still as vacant as before, and in a strange way, Anya envied her. Being unaware of all that had happened – these horrors they had just lived – the Dark Blood had turned out to be an ironic blessing. She hoped when Steph came round that she would not remember anything, as she already feared the dark route her nightmares would take from now on; she wouldn’t want Steph to go through that too.

Tim came over and Anya left him to tend to her whilst she went to retrieve the dagger.

She stared down at the priest; his lifeless body slumped at the feet of the God of War. His mouth and eyes were still wide with the surprise of the dagger’s blow; another image that would never leave her. They were racking up fast.

A few weeks ago, Anya had never seen a dead body. Now, she had seen more than her life’s share, only this one, the man that lay dead before her, was the only one that had died by her own hand.

It didn’t feel real. She could see the dagger protruding from his body and the blood stain still growing on his green and white robes, but she was surprised how human she still felt. Shame overcame her. She hadn’t hesitated when she threw that dagger. The fact that killing another human being had come so easily frightened her.

Alone in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed the others falling silent, or their eyes on her.

‘It was his own fault, Anya,’ Michael said. He tried putting his arm around her but she shrugged him off. She didn’t feel like being consoled.

He was right in one way; had the priest not tried to kill Tim, she’d have had no reason to throw that dagger, no reason to take his life. But how far back in the grand scheme of events could blame really be placed? It was his fault; he started it – but why? If they hadn’t stormed the castle, he wouldn’t have attempted to call upon the God of War. If the Darkness hadn’t meddled with his soul, he might not have reached for that knife at all, and if the grey-eyed man hadn’t struck a deal with Eleazar and Morcades, Morcades would never have brought his Darkness to Virtfirth. At what point do you stop blaming everything else and just stand up and take responsibility for what you’ve done?

‘Maybe...’ Anya said, solemnly.

She knelt beside the dead priest, pulled the dagger from his chest, wiped his blood off onto his robes and whispered, ‘Forgive me.’ When she stood, she turned her attention to the altar. She didn’t feel strong enough right now to move the hulking slab of stone all by herself. ‘Someone help me move this. There’s a passageway hidden beneath it.’

‘Wait, how do you know that?’ She couldn’t tell if Michael’s face was crinkling with confusion or suspicion. Perhaps it was somewhere between the two.

‘I just do,’ she said, tired and irksome, her arms already in position to pull hard on the altar.

‘Like you
guessed
the riddle was inside that lantern? What aren’t you telling us Anya?’

Definitely suspicion
, she thought. ‘I don’t know how to explain it, Michael. Sometimes, I – I see things. I don’t know why, and I can’t control when it happens. It just does. And believe me, I feel as crazy as you think I am.’ The building shook and another of the Black Dragon’s roars filled their ears. She’d almost forgotten Morcades’s dragon was outside, and from the look on the others faces, they had too. ‘Let’s just get out of here. We can talk about the crazy later.’

THE PASSAGE WAS
bigger than she first expected. It couldn’t have been used much, considering the sheer quantity of spider webs that draped the ceiling, wall to wall.

Anya thought about the bowls of fire that levitated around the castle, and summoned one. Maybe it was the way she was feeling, or maybe it was her blood destroying Theone’s magic, but it took her a few attempts before it worked.

With the fire floating beside them, they began their journey through the passage, brushing the cobwebs away with their fists as they went.

A fair way in, Michael yelped. ‘What was that?’

‘What was what?’ Anya asked, having not seen nor heard anything of any danger.

‘Oh my God, they’re everywhere!’

‘What are?’

‘Spiders! Big, hollow spiders!’

‘Well, that makes sense; all the other animals have turned to bone, the spiders have too.’ This was Tim, sounding less in shock than he had been back in the altar room.