Once (38 page)

And it was right, for this was the voice that could only speak truth, no matter how much his brain or conscious mind railed against it. It was the voice inside every man, woman and child, the voice that drew the line between right and wrong, the conscience, if it pleases, the voice that no outside force can deter or overcome. The voice of reason, the voice of the soul.

He listened. Thom ‘heard’ its unspoken words. The alien things in this room, the manifestations conjured by Nell Quick in her aberration of the wiccan craft, were truly from nightmares. His: recurring dreams of Bones coming to get him since the incident in the cellar all those years ago. Hugo’s: a lifelong fear of snakes, these no doubt dreamt or thought of in times of stress. Sir Russell: his claustrophobia, his dread of enclosed rooms, confined spaces, the reason he insisted all doors inside the house remained open, his refusal to have a lift installed even though he loved this rooftop eyrie and its wonderful views, the room where even in his dying days no curtains were allowed to be drawn, where every bit of daylight was used and welcomed.

And because the visions - the manifestations - present in this room came from within the mind, because they stemmed from each person’s own psyche, so then they were

all the more powerful, their effect all the more horrendous. These horrors were the substance of each individual’s inner phobia; quite literally, they were their worst nightmare come into being.

Here was the evidence of their private fears all brought together on this night when Nell Quick had sought to raise but one - Sir Russell Bleeth’s greatest horror, conjured to cause his last and fatal heart attack. His last Will and Testament had been, or would be, destroyed, its single witness put out of the way permanently (if not earlier, then later after they had finished with Sir Russell). It was iniquitous, it was evil. It was vicious.

Sir Russell was to die this very night, but Nell had unleashed more forces than she was capable of controlling. She was a fool, a modern-day wiccan who practised some kind of voodoo and conjuration, but had no idea of how to govern or contain the powers that came forth.

The grip around his throat became less firm, as though truth was a tool that could be used against an enemy that dwelt within his own darkest thoughts. Yet the hands did not let go completely. The apparition that claimed to be Bones, who in reality was at this moment lying unconscious, perhaps even dead by now, on the hard, cold cellar floor, did not vanish with the denouement. It remained poised over him, still visible in all its ghastliness. And the serpents continued to terrorize Hugo, the cowled figures relentlessly beaming down on Sir Russell.

Thom turned away from further thought in favour of action. His wrists shot up between the apparition’s and spread in one quick, strong movement, and the grip was broken. Still dismayed that the doppelganger had not vanished in light of reason, he looked towards Jennet at the doorway.

She and the elf had ventured further into the room, but seemed reluctant to come any closer.

‘Now you must use the book, Thom’ she said, her lovely face grave with concern.

She said something more, but lightning flared and thunder boomed so loudly it might have been in the room with them. It rolled around the chamber, reverberating off the walls and windows, and Thom clapped his hands to his ears. Even after it had died away (almost as though leaving by the swinging roof door), he remained deafened.

‘Bones’ and the other manifestations, however, were unaffected: they proceeded with their attack, their intimidation.

Thom realized he’d dropped the book that Rigwit had given him when he’d been knocked over by the serpents. It lay beside the wall in the uncertain candlelight, open, its pages flicking one after the other as though a wind had entered the chamber.

Thom lunged for it just as the spectre representing Bones reached again for him. It missed its grab completely, for Thom was already on his hands and knees, scrabbling for the book. His fingertips found it, he picked it up, he frantically leafed through the pages.

The phantom lumbered in his direction.

‘Any page, any page!’ shouted Rigwit and, at last, his little voice could be heard.

‘Just choose a page, Thom, and then think of them,’ called Jennet, still some distance away. ‘Will them to come to you.’

His back against the wall, Thom sat cross-ankled, the book lying open between his knees.

‘Bones’ towered over him. Began to stoop towards him; malicious grin, evil, lunatic eyes, hands crooked like claws.

‘Hurry, Thom!’

He concentrated.

Nothing happened.

He willed the faeries to come through the aged pages.

Nothing happened.

The hands of ‘Bones’, as material as any solid object, grabbed his shirt and began to pull.

‘Don’t think too hard,’ Jennet cried. ‘Just will it to happen.’

‘Help me!’ Thom yelled back as he felt himself lifted from the floor.

7 can’t. You have to do it alone.’

With a control that surprised even Thom himself, he blanked his mind, not quite shedding the fear, but shielding himself from it for a brief time. In the not quite empty space of his consciousness, a space that was besieged from the periphery, he simply said silently:

Come.

And they did. They burst out of the open book as though they had been waiting for his call, flying into the room and whizzing everywhere at once, sprinkling that same starry powder Thom had witnessed before.

The spectre gripping his shirt let go and sprang back, a look first of consternation on its face, then doubt, then fear, then even loathing. More and more came, magical lights pouring forth, bringing with them a new energy. Thom felt his heart lift again, his own fear slacken. And the better he felt, so the more the thing before him was diminished. It started to fade, its blackness turning to grey. Soon Thom was able to see through it.

The faery hordes, increasing by the moment, quickly numbering hundreds or more, swept through the black mass hovering over Sir Russell’s prostrate body; so close were these cowled figures and so heavy-looking their mass that it seemed the old man would be crushed rather than smothered.

But now the black amalgamation was disintegrating, being torn apart by tiny but fierce opponents of all things evil, who swooped into its darkness, brightening its murk, striking at the nucleus that was the darkest part of all. Gold, silver, violet, blue, red, purple, indigo, green and pure white - all these brilliant colours dissipated the central solidity,

breaking it down so that it began to deteriorate, decay into smaller pieces, while the cohorts, the shadows resembling hooded monks, yowled their anguish, their screeches filling the air as if they were in true despairing agony - which Thom sincerely hoped they were.

He saw his chance. Sir Russell had been reprieved, his body beneath the sheet freed of its tormentors. But still his shiny eyes were filled with horror and his thin body continued to shake.

The oxygen mask was dense with blood and Thom realized the old man was choking, drowning, his infirm hands too feeble to rip the mask away. Thom swiftly laid the book down, making sure the pages were flat and open as the little creatures continued to emerge, fluttering like butterflies now, spilling out at a more leisurely pace, their high-pitched jabbering and singing filling the room as if their voices, too, might defeat the darkness. Thom knew there was still great danger in this place though, and he pushed himself to his feet to run through the diaphanous image of Bones, his own body completing the dream figure’s final disintegration. All that remained were wisps of grey matter floating in the air behind him.

He leapt on to the four-poster bed and snatched at Sir Russell’s oxygen mask, digging his fingers into its edges and whipping it away, snapping the restraining straps. The blood flooded over the sick man’s already bloodied face, staining the parchment skin a glossy red. Sir Russell belched the blood he had swallowed and a dreadfully thin hand clutched Thom’s wrist. The emaciated body spasmed in the younger man’s arms and the eyelids flickered as though fighting unconsciousness. Those weary old eyes suddenly focused on Thom.

Thom thought he might be wrong, it might just have been the effect of the shifting light as iridescent colours swept around the room and candle flames wavered in their breeze, but he thought the old man’s lipless mouth had

formed a smile - a frail one, but still a smile - and that there was the faintest look of recognition in his watery yet oddly luminous eyes. A piercing shriek drew his attention to a corner on the other side of the bed.

Hugo was on his feet, his body covered with slithering snakes. They were smaller than before, but looked just as deadly. Arms that seemed to beseech Thom wore bracelets of writhing serpents. These creatures were dark green, almost black, in tone, and they bore little resemblance to the small grass snakes Hugo had feared so much as a child and ever since. They slid across Hugo’s chest, around his waist, finding their way into his clothes so that moving shapes bulged beneath the cloth.

Hugo shrieked again as a snake stole across his face, over his mouth, muting the cry. His eyes looked as though they might pop from his head. He tore at the snake on his face with his serpent-laden hands in an effort to rip it away, stumbling back into the corner as he did so, only the walls preventing him from falling. The snake nipped at his fleshy fingers, then bit down hard with venomous fangs, hanging on when Hugo desperately tried to flick it away. He shrieked again, and again, and again.

‘Help me!’ he managed to plead in between the shrieks.

But his whole body was now a dense but unstable knot of glistening serpents. They coiled around his neck, drawing themselves tight, forming a noose that smoothly squeezed his throat.

Thom had no idea what to do, how to help him. The commotion continued around him - the hundreds of shooting stars and their unearthly chants, the moaning of the withering shadows, for the darkness itself had voice - and he saw Jennet with the eh0 against the wall by the door, their eyes wide, Rigwit quaking. More and more winged lights flew from the open book on the floor, funnelling out to join the fray, their brightness fierce, but not yet overwhelming the umbra. In

fact, although pierced by the zooming lights, the shadows seemed to remain as thick and looming as before.

Jennet caught his eye. Even from that distance and with all that was going on in between, something passed between them, an emotion that excluded all else in that fearsome room. In Jennet’s expression there was much anxiety, fright also - as Thom felt sure there was in his own - but even in such circumstances, there was tenderness too and it was for him alone.

He pointed at Hugo and she understood.

Jennet called to the swooping faeries using their language, their voice, and many came together before her, swarming like electric bees. It was her turn to point at the serpent-bound figure in the corner and a whole squadron of tiny and not so tiny sprites swept from the main body to the far corner of the room. They made a slight diversion on the way though, swerving around the pentagram chalked out on the boarded floor where Nell stood transfixed. Their glittering Jetstream trailed across the room behind them and none of its floating motes settled within the boundary of the symbol’s circle either.

The faeries hovered over Hugo and his living bonds and scattered and blew their dust. The snakes reared their heads and bared dripping fangs, many of them uncoiling to drop to the floor in a languid heap, some of these slithering into the cavernous gloom beneath the bed, while others headed towards the crashing terrace door. Those still clinging to Hugo began to shrivel, their scaly skin wrinkling, became brittle so that bits flaked away. Hugo appeared incapable of fending for himself: he swooned in the comer, his face pale and drawn even in the warm light from the candles and faeries alike, his eyes glazed as they stared directly ahead. He seemed to have retreated into his own world, a place where nothing could touch him, even though the nightmare of serpents was from deep within his own mind; perhaps he

had locked himself away in the place beyond both consciousness and subconsciousness (perhaps even between them), a hideaway where nothing - no inner conflict, nor outside influence, and certainly no physical threat - could ever enter.

An incredible rage of thunder erupted from above, the lightning itself strobing for several long seconds. Thom was sure the roof had been struck and so fierce was the impact that he automatically shielded his grandfather’s skin-and-bones body with his own. The ceiling held, although dust drifted down to mingle with the twinkling particles strewn by the little people. There was a series of sharp cracks over the thunder’s roar and he looked up in time to see several of the plate-glass windows crack from top to bottom.

As the last of the snakes dropped from Hugo’s immobile body, the faeries resumed their attack on the darkness, because strange forms could be observed moving inside its inkiness, a brief and non-defining outline here, the warped curve of some impenetrable creature there - for the battle was far from won. Although weaker, the darkness prevailed, the quick-darting lights mere shooting stars in a black universe.

The wind howled through the roof terrace’s restless door so that candle-flames danced at an angle. Even the flying mites, with their lustrous but fragile wings, were buffeted, the dust they scattered, blown across the great bedchamber in eddies and swirls. As Thom’s hair was tugged, his shirt snagged, he saw that the wind had caught Nell’s long black hair, tossing it around her head and shoulders, flapping the piece of paper he’d noticed in her hand on entering the room, whipping at the long loose skirt she wore so that it twisted and snapped in its currents. He also observed (it had been hidden before) that in her other hand she clutched a black dagger, an athame. It was now clutched to her breast, above which hung an ankh, a strange cross with looped upper arms held there by a silver chain around her neck.

She was rigid, still trance-like, even though the wind flayed hair and clothes. Her eyes were closed.