Sea Change (17 page)

"I don't know,"
Charles said. "Something we have in common, although I can’t think
what."

"Charles," John
said. "Can I ask a strange question?"

"Nothing on
this night would be strange. Go ahead."

"Have you ever
walked around Hob's Hole? Around the edge?"

Charles was
silent for a moment. "You have, then," he said eventually.

"Yes."

"And your
friends?"

"Yes."

"I was
fourteen," Charles said. "I was terrified. But I did it all the
same. I told Alan about it a few years ago, when we were having a
conversation about the local legends. He laughed, told me I was
crazy, and that wild horses wouldn't make him walk around the
ledge. I don't think he ever did. So maybe the hob does grant his
protection, after all.”

"I don't think
it could protect me from everything Elias has," John said. "Maybe
from the possession, but there are...other things."

"Do you know
what that creature wants from you?"

John told
Charles about his meeting on the cliff-top with Elias, about the
jet. "But I don't know what to do," he said. "If I don't do as he
says, he said he would hurt everyone I care for. And I've seen what
he can do, I can't take that risk. But if I do get it...what would
I be giving him, Charles? What would I be giving this man the power
to do?"

“Not a man,
anymore," Charles said. "But I understand your fear. Whatever he's
done, however he's kept himself...here, after his time. He can't do
it forever. That's why he's so desperate. He has waited all this
time for the stone, and if he does not get it, he will just wither
away into the dust that he should be. From what you say, doing
everything he is now is weakening him. This might be one last,
desperate, roll of the dice for Elias."

"So what do I
do?" John said. "I didn't know who else to talk to, but I don't
know what to do. I'm only a kid."

"A
child
," Charles said. "A kid is a young goat. But yes, you
are a child. But I think you are also more than that, much more.
Someone like you could get the stone, as he wants. But someone like
you could also put it beyond his reach, beyond the reach of any
mortal he might use like he used my son."

"Where?"

"Hob's Hole,"
Charles said. "Give it back to the Hob. Throw the jet down and get
out of the village, John. Get away from Elias."

"And what about
you, about Laura and Simon, and Sal?"

Charles closed
his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. "We will have to
take our chances. With all the power he is spending pursuing you,
his threats are nothing more than a bluff, I’m sure of that.”

John smiled at
the old man, with great affection, and a great sadness. He knew who
was bluffing.

"So all I have
to do is get it?" John said.

"Yes," said
Charles. "But when you do, he will be waiting for you. And he will
do everything within his power to get it from you."

"So what can I
do?" John asked. “Once I have the stone, how do I stop him from
getting it from me?"

"You run,"
Charles said. "You run and be brave, John. That is all that you can
do."

Chapter
Fourteen

The climb up
the path felt like an unending journey through a nightmare, a dream
where death and terror is only a moment away. A couple of times
every year John had a recurring dream in which he was climbing a
giant ziggurat, a hulking tower of stone in the middle of a desert.
The sand stretched out in every direction towards the horizon,
under the cruel flat heat of the sky. In every direction there was
nothing but endless sand. In the dream John had to climb the
ziggurat, step after painful step up the steep stone blocks. He
never wanted to look down, but at some point in the dream he always
did, and then pressed himself to the rough hot stone in terror at
the sight of the terrifying drop below.

The path to the
cliff top was wide enough that it presented no problem in the
daylight, but at night it seemed insubstantial and the ground
seemed rougher, hidden hollows and sticking out rocks waiting to
catch an unwary foot. John could hear the hiss of the sea a long
drop below, calling to him, whispering promises. He shuffled along
the path, trailing one hand along the cliff where possible, the
rough scraping of the rock against his hand his guide.

When he was
three-quarters of the way up the path it narrowed and he could see
the blackness that lay just a step away, the airy drop into
nothing. A fierce desire to look down came upon him, just like in
his dream, and at first he resisted, but then he thought don't be
stupid, it's just a dream. So he rooted his feet firmly on the
packed earth of the path and looked down. The cliff below him faded
into shadow not far down, but he could see the lightness of the
sand on the beach, and the white boil of the waves as they surged
in and broke themselves on the land. He took a couple of deep
breaths, and then grinned. There. Beaten it. He set off back up the
cliff path, and thought to himself that he would not dream that
dream again.

The cliff-top
was deserted. John left the path, and walked over the field towards
the edge of the cliff. The wind plucked and tugged at his clothes.
A long way below, he could hear the boom and crash of the sea.

John’s mobile
rang.

He took it from
his pocket. The display read “Caller Not Known.” John pressed the
divert button to send the call to voicemail. Before he could put
the phone back in his pocket, it rang again, the ringtone faster
than it should be, notes playing that weren’t ever there, like
there were two songs playing at once.

John switched
the phone off completely. The light of the screen flickered and
died. The silence of the night rushed back in to the cliff top.

Then the phone
rang again.

John turned it
over, pushed hard against the back cover, and let the battery fall
out onto the soft grass.

The phone
carried on ringing.

Time to
upgrade, John thought. He dropped the phone, and stamped on it
until the ringing fractured into an erratic, strangled electronic
bleeping, and then finally died completely.

It’s making me
waste time, John thought. And I don’t have much time. He hurried to
the orange warning tape, which cracked and fluttered as if in
warning. John took a deep breath, and ducked underneath it. The
moon gave him enough light to see where he was going, but not much
more than that. He walked towards the raw scar in the earth where
the cliff had crumbled into the sea. Somewhere in there, he would
find the stone. It struck him that he should have brought a spade,
a trowel, anything. For all he knew, the stone was buried a metre
deep in the earth. For all he knew, he would not be able to get to
it at all.

The sea slammed
against the cliff, and John thought that he could feel the ground
moving beneath his feet. He stepped gingerly down into the
crumbling earth, only a stumble away from where the earth stopped
and the air began.

There was
nothing there. Just broken earth, and rocks, and the dizzying black
drop. John squatted down, looking for anything that looked
different. He couldn't see anything. If he couldn't find the stone,
all this would be worthless. Elias would find another way of
getting to it first, and then all would be lost.

He shuffled
closer to the edge, and there was a sudden rattle of pebbles, and
his foot slipped as the earth moved underneath it. For one brief
moment he thought that he was going to follow, but then he managed
to scrabble up and onto an outcrop of rock that still seemed firmly
rooted in the cliff. He shivered, but it was not with cold.

John reached
out a hand, let his eyes close. Elias had said that he would be
able to tell where it was. Call it to him. John concentrated hard,
sending all of his thought down to the tips of his fingers. Please,
he thought. Please tell me where you are.

Nothing
happened. No visions came into his head. There was just him, and
the crumbling earth, and the drop below.

Then he looked
down, and saw something had changed in the darkness. Where the
earth had slipped down, just beneath his rocky perch, there was
something there. A blacker darkness against the earth, which
glinted the moonlight back into the sky.

That's it, John
thought. It's got to be. And he felt scared, because he was sure
that it hadn’t been on the surface there before. I’ve called it, he
thought. Elias is right. I have something that others don’t. The
stone has come to me.

John cautiously
took a step off from the rock, testing the earth in front of him
before committing his weight to it. The stone was only inches from
the edge. Closer. Closer still. A rattle of pebbles again, the
cliff's warning. He left one hand on the rocks, his one connection
to the solid stable world. He reached out an arm. Nearly. He didn't
want to let go of the rock, so he stretched, stretched, and then
the tips of his fingers just curled around the edge of the jet. It
was cold, hard, and John's fingers tingled as if he had just
touched something charged with electricity. He felt the hairs on
his skin lifting.

Oh, this is it,
he thought, this is definitely it. No ordinary stone feels this
way. The jet was wide, flat, about the size of a small plate. John
slid his front foot a little closer, so he could lever the jet from
the earth, and then he had it, pulling it free with one hand, the
stone heavy but he had it, nearly there, and then the ground
dropped from beneath his feet as the edge of the cliff crumbled
into the sea and he started to fall with it.

John threw
himself towards the land, managing to hang on to the jet with one
hand, grabbing at the rocks with the other. The earth stopped
moving. His feet hung out over emptiness. The sea roared in below,
waiting.

John kicked
forward, digging his feet into the new cliff face but as quickly as
he tried to step up, the ground crumbled again.

He could not
hang on for long. John could smell the earth, a heavy, wet smell
that made him think of mud and worms, a field after heavy rain. The
clouds were passing, and he could see the hard diamonds of the
stars laid out on the black velvet of the sky. That's beautiful, he
thought. Even now, like this. Then a blackness moved in front of
the sky and some of the stars went out.

"Well, well," a
rough voice said.

"Greg," John
said. "Please. Help me up from here."

"A little worm,
grovelling around in the dirt," Greg said, and his voice was hard
and without pity. "Little worm, little worm, show me what you've
dug up."

"Greg," John
said. "Help me up."

"Give it me,"
Greg said. "Then I'll help you up."

"I don't know
what you're talking about," John said. Get rescued, then bluff he
thought, bluff your way out of this one. Don't let him see the
stone, it's just Greg, he's mean, but he's stupid. At worst you'll
get a kicking, but then you've put up with those before. Just don’t
let him see the stone.

"Don't lie to
me boy," Greg said with a voice that was not his own. “Don’t think
that I am this stupid creature, just because I choose to use him,"
and all the earth under John felt cold, like a grave.

"It's in my
belt," John said. "I can't show it to you, I'll fall."

"Give it to
me," Greg said.

"Elias, if I
try, I'll fall, and it'll fall with me, down into the sea. What are
you going to do then, send Greg diving for it?"

The dark figure
hesitated for a moment, and then let out a hiss of disgust. It
leant forward and grabbed John's wrist, fingers dug in so tight
that John cried out. Then Greg pulled, and John scrabbled with his
feet, feeling chunks of rock and earth falling beneath them, and he
was nearly up and on the edge of the cliff and then the earth moved
beneath him and he was hanging in space as more cliff clattered
down towards the sea, and then Greg pulled again, with all his
strength, digging his heels into the ground. Then Greg was falling
backwards, and John went with him, and he landed hollow on the
ground, the jet falling from his hand on to the ground. John could
not move, could not do anything but fight to take a breath.

Greg got to his
feet, and took a step closer. John gritted his teeth against the
pain, and kicked out at the jet. It rolled away down the slope,
bumping and jumping across the tussocks of grass. John lay on the
ground, neck craned back, watching it, too exhausted to move and
the thing that was both Greg and Elias stood above him, as the
stone rolled towards the cliff edge.

Then it
stopped, wobbled, and lay still on the grass, inches from the long
drop down. Greg looked down at John, and twisted his mouth into
something that was nearly a smile, but not quite.

“Ah, well. You
tried," he said, and then he drew his foot back. John rolled to one
side and caught the kick in his shoulder. Pain flashed down his arm
and into his neck, but it was better than he would have felt had
the kick landed in his face as Elias had intended. He scuttled
backwards, hands and feet scrabbling on the grass, trying to move
out of reach. He noticed that although Elias had control of Greg's
body, and could use all of his strength, Greg moved in a jerky
parody of life in the same way that Alan had, as if Elias knew
which strings to pull, but not quite in which order he should pull
them. I've got a chance, John thought. If I can stay out of his
reach, if I can get my breath back, I could get away. He couldn't
stop me—not as Greg, anyway. He knew though, that if Greg got close
enough to land another kick where he wanted to, that it would be
the end of it, for he would not be able to run anywhere.

Greg hesitated,
looking first at John and then at the grass where the stone lay,
hidden now. He lifted a hand and pointed it at John and said, "Stay
there", and then shuffled through the grass. Fall off, John
thought, slip and fall, but Greg did not, just lurched slowly
along, closer to the stone. John struggled to his feet. As he
pushed himself up off the ground he felt the stabbing pain through
his shoulder again, and he nearly fell down, but he managed to keep
his footing, standing half-crouched, still desperate to get air
back into his lungs, every breath feeling as if he were fighting
against a great weight that had been placed upon his chest. He
could stand, but he could not run. Breathe, he thought to himself,
breathe slow and this will pass and then you will be able to run.
Breathe and you might be able to run before he reaches you. Run
now, and you'll last ten steps and fall over and no matter how slow
and awkward he is, you won’t get away from him a second time. But
then if he has the jet, what does running away matter anyway?