Shiver the Whole Night Through (23 page)

Caitlin went on. ‘Aidan, I'm so sorry. For everything that happened, for  …  ' She nodded to herself, determined. ‘Yes. For everything
I
did to you. I did it – can't blame anyone else. I was a total bitch and I know it. It's been eating me up inside for months, and you know what? I deserved it. Every bit of guilt, every sleepless night, I deserved it all. I was horrible to you, and I'm sorry. For cheating on you with that idiot, ignoring you afterwards  …  For not having the decency to give you your speak. Let you get angry and tell me you hated me, and take it. I owed you that. And  …  I'm sorry for not sticking up for you. When everyone was bullying you, I hated to see it and didn't join in, but that wasn't good enough. I should have defended you. Should have said,
I'm
the one you ought to be picking on. Me! I'm the one who did something wrong. Aidan did nothing. He was a perfect gentleman. Still is.'

She looked up at me. I didn't know what to say, if she wanted me to say anything. Caitlin whispered, ‘I'm so, so,
sooooo
sorry. I have no excuse or explanation. I was  …  stupid, probably embarrassed at my actions. I felt like a fool and blamed you, in some irrational way. I don't know. I was wrong, that's the sum of it. I hurt you and I'm sorry. And if you don't accept my apology, I think I might just jump off a cliff.'

She was crying. And there, in the frozen heart of our undying winter, my own heart thawed. I had forgiven Caitlin, probably a long while ago – if I didn't know it before, I knew it now. And I was glad Sláine hadn't got around to wreaking her vengeance on this girl who almost killed me.

In a soft voice I said, ‘It's all right.'

She said tentatively, ‘Really?'

‘Really. Forget it. I accept your apology.'

‘Really really?'

‘Totally and absolutely. All done, in the past, it's dead. Let it go, you'll be happier for it.'

She smiled through the tears, sniffing her snotty nose. ‘Okay. Thank you  …  I know there's no chance of getting back together. I mean I'd like that but I think there's someone else  …  ?'

‘There is.'

‘Good. I'm happy for you, honestly. You deserve someone great.'

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me on the mouth, a friendly sort of embrace, a farewell.

I said, ‘Your lips are warm.'

Caitlin smiled, bemused. ‘You sound surprised.'

‘Nah, it's  …  uh, the cold night and all.' What time was it? I probably needed to get gone to Shook Woods. ‘Listen, I gotta roll. Now I'm the one saying sorry. But I do, it's  …  kind of important.'

She stepped back. ‘Of course. Sorry, I'm keeping you.'

‘Nah, you're okay. I'll go now, though.'

‘All right. Bye, Aidan. Take care of yourself.'

‘You too.'

We moved in opposite directions, away from Kinvara's house, the wellspring of my nightmares. Thirty seconds up the road, I spun around and called back.

‘Hey, Caitlin?'

She turned. ‘Mm-hm?'

‘Hope to see you soon.'

I went straight back to the forest where I met Sláine as agreed, though not as agreed at nine, or at the hunting lodge. Instead she was waiting at the main entrance to Shook Woods, my phone's display showing 8.30 p.m. – I'd given myself that much time to hike in to the lodge. I was startled when I saw her there, glowing like a special effect in a movie. Unearthly, transcendental. So beautiful I thought I'd die.

She said, ‘Come on, let's head,' and we started walking briskly in along the path, Sláine energised and strong, seeming taller than me, as she often did. I half-expected her to lift me and whoosh us through the forest, but she didn't. She seemed anxious somehow, hesitant. I guessed that she was lost in thought and worry about our showdown with destiny. The moment that might destroy the world. Maybe she had a plan and was going over the details. That could wait: I had urgent news to tell.

‘Here, listen,' I said. ‘I've worked it out. Our mystery man.'

She looked at me, said nothing, kept moving.

‘It's this guy, Sioda Kinvara's his name. Some rich prick moved here a few months ago. Lives in a big old creepy house on Belladonna Way.'

‘What makes you think he's our villain?'

I listed off all the evidence I'd accumulated. Sláine listened impassively. She didn't seem to be buying it, for some reason.

‘Who else could it be?' I asked, impassioned. ‘Besides,
you're
the one put me on to him.'

‘How so?'

‘I dreamed about you. And you were humming this tune, the same one Kinvara's got as his ringtone
and
I heard him play on piano. The prosecution rests, Your Honour.'

‘Not the most persuasive argument, counsellor. It came to you in a vision?'

‘Yeah. Dreams have meaning, didn't you know that? Like, Freud or someone worked it out. And
I
dreamed about
you
.'

She smiled at me, enigmatic, the first since we'd met: ‘Did you, though  …  ?'

What did that mean? She'd really appeared outside my window, and I'd crawled over, half-asleep, insensible, thinking I was imagining it?

I shook my head and said, ‘Here, never mind dreams or Sigmund bloody Freud. Kinvara's our man, I know it in my bones.'

‘Yeah,' Sláine said. ‘I think  …  yeah. I think you're probably right.'

‘Well, great. Thanks for that show of confidence. So look, what's the strategy? I was thinking we could draw him out somewhere, a place where he's not in control. Somewhere of our choosing. Then you handle the demon some way or another, and I clock Kinvara over the head with a lump of wood.'

I laughed nervously. Sláine didn't respond. The night was darker now, a slim sliver of crescent moon lighting our way. I didn't mind. I knew Shook Woods like the back of my hand by this stage – I could have walked it blindfolded. And she was with me. Sláine wouldn't let me fall, she'd never allow anything to hurt me, I knew that. I trusted her judgment and the purity of her heart.

Still, I wanted
some
idea of what we might do.

‘Eh – Sláine? Are you going to answer?'

She snapped, ‘What?', frowned into space, looked away, and finally smiled at me. ‘Sorry. A bit preoccupied. It's not you.' She shook her head, as if trying to loosen out whatever tensions and pressures might be in there.

‘So what do you think? Draw the bastard out?'

‘Um  …  you know what? Let's just go to the lodge and sit down and see where we're at. I have half a plan but I need to work out the finer points. Is that all right?'

‘I  …  guess so. Yeah, okay. You have a plan? Excellent.'

‘
Sort
of a plan  …  Listen, Aidan, don't worry. When it all happens, we'll know what to do. You'll know. Won't even have to think – it'll come naturally, your reaction. Just  …  have patience. Almost there.'

I said, ‘Sure.' I wasn't sure, at all, but didn't feel I had much of a choice. ‘At least give me some kind of heads-up, yeah? Like, wink at me or something. They always do that in movies.'

‘Sure,' she said dryly. ‘I'll wink at you.'

Still Sláine didn't move us at super-speed; still we walked, like regular people, silent. A bird flapped from its perch and flew across the sky. What was there to say anyway, I told myself. Whatever will be, will be, and all that. I tried to convince myself I really believed it, that I was stoical and philosophical. I think I even half-succeeded.

To pass the time and fill the silence I thought about my parents and siblings. As I mentioned to Podsy in that letter, I hadn't said goodbye. There wasn't time, as it happened, with my treks back and forth to Shook Woods and detour via
COLDSTAR
, but I wouldn't have in any case. My folks would have tried to stop me if they'd any idea of what I was heading into. The two little ones would have cried. So would I, probably. I pictured them, sleeping now, Sheila in her tiny room, Ronan in his tinier room, little more than a converted cupboard. I could see them, looking so small and defenceless, little mouths open, breathing softly, safe there, innocent of all the bad things in this hurtful world. I mentally blew a kiss back at my home and wished the four of them God speed. Then I wished it for myself and continued to strike out into the blackness.

It had just passed nine when we saw the lodge in the distance. The crumbling old stone, moss and ivy, the familiarity of it – how reassuring it seemed. I could feel myself tense as we came closer, though – some autonomic response I couldn't control and didn't want to fight. In fact, I welcomed it. If tonight turned to shit and my mind went cuckoo-bananas, maybe my body, my primal nervous system, would step in and continue the battle. Maybe.

We stopped at the door. I said, ‘Ladies first?'

Sláine smiled wearily and gestured towards it. ‘Nah, you go ahead. It's the age of equality, after all.'

‘Okay. Whatever.'

I reached for the handle, opened the door inwards. A soft light exited the lodge: candlelight, warm, organic. That was the first warning sign but clearly it didn't register strongly enough because I continued on inside. Like a dumb naive lamb being led to the abattoir.

The second warning was a sound: someone there, humming a familiar four-note refrain. ‘Dum-dum-dum-DUMMM  …  ' A chill descended on me. Panic like an explosion, a thousand Roman candles cartwheeling and fizzling across my brain. But too late for panic, too late for anything, because Sláine had entered the lodge too, swiftly locking the door, and now was moving behind me, coming nearer, the cold preceding her like a warning of bad intent.

And I was looking at the face of Sioda Kinvara.

He stood by the far wall, dead centre, staring at me. I was frozen in shock, couldn't talk, my mind in turmoil, speech centres scrubbed clean of any language up to the task. We held the stare between us.

After an age Kinvara said quietly, ‘It's not what you think.'

I could sense Sláine right behind me. Her voice in my ear, almost wistful, whispering, ‘He's right, Aidan. It's
not
what you think.'

A twist of pain, as if I had literally been stabbed in the back, not just metaphorically. She wrenched my arm up and wrenched me around so I faced the armchair. And the middle-aged man sitting in it, holding a glass of something dark gold – and pointing a handgun at Kinvara.

Sláine said wryly, ‘Told you I was working on a plan. Unfortunately for you, it's not the one you wanted me to have.'

The guy in the armchair said, ‘Don't worry, Aidan Flood. I will put an end to all your troubles.'

He placed the gun on the arm of his chair and smiled with a creepy familiarity that made me feel uneasy, somewhere in the back-brain, the animal instinct part. He was familiar to me, too: I'd seen his face before  …  or something like it. I'd seen it, immobile with terror, on the man standing across the room.

‘He's your brother,' I said to Sioda – though my words just floated into the chilled air, not specifically in his direction.

The gunslinger declaimed theatrically, ‘Joseph Kinvara, at your service.' There was even an ironic little bow for a flourish. ‘Three years younger than my beloved sibling. Call me Joe if you like, whatever suits. Sioda there got the fancy name from our parents. I'd to make do with plain old Joseph.'

He shrugged. I gazed at him, speechless. I didn't give a rat's ass about what to call him. What did I care for strangers' names, there, right at the end, at the death of everything I knew?

I gasped. ‘You  …  you sold me out. Sláine.
Why?
'

She didn't answer. I would have slumped to the floor if she wasn't now holding me under my arms. One hand rapidly moving over my body, patting me down, as if I were carrying a weapon.

‘Oh, Christ,' I breathed. ‘I walked straight into it. Can't believe how
stupid
I was. Stupid enough to believe you  …  '

She lifted me to the bed and I flailed onto it like a drunk. Sláine went and stood next to Joseph, who rapped at his brother, ‘
You
. Go join him.' Sioda shuffled over and sat beside me. He looked like hammered shit: dazed, exhausted, horrified.

I said to him, ‘And stupid enough to have you fingered as the bad guy.'

He didn't respond, but began muttering under his breath, ‘Oh God.
Please
, Joseph, stop this madness  …  '

‘Shut up, Sioda. I'm getting to know my new friend here.'

I sat up straight and brought my eyes around to meet the other two. Joseph was smiling genially, a trace of a smirk. Sláine was smiling too, sardonic, almost patronising. I suppose it was justified, her obvious feelings of superiority: she
was
superior. The girl had played me like a violin, the poor lovelorn sap I was. Just like Caitlin last year. So things never really change at all, I reflected bitterly, they just take a different form. That image, the pair of them, seemed to waver somewhat in the wobbling light of several candles, cast from different points around the lodge; neither of the oil lamps were lit, I noticed, though both were filled with fuel.

I snarled at Joseph, ‘And
you
. You're like a guy who came third in your own lookalike contest. Like a bad imitation of yourself.' I didn't know where that came from – I just wanted to hurt him. It didn't work.

Joseph raised his glass to me and took a hearty drink. ‘Mm. Glenfiddich scotch. Really good stuff.'

I blurted out to Sláine: ‘You
asshole
. Why did you
do
this?'

She shrugged and gave a gentle laugh. Joseph said, ‘She brought you to me to prove her fidelity. Your life was payment for my full trust. Proof that she hadn't  …  had her head turned by someone else. Or her heart. Also, you knew too much. About me, what I intended to do.' He frowned at her, annoyed. ‘My beautiful Sláine wasn't supposed to make contact with anyone. I didn't think she would; that wasn't in the plan. For some reason, though, she became – friends, I suppose you'd call it, with you. Told you the whole story. Or, you worked it out together. Whichever. It makes no difference, really, and there's nothing a young lad like you can do to stop me. But it shouldn't have happened. I did not want that. So she had to make restitution.'

‘And I'm the bloody restitution.'

‘Exactly.' He took another drink and seemed to relax again. ‘Ah, what matter? You'll soon be dead anyway. Sláine has made her mistake, and learned from it. Isn't that right, my dear?'

She smiled at him with affection, the same look she'd given me so many times, and something strange happened: I got angry. A fire burning in my belly. I couldn't believe it. The same shit I got from Caitlin, from Rattigan and Harrington and the rest of them. Sláine and this other idiot might have seen it as something grandiose and special, but that was wrong: they were just bullies, exactly like the others. Mean-spirited, vicious, petty and callous. To hell with her, and back to hell with him and his demon.

‘Blow me,' I snarled. ‘Do whatever you want.'

Joseph chuckled. ‘I fully intend to do what I want, my boy. Great plans for the future. Sadly, you won't be around to see them come to fruition. But look on the bright side: you were part of something magnificent. Something
vast
, almost beyond human comprehension. You were in at the start. Console yourself with that.'

‘Don't think I'll bother, thanks. Who's going to do it? You or her?'

‘Kill you? Hardly matters, really, does it?' He sniggered. ‘Or do you have a preference? Perhaps you'd like your one true love Sláine to end it all. You know, it's funny. Human nature doesn't change that much. Men have always been slaves to their hearts.'

I stood and roared in fury and embarrassment, ‘
Get
fucked
, you old creep!'

‘Hm. Sláine? If you would.'

Without moving a muscle she propelled me backwards with an invisible force, slamming me against the wall. Joseph yelped in appreciation: ‘Wonderful! She really is remarkable, isn't she? A fitting queen for the new world I am about to create.'

My breath came in torn, painful gasps. I didn't care. I pushed my hair off my face and slowly pulled my tobacco pouch from my pocket. I threw it at Sláine, one quick flick, without looking in her direction. She caught it, her hand moving at incredible speed.

I said sullenly, ‘Feel like rolling me a smoke, your majesty? One for the road.'

I'd barely finished the sentence before she had tossed a rolled cigarette and the pouch back to me. She said flatly, ‘It won't hurt. Your death. And we won't turn you into a zombie. We won't even eat your soul. I'm going to take pity on you and simply kill you. If there's a heaven, there'll be something left to go there.'