Shiver the Whole Night Through (26 page)

So I chose the coward's way out. I decided not to stick around. I'm no hero, I admit that. Better to go now, a clean break with life. Better not to fight, as she'd said. Better to hold on to my soul and hope to God there really was one. Hope that God and heaven existed.

But there
had
to be a heaven, right? Somewhere better than this.

I stood, sighed and said, ‘Okay, do it. Right now.'

Neither of them moved. ‘
Kill me
. I'm asking you, please. Just kill me. I've had enough.'

Sioda finally glanced up from his womb-like crouch. He seemed surprised; perhaps some survival instinct lingered on, making him hope that somehow, some way, we'd both make it out of there alive.

I smiled at him, saying ruefully, ‘Sorry, man. Nothing we can do now.'

Joseph went to rise from the chair but I held up a hand to stop him and looked at Sláine. ‘I'd prefer if you did it.' I gave a lopsided smile and felt tears pricking my eyes. ‘For  …  for old times' sake, yeah?'

She nodded and came over, standing just in front of me. Sláine ending my existence: the ultimate betrayal in a life that sometimes seemed full of them, and there was a weird kind of aptness in that. Why shouldn't the story of my shitty existence have a disappointing, unhappy ending?

‘It'll be quick, Aidan,' she said, smiling, something almost tender in it. ‘No pain. I won't take your soul. I won't destroy your face. Your parents will have something decent to bury.'

Amazingly, I really did appreciate this – that my mam and dad could have an open coffin at the funeral. Wow, I thought, smiling inwardly: you're actually maturing, Aidan. You're getting outside your own stupid head and thinking about other people for once. Pity this newfound maturity was coming too late, but there you go. Like I said, life's full of irony.

I appreciated it, but wasn't going to let on to Sláine. ‘Good for you,' I drawled with some dying spark of defiance, one last ‘screw you' to my tormentors. ‘Award yourself a medal. Can we get on with it now?'

She smiled indulgently. ‘Of course. One last smoke before you go? Last meal on death row?'

Before I could answer Sláine had whisked my tobacco out of my pocket, rolled a cigarette and gently slipped it between my lips. I shrugged: sure, whatever.

Sioda swung his legs over the bed and implored his brother, hands together like a religious penitent: ‘For God's sake, Joseph. For the memory of our mother, stop this insanity. Don't let this boy die. You hate me, I get that, but think of Mammy, for God's sake  …  '

Joseph sniggered. ‘For God's sake? There is no god any more, you snivelling little turd.
I
am God now. Carry on, Sláine. Ignore that worm sitting next to you there.'

I rose from the bed, clutching the bottle of scotch. Sláine stood before me, partly blocking Joseph's line of sight.

‘That's it,' she said, as softly as a mother hushing her child to sleep. ‘Accept the way things are.'

The whisky bottle in my hand. My lighter in her hand. Sioda's head back in his hands. My life, and death, in Sláine's hands.

And then, and then, right at the finish, my real ‘screw you' to the pair of them – not the flip comment of childish rebellion but something heartfelt, fundamental. Something quiet and tender, and all the more powerful for that.

I smiled sadly at her and said, ‘I love you, Sláine.'

There was my triumph. There I was victorious. In letting her know I hadn't changed, despite everything. My heart hadn't hardened or frozen over. I still loved her, and always would. I still
felt love
. Life hadn't beaten me, they hadn't beaten me. I was bloodied but unbowed. And I was at peace.

I smiled again, different this time – a genuinely happy smile, given the circumstances.

Sláine stared at me. She lit the rollie and I inhaled greedily, its tip glowing lava-red, engorged, enflamed. She whispered, ‘The time has come. And you know what to do.'

Then she winked.

And I did. Just like that, I knew. Sláine didn't say anything more. She didn't need to. She didn't have to get inside my head with words because we were already inside each other's souls. She was lonely and I was lonely and we had ruptured the fabric of space and time. We were hearts talking across continents. Across the boundary between life and death.

I called out, ‘Yo, Joey?'

His head lifted, perplexed at my tone of voice.

I returned the wink to Sláine. ‘Health warning for you, pal: my smoking can kill you.'

Then the bottle was slipped from my hand by Sláine's hand and the cigarette was in my hand and she was moving, faster than a shooting star, faster than I would have thought it possible to move, spinning from me and towards Joseph Kinvara and
smashing
that heavy glass bottle across the fucker's head, an explosion of glittering shards, a volcanic splash of whisky all over his face and clothes as he howled in shock and pain, blood running from his face and mingling with the scotch. With all that alcohol.

I flicked the cigarette at him and it arced in slow motion through the air like the shining-white ape's bone in that old sci-fi movie, and before it even reached Joseph the spark ignited the fumes rising off him like a toxic spill, and he was engulfed in flame. Then Sláine was moving again,
fwit-fwit-fwit-fwit
, running angles, stretching physics to breaking point, grabbing both lamps and swinging them in turn at Joseph's head – smash-crash-
flash
, oil catching fire, further nourishing the blaze.

Hair melting off his skull, skin lifting and bubbling like fat in a pan, clothes sticking to his body. It was horrific to watch but I had to keep looking. Joseph screamed like a baying pack of underworld hounds and tried to rise but Sláine pushed him down, forcing him back onto the armchair, that tatty piece of shit, that four-legged fire hazard. The furniture went up in flames too, the fabric curling and burning to nothingness, the stuffing inside feeding hungrily on the fireball. Joseph's gun clattered to the ground.

More screams, but this wasn't just the man, it was the thing inside him too. A blood-curdling screech – not only pain, fear also. The demon was scared, and no surprise: Sláine, my Sláine, was at full fury now, fury and
love
, a force of nature, beyond nature. She thrust her hands into the inferno, ignoring the flames and wrenching Joseph out of the chair, flinging him against the wall, ancient brick bursting apart as he hit and came crashing down, dust settling on him like a pall, still burning, still screaming, a human firestorm.

I understood now why and how she could do those things to my bullies, do them for me even when she knew it was wrong. I loved her more than ever.

And Sláine loved me. She hadn't betrayed us.

She lifted Joseph from the floor and hammered his head into the wall, again and again, a whizzing blur of white violence and red fire. He swooned in agony and Sláine kept hammering. I couldn't move my legs or tear my eyes away. And I didn't want to.

A different type of fire was beginning to well up in my stomach, a pure thrill of excitement and bloodlust and vindication  … 

I hollered, almost feverish with vengeance, ‘Kick his ass, Sláine! Pound his ass into the ground!
Kill him!
'

She leaped for the ceiling and Joseph's head went through the rafters, old wood shattering like crystal, flames flaking from his dying body. Sláine pulled him down and grabbed his head, her fingers like a vice grip. Her hands began to turn. Sláine gasped, ‘Get out of him get out get out
get out
 …  '

Joseph somehow regained his equilibrium and tried to fight back, arms flailing like pinwheels of sparks from a bonfire. He was a trapped animal, crazed, acting on instinct. No longer the smooth master of a new universe. Kinvara was just another bully, a chicken-shit coward when he met someone stronger.

‘Kill him!' I shouted. ‘Smash the bastard's skull to dust!'

With a desperate effort she pressed harder, her throat opening with a sound like the earthy blood-roar of a woman in childbirth. Joseph gave a last unearthly scream and the thing, that accursed demon, exited his flesh and flitted away from its host, its smallish form darting out of the lodge into the sheltering blackness of Shook Woods. What d'you know? Even demons are chicken-shit when someone stands up to them.

Sláine loosened her grip and Joseph mindlessly barrelled out the door past me, a fireball, a tumble of roasting meat, no longer a man, running a few yards before collapsing into the snow, facedown. He was done for.

Silence, broken by the sound of my heavy breathing. Sioda was so far in shock by now I don't think he was even capable of that much. He stared at Sláine and babbled, ‘Muh-muh-muh  …  '

I ran to my girl. There, by the wall, as plaster dust and wood splinters fell onto our heads like bizarre confetti, I threw my arms around her and held Sláine close enough to crush her. Never had absolute cold felt so warm to me. Our hearts together, a conflagration in the centre of a raging snowstorm.

She whispered, ‘I have to go after it. Can't let it get away.' Then she stood, took three sharp breaths, rolled her neck, rolled her shoulder muscles. Sláine looked nerveless, resolute, incredibly capable. Incredibly powerful. I didn't think it was possible, but I was more in awe of this girl than ever.

She took my hands, squeezed them, released. ‘I don't have time to explain. Get back to town and stay in your house.' She aimed a thumb in Sioda's direction. ‘Bring him with you. And don't leave until I contact you.'

‘No way. I'm staying. Not letting you out of my sight again.'

‘Just stay well back.'

‘That I can definitely do.'

Sláine stared at the floor. She said quietly, ‘Maybe I can free those poor souls they've already taken. Like in the stories, you know? When you kill the head vampire, you release his victims. You save them.' She looked at me, uncertain, pleading. ‘It's not a vampire, but  …  It has to be worth a shot. Doesn't it?'

I nodded and gritted my teeth. ‘It's worth a shot. Let's go get the bastard. Mr Kinvara, wait here. We'll be back.'

He didn't respond, or move, or do anything, except stare at the spot where an angel of death had driven his brother into hell.

Outside. The crescent moon a knife cutting through the firmament. I started to ask, ‘What direc—?' when Sláine shushed me, closed her eyes, held a finger to the breeze. Her dark-grey eyes opened and she pointed into the darkness.

‘There.'

Then we were running through Shook Woods, giant pines on all sides as silent and inscrutable as an alien monolith on the moon, a flying squadron of crows in relief against the sky, screaming, driving us onwards. Sláine raced ahead, I could see her flashing white through gaps in the trees, before the forest's shadow swallowed the view once more. The darkness of this place, it kind of washed over you, seeming to be more than the mere absence of light but a thing, a presence, maybe the spirit of the forest itself, standing guard, keeping watch, leaning in  … 

Then I was entering a large clearing and
there
was the demon, zipping and glowing through the night like a will-o'-the-wisp towards something odd – I couldn't quite see what because it was so goddamn dark in  … 

Sláine was covering the ground at terrific speed, making a trajectory for the demon, a missile set to explode. It glanced back, looking scared now, its malignant face full of terror and hatred and fury.

‘Come on, Sláine,' I gasped, running as hard as I could, my lungs burning, legs turning to acidified jelly. ‘Bring it
down
 …  '

But even as I said it I could see that the creature had reached the odd something and could see what that something was and my heart sank. We were screwed.

A door. A portal. An exit. A sort of shimmering in space, a dull, nauseating vibration. Oval in shape, maybe eight feet high, five across. This door, I somehow knew, opened onto another dimension or realm or universe, some other
place
where that demon could find escape. Could plot its return. We'd never be free, never feel safe, knowing it was over there, wherever that place was.

I kept going, pushing every last ounce of energy into it. Sláine was still gunning for the demon like a heat-seeking missile but it was halfway through the portal, one side of its body disappearing into the nothingness beyond, the image sort of being scrubbed out. It grimaced at us, a sight to make the blood run cold, yowling like a rabid cat, throwing its curse to heaven. Then it turned to go, and I knew once it was through the door would close behind it, and we'd be as damned as that hell-bound thing.

Sláine screamed, a wordless cry of grief and anger, and launched herself across the sky, practically flying, stretching for that portal to keep it open, if she could just reach it before the demon disappeared forever and
keep the bloody thing open
 … 

She didn't make it. But she didn't need to.

Because, bringing up the rear my heart had been battering my chest, heat rising there inside my parka with exertion and fear and exhilaration, and I realised that something really was battering my chest. An object, a physical thing, bouncing back and forth as I ran. I kept running and reached my inside pocket and pulled out the old locket that lady gave me, Meredith. It had remained in there all this time. I guess I'd told myself I'd find photos of Sláine and me to put in it, then got distracted and forgot about it.

It was warm. Not tepid, from being close to my body, but definitively
warm
, like a cup of tea made five minutes before. And it was  …  this might have been the moonlight playing tricks again, but the little disc seemed to be glowing, a muted throb. Warm and bright, I held it tight in my hands and ran towards Sláine as the demon vanished and she screamed and lunged, too late  …