We Will All Go Down Together (56 page)

(Right, she had it now:
happy.
)

A reflex, psi and magic intertwined like blood, like breath—purely autonomic. Jo put hands to scalp and
pulled
, hard enough she tore her own aura away in two halves, an invisible snake shedding invisible skin. Both Davina and Euwphaim whirled free, cast out, expelled—but before Euwphaim could turn on them, Carra had already lashed out, sent her flinging straight at Lady Glauce, who put up one huge hand to catch her ’round the nonexistent waist, neat as a frog with flies.

Canna, ye canna, ye can not—

“Oh no?” Lady Glauce inquired, lethal-calm. And smiled, a slow, dreadful,
hungry
look spreading ’cross her child’s face, as Euwphaim struggled in her grip; when she angled it to include Galit and Elver Michaels, mother and son both cringed back, the one slapping her palm over the other’s eyes, protectively.

“Nay, dinna fear,” Lady Glauce told them. “’Tis but the old exchange—the tithe for thy freedoms, paid at last. ‘This for me,’ as the song doth go, ‘and that for thee.’”

Ye little limb!
shrieked Euwphaim at Jodice, then struck out at Glauce, poisonous yet impotent.
And
you
, ye canna keep me! My soul is for another place entire, another master, fairly sold, as my place be fairly earned—!

“Yet cast away, we saw, as if no longer wanted,” said Glauce, pleasantly. “So I’ve as good a claim as any—finder’s right, for that this land be always mine, in this time as well as t’other.”

Euwphaim twisted about, one arm elongating back towards Jo like pulled taffy, hand clawed but trembling.
Yet this one has more claim than ye by far, and well she kens it! For all I told ye, Jodice, when ye came into your gift and after—th’advice I gave in yuir time of worst distress—will ye no’ stand by me now and take me back in?

Jo stared, her own hand still linked with Carra’s, clutching it for strength. Slowly, she shook her head. Forced out the words in a raw whisper—

“God grant you what you asked for, Nana . . . but not me.”

Euwphaim’s screams rose up, almost drowned in Lady Glauce’s laughter. “Now, Euwphaim, fret not—have ye no’ always coveted my Stane? Come closer then, witch. Touch it as thou please’st, now and ever.” Folding the wraith close in her arms and floating backwards towards the
brugh
-door, Glauce’s voice fell to a whisper, promising: “
I’ll hinder thee no longer.
”

As they fell out of sight, sinking down into the mound, those screams suddenly tailed off in a long, echoing, falling note, as if their source were hurtling away some unimaginable distance at horrendous speed. Enzemblance tried to grab at her mother’s sleeve, but the pull seized her too, sucking her down as though the earth had turned to quicksand while the great stone slabs of the door swung together, locking fast. Saracen and Minion leapt to Enzemblance’s side, caught her under the arms, and pulled, but their strength was no match for the closing
brugh
’s gravity. Slowly, inch by inch, Enzemblance sank downward. . . .

. . . until Mac Roke sprinted past them, relic nail in one hand, hammer in the other. He fell to his knees, set the spike’s point to
brugh
-skin, raised his hammer high, and hesitated for one brief second. Jo understood why well enough, given what she’d just done herself—this was an act from which there was no going back. Whatever family Roke had left, monstrous as it might be, would be forever lost.

(
But it is time, grandson, and past time. So get it done, for once and all, and quickly.
)

Lady Glauce’s voice, quivering up through Jo’s feet; she saw gooseflesh on Carra’s arms and knew the other girl felt it, too—more strongly than her, probably. Though not so strong as Roke, his jaw set, those too-blue eyes narrowing.

Grandmere, I will.

The hammer came down hard, nail driving deep, as if Stane were flesh. Light flashed from the impact. Again and again Mac hammered, drawing lightning, driving the spike ever deeper. Sealing the
brugh
shut.

Enzemblance wailed, a sound both pitiful and terrifying; Saracen and Minion, forced to let go, watched her sink to the neck, every shred of youth and power flaking away ’til nothing but a bare toothless mask remained above ground, nested in hair that withered like sedge. With one final blow, Mac sat back, breathing heavy—then looked her way and froze.

“Holy. . . .” he began, choking off. Enzemblance winced.

“Maccabee,” she whispered. “Ha’ ye no pity at all for yuir ane flesh and blood?”

Roke stared at her a long moment—two good beats of the heart, by Jo’s own count. “Guess not,” he replied, finally.

Adding, internally:
No more than you for
my
mother or father. No more than you for me.

“Then this is . . . the end of all things, surely. . . .”

Coldly: “For
you.
”

And with that, Mac stomped down hard, right on his aunt’s face—drove her into the ground until the earth closed over, rock lapping her like lava. ’Til only a few decaying strands of hair remained—first red-tinged yet, then grey, then white—sticking from a solid slab of Stane.

“There,” he said, eventually. “
There.
”

Done.

Beside him, Saracen went stumbling back, ankles turning; Mac turned to see his cousin fold, sly face crumpling, luxuriant backwards lashes already gummed with tears. Minion held him up, just barely.

“A pox on ye, coz,” Saracen whispered, grief-raw, waving away any attempt at apology. “Nay, forbye! Curses hound thee now and forever, who e’en once took side wi’ outlanders against his ane. A foul life live, and an ill death may ye dee.”

After which, without further ado, he and Minion melted away back into the woods, there and gone in the very same instant. Like leaves turning in fall, or ice to water. Like frost silvering fruit, blackening it to the heart.

Glamour,
Jo thought. And shivered.

At the forest’s edge, Davina still eddied in the air as if unsure of what to do next. She looked at Jo, who studied her hungrily, knowing this was the last time she’d see her, in any form: rexed red hair, body hard and boyish, green-apple breasts hid under the camo shirt she’d worn to their last job; that devil’s mouth and those brash eyes, abashed by nothing.

When had she ever looked so unsure of what to do next? Alive, she would’ve lit another cig, leaned back and flirted, considering her options. But they both knew what those were.

Go on, love,
Jo projected in her direction.
Sorry for trying to keep you, let alone how. But ’twas only because—

’Cause I filled your hole, baby?

You could call it that, yeah.

Dav laughed, or mimed doing it, shoulders rising in one last shrug. Smoke rose around her, blurring her from the toes up in a personal dry-ice shroud, though at least Jo didn’t see that bloody fake cigarette in her hand, for which she was grateful.

Always one to make an exit,
she thought, a grim shell of satisfaction forming like a lid over the same dreadful, yearning pit of want, as though she might somehow pretend it away. Then thinking, in the same breath:
Oh Christ, but I miss you, Dav. So bloody much.

I know. But how can ya, when you won’t even let me leave?

Jo gave her the V for fuck off, and saw her laugh again, drinking in the details longingly—glint of light on her dead teeth, the freckles on her cheeks, the way her nose wrinkled, a stroked cat’s. Then watched as she dispersed, blowing away.

Love you,
she thought again, one last time. And made herself turn away, with a wrench—just in time to catch another drama playing out, back amongst the standing stones.

Ganconer at the edge of it all, Galit and Kim in the middle with Elver between. Kim kept his hands to himself, eyes eating Galit alive; Galit didn’t even seem to notice, consumed as she was with taking stock, every mundane thing around her a treat after so many years pent away. She must’ve described much of this to Elver over that time, yet never been able to prove her thesis more than speculation—to him it was metaphor only, nothing like the dim little world he knew. And now here it was, all around him; no wonder he could barely seem to speak.

“You came,” Galit said again, gaze finally returning to Kim. “I hoped . . . oh, I hoped, but I didn’t know. You didn’t have to do that, Josh. I’d’ve understood if you hadn’t.”

He shook his head, tears in his eyes. “Should’ve come sooner,” he said. “Making you wait all this time—I don’t think I can ever forgive myself.”

“No,” she said, “don’t be stupid. You’d’ve died if you’d tried earlier. There were rooms full of bones, down there . . . I don’t want to think about it. But you needed her—” She nodded at Carra. “And the nephew, with the nail . . . that girlfriend of his. The magician.
Her
.” Now she was pointing at Jo, who flushed, uncomfortably. “All of them. And I’m grateful, Josh. I’m so damn grateful.”

Kim nodded, then looked at Ganconer. “What about him?” he asked.

Galit looked down at Elver. “Do you have them?”

“Aye, Mumma.”

Carefully, the boy approached, deliberately making enough noise that Ganconer looked up—raised his head, anyhow. The wooden eyes were horribly kept, infected and pussy around their edges, unhealed even after all this time; he seemed to be weeping, a constant stream of sticky yellowish rheum.

“Is’t you, Elver?” Ganconer asked.

“Yes, sir. I have aught for you.”

The boy rummaged inside his garments, withdrew something, clinking slightly. He touched Ganconer’s hand, uncurling it gently, and tipped two things—round, wet, delicate—into his palm.

“No,” Ganconcer breathed.

“Lady Glauce gave them to Mumma,” Elver said. “She told us wait and give you them later, when ’twas all finished.”

“No,” Ganconer repeated.

But: “Yes,” Galit replied, crossing to him. “May I . . . let me. Hold still, just a moment. . . .”

There followed some business that Jo, though rarely squeamish, was happy not to see clearly. Then Ganconer opened his
own
eyes, at long last; these focused first on Galit, who smiled, then down towards Elver, where they lingered some time, awash with far more healthy tears.

He put out his hand, wavering. Touched the solemn little face, with its pale cheeks, its dark and wary stare.

“Oh, my boy,” he said, finally, so dim and wet the words barely made sense. “Oh, you. My
boy
.”

After, they drove their various vehicles as close to the former Dourvale
brugh
as the woods would allow, finding it a surprisingly easy task now that the net of glamour had collapsed, buried along with Euwphaim and Lady Glauce. Separating into little sub-groups, the two parties made their farewells to the place and each other as the cold moon peered down through the trees.

“That felt . . . really good,” Mac Roke said, examining the hilltop scar—a mere scrape of chalk under dirt and dead grass, last red-grey twists of hair already blown away to line bird-nests or festoon bushes—which was all that was now left to mark where Enzemblance Druir had once lain. “Real Warrior of God stuff—righteous, almost.”

“Aye,” Jo agreed, left so exhausted in her own double epiphany’s wake, her tongue seemed to think she was drunk. “You’ll no’ be asked back for dinner anytime soon, I’m thinking.”

“Suits me. All they ever served was rotten apples and dead leaves anyhow, glamoured to taste like something else.”

“What a way to talk. And you a priest.”

“Defrocked.”

“Oh, I’d clean forgot. How’s that work, exactly? Always wondered.”

Deadpan: “Well . . . first they make you give back the frock. . . .”

Beside them, Judy Kiss rolled her eyes in a
never heard
that
one before
way. “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Listen, we better go: your cousin Ganconer needs a lift, and if we stick around much longer, I think I might make Carra Devize throw up again.”

Jo looked to where the man stood, arms wrapped ’round himself and new eyes gone somewhat misty, watching Galit Michaels and Josh Kim load the kiddie into Kim’s van. “Where’s he like to go, now he’s got no home?” she asked. “The Freihoeven?”

Roke considered that. “He’s just about the only Sidderstane left,” he replied, “even if Torrance never wrote him into the will—no point, having traded him to the
brugh
and all. But these days there’s DNA testing, at least. I could probably figure out something.”

“And in the meantime, you have a couch,” Judy pointed out. “If you want to do
two
good deeds today.”

“But that’s where
I
sleep.”

“Not all the time.”

“Mmm,” Roke said, eyes still on Dourvale’s last changeling. “Let me think it over.”

Miles to do that, before we’re back downtown,
Jo reckoned. But she’d be asleep for most of the trip, far too deeply for dreams, good or bad. Surely she was owed
that
much, at the very least.

On the other side of the clearing, meanwhile, Jude and Carra stood together, his shadow trembling on the grass between them—dim, turned sidelong, as though it was surreptitiously trying to avoid insulting either of them by forcing them to notice its presence.

“We should talk, sometime,” she told him, trying not to look. “About—”

Jude shook his head, eyes on Kim’s van, where little Elver sat solemn in his mother’s lap, sharing his first ever seat belt. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” he said. “Thanks anyway.”

“Listen, Jude. . . .”

“
Carra.
” A great and terrible love entered his voice when he said her name, cut with an equally enduring frustration. “C’mon, now. You know I’m just going to go ahead and keep trying to find a way to get rid of it, right?”

“But . . . that doesn’t even make any
sense
.”

“’Cause it’s half my soul? Look, I’m not going to
destroy
it, for God’s sake; frankly, I don’t think I even could. Just . . . park it somewhere, someplace safe. Someplace—not near me.”

“For how long?”