The Burning Man

3

Church held Ruth’s sweat-slick body tightly to him. Through the thin walls of the rooming house they could hear Laura singing a Basement Jaxx song loudly, with scant regard for any other occupants.

‘How long do you think we can keep doing this?’ Ruth asked sleepily.

‘What, having sex?’

She looked up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. ‘Running. Hiding. Trying to stay one step ahead of the Enemy.’

‘We’re not doing so badly.’

‘We’ve been lucky. Sticking to ley lines, staying at any vaguely safe place we can find en route. Church, it’s not sustainable. Sooner or later we’re going to get caught out.’ She nuzzled into his neck. ‘I’m just being pragmatic. The Blue Fire can hide us from the Enemy’s view, but it doesn’t make us indestructible. It’s not just the Void, or the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders, or any of the supernatural things lined up against us. There’s plenty of normal people working for the Enemy, too. We don’t know who we can trust. We only need to get flagged up on some CCTV camera, or pulled over for jumping a red light …’ Her voice trailed away wearily, but then she surprised him with a long, deep kiss. ‘I still wouldn’t trade this for the world, though,’ she added softly.

‘You’re sure?’

‘I was so lonely in that fake life the Void gave me. I knew I was missing something really important, but I just didn’t know what it was. I suppose that was all part of the punishment.’

‘You still can’t remember anything from before it all changed? Us together?’

‘Not the detail. But the emotional memory is getting stronger all the time. If I wanted to get all girly I’d say I feel love, that real aching need to be together, just not the reasons how or why that love came about. Does that make sense?’

It did. ‘Maybe the memories will come back once the Void’s illusion fades completely.’

‘I hope so.’ She pulled the duvet around her shoulders and receded into it. ‘Church, do you think Veitch did something to us?’

He knew what she meant: that moment when Ryan Veitch had impaled himself on his own sword in Cornwall and a bolt of black lightning burst through all three of them. ‘If he did, it hasn’t worked. Don’t worry about it.’

She smiled, nodded, but Church could see she was still worrying. ‘I’m going to get a shower.’ She gave him another kiss and skipped to the bathroom.

Church turned to the pack of tarot cards on the bedside cabinet. They were a unique set left for him by Niamh, his long-time companion from the Tuatha De Danann, who had been worshipped as gods by the Celtic people. This pack had a fifth suit beyond the familiar cups, wands, swords and coins — ravens. ‘Eaters of the dead, messengers of the gods,’ Niamh had told him. The fifth suit was usually denied to humans because it had the ability to contact higher powers. To examine the workings of Existence.

The cards had helped save his life. In the moment of his greatest need, they had allowed a point of contact with mysterious beings far higher up the scale than the Tuatha De Danann who had hinted at a great role for Church in some sprawling, mysterious scheme.

Since then he had repeatedly tried to use the cards to contact those higher powers without even a glimmer of success, but somehow, he was sure there was a trick he was missing. He laid them out on the bed in the spread he had seen Niamh using. Three cards in and he knew the situation had changed. Each of the cards was a raven. He continued to turn over the cards. All ravens. An involuntary shiver rippled through him, the uneasy sensation of brushing against the unknown. As he laid the final card, a jolt of energy leaped from the image of the raven into his fingers and he recoiled sharply. With anticipation, he waited for something else to happen, but there was nothing beyond an odd feeling permeating the room.

A knock at the door made him start. Shavi came in, looking exhausted.

‘I have conducted three consecutive rituals. The residents of the Invisible World can be unpleasant, troublesome, and will not give out even the smallest and most inconsequential piece of information unless they are backed into a corner.’ Shavi sat on the end of the bed and ran his fingers through his long hair. The rituals of contact took so much out of him sometimes that he could not even stand afterwards, yet he never complained. ‘Yet I truly believe they do not know where our two mysterious targets are, and that troubles me.’

‘Stands to reason that if they’re a threat to the Void, they’re going to be well hidden.’

‘There has to be a way of locating them. We just have not found it yet.’

‘We could cross over to the Otherworld. Try to find someone there who could help.’

‘Yes. Perhaps your friend Niamh.’

The mention of her name flushed Church with hope. Niamh had helped him in his darkest moment, and he had repaid her by saving her life. He wondered if he should tell the others about his near-hallucinatory experience when he had shifted the Axis of Existence, changing the course of history. Niamh and Tom now lived when they should have died. Yet it felt too monumental to express, and so unreal that the facts of what had truly happened were elusive. Perhaps it had all been a dream and Tom and Niamh were still dead. But if they had survived, he had achieved something remarkable, and perhaps paid Niamh back for the centuries of love she had offered him that he had never returned.

Shavi went to the window and looked over the wet rooftops of North London. ‘I wonder where Hunter is. I hope he is safe,’ he mused.

As he turned the matter over in his mind, Church decided on a compromise. ‘We send Mallory, Sophie and Caitlin to Otherworld. They can ask Niamh to help — she’ll understand if I’m not there. The Extinction Shears are with the Market of Wishful Spirit over there, the Keys are over here. It makes sense for us to split up. And they can hook up with all the other Brothers and Sisters of Dragons in T’ir n’a n’Og.’

‘The ones you saved from this world?’

‘The ones I saved from Veitch.’

‘I still do not understand how he could go from being one of us … one of the Five, a champion of Life … to causing slaughter on such a grand scale.’

‘We were all screwed up to some degree, but Veitch was worse. Somehow the Void twisted his own insecurities into something awful.’

‘And he always loved Ruth.’

Church flinched; there it was.

Shavi read Church’s thoughts. ‘Veitch is dead now. We do not have to worry about him any more.’

‘He made sure his legacy would stick around for ever,’ Church said bitterly.

Shavi clapped an arm around Church’s shoulders. ‘We are together now. Stronger than we ever were alone. We must not forget that. I will tell the others of your plan.’

As Shavi left, Ruth returned from her shower, naturally attractive with a scrubbed face and her hair pulled back. Church opened the window and they kneeled before it. The clouds had started to clear and the moon illuminated a silvery path across the wet rooftops.

Ruth rested an arm across his shoulders. ‘It’s a grim world out there. You really think we can make a difference?’

‘We did once. We brought the magic back when the world needed it. That was one battle in a much bigger war, and there will be victories and set-backs, but-’

‘We can do it again.’

A shooting star blazed across the quadrant of sky visible between the clouds. Church had a vague impression of seeing one before in a similar situation, but it was lost in his fractured memory.

‘I think we need to make the most of what we’ve got here and now,’ he said. ‘We’ll deal with what’s to come when we get there.’