The Burning Man

8

Caitlin found Mallory and Sophie asleep on the balcony, wrapped in each other’s arms. She was pleased for them, yet also, oddly, a little sad. If she could, she would have examined that feeling, but the voices of Amy, Brigid and Briony chattered continually in her head, warning her of terrible danger, trying to take control of what they called her ‘day-mind’ so they could drive her to hide or flee.

Yet the raw return of her own memories caused sufficient pain to keep her own personality in control. She recalled with a terrible surge of grief the deaths of her husband and son, a shattering event that had broken her mentally and rebuilt her as a Sister of Dragons. The memory of her possession by the Morrigan, too, was harsh and bathed in blood. It had turned her into a warrior who could overcome anything, but when the Morrigan had finally departed she had hoped she would finally be granted peace.

She crept out of the apartments without waking Mallory and Sophie and made her way into the dark jumble of stinking streets. Figures flickered in and out of the shadows, cut-throats and cut-purses, predators of all kinds. They circled Caitlin from a distance, watching from alleys and doorways, following then retreating.

Caitlin was oblivious. The chatter in her head was the sound of heavy machinery. Eventually, she gripped her temples and shook herself furiously, screaming, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’

The figures all around paused in their secret machinations, then slowly melted into the darkness.

The sudden silence inside her mind was like the sea at night. Caitlin almost felt like crying. ‘Now,’ she said firmly, ‘tell me where I need to go.’

The Hunter’s Moon was an inn of gothic proportions, with overhanging eaves and oddly pitched roofs, turrets and gargoyles. Through the diamond-pane windows, candlelight glimmered. It appeared to be the most welcoming place in the entire city.

Within, though, the mood was subdued. Small groups of drinkers indulged in whispered conversations, eyes flickering towards Caitlin before quickly moving away, scared and desperate. The clientele was a bizarre collection of grotesques, with horns and wings, scales and cloven hooves and hair that moved of its own accord. Caitlin saw none of the golden-skinned Tuatha De Danann, however.

‘Tell me where,’ she snapped out loud. The drinkers closed the ranks of their little groups for fear she would join them.

She found Jerzy in one of the tiny rooms in the rabbit-warren rear of the inn. He sat at a table with an unnaturally tall, thin man dressed in black with a stovepipe hat that appeared to be permanently on the brink of falling off. Two tankards of ale sat before them.

‘The universe is going to hell and you’re sitting here having a drink,’ she said, not unkindly.

Jerzy jumped up, almost knocking over the table. His drinking partner snatched up the beer before it was spilled, adding flamboyantly, ‘Dear me! Almost a catastrophe!’

‘I was only catching up with an old friend,’ Jerzy protested.

‘It’s all right, Jerzy.’ Caitlin ruffled his green hair. ‘Never forget to snatch the little moments of pleasure in the middle of all the misery.’

Jerzy gave her a puzzled look. ‘Mistress Caitlin? Forgive me, but you seem … changed?’

‘Waking up from a bad dream does that. Who is this?’ She nodded towards Jerzy’s drinking partner.

Shadow John, said Brigid in her head.

‘Shadow John,’ said Jerzy.

Unfurling his long frame, Shadow John bowed deeply, catching and tipping his hat in the process. ‘I must say, it is a pleasure to meet a Sister of Dragons,’ he said, beaming. ‘I have been blessed to meet your kind before, and it is always a source of wonder.’

‘Thank you.’ Caitlin pulled up a stool. Shadow John hastily sought out the barman and returned with a goblet of red wine.

‘Why is everyone here so scared?’ she asked.

Shadow John flinched and looked away.

‘No one here will say,’ Jerzy explained. ‘I have asked, but they are all sworn to secrecy. Even I, who was once one of them, am excluded.’

‘Spies are everywhere,’ Shadow John said through a fixed grin.

‘You can talk to me,’ Caitlin said sweetly. ‘I won’t tell a soul.’

Only us, Amy, Brigid and Briony said together.

Shadow John shook his head slowly, barely able to form the words: ‘All is seen and heard.’

‘By whom? The Enemy has infiltrated the court?’

But Shadow John would say no more.

‘All right, those are questions for another time,’ Caitlin continued. ‘What I need to know now is, where is the Morrigan?’

Shadow John cried out and ran from the room.

A gust of wind down the chimney made the fire roar. ‘I don’t think we’re safe here at all,’ Caitlin said.