Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

‘This was placed inside my head to control me.’ Niamh passed a hand across her eyes, troubled. ‘I know not how it came to be there, but it took all the skills of my people to remove it. I keep it here to remind me that even the Golden Ones can succumb to the powers of the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders.’

‘Have they tried to control any more of your people?’ Mallory asked.

Niamh fell silent for a moment. ‘Not that I know. But some Golden Ones have gone missing. My advisors suggest they may simply have fled the coming war, but I fear the worst.’

Promising to put all she had at their disposal, Niamh had Evgen provide rooms for the four of them.

‘I like her,’ Mallory said, once they were in their cramped, too-hot quarters.

‘You would. You’re a man.’ Sophie examined Caitlin, who had already fallen into a deep sleep on the couch. ‘I’m worried about her. She’s retreated into her other personalities ever since we came here. And what was all that about the Morrigan?’

They were interrupted by a sound like distant thunder. The north window led onto a small balcony. Standing there they watched bursts of fire in the sky far to the north, punctuated by deep rumbles.

‘This is a scary place,’ Sophie said. ‘I thought it was supposed to be Fairyland. It’s more like hell.’

She edged closer to Mallory and he unconsciously slipped an arm around her waist. It surprised them both.

‘I remember now,’ she said. ‘You and me.’

‘My combat honey.’ The words sprang from nowhere. Mallory gently traced his fingers across her face as the memories surfaced, slowly at first but then gaining intensity as if a barrier had been breached. ‘We met in Salisbury. The Church was trying to establish a new order of Knights Templar. I signed up.’

Sophie giggled. ‘You were such a lad!’

‘The things you could do with the Craft. You were scary.’

‘Still am.’

Another thunderous barrage of explosions lit the heavens, but now they were oblivious to it.

Another memory ignited on Sophie’s face, sorrowful this time. ‘That awful thing you went through … the one you killed … you poor baby.’

Mallory tried to brush it off, but a tremor ran through him. ‘We can’t become Brothers and Sisters of Dragons until we experience death.’ His expression grew puzzled. ‘But you … I’m still having trouble …’

The brief moment of anxiety was driven out by her smile. ‘Forget about me! I was just a little rebel girl who hooked up with a bunch of travellers. Nothing compared to you.’ She grabbed his head and kissed him with a desperate passion. ‘We were both lost until we met each other. Getting together in Salisbury — that saved us, didn’t it?’

He nodded, unable to take his eyes off her face.

‘What the Void did to us with those fake lives … Seeing each other every day but never being able to talk, not knowing how much we meant to each other-’

Mallory kissed her again. It was soft and deep and their bodies folded together while fire roared across the sky. Gently, Mallory’s hand moved up to her breast and his thumb circled her hardening nipple. Sophie kissed him more deeply, one hand caressing his erection before undoing his trousers and sliding her hand inside. Heat, delirious sensation and a torrent of emotion overwhelmed them, everything that had been denied them in recent months.

Not caring where they were or who might see them, Sophie pulled Mallory down onto the balcony floor. Hard and hot, he slid inside her, and then they kissed, and made love, and agreed a silent covenant that they would never be torn apart again.

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.’