Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

I swore.

There was no time to see where it had gone. I used my hands to feel my way along the clammy wall, stepping sideways towards Blackbird. I could see the glimmer now on the tunnel ceiling over the gantry. It was getting stronger.

I shuffled towards the place where Blackbird was examining the wall with her torch. I daren't go any faster for fear of losing my footing. I finally reached her and tugged at her coat.

"Blackbird, we have to get out of here!"

"What's the matter? Where's your torch?"

"I dropped it."

"Already?"

"Turn yours off. There's someone coming."

She turned off the torch. "Where did you drop it?"

"Never mind. Look." I pointed upwards to the glow building above the gantry.

"Why didn't you say?" She started shifting along the ledge.

"I was trying to. You were more interested in the torch." The light was growing over the gantry and starting to illuminate the vaulted ceiling.

"There's no time. In here." Blackbird dragged me into one of the alcoves created by the vaulting. The alcove was shallow and we crammed into the limited shadows created by the supporting pillar.

The light grew brighter and then spilled out over the water. I pressed in alongside Blackbird.

I leaned forward. There were two figures standing on the gantry. One of them was a blank silhouette against the dark, a wraithkin like me. I pressed myself in again.

"How many?" Blackbird whispered against my chest.

"There are two, a wraithkin and one other. The other looks normal enough."

"Can you see what they're doing?"

I leaned forward again slowly. Blackbird tugged at my sleeve. "Don't let them see you."

"I know. I won't."

I leaned out again to peak around the pillar. The two were still on the gantry with the normal-looking one making grand gestures towards the central island and the anvil. The conversation was quite animated, but we were too far away to overhear them.

"They're arguing."

"What about?"

"I don't know."

"Let me see." She leaned forward across me while I leaned back against the wall.

"They're coming down."

"Shit! Can we hide?"

"Not with magic. Your first use of it would give us away like a beacon."

"Then let's run for it."

"We'd never make it. If it comes to it, jump into the water and let the flow carry you downstream to the weir. Try and stay underwater for as long as you can."

"I can't swim."

"What?"

"I never learned."

She pulled back and the glint from her eyes in the dark told me she was looking at me. "Well it's never too late to start. Just try not to drown and let the water carry you."

"Can we fight them?"

"Can you? I can't. At least one of them is wraithkin and that doesn't bode well for the other."

"I don't know. What do I have to do?"

"If you don't know, it's too late to start teaching you now."

"I thought you said it was never-"

She pressed her free hand against my mouth, silencing me. As soon as she did I could hear the voices.

"…of inspection. We were simply asked to check it was intact." The first voice was bold and arrogant.

"Yes, and it is." The second voice dwelled on esses in a way that was hauntingly familiar.

"Well now we have seen it, can we go?"

"It was your choice, Raffmir, to come in your true form." The words were slow and slurred as if the speaker couldn't form the words properly.

"And yours, sister, to wear that sham you call a body."

"It serves a purpose, for now. I travel in my own form when the need arises."

I knew that second voice now. It had stood outside my bedroom door and called me brother.

As the wraithkin moved towards us, the shadows shrank and we were forced into the narrow space next to the pillar. I slid around to face the corner and Blackbird edged into the narrow space between me and the wall.

The wraithkin's back came into view and I pressed into Blackbird. Glancing sideways, I could clearly see the nimbus around his hand where his sleeve drew back as he gestured, only emptiness within. He looked like a hole in the world.

"Are you satisfied now, sister? Can we go?"

"The lock is untouched, the seals unbroken. And yet I sense a presence."

Blackbird's hand sought mine, her fingers squeezing readying me to jump into the water. Between us, the stone pendant around my neck pulsed into warmth. It found a rhythm, matching my heartbeat, each beat stronger than the last. My attention was split between Blackbird's pressure on my hand, the stone pulsing at my breastbone and the dark figure with his back to me.

Raffmir stepped backwards towards us, facing across the water to the anvil. "You can see it is undisturbed. Your senses are distorted by the barrier, my sister. Let us return and relate what we have found."

"It smells."

"Of course it smells. It's a sewer. What did you expect?" He gestured across to the island and the anvil, throwing his hands wide and narrowly missing my arm. "I'm surprised you can sense anything close to that. It's giving me a headache."

"The barrier persists."

"Not for much longer."

"You are sure it is failing?"

"Certain of it. There is a worm at the heart of the ritual and each time they repeat it the barrier becomes weaker. Once it fails we shall be free to come and go as we please."

"Then we shall feed." The glee in her voice was chilling.

I knew what she meant when she said feed. I remembered the chilling sounds from my back garden, the screams of "Get it off me!" before they were choked off.

"Come, let us go. I can feel this world giving me wrinkles."

"You are vain, Raffmir."

"Just because you don't get wrinkles, it doesn't mean the rest of us are vain"

"I wasn't talking about the others."

Raffmir stepped back along the ledge and retreated from us, the shadows lengthening. I let out a breath I had not realised I had been holding. We stayed pressed into the alcove while the source of the light climbed back onto the gantry.

We could no longer hear what was being said over the roaring water and the light finally faded down the tunnel. The darkness reasserted itself and was then replaced by the faintest luminescence from the brickwork. They were leaving,

Blackbird made to move out of the shadows, but I squeezed her hand hard and she stopped.

"What?"

"Can't you feel it?"

"What?"

"She's waiting up there."

"What for?"

"Us."

I leaned sideways very gently to peer around the pillar. The light was vanishing over the gantry, but in the shadow that remained there was a dark shape outlined. I eased back.

"She's on the gantry."

We stayed where we were and the light grew again. He was coming back. I wondered what it was I was sensing and whether she sensed it too. Should we throw ourselves in the water now, while they were furthest away, or wait and see what happened? I didn't fancy my chances in that dark water, not while there was a choice.

Light flickered across the vaulted ceiling and rolled out over the pool again as he joined her. I took a chance and looked around the pillar. He was addressing her back, but she was leaning on the rail over the gantry, as if she was listening for something.

"Does she know we're here?" Blackbird whispered close to my ear.

"I don't know. She knows something's here. Maybe she's spotted my torch."

"Where is it?"

"It fell in the water next to the waterfall. It was switched on. She may be able to see it from the gantry."

"Oh, Rabbit. If they come back down the ladder, we're going for the water."

"Can they catch us?"

"Raffmir may be able to reach us with gallowfyre. If he can, we're lost."

We stayed still, the strange shifting light exaggerated by the reflections from the roiling water. The warm heartbeat of the stone against my breastbone contrasted with the cold seeping from the bricks. The source of the light didn't move, but I began to wonder if that shambling figure wasn't using the light to climb back down the ladder and explore the recesses, searching for the source of her unease.