13 Secrets (43 page)

But no one would take the risk, for Suki was both protected and armed. She began edging toward the front door.

“Wait!” a voice called out, quiet and desperate. Suki paused.

Rose stood on the stairs, her frizzy red hair billowing past her shoulders.

“I’ll be your mother.” She took another step toward them.

“Stay back.” Suki moved the knife to Rowan’s throat again. “I’m warning you… I’ll cut her.”

“I’ll be your mother,” Rose repeated. “That’s all you want really, isn’t it? To be loved? So do I.” She held out her arms and took another step.

“Rose, what are you saying?” Rowan whispered.

“Rowan doesn’t want me,” Rose continued. “It doesn’t matter what I do. Things will never be right between us. See, I wanted a daughter too, but it’s too late.”

“No, it’s not!” Rowan cried. “It’s not too late! I
do
love you….”

“Let her go,” Rose begged, her arms outstretched.
“Let her live, and I’ll be your mother… we can go somewhere new, where no one knows us….”

And for a moment, it almost seemed that it would work. Suki’s grasp on Rowan loosened very slightly, and she lowered the knife. Then Rose’s gaze flitted to Rowan, and in that one look it was clear for all to see that there was only one daughter she could ever love.

“Nice try. You almost had me.” Suki raised the knife, her eyes glittering with unshed tears—but in that moment’s distraction, Rowan finally freed the clasp on the fox-skin coat. The transformation was instant. Suki gasped and toppled forward, caught unaware as Rowan’s weight pulled her off balance.

Rowan hit the floor, rolling out of the way a split second before Suki’s knife came flashing down, screeching across the quarry stone floor. With a growl she advanced at Rowan for a second time. Warwick raised the gun and took aim but Suki was now almost upon Rowan.

“I can’t get a clean shot!” he shouted.

Rowan glanced about, desperate for something to defend herself with but seeing nothing.

“Here!” Tanya yelled, throwing the scissors at her.

Rowan caught them and drew them out of the small silver sheath, tossing it to the floor. She brandished the scissors, trying to ignore the stabbing sensation in her injured foot.

Suki backed away, then she fled to a nearby window, sweeping the salt away with her arms in one smooth motion. She smashed the glass with her
elbow and vaulted on to the ledge. She was almost through it when her leg caught on a shard of broken glass. She screamed and fell back. Seeing his chance, Warwick threw the rifle to Merchant and dived on her, wrestling her to the ground and slamming her hand repeatedly against the tiles. Suki swore and scratched like a wildcat, flailing and tearing at his face with her other hand until Rowan grabbed it and held it to the floor with her knees. Still Suki thrashed until with one final blow from Warwick, she let out an almighty yell and the knife clattered to the floor.

“Oh….” Warwick flinched. “I think I broke her wrist….”

“It’s over, Suki,” Tino told her grimly. “You’re beaten.” He looked to Merchant. “Bring the spidertwine—we’ll have to bind her.”

Suki’s rigid body suddenly went limp as the fight left her. Instead she turned her head to the side, the thin slash of blond hair falling over her face as she wept bitter tears.

“What are you going to do with her?” Rowan whispered, relinquishing the arm she held down as Merchant returned with the skein of spidertwine.

“Take her to the courts,” said Tino, turning away in disgust. “They can deal with her. Just get her out of my sight.”

Suki continued to sob softly as her wrists and ankles were laced with spidertwine.

“Where’s Crooks?” someone said suddenly. “She said ‘nine out of twelve’—search the house!”

Rowan stood up, dazed. Rose was nearby, watching her. Her fingers twitched at her sides, and then she turned away—but Rowan reached out and touched her shoulder and threw herself into her mother’s arms.

“I meant it,” she whispered into Rose’s hair, so no one else could hear. Her eyes were damp. “I do love you… it’s just…”

“I know,” Rose whispered back, stroking her head. “You don’t have to say anything. I know.”

A screech from the broken window drove them apart. Two garvern clambered through it, their way clear now that Suki had swept away the salt. Their splintered talons clattered over the wooden sill, then they were in the air, hissing and swooping.

“Everyone take cover!” Warwick bellowed, but before he had even finished the sentence one of them was upon him. He lashed out with his knife, and the creature flew across the hall in a spray of blood. Then the second one attacked.

“
Dad!
” Fabian shouted, rushing to his defense, but Merchant seized him and pulled him back. Instead Tino hastened to Warwick’s aid, grabbing the bloodied sword that had slaughtered Victor and charging in with a battle cry. The injured garvern hit the ground, unmoving, but the second one had now wrapped itself around Warwick’s face and was raking great gashes in his coat. He stabbed at it blindly and swayed about, preventing Tino from taking aim.

Raven transformed in a flurry of feathers. By
now, Tanya, Rowan, and Fabian were on the stairs, urged forward by Gredin, Rose, and Merchant, and as Raven glided past them Tanya felt the soft touch of a wing skim her cheek.

Then Raven was upon the garvern, cawing, pecking, gouging. The creature screamed, and Rowan looked on in horror as blood flowed from one of its eyes. It batted its hands about, plucking Raven from the air as it launched itself away from Warwick. As the garvern flew past her, Rowan heard something crackle.

“
Raven!
” Florence cried.

“Stay back!” Tino fired Victor’s sword through the air. It arced in a clean sweep, burying itself in the garvern’s belly. With a screech the creature fell to the floor, writhing in a widening pool of red, with Raven still clenched in its hands. By the time Warwick had reached it, his knife raised, its life had drained away.

“Raven,” he moaned, easing the clenched hand open and taking her gently into his own.

“No….” Florence ran down the stairs to his side, her hair loose and trailing down her back. Her face was wet with tears as she cradled Warwick’s hands in her own. “No, not Raven….”

The smallest trickle of blood escaped Raven’s beak with her last feeble caw. Her crushed body twitched. One wing lifted, then fell. Then she grew still.

From the diary of Tanya Fairchild

We buried Raven the morning after, under the horse chestnut tree in the back garden. My grandmother stood at the front, holding the Mizhog in her arms. Even after everything that had happened, she was pristine, perfect, except for that one little strand of hair that escaped the knot at the back of her neck. She managed to hold herself together until Gredin stopped speaking, but then her face crumpled and she rushed inside. No one saw her again until the evening.

We kept to our rooms that day, Rowan, Fabian, and me, while they moved the dead out of the house. Warwick disposed of the dead garvern in the woods, while the captive living one and Victor’s body would be returned to the fairy realm—along with Suki, for the courts to deal with. For although she was human, her crimes against the fairies and their people were altogether easier to explain to them than to the police. Tino saw to it that any risk of her exposing the Coven vanished with her memories. The last anyone heard, she was due to be sentenced on Halloween—the day the courts change over.

We found Crooks after searching the house, expecting the body count to rise by one more, but it seems that Suki had something more drawn-out lined up for him. He was cramped in the priest hole with a bump on his head and a look in his eyes that none of the Coven had seen before. Finally, the boy who thought he could escape from anywhere had been proved wrong. He left with the remaining members of the Coven—apart from Sparrow—the same day.

Sparrow stayed in Tickey End. With some help from Warwick, he found a job and a place to live. Though it’s never been said, everyone knows he stayed for Rowan.

None of the Coven members have contacted her since. Not yet, anyway. But despite everything, she says Tino will never stop. The roots, and the need to honor those who died, go too deep for that.

It’ll take some time, but he’ll rebuild the Coven. And it’ll be stronger for its past mistakes. This I know myself—Tino put it in a letter that arrived for me a few weeks later, along with the offer that if I want it, there’s a place for me with them. I almost destroyed it on the spot, but something—I don’t know what—stopped me. Instead I hid it and never spoke of it to anyone. I still haven’t.

I haven’t seen Gredin since that day, either. Next to my grandmother, he was hit hardest by Raven’s death. Before he left, we spoke about what my grandmother told me about how he came to be my guardian, and we came to an agreement. The agreement is this: He will only come when I call upon him for help. Because in spite of everything I said to him, and all the threats and punishments,
I was never so glad to see anyone as I was when he turned up in Hangman’s Wood that day.

You would think the manor would feel different after what occurred there. And it does. Of course it does. It’s part of the history of it now; along with Elizabeth, and Amos, and my grandmother and Morwenna, not to mention Rowan and Fabian, and me. A place can’t see that much and not be changed by it. But it’s different from how you might expect. The air is clearer somehow, like there’s been a big storm and it’s chased the last of the cobwebs away.