Gabriel and the Swallows (The Volatile Duology #1)
Read Gabriel and the Swallows (The Volatile Duology #1) Online
Authors: Esther Dalseno
Copyright 2016 © Esther Dalseno
This edition published in 2015 by
OF TOMES PUBLISHING
UNITED KINGDOM
The right of Esther Dalseno to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Book design by Inkstain Interior Book Designing
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.
The festivals and other events described in this novel are factual and strive to remain true to the culture of Northern Italy during the fifties to the eighties. However,
Donne Notte
was borrowed from the Carnival practices of French Guiana, and is based on a traditional Creole event, the
touloulous
.
He’d gotten used to the sound of running water. For months now it had been clawing at his brain, fraying his nerves, the constant
drip drip drip
leaking from ancient walls, stirring the stagnant pools.
Darkness. Infinite underground nothingness. Him and her, awaiting the arrival of more. Preparing this place for the
others
.
“Look what you’ve done,” he snapped, for the thousandth time. “Why am I always made to suffer for your mistakes?”
“You’ve no choice,” she said, beaming. How could she be happy at a time like this? And as usual, whenever she was happy, he was not. Whenever she was angry, he was calm. When she was spent, too tired to lift her head, he’d be positively giddy with energy. Ebb and flow. Opposites attract.
“Reckless,” he muttered, tracing the sharp blue veins over his arms and they prickled under his touch. “All for that boy.”
“Hypocrite,” spat the girl, her wings standing on end like a startled cat’s.
He regarded the massive stone Medusa’s head impassively, upside down and lying lichen-glazed in its cistern of brackish water. It had been there since the earliest days, they said. The sightless gorgon, eyes frozen open, in this underground cave with its thousand carved columns, and its
drip drip drip
all night long. And always that stale grey water that smelled of smoke and worse things. Thankfully his kind had no desire to drink.
The female had returned to sitting, and an anaemic light surrounded her, eyes shut tight in concentration. A quiet humming vibrated from her, a little like music, if such a sound could be called that. “Stop it!” he hissed.
“Be quiet. I am trying to create,” she spat.
“You will get us in worse trouble. What was it they said? That the next punishment would be more severe than we could imagine?”
“I don’t care,” she replied. “What else could they possibly do to me?”
“To
us
, selfish ingrate,” he moaned. “To
us
.” He paced over to her, the damp earth nearly shuddering with every step. So much power. And for what?
He shoved his forearm under her nose. The ropey veins rose up, as if desperate to break free of his skin. They formed lines, cursive paths of foreign writing. “It keeps changing,” he stated softly, shaking his lion’s mane of black tangles. “I don’t know what they want from us anymore.”
She smirked, but suddenly a sound echoed all around, scuffling footsteps in the dark. The female jumped to her feet, a swift, glorious movement, blue-grey wings unfurled. “It’s him,” she breathed, her voice thick and hungry.
But the male was still as a corpse, his only movement the slight trembling of his nostrils as he sucked in the air slowly, deliberately. “No,” he whispered, catching the scent. “It’s the
other boy
.” A strange light entered his eyes, and with the sudden snap of oil-spill wings, he vanished.
But the female hugged herself in the dark, gently swaying. “Gabriel,” she groaned, and her eyes rolled back into her head. “Gabriel, Gabriel.”
His name was like a prayer.