J. H. Sked (7 page)

"When the dead cannot release the living, there is always a reason - always."

Grandfather scowls emphatically.

"Sometimes it is love."

An unsteady heel caught on the stairs. Phan slipped and clawed at the handrail. A long red-painted nail peeled back and fluttered to the concrete.

The rapid tattoo of his passing could have been his heartbeat, the sardonic applause of his life.

"Sometimes they are seeking justice."

He peered into the blind eye of the convex mirror before stepping around the corner.

The distorted surface showed him, all black rimmed eyes and bleeding mouth. Phan looked away, adjusted the hem of the little black cocktail dress, and proceeded onto the platform. The clumsiness was gone now.

He drifted the length of the platform, feeling the sensuality of silk stockings sliding across skin.

The platform was empty, but there would be someone along soon. There always was.

"Often, it is the only revenge they can take."

Had she felt like this, his wife, as she waited for the train to carry her home to her husband? Had she smelled the scent of her own perfume, or had the reek of illicit sex been overpowering? Had she smiled that little cat smile, sharp and knowing, the little black dress and the high, high heels glossy with the patina of lust?

Phan sat down on the bench, demurely crossed the long, shapely legs, and began to search through the little clasp bag. Frowning, he searched again. And again.

He buried his head in his hands.

“No,” he whispered. “NononoNONO!”

A whisper of satin, and the black gloves slid over his shoulder and slithered into his lap.

Phan froze into stillness, into marble, into glass. He dared not look around.

“You left them on your pillow,” Grandfather whispered.

He raised the material and rubbed it gently against his cheek. They were elbow length, almost impossible to replace. It had taken months to find them; the ones she had been wearing – like everything else – fit for nothing but burning once the train had spat what was left against the screaming rail.

“You never asked me, Phan, the one question you should have.”

“What happens?” Phan’s voice was husky. He closed his eyes and continued, and whether it was aloud or in his own mind, neither would ever be truly sure of.

“What happens, Grandfather, when the living cannot release the dead?”

The old lips brush against young flesh, a last caress between winter and summer.

“Madness. A twisting of what never was into what should never be.”

Grandfather walked slowly to the front of the bench, and sat down, and neither looked at the other.

The rails below began to thrum, and Phan rose, automatically smoothing the material down.

“They’re waiting for me.”

Grandfather stared at his feet, and listened to the heels click steadily away. They did not hesitate, even as the train spilled into the station with a squealing of brakes and outraged sparks.

Eventually, as the paramedics made their way down to the platform, the old man stood up. He did not look at the stilled machine, the frantic rushing of canvas and wheels, the useless weeping of the driver.

“She was a bad woman,” he whispered to his unseen audience. “I thought he would see that. I thought I was protecting him.”

He shuffled his way back along the length of the platform, wincing occasionally. When he reached the first flight of stairs he sighed, remembering the slight give of flesh beneath silk, and the way she had spun like a black moth in the headlight of the train.

“But what do old men know, anyway. She was a bad, bad woman. And she wore way too much perfume.”

After awhile, he started to climb.

Read on for an excerpt of WolfSong, available on Kindle now.

Chapter 1

K
ristan died on a beautiful summer afternoon, with the scent of crushed grass and her own blood filling the air around her.

She died snapping and growling, unable to reach the hands clamped around her throat, unfeeling from the neck down where they had swung the silver nail into her spine.

As she spiralled into darkness she fell into the only spell she knew; the one piece of true magic that every clan member learned before they could walk. Her family’s darkest gift to her, a legacy from the times of madness - and one no clansman ever wished to use – but use it they would, if left no choice.

My Lady of Darkness, come to me now. Grant me this last gift.

The only hope she had of vengeance, the slightest chance that her clan would trace her last movements through the havoc she was about to let loose, and sing her Death Song for her.

Mother of Shadows, fill me now. Grant me the ebony veil, that I may dance them with me into darkness
.

The Goddess heard her prayer, and answered it well.

Chapter 2

“
A
fter summat, Ricky?”She smiled up at him, pursing her lips to blow a strand of hair away from her face.

“Naw, tai Anna. Do you need any help?” He gestured at the table his aunt was labouring over, already piled high with the morning’s baking.

“Away with ye, lad! This is for Feast Day, needs to be done right.” She smiled at him to take the sting away. “Ye’ll never make a baker, lad, for all yer trying!”

Ricky shrugged, smiling back at her.

“There be some of yesterday’s bread on the shelf there, if ye’ve not broken yer fast yet,” she indicated with a toss of her head.

She doubted he had; Dakron couldn’t be bothered to feed the boy at the best of times, and he’d spent the last two days drunker than usual. There’d be no food in her brother’s house.

“My thanks,” he smiled at her sweetly and strode over to the shelf, the peg-leg thumping at every other step.

“It’s a fine day,” she said, kneading at the dough on the table as she watched him from the corner of her eye. “You should go and play a bit.”

Ricky snorted softly to himself, but nodded. “My thanks for the food, tai,” he said, ducking his head as he left the kitchen.

He sat with his back against Anna’s kitchen wall, feeling the sun beading his face with little blisters of sweat, and finished the last of the bread before deciding what to do next.

“Play,” he said, thinking of what his aunt had said. “Sure, and I can kick a ball with the best of them.”

She had not meant to be cruel, he knew. His aunt was about the only person since his mother died that hadn’t measured his value by the lack of his leg, and found him wanting.

The boys his own age had little time for him, since he was unable to join their rough and tumble games, and the younger children were nearly as bad as the adults, with their teasing.

He didn’t even like to think about the girls.

Most days he was a sunny, good-natured boy, despite the casual cruelty. But today Ricky felt unable to face either the adult’s casual contempt, or the brutality of his peers.

Bracing himself against the rough boards behind him, he got to his feet and started to head for the one-room hut he shared with his father. He had cleaned up that morning, hauled the water in for the evening meal – if Dakron had any luck catching it. If he even went to try, after the amount he’d drunk last night.

Maybe he should go into the forest, try to find some mushrooms..

He saw a couple of youngsters heading his way and ducked quickly behind the nearest house. He had no wish to end today with an extra set of bruises, and if they saw him, they were almost certain to add to his collection. He was an easy target – beating up the village cripple had become a common pastime for the older boys.

To his dismay they stopped right in front of the house he was pressed against.

“Jessay did say she’d meet me behind the coop the night,” one of them said, in the insufferably smug tones only a fourteen year old could produce.

“She never!”

Ricky rolled his eyes. Jessay had probably met every man in the village behind the communal hen-coop at some point; the only wonder was that her belly hadn’t swelled up yet.

“She did. She said she had summat to show me, too.”

“I’m sure – the same summat she showed to Astir last week?”

The howl of indignant teenage love made Ricky wince. It was followed by the sound of a fist striking someone’s nose with a noise like a soggy tomato splitting.

“She never did!”

Ricky sighed. She had. The week before had been Karris, the week before that..

He shrugged to himself. That didn’t really matter. What did matter was that these two idiots sounded like they were going to be there for a while, and if he tried to get back to street, they would likely interrupt their fight and call a truce to beat the daylights out of him.

He’d have to cut around the back of the house, and come back onto the street from the other side.

Moving as quietly as possible, he edged further along the side of the house. A half-rotted piece of board protruded at thigh height, and he had to manoeuvre cautiously around it, the jagged splinters seeming hungry to sink into his exposed flesh.

As he rounded the corner he paused, a slight, mousy-haired lad with intelligent brown eyes in a finely drawn face, more fawn than boy as he stood listening intently. Scrout should have ambled down to the drinking shed by now, but he had caught Ricky behind the house previously and the boy had no wish to repeat the experience.

He had whipped Ricky down the road, although the areas around the village homes were regarded as common property and not fenced off. There was no fencing to speak of in Five Hands, unless you counted the ubiquitous chicken runs.

Ricky winced at the memory and rubbed his buttocks absently. The only reason Scrout had stopped was because his arm got tired. Ricky had carried the marks for weeks, for nobody had interfered.

Nobody had dared.

Ricky waited, listening for any sounds coming from the house. The last thing he wanted in this life was to stir Scrout’s temper once more.

Scrout, who had tried for three years running to get into the guards, and instead spent five years in exile for attempted murder.

His years in exile had taught him nothing of pleasantness; Ricky sometimes thought that the man would cross the road to kick a lame dog.

Looking around once more, he saw that the boys had finished their fight and were wandering aimlessly down the street, pushing at each other. They were still too close for him to step back out in front of the house. Instead, he began picking his way gingerly through the overgrown mess, a tangle of weeds and branches and discarded tools.

He was halfway across the yard, concentrating on keeping his balance in the litter piled around, when a patch of yellow caught his eye.

It was a small scrap of cloth, protruding from the log pile at the far end of the house, and he made his way towards it, the necessity of leaving momentarily overridden by sheer curiosity.

Bright cloth was a rarity in the village; homespun was usually dyed, if at all, in shades of brown and grey, using bark stripped from trees. Nobody went to the effort of collecting flowers and plants for the brighter colours; too much time was spent in merely trying to survive.

The little scrap of material looked bright and cheerful, a splash of sunshine in the puddled shadow of the wood. If it was large enough, more than just a few frayed threads, he was sure Anna would like it, something pretty to use as a scarf or a kerchief for her hair.

A couple of paces away from the clumsy jumble of wood he halted, sniffing. There was a hint of decay in the air, faint though unmistakable.

It was probably a squirrel or mouse, some small animal that found a quiet place in the yard to expire in, but some of the inquisitiveness inside him had died away, replaced by a formless dread.

Yet he was a boy, possibly the only species on the planet with more inbred curiosity than a hawk, and he could no more leave that scrap of cloth alone than he could grow another leg. It would be a waste to leave it here, to bleach and bleed its sunshine away where none could see it.

He imagined his aunt smiling when he gave her the material, how her face would light up, the way it did when he brought her the first flower he saw in spring, or the wild strawberries he knew how to find just outside the village.

He leaned forward, grimacing – the smell was stronger here, a horrid perfume that rose with the buzzing of the late summer flies around his head – and tugged on the cloth. It wouldn’t move, seeming to be firmly wedged between two chunks of wood, so he squatted down, bracing his weight on his haunches, and tugged with both hands, the peg sliding slightly in the crumbly soil.