Ruins (16 page)

“Once upon a time. Back in the Dark Ages.”

“Cool.” Merlyn had the scruffy, unkempt look of a student. His crumpled T-shirt was emblazoned with a winged skull. Some colourful rock band, Sam presumed.

The boy laughed. “Didn’t know they made them like you anymore,” he said. At Sam’s questioning look he added: “You were like an old Humphrey Bogart sat over here. Solitary and all that. On the job. Serious as a bloodhound. Could’ve picked you out of a crowd. Don’t worry, to anybody else you’re just another old sod with nothing better to do than drink away his pension.”

“I’m beginning to understand why Harold needed a holiday,” Sam commented.

Merlyn didn’t notice the dig – or if he did, it didn’t rankle him.

“What brings you to Bury, then?”

Sam considered him. He was having trouble deciding who to trust these days. Liberty was an old acquaintance and always dependable, but people he didn’t know? Richard’s face flashed in his mind and Sam inwardly recoiled. Even Sentinels couldn’t be trusted now. Whoever was responsible for turning Richard and the others had made sure of that.

He became aware that Merlyn was still staring and wondered how long he’d let his thoughts take over.

“That sensitive, is it?” the youngster asked, his eyes alight with curiosity. He chewed a fingernail and spat a bit onto the ground. “Follow me.”

Merlyn drew Sam back into the pub. He ducked behind the bar, beckoning for Sam to follow through another door into the house at the back. They stood in a dingy hallway that stank of old beer.

“So?” Merlyn urged.

“It’s a difficult time,” Sam said gently. “I can’t go spilling my troubles to everyone I meet.”

“Doesn’t stop most people,” Merlyn commented brightly. “Seriously, though. You can trust me.” He paused, as if mulling over what he’d just said. “Which, I realise, is exactly what the bad guy always says before he stabs some poor prick in the back. But I’m knifeless.” He held his arms wide. “See?”

Sam couldn’t help smiling. The kid was spunky. Odd, but spunky.

“Besides, I know how to keep a secret. I turned sixteen last week, but Dad’s had me tending bar for months.” Perhaps noting Sam’s unimpressed expression, Merlyn hastily added: “And I know three of the thirteen secret names the Trinity used for Esus. That’s one more than Dad. He’s been trying to get it out of me for months. I told him I’d give it him if he gave me a raise. Which means I’ll probably be taking it to my grave.”

“How do you know those names?” Sam asked.

“Picked them up here and there. The first one my dad told me, but only because I found the videos he hid in the loft and was going to tell Mum. How many do you know?”

“All of them.”

Newfound respect flooded Merlyn’s face. “You must be a bad-ass,” he breathed.

“A bad-ass who’s at something of a dead end,” Sam said, immediately regretting his choice of words.

“What you looking for?”

Sam contemplated Merlyn and sighed. No Harvester was this good, he decided. And so what if he was? The things Sam had to say were probably common knowledge to any Harvester. It was worth a shot.

“I need information,” he said.

“About?”

“Harvesters.”

“No kidding,” Merlyn marvelled. “What are the chances that you, a lone wolf who’s lost the scent, would come here, to the very place where somebody’s got exactly the kind of connections you need to pick that scent up again?”

“Fate’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Right.” Merlyn was unabashed. “Still, you’ve come to the right man. I know everybody in these parts, and a few more than that in the neighbouring counties. Just call me The Centipede – I got feelers everywhere.”

“What I’m looking for is extremely sensitive,” Sam said, suddenly nervous that Merlyn was the sort of person who would shoot his mouth off to anybody. “
Extremely
,” he stressed, just to be sure.

“Tact’s my middle name,” Merlyn grinned. “No, seriously, I hate it. Can’t believe my mother lumbered me with it. But then her first name’s Pernicious, so what can you do?”

Sam’s head was spinning. Partly from Merlyn’s babbling and partly because he was on dangerous ground. Could he really trust somebody called ‘Merlyn’? He realised he didn’t have much of a choice.

“Two names,” he said eventually. “I need you to see if anybody can help me with them.”

Merlyn nodded, growing serious. He looked even younger than ever. Sam couldn’t fault the kid’s confidence, though. He wondered what he’d seen in his time. Bury was even sleepier than Cambridge. Merlyn couldn’t have encountered much demonic activity. The smooth, scar-free skin of his bare arms suggested as much. The best Sentinels all seemed to have jigsaw-like battle scars under their clothes. Sam had his share. What Merlyn lacked in experience, though, he clearly made up for in talk. And optimism.

“Tell me the names,” Merlyn said. “And I’ll see if I get any hits.”

It was now or never.

“Raymond Snelling,” Sam said. He hesitated before he spoke the second name, as if the mere act of uttering it out loud could bring its owner rampaging through the door. “And Laurent Renault.”

CHAPTER NINE

Aledites

N
ICHOLAS OPENED THE FRONT DOOR AND
promptly collided with somebody. A girl. She had slivers of purple in her hair and wore a purple hoody, which did nothing to hide the fact that she was larger than the average teenager.

Her eyes widened with surprise.

“Uh, hi,” Nicholas said.

The girl averted her gaze.

“Dawn, right?” he asked.

She seemed pre-occupied with the front step. Her hair fell to cover her face and she nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Sorry, I’m in the way,” he said. Dawn’s nervousness made him nervous, too. He squeezed to the side and Dawn hurried into the house. He heard her climbing the stairs in the main house, and then the click of a door shutting.

“Strange girl,” Isabel murmured from his shoulder.

As he prepared to shut the front door, Nicholas noticed another figure coming down the alley. A tall black woman in her thirties. She had braided hair and wore a calf-length green skirt with a sleeveless top. Gold bangles caught the sunlight.

Their eyes locked and the woman smiled warmly as she approached him.

“You must be Nicholas,” she said.

“Who are you?” he asked, immediately suspicious. Isabel’s claws spiked his shoulder.

“Sam’s taught you well,” the woman observed, her dark eyes twinkling. “Never trust anybody. My name’s Liberty, I’m a friend of Sam’s.”

This is Liberty?
Nicholas thought. Sam had mentioned that she’d be stopping by, but he hadn’t pictured the woman who’d turned up. She was slender like a boxer, or a dancer, and Nicholas could easily imagine her going ten rounds in the ring despite her bohemian attire.

“He’s not here,” Nicholas said. “He went out an hour ago.” He could swear the woman was giving him the same curious look that Jessica had the first time he met her. Just who was she?

“Actually, Sam wanted me to talk to you. As part of your
training
.” Liberty grunted the last word like a sulky teenager, as if she’d been through it herself and considered it a total bore. “Where you off to?”

“Just for a walk.” He’d been planning on going to the Moyse’s Hall Museum; Aileen had suggested it might be a good resource, and Nicholas vaguely remembered it as an old, double-peaked building he’d visited once as a child. He’d spent the last few hours in Aileen’s study poring over her
Sentinel Chronicles
collection. There was no mention of the word Tortor, though, and he was hoping the museum might be more useful.

The one ray of hope came when he typed ‘
Tortor
’ into a search engine on Aileen’s clunky computer. The results chilled him.

Tortor
was Latin. It meant executioner or torment.

At first the thought of heading out alone made him nervous. What if Laurent was waiting for him? Nicholas decided that Laurent was the kind of guy who preferred lurking in the shadows over stalking people in broad daylight, though. Besides, he had his trusty guard cat with him. Whatever powers Isabel had possessed as a human seemed to be returning. The way she’d tackled Miss Fink had been impressive.

“Walk sounds good. Want company?” Liberty asked.

“How do I know you’re really Sam’s friend?” Nicholas was still wary.
Harvesters have many faces
. He couldn’t just go off with anybody who appeared on his doorstep claiming to be a friend of a friend.

“You could read my mind if you’d like.”

Nicholas jumped. Liberty hadn’t moved her mouth, but her voice had vibrated in his head. For a moment he was confused, but then he realised what Liberty was and why Sam wanted her to talk to him.

“You’re a–”

“Sensitive. The noun
and
the adjective, but only on good days. Shall we?”

Nervous energy fizzed in Nicholas’s belly, as if he’d licked a battery. He’d never met a Sensitive before and Liberty seemed, for lack of a better word,
cool
. For some reason, he’d always pictured psychics as old and shrivelled. Card-readers who huddled in dark tents and smelled like wet dog. Liberty was the total opposite.

They left the alley and wandered toward the Abbey Gardens. Happy shrieks resounded through the park and they strolled along the path between two large flowerbeds.

“This must all seem pretty new and scary,” Liberty commented.

“Bury?”

“Oh yeah, Bury’s terrifying,” Liberty joked. “The grey army’s taking over with its battalion of knitting needle-wielding pensioners.”

They found a bench that overlooked the kid’s play area and sat down. Isabel spread herself out in the shade beneath them. Nicholas wondered how much Liberty knew. She was a Sensitive, but did that mean the secrets of the universe were hers for the taking?

“Don’t be nervous,” the woman said, as if reading his mind. It didn’t put him at ease and she laughed good-naturedly. “You tell somebody you’re psychic and they immediately start thinking about all the things they don’t want you to know. You can relax, I’m not the prying type.”

Nicholas released a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. “Can you really sense what people are thinking?”

“Thinking, feeling,
not
thinking, you name it. Everybody’s different, though. People transmit signals twenty-four-seven, but some are less obvious than others.”

“Have you always been able to do it?” Nicholas felt the questions bubbling up from the pit of his stomach, erupting from the place he’d crushed them ever since he’d become aware that he could do things other people couldn’t.

Liberty smiled kindly. “It’s a gift passed through blood. My father was Sensitive, and my grandmother. Some people inherit big noses or perfect abs. I got something else.”

Through blood
. Nicholas wondered if his grandparents had been Sensitives. His parents didn’t seem like the type.

“And...” Nicholas tried to order the questions, stop them burbling out in a confused mess. “When did you find out how to control it?”

Liberty hissed through her teeth and chuckled. “Too late,” she said. “My father tried to advise me, but I was a shy, moody teenager. School was miserable and the more secluded I became, the more I could sense how much of a freak the other students thought I was.”

“Sounds familiar.” Nicholas had felt like a freak for weeks.

“It will get better,” Liberty assured him. “It just takes time. You have to train. Learn how to control it rather than the other way around. How much training have you done?”

Nicholas felt a blush creep into his cheeks. “Uh, some. I used the seeing glass.”

“How was it?”

“Horrible.”

Liberty laughed. “The first time always is. It’ll get easier.” She squinted at him through one eye, as if trying to suss him out. “Let’s see what you can do.”

“
That man over there, tell me about him.
”

Liberty’s voice echoed in his head again. He followed her line of vision to a bedraggled man picking cans out of a bin by the play area.

“
What do you sense from him?
”

Attempting to settle his nerves, Nicholas trained his attention on the bin-raider. He thought of how the seeing glass had made him feel. The calm that flooded through him like fresh water. His muscles relaxed and the park noises became muffled, fading into the background.

Hunger. Fear.

“He’s afraid of something,”
Nicholas said in his mind, wondering if Liberty could hear him.

“Good. What’s he afraid of?”