Ruins (32 page)

A pang of disquiet stilled her. Something didn’t feel right. Rae wondered if Laurent was being completely honest with her. How much did she really know about him? What did Nicholas know about him?

Shaking off the doubts, she retrieved a small silver disc from her pocket. It looked like a ten pence piece, except it was inscribed with rune-like symbols. She held it in the flat of her palm and spoke a word in her mind; the one Laurent had taught her.

“Expiscor.”

The disc darted through the air and vanished through a doorway. She heard a dull thunk and hurried into what turned out to be the kitchen. It had a flagstone floor and potted herbs nestled on the windowsill. But where had the disc landed?

Then she spotted it, buried in the brickwork above an old-fashioned stove. Beneath the disc, one of the bricks bore a chiselled cross.

Rae silently thanked the priests for the ancient marker. The current occupants had been naïve enough to turn it into a feature, leaving it where it had been for centuries.

She reached out and touched the stone.

Something bright barrelled into her and Rae yelled in surprise as she hurtled backwards, landing in a heap. She cursed, quickly clambering to her feet.

The cross in the stone glowed gold.

It can protect itself?
she thought.
How can a stone do that?

Rae clenched her fists. Even if the stone could defend itself, it had made her angry, which was a good thing. She embraced the anger and pooled it into her fists. Her heart pounded and heat coursed through her. She felt as if she were about to burst into flame. Her fists shook as the scorching energy amassed. When she couldn’t hold on to it any longer, she threw her hands out, aiming at the stone.

A fiery charge exploded away from her.

Gold sparks fizzed around the stone as it fought her, battled to keep hold of its secret charge. She wouldn’t be beaten, though. Rae grit her teeth and poured everything she had into the flames.

The stone exploded. Fragments rained down on her, but Rae smiled weakly to herself, lowering her hands. She felt drained, but triumph overpowered the exhaustion.

On the hob, something winked in the sunlight.

A golden key.

Rae seized it and pocketed it as she left the kitchen.

She crashed straight into somebody. It was the middle-aged man who lived in the cottage; the one she’d seen leaving earlier.

“Who are you?” he demanded, eyes wide behind rectangular glasses.

Rae didn’t notice the heat gathering in her fist, it had become so normal. Without wavering, she buried her fist in his jaw and the man collapsed against the wall, propelled by her power. He lay on the floor, out cold, his jaw pink and raw.

They probably would call her a witch, Rae decided as she stepped over him and left the cottage. And they should definitely be afraid of her.

Whatever it takes
, she thought.

*

Nicholas jolted awake as the screech of an aledite blasted in his ears and he discovered, relieved, that he was in the safehouse, safe in his bed. He’d been dreaming. Whatever Liberty had given him, it had done the trick. He’d slept through until nine am.

Something hopped onto his bed.

“Still lazy as an idle cow,” a crisp tone rang.

Nicholas sat up with a start. Golden eyes gleamed at him. Isabel stood on the bed peering at him.

“You know I’m a teenager, right?” he mumbled, wondering if she could tell he was pleased to see her. He’d never admit it.

“And while young fools slumber, the world comes apart at the seams.”

“Has anybody ever told you to dial down the melodrama?” Nicholas shoved a hand into his curly hair. He realised she wasn’t being melodramatic. The world really was coming apart, one stitch at a time. It wouldn’t be long before everything unravelled completely.

“Pish to melodrama,” Isabel spat. “Come, the girl has information.”

“You mean Dawn?”

“
Somebody
around here is taking recent events seriously. I spoke with the girl while you slept.”

Nicholas changed his T-shirt and splashed some cold water on his face in the bathroom, and then hurried downstairs.

“Breakfast, dear?” Aileen called as he darted from the larder. He grabbed a piece of toast from the kitchen table and shoved it into his mouth.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, making his way quickly up to Dawn’s room. Isabel had already nosed her way inside, leaving the door open a fraction. Dawn sat at her desk peering at something on her laptop screen.

“Morning,” Nicholas said, wiping crumbs on his T-shirt.

“Hi.” She didn’t look at him.

“This may sound weird, but have you spoken to any cats lately?”

“She came up earlier,” Dawn said.

“You seem pretty okay with the fact that she can talk.”

“Sometimes cats talk.”

Nicholas couldn’t argue with that. It must take more than a talking cat to freak Dawn out. She had grown up as a Sentinel, after all, and knew all about the things that went bump in the night.

“Right,” he said, sinking onto Dawn’s bed. Despite the sleep, he felt exhausted. The heat was a succubus, leeching the life from him. His tongue sat like a slug in his mouth and his hair felt double its normal size. He daydreamed about standing under a freezing cold shower and remembered what Jessica had said when he first met her.

“The weather is a sign. Balances are shifting; the equilibrium is becoming distorted. The seasons do not remember where they belong – already a manner of madness is slipping into the world.”

Was the sweltering weather another sign that things were coming undone?

“I’ve been looking into that word, oblituss,” Dawn murmured. Isabel hopped onto her desk, squinting at Dawn’s computer screen with interest. “It’s an old one.”

Nicholas wondered how much the Internet really contained about demons and Sentinels. Were there special Sentinels who monitored the ’net for demonic activity? Dawn was good with technology. Perhaps she’d end up becoming an online specialist. Assuming they survived Laurent, of course.

“Listen, boy,” Isabel spat, whipping her tail across the desktop.

“Right, oblituss.” Nicholas straightened up to show he was paying attention.

“It’s a demon word,” Dawn continued quietly. “The demon Obliett used to kill people by warping their memories. It made them forget. Each victim was different, but mostly Obliett would make people forget what danger was. So they’d walk in front of moving vehicles, go into dodgy areas at night, do stupid things like smoke around petrol…”

“Creepy. So this door has something to do with the demon?”

Dawn shook her head. “There’s nothing to indicate that the demon Obliett was ever in Bury,” she said. “I think the priests borrowed the name to scare people off.”

“Priests?”

“They used the tunnels under Bury. Back in the day, it was only the Abbey monks who used them. Then the priests. But at some point, the tunnels were sealed off and forgotten about. Because of the oblituss.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“A jail.”

“A jail?”

“The priests incarcerated something deep under Bury, something so awful that history doesn’t remember what it is.” She gave Nicholas a shy smile. “Not even the Internet knows.”

“Well if the Internet doesn’t know…” he joked back.

“Whatever it is, if Laurent wants it, it’s bad. That’s why...” Dawn grew serious. “I never understood why he destroyed the village in Cambodia. But after tracking his movements, I’m pretty sure he was collecting totems. He used the fire as a distraction. The Khmer Loeu had something; a carving of an idol. They called it The Slaughter Stone. It made children feral – they turned on their parents. The chief of the Khmer Loeu tribe hid it, kept it close for safe-keeping. After Laurent, the stone was gone.”

“What would he be collecting totems for?” Nicholas asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I heard talk of such a stone many years ago,” Isabel mused. “It is older even than I. And I have looked upon it with these very eyes.”

“What do you mean? You’ve seen it?” Nicholas demanded.

“In the brute’s lair,” the cat said, her features sharpening. “Beneath the town last night. I saw the Slaughter Stone and a lacquer vase. Two totems, both vibrating with a formidable power.”

“The Èyùn vase,” Dawn murmured. Nicholas glanced at her bedroom wall, where the article about the stolen vase was tacked.

“You said it has a weird history,” he said. “What kind of weird?”

“There are stories about it, but most of it’s hearsay. Nothing solid. It dates back to the Ming Dynasty, where there’s an old legend about a broken-hearted woman. She gave the vase as a gift to the man who had jilted her. A few days later, his body was found at the foot of the Tianmen Mountains. He’d thrown himself off. And everybody who’s owned the vase since has suffered some sort of misfortune.”

“Totems tap into primal energies,” Isabel mused. “Laurent could be using them for any number of reasons.”

“We have to tell Sam and the others,” Nicholas said.

Sam.

He felt as if he’d been punched in the chest. He couldn’t face Sam. The anger was fresh as a new wound yet to scab over, but guilt overpowered even that. Sam’s wife… Nicholas had often wondered what actually happened to Judith Wilkins, why she wasn’t around anymore and hadn’t been since he was born. Nobody ever talked about it, and eventually he’d accepted that he shouldn’t either. Now he knew why.

I killed her
, he thought.

Not just her, but his parents, too. His real parents. He’d killed them all. It didn’t make any sense. People had always commented on how much he resembled his mother. Anita. He could even see it himself sometimes, if he caught his reflection when he wasn’t expecting to. How could he look like her if he wasn’t her son?

We were still related. Somehow. Even if they weren’t my parents.

It was an obvious answer, but it offered little comfort. He still didn’t know who his birth parents had been and he felt like it shouldn’t matter. Anita and Max had raised him. They were his parents. But it did matter. It mattered for reasons he couldn’t even begin to understand.

“Boy.” Isabel scrutinised him, her whiskers trembling. “What preys on you?”

He got up from the bed. “Nothing.”

Out of nowhere, Tabatha Blittmore’s words came to him.
“Can’t keep stuff pent up for long, it goes bad inside.”

He didn’t care. He needed to do something. Anything. Now that he was fully awake, he felt jittery and anxious.

Stop Laurent. Save Rae. That’s all that matters.

“Come on,” he said. Isabel hopped onto the shoulder not encumbered by the sling and they all went downstairs. In the hall, Nicholas bumped into Sam. The old man looked better than he had the night before. Clearly Liberty’s potion had done the trick. He gave Nicholas a glance that made him uneasy, though. He couldn’t tell what was glimmering in those pale blue eyes.

“Lad,” Sam said softly.

Nicholas found he couldn’t meet his gaze. Unexpected anger threatened to explode out of him and he clenched his teeth so that it couldn’t escape.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “What happened that night in Orville…”

“What’s happened?” Isabel asked in her usual brisk manner.

“Nothing,” Nicholas said. He went into the living room. He couldn’t stop moving. If he stopped, he’d have to confront the things that were writhing in his belly. He barely had time to think about everything happening in Bury in the present, let alone what had happened fifteen years ago when he was just a baby.

When I killed my parents.

In the lounge, Zeus was stretched out on the rug in front of the fireplace. The monstrous dog nearly took up the entire floor, his bear-like paws disappearing under the coffee table. His ears pricked up when Nicholas entered. Spotting Isabel, Zeus barked and leapt to his feet.

Isabel scooted quickly onto the nearby sofa as the dog made a beeline for her. He shoved a curious snout into the cat’s face and she lashed out with a claw.

“Remove this witless creature at once,” she snapped. Zeus scooted backwards, snorting in surprise.

“Zeus, here.” Nale’s gruff voice resounded commandingly and the dog went quickly to the man’s side, though he continued to stare at the cat, head cocked. If Nale or Liberty were surprised by Isabel’s ability to speak, neither showed it. Nale could barely fit into the armchair he was occupying, while Liberty sipped tea on the sofa. Aileen fanned herself with a newspaper in the remaining armchair.

“Yo,” Merlyn said, punching Nicholas’s arm – thankfully the one that wasn’t in a cast. He looked as tired as Nicholas felt. “Ready for another day of fighting the forces of evil?”

“Just tell me where they are,” Nicholas deadpanned.