Let Us Now Depart In Peace

12 MAY

Glory-less and miserable, riding the comedown as the tea wore off and he was fully memorable once more, Wes showed Ricky the security camera footage, which showed only Theo stealing the ointment from the drawer. Katy was back in the Chelsea flat, and he didn’t want her to witness this.

Uncle David had let him borrow one of his tech-savvy boys for that, despite there being no advance notice and no time, and Wes stalled Ricky as long as he could with a slap-up breakfast as a distraction. The time stamp had been modified, to before Wes’s introduction speech.

“Missed one,” Wes murmured, as Theo legged it out of the office and into the corridor. Guilt squirmed in his guts as Ricky said nothing for a long time.

When he finally looked at Wes, Wes was sure Ricky was looking straight through him.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Ricky asked slowly.

“No.” Wes shook his head. “You know I don’t.”

His cousin’s face was tense, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “Just because I couldn’t see into that lad’s head, do you think I didn’t use my bloody eyes? I saw him with you.”

“I didn’t know he had it then,” Wes said, which wasn’t technically a lie.

Ricky snorted. “Do you think it will be so easy to get what you want without me?”

“I don’t—”

“I can’t see my own future,” Ricky cut across him, dropping his voice, “So I can’t tell you what will come to pass. But I will tell you this.” He straightened up and took a step back. “If you know how to get it back, get it back. You want to hand me over? Do it your bloody self.” He bulldozed Wes’s denials with a sneer. “I’m not having you lurking in the shadows wringing your hands over it like there was nothing you could have done, not when you only see things that you were there to remember.”

Ricky raised his eyebrows and Wes couldn’t control the shudder that set him trembling all over, a chill piercing him right through.

“Look,” Wes said, and Ricky shook his head.

“No, you look. If I die, I die. Naun-else to do about it. That’s my fate, and fair enough. But I’m going to need you to tell me exactly what you saw, and exactly what you didn’t see. And then, if you’re going to watch me die, it’s on my terms. But for once in your life, bloody well own something.” There was something else in Ricky’s eyes now, far worse than mere anger.

Hurt.

His cousin was hurting.

Wes swallowed, but his guilt and regret did not outweigh the burning desire to get his life back, to be everything he could be.

“I thought you wanted a fam’ly,” Ricky mumbled, the rage subsiding but words still laced with an edge of sullen venom. “I thought…” But he trailed off, and shook his head, lips pursed.

Wes couldn’t bear this. Hungover anxiety coiled in his lungs, constricting his chest with ropes of cold steel. He leaned in and before Ricky could move, gripped him around the neck, pushing their foreheads together.

“I don’t want this,” Wes whispered, as they were nose to nose, and he could feel the heat coming off his cousin in waves. “I don’t want you dead. I don’t want you hurt. I don’t want any of that.” He pushed his brow hard against Ricky’s, in place of the kiss that the plumpness of Ricky’s lips invited but Wes knew he didn’t want. “God, I don’t want to lose you too. I don’t. I didn’t know I cared this much, to be honest.” That was sincere, and his honesty frightened him.

Ricky didn’t pull away. “I never asked you to jump in,” he reminded him quietly. His nose brushed against Wes’s, and Wes nearly called Theo on the spot, would have broken the boy’s neck with his bare hands if he needed to, if he didn’t know better than to build his hopes around things Ricky wasn’t capable of giving.

Wes released his neck and kissed his forehead before he stepped back. Ricky didn’t wince or rub his skin in the spot Wes’s lips had been. He looked up, flushed and shy.

“Just tell me those visions again,” Ricky said. “And then – do what you’ve got to do, I guess. Wyrd biđ ful aræd.”

“Che sara, sara,” Wes rejoined, but that earned him a sideways look.

“Not quite what it means.” Ricky settled himself on the edge of Wes’s desk, and his tendrils crawled over the expensive inlay. “Stick to the facts.”

Wes, heart dancing a tarantella as his head throbbed in syncopated rhythm, flopped back into his chair and described the visions again, the points they began, where they stopped, and left nothing out except the words that came out of his own mouth.

Told you I’d deliver him.

They beat their own tattoo in his brain, and Ricky looked at him in ruminating stillness as if he could hear them, too.

When he finished, Ricky scratched his stubbled chin. “Think of all of them, I like the one where I get my neck broken best.”

Wes felt sick. “Quicker.”

“Long as I don’t come back around while they’re halfway through sawing my bleeding head off, but you didn’t see that part.” Ricky sucked his teeth. “Alright. Well. I fed the exile date into everyone’s heads, so if they want to come and get me, they’ll get their chance. And you needn’t think I’ll open the portal for you to sweet talk Grandad in the meantime. I’m not risking that.”

“Let me open it, then.” Wes wished he didn’t want his glory back so much, but wishes were useless now. “I don’t think He can get through the Stone Circle unless I let Him. Let me open it again, and—”

“The next time we open the portal is when we kill the old bastard,” Ricky said. “As long as I’m around, that’s what’s happening. We’re not making deals.”

That was that, then. The only way Wes could Change again would be to ask Grandad, and for that, he’d have to go through with what he’d seen himself doing.

Ricky paused. “What if we… elected a Head of the Fam’ly at the same time, at the exile ceremony? We’ll need one. When we were in the Outside, I had a – vision of who it would be.” He looked at Wes meaningfully, but if this was meant to be a tempting sweetener to not end the world, all it did was stack another promise of power on top of what Wes already stood to gain if he got on Grandad’s good side.

“I’d accept that,” Wes murmured, and Ricky bared his teeth.

“Thought you might.”

“Even if we do, I can’t save you.” Wes ached to hold him, give him some affection that might make up for years of nothing, something that would express his apology better than words, but Ricky was not in that sort of mood.

Wes sighed. “I hope you’ve got a plan,” he said, and meant it, even though if his own failed he didn’t know if temporary fixes would make life worth living. It was all or nothing, and he couldn’t help himself. “I really, really do.”

“It’s prob’ly better than yours,” Ricky murmured, a ghost of a smile gliding over his lips, sharp as a blade.

17 MAY

Katy had always hated presentations and public speaking, but tonight was her night.

At the nightclub, Ricky hadn’t only taken from the family – he’d projected instructions about exile and this ritual into them, too. Some of the survivors of the Blue Rose massacre now gathered on Uncle Ralph’s Sussex farm.

The lower field was full of cars as the bonfire blazed on the upper field, and the late spring air was thick with anticipation and sheep shit.

The sheep themselves lumbered away from the gathering, bleating nervously. They could smell predator on the air, in the presence of things their tiny brains could only interpret as dangerous.

The flames leapt at the sky.

Ricky had taken off his hoodie, bare-chested and perspiring against the unpredictable pyramid of angry flames. Thin pink lines were starting to creep over his back and side, worming their raw way to the surface from deep inside his flesh.

Wes was in a red shirt and ‘vegan leather’ skin-tight black trousers which she was sure he must be baking in, but he’d had another few doses of the tea that afternoon from a tendril Ricky had regrown, and she couldn’t remember how sweaty he was.

Katy herself had opted for her new summer dress, something light, loose and flowery, which had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Now she felt out of place and weirdly powerless, like she was along for the ride on a ‘take your kid cousin to work’ day. She didn’t look the part, and didn’t feel anything like the Beast inside her.

Her stomach growled, but it wasn’t urgent. It felt like the more of them she ate, the more real food she needed to eat the next day, like she’d been on a junk food binge. Her body craved something else, something substantial. She wasn’t sure what, but peanut butter by the jarful wasn’t cutting it.

She glanced at Ricky, reassured by his mask of competence, the way he carried himself, the well-practiced persona he displayed.

“The Beast has eaten her fill,” Ricky intoned to the gathering around the summer bonfire. “Her hunger is sated. You may stand before her without fear.” He held out his hand to her.

Oh, right.

The point was to look harmless and benevolent.

Katy still wished she looked as badass as the lads, but at least Carrie had helped her dye her hair black and purple, and the bonfire back-lit her short, tonged curls. She hoped the silver skull clips were visible, and wondered if they were too much.

Her palms were sweating.

She’d never done proper public speaking before. In school, Rachel had always taken her lines when she bottled them. Katy had been incredibly grateful to her best friend for that, but now she was thinking that was just another way for Rachel to steal the limelight from her and pretend like she was purely doing it for Katy’s benefit.

Katy took her cousin’s hand.

Wes put his hand on her shoulder and bent his head to her ear.

“Like we practiced. You’ll smash it.”

She faced the gathered family. Each one had their own peculiar scent, and she was bombarded by their individual notes beneath the collective reek of fear. It was almost too much for her – if she didn’t focus on her own body, on the feel of Wes and Ricky’s hands, she would Change and devour them instead.

“Are you all here to be exiled?” Her voice didn’t carry the way Ricky’s did.

Wes squeezed her shoulder, fingers hard and painful on her collarbone, and she forced herself not to wince.

The pressure focused her.

“Are you all here to be exiled?” Katy repeated, trying to throw her voice as far she could, but it still sounded weak and small, absorbed by the first few rows of the crowd before it made it to the back.

“Breathe,” Ricky murmured under his breath, patting his belly. “Down here.”

Katy bottled it. She swallowed, eyes watering from the sparks and heat of the flames behind them, and looked at him, pleading mutely.

Ricky took the hint and his belly and chest expanded. His gruff shout nearly deafened her.

“Are you all here to be exiled?”

“Not all,” someone called from the back.

Ricky waved a hand and the crowd parted awkwardly, slowly, jostling to make a space so that he could see through to the speaker.

“Who’s that? Uncle Wayne, that you? What’s your business here?”

Katy stiffened, able to discern identical siblings from pheromones alone, even when she wasn’t Changed.

“No. It’s Uncle Joss.”

“Joss Porter, Wayne was my brother.” The speaker folded his arms, hidden in shadow. “Me and mine are Porters, same as you. And we just come to stand with you, that’s all. We ain’t here to leave the family ourselves, but we’re of agreement that anyone who wants to, ought to. And they oughtn’t be blamed or bothered for it. We’ll have your back. We’ll have the back of anyone who decides they want to go.”

Ricky was unimpressed. “An’ how can we trust you, Joss? The brain rot that’s been going around lately, you’ll have to commit with a bit more than just your word.”

“You read us all that night, Soothsayer. You think I changed my mind so quick? Read us again, now, and tell us if we’re traitors to our kin.” Joss came forward. “I offer tribute, my sight for your Sight. Past, present, future. You can take it, tell me if I lie.”

Ricky nodded. “Kneel to me. Who else comes forward?”

“This is going to take forever,” Wes muttered, and Katy concurred with a slight groan, imagining Ricky insisting on reading the bones for everyone individually.

“Bring me a sheep.” Ricky gestured for the rest of the family to stand further back and the self-proclaimed allies made a semi-circle in the front.

Uncle Ralph had one prepared. As he brought it forward, Ricky pulled his hoodie back on, as if donning a uniform.

Katy winced. She turned her back so that she didn’t have to watch him kill it, but she heard the sounds it made until the crunch of neck bone and the hoarse, high-pitched scream stopped. She hadn’t realised sheep could yell like people.

The wet ripping of its body was enough to make her heave, even though she was supposed to be a hardened killer now. Even though her devoured family had screamed too.

There was something different about this, something so cold and practical, and she didn’t turn around until she was sure she wasn’t going to throw up.

He was reading its liver.

Its creamy wool was drenched in fresh, dark blood.

“You are not traitors,” he said. “None of you would betray your kin. Not now, nor after.” He let the organ drop into the grass and wiped his hands on his hoodie. “Joss. Your tribute.”

Joss dropped to his knees and lifted his head.

Ricky’s tendrils emerged, a couple of slim, sharp-tipped ones, and Katy quickly turned around again.

Uncle Joss made a pained sound and a gasp, but when she chanced a look around there was silvery mucus dripping from the bleeding socket and his wife was there with a First Aid kit, tending to his missing eye and mercifully blocking Katy’s view.

Ricky was swallowing, sucking his fingers clean.

“Past, present, future.” He dismissed them and they shuffled back to re-join the family further away, leaving only the dead lamb on the ground. Ricky took Katy’s forearm and pulled her in front of it, and she tried not to step in the puddle of guts while avoiding looking directly at it.

“Those who wish to leave the family may do so,” Ricky said. “Since we don’t have a Head of the Family, someone must stand in their stead, and I will conduct the severance.”

“I’ll stand as Head of the Family,” Wes said.

“You should just be Head of the Family,” Katy muttered to Ricky, not sure handing power over to Wes without some checks and balances was a good idea. She definitely didn’t want that kind of job, at least not until after university.

“Not if you paid me,” Ricky muttered back. “I’ve seen it, anyway. It’s him.”

Wes grinned, lips gleaming and prepared. “Kiss of peace, Cuz? Let’s do it properly, if we’re doing it.”

“Not yet,” Ricky said. He raised his voice. “Granny Wend and Great-Aunty Eileen were allus of the opinion if you wanted to leave, you left a piece of yourself with us. As I understand it, Great-Aunty Olive didn’t think the same. Not sure who I agree with, so I’ll leave it up to you. Those who come prepared to mutilate themselves, have at it, but I’m treating it as optional.” He gestured to the bonfire. “Make sure it all burns.”

“No,” Wes jumped in, “Pile it up. Waste not, etcetera.” He shot Ricky a meaningful look over his shoulder. “Pile it by the sheep.”

Katy wrinkled her nose. So, Wes was determined to keep his glory, then. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this. She also couldn’t imagine people would willingly cut bits of themselves off just for the symbolism, but several people did.

There were pained gasps and clicks, as some family showed their glory only to slice part of it off. A worrying number had brought their own knives.

A small heap grew; tentacles, mandibles, lantern-like lures, chrysalis-like protrusions that still pulsed with weak light and strength as they oozed from the cuts, wriggling masses of anemone fingers, leathery fronds and things that squirmed and hissed as they hit the ground.

She stepped closer to Ricky, his bare back baked by the flames behind them and soaked with perspiration. She’d never imagined finding his smell comforting, but there was a first time for everything.

Family filed forwards, throwing their parts into a pile in front of the fire, by Wes’s feet.

Some did get thrown on the flames, and Katy flinched as the bonfire consumed the pieces of unearthly flesh, changing colour in the process to something she didn’t have the words for, a colour beyond the normal spectrum she recognised, burning more fiercely. There was an acrid smell in the air, a waft of something bitter and vile.

The sheep were huddled as far away as they could go, their bleating screams echoing around the field.

Katy clung to Ricky’s wrist, pressing closer to him.

He slipped his arm out of her grasp and put it around her, giving her a little push forward. Her cotton dress stuck to her back, made worse by the warmth of his arm against her. She wriggled a little, but he didn’t let go.

“You’re doing alright,” he whispered, so low only she could hear. “They ain’t ignoring you. They’re scared of you. Remember that.”

Katy swallowed, stiff and trembling. “Should I just Change?”

“No.” He dug his fingers deeper into her side and she gasped. “What’s the matter?”

“You’re hurting me.”

He grunted, and his hand relaxed. She breathed steadily, watching the family mutilate themselves in front of her brother, dripping dark blood on the ground.

“Don’t look at it,” Ricky advised.

Katy realised he thought she was struggling because of that. She swallowed. “The smell’s making me feel sick.”

Ricky nodded slightly and rubbed her upper arm. “Just keep breathing through your nose, it’ll get better.”

He pulled away from her and clapped his hands twice.

“Right! Listen up. You’re free to go. All responsibilities absolved. Family meetings don’t include you. Family elections don’t include you. You don’t come to the shrines, you don’t come and bitch to your gods, and in bloody particular, you don’t come to me askin’ to see the future. That’s not for you, not anymore. But the minute, the second one of you gets out of line, the instant you do anything to jeopardise us, you’ll be hunted down and wiped out like you were never born. Understood?” Ricky glared into the flickering gloom. “Do you understand?”

There was a chorus of murmured assent.

“Where’s Layla Wend-McVey?”

Katy rolled her eyes. “Leave her alone, she’s gone through enough.”

“Her idea, wa’n’t it?” Ricky scoured the gathering. “Lay, get your arse up here.”

Katy rubbed her arms and shifted on the spot, squirming with second-hand embarrassment. Layla came forward slowly, glowering. She hadn’t put makeup on, her hair was messy and loose, and it looked like she’d just thrown a cardigan over her pyjamas.

“What?”

“Layla is your link to us,” Ricky announced.

Layla’s eyes widened. “No she fucking isn’t.”

“If you need us, you go through her. And she decides whether she gets in touch or not.”

Katy elbowed him. “She said no.”

Ricky shot a glance at her. “You want to do this?”

“Fuck’s sake.” Katy pushed herself between them and shook her head at Layla. “Hey. I’m really sorry about everything that’s happened—”

“Don’t.” Layla cut her off abruptly, her voice flat and cold. “Seriously. Don’t.” She shot Ricky a withering glance around Katy’s shoulder.

Ricky didn’t comment. He shrugged when Katy looked around, and turned to circle the bonfire, muttering under his breath. Wes joined him, circling the opposite way, ready for his blessing by Uncle Ralph and the elders. Heads of the Family were consecrated with the kiss of peace and the elders’ approval, and Ricky didn’t look particularly keen on the first part.

Finding herself on her own in front of the family and a pissed-off Layla, Katy huffed a sigh and sagged.

“Look, ignore him, you don’t have to… you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, that’s kind of the point, right? And if you… if it would be better, you should come to me. I’ve at least got a phone.”

Layla set her jaw, wrapping her cardigan around herself. “I just. I don’t want the responsibility. I want to get back to work. I’ve got better things to do, that’s the whole… that’s the whole point. For me. That’s the whole point of this. I just. I’m done.”

Katy nodded. “Yeah, I get that. I really do.”

Layla eyed her for a moment. “Thanks for saving my life. Twice.”

“Oh.” Katy had almost forgotten that’s what had happened. “Yeah. Sure.”

Layla raised her eyebrows and gave a slight shrug. “You know what, if you want to call me, I wouldn’t hang up.”

Katy wasn’t sure why that made tears prickle up, or why her lip trembled with the surge of something nameless and sad. She swallowed.

“Thanks.”

“You didn’t ask for this either, did you?” Layla studied her for another few seconds. “Story of our lives, I guess.”

“If anyone tries to come for you,” Katy said loudly, taking a step back and nearly bumping into Ricky, who had completed his widdershins bonfire-circle, “anyone, at all, I will protect you.”

Her tail clicked out, but she didn’t try to stop it. It rose behind her, swaying to help her balance with the weight of it, the point poised. She trembled with a jolt of nervous energy, things clicking into place.

“I’ll stand on the border for you. I will keep watch. That’s my place. Where the lines are drawn. And whoever crosses those lines, I will devour.”

She didn’t think she was speaking loud enough, but there was a soft hiss from the back of the group, and she knew they’d heard.

Layla nodded, backing off.

Ricky clapped Katy on the back, making her jump. Katy met his eyes and saw how they burned, a wild, manic gleam in them that lit a spark in her chest.

“That’s our girl.” His teeth glinted, whiter than she’d ever seen them. He’d taken his hoodie off again, and his skin was glistening with sweat. The scars were starting to come back under the surface, like raw, pink cracks.

“Let’s finish up,” Wes suggested.

Ricky rolled his eyes, but nodded. “Your Head of the Family,” he said, and Wes, his lips shining with balm, kissed him twice, once on each cheek. Ricky grimaced and rubbed the smears on his face, then rubbed his hands into his sides.

Katy returned to the watching crowd.

“You can go,” she announced to the family, and they didn’t need telling twice.

She watched the family scatter across the field. “Is this going to work?”

Ricky kicked the sheep’s head and hopped over it. “This? Sure.”

“What about what Wes saw? The cultists are out there, and I don’t… I don’t want you to—”

Ricky shook his head and waved her into silence. “Bit late for that. I don’t see how else this can end, do you? Let’s get it done.” He smeared his hoodie with sheep’s blood, balling it up in his hands. “You go on ahead.”

Katy sniffed. “I want to stay with you for a bit.”

Ricky beckoned her away from the bonfire. Behind them, Uncle Ralph was tending to it, and two of his sons had crept out of nowhere to toss in the remains of the sheep.

Burning wool and mutton mingled with the acrid stink of glory.

Katy covered her nose, gagging into her hand.

“Where’s Wes?”

“Gone to get the car, I hope. I ain’t walking back.”

Ricky put an arm around her and pulled her forwards, across the dark, flame-lit field. Their shadows wobbled and flickered in front of them. “You have to go on without me.”

Katy frowned. “What if you get taken?”

“You think I can’t fight ‘em off? I’ll just Change, won’t I? Anyway. It’ll happen the way it happens.”

Katy nodded, chest hurting.

Headlights twinkled in the middle distance. She tried to get her bearings in the dark, based on her longer running routes. That must be Sluice Road. She turned right and found the road on the other side of the field, intersecting it at the crossroads. Tiny pinpricks of light further on greeted them. Fairwood House wasn’t far.

“Race you down the field,” she joked.

“Not a chance.” Ricky hung back for a moment, then barrelled out of the dark and nearly knocked her down, heading for Redditch Lane.

“Cheat!” Katy righted herself and tore after him, losing herself in the stupid competitiveness, and beat him to the road easily even with the head start.

It was almost like the distance between them and the road had been skewed somehow, as if there had been a whole patch of dark grass that just… disappeared.

Katy hit the tarmac of the road far sooner than anticipated and stopped to catch her breath.

“Ha!” She turned around, exulting, only slightly out of breath. “Told you to do more cardio.”

He wasn’t behind her.

“Ricky?”

She couldn’t see him anywhere. The field also seemed to be a different shape from this angle. Something really wasn’t right.

“This isn’t funny.”

She fumbled for her phone and turned on the torch. The fields were empty, silent but for the bleating of the sheep and the rumble of a distant car.

“Ricky?”

He wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere. She marched back the way she’d come, tail extended and ready, torch scanning the fields in front of her.

Some silvery mucus caught her eye, gleaming, mixed with something greasy and oily. Her torch light picked out a small chip of brick or tile near this patch of gelatinous ooze, and she bent down to pick it up. It was smaller than the piece he usually carried with him. She couldn’t see any more of it, or any trace of her cousin.

There was blood a little further away, and more ooze.

Katy’s tail arched, poised.

Her torch app caught on something grey, snagged in a hedge an impossible distance away. He couldn’t have covered that distance in the time, not unless someone had twisted dimensions on purpose.

Why didn’t he Change?

Jogging over revealed the thing in the hedge was, in fact, Ricky’s hoodie, smeared with blood where he’d wiped his hands in it, still damp with his sweat and something greasy.

It reminded her of Wes’s lip balm, the only thing about him she could remember, glistening on Ricky’s skin.

Her tail swayed in the soft night breeze, and she crumpled the grey material in her hands, shivering with adrenaline.

“No,” she murmured. “No, he wouldn’t.”

Something rustled behind her.

She spun around, startled, and her tail stabbed down.