I went straight back to the forest where I met Sláine as agreed, though not as agreed at nine, or at the hunting lodge. Instead she was waiting at the main entrance to Shook Woods, my phone’s display showing 8.30 p.m. – I’d given myself that much time to hike in to the lodge. I was startled when I saw her there, glowing like a special effect in a movie. Unearthly, transcendental. So beautiful I thought I’d die.
She said, ‘Come on, let’s head,’ and we started walking briskly in along the path, Sláine energised and strong, seeming taller than me, as she often did. I half-expected her to lift me and whoosh us through the forest, but she didn’t. She seemed anxious somehow, hesitant. I guessed that she was lost in thought and worry about our showdown with destiny. The moment that might destroy the world. Maybe she had a plan and was going over the details. That could wait: I had urgent news to tell.
‘Here, listen,’ I said. ‘I’ve worked it out. Our mystery man.’
She looked at me, said nothing, kept moving.
‘It’s this guy, Sioda Kinvara’s his name. Some rich prick moved here a few months ago. Lives in a big old creepy house on Belladonna Way.’
‘What makes you think he’s our villain?’
I listed off all the evidence I’d accumulated. Sláine listened impassively. She didn’t seem to be buying it, for some reason.
‘Who else could it be?’ I asked, impassioned. ‘Besides, you’re the one put me on to him.’
‘How so?’
‘I dreamed about you. And you were humming this tune, the same one Kinvara’s got as his ringtone and I heard him play on piano. The prosecution rests, Your Honour.’
‘Not the most persuasive argument, counsellor. It came to you in a vision?’
‘Yeah. Dreams have meaning, didn’t you know that? Like, Freud or someone worked it out. And I dreamed about you.’
She smiled at me, enigmatic, the first since we’d met: ‘Did you, though … ?’
What did that mean? She’d really appeared outside my window, and I’d crawled over, half-asleep, insensible, thinking I was imagining it?
I shook my head and said, ‘Here, never mind dreams or Sigmund bloody Freud. Kinvara’s our man, I know it in my bones.’
‘Yeah,’ Sláine said. ‘I think … yeah. I think you’re probably right.’
‘Well, great. Thanks for that show of confidence. So look, what’s the strategy? I was thinking we could draw him out somewhere, a place where he’s not in control. Somewhere of our choosing. Then you handle the demon some way or another, and I clock Kinvara over the head with a lump of wood.’
I laughed nervously. Sláine didn’t respond. The night was darker now, a slim sliver of crescent moon lighting our way. I didn’t mind. I knew Shook Woods like the back of my hand by this stage – I could have walked it blindfolded. And she was with me. Sláine wouldn’t let me fall, she’d never allow anything to hurt me, I knew that. I trusted her judgment and the purity of her heart.
Still, I wanted some idea of what we might do.
‘Eh – Sláine? Are you going to answer?’
She snapped, ‘What?’, frowned into space, looked away, and finally smiled at me. ‘Sorry. A bit preoccupied. It’s not you.’ She shook her head, as if trying to loosen out whatever tensions and pressures might be in there.
‘So what do you think? Draw the bastard out?’
‘Um … you know what? Let’s just go to the lodge and sit down and see where we’re at. I have half a plan but I need to work out the finer points. Is that all right?’
‘I … guess so. Yeah, okay. You have a plan? Excellent.’
‘Sort of a plan … Listen, Aidan, don’t worry. When it all happens, we’ll know what to do. You’ll know. Won’t even have to think – it’ll come naturally, your reaction. Just … have patience. Almost there.’
I said, ‘Sure.’ I wasn’t sure, at all, but didn’t feel I had much of a choice. ‘At least give me some kind of heads-up, yeah? Like, wink at me or something. They always do that in movies.’
‘Sure,’ she said dryly. ‘I’ll wink at you.’
Still Sláine didn’t move us at super-speed; still we walked, like regular people, silent. A bird flapped from its perch and flew across the sky. What was there to say anyway, I told myself. Whatever will be, will be, and all that. I tried to convince myself I really believed it, that I was stoical and philosophical. I think I even half-succeeded.
To pass the time and fill the silence I thought about my parents and siblings. As I mentioned to Podsy in that letter, I hadn’t said goodbye. There wasn’t time, as it happened, with my treks back and forth to Shook Woods and detour via COLDSTAR, but I wouldn’t have in any case. My folks would have tried to stop me if they’d any idea of what I was heading into. The two little ones would have cried. So would I, probably. I pictured them, sleeping now, Sheila in her tiny room, Ronan in his tinier room, little more than a converted cupboard. I could see them, looking so small and defenceless, little mouths open, breathing softly, safe there, innocent of all the bad things in this hurtful world. I mentally blew a kiss back at my home and wished the four of them God speed. Then I wished it for myself and continued to strike out into the blackness.
It had just passed nine when we saw the lodge in the distance. The crumbling old stone, moss and ivy, the familiarity of it – how reassuring it seemed. I could feel myself tense as we came closer, though – some autonomic response I couldn’t control and didn’t want to fight. In fact, I welcomed it. If tonight turned to shit and my mind went cuckoo-bananas, maybe my body, my primal nervous system, would step in and continue the battle. Maybe.
We stopped at the door. I said, ‘Ladies first?’
Sláine smiled wearily and gestured towards it. ‘Nah, you go ahead. It’s the age of equality, after all.’
‘Okay. Whatever.’
I reached for the handle, opened the door inwards. A soft light exited the lodge: candlelight, warm, organic. That was the first warning sign but clearly it didn’t register strongly enough because I continued on inside. Like a dumb naive lamb being led to the abattoir.
The second warning was a sound: someone there, humming a familiar four-note refrain. ‘Dum-dum-dum-DUMMM … ’ A chill descended on me. Panic like an explosion, a thousand Roman candles cartwheeling and fizzling across my brain. But too late for panic, too late for anything, because Sláine had entered the lodge too, swiftly locking the door, and now was moving behind me, coming nearer, the cold preceding her like a warning of bad intent.
And I was looking at the face of Sioda Kinvara.
He stood by the far wall, dead centre, staring at me. I was frozen in shock, couldn’t talk, my mind in turmoil, speech centres scrubbed clean of any language up to the task. We held the stare between us.
After an age Kinvara said quietly, ‘It’s not what you think.’
I could sense Sláine right behind me. Her voice in my ear, almost wistful, whispering, ‘He’s right, Aidan. It’s not what you think.’
A twist of pain, as if I had literally been stabbed in the back, not just metaphorically. She wrenched my arm up and wrenched me around so I faced the armchair. And the middle-aged man sitting in it, holding a glass of something dark gold – and pointing a handgun at Kinvara.
Sláine said wryly, ‘Told you I was working on a plan. Unfortunately for you, it’s not the one you wanted me to have.’
The guy in the armchair said, ‘Don’t worry, Aidan Flood. I will put an end to all your troubles.’
He placed the gun on the arm of his chair and smiled with a creepy familiarity that made me feel uneasy, somewhere in the back-brain, the animal instinct part. He was familiar to me, too: I’d seen his face before … or something like it. I’d seen it, immobile with terror, on the man standing across the room.
‘He’s your brother,’ I said to Sioda – though my words just floated into the chilled air, not specifically in his direction.
The gunslinger declaimed theatrically, ‘Joseph Kinvara, at your service.’ There was even an ironic little bow for a flourish. ‘Three years younger than my beloved sibling. Call me Joe if you like, whatever suits. Sioda there got the fancy name from our parents. I’d to make do with plain old Joseph.’
He shrugged. I gazed at him, speechless. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about what to call him. What did I care for strangers’ names, there, right at the end, at the death of everything I knew?
I gasped. ‘You … you sold me out. Sláine. Why?’
She didn’t answer. I would have slumped to the floor if she wasn’t now holding me under my arms. One hand rapidly moving over my body, patting me down, as if I were carrying a weapon.
‘Oh, Christ,’ I breathed. ‘I walked straight into it. Can’t believe how stupid I was. Stupid enough to believe you … ’
She lifted me to the bed and I flailed onto it like a drunk. Sláine went and stood next to Joseph, who rapped at his brother, ‘You. Go join him.’ Sioda shuffled over and sat beside me. He looked like hammered shit: dazed, exhausted, horrified.
I said to him, ‘And stupid enough to have you fingered as the bad guy.’
He didn’t respond, but began muttering under his breath, ‘Oh God. Please, Joseph, stop this madness … ’
‘Shut up, Sioda. I’m getting to know my new friend here.’
I sat up straight and brought my eyes around to meet the other two. Joseph was smiling genially, a trace of a smirk. Sláine was smiling too, sardonic, almost patronising. I suppose it was justified, her obvious feelings of superiority: she was superior. The girl had played me like a violin, the poor lovelorn sap I was. Just like Caitlin last year. So things never really change at all, I reflected bitterly, they just take a different form. That image, the pair of them, seemed to waver somewhat in the wobbling light of several candles, cast from different points around the lodge; neither of the oil lamps were lit, I noticed, though both were filled with fuel.
I snarled at Joseph, ‘And you. You’re like a guy who came third in your own lookalike contest. Like a bad imitation of yourself.’ I didn’t know where that came from – I just wanted to hurt him. It didn’t work.
Joseph raised his glass to me and took a hearty drink. ‘Mm. Glenfiddich scotch. Really good stuff.’
I blurted out to Sláine: ‘You asshole. Why did you do this?’
She shrugged and gave a gentle laugh. Joseph said, ‘She brought you to me to prove her fidelity. Your life was payment for my full trust. Proof that she hadn’t … had her head turned by someone else. Or her heart. Also, you knew too much. About me, what I intended to do.’ He frowned at her, annoyed. ‘My beautiful Sláine wasn’t supposed to make contact with anyone. I didn’t think she would; that wasn’t in the plan. For some reason, though, she became – friends, I suppose you’d call it, with you. Told you the whole story. Or, you worked it out together. Whichever. It makes no difference, really, and there’s nothing a young lad like you can do to stop me. But it shouldn’t have happened. I did not want that. So she had to make restitution.’
‘And I’m the bloody restitution.’
‘Exactly.’ He took another drink and seemed to relax again. ‘Ah, what matter? You’ll soon be dead anyway. Sláine has made her mistake, and learned from it. Isn’t that right, my dear?’
She smiled at him with affection, the same look she’d given me so many times, and something strange happened: I got angry. A fire burning in my belly. I couldn’t believe it. The same shit I got from Caitlin, from Rattigan and Harrington and the rest of them. Sláine and this other idiot might have seen it as something grandiose and special, but that was wrong: they were just bullies, exactly like the others. Mean-spirited, vicious, petty and callous. To hell with her, and back to hell with him and his demon.
‘Blow me,’ I snarled. ‘Do whatever you want.’
Joseph chuckled. ‘I fully intend to do what I want, my boy. Great plans for the future. Sadly, you won’t be around to see them come to fruition. But look on the bright side: you were part of something magnificent. Something vast, almost beyond human comprehension. You were in at the start. Console yourself with that.’
‘Don’t think I’ll bother, thanks. Who’s going to do it? You or her?’
‘Kill you? Hardly matters, really, does it?’ He sniggered. ‘Or do you have a preference? Perhaps you’d like your one true love Sláine to end it all. You know, it’s funny. Human nature doesn’t change that much. Men have always been slaves to their hearts.’
I stood and roared in fury and embarrassment, ‘Get fucked, you old creep!’
‘Hm. Sláine? If you would.’
Without moving a muscle she propelled me backwards with an invisible force, slamming me against the wall. Joseph yelped in appreciation: ‘Wonderful! She really is remarkable, isn’t she? A fitting queen for the new world I am about to create.’
My breath came in torn, painful gasps. I didn’t care. I pushed my hair off my face and slowly pulled my tobacco pouch from my pocket. I threw it at Sláine, one quick flick, without looking in her direction. She caught it, her hand moving at incredible speed.
I said sullenly, ‘Feel like rolling me a smoke, your majesty? One for the road.’
I’d barely finished the sentence before she had tossed a rolled cigarette and the pouch back to me. She said flatly, ‘It won’t hurt. Your death. And we won’t turn you into a zombie. We won’t even eat your soul. I’m going to take pity on you and simply kill you. If there’s a heaven, there’ll be something left to go there.’
I sat in the lotus position on that mattress and lit up. My hands were shaking, but my voice was strong. ‘Super. I appreciate that. Always said you were a top-class girlfriend.’
‘Don’t fight it, Aidan. It’s easier that way. Accept your position.’
‘My position? What is that, exactly?’
Sláine spat out, ‘You’re fodder. You’re food for the gods. You’re nothing. An insect to be crushed into the ground if it suits us.’
‘Well, shit. If only you’d told me earlier, I’d’ve reconsidered this whole relationship.’
‘Don’t take it personally. You’re no more insignificant than any other mortal. All of you are nothing more than our puppets, playthings, slaves or sustenance.’
Joseph laughed. ‘That’s my girl.’
Sláine smiled again. ‘It’s not you, Aidan my darling – it’s me.’
She clapped her hands in delight. I wanted to spit in her face and tear his head off with my bare hands. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do either, but I might as well have the full story, while I was alive to hear it.
‘What are you, Kinvara?’ I asked. ‘Some kind of demon? A man who can’t die? What?’
He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Pff. Does it matter what exactly I am … ? You can consider me the personification of coldness. A consciousness sprung from the infinite potential of zero degrees. Heh. The iceman has cometh.’
‘Very poetic and all, but that doesn’t answer my question.’
‘All right, then. Here it is: I conjured a demon from the depths of hell and now it inhabits me, I inhabit it, we coexist together. We are immortal, indestructible and all-powerful. We cannot be stopped and we will not stop.’
I tried to keep up a brave face hearing those words, but my Adam’s apple catching in my throat must have sounded as loudly as the bell being struck for the end of days.
Joseph went on. ‘We – me, to all intents and purposes. This thing does not have a mind in the sense that you understand it. It possesses great powers but requires a human consciousness to harness them. Which is where I come in.’
He lifted his glass. Quick as a flicker of lightning, Sláine flitted over and refilled it from a large, nearly full bottle. I felt sick, seeing her subservience to this disgusting reptile. The heavenly-white ice queen of my dreams, reduced to a traitorous lickspittle. And worst of all, by her own choice.
‘I kill mortal humans,’ Joseph said, ‘and consume their life essence. The warmth of their blood, the electricity of their brains, the force that moves them, that makes people alive … and their souls eternal. The more I consume, the stronger and more perfect I get. I intend to live forever, young man, by using this demonic power. Alas, there’s a price to be paid for everything – including immortality.’
‘And you’re making others pay it for you.’
‘No. Not completely. I have paid a price, too … ’
He didn’t elaborate. In the silence I noticed that Sioda was sobbing and moaning, his head in his hands. I wanted to slap him, tell him to man up, get a grip, give me some goddamn help.
I said to his brother, ‘Yeah? Well, this’s how I see it. I see a power-crazed madman who’s sucking the goodness out of real, living people to feed his sick desires. I see a freak who wants to create an army of zombies that he can use as slaves.’
‘Ah-ah. Incorrect. Certainly, I’ll keep the odd one around – slaves, like you said. But other than that, I will simply kill, and keep killing: everyone in your town, the surrounding areas, the world.’
‘You don’t deny the power-crazed madman part, then?’
‘Of course I deny it. Your accusation is so absurd, it’s hardly worth bothering with. I am perfectly sane, Aidan Flood. Do not doubt that … I’m not even bad. Or immoral, whatever word you want to use. I know, you see all this through the old Judaeo-Christian perspective. “Thou shalt not kill” and so on. Wake up, boy. We’ve moved far beyond those simplistic notions. Good and evil. Pah! Is the avalanche “evil” because it crushes hundreds of people to death? I am on a higher realm now. There is no good and evil where I dwell. There is only the two of us, and the rest of you. Predators and their prey.’
I tossed my cigarette onto the floor and watched it smouldering there in the damp dirt. ‘Tell me what happened, Kinvara. How’d you do all this?’
He settled back in his armchair, getting comfortable for the telling. He was enjoying this, the prick, but what could I do? Nothing. It’d kill me to admit it but Sláine had been right: I was weak, powerless, an insect waiting to be crushed.
‘From an early age I’ve been obsessed with demonology, necromancy, the occult – much like Sláine’s ancestor, though I hadn’t heard of him before we came here. I read every book even remotely connected to the paranormal, every grimoire of dark magic. Islamic mystics, The Picatrix, The Sworn Book of Honorius, The Book of Enoch, Trithemius, Roger Bacon, John Dee, Malleus Maleficarum, the Bible and Tanakh, Paracelsus and Doctor Faust, The Munich Manual of Demonic Magic … Anything, everything. Even obvious charlatans like Aleister Crowley or Anton LaVey.’
Joseph paused, regarding me with a strange intensity. He continued, ‘And there’s something about your town. Something strange and magical and dangerous. Something beautiful. I was drawn to it. And I knew … I’d been searching my whole life, and somehow I knew I would find it in this place.’
‘Searching for what?’
‘Wisdom. Power. Everlasting life … I’d passed through your home town a few times and it practically called out to me: “Here lies your destiny, Joseph. Here you will become great.” So I decided to move permanently. Sioda agreed to facilitate my wishes.’
The other brother spoke, for the first time in what seemed like hours, his voice barely audible. ‘Joseph is … he’s always been odd. Even as a child, he was peculiar. Awkward, unsociable – just different from everyone else. I’ve looked after him our whole lives. I felt I owed that much to our late mother.’
Joseph raised a glass and said sarcastically, ‘Dear Mammy. Whose money funded all this – my life of enlightened enquiry.’
‘He was always a loner, since we were boys. I took him in, took care of him … He’s lived with me for decades but I never told a soul about him. Joseph stayed in the shadows, a recluse. As far as anyone else knows, I have no brother … ’
Joseph said roughly, ‘Didn’t I tell you to shut up, Sioda!? Before I cut your tongue out and feed it to you.’ Back to me, in a gentler voice: ‘It’s the forest, I think. These black woods around us. The town itself is strange, there’s no doubting that. You’ve felt it yourself, surely? But the uncanny black heart of it lies in Shook Woods. It beats, that heart – it’s alive. This forest is alive, boy, in ways you could scarcely imagine … They often are. Why do you think cautionary fairy tales are usually set in the woods? That the highest concentration of serial killers in the United States is in the heavily forested north-west? It’s the place where our darkest selves are realised and revealed. Where the deepest melodrama of the human spirit is played out … ’
He was right, I reflected with dismayed horror. The woods were more than a collection of trees and wildlife: they were some kind of eerie dreamscape, a hellish netherworld into which I’d been drawn. Mysterious, ambivalent, unreal, yet strangely comforting too. The forest, I remember someone writing once, was everything those fairy tales made you feel.
Joseph snapped out of his soliloquy, smiling self-consciously. ‘Anyway. We moved to your town, and then Providence took a hand. Do you understand, Aidan? This was meant to happen.’
I didn’t like the sound of that – though, then again, what could possibly be worse than everything else I’d heard?
‘The house we bought – it used to belong to one William John McAuley. Recognise the name?’
I jabbed a finger in Sláine’s direction without doing her the courtesy of looking over there. ‘Her grandfather. Great-great-great-something.’
‘How about that?’ Joseph said gleefully. ‘Destiny guided us towards that building. Out of several large, private houses to pick from, all perfectly suitable, we chose that exact one. Sioda liked the library and how the garden was running wild, but that’s neither here nor there. I clearly had a sixth sense.’
He stood and went on, fired up now. ‘One day, while brother dearest was out and about on his little errands, I did some exploring. And found a secret passage in that library, behind a fake panel in the wall. Do you know what was in there, Aidan Flood?’
I could guess. I began rolling another cigarette. My throat was parched but that didn’t matter any more.
‘McAuley’s writings,’ Joseph said, triumphant. ‘All of them? I’m not sure. But enough. Letters, diaries, notes, records, knowledge he’d accrued, experiments and ceremonies attempted … things he was going to attempt. There were reams of this stuff, volumes of it.’
I thought about the pages that the unknown someone had deposited in my bag at the library: were they among the texts Kinvara discovered? Had my mysterious ally stolen them from him, and passed them on to me? Or were they duplicates? I decided it was shrewder not to bring this up.
He was still lecturing: ‘McAuley outlined how to conjure up the demon, the precise words to say, every last crossed t and dotted i. Other parts to it too, certain metals to be worn on your person, foods to be consumed in the lead up, the position of the body, further details. No old rubbish about toad’s blood or the hair of a golden child, none of that shit. This wasn’t pantomime – this was real.’
I said flatly, ‘I have no doubt.’
‘McAuley had tried to do it, back in 1851. He was too weak. I don’t just mean because of starvation, he was obviously too weak in here … ’ He pointed to his head, then his chest. ‘ … And here. McAuley was an amateur, and he failed. He didn’t have the stuff for it. But I did.’
His eyes darkened, something hideous and terrible in them, and I trembled with a nameless dread.
‘A demon of the cold.’ Joseph paused. ‘There is immortality in coldness, child. Viruses and bacteria, they can survive for millions of years, more or less forever, if the temperature is low enough. Everything stops. Time stops, to all intents and purposes. And that, of course, means death stops too. Observe.’
Joseph seemed to – this wasn’t possible, but I could see with my own eyes – begin enlarging, his body expanding upwards and out into this small room. His shape became distorted, the torso getting broader, like a caricature. And he was glowing, but not like a light – more that dark glow I once thought I’d seen surrounding Sláine. I actually cowered back, the unlit cigarette falling from my fingers, as did Sioda. Both of us stared, open-mouthed in stupefaction, as Joseph’s eyes rolled and his flesh swelled like a balloon and that thing inside him showed itself finally.
A face of indescribable malevolence. Eyes half-closed in gloating, mindless ecstasy. Pointed ears, bald skull, naked neck and shoulders, the body surprisingly small – I’d have expected something almost cartoonishly gigantic – but radiating a sense of immense power. It hovered there, about Joseph’s head, an image buzzing and fuzzing in and out like a hologram being periodically flicked on or off, surges of energy, disappearing and reappearing. A vision of hell expressed in the random shifts of electrons.
I scrunched the blanket under me in a white-knuckle grip and thought I was going to pee my pants. Then Joseph – he, they, who knew any more – spoke, two voices intertwined, something intimate about the sound, almost sensuous, that made me feel nauseous: ‘Last October … Shook Woods and … called this being … gave life … then joined as one … closer than man and wife … soldered together … our very selves … for good and all.’
His head dropped and the thing vanished and suddenly Joseph was normal again. Well, normal physically. He was clearly as wack-a-doodle batshit crazy as the bastard spawn of Rasputin and Caligula. He shook slightly – presumably this transformation, this revelation, took something out of him. Sláine glided over and helped him back to the armchair. It disgusted me again to see her playing the servile handmaiden to this contemptible shit-bird. Sioda, meanwhile, was curled up in a foetal position, snivelling like a hurt kitten. I guessed he was in shock and wondered why I wasn’t just as bad. I found my rollie and finally got round to lighting it.
Joseph took a swig of scotch and said, ‘I conjured up that … thing you saw. Out here in the forest, in a secluded spot, not far from this room. Straight after that hallowed ceremony I went into hibernation for a week or so – sort of suspended, a demonic version of cryogenic freezing, I suppose. Ha! That notion amuses me. Hibernating, growing stronger, becoming different. Becoming more. Waiting, waiting, for circumstances to come into line, exactly right … ’
‘And then you made your triumphant return.’
‘Precisely. Eventually I knew my time had come, my body knew. It knew. And I was resurrected. I took a few days to get used to being alive again, get my breath back, as such. Then I made my first kill.’
‘Sláine.’
He nodded. She didn’t react in any way. I snapped my fingers at her, snarking, ‘Hey, yo. Princess. That doesn’t bother you? Your boyfriend here actually murdered you? How romantic. I mean I really see beautiful things ahead for both of you.’
Joseph stared gloomily at a candle flame as it danced, his face a mask. ‘We are bound, this demon and me. At first I wasn’t … fully in control. But I learned. My strength grew. Now I control it. I can separate myself from the thing whenever I please. At least, I think … Sometimes, though. Sometimes it feels as though I’m sort of … losing myself, all over again … ’
He abruptly slapped the arm of the chair. I jumped with the noise. Joseph continued, evidently back to his cocky self. ‘I had to lure her out here, you know. Lovely Sláine. In the beginning I was unable to leave the woods – they sort of … held me. Pinioned, like the proverbial butterfly in a glass case. It took all my powers of hypnosis and persuasion to bring her to me. But that was only in the beginning. My strength grows all the time, exponentially. These days, I can kill wherever I like. The whole world is my hunting ground. I feast on the warm-blooded buffet table that is the human population.’
I blew smoke in his face, a dismal attempt to annoy him. He didn’t even blink. I said, ‘The way you say that, with such pleasure. Admit it, Joseph – Joe, whatever your goddamn name is – this is about more than eternal life. You’re a sadistic bastard. You enjoy killing.’
‘I won’t deny there’s pleasure to be found in it. To take another’s life – and soul, in this case – yes, it’s a sublime pleasure. One of the perks of the job, you might call it.’ He gazed on Sláine, and there was almost a genuine fondness in it. ‘As is this beautiful woman, of course. A queen should be beautiful, don’t you think? That’s how all the best fairy tales have it.’
‘This is no fairy tale, it’s a goddamn horror story. So it was you who laid Sláine’s body out under that tree. Why there?’
He shrugged. ‘No reason. You have to dispose of the rubbish somewhere. That’s all it was by that stage: rotting matter. The essence of Sláine was gone. It had been freed. The real Sláine you can see before you. Not the weak human she was before I improved her. Now she is radiant, powerful. She is triumphant.’
‘I remember that man finding her corpse, the forestry guy. Clearing old growth … ’
Joseph laughed heartily. ‘“Clearing old growth!” Ha! I’m the one who’s clearing old growth. By the time I’m finished this world will have been remade completely. It’s a new birth, my lad. A bright new dawn for a tired old world. You should think yourself lucky to be a part of it. Not that you’ll stay a part of it for long, but still – can’t have everything.’
I hopped off the bed, a renewed anger prompting me to act before I’d had a chance to weigh up the consequences. I pointed at Joseph and said, ‘This is crazy, man. What you’re doing, it’s evil. And unnatural. Death is a part of life.’ I turned to Sláine and started saying, ‘You said that yourse—’
In an instant she was on me, her fingers at my throat. The cold of it, Jesus, I could feel it going through me. Unable to breathe, my body going into hypothermic meltdown.
She muttered, ‘Don’t move again. Trust me – if you know what’s good for you, don’t do anything stupid.’
Radiant, powerful and triumphant indeed. I looked into her eyes. Nothing there but contempt. Worse, a profound disinterest. I meant zero to her – it wasn’t even worth working up the energy to despise me. I never felt so small and pathetic, so unloved. So alone.
Tears came to my eyes as I realised, finally: I’m dead. And this was just a ludicrous fantasy built on nothing at all.
Sláine dropped me again. I fell to the bed and mechanically rolled another fag. What else are you gonna do, right? The condemned man always gets his last few smokes. I sniffled, saying numbly, ‘Why her? Why Sláine?’
Joseph said, ‘Well, someone had to be the first. And I picked Sláine in tribute to the man who made it possible: William John McAuley. In his honour, and besides which, she is a beautiful young woman in every way – fair of face, full of grace. I’d watched her on weekends home from college since we arrived in your town. I knew who she was, and that she would make a fine consort for me. My helpmeet across eternity … I’d also found an old ring McAuley’d had engraved for his wife Eleanor in the library cubbyhole. Put that on Sláine’s finger as a token of my esteem, her great-grandmother’s ring. And a little clue, maybe, for Sláine to ponder over. I know it can get dull, this immortal life, when you’ve nobody to share it with.’
‘Why didn’t you come to her straight away, then? Once her new life began. She could’ve started helpmeeting the shit out of you from day one. Actually, why’d you wait so long between killing Sláine and, and … this rampage of murder over the last few weeks.’
‘Murder? Tch.’ He seemed disappointed at my naive-weakling bourgeois morality. ‘It’s hardly that. We’ve been over this already, Aidan. It’s not murder when you squash that fly with a newspaper, is it? The two don’t compare, they’re not in the same universe, man and fly. That’s how it is for me now: there’s myself and Sláine, and then all of humanity. We are separate animals. Different universes.’
Without warning Joseph grabbed his glass and flung it at Sioda’s head. The shot missed, the glass smashing into pieces off the wall behind him. Sioda recoiled further into his foetal curl. Sláine replaced the glass, a fresh drink already poured.
‘Christ, that whining,’ Joseph said. ‘Shut up, damn you. Or I will give you an end even nastier than I’d originally intended.’ To me he added, ‘You asked me a question – why did I wait so long? The answer is simple: I was waiting for her.’
He glanced at Sláine. She remained as impassive as an Ancient Egyptian burial mask, though I noticed her body wasn’t completely still, like before: she was drumming her index finger off the fabric of that fabulous antique coat. How gorgeous she looked, I thought, how divine the surface. How demonic the undergrowth.
Joseph went on, ‘I had time, after all. I’ve all the time in the world. I will never die, so I was in no mad rush. And before I made my move I wanted to see how Sláine would … develop. Once she became accustomed to her new existence. I was curious: would it change her the way it changed me? Make her colder, harder? Bring her closer to the state of flawlessness that is absolute zero: unmoving, unchanging, magnificently indifferent. Perfect.’ He smiled with smug satisfaction. ‘It did. I knew it would anyway. I don’t make mistakes. But that was proved when I saw what she was capable of. The way she dismantled those boys and girls, tore them apart, toyed with them, invaded their dreams, drove them mad, launched a virtual one-woman terror campaign … !’ He clapped admiringly. ‘Sláine may have thought it was done for you, revenge on your behalf. I know the truth, and now she does too. She attacked those kids because she could – and because she liked doing it.’
Out of somewhere I found the gallows humour to drawl to Sláine, ‘Told you you shouldn’t have done all that.’ She smiled on me with an insipid pity that was worse than the violent disinterest of five minutes before.
Joseph said, ‘I knew then, for sure, this was the girl for me. No compunctions, no hesitations, no miserable little moral code. Sláine, like me, had the right stuff. So about a fortnight ago – less, ten or eleven days – I began killing again. I was hungry by then. I’d waited long enough. I sated my thirst, grew stronger, my powers expanding, becoming ever more refined … After a week or so, once I was in the groove, so to speak, I made contact with Sláine. Told her some of what was going on, not all. It’s more romantic to keep a few secrets from each other, don’t you agree?’
Jesus Christ. Could this guy get any more deluded? And yet … she genuinely seemed to have fallen for him. His dark charm, the lure of eternal life. My stomach knotted and roiled like a stormy sea.
‘Then I appeared to her, here, this evening. Told her everything she needed to know, and she told me everything. About your absurd intention to somehow stop me, how you were on the way to this lodge, supposedly to hammer out a battle plan … So, the mountain came to Muhammad, and here we are. The rest, as they say, is history. As you will soon be.’
A thought struck me and I figured I may as well ask about it: ‘Are you responsible for this weather? The cold winter we’ve been having.’
‘Seems so, yes,’ he said. ‘A side effect, not intended. But not unfavourable to my plans. The cold snap helped to cover up what I was doing. Freeze people to death during a mild spell and … well. It tends to raise suspicions. Even among the slow-witted local constabulary you’re blessed with here.’
‘Hell has literally frozen over,’ I said dully. ‘This is it, here. This is hell now.’
That amused Joseph. He chuckled and took another drink. Such a strange place to die, I thought absently, this little hut. I’d never in a million years have imagined these to be the circumstances of my demise.
‘This is hell,’ I went on, almost mechanically, ‘and you are the devil, Kinvara. You’re a sick bastard who should have been put down at birth. Even your own brother can’t stand the sight of you.’
I gestured towards Sioda, who hadn’t moved a muscle for ages. In an instant Joseph had erupted from the seat and was looming over me, towering, growing huge, the evil being inside him emerging once more, the same flicker and blur, a radioactive buzz around Joseph’s head. I flinched back. I actually whimpered. I could smell the scotch off Kinvara, those sickly sweet fumes: a cloud of whisky-perfume, wreathing this hideous twosome. Then I heard them, raw thunder rising to a ragged roar, unbearable, infernal, the demon screeching in counterpoint. It sounded like the rumbling of the massed armies of hell.
‘Be … careful … boy.’
Just as abruptly, the pair had merged again and the man was sitting in his chair. I was shaking, gallons of adrenaline shooting around my system but it was pointless, neither fight nor flight was possible here and I was boned.
Joseph said quietly, ‘Your death is assured, but I can still make it painful. Or perhaps I should take your soul as well? Condemn you to the eternal wandering of a hellish afterlife. The only thing stopping me is Sláine’s soft spot for you.’ He turned to her. ‘What do you say, my love? Shall we consume him wholly? Maybe make him one of our slaves?’
Sláine considered me with a cool, disdainful eye. ‘Tch. He’s not even worth turning into a zombie. Poor pathetic Aidan is only good for throwing away, like any piece of junk.’
Even now, when anger and disbelief had turned to miserable resignation, it still hurt to hear her talk like that. Were the last few months a total lie? Had none of it meant a goddamn thing in reality, outside my delusional mind?
She seemed to soften a bit, handing me Kinvara’s whisky bottle and saying, ‘Don’t be frightened. I told you: when the time comes, you’ll be all right. You won’t even think about it. Have a drink. It’s good for the nerves.’
I grabbed the bottle – it felt heavy, like the weight of some awful knowledge – and slugged from the neck, a measure of sickly, fiery scotch going where it was meant to, more of it dribbling onto my jacket.
Emboldened by the booze, I yelled at her through a scorched throat, flung words in her face as if they were physical things which had the power to hurt, to change, to move: ‘The bullies. The attacks. Even that. I can’t believe I believed you, that you did it for me. God, at least that gave some meaning to all this bloody violence, or justification or something … This awful thing, but done for a good reason … ’ I shook my head angrily. ‘Doesn’t matter. Clearly you were just a bloodthirsty maniac all along.’
She said evenly, ‘Thirsty, yes. But not for blood. Blood is old hat, Aidan. It’s silly stories about vampires. We feed off the cold. We create it, and in turn it gives us life. A perfect symbiosis. A dance of death that will never end.’
‘Don’t you regret anything? Or has your conscience frozen over, too?’ I jerked a thumb in Joseph’s direction. ‘He hasn’t got one, that’s obvious. Too long inside his own madness has turned him into Jeffrey Dahmer. But you, Sláine. Jesus, you were a human being just a few months ago. You felt love, affection, empathy. You kissed your mother goodbye and hugged your granny. You did things, physical things, emotional, just things. You went on the lash with your pals and ye danced together and hugged each other and had the crack and felt good. You played music and helped out with handicapped kids and shifted Tommy Fox. You and him, together, your mouth on his mouth, your hands on his body. Don’t you remember that? What it was like to be a goddamn person?!’
I realised I was shouting. I resumed, quieter. ‘You were a girl, Sláine. A human being, with warm skin and lively eyes and a heart that beat dozens of times a minute. Not long ago, that was you. You must remember what it was like. You have to.’
She stared at me for a long moment. Finally she said, ‘Do you recall what’s written above the door to this lodge? “It does not trouble the wolf how many the sheep may be.” I’m not a girl any more, that’s the point. I’m a wolf now, Aidan. And the fate of the sheep doesn’t trouble me.’
My shoulders slumped, then my whole body. I collapsed onto myself like a marionette with its strings cut. I’d failed, again. It was no use. I was beaten. They wouldn’t listen to reason, had no moral compass. Sláine and Joseph Kinvara were the worst thing imaginable: psychopathic, immortal, all-powerful, unstoppable … and there were two of them, so they’d never get lonely and never get bored. And this nightmare would never end for the human race.
So I chose the coward’s way out. I decided not to stick around. I’m no hero, I admit that. Better to go now, a clean break with life. Better not to fight, as she’d said. Better to hold on to my soul and hope to God there really was one. Hope that God and heaven existed.
But there had to be a heaven, right? Somewhere better than this.
I stood, sighed and said, ‘Okay, do it. Right now.’
Neither of them moved. ‘Kill me. I’m asking you, please. Just kill me. I’ve had enough.’
Sioda finally glanced up from his womb-like crouch. He seemed surprised; perhaps some survival instinct lingered on, making him hope that somehow, some way, we’d both make it out of there alive.
I smiled at him, saying ruefully, ‘Sorry, man. Nothing we can do now.’
Joseph went to rise from the chair but I held up a hand to stop him and looked at Sláine. ‘I’d prefer if you did it.’ I gave a lopsided smile and felt tears pricking my eyes. ‘For … for old times’ sake, yeah?’
She nodded and came over, standing just in front of me. Sláine ending my existence: the ultimate betrayal in a life that sometimes seemed full of them, and there was a weird kind of aptness in that. Why shouldn’t the story of my shitty existence have a disappointing, unhappy ending?
‘It’ll be quick, Aidan,’ she said, smiling, something almost tender in it. ‘No pain. I won’t take your soul. I won’t destroy your face. Your parents will have something decent to bury.’
Amazingly, I really did appreciate this – that my mam and dad could have an open coffin at the funeral. Wow, I thought, smiling inwardly: you’re actually maturing, Aidan. You’re getting outside your own stupid head and thinking about other people for once. Pity this newfound maturity was coming too late, but there you go. Like I said, life’s full of irony.
I appreciated it, but wasn’t going to let on to Sláine. ‘Good for you,’ I drawled with some dying spark of defiance, one last ‘screw you’ to my tormentors. ‘Award yourself a medal. Can we get on with it now?’
She smiled indulgently. ‘Of course. One last smoke before you go? Last meal on death row?’
Before I could answer Sláine had whisked my tobacco out of my pocket, rolled a cigarette and gently slipped it between my lips. I shrugged: sure, whatever.
Sioda swung his legs over the bed and implored his brother, hands together like a religious penitent: ‘For God’s sake, Joseph. For the memory of our mother, stop this insanity. Don’t let this boy die. You hate me, I get that, but think of Mammy, for God’s sake … ’
Joseph sniggered. ‘For God’s sake? There is no god any more, you snivelling little turd. I am God now. Carry on, Sláine. Ignore that worm sitting next to you there.’
I rose from the bed, clutching the bottle of scotch. Sláine stood before me, partly blocking Joseph’s line of sight.
‘That’s it,’ she said, as softly as a mother hushing her child to sleep. ‘Accept the way things are.’
The whisky bottle in my hand. My lighter in her hand. Sioda’s head back in his hands. My life, and death, in Sláine’s hands.
And then, and then, right at the finish, my real ‘screw you’ to the pair of them – not the flip comment of childish rebellion but something heartfelt, fundamental. Something quiet and tender, and all the more powerful for that.
I smiled sadly at her and said, ‘I love you, Sláine.’
There was my triumph. There I was victorious. In letting her know I hadn’t changed, despite everything. My heart hadn’t hardened or frozen over. I still loved her, and always would. I still felt love. Life hadn’t beaten me, they hadn’t beaten me. I was bloodied but unbowed. And I was at peace.
I smiled again, different this time – a genuinely happy smile, given the circumstances.
Sláine stared at me. She lit the rollie and I inhaled greedily, its tip glowing lava-red, engorged, enflamed. She whispered, ‘The time has come. And you know what to do.’
Then she winked.
And I did. Just like that, I knew. Sláine didn’t say anything more. She didn’t need to. She didn’t have to get inside my head with words because we were already inside each other’s souls. She was lonely and I was lonely and we had ruptured the fabric of space and time. We were hearts talking across continents. Across the boundary between life and death.
I called out, ‘Yo, Joey?’
His head lifted, perplexed at my tone of voice.
I returned the wink to Sláine. ‘Health warning for you, pal: my smoking can kill you.’
Then the bottle was slipped from my hand by Sláine’s hand and the cigarette was in my hand and she was moving, faster than a shooting star, faster than I would have thought it possible to move, spinning from me and towards Joseph Kinvara and smashing that heavy glass bottle across the fucker’s head, an explosion of glittering shards, a volcanic splash of whisky all over his face and clothes as he howled in shock and pain, blood running from his face and mingling with the scotch. With all that alcohol.
I flicked the cigarette at him and it arced in slow motion through the air like the shining-white ape’s bone in that old sci-fi movie, and before it even reached Joseph the spark ignited the fumes rising off him like a toxic spill, and he was engulfed in flame. Then Sláine was moving again, fwit-fwit-fwit-fwit, running angles, stretching physics to breaking point, grabbing both lamps and swinging them in turn at Joseph’s head – smash-crash-flash, oil catching fire, further nourishing the blaze.
Hair melting off his skull, skin lifting and bubbling like fat in a pan, clothes sticking to his body. It was horrific to watch but I had to keep looking. Joseph screamed like a baying pack of underworld hounds and tried to rise but Sláine pushed him down, forcing him back onto the armchair, that tatty piece of shit, that four-legged fire hazard. The furniture went up in flames too, the fabric curling and burning to nothingness, the stuffing inside feeding hungrily on the fireball. Joseph’s gun clattered to the ground.
More screams, but this wasn’t just the man, it was the thing inside him too. A blood-curdling screech – not only pain, fear also. The demon was scared, and no surprise: Sláine, my Sláine, was at full fury now, fury and love, a force of nature, beyond nature. She thrust her hands into the inferno, ignoring the flames and wrenching Joseph out of the chair, flinging him against the wall, ancient brick bursting apart as he hit and came crashing down, dust settling on him like a pall, still burning, still screaming, a human firestorm.
I understood now why and how she could do those things to my bullies, do them for me even when she knew it was wrong. I loved her more than ever.
And Sláine loved me. She hadn’t betrayed us.
She lifted Joseph from the floor and hammered his head into the wall, again and again, a whizzing blur of white violence and red fire. He swooned in agony and Sláine kept hammering. I couldn’t move my legs or tear my eyes away. And I didn’t want to.
A different type of fire was beginning to well up in my stomach, a pure thrill of excitement and bloodlust and vindication …
I hollered, almost feverish with vengeance, ‘Kick his ass, Sláine! Pound his ass into the ground! Kill him!’
She leaped for the ceiling and Joseph’s head went through the rafters, old wood shattering like crystal, flames flaking from his dying body. Sláine pulled him down and grabbed his head, her fingers like a vice grip. Her hands began to turn. Sláine gasped, ‘Get out of him get out get out get out … ’
Joseph somehow regained his equilibrium and tried to fight back, arms flailing like pinwheels of sparks from a bonfire. He was a trapped animal, crazed, acting on instinct. No longer the smooth master of a new universe. Kinvara was just another bully, a chicken-shit coward when he met someone stronger.
‘Kill him!’ I shouted. ‘Smash the bastard’s skull to dust!’
With a desperate effort she pressed harder, her throat opening with a sound like the earthy blood-roar of a woman in childbirth. Joseph gave a last unearthly scream and the thing, that accursed demon, exited his flesh and flitted away from its host, its smallish form darting out of the lodge into the sheltering blackness of Shook Woods. What d’you know? Even demons are chicken-shit when someone stands up to them.
Sláine loosened her grip and Joseph mindlessly barrelled out the door past me, a fireball, a tumble of roasting meat, no longer a man, running a few yards before collapsing into the snow, facedown. He was done for.
Silence, broken by the sound of my heavy breathing. Sioda was so far in shock by now I don’t think he was even capable of that much. He stared at Sláine and babbled, ‘Muh-muh-muh … ’
I ran to my girl. There, by the wall, as plaster dust and wood splinters fell onto our heads like bizarre confetti, I threw my arms around her and held Sláine close enough to crush her. Never had absolute cold felt so warm to me. Our hearts together, a conflagration in the centre of a raging snowstorm.
She whispered, ‘I have to go after it. Can’t let it get away.’ Then she stood, took three sharp breaths, rolled her neck, rolled her shoulder muscles. Sláine looked nerveless, resolute, incredibly capable. Incredibly powerful. I didn’t think it was possible, but I was more in awe of this girl than ever.
She took my hands, squeezed them, released. ‘I don’t have time to explain. Get back to town and stay in your house.’ She aimed a thumb in Sioda’s direction. ‘Bring him with you. And don’t leave until I contact you.’
‘No way. I’m staying. Not letting you out of my sight again.’
‘Just stay well back.’
‘That I can definitely do.’
Sláine stared at the floor. She said quietly, ‘Maybe I can free those poor souls they’ve already taken. Like in the stories, you know? When you kill the head vampire, you release his victims. You save them.’ She looked at me, uncertain, pleading. ‘It’s not a vampire, but … It has to be worth a shot. Doesn’t it?’
I nodded and gritted my teeth. ‘It’s worth a shot. Let’s go get the bastard. Mr Kinvara, wait here. We’ll be back.’
He didn’t respond, or move, or do anything, except stare at the spot where an angel of death had driven his brother into hell.
Outside. The crescent moon a knife cutting through the firmament. I started to ask, ‘What direc—?’ when Sláine shushed me, closed her eyes, held a finger to the breeze. Her dark-grey eyes opened and she pointed into the darkness.
‘There.’
Then we were running through Shook Woods, giant pines on all sides as silent and inscrutable as an alien monolith on the moon, a flying squadron of crows in relief against the sky, screaming, driving us onwards. Sláine raced ahead, I could see her flashing white through gaps in the trees, before the forest’s shadow swallowed the view once more. The darkness of this place, it kind of washed over you, seeming to be more than the mere absence of light but a thing, a presence, maybe the spirit of the forest itself, standing guard, keeping watch, leaning in …
Then I was entering a large clearing and there was the demon, zipping and glowing through the night like a will-o’-the-wisp towards something odd – I couldn’t quite see what because it was so goddamn dark in …
Sláine was covering the ground at terrific speed, making a trajectory for the demon, a missile set to explode. It glanced back, looking scared now, its malignant face full of terror and hatred and fury.
‘Come on, Sláine,’ I gasped, running as hard as I could, my lungs burning, legs turning to acidified jelly. ‘Bring it down … ’
But even as I said it I could see that the creature had reached the odd something and could see what that something was and my heart sank. We were screwed.
A door. A portal. An exit. A sort of shimmering in space, a dull, nauseating vibration. Oval in shape, maybe eight feet high, five across. This door, I somehow knew, opened onto another dimension or realm or universe, some other place where that demon could find escape. Could plot its return. We’d never be free, never feel safe, knowing it was over there, wherever that place was.
I kept going, pushing every last ounce of energy into it. Sláine was still gunning for the demon like a heat-seeking missile but it was halfway through the portal, one side of its body disappearing into the nothingness beyond, the image sort of being scrubbed out. It grimaced at us, a sight to make the blood run cold, yowling like a rabid cat, throwing its curse to heaven. Then it turned to go, and I knew once it was through the door would close behind it, and we’d be as damned as that hell-bound thing.
Sláine screamed, a wordless cry of grief and anger, and launched herself across the sky, practically flying, stretching for that portal to keep it open, if she could just reach it before the demon disappeared forever and keep the bloody thing open …
She didn’t make it. But she didn’t need to.
Because, bringing up the rear my heart had been battering my chest, heat rising there inside my parka with exertion and fear and exhilaration, and I realised that something really was battering my chest. An object, a physical thing, bouncing back and forth as I ran. I kept running and reached my inside pocket and pulled out the old locket that lady gave me, Meredith. It had remained in there all this time. I guess I’d told myself I’d find photos of Sláine and me to put in it, then got distracted and forgot about it.
It was warm. Not tepid, from being close to my body, but definitively warm, like a cup of tea made five minutes before. And it was … this might have been the moonlight playing tricks again, but the little disc seemed to be glowing, a muted throb. Warm and bright, I held it tight in my hands and ran towards Sláine as the demon vanished and she screamed and lunged, too late …
And I hurled that locket – I swear to God, it told me to do this, it practically spoke to me. I threw it towards the portal just as the creature moved through fully, my arm almost wrenching out of its socket. I threw with every ounce of strength I would ever possess. Somehow it worked. That door to another dimension remained open, just about. It was buzzing crazily now, like a swarm of molecules in hot water, straining to pull themselves apart into chaos.
Sláine’s voice died away. She realised what had happened. She looked at me, smiling in a sort of pleased amazement.
I shrugged laconically. ‘What? I have to contribute something to this effort, surely?’
She nodded once and tumbled through. The portal collapsed on itself and vanished completely. Sláine had vanished. The locket lay on the ground. I mechanically returned it to my jacket then gulped in dismay and brought chilled fingers to my sweat-soaked head and was about to scream myself, when suddenly light exploded from that spot, beginning as a minuscule point before enlarging rapidly, whoooosh, like a nuclear bomb. A flare of energy hurled me back, landing me flat on my ass, the light blinding me temporarily, shockwaves reverberating in my ears. I was sightless and deaf and completely ignorant.
And then her voice – celestial choirs never sounded so wonderful – distant and muffled at first but getting louder and sharper and nearer, and my vision cleared and I could see Sláine walking towards me, calling my name.
‘Did you … ?’ I gasped. ‘Is … is it … ?’ I was unable to say the words.
Sláine nodded, slumped to the ground and hugged me. I could almost feel it physically, her exhaustion, as though it were a black hole collapsed in empty space.
She said weakly, ‘It’s dead. That thing is … I followed it down into the jaws of hell and I … I … ’ Her head flopped back, she moaned in pain, her eyes fluttering. ‘Oh shit. I think that took quite a bit out of me.’
I squeezed her tightly. After a minute Sláine added, ‘It’s over, Aidan. For good. I destroyed it. I destroyed it.’
Something immense had happened beyond the door – I had the strangest sense she had aged in that split second, changed in some elemental way – but Sláine wasn’t being forthcoming with details, so I decided not to press it. There’d be plenty of time for all that later; we had the rest of our lives to talk together, or I guess, the rest of mine at least. I broke our embrace and smiled, about to thank her. And shit, she was crying.
I said drolly, ‘How can someone so badass get upset enough to cry?’
Sláine laughed. ‘Don’t know. Tiredness? Feel kind of … emptied out.’
‘Take it easy. You must have … Just … just rest here for a minute.’
She nodded in agreement, like a child being willingly put down for her nap. I cradled Sláine’s head in the curve of my arm. After another few minutes I said gently, ‘It’s all right. Everything is all right now. Thanks to you.’
For the first time since I’d met this strange, marvellous girl, I felt like the senior one in the relationship, the more mature of the two. I felt like an adult. And that felt good.
Gradually, she got some of her strength back, enough to fill me in on recent events: how Joseph Kinvara had appeared at the lodge, in person, that evening – around the time I’d been dreaming about her, I reckoned – and laid out his intentions for their joint world domination. Sláine hadn’t time to make any sort of plan herself, or contact me; besides, she assumed he’d be able to ‘read her thoughts’, being in such close proximity. This was also why she didn’t tell me anything en route to the lodge – he might have ‘heard’. For all she knew, Joseph could have been watching from the trees the whole way in.
‘It was a stupid move,’ she sighed. ‘Thinking we’d a day or two to work something out.’
‘Yeah, but be fair, what would you expect? We’re just two kids.’
She’d been forced to wing it, flying on blind hope, pretending to go along with Joseph’s schemes – which included murdering me.
‘He was going to kill you himself, tonight probably,’ Sláine said. ‘He’d already sent the walker to the cemetery, that poor O’Leary woman. I volunteered to do it instead. Prove my love for him, whatever. Which in turn was a set-up. I had to pretend to be – interested in him.’ She shuddered. ‘Ech. The sleaze. Made my skin crawl. But I reciprocated his romantic suggestions.’
I said, ‘So you were tricking him? To get his guard down?’
She nodded. ‘Get his guard down, get him relaxed, even a little drunk. And get close. I had to separate them, Kinvara and the demon inside. That was the only way I could think to nail them. Too powerful for me to face together.’
‘You looked pretty powerful yourself, driving his dumb head into the ceiling.’
‘Nah, they would have beaten me. Probably. I mean Kinvara’d have powers of his own, like I do. And coupled with the demon’s … ? Anyway. Doesn’t matter now.’
‘No it goddamn does not,’ I said with satisfaction.
She continued, ‘I figured, their strength lies in the cold, right? I mean that’s what the thing was, essentially: coldness, come to life. And what better weapon to use against that than fire?’
‘Good thinking, Holmes. So this was your grand plan – set Kinvara alight and … ’
‘Plan is too ambitious a word for it. But yes. Set him on fire and hope to God it’d loosen the bonds between them. Enough for me to pummel the shit out of the mortal man and basically beat that demon’s ass out of him.’ She shrugged, said, ‘It worked,’ then smiled awkwardly. ‘I promised you I wouldn’t kill anyone.’
‘I think in this case you get a pass, morally speaking. Counts as self-defence.’ My own ass was freezing, I realised. ‘You mind if I – stand up? I’m in danger of getting glued to the ground.’
We both rose.
Sláine said hesitantly, ‘I think their souls – those souls Kinvara claimed? I think they’re free now. At peace.’
‘Me too. You did good, girl.’
‘As did you. Throwing that disc – what was it?’
I pulled it out. She examined it, turning the locket in the moonlight. Eventually she said, ‘Would you believe, I think I know this. Think I’ve seen it in an old photograph.’
‘Yeah? No way.’
Sláine nodded. ‘Looks like … I can’t be sure, but it looks like this locket my ancestor used to own. Eleanor.’
‘McAuley’s wife.’
‘The very same. An old family heirloom, you know, passed down the generations. Lost years ago, but I’ve seen it in pictures of my great-grandmother. Eleanor’s granddaughter, I guess? Not sure exactly.’
‘Maybe that’s why it had – power,’ I said, ‘for good, I mean. Maybe William John gave it to his wife as a symbol of love, and it represented, like, something good. Whatever decency was in him. This locket had held on to some of that, his love for Eleanor, his good side.’ I thought of the ring Sláine wore, the one that creep had put there. ‘That ring of yours meant something to Kinvara … I guess the locket means something to me.’
‘Where’d you get it?’
‘From this very interesting old dear called Meredith. Runs an antiques shop. You think she … ?’
Sláine gave a little smile. ‘Maybe.’
I put the locket away and said, half-teasing, ‘You know, you were banking an awful lot on me understanding your purpose back there. I mightn’t have clocked at all what you wanted me to do, with the scotch and the fag. Bit slow on the uptake, you know?’
She shook her head adamantly. ‘I knew you’d get it. I know you, Aidan. How you think, what you’ll do.’ She kissed me hard on the mouth. My fingers shot outwards in shivering bursts of delight. ‘I know you better than I know myself. And trust me, when you’ve got this much free time, you get to know yourself pretty well.’
We laughed and I said, ‘Why not just set him alight yourself? Out of curiosity. Why take the tiny risk that I’d be too dumb to follow your lead?’
She thought about this. ‘I needed you there when I took him down. I can’t – I can’t explain it … I told you before, you make me stronger, more powerful, like I can do anything. But I need you there to do it with. Does that make sense? It had to be a team effort. You and me, taking on the world.’
It made sense.
‘Aidan, I’m sorry,’ she added. ‘About keeping you in the dark like that, but especially for saying those things tonight. I didn’t mean any of it.’
‘I know that.’
‘Not one word.’
‘Not even one?’ I smiled and kissed her forehead. ‘Listen, I have to know. Why would you give up all this power? Everything Kinvara promised you. Immortality, I mean … It’s a lot to lose.’
Sláine frowned, annoyed. ‘I told you. Because I love you, you moron. What, is that so hard to believe?’
I smiled again, taken aback at how simple things often were, underneath everything. When you stripped away the horseshit and melodrama. When you stopped overanalysing and started feeling and living.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not hard at all.’
I stretched my back and gazed at the twinkling panorama of the night sky while Sláine told me that Sioda – Mr Smooth Operator, who in reality was a bundle of nerves – had arrived shortly before I did, apparently invited by Joseph. Little did he know what his demented brother was cooking up. Little did he know about any of it. I’d have to apologise again for suspecting him.
She must have read my mind because Sláine said, ‘Go back and check on that man. Make sure he’s all right.’
‘What’re we going to tell him? To explain all this. Explain – you.’
‘I don’t know. Just make sure he hasn’t done anything. To himself.’
Sláine embraced me again and I could feel that something had changed, a hesitation in her beaming out like radiation. I thought I knew what she had to say and why she didn’t want to voice it. I definitely knew I didn’t want to hear it, but I forced myself to speak anyway: ‘Go on. Tell me.’
‘I have to go away for a while. I’m sorry.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’m not sure why. I just … it’s something I need to do. Be by myself.’
‘Okay.’
‘Is it?’
I smiled sadly. ‘Not really. How long? Do you know?’
‘I don’t.’ She looked at me with regret. ‘It’s not like before. This is more … I can’t describe it. It’s like I have to find myself again, or something. Let some process of transformation take place, give it space to breathe. Be alone, and sort of … There’s no point trying to explain it. I don’t understand it myself. But it won’t be forever. I will come back.’
‘Ha. Okay.’
‘Aidan, I’m so sorry for everything,’ she said again. ‘All these bad things that’ve happened to you, it’s because of me.’
She was crying once more. I wiped an icy tear from her cheek and said, ‘And every good thing, Sláine. Every good thing is you.’
We smiled at each other for a long time under the thin moonlight, the whole forest hushed as though paying its respects to the moment.
Finally Sláine said, ‘Will you wait for me?’
I laughed. ‘What? What kinda dumb question is that? You know I will.’
She laughed too. ‘I will come back to you. I will.’
‘I know that. And I’ll be here waiting. As long as it takes.’
‘I love you, Aidan Flood. Endless, boundless.’
She kissed me again, ferociously. I was drowning in it, dizzy with it all.
‘I love you too,’ I said. ‘Ever, forever, the size of a universe.’
Then she whispered, ‘Hearts talking across life and death,’ kissed me one last time and with a rush of cold air was gone.
Goodbye, my love. Goodbye, my dream, my ghost, my guardian angel.
No, not goodbye. Farewell. Until we meet again. We will.
I hiked back to the lodge, further than I thought – I guess we’d run pretty quickly. I didn’t quite know what to expect when I got there, but it hadn’t much changed. Joseph Kinvara’s charred remains still face down in the snow, the sight of them turning my stomach. Sioda still inside the room, although he’d moved back to the bed. The armchair was gutted but no longer aflame. Thankfully, the fire hadn’t spread any further.
Sioda was lamping into a bottle of wine he’d found – another super-expensive brand Sláine had purloined somewhere – and looked drunk, red-eyed, torn up. But his speech wasn’t slurred when he saw me and said, ‘You.’
I eased inside and found my tobacco.
‘The boy from the library,’ he went on. ‘Mr Flood.’
Sitting on a stool, I made myself a cigarette, keeping a close watch on the man opposite.
‘Bravo,’ Sioda said, taking another generous swallow. ‘Bravo.’
Was he being sarcastic? I’d been involved in killing his brother, and what was that he’d said about loyalty to family … ? I tensed.
‘It had to be done,’ he said faintly. ‘He had to die, and I didn’t have the balls to do it. Didn’t have the heart. He was family. But Joseph was evil. I see that now.’ Another drink. I lit my smoke. ‘I never realised the full extent of what he was doing. Thought he was just playing around with all that black magic rubbish. I love old books myself, but only as a reader. Never thought he took them seriously. Never thought that stuff was … Jesus.’
He had a look of utter disbelief, presumably not for the first time. The mind sometimes refuses to accept what the senses show it.
‘Am I to blame?’ Sioda said. ‘I’ve always supported him, indulged him … Joseph wanted to move to this town, we moved. He asked me to check out such-and-such a library book, I did it. He spent his life skulking in the shadows – he avoided everyone – Christ, he’d even leave the house when the cleaner was due to call around – and I ignored his strange behaviour, no questions asked. Worse, I made it possible. Made all this … ’
He looked at his hands as if there were actual blood on them. The moment of intense anguish passed, for now. Sioda smiled warmly and said, ‘It’s almost funny – how you thought it was me.’
‘Yeah. That. Listen, I gotta apologise. I was way off.’
He flapped a hand, dismissing my regrets. ‘Not at all, I can see why you thought it. The clues sort of added up there, didn’t they? I’m … an eccentric man, in some ways.’
‘Hey, why’d you call the house ColdStar? That totally struck me as a reference to – you know. This.’
Sioda smiled bashfully. ‘Name of a racehorse I had a share in. Doesn’t mean anything. I just liked the sound.’
‘You really didn’t know the house once belonged to William McAuley?’
‘Never heard of the man until tonight. Coincidence, I suppose?’
‘Okay. And why’d you employ my dad?’
‘Another coincidence.’
‘Or “bravo”, telling me to check it out. It means “wicked stranger”. Thought that was a clue too.’
‘All coincidence,’ he said. ‘Life is full of them. Didn’t Jung or someone say everything is connected, every mind and event, through the great collective unconscious … ’ His voice faded, embarrassed. ‘Or maybe … like Joseph thought. Maybe it was destined.’
I said, ‘Why did you invite me to your house that day? I thought it was a trap … ’
Sioda scowled at me. ‘I told you, I’m no pederast.’
I said hurriedly, ‘I know. I didn’t mean it like that. But looking back, when I thought it was you … I reckoned you were planning to … tie me up, kill me, feed to me to this bloody demon.’
He sighed. ‘I offered the use of my library because I knew your family was … ’
I finished his sentence: ‘Poor?’
He seemed more ill at ease than me. ‘Yes. I knew your parents didn’t have a lot of money. For books and so on. I figured you’d get something out of it.’
‘I would have. That was good of you.’
Sioda stood, swaying slightly. ‘No – ’twas my little brother all along. You had the wrong man, Mr Flood … He’d been stalking you for a while. He told me so, this evening. Said he met you on the road outside town, little while back?’
I nodded. I remembered. So that was Joseph. No wonder my Spidey-sense was tingling.
‘Saw you pass our house, got in his car – my car – and followed you. Hid the car, then walked towards you. Wanted to get up nice and close. And you know why? It amused him. He admitted this, like it was all a big joke … ’ Sioda abruptly changed direction. ‘Is she your sweetheart, that lass who was here earlier? You’re a lucky young man. She’s one hell of a girl.’ He took a swig from the bottle and laid it on the ground. ‘All the best to you, Aidan Flood. Give my regards to your dad.’
A chill ran through me as I saw he now held the gun. Did he have it all along … ? His thumb stroked the hammer which, I registered nervously, was cocked. Bad news. What did he think he wanted to do with that?
‘Mr Kinvara,’ I said softly. ‘Do you … you wanna give me that?’
He ignored me and stepped outside, half staggering, gun swinging, a vaguely ape-like motion. The moonlight seemed brighter. Sioda moved towards it like an actor stepping into the spotlight. I gingerly stood and followed at a distance, anxiously awaiting his next act. The entire night waited, breath held.
That silence was broken by a hideous screech: the collection of burned flesh and black ash that used to be Joseph Kinvara, who I’d assumed was dead, suddenly lurched to its feet and came reeling towards me. He must have been in unbelievable pain, hardly conscious any more, driven by muscle memory and undistilled hatred of me. His blackened skin crackled as he lumbered across the snow, arms outstretched like a mummy, rasping, ‘Kill you … kill you … ruined all … Aidan Flood … ’
I stared, aghast at this fresh madness. Would I have snapped out of it in time to crack him on the head with the bottle, or dial 999 and shimmy up the nearest tree to wait for the cavalry?
It didn’t matter. The gun cracked, twice, three times, five, six, as Sioda unloaded that revolver into his brother. Two to the head, pretty much blowing it apart. More to the body. Joseph dropped like a sack of shit. This time he really was kaput.
Sioda let the weapon fall, still smoking, sizzling into the snow. He said flatly, ‘I love you, Joseph.’ Then he walked off, nary a word or gesture to me, swallowed by the gaping black maw of the forest. I somehow knew he wouldn’t be seen alive again. Only death could offer him peace now.
Alone once more but not lonely. I located my phone and texted Podsy: ALL OK I THINK. YOU CAN DESTROY LETTER – EVRYTING GONN BE FINE. A
I tapped my parka, searching for smokes, and hit the famous locket once more. I’ll do it now, I vowed – put in two pictures, me and Sláine. Maybe ask her mother for a nice photo on some vague pretence. Find something half-decent of me.
My phone beeped: message from Podsy. OKAY … GREAT. PS EH EH EH … DONT KILL ME. I ALREADY READ IT. SORRY, CURIOSITY GOT BETTER OF ME.
Ha. Cheeky little fecker. I texted back: YER ALL RIGHT. SO? THINK I’M CRAZY NOW PROBLY.
NO. MORE IN HEAVEN AND EARTH, HORATIO ETC ETC … STRANGE STUFF THO. MUCH TO DISCUSS.
AGREED. NIGHT, PODS.
U TOO. NIGHT TO HERSELF ALSO :)
I felt a squeeze of pain in my heart. I ached to be with Sláine. I knew I couldn’t for now, and that made me sick inside.
But suck it up, soldier. Tough it out. Endure. Wait for her, as you promised.
I replaced the phone and zipped up my parka. I didn’t have a cap but that didn’t matter because I had warmth enough and this would do and I walked back to our Ancient Greek amphitheatre and found a soft spot and it was dry enough too and then I lay down and drew my arms closer to myself and pulled that locket out of my jacket and held it near to my heart with awkward frozen fingers and settled down to wait for Sláine’s return.
My eyes cast around in the darkness and landed on a white shape, tiny against the black-green moss. A snowdrop, struggling to escape the ground, gasping for life. Reaching for it. Making it.
The thaw was coming. It’d take a while but now that Joseph Kinvara and his demon were gone, I knew the cold weather would disappear too.
You did it, Sláine. You saved the world. You saved me.
Tears filled my eyes, tears of sadness and longing, tears in her absence, yet I smiled, happier than I’d ever been. I will see her again, I told myself. I will. I’ll lie under the dark pines for as long as it takes, and wait for her to come back to me.
And I thought, yes, I’ll wait for you here, Sláine. As long as it takes …
in the cold and the blackness I’ll lie here …
in our place in the pines I’ll wait for you and …
shiver the whole night through.