A Hollow in the Hills (25 page)

He turned away from the main entrance and walked down to a smaller, nondescript door in the older part of the structure, which didn’t look as if it had been used in more than a century, long before the library was here, when it was just the Clock Tower building . Someone had tried to paint it white but the paint was already flaking off, like dead skin. There was no sign of a handle or a keyhole, just eight wooden panels. He knocked, a swift rhythmic knock – similar to the one Amadán had used to gain access to the Sídhe sanctuary – and after a moment’s pause knocked again. Just once. The last knock boomed as if he had banged on a kettle drum and the door opened silently. There was no one to be seen.

They walked through a stainless steel kitchen tiled in the purest white and out into the deserted café, chairs stacked upside down on tables so the floor could be washed to spotless perfection.

Reaper opened another locked door and led them into the main hall. It still gave the impression of being a street with a glass roof high above them showing the night’s sky. The original buildings, a Georgian cul de sac, painted white and in the centre a fountain, long and thin as a reflection pool from an Andalusian palace, tiled in the brightest peacock colours.

That was where Reaper headed, the far end of the pool, where it was at its narrowest. He stopped at the foot looking back at them.

‘It is the first Sídheway,’ he told them solemnly. ‘It is untouched by the taint in the outer paths. So far, anyway. It leads to only one place, the entrance to Donn’s hollow. There are no other ways there save the long road and death itself. This is an old path and old paths affect those who take them, changing them, judging them. You will see things you do not want to. You will see things you fear. Do not under any circumstances leave the path. Do not look back. It is Old Magic.’ He paused looking at them each in turn. ‘The oldest. Do we have an understanding?’

Everyone nodded. Some less enthusiastically than others.

Jinx stood with the other two Cú Sídhe right behind Dylan, but he didn’t move. He looked at home with them, Dylan realised, with his own kind. If he ever looked at home anywhere.

‘We may be followed,’ he said to them. ‘By things in there as well as things out here. Perhaps by things worse than we can imagine.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Blight. ‘I can imagine some terrible things. I have a vivid imagination. Everyone says so.’

Jinx frowned, the joke sailing directly over his head as most jokes did. Dylan shook his head and turned around, watching them. Blight grinned happily. Blythe scowled. They didn’t appear to have changed in the least. At least she was clothed this time around.

‘Ignore him,’ Blythe said calmly, looking at Dylan as if she could read his thought, an unsettling proposition. ‘It’s nerves.
We’ll take up the rear and hold the gate at the other end for you, Jinx by Jasper.’

Jinx shuddered at the sound of his full name on her lips and a shadow passed through his eyes. ‘You knew my father, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

Dylan saw Jinx hesitate, but whatever was on his mind, he decided to press on with his questions. ‘Was there something … anything … well, strange about him, maybe?’

Blythe opened her eyes wider in a curious mix of disdain and amusement. ‘Apart from the
apparently
hereditary ability to ask stupid bloody questions at inopportune moments? No, why? Whatever do you mean?’ The last two questions were asked with humourless candour.

Jinx looked furtively towards the others and lowered his voice. ‘Blythe … please …’

She groaned. ‘Yes, there were things about him that were strange. He joined our pack, I suppose, if you want to be picky about it. But that’s nothing strange. You don’t have to be born one of us to become one of us. And pack is pack. Once part of it, the past is the past. He thought there was nothing he couldn’t overcome. And he never
never
listened. Do they count as strange?’

‘What colour were his eyes?’

She paused, frowning again, the flippant answers gone as she studied his earnest face. Dylan watched as she chewed on her lower lip.

‘Gold,’ she said at last. ‘Like the setting sun. Why?’

But Jinx didn’t answer. He stalked away, back to Izzy, as if he could escape the answer.

The two Cú Sídhe stared at Dylan in silence until he couldn’t bear to stand there anymore and he turned away, making for Clodagh and Ash at the edge of the shallow pool. They were looking at the mosaic and he thought again of the garden of a Moorish palace in Spain, the representation of heaven on earth. That was one of their sayings, those kings of Al-Andalus of long ago – ‘Heaven is a garden.’

He glanced at Ash again, still worried, and he wondered. She didn’t look like she belonged in a garden – a boxing arena or a dojo, maybe, or flicking through a catalogue with Clodagh over coffee. She stood awkwardly at the edge of the group, beautiful in the way fire or a lightning storm was beautiful.

‘Is she telling the truth?’ Clodagh’s voice was very quiet, shaken. She stepped in close to him and dropped her voice so it wouldn’t carry.

‘I don’t know. I think so.’

‘Not a lot of help, Dylan.’

‘I’m full of that these days.’

‘Do you have any idea where we’re going?’ He shook his head and she sighed. ‘Mari would have been able to find out. I’m useless.’

‘No you’re not. And Mari wasn’t all that. I mean – yeah, she could be charming and stuff, but –’

Clodagh was smiling at him but he could see tears in her eyes. ‘I sometimes think you didn’t know her.’

‘Are you okay?’

She rubbed her hand across her eyes briskly. ‘Sure, why not? Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Mention of Mari?’

‘Yeah, well … She was my – my best friend.’

‘She was my
sister
.’

‘It … it doesn’t get any easier, does it? I keep thinking that maybe it is just time to move on, but …’ She sighed again. ‘It’s not fair. To meet someone, to share so much, to discover that you, that you both … and then she’s just gone.’

Dylan tried to hug her, but it felt awkward halfway through and ended up giving a pathetic half-hearted pat on the back. He was missing something. He knew it. When they parted though, he saw her watching the angel with suspicious eyes. And Ash was watching Clodagh in return.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The Darkest Path

I
zzy eyed the shallow water dubiously. The coloured mosaic tiles shimmered as if it was much deeper, reflecting light from other places and other times up into her face. The eeriness of the library at night was infecting her. Not a library really, more like a museum. Like so many things here – where ‘town’ was a city, where the hills were called mountains.

This was fae magic, she could sense that, but also something far older and wilder. Dangerous. Worse still, something in her responded, a thrill of excitement where there should surely be terror.

Reaper raised a hand, gesturing to them to step in.

‘Walk to the end.’ His voice was gentle, like melted chocolate. ‘Don’t look back.’

‘Wait,’ said Jinx and stepping in beside her. ‘You aren’t going to go through on your own.’

‘You’re the one they’re after,’ she said, grateful nonetheless for his hand in hers, the way they fitted together.

‘I think we both have that dubious honour. Together?’

They walked forward and the water rose like glass walls around them. Light and dark inverted for a moment and all those swirling colours merged to white, then broke apart to slide through the water like oil.

Izzy had the suicidal urge to throw herself in, even though she knew it was madness. But she still reached out to touch the water, hardly aware of her actions until Jinx said her name.

‘Izzy, don’t. Look.’

Her eyes adjusted to look past the wall of water. Merrows cut through the ocean beyond, sleek and beautiful as sharks, their scales glittering like rainbows, their long hair trailing after them. Lovely faces with lethal, hungry eyes.

Izzy shuddered and looked ahead again. Not back, never back. She wasn’t rescuing Jinx from Tartarus, or wherever Orpheus went to find Eurydice, but rules were rules especially when it came to the Sídhe and their old magic.

‘I can’t hear anyone following,’ she said.

‘I know.’ He sounded as worried as she did and now she knew why he’d come with her. If he hadn’t been right behind her, she couldn’t stop herself looking over her shoulder, to see if he was all right. She couldn’t have gone on without him. And a stumble or wrong turn here would be worse than fatal. She tightened her grip on his hand and his fingers responded. A blessed relief.

She couldn’t lose him. Not again. She wouldn’t be able to bear it. Focus, that was the key. She had to focus.

‘It’ll be okay,’ she whispered to herself. Jinx bent down to kiss the top of her head. She jerked up to look at him in astonishment, the unexpected and not unwelcome moment of intimacy surprising her. But he didn’t look happy, or even content. If anything, he looked at her with a longing that wouldn’t find fulfilment. ‘Do you know this place?’ she asked.

‘No. I’ve never been here. It was … it
is
forbidden.’

‘By Holly?’

‘And Silver. And Brí. By everyone.’

‘For good reason I expect.’

‘The best. Donn. He doesn’t like visitors.’

‘I hope… I hope this is worth it.’

‘Me too.’

‘I thought it was coming out of the land of the dead that was the problem,’ she said. ‘Not getting in.’

‘Getting in under circumstances where you
can
get out again, perhaps?’

She tried to lighten the mood. ‘It’s Samhain. The doors are open, isn’t that what they say?’ She failed; he just grunted and squeezed her hand. ‘You’re the optimist today.’ And failed.

He stiffened, staring ahead into the deepest shadows. ‘Such is my life. Do you hear that?’

Another sound, something behind them where there had been nothing. The darkness ahead transformed and light reflected up onto a stone ceiling, unnatural underwater light
filtering through from an endless ocean that couldn’t be there.

There was only herself and Jinx. And the sound behind that didn’t come from the sea. It sounded rhythmic, hollow, like… like hoof beats.

‘What is it?’ she asked, starting to turn her head, starting to …

Don’t look back
.

That’s what Reaper had said.
Don’t look back
. This was it. The test, the way in, the entry to the underworld.
Don’t look back
.

Even as she remembered, so did Jinx, his voice sharp and sudden. ‘Don’t look, Izzy.’

The sound of a huge horse thundering down on them filled the air. Izzy pulled Jinx forward, into a sprint and he came, off balance, twisting as he moved. Had he looked? Oh God, had he looked? She dragged him with her, all the time yelling at him, running through the stone chamber that stretched out before them, the dimensions suddenly impossible, like a dream when the destination kept moving away faster than she could reach it.

‘Don’t look back. Don’t look back, Jinx. Don’t—’

A sound like thunder boomed around them and the air turned from merely cold to arctic. Izzy tried to cry out, but her voice froze in her throat. She scrabbled for Jinx’s hand, tried to hold on to him, but it was torn from her grasp.

Everything went black.

The music swallowed him. Dylan felt the world twist and re-form around him. The lights came up and instead of the pool edge and the empty library, he stood on a stage in front of a screaming audience, cheering, crying his name. The guitar was oddly heavy in his hands, the strap tight against his neck. Sweat fell into his eyes and he blinked it away.

Exhaustion swept over him. How long had he been playing?

‘One more tune! One more tune!’ They chanted the words over and over.

‘Go on,’ said a familiar, teasing voice. ‘Play.’ He turned to see Marianne standing there beside him. She wore her uniform from the coffee shop, the clothes she had died in, but she didn’t look dead now. ‘What are you afraid of?’

‘This isn’t real, is it?’

She smiled then and faded away. Silver stood in her place wearing that glittering wisp of a dress that he’d first seen her in, her long hair like gossamer tumbling behind her.

‘You have to play, Dylan. Or every one of us is lost.’

His fingers slid painfully against the strings that, like razor wire, cut into his skin. ‘I can’t.’

‘Do it!’ She bared her teeth and he saw the monster behind the façade.

Dylan stumbled back and the music soared around him –
his music, a melody he had written that seemed to be part of him. But he wasn’t sure now. Maybe it was hers. Maybe it was all Silver.

‘You don’t own me,’ he told her.

Silver stalked towards him, eyes blazing, Holly’s child through and through. He could see the malice, the hunger. The screaming crowd got louder and louder, frenzied in their need for his songs. They’d tear him apart if they could lay hands on him.

‘Like Orpheus,’ said Silver. ‘That’s how he died. And you’ll go the same way. Won’t you?’

Orpheus … why would he think of Orpheus? The musician, the poet, the prophet who lost his wife and couldn’t bring her back from the underworld. The land of the dead …

‘You aren’t Silver.’

‘Silver’s gone. You think you know her, but you’re a fool. The Sídhe will tear you apart to get at the power inside you. Without Silver’s protection, you’re fair game.’

‘So what? I should just give up? I should let her do whatever she wants? I’m not a slave.’

‘You’re not even a slave. You’re a battery.’ The laugh didn’t sound anything like Silver’s laugh.

‘Who are you?’

The image wavered and changed until his own face looked back at him. Once more Dylan swung the guitar like a weapon and ran.

All Jinx knew was pain and darkness. The cell door opened and Holly stood over him, in his nightmares, in all he could remember. It was always Holly.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Jinx by Jasper.’

She shook her head and the lash descended, cutting his skin, tearing it open until he screamed.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Jinx by—’

She struck again and again. He was only a child, barely more than an infant. He remembered this, right from the start when she took him. He’d never known pain or misery. But Brí had cast him out, cursed him and now, in spite of Silver’s promise to look after him, he lived in darkness and pain.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Jinx,’ he gasped, unable at last to say the rest.

‘Jinx,’ she said. ‘How apt. A jinx indeed, to all who have known you. Come here.’

He had to crawl because he didn’t have the strength left to stand. She bent down and stroked his head, then grabbed him by the jaw, hauling him up for a moment before letting him drop back down in a heap at her feet.

‘Well, you’ll have to do. Bring the equipment. We have work to do. You.’ She pointed to Osprey. It was the first time Jinx
could recall seeing him – huge, towering over him, his feathered cloak fluttering, his hands impossibly strong. ‘Restrain him.’

‘Don’t fight, lad,’ he whispered in that soft, terrifying voice. But Jinx couldn’t help it. Osprey held him down on the stinking floor, in pools of blood and piss and who knew what. Some of the others gathered around them laughed, Osprey was silent and Jinx sobbed until he had no voice left. No one helped him.

Where was Silver? She had promised. She’d said she’d look after him, protect him. She’d
promised
. The promise of one of the Sídhe was meant to mean something, wasn’t it?

‘We need to get control of that wild magic in you before it leaks out,’ said Holly, brandishing a tattoo machine like a gun designed by Jules Verne on acid. Not that he’d known about Jules Verne then. Or acid. He’d been an innocent. He could see the indigo ink swirling around, mixing with silver. It would hurt, had hurt. He recalled the agony, because all this happened years ago. And it was happening again.

Every detail.

‘Please. Don’t, please.’

‘Are you begging, Jinx?’ She sounded amused.

Would it work? It never worked. But he couldn’t help it. ‘Yes. I’m begging.’ Maybe this time. Maybe this one time … ‘Please, Grandmother, please don’t.’

She stepped on his face, grinding him into the ground, the heel of her shoe perilously close to his eyes. Just a slip and
she’d blind him, intentionally or not. And she wouldn’t care.

‘No true grandchild of mine would beg. Now, hold still. This is going to hurt. A lot.’

He didn’t want to scream. He didn’t want to beg again. He didn’t want to be weak and plead.

But he did. He kept on screaming, pleading, begging and promising anything she wanted until he passed out.

That didn’t bring peace though. It was like waking to something else. The black horse with golden eyes was waiting for his pathetic and broken soul.

‘You aren’t a horse,’ said Jinx, gathering something of his own present self to guard himself.

It slid into the form of a hound effortlessly.

‘You aren’t Cú Sídhe either.’

It took on that long eared, hooved form that was almost human but not really. It would never be mistaken for human.

‘Neither are you,’ said the Púca. ‘Not entirely.’

He swallowed hard. ‘I’m… I’m Jinx.’

‘Yes.’ The Púca smiled. ‘Always. Until she has her way, and then you won’t even be that anymore. The angel gave her the idea I think, that she should move now, that she couldn’t wait anymore. She’d taken you, prepared you, moulded you and she nearly lost you to Sorath. It must have driven her wild.’