Lets Drink To The Dead (11 page)

The main building was probably another half-mile on up the path. Too far. He’d reach them by then.

Then she saw the paths just ahead leading off to the side. Left and right. Yes, she remembered now. To the right, the old chapel and graveyard. To the left, the Home Farm.

“This way,” she said, and turned left. From behind them came another hissing screech.

“What’s down here?” demanded Wesley.

“A place to hide.”

T
HE NIGHT WIND
flicked matted hair into Bronisław Stakowski’s eyes. He grunted. Tired. Wanted only to sleep.

But the ground he lay on was rough and uneven, and full of sharp things – pieces of coke and steel and stone, digging into him. And cold. So cold. His teeth chattered.

The night air found the big cut on his face, where a slash of the Shrike’s claws had laid it open to the bone. White pain sheared through him and with a gasp and a cry he rolled onto his back.

The Shrike.

He hurt. Dear god, he hurt all over. He was covered in cuts. The worst was on his face, but there were others. Smaller ones on his hands, even on his chest and ribs where the Shrike’s claws had cut through jumper, coat and shirt.

The Shrike.

The children.

Myfanwy.

It was coming back to him now. Bronisław tried to stand, but his legs collapsed under him. Shock, he knew. And he had lost blood. And his arm, back, shoulder all throbbed from where the shotgun stock had hit him. And then there had been the fall. He took breath and there was more pain. Ribs broken, perhaps. And there was the cold, gnawing its way into him like a host of tiny scavengers. And of course he was not young. Not now. Warsaw had been over forty years ago. He had been a boy. A child. That boy was long gone. All that was left was a man growing old, growing cold, losing blood, waiting to die.

He settled groundwards again.

Then stopped. His hands dug into the earth, fingers hooked, clenching. He forced strength into his arms, lifting his upper body from the ground. He fought to move his legs. He crawled.

There was Myfanwy; there were the children. But there was more than that.

Bronisław Stakowski had given his word.

He reached the bottom of the ramp, dragged himself up it.
Strength, give me strength
. He didn’t know who he asked; the god he’d long since abandoned all faith in, or himself. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
Give me strength. Strength to crawl and strength to stand. Strength to fight and strength to save. Strength to face the Shrike once more and not give in till he, till
it
, is dead
.

Blood glistened blackly on the station platform, drying tackily. Something else lay there too, dully glinting in the moonlight. The shotgun. He crawled towards it. The blood. Whose was it? His? The Shrike’s? Let it not be Myfanwy’s. No, nor any of the children’s, either.

His teeth chattered. He felt weak. Cold sweat bathed him. The crawl down the platform seemed to take forever. But at last he was there. And his hand closed around the gun-stock.

Bronisław clutched at the stonework of the ruined station house. He found a handhold, steadied himself, and slowly he managed to stand.

The blood on the platform – he looked at the path leading up the hill and saw blood on that too. The Shrike. Yes. The Shrike was wounded. The Shrike also knew pain. And whatever bled could also die.

Bronisław limped towards the wrought-iron gates, fell against them, clutching the cold railings for support. A hissing screech sounded in the night. He looked up the moonlit path to see a hopping figure, bald head a-shining, veer left off the path and out of sight.

There.

Bronisław Stakowski dug two cartridges from his coat pocket,slotted them into the gun, then pushed himself away from the gates, swaying but upright, and followed the Shrike’s bloody trail.

11

T
HE TREE BRANCHES
met overhead, turning the path to the Home Farm into a dark tunnel lit only by the beam of Myfanwy’s torch.

“Where we going?” asked Wesley. He was carrying Tammy now, and watching Myfanwy closely. Good children, both of them. But even if they hadn’t been, they wouldn’t deserve the Shrike.

“The Home Farm,” Myfanwy said. She fought for breath.
Don’t go having a heart attack, woman, not now for God’s sake.

“What’s there?”

“Old farmhouse. A barn. A watermill. Things like that. Place we can hide. Maybe something we can fight with.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, love. Pitchfork, maybe. A scythe.”

“You couldn’t stop him with a shotgun.”

“We hurt him,” she said, voice coming out harder than she’d meant. She saw Wesley flinch from it. Mentioning the shotgun had made her think of Bron, and it was probably best she didn’t, not just now. “We hurt him. And if he can be hurt–”

The hissing screech sounded behind them.

“–if he can be hurt, he can be killed,” she said, willing it to be so. “Remember that.”

“Myfanwy,” said Wesley, pointing. A glance into the trees showed her what he saw; shapes stood among the trees, some in military uniforms, others in hospital smocks.

“It’s alright,” she said. The torch’s beam played across a uniformed chest; it appeared as solid as a living man’s. She kept the beam away from their faces; she knew what she’d see. “They’re ghosts. They can’t hurt you. I doubt they’d want to if they could. Come on.”

Tammy’s face was buried in Wesley’s shoulder. Wesley himself looked quite pale. So, they could see them too. Were they both touched with the Sight as well? Or was it because they were with her? Perhaps at Ash Fell the skin between the worlds was worn so thin the dead could reveal themselves to whoever they chose. “Children,” she said, “come along. We’ve got to go.”

From behind them came a hissing screech and a roar of rage.

T
HEY REACHED THE
farm a few minutes later. The woods were encroaching onto its lands, but the ground was still open enough for the moonlight to fill it. Derelict and roofless, the farmhouse was little better than an empty shell. One of the ceilings had fallen in; the other remained, but the beams were exposed and rotten. The barn was little better off. An empty silo loomed over the site. From nearby she heard the brittle chuckle of running water. The mill.

“This way,” she said.

“
Myfanwy
?” The Shrike’s thin, cold voice had a crazed, mocking note to it as it echoed up the path. “I’m coming to
find
you, Myfanwy. You and the
children
. You and my
food
. You will be very, very sorry that you crossed me, Myfanwy.”

“Give it a rest,” she muttered; then, to the children, “Come on.”

The stream babbled down the side of the hill. She knew they were getting close; the temperature dropped as they neared the water. The mill’s pale stone flank loomed out of the dark. Cracks snaked across it, through the stone. The door and windows gaped black and empty.

“Inside,” she gasped.

A dead end, perhaps, but they couldn’t run forever. And perhaps – just perhaps – they’d find a weapon here.

Inside it was dank. She shone the torch around. Silt was caked on the floor, knotted with dead grass. The stream must have flooded the mill at some point. Here was the big central column, plugging into the wheels that turned and ground the stone. Balls of cobweb. The wood looked damp and rotten. Dear God, the whole place was ready to come down.

“Where are we?” Wesley whispered. Tammy sniffled and sobbed; he shushed her gently.

“Ash Fell, my love. Used to be a hospital, of sorts.”

“What kind? A loony bin?”

Myfanwy looked down, stroked Tammy’s hair. “Partly. It was for soldiers, from the First World War. Some of them – some of them had gone mad from the things they’d seen. Some of them weren’t mad, but they were... they were terribly wounded. Their faces.”

“That’s what wesaw back there, wasn’t it?” said Wesley. He looked almost calm. Old beyond his years, this boy was. She was glad he was here.

“Yes. Some very bad things happened in this place. The way the people here were treated–” She broke off. “It’s not important right now. But they used to have their own farm, and that’s where we are now.”

“Now what?”

Something gleamed in the beam of her torch. She looked more closely. Yes – an old oil-lamp, hanging from the ceiling. She reached out, hefted it, shook it from side to side. Liquid sloshed within it.

“Fire,” she whispered.
Fire purifies,
Yolly had said.
Sometimes you have to burn the badness out.

“What?”

“Fire,” she said. “It’s the one thing, isn’t it? Supposed to kill all evil things.” She handed the lamp to Wesley. “If we can burn him, it, whatever it is... see if there’s another in here.”

“Myfanwy!” came the call. She spun. Moonlight lapped across the farmyard. A figure limped over the cobbles, moonlight gleaming on its bald head. His leg was restored; it looked a little thin and he dragged it slightly, but it was restored.

“I can smell you.” The Shrike limped towards the door. Wesley moved to the side, lamp held ready. Myfanwy fumbled in her pocket, trying to find her lighter.

The Shrike stood in the doorway. “You did your best,” he said, “but it was worthless.”

His hands had shrunk back to resemble normal, human hands, white and soft and smooth and innocent of work. Apart from the limp, he showed no sign of any injury. Only his clothes had suffered: his shirt was a tattered, bloody rag, one leg of his trousers ended at the knee and his glasses were broken. But his face was healed and his chest was hairless.

But fire. Fire purified.

The Shrike stepped through the door, pivoted as Wesley raised the safety lamp to throw. He caught the boy by the throat with one hand and flung him at Myfanwy. She stepped aside just in time. Wesley hit the ground with a grunt; the lamp rolled away, past the Shrike, towards the doorway.

Tammy screamed. Myfanwy pushed the child behind her, reached out towards Wesley, who scrambled towards her. The Shrike laughed and started forwards. He raised his white hands to point them at her face; then, with a wet crackling sound like the leg being wrenched from a roast chicken, their fat pulpy whiteness began to unfold and those segmented, needle-tipped digits reached towards her face.

An explosion; the Shrike’s face jerked and twisted. There was pain and there was horrid surprise. And then his legs collapsed and he pitched to the floor at Myfanwy’s feet.

Bronisław slumped against the doorframe, the shotgun cradled in his hands. His coat was in tatters, his face was badly cut, open to the bone in one place, but the gun didn’t waver. “Bastard,” he said.

Tammy screamed again as the Shrike thrashed on the ground, fingers raking across it to snatch at their feet. Bronisław stumbled into the room and shot the writhing shape again in the head.

12

T
HE
S
HRIKE SCREECHED
, twisted round on the floor. His legs didn’t move; Bronislaw’s first blast must have shattered his spine. But he’d been shot in the head and still lived. The noises that came out of him weren’t words. They weren’t really even human. But then of course, Myfanwy thought, he wasn’t.

He couldn’t die, of course, that was it; not by the gun, anyway. He could be damaged though; the loss of his leg had hampered him. The shattered spine would heal too but not yet; he was weakened at last, maybe not helpless but close to it for just a few minutes. She gripped Wesley’s arm. “Quickly,” she said.

They skirted the Shrike; he snatched at them again.

Bronisław, weaving and dazed, was trying to reload.

“Don’t waste your time,” said Myfanwy, picking up the lamp. “We can’t kill him. He isn’t human. Just something using a human body. That’s all he is. All we can do is send him back where he came from – destroy the body, before it heals again.”

Myfanwy took the lamp in one hand and her cigarette lighter in the other.

“Get the children out,” she said.

Bronisław opened his mouth to protest.

“You’re in no state, Bron. And if one of us has to go, I’m the old one. Go on.”

“I’m staying,” said Wesley.

“Go,” said Myfanwy. “Now.” She glanced at the crippled, thrashing shape on the floor. “Before he heals up again.”

Bronisław put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Come on, boy.”

Wesley picked up Tammy, looked at Myfanwy one last time, and then he turned and ran out.

Bronisław looked at her.

“Go,” she said. “One way or the other, I’ll see you soon.”

Bronisław limped back out into the dark.

“Myfanwy.”

She spun round.

The Shrike had twisted round towards her; his body was bent almost into a U shape, legs trailing limp and motionless behind him. His white hands crouched beside him on the floor like huge white crabs or spiders. Blood covered his face but the wounds were almost healed. Even though he was still crippled. Unless he was faking. Unless it was a trick. She couldn’t dismiss that. He was cunning, this one. A predator.

An involuntary shudder ran through the Shrike; his head jerked and his shoulders twitched; his fingers twitched too, and their points scratched along the mill’s rotten floor. He spat blood out through his teeth. “Myfanwy,” he said again, and his fingerpoints dug into the ground. His shoulders hunched and he dragged himself forward, leaving a red, shiny trail behind him.

“Get back,” said Myfanwy, and lifted the lantern.

“Or you’ll kill me?” The Shrike tried to cock his head, but the twitch ran through him again. “But you plan to anyway, surely. So what have I got to lose?”

Myfanwy moved a step backwards. The Shrike grinned and let out a giggling hiss; bloody spittle bubbled through the grid of his white teeth. His fingers flexed and dug into the floor again; Myfanwy hefted the lamp again and his fingers relaxed.

“This does not have to happen,” the Shrike said. “Sincerely. We can go our separate ways.”

Myfanwy fumbled with the lamp’s glass, trying to prise it free.