Epilogue
The hotel was dingy, unassuming, hidden away in a run-down corner of a sooty Midlands town. They had been holed up there for three days, since the frantic drive down from Little Moor.
Emma Manden was beginning to wonder whether she’d done the right thing. Owen was imbecilic, Lily forever weeping about her cats, while Daniel seemed to want to live inside his own head — not that she could blame him. As for the other one, Emma was wary of approaching him. This was not the man she’d met in Little Moor. He was aloof, broken, terse and melancholic; a stranger. It was like going out into the back yard and finding an angel, fallen from heaven, flapping around in the dust with broken wings, too big and too alien to help, too beautiful to ignore and allow to die. He had shut himself away from the others, making it clear he had no desire to communicate. Emma wondered whether he was actually eating anything. Still, she knew she had to talk to him at some point. What, for example, were they going to do next? Where must they go? There had been pursuit, they all knew that, and to use any of their credit cards might prove dangerous, a means by which they could be traced. And cash was short.
She went to him in his room, and there he was, filling it with his presence, uncomfortable and confined. ‘What do I call you?’ she asked.
He was lying on the bed, half-dressed, apparently doing nothing. He shrugged. ‘I don’t care. What do you want?’
She explained, adding, ‘You must help me. I need to make plans. Where can we go?’
He rubbed his face. ‘There are places. London. We’ll go to London. I know people there.’
‘Right. Thank you. That’s all I needed to know. I’ll get the others organised, then.’ She made to leave, then paused at the door. ‘We have to carry on, you know. And you have to help me. The kids are a mess. I can’t cope with it alone. After all, you are responsible.’
He frowned. ‘No, I’m not. It’s something I’ve inherited.’
Emma sighed and left the room. She felt like the keeper of a mad menagerie.
They left the town in the late afternoon, hidden among the bustle of rush hour traffic, the darkness of the day occluded by smog and rushing lights. Daniel sat in the front with Emma as before. He seemed tired, but slightly more alert than he’d been over the past few days. Lily slept in the back, while Owen lay slumped with his head against one of the back windows, staring out at the dark. Shemyaza sat between them, apparently oblivious of their presence.
Halfway down the M1, he instructed Emma to pull off the motorway and drive into the country. She didn’t question why. Perhaps they were going to make an overnight stop on their way south. She would leave that decision to him.
They came to a hill at the side of the road, perhaps an ancient earthworks of some kind. Here, Shemyaza asked Emma to stop the car. She did so, and watched as he got out. Now what? He climbed over the fence and began to walk up the hill. Emma sighed. ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
Daniel, sensing her mood, lit her a cigarette. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘He’s got a lot to think about.’
Shemyaza walked up towards the stars. At the brow of the hill, he paused, looking skywards, then sank to his knees. The air was cold around him, burrowing between the layers of his clothes, pinching his skin. He felt so numb and yet so raw. He could smell the fertile earth and the clear-water perfume of the sky. The marriage of Heaven and Earth. Hadn’t that been what he’d always wanted? But that had been a long time ago, so long that it could hardly be important now. Ishtahar had spoken of destinies, of approaching conclusions. Shemyaza wanted none of that. He wanted to rest, seek respite with those whom he loved, live a normal life. It had been an accident he’d become something different. Now, he was faced with the end product of his illicit affair with the human woman: Lily and Owen, the hybrid hybrids. Without him, and his acts of lust, they would not exist. He was responsible for them, but he did not want to be. Neither did he want to admit that he could serve some special purpose in this chaotic, messy world, and bring about important change. He was too tired, too hurt. It was difficult to care what happened here.
He raised his head to the sky, seeking out the constellation where some part of him had hung in exile. ‘I don’t want this,’ he whispered, and repeated it until it became a shout. ‘I don’t want this!’ If he sought to penetrate the psychic gate symbolised by Orion, reach the senses of the Renowned Old Ones, his words were unanswered. He could feel no hint of their presence, or any other, save his own.
The others were waiting for him. He must go back. And perhaps, one day, as he struggled towards the destiny he neither wanted nor cared about, one or more of them would betray him, and he would be hung and burned once more. Now, they were hungry for him, and wanted him to lead them. But if he couldn’t give them enough, they might turn and snarl and bite. He knew enough of human nature to understand that was not inconceivable. But he realised he did have a choice.
With a final, weary glance at the sky, Shemyaza gathered his strengths and walked back down the hill to the waiting car, lit from within by a dim, yellow glow. He knew now that he would deny his destiny. No-one could make him become something he did not want to be. Let the end of the millennium pass unnoticed. He would hide from it. He had not asked to be awakened.
Emma Manden watched Shemyaza come back towards the car. ‘Look at him,’ she thought, ‘Great Shem, look at him.’ And he was Great Shem. She knew that, but she had a feeling he didn’t.
Storm Constantine, Stalking Tender Prey
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