It will be hard to get to the Hunter quietly. She’s in a good spot, not easy to attack from behind, but that’s what I have to do. I know I can beat her in a fight but the problem is getting close to her before she raises an alarm. I really don’t want her turning round and shooting me.
I set off, keeping my eyes on the black figure . . . it’s like a child’s game. I’m in plain sight if she turns round—let’s face it, I’m dead if she turns round—but her job is to watch the house and if I’m silent she won’t turn. So, slowly down the valley side, hardly breathing, keeping my eyes on the ground now to find my next foothold and—she shifts on her stomach, readjusts her binoculars—the loose, sandy ground slides away under my left foot but quietly. I take one more step to the floor of the valley. Now I keep my eyes on the Hunter, two meters above me. My knife is ready in my left hand.
I take two swift, large strides forward, grab her ankle with my right hand, and yank her down. She’s good—she yelps and twists and kicks me but already I have the knife in her throat. The blood spurts over my hand. The glints in her eyes go out. I’m surprised how quick that happened.
My ribs hurt. I think she broke one with her kick. I heal, get the buzz, and I’m still holding her body, still holding the knife in her throat. I pull it out, my hand shaking a little as I wipe the knife clean on the Hunter’s shirt. She has a radio and earpiece. I take them, my hand shaking again as I touch the Hunter’s skin. I try the earpiece but I can’t bear it hissing in my head. That’s why I could sense them from so far away—not just their mobiles but the radios too.
I get her binoculars and move up to where she’d been watching from. The binoculars are great. I can see Pilot’s house and the patio and the vines; I can see part of Gabriel’s head but not Pilot’s. The binoculars do their job but the vines do theirs as well. The Hunters don’t know that Nesbitt and I left there, if they even knew we arrived.
I scan the hillside for the Hunter’s partner and for Nesbitt. Way over the other side of the hill I can make out a black figure, a Hunter, then further up again I see another dark figure. Nesbitt? No! Another Hunter. Then further again another figure. Another Hunter. Shit! And I’ve no idea where Nesbitt is.
The alarm would have been raised if he’d been caught, though, so . . .
Then I spot him. He’s doing what I’ve just done, approaching the Hunter across from me from behind. Which is fine but I have a feeling that Nesbitt doesn’t know about the other two further up the slope and I think they will be able to see him. Shit!
I slide down into the valley to the body of the Hunter and grab her gun. I’d rather not use it but if I have to I will. Then I run uphill, keeping to the dry valley bottom, being as careful as I can to keep the sounds down but speed is more important.
I go three hundred meters; I reckon that’s enough. Then I’m up to the side of the valley on my stomach and scanning through the binoculars. Nesbitt is way below and across from me, kneeling over the Hunter, who looks pretty dead. But the Hunter furthest from me is shuffling back and must be able to see Nesbitt. The Hunter nearest me is still but not relaxed, looking back to where my dead Hunter is. They know we’re here now. They’ve seen Nesbitt and radioed each other and are now wondering why Hunter number one isn’t responding.
I have to get to the Hunter nearest to me quickly and hope Nesbitt can deal with the other one.
My Hunter is a hundred meters below me and to my left. I reckon silence isn’t an issue anymore, so I get as near as I can as quick as I can as quiet as I can. I point my gun at the Hunter but I know I’m not a good enough shot unless I’m close up. I’m almost on her when she hears me and turns. I shoot and get her leg. She rolls away and shoots, and I’m amazed that she’s missed me. I shoot again, emptying the gun as I run at her, and then my knife is in her stomach and I’m pulling it up, out, and stabbing it into her neck. The sparkles in her eyes last and last, silver and brown. I glance at my hand, her blood covering it. When I look back at her eyes there are no sparkles and I turn quickly away.
The side of my head stings. Blood is pouring out. Her bullet didn’t miss but grazed my skull. I heal again as I put the binoculars back up to my eyes.
Nesbitt is by his dead Hunter, picking up her gun, then turning to look toward me.
I scan uphill and see the last Hunter. She looks from me to Nesbitt and gets her mobile out. She’s contacting base. The place will be swarming with Hunters in no time if she does.
I’m off toward her. Shouting at Nesbitt, “Shoot her!”
Nesbitt shoots. Lots. I thought he’d be better than he is.
The Hunter’s squatted down and is on the phone and then shooting back at Nesbitt and I’m almost on her. But she’s made the call now. I’m running fast toward her. She turns and shoots at me but misses badly. She’s spooked. Nesbitt shoots at her but the Hunter is off, running down the slope toward Pilot’s house. She’s fast but I think I can reach her before she gets there. I’m lurching down the slope but the slope is helping the Hunter too and she reaches the patio and she’s shooting everything. Everything. It’s like some Hollywood movie gone mad.
I reach her but she’s pulling at the vines and falling backward toward me to the ground. Backward, black shiny hair in a ponytail moving toward me, her hand still gripping the vines, though I know from her body that she’s already dead.
She lands on the ground. Her face is blank. There’s a bullet hole, small, deep and perfectly round, in her forehead.
And Gabriel is kneeling there, his gun pointing at me. His arm straight. His face blank too.
“It’s me,” I shout, holding out my arms just in case.
Nesbitt skids to a halt beside me, saying, “And me.” Then he says, “Shit!”
Pilot is lying on the floor, slumped sideways. The little girl is kneeling beside her, holding her hand. There are two red stains on Pilot’s body, one on her shoulder and one on her stomach.
Gabriel leans over Pilot, feeling for a pulse. “She’s still alive.”
I tell him, “There were four Hunters watching the house. They’ve phoned in, contacted base or whatever they do. We have to go.”
“There might be more at the car. They may have got Van.”
Nesbitt says, “I’ll check. If I’m not back with the car in two minutes you’ll know there’s trouble.” And he’s gone.
Gabriel crouches down to the level of the girl and speaks to her slowly and quietly in French. She doesn’t say anything and is still holding Pilot’s hand. Gabriel asks her something. She nods. He takes Pilot’s hand from her and she runs inside the house.
I go to the side of the house and climb onto a low wall from where I can see down the road, and I hear the engine before I see our 4x4 reversing at high speed toward us. Van and Nesbitt are inside.
I go back to Gabriel. “Nesbitt’s here.” There’s a screech of car tires at the other side of the house to confirm it.
Gabriel picks up Pilot and she screams.
Gabriel says, “I told the girl to get whatever she needs. We’re going in one minute.”
And he carries Pilot round the side of the house.
Ten seconds later the girl appears, wearing clumpy boots and carrying a small, pale pink rucksack that looks like it’s going to burst open. I go to her and grab her hand. But she snatches it away and runs round the corner of the house to the car.
On the Road
We’re in the 4x4, hurtling along a track, probably away fast enough but no one dares say it yet. The way Nesbitt has been driving we’re more likely to be killed in a car crash than by Hunters’ bullets.
Gabriel and I are sitting in the back of the car. Pilot is laid out across us, her bare feet on my lap. Surprisingly they smell of peppermint. But the main smell in the car is fear. The air is heavy with it. We’ve been driving for three hours and hardly spoken: every minute further away feels like we really have escaped. I can see
the side of Van’s face and her jaw is more relaxed now but even she was scared. Van has given Pilot a potion to take the pain away and thankfully she’s been asleep since she took it. Up to then her screams were getting to me, getting to us all, I think.
I turn to Gabriel. He’s holding a cloth over Pilot’s stomach. The cloth is all blood now. Pilot looks like she won’t survive another minute but she looked like that half an hour ago. Two Hunter bullets are still in her. Van took one look at the wounds and said she couldn’t remove the bullet in Pilot’s stomach and, the way she said it, I knew that was it. There was nothing we could do. It would just be a matter of time before Pilot would die.
The girl is kneeling in the footwell by Gabriel’s legs, smoothing back Pilot’s hair and whispering to her.
Gabriel asks me, “You OK?”
I don’t know. I say yes and turn away to stare out the window.
“Well, I’m not,” Nesbitt says. “I’m desperate for a piss.”
The car comes to a sliding stop. We’re in low hills, farmland. Who knows where. Nesbitt switches the engine off and gets out. The rest of us sit in silence, letting the dust settle.
Nesbitt stands by the car and pees. “Boy, do I need this.”
Van asks Gabriel, “How’s Pilot’s pulse?”
“Faint. Slow.”
“She has strong healing powers but the poison from the bullets will eventually overpower everything.”
Nesbitt leans back into the car and says, “So, Gabby? Did Pilot tell you anything before she got shot? You were talking long enough.”
“Yes, but I learned little. At first she said that she didn’t know where Mercury’s home was but I was sure she did. I flattered her as much as I could, telling her that she was unique in knowing Mercury so well, but of course I imagined few people had ever actually been invited to her house. Still she wouldn’t say anything. I said it was strange that, above everyone, Mercury trusted Rose, a White Witch by birth, as the one person to be granted access to her home. That did it. Pilot couldn’t resist saying that she’d been invited too and had gone to Mercury’s home several times. It was she who ‘introduced’ Rose to Mercury years ago. She took Rose there herself.
“But she said that she was honor-bound as a true Black Witch and friend of Mercury to reveal nothing about it. Mercury wanted her home to be secret.”
Van says, “So are you telling us that she didn’t reveal where it is?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“All that for nothing!” Nesbitt kicks the side of the car.
Gabriel goes on. “I said that perhaps Mercury had abandoned her home now, with the Hunters close on her tail. That perhaps they’d found its location. Pilot laughed at that and said it would never be found. She said that she was planning on taking the girl there as a replacement for Rose.” Gabriel glances down at the girl sitting by his feet.
Van says, “I don’t suppose she would have told the girl where Mercury lives?”
“Pilot insisted that only she knew and that she would never tell anyone. She also said that she was safe in that village. That there had been no Hunters anywhere near it. I think they must have arrived around the same time as us. Which makes me think that either Isch told the Hunters where we were going or they followed us from Barcelona.”
“They didn’t follow us or I’d be dead too,” Van says. “They would have seen the 4x4. And Isch would not have told them voluntarily or quickly. Perhaps one of her girls?” She looks at Nesbitt. He nods.
“So Isch is dead or captured by Hunters. If captured she’ll tell them about your meeting with Celia and that I was there,” I say.
“I think that’s a fair assumption.”
Nesbitt curses and walks round the car and kicks it again.
The girl shifts now and Gabriel says something to her in French. She answers in French.
“Pers?” Van smiles at the little girl. “Her name is Pers?”
“Yes,” Gabriel replies.
There’s more talk. Van joins in, speaking French too, and then, to top it off, Nesbitt reappears at the driver’s door and joins in.
The girl speaks again and looks at me and I’d like to say something to her but even in English I can’t think of the right words, about Pilot and how I’m sorry and I don’t know what will happen to her now and life’s pretty shit all round but maybe Van will look after you although really she’s not a great surrogate mother and Nesbitt would make an interesting father figure but anyway it’s better than being a slave to Mercury.
And then I see her eyes aren’t looking for anything from me. And she starts shouting. I don’t know French but I’m guessing she’s cursing. Her face is close to mine and I’m shrinking right back against the car door and she spits in my face. Gabriel has his arms round her, holding her away from me, saying things in her ear, but I don’t think it’s helping much as she kicks me and Gabriel has to wrap one of his legs over hers to keep her still. I open the door and fall out. I get up, wiping the spit off my face, looking at the tangled coil of arms and legs and hair.
“What was that about?”
“She don’t like mongs much to start with but she seems to blame you for the Hunter attack.”
Van has got out of the jeep and walked round to join us. She takes out a cigarette and Nesbitt lights it. Then Van holds the case out toward Gabriel. Pers shouts something and kicks again, and I realize Van was offering the cigarette to her. Van turns to Nesbitt, saying, “Highly spirited.” And she drags on the cigarette, swallowing the smoke. She says to Gabriel, “Find out what you can about her.”
Gabriel talks to Pers and she speaks to him in a more polite voice. Van listens and translates for me. “Her parents are dead, her father years ago, her mother recently, by Hunters; she escaped. Isch took her in and told her she’d grow up to be a great witch. Pilot was going to take her to Mercury. She’s ten, so she says.”
Van comments, “I’m not sure Mercury would have been that impressed: she’s a nasty little thing. But she might prove useful. If Mercury is looking for an apprentice Pers might be our way in.”
“We have to find Mercury first.”
“Yes, that is becoming a tiresome problem.” Van draws heavily on her cigarette again. “Gabriel, you have asked Pers if she knows where Mercury’s home is, haven’t you?”
“Yes. She says she doesn’t know. I believe her.”
Van drops the cigarette to the ground and looks at it. “Yes, I do too. Which means the only way to find out is to get Pilot to tell us.”
“A potion?” I ask.
“Yes, but it’s not that simple. A truth potion would be best but they take time to make and need to be adapted to the person, and they work so much better if the person is weak-willed and healthy. Here we have a skinny, dying patient with a strong will. Much trickier.”
“So?”
“The other option is a potion to access her memory of the place, go where she went, see what she saw.”
“A vision of it?”
“Yes. I can make a potion with something from Pilot and something that belonged to Mercury.” She looks not very hopefully at Gabriel. “I don’t suppose you have anything?”
“I have a hairpin, which I got off Rose. Mercury made them and gave them to her.”
Gabriel shows it to Van, who shakes her head. “It’s magical. If I use that it will interfere with the potion’s magic.”
“There’s no other option. We have to try the truth potion,” I say.
“There isn’t enough time,” Van insists. “She’ll sleep for a couple of hours with the drug I’ve given her. I’ll talk to her when she wakes. Maybe her situation will help change her mind. But for now we’re all tired. We’ll rest until then.”
“We staying here?” Nesbitt says, looking around at the vast nothingness.
“Yes,” Van replies. “This will be Pilot
’s final resting place.”
The Map
It’s getting dark and I wander off into a field and lie on the bare earth and close my eyes. My brain is mush.
I think of Annalise as I fall asleep. I’m walking with her by a river, through a meadow, blue sky overhead. We lie on the ground together and the birds call to each other. The breeze ruffles my shirt, the sun warm on my face. I roll onto my side. Annalise is looking up at the sky; her skin is glowing, flushed with the sun, and she’s talking, moving her lips, but I’m not paying attention, I’m just thinking how I like looking at her. I blow in her ear, expecting her to smile, but she doesn’t; she keeps on talking. So I lean over her and kiss her but she doesn’t kiss me back and so I move to be over her, to look into her eyes. Her eyes are the same blue as ever but they’re not focused on me: they’re focused on nothing and the silver glints are still. Frozen. And I seem to fly up and be unable to touch her. She’s lying on the ground, her lips moving, but she’s not talking at all; she’s gasping for air, taking her last breaths. I fly further from her and see she’s on the ground by the cottage and Mercury is standing over her and the gale is holding me back and I’m shouting at Mercury. And I wake and sit up.
Gabriel is with me. “What happened? You were shouting.”
“I’m OK. I’m OK. I have something of Mercury’s.”
* * *
Van is grinning. “It’s perfect.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.” She’s holding the piece of paper that Mercury gave me. The piece of paper she drew a map on so I could find the house that Clay was using as a base.
The folded piece of paper has been in my pocket for months: flattened, soaked and worn, so that it’s rounded at the edges and there’s a hole in the middle. But it is from Mercury—it used to belong to her. Even better, it has Mercury’s handwriting on it, which is still visible, and, most importantly according to Van, Mercury gave it to me—it’s not a thing stolen but a gift.