“I’m not complaining, I’m stating a fact. Just cos I can heal doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt!”
“I didn’t think you’d be so soft.”
“Me? Soft?”
“Yep.” He’s kneeling beside me now and pokes me in the chest with his finger. “Soft!”
I’ve healed my rib and I grab his hand, twist and throw him to the ground so that I’m on top of him.
I poke his chest. “I’m not soft.”
“You are but don’t worry about it. It’s one of the things I like about you.”
I swear at him as I get up. I hold my hand out to him and he takes it and I pull him up.
We descend into the woods again, cross a stream, and ascend a steep, wooded mountainside, so steep that we have to use our hands to scramble up. Despite the slope the trees are tall, each with a hockey-stick curve at the base where it emerges from the ground. We arrive at a small area of scree below the wide, open mouth of a cave. The cave isn’t deep, only four or five meters and the same in width, but it’s dry and I could sleep in it, I think, without getting sick.
The smell is that forest smell: decay and life.
Gabriel says, “I thought, if anything happens . . . goes wrong, this is where we should meet.”
“What are you expecting to go wrong?”
“I’m not sure but Hunters are after you; Mercury is dangerous and unpredictable.” He hesitates, then adds: “You’re a little dangerous and unpredictable too.”
He’s right, of course.
He takes a tin out of his small rucksack, saying, “I’ll leave my things here.” He’s told me that the tin contains mementoes: love letters that his father sent to his mother, as well as the item Gabriel would have given to Mercury if she was to succeed in turning him from a fain back into a witch. I still don’t know what that is. I won’t ask. If he wants to tell me he will. He puts the tin in a corner of the cave and then fishes something else out of the rucksack.
He holds the package out to me.
“It’s for you . . . I thought you’d like it.”
I’m not sure what to do.
He says, “Take it. It’s a present.”
I can tell from Gabriel’s voice, the way he hesitates, his hand not as steady as normal, that he wants me to like it. I want to like it, for him.
The package is long and flat. From the weight of it, it could be a book but I know it isn’t—that would be too hard for me to like. It’s wrapped in the bag from the shop, pale green with some writing on it, folded over at the top and crumpled from being in his rucksack. The paper of the bag is thick and waxy.
I squat down and gently open one end. Inside is tissue paper: white, thickly folded, new, not wrinkled. I carefully pull the package out and let the bag go. It seems to float to the ground. Everything seems special. The gift has a certain weight on my palm, a balance and a thickness.
“When was the last time you were given a present?” he asks, joking, nervous.
I don’t know. A long time ago.
I place the package before me on the needle-thick ground, bright white on green and brown.
I unfold the tissue paper carefully.
As slow as I can.
As gentle as I can.
Still one fold to go.
“You’d better like it after all this.”
I like it already. And I wait, enjoying the tissue on the ground, the almost-unwrapped present.
I lift back the tissue with my fingertips. The knife lies there, black on the white paper. The handle is covered in fine black leather. The blade is protected by a thick leather sheath. There’s a clasp to attach it to my belt. The knife handle fits my hand well, not too big or too small. Not too heavy or too light. The blade slides out of its protective cover smoothly. It’s a bowie knife, the blade dramatically curved. The poor light from the sky catches on the metal and reflects into the forest.
I look up at Gabriel. He’s trying to smile.
“I like it.”
I never apologized about his eye.
* * *
I’ve finished the carving of the knife. I would love Gabriel to see it but I know that will never happen. I stand and look back toward the cottage and I want to scream with frustration at the unfairness of it all. No one can ever be a friend to me like Gabriel was, and he’s been taken from me, like they take everything, and I want to kill Kieran and all of them. But I know if I kill Kieran now the Hunters will be after me again and they might catch me, and then there’d be no one to help Annalise. For her sake, I have to be cautious.
I make my way back to the cave.
It’s dark and I’m almost there, approaching it from along the hillside, when I see a flickering flame. A small campfire.
Could it be . . . ?
I stop. Then move ahead. Slowly. Silently. Staying hidden in the trees.
The fire is in the cave mouth. There’s a small ring of stones with burning branches inside and a coffeepot standing on one of the stones.
But who made the fire? It can’t be Gabriel, can it? Maybe hikers? Not Hunters, surely? They wouldn’t have a fire or a coffeepot. There’s no buzzing, no mobile phones. Not fains. Probably not Hunters either.
Could it be Gabriel?
He loves coffee.
A movement in the cave. A man’s dark shape.
Gabriel?
But this silhouette looks shorter, stockier.
It can’t be a Hunter, can it? There’s no buzzing and there’d be two of them—or twenty . . .
Shit! Who is it?
The man comes out past the fire. He looks toward me. It’s dark. I’m standing well back in the trees. I know he can’t see me.
“Bloody hell, mate,” he says. His accent is Australian.
I wonder if there are two of them and he’s talking to a friend who’s still in the cave.
But he walks slowly toward me . . . Hesitantly, but straight toward me.
I’m frozen, not breathing.
He comes a step closer. Then another. And stares at me. He’s four or five meters away, a silhouette against the glow from the fire. I can’t see his face but I can tell that he isn’t Gabriel.
“Bloody hell,” he says again. “I thought you were dead.”
He’s definitely talking to me. He must be able to see in the dark. I don’t move, just stare back.
Then, sounding more nervous, he asks, “You’re not dead, are you?”
Nesbitt
My knife is already in my hand as I step toward the man, grabbing his jacket, using my momentum to push him to the ground and kneeling on his chest, the blade at his throat.
“OK, mate, OK,” he says. He sounds more irritated than afraid.
“Shut up!” I snap.
The blade of my knife is pushing down on his neck but only the flat of it so it won’t cut. I scan around to see if he’s alone. I think he is but he could have a friend. I see nothing but the dark shapes of trees, the fire, and the coffeepot.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” I demand.
“Don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I just like being in the great outdoors?”
“Don’t suppose you’d mind me cutting your tongue out if you can’t tell the truth?”
“Crikey, mate. Just having a little joke, a bit of banter.”
I push the knife into his neck so blood dribbles out. “I can cut it out from here, I think.”
“Nesbitt—the name’s Nesbitt. And you’re Nathan, aren’t you?”
I can’t decide if confirming this would make any difference but I don’t think it’ll help so I say, “What are you doing here, Nesbitt?”
“The boss sent me.”
“Sent you to do what?”
“Run an errand.”
“And the errand is . . . ?”
“A private matter.”
“A private matter that you’re willing to fail to carry out because you’ll have your tongue cut out, your innards made outtards, your—”
He flips his body, jerks my arm away, and grabs me. He’s bigger than me, much heavier, and strong too, but I break his hold and roll from him to my feet. He’s on his feet too now: he’s faster than he looks.
He says, “You’re quick.”
“You’d be quicker if you got into shape.”
He frowns. “Not so bad for my age.” He slaps his belly. “And you’re not so bad for a dead kid.”
I stand more upright, feigning relaxation. “Where did you hear I’d died?”
He grins. “I didn’t hear you’d died. I saw you.”
“You saw me? Dead? What? In a vision or something?”
“Vision! Nah. You don’t remember, do you? Well, I guess you weren’t in a fit state. You did see me, though, but . . . you called me Rose, which I—”
“What? You saw me when I was injured? You were in the forest too?”
“Yeah, oh yeah. I followed you from the train station. Got lucky that day. I was on my way to— Well, never mind that.” He grins and winks. “But I spotted you and I spotted the Hunter. She hadn’t seen you but she would have, and quickly too, if I hadn’t distracted her and given you time to get away. Mind you, you left a trail a mile wide. A child could have followed that trail. I had my work cut out tidying up after you. But we lost the Hunter and I followed you through the forest.
“I stayed close behind you but when I had a nap you wandered off. I found you in a village shop. You were trying to read the newspaper, trying to work out what day it was. It was painful to watch, mate. It was two days before your birthday. You really don’t remember any of that?”
I shake my head.
“Well, I got you back to the forest, still checking whether you were being followed, which I thought was a dead cert after the shop. To be honest, mate, I thought there wasn’t much hope for you—I guess you had a Hunter bullet in you?”
I nod.
“Yep, well, I went to tidy up your trail—again—and when I got back it looked like you’d had a go at a bit of surgery on yourself, blood and yellow gunk everywhere, and . . . you looked pretty dead to me. Your skin was gray—gray and cold, mate—and your eyes were half open too, just blank, dead-looking.”
“Do you have my knife? The knife I cut myself with?”
He looks around and up as if in thought. “No.”
“But you took it from me.”
“No, I took a knife from beside a body, which I thought was a dead body, on account of it looking very dead and with eyes half open and dead-looking.”
“I want the knife back.”
“I’m sure you do. But I don’t have it anymore. Sorry, mate.”
“Does your boss have it?”
He shrugs and smiles.
Rose died getting that knife and Gabriel’s probably dead because of it, and Nesbitt just shrugs and smirks. So I kick at him, high on the chest. He’s strong but I’ve surprised him and all my weight is on his chest now and I’m pushing the point of the knife into his throat. A new trickle of blood runs down his neck. “Does your boss have it?”
“Yes.”
“Who is your boss?”
“Take the knife away and I’ll tell you.”
I push the knife further in. “Tell me.” Blood is running freely now. He’s healing but not fast enough.
“You make a convincing argument, kid. Me boss is Victoria van Dal.”
I get the feeling he wanted to tell me anyway, to impress me.
“Victoria van Dal?” I’ve never heard of her. I guess she’s a Black Witch if her friend was helping me escape from Hunters. I take the knife from Nesbitt’s neck and wipe it clean on his jacket. I say, “I’ve heard her name. She’s a White Witch, isn’t she?”
“A White? Van? Kid, come on. Crikey, you’ve got the wrong woman there. She’s a Black Witch. Black through and through. Great admirer of your father. And greatly admired by all Black Witches herself.”
“So let’s get back to the original question. Why did she send you here?”
He hesitates.
“I can still cut your tongue out.”
“I’m not sure you’re a cutting-tongues-out kinda guy.”
“I admit I haven’t done it before but I am an open-to-new-experiences kinda guy, a willing-to-have-a-go kinda guy, a what-the-heck-it’s-only-Nesbitt’s-tongue kinda guy.”
And, although I’m sort of joking, I see Nesbitt’s face lose its jokiness.
“I’ve come to pick something up. Some letters.”
I stand up and he starts to rise but I push him back down with my foot.
He says, “I’m guessing that you’ve got them.” Then he holds his arms out wide and says, “Which is OK. Which is fine. All I’ll ask is that you give them to me so that I can give them to Van.”
“And, supposing I did have these letters, why would I give them to you?”
“Well, Van’ll be horrible if you don’t. Horrible to me, mate. Which I’m sure is a concern to you even though you’re hiding it well.” He relaxes back on the ground and looks up at me. “She’ll be horrible to me and she’ll be horrible to your friend too.”
“What friend?” I push harder with my foot.
“Well, I’m assuming he’s your friend,” he says. “The good-looking bloke with the hair. French. Has a girl’s name.”
I stare but see nothing. I feel sick with fear and excitement and daren’t believe it.
“Gabriel,” he says, emphasizing the “elle.”
“He’s alive?”
Nesbitt grins and nods. “You gonna let me up so I can tell you?”
And I feel like all this has been a bit of fun for Nesbitt. It’s his idea of a game.
Kieran and Partner
We sit by his fire and Nesbitt makes a fresh pot of coffee and lays out his food for me: bread, cheese, tomatoes, crisps, an apple, and chocolate. I stare at it and lick my lips. I could eat it all in half a minute but I’m not sure I can trust him so I don’t touch any of it.
“You look half starved, mate. Tuck in.”
I don’t answer and don’t move.
He takes the baguette, rips the end off, and bites into it, chews, swallows, and hands the rest of the loaf to me, saying, “It’s not that fresh but it’s the best I’ve got.”
I eat the food as slowly as I can. Nesbitt drinks his coffee and watches me.
I ask him, “Why do you keep staring at me?”
“You’re sort of famous, kid. You know: son of Marcus; half White and half Black . . . and, to be frank, you’ve got freaky eyes.”
I swear at him about the son-of-Marcus thing and swear at him about being a Half Code and then swear at him about my eyes.
“Hey, don’t take it bad! You asked, I answered. But shit, mate, your eyes look real nasty when you do that.”
Do what? All I did was look at him. I swear at him again.
“Can’t believe no one’s told you that before.”
I remember Annalise saying she liked my eyes, found them fascinating, but I don’t think I’m looking at Nesbitt the same way I looked at her.
In the firelight I can see that his eyes are unusual too, an aquamarine blue and green that swirls around as if in a current. Ellen has eyes like his. She’s a Half Blood—half fain and half witch—and I guess Nesbitt is as well.
I ask him, “You’re half something too. Half Blood?”
“Proud to be half Black.”
“Not proud to be half fain?”
He shrugs. “I am what I am.”
“And proud to work for Victoria van Dal?”
“Well, I call Van ‘my boss’ as a bit of a private joke. We’re more like partners.”
>
“Yeah? What’s she like?”
“She’s special: talented and beautiful. Beautiful hair, beautiful eyes, beautiful skin. She’s generally beautiful all over. Not that I’ve seen her all over, if you know what I mean, kid. Strictly business, our relationship. And she keeps herself well covered up. It’s like she’s from a different time. You know, when people dressed up and took pride in their appearance.”
I look down at myself and hold my arms out.
“No, I don’t suppose you do know what I mean,” says Nesbitt.
“I know she’s a thief.”
“A thief?”
“She sent you to steal Gabriel’s letters and she has my knife.”
“Well, as I said, stealing off a dead body isn’t technically stealing.”
“What is it?”
Nesbitt looks like he gives this serious thought, then shrugs and says, “Tidying up the countryside in your case, kid.” He grins. “Like picking up litter.”
“But taking the letters is stealing; they don’t belong to you.”
“Well, for a start, I haven’t taken them cos they ain’t here. Though I’m guessin’ you have ’em.”
I blank him.
He continues. “And anyway it wouldn’t be stealing cos Gabriel told Van where they were. Said she could have them.”
“Uh-huh. And why would Gabriel do that?”
“He wants to thank Van for her help.” Nesbitt looks all innocent at me, begging me to ask what Van did. And I have to comply.
“What help?”
“Gabriel was in a bad way when we found him. He’d been shot. Hunter bullets, two of them. You know how bad they can be. They weren’t serious wounds, and the bullets had passed through, but even so the magic did its stuff. He was out of it for a week. Van nursed him. She’s good with potions, very good, the best. She saved him. Much like I saved you and—”
“You left me to die slowly from my wound.”
“I hid your trail.”
I shake my head at him. “So you wouldn’t be caught.”
“Kid! Mate! How can you say that?”
I roll my eyes. “Where did you find Gabriel?”
“He was staggering down a backstreet in Geneva. Coppers everywhere. Hunters everywhere else. What a mess! Van drove through it all like a demon, scooped Gabriel up, and off we scarpered into the night.”