“I think I’ll start with you, Holly. I’ve always admired you. Like a rose without a thorn; so pretty, so vulnerable. That’s why I came to you in the night, while you slept, and took a little life from you, to keep myself going. Your memories drifted through my mind like petals on a breeze, sweet but unsatisfying. Did you dream of me, perhaps? I’d like to think you did. I dreamed of someone like you for years. And now you’re mine.”
He started towards Holly, and Arthur scrambled to his feet. He drew his sword and put himself between her and the freak, hoping he looked more impressive than he felt.
“Get away from her, you bastard. I won’t let you hurt her.”
The freak just stood there, smiling. “Very nicely said, Arthur. Now. put away your sword and sit down. I’ll get round to you, when I’m ready.”
“I mean it!”
“I’m sure you do. But there’s nothing you can do to stop me. As long as I’m within arm’s reach of someone, I can drain the life right out of them. Besides, it’s obvious from the way you’re holding your sword that you don’t really know how to use it. Marc knew about things like that, and now, so do I. I wonder what I’ll know when I’ve emptied your head, Arthur. How to mix cocktails, perhaps?”
“Stay back,” said Arthur. His voice sounded shaky, even to him, but at least his sword hand was steady. He’d often dreamed of standing between Holly and some unidentified villain, being the hero of the moment, but now the time had come and he’d never felt so scared in his life. But he wouldn’t back down. Holly needed him. The thought steadied him, and he stepped smartly forward, his sword shooting out in a textbook lunge. Marc sidestepped elegantly, and dropped a hand on Arthur’s outstretched arm. The sword fell to the floor as his hand went numb. A wave of shuddering cold swept through him as the strength went out of him and into Marc. He fell limply forward, his face striking hard against the floor, but he couldn’t feel it. He tried to get to his feet again, and couldn’t move. He would have been frightened, but his thoughts were growing too dim even for that. And then Marc’s hand was suddenly jerked away from his arm, and his thoughts began to clear.
Marc fell back a step as Katrina swung the iron poker with both hands again. The first blow had connected strongly enough with Marc’s head to send him staggering sideways, but there was no sign of any wound. Of course not, thought Katrina crazily. He’s not really there. That’s just an illusion of Marc. Behind the illusion, he’s probably bleeding like a stuck pig. The thought comforted her as she swung the poker again, putting all her strength into it.
Marc’s hand shot out at the last moment and intercepted the poker, absorbing its momentum with hardly a jolt, though Katrina’s hand went numb from the impact. Marc smiled at her, and her eyes rolled up in her head as he sucked the strength out of her. She collapsed in a heap, and Marc let the poker drop to the floor beside her. He turned to face Holly again, and then stopped as Arthur grabbed him by the ankle. Marc tried to pull free, and couldn’t.
Arthur’s fingers whitened as he put all his remaining strength into his grip. Holly needed him. Nothing else mattered. Marc bent down and picked up the poker he’d dropped. Arthur knew what was going to happen, but didn’t have the strength to turn his head away. He couldn’t even shut his eyes. Marc struck down hard with the poker, and Arthur’s vision disappeared behind a sudden rush of blood. He still wouldn’t let go. Holly needed him. Marc hit him again, and again.
Holly burst out of her chair and threw herself at Marc, screaming and flailing at him with her fists. Marc stumbled backwards and almost fell, but he quickly regained his balance and grabbed one of her waving arms. She fell to her knees as the strength went out of her, and he smiled down at her.
“Don’t be so impatient, Holly. I’ll be with you in a moment.” He bent down and struck repeatedly at Arthur’s hand with the poker. The sound of bones breaking and splintering was horribly loud on the quiet. Marc pulled his foot free, threw aside the poker, and turned back to look at Holly. “There; that didn’t take too long, did it? Now I’m free to give you my full attention.”
He smiled slowly. “You know, Holly, you’re all I ever dreamed of, down all the years, locked away in stone and silence. I watched the light come and go through the narrow slit of window, and listened to the gulls screaming, and felt the slow turning of the seasons ... and dreamed about what I’d do when I finally got out. At first I dreamed of blood and pain and sweet revenge, and then I dreamed of the world beyond the Tower, and all the terrible things I would do there, and then I dreamed of women, and all the warmth and kindness and beauty I’ve always longed for, and never known except in dreams.”
“But the years passed, and the dreams got mixed up with each other, until I really don’t know what I want anymore. I want you, Holly; you’re all I ever dreamed of. So I’m going to hurt you and drain you and hurt you some more and maybe finally I’ll hurt you till you die of it, because I want you so much it hurts. Come to me, Holly. No need to be afraid. After all, I’m just one of the Family.”
Holly jerked her arm free from his grip and scrambled to her feet, backing away across the room as he came unhurriedly after her. She looked desperately around for help, but Katrina was lying unconscious on the floor, and Arthur was only moving feebly, despite the desperation on his bloody face. Holly wanted to cry, for them and for herself, but there wasn’t time. She kept backing away, and Marc kept coming after her, still smiling. She wanted to scream for help, to Jamie or David or one of the others, but she knew they were too far away to hear her. There was no one to help her. So she’d just have to do it herself.
You’re a MacNeil. Act like one.
She chanted that silently to herself, like a prayer or a penance, as her gaze swept the room, searching for something she could use as a weapon. Maybe a brand from the fire; she could set his clothes alight. Except that the fireplace was on the other side of the room now, and he stood between it and her. There were heavy paperweights on the desk, but even as she looked at them, Marc intercepted her gaze and moved to block her way to the desk. She thought about making a dash for the door, but one glance was enough to convince her that she’d never be able to dismantle the barricade before Marc got to her. She smiled humourlessly. She’d felt so safe behind that barricade.... Think, dammit, think! She passed by an oil lamp on the wall, and without hesitating snatched it from its niche and threw it at Marc with all her strength. She just had time for a brief fantasy of his being consumed by blazing oil, and then Marc’s hand shot up and snatched the lamp effortlessly out of midair. He put it gently down on a nearby chair, and smiled condescendingly.
“Your problem, Holly, is that you keep thinking I’m human. And I’m not. Not really. Why don’t I show you what I look like? What I really look like. Would you like that?”
Holly tried to say something, but her throat had clamped shut, and she couldn’t make a sound. She’d somehow ended up by the desk, and her desperate gaze fell upon a slim silver letter opener. She looked quickly away again in case Marc had noticed, but his gaze seemed fixed on her. For the first time, he’d stopped smiling. Something stirred in her mind, like suddenly becoming aware of a background noise that had just stopped. Marc seemed to ripple and flow, like something far away seen through a heat haze, and then Marc was gone and the freak stood before her.
Her first thought was That’s not so bad. She’d been expecting something hideous, some awful misshapen thing, with fangs and claws and bulging eyes, but instead he looked surprisingly ordinary. He was average height but very thin and bony, wrapped in clothes that were too big for him. Marc’s clothes. Holly supposed that wearing them made the illusion easier to maintain. Or perhaps it just made the freak feel more like an ordinary man. His left arm and leg were severely twisted, and his left shoulder was clearly lower than the other, but none of it was enough to mark him as a freak. And then she looked at his face, and didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. It was a normal enough face, surrounded by long greasy hair and a stringy beard, and flec
ked with blood from a recent scalp wound, but sometime in the past, the mouth had been sewn together. The heavy black stitches had sunk deep into the lips, compressing them into a thin white line. Holly wondered who’d done it; presumably the father, before walling the freak up in his cell. And why not? she thought crazily. He doesn’t need a mouth, after all.
“How do you speak?” she said shrilly.
The mouth twitched in something that might have been meant as a smile. “It’s all part of the illusion, my dear. You hear what I want you to hear. But this has gone on long enough, I think. It’s time.”
He started towards her, his laughter sounding in her mind. She snatched up the letter opener from the desk and thrust it between his ribs. He grunted once, a dark hungry sound like a pig at its trough, and grabbed both her arms, ignoring the blood coursing down his side. Holly tried to struggle, but all the strength went out of her at his touch. She couldn’t even scream as the freak’s thin white mouth slowly widened into a grin, the heavy stitches tearing through his lips.
And then a section of the library wall swung open, and Hawk and Fisher plunged out into the room. The freak spun round, throwing Holly to one side. Hawk hesitated just long enough to take in the situation, and then cut at the freak with his sword. The freak raised his arm at the last moment, and the blade cut into his arm instead of his throat. Hawk danced back out of range as the freak reached for him, blood dripping unheeded from his arm. Fisher circled round to try and get behind him. Holly struggled to get to her feet. Hawk stepped in to cut at the freak again, and fell to his knees as every muscle in his body turned to mush. He shook his head sickly, managing somehow to still hang on to his sword, though he no longer had the strength to lift it. The freak reached down and took Hawk’s face in his hand. The fingers tightened, and Hawk’s cheekbones shifted and creaked under the rising pressure. Fisher snatched a burning brand from the fire and thrust it at the freak’s back. The strength went out of her fingers as she came within range, and the burning brand fell from her grasp onto the rug before the fireplace. Flames leapt up as the rug caught fire.
Holly threw herself at the freak, the sudden weight catching him by surprise and knocking him away from Hawk. The freak landed on his back on the burning rug, and flames leapt up around him as his clothes caught fire. He surged to his feet again, throwing Holly to one side, and lurched back and forth, beating ineffectually at his burning clothes with his hands. There was a silent puff of blue flames as his hair ignited. Hawk and Fisher had got some of their strength back, and were on their feet again. Hawk still had his sword, and Fisher snatched up a heavy foot-stool to use as a club. Holly rose to her feet, ignoring her smouldering clothes, and looked around for something to use as a weapon. The freak turned his back on them and made for the door. He tore apart the barricade, throwing aside the bulky furniture with inhuman strength, and pulled open the door. He staggered out into the corridor, and Hawk and Fisher went after him.
The flames were leaping high now, and his skin was beginning to blacken, but still he never made a sound. He glanced back at his pursuers, made for the stairs, and then stopped as he looked up and saw Jamie leading his party down the stairs towards him. The freak looked back and forth, his mutilated mouth twisted in a snarl, and then his power leapt out, driven beyond its usual limits by hate and desperation. One by one those on the stairs slumped to the ground, their eyes slowly closing as the last bit of strength drained from them, until only Alistair remained on his feet. He advanced slowly down the stairs, his face eerily lit by the flames that still leapt around the freak.
“It’s no use, boy,” he said softly, so that only the freak would hear. “Your power can’t affect me. I’m no more human than you are.”
They stood face to face for a moment, staring at each other, and then Alistair’s sword shot out and buried itself in the freak’s chest. He collapsed silently to the floor, twitched a few times and lay still, curled around his death wound. The leaping flames tugged at his clothes, but did not stir him. Alistair pulled out the sword, and then carefully and methodically cut off the freak’s head, just in case. One by one, the others rose unsteadily to their feet as strength flowed slowly back into them. Alistair sheathed his sword, and went over to Hawk.
“It seems I owe you an apology. I was so sure you were the freak. But then, I’m only human.”
Back in the library, the room became a bedlam as everyone talked at once, explaining and apologizing and generally relaxing. Holly fussed around Arthur, wrapping his broken hand in a cloth and trying to clean the blood from his face with a handkerchief soaked in wine. David kept squeezing Arthur’s shoulder, and telling him incoherently how well he’d done. But finally Jamie confronted Hawk, and everyone else shut up so they could listen.
“I think you owe us some answers,” said Jamie. “All right, we were wrong about you being the freak. I’m sorry, but you have been behaving very suspiciously. Who are you, really, and what are you doing here? And what the hell happened to your eye?”
“I can’t tell you who I am,” said Hawk flatly. “But I can tell you why I’m here. Isobel and I came here looking for someone.”
“Who?”
Hawk turned and looked at David. “Do you want to tell them, or shall I?”
David shrugged, and met the MacNeil’s gaze unflinchingly. “Sorry, Jamie, but I’m afraid I’ve rather let the side down. I’m a spy. I stumbled across a piece of information I knew Outremer would pay a hell of a lot for, and the temptation was just too great. I needed the money, you see. I owe a hell of a lot, what with one thing and another, much more than you ever knew about, and some of my creditors were becoming very insistent. There was even talk of debtors’ prison. My Family had already made it clear they wouldn’t be responsible for my debts anymore, and without their backing the moneylenders wouldn’t even see me.
“It wasn’t difficult, making contact with Outremer. You’d be surprised how many agents they have here in the city. But in the end it all went wrong, and I ended up running for my life. So I came here, to hide out while I waited for my contact to show up. I had to come anyway, to see what Holly was going to get from the will. I was banking on her inheriting a fortune, to get me out of the hole I’d dug for myself. She’d have loaned me what I needed. Hell, you’d have given it to me outright, wouldn’t you, Holly? You never could deny me anything.”
“Why the hell didn’t you ask me for the money?” said Jamie hotly. “I wouldn’t have let you go under, for the sake of a miserable few thousand ducats.”
“I couldn’t ask you, or any of my friends,” said David. “I didn’t want you to know what a fool I’d made of myself. I have my pride. It’s all I’ve got left now. I won’t give it up. I won’t stand trial, either. Arthur, look after Holly.”
He turned and ran out the door. and into the corridor. Hawk and Fisher went after him. Hawk paused at the door to order everyone else to stay put in the library, and then he and Fisher charged down the corridor and up the stairs in pursuit of David Brook. They were both tired after their struggle with the freak, and David soon outdistanced them. They pressed on, following the sound of his feet on the stairs. They passed the second floor and the third, and still David led them on.
“Where the hell does he think he’s going?” panted Fisher. “There’s nowhere left now but the battlements, and once he’s there, we’ve got him cornered.”
“Not necessarily,” said Hawk. “There’s still one way down, if he wants to take it.”
They finally burst out into the morning air, and found David sitting on the edge of the far parapet wall, waiting for them. Fisher started forward, but Hawk put a restraining hand on her arm. The sunlight was almost painfully bright after the gloom of the third floor, and Hawk stood quietly a moment, letting his eye adjust. David sat patiently, his legs dangling over the long drop. He was smiling slightly.
“Come away from the edge,” said Hawk finally. “It’s dangerous.”
“Look at the view,” said David. “Is
n’t it marvelous? It feels like you can see forever.”
“Is that why you dragged us all the way up here?” said Fisher. “To admire the view?”
David shrugged, and smiled. “I won’t ask you how I gave myself away. It doesn’t matter. I was pretty much an amateur at the spying game, anyway. But I would like to know who you really are.”
“Hawk and Fisher, Captains in the city Guard,” said Hawk. “We’re the ones who chased you through half of Haven last night.”
David raised an eyebrow. “I’m impressed. I’ve heard some of the stories they tell about you two. Are they true?”
“Some of them,” said Hawk.
“What did you do with the sorcerer Grimm?”
“We killed him,” said Fisher.
“Good,” said David. “The city probably smells better now he’s gone. I wouldn’t have dealt with him at all if my contact hadn’t insisted.”
“Who was your contact?” said Hawk.
David shrugged. “It was always someone different. They didn’t trust me enough to let me see anyone important.”
“What about the information?” said Fisher. “What was so important that so many people had to risk their lives because of it?”
David stared out across the sea. “The Monarch of Outremer is coming here, to Haven, to meet with our King and hammer out a Peace Treaty to put an end to the border clashes, before they start really getting out of hand. But there are those on both sides who would profit greatly from a war, people who don’t want the peace talks to succeed. Knowing the exact date and time and place of those talks was therefore of very great value to those with an interest in sabotaging them. And I knew. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and nosy enough to look at a sheet of paper left lying carelessly on a desk. And that’s how it all started. As simply as that.”