49
Gabriel moved cautiously to stand a little closer to Camael. She covered them both with the gun. She saw how Rayne’s body was covered in weeping lesions and sores. ‘That’s far enough, Gabriel,’ she said. ‘What have you done to my father, you bastard?’
Camael looked down at the old man. ‘Let’s say he had a little too much sun yesterday. It doesn’t agree with him, does it?’
‘Let him go.’
A veneer of a smile spread over his lips. He grabbed Rayne by the hair and hauled him to his feet. The naked man stood trembling with the cold, his arms folded tight against him. He looked desperately ill, thought Caroline, her stomach tightening in anguish, dark patches of blood on his body, his face looking red and sore.
‘Let him go?’ he said. Then he gave a light laugh. ‘You know I can’t do that just yet.’
Rayne lifted his head. ‘I told you to stay away,’ he said, his voice cracked and dry. ‘Why did you come?’
Camael yanked Rayne’s head sharply. ‘Quiet, old man.’
Caroline’s jaw stiffened. ‘Let him go now or I’ll blow your brains out!’
‘No doubt you would. I think, however, it’s time for a little negotiation, don’t you? You have something I want, and I have something you want. Let’s say that in return for the old man’s handover you let me have the woman and her son.’
She shook her hair. ‘Sorry, no can do.’
Camael gave Rayne a shove closer towards the invisible cliff edge. ‘One more push and he’ll fall to his death. You don’t really want that, do you? All you have to do is tell me where I will find the woman and her son and your father, such as he is, will go free. Refuse and over he goes.’
‘If you do that then you’re a dead man, Camael. So is your friend.’
‘Death doesn’t scare me, Caroline,’ he said. ‘And killing me, though it will give you a modicum of pleasure, will not bring your father back from the dead. Where are they?’
‘Don’t tell them, Caroline!’ Rayne wheezed painfully.
‘What are they to you anyway?’ Camael continued. ‘What does it matter that they live or die?’
Caroline was sizing up the situation. She couldn’t rush Camael with her father a step or so from the edge of the cliff. She couldn’t risk a shot at him as the visibility was so poor, and even if she hit the man then she wasn’t certain she’d be able to get one off at Gabriel in time.
‘The woman is dead,’ she said. ‘Died of her wounds yesterday.’
‘And you expect me to believe that?’ Camael said.
‘It’s the truth. Lambert-Chide’s men killed her. One thing is certain; she doesn’t have to worry about you guys ever again.’
‘And Davies?’
‘You’re going to be so sorry you crossed me,’ she said.
‘Empty threats,’ Camael said, shaking his head. He pushed Rayne’s resisting body. ‘One last chance,’ he said coldly. ‘I will do this, mark my words. Where is Davies?’
The mist cleared a little and a dark maw opened up a few inches away from Rayne’s bare feet. Camael stared intently at Caroline and she stared right on back in a non-verbal standoff, the gun still held rigid in her outstretched arms. She shook her head decisively, her eyes filling. ‘I won’t,’ she said.
‘Won’t or can’t?’ he said. ‘Too bad.’
His hand grabbed Rayne’s neck and he was about to give him one last shove when a voice broke out of the dark.
‘Wait, Camael!’
Out of the mist she saw another figure step forward, blurred and indistinct. He looked to be wearing a long, grey Burberry coat, the collar turned up against the chill night air. Camael dragged Rayne brusquely back from the edge, holding him in front of him like a pale, quivering shield. Caroline swung the gun over to the shifting ghostly shape.
‘You’d rather watch your father die than give us Davies,’ the man said. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘Who are you?’ Caroline asked nervously.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve actually developed feelings for the man? Actually care for him, so much so you’d even sacrifice your own father?’
‘Nobody is being sacrificed tonight,’ she said defiantly. ‘Let my father go.’
The figure came closer, but the face was still largely hidden from her. ‘Ah, the things we do for love!’ he mused. ‘Poor Pipistrelle here; he devoted his entire life to a love that could never be consummated, never even be revealed. Isn’t that true, old man? Well did you hear that? She’d dead. Your Venus is no more. With the help of your lovesick devotion she led me a merry dance for decades, but alas that is all over now. I rather enjoyed the thrill of the chase, tracking down the last of the line, so to speak.’
‘So who are you?’ she asked again. ‘Are you Doradus?’
Her comment was met with an icy silence. ‘I’ve been impressed by your work, though, Caroline,’ he said at length. ‘You’ve managed to run rings around everyone. I could use skills like that. Let me put to you a proposition: join me, tell me where Davies is and not only will I let you have this pathetic little old man, I will give you riches and power beyond your wildest imaginings. I need people like you.’
Caroline took a slow step to one side, trying to get a better angle on Camael with the gun, but he mirrored her movement and kept hidden well behind Rayne.
‘I must say I am flattered, to be addressed by Doradus himself. What an honour!’ she said, trying to play for time. ‘Or is that Benedict Jones? Because that’s what all this is about really, isn’t it? You’re like the woman and Davies. You don’t die. The way I figure it, the reason you’ve been obsessed with tracking such people down over the centuries is that it’s difficult to be God’s Chosen One if there are more exactly like you. That strike a familiar chord? Call them Serpentiles, call them what you will, you can’t escape the fact that you’re one of them. And these morons who follow you hankering after a place in your New Eden, well that’s a load of balls and you know it. When the nasty little bug you’ve been developing hits the streets they’ll all die, like the rest of us. There’s no place set for them at the Eden table, is there? But Davies, people like him, they’re resistant to viruses so they’ll survive and you can’t allow that to happen, can you? You want the place for yourself.’
The man grunted. ‘You have some imagination.’
‘It’s one of my better points.’
She noticed how he’d put himself some distance away from Camael and the others, the eddying mist all but swallowing him up.
‘Much as I’d like to talk all night, I don’t have the time. We’ll determine soon enough whether the woman is dead or not. Davies, however, is very much alive. Hand him over.’ He was met with stony silence. ‘You really want to see your father dead?’
‘We all die sooner or later,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘You can’t win, you do know that, don’t you? The odds are stacked against you.’
Whilst her attention had been on Doradus she hadn’t noticed Gabriel pulling out a gun. Where the hell had he had that, she thought? Had Camael handed it him? She cursed herself. ‘The odds are I’ll at least get a couple of you. Starting with you, Doradus.’
‘It needn’t come to that, Caroline. Give me Davies. It’s all I ask for now. You and your father can walk free.’
‘Free? That will never happen,’ she said. ‘You’ll come for us sooner or later. You can’t have him,’ she said with finality, her arm stiffening.
‘Then there is no other option,’ he said. ‘You’ll both have to die tonight.’
‘Maybe it’s time to rethink that, Doradus,’ another voice called out of the mist from the direction of the stone cairn. ‘Seems I’ve just changed the odds.’
‘Gareth!’ Caroline said. ‘What the hell are you doing here? I told you to stay behind!’
