Despite her words, Church couldn't stop the guilt growing stronger. The Tuatha De Danann had been right in their brutal assessment of his worth; it was his own weaknesses that had dragged them down. If he had told the others about the visitations of Marianne's spirit, about the Kiss of Frost that had corrupted him and brought about the Danann's contempt, the world might have been saved.
'Did you ever hear Beyond the Sea?' he asked, staring into the chopping black waves.
'Is that by one of those dead, old white guys you enjoy so much? Some Sinatra shit?'
'Bobby Darin.' He didn't rise to the bait. 'It's the best metaphor for death I've ever heard. Just a simple little song, but when you think about it in those terms it becomes almost profound.' He sang a few bars: 'Somewhere beyond the sea, somewhere waiting for me, my lover stands on golden sands. So sad, but so optimistic. I'd never really thought about it like that until just now, you know, about it talking about what lies beyond death-'
'Or it could just be a simple little song.' The comment would normally have been concluded with some note of mockery or contempt, but when none came he turned to look at her. Laura's face was still and thoughtful, and when she spoke again her voice was uncommonly hesitant. 'How do you feel?'
'What do you mean?'
'All that stuff floating around inside…' She was skating around the edge of an issue that was so monumental it was almost impossible to put it into perspective.
'I feel okay, under the circumstances. Different, though I'm not sure how. Sometimes I get a wave of cold when the Fomorii corruption seems to get the upper hand. Sometimes I feel like I've got liquid gold in my veins, thanks to whatever the Danann did to me. The rest of the time I just feel like me.'
'Must be a real head-fuck to die and get reborn.'
'Yes.' In his darker moments he wondered if it meant he was still human, still alive, even, in any sense that people understood. How could you die and then come back? What scars did that leave on the soul, if such a thing existed? And what did it mean for the rules that were supposed to give a structure to existence? He combatted such black thoughts by trying to consider his rebirth an opportunity to leave the past and all his weaknesses behind, to become something much more valuable. It was the only way to stop himself from cracking up.
'When you died, you know, what was it like? Inside?' It was obvious Laura wasn't about to let the subject drop. Though her face remained impassive, there was a deep gravitas at the back of her eyes that showed how much the issue meant to her.
He threw his mind back to when he was lying half in the stream, his blood mingling with the water, his body racked with pain. 'Like slipping into a hot bath and just carrying on down and down.'
She nodded thoughtfully. 'And after that?'
He winced. 'I don't remember.'
'Nothing at all?'
His sigh was uncomfortable. 'Just fragments… nothing that makes sense. And it's all breaking up like a dream after you wake.'
'But you remember something?'
'Just something that looked like a big church.' There was a sharpness to his voice that he regretted, but couldn't control. 'Or a cathedral. Massive, going right up past the clouds. That's it.'
'Okay, I won't bug you about it any more.' She made to leave, but he caught her arm and pulled her back. She gave a wry smile. 'Getting frisky?' Before he could answer, she pushed him back off the wall and followed him down.
'You ever wonder why there aren't any bodies?' Ryan Veitch put his street-hard shoulder muscles to the rear door of the grocery shop and heaved one final time; it burst open with a crack.
'I don't want to think about that.' Ruth Gallagher looked around uncomfortably. Even though she knew they were the only ones in the area and that the laws of the land probably didn't hold much sway any longer, she still didn't feel right breaking and entering.
Veitch didn't have any such qualms. His increasingly long hair hid his expression from her as he headed through the doorway, but she could have sworn he was actually enjoying it. Inside the store her fears were confirmed when the makeshift torch illuminated his hard, handsome features; he was grinning. 'I'll be happier when the power comes back on,' he said.
'Maybe it's gone for good this time,' Ruth said morosely, as she reluctantly followed him in. Cartons of tins and breakfast cereals were piled around and it smelled warmly of fruit and bread. 'Enough of the talk. Just get the provisions we need and let's get out of here.'
'I like to talk. Anyway, who's going to rumble us here?'
Ruth pushed past him with a flick of her head that sent her long, brown hair flying. She began to fill a dustbin bag with packets of muesli. 'Perhaps we should leave a note for the owner. Tell him why we took the stuff. Offer to pay him back-'
Veitch gave a derisory snort. 'You're living in cloud cuckoo land, you. Get real. He's not coming back. None of the poor bastards are. The Fomorii have hauled them off to their larder.'
Ruth glared at him, but his words made her feel numb and she quickly returned to her petty pilfering.
Veitch helped her halfheartedly and then said out of the blue, 'Are we going to start getting on?'
'We're stuck in this together. We don't have any option.'
'That's not good enough.'
Her eyes flashed. 'Well-'
'No, listen to me. I know I've done some bad things in my life, but you can't keep on blaming me for what happened to your old man-'
'How can you say that! You shot my uncle!' As she turned to face him her elbow clipped a box of Special K and sent it flying across the storeroom; all the emotions which she had bottled up for so long rumbled to the surface. She fought to hold back tears that seemed to come too easily, then said, 'I'm sorry. I heard what the Danann said-'
'That's right! It wasn't my fault. They made me do it, like they made all of us suffer.'
Ruth remembered the horror she felt when the Danann explained how all five of them had been forced to experience death as some sort of preparation for the destiny that had been mapped out for them.
'I might be a stupid little two-bit crook, but I've never killed anybody in my life before!' Veitch continued. 'I'm not that kind of bloke. I wish you could know how much it screwed me up when I saw I'd shot your uncle…' He winced at the memory. 'Listen, all I want to do, all I've ever wanted to do in my life, is do something that's right, you know what I mean? Be a good guy for a change. But even when I try, it seems to go wrong. I just want a chance to show what I can do.'
His pleading was so heartfelt, Ruth couldn't help feeling sympathy.
'Because I like you,' he continued. 'I like all of you. You're all trying to do the right thing, whatever it might mean to you, and I've never been around people like that before. I don't want you all thinking bad of me all the time.'
Ruth read the emotions on his face for a long moment, then returned to her packing. 'Okay,' she said. 'I forgive you. But it's not going to be forgotten just like that-'
'I know. I just want a chance.'
'You've got it.'
She could feel him staring at her like he couldn't believe what she had said, and then he started loading up his bag with gusto. Once they'd got everything they might need for a few days, they headed back out. As they slipped away from the shadows at the back of the shop, a dark shape flashed out of the sky and circled them, drawing closer. Veitch was instantly alert, ready for defence.
'It's okay,' Ruth said. The owl, her gifted companion, glided down and landed on her shoulder; she winced as its talons bit into her flesh, then pushed her head to one side for fear it would start flapping its wings. It was the first time it had come close enough for her to touch. The owl turned its eerie, blinking eyes on Veitch, who was grinning broadly.
'What's his name?' He reached out a hand, but the owl snapped its beak in the direction of his fingers and he withdrew sharply.
'Who says it's a he?'
'Well what's its fucking name then?'
'It hasn't got a name.' She paused. 'Not one that I know, anyway.'
