for the Tuatha De Danann so they could see what depths existed within him; and on that front he had even surprised himself. 'Will you help Ruth?'
The Queen continued to dab at his forehead. Some of the water ran into his eyes and she wiped it away softly. A drop trickled down the bridge of his nose. 'I will be as good as my word, Ryan Veitch.' A smile he couldn't quite read.
Veitch could feel himself starting to black out again. The Queen's ministrations were so soothing, her touch so gentle; the coolness of her fingers seemed to ease his pain wherever they touched.
She wiped down his cheeks, brushed the drips from his chin. He had lost so much liquid his body felt like sand inside.
She dabbed at his brow, smiled enigmatically. Then she held the cloth before his face and squeezed tightly. A single droplet eked out of the bottom, hung for a second, then dropped. He stuck out the tip of his tongue.
'No!' Tom's voice, filled with the most indescribable anguish.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the Rhymer rushing forward. Melliflor and another guard restraining him harshly. The droplet hitting his tongue, so cool and refreshing, belying its size. Slowly seeing the Queen's expression change, from gentle care to something much darker, like a shadow falling across the face of the moon. Still not grasping what had happened. Hearing Tom shouting his pain to the heavens.
The Queen put the bowl to one side sharply, stood up and swirled her robes around her as she strode to the door; there she turned and flashed a smile that was both triumphant and proud, the expression of someone who always gets her way. Veitch, in his befuddled state, still tried to grasp why the ministrations had stopped. The break had been so harsh; he wanted to feel that cool touch of her fingers.
And hearing Tom's words for the first time and feeling instantly cold and hopeless: 'You took a drink, you fool! You took a drink and you're in her power now! She'll never you let go!'
Then she was gone, and Melliflor and the guards trailed out behind her, each of them smirking in turn at Veitch and Tom, knowing there was no longer any need to guard them.
Witch's thoughts turned instantly to Ruth and the three days she had left. An awful emptiness opened up within him at the knowledge that he had failed her; he might as well have killed her himself. His part in everything was over. He was scum; when it all came down to it, that was all he was and all he could ever be.
'I can't leave you here,' Tom croaked. 'Not on your own. I'm going to stay with you.'
'The others need you.'
'You need me more.' Tom's face was filled with the all the terror and suffering that lay ahead for Veitch; that stretched out for years and decades and centuries.
Veitch looked through him, two thoughts turning over and over in his mind: that he wouldn't have the resilience that Tom had exhibited to survive the relentless tearing apart of his body and mind; and that he would never see the world, and Church, and Ruth, ever again.
Tom dropped to his knees and took Veitch in his arms. Veitch could feel vibration running through him, felt moisture splash on his face, and realised Tom was sobbing. And somehow that was more terrifying than everything, for all it said about what the future held for him there, in the Queen's incisive power.
Chapter Nineteen
It was a perfect summer's day, echoing warm memories of half-remembered childhoods, infused with the scent of grass and trees and heated tarmac; and it was only two days before Lughnasadh. Church sat on his favourite rock with the sun hot on the back of his neck and thought of how he would kill his closest, dearest friend. He'd weighed up the problem, on and off, for three hours, between checks on Ruth's condition, and he could still barely comprehend it.
'You going to sit out here until you turn into a crispy piece of bacon?' Laura had come up behind him quietly and had spent almost a full minute watching him silently, wishing more than anything she could connect with him on a level deep enough to help.
When he looked up at her, her heart went out to him at the desolation that lay in his eyes. Her first reaction was some asinine comment just to get a cheap laugh, but the weight on him was too great. 'What's the big deal?' she said, pretending to look distracted.
He shook his head, barely able to bring himself to talk to her, but when he started it all came flooding out. 'How do people deal with these kinds of decisions? You know, the big-shots, the leaders of countries, the people who make the world turn? You reckon they've got some kind of equation to make everything square in their minds? Because otherwise how can they live with themselves? On paper it looks great. You sacrifice this nameless, faceless person here and save this many lives. Simple maths. Any kid can do it. But when it's someone you know and care for, it doesn't balance out the same any more. The rational side of your brain tells you one thing. The other side says this person is too valuable to sacrifice, whatever the outcome.' A long pause. 'And that's the truth, isn't it? Everybody is too valuable. Life is too important. This isn't a decision for people. It's for God.'
Her sunglasses stripped the emotion from her stare. 'So what are you going to do?'
He cursed loudly, looked round as if searching for something to lash out at. 'I'm going to kill her. Of course I am, and I'm going to damn myself for all eternity and I'm probably going to kill myself straight after.'
Laura snorted derisively. 'You know, I'm appalled you're even considering that.' She grasped for the words to express the unfocused dismay she was feeling.
'Can't you get real? We're talking the End of Everything. The life of one person-' he made an overstated weighing act with his hands '-it doesn't balance. Any idiot can see it doesn't balance.'
'I thought this New Age was supposed to be a good time for women more than anything else. Feminine values and all that shit after hundreds of years of testosterone stupidity. Look at her, in that house, what she's been through. You could at least have hoped it would be Veitch or the old git-'
'We've all suffered.' He knew he was only arguing as a distraction; it wasn't even relevant. 'I was tortured-'
'Yeah? How bad? That bad?'
'All right. What do you think we do? Wish upon a star? She's going to die anyway, when Balor comes through.'
'Oh, fuck off. I don't know. But I know she's one of the good guys and it shouldn't be her.' She walked off a few paces angrily, then turned and said, 'Don't ever, ever tell her I said that, even when she's acting like she's got a bug in her head.'
He had a sudden vision of when he and Ruth first met, when everything had seemed confounding, but the choices simpler. 'What the hell am I supposed to be doing?' he muttered.
'You're the leader, Church-dude. Why are you asking me?' She picked up a handful of stones and began to hurl them out into the void without a thought for where they might land. 'I'm just along for sarcastic comments and pithy asides. Go with your instinct or whatever you leaders do.'
She threw the last pebble then turned and sauntered back to the house as if she didn't have a care in the world.
The dawn of the final day broke through the ragged cottage window in pink and gold, but when Church went to get a little sun on his face he saw the sky was painted red along the horizon; the folklore warning of bad weather ahead wasn't wasted on him.
At least the faint warmth refreshed him after the dismal night. He hadn't slept at all. Ruth had spent the long, dark hours in the grip of a delusion that had left her screaming and clawing at her face and belly until blood flowed. It had been almost unbearable to see, the cracking screech of her voice so dismaying he'd wanted to cover his ears and run from the place rather than listen to the magnitude of her pain or face the extent of her decline. But he'd stayed by her side for all that harrowing time, caring for her, doing his best to prevent her harming herself, and now he felt drained of every last emotion. Laura was huddled in a corner like a child, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted now that Ruth's ravings had subsided with the coming of the light. Several times during the night she'd had to leave the room, crying, unable to cope with what she was seeing. Church had pretended he hadn't
