meaning. 'It's like I'm on drugs.' He could feel the bloom of her breath on his lips.
'I am the Messenger. The Message here is very clear.' The voice was a blast of cold wind, freezing the moment. Church looked up at the tattered rag-figure Cormorel had called the Walpurgis, a sucking core of darkness, too much for one space. There was something so alien about it, Church's skin crawled; in the back of his head a worm of terror began to wriggle.
Cormorel had been involved in an intense, whispered conversation with Baccharus and the Walpurgis's arrival had taken him by surprise. He turned sharply, his face hard. Church hadn't seen that expression on any of the Tuatha De Danann before; he had the face of someone with something to hide.
'Away with you, Dark One.' Cormorel waved his hand dismissively. 'We have no time for your shadowy discourses.'
The Walpurgis began to back away, until Church said, 'Wait. Who are you?'
'I am the Messenger.' The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
'He is a dismal leech,' Cormorel said. 'Nothing more.'
'A leech?' Ruth's brow had knitted; Church could tell she was sensing something too.
'The Walpurgis reaches into heads and pulls out dreams.' Cormorel made a snapping motion with his fingers. 'A distasteful trait, even by the low standards of his fellow travellers.'
'You have a very contemptuous view of your fellow sentient beings, Cormorel,' Church noted sardonically.
Cormorel eyed him, aloof. 'All are beneath us.' It was announced as a statement of fact, with no obvious arrogance.
Church was unable to pierce the gloom falling from the brim of the Walpurgis's hat; there were only those hot-coal eyes, unpleasant in their intensity. 'You said you have a message?'
The Walpurgis nodded his head slowly. 'But first there is something within you which should be examined.'
'Within me?'
'A dream.' A bony finger snaked towards Church's forehead. Instinctively Church drew back, his skin starting to crawl.
'You want to pull out my dream?'
'Did you know,' Cormorel said icily, 'the Walpurgis eats the souls of the dying?'
Church ignored him. There was something about the Walpurgis that made him feel queasy; it was so alien he couldn't begin to judge its trustworthiness. Perhaps this was how it preyed on its victims.
'All have dreams hidden away that could change the way they live their lives,' the Walpurgis said in its rustling voice. 'It is the nature of existence to obscure the important. A game it plays with us. The finding is often part of the lesson.'
Church weighed this for a second. There was something repugnant about admitting so alien a being into his head, but he could see Cormorel did not want him to continue, and that was enough.
'Will it hurt?'
The Walpurgis said nothing.
'Okay. Do it.'
Cormorel moved to stop him, then his pride made him turn back to his conversation with Baccharus, as if Church, Ruth and The Walpurgis no longer existed.
'You're sure?' Ruth asked.
Church presented his forehead to the Walpurgis. The creature reached out again with its skeletal hand. The fingertips brushed his skin like the touch of winter, but their advance did not stop there. Church was shocked to feel the coldness continuing into his skull. It had not been a metaphor: the fingers were literally moving through his head as if it were mist, reaching inside him. He gagged, shuddered involuntarily; a spasm made his fingers snap open and closed.
What's it doing to nae? The thought fizzed like static on a TV; he was losing control of himself.
Panic rose within him, but just as he began to believe he had made a dreadfully wrong decision, the sickening sensations faded and he was suddenly jolted alert by a stream of intensely evocative images. The Walpurgis had tapped into the cable wire from his subconscious.
His mother and father, seen from the perspective of his cot. Niamh appearing at the end of his bed, strangely happy, yet tinged with sadness. Coming faster now: school, university, knee-deep in mud at an archaeological dig in North Yorkshire. And then Marianne. The shock of her face was like a punch; so clear, like she was really there, like he could reach out to touch her. His emotions welled up and threatened to overflow his body; everything felt so acute.
And then it was like the images were playing on a screen just in front of his eyes and he could see through them to the Walpurgis. His red eyes were growing brighter. 'Near. So near.' The words echoed so deep in his head he didn't know if the Walpurgis had spoken them aloud.
A rapid flicker of memories, the speed making him feel queasy. Making love to Marianne, slicked with sweat. Out drinking with Dean and his other buddies. Kissing Marianne under the stars. Watching a band. Drinking. Writing something. Eating… somewhere. A restaurant. Already gone, and two more as well. Brighton. And… and America. And back to South London. The pub with all the bric-a-brac in Clapham. Faster, and faster still. And then…
Oh God. No. Not that.
The images were slowing down as if the Walpurgis had been fastforwarding through a video and was now getting closer to the point he was after. Flicker, flicker, click, click, click. The flat, the night he had been out drinking. The night Marianne died.
No. Please, no.
But how could he be remembering that? He hadn't been there. And then he realised he wasn't exactly remembering the night, he was recalling his experience in the vast cave beneath Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, when time bent and he had been thrust into that awful moment.
The Walpurgis's eyes cut through the familiar image of his flat. 'Here. Now.'
'No!' Church said aloud.
The image coalesced. The empty flat, removed of the clutter of his maudlin bachelor years. And it was no longer just an image: he could hear and smell, feel the texture of the carpet through the soles of his shoes. In the background one of Marianne's acid jazz CDs played quietly, and she, just out of sight, was humming along. There was no sorrow, only cold, hard fear; he knew what was coming.
'Please.' The Walpurgis ignored him, draining every sensation out of his head.
Marianne crossed to the bathroom. The sound of the cabinet opening, just as he recalled it from Arthur's Seat. But then he had broken the spell before the final, sickening moment, so what was the point of the Walpurgis's actions? He loosened up a little; of course he wouldn't see the worst thing.
And there it was: the faint click of the front door opening. Nearly there now. Through the moment, Church could feel his fingernails biting into the flesh of his hand. 'Church? Is that you?' Her voice, almost unbearable. The shape, like a ghost, flitting across the hall. He hadn't concentrated before; it had all been too painful.
And then, oddly, the image rewound a few seconds and played again. Church's head spun. What was going on?
It reached the same point, then rewound again. And again. And again. And then Church realised: the Walpurgis was trying to show him something. This time he concentrated.
The shape, flitting across the hall. No, not the shape; that wasn't it at all. He was looking at the wrong thing. What was it? The image rewound and played again. And then he saw something: the shadow the shape cast on the wall as it passed. So brief, a fraction of a second, but Church knew he had seen its outline before. That wasn't all, though: a smell, wafting briefly in the air. A familiar smell. Vague, unsettling thoughts began to ripple up from the hidden depths of his mind. What were they? Piece them all together.
And then he had the first part of it. The realisation swept through him like the harshest winter. The shadow of the intruder, the one who had murdered Marianne, had been one of his recent companions: a Brother or Sister of Dragons. Every subtle indicator told him his instincts were right. At that stage he couldn't pin it down any more, but he knew if he watched the image a few more times he would have it.
His stomach was turning loops. Surely it couldn't be true. One of the people who had been closest to him over the last few months, someone he trusted more than life itself? Not Laura. Or Veitch. Surely not Shavi. Not
