after the start.
Math made them gather near to him within a protective circle. Candles guttered on the circumference in front of each of the windows. The animals all strained at their chains. Slowly, and with a voice that didn’t appear to come from any of the faces, Math began a chant in a language Sophie and Caitlin didn’t recognise. It hurt their ears when they attempted to focus on any of the words. The god continued for five minutes, his voice rising and falling but growing continually louder. By the end he was shouting so loudly that Sophie and Caitlin covered their ears. A great wind blew into the room, snuffing out the candles’ flames one by one. Each of the beasts began to make a terrible howling sound that could not have come from any animal. The noise rose up to the roof until it seemed to have a life of its own and rushed around the room with the wind. The beasts tore at their chains and threw themselves back and forth in a furious desire to break free.
Math stopped his chanting and pointed out of the western window. ‘Look!’ he roared above the cacophony.
Sophie and Caitlin both turned and, a second later, not knowing what they had seen, they plunged into unconsciousness.
When they awoke, an uncommon stillness lay across the room. The four beasts cowered against the windows and Math was slumped in a chair at the table as if he had no strength left within him.
‘It is as I said: the Pendragon Spirit cannot be brought into this Fragile Creature,’ he said flatly through the falcon mask.
‘That’s it?’ Caitlin said. ‘Then this was all for nothing?’
‘No.’ Math levered himself to his feet, his power slowly returning. ‘There is still hope for you. You are a child of Existence, and like all of your kind you have the potential to be greater. The Pendragon Spirit shall come to you again.’
Sophie thought Caitlin might faint at this news. ‘When?’ she said desperately. ‘Soon?’
‘When you have proved yourself ready,’ Math replied.
Caitlin thought about this for a second, then turned to Sophie. ‘I have to do what I can to prove I’m worthy. Don’t stop me doing this, all right?’
Not knowing what Caitlin was planning, Sophie agreed, but had a suspicion that she was not going to like it.
‘I know it’s possible for the gods to become a part of Fragile Creatures,’ Caitlin began. ‘You can enter us. Possess us.’
‘Some can,’ Math said.
‘I know this,’ Caitlin said. ‘And I know which one I want inside me. I have a bond with her. I know her power and I can use it in what we’ve got coming.’ She took a deep breath and then said, ‘I want you to contact the Morrigan, and I want you to make her become part of me.’
‘You’re crazy!’ Sophie said. ‘You can’t seriously be asking for that.’
‘I can, and I am,’ Caitlin said defiantly.
‘Don’t you understand? She’s the goddess of death, war, bloodshed-’
‘And sex, creativity, new life,’ Caitlin countered impatiently.
‘You won’t be able to control her — she’ll control you. She’s the most unpredictable, the most dangerous… I’m very skilled in the Craft, but even I’m careful about calling on the Morrigan.’
‘Trust me, Sophie, we’ve got a bond, her and me. I’ve been to hell and back in my life. I know exactly what the Morrigan is about, believe me. This is my only chance to do something that might help. As some weak, Fragile Creature, I’m worthless-’
‘Not true.’
‘It is in the context of what’s coming up. You know that’s right. You know it. You’re going to need all the help you can get.’
Sophie relented a little. ‘I still think it’s a mistake.’
‘You’ll change your mind. We’re going to make a good team — a witch and a warrior.’ Caitlin turned to Math. ‘Can you do it?’
‘The Dark Sister might choose a host who has the Pendragon Spirit inside her. But why should she bond with a Fragile Creature?’ At its window, the boar snorted and stamped its hooves impatiently.
‘Tell her there’ll be blood and death on an epic scale. There’ll be a war to end all wars, and I’ll be in the thick of it.’
Math raised one twisted hand to the mouth of his boar mask in silent consideration and then turned to his table. He selected two phials, one filled with red dust, the other with a granular black powder. He took a pinch of each and flung them on to the brazier.
The stench of the smoke made Sophie grip her nose in disgust; it smelled of charnel houses, of bonfires after the battle, of iron and bone. Math turned to the west once again and uttered a word of power that left Sophie staggering. An instant later, an unearthly silence fell on the tower, dead air, no echoes even when she dragged her boot over the floorboards.
An overpowering sense that something was coming gripped Sophie, but this was not the anticipation she had felt when Math had called for the Pendragon Spirit. This time she felt dread, every fibre urging her to flee.
A cloud, blacker even than the night sky, was visible through the western window. It surged towards the tower with a rising sound like thunder, swept around it, then rushed in through all four windows at once with a deafening, wild movement. Crows, hundreds, thousands of them. Sophie threw herself backwards, almost falling down the stairs. The crows filled the room in a dense wall of black, flapping wings.
From the floor, her hands covering her head, Sophie caught occasional glimpses of Caitlin. It looked as if the birds were attacking her, pecking at her eyes, her face, trying to batter their way into her stomach. Sophie called out to her, but her voice was nothing beside the tumult.
After barely more than a minute, the crows departed. As she pulled herself to her feet, Sophie expected to see Caitlin’s ragged corpse lying broken on the floor. Instead, her friend stood erect and unharmed, radiating a fierce beauty and a dark power that made her almost impossible to look upon. On her shoulder sat the biggest crow Sophie had ever seen, its black, beady gaze heavy upon her.
‘Are you… are you OK?’ Sophie ventured.
Caitlin answered with a cold glint in her eyes and an even colder smile.
Night had transformed Oxford into a magical city as Hal made his way into the centre. Candlelight flickered in many windows and the street lamps made the snow glitter on the roads and rooftops, occasionally illuminating stray snowflakes drifting down.
One hour ago, he had met with Samantha. Hal had kept a brave face while she handed over notes on the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons that she had copied from Reid’s files. They spoke of links to the Arthurian myths and to a greater mystery that intrigued Hal immensely.
Samantha had risked everything to get the information and Hal knew she had expected a greater show of gratitude from him. But if he had released even a hint of emotion, everything inside him would have come out in a deluge that he would have regretted for the rest of his life. Instead, he had simply promised to hand the notes over to Hunter as soon as he returned, and then took his leave.
He couldn’t go back to a room that now felt so small and cold, so he had decided to walk off his sadness, and now he was glad he had. There was something magical in every aspect of the city, and he felt as if he had been allowed a glimpse of the secret spark at the heart of the mundane.
He kicked up flurries of snow as he walked, wishing Hunter was there to experience it with him. He couldn’t blame Hunter for Samantha’s action; they were the two most important people in his life and if he was completely objective they probably deserved each other. Hal missed his friend; for all his licentiousness, there was a poetry to Hunter that Hal admired because he knew he lacked it himself. He had the sneaking feeling that Hunter always saw the secret spark, while Hal only ever saw the mundane.
He was worried for Hunter’s safety. There had been no official news from the front line, but rumours had started to circulate that things had gone badly. There were always rumours running wild in the incestuous Government community, and most of them usually turned out to be false, but this one gelled with expectation. Some said that the General and the top brass had flown back from the front early and were now sequestered in the War Room ensconced in the bowels of Magdalen’s New Library. Others said that the General had already shot himself with a silver bullet and the enemy was only ten miles from the city limits. There was talk of mass
