thoughts tried to make sense of what was happening, but before they could, he was mesmerised by the sight of Sophie floating down towards him.
Time appeared to hold still, then speed up. She crashed at his side, then began to slide. Frantically, she raked her hands back and forth, gulping air in terror as she slipped.
Finally, her fingers closed tightly around a bony ridge; her face blazed with jubilation and she began to pull herself up.
The queasy sensation of being whipped along caught them both as they clung on for dear life. From the corners of his eyes Mallory saw the beating wings, and the retreating spire, the angry knights like flies. Far below, Salisbury was laid out like a fairy city, glorious in white, and beyond it the spectral landscape, beautiful and terrible.
The Fabulous Beast rode the currents, taking them to an uncertain fate.
Chapter Fourteen
'Do you want to be good? Then first understand that you are bad.'
Mallory woke from a dream of flying to feel heat on his face and the crackling of fire in his ears. At first he thought he was still with the Fabulous Beast, soaring high over the magical landscape. But there was no wind in his hair and no rolling sense of motion deep in his gut. Only hardness and stability lay beneath him.
Nearby, the blazing ruins of an old barn melted the snow in a wide circle, providing warmth in the chill of the grey morning. A farmhouse with a sagging roof and broken windows stood across a courtyard. Mallory lay on boards under cover of the eaves of a disused cow shed. Old sacking had been thrown across his legs. He looked up to the lowering clouds and felt a brief, affecting sadness for what was gone.
The cold the previous night had left him almost delirious, and his memories of what happened after their escape from the cathedral were fragmented. More than anything, he recalled the flight, seeing the world in white flash by beneath, hearing the beat of the Fabulous Beast's wings and the roar of the otherworldly fire. Transcendental, wondrous, an abiding feeling of something greater.
They had descended on the eastern fringes of the city, and that's where his memories had started to dissolve. He couldn't remember the landing or much of dismounting, though he had a clear image of the Fabulous Beast rising up into the sky, limned by the moonlight as it disappeared into the snowy night.
'Finally.' Sophie emerged from a nearby copse, clutching what appeared to be twigs and leaves. Her ordeal in the cells had sloughed off her with remarkable ease — the effects of the Blue Fire, he guessed — and she appeared bright and hearty. She wandered over to him, shivering slightly. 'I thought you were going to sleep the day away.'
'You controlled it,' he said in amazement.
This amused her. 'Don't be silly. You can't control something as wonderful and elemental as that. I asked for its help. It answered.'
'You're full of tricks.'
'Yes, I'm just all-round wonderful.' She squatted down next to him and examined his shoulder where the crossbow bolt had struck. 'You've warmed up. I was worried last night.'
'Stefan didn't provide many creature comforts in the cells. Like food.'
Her face darkened. 'Revenge doesn't achieve anything, but I really want to pay that bastard back for everything he's done… to my people, to me. To you.' She looked back towards the city. 'I hope most of them managed to escape. They'll regroup. The Celtic Nation is stronger than that weak, scared…' She shook her head, overcome by emotion as the memories of the attack on the camp returned to her.
'We're out of it now.'
She laid the leaves and twigs next to him. 'Most of the goodness is frozen in the ground at this time of year,' she said. 'It's not a season when you should be homeless. But I managed to scrape together a few bits and pieces. If we can find some kind of pot, we can melt some snow and I can boil up a soup-'
'Yum.'
'OK, it won't exactly be Jamie Oliver,' she snapped, 'but it'll give us some energy, at least to keep on the move until we can find some proper food. I think the bolt might have chipped a bone in your shoulder. At least it didn't embed. But you're a tough guy… you'll get over it.'
'And the twigs?'
'They're for a ritual to keep us safe. As safe as we can expect to be in this place.' She looked around at the snow-draped landscape. A few birds flapped desolately amongst the stark trees; it appeared as if all human existence had been swept away.
Mallory took her hand. 'One advantage to nobody being around… we could always warm up under this… uh… sack.'
Sophie extricated her fingers from his. 'I know you place a lot of faith in your charm, Mallory, but really, it's not as winning as you believe.' Despite her haughty expression, some of the depression that had hung around her since the attack on her camp lifted slightly. 'I don't sleep with just anyone. I need wine… and flowers… and wrapping in warm towels. And even then my suitor has to meet my exceedingly high expectations. And frankly, Mallory, I shouldn't hold your breath.'
Mallory watched her wander towards the farmhouse in search of pots and pans. He felt at peace, he felt free, and both seemed so unusual for being absent from his life for so long. They'd escaped, and he could barely believe it. Above all, though, he was relieved that the Caretaker had been wrong — they'd escaped with their lives and sanity intact, and there hadn't been a price to pay at all.
'Which way are we headed?' Mallory asked as he sipped on the foul- tasting stew that Sophie had laboured over for the past hour. It warmed his limbs and gave him renewed energy, just as she had promised, though the process was slow. 'We could head west… maybe go to Exeter. Some of the smaller cities might not have been affected as badly as the larger ones.'
She spooned in silence for a moment and then said, 'You know I can't leave here, Mallory.'
His heart sank. He did know, although he had tried to resist believing it.
'I'm the tribe's leader. They're counting on me. I need to get them back together… lead them away to a safe place where we can regroup. You're welcome to come with us,' she added, without looking at him, though the hope in her voice was clear.
'OK… of course.' He was loath to go anywhere near the cathedral, with its weight of bad memories and the possibility that he might once again be sucked into its awful gravity. He'd hoped it could be just the two of them, insulated from the demands of a hard world, but he knew that had always been a fantasy.
She appeared honestly pleased by his response, and that warmed him. 'Besides, what about Miller?' she added. 'I thought he was your friend. Don't you want to get him out of that awful place?'
'He's no friend. He's just some stupid kid who was always hanging on my coat-tails.'
Sophie watched him carefully; Mallory felt as though she could see right inside him, all the lies and the terrible things he'd done.
'That's you down to the ground, isn't it, Mallory? Pretending nothing and nobody matters… pretending it to yourself. When are you going to learn that everything matters? That people matter most of all.'
He put the bowl to one side and stared at the flames that still roared in the remains of the barn, ignited, he guessed, by the Fabulous Beast. Did it really have the intelligence to provide them with warmth? Was it a beast at all?
'I can't work you out at all,' Sophie said sharply. 'You just switch off when a subject comes up that you don't want to talk about. And how many of those are there? Like the past…'
