Page 57 of The Death Wish
He huffed with dry, unamused laughter. ‘What does not? It’s just that I assumed Lalassu would know the way, too.’
‘Likely Sanu knows I’m with you, and is refusing to make this easy.’ Pitch offered, with no more amusement than Silas, but laughing all the same.
Neither of them voiced what Silas was certain they both pondered. Was the angel already close enough that Sanu did not dare betray her exact position to her mate?
Silas’s mind was a whirl with what he’d learned from the souls. Michael, the Serpahim, knew of the simurgh. Did the angel hunt them even now, or was he focused upon finding Lucifer?
‘Did Lucifer say he was returning to Arcadia, when last you spoke?’ Silas pressed his mouth close to Pitch’s ear. ‘Will Michael return to White Mountain?’
‘Lucifer said he would be returning,’ Pitch’s concerns manifested a slight tightness in his body, a change that Silas found himself intimately attuned to now. ‘But who fucking knows what that bastard shall decide to do. I don’t have Tyvain’s godsforsaken cards.’ His back pressed against Silas’s chest as he took a deep breath. ‘To be fair though, if your souls speak truly, and Michael is having to take headless fae from windows to glean information, it shows that Lucifer did not run backto Enoch and spill everything about what is happening here.’ Another breath. ‘The souls said Michael knew of the simurgh, that he wanted to know where it had been taken…but did they say he knew of me?’
Silas brought his arms in tighter about Pitch. ‘No, they didn’t.’ Relief came with that; what felt like a small victory. ‘And Byleist would never betray you to the angel.’
Pitch made a small hitched sound. ‘You cannot say never. I know you think the sun shines from the Dullahan’s arsehole –’
‘That is absolutely not –’
‘He was brave, and noble, I’m not denying that. He went to great lengths for you, but to be interrogated by a Seraph…well, I doubt even I would not succumb and let something important slip.’
Silas swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry with thought of such torture. ‘I should have asked more of the souls…it sounded to me that Michael had already moved on from Byleist…Christ, I did not ask them if he survived.’
Pitch managed to find a gap in Lalassu’s mane, and pinched Silas’s thigh, bringing him back to where panic sat shallower. ‘Stop tormenting yourself. If you’d stayed any longer in the state you were in, I think your brains would have seeped out of your head. And I would not enjoy an empty-headed ankou in my bed.’
Silas nestled his chin upon Pitch’s shoulder, Lalassu’s gait so smooth there was no danger of chipped teeth. ‘I’m sorry that I frightened you. The voices overwhelmed me so quickly, I had no time to even realise what was happening. I think Izanami protected me from their clamour in the village.’
‘Pity she didn’t see fit to stuff deathly cotton in your ears out here. She is a mercurial wench, like the rest of the gods…and Lucifer. Let us hope he is deep enough into the halls of White Mountain that Michael cannot draw information from him in the ways he prefers. Which is to say, painfully.’
Silas lifted his head, watching the road ahead, and Charlie upon his horse. The gelding was doing well with the punishing ascent and quick pace. ‘It is not a pleasant state, in the world of the dead, my love. They are being greatly burdened by the Blight, ever more so than before.’
Pitch covered Silas’s arm, where it remained at his waist. ‘And your burden grows with it, too, no doubt. I shall be glad to reach this infernal Sanctuary, if only to see that heaviness lifted from you.’
Silas breathed in the dank scent of Pitch’s hair, the hint of the grave still clinging there. Soothing to Silas’s peculiar tastes. He chose to relish what it was to be able to hold and comfort the daemon at all. Not so long ago, he had feared they would never sit so closely again.
‘No much further,’ Charlie shouted. ‘There’s the Kirkstone Pass Inn, look!’
And for the first time in quite a while, they could actually see what lay ahead. The fog thinned where a solitary building sat atop a long-awaited crest. The pub’s name was clearly written upon the signboard hanging outside, but to Silas’s untrained eye it was no better than chicken scratches. Lights gleamed inside, sending square patches of illumination onto the road. No one sat at the scattering of tables outside, the evening being far too cool.
Beyond the Kirkstone, down into the valley behind, the fog spread itself thin, revealing more of the countryside than they had seen on the ride so far.
Stark and near-bare as those hills were, the sight was no less breathtaking. Though still absorbed by his troubles, Silas’s heart stuttered to see the majesty of the landscape.
Charlie’s horse slowed, into a canter, then a trot. And Scarlet’s light suddenly extinguished.
‘Everything all right?’ Silas called.
‘We can’t stop for an ale, you know,’ Pitch added. ‘Tempting though it is.’
‘The gateway is not far from here, I don’t want to miss it,’ Charlie called back. ‘And there is also a carriage approaching, if you must know.’
Silas had been too absorbed by the sights to notice the dark looming presence of the simple berliner, with its pair of dapple greys. Lalassu went from gallop to walk, barely interrupting her steps with a transition to trot, which made for bloody uncomfortable riding.
He did not begrudge Pitch the foul language as they jerked about. The mare set herself near to one of the unused tables of the alehouse, where the road swelled out like a toad’s belly either side, to allow for those stopping at the Kirkstone. The carriage’s passengers were not among them, though. The carriage driver slowed his dapple greys’ trot to accommodate the steeper decline, and continued on, barely glancing at the huge horse with her dual passengers, on the roadside.
‘Here we are,’ Charlie’s voice rang out, but the lad himself was harder to find. The fog had swept in again, nudged by the gentle but icy breeze. ‘Come on, this way.’
Lalassu moved on, and Silas could only assume the mare saw far more than he did, for she was back at a trot in no time. Taking them across the road, travelling alongside the low-set rock wall that hugged the Struggle into the gloom ahead. Night was moving in fast now.
A ball of light appeared up ahead; Scarlet illuminated once more. Silas sucked in his breath. If Scarlet still sat between the brown horse’s ears then the wisp was far too low. For one horrid moment he imagined Charlie and his mount had somehow fallen down a hillside.