Page 77 of The Death Wish

Pitch considered it, water drops like diamonds on his cheeks. The Ferryman steered them through the troubled waters, the sun-glow of their lantern lighting the way.

‘You could hate. It is what so many others do.’

‘I do not wish to be like others.’

The sway of the boat pushed them together. ‘There has never been another like you, my Sickle. Izanami was no fool.’

‘Nor Seraphiel.’

Pitch took it as the compliment it was intended, and offered a grim smile.

The smack of a wave against the hull sent up a fresh, more vigorous spray of water and all the softness left the daemon. ‘Gods! You, at the bow there, steady this fucking craft, or I swearby the taint’s of all the fucking angels I’ll come down there and roast you in that ridiculous armour.’

The silence, and utter indifference of the Ferryman only infuriated Pitch further, and Silas wrangled with a prince who spat all kinds of dark intentions for the guide’s staff.

The splash and slap of waves worsened. Charlie yelped, and both he and Edward braced their hands against whatever solid piece of wood was nearest. Scarlet had entirely disappeared, inside a pocket no doubt. Silas was beginning to wonder if there was not more of the loch inside the boat than without when the frothing waters suddenly found peace.

The change from rough to smooth was instant. A startled mewl came from the prince. ‘About bloody time.’

Silas blinked, swiping at the wetness in his beard.

The loch was returned to smooth as glass, but did not retain its pewter of earlier. The water here was white as milk.

Inchgalbraith was nowhere to be seen. The tiny island ruins were gone. And in their place a land mass far greater than all the other islands in the loch combined.

At the heart of the spread of land was an enormous structure. Castle was not fine enough a word. This was a palace. Superb, enormous. Richly decorated with a multitude of gold-tipped spires and whitewashed walls with a subtle lustre.

‘Oh my,’ Charlie gasped in the sudden quiet. ‘That is beautiful.’

There was no denying it.

Pitch sighed. ‘Now, this is far more suited to that vainglorious prick Seraphiel.’

‘It’s like something out of a fairytale,’ Charlie whispered. ‘I used to think I could see gold glinting off the islands at sunset. I watched as often as I could, and imagined there was a pot of gold here I could find and steal, so I could run away.’ He laughed, a little dreamily. ‘But I never imagined anything like this.’

Silas wondered if anyone had ever imagined something like this.

The palace was overlooked by a towering mountain range, snow capping the peaks; just as they’d seen when they set out over Loch Lomond.

But this was not the loch now.

Silas’s grave lay beyond the veil that hid this place, and he welcomed the distance forged.

The slide of the boat slowed as the new shore approached. A white sand beach lay like a thin ribbon between the milky water and a tangle of spindly trees, their trunks ghost white, their leaves gold and big as maples. Beyond them, the palace was a great hulking presence. Edward rose to his feet, with Charlie at his side. Silas stared at the dry state of the man: not a single wet hair upon the lieutenant’s head, whilst the rest of them were soaked through.

Edward turned to face them. His eyes held pinpricks of gold light, the spark of the angel within, well alight.

‘You took your time, Dominion.’ It was not Edward who spoke. A man could not carry such a tone as this.

Pitch surely knew, but that did not stop him from being riled. ‘That is my greeting? You complete cu–’

‘Enter the Sanctuary. Delay no more. Time does not favour us, Prince Vassago.’

Edward’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed into Charlie’s ready arms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

PITCH FOUGHTCharlie for the right to lift Edward from the shallow cradle of the boat.