Page 114 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

A trace of bitterness coated Silas’s tongue. He curled his fingers into fists and imagined them laid into the creature who had brought Pitch such misery.

Onoskolis lifted her skirt to step over the lip of the entranceway, revealing a vile feature; one of her feet was not a foot at all but a dirty white hoof struck through with smears of black as though it had been badly tarred, her thick ankle coated in matte-brown hair.

The Alp glared at him, dropping her skirt quickly. And Silas revelled in letting all his revulsion show.

She glanced away. ‘Macha, come. Be done with this. You heard Iblis’s order.’ The Alp grabbed at Macha’s cloak.

‘Piss off. He will not order me about.’ The sorceress slapped her away. ‘I want more time.’

‘You cannot have it. Do you not feel what the tree’s magick is doing to the Sanctuary?’

‘All the more reason to get to the purebreds it covets. We have the ankou. The daemon will show himself if he is endangered and –’

‘Iblis grows angry with you. Badh is here and impatient for you to aid him in sealing the Sanctuary. Palatyne too cannot wait on you any longer. We must go. It is over here, Macha.’

‘What of Nemain?’

Onoskolis glanced at Silas. ‘It has been deemed not wise for you all to assemble in the same place. The Order is searching for their Horsemen.’

Silas’s pulse drummed a hopeful beat. Did that mean the Order was close enough to frighten the Morrigan? Perhaps Macha was not the only one who needed more time.

‘Nemain needs to be here, damn it.’ Macha pouted. ‘The three of us could easily overcome that fucking tree –’

‘Youneedto survive. The Fulbourn was only ever meant to hold your ghosts and corpses; it was never meant to become a battleground. The daemon eludes us, and the magick that has that fucking tree growing is shaking the foundations.’ Right on cue the Sanctuary rumbled like a distant storm, and the lost souls sent urgent whispers to Silas.Help us.‘We will have it all come down on our heads if we stay here much longer. Palatyne has done all she can. Your sigils alone are not strong enough –’

‘Shut your mouth.’ Macha glared at the daemon, her lips an angry, thin line. ‘We need to lure the daemon, and this is how we do it.’ She stabbed her finger at Silas.

‘The time has passed for –’

‘He is Dominion.’

Onoskolis looked to Silas, her confusion almost comical.

‘Not him, you fool. That daemon you fucked is Dominion.’

Onoskolis’s fine-featured face drained pale. Silas had made a terrible mess speaking Pitch’s truth out loud, but to see her fear made it almost worth it.

‘Dominion…’ she breathed, touching a hand to one of her horns.

Ankou,the souls pleaded. Silas peered into the trap. Samyaza’s ruby eyes had darkened beneath the cobalt.

‘You rode royalty, my dear.’ Macha withdrew the white reed from her dark cloak. She held it aloft, as though preparing to conduct an unseen orchestra. ‘Mr Mercer very kindly let that particular cat out of the bag. The daemon is a prince of Arcadia.’

Onoskolis’s smile had trouble lifting. ‘I knew him different…buttheprince of Arcadia? As Nemain proposed?’

Macha adjusted her hold on the rod, pointing it towards the glowing monopteros. ‘Yes, yes. No need to point out that my sister was right. I’ll not hear the end of it as it is. The Berserker Prince is not in his abaddon.’ She flicked her wrist, and the lost souls cried in one voice, a voice muffled as though a thick blanket had been thrown upon their prison.

‘I see.’ Onoskolis swallowed so hard Silas caught the click of her throat, but her agitation was short-lived. She pulled back her shoulders, lifted her chin. And her wide grin flashed sharp teeth. ‘Well, if only I’d known. I’d have done so much more to him.’ She caught Silas’s eye and ran the tip of her tongue slowly between her lips. ‘He was a very fine fuck indeed. And I’ve you to thank for that, Mr Mercer. He was so very hard with his desire for you. I do hope I have not spoiled him for you. You can still get him onto his back, can you not?’ She blinked wide, fathomless eyes in a show of innocence that looked ridiculous on her. She breathed in cruelty like an incubus inhaled the sweet things in life.

Silas did not swallow against the bile rising up his throat. He did not move. Not an inch. For the very slightest movement on his part would see his control lost. His rage would escape a volatile stranglehold and serve no purpose but to likely see him screaming and punching at a brick wall as the Alp and her mistress slipped away. He would have his moment with Onoskolis, but it was not here and now.

The Alp looked away, and Silas liked to imagine it was because she saw the darkness of his thoughts.

‘Let us go. Now, Macha.’

He savoured the subtle waver in her tone. ‘Yes, best you run along now.’ He was ice and hatred mixed into a fine cocktail, with a sliver of a smile to match. ‘Pitch has told me all the things he would like to do toyou, daemon, when he finds you. I doubt very much you will thank me for anything at all, once he is done.’

‘Oh, Mr Mercer.’ Macha laughed. ‘You speak as though you have a hope of ever leaving this place.’ The rod began to emanate light, a sicklier pale blue than the cobalt. ‘Your work for the Lady is done, I’m afraid. And though I shall be sad to say goodbye to the Fulbourn, for I had such fun here, I shall be very happy knowing that the souls I had no use for will serve a purpose after all, for I abhor waste. Goodbye, ankou.’