Page 119 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

‘He’s not dead.’

The lad’s relief turned his shoulders into jelly. ‘Thank god.’

There was very little chance his particular god had anything to do with it. But Pitch was certain: Edward was alive.

A shift in the air above him had Pitch diving for Charlie. ‘Look out!’

He threw himself over the lad, plastering him against the flat surface of the coffin. Debris crashed through the barn roof, bringing down slats of wood along with the stones that fell. More than one of the falling stones aimed itself at Pitch’s back, striking the soft flesh where the Dullahan’s whip had penetrated. Rocks slammed against the glasswork, creating fine spiderweb-like cracks in the surface.

‘Edward,’ Charlie cried, muffled beneath him. ‘We need to protect him.’ The lad was trying to wriggle free, but to go bloody where?

‘Fuck, stay still.’ Pitch grunted. A rock large as a golf ball found the back of his head, and he swore anew.

If the tree was to blame for the Sanctuary’s instability, then what the blazes was going on now? And where the fuck was the ankou? Because they needed to leave. And leaving without Silas, even if it meant getting his precious bloody vagabond to safety, was not going to happen.

‘Forget me,’ Charlie cried. ‘You have to protect him, Pitch. You came for him, didn’t you? Tyvain said the two of you had to be brought together. I know it’s important.’

Pitch was saved from replying by a blow to the small of his back. He loosened a string of bitter curses against the culprit whilst wondering how the fuck the soothsayer, who was generally utterly useless, had nailed this particular foresight.

The onslaught settled. The sprinkle of dust and finer stones around them no longer seemed intent on breaking their bones. Rather, it was just immensely irritating to the nose, and getting his hair remotely clean after this would be a whole new nightmare.

Charlie slipped free, managing to tread on Pitch’s bare toes in the process.

‘Oh Christ,’ he hissed.

‘Quickly,’ Charlie yelled ‘With the two of us, we might get this open. I couldn’t do it alone.’ The lad crashed onto his knees and put all his paltry effort into pushing at the lid of the coffin, his youthful face wrinkled by his efforts. ‘Tobias, help me, will you? Don’t just stand there. I think you’re probably a lot stronger than me.’

‘What the blazes do you mean probably?’ Pitch spat. ‘Stop that before you burst a lung.’ He dug his fingers into the narrow gap between base and lid. ‘Move back.’

It was not so easy a task as he’d hoped; the lid was astonishingly heavy. Pitch allowed a modicum of his flame to lurk beneath the surface of his hands, but he’d not be able to keep it there long. Even that slight whisper of fire bullied his control. The unsettled beast awakened the moment it felt him draw on his strength, no amuletum to stifle it.

Gritting his teeth, Pitch hauled up, sparking a quick flare of flame, extinguishing it the moment the lid flipped over on itself and fell with a thud alongside the body of the coffin. His forearm roared with unmitigated pain as though he’d been struck by the very scythe itself.

‘Enoch’s fucking taint.’ Pitch went to his knees, clutching at his arm.

‘What is it? The fire? You were on fire…’ Charlie hovered in the clumsy way of the useless. ‘Tobias…are you wounded?’

Of course he was fucking wounded. He’d barely spent a moment of his existence not suffering from one injury or another.

Blood flowed between the fingers he had pressed to his arm. The cut he’d made to seal in the watch was splitting open. The sense of something with pincers beneath his skin was truly horrific.

The halo’s scars joined the fray. They blazed so fiercely he’d have thought he was actually on fire. Pitch doubled over, Charlie’s cries ringing in his ears. Gods, it was too much. His lungs were scorched dry of air; he was certain his skin was falling from his bones with the heat.

Give the prophet the relic.

Seraphiel’s voice roared with the flames. Brutal and blunt and as commanding as he’d ever been in life. Bending Pitch lower, his forehead near to his knees, his bleeding arm saturating his trousers. Gods, he was so fucking tired of bleeding.

Give the prophet the relic.

Pitch breathed through gritted teeth. The watch’s pin slicing him open. Reminding him how little choice he had in all this.

A relic? The purebreds had such things. Bones of their dead saints. But it was a name that could be given to any object that survived from the past.

‘Tobias, please.’ Charlie’s desperation surrounded him. ‘I don’t know what to do. How do I help you?’

Pitch didn’t waste time with a pointless reply. The purebred could do nothing to help him. He lifted a scarlet-gloved hand from the watch’s hiding place, and before he thought too much about it, he dug a finger into the sliced-open portion of his skin. Pitch exhaled long and steady and gouged the tear wider, dragging his finger through his own flesh until the hole was wide enough that he could squeeze two fingers into it. Carmine droplets gathered at his elbow, dripping to soak into the crushed rowan berries beneath him.

Charlie whimpered, but to his credit, he did not look away.