Page 132 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

Wait for me. Be at rest.

The drawling cry that left the faceless teratism could have peeled the paint from the walls. But hefeltthe creature’s accord. An acknowledgement of his will. The others joined in, the creature that resembled Black Annis the loudest of all. The cacophony was rough and fraught with keen edges, a terror on the ears really, but so very welcome.

‘Go now, they will follow,’ he said softly, nodding at the skriker. The hound snapped at the air, but his next move was far more disconcerting. Forneus lowered his damp nose all the way to the ground, splaying his front legs in what looked uncomfortably like a canine version of a bow.

‘Enough of that.’ Silas’s cheeks warmed, and he waved the hound on. ‘Off you go.’

Forneus righted himself and set straight to the task, shepherding the teratisms back down the corridor, nipping the air at their heels to urge them on.

Not wishing to test Sybilla’s patience any longer, Silas pulled his gaze away from his curious band. He cradled Pitch close, racing out into the rain and the carriage that awaited. Mr Ahari sat in the driver’s seat, calm as you like as though he’d not just been a giant fox and dragged them all out of hell. Silas nodded, the kitsune gave him a grim smile, and then there was much to occupy Silas as he negotiated bundling the unconscious daemon into the carriage. A task he was becoming quite adept at now.

Silas clambered in with some grunting and fuss, grateful for the carriage’s double doors that gave him less need to relinquish Pitch fully to Sybilla, who sought to aid him. Silas slumped onto the seat beside the Valkyrie. She in turn had settled Edward into the seat opposite her. She muttered and pushed at Pitch’s dirty bare foot, which had come to rest on her coat. Bess sat opposite Silas, Charlie on his lap, the lad’s feet resting on the lieutenant’s thighs.

‘The fog now, if you will please, Matilda,’ Mr Ahari called out to the water elemental, and they were away.

The carriage picked up speed, drawing them away from the Fulbourn. There was something reminiscent in the journey, fleeing with Matilda’s storm raging about them, only this time they were doing so on the ground, not carried away by sirin. Silas sat facing the back of the carriage, watching the swirls of a thickening mist descend, capturing the grey of the smoke in its sweep. They were not yet encased in the concealing fog when the asylum’s collapse began. Silas had a perfect view of it through the narrow back window.

He touched his lips absently to Pitch’s hair, hugging the daemon in closer. The wing they had just fled collapsed at the middle, the two halves tilting in towards one another as a great rent, like a knife drawn through a cake, tore down the middle. Chimney pots toppled, and windows burst as the storeys came down upon one another, their weight forcing the one beneath to crumble. A huge plume of dust and debris defied the heavy rain to rise upwards. There were distant screams, and the throngs scattered, their garb made brilliant white as a blast of lightning came to highlight the Fulbourn as it fell apart.

‘Oh god, do you think everyone was out?’ Silas whispered.

‘I’m sure they were.’ Bess leaned forward to pat his knee. ‘The Lady will have seen to it.’

He glanced at Sybilla, hoping to see the Valkyrie nod. The angel stared grimly ahead, watching the destruction.

‘It is always the weak who suffer when the strong make mistakes, Silas,’ she said. ‘You’d do well to remember that.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

PITCH KNEWhimself to be dreaming, a sublime imagining where he teased his tongue at Silas’s lips, darting it between them but nipping away before the ankou got the deeper kiss he was begging for. Pitch was laughing, giggling if he were honest, like a bloody maiden with her beau, all manner of happy silliness filling him. They were laid out on a soft patch of grass, surrounded by an array of flowers, all shades of the rainbow, bobbing grasses rustling with the touch of a clement breeze. They were very much naked, and both hard as headstones, cocks glancing against one another like hesitant lovers.

Silas slid a hand between Pitch’s legs, encouraging his knees to part, a move that needed little encouragement and stirred him so hard the dream wavered.

Pitch tried to grasp at the frail edges, but he was dragged from the depths of slumber.

Awake.

Pitch opened his eyes.

He was curled up on a window seat, laid on tapestry cushions that surrounded him in a low fortress of softness. His cock hard up against his belly. Blankets had been laid over him, smelling faintly of lemon and divinely velvet against his skin. The seat filled the deep recess of a bay window, broad enough that he could have shared it with Silas if the ankou were not outside. With Charlie.

Pitch luxuriated in the gentle stupor of being only half-awake, eyes heavy-lidded as he watched them. The ankou and the purebred sat a little too close, if he was being particular, but he knew the joy that must be Silas’s right now. He would be beside himself with relief to have found that odd little creature.

And if Pitch closed one eye and tilted his head just so, he could block Charlie from his view anyway.

The pair sat on a garden bench in feeble wintery sunshine. They were in the midst of a garden that looked not to have seen a gardener’s hand in some time. The bare-boned apple trees beyond where they sat were swamped by tall grasses that were making ground on much of the rest of the garden. He thought he spied a few garden beds, a few naked, crooked rose bushes, all stripped back and burying their beauty until spring came calling again, but he cared little for the landscape.

The lad held out his arm and pushed up his shirtsleeve. Ottelie’s bracelet was still on his wrist, though Pitch could make out little detail. Silas stared down at it in some awe. That much Pitchcoulddiscern, for the ankou’s hair was yet to return to its longer lengths and was slicked back against the sides of his head. He held Charlie’s hand with his fingertips, turning it to and fro, saying something to the vagabond that caused him to smile and shake his head.

‘I bet he’s asking if it hurts,’ Pitch muttered.

Silas did not like those he cared for to be in any pain at all. He was inexorable in that.

Pitch exhaled, relaxing into the view. Silas would be pleased to know how little Pitch’s back bothered him. He glanced at his arm. The gouge he had made to conceal the watch had knitted so well as to be hardly visible at all, but seeing the faint scar brought reality swooping in with a nasty rush.

The Fulbourn had been a nightmare.

He had come very near to losing the ankou…to losing himself.