Page 62 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

‘Silas, don’t be a fool!’ Pitch shouted.

The final stone appeared, slotting into place by magick’s unseen hands.

Sealing them in.

Silas lashed out with his curved blade. The clang of metal against stone was raucous.

Pitch planted his hands over his ears. ‘Stop, you idiot,’ he shouted.

‘Why aren’t you doing something, damn it?’ Silas turned, his coat-tails whipping about, his face reddened with his fury. ‘Don’t just stand there.Dosomething.’

Pitch rushed at him, grabbing at his collar, wrenching him in close and sparing little thought for the sharpness of the blade in Silas’s hand. ‘Do what?’ he hissed. ‘Tear this place down around our ears? Have it crush to death those we seek? Not to mention the hordes they have crammed into the corridors above us. Do you want that, Silas? All those humans in the rubble? We have no idea where they’ve taken Charlie, certainly not Edward.’ He shook the ankou, needing to clear the haze of panic from Silas’s eyes. ‘When Idosomething, it causes havoc, destruction, in case you have not noticed. So we wait, we let them show their hand. We see our enemy’s face.’

Silas’s struggle weakened. Silver flashed as the blade settled back into its bandalore form. ‘They are so fragile, Pitch.’ He shook his head. ‘They are vulnerable. Charlie and Ed–’

‘They are the strings, we are the puppets. Did you not hear the doctor’s pathetic analogy? They are safe so long as we play this game. And when the game is over, when the Morrigan have shown their hand, then I willdosomething, Silas. Trust me on that at least.’

The ankou still held doubts, for they were writ large upon his face, but he nodded. Even managing a weak smile. He wrapped his thick fingers about Pitch’s wrists and leaned in to bring their brows to touch. ‘I trust you on everything.’

‘Because you are an idiotic oaf.’

‘Who was almost no good to you at all.’ Silas exhaled, and Pitch’s lashes fluttered against the warmth. ‘I am more frightened than the day I woke in my grave.’

‘I’m not exactly the picture of serenity I appear either, but we must keep our wits. Do you hear me?’

The ankou nodded. More resolute this time. Pitch slid his cheek across Silas’s own, his lips close to the ankou’s ear. ‘I’m going to take the watch back now.’

Silas tensed. ‘But does it not –’

‘Kiss me.’

Pitch gave him little option in the matter and hoped to the gods the ankou understood soon enough. Silas jerked back at first, trying to mutter into the sudden embrace. Pitch pressed a hand to the back of his neck, keeping him close, while the other dropped, searching for the ankou’s coat pocket. Silas’s protest was short-lived, and he yielded, tilting into the kiss now with decent fervour. He cupped the back of Pitch’s head with a broad palm.

‘Left pocket,’ he mumbled.

The ankou threw himself into the performance, keeping his hands up high and busy, drawing the eye should anyone watch them through the cracks. He touched at Pitch’s neck, his chest, going so far as to peel off one shoulder of his coat as though he were about to ravish the daemon there and then.

Gods, if only.

Pitch worked quickly, slipping his fingers into the ankou’s coat and fiddling with the iron box there. Pulling it open, clasping the watch within. The mark on his back shocked with painful pinpoints.

Pitch whimpered and Silas soothed away the discomfort with gentle touches of his tongue. And it was so very tempting to stay here, dissolving beneath the ankou’s hands. But Pitch had what he needed.

The show need not go on.

As though it were a curtain call, dust swept in through those very same cracks in the wall Pitch had imagined. It rushed at them from every angle, a sudden storm of sandy grit.

‘Shit,’ Silas grunted.

Pitch had but a second to realise what had been sent at them before his eyelids were as heavy as the stone surrounding him.

The need to sleep was overwhelming.

The ankou staggered, his weight pressing on Pitch’s shoulders. ‘What is…happening…’

‘Pixie dust,’ Pitch spat. The tiny particles coated the inside of his nose, his mouth, filtered into his ears. ‘Gods damn…’

Silas tilted like a tree awaiting the last swing of a farmer’s axe. Pitch grabbed for him but only managed to topple with him. They collapsed, Pitch barely managing to avoid being crushed by the ankou’s weight. He was half-buried beneath Silas, who had already begun to snore softly. The potent dust doing its work.