Page 69 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

‘Careful, witch. Your next move may be your last.’ Pitch loaded each word with rich contempt.

Macha laughed, the harpies grasping at her legs. ‘Oh I doubt that very much. But it may be yours. How mad can we drive you before you are lost? For you do tend to lose your mettle when poked hard enough, don’t you? And you don’t recover quickly. Disappeared for days into Harvington Hall after you went berserk and caused such a fuss at that farmhouse. And when your man here bundled you into the carriage at the greensward, you did not look well at all.’

Silas ground his teeth, holding very still. Macha reminded him of the raven more and more. Beady-eyed and ever watchful.

‘I’d like to get to know you, whoever you are, Mr Astaroth. You have great power obviously… You had them all running like the hounds of hell were on their tails when you slipped your leash at Gidleigh, and you have showed a resistance to the Gu that is astounding. You had what? A stomach ache for a few days after, and that was that?’

Silas worked on staying still, but his mind churned. Only those in the Village knew anything of Pitch’s illness after they’d returned from the greensward.

‘Never mind how you destroyed my sister’s precious magick circle and annihilated her panlong, which I will never hear the end of, mind. She had an unhealthy liking for that serpent and was quite beside herself when you turned it into sashimi.’ She brandished the head. Eyes red as cherries…or blood. ‘You are mercurial and fearsome, and I heard you once nearly strangled a boggart to death because he dared suggest you were a deserter from the Berserker Prince’s legion and every bit as mad as that prince.’ She paused, licking her lips. ‘That seemed to me an instance of the lady doth protest too much, don’t you think? Shall we see if the boggart was right?’

One of the shadows behind the dais stepped forward, emerging as though from behind a curtain. Their blurry image sharpened, and a woman with sun-darkened skin and long jet-black hair teased high upon the crown emerged.

Her tune was the harsh random rub of horsehair against strings. An off-key affair that had Silas wincing.

Daemon. Alp.

‘As pleasing a sight as it would be,’ she said, her voice deep and rolling, ‘perhaps it is worth taking a moment to think it through, my dear.’

Pitch inhaled, and dread pounded through Silas’s veins. The prince had his gaze fixed on the new arrival, pinned there the way a lion might stare when sighting prey. He was so very rigid, the veins in his neck evident. And his face, that was the worst of it. For he’d shut himself away entirely. There was nothing to read there at all. The sheen of emerald was dulled as though the light within were suffocating.

Oh god, Silas knew for certain now who this was.

He ignored the deafening pain of his shoulder to lean towards the prince. He ached to be closer, to place himself between Pitch and the villain upon the dais. For if anything would see the daemon lose his tenuous control, it was Onoskolis surely.

‘Pitch, look to me. Not there,’ Silas whispered urgently. If he could just get the prince to shift his arrowed gaze, to see that he was not so alone as he had been in Gidleigh House. ‘I am here. Please, look at me.’

But it was as if he was held in a trance, his hatred and fury binding him up and giving him a feral air. As though he were one heartbeat away from going wild and losing himself to the monster he believed he was.

The woman sauntered her way across the dais, her movement liquid. She was clad in a simple satin gown of ocean blue with a criss-cross of black ribbons at the bodice that dangled untied, as though she’d not quite finished dressing. She sidled up to Macha and ran a fingertip along her arm, easing in very close. She tilted her head as though she were considering laying a kiss upon Macha’s neck, and her hair shifted, revealing the nubs of horns hidden among the strands.

‘My mistress, best we stay with the plan Nemain laid out, don’t you think? Palatyne is moments from being ready to accommodate our guests.’

‘Oh don’t patronise me, Oni. You know it pisses me off. Are you worried I’ll break him too much for you to play with again?’

The daemon slid a glance to where Pitch looked set to launch himself at her. ‘Oh I’m not interested in tasting him again. He’s far too bitter for my liking.’ Eyes of slate grey found Silas, resting on him with a weight that crossed the divide. ‘Perhaps, though, the ankou might be sweeter?’

A guttural, primal sound rose from Pitch, and he wrenched so hard against his chains a lesser man would have broken the bones in his wrists.

‘I suppose he might,’ Macha replied. ‘But he is not for you to toy with. Mr Mercer is mine, and he owes me.’

Silas kept his focus entirely on the prince, tight as an arrow set in the bow, who had to fight so valiantly not to lose himself on the best of days. And this was far from one of those. ‘Please look at me, Pitch, I beg you. I need you to see me…not that creature up there. She ran from you screaming that day, remember? A coward in all ways. One who hurt you but did not best you. Pitch, look at me.’ Silas was so certain he was not getting through that he startled when Pitch looked to him.

‘Silas…I can’t…’ The prince was breathy, struggling.

‘You can. And I am right here, Pitch. You are not alone.’

Macha and Onoskolis carried on, not paying any attention to the whispered exchange.

‘Owes you?’ The horned daemon frowned.

‘For all the children he took from me.’ She waved off Onoskolis’s caresses. ‘Do you have any idea how many revenants he destroyed? What resources we lost when those bodies were ruined? That is days and days of my precious time.’ She shooed the harpies out from beneath her cloak where they huddled. ‘The ankou needs to suffer.’

A terrible darkness crossed Pitch’s face, a cracking open of something excruciating. He threw his all against the chains, light emanating from his hands as though he clutched candles in his balled fists.

‘Now if you will, Dullahan.’ Macha raised her hands, a conductor of the strangest orchestra known. ‘Punish the ankou and make them both suffer.’

The blow came at once. A pain like that of a dozen arrowheads struck Silas in the back. He roared, arching against the onslaught.