Page 84 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle
‘Do you think you have the means to find him?’ Silas made his way, alone, about the small space, using the wall as his crutch. He was presumably headed towards a crude door set opposite to where they stood. He didn’t seem to trust himself to walk unaided the three or four strides needed to reach it. ‘We don’t know for sure they are even still in the asylum. The illusion could have them anywhere.’
‘He is here.’ Pitch was firm. The tug of the watch was far too bloody irritating for it to be otherwise.
Silas turned. ‘You are sure?’
Pitch nodded. ‘Very much so.’ He moved to where Silas had paused against the wall, and tried not to think too much on how those few steps seemed to exhaust the ankou. Time, he’d said. Silas just needed some time. ‘But before you get your hopes up, it’s not exactly ringing out a Morse code with directions.’
‘But could it, do you think?’ Silas asked. ‘Where is it hidden?’
Pitch took Silas’s hand and placed it over where the watch lay beneath his skin. Silas winced with understanding. ‘Very well. Do you think…if you listened closely enough…you might learn more from it?’
‘I doesn’t work like that,’ Pitch returned, oddly irritated by the line of questioning. It was a decent enough suggestion.
Silas took his other hand from the wall and laid it gently against Pitch’s cheek. ‘Do not take this the wrong way.’ Pitch tensed, for nothing good ever came from such a sentence. ‘But is there a chance you are choosing not to listen?’
‘What bloody –’
‘Please, Pitch, hear me out.’ Silas was close, and the rusty hint of blood came with him. ‘I know how much this whole quest of ours disturbs you. And I do not in any way blame you for that. I’d be as furious as you to be in such a position. I wish I had had the balls to refuse to allow Lucifer to set foot in our cottage.’
Our cottage. All manner of pleasant tingles joined Pitch’s general discomfort. ‘Don’t be a fool.’
Silas brushed his thumb over Pitch’s cheekbone. ‘That proves difficult for me.’ Another of his watery smiles. The smears of darkness beneath his eyes were like makeup gone awry. ‘You are frightened of finding him. You are angry at the angel. I understand. And you are powerful, my dear. So very beautifully so. Might it be possible that the watch could lead you, if you chose to allow it?’
How easy it would be to snarl and throw the tantrums he was renowned for were he standing before anyone else. Pitch stabbed back the flicker of anger, ushering it back to its corner. He had no need for it here, because the ankou was not so terribly off the mark. From the moment Lucifer handed him Seraphiel’s gift, Pitch had been filled with the impulse to run. As far away as he could. To vanish into the human world, find an opium den, and smoke himself out of contention for any mad attempts to set right a wrong done so long ago.
He was frightened. Very much so. He was angry on a level that even he could barely fathom and struggled to banish thoughts of what lay inside him. What Seraphiel might have placed there, violating him every bit as terribly as the Alp had done.
Pitch’s fear and anger could very well make him his own worst enemy here.
‘Perhaps you are right.’ He was as quiet as the tombs Silas relished.
The ankou squeezed his arm. ‘I find no happiness in that, I assure you. But if there is a way, I know you will find it. And I shall not give up the search for Charlie. We will find them. I’ll not think otherwise.’
A coughing fit had him pulling his hand from where it warmed Pitch’s cheek. Silas hacked and spluttered, but the attack was brief. He exhaled. ‘That didn’t hurt so terribly this time. A good sign, I’d say.’
Pitch tipped his head in a noncommittal way. The ankou could not see what he saw, the pulpy mess upon his back that was far from healed.
Silas gestured towards the door. ‘This place feels very’ – he searched for the word – ‘unfinished, don’t you think?’
‘There is certainly no refinement here,’ Pitch agreed.
The door was crudely built, like something a hermit living in the deepest forest might fashion. The wood bulged as though water-damaged in places and did not fit well into its arch. Soft light seeped through large splits at its centre.
‘Do you recognise this room? It is no place I know.’ Silas looked to Pitch. ‘Or is this perhaps the true state of this Sanctuary, without the illusions?’
‘It could well be.’ But something of the place was vaguely familiar. It was not an Arcadian structure certainly, and really it could be any of a number of ruins or old castles in the British Isles. ‘You may have upset Palatyne with your wall trick. The Child did not have much time to make our cage for us, Macha said as much.’
Silas made the odd decision to try to open the door. Odd because he was barely managing to stay upright and looked pale to the point of translucent. Pitch had to bite his tongue to stop from telling him to be careful. He’d be damned if he was going to be the fusspot here, but truly Silas’s back was a wretched sight.
The ankou caught him looking. ‘Is it that ghastly still?’
‘I’m afraid so. And bleeding quite badly.’
Silas made a face, nodding his head. ‘It does not seem to be healing as quickly as I’d like. Perhaps it’s the fae magick in the Dullahan’s whip.’
‘You’re an expert on these things now?’
‘Knowledgeable, not expert. My experiences at the greensward seem to have rattled things loose in me.’ He paused as though to catch his breath. ‘I wonder…could the wounds be cauterised?’