Page 96 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

‘Can you show me where Pitch is?’ Silas whispered, hoping the lost souls who had called to him would listen.

He stood in another endless stone corridor. No ivy, which was a welcome change, nor any sign of teratisms accosted him. No melody announced their approach.

But therewasa welcome sound. A reply.

Find us, ankou. Set us free.

An answer, but not to the question he’d asked. ‘And I will, but I need to find my companion.’ How vapid that word was, how hollow. One’s heart did not stutter to think on a mere companion. ‘I need to find Pitch.’

Another rumble ran through the Sanctuary. Silas brushed his hands over the uneven surface of the walls, where sections of packed dirt replaced some stonework, giving an air of incompletion to this area of the Sanctuary, just as there had been in the room with the crude door.

Beneath his fingers came a very definite vibration. As though giants walked above.

Silas shivered. That didn’t bear thinking of. Did the Morrigan have a damned Nephilim hidden in their Sanctuary?AnotherNephilim? he wondered. Would it be a creature like him? Large, but not monstrously so. Or a true giant? For he knew the Nephilim to be feared for their immensity and angelic fortitude, but his infuriatingly selective memory failed him thereon. The shape of Samyaza’s spawn escaped him. He recalled none other but the one he glimpsed bleary-eyed in a morning mirror.

Another deep shudder moved through the Sanctuary, and Silas was struck by a fresh, terrible thought that had him wishing for giants alone to be the cause of the disruption.

Macha wanted to see the daemon glow. She wished to push him to his limits and cause him to lose all control.

What if the ugly scene with Edward’s image and then Silas’s disappearance had done so? Silas could still hear the desolate cry Pitch had made as he’d slipped from his grasp.

‘Shit. Shit.’

He set off at a run. Choosing right over left, he ran, and ran, until even his near-immortal lungs could bear it no longer.

‘Fuck!’ he shouted at the stillness in the plain, dreary passageway that was cool as an autumn morning. Silas punched the wall, and his fist sank all the way in. He shoved himself between the Sanctuary’s folds, passing through one passageway, then another, cursing all heavens and all hells while the Sanctuary shook itself around him. Sprinkles of dust were loosened with the vigour of the tremors that held the Morrigan’s labyrinth in its grip.

Stop running in bloody circles. That won’t help no one.

He tumbled into a foyer and rocked to a stop. A grand marble staircase dominated the entry space, which held altogether too much white along with searingly bright floral rugs. This was Knighton House, he thought absently. The house in Leicester where he’d met the ghost who urged him to face up to Black Annis. Somewhere at the top of that stairway, in the real residence, was the painting of Edinburgh Castle he’d admired and wondered at the recollections it stirred.

‘Who’s there?’ In any other place, he’d be sure he knew the answer already – a lost soul calling to him. But nothing was as it seemed in this Sanctuary.

Promise you won’t get mad and pull out my fingernails?

Silas frowned. ‘Good god, why would I do such a thing?’

Your face is angry.

‘It’s not…’ Silas shook off the denial. ‘What do you want?’

Because it certainly wasn’t to intimidate. Perhaps this was another distraction, a fake offer of assistance? He eyed the hallway warily, but what all his instincts crowed, what his gut assured him, was that he was encountering a lost soul. One of no danger to him.

Hungry ones are gunna find me and eat me, if you don’t hurry yourself.

The wall rumbled, and Silas pulled his arm clear. He peered about.

‘Where are you?’

Right here, Mister.

Despite the fact he was death’s messenger, Silas jumped. The apparition stood right behind him, so close and so small he’d likely just peered straight over the top of them as he looked about. The top of their head barely reached Silas’s belly. The child, for that is without doubt what they were, was covered nearly head to toe in soot, clothes black and somewhat tattered, their sleeves too short, with twine where buttons should be upon their shirt. The area around their mouth was all that was clean about them, the skin as white as chalk. They clutched their cap in hand, craning their neck to look him in the eye. They peeled back their lips as they squinted up at him, revealing missing teeth on the top front row.

You need to come with me, instead of running about like a chicken with its head cut off.

‘Come with you where?’Silas tried not to snap; the child ghost looked fearful enough as it was. He couldn’t tell if it was boy or girl beneath all the grime, and it hardly mattered. Death did not care for such detail.

To free the ghosts that’s left, like they’ve been askin’ ya. One Limb Jack said you’d come with me because you’re the ankou on the Pale Horse.Silas had no wish to discover why One Limb Jack deserved such a name.Saving souls is what you do. You should be freein’ them, not scampering about trying to find your daemon.