Page 108 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘Wrong?’ Iblis bellowed. ‘All that is wrong here is your failure to heed my order. Now move. Zaquiel, you shall carry him. Harut and I shall flank you.’

The Watcher angel was definitely rattled, his orders spitfire and terse. Dare Pitch imagine him frightened? His own fears and trepidation morphed into a wild giggle, one that had painful pieces of dirt whipping up his nose as he inhaled. His amusement earned him a kick in the side.

There was a surge of movement, through which he did his level best to be a giant pain in the arse for the angels who sought to grab his wrists and lift him like he were a fucking picnic basket. He rolled back and forth in the useless protest, jerking his bound limbs, delaying the inevitable.

He was caught off guard by the pinch of something against his belly, down beneath his shirt where a sliver of skin lay exposed between the bottom of the corset and the top of his trousers. If it were a stone he rolled upon, then it had developed a remarkable ability to move of its own accord, making a very deliberate trek up from his belly and around his hip to find his back. He let loose with a startled cry behind clenched lips as something crawled just beneath his trouser waist, following the line of material to nestle, of all places, in the dip of his arse cheek. He had a stowaway. And when tiny hands patted at his skin, in a deliberate gesture unlikely to be a trapped bug, Pitch suspected he knew its ilk.

He renewed his attempts to shake off the angels with extra vigour, and his passenger dug infinitesimal fingertips into the meat of his butt cheek, holding on for dear life when it should have allowed itself shaken loose.

‘Idiot.’ Pitch would wager all the whisky in London that Will Scarlet had just come aboard his sinking ship, and the stupidity staggered him.

A boon for Zaquiel though, as it quietened Pitch’s protest enough for the angel to grasp the stubby length of metal connecting the cuffs and lift him.

A punishing gust of wind swept through the ruined clearing, bringing with it a sudden gloom, shadows he knew well.

Pitch moaned into his gag as the angels brought forth their wings. Sweet merciful gods. Flying. He could already feel his stomach dropping, his propensity to hurl when soaring through the air arriving.

The wind gathered strength, and the tips of Iblis’s wings appeared in glimpses in Pitch’s peripheral vision as the angel swept them back and forth. They resembled the wings of a dragonfly, very nearly translucent with a veining that glittered throughout as though diamonds were scattered. Angelic wings were nothing like the feathered atrocities purebreds imagined in their legends and myth. They were fine sheaths, tough as iron. Zaquiel lifted him clear of the ground. Pitch’s shoulders screamed protest, the skin at the halo’s fresh burn crinkling with cruel ferocity.

He almost longed for passing out, and the pain made it seem possible, but fate was having a wonderful day with him today, and he remained conscious.

They lifted off, wings scattering all that was still movable in the clearing: the lace-like leaves eaten away by the winter; the finer twigs; and even a toadstool or two, those that had been broken as the angels stomped across the way, their stone shapes not heavy enough to resist the powerful down-draughts. Robin remained ever still, ever statuesque, their webwork of petrified vines and roots spread around them.

Pitch hung his head, watching the hamadryad and their Major Oak become less and less. The wind whipped up, circling around them, raising the angels higher and higher.

Will Scarlet shuffled beneath his trousers, moving out from the crease of his arse, for which he was thankful, and travelling a little higher to pat at the bare skin beneath the boned hem of the corset, for which he was not. Pitch tilted his hips, a tight jerk that made muscles grumble, but it stopped the will-o’-the-wisp at least, Scarlet now too busy with holding on to bestow wasted comfort.

With the wound burning as though it had caught fire anew, Pitch hung beneath his captors and closed his eyes. All the better to pretend he was not lifting skywards towards a place where he could not keep his panic in check, and there was no ankou to do so for him.

Fuck, he was a calamity. Everywhere he went he left ruin behind. Sherwood, Goodrich Castle, the Fulbourn…gods, even Gidleigh Park House and the greensward. And in all those places, every time, there had been those creatures foolish enough to try to protect him.

No, that was not right. They sought to protect what layinsidehim. He was a tool they all wished to utilise, whether it be for power or freedom or a taste of both. Even the folk of Sherwood Forest, kind as they were, did not care for a vile, cantankerous daemon. They cared about the secret he carried, what harm it could bring them. Just as those in Arcadia had minded him for his power, for the advantage he could deliver. It was the way of things. And Pitch had been unmoved by his isolation from true affection. He’d not been birthed to desire it and, hence, had never given a fuck that no living soul liked or even knew him.

Until the oaf, a man neither living nor dead, had messed up a perfectly adequate existence.

Something very nearly a sob tried to force itself against Pitch’s pressed lips. His stomach lurched in time with each pulse of wings around him. And he tried to convince himself it was his hatred of flying that was knotting him up. He certainly despised it enough.

Fuck, fuck, he hated flying. Focus on that.

Not on the man he was leaving behind.

Pitch peered through eyelids parted just a crack. A dense fog surrounded them, no hint of the forest visible below. It was a mild relief not to be able to see how high he’d been flown.

The strain was enormous upon his arms and legs, tormented by their contorted shape, his spine curved in a most unpleasant way. Silas’s coat bunched in the crease of his v-shaped body. Thoughts of the bandalore pulled Pitch from less pleasant considerations of a fall from this height. He wasn’t sure if he hoped the bandalore was still with him or if it had tumbled out and would find its way to its master. Silas would be all the safer if it were the latter, but Pitch was a selfish prick. He did not wish it gone, to be so alone.

The angels flew in heavy silence, Iblis only visible every now and then as the fog thickened. An air or water elemental in the Watcher’s service likely, though if it were the same one responsible for all the snowfall, they were more subdued now.

Even just thinking the word ‘fall’ had Pitch’s stomach twisting, his nerves fraying ever-more.

Scarlet, thankfully, chose that time to move. Beneath all the layers, scrambling over the corset, finding its way up his back and using the firm ridge and lacework of the top of the corset to work its way around to Pitch’s chest. There was an off-putting moment where the will-o’-the-wisp used his nipple as a stepping stone, and then he felt the brush of the tiny creature against his throat as it poked its head from his collar. He lifted his chin, wary of crushing his stowaway. It touched a tiny hand, a warm hand, to the lump at his throat, patting him again. Like he were some giant fucking flying pony.

It was sweet, sickening. Pitch reconsidered his efforts not to squash the wisp. Ridding himself of the careful, gentle gesture might be useful, as it was likely to see him come undone if it did not cease. He’d definitely shrug the wisp off soon. Very soon. Just, not yet. The will-o’-the-wisp’s touch was also helping in the fight to contain his mania, his struggle not to think on what lay ahead…and down…if the angels decided to be done with him and let go.

Pitch and his passenger were flown through a world of stark white, pushed on by a strong wind that managed not to shift the fog but to glide the angels ever faster along. With the world a whitewash, Pitch could gather no sense of direction, and all talk among the angels had ceased. The wind hushed against Pitch’s ears as he was moved further from forest and friend. There was a storm about, somewhere distant. He heard the faint murmur of thunder in the distance, as though a great bear slunk along in the clouds with them. The Wild Hunt riding beneath the angels? Or perhaps a diverting storm, one that would lure Silas in the very opposite direction. For the ankou was alive, Pitch would not believe otherwise. And if he drew breath, there was a chance he’d try to follow his idiot companion who’d made himself a prisoner. In Arcadia such a rescue attempt would have been laughable. Both White Mountain and Elyssiam had enough languishing prisoners of war to prove it.

Pitch bit the inside of his cheek. There was nochanceSilas would follow, there was only utter certainty. He’d never been so sure of anything in his life. And by the Archangels’ taints, it was a foreign, curious thing to have such faith. But equally terrifying.

He had no idea where the angels were taking him, but he knew what awaited would be far from pleasant. And with Seraphiel leaving him no better than a lamb to the slaughter, he had little to offer Silas by way of protection.