Page 21 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

Slimy wrappings tangled around his legs, teased at his elbows. The gritty water stung his eyes. He had no idea where he was going. What he would do when he got there.

No idea if he was too late.

He couldn’t defeat a pond on a country estate, let alone Blood Lake.

Gods, Silas.

The pond wrapped about Pitch, constricting him. The hysteria tapped its fingertips over his spine. Over the marks of the amuletum that had been etched there to keep a wild daemon subdued.

Now the Seraphim had added his own measure. Put fresh chains upon a captive prince.

And Silas would pay the price for it.

The water vibrated with Pitch’s scream.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SILAS SETTLEDupon a rock at the bottom of the pond, the very deepest point, he was assured. Which, considering the body of water’s modest size, was quite deep indeed. A kappa held him at each arm, anchoring him. But they were quick to release him the moment he signalled it was time. He’d tested the signal several times to be sure.

This was his third attempt at being held in the murky, icy, and quite unpleasantly slimy depths, and so far this time he managed to keep his pulse to a reasonable clatter and not yet pushed Chinami aside to claw his way to the surface.

To say Silas was calm would be a blatant untruth. His past rumbled in his head like a horrific shadowbox playing out the scenes of his final moments. It would take more than this single morning in a neglected garden pond to overcome the terror of all his deaths…but it was a start.

He closed his eyes, mostly because the silt was so bloody thick, but also because the darkness behind his lids was not filled with so many shadows as the abysmal pond.

At once he was in the boat on the loch. The first boat.

Back at the beginning, where he so often was dragged.

The water was frothing, rebelling against the land as the rains came down. All was shrouded in silence. But the fear was there alive and well.

As was his brother, a slighter man than Silas. Time had smoothed down his features, and the colour of his eyes was lost, the contours of his face unclear. Like watching someone through tears. The boy with the cornflower-blue eyes huddled in the crudely shaped bow of the wildly rocking boat.

And he was frightened. Terribly so.

Silas’s brother and another, a man worn to a silhouette by the passage of the years, took a hold of the young man. Sought to drag him to his feet.

The boy fought like a lion, trying to fend off the much stronger men.

Silas did not recognise this version of events.

The time was the same, certainly, the feverish gallop of fear exact, but Silas did not recall sitting in the boat, watching the boy kick and fight to keep his place.

Charlie’s ancestor screamed. Silas’s eyes flickered open, half expecting to see the child beside him. He could swear he’d heard the scream, while all else in the vision was silent.

He blinked at the harsh caress of the water and closed his eyes once more.

Watched as grown men sought to hurl a child to his death to appease a deity that could not have cared less if they had all drowned.

But Silas had not just watched on that awful day. The memory dislodged from where it had snagged in the recesses of his mind. Silas had pleaded. Begged for the boy to be spared.

The breath he was holding slipped between his lips as he exhaled. Christ. Yes.

He’d begged them to sacrifice him first. Offered the boy the only thing he could. More time.

Silas’s shocked cry drew the last bubble from him. He realised now what this meant.

Charlie’s ancestor, the sweet young man who had tried to save Silas in return with the futile casting of the bandalore, had survived. And Silas’s sacrifice bound them.