Sixty-One Nails Part 31

"What?"

"I never learned."

She pulled back and the glint from her eyes in the dark told me she was looking at me. "Well it's never too late to start. Just try not to drown and let the water carry you. "

"Can we fight them?"

"Can you? I can't. At least one of them is wraithkin and that doesn't bode well for the other. "

"I don't know. What do I have to do?"

"If you don't know, it's too late to start teaching you now."

"I thought you said it was never-"

She pressed her free hand against my mouth, silencing me. As soon as she did I could hear the voices. "...of inspection. We were simply asked to check it was intact." The first voice was bold and arrogant. "Yes, and it is." The second voice dwelled on esses in a way that was hauntingly familiar. "Well now we have seen it, can we go?"

"It was your choice, Raffmir, to come in your true form." The words were slow and slurred as if the speaker couldn't form the words properly.

"And yours, sister, to wear that sham you call a body."

"It serves a purpose, for now. I travel in my own form when the need arises."

I knew that second voice now. It had stood outside my bedroom door and called me brother.

As the wraithkin moved towards us, the shadows shrank and we were forced into the narrow s.p.a.ce next to the pillar. I slid around to face the corner and Blackbird edged into the narrow s.p.a.ce between me and the wall.

The wraithkin's back came into view and I pressed into Blackbird. Glancing sideways, I could clearly see the nimbus around his hand where his sleeve drew back as he gestured, only emptiness within. He looked like a hole in the world.

"Are you satisfied now, sister? Can we go?"

"The lock is untouched, the seals unbroken. And yet I sense a presence."

Blackbird's hand sought mine, her fingers squeezing readying me to jump into the water. Between us, the stone pendant around my neck pulsed into warmth. It found a rhythm, matching my heartbeat, each beat stronger than the last. My attention was split between Blackbird's pressure on my hand, the stone pulsing at my breastbone and the dark figure with his back to me.

Raffmir stepped backwards towards us, facing across the water to the anvil. "You can see it is undisturbed. Your senses are distorted by the barrier, my sister. Let us return and relate what we have found. "

"It smells."

"Of course it smells. It's a sewer. What did you expect?" He gestured across to the island and the anvil, throwing his hands wide and narrowly missing my arm.

"I'm surprised you can sense anything close to that. It's giving me a headache."

"The barrier persists."

"Not for much longer."

"You are sure it is failing?"

"Certain of it. There is a worm at the heart of the ritual and each time they repeat it the barrier becomes weaker. Once it fails we shall be free to come and go as we please."

"Then we shall feed." The glee in her voice was chilling.

I knew what she meant when she said feed. I remembered the chilling sounds from my back garden, the screams of "Get it off me!" before they were choked off. "Come, let us go. I can feel this world giving me wrinkles. "

"You are vain, Raffmir."

"Just because you don't get wrinkles, it doesn't mean the rest of us are vain"

"I wasn't talking about the others."

Raffmir stepped back along the ledge and retreated from us, the shadows lengthening. I let out a breath I had not realised I had been holding. We stayed pressed into the alcove while the source of the light climbed back onto the gantry.

We could no longer hear what was being said over the roaring water and the light finally faded down the tunnel. The darkness rea.s.serted itself and was then replaced by the faintest luminescence from the brickwork. They were leaving, Blackbird made to move out of the shadows, but I squeezed her hand hard and she stopped.

"What?"

"Can't you feel it?"

"What?"

"She's waiting up there."

"What for?"

"Us."

I leaned sideways very gently to peer around the pillar. The light was vanis.h.i.+ng over the gantry, but in the shadow that remained there was a dark shape outlined. I eased back. "She's on the gantry."

We stayed where we were and the light grew again. He was coming back. I wondered what it was I was sensing and whether she sensed it too. Should we throw ourselves in the water now, while they were furthest away, or wait and see what happened? I didn't fancy my chances in that dark water, not while there was a choice.

Light flickered across the vaulted ceiling and rolled out over the pool again as he joined her. I took a chance and looked around the pillar. He was addressing her back, but she was leaning on the rail over the gantry, as if she was listening for something.

"Does she know we're here?" Blackbird whispered close to my ear.

"I don't know. She knows something's here. Maybe she's spotted my torch."

"Where is it?"