Drinking Midnight Wine (31 page)

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Authors: Simon R. Green

BOOK: Drinking Midnight Wine
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“Good,”
said Leo.
“Let it all burn. Nothing good ever came out of Mysterie, only threats and dangers and madness. And cursed, damned lives like mine.”
And me? Am I a curse?
“Look, even if I was prepared to stay, which I’m not, what the hell could I do? I’m not a power in this town; let one of the real movers and shakers deal with Hob. Someone who’s happy to play the hero. I am out of here.”
There was a sudden, and very unexpected, knock at the front door. Leo froze where he was, hardly breathing. No one should be able to approach his cottage without his Brother noticing. No one
normal
. Leo looked quickly about him. There were no lights on in the cottage, no sounds, nothing to show that anyone was at home. He stood perfectly still, listening. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. He could hear someone moving restlessly outside the front door.
“Can you see who it is?”
he said mentally to his Brother.
No. Which is unusual, in Veritie. Only one of the really major players would be able to shield themselves that thoroughly, in the real world. But I think we can safely assume it isn’t Nicholas Hob or Angel, on the grounds that they wouldn’t have bothered to knock.
“But why would a major player come looking for me? No one else even knows I was at Blackacre.”
Whoever it was knocked at the door again, a little more firmly. They clearly weren’t going to go away. Leo scowled, and very reluctantly crossed the room to the front door. With his current luck it was probably someone from the Inland Revenue. He opened the door just enough to look out, and then wider as he took in his visitor. She was pretty in an unfinished kind of way, only just out of her teens, all blond hair and wide eyes and an innocent smile, and Leo was damned if he recognized her at all. He was pretty sure she wasn’t an old girl-friend. He usually liked them a little older and a lot more experienced. She was wearing a light summery frock and a cute little black beret over long blond hair that fell straight to her shoulders. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her, the knuckles white with tension, but her smile was sweet and open. It took Leo a moment to realize that for all her youth, she had icy-blue eyes as old as the world.
Hell and damnation!
said his Brother, something very like shock in his mental voice.
I don’t believe it! That’s Luna!
“Jesus!”
said Leo.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s Luna.
“What the hell is she doing out in the real world?”
Ask her in and find out. I’m absolutely dying to know.
Leo quickly remembered what passed for his manners, and stepped back from the door, inviting Luna in with a mute wave of his hand. She glided forward into his living room, moving with more than natural poise and grace. Then she stopped and looked about her, frowning prettily, politely appalled by all the mess but too well bred to say so. Leo stared at her for a while, honestly enchanted, then pushed the front door shut and hurried forward to clear the best chair for her to sit in. She regarded the chair dubiously for a moment and then smiled and settled into it as if it were a throne. Leo pulled up his other chair and sat down facing her. Something about her took his breath away, even apart from knowing who and what she was. Luna turned the full force of her beaming smile on him, and Leo did his best to smile back. It felt rather like having a lion in his living room. Luna was a Power and a Domination, not to mention as crazy as a loon, and could crush him like a bug if the notion took her.
“So,” said Luna, in a light, breathy, and not at all threatening voice, “I have tracked you to your lair, Leo Morn, last of the line of Morn. Not quite what I expected, but then I so rarely know what to expect anymore. The world is a complete surprise to me. Yes. You know, you really are going to have to do something with this place. Preferably involving fumigation.”
Leo laughed politely. “How did you find me?” he said, careful to keep his voice entirely respectful. “I didn’t think people like you knew people like me even existed.”
“I see all, from my high vantage,” Luna said airily. “Nothing is hidden, nothing is ever lost, nothing is ever forgotten. That’s always been part of my problem.”
Leo studied her openly and for the moment she seemed content to let him. Luna hadn’t walked in Veritie, the brutal and unforgiving real world, for as long as anyone in the town could remember. Her home only existed in Mysterie, a magical refuge surrounded by ancient and powerful spells of protection.
As much,
some whispered,
to protect the town from her, as vice versa.
And there she lived her quiet, insane life, troubling no one, asking only to be disregarded and left alone. And anyone with any sense did just that. One does not wake the dragon without good reason. Now here she was, out and about in the real world, without even a warning. She looked small, vulnerable, and really quite ordinary. Pretty enough, but nothing spectacular. And she had a sad, battered, beaten-down look that was immediately familiar to Leo; a harsh reminder of every woman he’d ever used and hurt and abandoned. Despite himself, he felt obscurely guilty.
He knew the story of Luna’s rape. Everyone did.
“I came to you,” Luna said suddenly, “because I know your Brother Under The Hill. I’ve known him for a long time. And I have been out of touch for so long that he is the only one in this town that I can still remember. Apart from my sister, of course. Poor Gayle, still trying so very hard to be human. Your Brother is very special. I remember him from before he was Under The Hill.”
Leo’s ears pricked up immediately. “Really? I don’t suppose you know who put him there? He won’t talk about it to me.”
“He’s never told you? Then perhaps it’s not my place to say either. I know so many things, and it’s hard to remember which of them are supposed to be secrets. But if you need to know . . .”
I put myself Under The Hill,
said the Brother heavily.
I killed the first of your line, Leo. The first Morn, long, long ago. He was a good man, and a great hero, though I didn’t realize that until it was too late. This is my penance, to be interred forever and a day because I was wrong. Because I was blind, and would not see.
“And now you see everything,”
said Leo,
“and you’re still killing Morns.”
I have raised and guarded heroes, preserved the line from its many enemies. But for all my years, I am not infallible. Yes, I failed your parents, Leo. Is that what you want me to say? I mourn their loss just as much as you do. I am your Brother.
“What was he?” Leo said to Luna. “Originally, I mean. Do you remember?”
“Of course I remember. That was back when giants walked the earth, and he was one of them. He was Nephilim, child of angels. So beautiful, and so cursed. Hello, Brother. Hello.”
Hello, Luna. How are you?
“Better than I was.”
Leo looked sharply at Luna. “You can hear him? I thought I was the only one.”
“I hear everything, from my high station,” Luna said sadly. “That’s always been part of my problem.”
It was clear to Leo that if he followed up all the questions he wanted to ask, he and Luna would still be sitting here this time tomorrow, so he made himself concentrate on the matter at hand. “What brings you here, Luna? To me, in reality?”
“My sister, Gayle, came to see me,” Luna said slowly. “Her presence awoke me from my long stupor, from my dreams. She came to me for advice and help, which shows how desperate she must be. There was a young man with her, a focal point. His presence helped to focus me, to collect my scattered selves, if only for a while. I feel stronger now, more . . . coherent. Together. Yes. Gayle’s words stay with me. What she said, and what she didn’t say. For once, I didn’t forget.
“So I went out into the town, to look around. It seems much the same in spirit, though the details have changed. Not for the better, I suspect, but then, I’m no judge. And as I walked in Veritie, my reason no longer clouded by my own protective spells, I could see the Hob was planning again. He’s had plans before, his own and those of his accursed father, but this . . . this is something new. I can tell. The Serpent’s never been this ambitious before. He knows something, or thinks he does. I think this time he’s planning to play for all the marbles. . . .”
Leo didn’t know what to say to that. Anyone else of her rank and station he would have believed immediately; but this was Luna, whose very name was a byword for madness. And yet . . . he’d seen Hob and Angel, sitting together in that rotting farmhouse, seen the dead men standing guard in the dead woods.
“How are you enjoying reality?” he said finally, just to be saying something, and then winced as he realized how that sounded.
“It’s very cramped,” said Luna, quite seriously. “Much too small and confining, compared to what I’m used to. But I couldn’t go traveling in Mysterie without Hob noticing, so I was forced to translate myself into the real world. It was quite a shock. I haven’t been real in such a long time . . . but I am more centered here, more focused. Less crazy. I’ve been able to think here.”
“Why haven’t you gone to see your sister?” said Leo. “She’s still a Power. She can do much more for you than I can.”
“Gayle has been human too long,” Luna said flatly. “All those years of being real have limited her thinking. She’s reluctant to embrace her responsibilities and take on her aspect again. She could leave it too late, and find herself unable to stop Hob. And she’s emotionally linked to the young man, the focal point. Dangerous things, focal points. This link, whatever it turns out to be, makes her unpredictable. Bottom line: We can’t trust her to do the right thing.”
“But why come to
me
?” Leo said plaintively.
“Because I need a hero. I need a Morn. Thanks to The Brother Under The Hill, those of your line have been champions of the good and the just for centuries.”
“But I’m not like them!”
“You’d better be,” said Luna. “Or we’re all dead.”
Leo felt like whining. He had a very sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Define
all
.”
“Everyone, in all of Veritie and Mysterie, perhaps. Or maybe worse than dead. You can’t outrun what’s coming, Leo Morn. No one can. Not even me.”
“What is coming?”
“I don’t know. But it feels like the End. Of everything.”
There was a long pause, and all Leo could think, over and over, was
oh, shit
. He searched frantically for some hole in Luna’s argument.
“How could even Nicholas Hob hope to hurt your sister?” he said eventually. “Given who and what she is? Hob may be the Serpent’s Son, but she’s a lot bigger than that. Even with Angel at his side, surely there’s a limit to the damage he can do?”
Luna cocked her head on one side. “You know about Angel? Ah, yes; you went sneaking out to Blackacre, and saw them in conference together. I know there was a particular reason why I came to you. You found a way in, past all Hob’s defenses. Quite remarkable. I want you to do it again. Take me back there, into the dark heart of Blackacre.”
Leo could feel cold fingers wrapping tightly around his heart. This just kept getting worse and worse. If there was one place in the world he definitely didn’t want to see again . . . There had been a definite air of madness and awful intent about the dead house in the dead wood, a sense of danger to body and soul. But he couldn’t just say
No, thank you,
or,
Not a chance in hell,
not to as powerful and potentially crazy a personage as Luna. Even here in reality, sitting in his chair, all sweetness and innocence, Luna was scarier than Hob and Angel put together. She could turn him inside out with a thought, and still keep him alive and suffering for as long as it amused her. She’d done worse, in her time.
“What about you, Brother?”
he said finally, desperately.
“Can you see anything of Hob’s plans? Or anything to suggest that the worlds are in danger?”
No,
said the Brother thoughtfully.
But given the nature and strength of a creature like Hob, I wouldn’t expect to. In fact, if he put his mind to it, he could be standing outside your front door right now, and I wouldn’t know it until he’d burned the cottage down.
“Now there’s a comforting thought.” Leo looked unhappily at Luna. “What exactly are you planning to do, if I can get you to the farmhouse?”
“I will talk to Hob,” said Luna. “He is my son.”
“I see. And when did you last talk to him?”
Luna considered for a while. “Do you know, I don’t think I ever have. So it’s probably well past time we sat down and had a good mother-and-son chat. I’ve been neglecting my duties.”
“Look,” said Leo, “I really don’t think this is such a good idea. . . .”
Luna stood up abruptly and took just a little of her aspect upon her. The cottage was suddenly full of a shimmering silver light, almost too bright to be borne. It suffused Leo’s body and mind like a howl of ancient days, of running free in the wild woods, and his heart leaped in response. He wanted to fall to his knees and worship her, to hunt down some fleeing thing and lay it bloody and smoking at her feet. She was the mistress of his soul, of his wild and untamed lone-wolf soul, and he would have done anything for her right then, anything at all, sacrificed or been the sacrifice, all for her, for she was the goddess of the hunt.

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