Drinking Midnight Wine (43 page)
Read Drinking Midnight Wine Online
Authors: Simon R. Green
Gayle rose up out of the chair, put her hands on either side of his face, and kissed him. When they moved apart, she held his face close to hers, so that she could look right into his eyes.
“I don’t know what will happen when I become Gaia. It’s been so long . . . but whatever happens, whatever Gaia finds it necessary to do here, know this, Toby Dexter. I love you. The woman called Gayle, the human role I made for myself, loves you with all her mortal heart, and always will. You’re a good man, Toby, and you deserved better than this. Now do what you have to.”
Toby looked around him. Time seemed to have stopped while they were talking. Angel was still struggling with Hob, Luna was still watching, the Brother was still trying to get in. Jimmy Thunder and Leo Morn were still dead. Toby tried to take in every detail of the scene, in case it was the last thing he ever saw. And then he reached out, in a direction he could feel but not see or name, and there were the ley lines, shining so bright and powerful and perfect it hurt to look at them. He called them to him and the thundering energy of the living world leaped forward into Blackacre and surged through him, wild and terrible, burning him more fiercely than the Sun ever could have. He would have screamed at the awful pain, but his voice was lost to him. He tried to see Gayle, one last time, but she was gone from him, lost in the overpowering incandescence of the ley lines. They were destroying him, tearing him apart. He could have let them go, but he didn’t. He clutched them to him and grounded them in Mysterie, in Blackacre, in the farmhouse.
Gayle saw the ley lines and called them to her, and they went immediately, like dogs to their owner’s voice. Toby could feel Gayle’s arms around him now, supporting him and holding him together, and then taking the burden of the ley lines’ terrible energies from him. She let him go and he crashed to the filthy floor, shaking and shuddering, but still alive. He saw Angel and Hob stop fighting, transfixed by the sight of something so much more important than either of them. Luna was laughing. Toby couldn’t move his head, but he could just move his eyes, and so he saw at last as Gayle took her aspect upon her and became Gaia.
She became transfigured, still human in shape and size, but of awesome depth and quality, so much greater than Toby could ever have imagined. She was the force that drove life through every creation, from the smallest to the largest, the source and protection of every living thing on planet Earth. She was Mother Earth, come into her kingdom at last. Wild and glorious, loving and sorrowful, inhumanly just and terribly impartial. She was Gaia, and she was all those things and more.
She smiled, and Blackacre was dead no longer. Life rushed through the dead wood like a pulse, and the trees burst into life again. Blackacre blossomed, throwing off its long death like an old coat, revealing what had been underneath all along. The unnatural fog faded away and was gone, unable to bear Gaia’s gaze, and the dead guards lay down and were only corpses again, free at last. Blackacre blazed with life, and Hob screamed with rage and loss.
The one place that had been his was his no more, and much of his power had gone with it. He could not undo what Gaia had done, and with Blackacre gone and Gayle transformed, the Serpent’s plan was undone. But he was still the Serpent’s Son, and he would have revenge. His father’s fire still burned within him. He let it all out in one great rush, a blast of supernatural heat that was more than enough to reduce the farmhouse to ashes, and everything mortal within it.
But suddenly Luna stood before him, and called up her aspect, and the Moon reflected the Sun’s heat right back at Hob. He blackened and burned and finally exploded, torn apart by the great warring forces, and his ashes were scattered across the room. But all the time he burned, he laughed: a hard, bitter, defeated laughter that had no regret in it, perhaps only a little relief that his long, unhappy life was finally over. Nicholas Hob, the Serpent’s Son, was dead at last, by his own hand as much as anyone else’s. The Serpent In The Sun no longer had an agent in the world of men, no longer had any way to reach them, or punish them. Veritie and Mysterie were safe.
Luna gave up her aspect and became just a woman again. Her armor was gone, replaced by a simple white shift. She sank to her knees beside the scorch marks on the floor that were all that remained to show where her only son had stood. She didn’t cry, but she looked very tired. She’d tried so hard not to love him, tried so hard the effort had driven her mad, and she had had to retreat from the world that held her son. And when she finally pulled herself together, and went out into the world again, it was only to watch her son die. The Courts of the Holy were cruel sometimes, in their necessity.
She’d always known he would die at her hand, eventually. Because she was the only one who could do it.
Gaia looked around upon her works, and saw them to be good. She looked down on the fallen Toby, as though from a great height, and smiled fondly. Gayle had forgotten so much, forgotten that Gaia loved all her creatures. How could she not? She was their Mother. She put aside her aspect and became Gayle again. She knelt beside Toby and hugged him to her fiercely. The ley lines had racked him, but he still lived. He was only mortal, and she was not, but she would love him as long as he lived. Gaia knew what Gayle had forgotten: that love is worth the pain it brings with it. Toby stirred in her arms and smiled up at her. Gayle smiled back.
Angel was talking quietly with her son, The Brother Under The Hill, when Leo Morn lurched through the door, completely intact. He stalked over to his astonished Brother, reached up, and slapped him round the head as hard as he could.
“Idiot! You of all people should have remembered that only silver can kill a werewolf. Playing jigsaw with my body parts won’t do it. Putting myself back together hurt like hell, mind, and took some time. I take it we won, since we’re all here and Hob isn’t. So, that’s what you look like, Brother. I’ve often wondered. I’m impressed, really. But we’re going to have to find you a pair of trousers, before you give the rest of us an inferiority complex. Now would someone please fill me in on what happened while I was out of it?”
“Of course,” said the Brother. He indicated Angel. “Leo, I’d like you to meet my father.”
Jimmy Thunder came through the door next, wincing as he gingerly felt the side of his head. Gayle laughed.
“I should have known you couldn’t kill a Norse god by hitting him on the head.”
“Not with his own hammer,” Jimmy agreed. “I’ve had worse hangovers than this. Can we go home now, please?”
“Yes,” said Toby. “It’s been a long day, one way and another.”
Twelve
The Morning After
U
NUSUALLY EARLY for a Sunday morning, Gayle sat at her kitchen table in her silk wrap, working her way happily through a large plate of scrambled eggs, her enjoyment only partially soured by the knowledge that scrambled eggs are what you end up making after you start out to do something more ambitious and then decide you can’t be bothered. Gayle put aside the thought very firmly. She liked scrambled eggs. Especially with toast soldiers and a large mug of steaming black coffee. Life’s little pleasures . . . Gayle was also reading the main section of the
Sunday Times,
which was propped up on the table against a coffeepot, looking bulky and authoritative. It appeared that the menacing solar flares had stopped, as suddenly and mysteriously as they had begun, and that everything was getting back to normal again. Gayle snorted loudly and slurped more hot coffee. As in so many things, the real world had no idea how close to the wire it had gone. Which was just as well, really.
NUSUALLY EARLY for a Sunday morning, Gayle sat at her kitchen table in her silk wrap, working her way happily through a large plate of scrambled eggs, her enjoyment only partially soured by the knowledge that scrambled eggs are what you end up making after you start out to do something more ambitious and then decide you can’t be bothered. Gayle put aside the thought very firmly. She liked scrambled eggs. Especially with toast soldiers and a large mug of steaming black coffee. Life’s little pleasures . . . Gayle was also reading the main section of the
Sunday Times,
which was propped up on the table against a coffeepot, looking bulky and authoritative. It appeared that the menacing solar flares had stopped, as suddenly and mysteriously as they had begun, and that everything was getting back to normal again. Gayle snorted loudly and slurped more hot coffee. As in so many things, the real world had no idea how close to the wire it had gone. Which was just as well, really.
She looked up as Toby came into the kitchen, carrying a carton of milk and a bunch of bright red flowers. Gayle qualified her welcoming smile with a stern gaze, but Toby just grinned as he laid the flowers down before her on the table.
“I know; you don’t approve of killing flowers, so I got you silk ones instead. Happy now?”
“Deliriously,” said Gayle. She ran an appreciative hand over the soft petals, and then got up to give him a happy, morning-after kiss. Toby sat down at the table and wrestled with the milk carton, while Gayle retrieved his serving of scrambled eggs and toast from the oven. Toby solved the problem of the recalcitrant carton by the application of a certain amount of brute force, and a certain amount of milk sprayed all over the tablecloth. He smiled apologetically at Gayle and poured the rest of the milk into the waiting jug. Gayle put his breakfast down in front of him, shaking her head, and he got stuck in.
“Not many people about in the Shambles,” he said, indistinctly, “but then, most people have more sense than to be up and about this early on a Sunday morning.”
“Sorry to kick you out of bed so early,” said Gayle, sitting down opposite him. “But needs must when the stomach rumbles. Sorry I had to send you down to the Shambles, too, but I’d forgotten I was so low on milk. You tend to forget things like that when you’re busy saving the world. Where’s my change?”
Toby dug in his pocket and came up with a handful of small change. Gayle took it from him and counted it carefully while Toby concentrated on his eggs. He wasn’t normally much of a one for a cooked breakfast, but a night of good sex always left him hungry. The two of them sat together in silence for a while, happily eating, comfortable in each other’s company. Sunlight poured through the open kitchen window, bringing with it the sound of birdsong, occasional traffic, and the peal of church bells from across the town, summoning the faithful to prayer.
“If only they knew how close they’d come to not waking up at all this morning, the pews would be a damn sight fuller,” said Toby.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” said Gayle. “And Veritie never knows, if we’ve done our job right. You’ve got a bit of egg on your chin.”
“Sorry.”
“And you haven’t shaved this morning, have you?”
“I did try,” said Toby. “But all I could find in your bathroom was that tiny razor I assume you use on your legs. Damn near cut myself to ribbons before I gave up. If we’re going to be an item, I’d better bring some of my things over.” He stopped eating and looked at Gayle. “We are an item, aren’t we?”
“Well, after last night, I’d say so,” said Gayle.
Toby grinned. “So, I passed the audition, then?”
Gayle laughed. “Men! Always seeking reassurance. What do you want, marks for style, endurance, and star quality?”
“God, I love it when you talk dirty. But really, that was a pretty amazing night, love. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”
“I’m glad, Toby. I’m happy, too. And as for the bedroom gymnastics; you don’t live as long as I have without picking up a few tricks along the way.”
Toby considered for a moment, slowly chewing. “I won’t ask.”
“Best not to, dear. More coffee?”
“Sure. Good eggs. Like the soldiers.”
“You’re welcome.”
Gayle finished the last of her breakfast, wiping her plate clean with the toast. Toby couldn’t help noticing that for a Power and a Domination, Gayle was a really messy eater. Toby approved. He needed to feel she was as human as he was. It also made him feel better about his own lack of manners. He always felt a little self-conscious, the morning after (always—all three times . . .), when the first glow of romance has faded, and you actually have to talk to them. Discuss things like who showers first, while trying to remember where you threw your socks in a moment of passion. He liked it that Gayle was so organized about things. He’d never acquired the knack, somehow, despite or perhaps because of living alone for so long. He liked the feeling of being looked after. He finished the last of the eggs and pushed his plate away with a satisfied sigh.
“So,” Gayle said brightly. “When do I get to see your place?”
“Not until it’s been tidied, cleared up, and possibly fumigated. With a flame-thrower,” Toby said firmly. “If you were to see how I normally live, you’d dump me on the spot. I am a man who lives alone. My place is a mess. It’s expected of me. I have a reputation to live down to.” He stopped and looked thoughtfully at Gayle. “Why do you prefer to live as a human, Gayle? And put up with all our . . . imperfections?”
“To ground me,” said Gayle. “To remind me that the small picture is just as important as the big picture. Gaia takes the overview, always thinking in the long term, for the future. If I let her, she’d forget that there are no populations, no countries, only individuals. And each and every man, woman, and child matters just as much as the fate of nations. Gaia without a conscience would be a terrible force indeed. I like to think I help keep her sane. Oh, by the way; Jimmy Thunder called while you were out.”
Oh, yes?
Toby wanted to say.
He did, did he? Your old flame, checking up on me, perhaps?
Toby wanted to say.
He did, did he? Your old flame, checking up on me, perhaps?
“That was nice of him,” he said neutrally. “Bit early in the morning, though. What did he want?”
“Just to bring me up to speed on what all the others are doing,” Gayle said easily. “He’s recuperating, and already exaggerating his exploits and his part in what just happened, to everyone who’ll listen on the Internet. It’s where he finds most of his worshipers these days. He spends hours logged on, listening to them talk about him, when he’s not working. He has a whole bunch of tribute sites, set up by worshipers with more time and money than sense, and you can bet they’ll be pumping him for every detail of his latest adventure. I’ll show you, later. I guarantee you won’t recognize his version of what went down at Blackacre last night.”
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