Drinking Midnight Wine (9 page)

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Authors: Simon R. Green

BOOK: Drinking Midnight Wine
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The slumping rotten heart of Blackacre stood all alone, with no obvious defenses. No dead men on guard, no attack spells floating on the air, nobody watching from the empty windows. It had to be a trap. Leo crouched where he was, considering his options, and then almost jumped out of his skin as Reed walked out of the woods some ten feet away and headed straight for the farmhouse. Leo seized his chance. He padded quietly across the open clearing, keeping close behind Reed, following in his footsteps. No one challenged him. Reed pushed open the front door and went in, while Leo dropped to the ground beside it, struggling to control his breathing and his heartbeat.
He pressed his back against the wall, and the moist surface gave disturbingly under the pressure. The dead woods were still and quiet. Leo swallowed hard. Now that he’d got this far, he wasn’t absolutely sure what to do next. Just walking in the front door like Reed did not strike him as a good idea, and he didn’t even know if there was a back door. A light suddenly appeared at one of the downstairs windows; a calm, golden light quite at odds with the rest of the farmhouse. Leo slid along the wall, as quiet as a mouse in carpet slippers, until he was right underneath the lit window. All he had to do now was rise up and peek in, but somehow that didn’t appeal to him at all. For all his stubbornness and curiosity, that last step seemed so big as to be almost overwhelming. He didn’t want to look in, for fear of what might look back at him.
There were monsters in Mysterie. Things much nastier than a little half-breed like Leo Morn.
And then he thought of Reed, his friend Reed, his dead friend Reed, walking helplessly into this house at the call of whoever or whatever had summoned him up out of his grave, and the chill in Leo’s veins was driven out by a hot flush of anger. It wasn’t courage, but it would do to get him moving. He sucked in a deep breath, held it, turned slowly, and carefully rose up to look in at the glowing window.
At first, the glass was so filthy he couldn’t see a damn thing. But as his eyes adjusted to the glare of the light and the smeared fog on the window, his preternaturally keen gaze was able to make out two distinct figures sitting at their ease in what had once been a parlor. Nicholas Hob, the Serpent’s Son, was having coffee with the woman Angel. Now that he saw them, Leo couldn’t say he was totally surprised. Shocked, scared, and in urgent need of a toilet, but not actually surprised. If Hob had returned, then raising the dead was just the kind of unpleasantness you’d expect from the Serpent’s Son. He was a Power
and
a Domination, and more besides. Nicholas Scratch. Hob. Old names for the Devil, the Enemy of Man. And Hob was all that.
Angel was more of an enigma. You couldn’t really use terms like
good
and
bad
with her; they were just too limiting. Brutal and vicious certainly, and capable of anything . . . but applying morality to Angel was like ascribing motives to a force of nature. Angel was new to the material plane, and couldn’t be expected to understand minor concepts like right and wrong. She was probably still working on life and death. Angel was dangerous precisely because she was so unpredictable. If she had fallen under Hob’s influence . . .
Now would be a really good time to leave.
“I told you to shut up!”
said Leo, in the mental equivalent of a shocked cry.
“That’s Hob and Angel in there!”
They can’t hear us. I’ve been probing their defenses for some time, and they haven’t even noticed.
“Now he tells me.”
You run for the trees. I’ll cover you.
“Hell with that. I didn’t nearly wet myself getting this far to turn back without finding out what the hell is going on here. I didn’t know Hob was back. Did you know Hob was back?”
No. I can’t see him. Or Angel. Usually. They’re just too . . . different. Veritie and Mysterie mean nothing to such as they.
“I really should have stayed in bed this morning, or maybe under it. Now shut up and let me concentrate on what’s going on in there.”
He pushed his face as close to the filthy window as he dared, straining his more than natural senses to their limit. Hob and Angel were sitting on opposite sides of an ornate and decorative coffee table, antique by the look of it, polished and gleaming and no doubt hideously expensive. The delicate china coffee set they were using was practically a work of art, but Hob treated it quite casually as he refilled Angel’s cup. All around them, the parlor was filthy and squalid and utterly vile. It was more than a century since anyone had actually lived in the Blackacre farmhouse, and it showed. The bare walls were cracked and bulging and pockmarked with huge craters, running with slow viscous damp like pus from leaking sores. Thick clumps of bulbous white fungi filled the angles where the walls met floor and ceiling. Leo could almost taste the stench of corruption that filled the room, even through the closed window. The room was full of a golden light, but from no obvious source, as though the parlor itself glowed with the unclean light of underground phosphorescence. No one with human sensibilities could have lived in such a room, or even tolerated it for more than a few moments, but then, Hob and Angel only looked human. They drank their coffee and talked together, quite undisturbed by their surroundings, while outside Leo fought hard not to vomit.
He had come to a bad place, and just its proximity was enough to sicken him to his soul.
In the room, Angel looked at the steaming hot coffee in her cup, added four spoonfuls of sugar, and then stirred the boiling-hot liquid with the tip of her finger, with no obvious distress. Hob’s aristocratic mouth moved briefly in a faint moue of distaste, but he had enough sense not to say anything. Leo pressed his ear against the windowpane, though his cheek crawled and jumped at the contact, and listened as they spoke.
“I understood you were banished from this town,” said Angel. “Where have you been all these years?”
“Traveling the world, and walking up and down in it,” Hob said easily. “Dabbling in politics and revolution, just for the hell of it. Mostly in parts of the world where politics and revolution are the same thing. People will rape, torture, and kill each other for the most amusing reasons, if you know the right buttons to push. I always feel most alive when everything else is dying all around me. And I was never banned. I chose to leave, to avoid . . . unpleasantness. I hadn’t thought of dear old Bradford-on-Avon in a long time, but my father called me back, so here I am. One doesn’t say no to the Serpent.”
Angel leaned forward in her chair, suddenly interested. “Your father. Have you ever seen him? Do you know what he is?”
Hob frowned and looked away, developing a sudden interest in his coffee cup. “No. My father is as much a mystery to me as anyone else. I don’t think there’s anyone now living who knows for sure what the Serpent actually looks like. Except for dear Luna, of course. And she’s still crazy. That’s what looking in the eyes of ultimate evil will do to you, even if you are a Power or a Domination. Poor Luna. My father has never shown me his face, and I have never been tempted to ask to see it. But sometimes he talks to me. I hear his voice, in my mind.”
“What does it sound like?” asked Angel, sipping coffee daintily with her little finger crooked.
“He sounds like a sword cutting through flesh. Like the sounds of children dying. Like everything we dream of in our worst nightmares. It is not a human voice, or even a living voice, in any way that you or I could comprehend. Though since you were once of the immaterial . . .”
Angel scowled and put her cup down sharply. “I am material now, and much less than I was. Any memories I might have had of things other than the material were taken from me. That was part of my punishment. Or perhaps my reward. It’s so hard to be sure.”
“Ah, well,” said Hob. “Easy come, easy go. All you need to know is that I follow my father’s wishes; and as long as we follow his plan, you and I will bring down both the worlds of reality and magic, and watch as my father tramples them beneath his ancient spite. The Serpent In The Sun will bring an end to Veritie and Mysterie, and you and I will have ringside seats as our reward, and afterwards we shall frolic in the ruins and glory in the damnation of our enemies.”
“You say the sweetest things,” said Angel. “Just as long as I’m not bored. I do so hate to be bored.”
They both looked round as the door behind them opened and Reed walked in. Hob checked his Rolex and sniffed. “About time you got back. Off you go and join the others in the woods. Usual rules; if it moves and it isn’t us, kill it. And don’t go wandering off again, or I’ll cut you off at the ankles.”
The dead man turned and left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him. Leo let out his breath slowly. He’d been wondering if Reed would report being followed, but it seemed his dual nature was still protecting him.
“What was the little thunder god doing at the railway station this morning?” said Angel. When she spoke, she sometimes put emphasis on unusual words, as though she was still struggling to understand the subtler mechanisms of speech.
“Being a bloody nuisance, mostly,” said Hob. “I suspect the Waking Beauty’s hand in his presence. I can hide myself from most of the higher orders, but the Waking Beauty is something else. Even I’m not sure what. Luckily, she’s never been of an active nature. Much prefers getting some other poor fool to do her dirty work. Don’t you worry about Jimmy Thunder, Loser For Hire. The divinity’s running very thin in his bloodline. If he shows his face again, I’ll rip it right off.”
“Tell me more about this Waking Beauty,” said Angel. “Is she real, or magical?”
“Both. Neither. I don’t think anyone knows. I have an uncomfortable suspicion that she’s above such things. She’s very old, and she never sleeps, and she knows things. Disturbing things. I met her once . . . and she wasn’t frightened of me. Unusual, that.”
“Thanks to the godling’s interference, the Reality Express is no more,” said Angel. “After your little outburst, it will be a long time before any refugees will trust their safety to you again. What will you do for the power you need, now that you can no longer bleed the refugees dry?”
“I do hope I didn’t detect a teeny note of criticism there, dear Angel,” said Hob, smiling with his mouth alone. “Never forget, I am the one who makes the decisions here, because I am my father’s voice. I will do what it pleases me to do, and I will not be questioned. As I will, so mote it be, as dear little Aleister and I used to say in my somewhat younger days. The loss of the Reality Express is but a trifling thing. I can always raise more dead and send them out to murder the living. There’s a lot of power to be gained from necromancy. And the dead do make such excellent servants; they’re completely obedient and they never talk back. Bit short in the initiative department, but that’s usually all to the good. I’ll empty this town’s cemeteries and send the dear departed lurching through the streets in broad daylight, if I have to. Killing a whole bunch of people always makes me feel better.”
“Yes,” said Angel, smiling for the first time. It was a disturbing sight. “To kill, to diminish the spark of light, to destroy the Creator’s work. Such things are food and drink to me. But say the word, and I will set the town’s streets awash with blood.”
“Thanks for the offer,” said Hob tactfully. “But my father’s plans don’t call for us to attract so much attention just yet.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you burned all those refugees,” said Angel.
Hob looked at her, and there was something in his gaze that silenced her. “You forget,” he said softly. “You forget who and what I am, little Angel. I am the only son of The Serpent In The Sun, and this whole world, real or magical, is mine by right. I could destroy you with a thought, and then raise you from the dead to serve me again. Get down on your knees.”
“Please,” said Angel. “Don’t.”
“Down. On your knees. Now.”
Angel rose jerkily to her feet, leaving her cup on the table. She looked stonily at Hob, and then knelt before him.
“Now kiss my foot, little Angel,” said Nicholas Hob.
And she did.
Hob looked down at Angel’s bowed head and slowly emptied his coffee cup over it. The hot liquid ran down her face like dark brown tears, but Angel didn’t move. Hob laughed softly. “Get up, Heaven’s droppings.”
Angel rose slowly to her feet and sat down in her chair again. She made no move to wipe away the coffee still dripping from her chin.
“Now, my dear,” said Hob. “Is there anything else you feel you need to discuss with me?”
“The dead man,” Angel said slowly. “The one who went walking into town. Could any of the others break free, like him?”
Hob frowned, and Angel could not meet his gaze. “I was distracted,” Hob said finally. “When I lost my temper, at the station. My mind wandered for a moment, and my concentration lapsed. It took me a while to realize that one of my slaves had slipped his leash. But it won’t happen again. I’ve taken steps to see to that. And as you should know, I never give up on anything that I have made mine.”
Perhaps Leo started at that, or made a noise. Either way, Hob and Angel turned sharply in their chairs to look at the window, and for a moment Hob and Leo looked right into each other’s eyes. It was only the barest moment, and then Leo was off and running, bolting across the open clearing as fast as his legs could carry him. He could hear Hob shouting something behind him, and then he was in among the dead trees and running hard. He could feel the magical defenses snapping on and off around him, trying to get a fix on him, confused by his hybrid nature. His Brother Under The Hill spoke urgently in his mind, giving him directions.

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