The Book of Storms (24 page)

He hummed a little to buy some time, watching Sammael tap his long fingers irritably along a polished tabletop. It was very important to get the answer right. Danny sensed that Sammael didn't deal in second thoughts, or indecisiveness. The words that escaped from your mouth would bind themselves around you like ropes.

What should Sammael be? Man … goat … dog … axe … ant … moon …

“For God's sake, hurry up,” snapped Sammael after about a minute of silence. But perhaps it had been longer than that.

“I … I … I…” Danny saw the look in Sammael's hard, narrow eyes and clung desperately to what he might have been thinking. What was the devil on earth? What was the wickedest, hardest, most evil thing he could possibly think of? What did he fear most, apart from this indescribable being before him with its long fingers, twitching foot, and blazing eyes?

Nothing. He could think of nothing. In his eleven years of life, so many things had terrified him: large dogs, dark corners, the door to the headmaster's office, shooting stars that might have been meteors, his father's anger, things hiding in alleyways, under beds, behind the open doors of unlit rooms. But this was a different kind of fear, a hopeless fear that if he was wrong, if he gave Sammael a stupid answer, all would be forever awful and that would be the last word on the matter.

Danny found he was beginning to sweat.

“Come on,” drawled Sammael, looking bored. “If you're going to make me into a devil, you must have some idea of what I look like. If not, how can you fear me enough to want me dead?”

Danny's heart began to rush a little faster as if it knew the end might be near and it was trying to squeeze in as many beats as possible before it fell silent. His palms were soggy. What was it he was supposed to be answering?

“Okay, I'll give you until the count of three. One,” said Sammael, his voice dangerously quiet. “Two.”

“No … wait…” said Danny helplessly, sure he could no longer breathe.

“Wait? For what? What's the problem here? Are you not
sure
? Are you telling me you want to look at what I
really
am?”

“You're evil!” Danny managed to gasp. “I know that!”

“Oh, Danny,” said Sammael. “You're so disappointing. Well, we'd better get on with it, then. We've had one and two. What comes after that?”

“No, wait. Wait!”

“Three,” said Sammael. “Time's up.”

*   *   *

Danny's eyes snapped open, and he threw his arms over his chest, clutching his shoulders to shield himself. The light outside was fading. There was nobody else in the barn except Tom. Something was happening inside his head that he didn't like at all.

He crawled over to Tom.

“Wake up! Wake up! We've got to go!”

Tom started, grabbed at something, and thrust it toward Danny. Cold metal grazed Danny's cheek; he jerked his head backwards and stared. The fading light from the doorway flashed, once, on the quivering tines of a pitchfork.

“Jesus! What…”

“Danny! You scared me! Sorry!” Tom sat up and brought the pitchfork away from Danny's face. “What time is it? Where is this?”

Danny edged back a little farther, although he was safe enough now. “We're still in the barn. You fell asleep. We both fell asleep.”

“Damn! Is it … what time is it?”

“I dunno. Late. But we've got to go—the swallows went ages ago. We need to get to Sentry Hill.”

“We need to get home. I promised Mum we'd be back by suppertime. She's done enough worrying.”

Tom began to move stiffly to his feet, clambering past Danny toward the doorway. Outside, he looked up at the darkening sky. Far above, the stars were beginning to glitter.

Danny came to stand beside him. “We can't stop now. It's nearly the end. It's got to be.”

“Swallows won't fly through the night,” Tom tried again. “They'll have gone to roost somewhere. They won't move again until the morning.”

“Well, go home, then. I don't care. You never believe me, but I don't care anymore. Go home to your mum if you're so scared of the dark.”

Danny turned his face away. His skin burned. The moldy hay bales back in the barn seemed to be calling him to lay his head down on them, to let himself fall into a deep, yielding sleep. He'd lie there all night breathing in mold spores and dust, and all the insects and mice who had made their homes in the hay would crawl over him, but he'd be too asleep to care.

But then he'd wake up, and he'd have to get up and go on again. And one hour soon, if he was faced with much more, his heart would drop and fail him. He had to go. If Tom wasn't going to help him, he had to go on alone.

He went back to Shimny and pulled her head up.

“We've got to go again, Shimny,” he apologized. “I think this is the last time. I think we'll find them now.”

She didn't seem to notice that he was talking inside his head. Maybe it still sounded exactly the same to her.

She said, “I'm hungry. Must we?”

But that was all she said, and then she lifted her old, patched head. Her blue eye was close to Danny's face. Her solid old bones, stiff and tired and creaking, stood hard inside her warm skin.

“Sorry, old pony,” said Danny as he dragged himself up onto her back from a pile of planks. “We've got to go back to the woods and up that hill. Can you find it? I don't know the way.”

“Sure I can,” said the pony. “I've been here before. But isn't Tom coming?”

Danny didn't answer. He could only repeat to himself, Soon, I'll find them, and we'll go home, and then all this will stop. It has to stop. Soon, it has to stop, or my legs just won't hold me anymore, and I'll fall off this pony and lie on the cold black ground and let the night swallow me up.

And as he set off into the last traces of the twilight, he heard a call behind him.

“Oi! You stupid idiot! Wait up!”

Tom was trotting after him. Little more than a shape in the gloom, his blond hair shone pale through the darkness. Arm outstretched, standing up in his stirrups, hand gripping the handle of the old pitchfork, he looked like a ghostly horseman ready for war.

For a second, Danny remembered the tines flashing so close to his face. Tom's on my side, he reminded himself. He's on my side, and at least he's got a weapon now. Although we won't get Sammael with a pitchfork. Still, if we're quick, I might get to my parents before he finds me. And they'll know what to do about him. Of course they'll know. They'll protect me.

CHAPTER 16

THE STORM

“They were here. Recently, I swear it. Very recently.”

Kalia gazed up at Sammael. He was standing by the barn door, looking at the empty space in front of the barn.

“Of course they were here,” he snapped. “But following them is pretty pointless if you can't go fast enough to catch them up, isn't it?”

“It's not my fault,” the dog whined. “I told you, I'm a sight hound. I'm doing my best.”

She tried to push her head against his palm, but he removed it.

“You're useless,” he said. “I don't know why I let you hang around.” Kicking her away, he turned his attention to the grass and stamped on it. “Where are they?” he demanded. “The boys. The ponies. Where did they go?”

The grass shivered and stuttered under his feet.

“The p-p-p-ponies…” muttered one blade. “Their t-t-teeth…”

“Ponies have teeth. I'm well aware of that,” spat Sammael. “Tell me which way they went!”

“They ate us. Big, tearing teeth …
scrunch
 …
crunch
 … They ripped us and tore us.…”

“I couldn't care less if they made wigs out of you,” said Sammael. “Where did they go?”

The grass, so recently chomped, continued to twitter and gibber. He could get no sense out of it.

Kalia crept forward again, her shoulders hunched. “Where are we?” she whispered. “I think I know this place. Isn't there a hill, with one side of it quarried away?”

Sammael stopped the kick he'd been about to swing again at her. This rage was doing strange things to him; normally, there was no way Kalia would have ever been able to suggest something to him that he hadn't already thought about. He must stop being so fixated on this boy and start being rational again.

“A hill?” he said. “Sentry Hill. Of course.”

“Well, wouldn't that be a good place, if he's looking for a storm…?”

It might. In fact, it definitely was—Sentry Hill stood apart in the rolling landscape, tall and alone. How had the damned dog thought of that before him? He had powers beyond all mortal reasoning. His brain worked at the speed of light.

He kicked her, hard. She slunk backwards and crouched in the darkness, watching him.

Sammael looked through the night. Light or dark—it made little difference. He saw by the changing feel of the air, by its patches of coldness and heat. He saw the path that the boys had traveled, up into the higher part of the woods. How long since they'd been here? How far ahead were they? However far, he could walk there in seconds. But the boy mustn't be frightened. He must hand over the Book of Storms of his own accord.

It wouldn't be any use trying to strike a bargain with him, not as things were. Danny must know by now that Sammael wanted him dead. He wouldn't trust an offer, however plain and straightforward, to swap the book for his parents, not if he had an ounce of sense. How to make him believe that surrendering the Book of Storms would save him, rather than kill him?

By rescuing him, of course. That was always the way, with humans. Sammael could make the boy think he was going to die, then save him. Danny was only a young, inexperienced human; even if he did know how much the taro protected him, he wouldn't want to risk throwing himself under a bolt of lightning to try it out.

And then, once a small part of his trust was won, he would gratefully give over the Book of Storms and Sammael could draw the final curtain.

Sammael dug his hands into his coat pockets and smiled again to himself. Of course there was a way. When had he ever not found a way, in the end?

*   *   *

The first belch of thunder sounded a long way off, to Tom's ears. The air was still thin, too—he should have become aware of a gradual buildup of pressure drifting around their shoulders and cheeks, making them start to sweat.

Still, with thunder that quiet, the storm wouldn't be with them for ages, if it came their way at all. Something that far away was probably just passing by, on its way elsewhere.

Tom shivered a little in the cool night air. If he'd known how far they would come, how long this journey would go on, he'd have made sure of bringing at least a jacket. Damn his half-brained idiot of a cousin. But something odd had happened to Danny—normally he was the first one to turn blue and set his teeth chattering and look like he was about to freeze solid from the cold. Normally he was the first one to stop and suggest going home, or to sit down on every stone and gate that they passed on a walk. Normally he wasn't altogether that keen on going on walks anyway.

Now he didn't even seem to notice that he'd hardly slept for two days, and it was getting dark and damp and cold again. Tom couldn't understand it. Creatures didn't change just like that: the same cows were always at the front of the herd waiting to be milked every morning, and the same ones were always at the back. What
had
happened to Danny? Whatever it was, it had changed him from the person he'd been for eleven years into someone Tom wasn't altogether sure he recognized, or even liked that much.

And that business with the swallows—how had he done that? It was
Tom
who had a way with animals, not Danny—
Tom
who understood how to communicate wordlessly with them, and get them to follow him around. He imagined those tiny bodies clinging onto his own sweater, and his stomach snarled with something that wasn't simply hunger.

Thunder growled again. Tom's hand tightened on the pitchfork as Apple jerked her head up. Louder this time—a little closer, but still far, far away.

He could hardly see Danny in front of him. They were back in the trees again. There must be some clouds, or surely the moonlight would be filtering through the treetops, casting milky streams on the forest floor.

For a second he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A flash of white, or red, or was it both? When he turned his head to look, there was nothing but the branches of the trees, creaking as they pawed at the darkness.

A long-buried hope began to seep into Tom's blood. The woods were changing. They weren't just trees and plants and animals—there was a brilliance in the air between the looming shapes. The woods were
alive
.