Wildwood (12 page)

He didn’t take long after that. Through the wall I heard the sound of him rising, followed by the bath draining, the flush of the toilet and then an odd squeaky noise that I only slowly identified: he was cleaning the bath. Wow, I thought, now that’s the sort of man there should be more of. When he emerged I was waiting for him with a sweater: a plain white hand-knitted thing that had stretched hugely over the years, it was my comfort jumper and if I tucked my knees up I could pull it right down to my ankles. It was the only piece of suitable clothing I had that I thought might fit him.

He was back in the towel sarong again. I came up close to make my offer: ‘Do you want a jumper?’ Close enough that I could see the water sheen on his skin and smell the eucalyptus and lime. Close enough so that he could easily pull me to him. Your choice, I thought: girl or sweater.

He picked the clothing. Not swiftly; his eyes were on me the whole time, his expression unreadable but intense. He slipped the sweater over his head and then went and sat back on the
sofa
, balancing his mug on one knee. It was a good job it was a big towel; like most men he sat with his thighs carelessly apart.

‘Suits you,’ I said, then went and perched on the lone armchair opposite, dizzy with longing and disappointment.

Ash licked his upper lip thoughtfully. I felt like I was under examination. Why the hell didn’t he say anything? The silence was unbearable.

‘I asked Michael Deverick about the men he’d sent into the wood, like you said,’ I ventured.

‘Oh?’

‘According to him one of them walked into a wasps’ nest and was stung a couple of times. His mate carried him out but he died of the anaphylactic shock.’

‘That’s right. What about the others?’

‘He didn’t mention any others.’

Ash took a sip of his drink. ‘He’s sent a few men to try to get in. One got bitten by “a stray farm dog”, I quote. One broke an arm when he fell off a rock pile. Lots of them had problems with the wasps. None of them got anywhere. Are you seeing a pattern?’

‘Yeah. Now tell me why.’

‘The wood keeps people out. Deverick knows that and he shouldn’t have sent you in.’

‘But why? Why’s it so important that you keep people out? What’s he going to do that’s so bad?’

Ash thought about answering for a long moment. I could see the doubt in his eyes. ‘There’s something in the wood he wants,’ he said at last. ‘It’s … important. He thinks it’s his to take.’

‘So this isn’t about the wood itself?’ I demanded.

‘No.’

‘But then what is it?’ I asked, exasperated.

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Why?’

He made a helpless gesture. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I did.’

‘Try me.’

He drummed his fingers on his mug. ‘All right. There was a Michael Deverick supplying munitions to the Allies in World War Two. There was a Captain Michael Deverick in the trenches at Ypres. There was a Michael Deverick in the Order of the Golden Dawn back in 1903. He fell out with Crowley, but then who didn’t? There was a Michael Deverick sitting as member of parliament for a rotten borough in 1831. Same man. Same man as the one you work for. He’s at least two hundred years old and he’s a magus.’

‘A what?’

‘A magician.’

I sat in silence for a while. ‘Well,’ I said at length, ‘he’s managed to get British builders to work for him seven days a week. I suppose there had to be some rational explanation.’

Ash looked suspicious. ‘You’re taking it well, considering.’

‘Oh, I’m not bloody stupid! I’ve seen …’ The words died in my throat. ‘Though to be honest, I’d have had you pegged as the weird one. No offence.’

Ash put his mug down on the carpet. ‘None taken. Our methods differ. Nevertheless.’

‘So you are a … You’re one too?’

‘A magus. Yes.’

‘That bull bloke,’ I muttered. ‘Bull Peter. What’s he? Is that something you did?’

Ash looked nonplussed. ‘Ah. I wasn’t sure how clearly you’d seen him.’

‘Pretty bloody clearly.’

‘Right. Well, I think he’s a changeling – you know, left once
in
the place of a human baby. He seems to be imprinted on human women. But I’m not totally sure. It’s not as if I’ve talked to him. He’s aggressive with men.’

‘He’s a fairy,’ I said. ‘That’s what you’re saying?’

‘Uh-huh. You had any problems with him since that night?’

‘Problems? No.’ I had a sudden desire to change the subject.

‘Good.’

I thought of the things I’d seen flitting through the weeds around him. ‘What about the other fairies? They talk to you, do they?’

‘Not really. Fay tolerate me better than they do most humans. But they don’t talk. You know: parallel lives.’

‘OK.’ I had to bite back the desire to mention the deer-girl. ‘And you’re living in the wood and doing your witchy stuff there –’

‘Ritual magic.’ His tone was very dry all of a sudden.

‘Ritual magic, because you want to keep this other magus from getting the thing in the wood.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Then,’ I said slowly and clearly, ‘what the bloody hell is it?’

I could see the reluctance settling over his face like a cloud. ‘Something powerful. Something he could use to control – I don’t know – millions of lives. It’s something he must never be allowed to get hold of.’

‘OK, I get it. You’re its guardian, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Can you take it away from here?’

‘No.’

‘Can you use … whatever it is, against him?’

‘Christ. No.’ For a moment he looked really appalled.

‘So you’re stuck in the wood, and Michael can’t get in, and you can’t leave.’

‘That’s about the size of it. For the moment.’

I looked at my nails. ‘I’m really starting to wish I’d gone to the pub tonight.’

Ash rubbed gently at the piercings through his eyebrow. ‘Sorry. You asked.’

‘But you came here to talk to me.’ I bit the inside of my lip. ‘Didn’t you? I mean, bugger the flask. You wanted to talk.’

He sighed. ‘Yes. I need … I mean, I am short of … Listen, this is how the situation is. I’ve had four years to build every defence into the wood that I can think of, without Deverick about. But now the estate’s in his hands and he’s going to be looking for any possible way in past those defences. He’s good at that. He’ll be looking for any weak point. It might only be a matter of time. In fact, he’s found a weakness already.’

‘Which is?’

‘You. You walked unharmed right through the wood to the bridle path.’

‘How come?’

He looked apologetic. ‘I set the wards up to block Deverick. They’re at their strongest against him, and they draw from the Wildwood. And I assumed that if he were going to launch an attack on the wood itself, with chainsaws and bulldozers and such, that his crew would be male. So, some of the guards are of no use against, say, you.’

‘Welcome to the twenty-first century,’ I said, with ill-concealed amusement.

‘I still think he’s not going to be able to find enough women for that job, though I may be wrong. And anyway, the deeper wards will still function. But that was a weakness. He’ll find others. He’ll think of a way to use them. So I came to ask you if you’d help me.’

‘Help you? Against him? What the hell could I do?’

‘Well,’ said Ash tentatively, ‘I can’t get into the house any
more
than he can enter the wood. I’d like to know what he’s doing in there.’

‘And why should I?’

‘That’s a good question. Because he’s a shit. Would that do it?’

I stared. At that moment the washer came noisily to the end of its cycle. I welcomed the distraction. I stood and crossed the room to squat in front of the machine. Ash half-rose from the sofa and put his hand on my shoulder as I opened the door. ‘No,’ he said; ‘please …’

I turned, looking up at him. He was leaning right over me, his face close to mine, and I acted without thought and almost without realising what I was doing, from pure instinct. I put my lips to his in a soft kiss of invitation.

I think he was more surprised than I was though. For a second I thought he wasn’t going to respond. Then I felt his sharp inhalation of breath, and then his hand cupped my throat and jaw as he kissed me back – not hard but tentatively and very slowly. Almost as if he were afraid.

For a moment that was all we did. Then I pushed him gently back onto the sofa and followed up, straddling his lap. His eyes were wide with shock, so I kissed him again, challengingly, catching his lip in my incisors. His hands slid round my waist. Our kisses were like strange dogs circling one another, all tension and avid curiosity and barely concealed teeth. Then he slid his hands up the front of my top to cup the bare breasts beneath and I broke away with a gasp, arching my spine as he caught at my nipples. He pulled me up sharply against him, pushing up my blouse and putting his lips to my tits. I felt his wet mouth around my nipple and I cried out in helpless delight. I clasped his head and his long locks were damp under my hands but I was damper, down between my splayed thighs. I love having my tits sucked. Sometimes I can even come that
way
, they’re so sensitive – if the man is right. If he knows what he’s doing.

Ash did.

Then suddenly he pulled his mouth away and looked up at me with eyes full of storm. My wet nipples stood out like hazelnuts. ‘No,’ he groaned. ‘I can’t.’

If he’d just decided to let on that he was married or gay or something then I didn’t want to hear it. I slid out of his arms like water and down between his spread thighs. I pulled his towel open as I went. He was a man and men, I reasoned, are straightforward: pull the lever and you get the candy.

In this case the candy was of the raspberries-and-cream variety. Definitely a natural redhead, I thought as I ran my fingers through his pubic thatch. And I doubted very much he was gay; his erection was like polished rock already and it jerked against my tongue as I wrapped my lips around it, tasting of lime bath bomb, tasting of the salt of his own eagerness. Ash’s whole body bucked as I engulfed him and he threw back his head with a groan. I had him now; he wasn’t going anywhere. He had a second tribal tattoo, I found, on his right hip and thigh. I traced it with my fingertips. Lovingly I teased his swollen prick head and ran my fingers up his shaft and down and around his balls. Cocks are wonderful. I adore them. I love to feel them urgent and yearning for me, responding to the flick of my tongue and the pressure of my lips and the friction of my throat. I gave Ash’s cock everything I had, briefly. Long enough to feel him tense and rock under me. He slid his fingers into my hair, holding me.

Then I pulled away, just far enough so I could look up at him and suggest, ‘Let’s go to the bedroom.’ I planted a kiss right on his cock tip.

His eyes were shining. He stroked my temple. And somehow he still said, ‘No.’

No? I blinked.

‘No. Finish it off.’

You selfish git, I thought. As I hesitated his hands tightened on my head. For the first time it occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t engineering this as well as I’d thought. ‘Hey …?’

‘Finish it off.’ Those green-brown eyes weren’t shining now; they were burning.

‘OK.’ I didn’t want a fight. Not from this position. Swallowing my disappointment I went back to work. This time I was rougher than strictly necessary. Ash’s pelvis twisted as I concentrated on pumping him, forgetting such delicacies as handling his scrotum. I didn’t give him a chance to catch his breath or enjoy the journey; I just rode him to the end of the line as directly and brutally as I could. He was too far gone to find it truly painful, but he came with wrench and a gasp that didn’t sound like unalloyed pleasure, filling my mouth with his sweet-sour ejaculate.

I sat back, raised my eyebrows and waited grimly.

For a long time he seemed unable to collect himself. Then he blinked and focused on me anew. ‘Did you swallow?’ were his first words.

‘Of course.’

He leant forwards and kissed me. This time I didn’t welcome it. I yielded mostly from habit and surprise. His kiss was hard, his tongue invasive. He’s checking, I thought incredulously: he’s checking to see that I’ve swallowed it all! I tore from his kiss and he grabbed me by the hair.

‘Drink,’ he ordered, scooping up the half-empty mug of tea and pressing it to my lips.

‘Get lost!’

‘Drink!’ His hand tightened in my hair until tears sprang to my eyes and the rim of the mug banged painfully against my teeth. I took a mouthful of the lukewarm tea, milkless and bitter, and choked it down.

He released me at once.

‘You bastard,’ I said, backing away across the carpet. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ My voice was wobbly with shock. ‘Get out of my house.’ He looked at me speechlessly. There was agony in his expression and anger and shame too, and I didn’t understand what was going on with him but he had completely freaked me out. ‘Get out!’ I shouted.

Ash stood and went to empty his clothes out of the washing machine. He pulled on his wet trousers without looking in my direction, then scooped up the rest and walked out.

I jumped up and got into the hall just as the front door closed, then threw his mug at the door, hard. Tea painted an arc across the wall. After that I retreated to the living room and paced up and down. Then I rang Michael Deverick’s voice-mail.

‘This is Avril Shearing,’ I snapped. ‘I want to tell you I’ve changed my mind about the Eden Project.’

5: Eden

MY DRESS WAS
delivered two days before the dinner party. I hadn’t been expecting it; in fact I had other plans about what I’d be wearing. But the boxes embossed with a gold designer monogram changed all that.

I opened the shoebox first: it held cream shoes with delicate beading and heels that were slender enough to be elegant, without being so high as to make me ridiculously tall. They fitted perfectly. I wondered how Michael knew my shoe size. He’d say he was good at guessing, I supposed. It creeped me out a little bit. Of course this was exactly the sort of thing Michael Deverick would do. He was used to being in charge and he liked to spend money on things. Particularly on things that he owned, I reminded myself. I needed to be on my guard.