"When you died, you know, what was it like? Inside?" It was obvious Laura wasn't about to let the subject drop. Though her face remained impassive, there was a deep gravitas at the back of her eyes that showed how much the issue meant to her.
He threw his mind back to when he was lying half in the stream, his blood mingling with the water, his body racked with pain. "Like slipping into a hot bath and just carrying on down and down."
She nodded thoughtfully. "And after that?"
He winced. "I don't remember."
"Nothing at all?"
His sigh was uncomfortable. "Just fragments… nothing that makes sense. And it's all breaking up like a dream after you wake."
"But you remember something?"
"Just something that looked like a big church." There was a sharpness to his voice that he regretted, but couldn't control. "Or a cathedral. Massive, going right up past the clouds. That's it."
"Okay, I won't bug you about it any more." She made to leave, but he caught her arm and pulled her back. She gave a wry smile. "Getting frisky?" Before he could answer, she pushed him back off the wall and followed him down.
"You ever wonder why there aren't any bodies?" Ryan Veitch put his street-hard shoulder muscles to the rear door of the grocery shop and heaved one final time; it burst open with a crack.
"I don't want to think about that." Ruth Gallagher looked around uncomfortably. Even though she knew they were the only ones in the area and that the laws of the land probably didn't hold much sway any longer, she still didn't feel right breaking and entering.
Veitch didn't have any such qualms. His increasingly long hair hid his expression from her as he headed through the doorway, but she could have sworn he was actually enjoying it. Inside the store her fears were confirmed when the makeshift torch illuminated his hard, handsome features; he was grinning. "I'll be happier when the power comes back on," he said.
"Maybe it's gone for good this time," Ruth said morosely, as she reluctantly followed him in. Cartons of tins and breakfast cereals were piled around and it smelled warmly of fruit and bread. "Enough of the talk. Just get the provisions we need and let's get out of here."
"I like to talk. Anyway, who's going to rumble us here?"
Ruth pushed past him with a flick of her head that sent her long, brown hair flying. She began to fill a dustbin bag with packets of muesli. "Perhaps we should leave a note for the owner. Tell him why we took the stuff. Offer to pay him back-"
Veitch gave a derisory snort. "You're living in cloud cuckoo land, you. Get real. He's not coming back. None of the poor bastards are. The Fomorii have hauled them off to their larder."
Ruth glared at him, but his words made her feel numb and she quickly returned to her petty pilfering.
Veitch helped her halfheartedly and then said out of the blue, "Are we going to start getting on?"
"We're stuck in this together. We don't have any option."
"That's not good enough."
Her eyes flashed. "Well-"
"No, listen to me. I know I've done some bad things in my life, but you can't keep on blaming me for what happened to your old man-"
"How can you say that! You shot my uncle!" As she turned to face him her elbow clipped a box of Special K and sent it flying across the storeroom; all the emotions which she had bottled up for so long rumbled to the surface. She fought to hold back tears that seemed to come too easily, then said, "I'm sorry. I heard what the Danann said-"
"That's right! It wasn't my fault. They made me do it, like they made all of us suffer."
Ruth remembered the horror she felt when the Danann explained how all five of them had been forced to experience death as some sort of preparation for the destiny that had been mapped out for them.
"I might be a stupid little two-bit crook, but I've never killed anybody in my life before!" Veitch continued. "I'm not that kind of bloke. I wish you could know how much it screwed me up when I saw I'd shot your uncle…" He winced at the memory. "Listen, all I want to do, all I've ever wanted to do in my life, is do something that's right, you know what I mean? Be a good guy for a change. But even when I try, it seems to go wrong. I just want a chance to show what I can do."
His pleading was so heartfelt, Ruth couldn't help feeling sympathy.
"Because I like you," he continued. "I like all of you. You're all trying to do the right thing, whatever it might mean to you, and I've never been around people like that before. I don't want you all thinking bad of me all the time."
Ruth read the emotions on his face for a long moment, then returned to her packing. "Okay," she said. "I forgive you. But it's not going to be forgotten just like that-"
"I know. I just want a chance."
"You've got it."
She could feel him staring at her like he couldn't believe what she had said, and then he started loading up his bag with gusto. Once they'd got everything they might need for a few days, they headed back out. As they slipped away from the shadows at the back of the shop, a dark shape flashed out of the sky and circled them, drawing closer. Veitch was instantly alert, ready for defence.
"It's okay," Ruth said. The owl, her gifted companion, glided down and landed on her shoulder; she winced as its talons bit into her flesh, then pushed her head to one side for fear it would start flapping its wings. It was the first time it had come close enough for her to touch. The owl turned its eerie, blinking eyes on Veitch, who was grinning broadly.
"What's his name?" He reached out a hand, but the owl snapped its beak in the direction of his fingers and he withdrew sharply.
"Who says it's a he?"
"Well what's its fucking name then?"
"It hasn't got a name." She paused. "Not one that I know, anyway."
"Well, don't you think you should give him one? Or her. It. If it's going to be on the team-"
"Maybe I'll ask it later." Her eyes sparkled.
Veitch looked at her for a second or two, but he couldn't tell if she was serious or teasing him. He decided to opt for the latter and responded in kind with a faint smirk. "Witch."
"Fuckhead."
Their eyes locked for a long moment, then they burst out laughing. Turning, they threw the bags over their shoulders and marched towards the seafront.
"So what exactly can you do?" Veitch said.
Ruth shrugged. "I don't know yet. It's like spending all your life as a man and then someone coming up to you and telling you you're actually a woman. How do you get your head round something as monumental as that? How can you comprehend you've been chosen by the gods for some task?"
"Sounds pretty cool to me. I wouldn't mind."
"You might think differently if it actually happened to you. It's hard enough understanding that the world's changed. That different rules operate now, fundamental rules, about the way everything works. The woman I met in the Lake District-"
"The old magic-biddy?"
"The Wiccan. She'd spent years practising certain rites and not getting anywhere. Then, earlier this year, she woke up and suddenly found out things happened. At her command."
"What kind of things?"
"Altering the weather. Controlling animals…" Ruth had a sudden flashback to the spirit-flight she experienced and was surprised at the depth of her yearning to savour it again. "I don't think it's a matter of having any kind of power. It's just an aptitude for controlling things. Like physicists bending nuclear power to their will. You have to learn how to access it."
"Any luck so far?"
"I haven't really tried. I'm a little nervous."
"I read sex helps with magic." He didn't look at her, but she could sense his grin.