Death. This time the old foe comes with a long list. He seeks out brothers and sisters, men and women. Seeks them out randomly and specifically. Some for good reason, others just for the joy of seeing their blood in the snow.
The pure white snow.
It’s falling now. At first, just flakes on the seer’s flushed cheeks. Cool, like the kiss of a maiden. Now heavier. Splashes of icy rain, chilly enough to start the shivers.
An avalanche.
A deadly whiteout erupts inside the seer’s mind. Knocks him to the ground. Covers him. Buries him. Suffocates him. His hands slip from the font and he stumbles backward. This time he doesn’t fall. The vision is complete. He understands and knows what he must do.
A new phase of the Arthurian Cycle has begun.
14
Twenty-three-year-old Dwaine Velez wishes he’d taken a leak before he got in his Ford Wagon.
If that little bitch’s pops hadn’t turned up shouting the odds ’bout the sanctity of his daughter he’d have been able to use their goddamned bathroom. Instead, he ended up hopping down the drive with one leg in his pants and the rest of his clothes thrown all over the shrubs.
Un-fucking-dignified. That’s what it was.
Still, it had been worth it. She was a peach. These girls out in the sticks don’t get much action and when they do — man, they make the most of it.
He heads south down Connecticut Avenue, back towards the Capital Beltway, dark eyes scanning for a place to pull over. Jay-Z is rapping on the radio — ‘Bring it On’ from Reasonable Doubt, the album that propelled him from being a punk who’d put a cap in his brother, to one of the world’s most bankable music stars.
Dwaine drums fingersticks on the steering wheel and gets thinking. ‘Hey fella, I sure as hell would like to teach your lady some tricks. That Beyoncé has one fine booty.’
The song hits the chorus and the voice from the radio answers.
The young contractor laughs. ‘I can hang. Man, can I hang. And bro’, let me tell you, no way would she ever come back to you after she’s spent a night with me.’
Up on the left he spots some trees, and maybe the last chance to relieve himself before rolling out west to help fix some drains in McLean then on to a backed-up septic tank just north of Washington.
What a life. Eat your heart out, Jay-Z.
He parks on Beach Drive, crosses the near-deserted carriage to a clump of trees and a long track called Rock Creek Trail.
Dwaine is desperate. The burly six-footer is spraying overgrown grass within a split-second of getting his fly down. Every time he thinks he’s going to stop, another round of tequila shots and bottled water comes from somewhere.
Must be the sex. Sex always makes him pee like he’s a fire hose.
A thought hits him. A bad one. He hopes to hell that bitch hasn’t given him something nasty. Dwaine looks down at the boiling soil.
‘Fuck, man!’
The shock is so much he wets his legs. He stumbles backwards. Staring up, through a thin layer of puddled earth, is a man’s face.
He’s been pissing on a dead guy.
15
A windy six-hour flight from Washington brings Owain Gwyn back to British soil, or, to be more precise, the blacktop runway at Heathrow.
A VIP escort team meets him airside and whisks him through diplomatic channels to his waiting helicopter. The armour-plated Bell is quickly in the air, covering the one hundred and thirty miles west to his country estate in Somerset at a cruising speed of more than two hundred and fifty miles an hour.
From the window of the ten-million-pound thirteen-seater, he watches the deep green of the lush English countryside slide beneath him. Mile by mile his spiritual connection renews. By the time he sees the Somerset Levels he feels whole again.
Glastonbury.
No other town triggers so many mystical associations.
The Isle of Glass. Joseph of Arimathea. The Holy Grail.
As the former British Ambassador to America looks down upon Glastonbury Tor, tales of history and legend blur in his mind. This is said to be Avalon, the place where Excalibur was forged. Where Arthur, the warrior king, was brought after being savagely wounded in battle by his mortal enemy, Mordred. Where some believe he died and others maintain he was ‘born again’ and rose to become immortal.
The helicopter circles a grand estate and begins its cautious descent. Owain Gwyn is back where he belongs, where his ancestors fought and died for freedom and Christianity. Back home.
He checks his phone as the descent begins. He has several missed messages but there is only one that truly interests him.
The one from Myrddin.
16
Booze seeps through Irish’s bloated pores as he stands over the buried corpse. He uses his stained hanky to wipe alcohol slick from his forehead.
The crime scene is only a mile from Amir Goldman’s store. Given that the most exciting thing this hick-town settlement ever sees is the traffic signal changing, he’s willing to bet his pension that they’re connected. Not that his pension’s worth that damned much.
For once, he’s arrived at a scene ahead of the ME and has already briefly interviewed the guy who apparently came here for a leak and splashed more than his feet.
He takes out a small camera bought more than a decade ago, with half the pixels of the one built into the new-fangled smartphone that he doesn’t know how to use. He shoots off three-sixty degrees’ worth of surrounding shots so he can always revisit the body and scene. CSIs will get better ones, but the process of doing it opens up his mind.
Irish concentrates harder than a chess player and picks his way around the scene, careful not to trample evidence underfoot, shift bushes, or knock any trace from thorns or branch snags.
Through the lens, the dead guy’s head looks like a dropped paper plate on the grey-brown soil. He’s been buried in the shallowest of shallow graves, face up, along a rough track that cuts through a copse of trees starting near the rest stop. There’s not enough flesh above ground to tell much about who he was. Dark hair. Hazel eyes. A big nose that he probably got teased about at school. He was probably mid- to late-twenties with fifty years still to burn.
The way Irish figures it, this is the only place the killer could have sunk him. The roots of nearby trees and bushes are too big for anyone to dig either left or right. It’s hurried and messy. Whoever did it was hoping the burial would buy him time. Meaning he’s not local and is long gone.
Even though the cop’s head is pounding from a hangover, he has a good idea of what’s gone down. The antique store had been a two man job. After the old man’s death they’d stopped and rowed. Things got out of hand and one killed the other.
Irish picks up boot prints: deep heel marks made in soft soil. Deep because the victor was carrying the body of the loser. He sees two drag lines. Parallel tracks right up to the shallow grave. And another set of footprints, smaller than the boots made by the poor schmuck who found the body.
Irish walks past the body. The path loops back onto the road and he can see a single set footprints heading that way.
The killer’s.
17
Jade and Amber are playing Swingball on the lawn when Mitzi pulls up. They’re belting the roped ball at each other and splitting their sides laughing as it lashes back around the centre pole and they swipe at nothing.