But as she pulled back, she caught a change in the cast of his face, and saw concern there, and in that moment she knew she had made the wrong decision. 'No,' she whispered. 'I take it back.'
But she was already moving back through the house, the walls elastic, the light distended, and in her ears were his words: 'We stand or fall by our choices, Mary. That's the important thing.' The trees were even more dense in that part of the forest: oaks that even six men linking hands couldn't encircle; hawthorn, thick and lethally spiky; yew, sprawling and twisted like sour old men. Caitlin pressed between the trunks, picking her way over the mass of root material that obscured most of the forest floor. It was so dark it could well have been night.
'Jack?' It was more of a whisper than a call, but it rustled out through the still air beneath the branches. She didn't sense the growing army of the Lament-Brood anywhere near at hand, but other threats lurked in the shadowy depths of the Forest of the Night and she didn't want to draw attention to herself.
There was no longer any sign of movement, but it was possible that Jack, if it had been him, had already slipped by her in the confusion of tree and branch. She stopped, listened; the crunch of a foot on dry twigs echoed, but the mass of trees distorted the sound and made it impossible to pinpoint the location.
As she pressed by one tree, she thought she heard a barely audible voice issuing from deep within the wood; to her ears it struck a warning note, but she dismissed it as her overworked imagination responding to her anxiety.
The trees were like a maze and Caitlin began to worry that she wouldn't be able to find her way back to the path and Carlton. Perhaps it would be better to wait there. If the others had heard Triathus, they would all be trying to find the path anyway.
Carefully, she retraced her steps. When she did finally get a view of the path, it was much further away than she had anticipated. She could just make out Carlton, tiny and alone and in desperate need of her. She resisted the urge to call out to reassure him.
A movement sounded in the trees nearby. Her senses tingled. Perhaps it wasn't Jack at all. Just like the Gehennis, something could have tried to lure her off the safety of the path. Carefully, she unslung her bow. Another twig cracking. Near or far? Was it stalking her? Waiting for a chance to attack when her defences were lowered? She dropped low, moved cautiously at first, then speeded up, dodging lithely amongst the trees, heading for the path. And then she had the strangest buzzing sensation in the tips of her fingers, before it moved up her forearms with a feeling of deep warmth. She felt oddly out of sorts, as if she'd spun round on the spot too many times. A bolt of light shot across her vision.
She fought the disorientation and tried to focus on any signs of whoever was nearby. Carlton appeared in a space between two trees. He looked frightened. She had to get to to him, to protect him.
Another bolt of light arced across her vision, and she felt as if she were unravelling, the cords that bound her together peeling back from fingertips to toes. An uncomfortable feeling of detachment descended on her. She felt as if she was watching the surroundings through a bubble of glass.
The other, near or far, near or far? She looked, looked, and saw, but not near at all. The shape flitted through the trees near the path with lethal purpose. It wasn't after her at all.
Desperation and horror burst in her mind. Carlton was turning; he'd heard a noise.
Caitlin threw herself forward with wild urgency, struggling with her bow, trying to notch an arrow. But her reactions were too slow, and she was all over the place, as though drunk. She felt herself slipping away and the figure, indistinct but quick and dangerous, was almost on Carlton now. The boy was looking up into a face, smiling.
And Caitlin thought, 'If this wasn't happening to me, I would be there by now, protecting him, doing my job, saving Liam.'
She leaped over a fallen tree, almost fell, tried to aim the arrow, but her hands looked as if they were made of water and felt as if they were made of light. And she fell, rose up, and looked at the world as if though the bottom of a bottle. She couldn't see the figure, but she could see Carlton, see him smiling, his expression changing. And she thought, 'No, he's the important one. Everything depends on him. He can't-' And she saw the flash of the blade, and the blood, and Carlton falling, reaching out to her. And she thought, 'I could have saved him. I should have saved him. Just like Liam…' The figure jumped over the boy's twitching body and was away, and she couldn't tell if it was man or woman, young or old, but she knew the truth in her gut, and she couldn't understand why. 'I could have saved him.' Her last chance for salvation was gone. And then there was only the world rushing away, and her screams, and the terrible, terrible night falling in all around.
Chapter Eleven
'Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw", that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does.'
Eight lanes of dirty Tarmac stretched out before her, now camouflaged by tufts of yellow grass bursting through cracks, and nettles and thistles and wind-blown rubbish. Caitlin stood against the central reservation, watching the road sweep down between high walls, other roads crossing overhead so that it felt as if she was looking into a tunnel. And beyond were the towers and office blocks against a slate-grey sky slowly turning towards night.
Not so long ago, the Aston Expressway would have thundered with traffic making its way to and from the M6, and the air would have been filled with the cacophony of the city, engines, voices, music, one never-ending drone. Now there was nothing but bird-song and the wind against the concrete. A fox roamed across the lanes, searching for prey. Rabbits quickly ran back to their burrows beneath Spaghetti Junction. Birmingham had been reborn into the new age.
Caitlin would have recognised the city, but Caitlin was shivering in the heart of the Ice-Field, thrown free of her shelter and the others, alone, dispirited, barely surviving. Caitlin's body knew very little at all. She chose a direction at random and trudged blankly down the Expressway into the heart of the city. Darkness clung tightly to the high buildings that lined New Street, but further ahead on the pedestrian precinct a bonfire blazed. The light drew Caitlin like a moth, the thick, acrid smoke obscuring the sickening stink that hung heavily in the air.
On her journey through Colmore Circus she hadn't seen a soul, but now men flitted from shadowed doorways, scarves tied across their faces. They were young, carried knives openly, communicating with high-pitched calls and guttural growls resembling nothing more than the rats that she had seen swarming along the gutters of the business district in sickening numbers.
She stood staring into the bonfire, the heat bringing a bloom to her face, hypnotised by the flickering flames as they consumed the ripped-out fittings of a clothes shop. A young girl barely more than nine, also with a scarf across her face, hurried up and warmed her hands briefly before flashing a murderous glance at Caitlin and disappearing back into the dark.
'Hey.'
Caitlin didn't hear the voice, though it was directed at her.
'Hey!' More urgent this time. A man in his late-twenties with short black hair and eyes that were just as dark emerged from an alley, glancing up and down the street nervously. A red silk scarf was tied across his mouth. 'You. You shouldn't be here.'