“How did she answer you?”
“She laughed in my face and said that she might welcome the darkness, if it brought me harm. And promised to burn any new poems. She’s been a sword in my flesh since I was twelve. We’ve been bound together like lovers, by the bonds of a mutual fear. But the tide’s turning and I have to go.” Then he said very distinctly, “They were not quite dead when I slipped into the house that night. I think she must have known I was there—”
The wind was snatching his words away, but Rutledge heard them and hated the man with a ferocity that was deep and cold.
Cormac, for a second time in his life, miscalculated.
This time Rutledge moved first, with such speed and anger behind it that he caught Cormac off guard and sent them both reeling back, then before either man could brake their momentum, over the edge of the cliff.
It wasn’t a sheer drop. It was rock eroded by wind and weather. It was clumpy grass and earth, punctuated by straggling shrubs and heaved outcroppings. A long and rough slope that took its toll on bone and flesh as they tumbled down towards the fringe of boulders where the surf crashed whitely. The noise rose to meet them, so mixed with the thunder that there was only an endless, deafening roar.
As Rutledge’s shoulder hit the slope, he grunted with the force of it, then forgot it as Cormac’s body slammed into his, nearly winding them both. They grappled for a hold as they rolled and slid, yelling, cursing, pure fury fueling flailing knees and fists. Rutledge tasted blood and salt on his lips and felt a warm wetness just under his ribs, where something had ripped through the skin. Cormac’s flesh was also taking a beating, but he was ignoring it with the single-mindedness of a lifetime.
Rutledge fought with the cunning and strength of the battlefield, the ruthless, unforgiving training of hand-to-hand combat. He found himself wishing fervently for a bayonet, a rifle butt, a weapon of any kind. He could feel if not hear the sucking in of breath, the grunts from the savage effort Cormac made to match him hold for hold, blow for blow. There was grit in Rutledge’s teeth, one eye was half closed, and his left elbow felt numb as they came suddenly to the end of the long, ragged slope and pitched with savage momentum into the cold, wild water, shocking both of them.
In his grasp Cormac went limp.
Rutledge heaved himself up through the rough sea and pulled the other man with him.
“You aren’t dead—I won’t—let you die!” he shouted, gasping for air, but Cormac made no response as his face came out of the water. “Damn it—you’ll hang yet!”
There was a dark smear across Cormac’s forehead where he’d struck rock under the water, laying open the skin. It was bleeding ferociously.
Now Rutledge was fighting the great rocks and the surf rolling in haphazardly before the wind, and the storm seemed to be tearing at the headland above, downdrafts sending a sandpaper of grit and dirt against his face.
He clenched his teeth with the effort, feeling his body tightening then tiring in the cold water, feeling the pull of the current and the edges of the rocks and the weight of the other body he was dragging after him.
Hamish was screaming at him, and he ignored it, concentration centered on keeping Cormac’s head above water even when his own sank and he seemed to swallow half the sea, unable to breathe, feeling himself choke and sputter. And start to fail. From somewhere in the whirling darkness he heard Hamish calling his name, forbidding him to die.
“Not now—not yet—by God, I won’t let you go this easily!”
Or was that what he was telling Cormac, over and over in his mind?
Panting and coughing, he broke the surface again, and brought Cormac with him. The other man’s weight seemed lighter now, as if he’d come to his senses again, yet he made no effort to swim or struggle.
Every muscle seemed stretched beyond its limit, but Rutledge kept one hand locked in the collar of Cormac’s shirt and with the other fended off the rocks as his feet and legs pushed and pulled and dragged them against the pull of the water, in the direction of the strand. The numbed elbow sometimes gave way and they both crashed into rocks, were washed high on the inpouring of heavy surf, and then were slammed back into the headland, but Rutledge refused to give up, sheer will keeping the two of them afloat. Water was everywhere, there seemed to be no end of it. He dug with his heels, bobbed, bumped, thundered into sharp edges, felt the bruising and lacerations on his back, and still held on.
I didn’t survive the damned war to die in a Cornish sea! he swore to himself, again and again. I’ll live to see this bastard hang!
So absorbed was he in the ordeal of surviving, he wasn’t even aware that his feet had struck the shingle of the beach where it met the rocks. It caught him ill-prepared for the next surging wave.
The tide was flooding in and he was swept forward with such force that he lost his grip on Cormac. They both were dragged up the shelf, the water and the sand unmerciful to their faces and hands, then the salt burning fiercely where the flesh had been scoured open.
He lay there, digging in with his fingers and toes as the water worked to suck him out again, the tide pulling with an energy he’d long since lost. Then it was past him, and he fought now for breath, trying to stop the shuddering of his lungs and the pounding of his heart.
Beside him he heard Cormac breathe as well, roughly at first, then a long, deep draught of air. And then the man was on his knees, something in his hand, raising it high above his head and bringing it down with all the strength he’d hoarded while he let Rutledge struggle to save them both.
Hamish shouted as Rutledge rolled, and the stone came thudding down without sound, ploughing deep into the wet sand, unstoppable with the renewed power of Cormac’s whole body behind it.
Enough, damn it, was enough!
Rutledge swung his foot and caught Cormac in the groin. He’d lost one shoe, but the toe of the other came into the soft flesh with the might of fury driving it, and Cormac screamed in a high-pitched howl of pain that could be heard above the sound of the water and the screech of the wind, rising in a gurgling, choking cry that was cut short as he doubled over in anguish, sobbing and spluttering as the next wave came in.
The cold water, Rutledge thought with fierce satisfaction, breathing hard with the effort he’d had to make, had turned out to be an ally after all ...
Reducing Olivia’s Lucifer to the human plane of mortal suffering.
He lay there on his back on the wet shingle, rain pouring down over his face, and felt the scrapes and bruises and aches begin to come alive. His elbow throbbed with an intensity that made him wonder if it was broken or only cracked. Under his ribs there was another sensation, of fire and ice, where something sharp had gone in, and his head was still splitting with pain. Every muscle burned with exhaustion. He wanted only to sleep.
After a long, suffering silence Cormac said, in one shuddering breath, “I knew—when I first saw you that—you were different—mettle.”
“Why did you kill them?”
“You’re the policeman,” he said after a time. “You tell me.”
There was silence again.
Then an odd passion filled Cormac’s cracked voice. “The first day—the first day I came here—the Hall held me fast. There was a warmth about it—I don’t know. But—Anne laughed at me, when she heard me tell a groom I’d give anything to live in such a place. I wanted to choke it back in her throat, that laughter! Instead I had to walk away and pretend I didn’t care. When she fell—when I pulled at her sash to make her fall out of the tree—and she died on the grass in front of me, I realized I’d just found a way to have everything I wanted—if I was careful, and patient. After that, after that they were none of them safe.”