Sutton, Surrey, November 27th
Staring out the window into the courtyard, Gavin watched as Christophe ran across the flagstones to wrap his arms around his mother’s neck, burying his face in her hair with a squeal of laughter.
“When was the last time you were hugged like that, Gavin?” Caerys asked, walking up behind him, peering over his shoulder. He stepped around the counter, shaking the scent of her freshly-washed hair out of his nose and the feel of its still slightly damp tendrils off his neck.
“Another shower? Are you planning to turn into a mermaid next?”
“Changing the subject? Running away again?” she mocked, leaning across the counter, her robe hanging open in front. Gavin’s eyes never left hers for a second, she noticed, and couldn’t decide if she was happy with that or not.
“Is there any point to this ‘subject’?”
“I’m trying to get to know you, Gavin. You’re like some big blank sheet, and every now and then there’s a shadow-puppet we can see, but never anything more. A big black outline of something, but it’s just a projection.”
“And when I was last hugged will reveal all my secrets to you, will it?” She shrugged. “Maybe I don’t want anyone to know. Maybe I’m happy just being me in my own head. This isn’t going to last forever, you know. We’ll finish this, you and Sophie will be free to go your own way, and then the less you know the safer I’ll be.”
“Or the easier it’ll be to let us go.” She hazarded, knowing she was right as his eyes narrowed. “It’ll hurt less, won’t it. It won’t be like someone else is running out on you, they’ll be running out on… on… this ‘Gavin’ creation.” His face hung, the muscle on the point of his jaw twitching away, and his dark eyes glanced sideways at her across the wood. Every line of his arms was clear, the tension across his shoulders bringing out the big vein in his neck, and another across his bicep.
“Perhaps.” He acknowledged, looking up, his eyes clear for perhaps the first time since they’d met. She realised, in that instance, with the frown lines gone and his fine eyebrows lifted up from over his eyesockets that his eyes weren’t black this time, but a fine steely grey. “Perhaps it will be difficult to let you go.”
“Perhaps we won’t want to go?” she stepped around the counter, reaching for him, and he flinched away. “DAMN IT, GAVIN, AM I THAT FUCKING REPULSIVE!” she yelled, swinging up to slap his face, but he caught her wrist without even trying, calloused hands grasping for the briefest instant before he relaxed, stroking away any pain he might have caused.
“If that was the case, Caerys, we wouldn’t have any sort of problem at all.” He whispered to her, releasing her wrist to rub it gently, and turning away. She shivered at the tone, an obvious pain lingering under his words.
“How long has it been, Gavin.” She asked, as he reached the door to his room.
“Never.” He didn’t turn. “No-one ever hugged me like that.”
“Oh, Gavin…” tears came to her eyes, and he obviously heard them as he hurried through the door, closing it softly on her sympathy.
“Caerys?” Christophe stopped at the door a few minutes later, seeing Caerys brush her eyes gently.
“Go watch the television, Christophe.” Sophie said, following in behind him, looking around the little kitchen with a frown.
“What happened?”
“He… I… Sophie, he’s so sad.” She sniffled. “Inside, I mean. It’s… It’s hard to find, he closes everything away, but I just got a sense of it…”
“Are you…” Sophie tried to query, still unsure of Caerys’ claims.
“I’m not imagining it, Sophie. It’s real – as real as his overnight rib fractures.”
“Alright, I’m sorry.” Sophie wrapped her arms round her, pulling her close. “I thought it might ease things up a little coming up here.”
“It… he’s more comfortable here.” Caerys admitted. “It means nothing to him, being here. It’s foreign ground. He doesn’t feel at home in the bunker, but… it’s closer. I think it’s as close to a home as he has.”
“How come?”
“There are reminders all around him, there… all his records, all the bits and pieces of the people he pretends to be when he goes away… it’s tangible, there. Once he comes outside he just becomes someone… he’s getting comfortable with Gavin. It’s like… he doesn’t really exist, any more, but the quest does, and being in the bunker is being at the heart of that quest.”
“Maybe we should head back, then.”
“You want him on edge?” Caerys pulled back a little to stare at her.
“If we’re going to get him to break out of this we’re going to have to set him on edge.”
“We need Gavin, though. To get us out.”
“It’s all Gabriel, deep down. There aren’t really other people, he’s just pretending. Pretending well, but it’s all an act.”
“I mean… he says people do what makes them happy, right. So this makes him happy.”
“No, this stops him feeling anything at all, he’s trying to avoid feeling unhappy.”
“Well, if he’s just going to be unhappy, isn’t that better?”
“Bad things happen in life – they’ve happened to us – but you get over them, eventually.”
“…if you deal with them, right.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“So… what do we do?”
“Just talk to him, try to get him to talk about it.” Sophie shrugged a little. “I’m not a psychologogist, but… what?” Caerys’ giggle broke out into a genuine laugh.
“Psychologogist?”
“Do you know the French for it?” Sophie asked, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and trying to look serious, but Caerys just laughed harder. Sophie stuck her tongue out, but turned serious as Caerys’ eyes suddenly lost focus.
“Someone’s here.” She whispered, hunkering down low.
“Where’s Christophe?” Sophie asked, looking around, and then hurrying over to the kitchen door. “CHRISTOPHE!”
“We have him, Caerys.” A deep, bass rumble sounded from outside. “You know how we like children.”
“Shit!” Caerys whispered, tears coming to her eyes.
“You know him?” Sophie whispered, keeping low herself. “Does… does he really have Christophe?” Caerys nodded.
“Come on out, Caerys… bring the woman with you.”
“Will they hurt him?” Sophie asked, and she didn’t need anything more than the look in Caerys’ eyes to know the answer.
“Sable likes children.” She whispered, a phrase loaded with meaning, and Sophie paled.
“We’re waiting, Caerys…”
“Come on.” Caerys grabbed Sophie’s arm and dragged her towards the door. “Come on, or they’ll hurt him…”
“What do they want?”
“Me, probably.” Caerys fought to keep her jaw from quivering. “Come on, I don’t want Christophe on my conscience.”
“Where’s Gavin?” Sophie looked around.
“I don’t know, but I don’t know that he’s in any state to do anything, anyway. Sable’s… he’s huge.”
“I can’t see that stopping him.”
“No,” Caerys admitted, “probably not.”
Sutton, Surrey, November 27th
Slumped against the wall in the bedroom Gavin listened to the call, eyes narrowing, wondering exactly how much they knew. He had to assume they’d been watching the little house for their return, figuring the area for a base of operations – which it was, after a fashion.
That they’d waited until now, though, implied they didn’t know about the bunker, which gave him a route out without being seen. The problem remained, though, that he was still in no state to fight. The thick, black ichor that had been leaking from the wound in his side had troubled him to the point where he’d almost asked Sophie to look at it, but she had her own problems to deal with – and he was reluctant to invite her any further into his.
Slipping down the stairs he made his way into the cellar and through the wooden panel into the bunker, heading for the armoury. If this morning was anything to go by, the recoil of a pistol or rifle would be more than he could take, but there were still options. Thinking quickly, he grabbed two of those options and headed up through the stairs and into the road that ran across the property and began to search around..
Two swarthy looking, bulky figures holding rifles were cut down easily with the sword, and he moved around the periphery of the area as silently as he could, quickly and silently despatching the other eight guards he found looking outward to keep out interlopers.
With them out the way, he closed in on the Crofter’s lodge to see what was happening there. Sophie knelt on the pathway, hands bound behind her back, staring at where Christophe was being held back by a hand around his throat.
Caerys, though, stripped to the waist and with her shirt bound around her arms, tying them tightly up to the elbow behind her was what caught his attention. The bulky black figure in front of her couldn’t completely obscure, couldn’t hide the expression on her face from him as he raised the bow and gritted his teeth.
“Do with them as you will, Sable.” The familiar voice of Caerys’ father sounded through the crackling connection of a walkie-talkie. “Bring me the virgin unsullied when you’re finished.”
“Yes, Mr Michaelson.” The bulky black figure – presumably Sable – replied, looking around at his four cohorts. One of them, stood behind Sophie, reached down and dragged her to her feet by the hair.
“I’ll take her to the car now, Sable.” He grunted.
“You always were a fucking idiot, Samuel.” Caerys spat. “Unless you think that the kid’s Jesus, it ain’t her.” Sable reached down, grasping her by the throat and lifting her easily from the floor to stare into her eyes for a moment before tossing her casually aside to slide across the gravel painfully on her bared arms. Gavin ducked back around the tree to stay out of sight.
“It isn’t you, Witch,” Sable’s voice rumbled, and Gavin could tell from the tone that he was walking away, “the child isn’t old enough – Mr Michaelson has already given him to me. It must be her.” Leaning out from the trunk, Gavin laid his sword quietly on the grass where Caerys could see it, and pressed his fingers to his lips for quiet as he ghosted back into the tree-line to seek another position.
“You don’t think the kid’s hers?” Samuel asked. “He looks a bit like her.”
“If it isn’t her, who is it?” The man holding Christophe asked, with a shrug that ended in a low gurgle as Gavin’s arrow punched through his throat.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Gavin stepped out of the trees, bow still in hand, arrow nocked and ready, trying not to favour his injured side. “I’m asking you all politely to leave, I hope you aren’t going to accept?”
Samuel reached for a gun, right hand dipping below his left armpit, and found his wrist pinned to his chest as Gavin launched another arrow. Ducking and rolling took him away from the two shots fired in his direction by the fourth figure, and the return shot punched low into his abdomen. Gavin, though, was too slow to recover from the roll. Black ooze seeped out of his wound, staining his shirt and sapping his strength as he tried to stand, and he couldn’t get the bow up quickly enough as Sable’s brick-like fist crashed into his jaw, spinning him back down to the gravel.
He rolled with the blow, but still saw stars as he used the power to come back up to his feet back against a tree. He ducked the first hook, managed to deflect an uppercut with his forearm, but couldn’t twist out of the way of the roundhouse kick that slammed into his dripping wound and curled him into a ball as he struck back into the trunk.
“You are dead.” Sable growled, one of the big hands constricting around Gavin’s throat.
“What, again?” he managed, struggling to breath.
“Samuel’s shot was right through your chest, I watched it hit.”
“Well, don’t believe everything you see, first rule.”
“Obviously.” Sable snarled, gripping tighter, and Gavin’s voice croaked out feebly.
“Second rule, don’t watch what the wizard wants you to watch…” Gavin’s foot lunged out, slamming into Sable’s solar plexus and hunching him backward slightly.
“What?” Sable’s look of confusion turned to one of disbelief as Gavin’s sword jutted out of his chest, and the strength drained out of his arms, leaving Gavin to collapse back to the ground, unable to stand.
“Fucking, fucking, fucking…. BASTARD!” Caerys screamed at the limp form slumping to the ground, striking out with the sword again and again until Christophe’s moans dragged her away.
“Come on…” Gavin struggled to his feet, taking the sword from her limp fingers, tearing her blouse from her wrist and wrapping what was left of it round her shoulders. “We… we need to get back into the bunker.” He half-walked, half-crawled to Sophie, slicing through the rough rope that bound her arms in place, and helping her from beneath the figure that had fallen on her “Get Christophe…”
Sutton, Surrey, November 27th
“Can we stay here?” Sophie wondered, still sounding small and frightened as she gently cleaned Gavin’s side.
“No choice.” He pointed out, still breathing heavily. “We’re in no shape to move.” Despite his injury, Sophie knew it wasn’t him he meant, and turned to where Caerys sat on the floor by the door, rocking herself slowly back and forth. “I’ll go up tonight and move the cars, make it look like we left.”
“What if this doesn’t heal?” Sophie wondered, her eyes darting to Caerys every few seconds.
“It’ll be good enough by then, it was today.”
“And it got worse again, quickly…” she finally turned her attention to him, staring up at his pained expression. “I don’t even know what it is. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before…” She finished cleaning it and stepped back a little, shrugging. “I don’t even know whether to cover it or not…”
“Let it breathe, it’ll be easier to keep an eye on.” She nodded, still uncertain.
“I need to check on Christophe.” The boy had fled to his room as soon as they returned, and hadn’t emerged since.
“Go on, I’ll get some clothes for Caerys.” She started to argue that he should sit still, but he just stared at her and she backed down, turning away towards her son. Not wanting to do anything to trigger Caerys into a further depression Gavin avoided her room, and instead grabbed one of his own polo shirts and a pair of trousers, bringing them out to her.
“Caerys?” he called, from a few feet away, walking gingerly around to stand in front of her. “Caerys, I’ve got some clothes for you.”
“Right… clothes…” she muttered, not really focussing on him. Standing up, she shrugged the tattered remnants of her blouse from her shoulders and started to work on her jeans.
“Hang on…” his voice caught a little, and he thrust the clothes he had at her. “I’ll… I’ll leave you to it.” She nodded, oblivious it seemed to his words, and he turned away hurriedly as she just carried on, moving into the gym.
Despite the pain from his side he released the weighted bag from it’s securing rope against the wall and began to swing kicks into it, warming himself up for as good a workout as he thought he was going to be able to manage. Wincing with the movements, dismayed at the lack of power he could manage, and feeling dizzy after the first few.
“Gavin.” He turned, surprised, to find Caerys stood naked in the doorway, still looking slightly bemused.
“You should get dressed.” He pointed out, staring fixedly at her eyes, wondering whether it would be better or worse for him to turn away from her.
“Didn’t you… I can’t pay you back like Sophie can, she’s a Doctor and all…”
“Caerys, you don’t have to pay me back at all.” He tried to explain. “Go and get dressed, girl.”
“NO!” she snapped, snarling at him. “I’ll do what I want. I’m free of it, now, I’m in charge.”
“Yeah…” he drew it out, stalling for time, seeing Sophie moving behind her, “then… can I ask you to get dressed? Please? I’m feeling uncomfortable, right now.”
“Just avoiding fucking life again?” she snapped.
“I don’t want to fight you, Caerys.” He tried to explain.
“That’s what Sable used to say, you know.” He flinched, turning away, and Sophie wrapped a robe around Caerys’ shoulders and led her away. He was still leaning against the weighted bag when Sophie returned.
“Are you alright?” she asked, quietly, breaking him out of his reverie, and he turned away slightly to face away from her.
“It… it’s still tight.” He told her, patting his side. “I’m not overdoing anything, though.”
“I didn’t mean your side.” She laid a hand on his shoulder to turn him round, and he shrugged it off. “Please, turn around.”
“Sophie, not now.”
“You’re crying, aren’t you?” He did turn, and she could see the tracks down his face. “She’s confused, she’s not really equating you with… that.”
“It’s not that.” Sophie’s face showed her disbelief. “Not just that, then… I never got to see Giselle… afterwards. By the time I saw her she’d been arranged neatly… laid out.” He shrugged.
“He didn’t touch her, you know. You got there before that.”
“This time.” He stared back, and she shivered. “No matter how quickly I get there it’s always too late for someone…”
“It’s never too late.” Sophie whispered, patting his arm, gently. “Do your exercises, work it off… I’ll be in the sitting room if you need someone to talk to.”
Sutton, Surrey, November 27th
What the fuck was I thinking? Caerys stared at the blank wall, focussing on the slight blemishes and imperfections in the paintwork, trying to lose herself in the little intricacies of nothing rather than remember the stupidity of the morning.
It wasn’t that she even wanted Gavin. He was attractive enough, in his way; taut and lean, dark eyed and brooding. He could do with smiling a little more, lightening up an awful lot, but… she didn’t feel anything for him. Why had she been offering herself like that to him? She couldn’t understand it, still, and she’d been lain there for almost three hours now, going round in circles trying to figure it out. She jumped a little at the single, loud knock on the door.
“Who is it?” she asked, not turning away from the wall.
“Gavin.” She froze, feeling her face heat as blood flushed through it, and pulled the covers a little higher.
“What do you want?”
“I… I just wanted to talk to you for a moment.” She could imagine the tirade coming her way. He’d been shocked at the time, she’d seen that, surprised and amazed. By now he’d have thought it through, picked his speech; he wasn’t exactly gentle in his manner normally, but with a head of steam up she didn’t want to be in the way of it. On the other hand, she deserved it for being that stupid – she couldn’t feel much worse, right now, but at least she didn’t expect to get a beating this time. She’d spoken out of turn before, turned down the wrong person or given herself in the wrong way, in the wrong order… her father knew just how to cause pain and humiliation without leaving a mark.
“Just say what you have to say, Gavin.” She half-whispered, bracing herself, knowing she’d endured worse before now.
“I’m… I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stop him, Caerys. I’m sorry you had to do that… I won’t let you down like that again.”
She lay, stunned, for a minute and more, the words echoing round in her head, clashing with what was already there, mixing up and splitting again.
“Do what?” she whispered. “He… he didn’t get to do anything, this time.” Slumped into the pillows, she realised that was what had been preying on her mind. Nothing had happened, in reality, certainly nothing in comparison to some of the things she’d been through before, but she’d never been affected by it like that before.
Because it had never felt like that, before, at least not since the first few times. She’d always been in their power, their’s to do with as they pleased, even in her own head she’d thought of herself as a possession. Until Paris.
Paris had always been the key, she’d seen it: Paris meant she was free. Paris meant her father would die, and she’d be her own person. So now, when Sable caught up to her, when she reverted so quickly… that was what sickened her, that’s what she was running away from. She’d had enough of running already. Even this morning had been running – running to, rather than running from, but still running. Trying to make a statement of control, trying to pretend that the decisions were hers when they were just the fear speaking in a new way.
This was her life, now, and she wasn’t going to let her father, or anyone else dictate how she lived it or panic her into knee-jerk reactions. Trembling, she pushed the sheet away, swinging her feet down to the floor, and taking a deep breath.
“No more.” She muttered, to the receptive silence of the room. Dressing slowly, almost mechanically, she couldn’t help shuddering with trepidation as she opened the door on the world. “No more.”
“Caerys?” Sophie turned to look over her shoulder from the living room.
“Where’s Gavin?” she whispered, her voice catching, and she tried again. “Where’s Gavin?”
“He’s still in there.” She pointed to the gym door, getting to her feet. “Are you alright.”
“I think so.” She nodded, hesitantly. “I should… he came and apologised.”
“I know.” Sophie smiled, gently. “I heard him. I tried to explain that nothing happened.”
“Something did happen.” Caerys corrected her. “I just gave in, again. He had to come and fight because I didn’t. Again.”
“Caerys, you’ve…”
“I know what I’ve been through. And I’ve never really fought it, not like he does. He’s not been through it, but he’s sorry because he couldn’t stop it – he can barely fucking walk, and he’s sorry… and I just took it.”
“No-one’s blaming you.”
“I am.” Caerys looked up. “Not… I was a kid, then, but now. I’m not a kid any more.”
“You shouldn’t blame yours…” she started, and the door was snatched open, Gavin hanging from the handle by strength of will and one hand.
“Get this fucking thing out of me!” he growled, and pitched forward, one hand still clutching firmly at the wiggling end of some black worm hanging from the wound in his side.
“Merde!” Sophie breathed, freezing for a moment. “Get him to the chair, I’ll get…. I don’t know.”
“Fuck that.” Caerys turned to the kitchen and returned a moment later with two of the long kitchen knives. The first one she skewered through the wriggling black tendril with a muttered “Let go.” To Gavin, and the second sliced through his skin to drag it out.
“CAERYS!” Sophie almost screamed, seeing her clumsy strokes.
“The way he heals that’s nothing!” she pointed out, driving the knife in further, opening up the wound as Gavin tensed on the floor, clenching his jaw against the scream he could feel building up. “Come on!” she growled, reaching in, and feeling something clamp onto her finger, suddenly freeing up the worm. Dragging it clear, she could see it was at least six inches long, and despite the two knives driven through it it was still wiggling, and she could feel it biting deeper into her finger.
“Some sort of leech?” she wondered, unable to pull it off. Staring down, she saw the end of her finger turning grey as it sucked at her blood, and pulled one of the knives out to lever the ring-shaped mouth off her. It fell to the floor, rolling slowly back and forth for a few seconds, then lay still.
“How is he?” she looked up, and Sophie shook herself away from the sight of the black worm to stare at him, grimacing as he pushed himself upright against the door.
“I’ll… be… fine…” he promised, and slumped down the floor again, unconscious.
Sutton, Surrey, November 27th
Gavin woke, slowly, staring up from the couch in the sitting area, staring at the familiar ceiling for a moment whilst someone fiddled at this side.
“Sophie?” he asked, not wanting to move and disturb her work.
“It’s… it’s almost gone.” She shook her head, appearing in his field of vision. He tried to sit up, but struggled against a wave of weariness, and flopped back down, stomach growling loudly. “We already heard that,” Sophie pointed out, with a gentle smile, “Caerys is making some supper now.”
“Supper? What time is it?”
“About nine o’clock.” Caerys appeared with a plate full of egg-fried bread, and perched on the end of the couch. “You’ve been out all afternoon.”
“Where is it?” he looked up, and intensity in his eyes, and Caerys gave Sophie a bright, slightly forced, smile.
“I told you he’d ask.” She pointed out. “It’s in a box in the kitchen. We think it’s dead – it’s not moving – but we don’t want to risk anything.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know.” Sophie admitted, when the both looked at her. “It’s… it might be a leech, like Caerys said, but it’s too big. And we’ve not been anywhere where you’d expect to find them.” Having exhausted that line of conversation, they fell silent as Gavin quickly munched his way through the food.
“Did anyone want a drink?” Sophie stood up, collecting his plate. “Tea, coffee?”
“Coffee.” Caerys nodded, mouthing a silent thank you as the doctor gave them some privacy.
“Tea.” Gavin managed to push himself upright a little, and Caerys slipped down from the arm of the couch.
“Listen, about earlier…” she looked at him, and saw him squirm a little uncomfortably. “Can’t get away now, huh.” She smiled, looking down at her feet. “I’m… I’m sorry, it was a stupid reaction to everything, I know that.”
“You don’t have to apologise.” He told her, solemnly, and she shrugged.
“Have to? Maybe not. Want to… I don’t want you thinking I’m some sort of kook… and… you put yourself on the line again today, despite the state you were in. You fought back. I knew what was coming, and I just… I just gave in.”
“You’ve been conditioned, Caerys.” Sophie spoke quietly from the doorway. “I’ve been trying to explain this all day.”
“I know, I know what you’ve said.” Caerys nodded. “But it doesn’t change the fact… I have to take control of this. That starts with accepting that I can’t just give in any more.”
“I think Sable worked that out.” Gavin pointed out. It didn’t bring the smile he’d hoped for.
“I’ve never killed anything before.” Caerys looked distant, staring into the simulated flames of the mock fireplace. “I mean, spiders and stuff… first Sable, then that worm thing…”
“It was you or them.” Gavin pointed out. “It’s not a great tragedy, you know. Someone who deserved to die is dead.”
“And that’s your conditioning.” Sophie knelt on the rug, leaning back against the other chair after handing round the cups. “Yours is harder to break, you’ve conditioned yourself to see death as not important so you don’t have to deal with Giselle’s.”
“Death is a part of life. Do we get significant about breathing?” he asked. Caerys shrugged, but Sophie just stared at him for a moment.
“You don’t have any pictures of her around. Have you ever talked to anyone about it?”
“Sophie, leave it, please.” He muttered, trying to get to his feet again.
“Why? Does it still hurt that much? How long is it, now, eight years?”
“Six.” He corrected.
“That’s right. February 23rd. Do you hold a vigil? Pray? Go to church?”
“Religion? Please.”
“You don’t have any friends over… who did you talk to?”
“I spoke to the people that did it.” Caerys shuddered at his tone, but Sophie wasn’t flinching.
“About them. Who did you talk to about her, about you?”
“What was there to say. She was gone. There wasn’t anyone left to talk to anyway.”
“You had no friends? What about the soldiers you served with, your parents.”
“Why are you doing this?” he stared at her, but it was Caerys that answered.
“You’ve helped us, Gavin, but we’ve not been able to do anything for you. We want to help.”
“I don’t need any help.”
“Gabriel, you don’t even use your name, any more.” Sophie whispered, soothingly. “These men took Giselle away from you, but you’ve let them take everything else as well. You’ve got no friends, no home, no life at all. You’re just a machine going through the world trying to… what are you trying to do?”
“Make the world better. Stop the people no-one else can stop.”
“Why you?”
“Who else is there?”
“No-one knows, you get there first. When will you have done enough?” Sophie asked.
“When they kill him.” Caerys supplied.
“So you’re just trying to die slowly, Gabriel.”
“Gabriel’s already dead.” He pointed out.
“What was she like?” Caerys asked, after a few moments of silence. “Giselle, I mean.”
“She was… alive.” He finally managed, staring up at the ceiling. “She never stood still, never stopped thinking, planning, smiling. She was always smiling.”
“And she fell for you?” Caerys snorted, and he turned a wry smile on her.
“I didn’t understand it, either.” He admitted. “She was… I was always quiet and withdrawn. My father taught me to follow orders, to run, climb, shoot, swim. He had other people teach me martial arts, history, tactics, physics, chemistry. I learned about computers from books.”
“What about your mother?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t remember her. I was… my father adopted me when I was still a baby. I don’t know what happened to my parents, he never said.”
“Doesn’t sound a very happy childhood.” Caerys pointed out.
“It wasn’t unhappy.” He pointed out. “It just was. I learnt, there was satisfaction.”
“How did you meet her?” Sophie asked.
“She was my father’s secretary. He was in the military, but there were family companies he needed to run as well. She looked after a lot of those, and some other things, so she was around a lot. I kept to myself at home, most of the time, but we’d eat together every now and then if she wasn’t busy. Then she just sprang it on me… asked me why I hadn’t asked her out before. She knew, of course, she always did know me better than I knew myself.”
“Why hadn’t you asked her out, then?”
“It… it hadn’t occurred to me.” He admitted with a shrug. “I… I guess I’d never really thought of myself in that light – I was a soldier, nothing more, nothing less.”
“Soldiers get married.” Sophie argued. gently. “They go home in the evening, they have lives, children, houses…”
“That’s after they’ve stopped being soldiers.” He pointed out. “Five o’clock, uniform comes off, and you’re not a soldier until you check back in next morning. Being a soldier isn’t just a job. It’s your entire life, everything you are, everything you have…”
“That’s why you could do this so easily, isn’t it. You just stay as a soldier – don’t think about what it means, just get on and do it.”
“Probably.” He admitted. “I think about, I don’t just go out and kill whomever I like.”
“Do you think about it afterwards?” Sophie’s eyes narrowed, slightly.
“What?”
“You plan, you choose your targets based upon… whatever. Do you look back at the people you’ve killed? Do you think about what you’ve done afterwards? To them?”
“No.” he shook his head, after a few moments thought. “It’s done, it’s over. If I look back now… it’s still done.”
“And is the world a better place?” Caerys asked.
“What?”
“Is the world a better place?” she shrugged. “Six years, you said you’ve been doing this. How many people have been killed… is the world any better?”
“Some bits of it.” He nodded, and then sank back onto the couch. “Not much. I do what I can, what more can anyone do.”
“Not much.” Sophie admitted, resting a hand on his chest for a moment. “You’re a good man, under all that weight. That’s what we’re trying to say. You didn’t blame Caerys this afternoon because her childhood’s made her what she is… so did yours.”
“Ladies,” this time he did manage to struggled upright, “I appreciate that you think I need help, I don’t. We’ll be clear of all this and we’ll go back to the real world – you’ll go back to the medicine that you hate, you’ll have to find a world for yourself, and I’ll…”
“Run away again.” Caerys interrupted him. “Hide away from the pain… you’ve already managed to turn this conversation around. You were supposed to be talking about Giselle. What did she look like, what were her hobbies, what was she like in bed?”
“Caerys!” Sophie cut her off, scandalised, which drew a light chuckle from Gavin.
“She was… short, but full-figured.” He recalled, a far away look in his eyes. “Very feminine. She always wore dresses, never trousers or skirts. She liked to swim, loved looking round old buildings. She loved the forts around Portsmouth where we were going to live… She had the most incredibly deep, brown eyes. She loved to read, she’d spend hours curled up in the wingback chair in my study, legs folded up beneath her, flitting through anything – romances, science-fiction… anything.
She played the violin, but not as well as she wanted to – it was an old family heirloom, and one day she swore she’d go back to the old country and play it for all her family that didn’t believe she’d ever master it.” He trailed off, quietly, staring through the ceiling at nothing in particular.
“Old country?” Sophie finally asked.
“Italy. Her family were Italian… she’d come to Britain to study, and never left.”
“And… in bed?” Caerys asked again, this time with a slight smile.
“You’re just fixated on that, aren’t you?” Sophie asked “Why?”
“Well…” she slowly curled a finger through her hair, wandering back and forth between humour and bad memories. “I’m… Out there, with Sable today. My father wanted ‘the virgin’ brought to him. We all know it’s not me.” She shuddered, but ploughed on. “Christophe shows that it’s not Sophie, and if it were Christophe then he would have taken him away with him…”
“So that left you with the idea that it must be me?” Gavin finished. Caerys just nodded, hesitantly. "Yes, it’s me.” He admitted, with a shrug. “I… The one big disagreement Giselle and I had was her religion. She was a Catholic, and a fairly staunch one. She didn’t believe in sex before marriage, so we were waiting.
She was worth waiting for.” Caerys eyes teared, and she looked away with a shudder. Sophie stood and gently wrapped her up in a hug. “I’m sorry, Caerys, I didn’t…. didn’t think.”
“I asked.” Caerys pointed out, looking back. “I just… I wish I’d met someone that had thought like that before. Is that why you turned me down today, because of Giselle?”
“I… sort of. I had to think about it a lot at the time, I decided it wasn’t something I wanted to throw away for the hell of it, I wanted it to mean something.”
“I wish I could have had something that meant something.”
“You can.” Sophie urged her, sitting on the arm of the couch. “It’s… who have you given yourself to?”
“What?”
“There’s…” she sighed. “I need something to drink, and to think about how to say this.”
Sutton, Surrey, November 28th
“How did you know I didn’t like medicine?” Sophie asked, as she slumped into the armchair across from the other two, a steaming cup of tea held in both her small hands.
“Deduction.” Gavin admitted with a shrug. “You don’t have the detachment I’d expect from a doctor, you get involved in everyone. You’ve got an artistic temperament.” She smiled, nodding.
“I wish my husband had seen that. And my parents.” She sipped at the cup, peering at them over the rim of the cup for a moment, but neither of them pressed her. “My parents were both doctors, medical doctors. My father was an oncologist, my mother specialised in pediatrics; they were both detached people. They were warm, loving, I can’t fault them as parents generally. I never wanted for anything, I felt loved… but they had a plan for my life. I was intelligent, I had the capacity, it was a foregone conclusion, and I didn’t want to tell them otherwise.
They were… I didn’t want to disappoint them. I was their only child – they wanted more, but it never happened. So whenever they talked about it, I just nodded and accepted… I never told them I wanted to be a musician. I could have done it, I was offered a scholarship to two conservatoires.”
“What did you play?” Caerys asked, quietly.
“Harp and piano.” Sophie explained. “I’ve not played either in about ten years… it was easier to give it up than keep playing for fun and then have to go and do something else during the day. I hated medicine, hated every single day of it. Work, once I’d qualified, was better, but… I spent time at a hospital, but I couldn’t stand to see so many people dying and in pain. So I looked around and found Neurology…”
“People don’t die in there?” Gavin asked.
“They do, but… this sounds horrible. You don’t look at the people, you look at the brain and the spine, and you think of them as puzzles. Some of them you get right, some of them you don’t, but you don’t very often have to deal with the people as people…”
“I have targets, you have puzzles.” Gavin acknowledged. He didn’t look as upset by the admission as Sophie was.
“Yes…” Caerys reached over and squeezed her hand, gently. “So I studied with Georg – Doctor Roffmai – and I met Henri.”
“Christophe’s father?” Caerys asked, getting a nod.
“We met, he swept me off my feet... I was… unhappy. I didn’t dress well, I didn’t laugh, I just numbly went on with my work. And yet, he talked to me, flattered me, made me feel good.
We got married before I really stopped to think about any of it. Once that happened he just… stopped.”
“Stopped what?”
“Everything. He had his wife, he didn’t need anything more. He was… distant, cold. Married to one of the rising stars of Neurology he was able to negotiate his way onto the board of the hospital, and I hardly ever saw him. When he started having an affair with one of his secretaries, I realised I’d been an idiot.”
“How old was Christophe?” Gavin asked, quietly.
“I filed for divorce three days before he was born.”
“He did work fast.” Caerys noted, and Sophie just shrugged.
“Then it was just the two of us, Christophe and me. He’s never even met Henri, he wasn’t interested.”
“He just used you to get ahead?” Gavin asked. “Did he ever care, do you think?”
“I don’t think so. It was all… it was an act.”
“I’m sorry.”
“OK, so our virgin here’s the only one that’s found true love.” Caerys shrugged, trying to inject some life into the sombre room. “Explain to me what I’m supposed to be learning from this, ‘cause I missed it.” Sophie smiled and sipped from her cup again, before putting it down empty on the low table.
“My point is… I wanted that companionship again. I… I felt unwanted, so I went looking for it. And found… it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t love. It took a few months, but I woke up to what I was doing and realised that I was worth more than that. So I said ‘enough’. I’ve not been with anyone since, and when I do, it will be a choice again. And it will mean something, because that’s what it means to me now.”
“So… what? I just say ‘it’s special’ and that’s it?” Caerys looked bemused. “I don’t get it.”
“Not that it’s special, that you want it to mean something.” Gavin pointed out. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s your first or not, if you’re only going to give it up to someone special from now on, it means something. It’s not just an act, it’s a promise, a gesture.”
“Right… spiritual virginity?” she scoffed.
Sutton, Surrey, November 28th
“What time is it?” Caerys asked, slipping back into the space by Gavin’s feet as she returned.
“Early hours of the morning.” Gavin estimated, picking up a small clock from the table behind his head. “Half one.”
“You hungry?” Caerys wondered, and he nodded, struggling to his feet.
“Lie down, if Sophie sees you getting up she’ll skin me alive.”
“She’s asleep.” He pointed out.
“Not any more.” Sophie sat up from the other chair looking tired but aware. “Having children does that to you… I sleep lightly.”
“Are you hungry?” Caerys asked, and just got a shake of the head.
“I need to get up and walk around anyway.” Gavin pointed out, and Sophie followed the pair of them to the kitchen.
“You can walk,” she told him, “but Caerys is cooking… I want to look at your wound again.”
“Fine.” He sounded a little bored by it all, and perched on a stool by the counter as she lifted his shirt.
“Good god, it’s almost gone…” Caerys paused, shaking her head by the fridge.
“You said you don’t know anything about your parents?” she asked, looking over at him.
“Not even names.” He confirmed. “Why?”
“Because…” she hesitated, closing the fridge door and sitting down opposite him with a challenging stare. “Because my father heals like that, so do the others like him.” Sophie held her breath, wondering if it would trigger Gavin off again.
“I’m not going to shout at you, Caerys.” He promised her. “I don’t believe in the magic you seem to, but I don’t doubt for a moment that you do, OK, I don’t think you’re lying. I think you’re mistaken.” She nodded, acknowledging the distinction. “I doubt I’m related to your father, though. It would be a hell of a coincidence.”
“I know.” She nodded. “I don’t think you are, either, I would have known.”
“How come?”
“I can feel people he’s vested with power.”
“This is part of being a seer?” Sophie asked.
“Maybe, I don’t know much about it. He never taught me, I never wanted any of it… it was just… it was why they kept me.” Her voice shrank to a whisper. “If I’d not had the power they might just have let me die…
They let my sister die before I was born. I remember my Mom telling me about it. I could see it, I could always see what she was talking about. She was the one that told me what Paris would mean…”
“What did Paris mean?” Gavin leant forward a little, propping himself up on his elbows, taking an apple from the nearby bowl, now that it was apparent Caerys wasn’t going to be cooking any time soon.
“Paris meant I’d be free. I’d get away. My father would die, and I’d be free.”
“And you are.” Sophie pointed out.
“No I’m not. I’m still running and hiding from him. Now it’s my body running and hiding rather than my mind, but it’s still the same.”
“You’ll be free.” Gavin assured her, and she managed a wan smile for him.
“You… there has to be something in it. It’s not just that you heal like you do. The way you fight, I’ve never seen anyone who can fight like you do, and I’ve seen some of the best.” He just shrugged.
“What can you tell us about him, your father. I know he runs an export company, but not much more than that.”
“I don’t know anything about his business. I’ve been to the office once, I had to…” she started to shiver as she spoke, and Gavin laid his hand over hers.
“You don’t have to go there… tell me about him, not you.” Sophie offered him a tight smile for that, and Caerys nodded, not lifting her eyes from the floor.
“He… he’s cruel. Not like Sable, Sable would just beat you if you argued or fought… Snake wanted you to scream, but he didn’t mind if you pretended. Rafael would hit you regardless, but him… he wants you to suffer. He only gets off on it if you suffer – the more people suffering the better. He burnt Eileen’s hands, once – made her hold a hot coal until he’d finished with me or he’d shove it…” Sophie clutched her, wrapping her up, muffling the sounds, and Gavin hung his head, breathing deeply through his nose for a few minutes.
“But he’s powerful.” Caerys pushed Sophie away a little, looking up. “It’s not just the healing, like you, he can fly when he’s ready, and he’s stronger than normal men.” Gavin didn’t look away, just nodded once, but Caerys could see he was sceptical. “You don’t believe me?”
“You do.” He nodded. “I’m… I have doubts.” He admitted. “But if he can command a man like Sable, he merits caution.” Caerys nodded, realising it was as much as she was going to get.
“I’m going to bed.” She muttered, turning away. “He’s a Daemon, Gavin. He’s not human…” She didn’t look at him, not wanting to see the disbelief, and scurried away.
“He heals like you.” Sophie pointed out, after a few moments.
“I don’t fly, though.”
“You think she’s wrong?”
“Don’t you?” he asked, incredulously, moving to dispose of his apple core and open the fridge.
“I… I should, I know I should, but… every now and then, I think she really does see something.”
“I’m sceptical of that.” Gavin shrugged. “It could be subconscious… she’s an abuse victim. This guy’s been driving his superiority into her for years to scare her into submission. She’s… I don’t know if it’s a defence mechanism or what, but he’s got her to believe he’s something else – a demon, she called him.”
“He sounds it.”
“That’s one thing that we can hope for.” Gavin nodded. “Perhaps he really is that deluded, he believes it himself.”
“So, if none of it’s real, what were those things in the wood?” Sophie asked, from the doorway.
“Surgically altered, maybe. Genetic engineering, at an outside… You have to admit it’s more likely.”
“More likely, yes.” Sophie admitted. “But instinct tells me she’s on to something. I’ve seen you fight, Gavin, and I’ve seen you heal. I’ve watched that…. slug…. thing that we pulled out of your side. None of those are natural.” He paused, digesting what she said, but by the time he’d turned away from the fridge she was gone.
Sutton, Surrey, November 28th
Caerys tensed at the gentle tap on her door, whimpering, still half asleep.
“Caerys…” Sophie called, gently, and she curled up, clutching at the sheets as she came awake. “Would… would you like some company?” Silence followed, and she hesitated in the doorway. “If you’d rather be alone I understand…”
“You don’t.” Caerys whispered. “You don’t understand, neither of you do. You can’t.”
“You’re probably right.” Sophie admitted. “I don’t know the word… I’m… I’m unhappy because you’re upset.”
“You sympathise.” Caerys whispered
“Yes. I’m sorry I woke you… I’ll go.”
“NO!” she almost shouted, squeaking shortly instead. “Please….” Sophie drifted across the floor to the bed, trembling slightly, trying to sort out in her head why she felt so relieved. “He’s not going to give up, you know.”
“I know.” Sophie nodded, misunderstanding. “He’ll heal, and then he’ll hunt him down, and you’ll be free.”
“Not Gavin, my father. He won’t give up… I don’t think Gavin can beat him.”
“I… however good your father is, I think Gavin’s better.”
“You don’t know my father, he’s… I meant what I said, he’s not human… they call themselves Daemon’s, they come from somewhere else.”
“I…” Sophie slipped under the covers, clutching the gently sobbing figure to her. “I believe you, Caerys. I don’t think Gabriel’s human, either… nobody heals like that.”
“He’s… my father knows what he is, and he has things to fight for him…”
“I’ll still put my money on Gabriel.”
“Why are you calling him Gabriel, now?”
“Gabriel’s a person – the person that lost his fiancée and decided to go on a crusade. Gabriel’s the one with the drive to make the world right… if he’s going to win, we’re going to need that.”
“Gabriel…” Caerys rolled the name around, trying to get it to fit the picture in her mind. “Gabriel… You think he can win, if we remind him who he really is?”
“I think, if he put his mind to it, he could kill everyone in world.” Sophie explained. “I want to remind him who he is so that he doesn’t.”