* * *
Skylar looked over when Clarkson made his grand dramatic exit. Were they better off without him? Clarkson had been a competent fighter under Mitchell’s rule, but with Truman’s leadership – the open palm rather than iron fist – Skylar doubted Clarkson would take orders. Maybe they were best off not relying on him to save the day.
The others – everyone except McGregor, who was deciphering the Book in a quiet corner, and Mrs Paddington, who had left for another room with a wide-eyed and somewhat vacant expression – were all huddling around the kitchen counter. Skylar kept an ear on the conversation, her hands on her L115A3 Long-Range Rifle, and her eyes on the castle.
“How do we get in?” the lead werewolf, Will, asked. “Is there a plan?”
“Would it matter? Would you follow it?” The surly American tones of Truman.
“You really expected us to let them go?” asked another of the wolves. The angry one. Angriest.
“You gave me your word.”
“Weren’t we here to make war? That seemed like a better time than most.”
“And Ianthe? Which one of you thought it was time for that?”
“Are you accusing us now?” If they’d been sitting, chairs would have scraped backward as everyone stood. “Come out with it, if you are.”
Skylar imagined Truman rubbing his hands through the sides of his almost military-short hair. She could certainly hear the scratching of hair against scalp and the deep, hard sigh. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “That’s what happened. Strategies: who’s got one?”
“Revenge,” said the angry werewolf. The one in his mid-twenties; nondescript brown hair and eyes, who kept banging on about murdering Adonis and the many horrible things he wanted the vampire to experience beforehand.
Probably not the best thing to say right after Truman’s accusation about Ianthe. Not that the werewolf would care if anyone thought he killed Ianthe. Especially since, in Skylar’s opinion, he probably had.
“Beyond that,” Truman said, pointedly. Where “pointedly” meant “suggestions from anyone except you would be welcome”.
“They’re in the castle,” Paddington said.
“We know that,” rumbled one of the wolves. Skylar almost called it a growl, but that would have been unkind and probably discriminatory in some way.
“If we let them escape the castle,” Paddington plodded on, “they’ll either disappear or they’ll come to fight us on their terms.”
“You’re saying we fight them on their home ground?” Truman asked.
“If it has to come to a fight, at least we’d be setting the terms and time.”
“So we drive across the bridge?” one of the younger werewolves asked.
“The bridge is too narrow,” Mitchell said.
“So we run.”
“No cover. They’ll have clear shots at you for more than a hundred feet.”
That killed the conversation for a moment. Skylar continued watching the castle through a crack in the curtain. No movement that she could see.
“So how do we cross a hundred feet of bridge in full view of all those lovely windows?” Truman asked.
“Same way you’re stopping them from doing it right now.” That was Paddington’s voice.
Skylar felt eyes on her, so she looked toward the war council: seven werewolves and two soldiers were all looking at her. “What?” she asked. As she turned, she noticed their eyes following not her, exactly, but the sniper rifle in her hands.
“We use what we have: wolves and humans,” Paddington continued. “The humans stay here and cover us with the rifles. The werewolves, as wolves, race across the bridge. We can make it quick; almost as fast as a car.”
“I can’t guarantee kills from this range,” Truman said.
“We don’t need kills. We just need the Andrastes to stop shooting at us until we’re at or in the castle. After that we change back, report to you via radio, and fight the Andrastes as people. Well, if we can strap weapons to our backs or carry them in our teeth or something.”
“Yeah, great idea,” Curt said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
“Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“They’ll be naked and freezing cold, for a start,” Mitchell said.
“And how about the bit where we change to and fro like yo-yos?” Curt asked.
The action seemed to be heating up, so Skylar risked another glance. The whole council was staring at Paddington – except for Paddington himself, who was staring at the youngest werewolf. The one with black hair, a mean eye, and something to prove. Paddington’s expression was awash with worry and suspicion, like he was missing something important.
“What’s wrong with that?” he asked.
“James,” the alpha of the pack said. Well, the one the other wolves all treated as alpha. “We can’t just change at a moment’s notice.”
“What? Of course you can.”
“Give us a couple of minutes, yeah, but not on and off like a switch. You have to work yourself up for it. Get in the feel.”
“Right, yeah, of course,” Paddington said, rolling his eyes and nodding as if wishing they could get a move-along, “that was the first time. You feel the anger take over and you let it run through you, but after that, you just look inside yourself. To the dark place, where the wolf lives. And then you become the wolf.”
There was a long silence. It was awkward. Truman actually shuffled his feet. Beck looked around at everyone, seeking context. Mitchell stared straight at Paddington, face tight. The werewolves frowned as if Paddington had lost his mind.
“Um, what dark place?” scraggly-haired Dom asked at last.
Skylar could see Paddington struggling for words.
“It’s the… when you close your eyes.” That was greeted with looks of derision, so Paddington tried again. “It’s inside you. Always has been, maybe, I don’t know, but… once you become a werewolf, that’s where the wolf lives while you’re human. You can feel him, inside you. And if you concentrate, you can see him there, waiting.” Paddington’s gaze had been scouring the walls behind the others, avoiding the distraction of their gazes or searching for something deep within him. Now he came back to reality. “Is it not like that for you?”
The wolves shook their heads. “Not so much,” Will said. “Switching back is easier than becoming a wolf, but you can’t flit back and forth. And when the wolf takes over, it’s rage. It’s still you, but an animal-brain you. It thinks completely differently. Keeping control can be… difficult.”
“Especially if you’re emotional, angry,” the young Archian constable, Rick, said. He seemed almost ashamed of losing control every once in a while.
“Are you all right?” Will asked Paddington.
“I’m fine,” he said, though Skylar spotted the quick flash of his eyes from side to side. “I just assumed you… Oh well! Back to the drawing board.”
“It’s a decent idea,” Dom said, “and we could still run there and fight them as wolves.”
“Can you beat them as wolves?” Truman asked.
There was another pause, then Will said, “No, but we can hold them until you join us.”
So the Team stops the vampires from shooting the wolves until they’re in the castle, then the wolves stop the vampires attacking the Team until they’re inside. Decent plan, actually.
No one had much more to add after that; Truman and the wolves discussed tactics while Mitchell listened in. Paddington approached Skylar in the window and offered to watch the castle if she wanted a break. How good a job he’d do was concern; he could barely focus his eyes on a single thing. Too much on his mind.
He’d probably still spot a car driving across the narrow bridge, though.
“Sure,” she said, and left him to sit on the windowsill. Skylar answered a call of nature – glorious flushing toilets – then checked the other rooms. The guest bedroom contained Mrs Paddington. “You all right?” Skylar asked, because the Scotswoman was sitti
ng on the bed cradling her knees.
“What?” Lisa asked. “Oh, uh, sure.”
Skylar rolled her eyes. She really did her best to avoid all this feminine touchy-feely crap. Trucks and Lego had always been better presents than dollies, not that her family had ever bought her any. Still, having four older brothers meant there had been no shortage of well-loved second-hand toys and no boyfriends who had ever thought about pushing the boundaries.
“Tell me,” Skylar said, and sat on the bed.
“It’s this… everything.” Lisa let go of her knees. “I know Jim didn’t kill Ianthe.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
“I know.”
“You do, though, don’t you?” Skylar asked. “Think he killed her.”
Lisa made a series of pained faces, desperate to reveal something one second, then ashamed of thinking it, then trying to hide her internal monologue before just giving up. “Yeah. Probably. He’s just so… went so cold when Rob was killed. Storming out to confront them. Before that, he was in this to make sure everyone went home alive. Now he’s stone again.”
“He’s in a war now, Lisa. He needs to be. We all do.”
“I don’t need him to be, Skye.” She shuffled forward to the edge of the bed. “That’s my husband, not some general. And apparently he can just… turn off his emotions? Switch off compassion? Become some monster, at a whim. How am I supposed to feel safe around a man like that?”
Shit, that was a bitch of a question. “Shagged if I know,” Skylar said.
Lisa drew her legs up again and brought her arms around them. “Yeah.”
A hollow feeling had settled in Skylar’s stomach, like the first time she’d learned the world was twisted and grotesque as much as it was beautiful.
She left Lisa to her thoughts and entered the master bedroom, hoping for some reason that McGregor would notice her. She knew better, though: he had a shiny new toy and nothing would break his concentration on it, even after their conversation during the siege.
He surprised her by looking up from the bed which was now covered with pieces of paper on which were written translations. There was likely some system to their arrangement, some significance to the colour of the pen he used, but it looked like mess to Skylar.
“Oh, good, you’re here,” he said. “I need your help.”
“I doubt that,” Skylar said as she stood near the edge of the bed. She’d have sat, but that would have ruined his system.
He rubbed behind one ear. “I’m trying to get this straight in my head. Can I talk it out with you?”
Was this his attempt at starting conversation with her? Well, if she wanted to be with him, she had to expect tedious conversations without end. Better to try them on now; see if they fit.
“Shoot,” she said.
He passed his tablet across to her. “That’s a translation of the Book of Tipote. Specifically, the creation myth.”
Skylar skimmed it. She’d read it before: the first people had been put into a beautiful garden and told not to eat from the Understanding Tree. They had, of course they had, and so they’d been booted out by an angel with flowing robes and a fiery sword.
According to McGregor, the Garden of Terpo on Archi was that very garden; she was less sure about that part, probably because she couldn’t understand all his reasons. They got a bit… technical.
“What about it?” she asked.
“Do you see any references to the Tree of Life?”
Skylar read the story again. “No. What’s that?”
McGregor pointed at part of the Book of Enanti, still open on the bed in front of him. It was all Greek to her, but Skylar obediently followed his finger.
“This seems to be the same story,” McGregor said. “Oh, I translated it over here.” He picked up a piece of paper and held it to her. “The details are different in this version. In Tipote’s Book, the Three-God took a strand of each of Their hair and braided it together to create the universe, but Enanti’s Book talks about Idryo stealing the hair.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“If God is all-knowing, how could there be two different versions?” McGregor asked. “Surely there can be only one real Truth, so… is one of these a lie? Or a different point of view? Can Gods lie?” That seemed like a question for philosophers not soldiers. She was interested in how to stop the prophecies, not the deep thinking behind them.
“No idea.”
“One difference,” McGregor continued, “is references to two Trees. The Tree we know about, the Understanding Tree, which was the ‘vehicle of divine retribution’ – not my words – was created as a response to the Tree of Life, which gave life to all things and is a sort of… wellspring of existence.”
“Whereas the Understanding Tree was a wellspring of… ?”
“Death, mostly.”
“Bit of a misnomer, then,” she said.
“That’s a matter of perspective.” McGregor removed his glasses and wiped his eyes. “Understanding something gives you power over it. Understanding fire means knowing what fire is, how to create it, control it, extinguish it; understanding fire gives you power over fire.”
“And eating of the Understanding Tree gave the Man and Woman power over life? They knew what would kill them so they could stay away from it, right?” Theology wasn’t so hard. “They could now poison each other or whatever. They could harness death.” The rifle hanging on her shoulder-strap was certainly proof that people were good at that.
McGregor shook his head. “It’s more than that. More direct. Eating the fruit brought some control over death. It’s almost a sense of… ownership.” He put his glasses back on and steepled his hands. “It’s like, in the beginning only the Three-God understood the universe, and They dictated what was ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or what should be ‘alive’ or ‘dead’. When the Man and Woman ate from the Understanding Tree, that knowledge of – and therefore that power over – those things transferred to them. They replaced God, took Their rightful place atop the created order. That was the original sin: it wasn’t that they ate the fruit, it was what that defiance signified. They weren’t willing to obey; they wanted to be God.”
Skylar had never thought about religion half as deeply as McGregor had in that one speech. “Isn’t that a good thing, not wanting to be the pawn of some dick of a god?”
“On its own? Sure. Except that if all life comes from God, the only thing you’re going to get – the only thing you could possibly get – by removing God is…”
“Death.”
McGregor nodded. “Exactly.”
This was a lot of words and, frankly, her head was starting to hurt again. “Is that good for us in some way?”
“I, uh, haven’t worked that part out yet. But we might be able to use the Tree of Life to counteract the death that the Understanding Tree put into humanity.”
“Meaning?”
“Cheat death.”
Wow. “Immortality?” she asked. How would that be? Always young, staying beautiful – which she was; she could admit that to herself – the vampires’ promise made real through the magic fruit of the Gods.
McGregor looked shocked. “No. This is just a seed; you’d need to amplify the power many times over – water it, if you want to continue the metaphor – before you’d achieve immortality. But it might be good for a one-time pass.”
Would that be useful in a fight? A kind of shield or armour, allowing them to survive a deadly blow, if only once. “So why are you concerned?” Skylar asked.
“Because there’s always a catch in these damned Books,” he said, “but there’s a lot of Book and not a lot of time.” He blew out a long breath. “Which means we’ll probably have to use it before we know what this catch is.”