A Different Kingdom(81)

And there had been that one night he had woken to the sound of hoofbeats in the road below his flat. There had been no clash of iron. The hoofs had not been shod, as no horses were shod in the Other Place.

He cried off work early, his excuse of illness backed up by the customers in the bar. The landlady took one look at his face and let him go without comment, surprising him. It was only when he was on his way out that he noticed his reflection in the mirror behind the bar, a sight he hated, these days. His face was as lumpish and heavy as always, the fair hair sliding ever further up his scalp, but it was as white as snow, the eyes popping in their sockets. His mouth was twisted with self-disgust and fear as he stepped outside.

Into the lamp lit darkness, the traffic, the long streets dotted with people, some hurrying, some dawdling.

Too damn quiet, even if Mirkady were here somewhere, watching over him.

Would Mirkady watch over him, though? He and his kind had withdrawn, had abandoned Cat and himself after what had happened in the Wolfweald. Perhaps he was allied to the manwolves and the Horseman now. They were in it together.

A few years ago these thoughts would not have come to him. The memories had not been there then, at the top of the heap. They had been buried somewhere deep down, and the thought of fairies or goblins had been absurd. Not now. It was no mere fairy tale.

He eyed shadowed corners fearfully as he walked, but nothing disturbed him. It was only whilst negotiating a wholly deserted square that he thought he caught the flicker of a deeper darkness off to one side, and he halted, watching. But there was nothing there.

And Clare was at the door for him, and tugged him inside to the light and the cooking smells.

She was vegetarian, and as he sat down to his candlelit pasta he found himself smiling to think what Cat would have made of this—or himself, for that matter—once upon a time. Clare was talking about work, about bosses, about weather, for God's sake. Clearly his silence was making the meal heavy going for her. But he smiled, toasted her in red wine—finer, thinner stuff this, than the vintage he had drunk in the Wildwood—and it seemed to make her happy. Though she kept stealing worried glances at him when she thought he could not see.

Afterwards they lay on the sofa, the television flickering like a blue-flamed campfire in their eyes. She seemed oddly heavy lying on top of him, and he thought that her flesh was strangely soft, with no hard muscle underneath.

He blinked, and slid far down the road before sleep. His mind retrod old ground on the edge of dream and nightmare. He thought he was staring open-eyed across the room to a dark corner, and in that corner Cat sat watching him. He tried to get up, but Clare's weight pinned him to the sofa. She seemed to be asleep.

Cat's eyes gleamed green in the dimness and her ears lanced up through her hair, as long as a deer's.

He heaved Clare off him and she fell to the floor with a thump. He scrabbled over to the corner. Nothing. A dream. A memory from a long-ago time when he had consorted with wood spirits. Wood spirits! Christ, he was going mad, that was it. He was hallucinating, reliving some childhood fantasy.

'What the hell was that about?'

Clare. He turned. She was rubbing her hip and glaring at him in anger and puzzlement.

'Sorry. Had a—a bad dream. It shook me up a bit—'

'Another one?' Now she was concerned. Her hand stroked his face. 'I thought something was wrong as soon as you came in. You were so pale, Michael. You looked as though you'd seen a ghost.'

He almost laughed aloud at that, but settled for a smile and kissed her on the mouth. She pulled him closer, all big dark eyes and tumbled hair, skin smooth as china. Peaches and cream, he thought. English roses. He doubted if she'd spent a night outdoors in her entire life.

The television burbled along to itself as they shed their clothes .and for a moment its light washed her skin in green so that it might have been the light of the Wyr-fire in the forest. But it lasted only a second. She was moving on him now, eyes shut and lower lip caught between her teeth as though she were caught up in mental arithmetic. Her breasts, dark-aureoled and full, swayed with her thrusts. He balanced his hands on her hips and closed his own eyes as the familiar sensations took hold. But as his body responded to hers, as they moved together to some desirable culmination, he was with one clear part of his mind seeing Cat's face in the firelight, He was watching sunshine in trees as tall as office buildings, feeling the cold breeze of spring on his face.

He could remember everything, as clear as day. Everything that had happened in the Wolfweald.

SOUTH THEY HAD gone, with the sun rising on their left every morning and the first light taking its time to filter down through the immense trees. It pushed through the branches overhead in great spars and shafts, splintering into spears and arrows as it struck the sprays and twigs, the budding leaves and finally spangling into a swaying dapple that carpeted the forest floor.