"We were talking about the traitor," Ruth said as he entered.
"I don't want suspicion causing any rifts at this critical stage."
"Yeah, but we've got to be on our guard." Veitch was repeatedly unwrapping, then rewrapping the cloth around the stump of his wrist. Church knew his mind was working through numerous strategies, dismissing some, rethinking others. He was still drunk, but he was now brooding, and it was easier to see the anger that always lay just beneath the surface. "We've come through all this shit together, trusted each other. If I found out one of us had been playing the others just to sell them out, I'd kill them."
"Ryan!" Ruth said.
"I find it hard to believe one of us could be a traitor." Shavi looked around them, as honest and open as always. "We come from different backgrounds. We are all different people, with nothing, superficially, in common. Yet we have seen into each other's souls. We are good people, all of us, at heart. I trust my instinct implicitly. I cannot see anything in any of us that suggests betrayal."
"Exactly." Church sat down close to Ruth, then became aware of Veitch watching him curiously. He shuffled away an inch or two. "I can't pretend it hasn't bothered me, but we all know how much the dead love to twist things. Who knows what they really meant?"
Veitch took a knife and diced an apple into four quarters. "I'm still going to be watching my back."
The conversation drifted to lighter subjects, but they never caught the uplifting mood of celebration again. Just after one a.m., when the sounds of revelry from the camp had died down, the growing quiet was disturbed by the distant blast of a horn. It was barely audible, but it brought a chill to them all. A second or two later it sounded again, much closer to hand, followed by the fearsome baying of hounds.
"The Wild Hunt," Shavi said.
Ruth fingered the mark that had been imprinted on her hand. "Cernunnos is joining us. That's good news."
"Right. He's obviously on the side of us Fragile Creatures." Even so, Church couldn't shake the fear he felt at the god's Erl-King aspect. He would never forget how the Hunt had torn through the revellers leaving the pub on Dartmoor: so brutal, yet cold, like a force of nature.
They fell silent with their thoughts until they heard the sound of two pairs of footsteps approaching the tent. They waited for the flaps to be thrown back, but the visitors slipped in quietly. The tall one at the rear was the Bone Inspector, his greying hair matted with grease and filth hanging loosely around his shoulders. His cheesecloth shirt was covered with green stains.
The shorter one at the front wore a cloak with a hood pulled over her head, but Church immediately knew who it was. His stomach flipped; a shiver ran up his spine. "Laura." The word was barely more than an exhalation.
She threw back her hood with her typical flair for the dramatic. They were shocked to see Veitch was right about the tinge to her skin, but that the scars Callow had inflicted on her face were mysteriously missing shocked them more. "Church-dude. You look like you've seen a ghost. Instead of just the walking dead." She looked round at the others, who were rapt. "Well, that's the kind of wild reception I always expected from this little group."
Church jumped up, looking deeply into her eyes for a long moment, before putting his arms around her. She smelled of spring leaves and summer flowers. He didn't know what to say, so he led her to a space and sat her down.
Ruth leaned across the circle. "I want to thank you-"
"Don't. We've all made sacrifices. That's what we do." She nodded to the Bone Inspector. "He's the one you should thank. If not for him I wouldn't be here for all that mystical five symbolism baloney you need to do the big job."
"Somebody had to do it," the Bone Inspector said grumpily. He shifted around, uncomfortable with the attention. "Where's the Rhymer? I need to sort something out with him."
When they said they didn't know, he left in a bad temper to scour the camp. Their attention turned back to all the confusing emotions Laura's reappearance had raised.
"We were just saying we could not believe you were truly dead," Shavi said with a smile, reaching out to take her hand. She smiled back, sweetly, without a trace of the bitterness that had always characterised her.
"Don't get me wrong, hon. I did die. And now I'm back, the same, only different."
Another one, Church thought. What does it all mean?
"But how did you survive?" Ruth was pale and troubled. "I had Balor in me. I know what it felt like, what would have happened when it came out."
Laura lifted up her over-sized T-shirt to reveal a rapidly fading jagged white scar, running from her belly to her sternum. "Something like this?"
Ruth couldn't help gasping. "That would have killed you!"
"It would have if I wasn't already dead. This is the key." She showed the back of her right hand where she sported the mark of Cernunnos, the circle of interlocking leaves. "You know how screwed up I got about all the changes taking place in my body… the green blood that had a life of its own? It was such a shock at the time." She traced her finger around the mark. "I had no idea what he'd done to me… could never have guessed." She looked around them. "I died that day up at Loch Maree when he marked me with this."
Church shook his head in disbelief, but she silenced him with a wave of her hand.
"I died, and then he remade me in his own image. For the rest of you time was frozen. But for me… well, I don't know how he did it." She shook her head, barely able to summon up the words. "I'm not human, I'm a plant."
There was a hanging moment when they all tried to work out if she was joking. She laughed to herself, silently, at their expressions. "Okay, maybe that's not the right word. Physically, he turned me into something that has the characteristics of flora rather than fauna. I don't need to eat or drink or breathe, not in the same way you do. I can survive under water. I can survive where there's no air at all. And when I get hurt, I repair myself like a plant. That's what happened with Balor. I'll tell you now, I don't remember much about it, apart from the fact that it was agony. That's one thing he didn't sort out. It tore me apart. It wasn't pretty. But I put myself back together. And-" she held her arms wide "-I did it better than before." She pointed to her face. "No scars. Not on my back, either. So I've got a slight skin problem, but that's a small price to pay. At least I don't pollinate or any of that shit."
Her flippant manner made it difficult for them to assimilate what she was saying. Church's brow furrowed. "So all the time we were together-"
"That's right, Church-dude-you were having sex with a plant."
"A nature spirit." Shavi leaned forward excitedly. "He distilled the essence of what you already were, and made you an avatar."
"Well, he might have asked." Her smile was relaxed.
"Are you okay with it?" Ruth asked, concerned.
"It's better than being a nobody. And it's better than being really, truly dead. I think the same, I feel the same. I'm still the same gorgeous, wonderful, witty and charming Laura DuSantiago. Apart from the fact you have to water me twice a day."
Church leaned forward and touched her forearm. The skin felt exactly the same as it always had done. She took his hand with honest affection. "I'm okay. Really. "
"You seem different," Ruth said. "I mean, as well as all that-"
"I have my flaws, but stupidity isn't one of them. When somebody shoves a big, fat, old lesson in my face, I make sure I learn from it." She looked down at her fingers as she knotted and unknotted them. "I've found peace, I guess, if that doesn't sound like some stupid, navel-gazing New Ager. It was always there, I just couldn't see it. I don't hate myself any more."