In terror, she attempted to flee, only to realise she couldn't move. The evil had her in some invisible grip, holding her steady like a fish on a line. Until it reached her.
Her consciousness finally burst from whatever spell it was under, and suddenly she was thinking at lightning speed. "Help me!" she yelled, but the owl was already moving away from her, every wing beat a flurry of desperation.
She tried to flee once more, but it was as if her limbs, or her mind, was pinned; no amount of effort could move her. Behind her, the monstrous gravity of the thing grew more powerful.
"Come back!" she screamed. "You were supposed to help me!" The familiar was lost in the glare of the sun.
A freezing shadow had fallen across her, reaching through her physical body to the depths of her soul. It was creeping up her spine, deadening the chakras as it passed, crawling towards her brain. Incomprehensible whispers began to lick at her mind. In that contact she sensed the sickening presence of Balor, and she knew it was the reason why fear had been implanted in the human consciousness. The Celts had given it a name to try to contain it, but it could not be contained; it was bigger than everything.
Her vision started to close in, until there was only a tunnel of light towards the sun. A strain was being placed on the invisible cord that connected her with her body. One snap and she would be lost to the endless void forever. And then, slowly but relentlessly, the thing started to drag her back.
Just as she thought the darkness was about to engulf her completely, she caught sight of faint movement in that tunnel of light. Nothing. It was nothing. She slipped back further.
She was startled from her panic by the owl erupting from nowhere close to her face. Its bristling feathers obscured the whole of that tunnel of light, and for a second she was sure she had gone blind. But then it moved back slightly, changing shape back and forth as it had done at the height of its desperation. She could still feel its fear, but now behind it was determination and obligation.
The air pressure increased, iron filled her mouth and a weight built behind her eyes until she was convinced they were going to be driven from her head. Slowly, she started to move forward.
She felt like she was trying to push a truck up a hill; every agonising inch she moved was a triumph. Yet although the grip of the darkness didn't relinquish in the slightest, gradually her strength increased and she began to make slight progress. It was nowhere near fast enough, though; the tension zinged through her arteries.
With determination, she drove herself on until she reached a point where her speed began to build. Finally it felt like she had crossed some invisible barrier, and with a burst of relief she was soaring out over the golden-tinged clouds. The coldness left her head, skidding down her back to her thighs. Later she wondered if she had imagined it, but she thought she heard a howl of fury that was at once the movement of tectonic plates, the boom of cold water shifting in the depths of the Marianas Trench.
And faster still; hope soared in her heart at the same time as tears of fear stung her eyes. She would never be so stupid again. If she got back. A pain in her solar plexus told her time was running out. She had been away from her body for too long, and the flimsy spiritual bond was close to being broken.
The shadowy cold was still on her legs. Stupidly, she glanced back and thought her heart would stop. The entire sky was black, boiling like storm clouds, but not natural-sentient-and pursuing her with venom.
Fire filled her belly. Focusing all her attention on the flight, she propelled herself forward with a speed that made Dorset flash by in the blink of an eye.
Still the darkness didn't give up. She knew it would never give up now it had recognised her. She put the thought out of her head. Faster, faster, thinking of Church, giving meaning to her struggle; if not for her, for him.
Soon they were over the choppy sea and the owl was ahead of her, already turning itself inside out. The sky and sea swapped place, turned blood red. And then they were soaring over Wave Sweeper and the darkness was nowhere to be seen.
She plummeted towards the ship as the connecting strand grew thinner by the second. It was just the width of a hair when she finally slid into her body, exhausted. Amongst the receding terror, one thing stayed with her: at the last, she had looked into her familiar's eyes. What she saw was a definite impression that she was now in its debt.
She recovered in her cabin for an hour or more, listening to the soothing wash of the waves beyond the open window. She couldn't believe how stupid she had been to venture so close, but until then she had not truly grasped the enormity of what they faced.
Once she had calmed herself, she made her way back to the deck, though she kept her shaking hands hidden from view. Taranis was at the rail, scanning the horizon. She handed him his telescope with a sly smile.
"How curious." He turned it over in his hands. "It is so very warm."
"Hmm," Ruth replied. "I wonder why that is?"
Church had spent the time on deck, watching the crew go about their puzzling tasks. Few of the passengers ventured up from the depths in their attempt to keep a distance from the grim Tuatha lle Danann, so that the ship had the dismal, empty appearance of a seaside resort in off season. The atmosphere was so intense he had felt it politic to stay away from the gods himself, nestling in a heap of oily tarpaulins and thick ropes where he could watch without drawing attention to himself.
He had never seen the Tuatha lle Danann so strained. Irritation gripped them because they had not managed to track down the Walpurgis, a failure that only added to their pain at Cormorel's death. Their aloof nature had always made them appear dangerous in a haphazard, detached way; now they were a constant threat, ready to take out their fury on anyone who crossed their path.
If the gods could not find the Walpurgis with all the heightened abilities at their disposal, there was little chance Church would be able to locate the creature he had increasingly convinced himself was not the murderer. Yet he felt a growing imperative to do so, for he was sure the Walpurgis had information of vital importance.
His thoughts were disrupted by a cry from one of the crew perched in the crow's nest. Everyone on deck stopped moving. Church couldn't tell if it was because of hope, or apprehension-or fear.
Across the pea-green sea he could just make out a purple and brown smudge on the horizon. Here it is, he thought, suddenly concerned himself. The Islands of the Dead.
Chapter Six
The waters were unnaturally calm as Wave Sweeper sailed in, leaving barely a ripple in its passing. Insects skimmed the surface of the ocean in the heavy heat, buzzing noisily. An unpleasant smell of stagnancy hung over everything, but it was the stillness that unnerved everyone the most. There was a feeling of death in the air.
As Wave Sweeper closed on the land, Church was surprised to see it was not one single mass, but an archipelago, the strangest one he had ever seen. Numerous small islands protruded from the sea like fingers pointing at the sky, rising precipitously to dizzying summits, many looking like they could barely support their own weight. They were gnarled with rocky outcroppings and fledged with twisted trees and tenacious bushes. Stone buildings perched on the top of the island towers, occasionally obscured by drifting plumes of cloud. However, on the loftiest, most twisted, most precarious island stood a grand castle of bronze and glass, the walls afire in the dazzling sunlight. Its enormous bulk atop the slim column was in direct opposition to any natural laws on Earth. But this was Otherworld.