Portent, A Ravensborough Novella (The Ravensborough Saga) (2 page)

'Now who's talking dangerous words?' I asked.

He shrugged. 'You asked me a question, I answered it. What about you? Surely you don't think that your sole use to Avalonia is guarding a stone building every third night from here until eternity.'

'How do you know it's every third night?'

'I notice these things'

I wasn't sure exactly how that made me feel. On one hand I was flattered, Morgan was an attractive guy. He had the fair Scandinavian look that you usually only see in the north. But on the other hand, this was the guy who always ignored me when he saw me on campus. That bothered me more than it should. Yeah, this was a Darkfield only friendship, and everyone who was everyone avoided me on the college campus.

It was hard to keep my involvement with the Daughters of Morrigan a secret. While my university ethos was meant to be free-thinking, that was only skin deep. It was a small school, dedicated to educating Rationalists and Pagans together. In reality the Rationalists stayed with the Rationalists, and the Pagans with the Pagans. There was some cross over, but it tended to be with the fringe groups. Unpopular Pagans would hang with unpopular Rationalists, thrown together by the University's strange social hierarchy.

I guessed that if I was around a little more often, I might be part of one of these 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' friendships', but I just didn't have the time. God knows what I'd do once I graduated. It would be hard enough to get a job without a third of my waking hours already accounted for.

Morgan was part of one of the cool cliques, and cool Pagans did not hang out with people like me. High priestesses did have a certain amount of clout in our culture, but the Daughters had long fallen into obscurity. Especially because we still clung to the legends of the Reckoning.

They thought we were all crazy. Hey, maybe they were right.

I moved perceptibly further away from Morgan. He probably thought he was doing me a favour, being nice to the crazy girl from Darkfield. I didn't want to be flirted with out of pity. He could go away with himself and his ridiculous vanity.

'This is where I'm of most use,' I said crisply, hoping to end the conversation there. Morgan looked up, alerted by my change of tone that he had done something wrong, but he wasn't sure what it was.

He put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, giving me the look that said I was unstable and my temper could change in the blink of an eye. A small part of me felt a pang, I didn't want to him to treat me like some kind of freak. But it was something I was familiar with, and familiarity was better than the nervous anticipation I usually felt when he was around. This at the very least was predictable.

It was obvious that we were never going to be more than just friends, so why push it? And, more importantly, why leave it completely in his hands to control? Nope, this way was better.

It was just another thing on a long list of things that I couldn't do because of my responsibilities. College societies. Friends. Boyfriends. Being top of my class. I managed to get decent grades despite not being able to study while I was on watch, but I didn't have the time to do as well as I wanted to. Chemistry wasn't easy to cram.

I sighed.

'Penny for your thoughts?' he asked.

'Why are you still here?' I asked, my voice harsher than I’d intended.

'I'm here for the charming company.'

I flipped him off, but he just laughed.

'Come on, is it really that hard to believe that I might actually just want to be around you?'

I stood up, brushing the dust from my jeans and walked down the steps.

'What, you're abandoning your post now?' he asked.

'No, just patrolling the perimeter,' I said. Technically I was meant to do this regularly, but I hardly ever did. Soldiers tended to arrive by vehicle, and there wasn't enough space for a car to pass through the narrow lanes behind the Temple. To be honest, the only things that needed watching back here were common criminals, and I’d rather just leave them to get on with whatever they were getting up to. The sides of the temple were cobbled lanes that smelled kind of funky. Around the back there was the large stained glass window that had been there for the last century. The moonlight glinted off it and I shuddered. Honestly, I wasn't too fond of the dark.

When I got back to the steps Morgan was still reclining on the steps as if he hadn't a care in the world.

'You're still here?' I asked walking back to my post.

'That's lovely,' he said. 'I go out of my way to bring you a nice hot coffee, and you can't even be civil.'

'Yeah, well, maybe if you gave me the time of day outside this place, I could stand to be a little more civil.'

He wrinkled up his nose in confusion.

'Oh come on,' I scoffed, the anger and frustration that had been building over the past few weeks finally getting the better of me. 'You know exactly what I'm talking about. Here in Darkfield, when you've nobody else to talk to. I'm absolutely fine to talk to. But if you bump into me in college, when there's more interesting people around then you don't care. I'm surplus to requirements. So I'm sorry, but I'm a little fed up with being your friend when there's nobody else around. I'm not sure exactly how else you expect me to feel.'

I pulled my rucksack up off the steps and rifled through it. It was more for something to do with my hands than anything else. I couldn't believe that I'd let him in so far, that I'd let him know that I cared.

Great plan.

He reached out and gently pulled the rucksack out of my hands.

'Kara,' he said gently. I didn't want to look at him, or admit how much he'd hurt me. I crossed my arms and stared fixedly across the road at the records centre. Childish, perhaps, but I couldn’t help it.

'Look,' he began. 'It's not you that's the problem, it's me.'

I gave him an incredulous look. 'Yeah, I know Morgan. That part was never in question.'

'No I mean...' he looked around as if searching for inspiration. 'My mother is on the city council. She’s head of Pagan/Rationalist integration.

'Wow,' I said sarcastically. 'And she's doing such a great job.' There was a moment of silence. Even for me that was pretty bitchy.

'All right,' I said. 'I'm sorry. That was way out of line.'

He nodded, accepting my apology. 'If the media found out that her son was hanging around with a girl who heads up the only group that still supports the Reckoning, then that would bring a lot of attention on you.'

I got it. The Daughters of Morrigan believed that there was a Reckoning coming, a time of great destruction and death. Long ago, everybody had believed this, but it had become a fairy story over time to most people. We were now the only group who believed in it and were preparing for the Reckoning. Everybody else thought that we were a crazy fringe group. Because our numbers were so small, nobody really worried too much about us. Even Pagans didn't believe us, so there was nothing for us to fear. We had no influence, and could cause no problems. Meaning Rationalists left us alone.

If I were to be seen with the son of a major diplomat, however, things could change fast. Even a hint of us having a powerful ally would make us - and that 'ally' - a target. Out of nowhere we'd soon be on the 'Prime List; of organisations suspected of subversive action against the state, something we had to avoid at all costs. At the moment, we could hang out here, because nobody really paid attention to us - that could all change though. And any media attention would be pretty awkward for Morgan and his family.

'Thanks,' I mumbled. I hated being wrong, hated it even more in front of someone like Morgan.

'It's all right,' he said. 'It's nice to know you care.'

I opened my mouth to say something pithy, but closed it again. My fast talking had gotten me into more than enough trouble tonight.

He stood up.

'I'm going to head off. Mind yourself, ok?'

With that he was gone, loping off down the road, his footsteps sounding too loud on the empty streets.

I sighed to myself. Had he left because of me? I knew I was probably being paranoid, but it was hard to shake the feeling that I'd done something wrong. I'm sure he didn't want to spend the night hanging out with me in the cold, but maybe I could have been a little bit friendlier.

CHAPTER TWO

I stayed until 3am when my watch finished. 3am was after the last underground train left, which meant I'd have to walk home. This was the worst part. I lived in Vyrion, a high rise estate on the outskirts of the city. Not only had I to be careful not to run into any Rationalist-Pagan conflict: I also had to worry about ordinary criminals. When I'd told Morgan that I lived in Vyrion, he'd laughed, saying I'd probably learned more there about chemical substances than I would at university.

He had a point.

Luckily, tonight was quiet enough. I stepped over the prone figure of my neighbour, Gerry Glazier, who had drunk so much whiskey he'd passed out on the tenth floor landing of Vyrion 1. At least I thought he had. A hand reached out and grabbed my ankle before I could get away.

'They're coming,' he mumbled.

'Really?' I asked, trying to extract my foot. It was no use. For someone who existed solely on liquid sustenance he was surprisingly strong.

'The Guards,' he muttered. 'They're coming.'

'Don't worry,' I muttered, leaning down and prising his fingers away from my ankle. 'Nobody's coming. It's all going to be ok.'

He seemed to accept this, and fell back asleep. The poor man had gotten a beating for back talking a violent thug of a soldier years ago. He hadn't been right in the head since. He lived in perpetual fear of a reprisal, but he was safe here. Vyrion 1 was where the detritus of Avalonian society coalesced. Much like my congregation, we were considered non-threatening, at least not to anybody who mattered.

Yeah, we had one of the largest drug problems in the city. Yeah, we had a high crime rate. But as most of our time was spent getting high or drunk and killing each other, the rest of society didn't care. That went for Rationalists and Pagans.

I rummaged in my coat pockets for my keys, and let myself in the front door. It was almost as cold inside as it was outside. I put the kettle on to boil for something warm. There was no point turning on the heating: we didn't have the money to pay for it. We used to get some residual heat from the people who lived next door, but they'd moved out six months ago and hadn't been replaced. Since then we'd lived without. It hadn't been too bad at the start, but now we were reaching the end of autumn. Winter was fast approaching which would bring arctic winds, frost and snow. I'd no idea how we were going to keep warm then. I tried not to think about it.

I made a cup of chamomile tea, hoping that it would help me sleep. I sat at the sofa underneath the window and looked out. There may not be many perks to living on one of the highest floors in Vyrion 1, but this was definitely one of them. Below me the lights of the city twinkled like an electric carpet, leading out in the distance to Lady's Lake. Beyond that lay the elite Rationalist suburbs of King James, Chesterfield and Bessborough. I’d bet money that there weren’t many people there worrying about the cold right now.

There was a raven sitting outside on my window box, and I shifted on the sofa and opened the window. It wasn't like I could make it any colder inside, was it? I pulled down the sleeve of my coat and gripped it between my thumb and index finger, making sure that my entire arm was covered. Raven claws hurt. I popped my head and arm out the window and gasped. So much for my smug theory that I couldn't get any colder. The raven landed on my arm and, despite the layers of padding, I could feel the scrape of claws against my skin. I could see tubes of antiseptic ointment in my immediate future.

Ravens were the sacred animals of the Daughters of Morrigan, but they weren’t half difficult to deal with. Not for the first time I wished we’d gone for something a little less tenacious.

I pulled my arm closer to me, and the raven put its head to one side and gazed at me quizzically.

'Darkclaw,' I said, holding the animal as close to me as I could. Darkclaw wasn't one of my favourite ravens. In fact he only came to me when something bad was happening. I closed my eyes and tried to feel what the raven was trying to say.

It took a great deal of energy to share a mind with another animal, and it was nearly 4am. I'd spent the last four hours freezing my ass off in a deserted and dangerous part of town, and I had precisely three hours of sleep ahead of me before I had to go to university to sit an exam I was ill-prepared for. I had a lot of things clouding my mind, and clearing enough space to have a proper commune with a carrion bird just wasn't high on my list of priorities.

Still, Darkclaw disliked me as much as I disliked him. There was no way he'd be here if there was any way of escaping it. I cleared my mind and thought.

I saw a raven flying. That was easy enough to interpret, when you were able to interact with birds you knew the symbolism – premonition. But a premonition of what? An image of the temple in shadow came before my eyes. The Daughters were in trouble, I sighed inwardly. We were always in trouble. I saw the Pagan Records Building, and a warehouse a couple of streets away that was used for storing fertiliser. I couldn’t make head nor tail of the symbolism. Whatever it seemed to be, it wasn't going to be good news.

It didn't look like I'd be getting sleep any time soon. It was going to be a long night.

My alarm went off, making me want to cry in frustration. How could it be that time already? My mother was already up, having her first coffee of the morning, readying herself to get the train into the suburbs and clean at the large hospital off Guinevere Plaza. I poured myself some cornflakes, turned on the television and scrolled along until I got to the news channel. Maybe there'd be some clue behind Darkclaw's message on the news. But there was nothing obvious. Unless Darkclaw was worried by some business scandal involving a minister I'd never heard of, then there was nothing here that could give me a clue.