As she spoke Jerichau raised his hands from the ground towards Suzanna, and now she realized why there was no

recognition in his eyes. He could not see her. The Magdalene had blinded her consort, to keep him close. But he knew she was there: he heard her, he reached for her.

‘Sister ...' Immacolata said to the Magdalene, ‘.... bring your husband to heel.'

The Magdalene was quick to obey. The hand she had on Jerichau's head grew longer, the ringers pouring down over his face, entering his mouth and nostrils. Jerichau attempted to resist, but the Magdalene pulled on him, and he tumbled backwards amongst her pestilential petticoats.

Without warning, Suzanna felt the menstruum spill from her and fly towards Jerichau's tormentor. It happened in the time it took to see it. She caught a glimpse of the Magdalene's features, stretched into a shriek, then the stream of silver light struck her. The wraith's cry broke into pieces, fragments of sound spiralling off - a sobbing complaint, a howl of anger -as the assault lifted her into the air.

As usual, Suzanna's thoughts were a beat behind the menstruum. Before she was fully aware of what she was doing the light was tearing at the wraith, gaping holes opening in its matter. The Magdalene retaliated, the stream of the menstruum carrying the attack back into Suzanna's face. She felt blood splash down her neck, but the barbs only spurred her fury; she was tearing her enemy as though the wraith were a sheet of tissue paper.

Immacolata had not been a passive spectator in this, but had flung her own attack against Suzanna. The ground at Suzanna's feet shuddered, then rose around her as if to bury her alive, but the subtle body pitched the earth wall back, then went at the Magdalene with redoubled fury. Though the menstruum seemed to have a life of its own, that was an illusion. She owned this power, she knew; now more than ever. It was her anger that fuelled it, that deafened it to mercy or apology; it was she who would not be satisfied until the Magdalene was undone.

And all at once, it was over. The Magdalene's cries stopped dead.

Enough, Suzanna instructed. The menstruum let the few

fragments of rotted ectoplasm drop to the spattered ground, and withdrew its light into its mistress. From attack to counter-attack to coup de grace had taken maybe a dozen seconds.

Suzanna looked towards Immacolata, whose wretched features were all disbelief. She was trembling from head to foot, as if she might fall to the ground in a fit. Suzanna took her chance. She'd no way of knowing if she could survive a sustained attack from the Incantatrix, and now was certainly no time to put the problem to the test. As the third sister threw herself amongst the Magdalene's litter, and began to wail, Suzanna took to her heels.

The tide of the Fugue was lapping all around them now, and the brilliant air camouflaged her flight. Only after she'd covered ten yards or more did she come to her senses and remember Jerichau. There had been no sign of him in the vicinity of the dead Magdalene. Praying that he had found his way off the battlefield, she ran on, the Hag's harrowing din loud in her ears.

2

She ran and ran, believing over and over that she felt the chill of the Virgin on her neck. But it seemed she imagined the pursuit, for she ran unhindered for a mile or more, up the slope of the valley and over the crest of a hill, until the light of the Weave's forthcoming was dim behind her.

It would only be a short time before the Fugue reached her, and when it did she would need to have some strategy. But first she had to catch her breath.

The gloom nursed her awhile. She stood trying not to think too hard of what she'd just done. But a certain ungovernable elation filled her. She had killed the Magdalene; destroyed one of the Three: it was no minor feat. Had the power in her always been so dangerous?; ripening behind her ignorance, growing wise, growing lethal?

For some reason she remembered Mimi's book, which pre-

sumably Hobart still had in his possession. Now more than ever she hoped it could teach her something of what she was, and how to profit by it. She would have to get the volume back, even if it meant confronting Hobart once more.

As she formulated this thought she heard her name uttered, or an approximation of it. She looked in the direction of the voice, and there, standing a few yards from her, was Jeri-chau.

He had indeed escaped the Magdalene's grasp, though his face was scored by the sister's ethereal fingers. His wracked frame was on the verge of collapse, and even as he called Suzanna's name a second time, and threw his withered arms out towards her, his legs gave way beneath him and he fell face down on the ground.

She was kneeling by his side in moments, and turning him over. He was feather-light. The sisters had drained him of all but the spark of purpose that had sent him stumbling after her. Blood they could take; and seed and muscle. Love he'd kept.

She drew him up towards her. His head lolled against her breasts. His breathing was fast and shallow, his cold body full of tremors. She stroked his head; the diminishing light around it playing about her fingers.

He was not content simply to be cradled, however, but pushed himself away from her body a few inches in order to reach up and touch her face. The veins in his throat throbbed as he tried to speak. She hushed him, saying there would be time to talk later. But he made a tiny shake of his head, and she could feel as she held him how close the end was. She did him no kindness to pretend otherwise. It was time to die, and he had sought out her arms as a place to perform that duty.

‘Oh my sweet...' she said, her chest aching. ‘... sweet man...'

Again he strove for words, but his tongue cheated him. Only soft sounds came, which she could make no sense of.

She leaned closer to him. He no longer resisted her comforting, but took hold of her shoulder and drew himself closer still

to speak to her. This time she made a sense of the words, though they were scarcely more than sighs.

‘I'm not afraid,' he said, expelling the last word on a breath that had no brother, but came against her cheek like a kiss.

Then his hand lost its strength, and slipped from her shoulder, his eyes closed, and he was gone from her.

A bitter thought came visiting: that his last words were as much a plea as a statement. Jerichau had been the only one she'd ever told about how at the warehouse the menstruum had stirred Cal from unconsciousness. Was that I'm not afraid his way of saying: leave me to death?; I wouldn't thank you for resurrection?

Whatever he'd meant she'd never find out now.

She laid him gently on the earth. Once, he'd spoken words of love that had defied their condition, and become light. Were there others he knew, that defied Death, or was he already on his way to that region Mimi had left for, all contact with the world Suzanna still occupied broken?

It seemed so. Though she watched the body ‘til her eyes ached, it made no murmur. He had left it to the earth, and her with it.

XI

CAL, TRAVELLING NORTH

1

Cal's journey North dragged on through the night, but he didn't weary. Perhaps it was the fruit that kept his senses so preternaturally clear; either that or a new-found sense of purpose that pressed him forward. He kept his analytic faculties on hold, making decisions as to his route instinctively.

Was it the same sense the pigeons had possessed that he now navigated by? A dream-sense, beyond the reach of intellect or reason: a homing? That was how it felt. That he'd become a bird, orienting himself not by the stars (they were blotted by clouds), nor by the magnetic pole, but by the simple urge to go home; back to the orchard, where he'd stood in a ring of loving faces and spoken Mad Mooney's verse.