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Adrenaline ran slick in his blood and food and ale sat heavy in his stomach making him wild and careless. After all, what was the worst thing that could happen? That the King's men would hear him, would find him, would shoot him down and he'd die the most famous man in all of England. Right now that didn't seem so bad. But Danny was wrong. That wasn't the worst thing that could happen to him. The worst thing that could happen to him was waiting just around the corner. He heard the man before he saw him. As he paused at the head of the trail and wiped the tears from his eyes. The voice was slick and smooth and utterly enchanting, and in an instant everything fell still and silent as the sky rippled with thunder. "Master McMills. I hear tell you're the finest horseman and highwayman the world has seen in quite some time," said the man. Danny turned slowly to face him, twisting his head and peering into the darkness. "Jesus Christ!" he hissed. Somewhere in the darkness, he could hear the man smiling:"Not quite." There was a pause before the voice stated firmly: "Are you, or are you not the man I've heard so much about?" "Aye, and what if I am?" he replied feeling strangely calm, as if he rested in the very eye of a storm so massive it would consume him utterly, and only had to wait before it did. Slowly, a shape formed out of the shadows which seemed to cling to it like oil. A tall man, with perfect coils of coal-black hair that fell about his waist, mounted on a blood-shod, black horse that stood over twenty hands at the shoulder. Danny swallowed hard and tightened his grip on the reins, holding his own mount still as it shuffled and fought beneath him. The massive black horse on which the man rested stepped forward, and its hooves sounded dull and empty on the ground, the sound of a fist striking hollow metal. Danny shivered and leaned forward, staring at this man, pale-skinned, black-haired, black-robed, looking utterly otherworldly in the no-light of the winter's night. "I have an offer for you, Master McMills." Danny shuddered, his mind swam for an instant, somehow he knew the man was speaking in some strange, foreign tongue that twisted and writhed like snakes in the heat, but every word rang pure an clear in his head, as if someone had inserted their meaning into his very heart. "Who are ya?" he demanded sharply, tightening his grip further as his horse fought to flee beneath him. "I'm someone you should know well, Danny," said the Devil: "After all, you've been working for me for quite some time now, have you not?" Danny bit down hard on his lip, the rain was beginning to fall as cold and hard as ice. Far off, he could hear the sound of dogs baying. "The King's men," explained the Devil with a glance over his shoulder towards where the sound echoed against the night: "It won't be long now before they catch you, and you're shot down like a beast." He paused for an instant: "And so, my dear boy, you have a choice. Stay and face your fate, or take me up on my little offer." "And what exactly is it yer offering me?" Danny asked nervously, glancing up as the sound of the pack echoed closer. "As I said," purred the Devil: "I've heard you're the finest horseman in all the King's lands. I'd like to see that for myself." "What are ya proposing?" "Race me," the Devil whispered, forcing his mount a little closer. That same hollow-metal sound shivered in the air, and when the heavens opened and the rain began to come down in sheets, there was the sound of water on armour. "What?" the highwayman murmured almost under his breath. "Race me," the Devil said again, this time with a little more force: "If you are indeed the man they say you are, and you beat me, I will leave you be and neither the King nor God himself will be able to claim you as their own." "An if I lose?" Danny asked slowly over the thunder of the rain. "You're mine," hissed the Devil in a voice that sent a shiver through every fibre of his being. "I..." Danny stalled. "Oh come on," the creature crooned: "What are your options? This? Or get torn down by the King's dogs?" Danny swallowed hard and steeled himself, forcing a cold, hard, arrogant done into his voice: "Yer on. I'll race ya, yer filthy, evil thing. I'll race ya an I'll beat ya, an I'll leave ya like a dog on tha road behind me." The creature laughed a dark, blood-soaked, delighted laugh. "Good," it purred. "But-" Danny stated firmly, raising his gloved hand to the Devil. "Yes?" "My mount has gone a week with nothin' but frozen water and dying grass fer feed, an I myself have been sleepin' out here in the cold these past few nights. We're both weak an tired with hunger and hardship. A gentleman would give us leave to rest. Or are yer frightened that if ya do, yer won't beat me? That yer can only take me while I'm weak and cold and starvin'?" The devil laughed and made an expressive gesture with his pale, long-fingered hand. Danny closed his eyes and felt his horse shriek and thrash beneath him, felt the strength returning to his weak fingers, the darkness clear around him and the pain fade from his winter-worn limbs. "I can do better that that," laughed the Devil, drawing his massive mount alongside Danny so that the two dark horses faced the pale trail in the pouring rain, frothing at the bit and steaming in the cold. "Yer on," Danny growled. And with that, he slammed his spurs into his horses flank, called out ferociously against the pouring rain and the dogs behind him, wild with hunger for the flesh on his bones, the soldiers mad with greed for the price on his head. He closed out the rest of the world. His universe narrowed to a string of things, of feelings, of events. The thrash of the icy rain, the thunder of his horse's hooves, the slippery, pale stretch of the trail, the thunder of hounds hooves behind him, the snarls and howls and slavering of the pack that bit at his mount's heels as he charged into the dark. The trail was a mile and a quarter long, in all, Danny had ridden it a dozen times before. But tonight it seemed to stretch out forever, wet and cold and framed by the blackened, skeletal hands of the trees that clawed at him as he hammered through the night. His cloak whipped about him, slick with rain and rough as glasspaper against his skin. He glanced over his shoulder to see the trail behind him filled with dozens of shimmering eyes, filled with massive, panting creatures that pounded after him through the rain. He pressed his eyes closed tight and dug his spurs deeper into his horses flank, forcing it, forcing himself onwards, not knowing how far behind, or how far in front the thing he raced had gotten. Unsure even of whether he was racing, or running for his life. When he thundered past then end of the trail and down one of the tiny paths that led into the forest, he was alone. He wheeled his horse around triumphantly, and then the hounds were on him. He heard his mount scream and thrash beneath him, felt the lurching weightlessness of a fall and the hard pain of the earth. Felt the teeth of the massive wolf-like things as they set upon him, as they tore at his clothes, as they ripped at his flesh, as they pulled him down in the darkness. Looking up, his eyes glazed with blood, he saw the Devil looking down at him as the dogs tore him apart. The Devil pulled his horse to a standstill and stared down at him, and he laughed. "You bastard!" Danny shrieked as his flesh was flayed from a soul that could not die. As the wolves wrenched apart a man that neither Heaven nor Hell could claim. "You bastard!" he screamed again, his voice mingling with the cry of his horse and it stumbled to the winter earth: "You did this! You did this to me! You set me up you lying, filthy bastard!" The Devil laughed and turned away. Soon, the King's men would be here.
Forest Grange, Colgate, England - 6th November 1991 "And so," Anthony finished, staring into the empty, blackened grate of the hearth: "That's what he became. A man who could not die, torn at and shot at and chased to the very last breaths of those who would catch him. "But," he paused: "He could still feel pain. He could still hurt, and when they caught him... When they caught him, my God, he suffered more than Hell could ever have made him suffer. So he remained, trapped in his body forever, too desperate to protect his sister to stray far from her side. Riding through the forest forever. Starving. Cold... Alone." There was a moment of utter silence, outside, Grace could hear the baying of the dogs the huntsmen kept nearby, and she shivered: "That's awful!" Anthony smiled wickedly, full of graceful arrogance as he crossed the room and sat back down beside her. "Whatever happened to her?" Grace asked, wide-eyed. "His sister?" Grace nodded. Anthony slipped an arm around her and rolled his shoulders into a shrug. "I guess she grew old, as is the curse of all us mortal men. She grew old and she died. And he watched her, and he could do nothing for her. He could do nothing but watch as she withered and died before him, unable to help, unable to change things, only ever able to watch. Watch, and hurt." "That's terrible!" Grace said again. Anthony's eyes glistened and he waved a finger at her, smiling. "Or," he went on. "Maybe they caught her. Maybe when they couldn't get him, they got her instead. And they hung her and the last thing she saw as she kicked and squirmed in the gallows was her brother's face staring up at her from the crowd. "Because, you see, when a man is cursed forever like that, and neither Heaven nor Hell can lay claim to him, he's not really a part of the world any more. Not part of any of it. He just lives in a kind of limbo where he can see everything, but affect nothing. He can do no good, all he can do is what led him to that trail, to that race with the Devil, to begin with. All he can do is kill and steal and hurt. "And the last thing she saw as she died was his tattered face, still torn by the hounds and the shot, staring up at her empty-eyed and soulless. And then, when she was gone, he did the only thing left for him to do. The only thing left he could do now all ability to do good had been stolen from him. He stole. He stole in the hope that one day... one day he may steal the chance to die." "Stop it," Grace urged, pulling a face and wriggling under his touch: "That's horrible." Anthony smiled: "But a good story." "And is it really just that?" Grace shivered, listening to the baying of the dogs: "A story?" "Who knows?" Anthony whispered, knowing far better by now than to tell Grace that something so unbelievable was just a story he'd made up to thrill his guests and seduce his mistress into falling further in love with him.
While Anthony was laying her down on the rough carpet of the library, stripping her clothes from her body and taking what little pleasure he could in her, Grace couldn't stop thinking about the story he'd told. About the girl in the Cadillac that had seen this man out on the trail, out on McMills Race, a year ago tonight. About this man who was seduced by the Devil and cursed to walk forever among the dead trees and the pouring rain, and the young, blue-eyed sister he'd left behind to die. It was just past midnight when Anthony unlocked the library door, buttoned his shirt and headed upstairs to his wife, leaving Grace on the floor in the library with a whisper of a kiss on her brow, an 'I love you' in her ear, and her clothes twisted absently around her. She waited for a moment after he'd gone, sitting in silence in the library and staring at the empty grate. She wasn't thinking about Toby, about how he could have heard them, about where he was, or what he'd do to her if he found out. She was thinking about Danny. She pressed her eyes closed for a long moment, but found no respite in the darkness behind her eyelids, and eventually got to her feet and headed back into the corridor before the mighty oaken staircase. She could hear Diane's voice upstairs, raised and nearly hysterical, but it didn't really register with her. After all, she thought absently as she opened the massive double-doors that led out onto the gravel drive, she and Anthony fought all the time. She closed the doors behind her and stepped tentatively onto the drive, the crunch of stone on stone sounding sharply over the silence. The rain had long stopped falling, the dogs had long stopped baying, and the world outside was quiet and dark and miserable. Wrapping her arms about herself, Grace began to walk, she wasn't sure where she was going, only that she liked it better out here than in there, and she wanted some time to think things over. She didn't notice that Toby's car no longer rested in its regular place in the gravel. If she had done, she wouldn't have cared. Her walk to her around the back of the building to where the hillside stretched away, the air smelt of marsh-water and the lake glinted gently amidst the trees below. Just before she turned the corner about the old annex, she heard a sound, and froze solid. After a moment, she swallowed hard and pressed herself back against the wall and uneven glass, shifting her way along the wall and peering around the corner. It must be the back of the kitchens, she thought, because the first thing she saw was the slight, dark-haired girl, Juliette, standing in the doorway and looking out over the trees. The wind shifted and Grace heard it again, this sound, this thunder of horses hooves against the hollow earth. After a moment, the massive black creature appeared over the crest of the ground, panting hard into the cold air with a flicker of something pale at its flanks. Grace watched in awe as the man swung himself from the horse's back and stepped to embrace her, this tiny, pale girl that was waiting for him there. "I've missed ya, May" he whispered smoothly, the girl smiled bitterly and pressed her cheek to his shoulder, her eyes shimmering with tears. The rest of their words were lost to the wind and the night, and Grace could only stand and watch as Danny McMills dragged a flank of the purest white-furred venison from his horse and handed it to the girl who accepted with a smile. And with that, he turned to leave. Grace drew a deep breath, and tried hard to call out, but no sound would come. Still, the highwayman turned to her and smiled, his eyes flashing hot and dark under his tricorn hat. He lifted the hat from his head, and the light from the kitchens played upon the unruly curls of his dark brown hair. He bowed with a sweep of his arm and a flick of his cloak, and in an instant he was gone, and not even the sound of his horse's hooves on the ground echoed over the whining wind. The girl stepped inside and closed the door without even glancing at her. The lights went out, and Grace was left alone in the dark. Beyond the four walls of the mansion, out across the gravel, beyond the gate, at the head of the trail, a cold, hard wind swept down McMills race and sobbed desperately in the branches of the dying forest. Winter was coming... It was only a matter of time... |