Kitto

Kitto

Harper Fox

Copyright Harper Fox 2014

Published by FoxTales at Smashwords

Kitto

Copyright © June 2014 by Harper Fox

Cover art by Harper Fox

Cover photo licensed through Shutterstock

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from FoxTales.

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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Kitto

Harper Fox

Dedicated to Jane,

a true partner in all my endeavours,

and to the memory of my wonderful Uncle Gordon,

who taught me to seize the day

Chapter One

Rain hit the glass overhead, a vibrant midsummer drum. Noise pitched and ebbed as crowds of tourists milled around the covered space, their chatter echoing in its weird acoustic. The arcade was Boscarney’s only indoor attraction and sole refuge from the downpour. Soon its narrow gallery of shops was full, a chaos of bright waterproofs, laughter, and complaints in half a dozen languages about the Cornish weather.

Lee Tyack, normally painfully aware of every soul around him, was oblivious. His whole attention was fixed on the bright-lit interior of one jewellery store. Boscarney was a reconstructed tin mine. Fine Cornish silver and gold were still brought out of its ancient treasure caves, and a team of artisan jewellers worked to create from it the most beautiful of Celtic designs. Here and here only would Lee so much as consider carrying out his mission today.

And even here might not be good enough.

Ezekiel Frayne turned to frown at the group of little crewcut brats taking advantage of the crowd to harvest unguarded wallets. A couple had jostled up to Lee, who could have been robbed blind and picked to the bone at that moment and not cared. Sorry?

The things here. The... The rings. Do you think they’re nice enough?

Ezekiel sighed. Boscarney was a small place, but Lee had given him a very long afternoon. This was what the Methodist minister got for accompanying his gay brother’s boyfriend to pick out a wedding ring, a situation he could no more have imagined eight months ago than he could have flown and perched naked atop the Truro cathedral spire. It hasn’t been my habit in life, he said dryly, to observe such trivia. I’m certain the baubles in here are very well—as good, at least, as any in the dozen other shops you’ve ransacked and found wanting.

Wow. Lee surfaced from his abstraction. He tilted his head and looked at his companion, eyes catching silver from the glittering lights in the store. Are your feet hurting you, Zeke?

Ezekiel glowered. My discomfort isn’t relevant. You’re allowing yourself to be distracted by the material side of what should be a deeply spiritual event.

Yes. Probably. But I want a nice ring for him, and you’re his brother. Can’t you help me choose?

The atmosphere in the little mall intensified. Lights flickered, briefly plunging the shop into underground darkness, then the glitter returned, accompanied by a huge boom of thunder. A few screams and reactive giggles rang out in the crowd. Gideon and I weren’t close, Ezekiel said, more severely than he’d intended. We weren’t brought up in such a way that I know his preference for rose gold over platinum or whether he’d like a jewelled or a plain band.

Lee placed one hand on the glass. He withdrew it immediately, leaving a damp print. Sorry. I’m actually sweating with nerves here. But you go on home, okay? I’ve taken up enough of your day.

Ezekiel had witnessed Lee wrestle demons of his own, and on the behalf of strangers, without turning a hair. He’d seen him run after a rifle-toting nutcase on a cliff. He could scrape barnacles off the hull of a boat or, in his bartender role, subdue a rowdy pub crowd with equal calm strength. Everyone had their limits, Ezekiel supposed. I may not have had the opportunity to observe... much detail about Gideon, he said, glaring so fiercely at a marauding child that it let out a yelp and shot back into the crowd. However, I know his broad brushstrokes. The very fact that you have been out and chosen this will mean more to him than any richness of design or craftsmanship. Besides, if it’s any consolation, he’s gone to buy yours today too. I should think he’s in a worse state than you are right now.

***

Gideon walked into the Mandel jewellery shop in Bodmin. He only had half an hour before he had to be back at his desk, but that didn’t matter: he knew exactly what he wanted. Jake Mandel’s son greeted him with a brilliant smile from behind the counter. He’d taken on the business wholesale, and he ran a tighter ship than his dad. The blood had come out of the carpet. Life went on.

Afternoon, Sergeant. The time has come, has it?

That it has, Ronald.

The platinum band with the green-agate inlay, wasn’t it? A very good choice, if I might say so. Matches Mr Tyack’s eyes.

Gideon resisted the urge to roll his own. Mandel senior would never have ventured a personal remark. But Ronald was a good lad, more in keeping with the times, and in his hands the store might actually survive. He was right about the agates, too. Gideon had made his choice on his first trip past the shop after meeting Lee. Or entertained the fantasy, at least, that if by some miracle such a man were to stay in his life, only that ring could possibly grace his hand. It would cost a month’s salary and Gideon would have paid ten. Even then. He was in uniform, and so had to repress a jubilant air-punch while Ronald found a pale-green velvet box and tucked the ring inside.

The radio on the shelf behind the counter ceased its burble of Cornish gossip and hits from the eighties. Gideon glanced at his watch, afraid that he’d lost some time in the pleasure of this errand. Local news came at the top of the hour. It was only quarter to. He repressed a smile: only Radio Kernow would still say we interrupt this broadcast, as if the nation were at war and Spitfires about to soar out over the Channel. The card-reader beeped its acceptance of his PIN and began to rattle out a printed receipt. Ronald paused, the box and a small plastic bag in his hands. Bloody hell, he observed. That don’t sound good, do it, Sergeant Frayne?

Gideon hadn’t heard over the whir of the machine. In the following silence, he listened, blindly tucking away his card. The news anchor repeated his message. Before he’d reached the end, Gideon’s own radio unit was crackling. He heard a place name, a time. Leaving the ring behind him, he tore out of the shop into the deadly summer rain.

***

There. That wasn’t so difficult, was it?

Lee and Ezekiel left the shop and joined the surging crowd. Lee was clutching a small wrapped box. Are you sure it’s the right one?

It’s a plain band of Cornish gold, mined and made right here. Gideon takes an almost heathen pride in his heritage. He’ll love it.

Lee smiled. He said, a bit unsteadily, as if he’d just remembered it was his and Gideon’s duty to bait Zeke whenever possible, "Ah, right. Cornish born, Cornish bred, strong of arm and good in—"

Locryn Tyack! Have you no shame? If Lee and Gid now freely called the starchy minister Zeke, he in his turn sometimes invoked Lee’s proper Revivalist name to bring him into line. This time the Methodist thunder was no match for the heavenly kind. A peal of it split the air, sending a vibrant reverb through the arcade, rattling the glass in its panes. Hard on its heels came a machinegun roar of hail. Ezekiel glanced up at the glazed roof, where marble-sized lumps were sliding down among the streaks of rain. That doesn’t sound too good, does it... Lee, are you all right?

Yes, fine. Why?

You’re very pale. The hard part’s over now. In fact... He put out a hand and took the box. I believe it’s my job to look after this from this point on.

Oh. You’ll do it, then? You’ll be my best man?

Since your insane uncle Jago insists on being Gideon’s, somebody there had better be sound of mind. I suppose I should be grateful the pair of you didn’t ask me to conduct the service. Ezekiel took Lee’s arm to steady him against the jostling crowd. Come and sit down. You really do look awful. I’ll buy you a coffee to help you recover from your horrible ordeal.

Just wait till it’s your turn with Eleanor, my friend. Just wait.

There was one table left in the arcade café. Ezekiel deposited Lee there and went to join the queue at the counter. Left to himself, Lee began his automatic shutdowns. He drew a transparent shield around himself, so he wouldn’t have to know the hidden delights, fears and hates of every random soul who had come to drink coffee and take shelter from the rain today. He closed down every link except the friendly wire that bound him to Ezekiel—and the deeper one, deeper now than his own marrow and blood, the permanent carrier signal to Gid. He glanced through the advertising flyers on the table to aid his distraction. Cornwall was set to explode in Midsummer madness in a few days’ time. The Golowan festival, the dances and theatrics, the sinister old Penglas, a hobby-horse figure with a horse’s skull for a head. The ancient drama of the meeting of the oak king and holly king, a reminder that the height of summer meant the turning of the wheel, that from now on the days would grow shorter—yes, even now, at the full-blown blazing peak of the sun’s power...

Lee? Do you want a biscuit with that?

Lee flinched. He looked at the coffee Ezekiel had placed in front of him. No, ta. I feel a bit sick, actually.

You have gone green. Ezekiel sat down opposite him. He folded his big bony hands on the table. He put his head on one side and began, cautiously, as if it hurt him more than his listener to broach the subject these days, You know, if you are experiencing physical symptoms of illness when you undertake tasks associated with your—

Zeke, shut up.

I’m sorry?

"No—I’m sorry. I want to be your friend, and I know how good you are. But I will not... Lee paused, drew a breath, then banged his palm down so hard on the table that the coffee and the leaflets jumped. I will not listen to some oblique bloody diatribe about same-sex marriage. Do you understand?"

Ezekiel stared. In fact, I was just about to... Oh, wait. You’re going to have one, aren’t you? One of your visions.

No. Lee rubbed his brow, where the pounding of the rain had merged with a rhythmic pulsation from the deepest coils of his brain. Maybe. Yeah, I think am.

Shit. What do I do?

Lee gave a soft snort of laughter. Every time he or Gid had been about to give Zeke up as a hopeless religious bigot, he said or did something that revealed the sweet, entirely human soul beneath. I’m not going into labour. You don’t have to run for hot water and towels.

Gideon knows what to do, doesn’t he? I’ll call him.

Don’t. He’s at work.

Can I help? Do you need me to unmask a monster?

No. It’s not happening like that any more, not since... Lee shut himself up in time. He and Gideon had talked, and come to the conclusion that the fewer people who knew about Jago and the Cornish Panther, the simpler the world would be. I just get... insights. They can hurt a bit. Don’t worry, okay?

Well, it seems to me a dreadful thing, when a mortal man claims powers that only the Lord most high should ever—

But Lee was gone. Ezekiel sat for a moment, gazing across at the empty chair. He’d moved so fast that one downward glance had been enough for Ezekiel to lose him. Bewildered, he turned and looked around.

Lee was a blur in the crowd. Before Ezekiel could draw breath to call his name, he’d reached the far side of the