Mortal Fire Read online

  MORTAL FIRE

  C. F. Dunn

  Copyright © 2012 by C. F. Dunn

  The right of C. F. Dunn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First published in the UK in 2012 by Monarch Books

  (a publishing imprint of Lion Hudson plc)

  Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England

  Tel: +44 (0)1865 302750 Fax: +44 (0)1865 302757

  Email: [email protected]

  www.lionhudson.com

  ISBN 978 0 85721 202 3 (print)

  ISBN 978 0 85721 313 6 (Kindle)

  ISBN 978 0 85721 314 3 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 85721 315 0 (PDF)

  Distributed by:

  UK: Marston Book Services, PO Box 269, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4YN

  USA: Kregel Publications, PO Box 2607, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49501

  Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan and Hodder & Stoughton Limited. All rights reserved. The ‘NIV’ and ‘New International Version’ trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society. UK trademark number 1448790.

  British Library Cataloguing Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Cover images: Eye – Christian Weigel/Corbis; Smoke – iStockphoto/ Claudio Rossol; Books – iStockphoto/Diane Diederich.

  For Cinders and my family,

  without whom…

  Truth is what we make it. We believe what we want to believe, see what we want to see; but when reality is thrust upon us, we are faced with the ultimate dilemma: to acknowledge it – or to run.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Acknowledgments

  Characters

  Chapter

  1. Of Magic and Monsters

  2. The Reception

  3. The Library

  4. Trial by Ordeal

  5. Maelstrom

  6. Sleeping Dogs

  7. Besieged

  8. Cause and Effect

  9. The Diner

  10. In Translation

  11. Almost Human

  12. The Journal

  13. A Waiting Game

  14. All Saints

  15. From Darkness

  16. Into Light

  17. Breaking Point

  18. Complications

  19. Incoming

  20. Balancing Act

  21. Witness

  22. Lines of Engagement

  23. Beyond Reason

  Abyss (Chapter 1 of Death Be Not Proud)

  Acknowledgments

  Loving thanks to my parents for their unswerving encouragement, and unbounded enthusiasm for punctuation and a good story. For my patient readers – especially Dee Prewer, for honing her editorial skills on my nascent writing, and her delicate candour, which kept me on a literary straight-and-narrow. For Lisa Lewin, who could see the wood for the trees, and Kate who saw them with me in Maine. For Sophie, who kept the home fires burning, and Tim, my erstwhile guide to the Web.

  Also in the UK, Chris Pringle of Spencer Thorn Bookshop, Bude, whose support led to a meeting of ways worthy of its own story. Huge thanks to Tony Collins, editor at Monarch, for his patience, guidance and leap of faith in taking on a complete unknown. For author Pen Wilcock, and her twin attributes of keen insight and encouraging voice. For Jenny Ward, also at Monarch, for seeing the process through, and for Swati Gamble, who helped get me started. I also owe much to Mike Chew and MaryAnn Good for their connections and help in Stamford, and to Sherry Kenyon for authenticating detail with such zest.

  Special thanks to author Colin Dexter, for his generous gift of time, experience, and wisdom, and to writers Fay Sampson, Taylor Holden, and Mel Starr for taking time out of their busy schedules to endorse this book. Gratitude also, to Dr Kiki O’Neill-Byrne, Consultant Psychiatrist, for her advice on psychopathic disorder, and to numerous people for information along the way.

  In the USA, my thanks to Noelle Pederson at Kregel. In Maine, to innkeeper and chef, Keith A. Neubert – our host at the Inn at Long Lake, Naples – and his staff, whose hospitality, delectable Hermit Bars and apple cider kept us warm in a glorious New England fall. To Norm Forgey, Maine Day Trip, for expanding our horizons up to Rumford in comfort, for his information on black bears and dead skunks (but alas, no moose), and to all who made our stay a home from home.

  My appreciation to Warner Bros for The Last Samurai, and Hans Zimmer for his soundtrack, that supplied the rhythms behind many of my scenes.

  And above all to my husband, Richard, whose unstinting forbearance and military technical advice I plundered at will, and our daughters, who have lived the writing of this book with me every step of the way.

  Characters

  ACADEMIC & RESEARCH STAFF AT HOWARD’S LAKE COLLEGE, MAINE

  Emma D’Eresby, Department of History (Medieval and Early Modern)

  Elena Smalova, Department of History (Post-Revolutionary Soviet Society)

  Matias Lidström, Faculty of Bio-medicine (Genetics)

  Matthew Lynes, surgeon, Faculty of Bio-medicine (Mutagenesis)

  Sam Wiesner, Department of Mathematics (Metamathematics)

  Madge Makepeace, Faculty of Social Sciences (Anthropology)

  Siggie Gerhard, Faculty of Social Sciences (Psychology)

  Saul Abrahms, Faculty of Social Sciences (Psychology of Functional Governance)

  Colin Eckhart, Department of History (Renaissance and Reformation Art)

  Kort Staahl, Department of English (Early Modern Literature)

  Megan, research assistant, Bio-medicine

  Sung, research assistant, Bio-medicine

  The Dean, Stephen Shotter

  MA STUDENTS

  Holly Stanhope; Josh Feitel; Hannah Graham; Aydin Yilmaz; Leo Hamell

  IN CAMBRIDGE

  Guy Hilliard, Emma’s former tutor

  Tom Falconer, Emma’s friend

  EMMA’S FAMILY

  Hugh D’Eresby, her father

  Penny D’Eresby, her mother

  Beth Marshall, her sister

  Rob Marshall, her brother-in-law

  Alex & Flora, her twin nephew and niece

  Nanna, her grandmother

  Mike Taylor, friend of the family

  MATTHEW’S FAMILY

  Harry Lynes, his nephew

  Ellie Lynes, his niece

  Chapter 1

  Of Magic and Monsters

  IT MUST HAVE HAPPENED only minutes before.

  The startled birds still circling above the tree from which they had risen were the only witnesses to the last moments of the woman’s life. The impact tore the door from her car and from the twisted remains her eyes stared sightless, lifeless. Shredded shards of metal pierced the airbag – now a pale deflated bladder onto which her slow blood dripped.

  A single uniformed officer bent over and picked up a small card from the edge of a wheel rut already filling with water. He flicked it on his finger, dislodging muddy drops from its plastic surface. He looked up at the sound of the engine and raised his hand.

  “Hey, Frank!” My cab driver called to the offi
cer from his rolled-down window as he slowed just yards from the scene. “What’s up?”

  The policeman ambled towards us. “Hi, Al,” he greeted him. “She must’ve skidded on all this mud hereabouts. Reckon she was using her cell at the time. Lost control.”

  He toed a shiny black mobile, its blue-lit face more alive than she would ever be. The cab driver grunted morosely.

  “Darn technological revolution. Where’s she from?”

  The officer flipped the card again, then wiped his thumb over the stubborn mud-smeared surface, straining at the tiny print.

  “San Diego. She’s a long way from home.”

  He stared at the photo, then at the dead woman, canting his head to get a better look. “Sure is a shame, hey, Al? Bit of a looker too. What a waste.”

  “Huh, she’s from away! Wouldn’t you know it; darn foreigner wouldn’t be used to our roads.” Al sniffed, prepared to hawk out of the window, thought better of it. His eyes slid towards mine in the rear-view mirror. “Not that I got anything ’gainst foreigners, you know?”

  “San Diego, Al, not San Salvador.”

  “Yeah – might as well be – she ain’t a Mainer, anyhow.”

  A second car drew up behind the police vehicle, reflecting brief sun and blinding me momentarily as the driver’s door opened. Squinting, Frank looked over his shoulder and, seemingly satisfied this newcomer was no random rubbernecker, nodded to the stranger once, then resumed his conversation.

  “Where’re you off to?”

  Al shifted the gear and the car’s engine made ready-to-go noises. I urged him silently to leave; the image of the mutilated wreckage lingered, sickened. A figure now bent into the shadowed interior; the wreck slid a fraction.

  “I’m taking this lady to Howard’s Lake. I’d better be goin’; I’ve got another fare to pick up at eleven.”

  The officer let out a low whistle.

  “That college place, huh?” He leaned down and shaded his eyes against the light, peering into the back of the cab where I sat. He acknowledged me then looked back at his friend. “You take care on them roads, Al; the bridge is almost under water this side of town.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Don’t want to end up like her.” He gave me another curious glance as if I had grown two heads in the intervening seconds since he last looked, and patted the roof of the cab.

  Distracted by movement, my focus shifted. In the shroud of the car, the man carefully rested the body of the woman against her seat; gently – almost reverently – folding the fabric of her torn skirt over her legs and closing her eyes. As if he cared; as if she mattered. The car suddenly shifted, jerked, metal razoring his bare arm. Before I could react, the man pulled his arm free, shot a look in our direction, and turned his back. But it wasn’t the expression on his face as he turned away, nor the almost casual disregard as he covered his arm with his jacket, but my sudden shock of recognition as the sun struck his hair that left me speechless.

  As the cab pulled away, leaving the officer to collect the scattered contents of the woman’s life, I wondered in a passing thought at the deceptions conjured from a distant past and liberated by an exhausted mind.

  Barely an hour before, an expansive sweep of blue sky gave way to thickening cloud as the aircraft made its descent towards rain-blackened tarmac, finally coming to a standstill under a leaden sky. Not so very different from home, really. The slight pang twisting in my throat instantly reminded me that home lay far behind on another continent and that I could still be vulnerable to a bout of homesickness despite the years spent away. I caught sight of my ghosted reflection in the thickened glass of the aircraft’s window, then looked beyond to where airport buildings hunched together against the sky. Any regret at this year-long commitment dissolved in a feathering of anticipation; my life in England represented the old world – this was definitely the new.

  The cab driver had thrown a question over his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, could you repeat that, please?”

  He grinned in the rear-view mirror at me, a man with a crumpled face and rabbit teeth, then repeated it slowly – idiot-fashion.

  “You British?”

  “Is it that obvious?” I smiled back at his eyes framed in the mirror. He shrugged what I took to be a yes, then continued.

  “You a student?”

  Either that meant I looked particularly scruffy after the long flight, or he was a poor judge of age.

  “I wish! Not for a long time. How far is it to the college now?”

  He thought for a moment.

  “’Bout fifteen miles to town. Then another eleven to Howard’s Lake. Won’t be long – ’haps…” he screwed his eyes, calculating, “… thirty-five, forty minutes.”

  He frowned at an oncoming car as it veered towards us in the centre of the road, muttering under his breath something I wasn’t probably meant to hear. I pretended not to notice and looked out of my window at the road gently curving around the edge of a large outcrop of rock, sparsely lined with thin birches, their leaves yellowing against the patchy September sky. The taxi came out of the long curve and the vista suddenly widened. The road ahead traced a line that intermittently disappeared between heavily wooded foothills towards a queue of mountains, some shrouded in cloud, some barefaced except for the darker shadows of trees. I craned forward over the front seat to get a better look.

  “Town’s ’bout thirty miles from them.” The driver nodded in the direction of the range. “Snow’ll be covering ’em soon as maybe – last ’til spring. Good hunting, too. A man can lose himself up there…” he trailed off.

  “What sort of hunting?” I prompted.

  “Most sorts – bear, deer. Got wolves too.”

  “They’re hunted? Are you allowed to?”

  I sounded like a conservationist. Not that I had anything against conservationists, but I didn’t want to be summed up in a cliché.

  “Su-re, you have to have a permit.” I felt him peering at me in the mirror again. “You one of them anti-gun lobbyists, or something?”

  “We don’t really have an anti-gun lobby in Britain,” I dodged. “So, what other wildlife is there?”

  I sat back and leaned my head against the rear head-rest and let him talk about the eagles as jet lag finally set in and I drifted towards sleep.

  Framed by a wreath of blonde hair, the woman’s eyes stared back at me from the coffin of her car, longing for life. Her extended hand stretched towards mine, her once living colours fading to grey before evaporating like a wisp of smoke in the wind. There had been no time to say goodbye.

  At the changing note of the engine, I woke with a start, scrubbing sleep and the lingering image from my eyes, shaken as much by the fact I dreamt at all as by the contents of the dream. Seeing me wake, Al grunted, “This is it,” and I craned forward to look. Extravagant wrought-iron gates heralding the threshold of the campus, lay open like arms.

  The long drive wove through parkland until – sitting on a broad knoll by a placid lake – the old college appeared. The house might have been built for a nineteenth-century industrialist in any county back home, with its façade of rich burgundy bricks with bacon-stripes of pale yellow, and gleaming eyes of arched windows. Turreted and bespectacled with ivy, it alluded to a variety of styles and in doing so, had none. But looks can be deceiving – as I had once found to my cost.

  The cab drew up before the classic columned portico and the taxi driver climbed out while I delved into my handbag to find the letter of introduction with instructions on where to go and whom to see, surprised to find my hands shaking a little. I hadn’t been so nervous in a long time, but then this lay beyond my comfort zone in unfamiliar territory where all but the weather seemed new to me. He pulled my two pieces of luggage from the boot and left them on the wide, white steps leading to the entrance and, once I had pressed the unfamiliar currency into his hand, he left me there.

  As the car disappeared down the drive, the stillness – the absolute quiet – came as a shoc
k after the persistent hum of the engine. No birdsong carved the air, no wind stirred the tired leaves, and a light rain fell silently against the sodden ground. The creeping doubt returned along with the hollow twisting in my throat, reminiscent of my first day at another university a long time ago. I pushed away the dread, putting it firmly in its place, and slammed the lid shut before it could escape again. I was here out of choice – an opportunity I couldn’t afford to miss – my chance of a lifetime. Before I lost my wafer-thin resolve, I took a deep breath, grabbed my bags firmly to prevent my hands from trembling and walked through the doors.

  The entrance hall took me by surprise. Far from being as portentous as the sombre, discordant exterior suggested, the low coffered ceiling of the porch gave way to a room filled with light from a huge glass dome that rose above the inlaid marble floor – an atrium in the Neo-Classical style. Sort of. Diffused by the clouded sky, the light gleamed quietly on the polished wooden surfaces of the panelling around the room, and the faint scent of beeswax hung in the air. I stepped into the pool of light illuminating the intricate stonework of the floor – a Cosmology – the known world replicated beneath my feet; the whole world summed up in complex patterns of blue and green and gold.

  “Professor D’Eresby?”

  I looked up. A woman in her early twenties, with dark eyes and the healthy glow of youth, stood by a reception desk. Her straight brown hair, drawn into a high ponytail, swung buoyantly as she stepped towards me.

  “Professor D’Eresby?” she asked more hesitatingly, carefully pronouncing my unfamiliar name.