A Different Kingdom

An Extract

He sat up and was immediately dazzled by the silver moonlight flooding in the window. The moon was up and half-full, the clouds galloping past its horns, but there was a shape silhouetted at the window sill, perched there with one hand spread against the glass and two green lights glowing in a tangle of hood-like hair.

'Let me in, Michael.'

'Jesus!' He blessed himself.

The window was thumped again with an open palm and the face turned to look back down in the yard. He saw the profile then, the one he knew. Her eyes seemed to ensnare the moon, like a cat's eyes reflecting back lamplight.

'Michael, please! There are here, below. They smell me. Let me in!'

He was paralysed. She crouched on the sill like some tensed animal waiting to spring, and that awful rediance made her eyes like those of a fiend. The moonlight sculpted a savage skull out of her face, light and dark with the hair whipping round it.

'Please!'

The spell snapped at the pleading in her voice. He leapt forward over the bedclothes and fumbled at the catch. There was eagerness, fear in that face an inch away on the other side of the glass- but something else also. Triumph?

He shoved the sash window upward and immediately the storm blasted into the room with him, pelting gleefully along the walls. Cat's eyes were fixed on him like two unwavering candles.

There are worse things than sinners in the world.

Why was he suddenly so afraid, shaking with fear and cold, and she sitting there on the window ledge as though she were about to pounce?

'You have to invite me in Michael.'

'What?'

'This is an old house, and the faith in it is strong. I can't come in unless you invite me. Ask me to come in. Quickly!'

I'm a fallen woman. I'm in mortal sin, Michael.

Why were these things in his head?

'Michael! Ask me inside!'

'Come in, then. I- I invite you in.'

She was over the threshold in a second, banging the window down after her. At once the storm receded, becoming a distant roar in the roof. Michael edged away along the bed until the headboard was at his back. Her eyes were still green, luminous. She looked like some sleek, predatory animal, the black mane falling around her face. There was an overpoweringly musky smell about her that was as heady as wine. Some far voice of calm in Michael's head wondered what kind of thing he had invited into his grandparent's house.

She crawled up the bed on hands and knees, the moonlight behind her and those eyes alight. But as she left the window their glow faded. She was grinning at him, her teeth a white flash in the shadow. Her hair brushed his face as she straddled him, leant down and nuzzled his neck, licked him there, kissed him hard on the mouth so that he could feel the bruise of her teeth. Her smell was all about him, intoxicating.

'I told you I would come back.' The voice was as low as a purr.

'Who's outside? Who's after you? The wolves?'

'Yes. They're prowling the edges of your world. They chased me from the border of the wood. But it doesn't matter. I'm safe here. They cannot cross he threshold. I must stay here till morning Michael.'

She unbuttoned his pyjama top and kissed his chest, moving up and down on him so that a delicious tension built, like a charge of static electricity.

He heard the wolves howl outside in the yard... or was it merely the howl of the gale? He tensed, but Cat soothed him with low words. In one swift movement she pulled her shift up over her shoulders and he saw her nipples dark against the paleness of her skin. She was thin, the bones of her pelvis sharp and the line of her ribs visible. He ran his hand over them, feeling the bones.

'Are you all right, Cat?'

She paused, smiling- a real smile with less of the predator about it. A forefinger touched his nose.

'Strange times, Michael, for everyone. On the Other side all is astir, everything in the air.'

'Will you take me there again? I want to see it. I want to go back.'

She seemed suddenly tired. The electricity died. Her skin was cold under her hand.

'Let me sleep. Let me in beside you tonight.'

He thought of his grandmother in the morning. Tomorrow was a school day. Again that feeling of being trapped surrounded him.

He tugged her down beside him and pulled the covers over them both. She pushed close, that black hair in the hollow of his neck and shoulder.

'Dawn will see me away,' she said quietly.

Away again. 'For how long? When will you come back, Cat?'

She mumbled something, halfway towards sleep. Out in the yard the stable door slammed shut. Mullan coming back into the house. The wind was a shrieking banshee about the buildings, pushing at his window.

'Cat, I'm coming with you. I'm going too. I don't want to stay here anymore. Cat?'

Asleep. He kissed the top of her head. Her face was buried in his flesh so he could not see the smile.