A Finer End

couldn’t refuse.’
    ‘But why kill Garnet, Bram?’
    ‘It was building again, the old power. Garnet believed she could stop it — that we could stop it if I told. She came into the gallery. When she saw Fiona’s paintings she said it was a divine judgement, that Fiona was my retribution. Fiona...’ The despair in his voice chilled Kincaid to the heart. ‘All these years I thought I could make amends by loving her, being part of her goodness. The only thing I couldn’t do was give her a child... I hoped that grief might be punishment enough.’
    ‘Did you agree to meet Garnet that night in the lane?’
    ‘A customer came into the gallery. I had to. get rid of her somehow. And then, waiting in the darkness, I thought how easy it would be... I didn’t know it was Winnie until it was too late.’
    And he had left her to die, Kincaid thought, when he could so easily have called for help.
    ‘But Garnet knew, didn’t she? So the next night you went to her house, and you convinced her to walk up to the spring.’
    ‘I think she knew what was going to happen, at the last. Perhaps she thought her life would finish it. But it wasn’t enough.’
    ‘Bram, let’s go home. It’s over now. Your wife is frantic with worry about you.’
    ‘You don’t understand.’
    ‘I know that Fiona will love you no matter what you’ve done—’
    ‘No. I won’t have her stained with this... this evil—’ His gesture with the knife took in the Tor. ‘Can’t you feel it? Once it begins, only blood will satisfy their hunger.’
    ‘Bram, there’s nothing here. Let’s go home to your wife. We’ll get warm. Have a drink. In the morning, nothing will seem so terrible.’ He shifted his weight, judged his distance from the weapon.
    ‘I can’t. Fiona—’
    ‘Garnet was right, Bram. The only way to end this is to tell the truth. Give Fiona the chance to forgive you. She loves you — you owe her that.’
    ‘I—’
    ‘Give me the knife, Bram.’ He stepped closer, held out his hand.
    ‘But they—’
    ‘It’s over, Bram, the cycle’s finished. They don’t need your life.’ Kincaid tensed, ready to lunge for the weapon.
    ‘I—’ Bram put his hands to his face and sagged against the wall. ‘You’re sure?’
    ‘I’m sure.’ Kincaid took the knife from his unresisting fingers. ‘Let’s go home.’
    He guided Bram away from the tower, leaving Fiona’s mutilated painting abandoned against the cold stone.
    They began the descent, Kincaid staying as close to Bram as the narrow path allowed. Ib one side was a sheer drop; mud and loose stones made the footing treacherous. The wind tore at them, tugging at their clothing like invisible hands.
    At the first hairpin bend, Bram turned back. He spoke, but the wind snatched the words from his mouth. Then a shower of stones fell from above, striking him. Jerking away from the blows, Bram lost his footing and plunged over the edge.
    ‘Bram!’ Kincaid shouted, reaching for him, but his fingers grasped only air. He called out again and again, but no reply came from the impenetrable darkness below.
    At last, exhausted, he continued downward, towards the help he knew would be futile.
    It seemed that Bram had been right, after all. The Old Gods had been satisfied with no less than payment in blood.
     
    All the way to Wells, huddled in the back of the car, Gemma could only think of how it had felt to hold Faith’s baby in her arms. And she found herself making a mute entreaty, again and again, that she would not lose what she had been given.
     

Chapter Twenty-One
     
...I often wonder whether the life of Avalonwill ever stir again, or whether we shall be no more than a tourist show and a market town. Will these dead bones come together, bone to bone, as they did at Buckfastleigh? There is talk of a great new abbey to rise under the shadow of the old... and I... impenitent heathen though I am, [hope] that I shall hear Angelus from my high veranda.
Dion Fortune, from
Glastonbury: Avalon of the Heart
     
    Kincaid waited alone outside the cubicle in the emergency ward for news of Gemma. When the doctor emerged at last, he stood. ‘Is she—’
    ‘She’s fine,’ the doctor informed him with abstracted cheerfulness.
    ‘But what happened? Is she ill?’
    ‘Um, not exactly. Why don’t you go in and see her yourself.’
    He found Gemma draped in a lilac-flowered hospital gown, her hair loose about her shoulders. Going to her, he sat on the edge of the bed and .said only,