She jumped. Merlin leaned out to her but Susan didn’t need help, landing close to the trunk and immediately steadying herself by wrapping her arms around it.
“Down,” said Merlin, climbing quickly. “Fast!”
Susan followed him, jumping the last five feet, her Docs splattering hard into the leaf mulch and mud. It had been raining most of the day, though it had eased off at nightfall. Now, past midnight, it was simply clammy.
The wood was very dark. All the light was behind them, spilling out of the houses and streetlights onto Lanchester Road.
The black fog was streaming over the conservatory, flowing down the panes on either side of the ridge. Spreading and extending, blending into the night once it moved outside the fall of light from the houses and street.
“What is that?”
“More to explain later,” said Merlin. “Follow me. We have to get to the old straight track.”
He led off, almost jogging, zigzagging between trees. Susan followed, hands up to ward off snapping-back branches and saplings. She couldn’t see anything clearly. Merlin was a dark shape ahead; she had to trust he could see where he was going and try to stay right behind.
A few minutes later she almost ran into Merlin’s back as he came out onto a path. He hesitated for a moment, looking left and right and then up at the cloudy sky, and the very few visible stars.
“This way! Come on!”
He was running now. Susan followed as best she could, fighting the feeling that they would both run into something and really hurt themselves, balanced against the feeling that something even worse would happen if they didn’t outpace the black fog that she was sure still followed, flowing faster in the darkness, tendrils reaching out to either side, looking for her. . . .
Merlin stopped.
“We’re on it,” he said. “We can walk slowly now. Stay close, stay on the path.”
“I can’t even see the path!” gasped Susan.
“Keep right behind me,” said Merlin. He was walking slowly. The sky was lighter above, here, and there was more open space about the path, the trees not crowding so close.
Susan looked behind her, eyes wide as they’d go, trying to see. The dark seemed to be of different tones, different shades.
“That fog,” she whispered. “I think it followed us.”
“Yes,” said Merlin. “But it can’t come onto the path.”
“Why not?”
“It’s an old thing, and obeys old custom,” said Merlin. “Anyway, it’s not so much the fog itself we have to worry about, it’s the Shuck.”
“The Shuck?”
“The fog is what you might call a companion effect,” said Merlin. “It disorients and distracts, and it’s necessary for the thing that moves within the fog, once it’s thick enough. That’s the Shuck. Though it has other names, too.”
He slowed, studying the ground in front. The path was veering off to the right and there was a copse of young beech trees straight ahead. “The new path isn’t following the old straight track. We’ll have to turn around and go back.”
“Go back!”
“Yes. Backwards and forwards till dawn, if necessary.”
“But the . . . the Shuck thing . . .”
“It can’t touch us on the true path, either,” said Merlin. “Turn about. Don’t step off!”
Susan turned on the spot, and started walking slowly back the way they had come, following the path as best she could.
“I can’t see,” she whispered after only a few steps. She could hear the loose gravel of the path under her feet, different from leaf mold and mud. But it was too easy to wander off in the darkness, lose the way.
“If you don’t object, I’ll hold your shoulders and direct you,” said Merlin. “Walk slowly. It’ll be fine.”
She felt his hands come down on her shoulders, a light touch. But even so, his left hand felt odd. She could feel a weird warmth from it, coming through glove and overall bib and her T-shirt, as if he had some sort of warming device in that hand. He pushed slightly on the right, redirecting her.
“On the positive side,” Merlin said after they’d slowly walked thirty or forty yards, “no one else will dare come after us now they’ve loosed the Shuck.”
“They won’t?”
“It’s not very discerning,” said Merlin. “Hopefully, the rain earlier will have ensured no one else is in the wood tonight. Slow down. Damn!”
“What?”
“The path at this end veers away as well and trees have grown up. Why couldn’t they follow the old track? Stop. We’ll turn around again.”
They turned around. For the first time, Susan realized there was something else disturbing her. Besides all the obviously disturbing things like “Uncle” Frank turning into dust, the giant bug, the black fog.
“I can’t hear the traffic. Or the trains. Or anything except us. Why is it so quiet?”
“It is two a.m.”
“Oh, come on. I might be from the country, but I’ve been to London before.”
“Ah. Which part of the country?”
“West Country. Between Bath and Chippenham. Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m afraid the silence means we are now completely surrounded by the fog within which the Shuck roams. Speaking of which, it will probably try to scare us from the path, so be ready. Hold my shoulders and stay close.”
They walked on, the only sounds coming from the gravel and snapping twigs beneath Cuban heels and Doc Marten air soles and Susan’s breathing, which still hadn’t slowed down.
“Moon’s coming out of the cloud,” said Merlin.
“Is that good?” asked Susan.
“Not always. Good for us tonight. A new moon is kinder to the younger folk, meaning humans, for the most part. And it makes it easier to see the path as well.”
It did make it easier to see the path. In fact, the mix of gravel and leaf mold and mud was now luminous, not simply reflecting the soft, pale light of the moon but seemingly kindled by it.
The moonlight also made the black fog more palpable. It was all around them, walling them in, making the path like a narrow, dangerous alley. Every now and then tendrils and wisps edged in, recoiling as they reached the path, rolling back into the mass.
A few paces farther along, Susan’s nose suddenly wrinkled and she felt bile rise in her throat.
“I can smell something really horrible,” she whispered. “Like rotting meat and . . . foul water. . . .”
“It’s the Shuck,” said Merlin. He didn’t lower his light, tuneful voice. “It’s probably been summoned from the stretch of the Fleet that took away the offal and blood from the Smithfield Market, and so hates mortals all the more for defiling its water. Don’t look. It’s pacing us, a little behind and to the right.”
The smell grew stronger, and the hairs on the back of Susan’s neck rose and she felt a shiver between her shoulder blades, as if the point of an impossibly sharp tooth rested there, waiting to be driven into her flesh.
“Let’s play twenty questions,” said Merlin easily. “Take your mind off . . . er . . . things.”
“That yes-no thing always drives me crazy,” said Susan. It took an effort for her to speak normally. She was acutely aware that there was something behind her, something huge and horrible whose breath reeked of carrion. “How about we actually answer each other’s questions.”