Eutopia - Apocalypse

Chapter 16

           Water warmed by her lungs first trickled and then streamed from her mouth as she heaved, coughing and spluttering on her side in the cool sand.

            ‘Are you alright there?’ Loki’s boyish features swam into view, beautifully concerned though mostly seeming amused. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and leaned back beside her, as Eutopia sat up slowly and hauled in a few deep and sweetly burning breaths. ‘Never thought I’d have the need for that manoeuvre, but it seems you’re wanted alive now by both sides and so you’re far more valuable to me with a pulse. ‘The Kiss of Life’ I’ve heard it called, though death is more my thing. Mind you it certainly did the trick, am I right?’ he laughed loudly and Eutopia felt her head throb with the sound. ‘Didn’t mean to keep you under so long but the Nephilim were sniffing about round here and I had to wait until they’d gone before we could surface. I thought I’d taken you past the point of no return for a moment.’

            Eutopia’s throat felt scratched and raw as she shoved the wet hair from her face that clung to her cold skin like ivy to a tree branch. ‘Where’s Jinn?’ her mind buzzed with the bright conversational tone of Loki as he chattered to her like an old and familiar acquaintance. Loki grinned and his white smile was broad and wonderfully easy.

            ‘We lost him somewhere over the Forest of Dean. Looks like he made a dive for home, spoiling for a fight with the Nephilim I expect. Crawling all over the place tonight for some bizarre reason and human girls are ten to the dozen.’ He stood up and Eutopia noticed his golden armour had been shed at one point and tossed to the side, though the huge and intricately wrought broad-sword was still strapped to his back. He bent down to scoop up the moulded plates, muscles flexing sinuously in the clear moonlight as she watched him warily. ‘Come on,’ he turned back to her, jerking his head in the direction of the treeline as he rubbed the short golden stubble on his chin. ‘Can’t stay out here, it’s not safe.’ Cautiously, her legs trembling with weakness as her body still ticked over in its recovery, she stood and brushed off the damp sand that clung to her bare legs and arms and blushed brightly in the darkness as she realised the thin tunic she’d been ‘cleansed’ into at the Sharding, before she’d been deemed as too troublesome, had turned opaque with the lake water. Loki, however, was already rambling off across the sand without a glance behind as though he couldn’t care less as to whether she would follow or not. For lack of a better alternative, Eutopia set out in his unhurried wake.

            The lake lay like a giant snake trying to curl up on itself so that its tail almost touched its mouth. From the east side of the lake it appeared as though the water stretched out in one large and almost perfect circle, as flat and as barren as a supper table in the Wolds during mid-winter. From the west the white sand bank cut deep into the lake like a waning moon, the land taking a chunk out of the steely water. The level surface of the surrounding area sloped gradually into the lapping tide that barely whispered as it pushed and pulled against itself with an invisible force that was hypnotic in its gentleness. When the sun rose, the area would be bathed in a rich jade light as the sun filtered through the circle of tall evergreens and firs that scented the air with their warm green scent.

            ‘Welcome to my humble abode,’ Loki grinned, sweeping a half bow as he pulled back a heavy drape of twisted ivy to reveal a hollow nook concealed deep within a ragged cliff face that was nestled a little way back from the southern-most point of the shoreline, set back against a bank of huge oak trees. Eutopia pulled up a little, startled. Was he serious? A cave? A fire blazed welcomingly from somewhere deep within, casting a welcoming glow throughout the low ceilinged space, luring her in a little further. Stepping a few feet into the wide entrance, Eutopia looked around with peaked interest.