Page 19 of New Beginning

But I can’t stay here. This is just a place in between. Isn’t it? Once Teddy had his head straight, he’d be moving on. Mikkel might have convinced him that the other driver had been on the wrong side of the road, but guilt was still wrapped around his heart. He kept his head down. Mikkel was still talking, still rubbing his thumb over Teddy’s palm and Teddy’s heart kept stuttering.

“Here we are,” Mikkel said and Teddy looked up and saw a stone cottage on the hillside. It looked a little like the one they’d just walked from.

Wow, I walked all this way without freaking out! He knew why. The snow and Mikkel’s thumb on his palm. Maybe Mikkel had done something too.

Still, he had to admit, he was relieved to get inside. The door swung open to reveal a cavernous foyer, where dark, heavy rafters vanished into the gloom above. What the hell? Is this like Dr Who’s Tardis? Teddy heard the door close behind him. To the left, a sweeping timber staircase with carved staves arced upward. There was a beautiful wooden dragon on the newel post. He wanted to run his fingers over it. As he stared, he thought the dragon moved its head and the breath caught in his throat.

“You’re admiring Pyre?”

“Gorgeous,” Teddy whispered.

“She is.”

Beneath their boots, buffed slate tiles caught the ambient light with a soft sheen, while straight ahead, grand floor-to-ceiling panes in the dining area framed a panorama of jagged, ice-capped peaks, sun splashed in the failing light.

What the hell? Where were they? He hadn’t noticed that on the walk here. And it didn’t look like anywhere in the UK.

“Where are we?” Teddy whispered, taking his boots off.

Mikkel laughed and did the same. “Sparlow’s a small village in the Derbyshire Peak District.”

“Not in the Alps, or the Himalayas?”

Mikkel chuckled. “Just my fancy.”

Teddy followed him to a sunlit sanctuary, anchored by another soaring glass façade. Outside stretched a tranquil azure ocean, glittering under a warm midday sun. Why aren’t I freaked out?

“The perks of being a high-ranking demon.”

Oh yes, I’d almost forgotten that.

Chapter Five

Teddy asked for spaghetti Bolognese to eat and that was what Mikkel produced, within minutes of him asking, along with a glass of nice red wine. And they talked and talked. Sometimes about Teddy, though mostly not, but hardly ever about Mikkel. Teddy liked him more and more.

“I thought I knew just about everything there is to know but you’re proving me wrong,” Mikkel said.

“I like really old things,” Teddy said.

“Good. Because I’m really old.”

Teddy smiled. “I’m not going to ask how old.”

“Probably wise.”

“I wanted to be an archaeologist but… Well, it wasn’t to be.”

Teddy was now on his second glass of wine and they’d moved to sit on the sectional couches that looked out over the sea.

“You like ancient civilisations?” Mikkel asked.

“I do. But honestly, I’m more interested in what came before them. Way before. The earliest animals are incredible and some of them have barely changed for hundreds of millions of years. They’ve survived mass extinctions, ice ages, drifting continents…and somehow, they’re still around. Well, not them. Nothing lives that long, but their ancestors…”

“That’s impressive.”

“The priapulids are one of the oldest animal groups on Earth. The fossil records put them at over five hundred million years old.” He grinned. “Isn’t that amazing?”

“It is.”