by Amanda Fleet
“Things still difficult with Rick?” I asked, brows raised.
“Kind of. I’ve just spent half the afternoon at the police station.”
My heart sank. Of course he would have.
“Have you seen much of him this week?” I hoped in many ways he hadn’t. He was safer that way.
Billy shook his head. “He’s still not answering any texts. The only time I’ve seen him was when he came to the gym with Stephen and he didn’t want to talk to me.”
Finn pushed the door open with his hip and plonked Billy’s coffee down on the table. “So, what’s up?”
Billy scraped his hand over his face. “I’ve spent the afternoon at the police station. Someone thought the chap on the CCTV was Rick. They obviously pulled him in and asked him where he was on all these dates. He said he was with me for all of them.”
“And was he? With you?” Finn asked.
“Not for all of them. Some of the earlier dates he was, and for one of them I knew where he actually was, though I don’t know why he said he was with me.” He drew in a long breath and met Finn’s eye. Finn fidgeted. “And of course, now the police think I look suspicious.”
“I’m sure they don’t,” I said, though he was probably right. I wondered how he’d react when he found out it had been Finn who’d called the cops.
Billy leaned back in the seat, his eyes closed, rubbing his brow. “Why the fuck do they think it’s Rick?”
“Because I called them and said that I thought it was,” said Finn.
Billy was up on his feet immediately. Finn scrambled up too.
“What?” Billy’s face flushed and the muscles in his neck bunched.
“It looks like Rick on the CCTV they showed on the news the other night. And given who he’s been hanging out—”
Billy punched him. Finn staggered backwards, licking blood off his lip. I saw his fists flex as he straightened and stepped between them.
“Enough! Billy, I don’t care that you’re still my boss for another few days and I don’t care if you sack me. But you do not come into my house and throw punches.”
He held his hands up in peace and I turned to Finn. “Cool it.”
“I’m cool.” He touched his lip gingerly.
“Sit down. Both of you!”
I waited until both of them were seated and joined Finn on the sofa.
“Why the hell did you say to the police that it’s Rick on the CCTV?” asked Billy, glaring at Finn, breathing hard. His colour was still high, his body wound tight as if at any moment he would pop up again like a jack-in-the-box.
“Because it looks like him,” I said before Finn could answer. “Billy, I’m really sorry if you’ve ended up with a shit afternoon, but if Rick hasn’t been involved then the police will discount him. We don’t even know that Finn was the only one who called. Rick’s pretty distinctive.”
Billy’s scowl swung to me. “Did you call because he’s hanging around with Stephen?”
Finn shook his head. I prayed that he would follow the line I’d laid out. “No. I called because it looks like him on the CCTV.”
Billy’s jaw clenched. “I spent all afternoon with the cops, raking through my diary, answering questions like how I knew Rick, what was the exact nature of my relationship with him, what we were doing on particular dates. Do you know how embarrassing that was?”
“I’m sorry. I should have thought to call you,” said Finn, knotting his fingers together.
Billy glowered at him, then switched his focus back to me.
“Do either of you seriously think that Rick could have been involved with any of this? For God’s sake, I’ve known him for years. I’ve slept with him for years. I love him! How can you possibly think he’s involved?”
I swallowed, tears nipping my eyes. What could I say? There was no body – as yet – and I couldn’t tell Billy that I thought Rick was dead. It would crush him.
“When did you last see him?” I asked. “And I mean properly. Not just him popping into the gym like he did the other day.”
Billy hesitated. “Not for a week. He hasn’t been over and when I went over to see him, he wasn’t in. The last time I saw him for anything more than a few minutes was Monday, when he was really off with me and hardly seemed to know me.”
He’d calmed, marginally, and sat back in the seat, nursing his drink, his eyes full of pain.
“Billy, please be careful. I don’t know what’s going on with Rick at the moment, but he’s not himself.” It was as close to the truth as I dared to go. What I wanted to say was that I didn’t think Billy should have anything to do with Rick at all. What if Rick killed him? Or made him into a slave? Jesus, how easy might that be?
He raised his head, frowning. “Be careful? What do you think he’ll do to me?”
Finn wriggled his shoulders. “Rea’s right. Rick’s been really strange recently. Be careful. I don’t trust him.”
Billy stood up as if squaring up for another fight. “I’m not listening to this. I know he’s been weird recently, but this is Rick you’re talking about. My partner. Your best friend!”
“Billy, please,” I said, holding up both hands, palms out. “Rick came over here this afternoon and wasn’t at all like the Rick we know and love.”
“Why? What happened?”
I struggled for words. What version of the truth could I say? Billy would no more believe me about Aegyir than Finn had originally.
“We were arguing about him hanging out with Stephen and I told him that Stephen had threatened Rea. He seemed pleased about it,” said Finn.
Billy looked stunned. “But he loves you, Rea. Both of you.”
“He didn’t seem to today,” said Finn. “Seriously Billy. Please be careful. Give him a wide berth for a bit? Don’t get hurt.”
Billy laughed mirthlessly. “I suspect I’m going to get very hurt… I’m sorry he was like that with you though, Rea.”
“Don’t apologise for him. You didn’t make him react like that. Sit down? Finish your coffee?”
Billy perched again. “Do you genuinely think he could be involved with what’s happened up at the quarry?” He blew out a derisive snort.
Finn ran the tip of his tongue over the developing bruise on his lip. “I think he’s been acting very oddly since Stephen came out of prison and that he looks like the guy in the CCTV,” he said, taking care with his words.
“You think he could be covering for Stephen?” Billy’s face cleared.
“Could be,” said Finn. “Billy, he’s either not involved, in which case the police will clear him, or he’s got himself into something that’s totally out of character, in which case he’ll come to his senses pretty quickly. Yeah?”
Billy’s eyebrows were still quirked up in the middle but he shrugged and sipped his coffee. “I’m sorry I hit you. I forgot everything I’ve ever tried to teach you.”
Finn grinned. “Huh. It’s reassuring to know that even you can lose your cool, oh zen master. I’m sorry I didn’t call you and give you a heads up.”
Billy said nothing. I hoped that the police would arrest Rick or that Billy would steer clear of him. He finished his coffee in a gulp before glancing from Finn to me and back again. “You guys need to stretch and change. I’m sorry I disturbed your night off.”
We all stood and I rubbed Billy’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry we didn’t give you a heads up. Please be careful. I don’t know what’s got into Rick and maybe it will sort out soon, but just be careful. Don’t end up dragged into something you don’t want to be in.”
Billy stepped back. “I’ll leave you guys to your Sunday.”
His voice was tight, but I thought we’d reached some kind of truce.
Finn saw him out. He blew his cheeks out as he returned and I half expected him to go straight back out for another run. Instead, he flopped down on to the sofa next to me.
“What the hell do we do?” he said, letting his head loll towards me. “How do we get rid of Aegyir? Keep Billy s
afe? I can’t lose Billy as well as Rick.” His voice cracked.
I tucked my toes under his thigh, my arms around my knees. “I’m kind of hoping that the guys from the Realm will come out and deal with him. I mean, it says in the book what to do, but it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
I caught my bottom lip in my teeth. “Because it involves sticking daggers in him and decapitating him and it has to happen in the Realm and it has to be done by a Guardian.”
I shivered. How many of our friends would we lose before the Realm came to our help?
16
The next day, we were both on early at work. The alarm had dragged us from broken sleep and unfathomable dreams and we were still half asleep when we went into the kitchen to get breakfast. What was there woke us up pretty damn quick.
“What the hell?” said Finn, rubbing his eyes.
Sitting on the kitchen table was a roundish leather bag, the size of a head, held closed by a drawstring. Balanced across the top of it was a sword. We both gawped.
“What the hell?” said Finn again.
He rushed to the front door. Still locked. Still bolted. The chain was still on. Ditto for the back door.
“How the fuck did these get here?” he said, staring at them. “What the hell are they?”
The sword was fairly plain, the blade about a metre long and the hilt a sturdy cross. No fancy hand guard, just a big chunk of metal. I eyed the bag, a cold feeling in my belly. I didn’t want to imagine what was inside.
Without touching either object, I leaned forwards and peered at the sword. It felt familiar.
Mine?
I closed my eyes. I knew this sword. It had a nick in the blade near the hilt and there were runes inscribed along the length of the blade. “For Aeron, my mighty warrior.” It was from my father. A wedding present.
“It’s mine,” I whispered. “The sword – it’s mine.”
I shook myself. I didn’t know who my real father was and this wasn’t from Paul. Nor was I called Aeron. Nor was I married!
I opened my eyes to see Finn staring at me, mouth open. “It’s yours? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I just know this sword. From my dreams.”
I checked the blade, confirming what I already knew.
If this was Aeron’s sword – my sword? – then it came from the Realm. So what the hell was in the bag? I leaned over and picked it up, my hands shaking. It was heavy, but the contents shifted in a way that told me whatever was in it wasn’t solid.
Not actually a head, then.
I breathed hard. The neck of the bag was tied with a leather cord and I pulled at it, loosening it until I could open the bag and peer in. My breath escaped in a rush. The bag was full of soil. I showed Finn who scrunched his face up.
“However stressed I am and however much I might sleep-walk, there’s no way I’ve produced a leather bag of soil and a fucking sword!” I said, putting the bag back on the table.
“Where have they come from? How the hell are they getting in the house?”
“We don’t have time to fret about this right now.” I showed him my watch. We were running late. “Let’s worry about it this afternoon.”
We grabbed a quick breakfast, both of us transfixed by the objects on the table, and headed out to work on the bike.
As we put our helmets away in our lockers, Finn glanced across to me. “Rea, what the hell is going on?”
I smoothed my palm over his cheek and kissed him. “I don’t know.”
“Someone’s getting into the house. While we’re in it. I know I sleep deeply, but…”
And there it was. The thing that was stressing Finn more than anything. More than the fact there was a demon walking the streets, dressed in his friend’s body. More than the fact the demon was after revenge on someone who looked exactly like me. The fact that someone could get into our cottage with a weapon and neither of us knew about it. Finn was terrified that he couldn’t protect me, even in our own home.
I kissed him again. “I know. Let’s talk about it at home.” I planted my hand between his shoulder blades and propelled him out of the staff area, trying to jolly him. “Go on. Your adoring fans will be waiting. Try not to flirt too much.”
I watched him as he made his way to the weights room and then turned to go to reception. It would take more than joking with him to shift the weight from his shoulders.
I’d brought the book with me again, hoping to find more clues in it on a second reading than I had on the first. In the quiet moments between calls and clients, I re-read it, but I was no closer to knowing how we could defeat Aegyir than I had been the day before. The bag of soil made a little more sense as I assumed it was soil from the Realm, wherever that actually was. The sword to decapitate Aegyir? Okay, but didn’t we need three daggers and a special vessel as well? Even assuming that either me or Finn would be able to actually do any of that. Maybe they would be waiting for us when we got back.
Neither of us saw Billy to talk to, though he was in the building. I kept checking the charm on my bracelet but it remained steadfastly opalescent. If Aegyir had shifted to a new form after getting grilled by the police, it wasn’t anyone in the building.
Mid-morning, Finn and I grabbed our break together, sipping coffees at the back door of the gym, away from everyone. I kicked the scattering of fag-ends off the step by the fire escape and sat down, my coffee steaming in the crisp air. Finn sat next to me, shoulders hunched.
“Has Billy talked to you?” He peered at me over the rim of his mug. “He’s passed the weights room a couple of times but he’s not spoken to me. Think he’s okay?”
“He came past reception but didn’t stop to talk. Just give him space. He’s got a lot on his mind. Tough to wonder if your lover has got mixed up in something terrible and rough to have your private life raked through by the police. Not helped by it being your protégé who dobbed him in to the cops.”
Finn smiled ruefully. I squeezed his hand. “He’ll come round. He won’t stay pissed off forever.”
He stared into the depths of his coffee, his jaw bunching. “You think Rick will do anything? To Billy?”
I sucked in a long breath, thinking. “You know, I think he would have done it by now if he was.”
He closed his eyes, nodding. “I hope you’re right. I can’t bear the thought of Billy getting hurt.”
Billy was a big man, full of vitality. Billy wouldn’t get hurt by Aegyir. He would get dead. I tried to swallow a lump in my throat, my chest tight. We needed to do something about Aegyir and sooner rather than later, but I still didn’t know what.
One thing was for sure. Finn couldn’t stick three daggers in something that looked like his best friend or lop his head off, and I wasn’t convinced I could either.
***
Work over, Finn and I were back home and sitting in the kitchen, the bag of soil and the sword on the table between us.
“It feels horribly like whoever is leaving us this stuff, thinks we’re going to kill Aegyir,” I said.
Finn raised his eyes to me. “You can’t be serious.”
I shrugged. “Can you think of another reason why someone has so far left us a charm that glows in the presence of these rogue Guide things, a book that tells us how to deal with one if they go feral, a bag of soil and a sword?”
He clamped his lips shut.
“And what happens if we don’t do anything?” I asked. “Who will Aegyir attack next? Billy? Me? You?” My breathing faltered at the thought.
His eyes clouded. “We let the police deal with it.”
I sucked in my breath, my back stiffening. “Are you suggesting we take these to the police? And say what? That they appeared on our kitchen table through locked and bolted doors and that we think they might be needed to kill a demon?”
“Well, what are we supposed to do with them?”
I dragged my hands through my hair. “I don’t think it’s sensible to give them to the police. We’ve been l
eft them for a reason.”
Finn gaped. “Seriously Reagan, are you thinking that we’re gonna chop Rick’s head off?”
“You must be wound up. You never call me Reagan.”
He folded his arms and leaned on them on the table, bunching his shoulders. “Yeah. I’m wound up. You’re talking about murdering one of our friends.”
I copied his posture. “If he’s Aegyir, he’s not one of our friends! What if we’re genuinely the only people who could stop him from killing everyone?”
Finn exhaled sharply. “And what if we’re wrong? Though I guess we’d be able to plead insanity in our defence!”
I backed down. My brain ran over something ‘Rick’ had asked Finn the other day. How far would Finn go to protect me? For that matter, how far would I go to protect Finn? Would I die for him. Certainly. Would I kill for him?
Yes. If I had to.
If Aegyir came for Finn, I would lop his head off before he could draw breath.
“What if he tried to take you?” I said, my voice shaking, my knees jammed against Finn’s under the tiny table. “You know, drag your life out of you.”
“I’d punch his lights out.”
“You think Rick didn’t try that? What if he came for me?”
Finn’s face darkened but he didn’t answer.
I fingered the edge of the leather bag. “Moot point. We don’t have the rest of the stuff, so even if I could get Aegyir to stand on this soil while I decapitated him, I need three special daggers and a vessel to seal him in.”
“You could do any of that?” said Finn, one brow up in disbelief.
“If he was coming after you, yes,” I said, though there was more conviction in my voice than in my heart.
Finn shook his head. “I’m not letting him anywhere near you. I almost lost you once; I don’t want you even in the same postcode as him.” He pushed himself away from the table and picked up the bag and the sword. “Let’s put these away and let the police deal with it. If Rick was involved in any of the deaths, they’ll arrest him and lock him up.”