*****
“So is there anything you want to tell me?”
It’s pitch black outside, the air has got cold as we’re sat in the darkness of Jason’s car.
“What do you mean?” I ask nervously.
“Mark. You’ve been acting strange. You seem to have forgotten everything. A pentagram on your chest just suddenly disappears. You lead me off on this wild goose chase about money…”
“It’s not a wild goose chase!” I interrupt.
He sighs. “Well, no, maybe not, but I seriously doubt there’s a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. This thing about John saying there was millions, I mean that’s just not true, is it?” He’s looking straight in front of him, into the night, his face glowing red from the instruments on the dash.
I gulp. “Well, maybe he didn’t say there was millions, but he definitely said there was something valuable… And he had something, didn’t he, something he could sell to the Village. So that must have been what he meant.” I run my hands over each other, thinking what it would be like to have a knife pushed through one of them.
“There’s something you’re not telling me. There’s something wrong with all of this. And I will find it out. So you can tell me now, and we can talk it through, or you can wait. And then we’ll see if I’m feeling quite as generous as I am now.”
I want to fall into the silence in the car. The longer I wait, the less I can deny but I can’t talk, I can’t say anything, I don’t know how to get out of this. I can’t tell him, I really can’t tell him, he’ll kill me, and what will I do then.
“All right” I sigh, “all right. It wasn’t exactly what I said. I didn’t mean to lie to you, it’s just when we got talking, I got confused, cos I’m not really sure exactly what happened. Honestly.” I glance over at him but he’s still staring straight ahead, like he’s concentrating, like he’s trying to make his mind up.
“I’m listening.”
“We were in the hospital, and this guy John Paris, he was dying, he was delirious, right. Talking about all kinds of shit, that I didn’t really understand. But he kept, like whispering, they killed me, right, that’s what I remember, he kept whispering, they killed me. And he mentioned Mike a few times.” Where am I going with this? “Well of course, I didn’t know who Mike was at the time, did I, but he kept going on about Mike. And he was saying stuff like Mike’s the king, they want to kill the king, you’ve got to help him. And he was saying that they’d reward me, that’s where I got the money thing from, he was saying help us out and I’ll reward you…”
“But he was dying?”
“I know, I know, he was, but you know, he seemed so persuasive…” This isn’t going well.
“Mark. You’re making no sense. Seriously. I don’t know what’s wrong with you. We’ve known each other for years, we’ve been good friends, and I’m giving you a lot of slack here. Most people I wouldn’t. Most people would be minus a hand, or a foot, or a life, if I thought they were holding out on me. But I am running out of patience. So you either hold your tongue and pray for rain, or you tell me the fucking truth now.”
He turns his head to look at me, we’re looking each other in the eye and I know that I’m going to tell him. Just then Martin Jelfs’ house blows up.
“Jesus! Shit! Fuck!” My lap is full of broken glass where the windows have blown in and I feel like the breath’s been sucked out of me. “What the fuck. I mean what the fuck.” I look over at Jason and his eyes are red, his face is white, and there’s a huge shard of glass embedded in his left shoulder. His hand is gripping the edge of the shard and he’s cutting himself, the blood leaking down his top. “Jason…” He looks over at me, dazed. “Jason, are you all right.” He’s breathing shallow breaths. “Jason, come on.” I reach forward gingerly and put my hand over his, slowly releasing his grip and moving his bloody hand away from the glass, he allows me to, he doesn’t react. I take hold of the glass and pull at it gently, and it moves. I pull a bit more and gradually it slides out of his shoulder. I throw it through the empty windscreen and it smashes on the bonnet. Outside there is silence except for the sound of flames burning, licking the night air, and of course, sirens in the distance getting closer.
“Jason!” I whisper fiercely. Blank. I take a deep breath and slap him on the face. “Jason!”
“Ouch! I mean, what the fuck motherfucker!” Okay, so it does work. “Fuck, I’m bleeding. What the hell happened… Shit, give me a towel, there’s on in the glove box.” I open it and find a black towel in there, hand it over to him and he wraps it around his shoulder. “Here, tie it in position.” I do my best but it’s kind of loose. “Okay, all right, all right, fuck. We need to get out of here.” He’s still breathing quickly but his eyes are shining. “What happened, Mark? What the hell happened?”
“Erm, well, I think the house just blew up.”
“What? Which house?”
“Well, Jelfs’ I think. Seriously.”
“Seriously. Fuck. We need to get out of here. Right, come on, before anyone gets here.” He reaches forward to turn the ignition on. “Ouch, shit, my shoulder, shit, that hurts.”
“Jason, you can’t drive like that” I say urgently.
“No? And how the hell else are we going to get out of here?”
“Well, for God’s sake, let me drive.”
“Jesus. You must be joking. Nobody else drives my car.”
“Jason, come on.”
“I’m serious.” He scrunches up his face in concentration and grips the wheel. The sounds of the sirens are getting closer. The flames have spread to the next house along, just a few yards from where we are. I look at it, fascinated, as the grass in the front lawn bursts into flame, spreading to the rotting wooden windows and the bricks. Nothing happens, there’s no movement anywhere in the house, there’s no movement on the street. The heat is getting closer, making us sweat, the flames reflecting Jason’s tired, jagged face in yellow. The car lurches forward and smacks into a car in front, knocking us back into our seats. Sweat is running down Jason’s face in buckets. He slams the car into reverse and we shoot backwards, then bounce forwards again and jerkily move out into the street. The noise of the sirens is really loud now, they’re about to arrive. I look behind me to see a fire engine swerve into the street and rush forward, and Jason slams his foot on the accelerator and we shoot off through the empty street and away.
He calms down as we turn a corner, then another, his movements becoming more steady, our driving at a slower pace. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” he’s muttering. “What the hell was that. I mean, seriously.” He’s holding his hand over his wound, driving with the other. “Who the fuck are these people. Jesus, how can they just, blow a house up like that”
“What do you mean?” I ask. He turns to me, a look of desperation in his eyes. “I mean, seriously. The Village. We go round to Jelfs’ house, he gives us some info and like, bang, he’s dead. I mean, not just dead, I mean. God, how could they do that.”
“You think… they did it?”
“Of course they fucking did it! There’s no such thing as coincidence. Jesus. How did they know we were there, how did they know he talked to us, how the hell did they just destroy his house. I mean, who can do stuff like that.” He’s swerving across the road and I have to grab the steering wheel and help him get the car back under control. “Jesus, Christ, let’s get back home, then let’s talk. I need to call The General. He needs to know about this.”
We’re out of the town now, back into the countryside, driving back to his house. “You don’t think we should go and find this Richard Marx?” I’m asking. “Find out what he knows?” The last thing I need is The General involved in this.
“Fuck, Mark, what made you so brave all of a sudden? You’ve seen what they can do. You want my house to blow up suddenly? It’s all fucking mixed up, isn’t it. The Village, Draman, everything. But how? Shit. Let’s get back. Then we can think.”
Kings of the Night Page 34