Trespassers

by Claire McFall

  After throwing a heavy glance at Tristan, Susanna hurried after Jack.

  “Wow,” Dylan muttered after they had moved further up the road. “They are not a good match.”

  “They’re not,” Tristan agreed. “He’s not the right kind of soul for her, she should never have been given him to guide.”

  “Why was she?” Dylan wondered.

  “Well,” Tristan dropped his backpack on the ground and busied himself rummaging inside it. “Probably because the ferryman who should have been his guide wasn’t there.”

  Dylan gasped. “You mean—”

  “Yeah,” Tristan said. “He’d have been mine, I’m sure of it.” He sniffed and yanked out the rope that would act as their tether. “So that’s another reason we need to help them.”

  “All right.” Dylan paused, her mind still on Susanna. “I still don’t understand… why didn’t she tell us sooner? She saw what we were doing, and she came with us to hunt the wraith, for goodness’ sake. Why wouldn’t she say anything?”

  “I don’t know.” Tristan shook his head, staring at the rope. He gritted his teeth, jaw tight. “I don’t know why she’d lie to me. We’ve known each other for so long, I just assumed… I mean, when she said she saw me and you leaving, I just assumed she’d followed us through.” He shook his head angrily. “It never even occurred to me that she’d work out how we did it. I’m not even sure how we did it. But I should have checked. Should have asked her more questions. That was stupid. Stupid!”

  Dylan watched him tie the rope around his middle and then frowned. Something about his anger at being lied to reassured her, but she still wasn’t satisfied with Susanna’s motives.

  She glanced around. While the street wasn’t busy, there were cars flowing past at regular intervals and she could see a handful of people milling about. None of them were close, but if she could see them, they could see her. And Tristan.

  Looking a lot like teenagers in an alleyway in the dark, up to no good.

  “You’re going to do it now?” Dylan asked uncertainly. “Anyone could see!”

  “We only have one more night – the Inquisitor is coming tomorrow and we don’t know when.”

  Dylan snapped her mouth closed.

  “I know what I’m doing,” he promised. “I won’t take long.”

  “Tristan,” Dylan said, considering the alley afresh. “Are you sure this is going to work? There’s no roof to collapse down this time.”

  “I know,” Tristan said, “But the walls are closer together, I’m hoping they’ll topple in.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “I don’t know,” Tristan said. “Let’s just hope it works and save worrying about it until it doesn’t.”

  He snuck under the cordon to attach the other end of the rope around a lamppost and then, nipping back under the tape, shouldered his bag.

  “Wait!” Dylan yelped, stopping him short before he’d had the chance to take his first step. She ran forward quickly and hugged him, her arms encircling him awkwardly because of the bulging rucksack.

  “It’ll be fine, Dylan.” Tristan smiled at her. “Remember,” he pointed behind him, “the wraiths don’t usually come this close to the veil anyway.”

  Only slightly reassured, given last time, Dylan let Tristan go. He gave her a brief grin, running the back of his knuckles down her left cheek, then he stepped into the alleyway… and disappeared.

  Dylan stared at the spot where he vanished, at the rope that seemingly stretched into nothing. If anyone saw that…

  She turned her back on the alleyway and eyed the street. This was so dodgy, they could easily be caught. Just feet away, traffic glided past. The group of loiterers at the shop were still in sight. Across the road, a pensioner was peering out a window, staring right at her. Discomfited, she smiled, but that only made the old woman’s face sour even more and she dropped her blind with a snap. Dylan chewed on her lip anxiously. She hoped the old lady wouldn’t call the police, report her for violating a crime scene.

  How on earth would they explain themselves?

  “Hurry up, Tristan.”

  She couldn’t expect him to reappear any time soon, though. He’d only just gone through, and it was a pretty complicated operation.

  Unsettled, Dylan glanced at her watch. It was just before 10 p.m. She wished she’d checked the time when Tristan went in, but it was too late to fix that now. He’d been gone for five minutes, maybe. Or was it even less than that?

  How long did it take him at the tunnel? Dylan had no idea. It had felt like an eternity… and then the tugging and jerking of the rope had started and she hadn’t thought about anything else other than getting Tristan back through the portal.

  Tristan’s rope was still lying relaxed and limp on the ground – so far so good. Blowing out a breath, she returned to monitoring the street. The little gang had broken up and three of them were headed her way.

  Terrific.

  They moseyed up the pavement, all swagger and confidence. Cheryl would be beside herself with glee in her situation, Dylan thought. These were the sort of idiots she drooled after. The kind of boys Dylan tried to avoid. Especially at life-or-death moments like this.

  They had obviously registered her on their radar. A teenage girl, on her own at night; clearly not from around here. Dylan was aware that she probably looked as uncomfortable as she felt.

  A prime target, in other words.

  She repressed the urge to flee. To lead them away from Tristan. She had to be here, right here, in case she had to haul him back through to safety.

  Damn it.

  “Hurry up, Tristan,” she mumbled again under her breath, bouncing lightly on her heels with agitation as she tried to will him to appear again in the alleyway. “Come on.”

  Still nothing, the rope limp – but a bark of laughter made her rip her head back round. God, they were getting close now. They couldn’t continue down the road on this side, the pavement was blocked off.

  And they knew that, which meant they were heading for her.

  For the second time that day, she felt herself looking for a weapon. Unless she planned to garrotte them with police tape, however, there was nothing to hand. She’d just have to talk to them, keep the peace, and then, when Tristan appeared out of thin air…

  “Bloody hell,” she said under her breath, trying hard to avoid their gazes. Fifteen metres. Ten.

  Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

  “Hey gorgeous!” One of them – a skinny pale boy around seventeen or so, with a piercing in his right ear – grinned at her. It wasn’t a friendly grin. It was more like the kind a cat gives a mouse – right before it eats it. “You all on your lonesome?”

  Dylan opened her mouth to deny it – although right at this moment it was technically true – but nothing came out. Which was just as well, because a hand clamped down on her shoulder.

  “You OK, Dyl?”

  Dyl? Since when the hell was she Dyl? She didn’t question it, though, because the three thugs in front of her were suddenly looking a little less confident, a little wary.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and tried to sound like she meant it. At her back, she could feel Tristan fumbling with the rope. He was jerking roughly at the tether, trying to get it undone before…

  Oh.

  An eruption of sound behind her. A wave of heat singeing her ears. Tristan pushed forward towards the boys and held her firmly.

  The three thugs in front of her each wore identical – hysterical – expressions of shock and astonishment. They tripped backwards.

  “Shit! Did you see that?”

  “The alley just exploded!”

  Recovered from their initial disbelief, they surged past Tristan and Dylan, intent on discovering the source of the explosion.

  At the same time, Tristan started shepherding her away from the alley.

  “Wait!” she hissed. “The bag.”

  “There’s nothing important in it. Leave it.”

  “The p
olice could—”

  “There’s nothing in it to identify us,” Tristan said. “Let’s just go.”

  As soon as they were beyond the line of sight of any witnesses on the street, Tristan broke out into a run, hauling Dylan along with him. She kept up for as long as she could before she had to stop.

  “Give me a sec,” she pleaded. “God, I’m so unfit.”

  “Come on, Dylan. Walk at least.”

  Panting, the cold air stabbing knives into her lungs, Dylan pushed herself to a limping half-jog.

  “Now what?” she asked Tristan.

  “Now,” he said, closing his eyes to concentrate, “we find Susanna – and the wraiths.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  “What does it feel like?” Jack asked. It was the first time he had shown an interest in the entire time Susanna had known him. Bizarrely, the thought made her smile, as did the feeling that Tristan was getting closer, which must have meant he and Dylan had succeeded.

  “It’s like a sticky, oily, grasping feeling. The closer we get, the stronger it is. We’re close enough for me to feel them on my own.” They’d been walking for less than ten minutes since they’d left Tristan and Dylan.

  “They?”

  “Yes, it feels like more than one. A lot more.”

  “And they’re just hanging out in Denny?”

  “It makes sense,” she said, grimacing as she gazed about the street. “The wraiths haven’t moved too far. Why would they, when there’s so much fresh meat right here?”

  Jack made a face and she knew it was because she was referring to people as ‘fresh meat’. But that’s what the wraiths did; that was what they were, when you came right down to it: cannibalistic souls. Normally Susanna tried to avoid thinking about that. Especially when, in the very near future, she was about to confront one. Or many. They were going to have a hell of a time dealing with them, even with the four of them – and two of them ferrymen – and she’d no idea how they were meant to do it without any witnesses seeing things they shouldn’t.

  She hoped Tristan had an idea about that, because she didn’t.

  God, she thought for the umpteenth time, this wasn’t going at all the way she had planned.

  She and Tristan were meant to be exploring this new world. Together. They were meant to be free of their old life, their old obligation. Free to just be.

  Instead, she was still stuck with Jack, and Tristan was only helping her because he needed to clean up the mess she’d made. Not for her, but so that Dylan would be safe. The soul he was happy to be tied to. He’d come through the veil, through to the real world, to be with her – so she could live her life and he could live it with her. Susanna was so stupid!

  Was there even a place for her here? Any sort of place, even just as Tristan’s friend? She couldn’t go back to the wasteland, go back to ferrying soul after underserving soul. She just couldn’t.

  “OK then,” Jack jolted her out of her pity-party. “What do we do?”

  “We’re almost there, I’m sure of it – and when Tristan and Dylan get here we’ll work out how to attack.” Susanna scrubbed her hand across her cheeks and was relieved to find they were dry. “Just… be careful now it’s dark. Look out for sheltered, creepy places.”

  “Like the bunker?”

  “Kind of,” Susanna nodded, “But a little bigger. And Jack? Be careful – every time you move away from the street lights you’re more vulnerable. They don’t like the light.”

  They checked the line of garages that ran along the back of the terrace, then gingerly lifted the lids on all the bins. Susanna even snuck into an abandoned ground-floor flat, disturbing a homeless man and a litter of cats.

  Nothing. Without Tristan, Susanna felt disoriented. She could feel the wraiths’ presence getting stronger, but she couldn’t pinpoint them as easily on her own. She wasn’t as sensitive, as strong, as the two of them were together.

  She was beginning to feel stirrings of panic, when she heard Jack stifle a yell.

  “Susanna!” Another gasp. “Over here!”

  Bags of garden waste – the reason he’d come over for a second look – hid whatever it was he had found. Tall slatted fences on either side of the path made the space tighter, darker than the alley Jack had died in.

  “What is it?” she asked, coming closer.

  A foot. That’s what she saw first. In a heavy-duty black boot, jeans overlapping the ankle. Another step revealed more. Blood stained the entire bottom half of the t-shirt he wore under a leather jacket. Horror gripped Susanna by the throat and she should have stepped away, but she had to see his face. Another step, and it came into view.

  His features were screwed up, as if he’d been in agony when he died – and all because of her. Susanna’s stomach lurched. She was about to throw up.

  “Look at this,” Jack crouched down, hunkering over the body. “Looks like someone’s punched a hole right through his middle. Someone with a big fist.”

  “That’s what wraiths do,” Susanna rasped. “In the wasteland, they don’t do this kind of damage. Here…”

  “Shit,” Jack whistled quietly. He glanced up at Susanna and for once she didn’t see the surly, cocky teenager looking back at her. He was pale, a sheen of nervous sweat glistening on his upper lip.

  “There’s probably more,” Susanna warned. “This would only be a meal for one wraith.”

  That made Jack blanch again.

  “Come on,” Susanna said, feeling, strangely, a little more in control. “There’s nothing we can do for him.” Backing out onto the main path, she peeked round the fence, into the house next door. She didn’t see any faces peering back at her.

  But she saw something much more disturbing than that.

  Blood spatter. The room wasn’t well lit, but she could just make out the splashes and sprays of red across the beige wall. Moving on silent feet, she ghosted up the steps of the house, pushing open the already ajar front door. There was silence inside.

  More blood spatter decorated the hallway. That, and a body. Just like the body in the alleyway, this man looked like he had died a horrible, painful death. This time, it was much easier to see the injuries that had killed him.

  This must have happened so recently they hadn’t even been found yet.

  Jack entered the house behind her, his footsteps echoing on the bare floorboards. He passed by where Susanna was frozen in the hallway and headed further into the house.

  “There are more,” he called. “I reckon three, maybe four bodies?”

  Susanna closed her eyes briefly, horrified. All this death, all her fault. Because she’d wanted something that had seemed so simple, so small.

  She just wanted a chance to live.

  “Susanna, you need to come and see this.” Jack’s voice came from deep inside the house. It was pitched low, steady, but there was an edge to it.

  He’d found something.

  She didn’t want to go in there. She really didn’t. She moved though, one foot in front of the other. Out of the corner of her eye she took in the room that had first drawn her attention, the lamplit front room. She purposefully didn’t look, didn’t turn her head even a fraction of an inch towards it, but she was still aware of the carnage inside.

  “Susanna?” His voice was closer now. Susanna followed it until she reached a back room. Jack knelt beside a fallen chair, his hand on the floor tracing a seam in the floorboards.

  Her sense of the wraiths set off like fireworks inside her head. It wasn’t needed now, though. She looked to Jack, who had his head cocked towards the floor.

  “I know where the wraiths are. Listen.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “Nest?” Dylan whispered. “What do you mean, nest?”

  The wraiths, likely sluggish from their feast, had holed up in the basement. By the time Tristan and Dylan arrived, Susanna and Jack had discovered three entrances to the underground space: the trapdoor in the dining room, a narrow window at the rear of the building, and a door along the si
de. The trapdoor was bolted, and the window was small and jaggedly broken, a rag stuffed into the hole as a quick fix.

  That left the door.

  It, too, was locked, but both the wooden door and frame were rotten and bloated with moisture, and Tristan thought he could force it open with little effort.

  It wasn’t morning, but the sky had lightened just enough for them to see in the shadowy back garden, and Tristan didn’t want to wait any longer.

  “So what do we do?” Jack looked to Tristan for the answer, Dylan saw, and she decided that Tristan was very likely right: he should have been Jack’s ferryman. Would have been, if he had still been in the wasteland.

  “Tristan?” Susanna prompted. She, too, was putting all of the responsibility on Tristan’s shoulders.

  Absentmindedly, Tristan kicked the wooden door. A chorus of snarls rumbled through the narrow gap between the door and the frame. Though Dylan didn’t really have the experience to judge, it sounded like there were a lot of wraiths hiding out in there.

  “Fire,” Tristan said at last. “We set a fire. Burn them in their nest.”

  “A fire?” Dylan echoed. She bit her lip. Her eyes rose to the house, the bodies within. Susanna had described the scene inside, and Tristan had gone in to look for himself. His face when he came back out told Dylan she didn’t need to see.

  Still, it didn’t seem quite right to light a funeral pyre beneath them before anyone even knew they were dead – they must have family and friends. If they burned everything to ashes, would anyone even be able to identify the bodies?

  “Tristan—”

  “I know,” he told her quietly. “But they’re gone now, flames can’t hurt them. Besides, it’s not as if the police are ever going to be able to investigate these murders, are they?”

  It was hard to argue with that. The police could search and question for the rest of their lives and not even get close to the truth.

  “You’re sure that’ll work?” she asked. “Burning them?”

  “In the wasteland, no. But here, they’re like me and Susanna. They’re more solid. It’ll work. They’ll be sluggish after their feast, and we can try to keep them in there until the damage has been done. If they escape, hopefully they’ll at least have been weakened enough for us to finish them off.”