Bitter Sixteen

by Stefan Mohamed

  A hand grabbed me and pulled me around, and I came within an inch of blasting Connor with my brain. ‘Stanly,’ he said, strong hands on my shoulders, eyes locked on mine. ‘It’s dead, mate. OK? It’s dead.’

  The red cloud of hate and fury evaporated so suddenly that I felt lightheaded. I glanced towards the creature’s splattered remains, utterly still, mouths slack, and as I watched it began to shift shape as its first body had, turning grey and sludgy, a spreading pool of some unearthly, wrong-smelling substance. Dead.

  God it had better be dead.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Got carried away.’ Where did I go?

  ‘Yeah.’ Connor let go, although his eyes lingered on me. I didn’t need Sharon’s empathy to see that he was freaked out.

  After that fight, he’s freaked out by me?

  That’s a good sign.

  His look was making me feel uncomfortable, and I suddenly remembered that there had been a second creature and turned towards Eddie. He was lying on the ground with the thing prone on top of him, his arms still fastened around it. Seemed that he’d managed to snap something essential. There were also a number of bullet holes all the way along the creature’s shiny bulk. Took both of them to kill it.

  Who’s the badass now?

  Eddie had also been looking at me with an uncertain expression, but now he seemed to realise what was about to happen and hurriedly pushed the body away, just as it started to melt. My cousin shuddered and wrinkled his nose distastefully. Yeah. Wouldn’t want that crap all over you.

  The three of us stayed still for a long, silent moment before Connor and I simultaneously lost our legs and collapsed in the middle of the carnage we had created. Somewhere, I was sure that Mr Freeman was ticking a box on a score sheet.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  IT WAS A while before anybody spoke. Eddie had torn off the sleeves of his shirt so I could improvise some bandages for my arm and hand, and Connor had smoked two cigarettes. I was the first to break the silence. ‘Can I have one of those?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Finally Eddie got to his feet. ‘Just to be clear . . . does anyone know what just happened?’

  I wondered what he meant by that. The monster? Or what I’d done? It wasn’t a conversation I was particularly in the mood for, so I just shook my head, as did Connor. Eddie pursed his lips and nodded slowly. ‘OK. So . . . let’s go now, shall we.’ It wasn’t a suggestion.

  We left the warehouse, walking slowly. Moving was pretty painful – even the dudes with super strength seemed stiff. ‘The car’s parked around the corner from the station,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Whose car?’ I asked.

  ‘Yours.’

  It was just after five and dawn was breaking on the edge of the world, flavouring the sky with blue, pink and lazy gold, the horizon beginning its slow burn as the embers of the sun re-lit themselves. It’s gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day. The light, in its fearless infancy, made me feel better. Today the world would wake up with one less monster in it. London’s children would be safer. I’d done a good thing.

  And sometimes people lose their tempers.

  Eddie unlocked the car and we piled in and he started to drive. Still nobody seemed particularly keen on speaking. ‘So what happened after I left Blue Harvest?’ I asked.

  ‘Police came,’ said Connor. ‘Took witness statements. Ambulances came for the wounded and . . . the dead.’

  The dead.

  Jesus.

  ‘Did they ask about me?’

  ‘No,’ said Eddie. ‘It was strange. I’m sure I heard that old guy say something about you, but the police didn’t ask any questions.’

  ‘I must have friends in high places,’ I said. ‘Is Hannah all right?’

  ‘No,’ said Eddie. ‘She wasn’t injured, but she was really shaken up.’

  ‘How about Kloe?’

  ‘She was worried about you,’ said Connor. ‘Worried that she’d told you to go. That you might get hurt.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That you were stupid,’ said Eddie, ‘but that you could handle yourself. I just hoped it was true.’

  ‘It was,’ I said.

  ‘Seems that way.’

  I didn’t like his tone, but I was still dead set on not having that particular conversation, so I ignored it. ‘Any idea why it all kicked off?’

  ‘Billy.’ It sounded as though Eddie were dead set on avoiding this conversation, but I felt entitled to a few answers. ‘Yeah?’ I prompted.

  ‘Some drug deal-related mix up or other, I imagine,’ said Eddie, after exchanging an exasperated look with Connor that I was pretty sure he wanted me to see. ‘He wasn’t talking, but it’s just the kind of shit he’s always getting tangled up in. Usually people don’t die, though. Little bastard.’ I opted not to push further, and there were no more words for the duration of the drive.

  We pulled up outside Connor and Sharon’s place and got out, Connor first, then me, then Eddie, walking in single file along the untidy path. The downstairs lights were off. I was looking forward to crashing into my bed.

  What, with Tara in it?

  Balls. The sofa, then.

  Connor took out his keys and moved to unlock the door, but it swung open by itself, and suddenly everything was bad again. ‘Oh no,’ he said, running in.

  Sharon was lying in the hall at the bottom of the stairs, dried blood under her nose and at the corners of her mouth. Connor dropped to his knees beside her and pulled her into his arms. ‘Oh my God,’ he said, again. ‘Sharon? Can you hear me? I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry . . .’

  ‘Is she alive?’ asked Eddie, pretty tactlessly.

  ‘She’s breathing.’

  A power chord of fear and a trickle of insidious realisation that crept through my veins like an oilslick. I ran, mounted the stairs, sprinted up to the landing and kicked my bedroom door open. No Daryl, no Tara. The duvet was in a heap on the floor. I ran to the bathroom. No dog and no little girl, but there was a man in there, lying in the shattered remains of the shower cubicle. He was out cold, his face and hands a mess of blood, one of his arms very obviously broken. Did Sharon do that?

  Who cares, keep looking. I ran into her and Connor’s room, where I’d never been. Bed, shelves, books, small television, lamps, a very tasteful dressing screen with Chinese letters, candles. No Tara. No Daryl. I ran back to the top of the stairs and tried to yell, but my voice caught in my throat and only a panicked burble emerged. I tried again, and managed to choke out, ‘They took them! They took Tara and Daryl!’

  I ran downstairs. They had moved Sharon into the living room and laid her down on the sofa, and Connor was wiping her forehead tenderly with a moist cloth. Eddie was standing at the window, his fingers moving restlessly. He wants to hit something.

  Might he hit me?

  I’d like to see him try.

  Bad thought. Bad thought.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ I said.

  Eddie turned around. ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘They took Tara. And Daryl’s gone too.’

  ‘Shit!’ Eddie punched the wall and made a dent. Plaster broke and dust rose.

  ‘There’s a guy up there,’ I said. ‘In the bathroom. He’s unconscious, too. Looks pretty battered, I’m guessing Sharon took him out.’

  ‘Good,’ said Eddie, cracking his knuckles. ‘Let’s wake him up. Do some battering of our own . . .’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Connor, ‘she’s coming round! She’s coming round!’

  Sharon’s eyes were flickering and she coughed. ‘Connor?’

  Connor bent and kissed her forehead. ‘Jesus Christ, babe. You shaved about twenty years off my life.’

  She dragged herself up into a sitting position, wincing. ‘Well, I’m sure they would have been . . .’ She coughed. ‘
. . . Rubbish anyway.’ She looked to me, then to Eddie. ‘You . . . what happened?’

  ‘Smiley Joe’s history,’ said Eddie, gently. ‘But that’s not important. What happened here?’

  ‘It . . .’ Sharon looked at the clock. ‘About an hour ago.’ She was slurring slightly. ‘I was upstairs, I heard the door. They just kicked it open, burst in, three guys. Big. They came straight upstairs. Wanted to know where Tara was. I think one of them must have had powers, mine felt . . . it was like they were being dampened, somehow. I tried to fight them off anyway, managed to get one. Daryl was helping, but . . . they pushed me. Down the stairs. That’s all . . . oh God, is she —’

  ‘She’s gone,’ I said. ‘They took her. And Daryl.’

  Sharon closed her eyes. ‘No . . .’

  ‘We have to go and get them,’ I said. ‘Right now.’

  ‘Use your head,’ said Eddie. ‘We don’t even know where to look.’

  ‘I know where to start,’ I said.

  ‘Where?’ asked Connor. ‘The guy upstairs? It’s not that I’m not tempted to cause him some pain, but if he’s some kind of trained professional it could be hours before we get anything out of him . . .’

  Wow, they leapt to torture pretty quickly. And I get in trouble for going postal on a child-devouring hellbeast. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not him. The one person I’ve met who seems to have half a clue about what’s going on. Freeman.’

  ‘No,’ said Eddie. ‘We’re not going anywhere near that arsehole.’

  ‘We may not have a choice,’ said Sharon.

  ‘We don’t have a choice!’ I said, my voice getting louder of its own accord. ‘He’s the only person!’

  ‘You might be right,’ said Connor, ‘but we all threw our cards away years ago.’

  ‘I still have mine,’ I said.

  ‘You met him?’ said Eddie. Considering what was occurring, it seemed like the wrong thing to get angry about, and I stood my ground.

  ‘Of course I met him!’ I said. ‘We were talking about him earlier! I assumed you knew!’

  ‘Sharon told us she’d warned you about him,’ said Connor. ‘She didn’t say you’d seen him.’

  ‘Well, I have seen him,’ I said. ‘Twice. And he knows everything, I’m sure of it. He knew all about me, about Daryl. He was in Tref-y-Celwyn one day, in the woods. He saw me flying.’ So he’s either an Oracle, extremely intuitive or a very anal-retentive spy. Whatever. ‘I’m going to call him.’ Mine and Eddie’s eyes met directly. ‘Are you going to stop me?’

  My cousin didn’t say anything. He just lowered his head and shook it very slightly. I went to the phone, reaching into my wallet for the white card, and for the first time I noticed that the number had too many digits to be a regular phone number.

  Seems legit.

  He picked up after four rings. ‘Hello?’

  ‘You know where they’ve taken them,’ I said. ‘Tara and Daryl.’

  ‘Stanly. I hear you eliminated Smiley Joe. Nice work.’

  ‘Where are they, Freeman?’

  ‘I can tell you. But it means trouble.’

  ‘Tonight’s been a good night for trouble,’ I said. ‘A little more won’t hurt. Plus, if they don’t give them back . . . we’ll kill their guy.’ Oh, will you now?

  ‘The one they left behind? I think that demonstrates pretty categorically how bothered they are about him. You can mount his severed head on a post and use it as a letterbox for all they care.’

  D’oh. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘But we’d like to give him back all the same. Apart from anything, I’m pretty keen to use the shower at some point. Got some dead monster to wash out of my hair.’

  Freeman chuckled. ‘Oh, Stanly. You’re much more fun than your cousin.’

  ‘Keep giggling, asshole, and you’ll see how much fun I can be.’

  ‘Fair enough, fair enough, not the time. All right. Meet me at six thirty. The Jonathan Kulich Gallery.’

  I looked at my watch. It was five to six. ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘I’ll text the address to Eddie,’ said Freeman. ‘All right?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘No tricks.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Mr Freeman. ‘You can just stuff the . . . “minion” in the boot of your car, if you like.’

  ‘Will do,’ I said. ‘One more thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you anything to do with this?’

  ‘Apparently so, now. See you at six thirty.’ He hung up, and I put the phone down and returned to the living room. Sharon was on her feet. She looked better already.

  ‘Well?’ said Connor.

  ‘He wants us to meet him,’ I said. ‘He’s going to text Eddie the address.’ As I said it, Eddie’s phone bleeped. He took it out, looking surprised and irritated and interested all at the same time.

  ‘How does he have my number?’

  ‘Not the biggest surprise of the night, is it?’ said Connor. ‘So where are we going?’

  ‘Not too far . . . but I’ll have to drive pretty fast to make it there by six thirty. We should leave now.’

  Sharon looked panicked. ‘Wait a second! I’m in my pyjamas!’

  ‘You’re not —’ began Connor.

  ‘Don’t you dare tell me I’m not coming,’ said Sharon. ‘They broke into my home, attacked me, kidnapped our friends. Give me one minute.’ She dashed off upstairs. I’m glad she’s coming.

  We waited. Connor quietly loaded his weapons, Eddie stared broodingly out of the window and I kept moving my left arm, which by now stung rather than burned. ‘Where did you get those guns, by the way?’ I said.

  ‘Skank,’ said Connor.

  ‘Oh.’ Figures, I suppose. I turned to Eddie. ‘You were pretty sharp at the warehouse,’ I said. He just nodded. OK, let’s not chat then.

  Sharon came down, fully dressed. ‘All right. Let’s go, shall we?’

  ‘Oh, hold on,’ I said. ‘We should get the guy from upstairs . . .’

  Sharon twitched her head to one side and a large mass of suited man came tumbling down the stairs, coming to rest in a heap at the bottom. He let out a deep groan and Sharon smiled. ‘Got him.’

  Wow. I’m really glad she’s coming.

  Eddie drove very fast, probably over the speed limit, not that I was really worried about that. Nobody said a word. The tension crackled like static. Sharon and Connor sat in the back with their heads on each other’s shoulders, holding hands, and I was in the front with Eddie, watching the rapidly lightening city slowly come to life. We passed very few cars, but people were already beginning to move, to yawn on the pavement and light their first cigarettes. Normality.

  And here we are, speeding to a clandestine meeting with a guy in the boot.

  I glanced at Eddie, his jaw set, eyes burning. How was this going to go down? Who were we about to meet? I wondered if more fighting was on the cards.

  If there is, it’ll be different.

  I know.

  It won’t be like fighting monsters.

  I know.

  Do you think you can kill real live people?

  If it’s them or Tara, or Daryl . . .

  You have to be completely sure about this. One hundred per cent resolved. You need to disconnect everything. No passion, no anger, no misery, no quips. No losing control. Just you and your power and the people on the receiving end.

  I know this.

  Let’s hope so.

  The weather was playing the fool, the cinematographer’s award-winning dawn already giving way to grey clouds, the sun dimming as quickly as it had risen. So much for a bright, bright sunshiny day.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said Eddie. ‘Two minutes. Everyone ready?’

  A general chorus of ‘yes’.

  ‘Don’t trust a word Freeman says,’ said Eddie. ‘Even if he�
�s truthful about finding the girl and Daryl he’ll have an ulterior motive. He always does.’

  ‘You really don’t like him, do you?’ I asked.

  Eddie looked at me, but said nothing.

  Ouch.

  We turned a corner and parked down a side street. Hopefully we won’t get ticketed or clamped or something.

  Yes. That’s definitely the most worrisome thing that could happen.

  But the car’s stolen, technically, don’t want Mum finding out . . . Seriously?

  Leave me alone, I’m really tired, OK?

  We walked down the street and round another corner, where Mr Freeman was sitting on a bench, smoking a cigarette. Beyond him was a very large square white building with barely any windows, overlooking the river. The Jonathan Kulich Gallery, I read. Why did he want to meet us here?