Bitter Sixteen

by Stefan Mohamed

  ‘And that’s why we’re here,’ said Lucius. ‘We’re doing God’s work.’

  I noticed that Pandora looked uncomfortable at that. Eddie snorted. ‘You must be joking . . .’

  ‘Does the phrase “mysterious ways” mean anything to you?’ said Lucius, sharply.

  ‘Does the phrase “join us in the twenty-first century, you Dark Age muppet” mean anything to you?’ shot back Eddie.

  I couldn’t help smirking at that. Good one.

  ‘I assure you,’ said Lucius, ‘that the twenty-first century, and the potential centuries beyond, are of the utmost concern to us, and to the Lord. He despairs of what has become of His creation.’

  ‘But, according to Lucius, he likes to maintain a policy of non-interference,’ said Pandora. Ouch. Careful with that sarcasm, you’ll have someone’s eye out. ‘So we interfere on his behalf, because apparently that’s fine.’ Lucius didn’t look happy with that remark, but didn’t speak.

  ‘You don’t sound like you believe it,’ said Sharon.

  ‘Lucius is a man of faith,’ said Pandora. ‘I take a different approach. Our group is diverse, and you might say . . . divided . . . in terms of the small print. But on the big issues we are united.’

  ‘World domination, is it?’ I said.

  ‘It’s not on the agenda,’ said Pandora. ‘Although I won’t lie – it would probably solve a few things.’

  That’s not a yes.

  Not a no either.

  ‘You still haven’t told us what you want with Tara,’ said Eddie.

  Pandora turned to Lucius. ‘I can handle things from here if you wish, Lucius. I know you have some important business, and you’ve met the new empowered, as you wished.’

  Lucius looked unsure. ‘I can stay if you —’

  ‘I’m fine.’ It seemed that despite their ages Pandora ranked slightly higher than Lucius, and she wasn’t afraid of showing it. Lucius nodded, stood up, got his coat and briefcase and headed towards the door we’d come through. The spiky-haired guard radiating danger went to follow him, but Pandora said, ‘Leave Leon if you please, Lucius? Just in case.’

  Lucius didn’t look happy but nodded and left. Pandora waited until the door had closed then shook her head. ‘I do find it terribly embarrassing when he starts on the religious angle. I assure you, for the most part we’re extremely progressive.’

  ‘Tara,’ I said. ‘Why did you take her?’

  ‘All I’m prepared to say is that she is important and needs protecting.’

  ‘I can protect her.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Pandora.

  I nodded, suddenly realising that my knuckles were completely white. I didn’t even know I was clenching my fists. ‘I can. And even with all your talk of looking after the world, I trust you to the sum of diddly squat to the power of bugger all, with a piss off on top. I’m not leaving her with you.’

  ‘Well,’ said Pandora. ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘No, we —’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Pandora, shaking her head. ‘You need to do a bit more listening and a bit less of this.’ She mimed a flapping mouth with her hand. ‘Now,’ she continued, ‘I was intrigued when Mr Freeman told me he’d been keeping tabs on some new empowered. I thought we were aware of them all. Obviously not. So it’s been both delightful and fascinating to meet you.’

  ‘What do you want with us?’ said Sharon.

  ‘Ideally, we’d like you to join us. The arrangement could be mutually beneficial. You four would no longer have to operate outside the law. You would be employed. Paid. Comfortable.’

  ‘And in return?’ said Eddie.

  ‘We do their dirty work,’ said Connor. ‘No deal.’

  ‘No deal,’ said Sharon.

  ‘Damn right, no deal,’ said Eddie.

  I didn’t say anything. ‘Stanly?’ said Sharon. ‘Say “no deal”. It’s a whole united-against-them sort of thing.’

  That’s a very bad decision you just made, Stan.

  Shut up.

  Sorry. Just making an observation.

  I know. I just don’t like to be called Stan.

  I shook my head and walked forwards, stepping over Mr Freeman’s body – oh Christ he’s really properly extremely very dead – maintaining eye contact with Pandora. I stopped by the table, close enough that I could have reached out and grabbed her, and leaned in. ‘Give Tara back.’

  ‘In exchange for what?’ asked Pandora.

  ‘Me,’ I said.

  ‘Stanly, no!’ said Sharon.

  ‘Be quiet,’ snapped Pandora. She raised one interested eyebrow. ‘You.’

  ‘That’s the deal,’ I said. ‘I’ll do your bidding. You can use my powers to implement your will, whatever. But give Tara back.’

  Pandora actually looked contrite. ‘I’m sorry, Stanly,’ she said. ‘I’m really not sure that it can work like that.’

  I shrugged. ‘Fine. Then we’ll take her.’

  ‘Stanly. Don’t.’

  I knew that voice. I turned around. The door had opened without anybody hearing, and someone was standing in the doorway.

  It was Daryl.

  Chapter Thirty

  DARYL WALKED PAST us, ignoring Mr Freeman’s cooling body.

  ‘Daryl?’ said Connor. ‘Where the hell have you been? What happened, did they kidnap . . . dognap you too?’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Pandora. ‘Why don’t you tell them, Daryl? There’s been a bucketload of exposition already, I’m sure a bit more won’t hurt.’

  ‘Tell us what?’ I said. ‘How does she know your name?’

  Daryl jumped up onto the table, turned around and looked straight at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  No.

  It’s not possible.

  No.

  NO!

  ‘You,’ I said. ‘You . . . were working with them? Spying on me? This whole time?’

  Daryl shook his head. ‘Not exactly . . .’

  ‘What do you mean, exactly? What exactly?’

  He didn’t seem to be able to answer. His big eyes looked sorry, but I couldn’t trust them. ‘You . . .’ My voice broke slightly. I could feel tears behind my eyes. Not now. No time for that. Can’t be weak. ‘You didn’t just . . . we didn’t meet by chance?’

  ‘We did meet by chance,’ said Daryl, ‘I swear. I . . . I used to work with the Angel Group. Years ago. I knew about people with powers, about monsters, everything. But I left it all behind, it all got too much, and I ended up living in the middle of nowhere with a boring old man. I wanted nothing to do with any of it. And then I met you, and suddenly you developed powers . . . and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to tell you everything.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because . . . I didn’t want you to think I’d lied to you.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Cool. That’s nice. How exactly the hell do you think I’m feeling now?’

  ‘I —’

  ‘I trusted you. I shared everything with you. You were my most . . . my only friend. You . . .’ I didn’t want to say you betrayed me, because if I said it then that meant it was true. But it is true.

  Shut up. Seriously.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Daryl. ‘I really am. So . . . I didn’t know how close —’

  ‘Stop talking,’ I said.

  ‘Please listen,’ said the dog. ‘I didn’t betray you. I decided to tell Freeman about you. He used to be my . . . my partner, I suppose. We worked together. I told him about you and I asked his advice on the condition that he didn’t tell the Angel Group. He owed me. He said to get you to London and at first I considered it, but then I realised it was a bad, bad idea. Hence me trying to get you to stay in Tref-y-Celwyn. When that didn’t work and we ended up in London, I figured I might as well keep in contact with Freeman, just in case.’

 
‘You trusted him?’ said Eddie, incredulously.

  ‘More than I trust the rest of them,’ said Daryl. He glanced at Pandora. ‘More than I trust this bitch.’

  ‘Daryl,’ said Pandora, mockingly. ‘I’m hurt. Although actually . . . is “bitch” really an insult, coming from a dog?’

  ‘Eat it,’ said Daryl. ‘So anyway . . . I told Freeman what else I knew and he said he wouldn’t tell the Group. And then he told me he’d met you, and not to contact him again, that he’d get in touch with me if he needed to. I had time to think about things and realised I’d made a terrible mistake, but it was too late, and I didn’t want to warn you because . . . well, you can imagine.’

  ‘Not really,’ I said, even though I could.

  ‘When you told me to guard Tara I really did,’ said Daryl. ‘I swear. I fought those guys who came and took her. One of them is now minus a hand.’ He nodded towards the human animé character, Leon. ‘If it wasn’t for this one . . .’

  ‘That reminds me,’ said Pandora, ‘Lucius wasn’t particularly happy about you mutilating one of his men. He’s expecting an apology.’

  ‘We’ve got another one in the car as well,’ said Connor, ‘if you’re interested . . .’

  ‘To be honest, Pandora, I don’t particularly give a rat’s ringpiece what Lucius expects,’ said Daryl. ‘Bible-thumping bollock-ache.’

  ‘So where have you been since they took Tara?’ I said. ‘What, you figured you’d just leave Sharon at the bottom of the stairs and go and get some breakfast?’

  ‘I’ve been looking for Tara, of course,’ said Daryl. ‘I didn’t want to leave Sharon, but I could see she would recover, so I had to make a choice. I didn’t want the trail to run cold . . . I tracked them here.’ He looked at Pandora. ‘You’re going to kill me, I suppose?’

  ‘Don’t worry Daryl,’ said Pandora. ‘I have no intention of harming a defenceless creature like you. At the moment.’

  ‘I’m not exactly defenceless,’ Daryl growled. ‘I believe Lucius got the one-handed memo.’

  ‘Touché,’ said Pandora. ‘Stanly, in the beagle’s defence, before today I’d heard nothing from him for a number of years. Honestly, I thought that he was no longer with us. So he didn’t sell you out to us. Just to Freeman.’

  I was barely hearing this. ‘You should have told me,’ I said. ‘As soon as I got the powers, you should have told me.’

  ‘I wanted to,’ said Daryl. ‘You think I’m just some Lando now. I’m not. I might have gone about things the wrong way, but that’s what you learn working for these people. You get . . . really good at rationalising deceit. But my purpose was true, everything I ever said to you was true. My feelings, my opinions, my thoughts. They were all me, one hundred per cent. A regular dog’s love is unconditional. I chose mine.’

  I shook my head. What the hell do I say to that?

  ‘How touching,’ said Pandora. ‘I may be sick.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, Pandora,’ said Daryl, ‘or I swear to Lucius’ non-existent god . . .’

  ‘Don’t come back,’ I said.

  Daryl looked at me. ‘Don’t . . .’

  ‘Don’t come back to me.’ I stared at my . . . at the dog. My dog? The dog? I didn’t know what he was. I didn’t know anything any more.

  ‘He is sorry,’ said Sharon, gently.

  ‘I am,’ said Daryl. ‘I swear, I . . .’

  ‘Don’t come back to me,’ I said again. ‘If you’re going to go anywhere, go back to Tref-y-Celwyn.’

  ‘Go back and live with your parents?’ asked Daryl. ‘I know I did bad, but that’s a fate worse than death . . .’

  ‘I think you should probably leave now, Daryl,’ said Pandora.

  And at that moment, something changed. I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what Daryl sensed in her voice that he didn’t like, because I certainly hadn’t heard anything. But the beagle turned slowly around and looked straight at Pandora, who looked straight back at him, and now I could see something. A twitch. A flash of something in her eyes. Daryl started to laugh. ‘What?’ asked Pandora.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Eddie. ‘What the hell is he laughing at?’

  Daryl shook his big head. ‘I should have smelled it when I first came in. I must have been distracted by the waves of affection coming at me from every direction.’

  Pandora didn’t move, but she definitely looked nervous. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘What did she offer you all?’ said Daryl. ‘Power? A post with the Group? Something like that? She is composed of pure lies. And she’s planning something. I’d grab Tara and get the hell out of here if I were you.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Pandora. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I think you do,’ said Daryl. ‘This is all very nice. Clever. The whole top-floor end-of-the-line final-act room-of-revelations thing. Meeting the big bosses. It’s very cinematic. Right up Stanly’s street. Exactly what you needed to get him and the others here.’

  ‘I’m offering peace —’

  ‘You cannot trust a word this woman says, Stanly,’ said Daryl. ‘Get Tara and get out.’

  Now Pandora moved, jumping out of her seat and running behind the three guards. ‘Don’t let them leave,’ she said. The three started to move towards us, while Pandora ran towards one of the massive framed photographs on the wall. I blinked. Something had changed in the pictures. They suddenly seemed so much more . . . alive. What the hell is going on? I’m so confused!

  No time to be confused. Got to find Tara.

  ‘Pandora!’ I roared. ‘Where is she? Where’s Tara?’

  Pandora didn’t answer. She ran towards the wall, jumped . . . and went straight through one of the photographs, disappearing entirely, leaving nothing but a few ripples. Gone.

  ‘NO!’ I said.

  Everything went mental. Two of the guards drew guns, Leon lunged towards us and I ducked, sending out a spray of psychic hits that knocked the weapons away. Connor, Eddie and Sharon jumped in to engage the guards and Daryl leapt towards Leon. ‘Go after her Stanly!’ he yelled. ‘We’ll handle these wankers!’

  Through a photograph?

  Bugger it.

  I ran, and jumped, and was somewhere else.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  THE TRANSITION BETWEEN the gallery and wherever the hell I’d ended up was subtle, at least in terms of how it felt, like entering a slightly colder room. Visually, though, it was like being whacked with a mallet made of pure vertigo; there was no colour here, just greys and blacks and whites. I took a look around. I was in Hyde Park . . . sort of. The trees were skeletal, the sky a dead haze. No sun. No sound. Glancing down at my hands and clothes, I saw that they were entirely monochrome.

  Well, this is peculiar.

  ‘Hello?’ I tried. No response. I tried again, but louder, and this time I was sure I could hear mocking laughter coming from somewhere . . .

  Then she was on me. She knocked me into the charcoal grass face-first and I rolled over and kicked out clumsily. It was a lucky hit and Pandora went down, and I was immediately back on my feet, ready. I flexed my mind and picked her up by her neck, and she clutched at her throat and gurgled as I held her there. ‘Where is she?’ I said. I loosened my hold enough for her to answer but she just spat. ‘OK then,’ I said. ‘We’ll come back to that. Question two. What the bloody hell is going on?’

  ‘The Angel Group has . . . other uses for your kind.’ Pandora’s voice was an ugly choke. ‘You need to be out of the way.’

  ‘Why?’

  She spat again. I tightened my hold and her face went whiter. ‘Weren’t expecting this, were you?’ I asked. ‘Didn’t think we could take you, did you? Newsflash, Little Miss . . . Massive Bitch. We’re a lot more powerful than you think.’ Is this an OK thing to be doing? She is a person, after all.

 
; Some people are bad, though.

  Pandora managed a twisted smile. ‘You talk too much.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Something touched my back, a crackling force surrounded by power, and we were somewhere else again. The colours shifted, white and black to red and blue to green and orange and yellow, and through the kaleidoscopic palette I could see that we were in an office with a floor-to-ceiling window, high above London’s infinite, intimidating sprawl. The city was engulfed in a storm, a storm too enormous to be real, curtains of rain lashing at the buildings, the wind causing the skyscrapers themselves to ripple, and across the gulf was a building I didn’t recognise. It might not even have existed. This is definitely the weirdest thing to happen today. Which is kind of impressive.

  Don’t panic.

  Just go with it.

  Haven’t really got a choice there, have I?

  I looked at Pandora and smiled the scariest smile I could muster. ‘No —’ she began.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and flew forwards, grabbing her around her waist. I thought SMASH and the window splintered apart, and wickedly sharp fragments fanned out into the air as we entered the maelstrom, ploughing into howling eddies of wind and whips of rain, big fat drops that exploded as they hit. I held onto Pandora and we flew across the abyss towards the skyscraper opposite, colours flashing, shifting in time with the lightning. It was as though I’d flown into someone’s particularly messed-up acid trip. The woman was writhing and struggling in my grip, and I tightened it. ‘I wouldn’t struggle!’ I yelled, trying to make myself heard above the savage roar of wind and water. ‘I might have to drop you!’

  ‘You little shit!’ screamed Pandora. She managed to wriggle out of my grasp but held onto my left arm, her fingers digging into my monster bites, and I bellowed with the pain, sounding like what I’d imagine an enraged moose would sound like. Seizing the advantage, Pandora swung herself up and sat on my back with her arms around my neck. Half-blinded by the coruscating rainbow of water, my body numb, the wind tearing at my soaking clothes, my flight started to falter. We were only about fifteen feet from the other building, and Pandora was screeching. ‘PULL US UP! NOW! Or I’ll break your neck!’