‘How did you check us in to this place? Did you use a credit card?’ Mal was thinking about a possible trail.
‘I need to wash.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You’ve got time. I don’t think anybody will find us here soon.’ He didn’t add his next thought, which was that Rose seemed to be radiating more power than before. She seemed brighter, somehow. Stronger.
She didn’t answer, just walked into the ensuite bathroom. Mal had used it earlier, while she was sleeping. It had two sinks side by side, marble counters and tiles, and underfloor heating. He had peeled back the bandage from his side and checked that the wound was healing cleanly.
Now he sat on one of the winged armchairs, facing a wooden cabinet which he assumed hid a television from the delicate eyes of people who would pay for a room this fancy. He heard the water running and then the door to the bathroom opened. ‘Come inside,’ Rose said. Her voice sounded different too, more melodious and lower than before.
Mal turned to ask what she meant and found himself looking at a naked figure. She was a human woman. Beautiful, shapely, with pale, pale skin and a triangle of black hair that was the most erotic sight Mal had ever encountered, but definitely human. The skin was real, with variation of tone, and the breasts were slightly asymmetrical. But despite all that human imperfection, she was glowing. Not in a way he could describe with words, but he was certain of it nonetheless.
He was certain of one other thing. He wanted her. He wanted to climb inside her and never leave. He wanted to fall to the floor and worship at her feet. He couldn’t think about anything else and knew himself to be utterly powerless in her glow.
Then she smiled and said, ‘Scrub my back?’ And the feeling of joyous paralysis released, just enough, so that he was able to stand, shed his clothes and follow her into the steam-filled bathroom.
* * *
Rose stretched, feeling the delicious sensation of muscle movement and satisfaction through every part of her body. Now she knew what Astrid had been talking about and what had led her to spend time with so many people. Bodies together, blood pounding, nerves alive and jangling, the mind filled with chemical euphoria.
She knew she was a killer. She knew that, somehow, she had just been in a city of dust and heat, taking the life of another girl. Hannah Weston. She used Mal’s phone to look up the news story. They weren’t dreams and she was a monster. And she didn’t quite care. There was something else tugging at the edges of her mind; a memory of a vast black space filled with spiralling clouds.
Mal was stretched out on the bed next to her, fast asleep. She turned onto her side so that she could watch him for a moment. A wave of satisfaction rolled over her body and, without intending to, she closed her own eyes. She thought perhaps she would sleep for a little while, too, but it wasn’t sleep that came. It was the realisation that she needed to see Astrid. She was a killer but she had the strongest feeling that Astrid already knew. Which begged many questions, and it was time they were answered. Without knowing why, she spoke out loud. ‘I wish to see Astrid here and now.’ It was the same tone she had used to request a room in the hotel reception, and the pleasant company of Mal, and she felt, deep in her bones, that Astrid was on her way.
She rose from the bed and dressed, then went to the window to wait. After a few minutes, she clicked her fingers to wake Mal up so that he could join her. She didn’t want to be alone, and that longing for company felt like a weakness that frightened her. After pulling on his jeans, Mal padded to the window in his bare feet and put his arms around her from behind. It was so similar to the way he had held her in the street before he put a knife to her throat, but as Rose leaned against his bulk, she reflected on how different it felt. It was so strange how almost identical physical mechanics could have such different meanings. It was confusing and not at all orderly. She realised that she liked orderly.
He kissed the nape of her neck and she felt the sensation run through her body. It was very pleasant and she thought about leading him back to the shower, to embrace without clothes underneath the hot water. But a blaring of car horns broke the moment and she looked out of the window to the street below. More car horns joined in as cars weaved around each other, and a particularly impatient driver bumped up onto the pavement and drove along it for a while, scattering pedestrians before re-joining the road. Even from this high up, the sound of screams, angry shouting and the screeching of brakes was loud. It was utter chaos.
‘That’s not good,’ Mal said, squeezing her more tightly.
‘It’s interesting,’ Rose said. She had wanted Astrid and now here she was, walking along the street, her blonde curls unmistakable. Behind her a car slammed on its brakes and the driver got out, abandoning his vehicle in the middle of the road. A cacophony of horns blared behind it, but the driver didn’t even turn around – he was following Astrid.
‘Jesus,’ Mal said. ‘That’s some serious road rage.’
‘It’s chaos,’ Rose said, watching Astrid. The driver had caught up to her now, and seemed to be shouting at her. She didn’t turn around, didn’t break stride. Then the man sat on the ground abruptly and burst into tears.
‘It reminds me of something Dad said,’ Mal was saying. ‘About Mum’s accident.’
‘Accident?’
‘She drove a van. For her work. And it was madness on the roads that day, Dad didn’t really talk about it, not that I can remember, but he must have done at one time because I remember him saying ‘madness’. Like it was a really bad word. It was on the Newcraighall junction and nobody paid attention to the lights. Not just one eejit, speeding through, but everyone. Every single driver rammed at once and there was a massive pile-up. Cars in the traffic behind shunted into the ones in front. It made the papers around the world, it was so big.’
Rose pulled her gaze from the street below to look at him. ‘When was this?’
‘Twenty years ago,’ he said. ‘I was six.’
‘And your mum died?’
He nodded. ‘I don’t remember much about the time before, just snapshots, but after Mum had gone, that was when Dad started training us. He had hunted before but he really threw himself into it.’ He paused, remembering. ‘Threw us into it too.’
‘I would have thought he’d have got more protective, not less,’ Rose said.
He glanced at her, surprised. ‘He said everything was getting worse and we had to be able to protect ourselves. Besides…’ He shrugged. ‘We might just as easily die crossing the road. Mum had just proved that.’
‘Twenty years,’ Rose said, turning over a thought in her mind. She was twenty years old. Or had thought she was twenty years old. ‘Had things got worse. Suddenly, I mean?’
He shook his head. ‘I have no idea. I was only a kid.’
‘What did he say? Your dad?’
‘I’d forgotten about it until now,’ Mal said, indicating the traffic below. More vehicles were randomly stopping, people getting out. Some of them were engaged in heated arguments and one man was gripping another man who seemed to be trying to get away. He headbutted him in the face and blood spurted down his shirt. ‘Dad said that it was like they had all gone mad at once. Just like this.’
‘I don’t know if they’ve gone mad, exactly,’ Rose said. ‘I think it’s more like a temporary loss of control.’
Astrid had mounted the steps to the hotel and was no longer visible. The doorman had abandoned his post and was sitting on the bottom step, still in his full highland regalia, but he had removed his hat and was throwing it up in the air and catching it. As Rose watched, he missed a catch. The hat fell to the pavement, but the doorman pulled his ceremonial sgian dubh from his sock and plunged it into his own stomach. He twisted the knife and blood cascaded over his kilted lap, bright gleaming red in the midday sun.
‘Fuck. We should help him,’ Mal said, his voice uncertain. He had started towards the door, but he stopped. Turned back. ‘Shouldn’t we?’
‘Too late,’ Rose said, as the body
tumbled forward.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Mal muttered. Rose looked at him and saw how pale he was. It reminded her that she ought to feel horrified by the violence and death, not merely irritated. A cold shiver ran down her entire length as she realised how much she had changed. The person called ‘Rose’ was compressed into a tiny corner, commenting and noticing, but soon, she felt that it would be squeezed out utterly. Stars were spinning through the dark, calling her home, and the room she was standing in, the scene outside, Mal’s concerned face – none of it seemed real or substantial.
‘It’s Astrid, isn’t it?’ Mal was speaking and Rose forced herself back into the present moment. ‘Should we go and meet her? Stop her from hurting anybody?’
‘No need,’ Rose said, and as she expected the door swung open to reveal the tiny figure of Astrid. ‘Hello, stranger,’ Rose said.
Mal stepped forward, pushing Rose behind him.
‘Well, this is perfectly horrible,’ Astrid said, ignoring the half-naked man and looking, instead, at the suite. ‘I fucking hate taupe.’
Rose patted Mal’s shoulder and moved around him to drink in the sight of Astrid. He moved to the side of the bed and reached down for his t-shirt, but when he straightened up he was holding a gun.
‘We need to talk,’ Rose said, keeping her eyes on Astrid. ‘I would be fascinated to hear what you’ve been doing.’
‘Keeping you safe,’ Astrid said, her hands on her hips. To Mal she said, ‘You can stand down, soldier. I’ve come to an agreement with your boss.’
‘Pringle?’ Rose and Mal said at the same time.
Astrid’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s going on with you two?’
‘Nothing,’ Rose said.
Mal lifted the gun, pointed it at Astrid. ‘How did you find us?’
‘It’s okay.’ Rose held up her hand.
‘Where have you been hiding my girl?’ Astrid asked him. ‘It’s been most inconvenient.’
‘Do you see the gun?’ His arm was steady but his eyes were wide with shock, anger and something else that Rose couldn’t identify. ‘You’ll be answering questions, not asking them. Did Pringle mention my brother?’
Astrid gave him a dazzling smile, one which Rose had seen render students mute and dribbling. ‘You’re not going to shoot me, sweetie.’ To Rose she said, ‘We should go somewhere hot, have a holiday.’
‘I don’t want to go on holiday. And I’ve just been to Egypt.’
‘What happened to your hair?’ Astrid’s smile slipped for the first time. She turned to Mal. ‘Was that you?’
‘I did it,’ Rose said.
Astrid looked surprised. ‘You changed something?’
‘I’m so glad to see you.’ And it was true. Rose drank in the sight of her friend, gorged herself. Then she remembered. ‘Where did you go?’
‘Around,’ Astrid said. She was frowning at Mal. ‘What have you done to her? Did you wake her up?’
‘I thought something was killing girls like me.’ Rose spoke very quietly. ‘Like us. But I was doing it. I remember now.’
‘Ah.’ Astrid sat on the bed. Her brow furrowed for a moment and then she said, ‘That makes sense, actually. You’ve always made things difficult.’
‘I killed someone called Hannah Weston in Alexandria. She was a teacher and I killed her like it was nothing.’. Rose didn’t look at Mal, frightened of what she might read written on his face.
‘She wasn’t real,’ Astrid said.
‘You’re not a killer,’ Mal said. His voice was pain mixed with hope and Rose felt it like a pinprick to her skin.
‘It felt real,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t care. Explain.’
‘Oh, it was real. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t a real girl. Just like you aren’t one either, Rose MacLeod.’
There was something about her name being said out loud in that voice that pulled at Rose. She watched Astrid’s slow smile and wanted to be closer to her. She forced her feet not to move.
‘Laura Moffat was real. She left a corpse.’ Mal’s voice helped to focus Rose.
‘I killed Hannah Weston. I killed a person.’
‘No,’ Mal said, reaching for Rose’s hand. ‘It’s a trick. Don’t listen to her.’
‘Do you really care?’ Astrid raised her eyebrows at Rose. ‘Or is this a performance for your boyfriend?’
‘I thought I was dreaming about girls being killed. I felt them die as if I was dying. I felt the knife on my own skin. I felt the fear like it was my own. I don’t understand…’ Rose forced herself to stop speaking and turned away from Mal. She knew things had altered, that there was something wrong with her and she wasn’t reacting the way she ought, but she still didn’t want to see his face as she said the words. ‘I killed her. I did it.’
‘You released her spirit from confinement.’ Astrid waved a hand.
‘Same thing,’ Rose said, the disappointment hitting her in the chest. She felt her knees buckle and realised that she had been hoping Astrid would have a different answer. That it had been a hallucination. That she was, actually, insane.
There was a wave of something rolling off Astrid. It was familiar and calming and Rose had to force herself to fight it.
‘Breathe, sweetie.’ Astrid’s voice was melodious and beautiful. ‘It’s going to be okay. We’re together and I will look after you. Keep you safe.’
Rose sank onto the bed next to Astrid. It would be a relief to stop pretending. To stop trying to be horrified. She had killed those girls with her bare hands and she felt nothing.
Astrid put a hand onto her arm and looked into her eyes. ‘Everything is okay, Rose.’
Rose remembered her parents, her bedroom with the posters on the walls and her pile of textbooks in the corner. If she relaxed she could go back to that safe place. Astrid was here and Astrid was her friend.
‘Leave her alone.’ It was a man’s voice. It was familiar and Rose wondered where she knew it from. Mal. The man was called Mal. He was scary and then he was nice. Then she remembered; he had rescued her. From the Sluagh, but again, before that. The world shifted and Rose suddenly knew where she had met Mal before, why she had known his name.
She was in a small room with bare white walls. She was sitting on a single bed and when a buzzer sounded she knew that her day had begun. Then she was out of that small room and in a much larger space. There were several tables with wipe-clean surfaces and lots of chairs. People were sitting in the chairs and they were familiar. She couldn’t think of their names, but she knew that she knew them.
She was sitting here, too, and she looked down at her hands resting on her lap. She was wearing loose jogging trousers, navy. She didn’t like them. There was something wrong with her hands, they looked different to usual. The fingernails were bitten down and Rose didn’t bite her nails. She was sure of it.
‘Aislinn, honey.’ A soft voice was surprisingly near and it made Rose jump. She pushed up her sleeve to check her rose tattoo but there was nothing on the skin, no hint of the image at all. This was bad – she had lost so much time that it had healed completely. This had never happened, not in all the time she had been using the inkless tattoo as a check. She could feel the panic rising, clouding her thoughts.
‘Aislinn, it’s time for your pill.’ The voice was louder, now. There was a firm edge to it and Rose looked around to see who was speaking.
A woman in a uniform was holding out a small plastic cup with a couple of tablets inside and another cup half-filled with water. It was familiar and wrong all at once. ‘Am I Aislinn?’ Her voice was also wrong. It was lighter than usual and it hurt a little coming from her throat, as if she hadn’t spoken in a long while.
‘Pill time, honey,’ the woman said, and Rose reached out the hand that didn’t really belong to her and took the cup. She put the pills into her mouth and felt the smooth plastic capsules on her tongue. The water next. She knew that she could tuck the pills, or one of them at least, into her cheek or she could swallow them both like a good girl.
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‘They will make you feel better,’ the nurse said. Encouraging. Kind.
Rose took the cup of water and swallowed her medicine. As the pills travelled down her throat, Rose remembered. And then, as easy as falling asleep, she knew exactly what she had to do.
Chapter Nineteen
Rose had sat next to Astrid and then fallen back, suddenly fast asleep. Mal lowered his gun and went to her, checking her pulse. Her chest rose and fell in time, with deep and even breaths.
‘This happened before. She must be sick. We should take her to hospital.’ He began pulling on the rest of his clothes.
Astrid was twirling a curl of hair around her fingers. ‘She’s gone.’
‘What do you mean? Did you do something to her?’
Astrid shrugged. ‘Just calmed her down a little. Gives us a chance to chat.’
‘But it’s happened before,’ he said. ‘I really think she’s sick.’
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Astrid said. ‘She probably just popped off.’
‘Popped off where?’
‘If I knew that, it would make things much easier. She’s never been one for convenience, though.’
Mal looked at Astrid more closely. There had been bitterness in her voice.
‘She has always made things difficult,’ Astrid said and then shrugged, her voice suddenly bright. ‘Good thing I love her!’
‘What are you?’ Mal said, taking a step back.
Astrid gazed up at him with a calculating look. ‘I thought it was you killing them. You killed that girl in the bar.’
Mal thought of Laura Moffat. ‘I did not.’
‘Well, you didn’t keep her safe. She slashed her wrists and you left her to die on the floor of one of the oldest bars in Europe.’
Mal felt the stab of pain, guilt, but he knew Astrid was baiting him. She reminded him of Pringle, when he was having fun. Right before the pain began. ‘How do you know about Aislinn?’
‘She had the sight,’ Astrid said. ‘I know that much. And when you decided to use her for your craptitudious little sting operation, you as good as killed her.’
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