“Yes, sure. And what about poor us?” Harry’s voice was steely.
“At least we didn’t do it to ourselves. We didn’t destroy our own lives.”
Harry stopped suddenly. He’d seen something out of the corner of his eye. Something that wasn’t supposed to be there.
“Sarah.”
“Yes?”
“I think the demon is here.”
“Where?”
Harry took her by the hand and turned her around, gently, towards one of the grey buildings around them.
“Up there,” he whispered. Sarah squeezed Harry’s hand. She could feel his heart thumping, the blood flowing beneath the thin skin in his wrist. She followed his gaze up to a building beside them – first floor, a balcony with a broken chair; second floor, some washing left out in the drizzle; third floor, an empty balcony, but for a shadow against the whitewashed wall.
A shadow without a body.
Sarah swallowed and squeezed Harry’s hand tighter. They both froze, not sure what to do. How do you kill a shadow?
Right at that moment a young man passed by, wearing a tracksuit and a baseball cap. He was walking fast, swaggering, trying to be cocky. He was thin and pale, like John.
The shadow leaped off the balcony, and landed right in front of him.
“What the hell …?”
“Run!” Harry tried to call, but the guy was rooted to the spot, overwhelmed by horror and surprise. Harry and Sarah were only a few yards from him, but they couldn’t reach him in time.
The shadow walked into him, and he was no more.
It was just like that. As quick and undramatic as that. No pleading, no blood, no dying screams. Not even a sigh.
The shadow had taken him, and there was nothing left.
Nearly nothing. A little black puddle was left on the pavement. A puddle that started to move, and take shape. The puddle quivered and then stood up. It wasn’t liquid, Sarah realized. It was the shadow itself. The man in the baseball cap.
Like in a grotesque mime, the newly created shadow looked at its arms, then down at its legs, and seemed contorted with despair. It started running around, as if asking for help, and disappeared from view. Harry and Sarah looked on in horror.
“Well, that was something else.” Harry murmured. Sarah clamped her hand on her mouth. She thought she’d never been so shocked in her whole life.
The demon-shadow walked towards them. It was as if it had decided to show them what it could do, and now it would be their turn. Sarah raised her hands, and felt them burning. Harry took out his sgian-dubh, and started whispering.
The shadow took a sprint towards them. Sarah flexed her hands, readying herself. Suddenly she felt something grab her shoulders and throw her on the ground. A wiry woman, punching her face and chest, holding her down. John’s girlfriend?
Sarah had been taken by surprise, and she was trying to free herself, when Harry went for the woman with his sgian-dubh.
“Harry, no!” pleaded Sarah, trying in vain to get back on her feet. We can’t kill human beings. But that wasn’t what Harry had in mind. He raised the sgian-dubh, and started tracing signs in the air … Laura fell, unconscious, and buried Sarah under her weight.
The shadow had reached them by then, and Sarah could see its black shape right in front of her. She was still lying on the pavement, Laura’s unconscious body heavy on her. Harry grabbed Laura and threw her roughly aside, and Sarah managed to slip from under her, taking Harry’s hands to get up as quickly as she could.
It was nearly too late.
The shadow was right there before them, its arms out to touch them both. In a fraction of a second Sarah and Harry would become shadows themselves, condemned to a grey half-life forever … but just as the shadow was about to touch them something distracted it and made it turn around. Someone had called its attention. It was John. He was standing behind them, and was tracing signs in the air with both his hands. It was some kind of call, and they could see that the shadow had answered. But it wasn’t an order to attack Sarah, like they’d thought – it was something else entirely.
John let his arms fall by his sides, and the shadow walked towards him. He stood there, eyes closed, wanting it, wanting it desperately. He sighed as the shadow swallowed him too, and it was a sigh of relief.
John asked it to do that, thought Sarah in horror.
The demon shadow turned around again, but Sarah was ready. Her hands were burning so hard they were sore – all she had to do was put them out, towards the immaterial being, and watch the black silhouette become liquid and fall on the ground with a swoosh. Beside it, another black puddle: John’s shadow, slowly taking shape. Sarah’s eyes filled with tears as she watched John’s shadow stand up and look at itself.
What was left of John stood briefly in front of them, and then he went to crouch down beside his girlfriend. But she was slowly opening her eyes, and John didn’t want to be seen. He ran away, before she could see what had become of him.
Sarah watched the shadow without a body disappear across the threadbare grass, over the motorway bridge, and on to the road, where car after car went through it without hurting it, without touching it.
He’ll never die, thought Sarah, and shuddered.
“What happened? Where’s John? Why are you still alive?” Laura struggled to get up.
Sarah couldn’t reply. How could she tell her what had happened to John? Before Sarah could gather her thoughts, Harry was on Laura like a flash. He threw her down again with a brutality that shocked Sarah. He kneeled beside the woman, holding her down by the shoulders.
“Harry, let’s go,” pleaded Sarah.
“Not before I’m finished.”
“Harry, what …? No!”
She couldn’t stop him. He’d taken the knife to Laura’s face. The woman screamed and held her left cheek, blood trickling through her hands.
“Stay away from Sarah. Never, never touch her again,” hissed Harry. He walked away from her, as if she were nothing – as if she weren’t a desperate woman lying hurt on the ground. Drained by poverty, defeated by addiction, her heart and soul emptied bit by bit, since the day she last was happy, she last had pride. Sarah wanted to help her up – she took a step towards her – but the look in her eyes made Sarah stop and freeze. It was hatred, deep, absolute hatred, well beyond Sarah, well beyond John and his demons, reaching all the way back to a little girl who grew up too fast, who was made to grow up when she shouldn’t have. Sarah felt a knot in her throat as their eyes met. I suffered too, she wanted to say, but she would not put herself in harm’s way a second time.
Sarah was ready to walk away, when her mind registered something, something that wasn’t right. The whole scene wasn’t right. She surveyed the ground around them. No black-water anywhere. The pavement was bone dry. Still, her hands were wet …
Goosebumps covered Sarah’s arms, and the hair at the back of her neck stood up. Something is very, very wrong. But she couldn’t figure out what.
After what he’d done to John’s girlfriend, Sarah couldn’t look Harry in the eye throughout the journey back. He’d cut her face. What kind of a man is he? Who is he?
Harry was looking resolutely at the road. To ease the silence, heavy on them like rain clouds, he switched on the radio. They sat in deep thought, listening idly to the flow of chatting and music. A few minutes later, an announcement caught their attention.
“The victim of yesterday’s crash on the M11 has been named. Ms Sheila Douglas, a well known plastic surgeon from Aberdeen, with a thriving clinic in Edinburgh, died last night as a result of the collision of her car, a Mini, with a truck. The truck driver, Manuel Alvarado, from Madrid, was unharmed.”
Sarah gasped. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.
“You killed her.” Both her hands were on her chest, as she was trying to take a breath that just wouldn’t come.
“Looks like it,” answered Harry, his voice even.
Sarah felt like she was swallowi
ng nails.
“I’m going to practise for a bit,” she said as soon as they got home, and ran upstairs. She didn’t want to see Harry for a while.
Harry didn’t reply. He went to the kitchen, and started making himself a double espresso. He knew he had shocked her. He knew that she thought what he’d done to Laura was wrong. But Laura had tried to kill Sarah. She would have gladly given Sarah to the demon-shadow. She deserved to be taught a lesson.
Really, Sarah was so naive! Where had she been all those years, while her parents went hunting? It’s like they had sheltered her from the realities of life, their life, which was very, very different from most people’s. She seemed to see her parents as these idealistic superheroes who always did what was right and never strayed. How wrong she was. The real Harry knew better than that. He had told him how ruthless his uncle and Anne could be. They’d had to be.
But Sarah was from different stock. Did she share their blood at all? Because he, Sean, seemed more of a Midnight than she did.
Sarah hated violence.
Sarah couldn’t bear to touch a gun.
Sarah was in the habit of trying to negotiate with demons!
Her grandmother would have been shocked to have a granddaughter like Sarah. Morag Midnight was the toughest of the lot. The real Harry had told him so much about Morag. He would have loved to meet her. She was a warrior, an Amazon – ruthless, hard, even cruel at times.
Mairead Midnight had been different, though …
Sean sat at the table with his coffee, and tried to remember what the real Harry had said about Mairead. He’d said that she was a shy little girl, constantly frightened. That she had a lovely voice, and she enjoyed singing. Morag had taught her the hunting spells, but she didn’t like doing them – she preferred the gentler spells, the protection charms, the potions, the invocations. Now that he thought about it, Mairead sounded spookily similar to Sarah. It’s such a shame that she’d died – maybe Sarah would have had someone to lean on now, someone to help her through all this madness ….
The real Harry hadn’t gone into details about Mairead’s death. He was just a baby when Mairead died; it was Stewart who’d told him all that he knew about her. He had just said that she was killed, and that it had something to do with water. She had drowned, maybe. Like Morag. From Stewart to Harry, from Harry to Sean, the stories about Mairead Midnight were losing details and becoming more and more threadbare.
“Hello! Anyone home?”
Harry jumped up and went into the hall. He could hear Sarah playing her cello upstairs, a haunting, beautiful sound. Before opening the door Harry checked he had his sgian-dubh.
“Yes? Oh, Bryony. Hello.” What is she doing here? Does she have a death wish?
“Hi Harry. Is this a bad time?” Bryony had noticed the lack of enthusiasm in his voice.
“Yes. Sarah is practising – you know she has the audition in a month, and with all that’s been happening … Maybe another time,” he said ruthlessly. He liked Bryony, but he had no choice. He couldn’t risk her life, he couldn’t allow anyone else to share the danger they were in. He was about to close the door when a tall, lanky boy appeared from behind one of the columns. “Hello,” he said awkwardly, as he realized Harry had noticed him.
“Jack.” Harry’s voice had just gone from cold to icy.
“Yes. I’m Sarah’s friend. We were wondering if she wanted to come out for chips …”
“I know who you are. And she can’t.”
Let her say that, you freak! Who are you, her prison guard? Jack had disliked him instantly. If anything, because he looked like someone out of a film, and Jack didn’t want anyone like that around Sarah.
“Bryony …”
Harry turned around. Sarah was coming down the stairs. Her hair hung loose over her shoulders, and she looked distraught, her eyes big and red-rimmed, her lashes moist.
“Sarah! Are you OK?” Bryony cried out when she saw her face.
“Yes, yes, of course. I was just playing.” Sarah froze as she saw Jack.
Harry noticed that. Good. Her face didn’t light up as she saw him.
“Oh, sweetheart, come here! What’s wrong?” Bryony made her way into the house and hugged Sarah, leading her upstairs. “Jack, maybe another time, OK?” she added, barely looking over her shoulder.
“Right.” Jack had got the message. Between Bryony and Harry, Sarah is unreachable. I’ll need to bloody phone them, get an appointment. Worse than trying to see the Queen, he thought grumpily, and walked down the gravelly path.
Before he could stop them, Bryony and Sarah had gone up the stairs, arms linked. Harry heard Sarah’s door closing.
Great. If something happens now, how do we explain it to Bryony?
He sighed, and went back into the kitchen. He didn’t dare go down to the basement, in case something happened upstairs and he wasn’t there to sort it, quickly.
“What’s wrong?” Sarah looked into Bryony’s soft brown eyes.
“Where do I start … ?” said Sarah desolately.
“Oh, Sarah.” Bryony hugged her again, and Sarah held her tight, breathing in her bluebell perfume. Bryony was the closest thing to a sister she’d ever have.
“It’s not Harry, is it? He seems strange. I don’t know, he’s so possessive of you …”
Sarah looked away. He has his reasons, believe me.
Bryony misunderstood Sarah’s embarrassment. “Is it him? Has he been horrible to you?” Bryony was ready to go give him a piece of her mind.
“No, no. He’s good to me. I don’t know what I’d do without him. There’s so much to sort out. You know the way my parents were …”
Bryony nodded. She thought that Anne was OK, but she had never warmed to Sarah’s dad. She had always thought that there was something … hard about him. He had the same green eyes as Sarah, but their expression was completely different – James’s eyes had something wild about them.
Anne was never there. She was dreamy, always doing something else – working in the garden, playing the piano, or down in the basement doing her art; she had told everyone that she was a painter, though nobody had ever seen a painting of hers. She lived in James’s pocket – whenever he was around Anne wouldn’t leave his side. She never seemed to have much time or energy for Sarah.
But James. He looked like someone you wouldn’t mess with. Bryony remembered his tall, strong figure, his blond hair, fairer than Harry’s – and those incredible green eyes, so piercing that she couldn’t look straight into them. When they were wee girls Bryony used to be scared of him – he looked like the prince from a fairy tale, and then he looked at you like he was Bluebeard.
Bryony knew that she was being unfair. She knew that Sarah adored her parents. But she was a very intuitive girl and she felt there was more to them than met the eye.
“What do you mean? Is it about this house? Is it financial problems or something?”
“No, not financial. I suppose you can say problems … with the inheritance. Look, it doesn’t matter. Really, I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure you can make it for November?” asked Bryony, gesturing at Sarah’s cello.
“I’ve got to.” Sarah jumped at the chance to change subject. “And what about you? How’s your portfolio? I’m so sorry, I haven’t asked you in a long time …”
“My portfolio is nearly finished. Hopefully I’ll get into the Glasgow School of Art. Otherwise there’s always Dundee.”
“You’ll make it, I know. We can take the train to Glasgow together, next year …”
“Oh, and there’s something else.” Bryony looked all coy, all of a sudden.
I can see where this is going, thought Sarah. Boyfriend number … what is it? Seven, eight, since we’ve started Secondary?
“It’s Michael, isn’t it?”
“Yes. We’re together!” Bryony beamed.
Sarah smiled. She liked Michael. She was happy for Bryony. Thing is, it’s going to last three months, maximum.
�
��And what about you, Sarah? I suppose it’ll never be Jack, will it?” she sighed.
Sarah shook her head, blood rising to her cheeks. “No. Not Jack.”
“Wait a minute … There’s someone! I can read it in your face!”
“Not really.”
“Not really … But there is! You’ve got to tell me!”
“There’s nothing to say. I met a guy, and I like him.” In my dreams, though.
“At last! I can’t believe it! This is the first time in the fourteen years I’ve known you that you tell me you like someone!”
“Well, I’ve always been busy.”
“Yes, with that!” Bryony pointed at the cello. “That’s your boyfriend!” Sarah laughed. “Now, who is he?”
Oh God. How am I going to explain? I met him in my dreams, he said he was sent to me, that he didn’t expect me to be so beautiful … He saved my life, and gives me … leaves? I don’t even know his real name.
“I’ll tell you another time.”
“What? This is torture! You can’t do this to me!”
Sarah smiled. “Be patient.”
“Sarah!” Harry was calling. There was an edge to his voice that Sarah didn’t like.
“Wait here.” She ran out, and down the stairs.
“You’ve got to send Bryony home,” Harry whispered. Sarah sighed.
“Just a few more minutes …”
“Now.”
“I’ll go with her then,” she retorted.
“Look.” Harry took her by the arm, and led her to the living-room window.
Sarah couldn’t believe her eyes.
Her oak trees.
They were bare. Completely bare. Not a leaf on them. The leaves were lying under them in a soft blanket, a few inches thick.
“Was this your friend, the one you call Leaf?” murmured Harry.
Sarah was horrified.
“I don’t know …”
“You’ve got to send Bryony home now, do you understand me? I won’t be responsible for her death. I won’t tell her parents.”
“Tell my parents what?” Bryony had appeared on the threshold of the living room.
Harry and Sarah rearranged their faces, quicker than the eye could see.
Dreams (Sarah Midnight Trilogy 1) Page 22