Dark Vision

by Debbie Johnson

  He was a super-hot hunk in a super-tight T-shirt, and I knew – despite the fact he’d not covered himself in glory so far today – that he loved me. He really did, as much as he was capable of. He just did a damned fine job of hiding it beneath multiple layers of knobdom. Knowing that was one thing; figuring out what I felt was a different matter entirely. Could I love Gabriel? I’d have to revisit that one when life was a little calmer. Like in a decade or so.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said when I’d finally stopped laughing and he’d started to look amazingly peed off, ‘but if we have a few illicit minutes together, there are more important things on my mind than getting laid. Yeah, really, there are – don’t look at me like that! I have questions, and until they’re answered, I won’t feel ready for this … choosing.’

  His body tensed, and even without a brain plunge I could tell he was nervous about what was coming next. Quite rightly, too. He nodded, once, sudden and sharp, and gestured for me to go on. I felt tense myself: this man had me on an emotional carousel. One minute he could do a pretty good impression of the man of every girl’s dreams (presuming she’d been eating a lot of cheese the night before), and the next I was slapped around the face with a revelatory wet kipper. It would be easy to stay quiet, to give in to the urge to hide from truths I knew would hurt me – from truths that would make the tricky issue of Gabriel and me even more tricky. But I couldn’t. I had to know. I had to poke, to prod, to ruffle the undergrowth and see what came out. No wonder I’m single.

  ‘Coleen,’ I said simply. ‘The wedding photo. Her. Tell me.’

  He ran his hands through his hair in a way I recognised as something he did when he was anxious. When he was playing for time. When he was entirely possibly thinking up a big fat lie to tell the kids.

  ‘The truth,’ I said, ‘or I’ll know.’

  ‘The truth is a complicated—’

  ‘Oh, spare me the bullshit. I’ve heard that speech before from Fionnula. What it usually means is I’m about to hear something I won’t like. Well, I’m a big girl now, Gabriel, and I need to know. So tell me, or I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be running straight into Fintan’s arms and doing a conga with the Faidh come nightfall.’

  He closed his eyes, and started to crack his knuckles, and stared first at the dogs and then at the fire and then, finally, at me.

  ‘Coleen’s husband, Philip, was one of ours,’ he said, his voice low and quiet and reluctant. ‘He was human – but he’d been raised here in Meath, and his family was tied to ours. He was, I suppose, a servant. He helped us on the mortal side, one of many allies we had here.’

  Hmm. Like Miss McDonough and Roisin, I supposed – not one of them, but working for them. OK. I got it so far. I raised my eyebrows, asking what was next.

  ‘Then he developed cancer. He was young – in his thirties. Leukaemia, just at the time when he and Coleen were starting to talk about having children of their own. She was … well, she was different then. She was happy. They were happy. When Philip found out he was dying, he told her about us, and she made contact. She asked us for help. She asked us to save him.’

  Jeez. I could only imagine what a head fuck that had been. One minute you’re a happily married Scousewife planning the rest of your life, the next you have a dying husband and a whole new world to come to terms with.

  ‘I’m guessing,’ I said when he paused, ‘that you didn’t – because I certainly never met a Philip, and Coleen wasn’t exactly what you’d call a blushing young bride, was she? What did you do?’

  ‘We … I … did help her. In a way. There was nothing we could do for Philip on that side – he was too far gone down the path of the disease. So she begged us to … take him. To the Otherworld. To keep him there, keep him safe. Make him forget all about her and their life together, give him a fresh start, unencumbered by memories or sadness or regret. In exchange, she took on his duties for us. For me.’

  ‘So … Philip is in the Otherworld, living a carefree life. And Coleen was left … alone. With a new job,’ I said, frowning as I struggled to wrap my meagre brain around the whole idea.

  The woman I’d known – the cold, hard-faced battleaxe who’d raised me – had seemed completely devoid of warmth, or love, or any human emotions other than anger and bitterness. Yet at that time, at that crossroads, she’d made the most amazing choice. She’d sacrificed the rest of her own life to save his. It was beautiful, and brave, and so completely fucked up. No wonder she’d been scared of them. No wonder she’d seemed so resentful of me: I was a symbol of everything that had gone wrong in her world. A constant reminder of everything she’d lost.

  ‘Why couldn’t you take her as well?’ I asked. ‘Let them both go to the Otherworld, and stay together? Is that … not allowed?’

  He met my eyes, and I knew there was a nasty coming.

  ‘It is. And I could have. I chose not to. I needed her on the outside. I needed her for you, as my backup plan. So I refused her when she asked, and told her she must live her life the way I wanted her to, or—’

  ‘Or what?’ I said, leaning forward so our knees were touching. ‘Or you’d … hurt him?’

  ‘Or we’d make him leave the Otherworld, and the safety he knew there. Return him to the mortal plane, where he would most certainly die.’

  He was silent after that. We both were, listening to the hiss of the fire and the gentle snoring of the dogs and the quiet clunk of a whole new reality sinking into place. They – he – had taken advantage of the love a young woman had for her husband, and then threatened to torment him if she didn’t do as she was told. I’d known he was ruthless, but this … this really was taking the whole packet of Hobnobs.

  ‘I think you’d better leave,’ I said, finally. I felt suddenly cold and alone and overwhelmingly sad. Coleen was gone, my parents and sisters were on the other side, Carmel was a blood-crazed lunatic, and the Morrigan had a hairdo made up of slaughter. The man who sat beside me, the man who loved me above all others, was so single-minded in his ambitions that he was borderline evil. That left me with only Luca – my vampire slave – and possibly a shiny dog. In the whole wide world.

  I stood up and pointed at the door. I really needed to be alone with my aloneness.

  ‘Leave,’ I said. ‘Now.’

  He ignored me, and reached out, tilting my chin up so I was looking into his eyes. Eyes that were filled with a sadness almost as big as my own.

  ‘I did as you asked,’ he said. ‘I was honest. And now you’ll punish me for it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied, slapping his hand away. ‘Sometimes life sucks, doesn’t it? Just ask Philip and Coleen about that one … Now, please, get away from me. I can’t bear to be near you right now. As final pitches went, that was the world’s worst.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘and I didn’t come here intending to make you suffer. Or fight with Luca. Or scream at you. I came here to tell you how brave you were last night. To thank you for saving me, even if it wasn’t the sensible thing to do. To tell you I’m sorry, for everything. To tell you that … I … that I …’

  He hesitated, and I could sense it coming. I could hear the ‘L’ bomb hovering in the air between us, burning fiercer than the fire and stronger than the stone and brighter than the jewels beneath the dogs’ coats.

  ‘I know,’ I said, turning away before he could say it. ‘I know you do. I just don’t know if it’s enough.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Carmel threw herself back on the bed, and rolled around laughing. Literally rolled around, disappearing beneath a cloud of black hair and bearskin as she drooled into the pillow.

  ‘I’m glad one of us finds this amusing,’ I said, sharing my glares between her quaking body and the view I could see in the full-length mirror. The view of me, goddess-style. The one that had so affected my friend, the laughing policeman over there.

  Shortly after Gabriel had left, I’d been attacked – and that is the only word I can use for it – by Tara’s version of Tracy and C
heryl from the salon. Not that I know a Tracy and Cheryl from the salon, but you get my drift. They might not have had the Scousebrows and Botox needles, but they had exactly the same appraising glint in their eyes as they looked me up and down. The one that said, ‘Shit – we’ve got our work cut out for us tonight, girls.’

  So now, after several hours of torture, here I was. Wearing a long white gown straight out of the Druid Girls’ Guide to Fashion, coated in oils and potions, and with my hair knotted up in dozens of tiny plaits. The plaits were pinned around my head, apart from the one white streak, which had been decorated with miniscule red berries and left down to flow over my left shoulder and fade into the fabric of the dress. I looked … faintly ridiculous, by modern standards. Certainly by Carmel’s, looking at the state of her. But, well, I kind of liked it. As long as I didn’t trip up, wee myself in public, or swear, I’d at least appear dignified – even if I didn’t feel it.

  I’d drawn the line at the stupid sandals, though, and insisted they let me wear my Docs instead – I definitely needed a bit of grounding on a night like this. Never mind the fact that it was the end of October, and bloody cold out there. I wasn’t sure they really went with the rest of the outfit – but then, neither did I.

  They’d left us, then, with plates of food, a bowl of fruit and carafes of wine, so we could get on with the important business of eating, drinking and bickering.

  ‘You know,’ I said, sitting down next to her, ‘this is a pretty important night. The Feast of Samhain. The moment when I have to do all my goddess stuff. You could be a bit more … supportive?’

  She sat up, leaned back against the wall, and wiped tears from beneath her eyes. The dog was curled up at my feet, and leaned over to lick my ankles. At least one of the bitches in the room understood.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Carmel. ‘It’s just … well, look at you! And it’s not just that – it’s everything. Everything that’s happened over the last few days. The madness of it all. How I’m feeling. How we’ve both changed. I mean, it’s wild, isn’t it? If I didn’t laugh, I might lose my mind.’

  I nodded. Wild. That was one word for it. I’d add insane, horrifying and fucktarded beyond all recognition to the list.

  ‘It’s all been kicking off at home as well,’ she said. ‘I checked the paper’s website at the airport, and did you know they’d put all that crap last night down to some kind of performance-art piece? Some super-expensive performance-art piece that has the boffins at the museum salivating over all the genuine historic artefacts that ended up in the river? Don’t know what happened to the dead people, but some of the swords floated up in the Albert Dock! I kind of wish I was in the newsroom right now …’

  I knew exactly what she meant. Newspapers are crazy places, and the buzz is never buzzier than when a big piece of news is floating around. Big events – tragedies to anyone else, like Princess Diana dying, or 9/11 – are torn about by the hungry newshounds, a bunch of borderline alcoholics and overgrown students working as one well-oiled machine to produce the stories that everyone wants to read.

  I felt a stab of nostalgia for it: the way they’d all be scurrying around now, getting photos and expert comments and witness accounts using the inevitable phrase, ‘I heard a big bang …’ Except that wasn’t my life right now. Maybe it never would be again. And depending on what happened tonight, maybe it wouldn’t be anyone’s life ever again.

  That whole idea felt ridiculous. How could I – Lily McCain – have ended up with this kind of responsibility? How could I, who’d only ever dipped her little toe into the great pool of life, now be asked to decide what happened to it next? And how could I separate my feelings about Gabriel, and the things he’d done, from the fate of all humanity?

  Rejecting him meant accepting Fintan – and his version of the way the world should be. Accepting him meant … well, I didn’t know what it meant. Not happy ever after, that’s for bloody sure. Not for me, or him, or the world, I suspected. It’s not like I’d say yes, and suddenly planet Earth would be wrapped in a big blanket of rainbows and unicorns, with the whole of humanity acting like they’d taken an E. It all felt impossible to judge.

  Life would, as Gabriel had always known, be a lot easier if I’d just been a good little girl and done what I was told. Never questioned his version of events, swooned into his manly arms, and thought myself lucky to be there. Oops.

  ‘So,’ said Carmel, serious again, ‘what are you going to do, then?’

  The dog jumped up, and laid her long face on my lap so I could scratch her ears. I did exactly that as I pondered Carmel’s question.

  ‘I … don’t know,’ I replied. ‘In all honesty, I don’t know. Fintan is, well, a sicko. No doubt about it. But I’ve been to the Otherworld, and it’s kind of beautiful, in a Logan’s Run sort of way. It definitely beats walking through Bootle on a Saturday night, anyway.’

  She opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it. I smiled – I knew exactly what she’d been about to say. That she’d had some cracking nights out in Bootle on a Saturday night. I, though, hadn’t. I hadn’t had those many cracking nights out anywhere, which is exactly why this decision would have been much easier for her: her life wasn’t perfect, but she loved it. It loved her. It was full of friends and fun and her unspeakably fantastic family. This would’ve been a no-brainer for Carmel. Me? Very much a brainer.

  What I’d seen of this world was ninety per cent pain. What I’d seen of the Otherworld wasn’t, because that’s where my parents lived. I knew I wasn’t seeing the full picture – Fionnula had shown me how the Otherworld would be for some, and I’d had enough glimpses of normal human life to realise that it, too, could be totally awesome. And stuck right in the middle of the two was Gabriel. My High King and mate. My saviour and my tormentor. My wannabe lover and potential jailor.

  ‘I’m hoping,’ I said, thinking out loud, ‘that when I get out there, I’ll just know. Some pretty weird shit happened last night—’

  ‘You mean like you turning into a glow-stick and speaking in stereo?’ she interrupted.

  ‘Like that, yeah. I didn’t plan any of that. It just … happened. And maybe it’ll happen again. That I’ll just know what to do, as if by magic.’

  ‘OK …’ she replied, pulling a face that told me exactly what she thought of my devious master plan. ‘But what about the really important stuff? Forget all this saving the world crap – what about him? What about Gabriel? I’ve seen the way you look at him, and it even confuses me. I never know if you’re planning to eat him or stab him.’

  She was right. That was exactly the way I looked at him – because that’s exactly the way I felt.

  Before I could answer, she plunged back in: ‘I get that there’ve been a few untruths, Lily. I get that you’re angry with him, with fate, with everything. And it’s not like I’m a fully paid-up member of the High King Fan Club or anything … but, well. You know, don’t you, that he loves you? That if it wasn’t for his sacred duty, blah blah blah, he’d still love you? That you two could have a chance at … God, this sounds like puke, but a chance at being really happy together?’

  At that point I’d have quite liked to take an apple from the fruit bowl and stick it in her mouth. I didn’t want to hear all this stuff – not now, not ever. Because again, damn her, she was right. If life had been different, I could so easily have fallen for Gabriel. The head over heels, happy ever after, love of my life kind of fallen. Maybe I still could – but there had been too much, too fast, for me to have any sense of balance about it.

  ‘Um … yeah,’ I said, eloquently.

  She nodded, realising she wasn’t going to get anything more from me, jumped up from the bed and went to look at herself in the mirror. She’d fared a lot better than I had on the ancient mystical ceremony wardrobe – tight black pants, long-sleeved black top, and kind of funky knee-length boots made of soft brown leather, with black leather laces criss-crossed all the way around them.

  ‘These,’ she sa
id, lifting up one foot and pointing a toe at me, ‘are a bit on the kinky side, I think. Which may be why I like them. So … what you seem to be saying, Lily, is that your master plan consists of: (a) wait and see, and (b) hope for the best?’

  I nodded. When she put it like that, it did sound kind of lame.

  ‘Why? What do you think I should do?’ I asked.

  ‘I can’t answer that,’ she replied quickly. ‘You know what I’d do. But I’m not the Goddess for a reason. That’s your job, and I wouldn’t want it. But I know this – whatever you do, it’ll be from the heart, and it’ll be right. I think so, and I’m pretty sure the Diamond Dogs agree.’

  The Diamond Dogs … I looked down at the mammoth head on my lap, and the way her coat seemed to sparkle with jewels you could only see from the corner of your eye. She was right. They were Diamond Dogs. I couldn’t believe the thought hadn’t occurred to me earlier. Only I could fall through the rabbit hole and land in the middle of a David Bowie song.

  ‘Just in case you need it, though,’ she said, ‘I want you to keep this.’

  She handed me something, and I took it. It was a pocketknife like the one she’d been carrying the night before, the twin sister of the one I’d dropped in the river. I had a small looped purse hanging from the belt of my dress, which for some reason was full of keys to doors I’d never tried to open. I tucked the knife in there, and looked up at her, wondering how she’d managed to fish the knife out of the Mersey.

  ‘It was buy one get one free at Assassins R Us,’ she said, grinning.

  I was halfway to a giggle about that one when a bell started to chime, deep, loud, and rattling with vibrato. The kind of bell that told the puny villagers the Kraken was on its way to eat them all, and to run for their lives. It echoed through the room, rattling the mirror on its uneven ground, and making the dogs restless.