‘Doing what?’
The leader laughs. ‘Nothing kinky. I ain’t no ponce. Fighting, lad. You’re a lot stronger than you look. Of course, if you prefer not to let me manage your fighting career and get you out of this dump, we can always go back to plan A.’
He bends down to retrieve the discarded chain.
‘I’ll think about it,’ Mark says.
‘Sure, but think about it over a drink. We’ll get some beers in and go to Kevin’s.’
Mark glances towards the motionless body of the hobo. ‘What are you going to do about him?’
‘Nothing to do. He’ll be okay. He’ll wake up with a sore head and drink it away. Stinking wreckage, just like my ol’ man. Yours too I bet.’
Mark shrugs. ‘Maybe.’
‘So what do you say? Fancy getting pissed?’
Mark pockets the rock clenched between the fingers of his right hand. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Why the fuck not?’
Chapter 13
A baby cries. The wail pricks at the edge of Freya’s mind nudging her into consciousness.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, shut up,’ she shouts.
Her eyes open in slits. Dawn light nudges between the curtains decorating the white wall with a peach bloom.
‘It’s your turn.’ She reaches behind her to poke Rob in the ribs. Lazy bastard! Her finger sinks into his side, but he doesn’t respond. His t-shirt feels sticky. The night wasn’t hot. It’s still early spring. Why would he be wet?
She struggles to turn around. Sleep doesn’t want to free her from its grip yet. Midnight feeds and restlessness take their toll. She has never felt so tired. Why won’t he wake up? It’s his fucking turn. Turning slowly, degree by tortuous degree, she braves the light from the window and opens her eyes. Rob’s face looks pale. His eyes are open.
‘For Christ’s sake, Rob, Jasmine is crying. Go and sort her out. I need to sleep. I can’t keep doing this by myself.’
He doesn’t respond. His face doesn’t move. His lips are slightly open but do not tremble with breath. She pulls back the black duvet to shock him awake with the coldness of the room, and screams.
Her scream drowns the baby’s cries. Long after she has drawn breath the echoes of it shake the room. ‘Rob! Oh my god! Rob!’
His torso is red, covered in blood and his t-shirt is torn. She touches his cheek. It is cold. She jumps out of bed and stares in horror. How? Why? She runs out of the room and checks on the baby. Jasmine has wriggled out of her blanket. Her arms reach towards her mother. The screams grow more demanding as Freya steps towards the cot. Jasmine is okay.
Freya reaches into the cot and picks up the beetroot faced infant. Bloody handprints smudge her yellow babygro. Freya shakes, not knowing whether to return her daughter to the cot or take her to her dead father. The room spins. Freya blinks. Her stomach does somersaults. She puts the baby back into the pine cot mere seconds before her back folds and she vomits on the nursery floor.
Jasmine’s screams grow louder. Freya covers her ears and feels the slicks of blood from her hands tangle her hair and stain her cheeks. She looks at her hands and screams again. Jasmine’s legs and arms punch air. Freya turns and runs back to the bedroom.
The duvet is pulled back and Rob’s inert body lies there, Crimson wings curving across the mattress on either side of his chest. His t-shirt is sodden. Shaking, Freya approaches and with trembling fingers she pulls the t-shirt up towards his throat. Six deep splits, like eyes or cunts, gape across his blue-grey chest. Knife wounds. Who?
Freya backs away and turns around, searching the room for clues. Shadows skulk in corners. Is anyone still hiding here, waiting for the right moment to push me to the bed and stab me too? Rob was adored. Who would do this to him?
Freya opens cupboard doors and looks behind the curtains. She moves from room to room in the apartment checking behind every door, checking the shower and below the sink, opening each cupboard in the kitchen. No one, not even an unlucky black cat, pounces out at her. The only sound she hears is the insistent scream of her six month old daughter.
She heads to the front door. It is bolted on the inside. She rushes around opening every curtain. Every window, large enough to admit anyone, is closed and locked. Almost blinded by tears she searches the apartment again, still no one. Jasmine’s cries become more frantic. Panic makes Freya feel faint. She tastes iron on her tongue. Her limbs feel heavy and her legs shake. The attic?
She grabs the hooked pole and snags the handle of a trap door in the ceiling. As she pulls, steps unfold across the hallway. The attic is dark. Anyone could be hiding there. She keeps the pole as a weapon and slowly climbs the stairs. As her eyes peer over the rim she sees boxes of old books and Christmas decorations plus a chest of summer linen, stored until needed. Any of the boxes might hide an intruder. Her eyes flick around the room as she climbs. She wishes the baby would be quiet. Over the noise of screaming she wouldn’t hear footsteps until it was too late, but she cannot stop now. She has to know what happened.
She steps onto the plywood floor and tiptoes across the space. The attic is self-contained. There is no access to attics of other apartments. Only 20 feet by 30 feet in which someone could hide, but in that space dozens of boxes create bolt holes, sheltering anything or anyone from her gaze.
She looks behind them all. Ready to strike with her hooked stick should she see anything lurking in the shadows, but there is no one. She is alone. Jasmine’s voice screeches through the floorboards. If she doesn’t quieten the child soon, a neighbour will call the authorities. Bloody neighbours. They’re always complaining, never sympathetic to the mother of a demanding child. A child who slowly wears Freya’s soul into dust while she watches her skin age with disinfectant and her clothes grow tatty from scrubbing at baby vomit.
She descends the steps and pushes the trap door closed. After stashing her pole in a cupboard for safety, she grimaces at the irony of maintaining such a routine and rushes to pick up Jasmine.
The baby feels hot to the touch. Freya suspects it is because she has cried for so long, but she undresses her anyway and leaves the blood stained babygro on the nursery floor.
‘What are we going to do, Jaz?’
The only answer is a weak hiccup of a cry in protest to having been left so long. Freya opens her pyjama top and lets Jasmine latch on for her feed. She paces around the nursery, frightened to return to her bedroom. What if I imagined it? What if I didn’t? What if he’s really dead? What do I do?
‘Should I phone the police, Jaz?’
The baby suckles contentedly.
‘What if they take Mummy away? What then sweetheart? They might think I killed him…Fuck! What do I do?’
Jasmine finishes feeding and falls asleep in Freya’s arms. Freya places her back in the cot and tucks the blanket over her. She does not look for a clean babygro or redress her daughter in the blood stained garment on the floor. She hopes Jasmine will be warm enough in her vest for a couple of hours.
She watches the baby’s body relax. It is one of the moments she enjoys best about being a parent. Watching tension fall from Jasmine’s sleeping body, through the cot and the floor below, is like watching meditation. The effect is soothing. Freya sits beside the cot, crosses her legs and places her palms face up on her knees. She breathes in and out, concentrating on her breathing. She tries to let the tension drip from her own body, but, as she visualises losing negativity and stress, the image changes and becomes her stabbed and bleeding boyfriend. Blood rather than tension seeps into the floor. She squeezes her eyes tighter, trying to push the image away, but it refuses to be ignored. Her mind will not let her pretend the carnage does not exist, not even for one blissful second.
She tiptoes silently into the room. In the back of her mind she wonders if this is a trick Rob is playing on her. Rob and his sick sense of humour. Of course it is make-up. If he doesn’t hear me creep into the room I’ll catch him grinning, amused at how easily I fell for his joke.
Except, whe
n she returns, he isn’t smiling and he hasn’t moved. If anything the crimson wings have grown wider and darker as if blood still pours from his wounds. She walks across to him. Approaching him by a circuitous route so that the window is behind her and her shadow is cast across him. The position also allows her to keep her eye on the open door and check for movement in the hallway in case the killer returns, or never left.
She grips Rob’s wrist, no pulse. She wasn’t expecting one, but the knowledge that he is truly dead makes her feel weak and she lowers herself to the floor, kneeling beside him as if in prayer.
‘Who did this to you?’
Rob’s corpse does not reply.
His mobile phone is on his bedside table. She picks it up and dials her brother’s number. It’s early. When he answers the phone, Ivan’s voice is a yawn.
‘Rob?’ Ivan asks.
Freya weeps into the receiver.
‘Sis?’ Ivan’s voice trembles.
‘I’m in trouble,’ she says.
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘Rob’s dead.’
‘Did you kill him?’ Ivan asks.
‘No, of course not. How could you ask that?’
‘Then call the police.’
‘I’m scared.’
‘Of course you are, but the police will help you. Is Jasmine okay?’
‘Yes, she’s sleeping. I can’t call the police,’ Freya says.
‘Why?’
‘They’ll think I did it. They’ll lock me up and I’ll lose Jasmine.’
‘No they won’t. Look, I’m hours away. It’ll take me at least five hours to reach you. You’ll have to call the police.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You and Jasmine can’t stay in the flat with…’
‘A corpse?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Tell me what to do, Bro.’
‘Call the police.’
‘No.’
‘Then get out of the flat. Take Jasmine. I’ll call you when I reach York. Then we’ll go back to the flat together. Shall I call you on this number?’
Tears run through her fingers onto the screen of Rob’s phone. She shakes her head. ‘No. I’ll take my mobile.’
‘Are you going to be okay?’ His voice is soft and full of concern.
Her chest squeezes her heavy heart like a vice. ‘I don’t think so, Bro.’
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’ll bring Dad,’ Ivan says.
‘I don’t know…’
‘He’ll be more use than me, Sis.’
Freya sobs into the receiver. ‘He’ll hate me.’
‘But you didn’t kill Rob.’
‘It looks like I did.’ Freya’s weeping grows louder. Her body shakes and she feels the threat of hysteria grip her shoulders.
‘But you didn’t.’
She breathes deeply, choking on tears. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she whispers.
‘We’ll sort this out, you, me and Dad. It’ll be okay. Look, I’m going to put the phone down and ring Dad. We’ll call you when we’re on our way, okay?’
Freya wails.
‘Okay?’ Ivan asks again.
‘Okay,’ Freya answers. ‘But hurry.’
Chapter 14
The flat is dingy. Empty cans and bottles cover the floor around sofa and chairs like pebbled shores around volcanic islands. Mark steps across reefs of glass and aluminium and curls his legs up on an empty armchair. The arms of the chair are pitted with black circles as if someone has used them as an ashtray. He rubs his fingers over the scars. The melted fibres scratch his skin.
He looks across the room at the three guys shoulder to shoulder on one sofa. They use beer cans as ashtrays. When they offer him a cigarette, he shakes his head.
‘Wise. I wish I’d never started. A slave to nicotine now.’ Simon lifts a bottle of Grolsh to his lips and pours the lager into his throat. ‘This stuff will kill you, but who wants to live forever, huh?’
Mark nods and leans back in the chair. His eyelids feel heavy and the oppressive warmth of the room pulls him towards sleep.
‘Sure kid, get some sleep. You’re safe here,’ Kevin assures him.
He isn’t sure whether he thanks them or not before sleep claims him. In his dreams three faces drift just beyond his reach, two women and a man. One face is well known to him, the others feel like distant memories. He’s here to refresh those memories.
When Mark wakes, the settee before him is empty. He picks his way across the carpet, between mounds of debris to the kitchenette. An old looking fridge hums and the meagre surface space is covered in dirty plates, dishes, take-away cartons and mugs full of cold, half-drunk tea. The bin overflows and the oven, covered with unwashed crockery, looks grimy and black.
Mark returns to the living room and walks towards the front door. He knows beyond the door a staircase leads to the world outside. The door has three keyholes and two sets of heavy bolts. Neither bolt is drawn. Mark pushes the handle down and the door opens. The staircase is empty. He could leave.
He closes the door and looks at an alcove to his left. Two other doors hang between magnolia walls. Both stand ajar. He peers into a dark room. A bed rests in the centre and a pale body in boxer shorts is sprawled across the sheet. The upper sheet and blanket have been kicked away and lie tangled like a caterpillar beside the shaven-headed sleeper.
The second door leads to a tiny bathroom. This room, although grubby, does not have rubbish strewn across the floor. A small blue bathtub, sink and toilet huddle together around a grey towel, which has been spread across a vinyl floor. The towel has imprints of feet. Mark touches the fibres. They are hardly damp, but the imprints are deep and dark in colour.
Mark wonders whether to leave or stay. Sleeping in a chair is preferable to the dank tunnel, but what will the men demand in return? He suspects they want violence from him. While he is not afraid he has other plans, a different purpose for being here. Will these thugs get in my way or can they help me? He decides to wait and see.
He heads for the kitchen and searches for bin liners. The empty cans, bottles and cartons Mark stuffs into four large sacks, carries down the stairs and out of the building, placing them in a nearby bin. He looks for washing up liquid but finds only hand soap. He uses this to drag grime from plates and dishes and tidies them away into empty cupboards.
By the time the sleeper rises from the bedroom, the kitchen and living room have both been cleared of rubbish. The carpet looks as dirty without cans and bottles scattered upon it as with, but it is less hazardous to move around the room and easier to find a vessel from which to drink water.
‘Did you do this?’ Kevin asks.
‘Yes,’ Mark answers.
‘Why?’
Mark shrugs. ‘I had time to kill.’
The man returns Mark’s shrug and sits down on the sofa. ‘Thanks. Get us a cuppa will you, kid?’
‘Sure.’ Mark heads to the kitchen to fill the kettle.
A cloud of cigarette smoke and the chatter of a television waft into the kitchenette. Still it’s better than urine, he tells himself.
Chapter 15
Edensun wanders through labyrinthine city streets. The contrast between this place, so full of buildings and people, and his home, Binah, makes his head spin. He touches a rich ochre and black wall of stone. It feels colder than the colour suggests. He pulls his hand away and studies his palm. A fine layer of grey dirt clings to his skin.
He weaves through crowds of people along narrow cobbled streets. To his left a huge Cathedral dominates the skyline. He walks towards it. Dozens of camera lenses focus on the structure, capturing its memory for people to carry with them when they leave.
A horse and trap wait outside. The cart is black and has a sign on its side offering York City Tours. A man and woman sit on a bench at the rear, a well-wrapped driver at the front. The man and woman grip each other’s hands and look around them, at the looming York Minster, th
e snug taverns and shops, the bright green lawn of the parkland behind them and the multitude of people walking past or pausing to pet the horse.
He stays for a moment, until the punching weight of human sounds makes him feel giddy. Turning away, he follows the quietest street he can find and weaves between shoppers and tourists. When Edensun reaches the city wall, he climbs the steps to the narrow walkway at its summit. As he marches across wooden boards laid on stone, he watches the world rush by below. Every so often he needs to squeeze against the wall and make himself narrow for others to pass. His eyes scan the rooftops of the ancient buildings to his left and the modern ones to his right. It is hard to see the two as parts of the same whole.
He wanders aimlessly. The sun sets, and streetlights are lit. People dress in brighter costumes to compensate and the old city seems more alive than ever. Hours pass as Edensun explores. This is Malkuth. He had struggled to understand Lilith’s descriptions of this world. He could not imagine that such a crush of souls could exist. Seeing it now, he realises they wander around oblivious to each other, making walls out of air to protect themselves. He thinks of his mother and wonders whether he will get past her wall. Is she as lonely and resigned to her fate as the rest of these plumed humans? I will find out soon enough.
The crowds of people thin and dissipate, returning to their homes drunk and loud. Cobblestones make them stagger and Edensun watches with amusement as high-heeled, short-skirted women topple and fall.
Like a shadow, he glides through the quiet streets towards his destination. He could have gone there first, but this was more fun. Watching the lives of people, feeding off their energy, before he severs the mortal coil of the one he hunts.
He climbs a red brick wall to a first storey window and balances cat-like on the windowsill. The curtains beyond the pane are drawn and he can see only the faintest glow of light through the narrow gap between them. The only part of the window he can open is a narrow strip at the top about thirty centimetres deep. He tugs at its edge, pulls it open and leans towards the gap. His body alters to fit. It squashes down like rolled pastry and he feeds himself into the room beyond.
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