Becoming Red (The Becoming Novels)

by Black, Paula

  Papercut fingers massaged temples aching from strain and a caffeine overdose, eyes dropping back to the bright red cloaking the girl, cloaking her, and it hypnotised and drugged, thoughts bouncing around her head as her focus locked on the spread of colour. The papers played with the words: kidnapping, suspicious deaths, child slavery; the same things the doctors had fixed into her head after she had been ... retrieved from her grandmother’s arms. They were the only logical explanations. But the darkness still stirred, trying to convince her, from the cage she had the shadows locked in, that she had it wrong, that these words, curling around the blood red stain shrouding a little girl, were lies.

  It may have been nothing but the crazed turmoil of her exhausted brain, but Ash felt closer than she ever had, the soil beneath her feet whispering of lies told and a reality she should already have grasp of.

  Dublin had answers for her.

  She could feel it in her very bones

  Kicking her elbows back onto the table, Ash pushed the sheaves of newspaper clippings from her sight, nudging them under a folder. Time to move on. Dragging another stack of papers from beneath a slab of stone that could have been a paperweight a million years ago, she paused to admire the carving, turning it over in her hand. It was marked with faded indentations that she smoothed with her finger, drawing the trace of the carved raven as it exploded into Celtic scrolls across the surface of the broken rock. It was beautiful. This looks ancient. If Granny was a cat burglar, she really hit some top museums. If she let some antique hunters in here, they’d be in ecstasy among such artifacts.

  ‘You kept all of this ... why?’ Some of it was pure rubbish, old rubbish, and yet there was an eery link between everything. Violence lay dominant in the newspaper clippings, females in the Missing Persons scraps she found stuck under old coasters. Fantasy and myth ruled the scrolls of writing that dotted a mess of English and Gaelic across ruins of paper. A slight whip of the curtains, heavy, damask dark things, like bat wings spanning the large windows, seemed a phantom answer to her out loud question. She spoke and was confronted by a whisper of something.

  Her spine chilled, her flesh goose-bumped up and she shivered, the fire lit against the afternoon cold no use against the ice freezing up under her skin. It wasn’t real, it wasn’t anything but a mind too tired, too wired, too panicked and unnerved, making spectres in the old familiarity of a quiet house.

  Nothing was real now, as she filtered paper on autopilot into piles, sleep clouding fast into a fog over her vision, stealing fleeting glimpses of a nightmare in the jam packed corners. She hated this. The border, the boundary that hinged sleep and waking, opened the doors to a childlike mind, a childish fear, and superimposed the imaginings of her past into the reality of her present. Exhaustion made her weak, and that’s when the monsters broke through.

  Her eyes felt heavy with her lashes, blinking back the sleep that fought with the coffee energy currently holding more volume than her blood cells in her veins. A war that would leave her nerve endings buzzing as she came off the caffeine and result in her ultimate surrender to dreams. Fight as she did, the contents of all those sheaves of documents couldn’t hold her attention enough to be armour against the nightmares now clamouring for her notice.

  Forget the house ... They pressed ...

  Come visit us ... They coaxed ...

  Taloned fingers gripped her wrist and dragged her so hard she left gouges in the concrete of her resistance and tumbled into the sea-salt sprayed, animal fur scented darkness of that one dream. The one where the shadows had teeth and bayed over a pool of encroaching crimson.

  Ratatatatatatatatat...Ratatatatatatatat... Bzzzzzzzzz ... Bzzzzzzz ...

  Ash surfaced with a jerk, arm lashed out to ward off the attack of the giant buzzing creature pounding on her door. Ok ... maybe not pounding. Her head was thumping and the knocks at the door came in quick, gentle succession interspersed with the rumble of the ... doorbell? Yeah, doorbell. No freaky thing trying to gain entrance to the house, just a regular old alert to company.

  ‘Ughnn...’ Ash stretched out, pushing her feet onto the solid worn wood of the flooring and wavering a second as her senses aligned with reality, dispelling the drowse of sleep with a full form shudder. Wandering over fire heated oak panels to the door, she peered through the covered peephole and unbolted the lock with a curious smile. She didn’t even get a ‘Can I help you?’ from her lips before the hoop of a leash was pushed into her hand and the flustered smile of the woman before her changed to an uptilt of surprise.

  ‘Oh ...’ Huffing a blonde strand from her face, the woman paused, gathering some semblance of thought as she bounced a small boy on her hip. ‘Hi, I’m really sorry to be doing this to you ...’

  ‘Ash. Ashling DeMorgan.’

  ‘Ashling, right. Liath.’ Just a name by way of introduction. ‘I gotta go, and I can’t leave the mutt in my house alone for one more shift, he’s like a bull in a china shop, and he eats more than a feckin’ elephant. I will drop what’s left of his food back around when I get off this night shift, but I really can’t keep him another day. I’m sorry.’

  Ash nodded along through the exhaled rush of words, trying to fathom who the hell the woman was and why she suddenly found herself owner of a small fluffy horse that slobbered kisses to her hands, large paws clawing at her hip as the beast pounced up to reach her face with the drool-drenched rasp of an excited tongue. Batting at the ... fuck is it a dog?!!! Ash pushed the creature down sternly, flicking laces of saliva from her skin with an amused shiver.

  ‘You want me to take your dog?’ She could feel the pull of confusion furrowing her brow and tried to wipe the frown away before Liath looked back up.

  ‘Not my dog, Mrs DeMorgan’s dog. He’s yours now.’ Her smile was soft, sympathetic as she brushed back a lock of dark blonde hair. ‘I just can’t cope anymore, not with Josh,’ she jostled the little boy in her arms and smiled as his face lit up with giggles, ‘I already work long hours, I don’t want to be spending more cleaning up after the mutt too.’

  Ahhh. This was the dog that had alerted the neighbours to something being amiss, the dog she hadn’t found dead in a hallway. Glad one mystery was somewhat solved, Ash tugged gently on the lead, encouraging the pony sized canine to seat himself beside her.

  ‘At least he’ll be good protection. With the crime in this city, you’ll want all the protection you can get. If he was smaller ...’ She’d be keeping him. Ash read the silence. This woman was eager to get gone, the poor little one clinging to her shoulders as she bounced him, jade-green eyes roaming Ash head to toe with a purely feminine look. It was the kind of look any woman gave another, sizing them up for imperfections, judging beauty, if they’d be competition. All women did it. And Ash scanned her own gaze over her neighbour. That was going to take some getting used to. She had neighbours that obviously didn’t just pretend she never existed. She had neighbours that spoke. Or at least one that did. The woman dipped a little, shifting her weight between her feet and Ash stepped into the silence she’d left hanging.

  ‘Well ... umm ... thank you for the dog.’ Awkward didn’t begin to cover it. Ash felt like she’d walked into someone else’s conversation and missed the point. Liath was way too interested, too curious looking her over. Did she have drool on her top? She brushed at the length of her braid self consciously. ‘You have to go?’ She was getting uneasy. Too much staring, not enough talking.

  ‘Oh feck ... yes ...’ Spurred from whatever had gripped her curiosity, Liath’s lips turned on a practiced bright smile, hand pushing down the upturned hem on her uniform and cuddling the little boy close as she about faced with a soft spoken, ‘Good luck ... ummm ... bye.’ A wave and a crunch of stone underfoot later and she was off into the dark Friday evening, leaving Ash with the mammoth puppy and finger waving back at the small-handed wave the cherub boy offered from his perch at his mother’s hip.

  ‘Now, what to do with you, huh, boy?’ She scratched the top of the dog’s silky
grey head, unclipping the leash and ushering the loping animal into the bowels of the rabbit hole house she now called home. He disappeared and she secured the locks before seeking him out. If her neighbour, Liath, feared leaving him alone, she could only imagine what china he could break in the craziness of her grandmother’s house.

  ‘What are you chewing, boy?’ The huge silver beast raised his massive head and pulled out all the stops on the puppy dog look. Big brown eyes implored her to let him gnaw on the fluffy slipper dangling from his mouth, his kill spilling foamy innards in torn shreds to layer his paws in the evidence of his attack. Her lips curved, laughter twitching at the corners as she watched him from the door. She moved slow and dropped down beside the happily chewing canine, indulging and tunnelling her hands through silken silver fur. Ash got lost for a while, rhythmically petting the creature. God, she must be lonely if she was planning on keeping the giant fur bag still terrorising the slipper.

  She was still cooing over the dog, ruffling his fur when it caught her eye. To anyone else it would have been nothing, probably wouldn’t have even made it onto their radar, but to her, it was the lure fishermen threw out and she got nice and hooked, the flash of colour an explosion to all her senses, like she could hear it, loud as a heartbeat in her head. Smell it, like lust and roses. Feel it, a blush on her skin and a heat in her veins. As her tongue flicked out to her lips, she swore she could taste it, sweet as strawberries and just as ripe. But all she did was see it. A struggle of colour trying to overtake the black patent leather that drowned it out. On the soles of heels, it danced for her eyes, a girl around her age fighting with the trapped shoe as the gridding retained a grip on the bright red spike of a stiletto. The shoes were whatever, the colour was … brilliant. Fascinating. And completely hypnotising. Ash swayed closer, the dog’s eyes following her creep to the curtains as she peeked around the heavy falls of material for another look. Still there, it was a battle Ash didn’t want to end, the way the shadows ate up the red only to reveal it seconds later had her mesmerised and knowing that she may very well be insane. Doe-eyed and beautiful, the owner of the Red was shrouded in frustration, cursing loud enough that the panes of the glass didn’t cut it out and shrugging the chill air from her skin with nervous twitches. Her friends were a bit away, keeping a close eye on the fight with the manhole but too tipsy to want to linger long, shifting from stilt heel to stilt heel in an agitated dance that was all anticipation. I should be like that. Out there, dolled up to the nines with talon fake nails and barely there clothes, freezing her ass off, and tottering drunkenly into every man she could see.

  Yeah ... Party!!

  Not ...

  Instead, she was enthralled by the colour on the bottom of the girl’s shoes and planning a night in with an equine sized canine and some mind-numbing TV. She didn’t need people around her … she kinda needed those heels, but ... Ash shook the thoughts off as the heel was wrenched free and the girl’s head whipped up in triumph, locking her gaze to Ash’s in a clash of Bambi brown and startled sapphire, for a split second of haughty disdain. The curtains dropped faster than a breath and Ash backed up real fast. That girl probably didn’t have a scrap of awkward in her closet. But she had damn nice heels. So Ash didn’t have a lot of tumbling party nights out with girlfriends, she could, if she wanted them. ... Shrugging off a wistful sigh, the spell from the red-soled shoes was broken. Ash resisted the urge to watch the colour tap tap down the street, falling instead into the plump squishy cushions of the couch with a huff of air and scrolling down until she hit a Spartacus re-run and drowned in a sea of buff men in loincloths.

  CHAPTER SIX

  'My ... what big teeth you have.'

  He barely heard her. The delivery was nervous, the quavering in her very feminine voice belying the feigned bravado, a lame attempt to diffuse tension with humour. Waves of animal aggression were pumping off him, charging the air with a menace that was fuelled by the scent of the girl's fear and her sweet blood baiting his tongue. But then she spoke, and, ironically, the faintly ridiculous Big Bad reference was what saved her, snapping some tight-wound cord inside of him. As though physically repelled by her words, his body jerked away, a potent cocktail of panic and adrenaline flooding his veins, peeling his lids wide on wild, crimson eyes. Fight or flight.

  His body chose flight. Stumbling out into the corridor, Connal slammed the door on the female within, leaving her and her rapidly cooling ardor bent over the desk and trussed up in her own wet panties. Numbed by the alcohol, the bruise to her ego would hurt more than his bite. He had pulled out in time. Hadn't he? Later, no doubt, when she finally wriggled free and staggered back to her friends on the surface, she would embellish her version of events to something worthy of her fantasy. And with each re-telling of her night of rabid animal sex with a stranger, she would convince herself more that what she felt that night was nothing more sinister than the product of her over-sexed, cocktail-drenched imagination. Funny how that human mind-eraser worked, editing out the details that failed to fit the accepted reality.

  As he wrestled his shirt back into the waistband of his jeans, Connal was struggling to focus on anything but what had just gone down inside that room. He was seriously losing his shit, unravelling at the seams. With DeMorgan out of the equation, it was as though some external, intangible force was exerting its draw on him, luring the animal to the bars of its cage. And its pull was growing more powerful with every passing day. Bile rose in his throat. His breaths were snarling grunts that pumped his lungs. His heart was thumping against the cage of his ribs. Something was preventing him from fully closing his mouth, and when he cranked his head up to orientate himself, a curtain of red bled down the canvas of his vision, closing down his sights.

  He turned and bolted, instinct guiding him through the crimson-hued labyrinth of tunnels, wending deeper until finally he was punching his way out through an emergency exit. Momentum spilled his form into the alley at the rear of the club, where he’d parked his Shadow earlier in the night. Bracing his arms on the saddle of the motorcycle, he growled a low string of curses, clawed fingernails slicing into the leather fabric. He worked his lungs, sucking in the night air like a man drowning, replacing the female's scent, diluting out the influence of her arousal, willing his body to come to heel.

  He hadn’t been this unstable since those early, feral days, before he was broken in, when the man wore the collar and the simplest emotion could pull his trigger. He was never, ever, going back to that ...

  ‘Nice bike.’

  Connal’s body stilled, rigid as a board, adrenaline coursing through his veins. Cloaked in shadow, his head cranked around in the direction of the voice to witness a trio of forms peeling away from the walls of the alley. They approached, all Reservoir Dogs, loping silhouettes, the city’s streetlights glowing behind their hooded faces like an aura of blood. Planting his stance wide, he sized them up, lip curled off his teeth in disgust. The city was breeding these pasty, hollow-cheeked runts like vermin, dragging them up on a force-fed diet of poverty and addiction, the kind of scum that would buy and sell their own mothers for their next taste of Rave.

  ‘Not a bad night for a joy-ride, what do you say lads?’ Scrawny in the middle laughed, and their faces split into a matched set of sneering hyena grins.

  A rapid stock-take confirmed the one on the left was swinging a crowbar.

  ‘Sharing is fuckin’ caring, right boys?’ As the guy on the right spoke, Connal eyed the bulge down the front of the little scumbag’s sweatpants. It formed the exact shape of a semi-automatic.

  ‘Dead right, Anto. Dead fuckin’ right.’ Scrawny drawled in his broad, inner-city accent, absently punching a fist into the cupped palm of his hand. The sovereign ring on his index finger gleamed in the half light, the love and hate tattoos across his knuckles flashing as he worked out some unvoiced aggression into his hands.

  Anto barked a gravelly, chain-smoker’s laugh, but Connal’s lowered gaze had zeroed in on those hands, the half-bla
ck of the stubby, cracked fingernails in specific. All three reeked of desperation, and all three showed the signs of addiction. Soon put them out of their misery.

  Blood red eyes narrowed, lifting to meet the gaunt trio of faces. Lips peeled back off a set of lethally bladed fangs and the menacing growl that rumbled up from Connal’s throat was bone-chilling. All three showed him the whites of their eyes and fell out of step. Crowbar backed up a pace, spitting out a high-pitched whisper to his mate.

  ‘Jaysus, Finno. It’s him, the psycho, the fuckin’ Savage.’

  ‘I don’t give a bollocks who he is.’ Billy the Kid, AKA Anto, had a twitchy hand, clearly liking the odds of his handgun versus this feral animal they had cornered in the alley. A scabby, inked hand slipped into the waistband of his pants and Connal lunged, burying a clenched fist into the kid’s gaping face, decking him. Planting one knee into his chest, his mouth twisted into a snarl, and leaning in, the tips of razor sharp claws dug into the flesh just below the guy’s chin.

  Up close and personal, the little shit’s bravado dimmed like a bulb, eyes bugging out, pasty white in the dusk. Even his freckles looked green. Fear made him look a lot younger than his meagre quarter century, give or take.

  Connal used the heel of his hand to prise the boy’s acne-scarred jaw upward, exposing that skinny throat with its spattering of star tattoos and the bobbing Adam’s apple that betrayed the terror gripping him in spasms of rhythmic swallowing. The scar he sought was at the base of his neck, extending onto his back. It was viciously deep. Some son of a bitch had really taken a chunk out of this one. The theme tune to Jaws played in his head.

  ‘MacTire will fuckin’ kill you for ‘dis, Savage.’

  ‘If only ...’ Connal’s voice sounded ancient as he answered. ‘... put us all out of our fucking misery.’