For a long moment he didn’t react and she realized he was trembling, afraid he was marshaling his defenses, deciding how best to reject her without hurting her feelings. Then, as he smiled and leaned his head toward hers, she heard Connor call them in for drinks. “It’s your turn to do what?” Fox teased, lips inches from hers.
At that moment Angela rushed out of the house, grabbed them both by the arms and began dragging them inside. Sorcha smiled at Fox and took his hand. “Save you, Nathan. It’s my turn to save you.”
Epilogue
The yellow bulldozers and wreckers waiting to begin their work gleam like oversized children’s toys in the early light. As a thin blush of pink warms the dawn horizon and the rising sun reveals a cloudless blue sky, it looks as good a day as any to start one’s life anew. Fox feels nervous but resolved as he parks by the large sign: Condemned Buildings. Do Not Enter.
“You ready?” Sorcha says.
“As I’ll ever be.” He opens the car door and gets out.
A man in a construction helmet approaches. “You Dr. Fox?”
“Yes.”
“OK, you’ve got one hour before we start bulldozing. Like it says in the paperwork, you’re doing this at your own risk but don’t worry, the building’s safe until we send in the ’dozers. We’re going in at eight sharp. So be off site by then. OK?”
“OK.”
The man hands each of them a helmet. “See you in an hour.”
As they pass the first of the disconnected gas pump Fox casts his mind back twenty years, to the day his life changed forever. When they get to the kiosk door he braces himself. Then, just as Fox did with Sorcha on the day they met, she takes his hand. “Come. I’ll be right beside you.”
Fox winces as he opens the door, waiting for the sound of the bell he heard all those years ago, but there is nothing, only the squeak of tired hinges as he steps inside. The place has been stripped for demolition and is unrecognizable from that in his memory. It could be anywhere. Suddenly he feels foolish because there is nothing in here to be frightened of. Trying to orient himself, he walks over to where the comic book stand had been. He looks over at where the cash register clerk was shot, and remembers the blood dripping like red treacle off the cartons. Sorcha is already touching the wall, face intense with concentration. Slowly she walks over to the wall against which his family was shot. And he was spared.
Suddenly, the anxiety kicks in. What will she discover? “Can you sense anything?” She nods but says nothing. For a long while he watches her walk along the wall, shaking her head. He can see her blinking back tears.
“What’s wrong?” he says, suddenly wishing he hadn’t agreed to do this.
“Nothing,” she says. “It’s OK.”
“Tell me what you see. Tell me what you feel.”
“It’s in fragments, but when I put them together, it’s pretty clear what happened.” Sorcha takes his hand and leads him along the wall: “After the clerk, the first to be shot was your mother. You saw the bullet hit her and your mirror-touch synaesthesia made you feel the impact and her pain. The shock made you black out. But only momentarily. You regained consciousness in time to see your father shot next — feeling his pain as acutely as if it were your own. The hooded killer laughed as you blacked out again, calling you a ‘goddamned jack-in-the-box’.
“The next time you came to, you tried to throw yourself in front of your sister. But the killer pushed you away and shot her. Again you watched. It’s like you thought sharing their pain might somehow lessen it. When you blacked out again the killer stood over you and waited for you to come to. Then, as soon as you opened your eyes, he pulled the trigger again. But nothing happened. The gun jammed.
“Ignoring him, you clambered over to check on your mother. You were trying to stem the blood flowing from her wound when the killer put the gun inches from your head and pulled the trigger four more times. Each time the pistol jammed. The last words the killer said to you were: “I don’t know whether you’re a pig like the others or an immortal like us. But whatever you are, boy, you’re lucky.” Those were the last words each of your family heard before they died. “You mother’s last words to you were: “My lucky boy, I love you.” After she died you tried to help your father and then, finally, your sister but you couldn’t save them.
“The point is, Nathan, I can sense from their death echoes that knowing you survived helped ease their passing. I can feel their love much more strongly than I feel their suffering or pain. You shouldn’t feel guilty for surviving. You should feel glad.” Again she blinks back tears. “You were lucky but you were brave, too. You were only ten but you shared each one of their deaths and tried to save them. No one could have done any more than that. No wonder your memory blanked it out.”
Suddenly, she embraces Fox and holds him close. At first he tries to push her away but as the guilt slips from him like loosened chains he feels the tears come in rolling waves. For the first time since they died he surrenders all control, collapses in Sorcha’s arms and cries — really cries. Great sobs rack his frame as if purging his body of the years of pent-up sadness.
Finally, the tears stop and he feels a great weight lift from him. He stands and thanks Sorcha, then takes her hand and walks outside. After returning the helmets they stand by the car and watch the bulldozers move in and level the garage. He feels nothing as the building collapses into rubble. Only a sense that a part of his past, which had been mislaid, has been put back where it belongs.
At that moment a police car drives into the lot and parks beside them. Karl Jordache gets out and hurries over. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“What’s wrong, Karl?” says Fox.
“We’ve got a homicide in the Pearl that’s not adding up. I could really do with some help.”
Fox smiles, excited to get back to work. “Where’s the crime scene? Let me take Sorcha home and I’ll be right over.”
Jordache shakes his head. “You don’t understand. I was hoping for both of you. We’ve got to do this by the book, though — no spooky archaeosonics or death echo bullshit. No judge or jury’s going to buy into that. So whatever weird stuff you guys find we’ve got to bring it back to the evidence. You understand?”
Fox turns to Sorcha. The gleam in her eye reminds him, momentarily, of her father and the excitement the Seer had shown when talking of the Great Work. “What do you think, Sorcha? You said you wanted to use your gift to do some good. Are you in?”
She smiles like this is her destiny. “Oh yes. I’m in.”
MICHAEL CORDY worked for ten years in marketing before giving it all up to write. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
For more information on Michael Cordy and his books, see his website at www.michaelcordy.com.
Table of Contents
Title page
Copyright
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part Two
The Last Echo
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Part Three
The Great Work
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter
37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Part Four
Beyond Indigo
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Epilogue
Colour of Death, The Page 35