Falling Apart

by Jane Lovering

  ‘We’ve got one. It’s you. Except you’re so improper it’s practically obscene.’ I took a deep breath and a mouthful of almost cold coffee. ‘Seriously, Liam. Am I doing the right thing?’

  He stopped midway through emptying a desk drawer. ‘Jessie. What part of “technology that works without being wound up and a proper pay structure” don’t you get? Okay, technically they’re the opposition, but you’re going to be doing Liaison still, aren’t you? Same job, better biscuits – look at it that way, if it helps.’

  I smiled. ‘Yeah, I guess. And Sarah …?’

  ‘Is delighted.’ Liam crouched back onto his haunches. ‘And I know you partly did this for me, so, thanks.’

  My attempts at rebuttal were shrugged off as he stood to answer the ringing telephone, for which I was glad, but Liam’s sudden drop in expression made me stand up. ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘It’s HQ. Someone has seen Sil at Whitby. They’ve sent the Hunters, Jess …’

  ‘Whitby? What, Dracula, abbey, moonlit ruins Whitby?’ What the hell would he be doing out there? Running? Trying to escape? But … Zan said he had a plan.’

  ‘You need to get there. Now.’

  I was just standing, arms by my sides, as though the suddenness of the news had paralysed me. ‘But … seriously? Where’s Zan? What’s he doing about this?’

  Liam pulled my jacket down from the back of the door and I had the sudden, stupid thought, I’m going to miss that coat hook. ‘Zan will meet us there.’ He bundled the jacket into my arms.

  ‘Did HQ say that?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, they did. Now, get in the car.’

  We ran down the stairs and out to Liam’s Fiat, all the while questions were storming through my brain like an invading troop: Whitby? Why go there? Why is he running? And the follow-up thought: He’s found out whatever Zan was planning and he’s running away from it … I have to stop the Hunters, have to tell them what’s going on, that he’s not really guilty.

  Liam put his foot down, making the little engine grumble and the strange knocking sound from the back became an insistent thrum, especially as we climbed up over the moors. Did Sil want to die? Was this his version of throwing himself on his sword?

  The car grumbled and rumbled along the narrow lane that led to the abbey car park. Luckily it was late evening and the lingering tourists and sightseers were being hustled away by a couple of uniformed Enforcement, Whitby contingent, who were trailing green and white chequered tape across the entrances to the abbey. I was weak with relief to see a large Bentley that had to be Zan’s. Zan can stop this; he can make something happen. Liam yanked the car around with complete disregard for marked parking bays so I could rush over to where Zan was standing by the wall to the abbey. When I looked around I could see a press car with a couple of local journos leaning against it, chatting and smoking. An Enforcement wagon was parked inconspicuously at the very far end of the car park next to a showy Range Rover Evoque with tinted windows, which just had to be the Hunters’ vehicle. They’d never learned the art of secrecy, and I’m sure they thought that subtleties and subtitles were the same thing.

  ‘What’s happening?’ There must have been panic on my face, because Zan regarded me with as much distaste as if it had been leftover soup on my upper lip.

  ‘He is in there.’ Zan looked over to the ruins of the abbey, hanging in the darkening sky, standing against the horizon like sunset’s dentures. He and Liam exchanged a look. ‘Hiding.’

  There was a distant tug from that connection that lay between Sil and I. Faint and diminished, as though he’d cut any mental ties we might have had, and these were the death throes. ‘But why the hell would he be here?’ I scrambled up the wall, trying to gain enough purchase to get to the top, drop down on the far side, get in there, do something. Overhead the Hunter airborne division, an old helicopter that used to be used for spraying bracken, circled and illuminated random patches of grass.

  ‘We do not know.’ Zan gave a shrug. ‘Attempting an escape?’

  ‘And you’re not doing anything to stop this?’

  The back door of the Land Rover burst open and four Hunters jumped out, radios crackling, straightening their jackets and jutting their chins in case of telephoto lenses. They were all armed – rifles with night-sights – and wearing their usual York Hunter combat gear of structured suits and Converse trainers. After a quick word with the journalists, and a couple of photos, they moved off, talking to the helicopter team through their headsets, heading towards the entrance to the abbey. ‘They’re going to kill him. Zan, please, you must do something!’ My voice rose in a shriek that drew the brief attention of the Hunters.

  ‘Miss Grant?’ One of the Hunters, Grant or Jez or something butch like that, lifted his rifle in a salute. ‘Presume you’re here to identify the target?’

  I gave a low moan. ‘No. I came … This has to stop. We can talk about this, can’t we? I mean, there are things you don’t know about the situation, about how he came to attack …’

  Zan gave Liam A Look, and I found myself hustled away by one elbow. Liam dragged me away from the wall to the abbey and out onto the headland, where the fields slowly crumbled into the sea. ‘Jess, you have to shut up,’ he said urgently. ‘You are going to get yourself into so much trouble if you even so much as hint at what Sil was up to in London. We don’t know anything, right?’

  ‘We have to stop them!’ I caught at his sleeve, tugging his arm like a child. ‘Why are we here, otherwise?’

  ‘Zan is here to make sure they shoot the right man. You’re here because Liaison has to be, and I’m here because I’m driving. And that’s our story. Jess. Jess!’ He grabbed at me and used his body to stop me moving. ‘You have to let this happen.’

  ‘He’s there!’ The shout went up, and I saw the Hunters run, swarming towards the stone walls, now highlighted in the dusk by the slightly lighter sky. They fanned out across the ruins as the helicopter hovered, blades slicing the night and its spotlight cruel on the ground. I could see a distant figure, his movements rendered staccato by the wind that beat at the headland and the downdraught from the helicopter blades. And then Liam had a hand on my shoulder, pushing me, forcing me to turn away from the sight of my lover trying to keep stonework between him and the Hunters.

  ‘Don’t look, Jess, it’s better if you don’t.’ Liam forced himself in front of me, hands on my shoulders, moving to block my view. I wrenched at him to see past, to catch glimpses of the dark figure beginning to climb, jerkily, irrationally, heading for the tallest point of the abbey stonework, where it jutted into the sky in an attempt to pierce the moon. Liam placed his hands on my cheeks to prevent me turning my head.

  I fought him with all my strength, screaming in his face until he had to force me to the ground, pinning me there as the words became noises, then sobs. I twisted my neck trying to see around him with a strength I never knew I had, but only got a montage of images: the flashes as photographers jostled; remnants of stonework standing high against a black sky; Sil, his dark coat flapping in the night-breeze, his hair whipped into length as it blew around the silhouette of his head, almost, for one second, looking like it had before that tragic hacking he’d given it. I struggled against Liam’s hold, but it was surprisingly tight and efficient. ‘No, Jess. Stay here.’

  Anger and fear made me savage. I raked and bit and tried to kick. ‘Sil!’ The words were coming from a throat so dry that they came out cracked. ‘Don’t—’ But there was a shout from the Hunters, an answering, softer, call from Zan, and then a blast of rifle fire. Liam’s grip relaxed just a fraction and I saw, in terrible detail, Sil, half way up the ruins of the tall west window, caught by the bullets. I started to scream again, wordless syllables and open-throated crying as the ammunition found its mark, and Sil’s body jerked, lost its hold on the stonework and fell, crashing the sixty feet or so to the grassy floor b
eneath, to the accompaniment of more camera flashes.

  Liam let me sit and the first thing I focused on was that Zan was there, by the body. I saw him look down at his friend, his colleague, the crumpled shape spread on the innocently soft-looking grass. He nodded to the Hunters, who shouldered their rifles and went off to do some interviews with the journalists, while Enforcement, after a quick conclave, began coiling up the green tape. Liam increased his hold again, moving up to grab me by the neck to stop me ducking out of his grasp. ‘Hush, Jess, it’s all over now,’ he said. ‘He’s gone.’

  I turned my head, collapsing down into the grass, away from the sad shape now being draped in Zan’s long overcoat, almost tenderly, away from the smug Hunter brigade being asked about their favourite foods and their taste in music, and broke.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ The pain was so bad I couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to breathe. Wanted the world to stop turning and go back, unmake this moment so that I could change it. ‘He was everything to me, Liam, everything.’ The fight had gone now, with the feeling in my hands. It felt as though every agony in the universe was inside me, like I’d taken all the pain from the world and eaten it down. If I’d been able to move my fingers I would have clawed out my own heart and thrown it to the moon. I had no use for it any more. Liam sat and cradled me on the tussocky grass; I could feel the muscles in his shoulder, tense against me, smell the blood that I’d drawn on his skin, and all I could think was that these would be the last sensations I ever felt, the last things I ever smelled, that would mean anything. Sil and I were over. Everything was over.

  Liam stroked my head. ‘Jessie …’ His voice was a little fractured too. ‘It will all be for the best, trust me.’ And his hold became more of an embrace. ‘It will work out.’

  I fought him again, trying to make his grip something that would hurt. Push the pain outside, take it from where it was eating its way through my heart, making my stomach retch into my throat. Break my arm, break my neck, this pain may as well be all I am.

  ‘Let me die.’ I was repeating the words over and over, into the air and then, when Liam pulled me around, into his shoulder. ‘Let me die, let me die …’

  ‘Jessie.’ Liam had my head tucked under his chin and I could see my name move in his throat. ‘We need to move.’

  No. I have to stay where I was when he died. Life cannot go on. But I was too numb to speak, and let Liam draw me to my feet, although he had to hold me up once I got there. As I leaned in, with his arm around my waist, I felt the familiar kick that was the connection between Sil and I, a tremble along its length, as though life still moved down it. ‘I can still feel him, Liam.’ The words whispered from dry lips. ‘I can still feel him, like he’s alive in here …’ I touched the core of the connection, just below my ribcage. ‘Moving. Here.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Liam tugged me a few steps closer to the ruins. A long, slow car was driving past the car park turning and into the abbey grounds, with one of Zan’s vampire henchmen at the wheel and two more black-suited vamps in the back.

  ‘They’ve come for the body.’ The words had life of their own. ‘They’re going to take him away, Liam.’

  It was fully dark now. Hunters and Enforcement, with the air of jobs efficiently, if not well, done were packing back into their vehicles. The journalists took a few more pithy sound bites and piled into their car, probably to head down the hill to the nearest pub. Zan was still standing by the body, while the three vamps readied the hearse to take the remains. I could hardly see through the swollen wrecks that my eyes had become, and when Liam tried to move me towards the car I fell to my knees again. It was all I wanted. To embrace the earth and lie here quietly in the cold air – the last thing Sil had felt, before the bullets.

  The car blocked my view of the body, and the vamps didn’t seem in any rush to load it. Zan was standing beside it; without his coat his loose jacket and pencil-slim trousers were tugged into fractals by the wind, but he didn’t show any sign of feeling the cold. ‘We need to go to Zan,’ Liam said, dragging me to my feet. ‘He needs you there.’

  I was too numb to remark, too dead to care, feeling nothing but the hot wire sensation in my midriff as Liam led me over towards where Zan stood, surrounded by the three vampires who’d brought the car.

  ‘Jessica.’ Zan inclined his head towards me.

  ‘You let them shoot him.’ There was no inflection to my words. I couldn’t have told you how I felt then. Whether I hated Zan, whether I understood what he’d done, anything. I didn’t care. There was nothing left to care about.

  ‘Well, yes.’ Zan nodded to Liam. ‘Is the field of play clear?’

  Liam looked around us. ‘We’ll have to load up and take him down to Vamp HQ, just in case, but, yep, for now I think we’re clear.’ He tried to lead me around to the other side of the car, but I balked and shied like a horse scenting blood.

  ‘No. I … can’t, not yet, Liam. I don’t want to see—’

  ‘Oh, butch up, Jess,’ he said, and shoved me firmly around the back of the hearse to the body on the far side. But Sil wasn’t lying blood-pooled and broken on the cold grass where I expected him, where my heart couldn’t bear to let my eyes look. The patch of ground where I’d seen him shot down bore nothing but a slick of dew and some cast-off ice cream wrappers, and the corpse itself was sitting up with its back propped against the passenger door with Zan’s coat draped over its knees, smoking a furtive cigarette.

  ‘Ryan?’ The shock made my knees buckle again and I stumbled against the car.

  The zombie gave me a sheepish grin. His chest was peppered with holes from the rifle fire, totally ruining one of Sil’s floppy-fronted shirts and his long, leather coat. The dark wig he’d been wearing was askew, giving him the look of a rakish scarecrow. ‘Hi, Jess.’

  Slowly, I turned on my heel to see Zan and Liam grinning at me. Well, Liam was grinning, Zan had mitigated his usual condescension to a slightly softer grimace. My mind was fragmented with confusion: I couldn’t believe any of what I was seeing. Everything was filtered through the grey mist of shock and disbelief, a shock that had sent me so far down inside myself that I couldn’t even muster anger at their amusement. ‘What’s happened?’

  Liam looped an arm around my shoulders. ‘You had to be believable. No-one cares what I think, and Zan was convincingly … well, Zan-like. We just needed you to completely believe that it was Sil dying out here.’

  Ryan finished his cigarette. ‘And we owed you, Jess, so I didn’t mind. Quite good fun, really. I haven’t climbed so high since I got my finger stuck in that lift door on a service crane.’ A few last puffs of smoke billowed out of his chest cavity and floated away on the breeze. The greyness in my head threatened to block everything for a moment. I wished I could pass out, just be away from this situation, whilst my mind grew so cold and still that I half-thought I was dying by degrees. My whole body was a solid pain.

  ‘So …’ My voice broke again, but I collected it up. ‘Where is Sil?’ I was surprised at how like me my voice sounded.

  And then the tug came again, low in my stomach, that silver chord playing into the night. ‘Here, Jess.’ A vamp stepped forward from where he’d been concealed by stonework and the bulk of the car. His hair had been shaved, he’d lost the three-day-stubble that always covered his chin and he was wearing a generic black suit and dark glasses. Surrounded by others in the same clothes, he was almost unrecognisable.

  Thump. My pulse moved in my throat, I felt my skin kick with it. Thump. As though my heart had remembered how to beat again. As though he was all I needed to be alive. I stood and stared. And then came the feelings, flooding through me in a tide that rose and rose until it filled my eyes and nose and took the place of the air, blocked out that windy headland with sensation roaring in. Unstoppable.

  I flung myself at him, feeling his strength, smelling that scent of spices and rare w
ood, knowing that he was safe, he was here, he was mine. I couldn’t speak, there was nothing I could say that he couldn’t tell from the way I held on to him, as though someone had taken my ground away and he was all the contact I had left with the earth.

  ‘My love’, he whispered. ‘My love. You should know that not even death would make me leave you.’

  I couldn’t let go. My hands returned to him over and over, as though even my fingers couldn’t believe the touch of him. I felt as though all my internal organs had been displaced, everything shuffled around so that my heart was the only part of me that still worked. And it was so busy holding Sil in its depths that it almost forgot to do its job. Relief made my head sing and now the grey mist held a hot scarlet tint as all the emotions that had been on hold while I grieved began to fight their way forward.

  ‘Whose idea was it?’

  The three of them exchanged looks, as though no-one was willing to take the blame. Then Sil cleared his throat. ‘It was mine. At least, the outline was mine; Zan filled in some of the detail and Liam suggested that, since the zombies appeared to owe you a favour, actually seeing me die may give our charade that ring of authenticity.’

  My fingers were clenched in Sil’s, not daring to let go for fear that he may be snatched from me; that this was all a hallucination, that grief and terror were attempting to protect me from the loss. But the feel of him, the taste of him on my tongue, these were real. The almost silken draw of the connection between us, that was real. The touch of his cool skin where his hand stroked the tender skin of my wrist, that was real. He is real. He is safe. In this moment only the knowledge that he was standing beside me kept me from hurling myself at Zan and Liam in a ball of howling fury.

  ‘What happens now?’ I became aware that my cheeks were smeared with snot and mud when Sil reached a gentle finger out and brushed at them.

  ‘I am dead, Jess. You saw me die.’

  ‘Yes, but …’