Circle of Arms (The Shades of Northwood 2)

by Wendy Maddocks

  Pleasantries had been exchanged with Carol, the lady on reception at the student medical centre – which also served as hospital for the entire town – and she called Dr de Rossa over the intercom and pointed her into his office. It was a small room, looking out into the leafy grounds and an internal window on the corridor leading to the treatment rooms. Mercifully, it was empty today. Katie hated to think of ever more innocent people being sick and injured for no reason. A kidney bean shaped desk – how appropriate – was littered with papers and pens. An unloved looking computer sat in a corner gathering dust, wires snaking out all over. Obviously, updating to high, wireless technology was not high on the doctors list of priorities. With people to help, illnesses to cure, children to make cry with vaccinations, keeping on top of digital advancements probably seemed unimportant. She shifted more papers off a chair and sat down to wait for her meeting to begin, suddenly aware of how quiet the hospital was. Had she not known at least two other people were around, the building could easily have been completely empty other than Katie.

  And Dina. She’s still here too.

  Of course. That was the entire reason she was here. She had, at some time, begun to associate Dina with being part of the spirits on the waste ground. Only the physical body was here, hooked up to machines and surviving on drugs and drips, and that was not the important bit. Not the part that needed to be saved. It was just the shell that her spirit would be slid back into.

  “Miss Cartwright. I had almost believed you would miss our little visit today. I know what teenagers are like with early starts.” Dr de Rossa closed the door behind him and sat down behind the desk, hands clasped on top of all his papers. “Are things okay?”

  Katie’s definition of okay was changing by the hour, getting broader and encompassing ever more degrees of not okay, but she just nodded.

  “Is Elaine coming to see us today? We could always use another good nurse around here.”

  “I don’t know” she answered honestly. “She’s got her hands pretty full with us lot.”

  “It’s such a shame she had to leave us. Such a good little worker too.” A wistful look came over his face as if suddenly realising how important Lainy had been to them. To him. “Ah, well. These things do happen.”

  “What things?”

  Perhaps Katie was questioning too close to home, asking him things he knew he shouldn’t discuss; maybe he just didn’t have a clue what she was angling towards though that seemed unlikely. In any case Dr de Rossa shrugged, tried to find an uncluttered piece of desk to set his mug down and changed the subject. “Now, I forget, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Dina. Dina Bayliss.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember now.”

  “Has there been any change? Anything at all?” Because she was still clinging to the (shrinking) hope that she could wake from her coma alone.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Not a shock actually.” A question lit up the doctors’ face but Katie cut him off before any words made it out. “I don’t think she can come out of this thing without help. And I don’t mean drugs or shocks or just more damn time, because the life support is keeping her alive… technically, anyway… and that’s the important bit. The longer you keep her on that support, the longer we have to save her.”

  “I’m sorry, Katie, I don’t understand you.”

  “It’s simple. If you let Mr Bayliss turn the machines off, then Dina will be dead. And because this was a suicide gone horribly, horribly wrong, then she’ll never come. Not as a Shade. Not as anything.”

  He looked blank for a moment; the information she had just dumped on him slowly filtering through and into his brain where he did that freaky doctor thing of assessing it all and making a decision in little more than an instant. “It would be unwise of us to remove treatment so early.”

  “Can you just say that to her dad? Nothing about me coming here. He doesn’t know what we know and I think we should keep it like that for as long as possible.”

  “What we know.”

  Remembering she was not supposed to know anything about the ghostly nature of the town, Katie quickly backed herself up. “What she knows.”

  “Did you know – no I suppose you wouldn’t have noticed, Elaine would…” That far off glaze smeared his eyes and Katie was sure she heard a quiet catch in his breath as he continued. “It wasn’t a real suicide attempt.”

  “It looked real to me.”

  “Wrist cutting is primarily a method for troubled women. Maybe it’s the thought of just a second of pain and then you bleed out painlessly, nobody knows for sure. But a serious attempt would have meant she cut vertically down the wrist, or even here, in the radial artery much further up in the arm.”

  “She probably didn’t know any of that though.”

  “Having lived a year in a house full of medical knowledge, I think she knew exactly what she was doing.”

  “You mean Dina was playing around?”

  “I believe, confidentially of course, that she was calling out for help the only way she knew how.”

  Woah. The implications of that were going to change everything and they were already hurting Katie’s head. Or maybe they wouldn’t change a thing. And that left her right back at the start, trying to figure a way out of this mess. “A cry for attention.”

  “Perhaps. I certainly don’t think she meant for any of this to happen.”

  Okay, she checked her watch and grabbed her kit bag, already weighty enough but when she got to her locker and added her rucksack of books to it… at least she could give the weights a miss at the gym. Problems later, college now. “I’ve got to go to the academy but please don’t mention our chat to anyone.”

  Dr de Rossa rose from his comfy-looking chair and opened the door to show her out. “We never had this conversation.”

  Once she had gotten the necessaries out of her locker, Katie made a beeline to her tutor room to register as all first years had to, then headed across campus to the sports stadium. The first part of the morning had been allocated to their chosen sports so she and another girl headed to the track and the others drifted off to their spiritual homes; the pool, the gym, football pitch, where-ever. Any attempt at small talk with her new training buddy were put paid to when she ran straight off and shut herself in the changing room. Katie took a moment to find a few empty pegs together and started pulling things out of her kit bag. Years of changing in a room full of bitchy teenage girls who were obsessed with who was flat-chested and who needed a bikini wax had made sure she learnt to change in roughly a minute. She snapped the elastic band off her wrist and twisted in into her hair, vowing once more to get some new scrunchies soon, and replaced it with a sweatband before heading out. It was warmer than she had anticipated and Katie found she had to strip her jacket off in the middle of her warm up. She preferred to run in the warm. You could work up a really good sweat that way and feel as though this was an actual workout.

  “Hey.”

  A deep voice called her from stretching and Katie lifted her head, looking frantically around for the source of the voice. The track was completely empty as far as she could see. Strange considering this was a sports academy. It made her feel suddenly vulnerable and alone. Why had she taken that jacket off? Her hands itched for something to pull tight over her chest, for all the good it would do. If someone was going to attack her then a piece of cloth was almost worse than no defence at all. No, the best weapon she had was the decibel level. Her mouth was already open and the first sound of a scream was out when

  “Hey” came again, closer now. Katie didn’t dare move or turn towards the voice even though she could practically feel his breath tickling her neck. “You could look pleased to see me, little girl.” A large, work-roughened hand snaked around her shoulders and suddenly they were at her throat, closing around it, crushing her voicebox, choking off her breath and the scream that was still on he
r lips. “Mm mm mm, even sweeter than I remember.”

  How could he be here?

  “I came a long way for you little girl. Damned if I’m goin’ back now.” Still standing behind her, the man lifted and Katie kicked her feet, trying to touch the ground.

  And then without warning, the squeezing hand disappeared, Katie hit the hard track and bent over it coughing and drawing in raggy breaths that felt like they were dragging over splintered glass in her throat. A passing runner slammed on the brakes as he went and then backstepped and offered his hand. She took it gratefully, and pushed herself up trying to blink away the spinning stars she was seeing.

  “You’re one of the new kids right?”

  “Katie,” she confirmed. “What happened?”

  “You’ve been running fast laps for over an hour. Not surprised you passed out. Maybe you should go see the nurse, get yourself checked out.” Now that the sun had slipped behind them, she could see that the young man who had offered his help was almost familiar. Tall and lean, just a step away from gangly, with tinted glasses over a sweat-shiny face and sun-faded red hair. He was the first boy that had ever made Katie feel short. It was a nice feeling. Being taller than her former classmates and almost as tall as others, as some adults, made some people forget there was still a small person underneath. “Just in case, like. You’re probably okay. I mean, you look fine.”

  Was there just a second longer than necessary spent on that last word? No, it must have been her imagination. Even Katie doubted she would lust after Katie in this state. She probably didn’t even look human! “Thanks for the hand. It must be warmer than I realised.”

  The red-haired boy shrugged, unconvinced but not worried enough to press further, and pounded off down the back straight until he looked like a bobbing matchstick in the distance. Katie looked around her at the dozens of students racing around, jumping, throwing, and wondered how she had missed all these people earlier. She rubbed sweat away from her face, picked up her jacket and headed for the changing rooms for a quick shower before Mr Conroy gave test papers back to the group.

  What had happened out in the stadium? A freakish daydream? Did her sub-conscious hate her that much? If there was a straight choice between her own life – the one that she had come to Northwood to start on her own terms – and that mans’ when he would only use it to find a new helpless victim to stalk, then Katie was always going to choose herself. And if some part of her brain had a problem with that and tried to make her feel guilty about it then tough shit. That bastard had killed Jack so many times she was amazed – and really quite glad – he still found things to smile about. He had been working his way around to killing her too, stripping away everything she thought she knew first. She had thought people in dreams could never hurt a waking person. A man who should have died 150 years ago couldn’t still be committing the same crime. But then again, Katie had never dared imagine that she would survive their fight, much less emerge the victor. And she still couldn’t quite bring herself to believe in that.

  At lunch, having decided the food in the cafeteria didn’t look like anything edible and bathing in the autumn sun, Katie let her eyes flutter shut and saw the sunlight strobe a neon spectrum behind her eyelids. Allowed herself to reflect on the last two or three days. It was hard to forget the things that had happened before now- the drugging, the fight to the death, the strange death wish of a friend, but she forced herself to do it. Even the reason she had escaped to Levenson Academy in the first place would have to take a back seat while she concentrated on the issue at hand. Which was...? There were so many things that needed her attention right now and each of them was differently urgent as the next. They had to keep Dina alive and then bring her back to live out the rest of her life at home. Jaye was missing and there was the chance they might need to rescue her. Katie herself flitted between completely used up or buzzing with a cold, unnatural energy that felt as though a little more of it remained in her blood every time. Leo was (or should be) looking for any clues to that silver badge because it just stuck in her head as being important. Then there were her surrogate parents to keep in the dark, a grade average to maintain and – and Jack.

  You must find a way. You will. Everything you need to know has been given to you and now you must use it.

  “Why does it have to be me?” she muttered.

  It was always going to be someone.

  “What am I meant to do first?”

  You have to save us. Then your world will begin to mend. It will start to heal, though there will always be scars.

  “Story of my life.” Katie fumbled her phone out of the bag at her feel, thinking how heavy and bulky Lainy’s old handset felt in her hand, and held it to her ear thinking the other students wouldn’t think she was a nutjob who had conversations with the voices in her head.

  Only, that is exactly what you are doing, correct?

  Point. She couldn’t really deny them that but even when the voices were real there was no way of other people knowing that. Or of believing her if she told them that. “So, how exactly am I meant to save you? I mean, why you think I’ll be able to beats me but okay. I’m listening.”

  You know where to find us.

  “The waste ground? I tried there the other day and-“ she drew a quick line threw the air. “Nothing happening down there.”

  No, not there. That’s where we were last time but we have to keep moving so they don’t find us. We’re in the End Place, Katie, and we don’t want to stay here. The longer we’re here, the more chance they will force us into- the sentence cut off as though some other force had simply cut the rope that fed her these cryptic lines of information. As hard as Katie tried to reach for the tiny threads of purple-black tickling her brain she couldn’t seem to get a hold of anything for even a second. It was almost as though the darkness didn’t want to be touched. Or someone – something even – didn’t want her to renew the lines of communication.

  And then, just as she had resigned herself to packing her things up for class, a dark spark jumped into life, latched itself to her brain, let a message zing across it and then fell, dangling and twitching, dying because the message it carried was so important. So critical.

  You know where we are. Just look inside yourself. You feel the pull already. And be careful, Katie. Good luck.

  The words didn’t sort themselves into any sensible order until later, while she was listening to her maths tutor lecture his students about the stupid mistakes they had all made on their test papers. One kid had been so nervous he had spelled his name wrong and another had forgotten to look for the questions on the backs of pages. For the most part though, the group had done reasonably well and the trick graduate questions they had chucked in… well, who the hell knew what degrees of freedom were? But she was glad to learn that she had got quite a good mark in the exam as she had in English and science. Maths had been one of her worst and least favourite subjects back at Arthur Claymore High. It was pretty hard to get enthusiastic about mental arithmetic and algebra when the only counting you wanted to be doing was how many circuits of the Astroturf you could run in one lunch time. Katie sighed, found a red pen and started copying down the correct answers next to her wrong ones, also noting down a reminder to herself to try and figure out how to actually get those answers. The tutor gave out more books – half of the group got yellow books and the other half got white ones. She got a yellow one – it said HIGHER, which was wonderful. No pressure.

  “Now,” the teacher droned from the front of the room. “Some of you have advanced books and some have middle level ones. I want you to read and complete the first exercise. That way, I can better see who can keep up with the advanced syllabus and can move on alone and who needs proper tuition.”

  Katie could already tell this was going to be the kind of class she was bound to sleep through. Flicking through the first handful of pages, Katie discovered she had a
lready covered most of this material at her old school. Positive and negative correlations on scatter graphs. It was probably the only thing she was going to thank her final school year for. Okay, that wasn’t strictly fair. The school hadn’t been the problem – it just kind of symbolised everything she had wanted to get away from.

  “Sir?” piped up one timid voice from the corner. “Should I handwrite it or can I use my computer?”

  “Do you find it easier to use your computer?”

  “Oh yes, sir.”

  “Then use it. Just don’t cheat and use the calculator function.”

  “Oh I would never cheat. It’s just hard to read my writing otherwise.”

  “Very well then. Now, any more questions?”

  Katie raised her hand. “When is the next class? I pinned my timetable to my locker but I assume you want it for the next class.”

  “A very good idea. You’ll never skip anything if you put your timetable where you can see it every morning. Next class is Thursday morning and yes, I want your work by then. If you get stuck, just have a go.”

  A further15 minutes went on finicky little queries, everybody jotted down the homework, and then the bell rang. Freedom! She dawdled her way behind the charging crowds and, as soon as she was out of the building, leaned back on the wall and rested her head on cool brick. She hadn’t expected college to be so much like school. Jaye had been telling her that it got a lot better once the first couple of weeks were over and done with and the overprotection had worn off. Young people were drifting off in groups and on their own, a busload were crammed around the bus stop. How many of them had noticed there was only one bus to pick any of them up? How many of them were here for the express purpose of getting run over by that bus? Katie hiked her bag up on her shoulders and headed of down the street. It was just after four in the afternoon and she wanted to get this homework done before tea, and look on the internet for a decent pair of trainers. The ones she was wearing were suffering the effects of last Thursday, heavy and streaked with rain, mud and – oh, eww – blood. Why the parents hadn’t interrogated her about that was a wonder. Or maybe there was something else at work here; something keeping their secret from outsiders?

  “Didn’t think I’d be seeing you this week.”

  “Hi Marcie. Sorry I didn’t call yesterday like I said but-“

  “Lost your phone?”

  “Not far off, actually,” Katie said, wincing on the inside. She knew how cliché that story sounded and she really couldn’t protest the disbelieving looks her friend was speeding through. “I’ve just been wicked busy.”

  “So I see,” she said, eyeing the bulging bag of books Katie was carrying. “I hated school. Education further than the law demands. No thank you.”

  “It’s easy when you know how.”

  “I’m hoping you’re not going to tell me you’re some kind of genius child who knows all those books back to front.”

  Wouldn’t that be something? “I wish. You just get into this pattern of taking everything in and you don’t understand any of it and then, when you’re not even thinking about it, it just all clicks. And then it’s like, oh yeah, I get it now.”

  “I’ll take your word for it, Katie.” Marcie clipped back the mass of blonde ringlets she was sporting today. “Give me a hand with this would you? I hate having curly hair.”

  Katie caught the escaping curls and pushed them back into the claw grip. “Lesson of the day. Sraighteners.”

  “I know, I just never seem to get round to buying any and when would I have time to use them? Hey, Freddie! Where you been hiding? Not been bothering Mrs Daeburn have you?”

  “She gived me sweets.” Freddie, a fair-headed boy of six and with the boundless enthusiasm of one, ran up to them both and brandished a tube of Smarties. “Can I eat them now, Mommy?”

  “I suppose so as long as you promise to eat all your tea tonight.”

  “Want some Aunt Katie?” he mumbled, trying to get more than one out at a time.

  “Think you can find me an orange one? They’re my favourite.”

  After a few seconds of Freddie trying to work out whether individual Smarties were truly orange or had a slightly reddish hue to them, he found an orange one he was happy with, held it out to Katie and they began walking up the slight slope. “Are you okay Aunt Katie? You haven’t cuddled me yet. I like your cuddles – they feel fuzzy and nice.”

  She stopped, slid her bag to the floor then wrapped the boy in her arms. It felt nice to be hugging a real human body, sharing their body heat, real heat, not just simulated to further the illusion. And Freddie gave great hugs too. Proper childish bear hugs because young minds always had the innate fear they would never see you again. “There. I’m all cuddled out now.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said tearfully. “I didn’t mean to take them all away.”

  “Freddie.” Katie crouched down to him and braced one knee on the ground, automatically scanning for broken glass and used needles. Years of growing up next to Heroin Heights meant it was a hard habit to break. She put on her most serious face and watched how the little boy mirrored her sober expression almost instantly. “I need you to be very big for me. Have your teachers told you what responsibility is? Well I need you to take responsibility for all those cuddles and keep them very safe for me. You think you can do that?”

  His eyes flew wide and his jaw dropped about a yard but he nodded gravely

  “Wow,” Marcie whistled when they started walking again, Freddie on his tiptoes in case he bumped one of the delicate balls of love he was in charge of. “That’ll keep him quiet all night.” They carried on in almost silence, occasionally mentioning the weather which was getting a degree or two cooler each day, or the race they had run together. After the first kilometre Marcie had sensed Katie was holding back on the speed to keep pace with her and had encouraged her to carry on as fast as she wanted.

  “I got a new phone and I will call. Get together for dinner or something.”

  “It’ll have to be a family place though. Finding a sitter I’m happy to leave him with… nightmare!” She mimed tearing her hair out. “I’m pretty sure there’s somewhere decent in that shopping centre.”

  “Hopefully. I only went there once and that was only to computer shops.” Of which there were surprisingly few. She gestured at Marcie with the strap of her bag. “Homework. No rest for the wicked, right?”

  “Freddie, come say goodbye to Aunt Katie.”

  “Bye Aunt Katie. Come see us soon okay.”

  Freddie kissed her cheek and waved her all the way to the corner of Newton Street. She passed the five or six houses to her own thinking how strange it was to be called Aunt. Kind of nice but still freaking weird. The house key was hiding right at the bottom of her bag, as things always do when they are wanted, but it eventually found its way to the top. Katie twisted it in the lock, shucked her bag and jacket on the bottom stair and headed for the kitchen for a cold glass of juice. “Hi!” she shouted out to whoever else was home. “I’m home.” And in one piece.

  “In here,” a jagged male voice whisper-called back from the front room. She had never heard Adam sound so unsure, so desperate. What the hell could make him sound like that? With the intention of finding out and then cheering him up – because any weakness in strong Adam just rocked her to the core, Katie grabbed her glass and walked up to the door of the front room, hesitated a second before opening it, and then-

  -walked into a warzone.

  Whatever she had been expecting to see this side of the door it was not cushions scattered over the floor, some torn and spilling fluffy innards, a splintered coffee table with one leg jutting from the front of a sparking television set, the contents of the bookcase here, there and everywhere or the diamonds of glass sprinkled on the dark carpet beneath the light. Correction, beneath the light fitting. Because the bulb had been blown to bits. She quickly surveyed the destructi
on in the room and then her eyes came to rest on something that made all that chaos fall away. The wreckage of one single room wasn’t the be all and end all and it had already happened, was done and gone. This scene of turmoil was still going on and it wasn’t one Katie couldn’t do anything about. She took a step back, swallowed her juice in one long, painful gulp, and busied herself finding a temporary home for her glass. It felt wrong to be witnessing the tender and torturous moments on the front room. It was way too personal for to be watching. She hadn’t been in the least bit prepared to see Lainy locked in Adams arms, silently crying her heart out as he stroked her hair and whispered soothing words in her ear.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Ssshhh.”

  And Lainy just kept weeping into his chest, shaking violently with the need to scream, shout, panic, do something. Anything.

  “Everything’s okay, everything’s better now. You know that.”

  Lainy looked up at him and smiled thinly as he used his thumbs to rub the tears away from her face.

  “Feel better now?”

  She shook her head, not even glancing at the wreck she was standing in. For that one instant, that one beautiful/terrible and too short instant, the pair were the only ones in the room. Katie, watching them from the doorway, didn’t matter. She didn’t even exist. But there was a tremendous weight of guilt and grief and helplessness the whole world should feel. But locked in each other Lainy and Adam glowed golden where they touched.

  The world catapulted back into sharp reality and sound came back to speak the words bubbling under the mini-tornado that had hit inside their house. “They were our girls, Adam. And we lost them.”

  “I know, Lainy, I know.”

  “No, you don’t. I lost them.”

  Adam pulled her close and smoothed her tear-frizzed hair down and kissed it lightly. It didn’t help. Lainy fell inhumanly still, occasionally spasming as her remaining sobs ran through her body. She stopped – just stopped. Her stormy eyes didn’t see anything around her, her breathing no longer hitched as she gulped down oxygen, her body calmed and the vibration in her stilled. Just one step back and her foot cracked down on the shattered light bulb glass. That brought Lainy to her senses and she slowly looked around her and the chaos she had caused slowly registered. He brushed her hair away from her face, breathed deeply a couple of times and put her hands to her tear-flushed cheeks. “I didn’t mean to.”

  Katie huffed and walked into the room. “Okay, here’s the plan. We clear up, you feel better, things work out.”

  Lainy just looked at her like she had lost her mind. Maybe she had. All Katie was sure of was this was just one more thing that needed to be sorted out. And, as petty as a bit of tidying up sounded, it had jumped straight to the top of her list because she was damned if she was going to let this town take away another of her friends.

  “Step one – getting rid of the useless man. Really,” she gestured at the ruins, “you ought to get him house-trained.” That at least earned a smile. A wobbly and uncertain smile but a sign of happiness nonetheless. Thrusting her arms out, Katie zombie-marched Adam out of the room. “What the fuck happened?” she hissed when they were out of earshot, though she doubted Lainy would have paid them the slightest bit of attention if they had been right next to her.

  “Erm…” He was racing through explanations in his head and trying to find a plausible sounding one. It didn’t take Katie more than a few seconds to work it out. Something similar had occurred in her bedroom just a week ago. God, was it really only a week? Jaye had been bottling up so much rage and confusion that the cork had popped and Katie had barely escaped from a broken window, smashed glass and a fun new carpet of papers and pens. Not fun and even less so when the cause of the windstorm was holding sizzling hot hair straighteners. The front room was that same unseeable but undeniable power, but on a slightly larger scale. That stood to reason – Lainy was an older Shade than Jaye by, she reckoned, a year or two. That must give her a bit more strength. Even now, with the event having been finished even before she got through the door, Katie could virtually see things whirling around the front room on an imperceptible current.

  “Never mind.” She waved a dismissive at Adam who shrugged and offered her a sheepish grin. “I can guess. She had her two girls up and leave on her. The two she’s known for the longest, got closest to. She feels somehow responsible for it and she went on a rampage rather than talking it out. Understandable. Stupid, but understandable. Just make sure you don’t end up the same, okay.” And with that, she made to chase him off down to his room and then turned back to the ruins.

  Lainy had already started picking things off the floor but was doing so in a very slow, careful, almost-a-trance way. Katie threw a hand out and grabbed the door frame for balance. Tiredness washed over her for a second and the world dimmed to a shiny darkness and jumped with sparks and she felt as if she was falling falling falling and the end was never coming. There was a never ending black and sparks of blue and purple. The surface was so far away it was invisible. Gravity, wonderful gravity, pulling her further deeper down, weighting everything down, beautifully down and fighting the drag seemed more than pointless. It was meaningless. It was a distant notion that didn’t deserve thinking about.

  It’s not time for you to join us. We can save you but you must save us. We’re-

  The hand that had been reaching down suddenly flexed and blinked out of existence. But it had been close enough to draw Katie close to the surface of this vacuum she was floating in. But, as her mind fought for control, she floundered to stay under for just one more second and strained to hear the end of the sentence. Echoes – why could she see echoes? – drifted as a lilac haze near the top and Katie reached for them with a hand that was sure it could touch sound and-

  still waiting.

  And then Katie was herself again – impulsive, determined and without a clue what she was doing. She charged forward with a confidence she hoped Lainy believed in because Katie certainly didn’t, and picked up a dustpan and brush to work on the worst of the wood splinters and broken glass.

  “You okay, sweetie?” asked Lainy, coming to full and frightening life at the prospect of losing another of her charges. Of missing the warning signs and just… losing her.

  “Wrong time of the month. I’ll be fine after disgraceful amounts of ice cream and a good nights’ sleep.” Not that either of those things seemed to be too high on her list of things she was going to get to do in a hurry.

  “Oh, I got you. Sorry. This isn’t exactly helping is it?”

  They sank back into a hush, working in a near-silent buzz of action. Lainy was picking bits of cushion fluff from the floor and didn’t see Leo slink past the open door, nod at Katie and incline his head upstairs. “You okay to finish off here? I mean, it’s practically done.”

  “You’re leaving me?”

  “What time’s dinner?”

  “Seven. Sausage casserole.” The older girl said the words in robotic fashion, flat and emotionless. But at least she was talking about normal things, slotting back into her mundane human life of being house mother.

  Katie left her working on the carpet, pounded on Adams door and yelled at him to go to his girlfriend as she passed and bounded up the stairs, her long legs taking them two at a time and not even noticing. She passed Leo’s room and stuck her head through the door but he wasn’t there. Which meant there was only one Other Place he could be – sitting in front of her new computer, happily working his way through her stash of Red Bull and Doritos. “Why are you in here?”

  He held up a silver pointed disc, dying sunlight glinting off the edges and making her squint. “Gratitude…”

  “I forgot about that.”

  “You forgot about it? Even though this has your blood on it.” Leo sounded doubtful and Katie couldn’t really say anything.

  “How do you know it’s my blood
and not Jack’s or his own?”

  Leo reached over and grabbed her hand, picking at the tiny red scab on her index finger. There was a smear of fresher blood on the end of one of the points and some dried flakes of – decades? Centuries? – old blood worked into the grooves. “A name’s under all that crap. I couldn’t make it out but I wanted to see if I should clean it off to see.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” she shrugged. “It’s definitely a sheriff shield, though?”

  “Well you got up close and personal with it. But I googled and yeah, it’s pretty old too. Mid 1800s I think, something like that.”

  Well that fit with Jack and the man who killed him.

  “You ever gonna tell me what really happened out there? I mean, you kinda cheated death and… is that what you wanted to tell me? You lived when you should’ve died.”

  Katie shrugged, not knowing quite what she had been trying to say a couple of days ago. There wasn’t time to tell him the whole story, didn’t have time for all the questions that he would ask or any answers for them anyway, but the highlights and lowlights were plain to see. They were written in the marble hardness of her face, the constant trembling of muscles under her skin, the dark smudges around her eyes that never went completely. “The spirits on the waste ground, where you found me – saved me actually, I know. I was so tired I think I might have cried myself to death and I wouldn’t even have cared.” It would have been like a scene from Romeo and Juliet, Katie thought suddenly; dying to be with somebody you thought was dead only to have them awake and cry themselves red tears over you. “Where was I? Waste ground. Right. All those cuts and stuff I had when Jaye brought me home, remember, the spirits took them all away. Or I thought they did. I think they just buried them because I can feel everything wriggling around inside me. It’s itchy really deep down.”

  “I also met the man I stole that from. He tried to kill me.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “He wasn’t meant to.” Not then.

  “Whatever. You’re giving me brain ache, bitch.”

  “Stop helping me then.” Although she knew he wouldn’t give it up. Even if researching the badge was for some convoluted twisted reason of his own, Leo would keep working on it until he got answers. “Dinner’s at seven.” Not even waiting until the boy had left the room – didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of still being of any concern to Katie when, even now, there was a volatile streak in him she did not entirely trust – she set her alarm for 6:45 and tried to get an hours’ sleep in.

  There were voices in the darkness. Whispering voices, screaming voices, singing voices, broken voices, lonely voices. Lonely but oh so many of them. And Katie couldn’t make out a word they were saying.

  She was lying on a cold floor, not stone or tiles but almost glassy to the touch. Maybe some kind of Perspex or that UPVC stuff they used for windows. It was cool and ultra smooth to her fingertips. She could touch. That was something, at least. Katie experimentally stretched every muscle she could to see what worked and what didn’t, all the while trying to make the smallest movements possible. Anyone might be watching and she didn’t want to give this anyone the idea she was awake and ready to play. Who knew what freaky games they might have in mind? Fear was great at minimising things like that desire to get up and try to work out where the hell she was. She rolled onto her back. Nobody came. Stretched her legs out. Nobody came. Rose into a crouched, poised and ready to run. Nobody came. Nobody even moved. All there was was those eternal, infernal voices. They sounded close but muffled as if caught behind a door or wall. And Katie knew that she needed to find them.

  So. This was doable. Find who- or whatever was making that awful wailing sound. At least there was a plan now – or a goal, at any rate. The plan was still a work in progress. Katie allowed herself to sink back to the floor and had a quick think.

  Objective one – find out where she was. Easier said than done. It was too dark to see much of anything but as she scrambled to her feet, Katie noticed that more light hazed into the room. The floor was cool beneath her hands and feet and there was a ridge a few inches in front where the smoothness stopped and thick industrial carpeting began. And suddenly a figure walked right up to her, not even glancing down out her.

  “Watch out!” she yelled. Not that it did any good. The figure appeared not to hear the panicked voice and walked through her. She looked up, following the line of the carpet forgotten and locked her gaze on the man who had gone through her like she wasn’t even there. The man, she saw when she squinted, was clutching a beer bottle and was swaying slightly as he walked over to join another group of people at a high table. There were quite a few of these tables dotted around her and all crowded either with people or empties. A yard or two in front of her was a dimly under-lit square where people moved to a beat only they heard. Perhaps the wailing voices were the cause of the movement but Katie knew somehow that no-one could hear the voices but her. More bodies were standing around her, drinking and chatting and not paying the slightest attention to the under-age, barefoot girl standing in their midst. No sound came out of their mouths, no boom, boom, boom of a driving dance beat shook the walls, no unlikely DJ yelled out dumb lines while pretending to be cool. It was seriously creepy, watching all this activity going on and not hearing anything other than that awesome/awful keening.

  Katie dusted her white gym trousers off and put her hands on her hips. She was in a club. Nobody could see or hear her. Okay, cool, that was one mystery solved.

  Objective two- where were those voices coming from?

  We’re over here. All of us. So many of us, someone’s going to have to go. We don’t want to lose anyone but we will if you don’t hurry.

  “Tell me where you are.” She stepped forward, closer to the mass of heaving bodies, grinding and dancing that didn’t really look like dancing with no music. The voices seemed to be leading her to the other side of the dancefloor and she was powerless to resist. Even so, Katie apologised her way through the crowd, remembering a little too late that they couldn’t hear her sorries or even feel her bump into them. “If you can’t tell me that, then tell me how I’m meant to find you.”

  You will. We know you will.

  “How do you figure that one?” But she was just filling time while she picked her way out.

  We’ve been calling out for so long. Time means nothing here. A second ticks past in your world; here, it freezes and becomes eternal. It seems forever since we learnt to cry and you heard us. Just you.”

  “You helped me against that man, you kept me dry and fit, you gave me something dark and powerful and you saved my life.”

  We gave you a link to us, a way to save us.

  It seemed like forever but Katie was finally at the other side of the club looking at a fire exit to her left and a long corridor stretching of to her right. The corridor had a few doors set into it and, the scarier it seemed, the more likely it was this was the direction she needed to go. Closing her eyes, Katie wiggled her fingers at her side, feeling for the tickle of dark power that meant she was close. There. Why did it have to be there? Air kissed her just behind her left ear. She turned her back on the corridor and stood in front of the green fire door, staring it down as if it would crumble under her gaze.

  “Okay, I’m here now. What do you want me to do?”

  BEEP BEEP BEEP

  Katie automatically threw a hand out and slammed the annoying alarm onto snooze mode. Why was she waking up to the dark? It took her a second to remember that she had taken a mid-evening nap before dinner. Dinner. She also realised that she was absolutely starving.

  Downstairs, she asked Lainy if there were any clubs in towns.

  “A couple. There’s the student club not far from here called Shimma.”

  Very eighties. “Does it have a navy carpet and a long corridor going out to the back?”

  “Yeah. We used to send th
e ambulance there on Fridays because drunks were the only calls we got then.” Lainy grinned, remembering her old life, then continued dishing out casserole. “Anyway, don’t be getting any ideas sweetie. You’re too young.”

  It wasn’t like Katie wanted to go. She just didn’t think she had much say in the matter. “I heard some of the others talking about it. I didn’t actually realise we had anything fun in town.”

  “Define fun.”

  “This is good,” Katie said about the casserole and breathed a sigh of relief when Adam changed the subject to the new things he needed to buy for the living room. Dinner was in definite danger of going on too long. Leo shot her a look as she kept glancing at the clock. Watching every tick and tock would not make time go any faster. She returned his glare and challenged him to say something.

  “What are you planning?” he whispered when the other pair were taking the dishes into the kitchen.

  “I’m going to that club.”

  He shrugged. “Your funeral.”

  “What d’you expect me to do? I can’t ignore these voices.”

  “You’re hearing voices. Fantastic.”

  “Look, come with me and I’ll explain on the way.”

  “You two are getting on better,” said Lainy, sitting down at the table. The four of them were crowded around the kitchen table, one on each side, there not really being enough of them left to warrant using the large dining table. She looked happy to see the two teens in peace talks and not trying to throttle each other. “Let’s have some peace and quiet in this house for the rest of the week. We’ve got a smaller gang now. All the more reason to look after each other.”

  “Speaking of which, Marcie just phoned. She’s had a nightmare day. I’m going to see her, have a girly night. Don’t wait up.” Katie didn’t think either of her guardians believed a words she said and not least because she wasn’t the girly night type, but then Leo spouted off his escape to the club to ‘check it out’ and they started doubting that one even more. So much so that nobody noticed them look at each other in silent agreement or leave and walk off together.

  “I can only tell you what you need to know and I don’t think even I know all of it.” And then she fell silent. What could she tell him apart from theories and mysterious voices and things that had come to her in dreams? He couldn’t put any faith in those things. He believed in God and the Bible, sacrifice and resurrection, not Shades and never-ending life.

  Never-ending suffering.

  “And that’s why I have to help them.”

  “Where do we go then?” Leo asked. He must have had a hundred questions or more buzzing around his head but he didn’t ask any of them. Maybe he didn’t want to know the answers because knowing the truth would make it harder to deny.

  “Shimma.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and raised her arms crucifix-style, feeling for the dark pull of energy in town – it was stronger, more tangible where-ever ghosts gathered. But, right now… nothing. “Sorry,” she murmured to Leo. Then, just as she was about o open her eyes and look around for some clue of where to find the club, a rush of words flooded into her head, words she couldn’t make out but which she realised she already knew, and she stumbled over her own feet, throwing her arms out for balance. A tug on her stomach, perhaps even deeper than that, made the oxygen whoosh out of her lungs. And then she knew. “It’s inside me.” Katie turned her gaze inward and allowed her focus to soften enough that she could see the ball of energy she had always mustered and called upon to manifest Jack. It was no longer a glistening ball with a thread running from it to his invisible hand; it was a mess of threads and tangles, all shrinking and all straining to get out of her. Nor was it the silver and white vision it had always been; it was the black and purple shine of dark Shades, the darkness that had just flickered through her just like the silver was doing now. “It’s always been inside me.” She reached down further and fell the dark wisps all prodding at her skin, all trying to escape through the same patch.

  We’re trying to show you. Just watch and follow.

  Oh God, how could she be so thick? They weren’t trying to claw their way out of her – they were showing her the way to go.

  Katie kept half an eye on the threads inside her and let them tell her which way to go to the club. She had forgotten all about Leo until he put his hand on her shoulder to keep her from walking into the road in front of a gang of preteens on bikes. No energy to thank him.

  A large building rose up before her, on the near side of campus. The classy sign above the door said SHIMMA in red gothic lettering on a glossy black and white background. Like most of the new academy buildings, some parts of the club were just painted breeze blocks, but the main part was done in classic red brick. She surmised the breeze blocks were some extension work… like the corridor opposite the fire exit. The closer she got to the place, the stiller her wriggling insides grew. At the door, they fell limp and lifeless. Katie wanted to stop moving too.

  She wanted to drop to the floor where she stood and just stop. Not an option. Leo grabbed her wrist as she stood before the club, staring at the sign and yanked her with him to join the end of the line. It was mercifully short. Tuesdays were really not the busiest night for clubbing. Or maybe that first rush of scholarly discipline was still in force. The bouncer on the door – tall, shiny headed, built like a brick, the whole cliché – let Leo in after a quick glance at his student photo ID and was soon lost in the crowds behind the door. Katie dug hers out of her back pocket and handed it over. He took much longer over her photo. Biting her lip seemed to swing the deal though and he waved her in, mistaking the gesture for a cute flirt and not a nervous habit. Katie thanked her parents for giving her the tall gene which seemed to always add a couple of years. There was a hatch to her left where people were receiving wrist stamps from a bored-looking girl and stashing jackets and bags. Katie quickly scanned heads for a black buzz-cut as she pushed her way through to the main room. The sound proofing on the doors and walls must have been amazing because her ears were immediately assaulted by a rapid bass beat at levels so low and intense her head felt like a speaker. That was nicely overlaid with the clinking of glasses and a symphony of a hundred or more people all trying to be louder than those next to them. She glanced down and saw bare feet ghosted over her trainers on the dark blue carpet. At least, it looked navy – it was hard to tell exactly with the light blue and green spotlights swirling over them. When she glanced over at the people dancing in a tight huddle she knew she was in the right place. These were the same people that had been in her dream. They were wearing the same clothes. Drinking the same drinks. Making the same movements. There were no voices to be heard over the life of this nightly party, but they had to be back there. Where life couldn’t touch the dead. She stepped off the carpet and moved towards the knot of people, trying to find a tiny gap in them so she could work her way through.

  I wish I could just fade my way through them all.

  The bodies were an impenetrable force. Round the outside then. It took a bit longer to skirt the edges of the floor, trying to dodge the stumbling students who had already drunk one too many. Katie found herself standing a few yards down the breeze blocked corridor n the cool air that meant she was either near an outside wall or the A/C was on. It was only now that Katie realised how hot she had gotten.

  A door slammed shut further down the corridor and she stared down.

  “Hey, you!” shouted a man with platinum hair that made his espresso-dark skin look even darker. “Cass could do with a hand on coats!”

  “Erm…”

  “Come on, chick. Get to earnin’ your pay. Are you new?”

  “I’m Katie. First night.”

  “Not surprised. Blink and they change the entire payroll.”

  “Oh.”

  “You look like a rabbit when the dog’s been let out. You come see Shimma tomorrow night, okay. Ful
l induction. Provided everything’s where I left it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No worries, chick. Think they can chuck the new girl in and just expect her to know what to do. Not when Shimma’s around, chick. Not on my watch. But seriously, my girl out there could do with a hand.” The man heard one hell of a crash of glass from the main room and hared off to investigate. After a moment, she cursed her rigid moral compass and half-jogged off after him.

  What’s the point of finding a whole bunch of spirits if innocent people out there are just going to replace them?

  The MC paused mid-shtick and scratched a dance record to a ruining halt (a marked improvement on the original track) and conversation either stopped or turned into angry shouting just to the side of the dancefloor as all hell kicked off. None other than Leo had smashed into a group of friends, all slightly the cockier for alcohol, and was now engaging in a pushing and shoving match. Some people screamed, a handful piled into the ruckus. It was to dark to see what was going on. That was probably for the best as she heard the words ‘glass ‘im, mate’ somewhere under the din. She edged over to the man she thought was Shimma and squeezed his hand. The panic must have shown through the gloom because e waved at the man standing by the electric deck that controlled the lights and a pantomime of pointing got him to focus as many tiny spotlights as possible on the fighting group.

  It threw gently pin points of light on to a red and raw bottle fight.

  Two young men were sprawled on the floor and moaning for the mommies. Well, not quite but Katie quite liked the idea. Another young man and a woman were holding Leo still by gripping one arm each and a third person, the dyed spiky hair and army surplus clothes gave no clue as to gender, was holding a broken bottle in one hand and pointing it over his stomach. The scene froze when the lights showed them all up and the one with the broken bottle had the stupidity to look round, almost in slow-motion, to see who had done that.

  “Leo, I don’t have time for your pissing contest.”

  He hadn’t exactly caused this fight – hey, it took two, or six, to tango – but he hadn’t hesitated in getting stuck in either.

  Katie turned and let her eyes find the man who had moved the lights and made a slicing motion across her neck. Every light in the main room cut out and pitched the building into blackness. Screaming, perhaps agony, perhaps abject terror, filled the air. Whatever happened now, she didn’t need to see it.

  Chapter six