Falling Apart Read online

  I waited for them to disappear behind the bridge, sighed again, and carried on walking. After a couple of minutes I found myself outside the flat I’d shared with Rachel until a couple of months ago. I’d walked that way without considering that this wasn’t home any more. No, home was now the house that Sil and Zan shared in central York: three storeys of Georgian brickwork, decor that looked as though a French palace had collided with IKEA and the kind of sterile atmosphere you get when one member of the household sits around waiting for dust with a rolled-up newspaper and a can of Pledge.

  But it was also the place where Sil and I could be together. Zan might lurk like a disapproving mother-in-law, but at least he didn’t interrupt our quiet moments with trial-runs from the Vegan Cook Book and Holby City plot lines. Plus, Rachel and I were still a bit fragile in the friendship department. I’d had to pretend to kill her to lure the demon Malfaire into trusting me and, for a while, she’d behaved as if I really had killed her – only with more ‘sending to Coventry’ than your average corpse could manage. We’d resumed a tentative text-based conversation, but it still didn’t feel as though I could turn up on the doorstep with my washbag and a year’s supply of unhealthy foodstuffs, even if I’d wanted to.

  Loneliness jabbed me in the heart and I threw a stone rather viciously into the water. Okay, I wasn’t about to shriek and rend my garments – I wasn’t paid enough to rend anything, could barely even afford to ladder my tights – but even so, I considered that I was entitled to a small moment of self-pity. For a second I imagined Sil standing beside me, not touching me but close enough that I could feel his soft coat brush the skin on my arms, smell that dark, bottom-of-a-wooden-chocolate-box scent that came from him, see the absolute blackness of his hair blowing in the breeze. I squeezed my eyes shut, felt that emptiness inside as though my soul had been removed with a blunt instrument. Tried to conjure him through imagination. Sil, what happened? To you, to us … You said I was enough for you, that what you felt for me was enough to keep your demon happy, that feeling for me was worth letting all the bad feelings through – was it all a lie? Were you just biding your time, using me, until one day you just woke up and decided it wasn’t enough any more?

  Another stone bounced savagely off a small boat and I felt the longing like a second skin drawn tight around my own. When someone tapped me on the shoulder it was a wonder I didn’t turn around and bite them.

  ‘Hello.’ It was Harry; lovely, square-jawed Harry, the most human human it was possible to be without having it printed on a T-shirt. He was an Enforcement Officer, and he and his co-worker Eleanor had been part of the horror that night I’d had to kill the demon. ‘If you’re trying to sink one, I recommend dynamite.’ He nodded towards the boats. ‘Less accuracy required.’ He watched as, determined not to be told what to do by someone who worked for the opposition, I flicked another set of pebbles riverwards. ‘How are you, Jess?’

  How do you think I am? ‘Still walking, talking and keeping Liam off the streets. How about you?’

  He rolled his shoulders. ‘Ellie and I are back at work now, after … well, they made us take some personal leave.’ He blew a breath. ‘It was a bit crazy, wasn’t it? Did you get counselling, or …’

  ‘I work for the council: I didn’t even get “there there” and a pat. Well, tell a lie, Liam bought me a pound of toffee bonbons and in our office that’s pretty much the same as three calls to the Samaritans and six months’ therapy.’

  There was a bit of an awkward silence. Harry and I were friendly, but work-friendly rather than hanging-out-friendly. In the end Harry, with a remarkable lack of male evasion, said, ‘What happened with you and that demon – we, I mean Ellie and I, we didn’t say anything, Jess. That was all pretty bad, and you pulled us out, you saved all of us that night. Pretty much the whole world too, from what I can figure. So. Yeah. Lips sealed and all that.’

  ‘About what?’ I frowned. I hadn’t done anything technically illegal, apart from killing Malfaire, the demon who’d declared that I was his daughter, which was obviously not strictly a good thing, but he wanted to take over the world so I reckoned I’d be cut some criminal slack on that one.

  ‘About …’ Harry lowered his voice and looked around dramatically. He was in uniform, which gave the effect that we were passing official secrets. ‘About Malfaire being your father. Ellie and I talked about it, well, we haven’t stopped talking about it really, but we … well, I know you and she don’t really get on.’

  ‘Only because she shot Cameron.’ I clenched my teeth and tried not to think about the loss of my friend to a misunderstanding and a hail of silver bullets.

  ‘The court declared it accidental,’ Harry said, slightly heavily. ‘But even so, we know that there could be implications and everything so … like I said, lips sealed.’

  Okay, Jess, time for a deep breath and to pull your big-girl panties up. So, your vampire boyfriend has buggered off, well, tough boots, sweetie, you’ve still got a job to do. ‘Thank you, Harry. And pass on my thanks to Eleanor too, although if you can wrap them in explosives I’d appreciate it.’

  We stood and looked around. Apart from a hen party being raucous on the opposite bank, there were no conspicuous signs of bad behaviour. The group of men had dispersed as completely as a fart in a breeze and the summer sunshine was doing a good job of making everything look newly scrubbed and innocent.

  ‘Well.’ Harry swiped his hands along the sides of his jacket as though his palms were sweating. ‘I suppose I ought to …’

  ‘Have you got time for a drink?’ I surprised myself with my desire not to go back to an evening in an over-furnished room with no company but terrible television and a vampire who relaxed by reading Greek texts and tutting. I wanted distraction, I wanted company.

  ‘Sorry, Jess, on duty.’ He held out his hands. ‘Was on my way back to HQ when I saw you walking down here.’ He raised his head and looked out, over the river, down towards the bridge, two spans of butter-coloured stone. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were all right. How’s Sil, by the way? Not seen him out and about lately.’

  ‘He’s … busy. You know. Busy. We’re both … busy.’ Just don’t ask what he’s busy doing. I’ve been imagining since he went … ‘Busy,’ I said again, in a conversation-killing way.

  ‘Great. Well. I’ll see you around then.’ With a nod he shoved both hands into his pockets and set off up the cobbled wharf back towards the middle of town.

  Steeling myself for an evening spent listening to Zan cataloguing Greek pronouns by size and complaining about how much better they’d been ‘in the Old Days’, I headed home.

  Chapter Six

  Sil raged, almost beyond conscious thought now. The hunger was all. All he could feel, all he could see, all he could smell in this tight space, not enough room to stretch, to let his demon uncoil and move within him, the two beings pressed together, even for creatures that occupied the same body this level of confinement was unnatural. Blood. The imagined taste made his demon jerk uncomfortably in his chest. We must have … blood. The hunger had become a third creature here in the darkness, a predator that circled and wouldn’t let him sit or stand without showing its teeth. It gnawed and bit and sliced into his belly, raked through the air with wings like knives.

  He groaned and wrapped arms around his stomach, trying to comfort it out of the feeling he was trying to digest himself. His demon flicked and twisted inside him, torn between the protection his body afforded and the knowledge that, alone, it could possibly escape. No chance. I’ve investigated every inch of this place: there’s not so much as a crack. Wherever we are, we are trapped. Trapped and starving.

  A brief shot of adrenaline and a sudden sharp tug along the invisible wire that connected him to Jessica relaxed him just a fraction. He shook his head and allowed the briefest of smiles – Jessica was the least of his worries right now. Her ability to look after her
self so outweighed his that it was laughable. Vampire. Top of the food chain. Strong, fleet. Staggeringly good-looking. And here I am, starving to death in a dark hole, while Jess is probably wrestling a werewolf to the ground and reading it the riot act. Messy hair and mismatched clothes … Another burst of emotion, but this time it came from the region of his heart. She’s random and uncalculating and completely chaotic and she can cope with anything. Can she cope with me?

  Forgetting the hunger, the impatience of his demon, the nature of his current state, he unwrapped his arms from his stomach and stretched them as wide as he could, as though to encompass her distant frame. Throwing his head back, he opened his eyes into the darkness and let out a scream of rage, of utter impotent fury. At his inability to be with her. At wanting her at all. Didn’t I know this would happen? That loving means trapping yourself in thrall to someone else’s whims and fancies? She could destroy me with a simple look, a word … and I gave her that power …

  His cries echoed on, into the dark.

  ‘Better get out there, Jess.’ Liam looked up from his screen. ‘Might be nothing, but there’s a werewolf showing out of area, down near the train station. No permit, so …’

  I didn’t bother to look. ‘It’ll just be a mistake. No werewolf is going to do anything stupid in broad daylight on a Wednesday afternoon; he knows he’ll get tranqued and end up missing Silent Witness.’

  ‘Or she, you sexist pig.’

  I sighed and rolled the gun between my fingers. ‘If you’re going to be like that about it …’

  ‘I wasn’t being like anything!’

  ‘I’m going! Look, this is me, going.’

  Liam swivelled the chair, making a grinding noise. ‘Look, Jessie, I’m sure Sil is going to turn up safe and sound and we’ll find out he’s been doing something innocently somewhere and just lost track of the time. Zan … well, you know what Zan is like – he worries. About everything. I’m sure he double-checks the blood type on the Synth bottles just so he doesn’t get any nasty surprises. You get out there, sort things out, and I’ll see you back here in time for the Jeremy Kyle omnibus, okay?’

  I gave him a grin, pocketed the gun and headed out, where the sunshine hit my senses like a dash of sherbet and I stood for a second, feeling an ache somewhere in my soul. Sil is somewhere out there. Somewhere, standing under this same sun, watching this day carry on around him. Without me. There was a chafe of tears at the base of my throat, a lump of words that I couldn’t say to anyone.

  My phone rang. I ignored it. It would only be Liam asking me to pick up some more milk on my way back or something. Focus. This is what you do, Jess; this is who you are. Okay, you’re upset, I get that. But, seriously? What did you expect? Out of the office, turn left, over the bridge and towards the station. You wanted to think of the vampire as yours – the key word there is vampire. Loyalty, trust, fidelity … all concepts a demon wipes away, along with concern for anyone else. Their moral compasses spin like a Dancing on Ice contestant trying to master the pirouette. Your job is yours and no-one can take that away.

  The werewolf was sitting on the wall. I mentally stuck my tongue out at Liam – he was just watching the world go by. I even recognised him; he was the guy I’d danced with when Sil and I had ended up at one of the vampire clubs a while back. ‘Hey, Tobe.’

  A sudden jerk of his head; then a lazy smile. ‘Oh, hi. How’re you doing?’

  I pushed the gun back into my pocket. ‘I’m good but you’re out of area, mate.’ The phone rang again and I stabbed at it until it stopped. ‘Just doing my job, you understand that.’

  His smile died slowly. ‘Bugger. I’m meeting my girlfriend from the train; thought the paperwork was all dealt with. There must have been some kind of hold-up or something. Can’t you cut me some slack here, Jess? It’s only another couple of minutes ’til the train gets in. And I did promise.’

  I sat down next to him. ‘I can wait with you, I guess. Keep an eye until you go back over the river.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  We sat and watched the crowds walking through the streets. ‘Saw your picture in the paper this morning,’ Tobe said eventually, eyes and meaning hidden behind dark glasses.

  I snorted a mirthless laugh. ‘Tell me about it. Ever since I started seeing Sil I’ve become some kind of D-list celebrity. And they don’t even have the decency to use a good photo. Honestly, if anyone finds reading about me going about my daily business that fascinating, then I fear for the future of the human race.’

  Tobe patted my hand. ‘Jealousy,’ he said. ‘Reckon there isn’t a woman in that newsroom who wouldn’t jump into your shoes in a heartbeat, and probably plenty of guys too. They’re just stirring.’ The phone started ringing again. At least I’d managed to program it back from Liam’s ‘witty’ attempts to get it to say something about my personality. ‘Maybe you should get it,’ Tobe said. ‘Might be important, they seem pretty persistent.’

  I pulled the phone out. ‘No, it’ll be Liam. Probably wants me to pop to Smiths for him again.’ I glanced down at the screen. ‘It’s my sister.’ My heart did a weird jumping thing. Abbie was ringing me? What could she have to say that couldn’t be said face-to-face? But she’d stayed away since that awful night when I’d killed the demon. It had driven a wedge between us, when she’d seen me – maybe for the first time – as something more than a little sister. Something other.

  I punched the button to answer. ‘Abbie?’ We’d not even spoken much since then. I suppose finding out that your sister is really the child of a demon and a girl from the streets will rather put a crimp in family get-togethers ‘What’s up?’ And then, because we’d been brought up as sisters, despite the fourteen-year age gap, and I still held her telling Mum that I’d been seen at a party I wasn’t supposed to have gone to against her, I said, ‘I thought you weren’t speaking to me ever again?’

  A breathy pause. ‘It’s Dad. He’s in the hospital. Heart attack, they think, but they’re doing tests.’

  My mouth dried and the phone slipped between my fingers. ‘What? When … I mean … he … is he …?’ It felt as though my heart had stopped in sympathy and my blood settled in my ears, muffling the sounds of life around me.

  ‘We’re in the hospital. They’re doing an ECG …’ Her voice broke and there was a crackle of background noise for a second; then she came back, still tired but stronger. ‘You need to come, Jess.’

  ‘I’m coming now.’ I disconnected and turned to Tobe, who was watching me over the top of his glasses. ‘Look, you. Don’t do anything, all right? Meet your girlfriend and then get back to Strensall, understand?’

  ‘More trouble, girl?’

  ‘Yes.’ Although the air was warm, my skin pricked with the shock chill and it was an effort to get my legs to move. Abbie was a nurse – if she thought the situation warranted summoning me, then things must be pretty bad. He needs me. I forced myself to action, drove my weight forward until I almost fell and then took off. Running through the streets, people jumping out of my way as I went. A lot would recognise me as Liaison, probably thought I was rushing to a call-out; those who didn’t move in time I shoulder-barged, no politeness now, just a single focus, like a laser cutting through the crowds – I had to get to the hospital. To my father, the man who’d brought me up as his child. The man who’d read to me at night, stroked my forehead when I was ill, taught me the difference between ‘who’ and ‘whom’ and the correct definition of ‘decimate’. The man who’d scolded me when I was late back from dates and outings – I’d just thought he was being petty and mean, but now I understood he’d been terrified. He and Mum must have lived on a knife edge for my entire thirty-one years and yet they’d brought me up as just a normal girl with a big sister. Things had been a little awkward between us since my real parentage came out: none of us really knew quite what to say to one another. I’d wanted to tell them that I understo
od but … I didn’t know how. And I’d made myself distant, retreated into life with Sil rather than face The Conversation. But he was still Dad, just waiting for me to come to terms with the way my life had changed. Come to terms, get over myself, and get back to being the slightly wayward younger daughter that I’d always been to them.

  I skidded around the corner at the traffic lights, headed down Lord Mayor’s walk, battering tourists out of my way as I went, knocking one man’s camera from his hands but not even slowing down to apologise. Two vampires neatly sidestepped as I came through, and, even focused as I was, I saw a raised eyebrow and a mirthless half-smile but I didn’t waste time slowing down to eyeball them. I put my head down and powered the final mile, arriving in the reception area panting, sweaty and red-faced.

  Luckily the hospital wasn’t huge. The magnetic flux that brought the Otherworlders into this dimension also brought advances in science and medicine, so there was no longer the pre-Troubles need for vast spaces dedicated to the treatment of illness. The Cardiac Unit was tucked at the back behind reception.

  My mother was sitting on a plastic chair in the corridor. She’d always been small and delicately boned, which should, of course, have given me the heads-up that I couldn’t possibly have been her natural daughter, but now she looked tiny, as though the heat of worry had shrunk her down. ‘Jessica! You came!’

  ‘Of course I did! Where’s Abbie?’

  ‘She had to go on duty.’ A quick hug. ‘Come on in and see your father.’

  He lay attached to a machine, looking rather better than my mother did. We hugged, a long hug, despite the tubes and drips and constant bleeps, and I nearly cried again. ‘So. How’s work?’ he asked eventually, and his voice was a bit thin, lacking some of the volume built up over years of shouting at students and then more years telling sheep to ‘give over, you buggers.’