Falling Apart Page 8

  He’s going to swap my Ralph Lauren suit for alcohol, he thought, watching his trousers moving off through the night, now held up by nylon string around a skinny middle. But that’s all to the good. Even though I am now wearing something that I couldn’t swap for a gin and tonic and a can of flea spray. He looked down at the too-small knitted jumper, which hugged his torso as far as the bottom of his ribcage, leaving a conspicuous gap above the waistband of a pair of denims so old that he was surprised the original cowboy wasn’t still in there with him. On his feet were a pair of trainers a size too small, with one lace replaced by a frayed piece of elastic. His hair, which used to hang to the base of his neck, no longer even covered his ears, but that was all right because the Great Clothing Swap had included, as a bonus, a shapeless hat, of the kind worn by fielders during an overlong and overhot game of cricket. And, by the smell of it, had recently been worn for exactly that purpose.

  A shiver of disgust ran up from his stomach. He pushed a hand into a pocket and, on encountering the edge of an obviously well-used tissue, withdrew it carefully. Gods. Jessie, if you could see me now … He shook his head, which gave him pause as he failed to feel the familiar swing of hair against his shoulder. I am in fear for my life. I have done things this day that will have me shot on sight by anyone armed, no investigation, no recrimination, and my first thought is for my appearance and how my lover would react to it? He sat on the recently vacated bin bags, head in his hands for a moment, the stirrings of panic in his chest sending his demon whirling again. And now? What now? For a moment the panic threatened to overwhelm him, powerlessness he had not encountered since the demon hatched inside him. A century of supremacy. One hundred years of power, of strength and speed and unchanging looks, of sex and blood whenever and wherever I wanted, offered by those who were flattered and entranced. And now, here I sit. His head dropped lower and he covered the newly bare back of his neck with his forearms, pulling his head in despair closer to his chest, tears threatening his closed lids.

  And then he felt it. That tug at his solar plexus, the slow spinning of the silver thread that, in his imagination, connected him to Jessica, the thread that reeled and played, slackened and tautened as he moved through her thoughts. Jessie. Thinking of me. He touched his flesh, just beneath his ribcage, almost wonderingly, almost as though he could feel her through the contact. Think of me. Because without you, without knowing that you believe I am still myself after the terrible deeds I committed … then I may as well turn myself over to Enforcement, or allow the Hunters to track me down and shoot me like something rabid.

  The connection vibrated and seemed to warm him along its length, but he feared that was simply his imagination.

  Chapter Fourteen

  My mother was knitting again, almost feverishly, while Dad lay in bed watching Come Dine With Me on mute. They weren’t talking.

  ‘Just passing by,’ I said brightly. ‘Everything all right?’

  Two pairs of tired eyes turned my way. ‘We saw the news, love,’ my mother said quietly. ‘What has he done?’

  I felt my lip wobble as though I was five again. ‘I don’t know.’

  My father patted the side of his bed and I sat down heavily enough to make one of the monitors signal an oncoming train. ‘It might not be what it looks like, Jessie. There’s something behind that kind of behaviour, I know.’ He coughed softly and then carried on. ‘In the Troubles we saw a lot of misinformation, misdirection. What you see is not always what happened, just remember that.’

  I just shook my head. The words wanted to spill out, I could feel them clogged in my throat and my lungs, but my heart wouldn’t let them past the lump in my throat.

  ‘He loves you.’ My mother came over and stroked the top of my head as though that inner five-year-old was visible from the outside. ‘I’ve never seen anyone look at someone the way Sil looks at you.’

  ‘I look at you like that,’ my father interjected.

  ‘Only when you want me to make you a cup of tea.’

  I snuggled my head against the familiar scent of her shoulder and closed my eyes. Let myself imagine, briefly, that I was at home again, that this antiseptic-smelling room with the too-bright lights and the clicking machines was my bedroom in the farmhouse, that I’d suffered some stupid schoolgirl slight and that my parents, currently bickering lightly, would make everything all right for me again with a word, a glass of warm milk and a Jaffa cake. ‘He’s going to die, Mum,’ I whispered. I felt her hesitation, her hand moved over my hair and I realised that she wasn’t sure which ‘he’ I meant and was worried for both of them. It frightened me even more.

  After a few minutes of sitting there being a little girl again, I straightened up and sniffed back tears which had yet to fall. ‘Your sister and Rachel are thinking of going off on holiday in a couple of weeks,’ my father said, as though this was the family dinner table. ‘Why not see if you can go with them?’

  ‘If you’re better, Brian; they’re only going if you’re better.’ My mother fussed his sheet straight. ‘But that’s a good idea. A holiday would be nice for you, dear. Where is it they’re going; Spain somewhere isn’t it?’

  They’re trying to make everything normal. Pretending that life will go on. Only you know it won’t if anything happens to Sil – life might as well stop at that moment because nothing will ever happen again that matters.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ I took a deep breath. ‘But leaving Liam in charge of the office wouldn’t be a great move. He might get ideas above his station, and Liam’s proper station in life is a bare platform with one train a week. In Wales. In the rain.’

  Dad smiled at me. It was a complicated smile in which bravery in the face of pain was tinged with sympathy and something like fear. ‘You go and do what you have to, love,’ he said quietly. ‘Just remember what I said.’

  I hugged them both and left the hospital, not liking to ask for clarification on exactly which things I was supposed to remember. Probably not anything grammatical, I thought, wiping my hand over my eyes so that I could meet the outside world looking my usual self. Or about not staying out after midnight – that was years ago. My brain skittered around the things he’d said recently, about being careful and things not always being as they appeared, but those thoughts all came layered under the plastic sheeting of Sil, and what he’d done. They needed careful unpacking, consideration. Coffee would help, I thought, and turned to walk to the office.

  As I passed under the ancient curved archway leading to High Petergate, I noticed a zombie walking ahead of me. Well, I say walking, it was more of a kind of localised shuffle: it looked as though he’d got his legs on backwards – not altogether unlikely given zombie tendencies to sew or stick on anything that had fallen off with more haste than mindfulness of biological design. I didn’t pay him much attention; zombies usually worked the night shift, needing no sleep and not much in the way of wages, so finding one heading through the streets at this time in the evening was normal enough, and, since I hadn’t had a call-out, he was unlikely to be out of area. However, something, call it the second-nature of someone who’d spent the last few years sharing an office with Liam and a series of unreliable electrical devices, made me look up. Jerked me out of my dark thoughts and worry and made me pay attention. When I did, I saw the man following him.

  Not just following. Not innocently walking behind, looking for an opportunity to overtake, but actual following. I started to watch, one hand cautiously resting on the butt of the tranq gun – okay, shooting humans wasn’t actually allowed, but it wasn’t totally forbidden either since no-one had ever thought it would come up, and Liaison worked both ways.

  The man … the human man was vaguely familiar, in the way that sends up a mental flag saying ‘not pleasant’, and I ran through my brain’s album of troublemakers. He was average height and stocky, with square shoulders and wide hips giving him the look of a walk
ing shoe box.

  My brain was suddenly flooded with memories. A crowd, celebrating … fists raised in triumph. Just like the gang of other like-minded souls preparing to harass Ryan, the zombie who’d been filling his veins with glue-mix. Those Britain for Humans nutjobs who really believed that Otherworlders should be despatched without mercy, ‘Sent to the hell they came from,’ as they put it in their sound-bite-friendly way. They thought that the vamps, zombies, weres and all the other species that had come through when the planet had suffered a brief magnetic flux, were a constant threat and should be annihilated, not tolerated or accommodated. This brought them into conflict with me on quite a regular basis – they probably had me on the ‘to be dealt with as collateral damage’ list, always supposing they could spell ‘collateral’ and, indeed, knew what it meant.

  It was good to give my brain pure action to focus on. Watching these two, thinking about work, pushed the sick dread down from behind my eyes and I took my first deep breath in what felt like forever. Neither of them had noticed me. The zombie stopped walking suddenly and turned into the doorway of the pub; the Britain for Humans guy instantly pretended an interest in the window of the bookshop next door. I watched them over my shoulder, pretending my own interest in the window-displayed chalkboard menu. The zombie went inside, obviously for a night shift of cleaning and security work, while his stalker drew out a notebook and made a quick scribble before dragging himself away from the attractions of teen fiction and heading into the gathering evening crowds.

  Right. So they were checking up on zombies’ workplaces, were they? This was not good at all. I stared at the seafood section of the menu a bit longer. Zombies were fairly easy targets: slow-moving and clumsy and, best of all for anyone who wanted to take them out without suffering more than a nasty bruise, flammable because of all the glue. It looked as though Britain for Humans were planning some hits on the zombie population, but there was nothing I could do until something happened. I couldn’t follow everyone all the time, not without being cloned, and I didn’t think either the streets of York or Liam would survive if there were many more of me about. Anyway, we’d fight over shoes.

  I pondered a moment more, still half-trying to improve my appearance with the aid of a reflection into which a seafood selection was embossed, when my phone rang. Unknown Number but, hey, it was chat to someone or hurry home to face Mister Sucky and a lecture on … I dunno, how much better footwear was a century ago, or something. ‘Hello.’

  There was a pause so long I wondered if it was a crank call; I was just about to start shouting abuse when … ‘Jess?’ The voice was so broken I didn’t recognise it.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘It’s … I have stolen this telephone, mine is gone, Jess; all my money, my cards, they have taken everything from me …’

  ‘Sil?’ My skin rose into goosebumps and pulled tight against my bones. ‘Where … what’s happening?’

  Another pause. ‘I wish I could tell you something, Jessica. I wish I could make some sense, but I cannot. There is nothing I can say.’

  God, oh God. ‘I just want to know what happened, Sil. I want to know what happened to you. Can you … where are you?’

  The staccato wingbeats of a breaking signal. ‘I am travelling.’ His voice sounded tired, heavy with hopelessness. ‘Travelling concealed, with a stolen phone and another’s clothes, it is a twisted Purgatory that I am in, but at least I am moving.’

  My stomach twanged, that weird window feeling opened up in my gut and I could feel his words, his fear, echoing inside me, feel the terror cooling his skin. ‘Where are you going?’ It was hard to get the words out.

  ‘… coming.’ The line broke, hissing and whining in my ear. ‘… meet me. Our place, after Malfaire, tonight.’

  ‘But …’ The line was dead. Killed by distance, by motion, by a desire not to talk any further, I couldn’t tell. I had to stagger back a few steps and lean against a wall until the breath came back into my lungs and the pain that gripped at my heart lessened. I let myself fall forwards, hands resting on my knees, until the blood came back to my head and my brain started to work again.

  My love scythed through me like Death making a house call, but I couldn’t let it take me over, had to be practical, had to think things through, one step ahead, even though my heart was beating so fast that it whirred.

  Sil. Not denying what had happened, but at least wanting to see me. Which is good, right? I mean, if he wanted it over he could just … just what, Jess? Everyone wants him eliminated for the good of the Treaty; he’s hardly in a position to send a bunch of roses and a ‘thanks for everything’ card, is he?

  A snatch of breath and I straightened up. The spool of whatever lay coiled in my belly wound itself a little tighter, and I smiled grimly. Right. He wants to see me, does he? Well, he’d better be one fast-talking Suckface then, because if his excuses aren’t more solid than Liam’s rock-cakes, I’m going to kill him myself.

  I squared my shoulders and walked towards home, ignoring the treacherous little voice that whispered at the back of my mind, Yeah, Jess, now think it like you mean it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When I got home, Zan was sitting on the sofa fiddling with his Blackberry. There was a half-drunk glass of Synth on the table and classical music filled the room through almost invisible speakers. Clearly a wild night chez Bitey.

  He looked up as I came in. ‘Ah, Jessica. There is some … human food in the kitchen, if you are hungry.’

  I stared at him, grateful that my astonishment at his sudden civility allowed me to cover my distressed expression. ‘Did I just come in the wrong house? Or are we starring in some kind of vamp remake of The Odd Couple?’

  An inclination of the head and he turned back to the phone. ‘I merely thought you might wish to eat,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise we were going to be partaking in Mastermind.’

  ‘Sorry. Yes. It’s been a bit of a weird day.’

  ‘Another one?’

  ‘I think it’s my default setting. Look, I’m a bit tired and I’ve got a killer headache; I think I’ll just go to bed, Zan.’

  A totally unreadable look from those green-marble eyes; then a slow nod. ‘Of course. I sometimes find myself forgetting your human bloodline. You need sleep. Of course,’ he repeated.

  Should I tell him? ‘I had a strange phone call on my way home,’ I said carefully, watching his face, although I didn’t know why – Zan could have given snakes lessons. ‘I think it might have been Sil trying to make contact.’

  He looked back down to the phone in his hand. ‘He has attacked humans, Jessica. For the sake of the Treaty there is only one course of action open. He must know that, and for the sake of your position I trust you understand what must be done.’

  I sighed. ‘Empathy, Zan. It’s a real thing you know.’

  He didn’t look up. ‘Alas, like a flat of your own and a car, it is evidently one of those things you cannot afford.’

  ‘I meant you,’ I said and he looked up again.

  ‘And how long would this city remain if I were empathic, do you think? All those pleas for clemency, all those “It was just the one …” How many times could we allow the Treaty to be broken before it became commonplace – or do you feel it should be different because it is you?’ There was a surprising tightness around his mouth as he spoke, a betrayal of some emotion, and, as far as I knew, Zan had had all his emotions removed a long time ago. And probably pickled. He stood up, surprisingly imposing. ‘If it starts with your lover, Jessica, where does it end? We excuse your family, then your friends, then someone you once met at a party?’ He was angry now, his fangs covering his lower lip, his breath hissing in and out. I found my hand travelling to the tranq gun in my pocket and I really hoped I wasn’t going to have to use it: knocking out my housemate would be horribly embarrassing, plus I’d be on washing-up duty
forever.

  ‘I know, Zan. Really, I do.’ That still image from the camera footage was stuck in my mind like a fishbone in a throat; Sil, with blood in his hair and on his cheek, lips curled back over reddened fangs.

  ‘I hope you do, Jessica.’ The fangs betrayed his remaining anger, but he sat down and picked up the phone again. ‘I hope you do.’

  There was nothing further I could say, so I left him to his reprogramming and went upstairs to lie on the bed and to speak to the one person who would understand.

  Liam was clearly doing something with the hand not holding the phone but, since I knew Liam quite well, I didn’t want to ask what it was. ‘Did he just ring in?’

  ‘Yes. But he sounded really weird, Liam. Kind of … strung out, if a vampire can be strung out without having had second helpings of my arteries. He wants to meet me tonight, at “our place”.’

  ‘So he’s heading north, then? Unless “your place” is Hyde Park.’

  ‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure where “our place” is, actually.’

  Liam made an incredulous noise. ‘Seriously? Jessica, unless you have all the romance of an A to Z, surely you must know where it is? Like you know what your song is and all the significant dates in your relationship from first drink to, well … I’ve got a spreadsheet for me and Sarah.’ He added, smugly.

  ‘And that’s romantic?’

  ‘It is if you’re me.’