Unfinished Business (The Shades of Northwood 3)

  All sense of urgency left her body.

  She was halfway happy to lean back and watch this hungry tickle of flame become a blaze, eating up the darkness, the oxygen and the shop with it. The destruction this thing could wreak if allowed to become the glorious/ravenous beast it could surely be. With a little love and attention, these wooden doors could be in ashes, the bricks hot dust, the very foundations might melt beneath her feet. And it would be stunning – gold and leaping flame. A stifling heat that sapped your energy, made it impossible to move but cuddled a person in such comfort and warmth that you wouldn’t want to move. Toxic smoke that filled lungs and chased away the urge to breathe anything else as it heated first your organs then blood then skin and then you were part of the fire itself. Oh God… and there were chemicals here. Therapy oils, antiseptic, tan and inks, all so flammable. Tiny explosions naturally but so many of them and so pretty. Yes, her friends were likely to get caught in the middle but… my friends… If they delayed the beauty of this fiery monster, they were worth the gamble. Some part of Katie knew this feeling was wrong and tried to shake her morals awake. The part fascinated by this advancing wall of flames was bigger though. It was hypnotic to watch it burn through everything it touched.

  In the end, her sense of self-preservation won. Katie was getting hot, really hot, and she was coughing up nothing but scratches in her throat. It felt as though something acid and poisonous was trying to crawl into her lungs. Dina and Leo were looking at her expectantly in between their own choking fits. Katie would save them. Katie always saved them.

  Today will be different.

  She knew what they were thinking. Leo and Dina had seen her fight for her life, cry over somebody else’s and go to war for more. It was true, she had risked a lot for her friends – no doubt a lot more than she would have if she had sat down and thought about it logically, rations, made a list of PROS and CONS –but she wouldn’t do it again. Couldn’t. This thing was too strong. This attraction to the darkness, this yearning for chaos and damage.

  Fight it, Katie. Just fight it.

  It’s too strong.

  There’s a bigger fight coming. You have to win this one so you can face another one. I saw you do it. Keep fighting.

  Mademoiselle Romani?

  Katie had no plan. She never had a plan – just made mistake after mistake until something turned out right – but she had instinct. Instinct and friends who needed her to help. Reality snapped back into this warm space.

  She pointed to the door to the main shop. It was locked, she remembered, but it would be cool and untouched by the fire. “Hold hands!” she yelled back to the other two. They looked uncertain for a second but locked their hands together as Katie started to the other door. It was only a few feet but the fire had made the place disorienting – even more so because there was no light – and getting turned around in the confusion was definitely not an option. She wiped her sweaty forehead and pushed the door open to the shop front. It was much cooler in here and natural light was tinting the room with a pleasant lilac hue. It was a few seconds – a few really long seconds – before Leo and Dina staggered through. Their faces were smudged with soot already and Katie felt... nothing. They were just people. Humans who happened to be in this shop at this moment with her. It could easily have been seven billion other individuals. But she was here with these pair and she was getting out; may as well take them along for the ride.

  “What? Is something else wrong?”

  “Hunh?” Katie blinked. Something was taking her over and making her think bad thoughts. And it was something she didn’t want to touch or feel again. Not ever. Because these were her friends and whatever dark things were crawling around inside her, she couldn’t let her friends bear the brunt. There was a wall in her mind – a wall behind which she shoved painful memories and let them out a little at a time – and the storage space was filling fast, but she pushed as hard as she could and focused.

  “Katie! Don’t space on us.”

  “Okay, first thing – put Bobby Fish somewhere safe.” She gratefully handed the heavy bowl off to Dina. “No! Not on the counter – his water will boil.”

  “Now what?” Dina looked at Katie like a soldier waiting for orders.

  “Second-“ she turned her attention to the door. Leo was busy twisting some towels and stacking them at the bottom of the door as a barrier for the smoke to meet.

  If only I couldn’t hear it singing.

  “Oh. That would have been second.”

  “So we skip that part. What next?”

  It took Jaye finally managing to bash the reinforced glass picture window in with a brick before they could get out. Katie had stripped her jumper off in the increasing heat, which she wrapped around the exposed parts of her strapped wrist and used the protected arm to clear out the broken glass still in the edges of the frame. Leo clambered through first and then helped the girls through.

  “You did it. And you’re okay,” Jaye squealed excitedly, rushing to hug all of them.

  Oh Christ, the air had never tasted so sweet. Slightly bitter from the fire but cool and fresh and sweet. “Hugs later,” Katie barked and wriggled free. Jaye looked a bit hurt. “Now we run.”

  “Gotcha!”

  Jaye linked arms with Dina and half-ran, half-staggered down Penniton Row. Katie found she could move little better but followed them before they disappeared completely, leaving Leo to follow with the fish.

  They finally stopped running and fell in a heap on the first patch of grass they found. It was between the old and modern parts of town. It was close enough that home didn’t seem a world away. They could also clearly see the occasional jumps in the fire as some new part of Ink Exchange caught ablaze and burnt away. And that could have been these guys right here. Sitting next to you and looking after you. A brush of guilt brought tears to brown, sore eyes. It made them sting more and she couldn’t stop tears from falling.

  “Hey hey hey. We’re all okay. The danger’s over.”

  “Yeah, babe. It’s gone now.”

  “Want my opinion, someone set that fire to burn her away.”

  “No-one asked,” Jaye snapped and went to comfort Katie.

  “Who?”

  “The psychic. First rule of murder. Don’t leave a body where anyone can find it.”

  “But sending the whole place up is extreme. Like, dangerously extreme.”

  “Maybe they wanted to destroy the evidence.” Leo drew a pattern in the dew with his finger – a circle with various points which he jabbed a finger at as he spoke. “Mademoiselle Romani gets killed. We find the body. The fire starts after as we didn’t see it on the way in. Someone knew we were there. Therefore, it fried the body but we were meant to be there too.”

  “Guys, can you shut it a minute? Can’t you see you’re upsetting Katie?”

  “I’m not crying because it could have been me. I’m crying because I wanted it to be you.”

  Jaye took her hand away suddenly and dropped to her knees. “What?”

  “All of you. I saw the flames and they called my name. They wanted me to watch it burn the entire building to the ground and i – i just had this desire to let it. I wanted us all to be safe, you have to believe that, but this thing inside just didn’t care as long as it got to watch the fire grow. That was stronger than anything.” She didn’t think she was explaining it very well. The alternating looks or horror, disgust and confusion on her friends’ faces proved the point. Everything would become clear. “it was just the fire, the destruction-“ obliteration “-that got hold of me. I can still feel it calling me, trying to pull me back.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” Dine pointed out gently.

  Katie sighed and shuffled around so she could better see the fire marking out Penniton Row. She felt a bone-deep sigh brewing. “I know. Nothing makes much sense.”

  “You’re saying you
wanted us all to burn?”

  “Told you she was nuts.”

  “Not helping,” Jaye shot back and gave him a very solid sounding elbow in the ribs. “It’s not her fault.”

  “Got any other blame monkeys around then?”

  “Did she kill the psychic? Did she start the fire? Did she ask us to go get ourselves caught up in it? No. So just zip it, right.” Jaye turned from Leo – who did not seem to like being pointedly dismissed – and looked in Katie’s eyes. They were fever-bright and shiny. Whether that was tears, shock, relief or something else entirely, seemed like a stupid question. There were so many emotions flying around this small patch of grass that singling any one out was nigh on impossible. Jaye reached out but stopped just before she touched that bare arm, her fingers hovering in mid-air. Why wasn’t she – oh, yes, she was shivering – such tiny movements and so fast that they could be missed completely. Why didn’t Katie say anything? Or, at least ask for her jumper back from where it was wrapped around the goldfish bowl? Didn’t she feel the cold morning chill? Didn’t she care?

  “I’m cold,” Katie chattered. Leo unwrapped her jumper and sent Mr Strong sailing through the air. Jaye stretched out to catch it, but Katie grabbed her thin wrist in an iron grip and slammed the hand to her chest, straight to the heart, and felt her fingers fade right through her clothes and her skin until she was stroking her very soul.

  Forgive me.

  It had to be like this. Had to be this quick, this violent. Any more time to think, to warn Jaye of what she was planning – far worse than just refusing to do it, she might have thought up some lie to cover up whatever she was seeing or built her own wall against anything unpleasant she might find.

  And what exactly was she seeing? A ball of energy like Katie always imagined. A tangled orb of silvery thread shot through with strikes of purple-black that writhed and wriggled and grew and got more and spread like a silvery spider with legs of black a million and more which would creep and crawl before it pounced it would bite it would poison it would-

  “Woah!” exclaimed Jaye. She jerked her hand away like she had just gotten an electric shock. “Wow, babe. How can you keep that all inside?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to say. It’s trying to get out. And I can’t stop it all the time. I’m not strong enough.”

  “That’s just... I don’t know what to do. I can’t get it out of you or anything. What did you think I was gonna do?”

  Katie shrugged. She hadn’t thought anything really. “Don’t know. Maybe I wanted it to be an explanation for why I’m acting all crazy. It’ll only get worse.”

  Jaye stretched up and planted the lightest kiss on Katie’s forehead, right over the invisible bullet hole. Then she smiled a little sadly and took a breath. Morning breeze was rippling through the messy black hair, still tangled and bed-heady, and it was beginning to drizzle. But the tiny girl hardly noticed. All of her attention was on the girl sitting in front of her – nearly three years her junior and over half a foot taller. Innocent and yet she had learnt so much about the world, the cruelty people were capable of. She had let Jaye shoot her, beat her, threaten the people she loved, and she had made it all okay with a wave of her hand because She had been in the driving seat.

  But it wasn’t okay.

  She still felt bad and she knew that Dina felt bad for getting trapped in the End Place in the first place. Leo, in her opinion, had plenty of reasons to feel bad. They would make this right.

  Together.

  “So,” she started but then the words ran out.

  “Who do you think did it?” Dina finished off.

  Everyone was glad to get off the topic of Katie and whatever was inside her. Of course, Jaye had not been exactly descriptive on that score. Perhaps it was too horrible and it defied explanation. But, Dina had asked an equally impossible question too.

  “Some-one who meant it. Somebody who knew what they were doing.” Everyone turned to Leo. “Those cuts… they were down to the bone. And they knew we’d find it.”

  “Mademoiselle Romani,” Katie corrected instantly. “Even if we couldn’t save her, she still deserves her own name.”

  “Yeah, whatever. They hung around to set that fire. Burn the body, burn the people who saw it. No evidence.”

  “The perfect mass murder.”

  “Which they thought they’d get away with. We need to tell somebody about this. Adam and Lainy, grown-ups.”

  Katie turned to Dina, eyes flying wide. It made perfect sense. Let the adults handle this awful crime between themselves. That’s what they were there for – to take care of the major stuff and to be responsible and objective about things. She should just go home and sleep and study and eat dinner like any other teenage girl. These were meant to be carefree days. Yes. Let’s just get on with enjoying being a kid and let them do the boring grown up bits. Sit back. Watch them do the hard stuff for a change. How easy would that be? And it was the way it should be. “Hell, no!”

  What?

  Those weren’t the words she had meant to say.

  “Excuse me?”

  “No. I was meant to find that body. That fire was meant for me?”

  “You figure that how?”

  “I don’t know.” Katie was on the verge of tears again but she was worked up enough to swallow them back down. “It was set up for me to walk straight into a trap. Find the body and be rooted to the floor with fear, be mesmerised by the fire, I don’t know, but it’s always meant for me. It’s my problem. I’ll sort it out.”

  “Not without help you won’t.” Dina got to her feet and stretched, all angles and shadows in the rising sun. “Let’s get some rest and we can work this out over lunch or something.”

  “Who knew you were at the shop?”

  “Questions Leo? Now?” She smacked him lightly on the head to shut him up – which he did, surprisingly – hauled Jaye to her feet and walked off towards Newton Street, juggling Bobby Fish between them.

  Leo also got up, barely taking his eyes off Katie. She was a puzzle. One with a few pieces missing. He shook his head with a slight frown and headed back into the bad part of town. No doubt looking for a pub or dive bar that was open so early – and there were always one or two. Around here, people had plenty of reasons to start drinking early.

  And then Katie was alone.

  She thought over her options and decided to call on the one person she thought might be able to give her some answers.

  Jack.

  No answer. No gentle tug on the ball of energy inside her. No familiar squeezing around her stomach.

  Oh well. No worries. It had taken a few minutes to get hold of him yesterday. She would just wait five minutes –rest her eyes for a few – then try again. Which she did. One, two, three times. And still nothing. Annoyed, Katie scrambled up and started to jog home. In the comfortable left/right rhythm, things started to focus into actual shapes, fade into some kind of perspective. There were her problems which – okay – seemed huge but were totally dealable. And then there were her friends’ problems which she felt like she should help solve. Lainy and Adam… well, they were more like the couple she had moved in with six weeks ago but it just didn’t feel as natural. Here was Jaye, who hadn’t quite forgiven herself for her forays into the dark side of being a Shade. Then there was the little boy trapped in-

  “Oh…”

  A small, frail body threw itself into her pumping arms and Katie reflexively wrapped them around the body. Then she looked around, realising that she had somehow overshot Newton Street by almost a half-mile and was nearing the Levenson campus, and then down to find Bernice in her arms, crying into the folds of her jumper and clinging to her like a child to its’ mother.

  “You must think me a terrible fool, young Katie.”

  “Bernice, I-“

  “I went to the stadium to pick up some things and I just… I wanted to bury Roy
with his favourite photo of us. And – and that clipboard. He always said it would go to his grave with him. Silly things really.”

  “It’s not silly.”

  “Roy loved his work. Loved all you kids. Stew-dents he said. Stew – like you eat. And then I remembered how he loved my stew and…” The old woman dissolved into tears again and Katie didn’t know what to do other that hold her and keep kissing her thin grey hair. Truthfully, the memory of Roy and how nice he had always been to her, had woken up pissed and smacked her in the face. Slapped so hard she wanted to join in the crying. “I don’t mean to burden you, Katie. I saw you outside his room yesterday. It must have been awful. A pretty girl like you around something like that… I don’t think it’s right.”

  “These things can’t be helped, Bernice. Can’t be helped.”

  “Oh, I’ve soaked right through your top. You should go change.” Bernice stood back, dabbing her eyes with the inside cuff of her blouse, and smiled a little shakily.

  “I will. Are you going to be okay if I leave now?”

  “Of course,” she sniffed. “Off with you. Go on.”

  I can’t leave her. Not like this. “You know what? I’ll come pick his stuff up with you.”

  “I don’t want to impose.”

  “You’re not.” Because this was what mattered. Not the crawling thing inside which was trying to feed her pleasure with no regard for consequences; but the people she lived with. Forget the tug of war going on between her morals and her compassion. For the next few minutes, Bernice was the only one who featured in her world. Her grief, her loss, her attempts to keep going. “I’m so sorry. I loved Roy like my own grandfather. He looked out for me when I first got here and I was scared.”

  “He was like that. Had an eye for the lonely ones, he did. Said it was part of his job to take care of the athletes as well as the building. That’s what caretaker means, he said.”

  “I guess.”

  Then they were outside the stadium and Bernice was fumbling a key into the lock of Roy’s tiny office. It was more like a large broom cupboard really. There was a mid-sized desk which took up fully half the available space and was covered in papers, photos, pens and pretty much everything else a man might ever need. There was the swivel chair he always sat on, worn almost to the foam where he had spent all those long days resting in it. One wall supported another chair, some achievement plaques and a coat stand. Other than a wicker bin and the broken down heater Roy had been good-naturedly complaining about the last time Katie had spoken to him, that was it. This was the sum total of his working life. It seemed so sad. Roy had always seemed like he loved his work, that he had been doing it so long he could do it with his eyes closed, and this – this – was all there was to show for it. Katie didn’t interfere while Bernice picked through his belongings and filled a carrier bag with the few things she wanted to take home.

  “You look awful, dear,” said the old woman. She wheeled Roy’s chair over to the other side of the desk and sat down waving Katie into the other one. Under the artificial glare of the single bare bulb, she could see the girl’s tear- and soot-streaked face and clothes, the panicked flickering of her eyes – unable to stay on any one thing for long. There was a pallor to her skin barely visible under her fading tan but a wise eye could see it nevertheless. It was also evident in the way Katie was moving – delicate butterfly movements that seemed too exaggerated to be natural. “Now, sit down and tell me all about it. I’d make tea but I don’t think Roy ever got around to putting a kettle in.”

  And Katie knew, just knew, she was going to break down again. But the sobs that came out were dry ones. “Everything’s wrong! I try to do the right thing but it always ends up going wrong and then I get hurt and it’s not fair. It’s not fair because I’m trying!” She took a deep breath, trying to take herself back to that place where nothing was too big to handle. She had dealt with every other traumatic event this year and come out fine. No reason why she shouldn’t get through this week too. “Hooh,” she whistled, scraping her hair back into a headband she had found in a pocket. “Okay. I’ve been having bad dreams about people chasing me, only they’re not real people, they’re these zombie things who look like my friends and I think they want to kill me. Then I was trying to help my boyfriend find his father and I saw him but I can’t say anything. He made me promise. Any now I can’t get hold of my boyfriend at all. This morning, my friends and I found a dead body and then somebody set fire to the building but we got out and now I have to look after the fish. And to top it off, I’ve got this thing in me, this black, evil thing which is eating me up bit by bit and…” after all the insanity she had just blurted out this was the hardest bit to say. The bit that sounded truly crazy. “I’m not sure I want to stop it again. Maybe I should let the zombies get me.”

  “What are you talking about child?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “It does sound a bit like… science fiction. Or a horror film – is that still popular?”

  “Yeah, it’s not as good as it used to be though. The Birds, Psycho, The Exorcist, they were the scary ones because it was all new and creepy. Now they just try to outdo each other with the jump scares and the effects.”

  “I can imagine. It’s all been said and done.”

  “But what I’m saying is true!” Katie insisted. “I wouldn’t lie about it.”

  “I don’t suppose you would.”

  “So you believe me? Actually, no, it doesn’t matter if you do or don’t. You asked and I told. The deal’s done.”

  “Oh, I do wish you wouldn’t try to take the world on alone.”

  “Bernice, these aren’t your problems. I’m here to help you, not the other way around.” She grinned, a smile she thought would crack her face, and picked up the full carrier bag. “I’ll be okay. Sleep, food, everything looks better on a full stomach you know.”

  “It does?”

  “Works for me anyway.”

  “I’ll try that. Lord knows, I need to do something normal.”

  Katie’s mind flew to the hospital and the doctors just standing back from the bed and stopping Roy’s treatment. That wasn’t normal.

  “I’ve been all out of routine. Haven’t eaten.”

  “You have to eat. You think he’d want you to starve?”

  Bernice looked up at Katie and threw her arms around the girl. It was etched deeply in her face. Her honesty was refreshing. It had been a long time since a kid had been that honest about anything, maybe a touch too honest, but she was sticking a brave mask over her emotions – a mask brittle enough it might well crack at any time. If Katie needed to cry, scream, rant at God for tainting this young life with such a shocking first experience with death, then she should. With a final half-hug and some mumbled words of thanks, Bernice wrestled her carrier bag and shuffled her cosy booted feet home. It took Katie a flat second to turn and start pounding home. Her thoughts were with Bernice. She didn’t know how long she and Roy had been married; didn’t know how bad it had hurt to watch him die all alone; didn’t know anything really. But she could imagine. Under the sun, in this harsh light, he was truly gone. The chair in his office swung empty. The coat he had worn was folded away in another empty room, never to be worn again. The kind eyes and kinder smile – which were not always deserved – were dead organs and stiff facial muscles now, memories that meant nothing now. Nothing because they would never be real again. He was nothing but a body now – a man who never was. But in the darkest part of the night he could be there, really there, even if he was a dream. The night was a time for dreams to come true.

  She was so interested in her meandering train of thought that she didn’t see the tall man stepping in front of her until she ran headfirst into his chin.

  “Woah there little lady,” he said, holding Katie at arm’s length until she regained full balance. “Where’s the fire?”

/>   If only you knew… “Henry?”

  “The very same.”

  She stepped back and squinted up at sea green eyes. How could she ever have doubted him? “What are you doing here? How did you even get back?” she shuddered at the memory of how it had hurt to bring him through yesterday, how it had felt like she was being torn apart and roughly stitched back up only for the ripping to come all over again, and tried to replace her face with one she didn’t recognise – a stranger who wouldn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t hard. It didn’t appal her – putting an innocent person through that agony. Everybody has to learn. Why not the hard way?

  Henry Lawson shrugged. The gesture seemed odd on him because he carried himself like a man who was always sure of himself. “You haven’t told Jack about me?”

  “Haven’t seen him since-“ I slapped him “- yesterday. He won’t even answer when I call. It’s… it doesn’t feel right. He’s always there.”

  “Trouble?”

  “Well, I’m still breathing. Probably.”

  He didn’t get the jump of logic but he shook it away. “No, you. You’ve been in trouble.” He touched her dirty face, wiped away escaped tears.

  “It’s nothing,” Katie lied. “I’m just worried. About Jack. It’s not like him to ignore me.”

  “How long were you trying to get in touch?”

  “Just this morning. I know it’s stupid after just a few hours but he always knows when I need him and if he can’t come, he always sends a message. I hit him last night – it was for the best, trust me – and I think maybe I just really pissed him off.” Then she had a sudden thought. “You know what that means right? I mean they swear in all those old westerns.”

  “The word wasn’t so common in my day but yeah, I know what it means.” He smiled and all the lights went on in the world because-

  Because that was Jack’s smile. And, for a brief second while that smile lasted, he was back. Jack was standing before Katie. And then a low voice with a tightly wound in Texas accent, shattered the illusion. “Could be me. He knows you’re keeping a secret – me – and now he’s just sulking.”

  “He’s angry with me. I just know he is. He’s trying to teach me a lesson.”

  “No way could he be angry with you. He’s never been in love before but I have and I know it when I see it. And that boy of mine would forgive you of stealing the crown jewels.”

  Katie knew she was blushing. Her body was doing things her mind was working too fast to control. “And I’m keeping you a secret because why?”

  “Because I asked you to.”

  Well, that was a good reason. No further questions.

  “Jack grew up without me in his life. I regret that. More than anything I want to take that time back.” He heaved a sad sigh. This was a story he could do without telling but Katie would never keep him quiet without some kind of explanation. Henry sat down on a low wall outside the old house on Newton Street and beckoned Katie over to sit next to him. “He convinced himself I died when he was a kid and if he knew I had always been around, always been watching him, it might destroy him. turn him into someone different. I could do that when he spent all his time in the Dead World.”

  “The Dead World?” Katie repeated slowly. How many different realms were there and wasn’t this one bad enough? “Not the End Place? Or the Other Place?”

  “Our destinations were decided long before the End Place was used like limbo. Anyway, since he started spending more and more time here, I had to follow him here… and it’s not so easy.”

  “Because?” She thought she knew where this part was going to spin out to but a seed of doubt insisted that she get Henry to say it.

  “Because I’m not meant to be in your world. It causes ripples and Jack can feel them. If he comes looking…”

  “I won’t say anything to Jack.”

  “Oh Christ. Oh thank you Katie. All I want to do is look out for my boy.”

  “So where were you when he got shot?”

  He looked stung. The barb had struck home and it had been meant to. Katie wanted to lash out. To hurt this strange man who had come along just as her world was falling apart. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “You did. And you’re right. I should have been there.”

  And that was the conversation over. Henry stayed seated on the wall, frozen by guilt or thought or just lack of anywhere else to go, while Katie went into the house.

  There was a clanging of pots and pans and the smell of frying eggs. Adam had assumed his natural position behind the frying pan, and Dina and Jaye were squabbling over the toaster – fruity toast versus Pop Tarts. Jaye – definitely the boss when it came to food-related decisions – brushed her friend away with a laugh and made a round of fruity toasties with as many fruit flavours as she could find in the cupboard. A fruit toasty seemed to be a jam sandwich which was stuffed into a toaster bag until it popped back up. It sounded nice actually and Katie put her order in.

  Dina was wearing a thick dressing gown and her short black hair was drying in tangled waves. Jaye looked perfect as she always did, her black hair in a million spikes with the very beginnings of her roots coming through. They were so tiny that Katie couldn’t tell her natural colour. They were standing there, laughing with Adam with their backs to her. Katie looked down at herself, suddenly realising how much she resembled a long-abandoned rag doll. The others weren’t ignoring her and were throwing the odd comment over to her but she couldn’t engage with them like this. No, she needed to be clean and wearing fresh clothes. Trying to fit in with the carefree breakfast routine would be much easier once she felt human again.

  “Won’t be long.”

  Katie bolted upstairs, grabbed some clothes and jumped into the quickest (and coldest) shower she had ever had. Then she went back down to the kitchen where Adam had added bacon to the pan. Two fruit toasties and some fresh fruit lay on the table. They were quickly joined by two more and the beginnings of a full English.

  “So...” started Adam, his back to the girls. The pan had long since stopped sizzling but he was watching the man who had just come around the back of the fence. The broken panel made it easy to see him. The man could have come into the back garden but he just looked through the gap, nodded ever so slightly, and disappeared again. Katie noticed without being noticed noticing. “What have you been doing?”

  The three of them exchanged frantic glances, making a silent pact not to say anything without the agreement of the other two. But hen Adam slid the rest of the fried goodies onto the table, sat down and dug in, and it suddenly wasn’t a very easy agreement to stick to.

  “Anything fun? Oh, I saw we had a new housemate but I’m not comfortable charging rent to a goldfish.”

  “Yeah, we’re looking after him for a friend. Bobby Fish, right, babe?”

  Katie nodded, not trusting herself enough to speak. The food in front of her was practically begging her to eat it and her stomach was on the food’s side, but hunger was the furthest thing from her mind. Right now, the priority was getting her homework done. Leaving during breakfast would be suspicious, not to mention rude. Once her homework was done, she would have time to concentrate on more important things. Things like avoiding the nightmares she knew were waiting for her the moment she relaxed. Zombies, missing boyfriends, warnings of a really really final fight – things like that.

  The morning had slipped away unnoticed and unloved, and noon was less than an hour away. Homework – maths, English, psychology and social education – was stacked in colour coded folders at the edge of her desk. Katie had tidied her room and even hoovered up the Doritos crumbs Leo had left the night before. That was enough of the domesticated life for one day.

  She had considered the promise she had made Mademoiselle Romani but decided she really could not afford to lose a days’ pay. Also, she liked her job, was actually good at it, and missing work just because a
dead psychic had warned her that… what? There were hands groping for her; trying to cop a feel? Well, okay, sure it might be unpleasant to watch but it was the kind of thing Katie dealt with every shift. Plus, she had that neat finger-breaking trick now. Decided, Katie stuffed her keys, wallet and phone into her miniature backpack, wriggled into the black and red long-sleeved top with SHIMMA stitched into the back of the neck and hurried for the door. Nearly made it too. “And where do you think you’re going?”

  She turned her back to Dina and awkwardly pointed to the name on her shirt.

  “Oh hell no. After what she said? After what you promised?”

  “I didn’t promise anything.” She was careful to whisper – voices carried on this house and they were standing in the open front door- not exactly the most natural place for a conversation. “Mademoiselle Romani told me not to go there but I never said I wouldn’t.”

  “But she said… fighting… and danger… the monsters… and fighting.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Don’t you think it’d be safer just to stay home?”

  “Course it would.” Katie smiled and put a hand on the older girls arm, aware that she was touching one of those silver thread scars. “But I’m not losing my job for a warning we can’t even decipher.”

  “It might be real though. The monsters, I mean, they might be there.”

  “I’ve seen plenty of monsters lately. They don’t frighten me.”

  Chapter eight