Circle of Arms (The Shades of Northwood 2)

  Okay. This was new. Katie had never been on the business end of a gun before.

  “She’s not here,” rasped a voice. It was somehow familiar at a very basic level but the raw edge to it made the voice made it sound alien and broken. It was as though the speaker hadn’t had anything to drink in a very long time. “Find her.”

  Katie forced herself to swallow the lump of terror in her throat but couldn’t drag her eyes away from the barrel of that gun. But it was important she did. Keeping close watch on the weapon would only drive her fear deeper, and fear was one thing she had quite enough of thank you. “Oh God,” she breathed.

  “He’s not gonna help you. If he’s out there, he doesn’t care.”

  Katie wrenched her eyes away from the dark cylinder and peered through the night to the holder. If her heart hadn’t been jackhammering before, it was banging like Tico Torres on crack now. For behind the semi-automatic was Jaye. Harmless, always happy Jaye was pointing a deadly weapon between her eyes and looking like she was fully prepared to pull the trigger. The fact that the gun looked far too big in her dainty little hand or that she had to stand two steps up the fire escape to gain some height over Katie didn’t even seem amusing, as it would have been under different circumstances. No. It just made the whole thing scarier. Why hadn’t any-one noticed and come to stop this yet?

  Jaye laughed, throwing her head back. It sounded forced. “I’m a ghost, babe. No-one can even see me.”

  Getting a handle on thoughts seemed to be a trait Jack and Jaye shared. She thought back over recent weeks – only strong feelings, thoughts intensified by mortal fear or lingering dread had got a response. “Jaye, this isn’t you.”

  “No?”

  “We’ve been so worried about you. I’ll-“

  “Find her.”

  “How?”

  “Find her or I’ll shoot you. I’m not kidding.”

  “You won’t hurt me.” It was more of a prayer than the statement it came out as. “Or I’d be halfway to heaven by now.”

  To answer, Jaye clicked the safety off and cocked the gun. She meant it. “Call him. Call Jack.” At that second there was nothing Katie wanted to do more. Only her brain was in too many shocked pieces to know that, and the survival instinct had kicked into top gear. Pride wouldn’t allow any white knight to save her. Pride was an arsehole. “He’ll find them.” And then Jaye shot her.

  The instant slowed right down. She saw the thin finger squeeze the trigger as far as it would go, saw her hand bounce off the recoil, a lick of flame around the edges of the barrel as the bullet burst out, leaving white drag marks as it screamed through the foot of cold air between them. Then it sank into her forehead and Katie dropped to the floor wanting to go there voluntarily before agony forced her down. She expected he entire body to explode in white-hot pain but there was nothing. A dull ache began behind her eyes.

  “Ghost bullets.” Jaye grinned and let go of the gun which disappeared the moment she stopped touching it. Well, that couldn’t be right. Maybe the light was just playing tricks on Katie. The last thing she saw before her eyes fluttered shut on this blessed world of killers who could kill without you feeling a thing was Jaye backing away from the door and smirking a grimace that just wasn’t her. It just wasn’t.

  Maybe a few moments had passed and maybe it was hours before Katie woke up curled up on a tatty leather loveseat, looking at a blonde man hunched over some papers on his desk. It was more of a trestle table with an office chair behind it but she guessed it was better than the floor. Speaking of which… hadn’t she been on the floor when she closed her eyes? And also, why had she decided to take a nap on the floor of a busy club in the first place?

  “Where… what happened?”

  Shimma glanced up from his papers at the sound of her voice and then took them over to the filing cabinet, unconcerned. “You’re awake.”

  “Sadly.” And it was. She had the strangest feeling that opening her eyes was the biggest mistake of her life. She put a hand to her aching head and tried to swing around into a sitting position. It didn’t quite work the way she had planned and the room swam for a moment, forcing her back into the embarrassing, lying down position with her long legs dangling over the arm of the loveseat.

  “I found you spark out by the open fire door. Told them to keep that closed. Can’t get the staff these days.” He paused in his rambling to slot another file home in the top drawer. “Are you on something?”

  “What? I… hell, no!”

  “Just asking. You know how things are. Pretty sure Mother Theresa’d get dope checked if she worked in a club.”

  “She’d be thrilled.”

  “Take tomorrow off, yeah. See me Thursday.”

  “You were serious?” A proper job! And Katie hadn’t even been looking for it.

  “As long as you don’t go round fainting after every fight you see.”

  How cool did she feel? “I’m tougher than I look.”

  “It’ll mostly be coats and wrist stamping but you’ll be filling in here and there too. Get to do a bit of everything.”

  “Where’s Leo?”

  “You mean that scrub-ass boy toy you shouted out?” Katie nodded and bit the inside of her cheek until the feeling of her brain rattling around her head with every movement subsided. “Left them to it but security said they bounced the lot of ‘em. Plenty of street to fight on.” He shrugged, wrestling with the open filing cabinet which didn’t seem to want to shut. “Hate these things.” He proved his point by delivering a swift kick to the bottom drawer which finally slid shut but sounded unhappy about the way it had been treated.

  “Nicely done. Shame you can’t do that with computers.”

  “You can. But it’s an expensive way to get your kicks.”

  “Isn’t technology a wonderful thing?” She sighed and tried to get up once more. Her legs tried to disassociate themselves from the rest of her but she managed to stand. “I have to go.”

  “Hey, no. Stay there until you can promise I won’t be getting new carpet in here.”

  “I feel fine now Mr…”

  “Shimma. Don’t be doing no misters here. Just Shimma.”

  “My housemate’s a nurse.” Or, she was. Once upon a lifetime ago. “She’ll check me over.”

  “Can’t make you stay, really, but I want it on record I think it’s a bad idea.”

  So do I. Unfortunately, it’s the only one I’ve got. “Noted. And thanks.”

  Shimma covered the room in fractions of a second because he was suddenly at her side and holding the door open for her. “You be careful now, Katie. Real careful.”

  “Okay. But I always am.”

  He moved into the corridor with her and walked down with her until the opening that led into the club proper. It sounded much rowdier than when she had left it. Kate wondered again how much time had passed. She felt somehow naked without her watch, although her bedside table was fully stocked with her watch and her alarm clock. Lucky thing. She carried on to the fire exit and pushed it open. A feeling of remembrance came over her, formless memories but ones that demanded attention. They didn’t feel like they were going to be good memories. On the other side of the fire exit Leo stood leaning against the metal railings by the stairs. He sounded bored when he asked, “what happened?”

  Katie said nothing and looked up at the sky. It looked close to midnight dark now but when she grabbed Leo’s wrist to see his watch, it was not quite ten. “Jaye was here. She shot me. In the head. It didn’t hurt.” She fed him each piece of information as it dropped into her head

  “So, what n- hang on, you got shot?”

  “You were in a bottle fight.” Tit for tat, how d’you like that.

  “And which one of us was more likely to get killed?”

  She paused for half a second, pointed at Leo then resumed her walk back home. The puzzled look he adopted made Katie smile fo
r a minute until she decided she was really too tired to mess with his head. “They were ghost bullets. Not the painful kind. I do have kind of a headache but that’s it.”

  “Jaye? Shot you?”

  The boy was really having trouble with that idea, want he?

  “She was here?”

  Honestly! It wasn’t really that hard to believe that Jaye had chased the same strings or power here that she had, or that she had attacked Katie in a blur of fury, driven by blind rage rather than reason. Katie pushed her hair back behind her ears and grouched as the sharp wind whipped it straight back in her face.

  “She’s not…”

  “I’m going home.”

  “You don’t wanna finish this thing?”

  “I want to sleep without waking up every five minutes; I want to have friends who don’t up and leave when things get tough; I want to be an athlete who only runs to win. Mostly, I just want to go home and pretend things are normal.” A chill had sprung up in the autumn night. Young people were still hanging around outside the club with next to nothing on – tiny skirts, cropped tops and the boys had muscled in by wearing vests and cut off denims. It made Katie cold just watching them shivering for the sake of looking good, although she knew she would probably do the same.

  She zipped up her baseball jacket against the wind and trudged on towards Newton Street. It was only five minutes walk but in the polar silence that fell it seemed like forever.

  “I’m warning you now,” Leo murmured as they neared he front door. “Tell anyone what happened tonight, I’ll never help you again.”

  “Oh, and you were so very useful giving us all the Testosterone Show.”

  “I’m serious, Katie.”

  “Forget it then. I don’t need your help.”

  She got the door open but Leo threw his arm out to block her entry. “Was it really her?”

  “Yes. She’s frustrated, confused. She just wants to come home.”

  “Why doesn’t she?”

  “I’d tell you if I knew. Now, please, can I go?”

  She could see the wheels turning in his head. He eventually came down on the side of letting her go with a promise. “This ain’t over.”

  No. She didn’t dare imagine it was.

  Chapter eight