Dark Harbour: The Tale of the Soul Searcher (21 page)

‘What are you going to do with him then, you cold-blooded child killers?’

Vladimir paused. By now Jake and Clint were just disappearing out the door.

‘Nothing too permanent. Okay? Your friend didn’t plant a bomb or anything.’

He tried again to leave.

‘You’re not going to kill him then? Not like those two school kids you murdered?’

Vladimir immediately stopped dead. He slowly turned to face Michael, his eyes alight. ‘What did you say?’

‘You murdered a teenage boy and his little brother!’

Something quite startling happened next. Vladimir suddenly hurtled towards Michael at full speed like a roller coaster with failed brakes. Something savage was exploding inside him as though Michael had just reached inside him and flipped on a very dangerous switch. Vladimir reached forward and grabbed the mouthy young man by his throat, pushing him down onto the pool table, leaning over him, wanting to squeeze his neck so hard that no more words would come out.

‘You killed them!’ Michael spluttered. ‘He was just a six-year-old boy and you killed him!’

Vladimir’s black button eyes were open as wide as they would go and he looked down on Michael, snorting like a bull. A multitude of different verbal responses had flooded his mind at once and drowned each other out.

The vigilante’s large black eyes hovered above him. They were like looking into a mirror and all Michael could see in them was a distorted, perverted version of himself, a Michael possessed by a demon. He closed his eyes as he searched for more stinging words.

‘My brother told me! He knew that boy. Simon Tuckwell was his name! He was friends with him at school before you went and murdered him!’

The fire burned in Vladimir’s blood, starting to consume him. Gradually his eyes began to shrink a little, becoming aware of this blazing reflex, realisation creeping into his features that he had to calm down. And collect himself. This was only stupid hearsay being spouted and this wasn’t the proper way to react to it. This wasn’t the way Vladimir acted normally.

He released his grip on Michael’s neck and straightened up his body.

‘How old are you, pacifist?’

‘Twenty.’

‘A little too old to be telling playground stories, isn’t it?’

Michael steadily propped himself off the pool table. He shrugged.

Vladimir went on: ‘Halo of Fires didn’t kill Simon Tuckwell. That may have been the story, but it’s not the truth.’

‘Like I should really believe you. Maybe one day they’ll dig up his little brother’s skeleton and find your calling card on it.’

‘You see, you have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. I don’t even know why I’m here talking to you!’

‘Too bad you guys hid the body so well,’ Michael said, hoping he could keep this conversation going for as long as possible.

‘Look, the Fires came to help the kid, so he could hide from the killers that murdered his family. Somewhere that no one would ever find him.’

‘Is that the truth?’

‘The police searched for him. No one ever found a body!’

‘So Jeremy’s alive somewhere?’

Vladimir’s mouth remained shut and he swallowed hard.

‘But what about Simon?’ Michael persisted. ‘Who killed him if it wasn’t you?’

‘Why the hell do you think I’m going to tell you?’

‘There’s two,
possibly three
, unsolved murders. The killer needs to be found and brought to justice.’

Vladimir stared at him blankly then took a step backwards. It was time he should leave. He’d been drawn into this bizarre conversation too much already, and he didn’t even know he was talking to a student journalist.

‘Possibly three,’ Vladimir muttered.

He centred himself once more as he recomposed his magnificent aura, and then glided out of the building like a bird that had just straightened its ruffled plume.

Danny felt smothered by the enveloping blackness, his mind flailing around as it frantically tried to grasp onto whatever it could, to somehow break out of the nightmare that was impossible to break out of. The stuffy air was thick and bitter, filling his lungs like molten rock.

Where was he? Where was Michael? Where was his world? He was now in a realm of nothingness, a purgatorial stasis. Danny could not even die in his death. He reached around himself in his juddering tomb, which rocked and swayed him about. He could see absolutely nothing.

Suddenly his tomb stopped vibrating. Silence, then clicks and thuds. Footsteps. That angel of darkness again, lifting the lid, dull light sluggishly creeping inside. As if there to administer his last rites, the three faces looked down on him, tinted by the sickly orange hue of the light. There was no escaping that raven-like angel and his two demons. His fiery eyes kept peering down on Danny and it felt like they were piercing into his soul. He knew what this meant. Nevermore. It was the answer to everything.

Here on the shores of his underground world, the raven controlled all. Danny could hear the roaring of the waves. Stirring and roaring. Stirring and roaring. It teased from him a memory of the day before, of sitting by the shore with that enchantress. Gone was the beauty that he’d looked upon yesterday. These wicked waves would wash him down into their black beyond.

Why, oh why, had he been tempted by her? Why had he risked incurring this wrathful consequence by venturing into her world? It seemed that Danny was being delivered the ultimate punishment, for treading where he shouldn’t have done, for roaming into the forbidden heights that he had no right to soar in. They weren’t for someone who’d been assigned a safe life of normalness. Ordinary people weren’t supposed to fly with the angels.

He was shoved into a grave. The two demons piled in the earth as the raven, dressed in his deathly black plumage, stood watching like a servant of the netherworld.

They spared him his sight. Danny could still see through his bleary eyes, and his head would forever face those roaring waves as he would gaze on them for eternity, a twisted reminder of his sin and her world.

A world that he should never visit again.

Michael had darted after them. As soon as that angry vigilante had walked out of
The Waggon and Horses
, Michael followed stealthily, like James Bond. Up the road he saw Vladimir approach a black car as the two thugs stuffed Danny into the boot. They then all piled into the car and trundled away, slowly and calmly, like a hearse on its way to a funeral.

With his sight fixed on that Mercedes, Michael had run after them as fast as he could. He wasn’t used to running but he wasn’t unfit either, so he kept a steady pace. With adrenaline in one’s blood it was amazing what the body was capable of. At the end of the road the car had disappeared out of view as it made a right turn towards the beach. Michael kept running.

He eventually found them again. The car was the only vehicle in an empty carpark by the seafront. Michael hovered behind an ice cream stand as he caught his breath. He could feel his limbs shaking with all the excitement, but right now he had to hold himself together. Through the gloom he could see the three vigilantes emerging as they walked up the steps from the beach, back to their car. Where was Danny? He scanned the beach but there was no one else around. Had he escaped? Was he still in the boot?

The two big thugs sat on the bonnet of the car for a moment and folded their arms. The one in black looked around the carpark as though someone had just called his name. With a seemingly preternatural sense, he picked out the person who was spying on him. Michael.

An eerie chill ran up Michael’s body. How did he know he was there watching him? He stepped out from the stand; it seemed pointless hiding any longer. The man just nodded his head to him but Michael didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. Michael stayed still as he stared back at him. His black eyes couldn’t penetrate him from here. It didn’t feel like the last time he would ever see this man, and maybe the man knew it as well. Two opposing forces on each end of the spectrum, and here they were sizing each other up.

Vladimir ordered his two Powers to get in the car and start it up. Michael decided to approach him.

‘What have you done with him?’ he called out.

‘You’re a persistent fellow.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s dead, obviously. That’s all we ever do. Just go round killing people. Go dig up his bones if you want,’ Vladimir said as he pointed towards the beach.

Michael looked over there. He could see what looked like a football just a few yards up from the drift line. Or perhaps it was a rock, or maybe some kid had left his bucket there.

‘Why do you do this?’ Michael asked him.

‘Take a look at the world, kid. Nobody knows what right is anymore. I bet you’re religious, aren’t you?’

Michael was a little surprised at the man’s observation. He didn’t reply.

‘See, people needed that moral compass before. But now they’re throwing them out and using the ones they were born with. Trouble is, people don’t know how to use them.’

‘Danny’s a good lad. He doesn’t deserve this. He wouldn’t ever intend to hurt anyone.’

‘The road to hell.’

Michael shook his head as he continued to gaze at the round object down there on the beach. He eventually realised that he was looking at Danny’s bloodied head. He was buried to his neck in the sand.

Vladimir caught his gaze. ‘I guess I can go now. Not everyone comes here to die.’

He got in the car and the vigilantes sped off into the night.

Michael ran down to the beach. Poor Danny’s head lolled to one side in the hole, but as Michael kneeled down in front of him he could see that he was okay. Or rather he was
going
to be okay. His mouth was covered in dried blood speckled with sand and his nose didn’t look too good. And he was still punch drunk, murmuring nonsense to himself.

The tide was edging its way gradually up the beach but Danny would have still had a couple of hours to escape before being drowned. In the back of his mind, Michael seemed to remember this same thing happening to someone in a film. Some cheesy horror movie. Ted Danson had been put in the sand like this while Leslie Nielsen had watched the waves sweep over him on a television screen. But then Ted had come back as a zombie covered in seaweed and avenged him. Revenge always had its own consequences!

The Halo of Fires thugs hadn’t intended to kill Danny, it seemed. Danny hadn’t killed anyone himself so there was no eye for an eye to be had. Presumably they were just scaring him into
thinking
he would be killed while they waited up at the car until they had to either dig him out again or wait until someone else came along and rescue him. As Michael was now doing.

Whatever their silly intentions, it didn’t disguise from Michael the despicable thing they had done to his friend. They had physically assaulted him, kidnapped him, and endangered his life, all over a matter that was nothing to do with them.

Danny had not broken any laws. Even if he had been seeing someone else’s fiancée, and even if in so doing he’d made someone else angry, this was absolutely no way to deal with the issue. That’s probably what he despised so much about Halo of Fires; they brought a service of gangsterism to the ordinary man. They exploited people’s emotions, their anger, and gave them power and violence, and made them think that that was the best way of dealing with their problems. And not to mention that they did the work that should be left to God.

But this was an indication of the dimming light of insight within people in this town, the same as it was everywhere these days. This was a time of making people pay, of handing out blame and abandoning responsibility. Everyone wanted compensation, but no amount of money or malignant retribution would ever compensate for the real issues.

Danny seemed to recognise Michael as he scooped the sand away from him. He mumbled something but Michael couldn’t tell what he was saying.

‘It’s okay, Danny. We’ll have you out of here and home in no time.’

‘I’m… I’m sorry.’

‘What for?‘

‘I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have talked to her.’

Michael soon felt something solid in the sand. It was Danny’s arm. They hadn’t buried him very deep at all.

‘Let’s look on the bright side. You’ve done me a very big favour, you know. You helped me get the perfect interview for my assignment!’

Danny managed a smile. His friend was always there to uplift him. Suddenly the world did not seem so dark to Danny.

‘The things I do for you. You’d better get a good mark now.’

Michael smiled back at him. There was still a question he wanted to ask him though, something that was still playing on his mind. ‘Who was she?’

Danny looked up at him and Michael could see that his eyes were regaining their clarity.

‘Stella Connoly.’

‘I see,’ Michael whispered. It was the name he suspected he would hear. ‘I guess you picked one heck of a jealous boyfriend in Samuel Allington.’

‘I didn’t do anything though. All I did was talk to her. She just kissed me goodbye.’