First and Only (21 page)

Steve felt a familiar and
unpleasant chill run down his spine.

‘In sixteen years they haven’t
caught him,’ said Psimon. ‘Who’s to say they’ll catch him at all.’

Steve stared into Psimon’s stone
grey eyes.

‘If he doesn’t take
me
,’
said Psimon. ‘He will take another…’

And suddenly Steve understood.

‘So I will ask you again…’ said
Psimon. ‘Could you live in safety, while another took your place in death?’

‘No,’ said Steve, speaking as a
man who had faced a similar dilemma more than once in his military life.

‘No,’ repeated Psimon, ‘and
neither could I.’

Steve looked at Psimon. He had an
appealing face, the face of a nice young man, as Steve had thought from the
first. But his eyes were those of an older soul. They were the eyes of someone
who had known pain and fear. They were more like the eyes of a seasoned combat
veteran than those of twenty-something lad from the suburbs of Manchester.

‘For fourteen years,’ Psimon went
on. ‘I have shared the pain and deaths of people who have died at his hand.’

‘I know.’

‘Steve,’ said Psimon, his voice
breaking with tears. ‘I see what happens in the future… I can read the thoughts
of people standing half a mile away… I can know places I’ve never been to!’

‘I know,’ repeated Steve as
Psimon’s despair climbed higher and higher.

‘I have led the police to finding
twenty-one killers; helped them with countless other crimes. I’ve stopped
children running out in traffic, grounded planes that I knew would crash…’

‘Psimon, please,’ said Steve.

‘But not him!’ said Psimon, his
voice rising close to a scream. ‘Why can’t I stop him?’

Steve could think of nothing to say.
He had only recently come to believe in Psimon, much less understand him. He
was in no position to advise him on how to use his powers.

‘He kills us Steve,’ said Psimon
desolately. ‘He kills us in the most horrible ways.’

Steve did not want to hear this.
He had just started to relish the fact that all this was coming to an end. Now
it seemed like it was only the beginning.

‘And he does not see it as a
crime,’ Psimon went on. ‘He sees it as a duty, a divine vocation.’

‘We’ll stop him,’ said Steve.

‘No. We won’t!’ cried Psimon. ‘He
takes me Steve… I have seen it. The only question is whether I die slowly at
his hand, or quickly at yours.’

‘I refuse to accept that,’ said
Steve stubbornly.

‘You have no choice,’ said
Psimon.

‘We always have a choice,’ said Steve,
rising angrily from his chair and going over to stand beside the window. ‘It’s
just that we don’t always like the ones we’re given.’

Psimon watched him walk away, an
enigmatic expression on his face.

Steve stared out of the window,
thinking that Monday could not come quick enough. Bankruptcy, homelessness,
marital strife… These were manageable things, unpleasant, unwelcome but
manageable. Things he could understand. Things he could confront. Visions of
death and a psychopathic bogeyman were something else altogether.

With a sigh of weariness Steve
reached out to close the curtains. He paused as the growl of an approaching
motorbike rattled the window. A Harley Davidson surged into view, closely
followed by a large Suzuki and a second Harley. The bikes turned in to the
house next door coming dangerously close to Steve’s BMW, which was parked
between the two driveways.

‘My new neighbours,’ said Psimon
from his chair. ‘Their mate moved in a few months ago after a spot of good
fortune.’

‘Lottery?’ said Steve, relieved
that the dour mood had lifted.

‘Littlewoods.’

Steve snorted his
acknowledgement.

‘Things have been a bit rowdy
since then,’ said Psimon.

Steve hesitated at the window; it
was years now since he had owned a bike. He had sold his last one shortly after
meeting Christine. She had not asked him to but Steve knew she did not like
them. She worried about him. That had been enough.

Still, he missed it.

Steve took hold of the curtains
just as two massive trikes thrummed down the street. One of them made for the
drive but the turning circle was too sharp and he ended up on the grass verge
running down the side of the pavement. The second one made an even worse hash
of it, coming too close to Steve’s car and finding himself unable to manoeuvre
either forwards or backwards.

‘
Idiot
,’ thought Steve,
tugging the curtains closed. ‘I need to move my car,’ he said.

‘Sure,’ said Psimon as Steve
crossed the room.

‘I’ll just be a minute,’ said
Steve but just as he was about to leave the room Psimon sat bolt upright in his
chair.

‘NO!’ he shouted in a shrill
voice of fear.

‘Why not?’ asked Steve coming to
an abrupt halt in the doorway.

For all the weird ways he had
seen Psimon behave over the last few days, he had never heard him panic like
that.

‘What’s the problem?’ asked Steve
impatiently. The last thing he needed was more hassle over a damaged car.

‘I don’t…’ began Psimon, looking
scared and apologetic at the same time. Then he got up from the chair and stood
there anxiously wringing his hands.

‘No… sorry. I think it’s ok,’ he
said.

‘Well make up your mind,’ said
Steve. He could almost hear the squeal of chrome on paintwork.

‘Go,’ said Psimon. ‘I’ll be
fine.’

Steve sighed and shook his head
despairingly. Then he trotted down the stairs and out onto the street.

Psimon was left alone.

*

‘Hang on there mate,’ said Steve
as the BMW gave the familiar ‘beep-beep’ of being unlocked.

‘You didn’t leave us much space
to get in,’ said a gruff voice from further up the drive.

Steve looked up as several of the
bikers ambled back onto the footpath, helmets in hand. They had a grizzled,
unwashed look. These were not your fair-weather weekend bikers; these were the
real thing.

‘I know,’ said Steve. ‘Hang on
I’ll move it back for you.’

Just then the rider of the
marooned trike tried to reverse out of trouble grinding the side of his engine
up against the wing of Steve’s car.

‘I was just going to move it,’
said Steve with rising annoyance but the rider of the trike just stared at him
from his open-faced helmet.

‘Two wheels good, four wheels
bad,’ he said in a voice that led Steve to think he was stoned.

‘You’re on three wheels you
fucking idiot,’ said Steve, having finally lost patience with these jokers.

He snatched open the door of his
car, slumped inside and reversed his car back to the far side of Psimon’s
drive. Then he got out, locked the car and ignored the hostile stares that
followed him back to the house.

*

Steve was gone.

The doorway yawned.

Psimon could not breathe.

He could not move; he could but
barely think.

He had seen this before; seen it through the shadows and the fear. Now
he waited for the hulking figure to fill the doorway and eclipse all hope. The
rushing of his blood echoed loudly in his ears and yet his heartbeat pulsed to
a sluggish, swollen beat as time slowed and stretched before him. He lost all
feeling of his physical self. Psimon was locked inside his mind, and his mind
was filled with fear. A fear that was validated as
He
appeared in the
doorway.

*

Steve rushed forward as Psimon
collapsed to the floor. He knelt down beside him, checked his pulse and
breathing. He seemed all right but for some reason he had passed out. The look
of abject terror on his face, when Steve entered the room, had given Steve such
a fright that he had felt compelled to look back at the doorway to check that
Satan himself was not standing there. As Steve drew him into a more comfortable
position Psimon began to come round.

His eyes stared, unseeing, and he
clutched at Steve like a child caught in the wake of some horrific nightmare.

‘He was here,’ cried Psimon. ‘He
came for me.’

‘No one’s here, Psimon,’ said
Steve firmly. ‘You are all right… you just fainted.’

‘No… I saw him,’ insisted Psimon.
‘I saw him there in the doorway.’

Psimon pointed at the doorway.

A chink of fear opened up in
Steve’s mind as he followed the line of Psimon’s trembling finger. Steve
clenched his jaw and slammed the door shut on the fear.

‘You saw me,’ he said almost
angrily.

Psimon started to object but
Steve grabbed his chin and turned Psimon’s frightened grey eyes to meet his own
solid brown.

‘You saw
me
!’ he stated
with a finality that got through to Psimon.

‘I saw you?’

‘Yes,’ said Steve. ‘You saw me…
there is no one else here.’

For a while Psimon’s wide eyes
just looked up at Steve.

‘Then I was wrong,’ he said at
last and there was something like relief in his voice.

‘I guess so,’ said Steve.

‘But I’m never wrong,’ said
Psimon sounding puzzled.

‘Yeah, well join the club,’ said
Steve hauling Psimon up and guiding him back to his chair. ‘Most of us spend half
our lives getting shit wrong.’

Psimon sank into the chair, the
beginnings of a smile on his face.

‘I was wrong,’ he said again in a
wondering tone as if he were entirely happy about the fact.

‘So you said,’ said Steve
reaching for his unfinished bottle of beer. ‘I’m sure you’ll get over it,’ he
added, taking a much-needed swig.

‘But don’t you see,’ said Psimon,
sitting forward excitedly in his chair. ‘If I’m wrong about this, then I might
be wrong about other things.’

Some of the colour had returned
to Psimon’s cheeks and there was a brightness in his eyes. But the brightness
had a manic quality to it and Steve did not trust it. It was not like the many
other shades and moods that he had seen in Psimon’s gaze. This emotion was an
impostor. This was not the Psimon that Steve knew. The brightness was
dishonest.

‘Everything could be all right,
Steve,’ said Psimon wonderingly, his gaze turning inwards as he tried to think
things through in the light of this new experience.

‘Yeah, of course it will be,’
said Steve, although he did not truly believe it.

Steve felt suddenly flushed by a
deep sense of weariness. Despite the eventual outcome it had been a stressful
day, a stressful week in fact. He bent down and began collecting together the
bags, cartons and plates of their takeaway supper.

‘What do you say we call it a
day?’ he said.

‘It’s still early yet,’ said
Psimon but Steve could see the fatigue behind Psimon’s new-found optimism.

‘It’s dark outside,’ said Steve.
‘That’s late enough for me.’

Psimon smiled.

‘You might be right,’ he said.

He stood up and started towards
the bathroom. Then he stopped and turned round, looking at Steve with that
strangely intense gaze of his.

‘
That’s more like the Psimon I
know
,’ thought Steve.

‘Thank you,’ said Psimon.

‘For what?’ asked Steve.

‘You said we.’

‘We what?’ puzzled Steve.

‘You said…
We
sink your
fucking boats.’

And Steve understood.

‘Figured I’d chose the winning
side,’ he said.

‘Right,’ said Psimon with a
smile. ‘Goodnight,’ he said.

‘Night, Psimon,’ said Steve.

And with that Psimon left the
room, leaving Steve to finish clearing up.

Steve scraped the uneaten food
into the bin in Psimon’s kitchen.

‘
One more day
,’ thought
Steve. ‘
Just one more day
.’

He felt incredibly tired now but
he would be sleeping in the chair again tonight. The fear on Psimon’s face had
been far more convincing than the relief of his new-born hopefulness. Steve
went round the flat, checking once again that everything was secure. Then
before he retired he stopped by the kitchen once more, taking a glass of cold
water from the tap. Their victory feast now felt more like the last meal of a
condemned man and the euphoria of outwitting the ‘powers that be’ seemed like a
distant memory. A new image loomed large in Steve’s mind, the image of a
deranged serial killer who murdered his victims in the most horrible of ways.

‘
He’s big,
’ Psimon had
said. ‘
Like a giant
.’

Steve put down his glass and his
eyes moved to the Sabatier knife block next to the cooker. Maybe tonight he
would sleep with a little reassurance close to hand.

‘
You stab me in the face with
a short-bladed knife
,’ Psimon had told him.

Steve chose the longest knife in
the block and went to get some sleep.

Chapter 26

International
Psychic Convention: Manchester

Lucifer felt sullied.

To be surrounded by so many
feeble, vacuous minds was sickening. He had listened to this self-glorifying
fool expounding the effects of the mind over the body and how he, with his
powers, could unlock their true potential. He had watched in scornful disbelief
as the congregation lapped up his drivel. Only a handful of those listening
showed any discernment, laughing at his pretensions and mocking his claims.
These men, at least, showed some measure of will. They were big men, physically
strong, some of them almost as big as he. He was pleased to see that they were
not so easily duped.

But no…

Lucifer was not interested in
anodyne frauds, no matter how ridiculous their claims might be.

Those in dominion concurred.

The chorus was silent.

Lucifer waited until the hall had
begun to empty before he left his seat. A man and woman stepped into his path,
talking excitedly about what they had just heard. They looked up and apologised
for their discourtesy. Lucifer graced them with a smile and they went quickly
on their way. He had a good smile, although he found it an odious task to use
it. But over the years he had come to acknowledge the benefits of conforming to
the conventions of the inconsequential world.