Night Shade (30 page)

Ashley steps out from behind her, looking around as she takes in the situation. She lifts up her chin. ‘You used me,’ she says, her voice hard and clear. ‘You lied about me. You manipulated me. You could have gotten me killed. Not to mention everyone else.’

‘Ashley,’ Bron begins.

‘Shut up.’ Ashley regards me coldly. ‘Don’t ever come near me again.’

I look from her to Bron to Esme to the Mayor. Then I look upwards and wish myself awake.

***

I
f I’d been expecting a reprieve back in the real world, I’m sadly disappointed. I open my eyes to see Rawlins’ strained features gazing down at me. When she sees I’m no longer sleeping, she sighs in unmistakable relief. ‘You had us worried there for a moment,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think you were going to wake up.’

I sit up, ignoring the shooting pain in my shoulder. ‘Adam!’ I gasp. ‘Adam McDonald! He’s–’

‘We know who he is. We found him trussed and bound in your garden. He’s telling an interesting tale of a man who abducted him and demanded to know your whereabouts. We’re looking for him now.’

When they find him, he’ll be dead, just like Miller and Salib. I swallow. It only takes three corpses before the murderer is categorised as a serial killer. I wonder whether they’ll think that of me.

Rawlins folds her arms. ‘I think it’s about time you told us the truth, Zoe.’

***

D
awn is breaking by the time I step into the outside world. I suck in a breath and shove my hands in my pockets. I declined the offer of a lift home; I need the fresh air. My shoulder is still almost unbearably painful but at least the skin’s not broken and there’s no blood, unlike in the Dreamlands. I’m not dead yet.

I did as Rawlins asked and told her the truth. A version of it, anyway: that the Mayor – or Malpeter as I called him – had been threatening me; that I suspected he’d done something to kill both Dean Salib and Thomas Miller. I’d been so terrified that Malpeter was going to come after me, I confessed to murder. My well-documented agoraphobia helped with that. The only place I thought I could be safe was inside a cell.

The Mayor’s body was discovered in his shiny car, parked outside my mother’s house and surrounded by papers relating to all three of us, adding credence to my tale. Rawlins was obviously dying to question me again about the dreaming and she was still suspicious of me, but as Brown – now reinstated as my solicitor in Dante’s absence – stated firmly, there was no longer any reason to hold me. It was a tall tale but I don’t think Rawlins believes I’m a murderer, although she’s knows there’s more going on than I told her. 

I walk slowly up the hill. I should be pleased with how everything’s panned out but I can’t shake the feeling of dread. And I feel responsible for the Mayor’s death. Guilt gnaws away at me; maybe I’m just as bad as he was.

‘Penny for them?’ a voice drawls behind me.

I turn to Dante. Although his body language is relaxed, his eyes are hooded.   ‘I’m sure you can imagine,’ I mutter.

‘You didn’t kill him.’

I don’t respond. Instead I meet his eyes and ask, ‘Did you know there are other towns? In the Dreamlands?’

For a moment he lets his guard down. ‘You didn’t?’

I sigh. ‘No. I thought the Department worked for the Mayor. I didn’t realise it was the other way around.’

‘And here was me thinking you had a grand plan to get rid of them altogether,’ he says mildly. ‘I suppose we’ll just have to come up with something.’

‘They’ll come after me. And you. And Ashley and Bron.’

A muscle ticks in his cheek, highlighting his scar. ‘I used to think,’ he says softly, ‘that the best thing I could do would be to leave everyone to it. Let the Mayor and the Department and everyone else get on with whatever they were doing. As long as they didn’t bother me, it didn’t matter.’

‘What changed?’

‘You.’ He laughs awkwardly. ‘You’ve never once been weak or selfish. You took on the Mayor when no one else dared. You can bring down the Department too.’

‘Are they really that bad?’ I ask in a small voice.

‘They’d be an awful lot worse if they could change dreams as well as watch them.’ He smiles. ‘Only you can do that.’

There’s a lump in my throat. ‘It’s what the Mayor wanted. He wanted me to go into people’s heads and manipulate their dreams so he could manipulate them.’

‘Well,’ Dante says, ‘it’s a good thing that won’t happen then.’

I look away. ‘But I’ve already done that. I got someone arrested because of what I saw in his dream. And I made this kid ask for a raise. And I tried to persuade a woman to leave her cheating fiancé and–’

‘Did the person you got arrested deserve it?’ he interrupts.

‘Probably.’

‘Was the fiancé really cheating?’

‘Yes, but–’

‘Then you’ve not done anything wrong.’

‘It’s snooping!’ I burst out. ‘It’s only a whisker away from what the Mayor wanted to do!’

‘Zoe, he wanted to do those things to achieve power and wealth for himself. You didn’t. You were trying to help people.’

‘Maybe they didn’t want my help.’

‘Maybe not. But you had good intentions. And you did help them.’

I’m not convinced. I stare at my shoes. ‘Ashley hates me.’

‘She’ll come around.’

I sigh. ‘Why did you leave? You were there one minute and then you vanished without saying anything.’

His face is guarded. ‘You seemed busy. Bron was looking after you.’

It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him nothing’s going on between Bron and me but I don’t get the chance. Dante smiles and says, ‘I’ll say one thing. Life is never boring when you’re around.’

I try to smile back. ‘May you live in interesting times,’ I whisper.

Turn the page to read the first chapter of Dire Straits, the first book in the Bo Blackman series.

I
sit in the driver’s seat, sipping at my overly sweet – and now very cold – tea. It’s been forty-seven minutes since Devlin O’Shea entered the house and I’m starting to get itchy. A few cars have driven up to the crossroads behind me before turning either left or right, but none so much as slowed down. Considering the neighbourhood, I’m not surprised at that. In fact, I know that if there were anyone around, they’d be startled to see a lone woman sitting here. This isn’t the kind of street where anyone should spend time lingering, let alone someone on their own. I don’t feel I have much choice, however.

I take my eyes off the peeling green paint on the door frame and scan ahead. There must be at least forty more houses in front of me before the road finishes in what I already know to be a dead end. If any of the buildings are occupied, their inhabitants are staying well out of sight. There’s not even the barest twitch from any of the dirty curtains hiding the houses’ interiors from sight. In front of each dwelling, there’s a small patch of garden where the grass – if it can be called that – is either hopelessly overgrown to the point where you’d need a machete to cut a way through to reach the doors, or blackened and dying. There appears to be no pattern to whether the grass at each house is healthy or diseased, although the fact that the one O’Shea has disappeared into is fronted by deadened blades rather than a glory of jungle green seems to make sense. My attention drifts back to his building. There’s nothing. No sign of life.

I sigh. I am tempted to fiddle with radio dial, if only to hear the buzz of static filling the empty space. O’Shea isn’t a pure-bred triber. His hearing won’t pick it up. But I have no way of knowing who – or what – else is inside that house with him and I dislike taking unnecessary risks. It’s unlikely there’s anyone else there ... but still. I take another sip. Twelve more minutes to go.

A collection of dry, browned leaves skitter across the potholed road as the wind picks up ever so slightly. I flick a glance towards them, just in case, but there’s nothing sinister. I’m getting too jumpy. I chew my lip and focus yet again on the house.

It’s the very definition of nondescript. The red bricks were probably pretty once upon a time. Now, however, there are too many grubby stains from city pollution for them to look anything other than grimed and crumbling. There are a few tiles missing from the roof but the house is probably still water-tight. Except, that is, for the broken window on the first floor which looks as if someone has punched a hole through it. Whatever lies behind is dark and indistinguishable.

I check my watch again and feel my insides tighten. It’s still not time. I loosen my fingers from the polystyrene cup and flex them, one by one. I shouldn’t have accepted this job. Cheating spouses are easier than errant half-breed daemons. Then I amend that to quarter breed. O’Shea’s grandmother was pure Agathos but the rest of the blood flowing through his godforsaken veins is bog-standard human. I should be thankful that he’s not a quarter Kakos, I suppose. But then, if he were, I wouldn’t be here right now.

Seven more minutes. I drain the last of the tea and toss the empty cup onto the floor of the passenger side along with the other rubbish. Then I grimace as I feel my bladder tighten. Damn it, now I need to pee.

I consider my options. I was instructed to wait a full hour before breaching the property and confronting O’Shea. If I entered now, it would probably take me at least five minutes to locate him – by which time, I reckon an actual hour will have passed. Or almost anyway. I decide it’s good enough. I can still catch him in the act. I’m still hoping he’s on his own.

I zip up my leather jacket to stave off the cold and carefully open the car door, trying to remain as quiet as possible. I probably shouldn’t wear leather; it tends to have a mind of its own, groaning and creaking of its own accord whenever I make a move. Plus, its distinctive earthy smell can give away my presence in a heartbeat. But anything which has senses that are so attuned will know I’m coming from half a mile away and I like the fact that it makes me look kind of bad-ass. It’s difficult to appear threatening when you’re just over five feet tall so I’ll take whatever help I can get. The jacket is far too large for me and, if it wasn’t so elaborate in its embroidery and zips, it’d probably look ridiculous. I ‘borrowed’ it from an old boyfriend of mine called Zupper who I’d spent one sensuous, long summer with, zipping around on the back of his motorbike. He took off around Europe to find himself. I just took his jacket.

I step out, shooting a speculative look at the keys which are still in the ignition. I have a bad feeling about all of this and I’m starting to wonder if I need to be prepared for a quick getaway. To be fair, no one has come this far up the street while I’ve been here; I don’t even think a single bird has flown overhead. And it’s not as if my rusting heap of junk is particularly desirable to even the most desperate jacker. If I leave the keys where they are, I have a better chance of vamoosing out of here at warp speed should I need to. If someone appears from nowhere and nicks my car, however, I’ll be pretty much screwed. Aside from the fact that then I’d have zero way to get out of this graveyard of a cul-de-sac, I simply don’t have the cash to replace it and my insurance is virtually worthless.

I err on the side of caution and pocket the keys. I haven’t had much time to research O’Shea but nothing I’ve learned points towards him being physically dangerous. Yes, he might have less friendly companions inside and, yes, the prickles on the back of my neck are far from comforting, but balancing an extra five-second fumble with the threat of ending up entirely car-less leaves me with no choice. I really should look into some proper alternatives for future encounters though. I silently add it to my ever-growing list of things to do.

I glance up and down the street. It’s still deserted so I cross over quickly and jump the pathetic foot-high gate into the so-called garden, where I pause for a couple of heartbeats, cocking my ear for any sounds. Even though I’m barely a few metres from the front door, I still can’t hear anything.

The grass looks worse close-up. It even smells of decay. In the far corner there’s a one-eyed, blonde-haired doll, forlornly waiting for a long-since departed owner to return. Its sole iris stares at me emptily. I look away and move to the entrance, placing one cupped ear against it. I think perhaps I hear a dull thud from within, but I can’t be sure.

The property has been sitting empty for the last eighteen months since its previous tenant ended up on the wrong side of the law so technically I’m not trespassing, but I still can’t stop myself from checking the street again before I twist the knob and the door creaks open. Then I step over the mouldy envelopes with the tell-tale red of final demands peeking through their transparent windows and cross the threshold.

I pause for a moment, sucking in the stale air and listening carefully. I have no way of knowing which floor O’Shea is on, so I sidle against one wall and shuffle carefully along, making sure I avoid the centre of the corridor where the floorboards are more likely to creak. Although my aim is to confront him, I don’t want to alert him to my presence before I’m ready. I unzip my upper pocket and pull out a small canister of pepper spray. In the unlikely event that he’s armed and feeling twitchy, I’ll be able to get the jump on him.

The door to the left is ajar, which makes my life easier, so I peek through the gap just to be sure. Even though I can’t scan the entire room, my senses tell me that it’s empty. I move forward towards the kitchen, wincing as my foot crunches down on something, and I freeze at the sound. Fortunately I seem to have got away with it as the silence continues. I gently lift my foot and look down, raising my eyebrows when I see the dull glint of a used syringe. Interesting. From the previous occupant’s criminal history and my rushed research, I’ve learned that he was staunchly anti-drugs. So either he was an untidy diabetic or some vanished squatters took up residence temporarily after he left. Or there is something about O’Shea that Tam failed to tell me.

Pursing my lips, I kick the broken needle carefully towards the stairwell and out of my way. Now is not the time to start worrying about how I should have been better prepared before confronting O’Shea. I’m here. It’s already too late. I edge up to the kitchen instead, pausing where the carpet curls up at the edges. The door is hanging off one rusty hinge and the odour coming from inside is so bad I can imagine someone has died inside and their rotting corpse is lying there in its own putrefying juices...