The Stolen Child (14 page)

She felt the platform wobble as he stepped off, and his feet crunched against the wood chips as he walked around to stand in front of her.  Slowly, almost solemnly, he knelt in front of her and reached out to take her hand again, pressing it between his own.  He leaned in close, his wide brown eyes locked on hers, and she found herself becoming all too aware of the sound of her heartbeat, thundering against her chest.

“
Everyone believes in something, Rachael.  This is what they taught you to believe in; this ugly, grey world that they called 'Normal.'  Tell me, is it better there?”
 

A grey door filled her mind, still part-way open.  A glimpse of
a beige
carpet,
streaked with cigarette burns
.  The world they had made her live in.

She shook her head.

“No.  No, it's not.”

“Then come live in mine.  If we're wrong, at least we're happy.  And if we're right, we'll fly above them all.”

For a moment, all she could see was his eyes.  He was close enough that she could feel his breath in the air, and she barely even noticed herself resting one hand, lightly, on his arm.  Her lips were dry.
 
Without really thinking about it, she stroked his hair back.
 

Then she heard the sound of footsteps on the grass.

They sat up together and looked around to see the men closing in from every side, a loose circle forming around them.  Shapes in the darkness, beginning to take on definition as they emerged into the pools of light around the playground.  Rough faces, rough clothes.  She recognised the stocky, gravel voiced man.  Korban,
the others had called him
.  In one hand he still held the leash, stretched taut as the wild haired man pulled towards them, clawing at the grass with his gnarled hands.  A little back from the group, the brothers in their
red and gold
coats.  The
older
of them, hard faced and serious,
a scowling mouth mostly hidden by his thick beard
.  The thin one wearing a satisfied smirk,
his hand resting on the jewelled hilt of the sword at his waist
.

“Well,”
the younger brother
said, obviously amused, “it's a good thing we got here when we did.  I do believe something
rather
unchivalrous might have been about to occur.”

Justin sprang to his feet, the motion surprisingly graceful.  
She took his hand, stepping off the merry-go-round to stand beside him
.  The four men closed in cautiously.  She heard the clicking sound, as the blade appeared in Justin's hand again.
 

“You'll know when to run,”
he whispered.
 

She gave the slightest of nods, just enough to show that she'd heard him.  They stood together, as the cir
c
le closed in.  She looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing
to hand
.

Justin turned and locked eyes with the nearest of the four,
a looming figure with a scarred face and long, dark hair.  Muscled rippled under her shirt as the woman stepped forward
.  
Rachael
saw Justin flex, moving on the balls of his feet.  Glancing around she saw how the other three were hanging back just a little, ready to move in as soon as the fighting started.

“Now, now.  If you'll just put that knife down young man, there's no need for this to get bloody,”
t
he
younger
brother
announced.  “
My name is Rakesh Bhandari.  My brother Naveen and I are men of honour, sworn Knights of the Guild.  I'm sure we can resolve all this without... Unpleasantness.”
 

Looking at the cold eyes of the four
thugs
surrounding them
, Rachael could already see the violence lurking there.  There was no question how this was going to
end, no matter what anyone said.
 

The towering brute of a woman took another step forward.  Her mouth slowly twisted into a smile.
 

“
Listen, kid, Jocasta here's got about twenty years experience and another hundred pounds of muscle on you,” Korban said, gesturing at the woman.  “I admire your spirit, but you gotta know when to quit.”
 

Justin said nothing, but Rachael saw the smile that crept onto his lips.  He held out his hand and let the knife fall, landing point down in the soft ground.
 

“
Smart move kid,” Korban said, nodding to his men.  The four goons began closing in, still cautious.  As Jocasta loomed over the both of them, Justin looked up at the woman, still smiling.  For a moment no one moved.  The two of them seemed to be waiting to see what would happen next.
 

It was almost too fast for Rachael to follow.  Jocasta lunged, reaching down to catch the younger man in a hold.  In that same moment Justin slipped to one side, and somehow caught the woman's arm, twisting it around behind her back.  In the same motion,
Justin kicked his fallen knife up into the air.  He caught the knife in his free hand, flipped the blade point down, and stabbed it into the back of Jocasta's neck.  The woman roared in pain, staggering forward with her hands clamped over her neck, as blood poured down her shirt.  Before the woman had even hit the ground, Justin was moving again.  One hand flicked out towards the nearest of Korban's goons as he danced past her.  There was a flicker of silver in the air, and then the knife landed in the man's shoulder.  His other hand caught Rachael's arm as he turned and pushed her towards the space where Jocasta had been standing.
 

She heard a cry behind her and glanced back
just for a moment
.  Where Justin had been
there was
only a blur in the air, a feathered shape that lashed out with steely claws.

Korban reached into
his
jacket pocket and produced a
heavy
looking revolver.  Before she could even shout a warning, Justin cut back on himself, turning over in the air to rake the man's face with his claws.  He was a hawk, she realised, sleek, fast and deadly.  Korban staggered backwards, blood pouring into his eyes.  As the gun fell from his hands, so too did the end of the leash.  The wild man rolled to one side and came up on his haunches with a t
errible
howl.

Without another thought she turned and ran.  Dimly, she saw the lights of the road approaching.  
T
he sound of her breathing
was
so loud in her ears that it blocked out everything else.  She vaulted the fence and hit the pavement running.  
Glancing back, she saw
a brief flash of light and heard the crack of a gunshot
.  Silhou
e
tted, she saw a man reeling backwards, the outline of a large bird
against
his face.  
T
he flare of
light
faded,
and]
the darkness flooded back in a hundred times deeper.  In the moment of silence that followed she heard a sound like an animal panting heavily, growing louder and closer.  As her eyes readjusted she made out the
shape
of
the
man, running
with
a lopsided, loping stride.  Any thought of going back for Justin left her that
instant
.

She ran on through the narrow streets,
lines of cars parked nose to tail on either side of her.  She came to a junction and picked a direction at random.  
Too late,
she saw that she had chosen wrong.  Before her lay a small cul-de-sac, vehicles lining the street in front of towering grey apartment blocks.  She doubled back but it was too late.  The old man came shambling out into the middle of the junction, moving on all fours.  His eyes
were
fixed on her.

He was only a man, she told herself.  She did not have to run from one man, though everything in
side
her
was screaming to do exactly that
.  He was only one man.  She could fight him, beat him.  Escape.  But she knew that were many terrible things that one man could do to her.  He was old, but he was taller and stronger, and the wildness in him terrified her.  She could see it in his eyes, dark holes
into nothingness
.  
She could see that he was broken inside
.

“Little girl?  No.  Not a little girl.”

She could smell the stink of him as he approached.

“Not a little girl at all.  Not anything.”

He advanced another step, and his stench preceded him like a wave.

“You're not here,”
t
he man screamed, his mouth forming around a torrent of spittle as the words howled out.  “
Empty!
 
E
mpty!”  He lurched forward, with a sudden and violent energy.  
S
he
darted back, his grubby nails barely missing her as she
turned and ran deeper into the cul-de-sac, hoping against hope to find a some way through.  The sound of his footsteps followed her, as he continued to howl and roar.

“Can't find you.  Smelled you out.  Did what I was told.  Good boy gets a treat.  The little girl's not here.  She's just an empty hole.  I did what I was told.”

His ravings were nothing but noise in the air as she ran.  
For a moment s
he
thought
the distance was growing, her surer strides outpacing his drunken lurching.  
Then
a
ridge
in the
pavement
caught
at her toes and it seemed as though one leg was simply kicked out from under her.  
She crashed
into the hard ground.  Palms, elbows, chin, all exploded with fire.  The breath
was
ripped
from
her lungs.  
Through the pain and the dizziness she could still hear him coming.
 

A van was parked by the side of the road.  
S
he rolled sideways, slipping under
n
eath
.  She squirmed her way into the narrow space as quickly as she could, but a gnarled hand wrapped itself around her ankle, and she could move no further.  Her body scraped across the pavement as he dragged her loose.  Desperately, she grabbed at the underside of the van with bloodied hands, tears stinging her eyes, but he was too strong.  
C
old metal dug into her hand
s
and her grip
weakened
.  She was
being pulled into his grasp,
inch by inch.
 

The hand on her ankle
jerked
hard and her grip gave way entirely.  
Then he was on her, a mass of hair and bone and muscle and the overpowering stink of him.  She felt the
sweat of his palms
as
bony
hand
s
caught
her wrist
s
.
 

“Can feel you.  Feel the little girl, but she isn't real, can't be real.  Nothing inside there,
nothing inside
.”

Ravings spilled from his mouth, and she tasted his spit as it burst out into her face.  A hand against her shoulder, pushing her down, pressing he
r
into the
unyielding tarmac
.  She kicked, felt something recoil, but he was oblivious to whatever pain she might have inflicted.  
He leaned in closer, his eyes locked on hers.  
 

There was a sound, like
paper rustling in a breeze
, and then
a grey blur streaked across her vision.  T
he impact hurl
ed
him a
cross the street
,
the sheer force rolling her to one side
.  Something dark splattered the ground beneath her hands, and
Rachael
felt a wet spray against her face.  She heard a crunch, then a noise like
damp
cloth tearing and a gurgled scream that died almost as soon as it began.

Her hands were pressed to the
tarmac
, her face inches away from a slowly spreading pool of dark red liquid.  She wondered if maybe it was hers.  Arms shaking, she tried to stand, but her trembling legs would not take her weight.  She moved until her
knees
were folded under herself, sat up, and forced herself to look around.

The old man lay unmoving, the
pavement
wet with blood around hi
s body
.  
T
he wolf stood
over him
, drawing great lungfuls of air, its flanks heaving, blood dripping from lips that curled back from yellow teeth.  There was a constant sound in its throat, the low rattle of a growl.  It turned to look at her, and she felt her heart
seize in her chest
.  Her hands twitched, and sweat dripped from her brow, but she could not move.  Her body felt cold.

Then, a
s the creature looked into her eyes, the growl softened, then ceased.  
A large pink tongue swiped across blood-splattered jowls.  
The wolf padded forward,
eyes widening in an expression of sadness.  Head close to hers, a soft snout rubbed gently against her cheek
.  Almost without thinking, she reached
up
to stroke the
smooth fur
behind one ear.

“Justin?”

He sat down and pressed his head against the side of her neck, eyes closed.  
Her legs were damp, the denim of her jeans soaked through with blood.  As much as the thought of it should have made her sick, it simply didn't seem to matter.  She was floating in a
hollow
space.  The cold, the hurt, the damp, the smell and the feel of it all seemed distant and faint.  The soft fur beneath her hand, the warmth of him, was the only thing she seemed truly aware of.

Arsha pressed her hands against the bulkhead and waited for the world to stop spinning.  
When
she seemed to be standing on her own two feet again
s
he opened her eyes and straightened up.  Her stomach still felt strange, but she
grudgingly
decided
that
she'd be
all right
, for now.