The Wraiths of War (40 page)

McCallum’s assistant then. Should I follow her, or wait for McCallum himself to emerge? She might be easier to speak to than her boss, who’d be more likely to be wary of me. Then again, I didn’t want to frighten or intimidate her. And what if I did follow and question her, only to find that McCallum had simply employed her on a temporary basis, from an agency or something? On the other hand, what if McCallum had already left the theatre via some other exit, and following his assistant might be my one and only chance to get some answers?

All this raced through my mind (which was still edgy and brittle from having been snatched from its doze) in the time it took for the girl to half-turn and shut the door behind her. Still squatting on my haunches, I raised myself on my toes, ready to stand and follow her – and immediately felt a debilitating tingle of pins and needles rush through my feet and calves.

Shit. What if I couldn’t walk? Or what if I tried to stand and ended up collapsing among the dustbins, causing her to bolt? In my still slightly befuddled state, I assumed she’d be walking away from me – if only because that was where I’d come from – and so was surprised when she turned and headed in my direction. Although I knew she couldn’t see me in the dark, I instinctively shrank back – and promptly, because of the numbness in my legs, felt myself toppling backwards. I put a hand on the ground behind me to steady myself, and felt something cold and squishy ooze up between my fingers. I stifled a cry of disgust, hoping it was just mud, and willed myself to remain still as she approached my hiding place.

Would she see me? If she did, what would I say? That I’d been sheltering from the rain and had fallen asleep? No, that would sound weird and creepy. Better to just come clean.

To my relief, though, she kept her head down, her face obscured beneath her dark hood. She walked quickly and with purpose, looking neither left nor right. No doubt she wanted to get out of the alleyway as quickly as possible, and back among people again. As she came level with my hiding place I held my breath, but she hurried on without so much as a glance.

It wasn’t until she was past me and striding towards the next pool of light that I decided to follow her. It could be a mistake, but if McCallum had wanted me to come here tonight, he should have given me clearer instructions. I rose into a semi-standing position, gritting my teeth as my numbed muscles came alive with pins and needles. I shuffled from the recess, my legs feeling like lumps of dead meat animated by jittering jolts of electricity. Like Frankenstein’s monster, I staggered after her, hoping my barely responsive feet weren’t clumping too loudly on the ground. Apparently not, because she didn’t turn round. Presumably her hood and the rain pattering on it – heavier now than before – were muffling the sounds of my pursuit.

She had a lead of about fifty yards on me, but that was okay. I didn’t want to get too close and alert her. I watched her pass from light into shadow, light into shadow, light into…

Suddenly she stopped. Had she heard me? No, she wasn’t turning round, and from her stance she seemed to be peering intently at the block of shadow directly in front of her. Even so, I slipped into the next pool of darkness ahead of me and pressed myself against the wall.

She edged towards the right-hand side of the alleyway, as though she’d seen or heard something in the darkness to her left. Suddenly she spoke, and although the rain was hissing and pattering, and the distance between us made her voice sound high and thin, I could just about make out her words.

‘Who’s there?’ she said, though whether in defiance or fear was impossible to tell. Wiping rain from my face, I unpeeled myself from the wet wall and stared at where she was staring. Could I see something too? A swirling suggestion of movement in the darkness? I edged closer, thinking of myself not as a pursuer now, but a potential protector.

Then something detached itself from the darkness and lurched towards her, and she screamed.

It was a man, or a semblance of one.

He was little more than a silhouette, though not because of the darkness. Even when he stepped out of the shadows the light seemed to shun him, or to slide off him as if it couldn’t get a hold. It was as if he wasn’t quite there, wasn’t quite part of this reality, though with each second he seemed to solidify, to become more real.

He reached a hand out towards the girl, who stumbled backwards, almost slipping on the wet paving slabs.

‘Get away from me!’ she yelled. ‘Leave me alone!’

The man was becoming more solid now, the light falling on him as if there had never been any doubt as to his corporeality. I saw that he was wearing a black leather jacket with the collar turned up, a black baseball cap, black shades, and that his body was twisted and bent.

‘Please,’ he croaked, in a voice that sent ripples of disgust and fear through me, ‘I only want to—’

‘Get away from her!’ I shouted, echoing the girl’s words. My legs still shaky, I began to run towards the Dark Man and the girl, my hand – the one that had been covered in mud or something nastier – already delving into my pocket.

The Dark Man swivelled his crooked body towards me, and his damaged face – what I could see of it – scrunched into a sour expression. As I got closer I saw he was holding the heart, and like a gunfighter about to face a showdown I pulled my own heart from my pocket and held it up. The girl, meanwhile, taking advantage of the Dark Man’s momentary distraction, slipped past him and began to run towards the end of the alleyway.

The Dark Man took one look at the heart in my hand and evidently decided to beat a hasty retreat. One second he was there, the next he was gone, leaving nothing behind but an almost subliminal impression of a patch of darkness folding in on itself.

There was no chance of surreptitiously following the girl now. I’d have to make myself known to her, see if she was willing to talk to me. Since darting past the Dark Man she’d widened the gap between us. If she had too much of a lead when she reached the end of the alleyway, there was every chance she could lose herself among the bustling Friday night crowd.

Starting to run, I shouted, ‘Hey! Please stop! I just want to talk to you!’

But the girl didn’t stop. If anything, she increased her speed. Swearing, I raced after her, trying to stamp the pins and needles out of my feet and legs.

By the time she reached the end of the alleyway, her dark cloak billowing like a sail, I’d halved the distance between us. The gap at the end of the alley had seemed to widen with each step I’d taken, the light from the street beyond streaming in. I could see now that the girl’s hooded cloak was blue, not black as I’d originally thought. The flickering movement I’d glimpsed earlier resolved itself into people passing to and fro across the alley’s mouth, many of them hunched under umbrellas. As the girl darted into the throng and turned right, I shouted, ‘Please! I only want a quick chat! My name’s Alex Locke!’

Whether it was recognising my name or simply a moment of indecision that caused the girl to pause I’m not sure. Regardless, she stopped directly in the path of a small, chubby man, who was bustling along the pavement, a black umbrella held in front of his face like a shield against the rain. Unable to stop, the man jabbed her with the point of his umbrella, and then barged into her, sending her sprawling. I reached the end of the alleyway just in time to see her fall forward on to her knees, her hands splatting on the wet ground. The impact caused the hood to fly from her head and droop down her back, giving me a glimpse of her chestnut-coloured hair. Then the little man tripped over and almost landed on top of her as he went sprawling too. His umbrella flew from his hand and skidded along the pavement, flipping over on its spiny claws.

‘Good God, can’t you watch where you’re—’ the little man blustered.

But the girl, perhaps mindful of the fact that I was close behind her, had already leaped to her feet, and was now darting into the road.

‘
Stop!
’ I bellowed, though this time it was not because I wanted to speak to her, but because of what I’d seen that she hadn’t. A big green bus had turned the corner into the road and was now hurtling towards her. I took one glimpse of the driver’s white-moustached face, his eyes and mouth open in shock, and then I threw myself into the road, arms outstretched. The horn of the bus blared, but instead of encouraging the girl to hurl herself out of the way, it had the opposite effect. Startled, she stopped and turned – and then froze in the middle of the road, unable to move.

I don’t know whether I screamed something, or whether the girl suddenly became aware of my presence. It all happened so fast that all I knew for sure was that the girl turned and looked me in the eye a split second before my hands rammed into her back, shoving her to safety. She hurtled across the road, fell and rolled, but at least she was safely out of the path of the bus. Still reeling from what I’d seen, I fell too, then tried to clamber immediately to my feet.

But it felt as if I was moving in slow motion. I couldn’t get my limbs to respond as quickly as my brain wanted them to. The blare of the horn filled my world. I glanced up and saw a huge wall of green metal with blazing white eyes glaring at me. I remembered the heart in my pocket. My hand darted for it. Too late!

The bus hit me. There was a horrible bang, a sensation of immense pain exploding through my body, and then I was flying through the air, helpless as a rag doll hurled from a car window.

I don’t remember landing. All I remember is the notion of my broken body stranded on a tiny island with a vast black sea rushing in on all sides. As the black water engulfed the island and closed over my head, I clung to a single image, which burned like a flame in my mind.

The image was that of the girl’s face in the split second when she’d turned to look at me. It was an image that was impossible, that made no sense. She’d been young, sixteen or seventeen, which meant she was a good ten years younger than when I’d first encountered her. Yet there was no doubt who she was. I was one hundred per cent sure.

The girl whose life I’d saved had been Clover.

I’m in the desert again, my hands delving into the sand. Only this time I’m standing to one side and watching myself doing it.

‘Is this a dream?’ I ask.

My other self squints up at me. ‘That’s what I’ve been wondering.’

‘So if we’ve both been wondering the same thing, it can’t be, can it? Because whenever you ask yourself that in a dream, you wake up.’

My other self shrugs. ‘But if it’s not a dream, how do you explain this?’ He nods down at his hands. ‘I don’t know where I am, or when I am, but somehow I know what I’m doing. I’m digging for the heart… no, for its essence. I’m reaching into the core of the planet, so I can pull out the…’

‘Primal stuff,’ I say.

‘Primal stuff, yeah. So that I can form it. Mould it.’

‘Won’t it mould itself?’

‘I don’t know. Will it?’

‘Isn’t that what we always wonder? Whether we came here to create the heart, or whether the heart brought us here to create itself? We wonder whether we started all this, or whether we’re just…’

‘Pawns.’

‘I was going to say “being manipulated”, but pawns will do just as well.’

The other me, his hands now buried up to their elbows, says, ‘What do you last remember?’

I think about it. After a moment, surprised, I say, ‘Nothing. My mind’s a blank. What about you?’

‘Same.’

‘So what does that mean?’

‘Fucked if I know.’

‘Alex?’

The voice comes from just behind my left shoulder. I turn to see who has spoken, and am instantly blinded by the sun. I flinch and close my eyes. The voice, soft and feminine, speaks my name a second time.

Keeping my left eye tightly shut, I try to open just my right one, but even that is too much. The harsh light of the sun pierces my eye like the sting of a parasite, and then burrows deep, making my eyeball ache and throb. I must have groaned with pain, because the woman standing behind me says, ‘Is it too bright? Hold on a minute.’

Next moment the sun is eclipsed by a soothing pall of greyness. As the ache recedes I try again, my eyes tentatively flickering open…

A face loomed in my vision. At first it was meaningless as a child’s drawing – red mouth, two holes for a nose, almond-shaped eyes studded with blue pupils. Then my vision adjusted; the face became more defined. A few seconds later I recognised it.

‘Paula! What are you doing here?’

What was wrong with my voice? I’d been speaking perfectly fine a moment ago, but now it had degenerated into a rusty whisper.

‘I’m here to see you. You’re in hospital. What do you remember?’

I stared at her. Hospital? No, that was before. I’d already done that.

‘You had an accident, Alex,’ she continued. ‘Do you remember anything about it?’

‘Green.’ The colour flashed through my head, and emerged as a croaky whisper before I realised I was going to speak. Immediately more details seeped into my mind: not just green, but a wall of green metal studded with a pair of glaring white eyes. And there was a sound echoing in my memory: a blaring roar. And then the big green monster, it—

‘Ate me,’ I said.

Paula frowned. ‘What?’

No, not ate me, it—

‘Hit me,’ I said. I struggled to concentrate, to make myself understood. ‘The…’ Not monster, but… ‘Bus! It was a bus. It hit me.’

Paula Sherwood nodded encouragingly. ‘That’s right. You were hit by a bus. Your older self brought you here. That was three weeks ago. It’s the end of November, Alex. November 28th 2012.’

I gaped at her. Three weeks! No, I hadn’t been gone for three weeks. It was impossible.

But she was still talking. I tried to concentrate.

‘…in a coma. You had multiple fractures and ruptured organs. But you’re making amazing progress. The doctors can’t understand how quickly you’re healing, but your older self told me it was because of the…’ she floundered, searching for the word.