Infixion (Mesmeris Book 2) Page 7

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Okay.’ Art clapped his hands. ‘Let’s see what you can do with a gun.’

  The firing range turned out to be a shed in a field of scrubby grass.

  ‘You said you’d fired one of these, Spicer?’ Art pulled the Glock from his pocket. Same fingertip hold, same leather gloves.

  Spicer so nearly said yes, his heart rate trebled. ‘Shotgun,’ he said. Was that an audible tremor? He hoped not. ‘Imagine they’re much the same.’

  ‘Hardly.’ One side of Art’s lip curled. ‘You make me nervous, Spicer. I don’t like that.’

  ‘Sorry.’ What the hell was he meant to do about it?

  He made a show of finding the Glock unfamiliar, examined it, ran his finger over the trigger. ‘Feels good.’ At last, something that wasn’t a lie. The power held in that lump of plastic was a turn-on. Spicer smiled.

  He resisted the urge to show off, deliberately shot wide of three of the targets – same side each time, drawing nearer to the centre with each go. Bam, bam, bam – three bull’s eyes. He felt the adrenaline rush. ‘Yesss!’ He punched the air.

  ‘You’re a quick learner,’ Art said. ‘Very quick.’

  Ruby improved as the hour went on, but she patently hadn’t handled a gun before.

  Art’s phone rang. ‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘Excellent.’ He smiled, the first time Spicer had seen him look happy. ‘I have to go to London,’ he said, as he slipped his phone into his pocket. ‘So day off for you two tomorrow.’

  Spicer was buzzing, felt happier than he had for a long time. Shooting was something he knew, something he loved. He could forget the rest for now. He knew he should call Jim, keep him updated, but maybe he’d have a few cans, relax.

  On the way back to the car, Ruby leaned towards him.

  ‘Think you’re clever?’

  Spicer sighed.

  ‘This time next week, I’ll tan your arse,’ she said.

  Spicer smiled. She was tough, but beat him at shooting? Never.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE PEARL

  The end of my first month arrived, and Ed invited me along to a pub by the river after work. ‘You’ll be perfectly safe,’ he said, focussing on my forehead. ‘I’ve checked with Jim. He said as long as I keep an eye out . . .’

  The prospect didn’t exactly fill me with joy, but it had to be better than being stuck in that room. Everyone went every Friday, apparently. I got the impression it was virtually compulsory, part of the job.

  The pub looked like an old cottage, right on the river. Oak-beamed, low ceilings, dark wood furniture, and chintzy soft furnishings. I squeezed onto the end of a bench seat by the window.

  Ed was popular. Either that or he had power, because he held court at one end of the bar, surrounded by a group of younger men who laughed too loudly at everything he said.

  Ian bought me a white wine. ‘For surviving a whole month with me,’ he said. Fortunately, there was nowhere for him to sit, so the whiff of body odour only lingered for a second or two.

  Hidden in the corner, I listened to the chatter and laughter. At first, the ‘in’ jokes made me feel excluded, but, after a second glass of wine, I laughed with them, without knowing why. Just being there in London, with life buzzing around me, made me glad to be alive.

  It had been so long since I’d drunk any alcohol – banned after what happened. Maybe they thought it would tip me into insanity, who knows? Ice-cold wine slipped down easily from huge glasses. I answered questions when people asked me anything, but was happiest gazing out of the window at the Thames rushing by. The low, evening sun bathed everything in a warm, apricot glow. Life felt good for the first time in ages.

  By ten o’clock, the bar had filled to bursting point. People jostled each other just to find a space to stand. Ed’s laughter boomed across the room, loud and raucous. People stood over me shouting at each other to be heard above the hubbub.

  The person sitting on my left stood up and wandered off. I stared out of the window at the river. The last rays of the sun lit up the rooftops across the water, cottages all jumbled together. I wondered who lived in them, what their lives were like, if they were anything like mine.

  It felt good to be free, so good.

  Someone sat beside me. A man’s hand placed a new glass of wine in front of me. It was a beautiful hand, I thought, like something out of a renaissance painting.

  ‘Thank you.’ I picked up my drink. It seemed rude not to drink it, even though I’d had enough already. My head was muzzy, and I kept smiling at nothing in particular, at everything.

  He said, ‘I love London, don’t you?’

  I paused, glass half way to my lips. That voice was familiar, but not in a good way. My chest contracted. I stared straight ahead, couldn’t turn, couldn’t even breathe.

  Perhaps it wasn’t Art. Perhaps it was someone with a similar voice. After all, he’d never find me here. Slowly, slowly, I replaced my glass, and turned my head.

  Crap!

  ‘Not pleased to see me?’ he said, with a half-smile.

  I swallowed, shifted my gaze to Ed and his disciples, willed them to look over.

  ‘They’re police,’ I lied, ‘and they’re looking for you.’

  He scoffed. ‘You think they frighten me?’

  Of course he wouldn’t be frightened. Nothing frightened him, unlike me. My chest hurt with painful thumps. I tried to stand.

  He leaned across, made out he was pointing at something on the river.

  I had no choice but to sit back down, trapped between him and the window.

  ‘I’ll scream,’ I said.

  ‘You won’t.’ He was so damned sure of himself. ‘Relax.’ He picked up his drink. ‘You’re perfectly safe.’ The word ‘safe’ was laden with scorn.

  I stared out at the Thames, but saw nothing, all my senses tuned to him, to the warmth of his thigh against mine, to the pressure as his shoulder pushed against me. I tried to ignore him, pretend he wasn’t there. Impossible. I shifted right to the edge of the bench.

  He made a noise in his throat, a low chuckle.

  My lazy, hazy mood vanished, replaced by painful agitation, nerves on alert, alarm bells buzzing. And yet, I had no idea what to do about it, about him.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘how’re things?’

  How’re things, as if he was my mate.

  ‘Fine, thank you.’ Bizarre, polite conversation.

  ‘Thought you might be lonely, bored. You know – safe little life.’

  I risked a quick glance.

  ‘Well?’ His pale, sculpted lips stretched into a smile, opened to reveal a flash of clean, white teeth.

  I swallowed. ‘I do loads of stuff, actually.’

  ‘Really?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I got the impression you were still being mollycoddled.’

  ‘No.’ I couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘Anyway, how would you know?’

  ‘I have contacts.’

  Mesmeris, like Japanese Knotweed, roots running unseen, underground, all over the country.

  He sipped at his drink. ‘Had you down as a bit of an adrenaline junkie.’

  ‘Wrong girl.’

  He leaned close to my ear. ‘You miss it, don’t you?’ His warm breath tickled my neck, made me shiver.

  I pulled away. ‘What?’

  ‘Excitement.’ His blue eyes peered into my soul. ‘You know, the stuff that gets your blood jumping.’

  ‘The stuff that gets you dead.’ I said, but oh God, my blood was jumping. I hadn’t realised how I missed it, that rush.

  He smirked, sat back. ‘Thought so.’

  ‘Just leave me alone.’ Why did it have to sound like a plea, instead of the order I’d meant?

  He blinked, slowly. It was deliberate, hiding then revealing those hypnotic eyes, knowing the effect they had. I knew that, and yet still they caught me. ‘Sure you want me to?’ he said.

  I tore my gaze away. Did I? I didn’t know what I wanted. I wiped the bubbles of condensation from my glass, noticed my hand
shaking. This wasn’t about what I wanted anyway. It was about saving myself, my sanity.

  ‘I’m sure,’ I said.

  He stood, shrugged. ‘Fair enough.’ He downed his drink, put his glass down on the table. ‘Your loss.’ And he disappeared through the mass of people.

  I stared after him. My loss?

  ‘Pearl.’ Ed squeezed his way past a group of lads, his face mottled crimson and grey. ‘Who was that?’ He pointed in Art’s general direction, although he’d long gone.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He wasn’t . . ?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He looked like . . .’

  ‘He wasn’t.’

  Perhaps I should have told him the truth, but Jim would only cart me off home and never let me out again. Better by far to say nothing. It was a coincidence, that’s all, Art being there. It meant nothing.

  Back in my room, I couldn’t settle. I lay on my bed, gazed at the bare walls, the bare ceiling, and tried to channel my thoughts in a good direction, a calm one. I needed to find my balance again, settle the ground under my feet, stop it shifting beneath me.

  Every thought came back to the same thing – how different I’d felt for those few minutes in the pub. I’d been afraid, yes, but at the same time alive, more alive than I’d been for a long time. In comparison, the last days, weeks, months had been an existence, nothing more. I’d been passing time, waiting for . . . what? Jack to come back from the dead? It wasn’t going to happen. What then? Death? Old age?

  Seeing him had unearthed all the stuff I’d buried. He’d ploughed through it, brought it to the surface, and left it there, exposed – the wreckage of my life. And yet I felt strangely unburdened, as if I’d offloaded half my baggage, shared it with him.

  My mind went back to the night he’d come to the vicarage, how crushed and broken he’d looked as he staggered from the study.

  Maybe he was as broken as I was. Maybe we were two of a kind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO SPICER

  ‘Papa wants to meet you,’ Nico said.

  Spicer swallowed. Seeing Pitt’s face on TV was enough to make him puke. He imagined himself throwing up over Pitt’s shiny shoes, wondered how that would go down.

  They met him in the same back room at the gym. Spicer waited with Leo, Nico, and Ruby. The longer they waited, the more edgy Spicer became.

  Everyone jumped to their feet as the door opened.

  Spicer stood too, but more slowly as Art appeared. A weight like a wrecking ball smacked into Spicer’s chest as Pitt came in after him. Spicer lowered his eyes. Hide the hatred, he told himself, and hide it well. You can do this. You must do this. He looked up, smiled.

  Papa’s eyes were on Ruby. He crossed the room, lifted her hand to his lips. ‘Enchanté.’

  ‘Papa.’ Ruby bowed her head.

  ‘This is Spicer,’ Leo said.

  ‘Ah!’

  Spicer shook Pitt’s outstretched hand, struggled not to recoil from the limp, damp handshake.

  Pitt blinked. It reminded Spicer of a frog, the way the lids moved so slowly. ‘Howard Pitt. You may call me Papa. All my children do.’

  Spicer realised he was staring, but couldn’t look away, couldn’t even blink. The surroundings blurred, sounds grew muffled. There was only that face, those two black eyes, and that flaccid hand in his.

  ‘You may let go,’ Papa said, with a sly smile. He looked away.

  Spicer felt dizzy, unsteady.

  ‘Sit,’ Papa said.

  Spicer sat, as did everyone else.

  ‘How did you enjoy your training?’ He had a weird mouth, too. Loose, fleshy lips, glistening – damp, like his handshake.

  Damn it! He’d looked in his eyes. Now he was stuck there again. ‘I . . .’

  ‘Excellent,’ Art said. ‘Best we’ve had.’

  ‘Good.’ Papa smirked. ‘Look at him!’ He shifted his gaze to Art. ‘He’s a good subject, no?’

  Art nodded, smiled.

  Papa loomed over Spicer. ‘You are aware of the persecution of our faith, no?’

  ‘Um . . .’ Spicer felt like a child, small and powerless, and afraid. Did Papa know already, about Jim, about Luke? ‘I . . .’

  ‘Certain people . . .’ Papa widened his eyes, ‘conspire against us. They collude with the police to destroy us. You know that?’

  ‘I . . .’ Spicer nodded. He did know that, knew it damned well.

  ‘They spread lies about us, falsehoods. They preach peace, and yet – and yet, Spicer . . .’ Papa leaned forwards, so his eyes were centimetres from Spicer’s. ‘They seek to wipe us from the face of the earth.’

  It was true, all of it. Spicer nodded again.

  Papa straightened up. ‘But we won’t let them, will we, my children?’

  ‘No, Papa,’ they all chorused.

  Papa moved back, faced them all. His piercing eyes rested on each of them in turn. ‘No,’ he said, ‘because we will persecute them in return. They will not destroy us. You, my children, will destroy them.’ Papa raised his voice. ‘We will rise up and make them afraid.’ His voice resonated, filled the room. ‘Because our power, my power, will triumph.’

  Christ, Spicer thought, the guy’s insane.

  The others stood, punched their fists into the air. ‘Mesmeris,’ they roared.

  Spicer stood, a little late, and half-heartedly raised his fist.

  Papa smiled. ‘You will be part of this, Spicer. Our faith will give you everything you desire. But they will attempt to turn you against me. You must be watchful.’

  ‘Yes, Papa,’ Spicer said.

  ‘They will use anything - anything to lure my children away. Did you know that?’

  Spicer shook his head.

  ‘They tricked one of my children into betraying me, but I will have my revenge.’ Papa turned to Art. ‘We have plans, do we not?’

  ‘We do,’ Art said.

  Papa patted Art on the back. ‘You, my boy, will succeed. I know that.’

  Art bowed his head. ‘Papa.’

  ‘Now I must go.’ Papa glanced from Ruby to Spicer. ‘I will see you both later, when you become true members of our little family.’

  Ruby knelt, bowed her head.

  Spicer hesitated, felt a hand push down on the back of his neck. He knelt and stayed there, eyes lowered, until Papa had left.

  ‘You’ll learn,’ Nico said.

  Art came back into the room. ‘Induction tonight.’

  ‘Yes!’ Ruby raised her fist.

  ‘Tonight?’ Spicer did his best to look happy about it. No time to call Jim. No time to back out.

  ‘We’ll have a sabbat – just a small one. Informal. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I’m not worried,’ Spicer lied.

  Art’s lip twitched.

  Nico took him home, sat on the sofa while Spicer changed.

  ‘What happens at this sabbat?’ Spicer shouted, from the bathroom.

  Nico laughed. ‘You and your questions. You’re like a kid. Wait and see.’

  ‘Right.’ Spicer had trouble buttoning his trousers. His hands shook. His whole body shook. He tried a smile in the mirror. Crap! He sat on the side of the bath, and covered his face with his hands. He had to get a grip. He thought about the tension before a big match, how he coped with that. Deep, slow breathing. He held his hands out in front of him, inhaled, exhaled, until they were still. Only then, did he stand and smile again into the mirror. Better. Not great, but definitely better.

  Nico tied a blindfold over Spicer’s eyes as they reached the car. ‘Don’t want you squealing, now do we?’

  Spicer stretched his mouth into a smile of sorts. He sat in the back.

  ‘All right, mate?’ Leo said.

  ‘Yeah.’ Why was everything ten times scarier when you couldn’t see?

  ‘Drink this.’ Leo pushed a glass bottle into Spicer’s hand.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Drink it,’ Nico said.

  Spicer lifted the bottle to his lips, took a
tentative sip. Sweet, thick, with a bitter aftertaste. Then the bottle was out of his hand, its opening pressed into his mouth. He swallowed, to stop himself drowning.

  ‘There,’ Leo said, once the bottle was empty. ‘Wasn’t so bad, was it?’

  Spicer felt the warmth in his belly spread through his limbs. He tried to fight it, to stay alert, but his head swam. Flashes of intense, bright colours exploded and died like fireworks all around him. Voices grew louder then faded – distorted – deep and slow, then high-pitched and rapid. He covered his ears, clenched his eyes tight shut, but nothing stopped the lights, stopped the noise.

  Cool air hit his face. He fell through space. His knees slammed onto the ground. Gravel tore the skin from the palms of his hands. Laughter echoed around him, came and went in waves. His stomach heaved.

  ‘How much d’you give him, dickhead?’ Nico’s voice.

  Spicer retched, spewed out the sickly-sweet, bitter contents of his stomach. Tears plopped onto the back of his hands.

  Someone caught his elbow, hauled him upright. He toppled backwards, into waiting hands. ‘For Christ’s sake!’ Nico said. ‘Were you trying to kill him?’

  Leo muttered something unintelligible.

  Nico removed the blindfold. ‘Sorry, mate. Let’s get you walking.’

  Spicer stumbled as Nico half-dragged him along what appeared to be a car park. As they staggered back and forth, the flashing lights grew weaker, smaller, until they were just pale flickering colours at the edge of his vision.

  Tree trunks shone in the headlights. The car’s engine died, and there was only darkness. Spicer strained to pick out sky from trees, but everything was matt black. At least the colours had gone. For an instant, Spicer wondered if he’d gone blind, if they’d fed him some kind of moonshine. No matter where he looked, there was nothing, only solid blackness.

  Gradually, the outline of branches appeared, barely discernible against the charcoal night sky.

  ‘Better?’ Nico said, once they had been up and down the car park four times.

  ‘Yeah,’ Spicer said. ‘What was that stuff?’

  ‘Nothing you’d know. Come on. We’re late.’

  It took all Spicer’s concentration to keep his footing as Nico led him down a stony track through trees.