Текст книги "The Weight of Souls"

Автор книги: Bryony Pearce

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The Weight of Souls
by
Bryony Pearce

For my not so ugly sisters, Claire McCarthy, Ros Taylor and Gill Fourie

By hook or by crook you'll be first in this book

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

Edgar Allen Poe, THE RAVEN

1
IT’S COMING TO TAKE YOU AWAY

Dead men take me to the nicest places.

I pulled my hood further over my eyes and glowered at the block of flats. Stained net curtains billowed from otherwise bare windows and, on half the balconies, shirts and greying underwear were hanging out to dry. My bones thrummed with a deep bass that seemed to boom through the tarmac itself; the music actually came through an open window on the ground floor.

It was twilight but the streetlights hadn’t yet lit. Most of them were smashed. On my way through the estate I’d walked through shards of glass like crackling bird bones. The car park was lit by a burning trash can and acrid smoke stung tears from my eyes. I shifted further from the drifting ash without taking my eyes from the third floor flat I was staking out.

The wall in front of me was daubed with graffiti: slogans, gang signs and a portrait of a dark-eyed boy with a date beneath his shoulders. But I wasn’t here for Cayden’s killers; human justice had taken care of them and Cayden ought to be at rest.

I turned my eyes back to the flat I was watching and clenched my fist around the Mark the dead man had pressed onto my hand. It wouldn’t be long now before I could pass it on to his killers. Evening had fallen and, like a pack of wolves, the gang members would be drawn outside by the gibbous moon, ready for my own form of retribution.

“Jesus loves you. It’s not too late to change. Repent.” The wild-haired white man with the sandwich-board was standing on the corner at the other side of the lot. His cries had been providing an urgent counterpoint to the gangsta rap that rattled the concrete slabs of the flats.

“Repent, ye sinners.” He shouted one last time and shook his fist as the door to the flats banged open.

Then he clutched his sandwich board around himself and ran.

As he disappeared round the corner I returned my gaze to the emerging gang.

“You packing, Shawn?” The voice carried across the lot.

“Course, Jay. You said we got planstonight.” A whip-thin gang member opened his jacket to flash a Magnum and I swallowed. This was going to be harder than I’d thought.

I wondered if I had time to wait till tomorrow and do the job in the daylight, but I’d been wearing the dead man's Mark for nearly two weeks already. Mum’s voice blew through my head like the wind.

“ If the touch of a ghost leaves a stain on your skin, you must avenge their death. Track down their killer and transfer the Mark to them, but do it quickly because the Mark is a beacon for the Darkness and if you wear it too long, it may come for you.”

The gang were here now and I didn’t have time to wait. I straightened and started forwards.

The smallest member of the gang spotted me. Suggestively he adjusted the crotch of his baggy jeans. “Hey, look, it’s Lucy Liu, innit? Come for some real man, Lucy Liu?”

He couldn’t have been much older than I was and I had to suppress an explosion of laughter that would probably have killed me.

Heart pounding, I stopped. My toes were inches from the trainers of the oldest gang member, who didn’t look far into his twenties. Jay, they’d called him.

His friends closed around me.

“It's them. The one who killed me has a scar through his right eyebrow.”

The dead man who had been shadowing me drifted forward. I tilted my head meaningfully. Every member of the gang was sporting the double whammy of cap and hood pulled low over their eyes. I couldn’t tell who I was looking for. On a few occasions I’d seen the Darkness actually come for the killers I’d Marked, and I had no intention of sending it after an innocent.

“It was him. The biggest one.” The dead man was murmuring under his breath, as though they’d be able to hear him.

I realised I had been holding my breath and exhaled. Then I held out my hand hoping the gang leader would shake; it was the easiest way of transferring the Mark and most of my victims really did fall for it.

Jay snorted. “Where d’you think you are? Buckingham Palace?”

His crew nudged each other and instead of shaking my hand Jay raised my palm to his lips and kissed it. “There you go, princess.”

The boys to my left whistled and the skinny one to my right massaged his crotch again. I smiled tightly as Jay lifted his head and revealed the black stain that now covered his lips; the Mark that had just doomed him to the Darkness.

I snatched my hand away and stole a glance at the palm. It was clean.

“You need to get out of here.”

I suppressed a groan. Dead men, masters of the obvious.

“So, Lucy Liu, what d'you want with the Streatham Crew?” Jay smiled with his blackened mouth and I shuddered. As the night continued to bleach the world of colour he looked more and more like a wolf who had just lifted its head from a deer’s gut.

I brought up one of my stock tales. “I’m looking for a guy named Dan Brown.”

“Dan Brown.” The one called Shawn squared up. “You think we know someone called,” he raised his voice two or three social classes, “Dan Brown.”

I took a step backwards trying to make it looked natural. “He’s a friend. He ran away from home. Someone said he might have been seen around here and I was told you guys knew everyone, so–”

“Hold up, Shawn.” Jay pushed his cap up to reveal a scar. A weight lifted from my chest. I had Marked the right guy. “We ain’t seen no ‘Dan Brown’. But why don’t you leave your number? If we hear something I can call you.”

I cleared my throat. Leaving my phone number wasn’t a great idea. On the other hand if I didn’t...

“Sure.” I forced my voice into an eager tone, grateful for his help. “Should I programme it into your phone?” I held out my hand and Jay leaned in so close his breath coated my face. My nose filled with the smell of too much aftershave and my eyes went to the Mark that pulsed across his lips. For a moment the gang held its breath then Jay laughed and pulled an iPhone from his pocket.

“Here then, girlie – gimme your number.”

With fingers that felt like sticks I fumbled with the unfamiliar operating system then pinned on a semi-flirtatious smile as I handed the phone back. “I’ve put it under ‘Lucy’.”

Jay nodded and, with his eyes on mine, flicked through his contacts. “Got your number,” he said in a tone that crackled with menace.

“Yeah.” I took a backwards step and a dog howled in the distance. “I’d better go. Thanks.” The crew watched me retreat until I reached a rusted Toyota Corolla boosted up on some bricks. I was steeling myself to turn my back on the pack when quiet dropped like a guillotine and cut the howling dog off mid-note.

I clapped my hands over my ears as the air pressure built. When it came the Darkness brought not only the absence of light, but also of sound. It was as though its deadly arrival bent the rules of our world.

“Something ain’t right, Jay.” Shawn’s voice carried through the quiet as he fiddled with his baseball cap. Suddenly the shadows cast by the smoking trash can started to grow.

Jay spotted the moving Darkness and jumped back but, with startling suddenness, it rose into a looming column and he stumbled.

Like a coward I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to watch, as screams rent the air. They were oddly muffled as if they came from a distant television rather than the five gang members.

Then three loud bangs penetrated the blanket of silence. The one called Shawn was using his gun. I ducked quickly behind the car and left the dead man standing in the centre of the car park, avidly scrutinising the action. Jay started running, inadvertently drawing the Darkness away from his posse.

It seeped across the derelict space like an ink spill, blotting out everything it covered, and its advance was unhurried as though it knew its prey couldn’t escape.

Then my heart thudded. Jay was running towards me.

“Did you do this?” he screamed.

I leaped to my feet, but he caught me in a second. He grabbed my upper arms and swung me round.

“What is it?”

Like acid eating away the world and revealing nothing beneath, the monstrous Darkness inched forwards. I’d never seen it this close before; never taken the risk. “It’s the Darkness,” I whispered. “It’s coming to take you away.”

“Take me where, bitch?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen what happens after.”

“Make it stop.”

I shook my head. “I can’t.”

“What d’you mean can’t?” he snarled. “Crazy bitch. Call. It. Off.”

“I don’t know how,” I whispered.

The Darkness reached us and I was trapped. Then, as if I was standing on a rock, the tide split in two and flowed around my feet. Hypnotised, I turned my head.

Against my back the rise and fall of Jay’s chest halted; he was holding his breath. The Darkness seemed to withdraw for a second, and then it struck. Jay’s nails scrabbled at the fine skin of my throat and I cried out as, with a terrifying jerky speed, Jay was sucked into the Darkness as if he’d never been.

Fear-sweat stuck my hair to my head and my heart hammered so hard I thought my ribs would break. Trembling, I stared into the void.

The Darkness appeared to pulsate, forming a hole from our universe into another, blacker plane. The harder I stared, the less I could see. Inside, lights seemed to flash, but it was just the nerves firing in my straining eyes. There was no sign of Jay, no sign of anything at all. Not for the first time, I wondered what happened to those I’d Marked.

After an age of staring the adrenaline washed out of my limbs and I started to sway. The Darkness hadn’t advanced so I tried a backwards step. When it did not follow I turned and ran.

“Thank you.” The lawyer who’d dragged me into this was behind me once more. When I stopped he leaned under the single working streetlamp. He cast no shadow.

“You’re satisfied? Justice has been done?”

He nodded and his lined face sagged. “I’m sorry I had to involve you. I didn’t realise you’d be so young. I’d have left you alone, but it was hard to track you down and I didn’t know if I’d be able to find someone else with your gift.”

“Whatever. You got your justice. You can go now, can’t you?”

“I can.”

“So go.”

The street light shone between his open fingers and, as I watched, it penetrated the flesh. Gradually the lawyer faded like a photograph left in the sun until there was nothing left but the night breeze.

2
THE GANG’S ALL HERE

Outside the train station two rowdy groups were passing drinks around and getting ready to party. Their noise made me stop in the light puddling beneath a neon sign.

Maybe I should go for the night bus instead.

I grimaced at the bus stop. Streatham Common to Shepherds Bush was three changes and it would take me almost an hour and a half. Shivering, I pulled my jacket closer. It wasn’t that cold, but my sweat was drying in the cool air and my skin was prickling. The idea of slumping into a seat on the over-ground and switching off till Clapham Junction was appealing.

I started towards the station but two steps out of the light I stopped with the shadows pressing against me. She was standing on the edge of the largest group of girls, trying to look like she fitted in.

She almost made it.

The group were dressed for clubbing and, all around her, bare legs protruded from short skirts. The girl’s skirt was short but it was pastel pink, her blouse had little flowers on it and she had a blue cardigan round her waist. She was dressed for a summer picnic, not a night out.

The girl was pretty and she looked sweet; a bit like Hannah. I wanted to believe that she was tagging along with a group that weren’t quite her friends, that there was a good reason she’d got the dress code so wrong.

I took a step towards a BT phone box, leaned against the grey curve of plastic and kept my eyes on her. She leaned towards whoever was speaking and laughed in all the right places. But the other girls together made a single organism, constantly touching or hugging, shoving one another, patting a friend’s hair back into place, adjusting a neckline or shirt. Shewas careful not to come into contact with any of the others and she did no touching of her own.

A final partygoer ran along the street, laughing breathlessly. “I’m late, I’m late, I’m sorry.”

The group milled for one more moment then they all reached in their bags for their Oyster cards and moved into the station, boys and girls merging as they went.

This girl had no bag. That clinched it for me.

I took a step backwards but the dead girl offered no sign that she was aware of my presence and continued to drift with the laughing group towards the turnstiles. It was possible she didn’t know I was there. Sometimes I saw the newly dead… but what she was wearing told me she hadn't died that recently. Maybe she was hanging around a particular person, a sister or best friend, watching over them or something.

I didn’t take my eyes off her.

The last of the group disappeared through the turnstiles. If she was waiting for me she wouldn’t follow them in.

The girl’s shoulders twitched and she hesitated. It was as if she was conflicted about walking through the gate without paying. Then she straightened, stepped away from the turnstile and turned to face me.

Our gazes clashed for a moment. Her face was pathetically full of hope.

I ran.

I knew she was after me. I could hear her light sandals clacking on the pavement.

I pounded past the bus stop, but where was I running to? Hastily I palmed my Oyster card. If I could circle back to the station, I might be able to jump on a train before she caught up.

Each breath already had a sharp edge to it and I had to press a fist into my side as I sprinted for the corner. Ghosts didn’t have to breathe; on foot she’d outlast me.

“You alright, love?” A middle aged man held his arm out, but I barged past.

“Sorry,” I gasped.

Then the growl and hiss of a labouring engine made me raise my head. A double-decker lumbered round the corner glowing like Christmas and it was a Routemaster with an open rear.

A whoop whistled out of me and I hurled myself towards the road. As the bus passed, I reached for the pole, leaped and swung myself on board.

Immediately I turned. The dead girl was only two steps behind. Quickly I lifted my hand out of her reach, but kept contact with the metal pole. She grinned and reached out, already jumping towards me.

As her hand went straight through the metal her eyes widened. So, she was new enough not to have known about that. Or maybe she was just stupid.

She hit the floor with her chest, her feet dragged on the road and she scrabbled desperately, trying to get the rest of her body onto the bus.

I crouched just out of her reach and looked at her in silence.

“Please,” she begged. “I know you can help me.” She stretched out her hand, as though I’d take it.

I watched her without moving until she lost her grip.

“That was dangerous, young lady.”

I turned with my heart in my throat.

It wasn’t another ghost but the bus conductor, glaring at me with rancid disapproval.

“You don’t know the half of it.” I showed him my card and he gestured to an empty seat.

“You should wait at a bus stop, like everyone else. If you’d been run over who’d be blamed?”

I nodded and mumbled apologies as I made my way down the aisle. A quick glance in the mirror at the bottom of the stairs revealed three passengers on the top deck. I wondered about going up to check that they too were among the living, but the conductor frowned at me.

“Sit down, or I’ll have to ask you to get off at the next stop.”

I sighed and compromised by choosing one of the seats in the disabled area, so I couldn’t be pinned in place. Then I slumped onto the chair, crossed my arms, pulled my hood over my hair and leaned my head on the window.

Ten minutes towards Brixton the bus pulled into a crowded stop. My shoulders tensed and I prepared to jump for the exit if I had to.

“Oh Gawd, look who it is.”

The familiar drawl penetrated my eardrums like a dental drill. It was Tamsin Harper, she of the faux US accent, the fake blonde hair and the fluffy angora jumpers.

I blinked. What was shedoing on the night bus in this part of town?

She wasn’t alone.

Great. The gang’s all here. Tamsin, Justin, James, Harley and Pete. Lions and tigers, bitches and bears, oh my.

Tamsin leaned into her boyfriend’s chest, giving him a primo view down the front of her gaping trench coat. His eyes glazed for a moment, then flickered up to meet mine.

For a moment there seemed to be something deeper than the usual disdain in the rich brown of them, and I pictured him as I always secretly saw him, a Victorian poet dumped into the wrong era. Justin was almost, but not quite, too thin; his uniform always clean and pressed, but not like a dork, more like he was too cool to bother to mess with it. Even when he was quietly directing the rest of the gang, he had a sprawling air. He always looked as if he was leaning on something, even if he wasn’t.

For a moment he looked almost pleased to see me. Then his mouth assumed its familiar curl and his long fingers brushed Tamsin’s wrist. “So who picked the 118?” he laughed. “Did you know she’d be here, Petey? You trying to tell us something?” And there it was, tacit permission given to his cronies. I was fair game.

“She who?” Pete’s newly bald head bobbed from the centre of the pack. He’d been laughing with Harley but now he stopped and stared. “What’re you doing here?”

I grit my teeth. “Minding my own business, Petey.”

“Whatever.” Pete gave Justin a nudge. “C'mon, man, pick a seat, I gotta take a load off.”

As Justin steered Tamsin towards the stairs, I relaxed. Then Tamsin glanced back and pursed her lips like an evil kiss. She pulled Justin to a stop. “Actually, I want to sit down here.” She led the way to the back of the bottom deck, watching me over her shoulder; a cat anticipating a cream-filled mouse. She hadn't finished with me yet.

Harley’s voice tore my eyes away from her. “Awright, Chickety China.” He leered at me from beneath his heavily gelled ringlets, shoved past Pete and loped after the loved-up couple.

But when Pete tried to follow him a thick forearm barred the way: James.

Justin led the group and Tamsin was nastiest but James was the most dangerous. I'd fought with him since I caught him pulling the legs off crane flies when we were nine years old. For some reason though, the teachers loved him. With his blond hair and blue eyes, I suppose he appeared to be a good guy.

I exhaled with deliberate calm as my eyes raked the fine hairs on his exposed wrist and stopped on the edge of a tattoo. Despite myself I tilted my head trying to see the whole thing. It looked like a letter “V”.

“New tattoo? You still trying to be cool, Jimbo?” My voice shook slightly, betraying my nerves only to Pete who knew me almost better than anyone else. His eyes widened in a silent warning to back down and take whatever James was planning to dish out. It was the single concession he'd give me. Whatever James did, Pete would fall in line, it was one of the reasons we were no longer close.

But James seemed to ignore my comment. He shifted to address Pete, even as his eyes continued to burn into mine.

“You should stay here with your girlfriend, Petey.”

I glared into James’ dead orbs. His hair caught the orange light, setting his head on fire as he gave Pete a shove. “Why don’t you give her a kiss?”

Pete cannoned into my arm and I jerked as if burned. Pete jumped back just as violently. “Cut it out,” he growled and he rubbed his arm where it had touched me. James just grinned and planted himself in the aisle.

“You're not getting past till you give her a kiss, Petrol Pete.”

A giggle from the back of the bus caught my attention. Tamsin was leaning forward, red lips parted in an excited exclamation. Justin was trying to regain her attention, but to her, it seemed, he no longer existed.

Trapped by my seat Pete avoided my eyes. Invisible red ants crawled over me as I played my part and forced myself to pretend he wasn’t standing there and that we'd never meant anything to each other.

Finally the bus lurched into motion.

“Do it, Pete, I dare you.” Tamsin was laughing out loud now.

“Kiss, kiss,” Harley was chanting. Pete's mahogany skin glowed with mortification.

James sneered. Then I jerked as he caught my hood and yanked it back. One big hand curled around the back of my neck and forced my face up to the light. I tried to reach back and dislodge him, but the seat was in the way. I squirmed, but he started to squeeze and I stopped moving. Beneath James' jock facade simmering violence bubbled and I was in too vulnerable a position to knock off his veneer. So I held myself still, trying not to feel like a pinned bug.

He examined me as I glared, turning my face with pressure on my carotid and in the sensitive dip above my collar bone.

“She's pig ugly, Pete,” James leered. “But I have seen worse. Don't worry, we won't tell anyone at school.” Involuntarily I shuddered and he grinned. He forced me to lift off my seat, pulled my head back and slanted it towards Pete. I clenched my fists, refusing to look at my former friend with anything like pleading.

Dog-like pants moistened my forehead as James leaned in, excited. He narrowed his eyes at Pete. “Do it,” he snapped.

Pete shuffled and glowered downwards as if the situation was my fault. “C'mon, man, let's just sit down.”

“Not till you give her a proper snog.” James shook me. “Loosen her up a bit.”

“It's not going to happen. Let it go.” I spoke through gritted teeth.

Pete tried to edge past again, but James planted his feet and blocked the aisle. “Maybe I should do it, then, what d'you reckon?” He inspected me more closely, moving his face towards mine with slow deliberation.

“Anything that goes near my mouth gets bitten.” I showed my teeth hoping, pointlessly, that Pete would step in before things went too far.

Then James' grip loosened and he looked up. I followed his gaze.

“I think you kids should sit down.” The conductor was fiddling nervously with his belt, but his jaw was set in a firm line.

Immediately James released me and started to slide into the seat behind mine.

“Not there.” The conductor looked at me, then back at my tormentor. “You can sit at the back with the kids you got on with.”

James gave his adults-only smile and reached to pat my shoulder. “Hey, no worries, mate. We're friends from school. Aren't we, China?” His nails dug into my collar bone.

“Actually,” I turned, wide-eyed, “I've never seen them before.”

“Right.” The conductor exhaled. “Look, I'm not having trouble on this bus. Either you move to the back, son, or you get off.” He leaned on the seat opposite. “And I'll be staying right here until the young lady reaches her stop.”

James moved his hand from my seat and leaned back. He stared the conductor out for an uncomfortable minute.

“James, what's taking so long?” Justin's arm was around Tamsin's shoulder and he was stretched out on the back seat, apparently relaxed, but his eyes were steady on us. “We've got stuff to discuss. You're holding us up, man.”

Finally James sucked air between his teeth, a long hiss of displeasure, then he stood. With a final smirk at the conductor he trailed his fingers along the back of my seat. “See you at school, China.” Then he bent to put his mouth against my ear. “You'd have liked it,” he whispered.

The conductor jerked his head and James held his hands up and loped up the bus. Tamsin giggled excitedly as he sat next to her.

Pete followed, with relief in the set of his spine.

The conductor watched until they were settled, then he sat down himself.

“Thanks,” I muttered and he nodded.

Gratefully I huddled into my hoodie, counting down the minutes until I could change buses.

When the Routemaster reached my stop, the conductor waved me off. My shoulder blades itched as the vehicle drew away and I turned. James was standing at the back, watching me. As the bus drew away the streetlights set his eyes on fire. The otherworldly glow pursued me until Justin appeared behind him and tugged him back down.

I shivered and pulled my hoodie close. I couldn't waste any more time on James. I was still an hour from home and there was a city full of the dead to avoid.