Beyond Death (15 page)

‘He doesn’t need my permission.’ Claire knew that she sounded like a truculent child, but felt unable to help herself.

Gabriella glided to her side and took her in her arms. A surge of warmth and energy passed through her, and her uncertainty disappeared. When Gabriella let her go Claire felt as if she had reached a new level of understanding and genuinely wanted Jay to move forward with his life.

‘Something’s changed and I feel more grown up and tolerant.’

Gabriella and Ron smiled at her and Claire resisted the urge to put her hands together in the prayer position and bow to them both. She hadn’t totally grown up then!

Gabriella left shortly after and Ron and Claire decided it was time for more detective work. They knew her brothers would take some convincing to trap the muggers but if their plan worked, they would be able to dangle a carrot that the twins would be unable to resist.

*****

Drew’s screaming woke Mel. She must be having another nightmare thought Mel. Her friend hadn’t been the same since the night she’d gone with Big Ed in the taxi and Mel knew that something sinister had taken place. She also knew that Drew was frightened and she would have to take it easy with her. She got out of bed and walked over to her bed. Drew’s body was thrashing from side to side but she’d stopped screaming. She was moaning now and saying the word no, over and over again. Mel sat on the bed and took hold of the hand with which she was hitting herself.

‘Wake up, Drew. It’s okay. Wake up.’

She opened her eyes. Looking from side to side she immediately sat up. Forgetting where she was for a moment she grabbed her hand back from Mel and hugged herself. All Mel could see was the terror in her friend’s eyes and knew that whatever was going on had to stop.

‘Talk to me, Drew. Please.’

‘I can’t. You don’t know what it’s like.’ She looked around the room, checking if anyone else was awake. ‘If I tell, awful things could happen to me and Alice, or our families.’

‘Is that what Big Ed said to you?’

‘Never mind what he said Mel. You don’t want to get involved, trust me.’ She shuddered. ‘Getting out of the taxi that night was the best thing you could have done.’

‘Tell me what they did to you, Drew, please.’

‘I can’t, Mel. I’m sorry but I just can’t.’ She lay down with her back to Mel and tucked her knees up into her body, trying to make herself as small as possible.

‘I’ll have to help you if you can’t help yourself.’ whispered Mel to her friend’s back.

*****

Since moving Jay’s tablet bottle to stop him overdosing Claire and Ron hadn’t been able to move any other objects, no matter how hard they’d tried. They’d witnessed a few other incidents after seeing the man throw himself under the train on the underground, but had been incapable of offering any physical assistance. Being unable to search through physical detail they pondered how they were going to discover details about Mel’s school to pass to the twins.

‘We may not be able to move stuff,’ said Ron, ‘but that doesn’t stop us from looking.’ Logical thought Claire and she agreed to his suggestion that they should start at her father’s empty flat.

As promised by the twins the flat had been professionally cleaned and everything was sparkling and smelled fresh.

‘Ooh, that’s lovely,’ said Claire and they remained still for a moment, taking in the smell of lavender polish in the living room and citrus in the kitchen.

‘How come we can smell this?’

Here we go again thought Ron as he wondered why he was always expected to know the answers.

‘No idea, but look.’ He pointed to the coffee table where the fastidious cleaner had laid out all of Graham’s mail. There were three separate piles. One for junk, one that looked like personal correspondence. ‘Birthday cards.’ said Claire. And the final pile looked like bill or invoice envelopes.

‘And we’ve struck lucky.’ Claire followed the direction of Ron’s pointing finger to a white envelope with a postage stamp franked on the right-hand side. On the left hand corner of the envelope was a blue crest with the name
Manor Lodge Boarding School for Girls
and an address underneath. Ron lifted his hand and they high-fived each other.

‘Clever man.’

‘I’m not just a pretty face you know.’ He fired a pretend punch in her direction when she screwed up her face at his comment.

‘Shall we go visit?’ Ron nodded and they were off to their new location.

The following morning was spent moving from classroom to classroom to try and identify Claire’s half-sister. It was Ron who eventually found her in the dining room at lunchtime. She was at a table with two girls, heads bent in what looked to be a serious conversation. Her hair was dark blonde and straight but the way she flicked it back was exactly the same as Claire did. He also noticed that she gave the same scathing look if she wasn’t happy or didn’t agree with what was being said. They zoomed in to listen and Ron felt like he was watching a younger version of his dead friend.

‘...But I said to Drew last night that you can’t go on like this,’ Mel was addressing Alice. ‘I know you won’t talk about what happened but I’m not completely stupid you know.’

‘We know you’re not
completely
stupid.’ Alice rolled her eyes in the way that only teenagers could. ‘But you are completely naive if you think we can just grass up Big Ed without any consequences. We’re lucky he doesn’t want to use us any more so get over it.’

‘But what if...’

Alice ignored her remark. ‘When I told him I was going to report him, do you know what he said?’ She had raised her voice and students at the other tables were starting to stare.

‘Keep it down.’ Said Drew and Alice composed herself before continuing in a whisper. She leant forward.

‘He said he would come for me and break my legs. Then he’d go after my family. He told me he knew stuff about my little brother, the school he goes to, his after school activities and how easy it would be for him to have...’ She stumbled over the words and had to gather her wits again, biting her bottom lip before continuing. ‘Big Ed said he could arrange an accident and that it would all be my fault.’

‘But...’

‘No buts, Mel. We can’t do anything about it and like I said, he’s leaving us alone now.’ She smiled showing a confidence and false bravado that she didn’t feel.

‘And what about when he decides to pick on other, maybe younger girls who’ll go through the same as you. Is that what you want?’

Alice pushed her chair away from the table and stood up, leaving her lunch untouched. ‘Come on, Drew.’

‘I can’t save the whole world Mel! I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.’ Alice walked away shoulders hunched like a condemned man walking to the gallows.

Claire and Ron thought she sounded spent and beaten and a lot older than her fifteen or sixteen years. Mel was going to need the support of her brothers whether she asked for it or not and Claire planned to visit them as soon as possible.

Chapter 10

Ken was back on Earth and stood with his eyes closed wondering what lay in store for him this time. He was terrified again and the worse thing was that nobody cared or would do anything to make him feel better. Before opening his eyes he contemplated his human life and realized that he had been a weak and wicked man and now regretted the way he’d treated people. He should have kept in contact with his mother after she’d married her Asian boyfriend but couldn’t help disliking him. It wasn’t his fault that he disliked all foreigners. If only he’d tried to like them and the women he’d bedded he might not be in his current predicament. Not only those that he’d loved or should have loved he corrected himself, but the girls in the taxi some of whose lives he’d helped to put on the road to ruin. He should have refused Big Ed and told the authorities but had been too cowardly and greedy.

He had to stop thinking about his previous life and deal with the immediate situation. He sniffed and there was an overpowering smell of animals and manure. There was also a lot of bird and insect noise and it was unbearably hot. Here we go thought Ken. He opened his eyes and took in the scene around him. He was amongst rolling grassland which was dotted with trees. The air was really dry and he was thirsty and hungry. He looked down at his striped body and realized that this time he’d returned as a zebra. The other zebras around him were grazing and he joined a small group and started eating. It wasn’t the best food he’d ever tasted but he was happy that he’d progressed to mammal. In his tormented little mind he wondered if this meant that eventually he’d be human again and his pain and suffering would be over. The need to quench his thirst prevented any further thoughts and he wondered where their watering hole was. As he looked at the other animals in his group Ken saw their eyes darting around and their heads moving. They were getting skittish and the reason soon became apparent. The pride of lions had closed in stealthily and quietly and were a little way away, but heading in the direction of his group. He looked at the twenty or so other animals that he was with. Ken tried to work out whether he would be able to run faster than any, no, than one of them. I only have to out run one, he thought, and I’ll be able to escape. Then the penny dropped and the truth hit him like a hammer in the face. So this time his fate was to be ripped to pieces and eaten by the king of the jungle. Ken wasn’t prepared to accept the inevitable without a fight. He moved toward the centre of the group and along with the other animals, started walking in the opposite direction of the lions. Their efforts were futile as the lions had them surrounded. The zebras started trotting and this soon turned into a full pelt gallop. Ken was out of breath and struggling to keep up but kept running out of sheer terror, and because his very life depended on it. Using their instinct the lions targeted him even before he fell behind the small herd. He felt one of the females closing in and he doubled his efforts even though he knew he’d had it. As she leapt onto his back, he hoped that his third animal death would be less painful than the other two. He’d seen images of lions killing their prey on television and assumed that his murderer would bite his neck, thereby severing his spinal cord, making him bleed to death by puncturing the jugular vein or even asphyxiating him. None of these methods were particularly appealing but Ken was in for his last surprise of that day and his hopes were in vain. These weren’t ordinary lions. One immobilized him by thrusting its teeth into his neck and another took a bite out of his stomach. He was able to see his entrails hanging out and could do absolutely nothing about it. The male came along and roared, the powerful noise blocking out Ken’s screams. The excruciating pain and sound of being eaten alive by lions was his final memory as a zebra.

Ron and Claire had watched in horror and Gabriella had been looking at their reactions, and not at the demise of Ken.

‘That’s terrible.’ Claire’s face was pulled into a grimace. She’d wanted to look away but felt her eyes being drawn to the scene as if it were a horror movie. Only this time she didn’t have a cushion to hide behind. She’d contemplated hiding behind the sofa until the macabre scene disappeared but had decided against it, believing the others would think her silly. Ron was also grimacing and shaking his head at the same time.

‘Make it stop, Gabriella.’ He pleaded.

Gabriella knew the suffering of souls like Ken was painful for kind, loving souls to watch. She couldn’t intervene while at their current location so swept her arms above the scene to make it disappear.

‘I have something very important to ask you both,’ she turned to face them. ‘Can you forgive him his wicked ways or do you think he deserves more of the same?’

Neither of them would wish that sort of suffering on their mortal enemies and that’s what they told her.

‘Right. I’m going to save his soul. These tasks are never easy and it’s important that you stay here,’ she looked at them each in turn, ‘very important. Disturbance will be caused and sometimes souls can get mixed up in it, and end up going to the wrong place. Do you understand?’

After witnessing Ken’s treatment at the hand of his masters in hell neither of them had any intention of risking that fate. They nodded vigorously and Gabriella deployed her wings and gently flapped each one in turn, as if testing.

‘Until we meet again.’ She said and instead of the usual whoosh followed by her disappearance, she flapped her wings and hovered in the air before flying off at what Claire deemed to be warp factor ten.

On her journey Gabriella dodged the souls that were on their way up to Cherussola, her immediate concern for the one she wanted to save. The Committee gave dispensation to a number of the more experienced angels and if they thought that someone deserved another chance they were willing to review the case.

She arrived at her destination shortly after, warmed up and ready to face the action. She looked around and saw Ken’s soul heading in the direction of one of the devil’s servants. From Ron’s description she recognized the youth who had attacked him when his wife was being mugged. Gabriella was affronted and tried to contain her fury, knowing that she would need her wits about her even to defeat this maggot. She was a grade 5 angel and from her estimation they’d sent a grade 1 or 2 demon. Ken’s soul got closer and closer and the demon noticed that he was in competition for this one. He kicked and punched and she avoided both and ignored his taunts. The demon youth hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to concentrate on catching the soul or to attack the angel. He’d had similar animal experiences to Ken and didn’t want to fail his masters by making the wrong decision. Gabriella took away his choice. A millisecond before Ken reached their location she gave a strong jab that the youth hadn’t expected. The momentum of the hit took him a distance away and she grabbed the soul of Ken. She knew it wouldn’t be long before others pursued her and she took off in the frame of mind that all hell’s servants were following. Had the youth done his job properly this would have been a canny estimation of the truth. Unfortunately for him he hadn’t had the presence of mind to call for help in time to catch the angel, and he hung around for a while, not wanting to go back and face the fury of his many masters.