Craving (8 page)

There had been more spirits to contend with throughout the evening. A young woman who followed me, weeping through the smashed-in remains of her face, and another child. The children were the worst, the hardest to ignore. This little mite, a toddler, kept appearing in my peripheral vision, sucking his thumb and staring at me with wide, frightened eyes. He didn’t speak at all. The silent treatment threatened to crack me, and it was another reason to quit selling for the night. Another excuse to climb on my bike and just ride.

Manchester, like most sprawling cities, had vast areas of new housing, and it was an easy job to break into a not-quite-finished-home and set up my bed. No heating or lighting, but dry and relatively clean. Snug in my sleeping bag, I munched on a burger and fries, washed down with a bottle of water, saving some of it for brushing my teeth. I counted my take for the evening. Not great, but not bad either. I could risk some of it on a poker game. If my luck held, it was an easy way to double my money and keep me off the street. While I lay there and sifted through my options, I put out a mental call for Simeon.

He materialized a short while later, bowed, and waited for me to speak. “Hi, Simeon. Did you manage to find Toni Fitzwarren?”

“No. She is not available.”

Is her diary full?
I held back the sarcastic reply. “Do you mean at the moment? I might be able to contact her later?”

“She is not available.”

I rubbed my face while I contemplated how to respond. Why was Simeon distancing himself like this? It made no sense, and it hurt. I didn’t want him to leave, and I groped for a neutral question.

“Is Ingrid okay?”

“Ingrid fears the darkness.” Yeah, right. We were back to that. I thanked Simeon and watched him blink out. Somewhere over the last few days, things had changed. Simeon had turned into Obi-frigging-Wan Kenobi with his obscure comments. My minor infatuation with Kitten had crashed and burned, and as for Nanette, what the fuck was the matter with her? She was Ash’s girl. Even if they split up, I still wouldn’t be interested in her as anything other than a mate.

If you added in the surge of spirits that had shown themselves to me and the recurring dream about the angel… I shivered and tugged the sleeping bag higher. He was still going on about the darkness. The black angel? Or something more mundane. If selling drugs led to a one-way trip to hell, it was a bit late to stop.

Exhaustion soon took over as one last thought flickered through my brain. Ingrid had grumbled, ‘She scared me,’ right before Kitten had come back to the tower. Was Kitten the catalyst for all this happening?

4.4 Josh

Katherine fiddled with her drink, looking anywhere but at me. She was clearly unhappy, and I felt her reluctance to talk to us, as well as a longing to run away.

Beside me, Suki shifted in her seat and yawned behind her hand. “We’re staying at the Cottons Hotel in Knutsford. If you want to come back with us, I’m sure we can sort out a room for you.”

Gratitude flashed across her eyes, followed by a tentative smile. “I haven’t brought anything with me.”

Suki reached out to Katherine, her fingers resting lightly on the back of her hand. “You look wiped out. If, for whatever reason, you don’t want to go home, come with us. Talk to us some more.
Please
.”

* * * *

Half an hour later, Suki flopped onto the bed in our room, handbag dropping beside her. “Just leave me here,” she mumbled. “Wake me when the movers come.”

We’d booked Katherine into the room next door and arranged to meet in half an hour, after she’d freshened up.

I took the opportunity to sit next to Suki, to finally claim some private time with her. All day I’d shared her with other people. Lawyer. Banker. PR and personal management. Her parents.

Suki’s TV presence, previously huge, was about to explode into the stratosphere with the launch of her new show in a few weeks. I refused to think about how many more demands there’d be on her private life, but at least we’d be living together in my apartment, hidden away on a quiet London street.

She lay face down, curling her arms around the pillows. “I can’t believe she’s going to marry that guy. He’s old enough to be her father.” Her voice was muffled.

I shrugged. Right now I didn’t want to think about Katherine and Dante and whatever complications were about to hit our already messy life. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” I bent over her and began rubbing gentle circles across her shoulders, pressing deep with my thumbs.

“God, that’s divine.” Her skin rippled under my touch. “Did you think about that Reiki training?” Suki had been encouraging me to do some formal training in alternative healing therapies.

“Yeah. There’s a woman in Anglesey who takes students. Jon gave me her number. I’m waiting to hear back from her.”

Suki stretched, luxurious as a cat, and then rolled over. “I think my front needs a massage too, babe.”

“Really?” I pretended to frown as I slipped my hands underneath her silky blouse. Her delicate lacy bra was mere inches away from my fingers when her phone buzzed. “Can’t you ignore it?” I pressed a kiss onto the corner of her mouth. The phone buzzed again.

Suki sighed and rolled her eyes. “Let me check.” I blew out a frustrated breath while she grabbed her phone. I itched to feel her skin against mine, but judging by the concerned look on her face, and the stilted conversation, it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

“That was Grayson. They’re looking for Katherine and saw her leave with us.”

“Great.” I flopped onto my back and draped an arm over my eyes. “Are you going to tell her or am I?”

Suki disappeared to the room next door while I got up and opened a bottle of wine from the mini-bar. I could be very patient, I just had to remember how.

My mind flashed back to Gabriel’s funeral. Suki in mourning, while feeling guilty relief at her freedom. The press had gathered together like vultures waiting for a fresh carcass. There were masses of TV celebrities on Suki’s side and hordes of sportsmen on Gabriel’s. And then there was me. I didn’t want her to be crucified by the media so I’d stood with our friends Jon and Anita, watching as she went through the motions by herself. It had damn near crucified me.

Funny how I’d imagined the simple act of us getting together would make everything okay. It wasn’t quite that easy.

Suki came back minutes later with Katherine in tow. “My, ah, phone was switched off. I’m sorry my father called you. He can be a little overprotective.” She colored under my polite smile and ducked her head. “I’ll call him later.” Her hair looked damp from the shower, and wispy tendrils clung to her temples where it had escaped the tight ponytail.

Suki poured wine and we all settled at the table. Katherine spoke first. “How do you know Dante?”

I sat back and sipped my drink while I decided how much to tell her. “I drove past this house that I knew was empty, and I saw a light downstairs. When I went to investigate, it turned out to be Dante holding a séance by himself. The light I’d seen was candles.” Without thinking, my free hand moved to my Talisman, the fingers running absently across the surface. “He said he was trying to summon Raphael. To summon
me
. In hindsight, I freaked out a bit. At the time, I wound him up and tried to scare him.”

Beside me, Suki slipped her arm around my middle, drawing a smile. She anchored me firmly in the present.

“Anyway. I had to leave in a hurry, so I left him my number and some cash—he asked for a retainer. In return, I asked him to wait a few hours until I could get back, but by the time I did, he’d gone. The number he left was not in service. I didn’t see his Talisman, but it was really dark. We just had a couple of flashlights and candles, so it would have been easy to miss. I was probably wearing a fleece jacket so he wouldn’t have seen mine.”

I stared into my glass for a long moment, remembering Dante’s prediction that I would die in that house. The prospect felt like ice trickling down my spine.

4.5 Dante

I awoke with a start. Every instinct on red alert, I reached for my butterfly knife, my hand creeping silently under the pillowed jacket. There were no unexpected noises, no sirens or anything that should wake me so rapidly. No spirits lurking either, no sign of Simeon or Ingrid. I sat there in the darkened room, my eyes adjusting to the orange glow creeping in from the street lamps outside. Distant traffic noises. The patter of soft rain. Nothing that should have woken me so abruptly. My phone lay quiet with no missed calls or texts. As I lay back down, my heart still pounding, I cursed. I’d been dreaming of Kitten.

When I checked my watch it was only 11:30, and I’d been asleep fifteen minutes. Kitten would still be at her party and in my head, I tried to picture how she’d look. I’d only seen her in jeans so far, but I bet she’d look hot in a skirt. Something short and classy with sheer, black stockings, very high-heeled shoes and a shiny, silky top, one that clung to every delectable curve and begged to be touched. She’d have her hair down, tumbling to her shoulders. The phone lay inches away, taunting me with the idea of calling her.

I tried to rationalize my craving. I had to go back to York in a couple of days, so why didn’t I take Kitten to the car crash site tomorrow? Or, at least, give her the option. If she turned me down, I’d leave it. Unbidden, my fingers pulled up her name from the contacts list and, after another brief hesitation, I dialed her number, bracing myself for the anonymous message service.

When she answered, her voice cautious, I almost dropped the phone in surprise.

“Kitten?” I listened hard. No party sounds, no voices or music. Shit. Was she with someone?

There was a tiny catch in her voice when she replied, sounding equally surprised, “Dante?”

Now that I had her on the phone, I had no idea what to say. The silence stretched between us as I battled with my dumbstruck brain.

Thankfully, she was more alert. “Have you found her? My mum?”

“Ah, no. My guides couldn’t. I wondered, are you free tomorrow?”

A faint rustle came down the line, followed by a muffled emptiness as though she’d covered the receiver to talk to someone. My heart sank. Yep, with a guy. She’d come back now and tell me to sod off.

“Yes, tomorrow would be fine. Are you already in Manchester or do you need to drive up here?”

I let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding. “I’m here. Anytime tomorrow. I can pick you up if you tell me where.”

Her soft chuckle felt like a soothing balm to my nerves. “On your bike? I’ll make my own way, if it’s all the same. Would nine be too early?”

“Nine is good. Where are we going?”

“Salford. If you head toward the M602 motorway, there’s a ruined church by the motorway roundabout with only the spire left. I’ll meet you there.”

F
or someone who normally made swift, sharp decisions as a matter of course, I wavered badly over this one. While I wanted to help Josh understand his possible connection to Dante, I felt incredibly disloyal at the same time. There must have been a good reason for Dante to avoid Josh, yet here I was, preparing to serve him up.

I couldn’t believe it when he’d phoned, just as we were talking about him. Maybe he was psychic in more ways than I thought. Josh had immediately offered to drive me wherever I needed to go if it gave him the chance to talk with Dante again, and I’d accepted.

Too nervous to eat breakfast, I drank strong coffee and stared out of the window at the drizzle. The rain felt appropriate. It’d been raining the day Mum died. Suki appeared with a fresh T-shirt and panties for me from the shop in the lobby, and a loaned fleece from Josh. Finally, we climbed into Josh’s Jeep and headed for Manchester.

I normally avoided
this
route into the city. That’s the great thing about sprawling urban areas—you always had a choice of roads. I hadn’t been to Salford in nearly ten years. At first, I refused to look out of the windows, but gradually, curiosity got the better of me. The housing estate we crawled past looked different than how I remembered, and my spirits lifted. The ancient pub had been renovated, clean gray stonework was now proudly on display. There was an upmarket grocery store and a restaurant—even signs for a casino. Maybe it had all changed?
Maybe,
I could do this?

Memories flooded through my head. Sharon, my perma-blonde best friend and confidante. Her passion for the boys who lived at the end of the street. There was the corner shop where we first bought sweets and comics, before graduating to stealing glossy magazines and cigarettes. The cinema where we slipped in through the side door to watch the films, with the price of admission being a kiss from the guy on the door. What happened to Sharon?

We were early. Josh wanted to be in a good position before Dante turned up so we arrived with fifteen minutes to spare. I’d forgotten you couldn’t just park at the base of the spire. We had to negotiate a densely-packed housing estate before we reached the tiny parking area close by. He nosed the Jeep into position, pointing toward the exit route.

Suki took his hand and then addressed me. “You said Dante was doing something for you. Do you mind if I ask what?”

A choking wave of fear crashed over me. I swallowed hard and blinked, trying to maintain my calm façade. An epic fail. I fumbled at the door handle, scrambled out of the car and leaned against the side, my face turned to the sky. The drizzle cooled my parched skin.

Josh reached me first. “What are you so scared of, Katherine? Are you afraid of Dante?”

“
No
.” I stood there, my face getting steadily wetter, my hair plastering to my head with Josh’s hand on my arm.

“Katherine, whatever it is, please let us help you.”

I struggled to cover my fears with my usual veneer of indifference. “It’s between me and Dante.” I fixed Josh with a haughty stare. “It’s important to me that he doesn’t bail when he sees you. I want you to wait in your car until we finish. I’ll take him there on foot.”

Suki’s eyes darted left and right. “Take him where? This is the Ordsall Estate, one of the roughest in Manchester. Will you be okay?”

“Dante will fit in perfectly.”
I grew up here.

Josh stared at me, a troubled expression in his eyes. “How long will you be? I’m guessing you’ll need a lift home.”

Home
. In a way, I was already there. I just nodded, emotion clogging my throat.

I leaned against the spire while I waited for Dante. The rough stones felt the same now as they always had, and my fingertips traced the brickwork, idly picking out some mortar with my nails. How many times had I played here? How much mortar had I scraped out over the years? The spire was all that remained of a church bombed during World War II. It had become a local curiosity. I heard the motorcycle before I saw it—a rumbling, burbling noise that grew progressively louder.

And there he was.

He killed the engine a yard away from me, the silence startling as he tugged off his black helmet. He’d not shaved. The dark stubble made his eyes look even brighter. “Kitten.” His lips twitched, then broke into a blazing grin.

A million butterflies in my stomach all took off at once. I
could
do this.

5.2 Dante

My first instinct was to wrap my arms around Kitten. She stood huddled against the spire, not bothering to shelter from the rain, and my heart lurched in my chest. Dumping my helmet on the seat, I stepped forward and pulled her into my embrace. Just a fraction of resistance before she slipped her arms around my waist and pressed her damp face into the curve of my neck.

“I’m nervous.”

My arms tightened. “Don’t be. I’ll look after you.”

The embrace was brief. She wriggled free and ran one hand through the hair stuck to her forehead while tugging down her oversized fleece with the other. I looked at her properly. Violet shadows under her eyes suggested she’d not slept much. The giant Abercrombie & Fitch hoodie was clearly borrowed as it swamped her. I pulled in a calming breath. The reason you’d wear your boyfriend’s hoodie first thing on a Sunday, would be if you’d stayed up late with him the night before. I tried to sound casual and not as though my gut cramped at the idea of her with another guy. “Okay, is this the location?”

“No. It’s a short walk from here. Do you want to leave your bike?” she asked.

I shook my head, striving for nonchalance. We already had company in the form of two spirits lurking at a distance and watching our every move. “Nah, I’ll wheel it with us. I don’t want to come back and find her in pieces.”

Kitten pushed her hands deep into her pockets and dropped her head, setting a brisk pace toward the underpass. I wheeled Bonnie alongside, realizing belatedly that I couldn’t see her VW parked here.

“Where’s your car?”

“Huh?” She glanced at me, then away again. “I got a lift here. My, uh, friend is coming back for me later.”

Yeah, her boyfriend
. I aimed a savage kick at a beer can abandoned in the gutter. Why was I getting stressed about this? It wasn’t as though I could ever consider a relationship. Caring for anyone was a swift way to get a fat target painted on their back. And after what happened to Gran? Not going there again.

We walked through another underpass, had a brief respite from the rain and then emerged onto a scruffy road.
Council houses.
They were largely uncared for with huge swathes of colorful graffiti on every flat surface. Potholes in the road, a vandalized bus shelter, and a melted plastic rubbish bin all added to the ambience. I inched closer to Kitten, thinking she must be anxious walking through this wasteland.

She stopped at a junction, a grubby intersection of two ugly streets with no visible redeeming features. Turning to me, she cleared her throat. “This is it. Right here.”

There’d been a steady flow of spirits in the short walk here, and I’d never encountered so many before. Neither Simeon nor Ingrid had made an appearance, and I cursed them silently. The rain appeared to be easing off a little, and I looked around, trying to decide where to position us. “Tell me how it happened, where she was.”

Kitten’s face looked the color of skimmed milk with a handful of freckles standing out in sharp relief. She swayed a little and I moved to her side, to slip my arm around her. “Steady, I’ve got you. We don’t need to link hands while there’s only two of us. Just lean against me.”

“She was driving.” Her whisper was muffled, her face pressed into my chest. “She came round the corner too quickly. She was…shouting at me in the passenger seat. She didn’t see the little boy on the bike until it was too late.”

I hugged her close feeling her pulse racing, her breath uneven.

“She swerved and ran into a van coming the other way.”

My heart lurched at the pain in her voice.

She finished in a rush of whispered speech. “I had to be cut out of the car, and Mum died in the ambulance
right here
. The little boy died too.”

With Kitten securely in my arms, I closed my eyes and began putting out psychic feelers, calling for Antonia Fitzwarren in my head.

A little boy appeared immediately. “I’m Dwight,” he announced in a broad Manchester accent, cocky and resilient. “I come off me bike ‘ere. It was ‘er mam driving.” He gestured towards Kitten. “Stupid bint. It were a new bike, an all.” He gave me a gap-toothed snarl and scratched at a scab on his bare knee.

Other spirits clustered round. Three sullen teenagers and two old women all stared while muttering behind translucent hands. Kitten remained silent as I spoke with them and asked each if they could find Antonia Fitzwarren. One of the women gave me a gummy smile and extended a wispy hand to stroke Kitten’s back. She shivered as though she felt the touch.

“It’s grand to see Katie again, all grown up now.” The woman had a surprisingly strong voice. “She was always a nice kid.” I didn’t have time to ponder how they knew her, as the boy, Dwight, now hopped from one foot to the other, desperate for my attention.

“I’m looking fer me bruvver. Will you ‘elp me find ‘im?”

* * * *

An hour later, with the rain getting heavier by the minute, I had to give up. I tugged the giant A&F hood further over Kitten’s hair, squeezed her tight against me, and apologized. “I’m so sorry, I just can’t find her.” There was another flash in my peripheral vision, another spirit trailing me but refusing to show itself yet. I caught a glimpse of short dark hair. This might be Antonia. “What did she look like, baby?”

“Like me. Same reddish brown hair. She was beautiful though.”

I stared in disbelief. “What are you talking about?” Lack of food, combined with all the mental exertion had left me weak, and I trembled with exhaustion. I raised one hand to gently trace the curve of her cheek and run my knuckles against her chin. “Kitten, you
are
beautiful.”

“You don’t understand. She was so full of life, everything was an adventure. Even when she made bad decisions, she’d just laugh and say she’d do it differently tomorrow.” She gulped, her eyes far away. “She didn’t realize she would run out of tomorrows.”

She shivered, and I guessed how wet and cold she must be. I gritted my teeth and held her close. “Let’s go back, you need to get dry. I’ll come here later, now that I know where it happened.”

We emerged from the second underpass and she paused, squeezing her fingers into my sleeve. “I’m sorry about this. Especially after…well, after today.”

What was she babbling about? She wrapped her arms around my neck, her lips pressing warm against my cheek. “Thank you, Dante. I know you tried.”

The flash of spirit in the corner of my eye caught my attention—and so did the man stepping into our path.

“Fuck me,” I breathed. “It’s you again.”

5.3 Josh

I wanted—
needed—
to know if Dante had a Talisman. And if he did, what it meant. In daylight, the more I looked at his motorcycle and piercings, the less I trusted him. Katherine was right; this scabby excuse for a housing estate suited him perfectly. His eyes, a startling, pale silver, glinted back at me from underneath the long, wet hair plastered to his skull. Katherine was soaked too, and I stepped toward her.

“You’re saturated, honey. Why don’t you go and sit in the car?”

Dante’s eyes screwed up. He squinted to the side and then rubbed his temple. Meanwhile, Katherine clung to him. “I’m staying.” Her tone invited no argument, and I shrugged in response.

“How do you know each other?” Dante’s eyes flicked from Katherine to myself and back again. “
He’s
your boyfriend?” He sounded puzzled rather than angry, and I hastened to put him straight, but Katherine beat me to it.

“No. I only met Josh yesterday.”

He stared at me, the unusual silver eyes hard and uncompromising. “What the fuck’s going on?”

Katherine shivered and then wiped at her face with the sleeve of my hoodie. “He just wants to talk to you, Dante. Nothing else, I promise.” She glanced at me. “You know, I’m really thirsty, can we go somewhere and get coffee?”

* * * *

We ended up at a roadside cafe on the way into the city. I struggled to hold onto my patience as we ordered drinks, and then settled into a quiet booth at the back. Dante took care to sit near the door. He kept glancing out to the street, and I wondered if was he thinking of doing a runner again? One finger rubbed at his forehead, and I caught a glimpse of his wrist. The breath caught in my chest. It
was
a Talisman. Without speaking, I pushed back my sleeve and lay my forearm on the table.