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A City Of Shadows
By David Dwan
Published by David Dwan
© Copyright 2026 David Dwan
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold
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please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All characters in this book are completely fictitious. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.
Cover art shadows background: Matthew Wardell. Via Shutterstock
CHAPTERS
PROLOGUE
The city was a monster.
Its dwindling population little more than prey for the beast they inhabited. Lost souls trapped within the web of its limits. Each nothing more than living ghosts, haunting the vast urban landscape in search of release.
Some, although their number grew less and less with each passing quiet atrocity the city casually dealt out. Tortured themselves with dreams of escape. Of one day slipping through its clutches to whatever lay beyond. But most knew the one simple truth about their wraith like existence here.
You can never leave the city.
Then there were those rare types who were just passing through. No less drawn to the city, but mercifully not bound by it.
Transients in search of well-hidden energies only a rare few citizens possessed. They did not belong to the city and were glad of it. They could see the place for what it was and would not stay too long for fear they too would be infected by its cancerous malevolence.
And so, armed with this knowledge, unlike its fading residents, they would not be consumed by the beast. But would, in their own way, consume in its stead.
High up on a barren hill, three such tourists stood in silence looking down on the urban labyrinth stretched out below them.
A young woman, perhaps twenty-five, her face too sweet for her surroundings and weary demeanour. With an old SLR stills camera slung around her neck, was standing next to a boy, no more than ten years old. Young face, ancient eyes.
And the final member of this unlikely trio was a massive bald-headed man in his late fifties, who stood a good six feet five tall, and seemingly half that size wide. The sort of man who could snap your spine with a flick of his little finger.
Three shadows set against a slate grey sky. At once a family of sorts, but with a timeless bond that made them so much more.
Here and there, parts of the city below looked like they had been carpet bombed long ago. Others still, looked like they were in desperate need of the same.
The woman brought the camera up to her eye and snapped a picture and wound on the film.
“This is the place,” she said.
The boy nodded and sighed forlornly. A child weighed down by more years than he had lived.
“I’m so tired of this,” he said. Each word a weight.
The woman let the camera hang by the strap around her neck. She smiled and ran a hand through his messy shoulder length jet black hair.
“I know, sweet one,” she said softly. “But this can’t go on forever.”
The boy looked off into the distance, as if seeing his future stretching out endlessly before him.
“And yet it does.”
ONE
The heavy blood red double doors stood out from their surroundings like a freshly opened wound. And that was the idea. A sign above them told the curious everything they needed to know about what lay beyond.
‘What fresh hell is this?’
One of the doors opened and a dishevelled looking man was ushered outside by a sour faced bouncer dressed in a plain black suit.
The man instantly shielded his bloodshot eyes against the meagre late morning sunlight and staggered off down the street without looking back. Perhaps hoping he would forget the place and what he did there, as quickly as the club itself would forget him and his little peccadillos it had so eagerly played out for him.
The bouncer watched him go for a moment, his face set in a look like the retreating man was just so much dog shit on the bottom of his shoe. Then he spat and went back to the insanity inside.
Club ‘what fresh hell?’ as the punters called it, was an old office building now divided into ten private rooms of varying sizes. Each offering a tailor-made experience for the client, which could range from the benign to the downright apocalyptic, depending on your needs and desires for that particular timeslot.
If you had the money, and the imagination, the management promised that anything went. Stopping short of the murder or mutilation of the workforce, of course. (Although don’t tell workers, but even that was under discussion, so watch this space.)
But mutilation by the workforce? You have the cash? Knock yourself out. We don’t judge here.
If the punters knew the place as ‘what fresh hell?’ Then the lost souls who worked there knew it by another shorter, more apt name. ‘Club hell.’
The bouncer trudged back up the steep flight of wooden stairs which led onto a long corridor, lined on either side by five doors. Each of which led into their own private room and the horrors or pleasures that lay beyond. Ten rooms that no one in their right mind would enter.
It was a Tuesday and late morning so only four of the rooms were currently in use. As the bouncer past each one of them, he tried to focus his attention on the room at the very end of the corridor. The manager’s office and sanctuary. The doors were thick, but sometimes not thick enough.
A guy could lose his mind trying to imagine what scenes lay beyond them. Some did.
About halfway down, a waif of a young woman came around the corner and started on down towards him. The bouncer cursed under his breath, he had hoped to make it to the office before she had finished in the changing rooms.
Maggie, all five foot nothing of her padded her way along, her shift over for another day. Head down, hair still wet from the shower they all took before leaving. Always piping hot so they could hopefully scold away the shame, along with the blood, sweat and tears. If only they could wash away the memories along with it.
Her eyes were fixed on the floor, which was a blessing as the bouncer didn’t have to look at the inevitable desolation in them. He smelt a waft of perfume as she approached, her attempt to feel feminine he imagined. Of maybe just human.
She shrunk a little as she passed him, which hit him like a slap in the face, it always did. He had always gone out of his way to be nice to the poor souls that worked here, Maggie chief amongst them. But they only saw him as part of the organisation that kept them here. Which, damn him, he was.
He tried his best to shrug it off as he approached the manager’s office. Then realised, much to his surprise his head was nodding in time to distant music.
Of course, room eight. Evie would be in full flow now, entertaining her clients. The bouncer liked Evie, she was one of the few workers here who still had that fire of defiance behind those crystal-clear blue eyes of hers.
He just hoped working at club hell wouldn’t put that fire out forever.
Evie danced, that’s what she did, and she was good at it. Moving effortlessly in time to the hypnotic, pounding music, her stocking feet sliding alone the plain linoleum covered floor of the low stage.
Today she was dressed in intentionally tatty, gaudy, burlesque lingerie. Her make up was so heavy, it almost gave her the look of a white-faced geisha, but one from a samurai’s nightmare.
She closed her eyes as the small lighting unit kicked into strobe effect. Her shadows bounced and cavorted off the room’s white walls and ceiling like a dozen rag dolls shaken in the teeth of a dozen rabid dogs.
The light splashed the faces for her transfixed audience. Twelve men, none younger than seventy, the oldest, surely in his late eighties, sat bolt upright in their cheap wooden chairs, mesmerised by the way Evie moved.
And although she danced with an undeniable electric eroticism, this was not why they were here, her sensuousness lost on them all. They watched on, but not in lust for young flesh. They gazed at her almost adoringly, like she was the ghost of some long-lost love, returned here in this most unlikely of places. If only for a few brief moments to remind them of better days.
High up in the far corner of the room, a discreet CCTV camera panned to dispassionately take in the show and its audience.
Micky Farnell had been the manager of club fresh hell for nearly eighteen months and in all that time, sat as he was now, at his desk in front of the bank of monitors which took in each of the ten rooms delights, he had seen it all. So much so that there was little that surprised him anymore.
Dead that his soul was now after all this time and deviance.
Evie, however. He looked at the monitor covering her room, perplexed. There was no doubt she was a beauty, the way her lithe body moved was hypnotic and hot as hell. She had a kid, he remembered, but you wouldn’t have known that from the way she looked.
“I can’t believe that’s all she does?” He said.
The bouncer who was now perched on a pile of boxes housing all manner of stolen goods nodded.
“Yeah, twelve of them, twice a month. They just wanna watch Evie dance. Nothing else.” He motioned to the other monitors with a grimace. “Not like those other freaks.”
“Hey, don’t knock ‘em. Those freaks pay your wages.”
“This is true,” the bouncer acknowledged. “Well, at least these old guys are low maintenance. They just watch, pay then fuck off. And you don’t need to clean up after them.”
He shuddered theatrically, which won a knowing nod from Micky.
Micky folded his arms and watched the show. There was something obscene about the purity of it all that he found fascinating.
After taking a much-needed sip of water, Evie reapplied her blood red lipstick and waited by the door for the final part of the show. The dancing was easy, she could lose herself in the music and imagine she was alone. But this part, although benign enough, always left her feeling melancholy.
She watched as each of the men gathered up their coats and formed an orderly queue. Then as each man approached, they gave Evie an envelope with her fee inside, and in return she took a napkin, kissed it so her lips were perfectly imprinted on the paper, then handed it to them.
None ever made eye contact with her during the ritual, for which she was always grateful. They just handed over the cash, took their souvenir and silently left.
She took the final man’s envelope and kissed the napkin. As she moved to hand it to him, out of nowhere he suddenly grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it. There was nothing threatening in the gesture and Evie was more surprised than anything.
The old man drew in a sharp, shocked intake of breath, clearly as surprised as Evie at the action. He glanced nervously at the CCTV camera then rushed out of the room without a word.
Evie looked down at her hand, she was still holding the napkin, and it broke her heart a little.
TWO
Micky Farnell watched the monitor which covered the back hallway as Evie came out of the changing room, her shoulder length hair still wet from the shower. She was dressed in her ‘civvies,’ a plain white t-shirt, black leather biker’s jacket and jeans. And not for the first time he lamented the lack of cameras in the changing rooms and showers. All that naked flesh on display going to waste. It was a damn shame.
The door to his office opened and Evie came inside. The bouncer, who had now pulled up a folding chair up to the boxes and was playing cards with himself gave her a nod as she entered, which Evie returned.
Not one for casual conversations, Evie stood in front of Micky’s desk and counted out his cut of the cash, which she then tossed down in front of him.
“Nicely, nicely, Evie love. Easy money, eh?” he said.
She didn’t respond or even acknowledge him which was par for the course with her. She pocketed the rest of her earnings and turned to leave.
“Evie, wait,” Micky said jumping up from his chair and coming around the desk.
He could see her shoulders sink slightly, she knew what was coming. It was their weekly verbal sparring match. The result would always be the same, but it wouldn’t stop Farnell from playing his part all the same. Who knew? Maybe one day her circumstances would change for the worse. Desperation was a big motivator in his experience.
“Evie!”
She turned and threw him a look like white hot daggers.
“Save it Micky,” her voice was like stone.
“C’mon,” he coaxed and moved over to where she was standing. She tensed as he drew near, and he saw her fists clench.
“Just hear me out,” he said. “It’s just that you could be earning so much more here. Christ you could be our top attraction.”
She gave him a look somewhere between distain and pity. This melted into anger as he deliberately looked her up and down like a predator eyeing up a wounded animal.
“Evie, if you’d only open up a bit,” he leered.
Subtlety had never been Micky Farnell’s strong suit, especially when it came to woman and money. Which were one and the same to him anyway.
“You mean, you could earn a lot more,” she fair hissed. “No means fuck off, Michael!”
She turned to leave but Micky moved swiftly between her and the open doorway. Evie stood her ground, not the least bit intimidated by the display. The bouncer put down his cards but remained seated.
Micky took a step towards her, and if he was hoping for her to back off, he was sorely disappointed. She merely raised an eyebrow in response. Really?
“Do you want a kick in the balls?” It was an invitation and a threat all at once.
“There’s some who would pay good money for that around here,” the bouncer said trying to lighten the mood, and Evie smiled despite herself.
“Say,” Micky said. “How old is that kid of yours? Maybe she would like to join the family business...”
He barely finished the ill-conceived sentence when Evie had a knife at his throat and slammed him against the door frame with surprising strength.
“Christ Evie! I was just kidding,” he blurted out.
She leant in, teeth bared like something feral. “Is there anything in all the time you have known me,” she asked through gritted teeth. “That makes you think I would find that fucking funny?”
Micky tried to speak, but the blade at his throat robbed him of his voice.
Evie didn’t move for what seemed like forever, then she pushed him aside and stormed out of the office and away, making sure she clipped him hard with her shoulder as she did so.
Micky swallowed hard and lightly touched his neck where the blade had been. His fingers came away with a thin smear of blood.
“Fucking hell,” he uttered weakly, then turned to the bouncer who had returned to his game.
“And where the fuck were you?” He yelled a little too shrilly. “It’s literally your job to stop shit like that happening to me!”
The bouncer looked through the cards in his hands and after a moment placed one down on the box in front of him.
“Hey, you’re the one that mentioned her kid,” he said without looking up. “I think she’s like five or six? That shit’s on you.”
Micky exhaled and gingerly touched his neck again. He thought about that for a moment. Fair enough.
As Evie walked through near deserted streets, she noticed her breath ghosting in front of her as she exhaled. She glanced at the grey sky, the dull sun was beginning its descent into the west. This was a signal for any right-minded soul to head home. The last thing you wanted was to be out in the city after dark.
Her surroundings began to gradually change as she walked. Shifting from the normal urban decay of the city centre to something a little more ‘ordered’. Subtle at first, broken or boarded up windows gave way to those with glass intact, even clean in some cases. Although even here that was as rare as the sun actually managing to force its way through the ever-present heavy clouds.
This small oasis of serenity never failed to lift Evie’s mood. It was a forlorn dream of suburbia, one that was sure to fail in the end, as the city’s inevitable decay infected its bricks and mortar before moving on to the hopes and dreams of those defiant souls inside.
Still, Evie thought brightly as she took in the area, that was not today, and that was good enough for now.
She stopped by the gate of one of the more colourful houses. Its small garden awash with brightly coloured plastic flowers and bushes. Many she and her daughter, Milly had helped the owner plant themselves. She smiled seeing two rows of freshly ‘planted’ daisies that ran either side of the short garden path. Today’s project no doubt.
Evie opened the bright yellow gate and made her way down the path to the front door. She raised her hand to knock, but the door burst open and Milly, a blur of over-excitement and pigtails flew into her arms.
“Mum!” The seven-year-old squealed in delight.
Evie gasped at the vice-like grip, God it felt good, and she gently squeezed her daughter back.
“Hey! Hey! Milly monster. You been good?” She asked and let Milly slip back down.
Milly’s child minder, Kate, ever the picture of a maternal grandmother, even though she couldn’t have been more than fifty, appeared in the doorway and smiled down at the girl.
“As gold, as always,” she said and smoothed Milly’s hair. “Must be adopted.”
“My money’s on aliens,” Evie replied.
Kate nodded in agreement and handed her Milly’s backpack.
“Thanks,” Evie said and pulled out a wad of notes from her jacket pocket. She sorted the right bills and handed them to Kate, who looked at them like she was offering her crack.
“What? I’m getting paid now?” She said in mock surprise.
“Well, if you don’t want it...”
Evie moved to re-pocket the money, but Kate snatched it out of her hand.
“Sorry it’s late,” Evie said.
“You sure you can afford this?” Kate asked with genuine concern.
“Just been paid.”
“And what is it you do again?”
“Rocket scientist,” Evie replied with a grin and ushered Milly towards the gate and followed after her. “Thanks, Kate. Same time tomorrow?”
“Sure. See you Milly.”
“Bye,” Milly gave her a wave and opened the gate.
Milly hummed absently to herself as they walked hand in hand back down the street.
“You have a nice day, Milly monster?”
“Uhuh. Mum, do you think we will see Nixon later?”
Arh, the man, the myth, Evie thought to herself. Milly loved Evie’s close if maddening friend, Nixon. Probably due to the fact they both had the same IQ. No, to be fair Milly was already out stretching him on that front. Nixon, he was a terrible, if harmless, influence on the child.
“Maybe,” she said after a moment. “You know Nix, he’s never far away.”
“Hope so, he’s funny.”
“Hilarious,” Evie replied, rolling her eyes.
Milly caught the motion and mimicked it perfectly.
“Hilarious.”
They both laughed and Evie playfully flicked one of Milly’s pigtails.
Still, as she thought of Nixon her mood soured a little. By rights, and although she loved him like a brother, he should have shown up dead in a ditch years ago. The guy had a remarkable talent for getting himself into life threatening situations, only to come out the other end with all his body parts intact and smelling of roses.
But she knew, deep down, it was only a matter of time before he really pissed off the wrong people and then he would just disappear like so many others before him. Never to come to her flat again to see them anymore. To amuse Milly and drive Evie crazy with frustration.
People like Nixon just dropped off the face of the earth eventually. Casualties of the never-ending war with the city and the all too human monsters that dwelt within. She offered up a silent prayer. Don’t die dickhead.
THREE
Although he was pretty sure he wasn’t dead yet. Nixon was in the middle, (or hopefully near the end,) of a savage beating. The fact he deserved it, did little to lessen the pain. He saw the next punch coming through pain blurred eyes, but too late to dodge it, so all he could do was screw them shut and take the blow.
The punch, when it came, hit him hard on the jaw and he stumbled backwards until he hit the boarded-up window of the derelict shop front to his rear. His heels slipped on the rubble under his feet, and he slip down onto his arse with a grunt.
“Fuck!” He cursed, tasting blood.
The blurry grey bulk looming over him let out a curse of its own. “Bollocks!”
His attacker took a step back clutching his right hand and his sweaty beet red face came back into focus. Cook. No one knew his first name or even if he had one. Was a massive rabid dog of a man especially, like now, when he was riled up. Nix had heard such horror stories about the man and what he was capable of. It was the stuff of nightmares, even around here.
His thinning hair was plastered to his scalp with sweat from the exertion of kicking the shit out of Nix. He was slightly stooped over, his ill-fitting suit jacket was riding up at the back and shoulders which gave him the appearance of a primate from hell.
He flexed his punching hand and winced in pain. “Christ! I swear your head is all bone,” he complained. “Which explains a lot.”
“Well, you could stop hitting me,” Nix offered, which earned him a kick in the ribs.
“Sorry, sorry,” Nix said and gingerly hugged his sides and was rewarded with half a hundred needles sticking into him. He bit back a cry.
Cook paused, breathing hard and bent forwards, resting his hands on his thighs. Sweat was pouring down his face, dripping off the end of his long since broken nose. He looked like someone had thrown a glass of water into his face. Which would have been suicide Nix couldn’t help but muse.
Thankful for the respite, Nix looked past Cook and over to the far side of the road beyond the burnt-out shop front. The young woman who was leant casually against a car, watched the violence with her arms folded and a look of naked anger on her pretty if hardened face. A beating he could take, but that look on her face was like a knife to the heart.
“Alex... I’m sorry,” he called out, but her expression didn’t change.
And at that moment, Nix knew if Cook just flat out shot him in the head right then and there, she wouldn’t so much as flinch, let alone shed a tear. And what hurt more than anything was the fact he couldn’t blame her.
Cook stood upright and straitened his suit and adjusted his ridiculous pencil thin tie.
“You know, by rights,” he said breathlessly. “I should just fucking kneecap you right here. Or better still, put a bullet in your brainpan and have done with it.”
“I know,” Nix replied and stared at his feet stretched out on the ground in front of him.
“But let’s just say, I believe in second chances. Or fifth ones in your case.”
Nix nodded sheepishly, perhaps he wasn’t going to get beaten to death this evening after all.
“Or maybe,” Cook continued, taking a step towards the prone man, and jabbed a finger at him. “I should let Alex loose on you. After all she was the one dumb enough to okay the extra time for you to pay. Which then of course you didn’t anyway.”
“Yeah,” was all Nix could muster. He reluctantly looked back across to Alex and smiled. She just shot back daggers.
Cook took out a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed his face. He exhaled then suddenly took a step forward so that he was once again looming over Nix, who winced in anticipation of more blows.
“It’s alright sunshine, the beating’s over.”
The large man studied Nixon like he was a curiosity from the museum of stupidity.
“You owe all this money,” he added with what sounded like genuine disbelief. “Which you clearly can’t pay back. And yet you don’t get the fuck outta town.”
“You can’t leave the city, Cooky,” Nixon said, his voice weak. “Everybody knows that.”
A look of distain crossed Cook’s leather skinned face.
“Whatever.” Cook nodded back to Alex. “So, you and Alex went to school together?”
“Yeah,” Nix replied with a nod that made his head swim.
“We’ve known each other since we were five.”
“Five, eh? And now she’s in a world of shit, because she was the one dumb enough to let you have the extra two weeks to pay back the debt. Flat out guaranteed it, if memory serves.”
All Nix could do was let his swollen head drop. He’d never had much time for remorse in his life, such a useless emotion. Yet, he felt it now. It was fine when he was gambling with his own neck, but his oldest friend’s?
“Do you think that’s fair?” Cook asked.
“No,” Nix replied without looking up.
“What you need to remember, is that poor Alex over there, has been at a disadvantage from day one. People think you can’t have females in this line of work, because they think they are too soft. So, she has to work twice as hard to be taken seriously.”
It had been quite the shock to everyone when Alex had chosen to join Cook’s crew. And Nix knew the truth of what that meant in this game for a woman, no matter how capable. Alex herself had told him the same. But she had taken that as a challenge, relished it almost. That was so Alex, Nix had to admit.
“But I know, ‘cos I’ve seen it first hand,” Cook continued. “That it actually makes her twice as fucking cruel to compensate for all the sexism.”
“She always was very competitive, even at school,” Nix replied. “Y’know, in sports and shit?”
He looked up and gave the man a bloody grin but got a scowl of contempt back.
“She’s your friend,” Cook stated plainly.
Nix nodded.
“Yet when she goes against her better judgement, fully knowing the consequences, as do you, and helps you out. You throw it right back in her face.”
“I know, I know...”
“What did you do, bust her cherry at school?”
“Hey, c’mon man,” Nix protested. “That’s disrespectful.”
He instantly regretted his ill judge chivalry when Cook kicked him hard on the shoulder. Then the big man rested his foot on Nix’s chest.
“No, what’s disrespectful,” Cook said and applied just enough pressure to make it harder for Nix to breath. “Is borrowing money you have no intention of paying back. Then getting your old school friend into the shit when she foolishly vouches for you.”
He pushed himself away with his foot, making Nix gasp, then turned to Alex by the car. “Alexandra! Get over here.”
“She hates being called that,” Nix said weakly, but no one cared.
Alex pushed herself off the car and stroud over the short expanse of waste ground towards them. Her eyes thin slits of red rage fixed on Nix as she approached. She stopped by Cook, just within kicking distance of the battered and bloody man.
Then out of nowhere, Cook spun around with surprising speed and slapped Alex hard across the face. She staggered slightly and clenched her jaw against the pain. Tears welled but she held them back and took the blow without complaint.
Nix gasped and touched his own bruised cheek. “Alex...”
He had seen pretty much every emotion on her face over the years, but never so much hate, and never directed so nakedly at him.
“See how this works Nixon?” Cook said. “Alex was dumb enough to vouch for you, so this is what happens.”
Nix felt his own tears come but couldn’t stop them from streaming down his grimy cheeks. He began to shake, that blow hurt more than anything Cook could dish out to him. He tasted bile at the back of his throat.
“Alex,” he croaked. Alex, Christ I’m so sorry...” But she just glared at him.
“Alex,” Cook said. “Kick this eunuch very hard and let’s fuck off.” With this he turned and headed off back to the waiting car.
Alex moved to strike, and Nix flinched, awaiting the blow he deserved. But a flash of doubt crossed Alex’s hard-set face. She shook her head slightly and seemed to snap out of her rage a little.
She hissed through her teeth in frustration and then ran her fingers through her short, spiky black hair. The way she always did when she was exasperated.
“Alex...”
“Save it!” She snapped. “They are gonna kneecap you if you don’t pay this time. And Christ only knows what they’ll do to me.”
Her face softened despite herself as she looked down at the wretch. It seemed she was always either picking Nixon up or stopping someone from knocking him down.
He smiled up at her, that same naughty schoolboy grin, his default setting in situations like this. And damn her, it usually melted her anger, always had. But this time she was surprised to feel something akin to hate. She tried to shake it off, and although it did lessen slightly, it was still there, waiting to resurface when she least expected it.
“You fuckwit,” was all she could say.
“Hey, Alex, c’mon, you know me,” he replied with his usual charm. “Lots of irons, lots of fires.”
The smile slipped right off his face as her expression set hard once more. She leant in as menacingly as only a betrayed old friend could.
“Don’t make me look like a cunt, Nixon,” she said, each word razor edged.
Shocked, Nix moved to speak but Alex spun on her heel and strode off to the car. Seeing this, Cook got into the driver’s side and opened the passenger’s door before she even reached it.
“D... Don’t worry, Alex,” Nix shouted after her. “I won’t make you look like no C-word. Promise.”
She got in the car without looking back. Nix absently rubbed his right knee as if in anticipation of a bullet.
After she got in, Cook pulled the car away and sped off. He glanced at Alex whose cheek was already starting to redden.
“Y’know?” He told her. “That guy is just a chalk outline waiting to happen.”
For the longest time as they drove, Alex just stared out of the windscreen at the approaching night.
“Hit me again and I will fucking castrate you,” she finally said without looking around. She paused, then added. “Boss.”
Cook laughed out loud and gunned the engine. “That a girl.”
FOUR
As night finally drew in, engulfing the city once more, a solitary car prowled its near deserted streets. The low growl of its engine like some one-ton predator on the lookout for any soul foolish enough to be out after dark.
In the belly of the metal beast, three figures sat watching the dimly lit streets bleed one into the other as they cruised through the night.
Tiny, his considerable bulk crammed uncomfortably behind the wheel, scanned the road ahead as he drove. The nickname had raised a smile once, long ago, but now it was simply his name to all who knew him.
Next to him in the passenger seat, the woman, Misha, fiddled with her SLR camera. She screwed on a fast lens and clipped a large flash unit to the top. She aimed the camera out of the side window like a sniper waiting for any target to show itself.
The boy sat in the back, he shifted uncomfortably and winced at a pain in his back. He caught the reflection of Tiny’s concerned eyes looking at him in the rear-view mirror. The boy stuck his tongue out at him and then made great show of turning to look out of the back window. The large man sighed with unease and turned his attention back to the road ahead.
The shambling figure watched his own shadow slither along the ground in front of him as he moved through the long since abandoned and overgrown cemetery. His clothes were dusty and torn in places and any casual observer could have been forgiven for imagining the shape had just clambered out of one of the graves.
He stopped suddenly and took in his surroundings. He swayed slightly as if drunk and looked around as if only just now realising where he had wondered into.
Nixon shook his battered head, and the motion make him stagger slightly. His foot caught an exposed root, and before he could react, he was on his knees in front of a weather worn gravestone like a mourner at the grave of a loved one.
He was so tired and beaten both mentally and physically, that he just wanted to cry. But the floodgates and the release they would bring, as always, refused to open.
So instead, he concentrated through the gloom on the inscription etched on the gravestone. The years had robbed the lettering of their once ornate design, but after a moment they came into some kind of focus.
Harold M. Meadows
Born 1805 died 1831
And under this a quote:
‘Life is but degrees of pain.’
“Jesu Christi,” Nix uttered and touched his jaw. Pain indeed.
Nix was back on his feet and walking now, down one anonymous street and onto the next. Just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. He desperately needed a drink, or preferably something stronger. But that would have to wait, for the time being he knew he just needed to get back onto familiar ground.
He thought of Evie and her flat. Regardless of what misdemeanour or other he had committed over the years, he knew he would always be welcome there. He ran the events of last couple of days through his head, just in case he had done something to Evie to warrant a smack in the mouth when he got there. He couldn’t think of anything, not in the last week or so anyhow.
“Hey!” Someone called out to him.
Nix looked up from his musings to see a car parked at the opposite side of the road from him. A woman leaned out of the open passenger window and brought a camera up to her eye.
A flash went off, blinding him, even at this distance. He cursed and rubbed his eyes. He heard the car pulling away before his night vision kicked in again. And by the time he could see what was going on, the car was at the end of the street.
He could just make out the pale face of a boy peering at him through the back window before it turned a corner and was gone. This fucking place, he thought and trudged on, in search of a friendly face or two.
Nixon tried to put the odd encounter with the car and its photographer behind him as he walked. The sanctuary of Evie’s flat was close, but he had a well-trodden detour to make before he went there.
He turned off the main road and onto a side street with a row of burnt-out buildings down one side. Those on the other side had faired a little better down through the years. Of the five terraced houses, four were empty and boarded up. The middle one, although relatively intact looked like no one in their right minds would live there and most would just walk on by. That was of course the point.
Nix stopped outside the third door. It had a hand painted sign above it which read: Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
He shouldered the heavy re-enforced door without knocking and went inside.
“We’re armed!” A voice said from the gloom as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
“Bollocks,” Nix replied.
The two old men, Milo and Jontie were sitting, as always, in their ratty armchairs around a blazing fire set in an old iron brazier in the middle of the otherwise empty living room.
“Nixon!” Both men greeted him in unison.
“Hey fellas, just a short cut if you don’t mind. Find it best to keep off the streets these days if you know what I mean?”
“Indeed, we do,” Milo replied.
Both men eyed Nixon’s freshly bruised face.
“Playing rough again, Nixon?” Jontie asked.
“You know me.”
Nix walked through the room and over to the doorway leading to the back kitchen, which led out onto a large expanse of waste ground on the way to Evie’s.
When he could, Nix always liked to go this way, he would tell the old blokes it was just easier to go this way than have to walk all the way around the block. But in truth he like to check up on the old bastards from time to time.
Milo and Jontie had seemed ancient even when Nix and the others had been just kids. But they always had a warm welcome and a bite to eat for anyone in need. They were a permanent and much-loved fixture in a sea of uncertainty, and everyone made a point of checking up on them very once in a while. Plus, it was a great place for hide out if needed and no awkward questions asked.
He noted the fire was blazing away nicely and there was a fresh pile of wood stacked up by the wall, which was a good sign.
“Need anything?” Nix asked.
“Nar, we’re good,” Milo told him.
“Off to see Evie pops?” Jontie asked.
“Yeah,”
“Give her our love.”
“Will do.”
Nix turned to leave.
“Nixon,” Milo said with unexpected gravitas.
Nix paused in the doorway but didn’t look back.
“Watch yourself.”
“Hey,” Nix replied lightly, his eyes fixed on the back door. “It can always be worse, right?”
“Oh, it can always be worse,” Milo echoed.
With this Nix left without another word.
The tower block Evie lived in stood against the night sky like the silhouette of a giant tombstone. Nix looked up at the monolith from the large expanse of waste ground it looked down upon. It loomed there like some uncaring deity ready to unleash Armageddon onto those unfortunates who fell under its considerable shadow.
And just like he always did when visiting, Nix counted the number of lights on in the vast array of windows that covered its façade. The last time he had counted thirty in all out of the one hundred flats that had once been crammed to bursting with one hundred plus families and such. Tonight, he counted twenty-five. Five more lost to the ravenous city he thought grimly.
Then he smiled, you could see Evie’s flat, even from here. Situated as it was on the fourth floor and was the only one illuminated with multi-coloured lights. Her defiant ‘fuck you,’ to the banality and hopelessness of her surroundings.
The rest, diminishing as they were lately, were plainly lit in unassuming white. Perhaps these occupants hoped that their presence would go un-noticed and thus, they would be left alone by whatever predators, real or imagined, stalked the city after dark.
Nix trudged up the cold concrete stairwell and cursed his lack of fitness. His battered face throbbed in time with his rapid heartbeat. A constant reminder, if one were needed, of the beating he had taken earlier.
This brought the image of Alex’s crimson cheeked face to his mind’s eye. He cursed his sentimentality and urged it away as he continued his ascent up the cold, foul smelling stairwell. Concentrating on one step at a time.
Once he was finally on Evie’s floor, he navigated the trash strewn landing and made his way through the half open exit door which led out onto the open-air walkway which ran along the front of the flats. As he walked, he glanced over the edge of the waist high wall to his left which was the only thing that stood between the intermittent flat doors on his right and falling to his death.
The pathway between the two was only seven feet wide at most, and he wondered absently just how many high on either drink or drugs or caught up in simple suicidal despair had toppled over the edge and plummeted to their deaths.
He smiled as he looked up ahead. The front of Evie’s flat had a long wooden window box attached under the normally closed metal window shutters. The box was filled with all manner of brightly coloured plastic flowers. Illuminated by a string of multi-coloured lights arranged around the inside of the window frame.
At the door, he peered through the spy hole then with a practiced routine: Kicked the door with the toe of his right foot once, then once with his left. Then knocked rapidly twice with his right hand and twice with his left. Then he repeated the display again only faster.
He was rewarded with a squeal of childish delight from inside.
Milly jumped up from the dining room table where her homework was spread out in front of her.
“Nixon!!” Milly shrieked excitedly.
Evie spun around from the sink in the adjoining kitchenette and playfully flicked a dish cloth in front to her.
“Ah, ah. Homework missy.”
“Okay,” Milly replied and reluctantly plonked herself back down on her chair.
“Good girl,” Evie walked through into a short hallway which connected the flat’s main interior to the front door.
She opened the door and winced at the sight before her.
“Christ, Nix!”
She ushered him inside and locked the door. She turned to get a better look at his battered features under the hall light.
“Jesus,” she gasped.
“Well, I think it makes me look hard.”
She moved to touch his cheek, but he batted her hand away. “Let me guess,” she said. “Cooky.”
Nix gave her a nod and a ‘What ya gonna do?’ shrug.
“Christ, I thought you were going to have another word with Alex?”
“I did,” he replied. “And that word was, ouch!”
He laughed at his own bad joke and was about to go through into the main flat to see Milly, when Evie caught his arm.
“Careful,” he said grinning. “I’ll bruise there.”
“Yeah? Well then, it’ll match your fucking face then, won’t it?” She replied keeping her voice low, mindful of Milly.
“Don’t worry,” Nix said and gently pulled his arm free. “Something’ll show up.”
“Yeah, you, dead in a ditch!”
Nix turned and sniffed the air. “Hey, what’s cooking? I’m starved.”
He sauntered off into the flat and Evie watched him go. She let out a soulful sigh. She loved the little shit, but he was getting just too reckless lately, even for him. Reckless, she noted grimly, to the point of suicidal and it damn near broke her heart.
“Milly monster!!” Nix exclaimed from the other room.
He was leant over Milly’s homework when she came inside.
“Nixon!” Milly said with glee and gave him a hug.
Nix pulled up a chair next to her and looked at the books laid out before them.
“What is it today?” He asked with a grimace. “Rocket science or quantum physics?”
Milly snorted. “It’s maths, silly.”
“Maths?” Nix replied. “Never heard of it.”
This just made her laugh all the more.
Evie watched the pair from the kitchenette, they made quite the double act. The princess and the jester.
“What happened to your face, Nixon?” Milly asked and began doodling on a piece of paper. “Did you fall down again?”
From the mouths of babes, Evie thought sadly. Nix gave her a ‘help me,’ look and she made a face in response. ‘How are you going to lie this time?’
“No,” Nix finally answered. “It’s... It’s make up, you know like Halloween.”
Milly looked up and studied his face. “Mum, can I have a face like Nixon for Halloween?”
“Never,” Evie replied a little too sternly.
Nix raised an eyebrow at this, but she met his gaze firmly. Harsh? Yes, but you couldn’t argue with the sentiment.
“Oh,” Nix said after doodling a little himself for a while. Suddenly remembering Milo and Jontie. “The methuselah twins say hi.”
“How are they? I’ve been meaning to drop in on them.”
“They’re fine, roasting nicely beside that bloody fire of theirs.”
“Good, good, I do worry about those two.”
“Evie, they’ll outlive us all.”
Well, maybe you, Evie wanted to say but stopped herself. Wondering when a joke might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Despite what he had said about being starving, Evie noted that Nix hardly touched his food during dinner. He picked absently at his meal, whilst expertly changing the subject when it got too close to his run in with Cook.
After they had finished, Nix dutifully helped Milly clear the table and put the dishes in the sink, which he filled with water. Milly put the final glass into the water and then made great show of putting in washing up liquid and then thrashing the water about until the sink was near to overflowing with bubbles.
Evie joined them in the kitchenette and opened a cupboard, then took out half a bottle of whisky and two glasses.
“Thanks, Milly,” she said and poured out two generous measures. “Off you go and play in your room for a little bit, okay?”
“Okay, mum,” Milly replied and moved off towards her room. “See ya, Nixon,” she called back over her shoulder as she disappeared into her bedroom.
“In a bit, dog shit,” Nix called after her and was delighted to get a squeal of approval from the young girl.
Evie punched him playfully on the arm. “I will knock you out,” she told him and handed him a glass.
“Cheers,” he took a sip and winced. He gingerly prodded his split lip.
“How long did he give you this time?” Evie asked.
“Ages,” Nix replied with a shrug.
She decided not to push him any further. It was impossible to get him to open up when he was in this kind of mood.
“Anyway,” he said changing the subject. “I hear Micky Farnell is going into porn. Lots of money in porn.”
“You! A porn star?”
“It could happen,” Nix said in mock outrage.
“True, I suppose,” Evie said. “There are some strange, strange fetishes out there.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to sign you up,” Nix teased.
“I draw the line at dancing,” she told him firmly. “At least I can make a little money and still keep a shred of dignity. Christ, you should see the shit that goes on in that club.” She shuddered and took a drink.
“Hey, each to their own, Evie love,” Nix replied. “How someone soothes their tainted soul is their own nightmare.”
She nodded and looked out of the kitchenette window and to the city beyond. In the distance, a house was on fire, par for the course she thought grimly.
“Look at this place,” she said. “Just when you think it can’t get any worse.”
“Oh, it can always get worse,” Nix said, draining his glass.
“I worry about Milly. I need to get her out of here, before this city devours us all.”
“A fine fantasy,” Nix stated plainly.
“I know,” she conceded.
“Maybe more than dancing is looking better by the day?” He asked with a frown.
Evie felt a jolt of horror at this. Maybe it does.
She moved over to the kitchenette window and slammed down the metal shutter. Blocking out the world outside, for a little while at least.
FIVE
The whole fucking house smelt of damp. Its walls were a mass of cracked and flacking plaster. The furniture, such as it was, had, like the building itself, seen better days. Threadbare and musty.
The air around him was still thick with the dust that had been kicked up when he had removed all the sheets covering the chairs and sofa in the living room, he was now standing in.
On the one hand as a man of his profession, Cook was only too aware of the need for privacy, somewhere you could hole up away from prying eyes. But on the other this place took the biscuit.
The house was the last in the immediate area to be left standing, surrounded as it was by a sea of rubble on all sides, with the vaguest of roads leading up here through the devastation. Christ only knew why this place had been left untouched, but it had. When Cook had first arrived, he had wanted to turn right around, spilling apologises to the client, and suggesting more hospitable locations, but much to his surprise, she had nodded her approval.
Cook stood by the large bay window, looking outside and contemplated his third cigarette as he waited. The client, a woman, who was oddly attractive, yet also had a face you could instantly forget after meeting her. He was, even now, after ten minutes trying to recall her quite neutral features.
The woman had asked to view the property alone and was now gliding from one room to the next, upstairs to see the five bedrooms, downstairs to the kitchen, and had checked the sturdiness of the front and back doors. And was now he guessed, in the cellar, which had been of particular importance to her for some reason. Viewing every inch of the house with all the care of a frugal first-time buyer looking over their dream home.
Well, each to their own he told himself. He could hear her in the hallway now having ascended the stone cellar stairs. Her presence made him uneasy, and that was a feeling he was not used to. But it was there all the same, despite her slight build and the fact she had been pleasant enough. Maybe, he wondered it was due to the fact that she was clearly not the slightest bit intimidated by him. Now that was something he definitely wasn’t used to.
“It’s perfect,” she said from behind him.
He turned to see her standing in the doorway and found that he had to clear his throat before speaking.
“And you’re sure you don’t want to see anything more...” His voice trailed off as she shook her head.
“As I said, our requirements are quite specific. This is just what we need.”
He nodded and despite the coolness of the room, he felt a trickle of sweat run down behind his ear. What the hell was wrong with him? He silently admonished his subconscious unease. The job was simple enough and extremely well paid. Get the out of towners a place to stay and be just a phone call away if they needed anything. They wouldn’t be staying in the city long, she had told him. (Seldom did!)
Easy money. Easy money he repeated in his head like a mantra.
“That will be all, mister Cook,” the woman told him.
“Oh, yeah, right,” Cook replied, realising he had been standing there for God only knew how long, probably staring into space like an idiot.
Get a grip, Cook! Easy money, easy money.
She moved to one side and gestured for him to leave. As they walked through the hallway towards the front door, Cook put the house keys on a small table by the door, not wanting to give them to her directly.
“Don’t worry, mister Cook,” she said as if sensing his unease. “We shouldn’t be too much bother for you.”
“Oh, nothing’s too much bother, miss...” He realised he didn’t know her name.
She just smiled and picked up the keys.
Cook stepped out into the cool morning air and paused half-way down the front steps leading to what could laughably be called a garden path. The woman waited in the open doorway.
“And we can count on your discretion?” She asked.
“Of course,” he replied.
Cook wasn’t a tall man, but he was wide. Yet this woman, despite her elegant frame, seemed to fair fill the doorway. He guessed she must be at least six feet tall.
“Don’t worry,” he continued. And was already feeling better being out in the open air. “I’m very good at keeping my eyes and ears shut.”
“That’s a rare thing these days.”
Cook heard a car door shut behind him and turned to see a massive bald man standing next to the vehicle carrying a young boy, who had one arm around the man’s substantial neck. They both looked at him but didn’t move to approach the house.
“I should be contacting you in a day or so,” the woman said. “To arrange that other matter, we discussed?”
Cook had forgotten about that particular part of the arrangement. A little strange maybe, but easy enough to arrange.
“No problem,” he replied. “Did you have any particular type you’d like to see?”
“No, all types. The more the merrier as they say.”
“Right,” Cook said, a little uneasily he didn’t like being stuck in the middle of this strange trio. “Well, I’ll see you soon.”
He gave her an awkward wave and set off down the path.
“Goodbye, mister Cook.”
As Cook past the odd duo, he smiled but didn’t look at them. But still he had that feeling they were both staring silently at the back of his head as he went. He got into his car, which was parked at the other side of the potholed road and started it up. He glanced back across to the house to see the three of them all standing on the top step staring blankly back at him.
“Fucking weirdos,” he mouthed, hoping they couldn’t lip read.
He gunned the engine and sped away in search of a large drink, regardless of the early hour.
Tiny shifted the boy in his arms and gave Misha a look of concern as they watched the car drive away.
“We can’t do this on our own,” she said and gave him a thin smile. But could still see the doubt in his eyes.
“Strange places require strange people,” she told him. “You know that. Besides, this one is perfect. His heart is as cold and twisted as this city.”
“Is it time to make the call?” The boy asked. His voice thick with fatigue.
“It’s time,” she said and brushed a strand of unruly hair from his pale face.
“What’s the name of this place?” He asked.
“It really doesn’t matter.”
Although Gulbrand Andersson took great pride in the vocation he had inherited from his father. Who had, of course, in turn, inherited it from his own. This stage of the process always filled him with a certain amount of dread.
It was an honour he knew and one he did not take lightly. But as he stood next to the specifically modified coach he would be driving, he could not shift that sense of foreboding as he waited for his very special passenger and team to emerge from the large three story wooden alpine house he was parked out in front of.
He tried to push such feelings aside. The call had come, and that was an end to it.
He walked over to the back of the coach and hit the large black release button, this opened up the back double side doors with an accompanying hiss of hydraulics, and the specially fitted extra-large wheelchair lift was slowly lowered to the ground.
He came back to the front of the coach to wait, stomping his heavy booted feet on the frozen ground to warm them up a little. The temperature gauge in the coach’s cab had read minus five degrees when he had arrived twenty minutes ago. But as the house was situated on a remote hilltop, surrounded by some thirty miles of desolate tundra, Gulbrand Andersson guess outside in the open air, it must be pushing minus fifteen.
He started slightly as the large double garage doors which dominated this side of the house, slowly opened, flooding the driveway with harsh fluorescent light. He straitened, seeing several silhouetted figures moving around inside.
Mrs. Johansson came out of the garage and walked over to Gulbrand and the coach. He smiled and couldn’t help but marvel at the woman. She must have been eighty when he had been a boy, but now that he himself was forty she hadn’t seemed to have aged a day. She looked frail, but he knew appearances could be very deceptive.
She was clutching a cardboard document folder which he knew would contain his instructions for the journey as well as how many passengers he would be taking this time.
As usual, the old woman wasn’t wearing a coat, just that threadbare cardigan she seemed to live in. Gulbrand couldn’t recall ever seeing her without it on in all the many years he had been coming to the house on the hill in the middle of nowhere.
“Good evening, Mrs. J,” he said in greeting as she reached him.
She gave him her customary look of mock outrage at the informal shortening of her name and handed him the file.
“Good evening, mister Andersson. Good to see you,” she nodded to the file. “Everything has been arranged, you will meet the boat tomorrow morning, usual dock for this run. They will get you across without incident.”
“Thanks, will we be gone long?”
“As long as it takes,” she said, sounding like a schoolteacher. “You know that.”
He nodded. Ask a silly question. He looked past her and back over to the house at the sound of gravel crunching under foot, to see Doctor Harding approach carrying a large canvas bag.
The poor man looked fatigued already, Gulbrand thought. Perhaps in anticipation of the trip to come. He had never been able to pinpoint the doctor’s age, sixties perhaps? But he always looked way older than that once they were back on home soil after a run. The medical needs of the patient he would be attending to throughout that time, was for want of a better word. Demanding.
Harding dropped his bag at his feet when he reached them and gave Gulbrand a warm smile.
“Hey, Gul’ are you well?” He asked and extended a thickly gloved hand.
“Yes, doctor, thanks,” he said and shook the doctor’s hand.
“Well, safe journey, Gulbrand,” Mrs. Johansson said.
She nodded to the doctor and walked back over to the house.
The two men watched her totter back inside.
“How old is she?” Gulbrand asked.
“I have no idea,” Harding said and fished out a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. “I’m sure she taught me in kindergarten! Smoke?”
“Oh, thanks,” Gulbrand took one and the doctor lit it before lighting his own.
They both turned at the sound of clanking metal coming from deep within the large garage. The bright interior light flickered as indistinct figures moved within. The two men watched as two of the shapes moved towards the entrance. One was seated in a bulky wheelchair, the other pushing.
The light from behind sent long distorted shadows out before them as they approached.
Gulbrand’s gaze fell to his feet, and he absently kicked at a stone by his boot. The clanking of metal on metal echoed down towards them, caused he knew by the two oxygen tanks attached to each side of the wheelchair. This was accompanied by boots and wheels crunching the gravel, which sounded to Gulbrand like crackling embers of some hell fire close by.
Then came that horrible, desiccated wheezing.
Gulbrand glanced almost involuntarily at the figure in the chair, thankfully still silhouetted, then back to the toes of his boots as the interior lights of the coach threatened to illuminate the patient’s features.
“I can never get used to that,” Gulbrand said softly.
“That is because, my dear Gulbrand,” the doctor replied grimly. “There are some sights no one should ever get used to.”
SIX
As Evie dried her hair and checked her face in the mirror for any remnants of the glitter she had been covered in from her last show. A woman entered the club hell dressing room and sat down next to her.
My life, she thought. She didn’t know what was worse, the fact that the woman was dressed in a shredded wedding dress and covered from head to toe in theatrical blood. Or the fact the sight didn’t faze her at all.
“Rough gig?” Evie joked and began to brush her hair.
“Aren’t they all?” The bloody bride replied whilst checking her lipstick in the mirror.
Evie nodded, she knew all too well. Today’s show had been a tough one. Dancing for harmless lonely old men was one thing, but today’s crowd had been a fucking nightmare, the worse she could remember in a long time.
Twenty drunk and drugged up ‘businessmen’. She could still see their sweaty leering faces, the raw lust in their bloodshot eyes as she danced. Could still hear the rabid cat calls and obscene offers they shouted at her as she performed. Their pawing claw like hands grabbing at her from behind the stage barrier.
She was only glad the bouncer had been there. He had seen the state of them before they had even got into the room and knew it would only get worse once she hit the stage. He had insisted on staying by the door throughout the show. And had, bless him, made sure every fucker in there knew he had a gun in his waistband.
And the theme of the show? Evie had been dressed in a black leotard with thin strips of multi-coloured fluorescent tape zig-zagging across her body and down her arms and legs. Her makeup was also multicoloured, glow in the dark and intentionally haphazardly applied all over her face. The outfit was topped off with two X’s over each nipple and a ton of glitter.
The dressing room door opened and Tom, a thin but ripped young man in his early twenties, breezed into the room. He was dressed as a cowboy, complete with leather chaps and a drawn-on moustache. He was drenched in sweat, having just finished his show.
“Ladies,” he tipped his cowboy hat, then took it off to waft his beet red face. He glanced at the bloody bride. “Hey, Tori, just starting or just finishing?”
“Ha, ha,” Tori deadpanned.
She checked her make up one last time, then rose and headed out the door.
“Knock ‘em dead, kid,” he called after her.
“Always do!” She replied and was gone.
Tom slumped down in the chair next to Evie and grimaced at his exhausted reflection in the mirror.
“Hey, kid,” Evie said.
“Hey, you,” he replied. “Evie, I gotta say I saw your outfit today, it was a fucking knock out, babe.”
“Thanks,” she eyed his outfit and gave a wry smile. “So was yours.”
“It is,” he announced proudly. “You make yours yourself?”
“Yeah.” She studied her face in the mirror for a moment. She sighed at the prematurely old hag looking back. Accentuated no doubt by the harsh lighting in here, but still. She gave a sigh and began putting her things in her sports bag.
“It was stunning,” Tom said eyeing her frown.
“Made me look like a fucking whore.”
“Nonsense!” Tom insisted and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You looked like a sci-fi diva.”
She smiled despite herself. That was a lie she could just about believe.
“Thanks,” she said, but her smile just wouldn’t stick today.
“Hey,” Tom said and nudged her. “Chin up, you’re not doing anything wrong, you know?”
She shrugged at this.
“You’re doing what you need to do,” he told her whilst wafting his face with the hat. “And somehow keeping your integrity intact. Which is a fucking miracle around this place.”
Integrity? Evie thought. That word had no meaning in places like club hell, at least not to her. She suddenly flashed back to those leering, animalistic faces, and what they really wanted from her. She had, she knew, pushed the limit of her performance a little further than perhaps she should have.
And she knew that if she was willing to go even further next time, or give in to total abandonment, even for a week or so, maybe a few month tops. She might be able to earn enough money to get Milly and herself out of the city once and for all. But if she did, what would be left of her?
She looked at her reflected eyes in the mirror, they looked a little haunted these days. But imagine how lifeless they would be if she sold her body and soul to the demon that was club fresh hell, and the city it festered in.
“Jesus,” was all she could say.
Tom got to his feet. “Gotta hit the showers!” He exclaimed as if just remembering his dishevelled state.
He went over to a row of lockers that ran along the back wall of the dressing room and opened his.
“Hey, you seen this?” He asked.
He came back over with a crumpled flyer and handed it to Evie. She straightened it out and read the gaudy red script:
‘Open call to all male and female models, no experience necessary but must be over eighteen. Simply come and have your picture taken and if you are lucky enough to be amongst the chosen few, you will be in with a change to make twenty thousand notes. So, come along to club fresh hell between nine AM and nine PM this Friday for a chance to take part in this unique opportunity.’
“Twenty grand?” Evie uttered and read the flyer again just to make sure.
“I know, right? Worth a look see, wouldn’t you say?”
“Where did you get this from?”
“Micky, he’s been handing them out all day. Surprised he didn’t give you one.”
“Yeah,” Evie agreed. “So am I.”
Micky Farnell yelped in surprise and nearly fell off his chair when Evie burst into his office. “Christ woman!”
Evie stormed over and threw the flyer down on the desk in front of him.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” She demanded.
The manager composed himself somewhat, glanced at the flyer and put his hands up defensively.
“Hey, don’t look at me. Whatever the hell this is? It’s Cooky’s gig not mine. I’m just renting him a room on Friday. So, his client can take pictures or whatever sordid shit it’s for.”
“You know damn well I could use that kind of money!” She took out her earnings for the day.
“Hey!” Micky snapped back. “You of all people have had plenty of opportunity to earn ‘that kind of money,’ before. But you’re too stuck up.”
He eyed Evie as she counted out his share of the cash. He could almost hear her teeth grinding.
“Besides,” he continued. “Just what the hell do you think you would have to do for twenty grand?”
She paused, mid-seethe, she had to admit that was a good question. Then she dismissed the thought and tossed his cut onto the table. She turned to leave, but then snatched up the flyer. She didn’t look back at him as she turned to leave, but she could just imagine the grin on his face.
“Oh, they all fall eventually,” he said smugly. “They all just have different prices, that’s all.”
God, she hated that man so much. And as she reached the door, she threw him a “fuck you!” Over her shoulder.
She was out the door and two steps into the corridor when he shouted after her.
“Stranger things have happened, sweetheart, stranger things have happened.”
SEVEN
Soon the night would come. Its oncoming blackness was already beginning to taint the sky as the day slipped away. It waited patiently on the horizon like some great predator, skulking at the very edge of a campfire. Drawing ever closer as the flames died away.
As no one in their right mind would go out in the city after dark. Some of its more adventurous citizens liked to push this fact as far as they dared, never staying out too long, but just long enough to spark a little fear before night drew in and they would retreat to the relative safely of the brightly lit indoors. But sometimes they had to adapt, and they had to overcome, to squeeze any amount of joy out of their slate grey lives.
The homemade firework fizzed up from the roof of the tall multi-story car park, arced up and out into the dull sky, exploding a moment later in a shower of bright pink power and glitter.
The report of the firework rang out and bounced off the surrounding buildings, followed by a dozen or so voices cheering in response to the meagre display.
The car park had long since been abandoned but was littered here and there with burnt out cars and even a bus, now on its side, which someone had once inexplicably been able to drive up through the car park’s winding eight floors. Perhaps just to watch it burn and eventually explode.
Two scrawny youths, fifteen at most, known as the Hazmat twins, dressed in identical tatty boiler suits, crouched over a crate crammed full of homemade fireworks of various sizes and designs. Each rocket had coloured tape around it to indicate the colour of the powder inside.
The roof was dotted with several small clusters of people. Some dancing to a large boombox which was blasting out distorted but upbeat music. Others just sat around, drinking, smoking and talking in hushed tones. All waiting for the next rocket to launch.
Two figures were laid on the roof of a burnt-out car, looking lazily up into the sky. They passed a bottle of blue liquid between them. One, a man in his early thirties and by far the oldest here, wore a full-length trench coat, which he wrapped around himself. He took a swig of the bitter tasting drink.
“Oooph!” He winced.
People called him Jazz and in fact no one, not even his friends knew his actual name. Just that before the drink and drugs had kicked the shit out of him, Jazz had been an amazingly gifted pianist.
But now, as he so often told people, especially when he was in his cups, he had grown to hate the instrument, which had previously brought him such joy. The music, which had always come so easily to him, now only reminded him of what once was.
Of a time when there had been beauty in the world, beauty which had flowed so effortlessly from his fingertips. And not this day-to-day drudgery punctuated by brief, vivid moments of chaos and violence. Life in the big city.
Another rocket whooshed up and exploded overhead in a shower of bright blue powder. The revellers cheered and the two teen pyromaniacs gave a bow and waved to their public.
Jazz passed the dwindling bottle to the young woman laid next to him. Meg, dressed like a teenage black leather shadow ruffled her short spikey dark hair and brushed frantically at her clothes with her free hand as the blue powder drifted over them. As if fearful of getting any actual colour on her at all.
“Christ!” She snapped and took a drink whilst checking her monochrome look was still intact. “Ooph!” She exclaimed as she swallowed. “That’ll do it for you right there!”
“You’ll be blind before you are out of your teenage years, if you keep drinking that shit,” Jazz told her in a fatherly but good-natured tone.
“Well at least I won’t have to look at your ugly mug anymore,” she teased.
“Harsh.”
She elbowed him gently in the ribs and sniggered. Whoosh! Another rocket exploded someway off. Its multi-coloured payload drifted on a light breeze accompanied by a mass of glitter, which once it was hit by the meagre daylight, filled the air with a kaleidoscope of tumbling colours.
“Beautiful,” Meg breathed, content that the powder and glitter were too far away to infect her look.
The scream of distant hinges, metal on metal, cut through the air. Someone had barged open the rusted fire door which led to the car park’s winding stairway. Another lost soul, no doubt in search of distraction.
Meg, still lost in the wind tossed display, felt Jazz sit up next to her.
“Well, he’s here now!” He announced.
“Now it’s a party!” The newcomer shouted from across the other end of the car park.
Meg didn’t need to sit up herself. Nixon.
“I thought you were dead!” Someone exclaimed.
Nix hadn’t been seen for well over a week, lying low and out of the way of homicidal debt collectors. Rumour had it that he had taken one hell of a beating from Cook.
Meg finally pushed herself up on her elbow and squinted across as he approached.
“He doesn’t look so bad,” she said.
“You should have seen him last week,” Jazz replied.
She could see he still had the remains of some bruising around his eyes, but she could see Nix’s boyish face was largely intact.
Nix smiled warmly as he navigated a group of waifs and strays dancing in his path. He was glad to see Meg and Jazz were here, but not surprised. After all, where else would they be?
He had spent far too long in hiding and it felt good to be out and about once more. Besides, life was too short, and he was far too cunning to stay locked up any longer. And as he walked over to them, it felt damn good to see their friendly faces.
He saluted the pair and held up the plastic bag he was carrying.
“I come bearing gifts,” he said and put the bag on the car’s dinted bonnet.
Both Meg and Jaz jumped down off the roof to join him.
“Oh, I like gifts!” Meg said excitedly, clapping her hands.
“Here we go, Nix said and took out a quarter full bottle of water.
He placed this on the bonnet next to the bag then rummaged in his jeans pocket and took out the main attraction. A small vial of clear liquid.
Liquid Lucifer. Almost impossible to get these days, but Nix had managed to snag the drug from a contact he knew down by the canal. Paid for with the money he was supposed to give to Cook, but the offer had been too good to turn down.
He shook the vial, and it began to glisten with countless minute flecks of multi-coloured crystal. Liquid Lucifer was part hallucinogen, part amphetamine, all trouble.
“Pretty,” Meg cooed.
Nix screwed the top of the water bottle but paused before snapping the neck off the vial.
“Whose hands are the steadiest?” Nix asked.
All three of them held out their hands. Both his and Meg’s were shaking badly, but Jazz’s were as steady as a rock.
“Of, course,” Nix said. “The hands of the maestro never waver.”
He passed the vial to Jazz, who held it gingerly like it was nitro-glycerine. He sucked in a breath and then snapped the neck of the vial then delicately poured the contents into the bottle of water.
The instant the liquid hit the water it turned blood red, the crystals glowed vivid, almost unnatural colours and seemed to flit and spin within the solution like something alive.
Jazz replaced the cap and gave the bottle a shake. Then placed it carefully in the bonnet with almost reverential care. The three friends stood in silence and watched the crystals dance and flutter until they slowly began to fade until only the crimson liquid remained.
“Nearly there,” Jazz whispered, as the very last crystal flared a brilliant blue for a moment then was gone.
“Okay!” Nix exclaimed and clapped his hands together, which broke the awed silence. “Those who partake need to pay.”
Both Jazz and Meg eagerly emptied what cash they had onto the bonnet and Nix picked up the notes and put them straight into his pocket without counting. It was an unwritten rule, they shared and shared alike when it came to such things. The amount was irrelevant, only the gesture mattered.
“Hey,” said Meg. “Shouldn’t you be saving your money to pay back that psycho Cook?”
“Logic dictates that I should,” Nix agreed.
“So, that means you will do the exact opposite?” She replied.
“You know me so well.”
Jazz who had returned to studying the bottle intently, nodded.
“Should be ready now,” he said and offered it to Meg. “Ladies first.”
“Absolutely,” Nix said and snatched the bottle.
He paused for a moment and closed his eyes, suddenly a little nervous. Liquid Lucifer was like nothing else on earth. It could be, depending on the user’s mood, an almost religious experience. But other times a living nightmare, same person, different outcomes, wildly different extremes of each. That was, at least to Nixon, all part of its allure.
The one thing however that you could rely on, was that it was unreliable.
Nix popped off the cap, gave a short sharp breath out and took a long swig.
“Fuck!” He recoiled, spluttering.
It was like swallowing battery acid and for one horrible moment he thought his stomach would revolt and bring the poison straight back up.
“Careful with it!” Meg fair shrieked and took the bottle from him. She took a long drink and passed the bottle to Jazz.
“Fuck! Fuck!” She choaked.
She doubled up gasping and put her hands on her thighs for support.
“Okay there, Meg?” Jazz asked.
She nodded, turning red. “Yeah,” she gasped. “Mother’s fucking milk.”
“Doesn’t get any fucking smoother, does it?” Nix just about managed to get out before he spun around and fell backwards onto the car’s bonnet.
The last thing he saw before the drug kicked in was Jazz taking his drink. And it was just like Jazz who had seen and done it all before, to hardly reacted to the taste, he might have actually smacked his lips in delight.
Fractured images, fractured feelings, flooded Nix’s senses. A million things all at once, no rhyme, no reason to their order or significance. Memory and fantasy all the same in here. Over lapping half remembered things, mingled with idle thoughts and dreams. Until meaning and time were a nonsense. Then here and there, a tantalisingly brief moment of clarity threatened to form in the maelstrom.
The taste of blood in his mouth.
The hate filled look in a friend’s eyes, as she took a blow for him.
He felt something akin to dull grief for a second, but then this too was gone in a heartbeat replaced with some other sensation or thought.
Now he had the feeling of his body not touching the ground, lifted up high above the real world and all of its guilt and fears. Music filtered in through the void and his body was moving and dancing to its hypnotic beat.
An explosion went off overhead, at once a million miles away and yet right in his ringing ears.
He focused in on Meg, she was close by, and they were all dancing in a small crowd to the music. The young woman was spinning with her arms stretched up to the sky. As blue powder, each grain seemingly the size of golf balls rained down on her. No longer caring about her monochrome image.
The bass, heavy in his chest like a heartbeat. Then a sonic boom over head as another firework exploded. Its flash, brighter than any sun stunned his eyes, accompanied by shouts and screams of delight in his over sensitive ears.
The flash suddenly triggered another vision, the flash of a camera lighting up a darkened street, the look of a haunted boy in the back of a passing car.
A gravestone inscription: ‘Life is but degrees of pain.’
Fuck that, his addled brain fought back. Not now it isn’t, no at this exact moment it’s all sweetness and light.
Nix thought that maybe he had screamed; ‘Liquid Lucifer!!’ To the heavens in defiance to whatever heartless deity dwelt there. Or maybe it was just the chorus to a half-remembered song. Either way he didn’t care, it all seemed endless, the sky brighter and more colourful than he had ever seen it before.
He felt like this feeling would go on forever. Alas, it never did.
When Nix came around, his joints screamed in protest at his drug fuelled over exertions as he shifted slightly. His clothes were soaked in sweat, but still he felt great.
The revellers had all retreated into their own little cliques where they quietly dozed or talked in hushed tones. The music was quieter and mellower now as everyone chilled out.
He was sitting on the bonnet of the car, next to a motionless Meg, they both had their back resting against the cracked windscreen. Her eyes as blank as her face staring, seemingly sightlessly to the sky. He noticed red flecks of red on her ashen cheeks.
“Meg?” Fear, that great downer, tried to break through the calm numbness that had settled over him. It failed.
He reached over and touched her cheek, the red smeared was powder, not liquid, of course, from the fireworks. He now noticed that a smattering of glitter sparkled on both of their clothes, she would hate that when she sobered up, he thought impishly.
“It’s going to be dark soon,” Meg whispered as she finally blinked.
“There’s nothing in the dark that isn’t there during the daylight,” he told her, his voice slurring slightly.
“Meg hates the night,” it was Jazz who was laid on the roof of the car behind them.
“You never see her out after the sun goes down,” he continued. “She’s like a reverse vampire.”
This made him giggle like a someone a third his age.
“This city is the devil after dark,” Meg said.
“This city is the devil at any time,” Jazz remained her.
She shrugged in agreement, then seemed to notice the powder and glitter on her clothes. She made a half-hearted attempt to brush it off but gave up after a couple of swipes.
“You know what’s most scary about this city?” Nix asked and put his hands behind his head. “That we all fit right in.”
The three friends laid in silence and contemplated his revelation. Then a wicked thought came to Nix.
“If we were a serial killer,” he asked with ghoulish glee. “What kind would we be?”
Meg squirmed beside him with devilish delight. “Ooh, the sexual deviant kind,” she fair purred.
“Nix shifted a little closer to her.
“I like the sound of that.”
She batted his hand away as he made a faux predatory move towards her. It was a harmless gesture from him with no threat or malice attached.
“Hey! You wanna play, you gotta pay,” she joked.
“Look at this face!” Nix said in mock outrage. “I have never paid for sex in my life.”
“Hey, Jazz,” Meg called behind her. “You ever pay for sex?”
“Only emotionally,” he replied wearily.
Meg laughed at this, but the smile fell from her face as she eyed the near dark sky.
“I gotta get home, before the monsters wake up,” she said suddenly afraid.
“The only monsters around her are shitheads like Cook,” Jazz said and swung his legs over the edge of the roof.
He cuffed Nix on the back of the head. “Which you should remember, Nixon,” he added.
“He can’t kill what he can’t find,” Nix replied.
Meg sat up in shock. “Cook is going to kill you for a few grand?”
“Nar,” Nix replied nonchalantly. “Just kneecap me.”
“That guy scares me,” Jazz said.
“Yeah,” Med agreed. “He’s the type of guy who’s all laughs and jokes. Then he kills you, cuts off your face and wears it to your own funeral.”
“Jesus, Meg!” Nix exclaimed.
“Just sayin’” she said sweetly.
Nix gave and involuntary shudder as a sliver of fear cut through his buzz. He had heard some right horror stories from Evie and others from the club about what Cook was into.
Meg frowned and drew her knees up and hugged her legs. A faraway look in her eyes.
“Wouldn’t you rather there were real monsters in the world?” She asked dreamily. “That did all the bad things. Instead of people like Cook?”
She narrowed her eyes at the thought and a look of delicious mischief at these imagined horrors crossed her young face.
“Christ, Meg,” Jazz said. “There’s enough bad shit in the world without you inventing more.”
“No, no,” she insisted. “That’s not what I mean. It would be the same old horrors, but... Magical somehow.”
She paused, giving the notion some thought.
“Like, like, hey!” She exclaimed. “Did you hear about that murder last week? A werewolf killed some old lady, and it took seven men with silver bullets to take it down.”
“I can safely say,” Nix said jumping down off the car. “That has never crossed my mind.”
Meg slid off the bonnet by his side. “I think about that shit all the time,” she whispered.
“I don’t imagine the old woman would care either way,” Jazz chipped in and jumped down from the car’s roof. “She would be just as dead either way.”
This fucking city, Nix thought to himself. He exhaled remembering something. “Life is but degrees of pain.”
“Jeez, heavy,” Jazz said.
The two boiler suited rocketeers came jogging over to them, looking like twin escapees from a chain gang. And Nix now realised everyone else was either leaving or had already gone.
“Hey,” Hazmat one, or maybe it was two said. “We’re getting gone before it gets proper dark.”
“I’m coming with,” Meg said thankfully.
“Me too,” Jazz agreed. “Nixon?”
“Nar,” he replied. “I’m gonna hang out here for a while, kill a few more brain cells first.”
“Well, okay,” Jazz said tentatively. “Not a great idea, but Laters I guess.”
“Bye Nix!” Meg said and punched him on the arm.
Nix watched the four of them as they made their way across the car park to the fire door at the end.
“Hey, Meg!” He called out. “Say hi from me to any werewolves you bump into!”
She gave him the finger as they reached the door.
“Say hi to Cook from me when he’s removing your kneecaps!” She shouted back.
Which, Nix had to admit, was the more likely of the two scenarios.
He sat back on the car’s bonnet and took in the now deserted car park. He knew should go with them, but as Jazz so eloquently put it earlier. Logic dictated that he should, so, naturally he would do the exact opposite. Werewolves, and all too real psychopaths be damned.
EIGHT
Evidently, a second wave of the drug had hit Nix. Liquid Lucifer did this from time to time, seemingly to fuck with you just when you thought it was all over. Yet he had no recollection this time of there being any hallucinogenic effects, which was a shame. But the amphetamine side had kicked in big time, pulling him unceremoniously from unconsciousness.
He awoke with what he first thought was someone drumming a tattoo on his chest with two hammers. He gasped and sat up, clutching his violently palpitating heart.
Disorientated, he looked around, he was flat on his back on the tarmac of the car park, half-way between the car he had been slumped on and the fire door the others had disappeared through perhaps five minutes, or five hours ago. And what was more, it was pitch black.
He took a breath, and his heartbeat began to regulate a little as the now calming after-effects of the drug slowly warmed him, it was fickle like that sometimes. Dragging you from a thousand miles-an-hour to a snail’s pace in the space between two nanoseconds. Nix took another slow breath, enjoying the sensation washing over him, then he got awkwardly to his feet.
Gotta get home, he thought. Although he didn’t feel any anxiety thanks to the remnants of the Lucifer still coursing through his veins, it was diluted enough for him to know that in this state, his reactions and alertness would be dulled to almost slow motion and as such he would be easy prey.
He started towards the fire door, which was thankfully ajar, as he didn’t think he would have the strength to barge it open. So, when he reached it, he was able to easily slip inside the drafty stairwell.
Descending slowly, Nix negotiated the dimly lit stairs by grasping a hold of the cold metal handrail and just taking them one step after another. Time was a nonsense as he made his way down, he could have been in their half the night for all he knew, until he finally made it to the foul smelling, trash strewn ground level entrance area.
He wouldn’t have been surprised to see the murky sun coming up as he staggered out through the entrance door, but it was still dark.
The entrance led out onto a short alleyway, which ran along the side of the building. To his left, thirty feet away was the main road, and thankfully he could see that the streetlight at the alley’s opening was actually working, so he had some light at least and a focus point as he began to make his way to the street beyond its sickly yellow glow.
Up ahead, halfway between him and the end of the alley was a large skip. Nix concentrated on it as he staggered on, feeling like he was walking through quicksand all of a sudden. His body felt fine, but he knew once the drug finally wore off, his muscles would torture him no end. But that was a worry for another time.
He decided he would rest by the skip for a minute or two, then forge on. He laughed out of nowhere at his absurd predicament. He could picture himself, stumbling down the alley like a drunk toddler. Gotta laugh, he told himself, take these moments of comedy and joy, when and where you find them.
A flicker of movement at the mouth of the alley caught his eye and he squinted against the now harsh glow of the streetlight, to see a figure striding purposely towards him.
“If you’re a werewolf,” he slurred. “Bite me now.”
He doubled up laughing at his own joke.
“You wish I was a fucking werewolf,” a familiar but harsh voice replied.
Female, Nix knew her from somewhere, but where? Then her face appeared through the haze.
“Alex! How ya doing?”
The significance of her presence was lost on him, but only for a second.
Alex pistol whipped him hard across the side of his head. Stars came, just like the fireworks earlier, but no pain. God bless Liquid Lucifer he thought vaguely, that should have hurt like hell. Then he hit the ground before he knew he was falling.
Alex grabbed him roughly by the hair and dragged him to his feet. She moved to hit him again, but he held his hands up in submission. Lack of pain was one thing, but he wasn’t that far gone to know a caved in skull would kill you anyway.
He could feel the blood trickling down his face, half blinding him. But not enough for him to miss the raw hate on her face.
“Alex...”
He barely got the word out when she kicked his legs out from under him and he was on the ground once more, looking up at his attacker. She moved to kick him.
“No, no, Alex, wait!”
She loomed over him, breath hissing through her clenched teeth, but she didn’t land the kick.
“What the fuck, girl?” He protested.
“Fuck!” She spat and shook her head in disbelief.
“Kicking, me...” Nix uttered.
A slight niggling feeling of dull fear flickered to life at the back of his addled brain. A split second later it hit him like a freight train.
“Shit, is Cooky here?”
The fear of sudden violent death burnt its way through the remaining drug in his system. Leaving him with cold hard reality.
“Cooky!? Fucking Cooky!?” Alex shouted, enraged. “What, am I not scary enough for you?”
She pointed a pistol at his head, her hand shaking with rage. And for a brief, haunting moment, their eyes met. And Nix saw no trace of his oldest friend in them. Just murder.
At the very last moment, just as her finger squeezed the trigger, Alex shifted her aim slightly to the right and fired.
The bark of the gunshot was deafening in the confined space of the alley. It ricocheted like the bullet itself off the stone walls around him as if someone had just fired a machine gun, not a single round.
Nix actually felt the concussion of the bullet as it zipped within an inch of his head and ripped into the concrete behind him. He leant forward and vomited.
Alex took a step back and watched in disgust as he gasped for air. “Look at the fucking state of you.”
“Alex,” he spluttered, wiping the puke from his chin with his sleeve. “What, the, fuck?”
“What the fuck!? Where’s the fucking money, you asshole?”
It may have been the shock, but Nix genuinely didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Money? I’ve got ages yet,” he protested.
Didn’t he? His drug fuelled thoughts were bouncing around his skull like that damned gunshot. Didn’t he?
Nix flinched as Alex raised the pistol to his head again.
“You should have paid it back two days ago! Fuck wit!”
“Alex, Alex, wait.”
Somehow, he managed to drag himself to his feet, he held out his hands in submission. He had to think, he knew he’d been out of things for a while now, but two days late?
“Christ,” Alex shook her head in disbelief.
She took a step further back from the wretch and lowered the pistol, she was shocked at just how close she had actually come to shooting him.
“You know what this means?” She asked bitterly. “Now I have to avoid Cook too because of your little disappearing act. Or I’ll get my head kicked in. If, I’m lucky.”
In all the years he had known Alex, Nix knew he had always been able to talk her around. No matter how much he had fucked up. The truth was they both knew it. And now, looking at her and the gun in her hand, this time he would have to do it in spades.
“Alex, I’m sorry, I fucked up,” he even impressed himself at how calm he sounded. That gave him the confidence to go on. “But you know I would never do anything to put you in harm’s way. Things look worse than they are, I swear to you, I’m gonna make this right with Cook.”
“Don’t try that shit, Nixon,” she said, but couldn’t hide the slight trepidation in her voice. “Not this time.”
Catching the flicker of naked doubt in her eyes, actually surprised him. He knew her, she knew he knew her, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she looked like she wanted him to talk her around. After all, this wasn’t Alex, all these guns and threats. Sure, she was tough as nails, but not a killer. Certainly not a friend killer.
He suddenly felt a stab of regret in the pit of his stomach, and he didn’t like it. It felt like, weakness, and weakness could get you killed around here. He pushed the feeling way down, time enough for self-flagellation later. This was survival.
“It’s all good,” he said softly. “I’ve got it under control.”
“I will fucking shoot you,” she said without conviction, but raise the gun a little all the same.
“Calm, calm,” he held out his hands like a zookeeper talking to a cornered lioness. Which in a way he supposed he was.
“It’s gonna be alright,” he continued in a hushed tone. “I just need a little more...”
Her face hardened in an instant, and Nix realised all too late that the ‘give me more time’ con was woefully off target. It was as if someone had flicked a switch at the back of her head. A kill switch.
In one incredibly fluid motion, Alex stepped forward, knocked his hands away and rested the barrel of the pistol against his forehead.
“Say more time, I fucking dare you!” Her voice was sub-zero.
“You won’t shoot me, Alex,” he said as matter of fact as he was able. But looking at her, he wasn’t so sure this time.
She seemed to freeze, racked with indecision. She was stone faced, but Nix thought, hoped, he caught the hint of his old friend in her eyes. But still, he could see she was seriously thinking about blowing his brains out.
Nix stayed as calm as he could. If it were Cook instead of Alex, he would be dead already. But this is Alex, he told himself over and over. Willing her to remember that herself. His oldest friend, Alex.
Then she smiled, but it was humourless, like you would imagine a shark looked like if it could smile, just before it bit you in two.
“Tell me this, Nixon. Do you know what the difference is between you here now, and if it had been Cook who had found you?”
His shook his head, not in response, but incomprehension.
She stepped back and snapped back the slide of the pistol. A single bullet spun up into the air and she caught it deftly and held it up for him to see.
“This.”
Nix glanced at the bullet but quickly shifted his gaze back to Alex. As if staring at it too long might set it off.
“I know, I know,” he told her. “But Alex, I literally have the money. I’m not gonna lie, I thought about doing a runner and not paying it back. That was wrong, I know that now, I didn’t think about you and that’s on me.”
“Bollocks,” she said and flicked the bullet at his head. “No more bullshit, N-i-x-o-n, this is serious.” She accentuated each letter in his full name as if it were an insult.
“I know,” he insisted.
“For both of us.”
“I know, believe me. I’m sorry, what else can I say? I fucked up. But I’ll make it right, promise.”
He could tell she really wanted to believe him, needed to for both their sakes.
“Just let me go get it,” he said. His voice like a hostage negotiator’s. “We can meet up later. I’ll even come with you to Cooky, to tell him it was all my fault.”
“Which it is,” she reminded him.
“Fair enough. Look he can even give me a kicking, as interest?”
“Maybe I’ll join in.”
“Friends?” Nix said and stuck out his lip like a child.
“Not just yet,” she replied. “We’ll go get the money, now, and together.”
She put the pistol in the waistband of her trousers.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she added. “It’s just that I don’t trust you.”
“Of course,” Nix said in relief.
“And don’t fuck me, Nix,” she warned and pushed him ahead of her and towards the exit to the alley.
“I wouldn’t fuck you, Al’,” he said with a smile. “You’re not my type.”
This earned him a kick in the backside.
“Christ, you always were a tool,” she said and drew level with them as they reached the street.
She pointed to a car parked further up the road by a row of derelict buildings. It was clear she was as relieved as he was that things had returned to some semblance of normality between them. This was confirmed when she took out a handkerchief and gave it to him.
“Here, looks like you banged your head on something.”
Nix gingerly dabbed it to the side of his head. “Scared the shit out of me! “Waving guns around and shit.”
“What can I say?” She replied as they got to the car. “I’m a bad ass.”
Alex fished the keys out of her leather jacket pocket and watched as Nix went around to the passenger side. She stood there, with a smirk on her face as he tried in vain to open the door. He even started pulling comically at it with both hands.
“The fuck?” He said blowing hard.
The door hadn’t worked for weeks now since the car had been in a minor accident and needed to be opened from the inside.
Alex was filled with an odd mixture of relief and anger as she watched the clown still struggling with the door. She knew things could have turned out so very differently.
Despite her annoying love for the idiot, when she had finally found him after days of frantic searching. All the fear, all the frustration had come to the surface with a murderous vengeance.
And that had flat out terrified her. She had fantasised during those days about really beating the shit out of him. Christ, of even actually kneecapping him herself. But when she had seen him there, staggering down the alley, drugged up no doubt, and on something expensive without any regard for what that had meant for her. A red-hot rage had overtaken her.
She felt sick now, as a semblance of equilibrium had been restored between them. Because as she had marched down that alley towards him and pulled out the pistol, there had been zero doubt in her mind that she was going to kill him.
Perhaps if that alley had been a little shorter and she’d had less time to think about what that meant. She might have.
“Jesus,” she breathed and tried to shake it off.
She was just grateful something had made her aim away at the very last moment. Still, she knew it would give her nightmares, reliving that split second between when she squeezed the trigger and when she shifted her aim ever so slightly.
“Wait, wait,” she said to Nix snapping out of it.
He was still inexplicably trying to open the door.
She opened her side and ducked inside the car. She leant awkwardly over both front seats, half sitting half on her side.
“Lock’s bust... Ow!” The pistol in her belt dug into the small of her back.
Cursing, she pulled the passenger door release handle, then took out the pistol and put it into the glove compartment.
“Come on, dickhead,” she called out and put the keys into the ignition.
She waited for him to get in and offer up some witty riposte, but there was nothing.
“Nixon?” She looked out the side window, then the windscreen. The street was empty. “No!”
She clambered out and looked redundantly up and down the
street. Nix was gone.
“No, no, Nix, please, no,” she uttered as the cold realisation hit her.
Most of the derelict buildings she had parked by were boarded up, but she now saw one, close to the car was missing its front door entirely. An easy escape route, she raced over to the doorway.
“Nixon!” She shrieked.
The front room was empty and in near darkness, but she could just about see through to an open doorway leading out to the next room and even from here she could see there was no back to the house at all, the front was little more than a façade.
God, she hoped he was just messing with her, that he would jump out of the darkness. ‘Ta da!’ Not even Nix would do this. Not even Nix, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t.
She suddenly felt faint and freezing cold as the shock hit her. She stumbled into the four smelling interior and over to the back, her mind spinning.
“Nix!” She screamed.
Outside, she was met by a rabbit warren of alleys, back yards and old discarded allotments. A million places to hide.
“Nix, please,” softer now, barely words at all. “Please, don’t...”
Her legs threatened to give way, and she had to rest her back against the cold crumbling brickwork of the doorway to stop herself from falling on her arse.
She closed her eyes and offered up a prayer to whichever God was listening. She waited and waited.
If the God’s were listening, they didn’t reply, didn’t offer up Nix on a floating cloud. Didn’t do anything at all. She could almost hear them laughing.
NINE
The makeshift stage dominated one end of the massive housing complex’s courtyard. Surrounded on all sides by looming ten story buildings, like some ancient oppressive amphitheatre.
This place, such as it was, laid claim to be the city’s largest cultural hub. A place where musicians, actors and performers of all types, could gather to entertain the masses.
A welcome balm for damaged people, it had sprung up years ago in defiance of the myriad of venues like club fresh hell.
Those darker places where, yes for the right price you could indulge in your heart’s deepest, darkest desires without judgement. But at what cost to those working there? And at what cost to your own tainted soul?
Yet even those unfortunates who were drawn to such places at their lowest ebb, could find solace and a sense of cleansing here, at least for a little while.
Everyone was welcome here, rubbing shoulders and sharing a laugh, a dance, or simply awed silence with folks they would normally cross the street to avoid. It was one of the few places in the city where you could find families enjoying a simple, safe day out. Watching the acts, never too violent, never too obscene for free in the open air.
It was a place of light in the city of shadows.
And as for the proprietor of this oasis of calm? They were an enigma to most, some unseen benefactor, and that was all part of the much-needed magic. The show itself was often a psycho surreal variety show. Its running order and the sheer eclectic nature of the acts would put one in mind of a promoter who had long since fallen off the edge of sanity and who encouraged everyone else to do the same. ‘Come on in, the water’s fine.’
“Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! No! No!”
A solitary figure dressed in an oversized three-piece suit and plastered with heavy, almost kabuki style makeup, was prowling the stage like a thing possessed.
Her slight frame commanding every inch of it, drawing every eye, in defiance of her just fourteen years. She was in the last moments of Edgar Allen Poe’s, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’
A fierce but welcome distraction to the fifty odd strong crowd, sat on seats and chairs of all shapes and sizes, or just standing there, transfixed, unable to look away. As well as the countless people gathered on the balconies and walkways of the surrounding blocks, those lucky enough to live there and thus get a bird’s eye view of the show.
“They heard!!” She shrieked. “They suspected. They were making a mockery of my horror. This I thought, and this I think!”
Young bloodshot eyes gazing manically out over the audience, but looking beyond the physical, lost in her performance. Every eye was upon her, every breath held.
The girl pointed accusingly at a man sat by himself on a tatty three-seat cinema seat.
Jazz sat transfix as the girl pointed at him. He was already engrossed, now he felt part of the show. He shook his head slightly in abstract denial at the unuttered accusation.
“But anything was better than this agony,” she sneered at him.
“Yes,” Jazz whispered. Nodding absently now.
“Anything was more tolerable than this derision!” She spun away, addressing the audience overhead. “I could bare those hypocritical smiles no longer,” she shouted.
She began to pull manically at her hair and turned back to the courtyard. “I felt like I must scream or die!” She yelled.
Then she fell silent for a moment and cupped her hand to her ear and listened in wide eyed terror.
“And now again,” she said softly. Hark! Louder!” Screaming now. “Louder! Louder!”
She collapsed and lay motionless on the boards of the stage, save for the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Teasing out every ounce of drama. Those watching held their breaths in anticipation of what was to come.
Jazz clasped his hands together, tears in his eyes, waiting for the finale. Then the girl leapt to her knees and began miming pulling up the floorboards.
“Villains! I shrieked, dissemble no more! I admit the deed. Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beat of his hideous heart!”
She collapsed again and the crowd erupted in ecstatic in cheers and applause.
“Bravo!” Jazz shouted, on his feet now, loudest of all.
The girl got to her feet and bowed and blew kisses to the crowd like she was a fifty-year stage veteran. If people would have had flowers, they would have surely thrown them.
She gave one final bow and wave then skipped off stage beaming from ear to ear.
Jazz slumped back in the cinema seats as exhausted as if he had done the performance himself. He laughed at his enthusiasm and took a small bottle of vodka from his coat pocket and took a drink.
Clapping, almost as loudly as Jazz, was a hulking bald man, standing at the very back of the crowd. With him, a boy who was sitting on a tatty sofa watching the big man with mild amusement. Finally, he sat himself down next to the boy with a broad smile on his face.
On the stage, a group of roadies were wheeling out speakers and amps, followed by a drum set on a small riser and a piano. As they left, five musicians came on stage and began to play a combination of light rock/funk.
Several people in the crowd got up and began to dance, whilst others joined the line for refreshments that had formed by and old bus which had been converted into a café.
The boy stretched in his seat and watched the people around him, neither he nor Tiny belonged here, but they were accepted all the same. Tiny was now leant forwards drumming on his knees alone with the music.
The boy smiled, his companion was now swaying with the beat. “You know, you can have a dance if you want?” He teased.
Tiny shot him a look of shock and shook his head vigorously no. But still, when the boy turned away, he began drumming once more.
The smile faded from the young boy’s face as the flash of a camera someway off drew his attention across the courtyard, pulling him back from this little moment of normality. It had been a nice distraction whilst it lasted.
Misha was making her way through the people. She had just taken the photos of two people dancing. One together, then individually. She was now speaking to them and taking down their contact details. No doubt giving them the sales patter she had practiced over countless years.
At the front, Jazz drained the last of his vodka and placed the empty bottle on the ground by his feet. The band wasn’t bad he noted, and the people seemed to like the music. But Jazz, for his sins, only had eyes for the piano player.
It was a bittersweet thing, watching the pianist as she played. Back in his former life, or maybe it was a dream there of, Jazz could have made that instrument sing. Any style you liked, and if it was a tune he didn’t know, he could master it in minutes. Could have made you weep with the intricacies and nuances of his playing.
He was just glad he couldn’t really hear the piano over the P.A. These days sometimes, just seeing the instrument would make him physically sick, let alone the thought of playing it.
“Excuse me?”
Jazz tore his eyes away from the stage to see a woman in white standing next to him. She looked so out of place that he wondered for a moment if he was imagining her.
“Sorry to bother you,” she said, real enough. “Do you play?”
“Huh?”
She nodded to his hands. He glanced down to see he was actually ‘playing piano’ on his thighs. He started in shock and clasped his mutinous hands together.
“Oh, er,” he stumbled. “Maybe once, a million years ago.”
“May I join you for a moment?” She asked politely.
“Sure, sure,” Jazz replied.
He gestured to the seat next to him and had to resist the urge to dust it off for her.
“You say you used to play?” She asked as she sat.
Suddenly, English seemed like a second language. The words tumbled in his brain, and he had to concentrate to pick the right ones.
“Urm, yeah, I used to, a long time ago. Professionally actually.”
Jazz felt a little sick, why had he told this stranger that? Normally he would have changed the subject straight away, let alone engage in it further. But he hadn’t.
She nodded, impressed at the revelation and Jazz fell in love with her a little.
“Yeah,” he continued despite his rebellious gut. “That’s why they call me Jazz.”
“Please to meet you, Jazz,” she replied with a smile. “My name is Misha.”
Misha, a Goddess by any other name. It was strange, he
wasn’t even sure she was that attractive. But there was something... Ethereal about her. He felt himself swoon a little as he gazed at her. Snap out of it! He told himself half-heartedly.
“You’re not from around here,” he said, stating the obvious.
“No,” she replied. “So, why did you stop playing? If you don’t mind me asking?”
Jazz wrinkled his nose at the question. “Oh, you know,” he said and gestured around him as if that were explanation enough.
She shook her head slightly, perplexed.
“You know, this place. This city,” he replied. “So,” he continued after a moment. “What brings you to the tenth circle of hell?”
“I thought there were only nine?” She replied.
“Oh, even Dante couldn’t have dreamt up the horrors this place has to offer.”
He was happy to see the look of surprise on her face. She thinks I look like a vagrant, but talk like a poet, he mused, not unimpressed with himself. Especially considering how the conversation had started.
“So, you didn’t answer,” Jazz said, breaking the silence.
“What brings you here?”
“The people.”
“The people? Well, okay, but don’t stay too long.”
“No?”
“It’s not the people per se,” he replied with a wave of the hand to his fellow citizens. “They’re just lost souls. It’s this place, this city. It’s like a vampire, stay too long and it’ll suck the life right out of you.”
“So, why don’t you leave?” She asked with genuine interest.
“Oh, you can’t leave the city,” he replied.
He could see she was trying to compute this, then after a long pause she seemed to zone back in again. She held up the camera which was hanging around her neck.
“May I take your picture, Jazz?” She asked.
“Me?”
She gave the sweetest little laugh. “Yes, you. It’s a little thing I’m working on. If you don’t mind me taking your picture, who knows you might get out of this city after all?”
“Never thought of myself as being a model,” he told her self-consciously.
“It’s not quite like that. But seriously, if I could take your picture, and some contact details. You never know what might happen. Think of it as a lottery.”
The boy shifted uncomfortably in his seat and watched the exchange from the back.
Misha took several photographs of the man, then scribbled something down in her notepad. “Such a strange existence we lead,” he said wistfully.
And Tiny drummed on.
Although Emil Adjani wasn’t averse to a spot of smuggling, and certainly not to the extra payment he and the rest of the crew got for no actual additional work. There was something unearthly about the blacked-out coach which sat silently like some sleeping beast in the ship’s hold.
He had come on deck for a smoke and to clear his head, but the vehicle down below wasn’t far from his thoughts.
The captain had estimated the crossing would take seven hours and they were already two hours into their journey, but it felt like as many days to Emil.
‘A sailor’s superstition,’ Johnson the ship’s first mate had told Emil and the others as they gathered on deck to watch the coach drive along the jetty and up the Ship’s loading ramp. Just how the captain had managed to squeeze the vessel into that small, secluded harbour had been as much of a mystery to Emil as the thus far unseen passengers of their illicit cargo.
Still, the extra money was good. Two hundred each on top of their usual pay and just for keeping their mouths shut.
The other thing Emil was glad about however, was the instruction from the captain as they gotten underway. No one on the coach and no one off the coach. So at least he had the ignorance of bliss to comfort him.
Emil tossed the dog end of his cigarette over the side and into the churning black sea below, then turned and made his way back into the ship.
Despite his better judgement, he found himself descending the metal steps past the level housing the crew’s quarters and down onto the gantry which overlooked the hold and the coach within.
There it was, sat under harsh lights. It was just a coach, Emil told himself. Christ, what with the blacked-out windows and everything, it could have housed a band on their way to play the mainland. But somehow, he doubted it.
No one in, no one out. He found himself listening but couldn’t hear a thing over the constant throb of the ship’s diesel engines.
Finally, Emil returned to his bunk. He was dog tired, but he knew he would get little sleep tonight. But if he did, he dreaded to think of what nightmares would come.
TEN
It had been a long time since the bouncer had seen club hell so chock full of people. It put him in mind of one of those Hollywood open casting calls, where dozens of hopefuls would queue for hours, waiting for their shot at stardom.
He had to shoulder his way through the throng just to get to Micky Farnell, who was in his office doorway, talking to one of the hopefuls, a young woman in maybe her late teens.