Dark Vision (16 page)

‘Oh,’ I said, insanely surprised at the idea. ‘You work out? I thought it was all … you know, magic.’

‘I wish,’ he replied, laughter in his voice. ‘And yeah, some of it is. The rest I have to sweat for. Anyway, I like it. Helps me get rid of my … frustrations.’

I paused, glad we weren’t on a videophone so he couldn’t see my face flame at the innuendo.

‘I know you’re blushing,’ he said smugly. ‘And I didn’t even need to read your mind to find that out.’

Wonderful. Looked like I could also add ‘predictable’ to my ever-growing list of glaring flaws.

‘Right. Great. Umm … what are you wearing?’ I asked.

‘Oh, it’s going to be one of
those
phone calls, is it? Shouldn’t you give me your bank details first?’

‘No! Stop flirting and be serious! I’m trying to imagine the scene, to visualise it. So … so what are you bloody wearing?’

‘Shorts. Sweaty ones.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘Not a thing, sweetheart. And they’re pretty short shorts too. That visualisation getting any clearer?’

It was. So clear that my pulse rate had shot up a few notches, my mouth had gone dry, and I was squirming in my jeans. No matter how many bad things I learned about this man, how much I argued with him, my body seemed set on fancying him rotten. It was all very unfair.

I hung up without answering and turned round to see Carmel biting her lips to stop herself from laughing, and Fionnula pouring yet another glass. I tucked my hair behind my ears and tried to rise above it all. I am the Goddess, for fuck’s sake, not a hormonal teenager with a crush.

‘And?’ I said as haughtily as I could, making ‘wind it on’ gestures with my hands.

‘And, well, the next bit is hard to explain,’ said Fionnula, slightly slurring her words so there were a few too many s’s knocking around in that sentence.

‘You need to sit still, and concentrate. Might help to close your eyes. Ignore me, and Carmel. Shut this place out as much as you can. Try to clear your mind of all the nonsense that’s floating round in there. Imagine Gabriel, where he’s described, the way he’s described himself. Get that picture so clear in your mind that it’s as real as we are – as real as this room is.’

I did as I was told, and found it alarmingly easy to picture him. He was in my mind most of the time anyway, like a mental squatter. I made another small ‘move it on’ gesture with my finger, and ignored her ‘humph’ of annoyance.

‘Then you push your thoughts out to him,’ she said. ‘Let them flow, like a wave, towards him. It needs to be natural, not forced. When the wave hits, he’ll know. You’ll be there with him, in his mind, and be able to communicate with him. Talk out loud if it’s easier, but for feck’s sake, keep it clean, will you?’

Slightly insulted at the thought that I’d engage in public telepathy-sex, I sank down on to the sofa in a bit of a huff. I tried to do as she said, but clearing your mind is so much harder than it sounds. The minute you try to concentrate on nothing, a thousand thoughts scamper through your head like tiny rodents: did the copy editor get that Dormice review safely? Did I pay my credit-card bill on time? Will I be able to put that bonsai back together? How short
are
those shorts?

I shook my head, imposed a blank white wall where my thoughts were running riot, and used it like a mental scoop to push them away. None of them mattered, not right now. I crushed them all to one corner and squashed them flat like bugs, leaving myself with nothing but the clean white space: a bright, empty room. Now all I needed to do was keep it empty.

I breathed deeply, remembering the lessons of those three yoga classes Carmel had dragged me to a year ago, and tried to relax, letting the white emptiness expand and fill my mind like a cloud. After a minute or so, everything started to slow down, physically and mentally. I was conscious of the steady, languid pace of my heart beating, of my blood thrumming a gentle pulse at my wrists. My face felt pleasantly warm, and there was a slight buzz humming in my ears. Not an unpleasant one – a kind of benign, throbbing tinnitus.

I took the white space and replaced it with Gabriel: with the weapons he’d described; with the treadmills and the shields; with him sitting on a bench, drenched in sweat, barbells at his feet. I held the image, let it grow and develop. And eventually it clicked into place, like a camera when you press the button and it all zooms into focus: all motion stopped, all the blurring of everyday thought was removed, and a new reality took shape in my mind.

I could feel the basement walls around me, could listen to Kurt Cobain’s anxious words screeching from the speakers, could inhale the musty smell of a room where battle-ready men work out. Carmel and Fionnula and the cottage all disappeared as my mind fled to the cellar of a red-brick Georgian town house in Dublin.

Time to push, I thought. It felt right. Not forced, Fionnula had said, but natural – like a wave. I nudged my thoughts along, the humming sound building to a slow roar, the kind you hear when you have a seashell pressed up against your ear. I sent my thoughts away from me, and towards him.

I opened my eyes. And I was there. In the basement in Merrion Square.

And those shorts really were short.

Gabriel jumped up, so shocked he almost fell over the weight on the floor in front of him. Two hundred kilos. Yikes.

‘Are you here?’ he asked. ‘Or just in my head?’

‘I … don’t know,’ I replied, looking around. The room wasn’t exactly as I’d pictured it – he’d failed to mention the Athena poster of the blonde girl with her arse-cheeks hanging out of her tennis dress – but it was pretty damned close.

Gabriel came towards me, eyes sparking a bruised shade of purple. His body was glistening with sweat, and there was more of him on display than I’d ever seen of any man in real life. His slightly-too-long hair curled darkly to the bulked muscle of his shoulder, and I could see the heat radiating from his torso. My hand lifted up to touch his chest, deciding it wanted to know if it felt as good as it looked.

Nothing. I felt a thud of disappointment hammer through me, quickly replaced with relief. Probably not a good idea to get all hot and heavy during my first out-of-body experience.

He looked down at my hand and realised that neither of us could feel the touch.

‘You’re here … but not here,’ he said, frowning in confusion.

‘Yep. That seems to sum it up. I’m actually sitting on Fionnula’s couch right now. Carmel’s probably laughing her backside off, and Fionnula’s … well, a bit pissed, actually. She thought I might not be able to do this. To connect with your mind. And now I’m confused, because I got the impression it would just be talking. Like on the phone. Not being here, like this, actually in the room …’

I realised I was rambling, just as eloquent in spirit form as I am in the flesh.

‘And anyway, do you think you might be able to put some clothes on now?’

Gabriel thought about it, his expression serious, and then he grabbed a black T-shirt from the back of the bench and pulled it over his head. I felt marginally calmer when some of that shiny muscle disappeared from view. There was still a lot of leg on show, but I could avoid that by not looking down.

‘This has never happened to me before,’ he said, ‘and I’ve been around for a long time. It’s … interesting.’

‘Maybe for you. I’m totally freaked out. And also – I think – a bit disappointed,’ I said, only realising it was true once the words were out of my lips. I’d told Fionnula I only wanted to make contact, to ‘call’ him – but the devious part of my brain had obviously been a tad more ambitious than that.

I walked round the room, trying to distract myself by getting a better eyeful of the weapons he’d mentioned.

It felt a bit like being in an especially hideous museum exhibition. There were massive swords with razor-edged blades, the kind that could cleave a man in two and still shine, and which had undoubtedly been used for exactly that. One of them was mounted over the fireplace, taking pride of place. The blade was double-edged, the hilt decorated with elaborate designs of animals chasing each other in endless circles. On the pommel was a raised engraving of a woman, her features hidden by a sheet of hair, arms held out at her sides. Belly swollen with child. Even an idiot like me could tell it was a fertility symbol, carved in such intricate detail that it looked more like a drawing than something created from metal. The entire sword appeared to be made of gold.

‘The Blade of Lugh,’ he said, standing beside me. ‘You’ve seen it before, I think? It was my father’s. Passed down to our family by the Gods. He died wielding it, and so will I.’

Nice. I stared at the sword. I did remember it. And last time I saw it, he’d been brandishing it in front of me as I screamed my way into motherhood, flames blazing from its shaft. Not one of my happiest moments.

‘What did you mean when you said you were disappointed?’ he asked. ‘This is unprecedented. Your spirit has left your body and travelled here to be with me. What else were you hoping for?’

I screwed up my nose as I pondered the question, resisting the urge to reach out and touch the shining Blade of Lugh. It looked so sharp I reckoned it could even cut my spirit-fingers.

‘I don’t know, Gabriel … I think I was hoping I could just, you know, sneak into your mind. The way you do into mine. Fionnula says it’s possible, once I have enough control. Which apparently isn’t quite yet.’

He was silent, his eyes dark as he stared at the gold blade hanging before us, absorbing the bitter tinge that had coloured those last few words.

‘I see,’ he said finally, and I couldn’t tell from his tone whether or not he was angry at my planned incursion into the inner recesses of his brain. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he was – I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed it when he does it to me. It seemed a bit unfair to expect him to be happy about me returning the favour.

We both stayed quiet for a few moments, ‘Lithium’ crashing away in the background.

‘Well,’ he said eventually, raising an eyebrow at me, ‘why don’t we try that now? You’re here, sort of. My mind is open to you, Lily. Whether you need my permission or not, I grant it.’

I stayed quiet, not sure how to react. Not sure if it was the right thing to do, or whether I was even capable of it if I tried.

He tapped the side of his head with his fingers and gave me a stomach-melting smile.

‘Go on. Try. Knock yourself out.’

What the hell, I thought. I had nothing to lose, and he was clearly willing. What was the worst that could happen? I nipped that train of thought in the bud right away. It’s never a good idea to ask that question when you live the kind of life I do.

Instead, I revisited the clean white vision I’d found earlier, urging my friend the fluffy white cloud back into my headspace. I focused on Gabriel, and nothing but him, shutting out the music and the heat and the distractions of all the shiny objects around me. I would have touched him, maybe held his hands, but my body had gone all
Ghostbusters
on me, so I settled for just looking at him. A lot. Drinking in that perfect face and those hypnotic eyes, opened wide and sparkling with … anxiety? Excitement? I couldn’t tell. He’d braced himself, feet planted firmly apart, as though expecting some kind of attack.

There were several failed attempts, when it felt a bit like my mind was being used as a battering ram against a metal door. I’d push, and be repelled. I’d shove, and it wouldn’t budge. But, eventually, the door opened. I reached out with my mind, and it swung back to let me in. No words were spoken, no touch exchanged; there was no brass band or choir of angels. I just took a quiet mental step forward, and landed slap bang in the middle of his consciousness.

It was overwhelming, to start with. Like a film reel playing at the speed of light, projecting snatched images and half-formed conversations: battles and brawls, feast days, celebrations, a small child running free through fields of corn. A mother and a father, cousins and friends, a changing world filled with wonders. A wild, windy hill and a screaming stone. Horses and carriages and trains and cars and planes. And Gabriel, weeping, hunched over the battered, bloodied bodies of two little girls. The sisters I’d never known.

I saw him recoil as he felt me in there, fumbling around with all the finesse of an ice pick, and I took a slow, deep breath. Focused on the here and now. On the Gabriel I knew. Tuned into what mattered, like I was fiddling with a radio dial, searching for the best reception.

Passion. He felt passion. For this world, for its people. For his job. He was driven by responsibility and duty, and really hadn’t been lying when he said he’d die to protect me. I saw it there, shining like a diamond embedded in rock: complete and utter devotion to the Goddess. It ran through him, deep and divine, and had made him everything he was. Given him his purpose in life. And there I was, tucked away in his brain, as a tiny child, scared and frightened as Coleen led me away to my new life. I felt his regret, his worry, his anger at what he’d been forced to do.

I saw him on the back row at my school nativity play, watching as I played third angel on the right, head wrapped round with silver tinsel. And later, at my university graduation ceremony, applauding on a day I thought I’d been alone. He was proud of me, of what I’d achieved with a minimum of encouragement. A silent spectator, looking at me from afar, never making contact but always there, always distant.

Nearer to the here and now: me again, leaning against the bar in the Coconut Shy, trying to avoid his gaze on the night we first properly met. I saw it from his eyes as I collapsed into his arms after my vision, the way he felt when he cradled me against his chest, lifting me from the beer-stained nightclub floor. The warmth and the protectiveness that surged through him, shaking his self-control.

Then I was with him days later, while I’d been lost in the Otherworld. Smashing his flat-screen and camping out at the side of Bidston Hill, desperate for me to return. I felt his fear and anger and desperation when he couldn’t find me. And when he did find me, when I finally woke up and he saw my eyes blink open for the first time, I felt what he felt: love. Love so strong, so unyielding, that it scared me. Terrified me like nothing I’d ever encountered.