Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) (6 page)

“Do you think it will work out?”

“I know it will.” He wondered if he could tell her why he was so sure; saying it out loud made even him feel like he was crazy; and he’d been through it. “Come on, let’s walk.” He took her hand and began to lead her in the direction of the house.

She looked uncomfortable. “Your dad-“

“He’s at one of his meetings, wishing we still had an empire.”

The familiar streets were thankfully empty, adding to the wonderful illusion that they were the only people left in the world. Away from the wasteland the air was a little fresher. They turned down the hill from the imposing big houses towards the line of pokey semis where Lee had lived all his life. It felt odd to think he might not walk down there again. He’d miss his mum, and Kelly, but not Mick; he’d be happy if he never heard Mick’s voice again.

“When are you thinking of going?” Sunita asked.

“Now. Tonight.”

“Oh.”

He couldn’t tell her that his stepdad’s beetle-browed cronies might act after they’d finished their rebel-rousing for the night. They had to be as far away as possible from Brum before everything blew up. But even though he didn’t say anything, he could tell from Sunita’s response to the tight deadline that she understood the dangers.

“Mum and Dad will understand,” she said confidently. “I’ll call them once we’re on the road. They’ll be asleep when I get back to pack. Though you know, things aren’t so different between us. They both wish I was with a boy who knew the Koran back to front.”

He shrugged, said nothing. There were always too many people wanting to interfere in everybody’s life.

Sunita slipped her arm through his and gave it a squeeze. “We’ll never be able to agree on the music for the car, you know. There’ll be me with my Groove Armada and Basement Jaxx and you with some ancient old toss like The Redskins or one of those other old fogey bands you like. I don’t know how you got into all that stuff. Most of them were playing before you were born.”

“You’ve got to appreciate the past to know where you’re going.”

“You’ve been reading books again, haven’t you? I told you it was bad for you.” She smiled, but it drained away once she realised they were standing outside his home. Over the year her imagination had turned it into some kind of nightmarish haunted house, the place where all bad things originated. Even on the few times she’d been into the empty place there’d been an unpleasant atmosphere mingled in with the cheap cigarette smoke and smell of fried food. “Are you sure he’s not in?”

“He never misses a meeting.” Lee led her round the side of the house. The small back garden was in darkness; a few items of clothing still fluttered on the washing line.

“What about your mum and Kelly?”

“They’ll have stopped off for a drink after the bingo.”

“Lee, why are you bringing me here?”

“There’s something I want to show you. To put your mind at rest.”

“About what?”

“That everything’ll be all right.” She still seemed unsure, so he took her hand and tugged her towards the shed in the shadows near the rear fence. It was much larger than average. Mick had put it up when he was thinking about breeding racing pigeons, but he’d never got round to that, like so many other things in his life.

“You don’t want to get down to it here one more time, do you?” she said with a sly smile.

“Wait and see.” They stepped into the darkness of the shed and its familiar smell of turps and engine oil. He took her hand and waited a couple of seconds before saying in a clear voice, “Come out. It’s me.”

In the dark Sunita looked at him in puzzlement; she could feel his hand growing clammy. “Who are you talking to?”

He hushed her anxiously. He kept his gaze fixed firmly on the back of the shed and when he didn’t get whatever response he had been expecting, he tried again, a little more insistently. Still nothing. “Please,” he said finally. “This is Sunita. I told you about her. She’s okay, you know that.”

He waited for another moment and then sighed. “We better go,” he said reluctantly.

Outside, she gave him a peck on the cheek. “It’s a good job I love mad people. Now are you going to tell me-“

“You better not laugh!”

“Of course not.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, idiot. Now get on with it.”

He bowed his head with the odd, wincing expression which she knew signalled deep embarrassment. “It started a couple of weeks ago. I kept hearing noises in the shed.”

“Noises?”

“Yes, you know … voices. They kept chattering in there. I thought some smackheads had broken in, but every time I went to check there was no one in there.”

“Ooh, spooky!”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. But then last week there was someone there.”

Sunita eyed him askance, trying to predict the punchline. “Who was it?”

He rubbed his chin, obviously not wanting to continue. Finally he said, “Do you believe in fairies?”

“Fairies?” She burst out laughing.

“You said you weren’t going to laugh!”

“Sorry, but … You can’t be serious!”

He looked away grumpily.

“Okay, go on!” she said, tugging at his sleeve. “What did they look like?”

“They looked like fairies! Well, a fairy. Small, pointed ears, green clothes. It was just like one I’d seen on a book I had when I was a lad.”

It took him another ten minutes to get her to take him seriously, but eventually she accepted it. “Okay, there’s been a lot of strange stuff going on all over. If you say fairies, I believe fairies,” she said, bemused. “So there are, really and truly, fairies at the bottom of the garden.”

“I don’t know why I even bother with you,” he sighed. “Just listen then, if you’re not going to believe me. I tell you, I thought I was going loopy to start with, but every time I went in, there he was, so I had to accept it. And we started talking.” He snorted with laughter at the ridiculousness of the idea. “I told him all about you, about my dad, about … well, everything.”

“I bet he had a good fairy laugh at all that,” she said bitterly.

“No, actually. He said his people always looked after young lovers. ‘Simpletons and those in love,’ that’s what he said.” He laughed. “Same thing, I suppose. Anyway, I told him I was going to leave town and he said not to worry, everything was going to be all right for us.”

“So where was he just?”

Lee looked troubled. “I don’t know. He’s been in there every time I’ve been in recently. Maybe he doesn’t appear if there’s more than one person …” His voice faded away as he recognised how stupid he sounded. “Or maybe all the stuff with Mick really has turned my brain to jelly.”

“Jelly boy!” She danced a few steps ahead before he could pinch her; instead he swore forcefully. “Okay, okay!” she laughed. “But there’s one thing I never could quite work out as a girl. Can you really trust fairies?”

From the darkened lounge Mick Jonas watched his stepson and the Paki bitch step into the shed, obviously for a quick touch-up, and he was still watching when they headed back towards the road. He quickly switched on his mobile phone and hit the speed dial. “They’re on their way now,” he said in his thick Birmingham accent. “Follow ‘em till they’re outside Brum then get ‘em off the road. You can do what you like to the cunt, but just give our Lee a good fucking hiding. Teach him a lesson.” He listened to the voice on the other end for a second, then added, “If you want to use a can of fucking petrol on her, pal, you do it. Just make sure Lee doesn’t get burned up. The old woman would kill me.”

He switched off the phone and lit a cigarette before lowering his overweight frame into the frayed armchair he had made his own. He felt a triumphant burst, that he’d got one over on his lefty, Paki-loving stepson who thought he was so fucking superior. But Mick had seen him sneak the suitcase out and store it in the boot of his old banger. He knew what the little shit was planning.

He closed his eyes and sucked deeply on the cigarette, enjoying the moment and the certain knowledge that a blow had been struck against the fucking multicultural society. But when he opened his eyes a moment later he was almost paralysed by shock. Through the window he could see something moving rapidly across the lawn from the bottom of the garden. He couldn’t tell what it was-its shape seemed to be changing continuously and his eyes hurt from trying to pin it down-but it was horrible. The scream started deep in his throat, but it hadn’t reached his mouth before the window had imploded, showering glass all around him. And then it was on him.

Maureen and Kelly returned from the local five minutes later. They tiptoed through the front door, just in case Mick was dozing after a few pints. They’d both pay the price if they woke him. But the moment she was across the threshold, Maureen had the odd feeling something was wrong. There was a strained atmosphere, like just before a storm, and an odd smell was drifting in the air. While Kelly went to the bathroom she crept into the lounge to investigate.

The first thing she saw was the broken window and felt the glass crunching underfoot. Her mind started to roll: burglars; some of those shabby youths who didn’t like Mick’s little club.

And then she looked into Mick’s armchair and at first didn’t recognise what she was seeing. It was black and smoking and resembled nothing more than a sculpture made out of charcoal. A sculpture of a man. And then she looked closer and saw what it really was, and wondered why the armchair hadn’t burst into flames as well, and wondered a million and one other things all at once.

And then she screamed.

“I don’t believe we did it!” Lee was bouncing up and down with excitement in his seat as the car pulled on to the M6 heading south.

“Well, your fairy told us, didn’t he?” Sunita said with a giggle.

He gave her thigh a tight squeeze. “This is about us now. We can do anything we want. We can really enjoy ourselves, just the two of us. God, I love you!”

She smiled and blew him a kiss. “Things are strange right now, aren’t they?” she said dreamily as she stared out of the passenger window into the night. “People seeing all those weird things. You and the fairies. Uncle Mohammed having those dreams that came true.”

“Maybe it’s a sign.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know. Of hope. That things are going to get better.”

She shook her head, her smile not even touching on the endless happiness she felt. “You’re a hopeless romantic.”

And the road opened up before them.

moke still billowed up from the ruins of the Kyle of Lochalsh across the water, sweeping a curtain of grey across the bright moon. Here and there small fires continued to burn like Will-o’-the-Wisps. The night was thick with the reek of devastation and despair, the smell of a world winding down.

Jack Churchill, known to his friends as Church, sat on the sea wall at Kyleakin next to Laura DuSantiago, and together they surveyed what little of the carnage they could make out on the mainland. It provided an odd counterpoint to the tranquillity that came from the gently lapping waves and the wind which blew through the deserted village. They were both exhausted after the nerve-racking journey across Skye in an abandoned car they had found in Kil- muir. The oppressively claustrophobic atmosphere was brought down by their fears of an ambush at every bend in the road, and magnified by the eerie stillness of the surrounding countryside, devoid of any sign of human life; it had been eradicated as easily and completely as a germ culture on a microscope slide. Nor were there any bodies; whatever the Fomorii had done with the former inhabitants did not bear considering. By the time they reached Kyleakin they had to accept that the Fomorii had deemed them too small a threat to pursue them any longer, and somehow that was even more jarring than the constant fear of attack. They were worthless.

“Well, it could be worse.” Laura brushed a stray strand of dyed-blonde hair out of her eyes as she shuffled into a more comfortable position on the wall.

Church, his dark hair emphasising the paleness of his wearied face, looked at her askance. “How could it possibly be worse?”

“We could be going to work tomorrow.”

She kept her gaze fixed firmly across the water, but Church had learned to read the humour in her deadpan expression. Their relationship, if that was what it was, still surprised him. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about her. On the surface they had nothing in common, but deep down it seemed that something had clicked; after so long in the emotional ice-field following Marianne’s death it felt good to reconnect with another human being, and the sex had been great. He hoped it was more than a simple alliance forged through the desperation of terrifying times, but there was no point losing sleep analysing it; it would find its own level soon enough, he was sure of it. Cautiously he reached out and took her hand. She was so unpredictable he half-expected her to snatch it away and accuse him of being a romantic idiot, but her fingers closed around his, cool and comforting.

“Do you think the others have forgiven me for screwing up so badly?” he asked. The notion drove a pang of guilt through him.

“They didn’t give it a second thought. They might look like morons, but they can see you’re all right. For a dickhead. And let’s face it, you only acted like a human being. One who doesn’t tell his friends anything, but a human being nonetheless. Who’s going to fault you for that?”