Dead of Light (36 page)

He just looked at me and said, “Can you guarantee, absolutely
guarantee
that if I leave these behind, nothing at all is going to happen to them?”

I started to say yes, of course I could, it was me that was the target here, not a one-man ceilidh band; and stopped before the first word was halfway up my throat. Thought about major talent confronted by a locked door that no one was going to answer, and did the other thing instead, said no.

Said, “No, I suppose I can't.”

“Right.” And then, just a little belatedly, all his priorities exposed, he said, “What about you, what are you doing? Are you going to be okay?”

“I don't know,” I admitted.

“You could, uh,” Jon started, hesitated, waited for Jacko's support and then carried on regardless, “you could come with us. We're going over to a mate's, I don't suppose anyone'd look for you there...”

Too scared to want me along, he was too warm-hearted not to make the offer. I found a real smile for him, along with the shake of the head that he was looking for. “No. Thanks, I mean really thanks, but no. I don't know what he's got, the guy who's after me. Wherever I hole up, he might still be able to sniff me out.” I couldn't bring that down on my friends.

“What, then?” Jacko demanded, working the door open with his elbow, his arms full of latent music. “Got any plans?”

“Not really. Maybe I'll just get on the bike and drive, get right out of town...”

“Good. Sounds good. Luck, Ben...”

“Thanks.” I was going to need it, whatever I did. “Now go. Go on, scoot.”

And they did that, they scooted. They all but ran up the road to the bus-stop, encumbered as they were; I locked the door, realised I'd left all the lights on and decided against all policy to leave them, a misleading beacon in the twilight.

o0o

Back on the bike again; much more of this and I'd be getting saddle-sores.

Which would either be the last or the least of my worries, depending.

What I'd said about driving all night had only been spur-of-the-moment, Jacko's payback for showing concern; at the time I hadn't meant it. Wasn't such a bad idea, though. Driving in circles all night would only attract attention, but there was a whole nother country out there beyond the city limits, and it was user-friendly to me in a way that my own home town was not tonight, pretty much a magic-free zone...

As a self-rescue plan, that sounded pretty good to me. Though it did of course depend on the one assumption, that I could make it to the city limits unassailed.

I thought I could. I was sure I could. The odds were stacked high in my favour. Big place, and me very small within it; and so far as I knew only one man out there to oppose me. And him equally small on the physical plane, though his talent might be enormous...

The quickest way out was straight on up the hill and along the river to the west; but if he was thinking ahead of me here, if he was covering any route at all — listening out for what was becoming my sound-signature, perhaps, my leitmotif, the throaty roar of the BMW working hard, just as my sister used to work it — then that's where he'd be, on that road with his fingers sparking fire and death in his eyes.

Smart money said to find another way to leave. Cross one of the bridges and head south, perhaps, and just pray that he didn't happen to be there on that particular bridge as I crossed. Or go north on the Great South Road, or the quieter coastal route: wherever he chose to watch if he was watching, he surely wouldn't be watching that. Least likely road of all, that was.

So maybe he'd be watching that road, on the Agatha Christie principle. I couldn't know, all I could do was guess and guess again, ultimately toss a mental coin and hope.

Probably I should have dumped the bike in a back alley somewhere and gone for a bus or a train, or hijacked some nonentity's undistinguished car. But my paranoia-quotient was running high tonight, I could see a shadowy figure stepping into the road or onto the tracks, I could hear the squeal of brakes and taste doom like terror in my mouth; and I'd be trapped that way, taken in a metal box and risking other people's lives as I gave my own away. Better to die on the bike if I had to do that thing at all, better to be brought down with speed and noise and my eyes on the dark horizon, bidding for freedom; better by far to die alone than in company.

Better still not to die at all, of course. One feeling persisted, though, that if I didn't die I was going to have to kill instead. Me personally, and deliberately so. Not enough to be on the killing side, lined up for once with my family; it was on my shoulders to finish it myself, if I could survive through to daylight.

Jamie had had his chance, and hadn't used it; and if my hot-tempered cousin couldn't kill coldly, then what chance did I have? With all my mixed motives and confusions, and above and in front of everything the memory of that traffic cop dancing his death before me, I didn't, I couldn't possibly trust myself where I had trusted Jamie and seen him fail.

Which was another excellent reason to get out of town: not to know that I was letting my family down again, condemning God alone knew how many more of them to a terrible death, slow and agonising and — oh, Christ forgive me but the word was there in my head and what can you do? — bloodcurdling.

Maybe I should just keep on going, once I'd passed the city limits. Not come back even in daylight, to prowl the territories of my latest betrayal and learn just how much it had cost, in blood and other things...

o0o

Running away has always been one of my strengths. I'm good at spotting opportunities for escape, good at seizing them and particularly good at riding the scorn and the self-contempt that come after. No macho illusions to be shattered, I guess.

 This time, though, I wasn't confident even of getting the chance, let alone surviving the fallout. Whichever way I picked, I was sure he'd outguess me and be waiting. I juggled and shuffled ifs and maybes in my mind until I was dizzy with possibilities.

In the end, though, I performed a decisive mental twist that I instantly labelled a reverse Occam, dumped all the complicated scenarios I'd been building in my head and seized instead on the nearest, the simplest, the quickest way out of town. Blaze of glory time: if he was there, primed and ready to pick me off, he'd have a moving target to aim at. A
fast
-moving target.

“Die young,” I told myself with a fake cheeriness, saying it aloud to fool myself the better, “leave a beautiful corpse...”

In the interests of which I got off the bike, fished my keys out and went back inside the flat after all. Not to turn the lights off, only to fetch my sister's crash helmet and seat it securely on my head. Not that that would protect my delicate features from the inward assaults of the blood-curdling stunt; but the speed I meant to drive at, any more normal manifestation of talent could simply throw me off the bike one way or another, and I'd sooner not leave my face in shreds on the tarmac. Not nice for my mother when they came to lay me out.

Besides, I fancied the anonymity, the implicit threat of a full-face helmet with a darkened visor. I had nothing to back the threat up with, this time of night, but everyone knew that anyway. It was all image, and self-image; and what better time to bolster your self-image than the night you tread the primrose path to dalliance with death?

So. Helmet on, visor down and no matter that the dark tint robbed the streetlights of half their usefulness. There was no traffic around in any case, the cattle were all cooped up and I could see well enough to drive on empty roads.

o0o

Up the hill and over the top at speed: there before me was the yellow ribbon of light that marked the highway, falling down to the bridge over the bypass where all the rest of the country seemed to pass us by and then on and on and out of my sight, and I had fuel enough to race all the length of the ribbon to the opposite coast if I chose to...

There were lights moving north and south, there was traffic aplenty on the bypass. My own was always the road less travelled, and tonight the citizenry was well advised to stay withindoors; but even with that as a given, there should surely have been a few trucks coming and going, what trade my family sanctioned. In fact there was none. Mine was the only light moving, as far as my eyes could see.

That was strange, disconcerting, but not for long. The rate I was going, nothing could last long. The nervous tension in my body, that already had my fingers trembling right through to the bone where they were clenched around the handgrips, resolved itself into panic as soon as my squinting eyes could distinguish light from light on the road ahead.

There were the orange sodium lights that drew the line of the road on into the night; but just this side of the bridge, delineating the town's border, there was a line of ice-blue light that flickered coldly. That was nightfire, that explained incontrovertibly why the road was deserted but for me; and I did think I'd been outguessed, I thought my enemy waited for me at the roadside, confident enough to show me that he was there.

I braked with a scream that I hoped was only tyres on tarmac, though it resonated within the confines of the helmet so that I thought some part of it at least had come from my own throat. The bike skidded, and more than anything I wanted to turn that skid into a spin, to let momentum carry me over onto the other carriageway facing the other way. If he was here, he couldn't be elsewhere; the bridges would be clear, the Great South Road would be safe, I could find another way out of town and be free and gone before he caught up with me...

I didn't do that, though. I controlled the skid without thinking, brought the bike to a halt and only sat there, one foot on the road and the beam of my headlight spearing down toward the roadblock, announcing me to any watching eyes.

Nothing moved. I tilted the visor back to see better, and saw how the tarmac itself was burning in a neat, tight line, straight across the road from one kerb to the other. Whoever had laid that fire was feeding it richly; nightfire was a thin light normally, reflecting its source, but this was throwing flares three or four metres high, a fierce warning and an absolute prohibition.

Shielding my eyes against the dazzle of it, I could make out the high boxy shadow of an off-road vehicle, some Japanese Land Rover-substitute, pulled appropriately off the road. Figures also, standing on either kerb: two on one side, at least one on the other. I couldn't see their faces, but their number was enough. If I was sure of anything, I was sure I had only one man to face.

I rolled the bike slowly forward — and had to stop to spit suddenly, as sour saliva flooded my mouth. Sure I might be, but I'd been wrong before, about things I was certain of. And Christ, I was scared now; I could hear the beat of my blood in my ears, and not only my mouth was flooding. My mind spilled over with memories of the dead, and how their blood had turned bad in their bodies. Blisters or boiling sludge, crystal or acid, it all came down to blood; and
any moment now
, my own traitor thoughts were whispering,
any moment, just keep getting closer, make them a gift of your own blood to play with. Why not? It'll show the family, at least, show the world that you belong...

I spat again, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, tipped the visor down and went on forward.

o0o

A little nearer, and if I couldn't see faces I could at least see that they had faces, those shadows on the borders of the road. White their faces were, and turned to me: squinting into my light as I into theirs. Powerful headlamps, Beamers have. One stepped further back onto the grass verge, trying to avoid the cone of my fierce light; the nightfire flickered and paled, seemed to die a little before it fed again.

Nearer still, and I was better off than they. They'd not be seeing anything but dark — dark helmet, visor down; dark jacket and dark jeans — and that only if they could see anything of me at all behind the light. Me, I saw them and I knew them, and my terror slowly ebbed.

Cousins, of course. Minor cousins, these, and three of them together because only that way could they hope to meet or match a major talent: a Jamie, say, if Jamie were provoked.
Or a Benedict
, my unabashed ego put in, breaking through in a rush as though I had nothing more to be frightened of all night,
if the sun were shining on him...

Reminding myself that even minor cousins could tear me apart in darkness if they had a mind to do it — or if they were spooked enough not to look closely, not to see that I was family: and maybe the helmet wasn't such a smart idea after all — I brought the bike to a halt still some little distance off. Killed the engine, but left the lights alive. Couldn't hold all three of them in the beam at once, but two I had, and those I was holding on to.

I dismounted, looking at the tension in the two that I could see and feeling my shoulder blades itch with knowledge of the one that I couldn't; and decided reluctantly that discretion at this point was far the better part of image-building.

So I lifted the helmet off, ran a hand through my hair and walked deliberately into the light, calling ahead as I went.

“Hullo, is that Conor?”

A moment's more silence, and then an explosive breath, and, “Jesus fucking
Christ
, it's only bloody Benedict!”

Mutters of relief and resentment, and I didn't need to hear the words, I knew the sentiments too well already. Only Benedict, untrustworthy but harmless. Just a sport, a freak of nature, had no talent so he ran away and the family was well rid of him, no use for hangers-on...

“What the hell are you doing here, Benedict?”

“Came to see. What's going on?”

He ignored that, squinting past me. “Is that your bike?”

“Yes,” I said flatly.

“Only I thought, just for a moment there, I thought...”