Needing (20 page)

Jesus Christ…

Cum hurtled out of Oliver, fast and without the usual spurts, one long stream of ropey cream that smacked onto the tile and didn’t seem to want to stop. He yelled, words he didn’t understand or hear properly, not even sure whether they came from him or Langham. He closed his eyes, neck tendons straining, legs threatening to give way as wet heat filled his arse and Langham shouted through his orgasm.

When his ejaculation receded, Oliver slapped his hand over Langham’s, taking it away from his overused cock. Out of breath, he savoured the slowing of Langham’s movement in his arse, his rim stinging from the stretch and the bite of cum. Langham stopped, pulling Oliver away from the wall and, remaining inside him, crossed his arms over Oliver’s chest and belly.

He murmured, “Like I said, Oliver. This is it. You and me. We’ve
got
this thing.”

Chapter Sixteen

Oliver roused but kept his eyes closed, hoping to drop back to sleep. His pillow crackled, and he frowned. It didn’t usually crackle. Wasn’t filled with down like this one. His was a foam affair that moulded to the shape of his head. Where was he?

He snapped his eyes open, and all the memories came flooding back. He was ‘someplace’, with Langham sprawled beside him, inches of space separating their bodies because, Oliver guessed, they were so used to sleeping alone. He turned on his side and studied the detective, the flickering light from the TV illuminating a body Oliver still couldn’t believe he’d touched.

Oliver liked the possessiveness, the feeling of being owned, of someone wanting to care for him the way Langham did. Monogamous, just them, no one else involved. It was different, something he hadn’t done before, and the thought of a proper relationship had him grinning in the semi-darkness, wanting to laugh so hard until his belly muscles hurt.

Could he do that? Did he have what it took to make a relationship work? He was dedicated enough, and he cared for Langham in a way he hadn’t cared for anyone else, but what if they didn’t get along as a couple? What if being together as well as working with one another put a fuck-off spanner in the works?

A sudden, perceptible shift in his mood—the swift removal of happiness replaced by unease—had him bolting upright. His chest tightened, and he found it difficult to pull in a decent breath. He cocked his head, thinking, hoping the action would help him realise what was wrong. Something was, and he was sure it didn’t have anything to do with what he’d just been thinking. It went deeper than that. With only the faint hum of God knew what out in the corridor and Langham’s steady breathing, he couldn’t fathom what the fuck was up. Was someone lurking outside their room? Who the hell knew they were here anyway?

A wave of cold swept over him, and he settled back on the bed, drawing the quilt up to his chin. His teeth chattered, the air turning cold, and a nasty pinch in the pit of his stomach was all the proof he needed that it wasn’t someone or something in
this
life giving him the jitters.

“Who are you?” he whispered, the thought entering his mind that one of those God-awful demons had picked tonight to make a visit. He’d hated it the last time he’d seen one—it had freaked him out for days afterwards, ruining any chance he’d had of a decent night’s sleep for well over a week. “What do you want?”

“I heard you’re the one who can help me. You know, because I’m dead.”

The voice wasn’t faint or reedy, full of fear or puzzlement that the spirit had found themselves dead. No, this one was full of bravado, confidence, and had possibly belonged to a male arsehole in life.

“Yeah, I was an arsehole. Still am.”

Oliver didn’t feel badly that he hadn’t shielded his thoughts this time. It seemed to him the man would prefer honesty.

“Yep. So here’s some honesty from me. Nice to finally meet you properly, Oliver.”

“Who are you?” he said again, louder but not loud enough to wake Langham.

“Mr Weird Eyes.”

Alex bloody Reynolds.

He laughed—shards of glass splintering, then sandpaper on roughly hewn wood—the sound grating right on Oliver’s nerves.

“Shut the fuck up,” he snapped. “What do you want with me?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? So fuck off then!” Oliver glanced over at Langham to make sure he still slept.

“Aww, that’s no way to talk to someone who’s just reaching out, wanting contact with someone he kinda knew in life. It’s boring here, wherever the fuck I am. Dark place, trees every-damn-where. And the stink! It’s like rotting veg.”

“Jesus. I know where you are.”

It was the same place as the other one, the demon who had visited him before, playing around with Oliver just because he could, just because the thin veil between worlds had allowed him through.

“You do? Well, aren’t you going to tell me then?”

“It’s a bad place, Alex. You’re going to wish you weren’t there.” He paused, then a thought struck him. “Hang on, how the fuck did you
get
there?”

“Think I was going to spend the rest of my life in prison? Fuck, no. Coward’s way out for me, man. I don’t want no dirty faggot fucking me up the arse in the shower.”

Oliver went cold. Had Alex been here when… No, Oliver would have felt him. Sensed it. “Shut the hell up. Just shut the hell up.”

“Yeah, Shields said you were testy.”

Shields had said that? In front of Alex? Jesus, the man had been such a bloody arsehole.

“Whatever, Alex. Look, tell me what you want. If you’re only here to fuck me about, well, don’t.”

“Fine. See ya.”

“Wait!” Oliver spoke louder than he’d intended, and whipped his head to the side to glance at Langham.

He slept on.

“What?”

“Your eyes. The kids’ eyes. Contacts or real?”

“What, these eyes?”

A shadowy form manifested at the bottom of the bed, hulking, menacing, the body shape that of a much bigger man than Alex had been. The glowing eyes appeared, wide and large, pupil-slits as long as a woman’s fake fingernail, the irises the size of a two-pence piece. Oliver cried out, slapping one hand over his mouth. His legs went to jelly even though he was sitting, and his body felt like it had drained of everything solid, filling with a syrupy mass that pushed against his skin, wanting out.

“Oh, Jesus… No, not one of you again.”

“Yeah, one of those, that’s me. A devil in life, devil in death. I know exactly where I am. I was just messing with ya.”

“Fuck off,” Oliver said, trying to remember what he had to do to get rid of demons. He’d visited a channeller before, a woman who’d taught him how to only let the good ones in. After each time he’d spoken to the dead he was supposed to close himself off, imagine a cocoon covered him, no gaps, no way through the skin, keeping himself safe until the next time a spirit came knocking at his door. He was the one who was supposed to be in control, not them, and lately he’d forgotten the lesson, forgotten the ritual. How long had he left himself open like that? Months, probably.

Shit.

He imagined the cocoon growing from his feet to the top of his head, and chanted that the demon had to leave, wasn’t welcome here. He wanted to close his eyes but didn’t dare to in case Alex came closer. Touched him. Did something to him.

“There’s one more out there. Just thought you should know. One more like me, getting ready to kill right…this…minute.”

The shadow faded, the eyes dimming seconds later, and just as the cocoon reached the top of his head, before it had a chance to close and keep him secure, another spirit barged in.

“Wait! Let me speak! Don’t go! Don’t make me struggle to get you to hear me!”

Oliver abandoned the channelling, looking all around to make sure Alex had really gone. The unease he’d felt prior to the bastard coming had disappeared, but another chilling feeling had taken its place, white-hot in its intensity and not a pleasant sensation. Fingers of fear crept up his spine, and a strange, almost out-of-body-experience occurred. He wasn’t ‘someplace’ anymore, but hovered above a bedroom, a double divan below with a woman on it, hacked to pieces, fresh blood still dripping from a corner of the bed sheet that hung over the side.

“You see me? You see me there?”

Oliver nodded.

“He’s only just gone. You can catch him. I followed him. He’s under the bypass, the one off Chaucer Street. He’s… He’s got… Oh, God, he’s licking my blood off his hands.”

“Where do you live? Where am I? Your flat?”

“Twenty-seven Portman Street. Bungalow with a green door.”

“Your name?” Oliver couldn’t look at her anymore, the blonde hair streaked red, the torso, arms and legs God knew where. Stomach gaping open, innards splayed across the bed like a bad impression of modern art.

“Sasha Morrison. He took parts of me. Has them with him. In a…black…refuse bag.”

Oliver felt her pain, that her life had been cruelly ended, reduced to her being placed in bags designed to hold rubbish. “Why you? Do you know?”

“I’m the last one to know where the main man is. Who he is.”

“The main man? There’s another?”

“Yes. The two caught at the airport, they were just lackeys, men who acted like they’d masterminded the whole thing. They worked for someone else.”

“Who?”

“Gideon Davis.”

“Where is he?”

“Spain.”

“Oh, Jesus. He runs the operation from there?”

“Yes. I… I need to go. I’m getting colder. It’s…things are fading… W—”

Oliver went to call out, to ask her to hold on for a few more seconds, but he was hauled from Sasha’s flat and back onto the bed with Langham. As though he’d been thrown there, he bounced on his back, the mattress jostling beneath him. An arm clamped over his stomach, and he lashed out, freaked to fuck that Alex had been waiting for his return, a chance to get hold of him and do some serious harm. Oliver thrashed his arms and legs, a constant stream of “No, no, no!” leaving his mouth.

The arm pinned him down, then, “Hey, hey! Shh! It’s me. You’re just having a bad dream. Wake up!”

Langham’s soothing voice calmed Oliver, and he let his body slump, curling towards the detective and burrowing into his embrace. Those strong arms took every bad thing away for a moment, leaving Oliver safe and protected, but then Alex and Sasha slammed into his mind again, and he drew back to look into eyes that held serious concern.

“What is it?” Langham asked.

Oliver babbled, spewing the last few minutes of events out into the air. Langham rubbed his back through the telling, no laughter or disbelief when Oliver said Alex had appeared as a demon. He hadn’t expected that demon at all, not when he’d scoffed at the idea of glowing eyes and devils before.

“I swear to God, he was here. Right there at the end of the fucking bed. I’m not pissing about,” Oliver said, easing back to sit up and fist his eyes. “Right fucking there.” He pointed, mentally drawing the cocoon around him in case some other bastard devil had a mind to slip in without permission. “Those eyes. And the way he was. I can’t believe he bloody killed himself.”

“A lot of them do.” Langham sat up beside him and continued rubbing circles at the bottom of Oliver’s back. “They can’t handle prison, yet they can handle killing people.”

“It doesn’t make sense. If you’ve got the guts to kill, why would prison freak you out?”

“Because they can’t kill anymore. For most of them, killing is in their blood.”

“But Alex was made to kill. The drugs.”

“I reckon, with him, he’d have killed eventually anyway. Wasn’t your average human, was he?”

“No.” Oliver sighed. “You going to call Sasha’s death in?”

Langham nodded, then got off the bed and grabbed his phone. He dialled, speaking quickly, his words tripping over one another as he gave the location of the man who had killed Sasha and where they could find her body. He ended the call, started dressing. “You want to come to the bypass with me?”

Oliver nodded.

“Come on, then. After we’ve rounded him up, we need to go back to the station. Someone will be alerting the Spanish police about Gideon Davis, but I’ve got a shitload of interviewing to do—child suspects coming out of my arse—and too many things to get sorted. Let’s wrap this fucking thing up. It feels like it’s been going on for days.”

* * * *

In the murky light that was pre-dawn, Langham drew the car up to the kerb behind a string of police cars. Coppers were strategically placed along the top of the bypass and at either end of the square tunnel below. Had they been instructed to wait for Langham before they acted, or had another detective or senior officer gone down the muddy incline and discovered the killer there? Maybe the man licking blood from his hands had drawn a weapon, holding up his arrest.

Oliver followed Langham to a sergeant standing on the rise and asked, “He been arrested?”

“No. He’s asleep. Thought we’d better wait for you. Knew you were coming, see.”

“Right.” Langham shook his head, his thoughts clear on his face—‘Doesn’t anything get done around here without me being involved?’

All right, Oliver could see his point—to a degree—but this case was so far-reaching, too much for Langham to handle alone or with a small team, and other officers
had
been delegated jobs. Hundreds of coppers were working this case, if Oliver was any good at guessing.