Shift (21 page)

“I’m fine,” she said, pushing me off her and getting to her feet.

“That was cl-ose,” Jakes said with an exaggerated sigh.

“Yeah it was, thanks,” Aubrey said, gingerly touching the cut on her head. “But who are you?”

“This is Jake,” I said. “He’s another of the Fresh Meat Brigade.” Jake mimed doffing a cap to Aubrey.

“Well, thank you,” she said hitting him with her full, one hundred watt smile. Jake blushed. “We owe you our lives.” She rolled her shoulders and rubbed at her wrists.

“Still reckon we’re not out of our depth?” I said, looking up at the swinging ropes.

“What was all that about not being able to live without me?” Aubrey countered.

I gulped. I had no memory of saying that, but I knew I’d been screaming all sorts of desperate stuff. “I was, erm, just trying to stop him.”

She raised an amused eyebrow and then winced at the pain in her forehead.

“What the hell are you doing here, Jake?” I said, trying to change the subject.

“Exactly what I would like to know,” said a treacle voice from behind us.

I turned around to see Rosalie sashaying across the room, delicately picking her way through the detritus. She stepped up to Jake and grabbed him by the arm.

“You told me you were going to stay at home!” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“I thought Scott might need my help, so I followed him.”

“You’re impossible, do you know that?”

When I saw them standing next to each other I knew where I’d seen those chocolate eyes before.

“She’s your sister?” I asked Jake. He nodded.

“Unfortunately for me,” said Rosalie. “Yes, he’s my stupid little brother who is always getting into trouble. Isn’t that right, Jakey?”

“Sis,” Jake groaned.

“We’ll talk more about this when we get home.”

We all turned our attention to the mass of blubber lying on the floor. One of his arms was bent underneath him, the other stretched out and was cupping a rotting bread loaf, like it was a teddy bear he’d brought to bed. He wasn’t moving.

Rosalie bent down and pressed a long finger against his neck. Judging by her expression, you’d think she was sticking her hand up a cow’s backside.

“Is he…?” Jake asked, chewing his bottom lip.

Rosalie shoved her hand deeper into the folds of flesh. “No, there’s a pulse.” She retrieved her hand and wiped it on her skirt. “He probably didn’t even break anything in the fall with all that padding to protect him. As you’re here, make yourself useful, Jake. Pass me my bag.”

A very relieved-looking Jake skipped over the body and grabbed his sister’s bag off the floor. I guessed that his dreams of being the big hero had not involved actually killing anyone.

Rosalie pulled a black case out of her bag. It was about twelve inches long and looked like a small flute case. A double clunk of the silver clasps and she opened it to reveal a long syringe and two glass bottles nestled in grey foam. She drained one of the bottles with the syringe and pressed the plunger, releasing a bead of cloudy liquid.

With two fingers she pulled up Benjo’s T-shirt to expose a cavernous butt crack. Raising her fist high above her head, she brought the syringe down into his backside and pressed the plunger.

“Will that kill him?” Aubrey asked, a dark, angry tone in her voice.

“No. It’s just a psychotropic drug.”

“So it will make him forget?” I asked hopefully. I didn’t like the idea of Benjo remembering anything about me.

Rosalie returned the syringe to the case and straightened up. “Not forget, exactly. It will make him unable to distinguish between dreams and reality. So he will awake and believe his finest fantasy to have come true. He will believe you dead and killed, no doubt, in the most satisfying manner.”

“Clever drug,” Aubrey said.

“A friend gave it to me. It comes in handy. A tiny drop and my clients will have had a night they will never forget. While I can catch up on my reading.”

So that was how she showed her clients a good time without having to actually do anything. It was impressive, in a really messed-up way.

Aubrey walked towards the slumbering Benjo. “Doesn’t seem fair. He should suffer for what he’s done.”

“Oh, he will,” Rosalie said. “Just not yet.”

“Why not now? He’s here.” Aubrey said, nudging his bulging stomach with the toe of her boot.

“We’ve been following him for some time now, slowly drawing him in. If we move too soon he will simply Shift and all our hard work will be for nothing. He really is quite powerful.”

“But he’s unconscious. Doesn’t look like he could Shift his way out of a paper bag at the moment. Why don’t we just, you know… do away with him?” I said.

“First of all, he has information we need. Information we can’t get from him until he is willing to give it up. And second, even if we killed him here and now, he’d only Shift.”

“How can he Shift if he’s dead?” I asked, baffled.

“Really powerful Shifters can operate even on a subconscious level. When their brain senses a threat, when their functions start to shut down, they Shift. It’s like a defence mechanism.”

“Are you saying he can’t die?” This was a disturbing thought. That a creature like the one lying in front of me would keep coming back. Like a zombie. Or the Terminator. Unstoppable and bent on the single thought of munching on my brains. I shuddered.

“He can die. We just need to manoeuvre him into a corner. A bit like checkmating in chess. You have to eliminate all avenues for escape. And currently, he still has options.”

I stared at his mass. “And he got that powerful from eating all those brains?”

“Possibly. We have people looking into it.”

Benjo snorted in his sleep and we all jumped back.

“Well, if we can’t kill him, then let’s get the hell out of here.” Aubrey nodded and we turned to go. “So now can I tell Abbott?” I said.

“I suppose.” Aubrey looked defeated. Ashamed even. “We should have gone to him at the start.”

“No,” Rosalie said. “You can’t tell anyone at ARES about this.”

“What? Why not? Aren’t you from ARES?” I asked.

Rosalie laughed. “Of course not,” she said. “I’m with the SLF.”

It’s amazing the rage that three letters can inspire. The

SLF were the very people I’d set myself against. The people I was sure were behind Heritage’s death and Benjo’s brain-munching. The same people who’d blown me up.

“Come on then,” said Jake, rocking back and forth on his heels, eager to leave.

I didn’t move.

“Is there a problem?” Rosalie said.

“Er, yeah. Considering your lot tried to kill me.”

“What are you talking about? We just saved you.”

“Well, I doubt saving me was on your mind when you blew up that Tube.”

She looked confused. “The SLF have never blown anything up.”

“Your fearless leader Zac had coffee with Warner. The man I watched explode not one minute before the train went up.”

“Zac would never…” She didn’t sound too certain.

“Zac will do whatever it takes,” Aubrey said, with feeling. She came to stand next to me. “He has something to prove and he doesn’t care who or what gets in his way. He uses people to get what he wants and then throws them away. Trust me. I know.”

Rosalie went pale and looked at the floor.

Aubrey took a few steps towards the older girl. “And you think those stims that he’s dealing are harmless? You think once those kids get a taste of those other possibilities they don’t want to try them for real? He’s messing with people’s lives. I guess that’s where you got that drug from,” she said, pointing at Rosalie’s bag. “But do you really know what it does?”

A heavy tension hung between the two girls. I looked from one to the other and saw something similar between them. Physically, they were totally different. Aubrey was small, blonde and looked like a pixie that might tear your head off if you looked at it wrong. Whereas Rosalie was tall, dark and graceful like a ballerina. But they shared a certain something. A way of carrying themselves. Pride.

“It’s more complicated than you understand,” said Rosalie, finally. “And we don’t have time for this right now. I’ll explain everything, I promise. But we have to go.”

Benjo snorted on the floor and pulled his bread loaf closer to him. “Now!” Rosalie shouted.

She pushed Jake towards the door. I hesitated, looking from Rosalie to Aubrey to Benjo. He twitched. Aubrey sighed and started to run and I followed her. Jake opened the door and we all piled out. The freshness of the street was a relief after the stench of the warehouse. A beat-up white van screeched to a halt in front of the factory and Rosalie opened up the back doors. Jake hopped in the back.

“Get in,” Rosalie said.

“We’re not going with you,” I said, standing between Aubrey and the van. She laid a hand on my shoulder, moving me out of the way.

“I’m afraid I will have to insist,” Rosalie said. I remembered the .22 Jenning – the ‘little friend’ – she carried in her handbag and decided this was not a woman to be argued with.

“It’s OK,” whispered Aubrey in my ear. “Let’s find out what they’re up to.”

I wasn’t convinced. But I guess this is what being a member of ARES was all about. Putting yourself in danger for the greater good. I stepped into the van and helped Aubrey in behind me. We sat on the floor as the doors shut and the van pulled away.

Jake was sitting on the wheel arch, all grins and twitching energy. “That was cool right? You were all like, ‘Nooo!’ And I was like zap! And he was like, ‘Aaarrrggghhh!’ Slam!” He continued to chatter away for what felt like about fifteen minutes. Telling us all about his sister’s friends and how cool they were. As infectious as his enthusiasm was, I felt sorry for him. The friends he was talking about were a bunch of terrorists. He was a traitor and he didn’t even know it.

The van rumbled to a halt and moments later the doors were thrown open and we all stood up to leave.

“Just Jake, please,” Rosalie said, reaching out a hand to her brother. Jake shrugged at us and leapt down out of the van to join his sister. The doors were closed again leaving us alone.

We waited in the near-darkness, listening as footsteps moved away from the van. A steady Doppler whoosh of cars passing suggested we were somewhere near a main road. The clicking of the engine cooling seemed unnaturally loud, like a timer counting down.

I was running scenarios in my head. Once they opened the doors, I could charge them and run for it. Or I could go along with them and wait for an opportunity to escape to present itself. I tried to think of a Shift I could make. But I was too worried about finding myself stuck in Benjo’s web.

“Do we have a plan?” I whispered to Aubrey. I was never very good at making decisions at the best of times and stuck in the back of a terrorist van was hardly what you could call the best of times.

“We find out what they want,” Aubrey said.

“But what if what they want is to kill us?”

She looked at me. “If they wanted us dead, why would they bother saving us from Benjo?”

“So they didn’t miss out on the fun?” I said, my voice squeaking slightly.

“Stop being such a pussy, Scott. They’re anarchists not sadists.”

“How do you know they’re not both?”

Before she answered the doors were opened again. A big guy wearing green combats and a black T-shirt stood outside. It was the ape from the club. The one Aubrey had beaten.

“Well, what have we here? A couple of imperialist scumbags?” He had a strong Northern Irish accent and a crooked grin.

“Who you calling scumbag, you bog-farming, potatosucker?” Aubrey said jumping out of the van and shoving him in the chest. I didn’t even know what that meant, but it sounded good.

His grin widened. “Looks like we have ourselves a little firecracker. Better watch ourselves, hey Rosie?”

“It’s the boy you need to be careful of, Sean,” said Rosalie. “Jake says he’s the best fighter he’s ever seen.”

I stepped onto the pavement trying to hide my smile of satisfaction. I tugged my blue jacket, and brushed some dust off the arm. I was trying to play it cool, but my hands were already shaking.

Rosalie and Sean herded us off the street, up some steps and into an abandoned church. I glanced at a cracked statue of Mary gazing down on us, before being pushed through two large wooden doors. I whacked my elbow on a stone font as I tumbled through.

The nave was about thirty feet long, lined in black, square tiles. Half of the tiles were missing or cracked. All the pews had been pushed to the side and lay stacked up on top of each other against the walls. I felt a nudge in my back and started to walk forward. Multi-coloured light spilled in from the stained glass window, which showed a picture of a saint riddled with arrows. I really hoped it wasn’t trying to tell me something.

As I got closer to the front I saw Jake, sat on the altar with his legs swinging. He waved and I ignored him. There were four or five other people standing around. They looked relaxed, as if they’d gathered for rehearsal or something – not a meeting of an underground terrorist cell. Every face was turned in the same direction. I followed their gaze to see Zac standing in the pulpit, with his hands resting on the wings of a carved golden eagle.

He smiled. “Good to see you again, Brey. We’re making a habit of running into each other.”

“Screw you too, Zac,” she said in reply. A ripple of amused laughter passed among the group. Rosalie was standing with her arms over Jake’s shoulders, watching Zac through tight eyes.

Zac vaulted over the edge of the pulpit and landed on the floor in front of us, sending up a cloud of dust. Show off, I thought.

“What’s this all about?” Aubrey asked.

“Yeah,” I said following her lead. “And if you wouldn’t mind explaining why you tried to kill me, that would be great.”

Zac’s thick eyebrows lowered and he looked across at Rosalie.

“He thinks you blew up a Tube,” Rosalie said, an uncertainty in her voice.

Zac threw his head back and laughed. The rest of the group picked up his cue and laughed along, although they didn’t look so amused. When Zac recovered he looked at me. “The SLF don’t go in for such barbaric displays of strength. We choose more subtle forms of eroding the state.”