“Sorry sir.” Jamie sounded it, and Clive tried to stop his emotions rampaging across his face. For a second he imagined how it would feel to seize a fistful of hair at the back of the boy's head, and hammer his nose against the blackboard. Once. Twice. Third time the charm, and then he would mash the lump of tissue and cartilage that remained back and forth against the green-black slate, leaving wide, damp smears of blood and snot gleaming in the headache inducing strip lighting.
Clive took a slow breath through his nostrils, clamping his eyes closed and counting back from five. The moment passed. With it went the adrenaline that had aggravated his ordinarily mild temper, leaving him feeling pasty and shaken. Opening his eyes, he saw the class watching him, some worried, some simply curious as to what would happen next. “Right,” he managed, “back to Antony and Cleopatra. Mock exams are on the horizon, so today we'll have a trial run. Get your pens ready.” There was a disorganised flurry, as pens were unearthed from bags and pockets. “The question is this. With the death of Antony in Act Four, the play reaches its natural climax, and the tragedy is complete. Act Five becomes an extended epilogue. Discuss. Forty-five minutes, exam conditions, starting now.” Groans sounded across the room, but the whispery scratching of pens scribbling half-formed thoughts soon dominated. Clive sank into the chair behind his desk with relief, surreptitiously pulling the morning's newspaper out.
Still feeling a tremor in his hands, he ran his fingers over the lines of text, searching for any mention of his name. The cover story, which also dominated the next two pages, worried him, and with his heart beating too fast he searched the details to see if any of the victims were named. It took him ten minutes, and when he found nothing to corroborate his fears he sucked in a partial breath of relief. There was a description of a man who could have been Ambrose, but it was so hard to be sure. The nightclub was on the university campus, where faux Byron look-alikes were plentiful. Clive also knew his friend's goodness too well, and could not associate him with a massacre like this.
The scent on the air was one he associated almost entirely with teaching this age group. Hanging pungently over everything else was the heady, clashing odour of perfumes applied by girls obsessed with sex. Those not already doing it soon would be, and the elaborate nasal mating game they brought into his class made it smell like a whore's boudoir. Underlying the cloying sweetness like a festering sore was a foetid mix of male sweat, and the chemical aftertaste of enthusiastically applied deodorant. Half the boys drooled over the girls, while the others dreamed of joyriding, petty thuggery, and other ways to pass the time after school. Sluts and criminals in the making, all of them.
Clive shook his head, drawing curious glances from the front row of desks. What was wrong with him? When he became a teacher, he had believed no kid was irredeemable, and had tried to bring out their best by engaging them instead of standing aloof. Maintaining his idealism wasn't always easy in practise, but he had remained determined not to become one of those who started their careers with lofty ambitions and quickly fell by the wayside. Recently though, the most disturbing, horrific thoughts had slammed into his head, leaving him feeling rank and violated.
Resting his chin on his hand, he looked back down at the paper spread across his desk. Worry was doing this to him. Since his next door neighbour had vanished nearly three weeks ago, he had been distracted and anxious.
Heather didn't know the cause of his stress, and Clive couldn't find a way to make clear why the man was so important to him. How did you explain to your wife of two years that you couldn't sleep at night for thinking about another man's eyes, the way he looked at you in the corridor, the quiet, sensitive conversations you had about Shakespeare, and Milton, and Keats?
Clive knew in his heart that he wasn't homosexual, but the way it looked was undeniable. Sometimes, when it caught him by surprise, he even found himself reacting to the man physically, his erection straining before he could reign his daydreams in. But he wasn't gay. He had just never had a male friend quite like Ambrose before. That was all.
Even before his violent disappearance, Ambrose had been preoccupied, less willing to pass time than he used to be. Clive had worried that he had inadvertently done something to push him away. Perhaps Ambrose sensed how Clive felt about him and panicked, reading more into it than was meant.
Now Clive might never have a chance to put that right. Disturbed by the deep, unfamiliar lines of worry his fingertips could trace in his forehead, he sat back and gazed out of the window. Spidery frost patterns still clung to the schoolyard where the shadow of the old Victorian building held back the sun. There was something strange and mournful about the shapes they traced, and the longer Clive gazed at them, the more distant he felt from his own body. Yes, he had worried for a long time that Ambrose was pulling away from him, that this beautiful, magnificent man had been scared off. Since that night three weeks ago though, darker, more frightening alternatives had presented themselves to him. Now it was possible that Ambrose had not been running from what they felt for one another at all (when he was distracted, Clive could acknowledge those feelings he would not otherwise concede). Instead, he thought his friend had protected him from something dangerous, violent, and treacherous. Something that visited at Ambrose's flat that night, and howled.
Clive's memories danced out at him from between the trailing crystals of the frost-strewn playground, swarmed up, and engulfed him.
Clive woke with a start, not sure whether the clamour belonged to a dream or the real world. His head had barely touched the pillow, so he could not yet have drifted into dream worlds. When he felt Heather's hand on his arm he knew it had been real. “Was that next door?” she whispered.
A cold fist wrapped around his heart, at the same time as something heavy crashed into the ceiling and dropped hard to the floor in Ambrose's flat. More chilling was the vicious roar that had preceded it – the sound that had dragged him from sleep in time to hear the crashes. “I think so,” he murmured.
“Should we...”
“Shh. Listen.” They turned their heads, straining to hear through the wall behind the bed, all that separated them from Ambrose's living room. Clive heard voices. One was Ambrose, definitely, his elegant, cultured tones easily identifiable even though he was speaking too softly for the words to carry. The second voice was one Clive did not recognise, though the accent was English like Ambrose's own. A relative, perhaps? A brother or cousin, come to visit, and in the middle of a family row? The darkness around him sharpened his focus, and he thought he made out words. Horns… Pandora… Michael…
Clive climbed out of bed carefully, searching with his feet for his trousers. It felt very important that he be as quiet as possible. If this were a family argument, he wouldn't want Ambrose to think he had invaded his privacy. Curiosity prevented him from staying warm in bed with Heather, and something more, a protectiveness. If Ambrose was in trouble, Clive wanted to be there to help him. Clive wanted to be the man Ambrose could rely on when there was trouble. Perhaps in helping now he would make amends for whatever offence had driven his friend away.
“Clive,” Heather whispered, “where are you going?” Clive's eyes had adjusted enough to make out his wife's silhouette sitting up in bed. Not too long ago, he would have been worried about her, about what might happen if the trouble next door spilled over. They had been married two years, and Clive knew deep down that there was something wrong in putting Ambrose's safety above hers.
Still, he could hardly sit back if their neighbour needed help, could he? The thought settled in his mind, smothering his doubts like a heavy blanket.
“Don't worry. I'll knock on the door and check that everything's okay. Be right back.” Heather huddled in the bed. For some time now, Clive had been aware that she backed off rather than challenge anything to do with Ambrose. She was a perceptive woman, and no doubt sensed that this area was off limits. Besides, she knew as well as he that, since moving up to Scotland from Birmingham, Clive had made few frien
ds outside of work.
“Be careful,” she whispered, and her urgency was not lost on him.
“Of course.” Pulling on his trousers and t-shirt, he padded towards the bedroom door, fumbling for the handle.
As his fingers touched the metal, a long, wailing shriek cut through the night. Where the scream that woke him had been full of fury, this was the sound of agony and desperation balled up into one primal howl. Clive froze, barely aware that Heather was out of bed too, her footsteps taking her to the light switch on the wall. When the bulb flashed to life, he saw the clammy shock on her face as she waited for him to take the lead.
Yet Clive couldn't move. Imagination seized him, and he played through the scenarios that could lead to a scream like that. The cry was Ambrose. Though he wanted to rush next door and burst into the flat, ready to throw himself at an attacker, adrenaline was squirting him in the other direction. Hide, it urged his muscles. Stay away.
Heather grabbed his arm. “What should we do?”
Another scream, and this time Clive heard stumbling movements to go with it. The second cry rallied him, and he opened the bedroom door. Six months from his thirtieth birthday, Clive was still in good shape, unimposing but far from incapable. He could handle this. “Call the police,” he told his wife.
“What are you going to do?”
“Never mind that. Just call them.” Heather rushed for the phone by the living room window as Clive stepped to the front door. Pushing his ear to the wood, he tried to hear what was happening outside, hoping to make out the running footsteps of Ambrose's attacker fleeing the scene. There was nothing, and now he couldn't hear anything from the flat next door either. He stood there, torn, knowing that if he stepped outside now he was going to get badly hurt.
Behind him, Heather was on the telephone, stammering over the address. Resting his head against the door, he tried to find the will to move.
A new clatter arose, three or four sharp, hard thuds, as though a cricket ball had rebounded off several walls. Moments later the cold, cultured voice that did not belong to Ambrose was speaking again. Clive was too far away to make out any words.
When Ambrose's door slammed open, and somebody fell into the hallway, Clive shrank back. A howl sounded from the flat, full of rage and hate, and this time the words were perfectly clear.
“Aaaaammmmmmbrooooossssse! I will fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind yoooouuuuu….”
Relief poured into Clive like warm water, and he slid to the floor as he heard footsteps stagger down the hall. Ambrose had overpowered his attacker and was fleeing the scene. Clive wanted to cry, and when he looked over at Heather he was surprised to see she was doing just that. “I thought…” she stammered. “I thought he was…” For once, Clive's instincts as a husband won out, and he stood to embrace his wife.
“Me too.” Clive said. “But it's over now. Everything's going to be fine.”
Whoever was screaming next door refused to stop, and the threats that filled the night chilled Clive's soul. Pulling Heather tighter, burying his face in her tight blonde curls, he tried to hold back his own tears as he heard the first distant wail of approaching police sirens.
A shadow fell over him. Clive glanced out of the window without really thinking about it. What he saw in that second, before it swept out of sight, stayed with him for a long time, as though the image was carved directly onto his eyeballs. Great, malevolent wings beating powerfully. A frail, wounded man dangling between them as though they were an independent thing, a huge bat perhaps, carrying him to a place of refuge.
Ambrose.
Clive blinked away the image, pretending he didn't see it reflected in the sinister frost shapes sprinkling the playground. Heather and he had been frightened and tired. His imagination had run away with him.
He had seen it so clearly, watched it as it rode the night winds and vanished from sight.
It wasn't important. Ambrose had not been heard from since, and that was Clive's single preoccupation. Never mind that his work was suffering, that Heather was drawing further away from him, that he couldn't sleep for fear of reliving the beat of vast wings. Clive had promised himself that he would not rest until he had found Ambrose, though he had not realised how literally he would live up to that vow. Sleep deprivation and worry were driving him beyond distraction, and sometimes he wondered if he was going mad.
Despite his intention to investigate the disappearance personally, he had done nothing. He might fantasise about a Chandleresque investigation, full of bravado and derring-do, but he didn't know where to start. Mysteries had piled on top of mysteries, even from the start. When the police had arrived at Ambrose's flat, minutes after he had imagined that dark shape soaring on the night breeze, they had found nobody there. The howling stopped abruptly, moments before they had rushed down the hallway, and there could have been no escape for whoever had been inside. Yet he was gone. There were signs of a bizarre struggle in the flat, and it looked for all the world as though somebody had actually been hurled at the ceiling, leaving a sizeable dent where they had hit. Impossible of course – nobody could have the strength to inflict that on another person, and it was unlikely that the recipient of such treatment would be able to walk again for some time. Beyond that, the flat offered up curiously few clues. Listening at the wall during the investigation, he had heard the forensic team reporting in wonder that they could not find a single fingerprint in the flat. Even if the intruder had been careful not to leave a mark, they would have expected to find dozens from the occupant himself, Ambrose. Yet there was nothing.
Clive's head hurt, the ache shifting in sick waves as it did whenever he tried to rationalise the events of that night. His own investigation so far had been pathetic, involving nothing more complex than wandering the streets late into the evening, hoping to catch a glimpse of his friend. For all he knew, Ambrose wasn't even in Glasgow any more. As for why the fight had started, Clive couldn't even guess. Ambrose was enigmatic about his life, and his occupation, and Clive had wondered briefly about drugs, gang warfare, or other underworld activities.
He just didn't know. It was driving him mad.
The tides of pain ebbed out from his head in swirling patterns, one moment causing his teeth to ache, the next jabbing at his neck and shoulders. Clive folded his newspaper carefully away, trying to wish the pain to nothing, and saw the words carved into the surface of his desk.
Huntley's muvva sukked my cokk.
As he stared at the words, wondering how long they had been there, he heard the soft thud of a tennis ball bouncing absently off a student's desktop.
Clive lost time then, and was aware only of an incandescent, joyous fury lighting deep inside him and surging through his muscles and mind.
When he next had a cogent memory, he was in the back of a police car, trying to get the two officers in the front to explain why his aching hands, now handcuffed at the wrists, were torn and bloody.
CHAPTER THREE
Malachi Jones pushed the door back hard, slamming it against the wall and anybody who might be standing behind it. Having been on the hunt for two hours, there was little point in feigning subtlety now. Leaning briefly inside, he felt the wall for a light switch, found one, and flicked it. There was the tinny snap of a light bulb reaching the end of its natural life. The brief flash that went with it showed a large room packed with beer kegs, crates of wine, and other daily essentials for the running of the pub upstairs.
Orloch was waiting in there with something Malachi intended to have. It had taken months to track down a demon working in Newcastle, but the end was finally in sight. Over the course of his quest he had identified at least two angels in the area who might also have had the information he required, but the way he intended to extract it would have been a mortal sin on one of their kind, and he couldn't afford to damn himself.
Yet.
Standing in the cellar doorway, not overly concerned that Orloch might rush him, Malachi allowed his eyes to adjust. Silhouetted against the dim li
ght filtering into the grimy passage from upstairs, he knew he was an intimidating sight; six foot two of lean muscle wrapped in a long, dark trench coat, his waist length hair tamed by a succession of elastic bands binding it into a rope-like ponytail. If he were facing a true demon given physical form, he would not present himself as such an easy target. As humans went, he had made himself powerful and dangerous. Compared to the preternatural strength and speed of the otherworlds though, that would be meaningless in a direct confrontation. Fortunately, Orloch was a possessor of humans. By taking on a human's body, it took on a share of human weakness at the same time. While it was stronger than the host body should allow for, Malachi could probably handle it.
Grunting with annoyance at the limits of his own senses, he realised that his eyes had adjusted as much as they could. Inside, the darkness had congealed into patches of thick blackness nestling within larger pools of gloom. There were no windows in the cellar, so if the door closed behind him even these tiny distinctions would vanish entirely.
Best get it over with then. Malachi stepped inside, and shut the door with a bang. Fumbling only slightly, he slid the bolt home. The only other exit was the street level steel trapdoor used for making deliveries. According to the proprietor upstairs, a padlock kept that secure.
The darkness was near to absolute.
Malachi held his breath, trying to ignore the calm, steady thump of his pulse and the faint drone of morning traffic outside, letting his other four senses stretch out and see what they might find.
The air was damp and warm, swirling lazily around him in stagnant currents, heavy with mould spores that clung to the back of his throat like dust. Stale beer fumes dominated the room, but underneath them lay a trace reek of sweat and fear. The body Orloch had chosen, while well suited to creating maximum chaos within the Department of Work and Pensions where it worked, was not built for the chase.