They were reversing. Jamie heard a third shot then a howl of an engine and more blaring horns as other cars swerved all around them. But the traffic had lost its shape. To Jamie the other cars were just blurs of colour, ricocheting off each other, firing off in every direction. The neon lights spun round and round. He thought he saw four huge playing cards – the aces of hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds – light up, one after the other. The giant lollipop turned in the hand of the clown. A bright red shop sign flashed on and off. EZ CASH SUPER PAWN. Somehow he was in the car. He could feel soft leather pressing against his face but his feet seemed to be clear of the road.
After that, he remembered nothing more. As he drifted into blackness, all he knew was that, somehow, he had got away.
Don White was waiting in his office when Mr Banes got back. Kyle Hovey was with him. His jacket was torn and blood had spread all the way up his arm.
“Did you get them?” Don asked.
“We got one of them,” Banes replied.
“That’s too bad.” Don had a half-bottle of Bourbon. He poured himself a glass. “You’re still going to have to pay me for two.” Neither of the two men said anything. Don White assumed that meant they agreed. He lifted the glass and drank. “What happened?” he asked.
“You never told us about the dog,” Banes murmured.
“I didn’t know about the dog.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Banes said, slowly. “We have one of them. And the police will be looking for the other.”
“Oh yeah? And why is that?”
“He’ll be wanted for murder.”
Don White looked surprised – or tried to. It was always difficult to read emotion in his face. There was too much flesh. “Whose murder?” he asked.
Banes smiled. “You shouldn’t have asked.”
The sound of the bullet was very loud in the confined space of the office. Banes had shot Don White through the heart. For a few seconds, the man that Jamie and Scott had known as Uncle Don inspected his whisky as if acknowledging the fact that, sadly, he would never now drink it. Then his hand fell. The liquid spilled. He sat back, unmoving, in his chair.
Colton Banes took one last look at the corpse. Then he slipped the gun back into his pocket and the two men left the room.
TENTH STREET
Jamie opened his eyes and saw that he was no longer in Reno. He wasn’t even in America. Somehow, impossibly, he had been transported to a deserted beach that stretched out along the edge of a black, lifeless sea. Was it day or night? He looked up but the sky seemed to be caught somewhere between the two. Jamie gulped for breath. He was still in the grip of his first panic, the knowledge that he was somewhere far away and utterly strange, that he was on his own. There was nobody in sight. Nothing. Just the beach and the sea and, in the distance, what might be an island, rising up to a needlepoint high above the waves.
“Scott!”
He called out the name but the single word seemed to die on his lips. That was more frightening than anything. He could shout as loud as he liked but there was no one to hear him. He wasn’t just lost. He was completely abandoned. Where was he? Even the deserts of Nevada had offered more life and colour than the place where he now found himself.
And yet…
He had been here before. He knew where he was. Jamie drew his legs towards himself, wrapping his hands around his shoulders: not so much to keep himself warm but to create a sort of protective cocoon. He forced himself to take a deep breath, to relax. Yes. It had been a long time ago, maybe years, but he knew this place. The island… The last time he had come here, there had been two boys making their way towards him in a boat made out of straw. He had wanted to meet them – he didn’t know why – but he had woken up before they arrived. And he hadn’t been alone: Scott had been here with him.
And, standing next to them, there had been a girl.
“This is a dream,” Jamie muttered to himself. His voice still sounded very small but it was reassuring to hear anything at all. The waves were hitting the shore right in front of him, but they were sluggish and hardly made any sound, as if someone had turned down the volume.
A shaft of light flashed in the sky, far away. A storm. Jamie got to his feet. He was shivering. It wasn’t cold – like everything else here, the temperature seemed to be fixed in some sort of neutral – but there was something about the lightning that set his teeth on edge. There it was again. He watched it flicker twice more – white forks of electricity so brilliant that they seemed to tear into the world as if determined to smash it. Somehow he knew that this was no ordinary storm. It was an announcement. Something was happening. It was still far away but soon it would be closer. There was a very slight breeze now. He could feel it, clammy and dead, batting against his face.
“Scott!” he called out again. At the same time he wished, miserably, that he could wake up right away.
He heard something on the shingle, over to one side.
He glanced round, expecting to see his brother, but instead there was a man kneeling beside the edge of the sea, holding a large, flat bowl which he seemed to be filling with water. Jamie had no idea where he had come from. He certainly hadn’t been there the moment before. The man was huge – and he was completely grey. His face, his hands, his clothes, even his eyes were the colour of stone, and if he hadn’t been moving, Jamie would have assumed he was a statue. He was wearing old-fashioned shapeless trousers tied with a leather belt and an open- necked shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He also had a hat – not a cowboy hat but something similar – and boots that came up to his calves. He was completely focused on what he was doing.
Jamie stood up and went over to him. He was about to speak but his feet, crunching on the shingle, gave him away. The man twisted around and straightened up. At that moment Jamie saw that he really was huge – at least seven feet tall with hair curling down to his neck and a face that was hard and craggy and full of anger. He had dropped his bowl. Now there was a large knife in his hand.
“I’m sorry…” Jamie didn’t know why he was apologizing.
The man looked down at him but said nothing.
“Can you help me?” Jamie asked.
“He’s gonna kill him,” the man said. He had a peculiar accent. It was American yet strangely old-fashioned, like something in a black and white film.
“Who are you talking about?”
“You know that. You know who I’m talking about.”
“You mean… Scott?”
The man nodded. “He’s gonna kill him. And it’s your job to stop him.”
“But who’s going to kill him? You have to help me find him-”
That was all Jamie had time to say. The man suddenly lashed out with the knife. Jamie heard it as it came sweeping through the damp air. Something slammed into the side of his head and he thought he’d been stabbed. But the man had struck with the hilt, not the blade. With a single cry of pain, Jamie was thrown off his feet and went crashing down onto his back. He could feel blood oozing out of his hair and wondered if his skull had been broken. The man stepped forward and loomed over him. He was holding the knife in both hands, as if about to make a sacrifice. Lightning shimmered one last time.
“Stop him!” the man commanded.
His hands came plummeting down.
Jamie woke up.
His head was throbbing and for a moment he thought he really had been attacked. He raised a hand and touched it to the side of his skull. There was nothing. No blood. No sign of a wound. He was lying, fully dressed, on
