“I’m leaving,” he announced. “Get out of my way.”
“There’s a group of us who have been meeting for years. We’ve noticed how more accelerated the power is in individuals since the Hellgates opened. We’re helping them.” The woman reached into her cloak and took out a pen and pad. “We could help you.”
“No.”
Edith wrote anyway. When she finished she held out a piece of paper with an address on it. “If you ever want to know more about what you’re experiencing, come see us.”
Even though he told himself he didn’t want to, Warren took the piece of paper that she pressed into his hand.
“Come see us,” the woman urged. “We can help.” She smiled. “We can help you get stronger. Strong enough even to survive what’s about to happen to this world.”
Warren heard Kelli calling out to him. He turned back to the comic shop to let her know he was there. When he turned back around, Edith Buckner had vanished. Only smoke and fog drifted through the street.
Slowly, Warren thrust the note with the address into his jeans pocket. Then he went to get Kelli.
“I heard you, you know.”
Back at the flat, Warren looked over at Kelli. They laid their precious cargo out on the table. George and Dorothy were out, presumably still searching for food as well. Warren wondered if they’d both make it home alive.
“Heard me what?” Warren smiled a little as if she were working a punch line.
“Send that monster away.”
Warren took out two jars of peanut butter and six tins of salmon. Those were going to be delicacies for George for the coming week.
“You were imagining things,” Warren insisted. “You were scared and disoriented. You only thought you heard me send the demon away.”
“No. I heard you.”
Remaining quiet, Warren sorted the food. They’d made a good haul. Most of the stuff would keep for weeks or months. But they were still short on water. Water was the hardest to haul because it took so much of it to get them through a day and because water was so heavy and bulky to transport.
“You’re delirious,” Warren said. “You were scared out of your wits.”
“I heard you,” Kelli insisted. “Only you weren’t speaking. It was like you were hardwired into my head.”
Irritated, Warren turned from his work. “Would you listen to yourself, Kelli? You sound mental. Like you’re ready for the loony bin.”
Her face tightened. Now that she no longer had to be scared for her life, she could be angry. “I know what I heard.”
“No, you don’t.”
“How do you know how to talk to those creatures?”
“I don’t.”
“Why do you want to lie about it?”
“I’m not.”
Kelli looked like she wanted to argue further, but she closed her mouth and walked away from him.
They lived in a converted warehouse area in Manchester, a two-story affair that had been converted into lofts. The area comfortably fit them, though Dorothy’s paintings tended to overflow into the main room.
Kelli climbed the ladder up to her private area. She pulled the sheets that served as their walls, shutting him out. A few minutes later, the soft, sad chords of her acoustic guitar pealed within the loft.
Warren continued sorting the food. He’d been the one who had come up with the idea of inventorying everything they salvaged from the city so they would always know what they had and what they needed. He’d learned how to exist—he couldn’t call it a life—organized and small while living in the state homes. Now those skills served him in good stead.
When he’d finished, with Kelli’s soft playing still present in the background, he went to his own living space and pulled the sheets. He knew he needed to go back out. They hadn’t gotten any water, and they needed water. That had been one of the primary objectives of their foraging tonight.
But he lay back on his bed. Even in the middle of chaos, with demons roaming loose in the city, he’d made his bed. Every day, as soon as he got up, he always made his bed. Nothing else could take place till that was done. He’d learned that habit from a family he’d stayed with whose father was a Special Air Service member, a drill instructor.
Shelves held his comics, favorite books, and DVDs. The DVDs had been the hardest to hang on to while living with flat mates who tended to borrow things. In the end he’d made them untouchable.
He didn’t know what else to call it. He’d learned the skill while in foster homes. All of his life he’d been small and sickly, easy to take advantage of. But he’d learned to fight back in his own way.
He could manipulate people. As long as they didn’t know they were being manipulated. Tonight Kelli hadn’t noticed because she’d been so scared. Fear had been her overriding emotion. She hadn’t even felt him tampering with her mind.
Through trial and error, he’d learned that he could gradually manipulate others he lived with to leave his personal effects alone. It worked on things like DVDs and books, but he couldn’t keep them from taking his money. They’d simply wanted the money more than he’d been able to control them.
Tonight Kelli had wanted to be safe. She’d wanted to believe him. She’d been easy.
But the demon…
He truly hadn’t known he could do that. That had been pure fear. Just the way it had been the night his parents had…died.
Reluctantly, he took the piece of paper from his jeans pocket and looked at the address. It wasn’t too far away.
Fear ached within him. He didn’t know if it was a warning from that mysterious power within him, or a reluctance to embrace the beast he felt certain lived somewhere trapped within him.
Eight
WALTER’S BAR
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
F or
