She wondered where it had all gone wrong. She was sure she must have had dreams some time. Surely she hadn’t always planned on a career flipping burgers and a wage that was just enough to cover her rented bedsit in the shittiest part of town, but not enough to buy her time to look for better employment. Not that she had the qualifications to support it. She tried to recall the moment when everything had soured, but her past life was a blur of days in front of the hot griddle and it made her queasy just to consider it.
She didn’t have enough cash to get drunk or buy some drugs to expunge her thoughts. She was almost desperate enough to consider giving her dealer a blow job for some E.
In the window of the house where the old hippie woman lived, five candles burned. It wasn’t a particularly intriguing image, but it triggered odd stirrings inside her that she recognised with surprise as incipient excitement. As she watched, Hippie Helen appeared to extinguish one of the candles. Laura literally jumped with a surge of electricity that made her feel like sex. She got a strange itch in the tattoo on the back of her right hand — interlocking leaves in a circle — the one she didn’t remember getting.
‘Hi. How are you doing?’
She turned to see a smiling, handsome face.
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to frighten you,’ the man said. ‘The name’s Rourke.’
11
Shavi should have gone home a long time ago, but these days it felt as if the offices of Gibson and Layton never closed. In the window he saw the reflection of a handsome Asian face framed by long black hair, a sad expression, a cheap suit; it was him, but not him, somehow. There were too many invoices to go through, too many columns to balance, the whole of the world broken down into numbers, profit and loss. Whenever he got to the end of one client file, another would appear as if by magic. It felt a little bit like purgatory.
Yet he had now managed to reach a state where he could immerse himself in the figures so fully that his tap-tap-tap on the calculator became a mechanical act, almost meditative. It allowed his mind to free itself and fly, considering what it might be like to live another life, one with meaning, where worthy deeds were done despite the danger.
And in that state he knew he was not a man who considered cash important. He had an extensive knowledge of diverse spiritual paths, though he had no idea how he had amassed it; his parents were strict in their observance and would not have condoned any study of other religions. It was one of many mysteries clustering around his life.
Everybody in the company recognised he was different. They never involved him in the office gossip or invited him for after-work drinks. The bullies amongst the staff saw his benign, thoughtful nature and mistook it for weakness, attacking him with a thousand barbs of pettiness every day. His resilience drove him through it easily, but it didn’t prevent the creeping depression. This was not the way life was supposed to be.
Just after ten and he was the last one in the office. He’d had enough. He pushed back his chair, stripped off his shoes and socks and put on his iPod, winding down before the journey home. The music drifted into his head, some Celtic house, some Balinese temple music, followed by Indian and African beats.
For a while he drifted with his eyes shut. When he opened them, the shock of what he saw brought a convulsion that tore the headphones from his ears. On the desk was a silver picture frame containing a snap of the Avebury stone circle, which he had recently visited. It was an unconventional choice for a desk at that company and had attracted many snide comments from his workmates, but in his more harried moments it calmed him to look at it.
Now, though, the Avebury circle was obscured by a head that appeared to be forcing its way out of the frame, writhing with the pangs of birth. Its features were barely formed, like a clay model with the barest indentations marking eyes, nose and mouth. A white, foaming, gaseous substance leaked out from where the head protruded, and quickly evaporated.
‘You called me,’ it said in a whining, faintly metallic voice. ‘Brother of Dragons, you called!’
Shavi was struck dumb for a moment. The head mewled as if in pain. Eventually Shavi managed, What are you?’
‘I am from the Invisible World. You called.’
‘I … I did not,’ Shavi said, but then realised he had been daydreaming, a cry for guidance to rescue him from the misery of his job.
‘This world is sour.’ The head spat and pursed its incipient lips. ‘I have no taste for it. I cannot understand why you tolerate it, Brother of Dragons, when it is in your power to change it.’
Shavi’s heart pounded, yet he was surprised to find the encounter was not as terrifying as he would have anticipated before it began. Brother of Dragons — why do you keep calling me that?’
‘Is that your question?’ The voice was a little too eager.
‘No,’ Shavi said hurriedly. ‘I have no question.’
‘Then I go. But heed my advice, given freely, though you have not heeded such advice in the past: beware the one with cold hands.’
The head wriggled back into the picture frame and disappeared with an obscene sucking noise. In the ringing silence of his starkly lit office, Shavi had the unnerving feeling of being cut adrift from mundane reality; yet it was a good feeling, too.
Eagerly he replaced his shoes and socks, picked up his coat and headed down the stairs. Questions raced through his mind and he was keen to start piecing together the answers.
In the quiet street, he came across a blandly handsome man frustratedly pacing back and forth. He turned when he saw Shavi and smiled warmly. Any idea where I can get a cab?’
‘There is a minicab office down towards the crossroads. I was just going there myself.’
‘Mind if I walk with you? If we’re going in the same direction, we can share one. Keep costs down. The name’s Rourke.’
He held out a friendly hand.
12
This time Church found himself in a flat. The furniture and decoration were threadbare, but it was clean and the occupant had made the best of it. Inexplicably, his attention was drawn to a wardrobe standing against the far wall. One of the doors was ajar, the interior as black as pitch.
He heard a woman humming to herself. Through the open door leading into another room he saw Ruth cross the lounge, tidying up as she went. She appeared happier than the last time he had seen her. Yet she was alone and he felt relieved that Rourke had not come back with her. She hummed a few more bars: it was ‘Fly Me to the Moon’.
Church’s attention returned to the wardrobe. What was it about it that bothered him so? It was filled with shadows. His instinct was calling to him. Had Ruth hidden something in there?
He approached the wardrobe slowly. With each step his nerves jangled a little more until they were ringing wildly. He peered into the thin, dark crack, trying to pierce the gloom.
So dark.
Another step, almost close enough to reach the handle. He stretched out an arm unconsciously, knowing in his ghost-like state that he couldn’t open the door. One final step …
The door slammed shut with a tremendous crash and Church was thrown across the bedroom. From inside the wardrobe, he could hear a sound like low breathing, warning him off.
In the other room, Ruth hummed on, oblivious.
13
Church reeled. Three Rourkes. Or one Rourke in three different places simultaneously.
He grabbed Jerzy’s shouders. ‘I saw three Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. I think they’re part of my five. There always have to be five-’ He caught his breath. ‘I think they’re in danger … Ruth … all of them-’