Cold (Working Title)

            Cold.

            Unaware of almost every part of her body, not yet feeling the pain that would soon seep through her like some slow acting poison, all she felt was searing, frightening cold. Her body tightened, as though trying to move less to conserve what little heat it had, but the cold pierced her, making even her fast, raspy breaths burn in her chest. Her fingers were aching with the overwhelming chill and her legs, held in place by the manacles she had been put in, felt like old rusty hinges if she even attempted to alter their position. The cold was already inside her brain, slowing her thoughts and muting the pain that would inevitably kill her.

            Strangely, even though she had been left outside for such a dangerous amount of time, and even in her clogged mind she knew that death was close, her consciousness was quietly coming back to her. Awareness tugged at the corners of her brain, forcing her to move, trying to push an empty, hollow croak from deep inside her belly up through her already raw throat, and although no sound would come, part of her was trying. Another part despaired, seeing the darkness in the corner of her vision, feeling her own stomach spasm violently. She was sensitive to the fact that at some point, she had been sick, but her senses were so dulled that she could no longer smell its stench or feel the wetness upon her skin as she had when it had first happened.

             She didn’t know where she was. She knew that it had been a long and painful struggle to get here, and that the suffering she had endured would be all over the news when she was found. In some deep and quiet part of her mind, she thought of her parents, of what it would be like for them to know exactly what had happened to her. She didn’t want that, but the voice in her mind was so quiet, so very far away, that it wasn’t long before she forgot it had spoken at all.

            Slowly, and to her immense surprise, her body was taken over by pain. Every inch of her body began to ache, not only with the disfiguring cold, but with the multitude of injuries that she had sustained over the course of her murder. She felt the low, dark pain of her broken arm, the splintered bone just visible under the waxy skin. Her body heaved forward, overcome with the agony of death and she closed her eyes, willing it to be over now. This was the first time she had entertained the thought, but now it danced before her eyes, light at the end of the darkest tunnel. Surely it wouldn’t be long now.

            Each time her body lurched forward in its death throes, a new wave of pain overcame her, a new memory of what had happened to bring her here. She felt betrayed; deceived by a world and by people she thought would protect her. She was so young, not even begun her life, and here she was dying before her very eyes. The death she was praying for seemed to come more quickly, and panic rose in her. She did not want this. She never had. The consciousness that had been finding its way back to her now frightened her in its clarity. She was not finished. She couldn’t be.

            She heard her own breath forcing its way through her lungs and her beaten body, struggling to stay awake. The pain was fading now, receding almost as quickly as it had thrown itself upon her. Her hair was wet, plastered against her alabaster cheek, almost frozen to her skin. A sob heaved in her chest, remembering how she had loved her hair once, how important it had been. Now it was the only sensation she had, her tangled hair pushed against her to remind her that although she was still alive, she wouldn’t be for much longer.

            An alarm began to ring in her mind, urgent and loud and her consciousness laughed at the absurdity of that, that her brain had chosen the last sound it ever heard to be an alarm, what sounded to her like an air-raid siren. It rose and fell, terrifying, the call of death. Her tired body ached and began to fit. She could hear the snow crumbling underneath her face as she convulsed, and she felt renewed pain as she broken bones tried to move as quickly as her brain was telling them to. She cried then, deep inside her mind, cried in her last moments as death reached forward to take her from her unendurable suffering. It was too much. It was always going to be too much. With one final cry, she closed her eyes and did what she never believed she would do. She succumbed.

When they found her, there was no great fanfare, barely any sound to accompany the discovery of the girl they had traveled so far to find. There was a gentle crunch of snow under the thick boots of the young policeman as he rounded the corner. He looked, as he had with every other mass of snow he had looked at since they arrived, swept his eyes over the scene and saw nothing. He sighed. He began to walk, tragically slowly, to where she lay, even though he of course did not know. He did not know he was inches away from the discovery that would change his life, alter his career, and haunt him for the rest of his days. He perhaps would never have known, never have taken those last few steps to a point where she was in view, but it was at that moment that she uttered her final cry, her acceptance of death. He whipped his head around, trying to locate the brief and quiet noise. He began to run, and it was seconds before he stumbled, almost literally upon her twisted body. He exhaled, frightened hot air creating a cloud before his eyes.

            “Jesus,”

            He knelt down, pulling at the thick padded gloves upon his hands. When they would not easily slide off his fingers, he bit them, yanking hard between his teeth until the hand came free. Not pausing, he pulled off the second glove and threw them both into the snow.

            “I’ve found her! Get an ambulance!! I found her!” his voice rose to a cackle, and he heard the snow around him being trampled as his colleagues rushed to the sound of his voice. He pushed his fingers into the waxy, slightly wet hollow of her neck, feeling desperately for a pulse, but there was none. Fear flushed through him; he had heard her cry out, she had to be alive.

            He leaned her as flat he could with her broken bones and chained hands and feet, and began to methodically pump on her naked chest. He felt her ribs crack underneath him, a wet, sickening sound, but he did not relent. Every few beats, he would lean forwards and breathe his own hot air into her cold mouth, willing her to breathe. Eventually, another policeman knelt beside him, and breathed into her mouth continuously. The cold made her skin difficult to grip, but her pumped on her beaten and bruised chest as much as he could. He reached to her throat again. The pulse was there, barely there, and desperately slow, but she was alive. He resumed his pumping until the ambulance crew arrived. They fought for her hard, sending an electric shock through her chest within seconds of arriving. As they lifted her to transfer her limp body to the waiting helicopter, her heart stopped, and they once again knelt in the snow, fighting to start her failing heart as precious seconds flew by. The policeman who had found her watched silently, begging her to respond. After an agonising ten minutes, they once again lifted her and ran as quickly as the monitors keeping her alive would allow, to the waiting helicopter. The policeman stood and watched them fly away, and he wished she lived, wished he had found her quickly enough, wished with all his soul that he got the bastard who had done such sadistic things to that young girl.

            The slow, unremitting beep filled her brain, the only sound that she could ever hear, might ever hear again. She was dead, she had died in the cold, and the beep was a sound that would accompany her through eternity.

            Beep, beep, beep

            Slowly, as the pain that had encompassed her in the cold had come slowly, agony overcame her. She remembered only pain. There was a dull, sick feeling in her chest, which ached as though it had been split open. Her head throbbed ominously, as though waiting to haemorrhage at any moment, and her eyes would not open. This could not be heaven. This was worse than anything she had experienced in life.

            Beep, beep, beep

            Suddenly, with a cacophonous roar, thousands of other sounds assaulted her ears. There was a hum of noise she could not identify, a dull, metallic drone that hovered in the background of her consciousness, screaming for identification, but she had none. She heard voices; they were far away and sounded as though they were under water. She heard the sounds, but no words, and her brain howled, trying to desperately make sense of what was happening. The pain rose inside her, increasing as her panic did. Her blindness was terrifying, she was trying to open her eyes, but nothing would happen. She wanted to see where she had come. Suddenly there was a sound beside her, and she felt contact on her skin. Something had grabbed her hand, but she had neither the strength nor the will to pull herself away. She tried to cry out, but her throat felt blocked, as though someone had deigned she would be both blinded and silent forever. This time, as the fear rose, she let it overcome her, and she fell into oblivion, a sweet dark reprieve from the terror that threatened her.

            “Alisa? Alisa, can you hear me? I want you to blink if you can hear me.”

            This was easy. The voice was so warm, so reassuring, and yet authoritarian. Her body responded before her brain had a chance to remember what it was trying to escape from, what had happened to her before. She wasn’t even aware that she had blinked.  

            “That’s good. Do you know where you are? I want you to blink once for yes, and twice for no.”

            She did not know. She did not want to know. She could still hear the relentless beeping, the metallic hum and the fear was seeping back into her veins quickly, reminding her of every moment of terror.

            “Alisa, you haven’t answered my question. Do you know where you are? Blink once for yes, and twice for no.”

            Her eyes were open wide now, and she saw for the first time where she was. Directly in front of her was nothing, just enveloping whiteness tinted with garish yellow. She could see nothing else, no source of this voice demanding information, and somewhere in the back of her brain was a dark memory of the last time she had been in a situation like this, and how it had ended. Was she still there? Had she not even escaped in death?

            “Ok, Alisa, because you haven’t answered me, I’m going to assumed you don’t know. You’re in a hospital in North London. You have been here for the past three months. You were very, very sick when you got here, but you’re going to be ok. For the most part. You are safe here, I promise. Do you understand me? Blink once if you do.”

            She blinked. As the voice had been talking, she’d swivelled her eyes around the room, and relief had poured over her. She’d seen medical equipment, posters, and a chair, but not much else. Her movement was severely hindered, and she couldn't understand why. The pain was still there, worse than ever before, worse than when she had been dying in the cold.

            “My name is Doctor Aidan Willis. I've been treating you, and as I say, you haven’t been well at all. Now, since you’re conscious, and you’re breathing on your own, I'm going to remove your breathing tube soon. But you won’t be able to speak for a little while, and I have to warn you, breathing will be painful. When you were first brought in, your heart stopped several times, and we had to cut your chest open and manually make your heart move. Not only that, the policeman who saved your life broke your ribs as he performed CPR, and your body hasn’t been in the best state to be knitting itself together as efficiently as it could. But now you’re awake, this will all happen much more quickly.” 

23.07.06 © Nicola Pearce

Anything But Twilight

This is the beginning of a vampire story that I wrote seven years ago, at the age of twenty. Now, before you judge me, please know two things: 1, Twilight didn't exist when I wrote this story. Had it existed, I wouldn't have been inspired to write it. 2, If anything, this story is a homage to The Last Vampire series of novels written by Christopher Pike. I adored these books growing up, the stories of love and fear, immortality and faith....I know. I was young, and these books inspired me. I wrote several variations on the theme. This story is the voice of the protagonist, an ancient vampire looking back on her beginnings, meeting the man she would love and who would be her damnation. Vampire or not, that's something I reckon we could all identify with...

            Somewhere, to all of us, there is a place of ultimate safety. We go there when the world is too much for us to take and we need comfort and reassurance that, despite all the raging evidence to the contrary, it won’t always be like this. For most of us, it’s somewhere from our childhood, or a place that contains our parents or friends. Or lovers, of course. The memory of the love of one so beautiful, so compelling, so utterly spellbinding that we cannot help but find within ourselves that echo of peace and turn it into a roar.

            You turned my echo into silence.

            Loving you was my greatest achievement and my most crushing defeat. I loved a monster, and instead of my love moving you to become something better, I let your love turn me into a creature of unspeakable horror. There is blood caked into the skin of my delicate hands, and I can never find in me the safe place I might go to promise myself that I will never again travel this dark and poisonous path. There was a time when I was life, and when the thought of you brought me into the light. Time and endless, endless suffering have made me nothing but death, and nothing but yours. In the two thousand years since my own death, this has never ceased to be true.

           

            In the months before it began, I can’t say I wish for more than the life I had carved out for myself. I was, at that time, eighteen years old, safely cocooned in my little home with my father, one of the town’s preachers. My people were worshippers of the sun, and as it beat down on our earth and darkened their skin, they would raise their faces to the light and give thanks. When my father was young, he would lie in the sun, letting the light pour into his skin and colour his mood. He met my mother by one of the cool water pools. He was twenty six, and she twenty nine, old for marriage and parenthood. Many lived only to early to mid-twenties, but he, filled with the divinity of his faith, was healthy for his age and my mother, my mother was something altogether different. She was nearing thirty, but her soft olive skin and wide set, chocolate brown eyes made her look half her age. My father would often tell me that he saw the light of immortality glittering behind her eyes, that the gods had sent her to earth as a great gift, and it was a greater gift still that she had chosen him to love. When I think now of his sweet words, it fills me with sadness. The gods may have sent her, but they gave up on her the moment I began to sleep in her belly.

            When they realised she was pregnant, no one expected her to give birth to a healthy baby. Despite her apparent youth, there was no denying that she was too old to carry a child and for both of us to make it through to the other side.

            But my parents, numbed to reality by their love and certain that they would be protected by the gods, were optimistic. They ignored the words of the medical men and soothsayers, and spent their days in the sun, making love, and preparing for my birth. I used to ask my father if they were afraid that it was all too much for my mother, if she showed any signs of faltering in those months her belly grew heavy and her body grew tired. He would look at me, sadness filling his face, and he would smile.

            “She knew what had to be done,” he would say, “She knew that you were coming because of our love, and if losing herself meant that you would make it here, then she knew-we both knew-that it was the only thing we could possibly do.”

            When she awoke in the darkest moment of night eight months into her pregnancy, her body shuddering with pain as it knifed through her, I find it hard to believe she did not regret her decisions. She must have sensed this pain was wrong, that it was too soon, that neither she nor I were ready yet. By the time my father had returned with help, it was already looking dire. Her blood, the first of so much for me, filled the room, and me, half-born and already staring death in the face, I was the choice to be made. She could be saved, or I could. Or maybe neither one of us would see the morning. My father, on the rare occasion he would talk about that night, says the choice was not his to make. My mother knew even then so he said, that I was destined for otherworldly things. She wrapped her fingers around my father’s hand and whispered in his ear that they should let her go. She had come to life to love him, and to produce the child she was about to bear. She was already halfway to the light, and this was the only road she could travel now.

            So I was born, and as they lay my crying body on my mother’s silent chest, they prayed for my soul and my protection. They should have prayed louder. No one spoke to my father about my milky white skin or blond hair. They eyed each other nervously as they looked into my bright, clear, blue eyes. I was like nothing they had ever seen before, nothing they could comprehend. Already I was an outcast. I should have stayed that way, kept to the shadows, never allowed to speak to anyone blessed by the sun. But my father was a holy man, trusted and respected, and perhaps more importantly, my fragile mother’s death had almost destroyed him. His people, friends of them both, welcomed him back into their lives and with him, his strange white-skinned baby. My father, overwhelmed at what he now had to face, a world where he had to raise his daughter and adjust to losing the only thing that could have given him the strength to do it, never saw the uneasiness that I caused, the prayer from those who did not understand how I had come to be, with my sapphire blue eyes staring into their brown ones. I too did not understand. I was just born, and the echo of my mother’s death still clouding me, her ghost clinging to my soft infantile skin. The first of so many ghosts, of course. 

            So we lived together in our little home, and as the years passed, the rawness of my mother’s death was soothed for both of us, and the general suspicion with which I was often treated also began to ease. I was as beautiful as my mother had been, with a strange ethereal grace and lithe and slender limbs. I was clever too, and my father would often take me out preaching with him, and I would learn about nature, and I developed my vocabulary past that of many of the older and wiser who lived amongst our people. I kept much of this knowledge secret, as I knew that the slightest hint of my true intelligence would have me branded our equivalent of a witch.

            It was when I was ten years old that I first noticed my father starting to wilt. At thirty six, he was an old, old man, and his strong body had, over recent years, begun to bend as his spine weakened and he struggled to face his beloved sun. His eyes still sparkled but undoubtedly he was struggling. The seemingly endless travel to heal and speak to those who needed to be healed wore him down, and although he never spoke a word of complaint, his face would betray the effort it took him to handle such things. Very often, I would stand beside him, allegedly to act as a second speaker but in truth, he was braced against me as he could not stand for any great length of time. His age brought him wisdom and infinite respect, but his body grew weaker with every passing day.

            My father was giving a speech in our village on the eve of the summer solstice. There was a feast prepared, and the air seemed pregnant with the endless promise of summer. In my many summers since, I have never once failed to notice this sensation as it returns and fills the world with anticipation. We all feel it fill our bodies with excitement and then allow it to rise within us, this feeling that we can do or believe anything. The magic of the summertime and so many of us revel in that feeling. Not me, though. It feels me only with the memory of that first summer. The summer that I gave my life to the darkness, and made a promise to a monster that cost so many lives.

            My father was extremely ill. In truth, I wondered whether he would make it to see the solstice morning. He was completely bent double, and coughed incessantly, his thin hair hanging down over his shoulders, where the bones protruded painfully. The stick that he used to walk was doing a pitifully insufficient job, and he could take no more than a few steps without having to rest. I washed him with cool water as I noticed that his skin, although as thin as a leaf, was hot to the touch. As I ran my cold hands over his face, he caught my eye.

            “It will not be long now, my beautiful daughter. My body aches, and my soul is ready to fly. Soon you will be facing this without me, although you will not be alone.”

            His face was peaceful, his fate accepted. My wide blue eyes welled with tears. I could not lose my father. My life had no meaning were it not for him. I gripped his hands as though I were trying to pull him back from the light he was sauntering so casually towards.

            “You are strong, stronger than this. You will make it through, father. You and I, we will make it through.”                       

            He shook his head then, and it was probably the only time he knew more about death than I. So I helped him up and shuffled his tired body out of our home, where the people waited for him to teach them absolution. I stood close by, watching his face, checking to see if he needed support or rest as he spoke. But he needed no help that night. He was filled with vigour, as though accepting his imminent death had given him a renewed jolt of life. And I, at only ten years old, felt as though it were my heart that was slowing its beat. A life without him, I thought, is no life at all.

            And then I saw him.

            In the crowd of people, faces I knew well and had grown up with, there was a man I had never before seen. He was like me. His skin was a soft, milky white and his hair, although dark, was long and silky smooth, not coarse and heavy like everyone else’s. And he seemed…sinister, I suppose. There was an empty circle around him, as though those nearby did not dare get too close, and he carried the air of a predator. Even to my ten year old eyes, there was something alluring and passionate about him. I had never before had a sexual thought about a man, but even from twenty feet away, I felt heat rising within me and my heart find its beat. When he looked at me, it very nearly stopped again. His eyes were not brown, like every pair of eyes I had ever found myself looking into. His eyes were, once again, like mine. But where mine were a dark blue, the colour of the deepest ocean, his were light, the colour of the sky on a clear day. And when he stared at me, he was not just looking at me. He looked into me, and his eyes might have been bright, but there was something dead inside them. His eyes felt like an invasive touch, perverse and assuming. I did not want to hold his eye, but I could not pull myself away. Fear and desire rose inside me, and I did not know what to do. He looked to be about fifteen years my senior and he should not have been looking at me that way.

            When that thought passed through my mind, a smile crossed his lips and all I could think was that I wanted to have those lips upon my skin.

            My father chose that moment to collapse. There was a cry of surprise from the crowd, and I was shaken from my reverie. I darted forwards and rushed to pick him up. He was heaped on the floor, his body trembling as it fought for air. I rolled him over, willing him to fight and knowing he couldn’t. But I wouldn’t have him die to an audience. I bundled up his tiny body and an ache broke inside me as I realised how little he weighed. The sea of people parted to let us through as I carried him back to our home.

            The thoughts of the stranger had flown from my mind the moment my father had fallen to the ground. As I carried him I could no longer feel him fighting for breath, his racked body clutching on for life. I had kidded myself into thinking he would fight long enough for us to have a proper goodbye, but as I lay him upon his bed, I expected him to have already flown. But he had not. His greyed skin was sunken and his eyes closed, but there was still the quietest of heartbeats keeping him on this earth. I leaned over and kissed his cheek, giving a silent prayer that I would at least be able to say goodbye. I hadn’t realised I was crying until I lifted my head and saw his skin was wet from my tears.

            I was ten years old. No matter how old he was, this shouldn’t be happening.

            The grief tore into me like a knife ripping through silk. I could not bear the thought that tomorrow when I woke, my father would not be here with me. Without him, I had nothing but his memory to keep me safe and happy, and it would not be enough. I was not yet ready to be alone. Tears fell upon tears as I tried to accept what was happening before my eyes. I wailed incoherently as the sadness bled into me. I was not aware of even my father now as I struggled to face his death. I certainly was not aware that he and I were not the only people in the room. This is why I cried out in fear when my tears were interrupted.

            “I can help him.”

            The words were spoken calmly, and not loudly, yet I heard them even over my own noise. I swirled round, and even before our eyes met, I knew it was going to be the stranger from outside. He was even more compelling up close. His perfectly chiseled face was hypnotic, and his blue eyes were frighteningly entrancing. He took a step towards me, and his body moved quickly, fluidly, in a motion I have not only come to relive, but have experienced many times over the course of my cursed life. Probably too many times.

            He crouched down beside me, and for an instant, my brain forget my grief and my body reacted to him being so close to me. Then he reached forward and touched my dying father’s skin, and my father shuddered as though electricity ran through his veins. The stranger turned to me.

            “I can let him go, or I can bring him back to you. It’s your choice whether he lives or dies.”

            I stared at him, not knowing what to say. My father was old, for our people, and had been dying for some time. Bringing him back was probably the most selfish thing I could do. But I couldn’t contemplate a world without him, and this man in front of me vibrated with a darkness and light that my ten year old mind could not begin to grasp, even if I sense it. His blue eyes bore into me. My voice trembled as I spoke.

            “Save him.”

             The stranger smiled. Obviously, I had passed an important test. He once again put his hand on my father’s skin, although this time, his reacted was far more muted. He was turned away from me as he gave me his last instruction of the night.

            “Leave us. Do not return until morning, and he will be well. And expect to see me once again. We are destined for more than this, you and I.”

            He turned to face me then, and we shared a moment. His eyes poured into mine for just a second too long, and I found myself leaning in to kiss him. But he moved his face away, and I stood to leave.

©Nicola Pearce

             

Harry Is A Dead Man

This one is also a few years old. It's a bit frantic, but stay with it. It's in a different voice to my usual writing but I always enjoy reading this, and most likely for this reason:

Harry is a dead man.

He is running through the streets now, run Harry, just run a little faster and you might get away, but he knows, sure as he knows his heart is beating too fast and he knows the heat rising through his veins is slowing him down, he knows he is trying to run from the inevitable. And he is a fit man, young and trained for just such an event as running for his life, but he is being chased by an assassin so silent and so skilled that his run is for his benefit only. In his pocket rests the evidence that has damned him, damn it, and he has no intention of throwing it away. He carries a photograph of his wife, his now dead wife, and the small memory stick which took her life and now threatens to take his.

But there is more to Harry, as you might well imagine, than this frantic, desperate, and ultimately fruitless tirade through the city. And yes, it is fruitless. There is no way Harry can make it to the acknowledgements at the back of the book. Like I said…

Harry is a dead man.

Harry

If I had known, when it was starting, that it was starting, then maybe I wouldn't have tried so hard to get involved. I was at the top of my game, highly sought after and known in the business as capable and discreet. Reliable and efficient. The business cards wrote themselves- not that you use anything so crass in this business as advertisements, but then again, I didn't need to. Being a government trained assassin turned ‘native’-a term I always loathed-it was well known that I was the best of the best. I don’t doubt for a moment it was also known that my fingerprints were on the government databases as ‘Do Not Intervene.’ Basically, untouchable by police should I ever be so careless as to leave a thumbprint at a crime scene, and let me tell you, it’s been a hell of a while since I've done that. But I was known as well to have a conscience, and to pick my work based on more than money-again a rarity in this business, but it earned me something of a reputation for being elitist, for picking only the best jobs. I didn't discourage people from thinking like this-it had a tendency to leave more money in my pocket anyway, because people offer more when they think they’re one of a few.

And I had just gotten married, which was having a strange and worrying effect on my morals and priorities. Suddenly, I gave a shit. And don’t get me wrong, I had known there were some changes happening to me-after all, I had fallen in love with my wife before I married her, but I had spent our relationship convincing myself that I could have walked away when I wanted to, that I didn't need her, that she didn't need me, and that if the money was right, I could put a bullet in her if I had to. I'm not a bad guy for thinking this. I'm an assassin. It’s no different from the cop who accepts that they’d arrest their own kid for taking drugs or the bank manager doing a loan for his brother in law who wants an RV but got convicted of drink driving a year ago so can’t get shit.

I was wrong about it anyway. I couldn't have hurt her had my life depended on it. And the terrible thing is, when you start thinking like that, that’s very often what it comes down to. Her life or mine. Anyway, I'm skipping ahead. So, I had just got married to Karen Stenowicz. I always joked with her she only married me to get away from that hell of a surname, but she would always look at me so seriously and tell me she’d have married me no matter what my surname, and then I’d get all choked up and have to look away from her, wishing I hadn't brought it up.

My marriage was having a strange effect, too, on my workload. Being the perfectionist I am, I very often worked alone, but I did do some work with The Company-notice the upper case. This was serious shit. The Company dealt with high profile cases, often involving politicians, celebrities or members of various royal families. At any one time, The Company held no more than five active members, one of which was always an older assassin, who assigned cases and deemed the targets worthy of The Company’s attention. If you knew anything about the world, to be accepted as a victim of The Company was almost as prestigious as being chosen to work for them. Since I had become a husband, I had not received a single phone call from my colleagues there. This was mildly concerning to me, because three of the five other members were married and their spouses were not given a second thought. If anything, I’d have thought my peers would be glad I was no longer trading my wares across the continents as I had been before. Nothing says domesticated like child maintenance payments.

I’d been married for a year when I got the first call. It was from a man known to me only as Gray, a British former marine, and my main contact within The Company. The last time I had seen him, we had been stood over the body of an English Minister I had just killed, and we were cleaning evidence. I remember getting a paper the following morning and reading the Minister had died from a severe heart attack. I had smiled to myself. Murder by natural causes. It was one of my specialties.

When Gray called, I had never heard the Brit sound so frantic. It is a call of our profession that we are not easily panicked, but Gray was clearly on edge.

“Harry. It’s me. Have you heard? Have you spoken to any of the others? Ah, shit. Is this line secure?” His pause was only to let me answer. I could still hear his rapid breathing down the line.

“Of course it’s secure. What’s going on? I haven’t heard anything. No one’s been in touch with me for over a year. Jesus, Gray, what’s wrong with you?”

“We need to meet, mate. Today. Away from your house. Away from my fucking house. Can you get to New York by tonight?”

He already knew I could. 

Telling your wife you’re going to meet your contact in the association you work for which murders people by trade is never an easy conversation to have. Fortunately, my lie had been securely in place from very early on in our relationship. As I mentioned before, I often worked alone, and my jobs for The Company were only a small part of what I do. I did contract work mostly, and that very often took me away from home for a few days. I told my then girlfriend I worked in blood and organ donations, and although I could for the most part regulate my work, there was a certain peripatetic element. Of course, I worked in the administrative side of it all, locating possible recipients rather than having any medical knowledge. It’s amazing how quickly people buy your lies, and then lose interest completely. Karen was by no means materialistic, but I know she’d only have started asking real questions had the money stopped coming. It’s human nature.

“Ok baby. When do you think you’ll be back?” She’d been making coffee. In her left hand she carried a small leather handbag-not her own. She’d not long come home from work, and she was winding down for the evening. Fortunately, she hadn't been home when I’d gotten the call. She played with the strap of the bag absently as she poured water into her mug.

“Where did you get that?”

She’d stared at me blankly then, her wide brown eyes innocent. “Oh, my god. I never even asked you. Did you want a coffee?”

I’d smiled and moved across the kitchen to be closer to her. Her skin was cool and soft, like always, and her chocolate skin was glowing in the early evening light. She smelled of coffee and something else. An echo of the perfume she’d most likely sprayed over herself at lunchtime, lingering on her, not wanting to leave her skin. I could empathise.

“I didn't mean the coffee. I meant the bag.”

She’d smiled too, dropping the bag on the table. “Oh, this? Well, it was the strangest thing. This morning when I went to my car, it wouldn't start. You’re gonna have to have a look at it for me honey, before you go. So I had to take the subway. And there was this woman, just staring at me the whole way there.”

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. “This morning?”

She nodded. “Well, I haven’t been on the subway since I graduated from college, so I don’t know; I figured this was how people act on the subway. Maybe she was amazed to see a black girl wearing a suit and flashing a badge.”

I rolled my eyes. When I’d first met Karen, she’d been investigating a murder for which I was responsible, but it was a Company job, and I’d been required to stick around to make sure the cops made the right mistakes and thought it was a suicide. Karen had been the only black woman on the job, and she was Detective. Being such a high profile case, she’d interviewed me four times. By the end of the first interview, I was hooked. She wasn't the first black woman I’d dated-hell, I’ve dated pretty much every race God has to offer-but she hadn’t made a big deal about her skin colour. She very rarely did. Her father was white, and she’d grown up with plenty of prejudices, but she was tough and smart, and had no time for people judging her on how she looked. It had taken me all of two dates to fall in love with her. And all of two years to admit it.

“And what then, baby? This woman throws her bag at you?”

Now she rolled her eyes. “No, Harry, get this: she was on the subway home as well. She sat herself next to me, but never said a goddamn word to me. Then she got up the stop before mine, but she left her handbag on the seat. Well, at first I figured it was a bomb, but I had a look inside and there’s nothing in there. There’s a Kleenex and a tampon, but that’s pretty much it.”

“Ouch. Hope she doesn't get those two mixed up. Either way, it’d be pretty messy.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I wasn't going to bring it home, but I was thinking, y’know, maybe she knows I'm a cop and she’s trying to get a message to me, like her husband’s abusing her, or she knows something about a case.”

Or she knows I'm an assassin and she’s trying to trap you. “Did you recognise her? Have you questioned her about anything?”

She thought hard for a moment, the skin between her eyes tightening as she concentrated. “I don’t remember her, no. And I'm pretty good with faces.”

This story had my back raised, although I couldn’t pinpoint why. Years of lies and lying, I guess, should have made me better at judging when there was falseness to a story. Not that I doubted Karen, no, my wife, despite her profession, saw innocence everywhere. But the tale was strange, and I should have known that Karen wasn’t safe. That I wasn’t safe. Like I said, if I’d have known it was starting, I wouldn’t have gotten involved. At that moment, standing in my kitchen with my wife, we were already involved, but dammit, it was our last chance to step away.

“Harry?”

I was far away, thinking about her story, wondering if there was anything I should do. No, I thought, I'm just rattled by Gray. That stupid son of a bitch has got me seeing shadows around every corner. I tightened my arms around her. “What, baby?”

“You’re gonna miss your flight, honey. Isn't someone waiting on a kidney and you’re standing here grilling me about this handbag?”

“Right. Shit. I gotta go. You want me to look at the car on my way?”

The eyebrow was raised again. I didn't give her enough credit. She was a cop after all, and I was lying to her on a daily basis. Maybe she knew more than I realised. There was a beat before she answered.

“Only if you have time, Harry. It can wait. I’ll take it to the shop tomorrow.”

“Hey, hey. I got time. The flight isn't for another forty minutes, and the kidney, well, it’s still with the donor at the moment,” she wrinkled her nose at this prospect, “So I got five minutes to look in the car and see what’s burnt out. But only five minutes. Don’t expect me to take off my shirt and starting rooting around in there.”

Her smile turned wicked. “You still talking about the car?”

I slid my hands down her soft arms. “If you wanted, I could leave the car and put my five minutes to better use?”

She was back to playful. “Five minutes? I’ll wait until you get home, baby. Then I might get the longer show.”

I let my hands drop. “You definitely will. I’ll see you in a couple of days, honey.”

She kissed me quickly on the lips, but neither of us lingered. I had to get out, I wanted to see Gray and find out what had spooked him. On my way past, I popped the hood of the car and peered inside.

It was one of those moments you relive so many times and wonder if you had just done this one thing differently; the outcome of almost everything else would have been different too. The oil cap of the car had been screwed off. I screwed it back on, and as I did, I saw a hanging cable which looked severed on one side. Now, I've disabled cars before. I know what each cable relates to, and there is no way in this world that the cable I saw hanging was the severed brake cable. Of course, the police report said that it had been ‘clearly and systematically destroyed’. But the last time I saw that car, the brake cable was perfectly intact. The wire that was severed was the indicator light.  

©Nicola Pearce