Jack of Ravens(71)

‘There you are, little sister. It is so difficult to see you in this dark world.’

Ruth could hear the giant as clearly as if he was standing next to her.

He held the lantern forward. ‘This is the last light in the world, and once this is gone only darkness will remain.’

Ruth felt a surge of panic. Why was he talking to her? What did he want?

‘Wake up, little sister. Wake up!’ he continued insistently. ‘This is not the way things were meant to be. You must find yourself quickly … keep the light alive … before it is too late.’ He pressed the fingers of his left hand against the window and the glass changed quality and began to run like oil. Slowly his fingers began to move through it.

Ruth stepped back into Rourke’s encircling arms.

‘We need to get you out of here,’ he whispered in her ear as he began to tug her gently down the aisle. This time she did not resist.

As she moved away, she saw the giant snap his head to the left. A second later, he withdrew his fingers and he and the blue light began to move back in the direction from which they had come.

Ruth’s attention was caught instantly by more movement in the tunnel. It appeared as if a thick black liquid was running horizontally along the wall in the direction of the receding light. But it was not a liquid; there was detail in it and too much rapid motion, and that was when Ruth realised she was seeing an army of black spiders rushing from floor to ceiling towards the giant.

‘That’s disgusting,’ she said. ‘It’s not natural.’

‘There’s nothing there,’ Rourke whispered. ‘Just shadows. We need to get you home to rest. You must be a bit strung out if you’re seeing things.’

Ruth was disoriented and shaken, and nodded queasily, but the image of the giant and the spiders wouldn’t leave her mind.



3



‘I tell you, there’s no point being nice to me – I’m not going to sleep with you.’ Laura DuSantiago was enjoying the hypnotic lights and the way the bass made her stomach tumble. She’d had four vodka and Red Bulls and was letting the music take control.

‘I’m not asking you to sleep with me. Just take these.’ Rourke opened his hand to reveal two tabs of E.

Laura took them and went to pop them in her mouth. Then, for the first time ever, she decided to save them for later. Rourke looked disappointed. ‘It won’t work,’ she said to him with a frosty smile.

Before he could reply, Laura took the opportunity to dive into a swirl of dancers and dodged through them into one of the numerous tiny rooms that formed a complex around the vast central space of the abandoned warehouse where the rave was taking place.

The ironic thing was that she’d slept with many people like Rourke before, often for much less than a couple of tabs. There was something about Rourke that always put her off, however desperate she was. But she still took his drugs, and he always had plenty of them on him to keep her happy in her never-ending quest to get caned and forget the life she had inflicted on herself. All day frying burgers; barely enough cash to keep a roof over her head. Free drugs were a godsend.

They also helped her forget the many irritating dreams she’d been having recently and the odd feeling of being out of sorts, as if she was just a visitor in her own life.

She ducked through one room after another, knowing Rourke would not be far behind. He was annoying like that, always around, and if not for the drugs she would definitely have told him to stay away.

One room was filled with a group of people tripping. Laura swore at them and picked her way across the bodies to the next room where a couple were having sex. The room after that was a bare concrete shell with smashed beer bottles in one corner and an area where somebody had once lit a small fire. On the far wall was a piece of jarring graffiti: Look out for the spiders. She’d seen something like it a couple of times across town recently. The Army of the Ten Billion Spiders, one of them had read. She guessed it was a guerrilla publicity campaign for some new band, but she’d never seen any flyers for them performing.

The familiar tread of boots came from the room behind – Rourke en route to entreat her to take her Es like a good girl. It wasn’t in Laura’s nature to do what she was told, even if it was something she wanted to do. She slipped out of a side door into the night.

A small yard area was scattered with lumps of broken concrete. Beyond it was a sagging chain-link fence and then the comforting darkness of a wooded area where she could lose herself.

Before she could take another step, she heard a strange sound, like wires whipping in the wind. The door through which she had just passed was now covered with a dense wall of ivy and bramble. Someone was pressing against it – Rourke, probably – but the greenery held it fast.