Slay Page 7

  “No, ma’am,” they all said in unison.

  “Okay.” Gail squeezed Milly’s arm as she passed, then vanished through a door at the back of the bus.

  “Night,” Milly said quietly.

  “Itabenice,” Connor said through a massive yawn and sounding like a howling dog, “to have just one night off from saving the world, you know?”

  “You think someone else is going to stop whatever’s going on here?” JD said. “I’m sorry it’s not all half-pipes and ollies, Connor, this is our life. No pretending it isn’t.”

  “No pretending you don’t like it, either,” Milly said, louder than she had intended. The boys all looked at her with a mix of shock and amusement on their faces. Normally she would have backed down. Said sorry and let it go. But she was beyond worrying about what boys like JD might think of her. “Come on, you’re telling me you don’t get off on this? Charging around with swords, playing at being heroes?”

  JD’s jaw clenched so hard Milly could hear his teeth grinding. “We’re not playing at anything.”

  “Could have fooled me,” she muttered under her breath.

  “I’m sorry that we bothered risking our lives to save you.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Milly said, realizing how ungrateful she had sounded. “It’s just…”

  “It’s okay, Milly,” Tom said. “You don’t need to explain. This must all seem so unbelievable to you.”

  “Besides,” Connor said, “you’re right. It is fun! Amiright?” He stretched out an arm and waited for a high five from JD.

  JD stood up and grabbed his mask and goggles.

  “Where’re you off to?” Tom said, moving to block JD’s path.

  “Just out.”

  “Sure,” Tom said disbelievingly.

  “I can’t sleep right now. Besides,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Milly, “it’s a little crowded in here.”

  And before anyone could say another word, JD pushed Tom aside and slammed the door of the bus behind him.

  “What was that about?” Connor asked the group.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Tom said. “It’s been a long night for us all. Let’s try and get a few hours’ sleep and we can work out what to do tomorrow.”

  “Which is now,” Zek said, looking at his watch.

  Milly checked her own. It was 2.46 a.m. Her body ached and her eyes itched, but her mind was buzzing.

  “You can sleep in my bunk,” Tom said, pointing at one of the beds. “I’ll take the sofa.” Milly started to protest – she’d never so much as had a slumber party at a boy’s house before and the idea of sleeping in Tom’s bed made her stomach flutter. But Tom held up his hand. “The sheets are clean and seriously, you’ll be doing me a favour. Connor snores.” He gestured with his thumb at the messy-haired drummer, who had leaped up into his bed.

  “I do not!”

  Niv’s hands moved in a blur and his twin brother snorted with laughter.

  “What? What did he say?” Connor asked.

  “He said you’re so loud that it keeps the demons away,” Milly said.

  Niv put his finger to his lips.

  “Oh, sorry, was I not meant to translate that?”

  “Damn,” Zek said. “We’re going to have to be careful about insulting Connor all the time with you around, Milly.”

  “Ha! I’m going to get Milly to teach me sign language, seeing as you’ve always said you can’t teach me.”

  “It’s not that I can’t teach you, Con,” Zek said. “It’s that I choose not to. It’s more fun this way.”

  Connor threw his sock in Zek’s face.

  Tom unzipped the black overalls he’d been wearing to reveal a T-shirt with a faded red donkey on it and toned arms with a black tattoo of a five-pointed star on one. He paused before completely removing the overalls, catching Milly’s eye.

  “Oh, sorry, yes,” she said, spinning around to avoid watching him undress – only to be faced with Zek, who was now in his underwear. Zek didn’t seem to mind, but Milly’s face was burning. This was going to be awkward. She settled it by closing her eyes.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, we’re decent,” Tom said.

  “As decent as we shall ever be,” Zek said, flashing Milly a playful wink.

  They were enjoying her discomfort a lot more than she was, that much was clear.

  “Here,” Zek said, throwing a black T-shirt at Milly. She held it out to see it had SLEIGH written on it in gold lettering. “Keep it. There was a mix-up at the printer’s and we have hundreds of them to get rid of.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Um, where’s the loo?”

  Tom pointed to a door at the end of the bus, opposite the one Gail had walked through.

  When she returned, the boys were already in their bunks. Milly lay down on the bed. There was no way she was going to be able to sleep. Not with the ache in her heart and the buzzing in her brain. All the things that she had worried about – fitting in at school, the pressure of expectation from her mother – none of it mattered any more. She was alone. Well, apart from five boys from the most famous boy band in the world.

  Milly was used to fame. She’d spent her whole life in the shadow of her mother and she’d seen what it cost. Not just the hours and hours it took to hone your talent, but your privacy, your personal life. Even your soul, it seemed. And these boys were risking still more than that. From the way they talked, they’d obviously faced monsters like the ones she’d seen tonight before. So frequently, it seemed, they were able to make jokes about it. Did that make them cool or cold? Milly didn’t know.

  JD was the one who bothered her most of all. She guessed there was something going on behind the snapping and moody stares, but she had enough of her own problems to deal with right now without having to worry about what was up with him.

  She wriggled in the bunk, trying to get comfortable, wishing for the escape of sleep. Her father had always said, The brightest mornings follow the darkest nights.

  As the sounds of Connor’s snoring blended with the rattling of a train overhead, Milly knew deep in her heart that nothing would ever be easy again. And finally, she let the tears come.

  JD sat on the steps outside the bus, listening to the ebb and flow of Connor’s snoring from inside. He’d become so used to it now, it rarely bothered him. Just like all the annoying things the rest of his bandmates did: Zek and his constant sarcasm and inability to take anything seriously. Niv’s habit of tapping his pencil on the desk for hours at a time. Even Tom’s perky optimism, which used to drive JD mad when they first met, now only made him roll his eyes. But currently, there was only one person disturbing his peace. Milly.

  JD knew he shouldn’t be annoyed by her. She hadn’t done anything other than lose someone to a demon, just like the rest of them. And that was JD’s problem. In so many ways, she was just like the rest of them. JD had seen how Gail hugged the girl, like she’d found another stray. And the way Tom looked at her. It made him feel…uneasy.

  JD didn’t want the girl joining them. He was settled now with the four other boys and Gail. They were a family, which was the only thing JD had ever wished for. It had been those two words he put on every birthday and Christmas list from when he could write till the day Gail turned up. A family. For some reason that he couldn’t explain, he felt that Milly was going to disturb that.

  “Don’t be stupid,” JD said to himself. “She’s only here for the night and she’ll be gone tomorrow.”

  And yet, he didn’t know how he felt about her leaving either. Irritated at how petty he was being, JD stood up, determined to go back inside and try to get some sleep. He might even have a word with Milly and apologize, if she was still awake.

  He stopped for a moment before opening the door and watched the moon breaking out from behind thick clouds. It was a full moon, sharpening the shadows around him. JD liked the darkness and hiding in the shadows a lot more than he liked standing in the limelight. And he often worried about
how much of a kick he got out of hunting demons. He’d never admitted that to anyone. Not even Tom and he told Tom everything. After each mission, he worried about it even more. There was something wrong with him, he knew, and he was terrified that someone would find out.

  Milly had come close to it earlier when she’d accused JD of getting off on it all. Perhaps that’s why the girl unsettled him so much. She’d seen straight through him after less than an hour.

  Anxiety coiled in his stomach again, destroying all thoughts of sleep. He slumped back against the side of the bus, going over tonight’s mission in his mind, trying to work out what he could have done differently. How he’d managed to let not one but two demons escape. Well, maybe the hunt wasn’t over yet.

  He pulled out his phone. “DAD, access headcam footage from…say, an hour ago.”

  “Accessing,” DAD’s automated voice said.

  The footage of Milly’s house appeared on screen. “Fast forward.” It scanned through their arrival; them smashing through the doors and seeing the two demons for the first time. “Stop,” JD said, and the screen paused on a perfect shot of Mourdant as he came down the stairs. “Grab that. Run it through the database, cross-referenced with the name Mourdant.”

  DAD had access to systems no civilian should be able to access: police databases, the intranets of newspapers and even land registry files. The screen flashed and a moment later a professional photo of Mourdant’s smug face appeared on screen. If it hadn’t been for worrying he might damage his phone, JD would have punched it.

  There was information about the guy’s business, the people he represented, a police report investigating tax evasion and there, at the bottom of the report, an address. JD smiled.

  He walked around to the back of the bus, flipped open a keypad and punched in a number. Machinery whirred and a panel in Agatha’s side slid open. Behind it were five motorbikes, one for each of the boys. JD’s was a black Triumph Bonneville. Modelled on Steve McQueen’s bike in The Great Escape, it looked like something from the fifties but it bristled with the latest tech and extra modifications, such as a side holster for his sword. He wheeled it away from Agatha and onto the broken tarmac of the road. Black helmet on and GPS coordinates loaded into the satnav, he swung his leg over the hand-stitched seat and thumbed the ignition. Five minutes later he was roaring down the highway and into the dark.

  He twisted the throttle back, the front wheel of the bike rearing in response, and sped on. Cutting through the Victorian-era buildings of Old Town, he headed for the lake. The coast of Lake Michigan was so vast and it stretched out so far into the distance that JD kept forgetting it wasn’t the sea, but in fact Chicago was over 700 miles from the ocean. He wove along North Lake Shore Drive, the soothing empty blackness of the water on his left, the glowing high-rises of the city on his right. The road led him over the Chicago River and he took a sharp right, his knee brushing the ground as he leaned into the corner, heading away from the coast now and following the snaking waterway through the heart of the city. The streets were mostly empty apart from taxis taking people home. A party boat floated up the river, lights flashing and music booming. Up ahead he saw the building he was heading for – a glass skyscraper that towered over the city, built in three sections that extended out and out, reminding JD of a huge walkie-talkie complete with aerial.

  It made perfect sense that Mourdant would live here: one of the most exclusive addresses in Chicago. That also meant getting in might be a problem. There would be a concierge at least, possibly even security. But JD had been trained to get around such things.

  He pulled up outside the building, and strolled in through the front door like he owned the place.

  A doorman wearing a purple suit and gloves tipped his hat in welcome. JD walked up to the reception desk and smiled his best boy-band smile.

  The woman behind the desk had black hair scraped back across her head and fixed in a fierce bun. She peered at him over thick black glasses and for a moment looked like she was about to object to his presence. Then recognition hit.

  “Hi, sorry, I know it’s late,” JD said. “I’m still on UK time.”

  “Oh, no…no problem at all. How can I help?” Her cheeks and neck were flushed.

  Perfect, JD thought, a fan.

  He leaned over the desk, closing the distance between them. She did the same, so that their heads were only a few centimetres apart. “It’s a bit delicate, Barbra,” he said, reading the name off her badge, “but I know I can trust you. I’m here for a meeting with Mourdant to discuss the possibility of new representation. But I can’t have it on record that I was here. I am sure you understand, the press can be so…” He stared deep into her eyes. “Intrusive.”

  “Oh, yes, I completely understand. I’ll just call up.”

  It seemed he didn’t need Tom’s hypnotic powers to bring this woman under his spell. He placed his hand over hers as she reached for the phone. “No, I can’t even trust that his phone hasn’t been tapped.”

  The woman’s eyes widened in delight. She was loving the drama. “Oh, my, well yes, one hears such things.”

  “You can only imagine, Barbra.”

  “Imagine…yes.”

  “So if you could just buzz me up? He’s expecting me.”

  “No problem. And if there’s anything else you need…”

  “He’s on the eixty-felth, right?” JD said, intentionally mumbling the number.

  “Sixty-seventh, yes. Apartment number 236.”

  JD winked. “Thanks, you’ve been a doll.”

  Barbra giggled and flushed even redder.

  The elevator doors pinged open and JD walked straight in. JD might not always like being in the limelight, but he couldn’t deny fame did have its advantages.

  Arriving on the sixty-seventh, JD stopped outside number 236 and listened. It was silent. He slid a pack of picks out of his back pocket and got to work. The door clicked and swung open.

  The apartment was illuminated by the lights outside streaming in through the glass windows. JD could see the river glittering below and the black expanse that was Lake Michigan in the distance. There was the barest amount of furniture and what little there was looked designed to achieve maximum style and minimum comfort.

  JD crept from room to room, checking Mourdant wasn’t here. Once he was sure he was alone, he started looking for anything that might help him track Mourdant down. The place was completely empty, not so much as a coffee mug or a magazine to suggest that anyone lived here. JD moved through the living room, peering through doorways till he found what he assumed must be the master bedroom. The bed hadn’t been slept in. The wardrobes were filled with a row of identical silver suits. But something else inside the wardrobe caught JD’s attention. A faint line in the plaster.

  JD pushed and, to his surprise and delight, the wall shifted.

  Behind it was a small room. He found the light switch and flicked it. Whereas the rest of the apartment was clean and sparse, this space was rammed and filthy. A small desk in the corner was piled high with books, crumpled papers littered the floor and three of the walls were scrawled with red demonic symbols. JD covered his nose with the back of his hand to ward off the stench. He didn’t want to think about what those symbols had been painted with.

  The fourth wall was covered in pinned pictures of people and articles torn out of newspapers from all over the world. Some of the photos had lines through them, but two were circled. The first showed an image of a young Japanese man holding a trophy. The other was a picture of a woman JD recognized. He peered closer. He’d only caught a glimpse of her earlier, but she was unmistakable. It was Milly’s mother. In the picture she was dressed like a Viking woman, with battle armour and long golden braids. At the bottom Mourdant had written and underlined, “Host???”

  JD moved to the desk and riffled through the papers. He pulled out a sheet of parchment and knocked something to the floor. A thick notebook bound in red leather. JD picked it up and unwound the string hol
ding it closed before flicking through the pages.

  Most of the contents had been written in a language JD didn’t understand, but he could make out dates, which started in 1982. Some of the pages had been scratched through and words like Failure and Disaster had been written over them in English. Whatever Mourdant had been planning went back years.

  The final pages in the diary were covered in black marks that weren’t even in an alphabet he recognized. In the flickering light they looked like an army of dancing ants. As he looked closer, the marks took form. Triangles. Rows of lines. Small drawings of animals. His finger hovered over one symbol that seemed to call to him: a looping circle with overlapping ends. The same symbol he’d seen on the arms of the demons they had fought in the motel. JD couldn’t read the words but he knew what he was looking at. A ritual.

  He turned the final page over and written in neat, sharp writing on the back was one word…

  “Tezcatlipoca!” Milly woke, gasping for breath. She’d been dreaming about her mother – trapped somewhere, screaming for help. But no matter how hard Milly tried, she couldn’t get there before a great blackness consumed her, sucking her down and down. She’d tried calling out but no sound escaped. And then the name she’d heard the demon priestess Zyanya say came back to her, twisting her stomach and bursting out of her.

  Her brow dripped with sweat and her throat was raw, whether from the crying or the silent screams she didn’t know. She needed a glass of water. She wiped her eyes with the neck of her borrowed T-shirt and clambered out of the bunk. Four of the boys were sleeping soundly: Connor still snoring, Niv and Zek totally indistinguishable now they were both silent, Tom curled up on the sofa, looking serene, his mop of light hair falling over his face. JD still hadn’t returned. Milly felt strangely guilty. She knew he hadn’t wanted to bring her with them and she wished she hadn’t sounded so ungrateful earlier. But it wasn’t as if he was making any of this easy for her.