Rough Sleepers

by Nem Rowan

  He opened the deck and picked another card, flipping it over next to the first one.

  "The Devil. He 'as an un'ealthy obsession wiv his victims. He's tetherin' all a ya to 'imself 'cause he wantsa control you, herd you all together. He's blind to the complications o' what he's doin'. Deluded by his own selfishness."

  "Sounds pretty accurate to me," I commented in an undertone, causing him to tilt his head up and look at me.

  "Well thass reassuring then, innit." He grinned. He held the deck in his palms again but left the other two cards where they were. "Lessee now. I wish ta know what Wallace Reed wants."

  With that, he began to shuffle again. Like before, he cut the deck and took out a card, putting it beneath the first two and revealing its upper side.

  "Ten o' Cups. He wants a family. Seems like although he's tryin' ta control ya, he wants you all ta be a par' of his gang. Searchin' for happiness in a group, somewhere he can belong," he said as he observed the card below. He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand and drew another card. "Five o' Pentacles. He's picking you 'cause yer goin' through 'ard times. He sees you as the rejects of society, and I can only assume that he felt like a reject, too, so thass why he's selectin' ya and grouping ya together. He finks that 'cause yer all outcasts that you'll make a good family fer him 'cause he'll be surrounded by people he identifies wiv."

  "I ain't a reject!" Christine frowned at him in disbelief, but Mecky started to laugh.

  "Very funny! Maybe he come to Poland, there he is reject." She slapped her knee as she cackled, clutching the bowl of crisps in her other arm.

  Gabriel smiled at us awkwardly, seeming slightly embarrassed by the response he'd received.

  "Maybe I picked the wrong words to describe wha' I'm seeing. Anyway, less ask some more questions," he declared as he adjusted his grip on the deck. "I wish ta know where Wallace Reed is hidin'."

  We watched as he began to shuffle again, and I smiled down at Christine who was still wearing a sulky face; I couldn't see how she was an outcast from society when she was just a young girl who hadn't even left school yet.

  "Page o' Pentacles. Hmm," he muttered as he flipped the card over. "Messenger. He's hidin' somewhere thass used by messengers. A business o' some kind. Could be a printin' press, could be a post office, could be a news studio. A place where messages are sent out ta people..."

  Another card was tossed down beside it and turned over.

  "The Tower. Iss an abandoned place. Went frew a catastrophic change; bankruptcy maybe, business closed down and the building's now derelic' and fallin' down." He looked up at us again, singling out Ceri in particular.

  "That could be one of several places." Ceri held his forehead as he tried to think.

  "I can't ask it again. Any more than two cards and the message gets sketchy," Gabriel said as he clutched at the remaining deck of cards. "Jus' do what ya can wiv what I've told ya."

  "How do we kill him?" Mecky inquired with the most important question of all. "He has weakness? You find out?"

  "I wish ta know what Wallace Reed's weakness is," he declared as he began shuffling again, before splitting the deck and chucking down another card. "The World. Wallace Reed's weakness is The World."

  "What does that mean?" Mecky was confused.

  "It means tha' the completion of his plan is his weakness. You guys are his weakness." He smiled, seeming rather pleased with himself. Mecky didn't though; actually, she seemed a bit dejected, as though she had expected something rather more exciting.

  "Well," she uttered as she leaned back in her chair. "I am not sure what I am thinking of that..."

  "I'm gonna stop 'ere. I'm gettin' tired; there ain't anythin' more I can ask the cards. Hope I've bin of some help to ya." Gabriel sighed. He placed his deck down on the cloth as if to signal that the reading had come to an end. "We give thanks to the energies present who provided their guidance. You 'ave license to depart."

  The atmosphere that had filled the room began to seep away like a tide washing back out to sea, and the tranquillity that had blanketed us faded into an anxious excitement. Ceri waited until Gabriel reached to pick up the cards he had laid out before he started speaking.

  "It's been a lot of help. Even if we have to search a few places, at least we've got something to search for now. Thanks, Gabby," Ceri thanked him, though I could sense the stress within him as his brain struggled over the information he'd received.

  "You're welcome." Gabriel bowed his head, collecting his beloved cards and putting them snugly away in their designated box.

  Mecky went to put the lights on and Christine began blowing out the candles, although she started with the ones on the furthest side, not wanting to get too close to Gabriel to blow out the ones right in front of him. He did those himself, anyway. I figured I'd help by picking up the folding chairs, but they were a royal pain in the backside to get them to fold up properly.

  "'Ere, lemme 'elp." Dog-End's voice spoke at my shoulder, and I turned to find him standing beside me. "Muss be 'ard wiv jus' the one arm."

  "I'm more than capable of doing it myself with just the one arm, thank you," I retorted, but I did give in and let him fold the chair for me. He offered it back then with a slight smirk.

  "If ya change yer mind 'bout bein' a human, y'know, after you've killed this guy and yer curse is gone, you can always come an' see me, and we'll work summat out," he suggested in a whisper, keeping his voice low as though he didn't want the others to hear. "I'm not like your kind. Not tied ta the moon."

  "I don't think I'll change my mind, to be perfectly honest," I remarked as he bent to help me fold the next chair.

  "Well, anyway, the offer's there," he whispered to me with a quick wink.

  I wasn't sure what he was insinuating, but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to swap one curse for another, and I sure as hell wasn't gonna join in on any of their witchy antics. He helped me get the chairs folded, and I let him carry them in a stack to lean against the wall out of the way. As I bent to pick up the cushion Gabriel had been sitting on, I overheard what he was saying to Ceri a few feet away; the two of them were craning together, uttering their conversation in hushed tones as everyone else worked around them.

  "...A man and a little kid, right behind her," he told Ceri. "Tell her fer me, will ya?"

  "I will. Dunno if she'll wanna hear it, but I'll say you saw them." He nodded reassuringly, before clapping his hand on the witch's shoulder.

  "Anyway, I was wonderin'. Why you wanna turn Leona human? Don't you want a familiar like I've got Dog-End?" Gabriel asked curiously.

  I turned away, carrying the cushion towards the stairs. I wasn't sure what that meant. A familiar, me? Weren't familiars like servants or something? I didn't want anyone to be my master. And I was fairly certain Ceri didn't want to be my master, either. We didn't have that kind of dynamic; it wouldn't work.

  "Leon?" Ceri called to me across the basement and I paused as I was halfway up the steps, turning to look over my shoulder at him. "We're gonna meet up in the living room and talk about what to do next, okay?"

  "All right," I called back before turning to continue.

  Upstairs, the others had congregated in the living room and Mecky was talking to Dog-End about the brand of cigarettes they liked to smoke. Christine was huddled up in the armchair, the blanket covering her pyjama-clad body as she watched a music channel on the television. Coming upstairs into the daylight had been confusing after being in the darkness of the basement, a bit like the disorientation you sometimes get after coming out of a cinema theatre. I sat down on the sofa, aware of how Dog-End was eyeing me; both him and Gabriel were made for each other, the pair of old lechers. Fortunately, Gabriel decided it was time for the two of them to depart, and so Ceri saw them off out the back door while the rest of us waited in the living room, passing the bowls of snacks between us and contemplating what we'd just been through. When Ceri did return, he had brought the A-Z from the car's glove compartment.

  "Oka
y, we've got four, maybe five places old Wallace could be hiding yere," he remarked as he sat down on the sofa beside Mecky and began flicking through the pages. "We'll split into two groups and go and check them out. Christine, you'll go with Mecky. Leon, you'll come with me."

  *~*~*

  The sky was still bright outside, but I was ever wary of the closeness of the full moon, and the fact that Ceri was carrying his silver knife did nothing to ease my anxieties. I could feel the stirring inside me; it was awakening, and come nightfall, when the moon became visible in the sky, it would take over me whether I wanted it or not, and I hoped by then that either Wallace would be dead, or Ceri would be far away from me where I couldn't hurt him. We could have waited until the moon had passed, but what about Kelly? We were backed into a corner and this was the best we could do. We had all come to this agreement and there was no turning back from what might become a major disaster.

  Mecky and Christine took the car, while Ceri and I ventured on foot along the salted pavements, moving through town alongside the steaming traffic as our breath plumed from our open mouths. I had opted for trousers and trainers instead of a skirt; if there was a chance that I had to run for it, doing it in heels might not be such a good idea and there was no way I would discard my new shoes. I knew where Ceri was taking us: to a decaying multi-story building not far from my old club, which had originally been used as a postal depot but had long since been abandoned.

  Despite being secured by a barbed wire fence, people still found ways to get in and it became the site of many an illegal rave and the unofficial home of the city's squatters and junkies. I didn't think that Wallace would be here; it would be too obvious, too central to town, but I figured we might as well check just to be sure. We found a way in through a hole in the chain-link wall that separated it from the riverside path, sneaking between mountains of rubble and burned out cars. Frozen weeds sprouted from the cracked concrete and shards of glass twinkled in the watery sunshine.

  "I smell nothing here," I told Ceri as we approached the doorless entrance at the rear of the crumbling structure.

  "Nothing at all?" he turned to look at me over his shoulder.

  "Nope. I guess we can look but I don't think he's here," I replied as we walked side by side up the steps and into the litter-strewn hallway, the spray-painted walls blocking out the sun and casting us into shadow.

  It took us awhile to walk the entirety of the building. Some of the stairwells were blocked off, either because they had collapsed or because they were overflowing with rubbish and broken furniture. Everything stank of urine, cannabis, and stale alcohol. Filthy sleeping bags, torn clothing and empty food packaging occupied every desolate space we stepped foot into, and it became clear that there was no way Wallace Reed would choose to stay in a place like this, even if he thought it would trick us into believing he wasn't here. I realised that had Ceri not found me that night at the police station, I would probably have still been sleeping somewhere like this, curled up amongst the waste, shivering in my unwashed clothes.

  "Let's find ourselves a phone booth and give Mecky a call." Ceri gestured back the way we had come as I stood on the edge of the floor, peering out through the enormous opening that had once been protected by a broad sheet of glass. I could see the river and the train tracks from here.

  "All right. I think I know where one is. Let's go," I agreed, turning and following him out into the corridor once more.

  It was a ten-minute walk to a pay phone outside the train station, and I waited outside, smoking a cigarette while Ceri called Mecky to tell her that the first building was empty. She told us that they hadn't any luck either so far and that she would meet us at our next site. I let Ceri finish my cigarette as we walked together up to the front of the train station where the taxi rank was, and after climbing into the back of a cab, we started our journey to the next building. Neither of us spoke on the way even though the driver tried to have a conversation with us. I think he thought we were being rude. Ceri gave me a reassuring smile when I glanced at him, the two of us rocking around in the large space of the taxi cab as it turned corners and stopped at lights.

  I didn't feel nervous anymore; I felt very little, in fact, which surprised me. The only thing I really felt now was the movements of the animal in my core, its monstrous sense of smell and hearing spreading outwards, the pumping desire to consume causing my belly to grumble. I knew I wasn't hungry. I had already had lunch, and then some; there was no way I needed food, and yet my body was protesting in preparation for the change. I reached to Ceri's lap and took hold of his hand, wary that this would be the last time I might get a chance. Sure, things could go well, and everything could be all right, but knowing my previous encounters with Sod's Law, I didn't have a lot of hope. If I was lucky, the knife Ceri concealed under his jacket would go straight into my heart before I bit his head clean off.

  The taxi dropped us off on a road a block away from the derelict site. Ceri paid the fare, and we waited until the car had pulled off down the road before turning together and heading the other way. There were few houses here, only stone walls and fields with the occasional cul-de-sac lined with huge expensive homes, solar panels adorning their roofs and tarp covered yachts mounted on driveways. Out here on the edge of town was an old recording studio, hidden away behind these idealistic abodes of folks who didn't want the noises and smells of the inner city, a forgotten place that used to broadcast live news and chat shows before it was left to ruin.

  We left the road and began crossing an expanse of dead grass that stretched for nearly two hundred metres; in the distance, the compound loomed, no longer protected by its collapsed metal fencing as trees and bushes grew up through the concrete, the roots shattering the foundations that held each post in place. Bars had been bolted onto the windows, and although the doors had been covered with panels to prevent people from breaking in, the years had caused the wood to rot and the metal to rust. The doorways and windows gaped, shattered glass like jagged teeth. I could imagine this would be an excellent setting for a horror movie. The sky overheard was purpling, staining the clouds pink. I was so afraid.

  "Wait," I said as I stopped where I was. Ceri was a few steps ahead of me and he paused too, turning round so that he could look at me.

  "What's wrong?" he frowned, seeming confused as to why I had suddenly halted.

  "I'm not sure about this."

  "Sure? None of us are sure, but it's gotta be done. Don't back out on me now, not when we're nearly yere." He tilted his head, coaxing.

  "It's getting too close to nightfall. I'm scared I'm gonna turn," I confessed, unaware that I was clenching my hand into a fist at my side.

  "Look. Come yere." He came towards me, and I close my eyes as he took me in his arms, his body heat seeping through his leather jacket and soaking into the fabric of my duffel coat. When he spoke, his voice was close to my ear. "Mecky and Christine will be with us soon. This is the only place left to check. If he's not yere then we'll all drive home and you can go down in the basement. If he is, then we'll kill him. There's nothing to worry about."

  "You make it sound so easy." I made an apprehensive chuckle into the crook of his neck.

  "Well, if you overcomplicate things in your mind, sometimes it seems impossible." he leaned back so that he could look me in the eye.

  "What's there to complicate about me eating you?" I shrugged.

  "I can protect myself. Don't you worry about me. Think about Wallace Reed and getting revenge, because Mecky sure as hell will be," he reminded me, somehow managing to stay positive despite the circumstances. "We outnumber them, two to four. This is the closest we've ever been so let's not back out now, eh?"

  I nodded, knowing he was right. Still, I found it hard to keep going. "Ceri, just in case I don't get a chance to say this again. I just wanna tell ya that you're a good friend, and I love you very much. I'll try and protect you. I don't really have anything else left to lose except for you."

  He smiled and
lifted a scaly hand so that he could stroke my cheek, his thick fingers pushing my silvery hair behind an ear that was already beginning to grow pointed.

  "Ti a fi am byth," he spoke as he gazed into my eyes. "You and me, forever."

  "You and me forever," I agreed. "I promise."

  I closed my eyes as he leaned closer and kissed me.

  I allowed him to lead me towards the ruin, pulling me along by my hand as the frozen grass crunched beneath our shoes and a chill wind moaned over the featureless field. There was no birdsong, no signs of life. Crooked trees clustered around the boundary of the site stretched leafless limbs into the icy air, their desiccated trunks encrusted with frost-damaged bark. We climbed over a fallen section of fencing, trying our best not to let the thorny overgrowth snag our clothes, avoiding sharp metal and glass remnants with our feet. I breathed deeply through my nose; I couldn't smell much. The fox musk was overpowering. I tilted back my head and gazed up at the three-story building and its dark rectangular windows, wondering if the sensation of trepidation I was experiencing was because I knew that Wallace might actually be here. We followed what must have been the original driveway of the studio, a long winding path up to the front that turned left towards a small parking lot that was overrun with dead weeds, and beyond that, more trees and collapsed fence posts. The first door we came upon was heavily boarded.

  "Are you sure you don't want to wait for Mecky and Christine?" I asked as we paused before the door, the obstacle preventing us from going any further.

  "We could be waiting an hour or more for them to get yere. The least we can do is find a way in and take a look around before they arrive," he reasoned. "Besides, the last site was a dud. Chances are this is a false flag, too."