Dominion

by Peter McLean

She got up and padded out of the bedroom, and closed the door behind her. I sighed and lay down again, unable to resist rolling over into the warm space where she had been lying. Pathetic, I know.

  I drifted in and out for a couple of hours but by half six I gave it up for a bad job. Early morning spring sunshine was streaming in the window and I was wide awake. I got up and took another shower. A cold one, I have to admit. By the time I got out of the bathroom Trixie had taken the opportunity to get dressed, and I quickly did the same. I was having trouble meeting her eye, to be perfectly honest with you. I kind of felt like some kid who’d been caught wanking by his mum or his auntie or something, that’s how fucking embarrassed I was.

  You are such a fucking idiot, I told myself for the thousandth time as I got dressed. As if that was ever going to happen outside of your own imagination.

  We spent a couple of hours avoiding each other in awkward silence. Avoiding each other in a flat this small was fucking difficult, and we ended up with her sitting at my desk staring out of the front window and me in the kitchen staring out the back one. It was actually a relief when the phone rang some time after nine.

  I hurried through to the office to get it. The dagger was still where I had left it, lying on the end of the desk.

  Shit, I ought to get and sort that.

  I picked up.

  “Don Drake,” I said.

  “Don baby, how’s it going?”

  My heart sank. It was Gold Steevie. I hadn’t heard from him in months – not since I had bluffed him off with all that nonsense about omens, in fact – and I really hadn’t missed him. Gold Steevie was basically a cheap and nasty gangster who thought he was something special because he knew just enough to know that what I did even existed, and could be bought. He thought that meant I could be bought, and he was wrong. Sort of, anyway.

  “What do you want, Steevie?” I said.

  Now I wouldn’t normally be that brusque with him, I was too scared of him for that, but Trixie was still sitting in my office chair while I was leaning over the desk to reach the phone and I was too close to her for comfort. I wanted to get this over with.

  “That isn’t very friendly, now is it, Don?” Steevie said. “Not when I’ve got some work for you.”

  His voice sounded even more oily than usual over the phone, and I realised I just didn’t have the patience for him today. I didn’t want his work, and I didn’t want him. He was a ridiculous little prick who slicked his hair back to cover his bald spot and wore too much naff gold jewellery and far too much cologne and why the hell was I scared of him anyway?

  “No, ta,” I said. “I’m busy.”

  There was a pause. “Sorry Don, you’ll have to say that again,” he said. “My phone must be playing up. For a moment there I thought you just said ‘no’ to me.”

  “I did,” I said. “No.”

  “Now you fucking listen to me,” Steevie snapped. “I’ll have some fucking respect out of you, Drake, or I’ll–”

  “Fuck off,” I said, and put the phone down on him.

  I started at it for a moment.

  What the bloody hell did I just do?

  I didn’t have any respect for Steevie, that was true, but I really was scared of him. He had at least half a dozen armed lads working for him, a very short temper, and a proven track record of taking people’s fingers off with bolt cutters. Telling him to fuck off wasn’t exactly wise.

  “Who was that?” Trixie asked.

  “No one,” I said.

  “You were very rude to no one just then,” she pointed out.

  Oh for fucksake.

  I suddenly realised I simply wasn’t in the mood for her this morning either. I’d had it with feeling like an idiot, like some embarrassed little kid hiding in the kitchen so he didn’t get told off. I had to get out of there for a bit.

  “I’m going for a walk,” I said. “See you later.”

  I grabbed my good coat off the back of the door and left before she had the chance to say anything else. Now, I hate walking as a rule, but it was a beautiful spring morning and for some reason I just wanted to get out in the air. I felt like I’d been shut in for far too long. I suppose it was hardly surprising what with all the time I’d spent underground lately, and most of the rest of it cooped up in my tiny flat with Trixie and her moods and her bloody temper.

  I stepped out onto the pavement and pulled in a deep lungful of South London air. It smelled marvellous, for all that it was mostly a combination of diesel exhaust and last night’s Indian takeaways. Who cared? For some reason it felt ridiculously good just to be outside.

  I turned my back on my office and started walking. After about ten minutes I realised my internal autopilot was taking me to where Debbie used to live. I shook my head and made myself cross the street and head in the other direction. That ship had sailed off into the sunset last year, never to return, I suspected.

  Oh well. It was such a nice morning, nothing was going to spoil my mood now I was finally out of that fucking flat at last. I realised I had been cooped up for so long I had almost lost track of what day it was, but I eventually figured out it was Sunday.

  I stopped at a food van and bought a jerk chicken wrap from a Jamaican guy I vaguely recognised from around the neighbourhood. If eating the street food around here wasn’t living dangerously I don’t know what was, but all the same I sat on a wall happily munching it and watching the world go by. It was bloody good actually, so good I was just considering getting another one when a huge silver Bentley pulled up hard at the kerb in front of me. Three big lads got out, two with their hands inside their bulky leather jackets in a way that shouted “guns” so loudly it’s a wonder the Old Bill couldn’t hear them a mile away. My heart sank.

  “Drake,” one of them said, and it wasn’t a question. “Get in the motor.”

  They shoved me into the back and one got in either side of me while the other went around to the front seat. The driver turned round and glared at me. It was Paul, Gold Steevie’s minder.

  “We were just on our way to your gaff, but here you are,” he said. “Saved us the bother of kicking the door in, ain’t you?”

  It looked like telling Gold Steevie to fuck off had just turned round to bite me. I knew I should have been shitting myself but for some reason I just wasn’t. Buggered if I knew why not, but there we were. I really was in a funny mood that morning.

  “Looks like it,” I said. “His nibs couldn’t be arsed to come for the ride, then?”

  “You’re going to him,” Paul said.

  He turned around to face front and slotted the car into drive, and pulled out into the traffic with a pointless squeal of tyres. Someone behind us hooted, and Paul slid the window down and gave whoever it was the finger without looking.

  “Cunt!” he shouted out of the window.

  These were lovely lads, they really were. The ones either side of me were virtually identical, both of them with shaved heads and stubbled chins and badly tattooed hands. Even Steevie’s hired muscle didn’t have any class. I settled back into the luxurious seat and tried to enjoy the ride.

  Chapter 14

  We ended up at a lockup on a rundown industrial estate a few miles away. You’d think the Bentley would have looked out of place there, but it seemed like every other unit we drove past had a couple of Jags or a big Mercedes or Range Rover or something similar parked outside. It was that sort of area, if you know what I mean. Eventually we pulled up outside what I could only assume was Steevie’s place. The two tattooed-hands lads pulled me out of the car and shoved me through an open metal roller door into the warehouse itself. There were another couple of motors in there under dusty car covers, and a battered white van. And Gold Steevie.

  He was standing in the middle of the greasy concrete expanse with another goon beside him, and he was wearing a camel hair coat over his suit. I mean, for the love of God, did he think it was still 1978 or something? His huge gold Rolex and his chunky gold bracelet and all his awful naff
sovereign rings caught the dim light and sparkled. Paul and the other lad followed us in and pulled the roller door down behind them. Steevie just stood there with his hands clasped in front of him, glaring at me.

  “All right, Steevie,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “You take me for some sort of cunt?” he asked. “What the fuck has got into you, Drake?”

  That, now that he came to ask, was a bloody good question. I honestly had no idea. I hadn’t been shaken up by the battle with Bianakith yesterday, and I still wasn’t scared now. This was Steevie’s manor, and here I was all on my own with him and five of his boys. and he was obviously quite seriously fucked off with me. I should have been shitting myself by now even if I hadn’t been while I was in the car. I knew I should, but I still wasn’t.

  There was something so ridiculous… I dunno. I just couldn’t take him seriously today, you know what I mean?

  “It’s a lovely day,” I said. “Guess I’m full of the joys of spring.”

  “That’s enough fucking comedian out of you,” Steevie said. “Smack him, Del.”

  The nearest thug swung for me, and I swayed back out of the way like it was the easiest thing in the world. Now, as I’ve said, I’m not a fighter and I never have been. Normally that meaty tattooed paw of his would have pretty much broken my jaw but today it was so easy to dodge it, so easy to reach up and take hold of his wrist as it shot past my face. So easy to turn with him and dip my weight just so and put my other hand on his elbow and wrench.

  Del’s arm snapped like a twig.

  “Fucker!” he howled, clutching the broken arm to his chest and staring at me in open astonishment.

  I wasn’t any less astonished myself if I’m perfectly honest about it.

  “You been taking fucking karate lessons or something, you ponce?” Steevie asked. “Paul, Lenny, Dave. Kick the fucking piss out of him.”

  They turned on me together, three on one, and I knew if they didn’t get their own way soon then the bats and crowbars would come out. Or maybe a shotgun.

  I started to get angry. This was ridiculous all right. This was just fucking ridiculous. I had killed an archdemon yesterday for fucksake, and now these little pricks thought they could beat me up? Me?

  I could feel a heat building in my hands, getting hotter and hotter as I got angrier and angrier.

  “Er, boss…” one of Steevie’s goons started, but by then it was too late.

  I was really, truly pissed off now, and it felt good. I lifted my hands in front of my face and saw there was smoke rising from my fingertips. That had never happened before.

  The lads backed off, looking wary now as well they might. Steevie’s eyes opened wide in surprise. He reached into his fucking ludicrous camel hair coat and started to pull out a shooter.

  I went for him. I don’t even really know how to have a fight, but something in me just took over. I felt hot and cold all over, all at once, ice cold and raging hot.

  Burning hot.

  Steevie shrieked as he burst into flames. I backhanded him across the face and his head exploded like he’d bitten a grenade. I turned on his minders, vaguely aware of flames roaring from my outstretched hands.

  Oh burn, you motherfuckers, just burn!

  I’m not too sure what happened after that.

  I came to my senses sitting on the floor, backed into a corner and hunched over my burned hands. Dear fucking Christ in Heaven but they hurt. I made myself look at them but they seemed to be all right, with none of the weeping blackened blisters I felt sure must be covering them. It still hurt though. It hurt a fucking lot.

  Steevie and all five of his crew were dead.

  That’s such a mild word isn’t it, dead? “Dead” didn’t really do justice to how Steevie and his boys were. Steevie himself was a shapeless mass of charred flesh and wool with lumps of molten gold fused into it. Most of his head seemed to be missing, but it was a bit hard to tell, what with the state of him. His boys weren’t much better, but by then I didn’t feel like looking too closely. The smell alone was enough to make me want to puke.

  I winced as I struggled to my feet. The pain in my hands was fading now but I felt like I hadn’t slept for a week. I had to get out of there. I pulled the cover off the nearest car. It was one of those big Jags they don’t make any more, a lovely old thing in deep burgundy with cream leather seats and a lot of walnut on the dash, but it was locked and anyway the smell coming off it was enough to tell me I really wouldn’t have wanted to look in the boot. Fuck it, I’d take the Bentley then. I paused in the doorway and looked back over my shoulder at the charred, smoking corpses.

  Well, isn’t that interesting?

  Paul had left the keys in the Bentley so I just pinched it. I hadn’t driven a car in years but you never really forget how, and it was such a beautiful motor it pretty much did it for me anyway. I pulled out onto the main road through the deserted industrial estate and floored it. The Bentley went like stink but I’d only got halfway down the road before I had to pull over. I sat there behind the wheel and started to shake uncontrollably.

  What the actual fuck just happened in there?

  I had no idea but I knew I needed a drink, badly. I took a deep breath to get myself under control and pulled out again, driving a bit more like a sane person now. I turned left at the lights and threaded my way through the traffic towards the Rose and Crown.

  I put the power of Hell at your fingertips, I remembered the Burned Man telling me once, but I had never thought it meant it literally. Fuck it, I knew it hadn’t meant it like that. This was fucked up whichever way I looked at it.

  I parked the Bentley in a side street five minutes’ walk away from the pub and left the keys in it. I knew it would only take half an hour or so for it to disappear. It broke my heart to leave a lovely car like that out to get nicked but then I could hardly keep the bloody thing, could I? Far too many of the wrong sort of people would know Gold Steevie’s motor when they saw it, and that might lead to some very awkward questions. I’d let whichever little scrote helped himself to a free Bentley deal with those sorts of questions, ta very much.

  I turned the corner and smiled at the welcome sight of the Rose and Crown. It was my local, sort of, and the kind of place no one would so much as raise an eyebrow at you getting shitfaced of a Sunday lunchtime. And that was exactly what I had planned.

  I walked between the hanging baskets and pushed the door open. Shirley was behind the bar and I’d never been so pleased to see her cheeky smile. Shirley’s the landlady, a saucy-looking sixty year-old East End matriarch, all peroxide hair and tits and shiny satin blouse. God bless her and all who’ve sailed in her.

  “Don, how are you, duck?” she asked me.

  “I’ve been better,” I admitted. “Pint and a chaser please, Duchess.”

  She got my drinks and I retired to a table in the corner. What the holy buggering hell had happened in that warehouse? I sighed and drank. I had no idea, in all honesty. I could only assume it had something to do with what I had done yesterday. Yesterday I had worked more closely with the Burned Man than I had ever done before. I remembered when Trixie had fought Aleto the Unresting whilst trying to use the Burned Man, and how she had somehow managed to shoot fire out of her hand at Ally. I had wondered at the time how the fuck she had done that.

  Maybe getting too close to the Burned Man had some weird side effects. I really didn’t know. But then there had been the way I had been behaving all day, first hiding from Trixie and then not being scared of Gold Steevie when I really should have been. It had been almost as though I had known I could slaughter him and his boys without breaking a sweat, although of course I hadn’t known anything of the sort until it happened.

  But then I was good at slaughtering people, wasn’t I? Five year-old children especially. I closed my eyes and saw his face, the bloody holes where his eyes had been.

  Fuck him. What use is a fucking five year-old anyway? It’s not like he was about to cure cancer or somethin
g. His parents can always make another one if they miss him that fucking much.

  I sat up like I’d been stung. Now I know I can be a bit of a shit sometimes but where the fuck had that come from? I suppose it was technically true but for fucksake, that was awful! What the fuck was wrong with me?

  Oh I was buggered if I knew. Sometimes I hate myself, I really do. I drank up and went to get another round in.

  * * *

  I must admit I was a bit pissed by the time Trixie finally came to find me. She didn’t look best pleased, to put it mildly.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake Don,” she said as she sat down opposite me. “I might have known I’d find you in here. Going for a walk, indeed.”

  “I did go for a walk,” I said. “I walked here.”

  Okay, that was maybe leaving out one or two key details but I had walked here from where I’d abandoned Steevie’s Bentley so it was technically true, if you squinted at it. I can’t say I fancied trying to explain to her what had actually happened, especially as I didn’t really know myself.

  “It’s lunchtime and you’re drunk,” she pointed out, a bit snippily I thought.

  I looked at her and got embarrassed all over again.

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “Look, Trixie. About last night… I really am sorry.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh I see. Well, let’s not say anything more about that. Misunderstandings happen.”

  Don’t they just. Her belting me in the face in a fit of rage, me feeling her up in a fit of stupidity, we were all about misunderstandings recently, weren’t we? I sighed.

  “It’s a deal,” I said. “Want a drink?”

  “Oh why not, now I’m here anyway,” she said. “Gin and tonic please.”

  I went and got her one, and got myself another pint while I was about it. I thought about it for a moment and decided to skip the whisky. I didn’t want to wind her up any more than I already had today.

  “There was a man looking for you this morning,” she said, when I came back with the drinks. “I told him you were out.”