He reached into his pocket and pulled out his e-cig, pressing down on the button. A hiss accompanied the blue light that flashed forward, illuminating a small section of the wall. As the flavoured liquid substitute bubbled away, Bermuda slowly edged along the wall, running his hand across the stone.
‘Give me something,’ he muttered to himself, his voice reverberating gently back at him. He crouched down as his fingers felt the rough grooves that had been etched into the wall.
A quick jolt of the Otherside passed through his fingertips.
He could feel it, pulling at his fingerprints, trying to drag him through the very brick before him. He squatted back, resting on his ankles as he pulled his notepad from his pocket.
The crude drawing of the ‘Gate-maker’ still occupied a page, as did Sophie Summers’s phone number.
Two memories that brought nothing but pain.
Clasping the e-cig in his mouth, he had to push it further down so his teeth could lock on the button, the smoking implement daring to touch the back of his throat. Fighting the urge to gag, Bermuda aimed the blue beam at the wall and began to sketch the markings down.
After a few strokes of the pen he dropped the notepad and swiped the e-cig from his mouth. A shiver ran through him as his mouth went dry, his stomach slowly knotting itself out of fear. He peered in closer at the marks, unsurprised that he had managed to feel the other world in their grooves.
They were not markings.
They were fingernail scratchings.
‘What the fuck?’ Bermuda questioned out loud as he guided the light further around the base of the wall, the stone slathered with the horrific scratches of a panicked hand. Someone had been in here.
Someone had been trying to get out.
Right on cue, a flash of lightning illuminated the shadowed tomb for a split second, followed by a roaring clap of thunder that shook the entire graveyard. Bermuda heard something shuffle behind him as the rain picked up its pace.
‘Who are you?’
The voice caused Bermuda to spin on spot. He pushed himself so he was standing and took a cautionary step backwards. The words were cold, inquisitive but laced with menace. The creature before him was not a beast.
It was a man.
But not quite.
Bermuda’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the stone enclosure and he looked at the ‘man’ before him. He instantly saw why the victims had been easily led. The man was strikingly handsome but in a way that reminded Bermuda of the olden days. His suit, damp and clinging to his sturdy frame, was splattered with the unmistakable colour of blood. It looked half a size too big for him.
The short brown hair was shimmering from the downpour, but was still slicked across his skull in a neat side parting.
His eyes were piercing and his strong jaw sat rigid, like an alligator ready to snap.
His hand was covered in blood, his powerful fingers wrapped around a fresh heart that had undoubtedly been ripped out from a young lady who would be discovered soon.
The Absent Man.
A cold-blooded killer.
Bermuda took another step back, trying his best to put the stone table between him and whatever it was posing as a man before him. As he slowly stepped back, he could feel the hate from the stare, the eyes ripping through him like he imagined the man’s hand had to the poor victims.
Not man.
Something else.
As the silence sat as heavy as the damp between them, Bermuda held his hands out, as a sign of piece.
‘What did you do to Argyle?’ he asked, concerned that Argyle hadn’t stopped his visitor.
‘What’s an Argyle?’ The man’s voice was calm, a slight bass to it. His eyes were unblinking.
‘You know. Big guy, armour, sword, constant look of constipation. Argyle.’
The Absent Man stared at him, unmoved by the humour. Bermuda’s eyes flashed to the doorway, hoping Argyle would race in at any moment. All that entered was the wind carrying the rain.
‘He is outside. I am unsure if he is still alive.’
Bermuda felt his heart jump; the fear of losing Argyle hit him harder than he thought. His mind flashed back to that rainy night in Big Ben six months before when he had seen Argyle plummet to what he thought would be his death.
He had survived then.
Please let him survive now.
The Absent Man snapped him back to reality.
‘Where is she?’ His words were laced with venom.
‘Who?’ Bermuda asked, looking around with genuine bemusement.
‘Where is she?’ he repeated, taking a step closer. ‘You promised.’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘In the dark.’ The Absent Man took a step closer, and Bermuda held his hands up again in a worthless display of surrender. ‘You promised me her return.’
‘Who are you?’ Bermuda asked, stepping further around the stone structure between them, trying to edge towards the door.
‘You know who I am. You kept me in the darkness. You took her from me and you demanded this.’
He tossed the heart onto the stone between them, blood and rain splattering across the surface like a Jackson Pollock painting. Bermuda felt a small rise of vomit clamber up his throat, but he controlled himself before it reached the surface.
The blood-soaked heart glistened like a rare jewel.
‘Now where is she?’ The words were harder, the patience thinning.
Bermuda reached into his pocket and pulled out the small leather wallet that house his badge. ‘I am not who you think I am, and I am not the person you spoke to before.’ He flicked it open, revealing his badge. ‘My name is Franklyn Jones and I am an agent for the BTCO. I am trying to help.’
‘Help?’ The Absent Man twisted his handsome face into a crooked grin. ‘There is no help. Just her.’
‘Who?’
The Absent Man stared longingly towards the wall, his eyes resting on the thousands of scratch marks.
The years of pain.
The lifetime of darkness.
The memories.
‘She was my everything.’ His words slipped through quietly, drenched in sadness. ‘She was my reason for being. My great love.’
‘And that’s why you are killing these women? For her?’
‘For love.’
Bermuda ignored the obvious response and took another step nearer. The wind from the doorway shot past him, beckoning him to safety.
‘What’s your name?’ Bermuda asked, trying to keep the momentum up. Begging for Argyle to enter.
‘It is Caleb. No, Kevin.’ The Absent Man shook his head, wrestling with a dark memory. ‘Kevin Parker.’
A pin could drop as the two of them stared at each other. The heart of another deceased between them.
‘Who told you to steal the hearts?’ Bermuda asked.
Kevin’s eyes flickered from side to side, resting on the heart and then on the scratching of the wall. A panic filtered through, his movements more frantic.
‘Kevin!’ Bermuda’s voice rose. ‘Who told you to steal the hearts?’
‘They held me in the dark.’ He spoke, as if to himself.
Bermuda took a few careful steps towards Kevin. Towards the entrance.
‘Why here? Why do you bring the hearts here?’
‘You lied to me,’ Kevin whispered, the darkness of his pupils slowly filtering into his sclera, blending together with a smoky beauty. Bermuda could see him changing.
‘Who did they take from you?’ Bermuda’s question was stern and he reached out towards Kevin, hoping beyond hope to restrain him. To stop him from hurting another person.
He was wrong.
‘You lied to me!’ Kevin roared, the final word distorting into a vicious roar beyond humanity. In a sudden burst of speed, Kevin shot towards Bermuda and swung his bloodied hand. The back of his powerful wrist caught Bermuda across the jaw and sent him over the stone altar.
The SOCOs would be p
leased he cleared the entire table, missing the heart and the blood splatter.
His jaw and, after colliding with the wall, spine weren’t so grateful.
Kevin grunted before turning and setting off through the door, racing at a freakish pace back down the hill, the rain crashing around him. Bermuda pulled himself to his feet, doing his best to block the fear and sense of self-preservation from his mind, and gave chase.
He burst out of the tomb and into the howling wind of the night, noticing the crumpled body of Argyle to the side of the building. The wound on the back of his skull was healing and Bermuda could feel him stirring. His eyes narrowed, trying to peer through the curtain of rain enveloping the grounds before him, the treacherous slope back towards civilisation.
A flash of lightning drew his gaze towards the gate just as Kevin Parker was reaching the metal barrier.
‘Find me,’ Bermuda said hopefully, leaving his partner and heading down the hill, weaving between the tombstones and racing across the fields of death beneath him.
For the first time in six months, Bermuda was glad he had quit smoking, his eyes fixated on Kevin Parker, who raced through the streetlights of the street ahead. Bermuda pushed through the gates and gave chase, his breaths getting deeper as his clothes got heavier.
His jaw ached and his spine roared in agony as he slowed, the feeling of failure fitting him like a bespoke suit as he watched Kevin Parker disappear around the corner.
Suddenly, the sound of bike tyres thrashing through the rain had him stepping into the road, causing the cyclist to almost crash as he squeezed the brakes.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ The courier’s voice was thick with Scottish fury.
Bermuda pointlessly flashed his badge. ‘Sir, I need to commandeer this bicycle.’
‘You can go fuck yoursel—’
Bermuda’s punch landed right on the side of the man’s jaw, rocking him gently on his feet before he fell into a spandex-covered pile on the floor.
He checked his knuckles – two of them had split on impact and a trickle of blood rushed through his fingers, like the blood of Kevin Parker’s victims.
At the end of the street, the police assigned to the literal ‘graveyard shift’ flared up their sirens at the assault they had just witnessed.
Bermuda sighed. ‘Ah shit.’
He hoisted the bike from the ground and swung a leg over, trying his level best to remember the last time he had ever cycled and hoped that the well-worn saying was true. His feet pedalled, and he flew up the street, taking the corner too fast and almost colliding with a parked car.
Halfway down the long road which led towards the city centre, Bermuda could make out the figure of Kevin Parker. The speed of the man matched his strength.
Not human.
Pushing the fear of the Otherside and an impending traffic collision from his mind, Bermuda continued pedalling, the wailing of the sirens behind him causing him to increase his efforts. After the last few run-ins with Glasgow’s finest, he was sure they wouldn’t go easy on him.
Strachan would see to that.
He whipped in and out of darkness, the streetlights passing at an increased rate as he flew up the street, the police car right on his tail. Kevin Parker turned at the next left. The hill would lead him back into town, towards a beehive of activity that would swallow him up. Bermuda instinctively turned left as well one street earlier, the wheels wobbling as he somehow maintained his balance and swerved, missing the car that emergency stopped.
The police car didn’t.
The collision was shockingly loud, the shattering of glass and the slow death of the siren the last thing Bermuda heard as he eased up on the pedals and let the hill do the work. As the city centre rushed to meet him, he peered to the right and saw Kevin Parker heading towards the orange signage of the subway.
Bermuda turned sharply, hammering through the main square towards the steps that led down to the station. Weaving between a young family, Bermuda collided into Kevin Parker at the top of the stairs, the impact sending the bike crashing down them to the underground as the two of them hit the hard concrete. A few passers-by gasped in shock as Bermuda did his best to ignore the pain of the crash and restrain Kevin.
Thrashing wildly, Bermuda and Kevin Parker came face to face and, in the bright streetlight that hung above, Bermuda could see he wasn’t human. His eyes were jet-black, the colour of death, and his mouth had distorted into a heinous snarl. The veins in his neck were straining against the skin, ripples of movement beneath his muscles that looked like he was infested with insects.
The Otherside trying to get out.
Kevin growled furiously and snapped backwards, sending Bermuda crashing to the pavement. With remarkable speed he spun around and stood, reaching down and grabbing Bermuda by the neck, his fingers pressing into his throat and slowly crushing his larynx. The crowd gasped and stepped back, and a sea of phones were revealed – some for the emergency services, most for the social media opportunity.
Somewhere behind them, Bermuda could hear the joyful chiming of the tram’s bell.
Kevin Parker held Bermuda in front of his face, his black eyes boring into him, reminding Bermuda of Barnaby.
Reminding him of evil.
‘I must have her.’ Parker’s words were soft, betraying the vicious, contorted scowl that rested upon his face. ‘Don’t try to stop me.’
And with that, he hurled Bermuda upwards. The bright lights of the city seemed to whip past Bermuda as gravity reached its reliable hand up and welcomed him to the hard concrete below. The wind raced out of his lungs on impact and the back of his skull hit stone, sending his vision and mind in different directions.
The crowd began screaming in terror as Bermuda slowly pushed himself to a seated position, something loud ringing in his ears.
A bright light shone in his eyes.
It took Bermuda a split second to realise that he wasn’t being welcomed into heaven.
He was sat on the tram tracks that sliced their way through the town centre.
A few feet away, the tram hurtled towards him, blasting its shrill horn as the driver did his best to slam on the brakes.
The on-looking crowd screamed as it failed to stop.
Raindrops welcomed Argyle back to consciousness, the water splattering his face as his grey eyes blinked themselves open. He gently rolled onto his front, the feeling of his body returning to him. The back of his head throbbed, the sure sign of an assault that he didn’t expect.
Couldn’t sense.
Perplexed by his hidden assailant, he pressed his big hands into the sloppy mud beneath him and pushed himself to his knees. The wind whistled past, the force shaking the sword that clung to his spine. With a gentle wobble he pulled himself to his feet, resting a hand on a monument to the dead for support.
What had attacked him?
Where was Bermuda?
He had a vague recollection of his partner being next to him, a bizarre request to ‘find him’.
Where?
Argyle slowly scanned his surroundings, trying his best to align his thoughts that had been shattered like a windowpane by his attacker.
Suddenly, the night sky was awash with flashing blue lights and sirens. He turned his head to the roads at the base of the hill, watching as one of the police cars burst into life and moved towards the street. Narrowing his eyes, he watched as small figure boarded a two-wheeled vehicle and then uncomfortably began to steer it.
Bermuda.
Without hesitation Argyle set off, whipping in and out of the tombstones and respectfully refusing to step on the graves of those long gone.
There was honour in death.
Honour he would always respect.
As he got nearer the bottom of the hill, Argyle used the elements to his advantage, leaning his body weight into the decline and sliding down the gradient. Nearing the bottom, he pushed off with his powerful legs, soaring through the air and clearing the fence to the Necropolis in one migh
ty bound.
He landed down on one knee, his hands pressed on the concrete before he burst forward like an Olympic sprinter, racing through the centre of the road.
He overtook a car, its inhabitants unaware of the armoured warrior passing.
A mighty crash could be heard up ahead and he could see the police car had collided with another earth-destroying machine, the occupant showing little respect for the uniform that the officer wore. Argyle questioned if it was all humans who disrespected nobility and a uniform, not just Bermuda.
With his mind refocused, Argyle approached the arguing policeman and his aggrieved civilian, smoke filtering between them from the crumpled bonnet of the modest vehicle. Argyle whipped past them, leaping and sliding across the roof of the police car and maintaining his speed out the other end.
As he approached the bottom of the hill, Argyle heard the crash of a bike, the screams of people that began to huddle around the entrance to Queen Street Station. As he neared, he saw Bermuda fly through the air, colliding with the concrete with a vicious thud.
A tram rushed past Argyle, catching him by surprise, the shrill ringing of its bells breaking Argyle’s concentration. He shook the noise away and followed the tram’s trajectory.
The metal tracks.
The prone body of Bermuda that lay across them thirty feet away.
In an instant, Argyle raised his right arm, the spike of the Retriever shooting off, followed by the unbreakable chain that clung to it. It weaved beyond the civilians and ripped into the metal panel of the driver’s carriage. Instantly, Argyle reversed the retrieval, launching himself forward towards the spike and the front of the vehicle.
Bermuda woozily pushed himself up.
The tram hurtled towards him.
Cutting through the rain, Argyle caught up to the front of the unstoppable vehicle and reversed the retrieval again. As more chain shot out he pushed himself away from the tram with one foot, he swung around the front of the tram and reached for Bermuda.
Bermuda Jones Casefiles Box Set Page 48
