“Hey, Christine. Over here.”
Christine looked around and saw a young woman dressed in a long black leather coat over leather motorcycle boots. An upside-down silver cross hung round her neck, and her earrings were five pointed stars. She had long straight black hair and the blackest eyes imaginable. Sitting by her side was a cute collie dog, its tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth.
“Christine, I need to talk to you.”
Christine frowned. “I don’t know you,” she said. “You’re a stranger.”
“My name’s Proserpine. Lydia knows me. Let me talk to Lydia.”
Christine turned to look at her friends. They were standing motionless, staring blankly ahead, almost as if time had stopped for them.
Then she shuddered, closed her eyes and opened them again. She smiled at Proserpine. “Mistress Proserpine. How may I serve you?” Her voice had dropped an octave.
Proserpine walked over and patted the girl on the head. “It seems I took my eyes off you for a while, and you made your presence felt rather too early. What did Nightingale tell you?”
“He said I should sleep till he woke me.”
Proserpine laughed. “He really is an idiot, he has no idea what he’s doing most of the time. Still perhaps a period of silence might be no bad thing. Bide your time Lydia, let’s have no more manifestations, just watch and wait. I’ll have work for you to do soon enough.”
“How soon, mistress?”
“Be patient, girl, your time will come. And don’t call me Mistress. You’re my daughter. My one and only.”
“Can I kill Nightingale for you, mother? Please let me.”
“Nightingale, no. But that interfering priest, yes, I think so. But not just yet. I’ll be in touch when I need you.”
Lydia gave a blissful smile and a shudder of pleasure. “I’ll be waiting to serve you.”
Proserpine stroked the girl’s blonde hair, then gently pinched her cheek. “Be seeing you, darling.”
She blew a kiss at the girl, and Christine shook her head, smiled at her friends and then walked off down the street with them flanking her. Just a normal, happy eleven-year-old, heading off home to her loving family.
* * *
Jack Nightingale appears in the full-length novels Nightfall, Midnight, Nightmare, Nightshade and Lastnight and in the short stories Still Bleeding and Cursed. He has his own website at www.jacknightingale.com
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My Name Is Lydia (Jack Nightingale short story) Page 4
