Thicker Than Water

Between the ice and the fire, the demon laughed and took his ease, whistling out of key with my lead-sap lullaby.

This wasn’t an exorcism, it was just a soporific: the same tune I’d been playing for Rafi ever since he’d caught his spiritually transmitted disease three years before. It wasn’t the tune I wanted to be playing - but then, that tune had been stolen from me.

I’d have to be content with cleaning out the Augean shithole over at the Salisbury. That at least I could do now. And Bic was stirring in his sleep towards normal wakefulness, his face calm, his chest rising ¾an and falling evenly.

Gradually, step by step, we heaped up chains around him and sent him back down into the oubliette of Rafi’s soul. He went smiling, enjoying his joke, but he went. I took the whistle from my lips, flexed my stiff fingers, and listened to the silence that was descending on the room.

‘Where am I?’ Bic demanded groggily, sitting up. ‘Where’s Mum?’

‘You’re with friends,’ I assured him, surprised by my own cracked voice. ‘Imelda, thanks for everything. I owe you, and I’ll find a way to pay you back.’

She didn’t move, but her head came up slowly and she stared at me.

‘You let yourselves out,’ she said stonily, not acknowledging the thanks. ‘I’m staying here until I’m sure.’

‘He’s asleep,’ Rafi said, sounding even more wrecked than I felt.

‘He fooled us once,’ Imelda reminded him. ‘When he kept a little piece of himself inside your hand. There’s nothing to stop him doing the same thing again, so I’m not taking anything on trust here.’

She walked with us to the door. Trudie made to take Bic’s hand but I got there first and handed her the helmet instead. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Rules are rules.’

She took it, giving me a slightly hurt frown, and slid it over her head again without a word.

Imelda confronted me squarely. ‘When you’re done tonight,’ she said, ‘you come back and take your friend out of here. I’ve got nothing against Rafael, and Pamela is as sweet a child as ever I saw, but I got my own child to think about, too. Enough is enough, Castor. This is your notice to quit.’"

"‘Could you give me a week?’ I asked her. I just didn’t feel like I could deal with this right now, on top of everything else.