“Mum…?”
“Don’t look, Taylor.” She grabbed my shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
Justin looked impressed. “So you did it?”
“Yeah. On the way home Mum told me about the curse, how it's carried through the female line, how there's a fifty-fifty chance I'll pass it to my own children.”
I looked at the white glove I wore whenever a Mark was on me. “I was ten and my life was over. Suddenly I was being told that I'd never stop seeing ghosts and I'd have to spend my life tracking down killers.” I trailed my fingers along the glass case surrounding the sarcophagus. “And that I won't be able to have kids, not without giving them the same thing.”
“Sucks for you.”
I nodded. “Worst birthday ever.”
“And your Dad can't see the ghosts?”
“He thinks I'm ill, that I have a skin condition and the rest is all in my head.”
“That must be hard.” Sympathy changed Justin’s face. “So you've been seeing the dead for what, five years?”
“Since we met.”
“Look, Taylor,” he rubbed his face and stepped away from me. “Maybe your Dad's right.”
“What?” I spluttered. “How can you not believe me? You’re one of them.”
“Obviously I believe you see ghosts.” His hand lifted as if to touch my shoulder then changed direction as if repelled, and slipped into the glass case. “That part could be the illness at work, changing something in your brain, letting you see stuff that other people can’t. But this thing about avenging murder victims. Maybe that’s the part that’s made up.”
“You–”
“No, listen. What if you don’t really need to avenge the dead? Maybe someone in your family came up with it as a way of justifying what happens to you.”
My chest felt tight, like I was wearing a corset. I ripped off my glove. “Is this all in my head?”
Justin examined my hand as though I was holding out an interesting beetle. “I thought you wore that because of eczema.”
“It happened when you touched me, just like the clown. Once we find your killer I’ll touch
them
and this Mark will move from my skin to theirs. Then the Darkness will take them away.”
Justin cleared his throat. “What
is
the Darkness?” His foot moved through the shadows that surrounded the sarcophagus.
I shook my head. “It’s… the Darkness. It’s meant to take murderers to Anubis for judgment.”
Our faces were both reflected in front of the dead Egyptian and in the glass we both looked like ghosts.
Justin stood almost a head taller than me. His hair and eyes toned with mine; a brown so dark it was almost black. But my eyes were slanted almonds and his were round-edged and deep set, preventing a true match. He had lost his tan over the years and was naturally pale. The skin of his throat curved above his tie soft as the petals of a flower. Not for the first time, it struck me that he looked like someone I should really like. It was a shame I didn’t.
Strands of my hair shifted around my shoulders as the air-conditioning blew over us so gently I barely felt it. Through our reflections I could see the face of the mummy and the phantom of the display behind us; tiny statuettes of Thoth.
Our eyes met. Then Justin looked down at himself and ran his hand over his jumper, flattening it over his chest. “I
feel
solid.”
I said nothing as he pinched his sleeve between his fingers as if he’d only just realised what he was wearing. He offered a strained half smile. “I’m dead and I’m stuck in this crappy uniform.”
I snorted. “As far as I know your consciousness resurrects you in the last way it remembers. You must’ve been wearing your uniform when you died. Look, after we find your killer you won’t have to hang around here. I don’t know exactly what’ll happen to you but I’d have thought you had better things to worry about than the dress code.”
“What happens if you don’t transfer that Mark?” He pointed to my hand and I closed my fist around it.
“In a couple of weeks the Darkness will come for the bearer of the Mark. If I don’t pass it on, it’ll come for me.”
“And me?”
“No, but you won’t be able to move on. You’ll be stuck here, unable to touch. No eating, sleeping, nothing.”
“It might not be so bad.” He shuffled his feet. “I could go to films, that sort of thing. You don’t know what this whole moving on thing is. You don’t know that it’s a good thing.”
“Ghosts all want to move on. Watching movies forever would get old, Hargreaves.”
His eyes flickered.
“So you’d better tell me who killed you.”
His long fingers twitched and he pressed his hands together. “There’s one problem with your crazy theory, Oh.”
My eyes narrowed and I wheeled to face him. “And what’s that?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I wasn’t murdered.”
14
I WASN’T MURDERED
I rubbed suddenly sweaty palms on my jeans. “You mean you don’t know who killed you?”
“No. I
mean
, I wasn’t murdered.” He bent close to me. “That's why I think your Dad might be right.”
“You must have been murdered.” I stuck my blackened hand in his face. “If you weren’t, your touch wouldn’t have done
this
.” My shoulders vibrated inside my T-shirt, rage fuelled. “This is so typical of you. Nothing can be easy, can it?” I dug my nails into my palms and tried to see reason. “I suppose it’s possible you don’t know who did it. Just tell me how you died and we’ll see if we can work it out.”
Justin looked at the mummy. “I-I don’t want to talk about it.”
I swung him to face me. “Didn’t you listen to a word I said?” I growled. “I’m not going into the Darkness for you. Tell me what happened and we can be done with each other.”
He yanked his shoulders out of my hands. “Why should I do anything for you?” he snapped.
I blinked. “Are you kidding me?” I realised that my voice was raised and lowered my tone to a hiss. “You aren’t doing
me
a favour, Hargreaves, I’m doing you one. The dead chase me all over London trying to get me to do what I’m trying to do for you. My life is a bloody nightmare because of you.”
“Me?”
“All of you, the damn dead.” I gestured angrily at the body before us. “And let’s not forget you made my life hell at school. If I could walk away from you and leave you alone, believe me I would. But I can’t, so tell me what happened, you selfish, arrogant
jerk
.”
He jumped as if I’d bitten him and landed in the middle of the case, wearing the mummy like crazy fancy dress. “I’ve just found out I’m dead.”
“Get over it.”
“Pete’s right about you. You’re cold.”
His words made me gasp as if he’d thrown cold water at me, but I felt as if I was standing on the edge of a furnace. My face flamed. “You don’t know anything about me,” I yelled. And what was worse was that just wasn't true any more. Justin now knew more about me than anyone since my mother had died.
There was a noise and I spun around. I had finally drawn the guard.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He fingered his belt, not quite touching his walkie-talkie, but the threat was there.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Right. Sorry.”
I stumbled through the small Egyptian display, past the guard’s vacant stool and back into the white corridor. I was so angry I could hardly see. I slammed my hand against the lift button and waited for the doors to open. Justin stood at my heels, also silent, tailing me like a mosquito.
Once inside the lift I whirled on him. “Are you going to tell me what happened?” I scrubbed at my face, trying to rub the fire away, but it only seemed to make it worse.
“I–”
I didn’t give him a chance to finish. “Fine.” I showed him the Mark again. “Your lot called me Godzilla for years because they thought I was scaly under the glove. I don’t have eczema, I’ve got this Mark. Do you know what happens if I don’t cover my hand up?” I advanced on him and it was his turn to step away. “I could accidentally transfer the Mark to someone.”
“That’s–”
“I could pay your girlfriend a visit. Tamsin treats me like dirt. Or what about your precious Dad? We could see how long it takes for the Darkness to take him.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“You think I’m going to hell for you? If it’s a case of me or Tamsin, I know who to pick.” I curled my lip. “You don’t believe in the Mark anyway.” He lurched towards me and I stepped out of his reach. “Don’t touch me.”
“You… you bitch.” The flesh of Justin’s face was paler than ever. His hair flopped over his forehead and his eyes were wild.
“You think you can get away with anything because you’re cool and good-looking and everyone likes you. Well, things have changed, Hargreaves. No one knows you’re even here. No one but me that is. And I don’t like you. So tell me how you died.”
Justin’s fists clenched compulsively. “I was going to tell you. You didn’t need to threaten me. I just needed a bit of time.”
I cradled my Marked hand as if it was burnt. “It’s not simple any more. We’ve got to work out who killed you before I can Mark them. Who knows how long that’ll take? You’ve
had
time. Now you have to talk.”
Justin hung his head. “Can we at least talk outside?”
I nodded. “Fine. But you’re telling me what happened.”
The clouds outside were low and the late afternoon looked more like early evening. We stood on the pavement at the crossing outside South Ken tube station and silently watched the river of traffic pour past.
Justin shuddered each time a body passed through a part of him, but to the press of people heading to one of the three museums he was nothing but air.
I turned from his discomfort and watched two teenaged boys swagger from the station. Earphones still dangled from their ears and they talked loudly over their music. So loudly I could hear them over the other noise.
“Dude, did you hear? They found a dead kid in the building site round the corner from me.”
“No way, man.”
“It was just on the news, aren’t you listening?”
“Radio bores me.” He patted his iPod. “I’m playing tracks.”
“Whatever. They reckon he slipped from the scaffolding.” The boy’s watch jangled as he gestured. “It’s creepy. The police have been looking for him and the whole time he was just lying there round the corner from our bus stop. If the developer hadn't run out of money they'd have found him a week ago, but no one's been working on the site.”
His friend hissed. “Nasty. Maybe he was high then his crew ran out on him.”
“Or he’s a total Darwin Award.” They nodded together.
I turned my head to track the conversation.
“I must’ve walked past him, like, three times.”
“How old was he?”
“Our age. I’ll get such a lecture when I get home.” He put on a falsetto voice, his Mum’s. “
You keep away from that building site. No climbing on scaffolding
.”
I couldn’t help myself. I shouldered a tourist aside and took a step away from the road. “Excuse me.” The boys turned. “The boy you were talking about, the one that’s been found. What was his name?” Their eyes widened at the interruption and I quickly explained myself. “There’s a boy at my school gone missing.”
The boys relaxed and the taller one gestured at his iPod. “It was just on the news. It was Justin something. Hargreaves I think. Yeah, Justin Hargreaves.” He scratched his chin. “So, is it him? Did you know him?”
“Yes. That’s him.” In front of me Justin had frozen.
The smaller of the boys shuffled his feet. “Harsh.”
I glanced behind me as Justin’s shoulders started shuddering. I pressed my lips together. “Well, thanks.”
“See ya.” The boys took off and I moved back to the edge of the pedestrian crossing. The light remained red and the traffic still sped past.
I took a breath. “You heard?”
Justin said nothing. I didn’t dare step forward to look at him in case I was knocked into the road, but his back was stiff as marble. “I guess you did.”
Slowly he started to shake his head. His hair flipped around his collar as he moved faster and faster.
He was about to run. Without thinking I touched his sleeve with my fingers. A businessman standing next to me moved sideways with a frown. I ignored him. “It had to happen some time. Someone had to find your body.”
“No.”
Terrified I was going to lose him again I closed my hand around his forearm. “You knew you were dead,” I murmured.
“Not like this. Not…” He fell silent. Then he shook his arm free of mine. The traffic screeched to a halt and the green man started to flash. “Let’s go.”
We crossed the road and Justin carried on walking.
“Where’re we going?” I scurried to keep up with him and adjusted my bag.
“Princes Gardens, it isn’t far.”
“Right.”
We turned the corner and I disturbed two pigeons pecking at a discarded McDonald’s wrapper. My looming shadow made them jerk back, but they kept pulling at the manky bun with frantic beaks, as if their heads were on elastic.
I shook my head and tucked my hands under my armpits. Then the boy’s words came back to me:
his crew
. Maybe Justin hadn’t been on drugs, but he hadn’t been alone either. I thought about the last time I’d seen him alive.
“Were you with Tamsin?”
“Huh?” Justin’s eyes when he turned to me were red-rimmed.
“You’re in your uniform. You must’ve died Friday night.”
Justin turned his head to watch the pecking birds.
I was about to push him further when my palm tingled. I clenched my fist and the shadows beneath a Kensington-monogrammed bin caught my eye. I shivered; right at that moment there was nothing passing to make those shadows move, yet they were twisting as if caught in a trap.