It was chilly; not as bitter as the touch of the hounding dead, but cold. Flakes peeled off and jabbed at my bare skin. I inhaled and smelled rust, like blood, on the shaft.
I looked back. Tamsin relaxed in James’ embrace, watching me with her cat-like eyes. Harley held his phone in front of his face, recording me with impersonal precision.
I hadn’t intended to do this climb alone. Automatically I tortured myself by looking for Justin. He was holding his arms wide in front of the intruding ghost, talking intently and making himself into a barrier.
My back straightened. I would take this in stages; the first thing to do was get to the top of the scaffolding.
It was just like a climbing frame, only higher. I forced my limbs to stop shaking and started my journey.
Six feet up, I looked down and gasped. Beneath me, lit by the muted spotlight, tendrils of blackness were tangling together. They gathered like snakes to form an abyss that dragged at my feet like a black hole inhaling the air.
My heart thudded and my trainer slipped as my focus shifted from the scaffolding to the ground. I yelped breathlessly and threw my arms around a timber crosspiece.
“You’re hardly off the ground, Oh, you’re never going to make it.” James and Tamsin were laughing.
I pressed my lips together, twined my legs around a brace and forced my shaking arms to unclench. Then I looked up. I hadn’t even reached the top of the first floor.
Quickly I checked on the new ghost. One more Mark and the Darkness would ascend for sure. As my eyes met hers she grimaced at me toothlessly. Without having to think about it, I had a good idea what her story would be. An old woman in a hospital gown; she’d have me looking for her own Doctor Death. I frowned, feeling an unfamiliar wave of sympathy and reached for the spar above my head. I had to concentrate on the climb.
I was glad I was wearing Mum’s glove because my hands were sweating furiously. It wasn’t so bad walking along the girders, but every so often I had to swing myself from floor to floor and my palms were as slippery as if I’d soaped them.
The white glove glowed red in the dim light, stained with rust and oil. The odour of sweaty metal hung about my other palm as I climbed higher and higher above the street. Soon I was over the level of the fence and able to look out on the road below. The alley remained quiet, but I could hear the bars starting to fill.
A loud creak made me freeze and a pole shifted under my hand. Once my heart had started up again I gripped the crosspiece with my legs and gave the pillar a shake. A bolt rattled. It was loose, but should bear my weight.
I had to keep going. Unable to stop myself I looked down. Now Tamsin’s face was only a white circle, her features erased by darkness and distance. I let my eyes shift further. The void below my feet remained, pulsating, waiting, but no longer moving.
And Justin? He was nowhere to be seen. The old woman was standing by herself, leaning on the fence. She saw my glance and waved. What had Justin said to make the ghost stay back? And where the hell was he?
My panicked gaze strayed back to the leering void. Had Justin tried to climb after me? Had the Darkness taken him? My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.
“We don’t have all night.” James’ voice floated up to me. I swallowed, nodded and continued to climb.
Now when I looked up I could see stars. The building must be four stories. Not the highest in the borough, but high enough so that I could see over rooftops and into backlit windows.
I paused on a platform to take a breath, stepped backwards and knocked into a bucket, half-hidden by a coil of dangling rope. I jumped as it skidded off the edge and leaned forward to watch it crash onto the foundations and scatter bricks.
Tamsin shrieked. The bricks that bounced into the patch of boiling Darkness simply disappeared. The others rolled on the concrete and lay still.
Only then did it really hit me: Justin had fallen and scattered on the concrete right there. They found his body on that exact patch of ground.
I clutched my collar. What had gone through his head on the way down? Did he have time to think? Had the fall seemed eternal, or was it fast, one moment a slip, the next blackness?
“Oh God,” I whispered. And I looked up again. The shaft I was expected to cross was right above me. I could still see a police marker on the pole; presumably where Justin’s foot had slipped. He fell right past the spot I was standing on.
My legs started to tremble. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.” Justin came up behind me and his hand steadied my elbow. “I thought I should come up round the back, there’s something not right down there.” He indicated the Dark with a tilt of his tousled head.
I swallowed with a dry throat. “It’s the Darkness.”
He nodded slowly. “Right where I landed?”
“Yes. Are you OK?” My eyes met his as he shuddered.
“I’ll live.” Then he snorted. “You know what I mean.”
I nodded again. “Why isn’t the old girl following?”
Justin licked his lips. “I explained to her about the Darkness. I told her if she waited and let you finish with me, you’d come back for her.”
“You did what?” I clamped my mouth shut and breathed deeply. “You did the right thing.” I rolled my shoulders; since Justin had returned it felt as if a medicine ball had been lifted from them.
I didn’t want to think about what would happen after I got rid of the Mark. Justin would leave and I’d be, well not exactly alone, because the hounding dead made sure I’d never be by myself, but I would be lonely.
“Let’s get this over with.”
Justin gave my arm a squeeze and together we finished the climb.
At the top of the scaffolding there was a heady breeze. A floor below I’d been sheltered by the brickwork, but now I was completely exposed. The wind tugged at my hair like an old enemy, whipped it back behind my neck and slapped my cheeks with cold hands.
My grip on the final piece of pole was so tight my knuckles almost burst through the glove. My fingers ached and my knees felt like stiffened bolts holding my trembling legs against the prodding of the wind.
“Don’t look down,” Justin whispered.
I looked down.
He’d told me it looked terrifying and it did. Vertigo gripped me and I swayed. Nausea filled me with a hot stew that roiled in my gut and tried to bend me double.
I remembered the hall of mirrors, the one I’d entered during my first day living with the curse. Now my trainers protruded above a drop that stretched and dwindled, just like an image in that funhouse mirror, but it was real. “Oh help.”
“It’s going to be alright. I’ll be holding you all the way.”
“I can’t let go. M-my fingers won’t work.” I stared at him, standing on the pole one over from mine, his arm spanning the distance between us. “H-how did you do it?”
His mouth twisted and his hand spasmed, pinching my skin almost painfully. Maybe it was meant to be a reassuring squeeze. “I didn’t, remember?”
“Oh.” I closed my eyes.
“I’ve got you.” Justin released my arm and I opened my eyes to see him renew his grip on the strut above his head. Then he held his hand out. “Walk as if you’re on a tightrope, hold my hand. It’ll be four little steps then you can hold on again.”
“Four little steps.”
“Less than ten seconds if you do it fast.”
My knees started to shake. There was no way I was going to be able to take even
one
little step. My legs would betray me, buckle and send me cartwheeling through the insubstantial sky, just like Justin.
Far off in the distance I could hear Tamsin and James. They were shouting at me, trying to make me move.
They could stick it.
“It’s the only way you’ll find out the truth,” Justin murmured. “If you still think I was murdered, if you still think someone down there, one of my friends, had something to do with it. This is the only way you’ll ever get to know.”
“Four little steps,” I choked.
“Holding my hand all the way. You won’t be alone.”
My arm was clamped to my side, but I forced it out like the wing of a bird preparing to glide. My shirt fluttered and the breeze tickled my empty fingers, almost pulled them back, tried to overbalance me. Then Justin’s long fingers curled around my wrist and I clutched his.
I was still holding onto the pole with one hand, so tightly I thought I might leave behind an imprint on the metal. Panting I bullied my cramping fingers open.
I felt my balance shift towards Justin, panic compressed my chest and I quickly threw my arm out to the other side until I was standing still.
My toes itched inside my trainers, desperate to curl around the cylindrical bar. Thank God it hadn’t been raining.
“Ready?” Justin murmured. He knew better than to surprise me by raising his voice.
I gave the barest nod of my head, terrified of altering my position in any way, and he took a tiny step forward.
With a moan of terror, I shuffled my right foot forward no more than a single inch.
“You can do it.” Justin stepped again, leading me by the arm.
Whimpering steadily I forced my foot forward some more, then brought my left one to meet it.
The wind decided to play and jerked my hair in front of my eyes. “Stop,” I cried and felt Justin wobble as he caught his balance and waited for me.
I tossed my head, trying to free my eyes; I didn’t dare brush it aside properly. Finally the wind cooperated and tugged it back again.
I looked. One more step and I’d be in reach of the pole on the other side.
My whimpers turned into tears. I could feel them wetting my numb cheeks and a distant part of myself shouted that I’d never cried in front of Justin when he was alive, so why would I start now?
“Shut the hell up,” I shouted at myself and took that last step, throwing my left arm forward at the very last second and grabbing the pole.
“I did it.” I hugged the cold metal with my eyes closed. The other hand I left in Justin’s.
“Yes, you did.” Justin’s tone made me look up. His voice was pleased, but his eyes were tortured. “Well done.” I had succeeded where he had not. It must hurt.
“Don’t let go.” Alarm entered my tone as he loosened his grip.
“It’s OK.” He released my wrist and immediately weaved his long fingers through mine. “You did great.”
There was a crossbar just in front of my pole and Justin carefully stepped across and stood in front of me.
Impulsively I released my hold on the pole and threw my arms around him. I could feel my heart thudding against his hollow chest, my cheeks wet against his cold throat.
“I thought I was going to die.”
“I know.” He ran his palms along my spine. Somehow, even up in the sky his touch calmed me.
I clenched my fists in his blazer and raised my head.
His face was right above mine. His lips were wet as if he’d just licked them and his eyes blazed with dark fire. Suddenly he bent his head and touched his mouth to mine. Gently at first, then hard, as if my kiss was the only thing he’d ever wanted.
I froze, surprise turning my lips into ice.
It wasn’t my first kiss. Years ago I’d had a moment with Pete, but it hadn’t felt like this. My limbs tingled and my blood sang in my ears.
Justin’s lips were soft and slightly chill. After an eternity his mouth opened. I breathed past his lips softly but no breath came back to twine with mine. My nose pressed into his cheek and I inhaled the fading scent that was all him.
There was a hint of roughness on his skin, it wasn’t yet stubble, but one day it would have been. I moved one hand to his face and breathed harder. Justin’s lips seemed to grow warmer as if his skin was absorbing my heat. He groaned into my mouth as I felt his fists on my back.
Then I wobbled.
Off-balance we broke apart and gripped the poles on either side of us, gasping as we remembered where we were.
My knees were shaking and I felt a hundred years old. I guessed exhaustion had caught up with me as adrenaline poured out and was replaced by… something else.
I let my hair blow over my face and looked at Justin through the curtain. I opened my mouth to ask if he was alright, or maybe if he’d meant the kiss, but the whole world tilted and my knees buckled.
As unconsciousness took me, I sensed my fingers relax on the metal brace and felt myself begin to fall. My last impression was Justin’s horror-struck face and my last thought: at least I wouldn’t know about it when I hit the Darkness.
27
FROM THE FIRST MOMENT
“Tay, you have to wake up. I don’t know how long I can hold you.”
I didn’t want to wake up. I was comfortable, my hands were relaxed at my sides, dangling in a cool breeze, and someone had their arms around me.
“Tay, can you hear me?”
“Go away,” I murmured.
“You
really
don’t want me to do that.”
“Justin?” I frowned and opened my eyes.
Then I remembered. I jerked and clutched at him, scrambling for a safe foothold as well.
“Y-you caught me.”
He nodded and helped me move until I could sit carefully on a plank.
“Wait a minute, you’re on the same pole I am.”
His brow furrowed. “I thought it was because you were unconscious.”
I pursed my lips. “I’m awake now.”
I was gripping a crossbar with white knuckles. He knocked on the metal, sending some rust flaking off into the breeze.
Then the blood drained from my face as I realised: there was only one explanation. “I died.”
“You didn’t.” Justin pressed his hand against my forehead. “You’re burning up and you’re completely crazy, but you aren’t dead.”