It was safe in the dark, still and quiet and calm ... curry, and the coppery taste of blood in my mouth ... no one could find me ... hands tugging at my hair ... nothing hurt in the dark, only the hunger ... pain sharp at my throat ... and I wasn’t hungry, not yet, not now ... pain pricking at my breasts ... the darkness was safe.
I sank back down, into the cold depths.
‘Hey. man,’ a voice whined, ‘I can’t do it like thi’th.’
My eyes snapped open and I froze. Fatboy was kneeling almost astride my head, gripping my scalp. I clamped my mouth shut to stop from screaming.
‘Fucking wait then, dude,’ Pizza Face snarled. ‘I told you, I’m not sticking my nose up your shitty arse.’
I couldn’t move my head, but I could just make out Pizza Face crouching between my thighs. Instinct made me clamp my legs together, but his body got in the way.
‘Hello, freakoid.’ Pizza Face leered up at me. ‘We started without you. You can start screaming now if you want.’ He grinned, showing bloodstained fangs, and swiped his tongue over his lips. ‘Think I’m gonna like this blood-suckin’ business. You taste great, y’know, sorta sweet, like honey. I told yer we was gonna have some fun, didn’t I?’
Fatboy giggled above me. ‘Ye’th, man!’
Bastards. I’d show them fun.
They’d left my arms free. My left shoulder was a mass of hurt—the numbness from the iron had worn off—but my right arm still worked okay. I punched Pizza Face in the mouth and his head jerked back, his fangs scraping my knuckles. Yanking my head from Fatboy’s grip, I reared back and jammed my skull into his groin and he squealed, short and high. Pain shot through my shoulder, but I blocked it. Pizza Face swayed unnaturally upright and I brought my knees up tight to my chest as he lunged over me, sniggering. I screamed and kicked out, stamping both metal-heeled shoes into his stomach and shoving him up and away. He was still sniggering as he thudded to the ground, one shoe still impaled in the soft flesh just under his ribs.
Rolling over, I got my legs under me, pushed up onto my feet. The gardens blurred as a moment of dizziness made me sway.
Fatboy was clutching himself, mouth gaping, tears streaming from his wide-open eyes.
I stepped towards him and kicked out, aiming at his temple. With a soft thud, he crumpled to the ground.
I turned back to Pizza Face. He was lying on his back, pink spittle foaming out of his mouth as he gasped for air. There was a dark, wet stain on his T-shirt where blood bubbled out around my shoe. It looked like I’d stomped on him—oh wait, I had! But had I hit his heart or just his lungs? As I watched him, Pizza Face frowned down at my shoe, then wrapped his fingers round it and pulled. It came out with a wet popping sound.
He gave another sniggering laugh and threw it at me.
I ducked, and it sailed over my head.
He sat up, grinning like a maniac and pulled up his T-shirt to show me his fast-healing wound.
I took half-a-dozen steps back. Another moment of vertigo made me stumble and agonising pain shot through my injured shoulder. The dizzy thing had to be blood loss, or concussion, or maybe even both. I swallowed, anxiety speeding my pulse. No way did I want to pass out, not while Pizza Face was still alive and kicking.
‘C’mon, faerie pussy pussy.’ Pizza Face staggered to his feet and grabbed his crotch. ‘It’s my turn to stick something in you.’
I kicked off my remaining shoe—it wasn’t going to help me now—and took another step back. My foot came down on something hard: Fatboy’s iron railing. I crouched and picked it up, wedging it between my waist and my good arm like a jousting lance and hoping like crazy I’d get a chance to use it before the spreading numbness from the iron made me drop the damn thing.
Pizza Face giggled as he lurched towards me.
I ran at him yelling at the top of my voice. Pizza Face lurched faster, gaining speed, and the pole dipped, starting to slip. My gut clenched with fear. Three feet, then two, then one, and I shoved the pole at him. The metal arrow-head glanced off his ribs and pierced his side, and I followed through with my good shoulder, knocking him down. The pole jammed into the dry earth, staking him to the ground.
‘Fuckin’ faerie bitch,’ he gasped, struggling to pull it out.
It wasn’t going to take him long to free himself. The garden blurred again, this time because of tears. Angry with myself, I swiped them away. Free. That’s it: I had to get free and get help. I had to crack the spell on the railings. I started towards the gate and tripped over something. I looked down: the goblin’s bat. I shook my arm to relieve some of the numbness and snatched it up. Weapons were always handy things to have around.
A shuffling noise behind me raised the hairs on my body, and I swung round.
Ten feet away, Fatboy shambled over the grass, slack-faced, his glasses reflecting red. His mouth gaped open over his fangs. It was like a B-movie, the kind of horror flick where the monster just keeps getting right back up. Hysterical laughter threatened to choke my throat.
I tensed and, arm shaking, raised the bat.
Fatboy jerked to a stop. His head snapped to the side and a strange sucking noise, like a turkey leg being wrenched off, splintered the air. Fatboy’s body thudded to the ground.
Malik stood above him like some dark avenging angel, flames consuming his eyes. He held Fatboy’s dripping head between his hands. The round glasses dangled off one ear. The head’s eyes fluttered open, squinted at the ground.
I didn’t lower the bat.
‘Where is the other one?’ Malik’s voice sounded rusty, as though he hadn’t spoken for a long time.
I jerked my head behind me, then wished I hadn’t as the world went painfully out of focus.
‘Dead?’ he asked.
‘No.’ My own voice sounded just as rusty.
‘I will take care of it.’ He turned toward where I knew the river to be and threw Fatboy’s head up into the night sky. It flew high through the trees and over the road, disappearing into the darkness. For a second there was nothing, then, in the distance there was a faint splash as it hit the water.
I let the bat fall to the ground as exhaustion washed over me.
Malik took a step back, unsteady, and as the light caught his head, I saw why. Blood seeped down his neck in rivulets from a matted wound at the base of his scalp.
I blinked.
Something, or someone, had caved in most of his skull.
Another wave of dizziness washed over me and once again the night rolled away into darkness.