Guitar Man

Guitar Man By

Marie Treanor Triskelion Publishing www.triskelionpublishing.com

Triskelion Publishing 15327 W. Becker Lane Surprise, AZ 85379 First e Published by Triskelion Publishing First e publishing April 2007 ISBN1-60186-163-X

Copyright 2007 Marie Treanor All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information retrieval and storage system without permission of the publisher except, where permitted by law.

Cover design Triskelion Publishing. Publisher’s Note. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to a person or persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental. Play Nice: Piracy is a crime and in stealing books your favorite authors do not receive royalties or any payment.

Guitar Man

3

Dedication

To my own Guitar Man

Marie Treanor

4

Chapter One Men are total bastards. I had no trouble at all swearing off them when, two weeks before our proposed nuptials, Geoffrey dumped me for Little Miss Twin-Set. I even knew what to do, having been more or less in the same place twice before. I cancelled the wedding, left my eternally smug step-mother to inform the guests, and looked around for a good place to spend the solitary holiday that was meant to have been my honeymoon. I could have gone to my Dad’s, though it was hardly the most welcoming atmosphere for a broken heart. I could have gone to the Caribbean as originally planned, but I rather suspected I might run into Geoffrey there, in the process of making Little Miss his Mrs. So, I went to the opposite extreme and called Jenny in Scotland. I remembered as Jenny's phone rang out that Scotland would be fittingly damp and depressing, even in July. Just as I started to hang up, a click sounded on the other end of the line, and Jenny’s voice said breathlessly, “Hello?” Well, actually, it said, “Hellooo?” But she’d got so narked at one time at having the piss taken out of her accent that I’d stopped doing it even in my head. I liked Jenny. She was sharp and prickly and took no shit from anyone. “Jenny? It’s Ellie.” “Ellie!” Though still breathless, she sounded flatteringly delighted to hear from me. “How’s it going? How’s the wedding?” “Cancelled.” There was a short pause. “Bugger,” said Jenny. “You coming up?” “Okay.” As I hung up, I found my spirits inexplicably raised. I remembered that Jenny had this gorgeous, mute cousin, and that I had always had a soft spot for Scotsmen. Apart from Jenny’s cousin Charlie–who in any case had only ever been a nearly–there had been this wild traveling Scots busker in Italy–Chris–who’d given me the craziest night of my life before we parted with easy amiability the following day. Before that, there’d been Matt out to make a fast buck in the south and no intention of pretending anything else was important to him. He’d been fun when he was around, and we were still friends. And friends, I reminded myself as I threw a few sweaters into my suitcase and dug out my raincoat, were as good as it got. Look at Jenny, inviting me to her home without a second thought without me even having to ask. Yes, I needed friends in my life, not stinking, cheating, untrustworthy bastard fiancés. ***** I caught an early train from London Euston and arrived in Glasgow Central in the early afternoon; which left me over three hours to kill before Jenny met me from work. Jenny was setting up a new Scottish Psychic Center in Glasgow, though of course, it wouldn’t be called that. We operated in as much secrecy as possible–if only to avoid criticism and subsequent closure when the public got wind of how much government money we spent. Well, good research is expensive.

Guitar Man

5

Having dumped my suitcase in left-luggage, I sallied forth into Jenny’s city for the first time. I wove among the black station taxis and wandered aimlessly to my right. It had been raining, though it was now dry with a pale, watery sunshine trying gamely to brighten up the grey sky. Like most city centers, Glasgow is noisy, jammed full of too many cars and roaring buses, and people hurrying purposefully in all directions. I decided it was just like London, only the people spoke like Jenny. Except of course that I could generally make out what Jenny said. Some of the stuff I overheard here was like a foreign language, and I don’t mean the musical tones of Gaelic, either. Crossing a couple of busy roads lined with shops and offices, I found myself in a wide, all-paved road with no traffic. Here, things seemed more relaxed. There were still the busy, busy people, but also lots of strolling shoppers, the odd, inevitable beggar and a girl selling The Big Issue. Yep, just like home. With my copy of The Big Issue stuffed into my shoulder bag, I walked towards the sound of buskers, and a big, glass building beyond. At first I didn’t notice, because there was a violin scraping on the other side of the road, and the sound of bagpipes somewhere in the distance. But after a while, the voice singing a highly tongue-in-cheek version of Yellow Brick Road to a lively guitar began to sound familiar. No, it couldn’t be… I walked to the edge of the crowd clustered around this familiar voice, and eased myself to the front so that I could see. This was too weird. Almost as weird as the sudden excitement that rose up from my stomach and threatened to deprive me of breath. The tall man in patched jeans and a khaki t-shirt, with short, spiky blond hair, stopped singing on an impossibly low note, swung his guitar to one side of his lean body and took a bow to enthusiastic applause. Straightening, he grinned at his audience, the same beguiling grin I remembered, aimed directly, dazzlingly at whoever he made eye-contact with. He nodded and smiled at everyone who threw money into his guitar case. That was what had drawn me to him a year ago. He was completely unembarrassed, either by singing in the street or by taking money for it. And hell, he was good, he deserved to be paid. It was my crazy Scottish lover from Pisa. I began to laugh, just because it was so unlikely, and at once his eyes shifted to me. The smile in them froze for an instant of incredulity. If I had suffered any doubts that he would remember me–and actually I did, for Geoffrey had rather bruised my self-confidence–they were instantly dissipated, for he strode straight toward me, arms held out wide. “Elleonora!” he exclaimed, wrapping those long, strong arms around me in a warm, rocking hug. “Elleonora, my shining light!” Squashed as I was, I couldn’t hug him back. Instead, I contented myself with rubbing my cheek on his warm, hard chest. It was a gesture of affection and friendship, because he still felt good. And because he still appreciated the meaning of my name. Looking up at him, I realized he was smiling at me with wonder in his amazing blue eyes. To my surprise, he seemed to be struggling for words. That was not the Chris I remembered. Then he said only, “How’s it going?” “Great,” I said lightly, as his arms fell away. “You?” “Couldn’t be better. Want to get some lunch?” “Okay.”

Marie Treanor

6

Chris swung back to his guitar case, slipping the shoulder strap of the instrument over his head. He spared a few more nods and smiles of thanks as he crouched down to put the guitar away, closing the case without waiting for the rest of the money still trickling his way. In a moment, the coins were bagged and pocketed, and the case was strapped to his shoulder. He grabbed a worn black leather jacket from the ground at his feet and came back toward me. His eyes still danced as I remembered them. “I thought you’d have disappeared,” he said. “With you about to buy me lunch in one of Glasgow’s top restaurants? Do you think I’m mad?” Chris grinned. “What about the pub?” I sighed theatrically. “Lay on, MacDuff.” He took me to a traditional but quite pleasant pub close by, and we ordered fish and chips and two pints of heavy. “Aw right, Christopher?” one of the barmaids shouted on her way past. Chris toasted her with his pint and she spared me a grin, along with a suspicious glance and a sniff, before she went on her way. Tasting the beer with enthusiasm, I couldn’t prevent my nose from wrinkling. I’d always wanted to try something with so intriguing a name, but heavy just didn’t do it for me. Chris watched me and laughed, then rose to get me a glass of red wine instead. Which wasn’t actually much better, but hey, it was drinkable. I sat back, looking around me at the mixed drinkers and lunchers, the man in the corner who looked as if he never left it, the gaggle of office girls giggling and eyeing up Chris. Well, he was a good looking bloke, even in those tatty clothes. When I brought my gaze back to him, he was staring at my face. His eyes held a trace of wonder. “What?” I demanded, for some reason slightly uncomfortable. “I was just thinking, what an unlikely place to run into you. Buchanan Street, Glasgow…” “As opposed to St Michele in Borgo, Pisa?” His eyes crinkled disarmingly. “Well, I was thinking more of the Penguino toilette.” He meant to make me blush and he succeeded, which is no mean feat. But the memory of what we had done in the toilet of the Penguino cafe in Pisa was enough to flood my entire body with heat. And here was me trying to remember our friendly parting rather than the wild afternoon, and night–and following morning–of hot sex. Chris, I remembered only too well, had the stamina of a bull, the finesse and sensitivity of an artist, and the imagination of a porn movie director. And absolutely no inhibitions. Sex with him had been…uplifting. Because it came with no emotional baggage, no strings or expectations. And he had this gorgeous, lean body, all hard muscles and sinews. His hands…yes well, I couldn’t think about his hands now. Not when he was already enjoying my blush of remembrance. With what dignity I could muster, I said, “I didn’t come all the way up here to use the toilet. For any purpose.” “You’ll be bursting by the time you get back home,” he observed, lifting his pint, and I laughed before I meant to. “You’re incorrigible.”

Guitar Man

7

He smiled. “I know. So what does bring you here to my 'dear green place'?” “Your what?” “Glasgow. That’s what Glasgow means.” “Oh. I came up to see a friend.” His lips parted, as if he was about to ask more, but then he only let out a half laugh and took another drink. I said, “I’m meeting her at the station at 5 o’clock.” He laid down his glass. “So I can have a couple of hours?” I looked at him a little uncertainly. Already his company was beguiling, tempting. But I had no intention of going down that road again. I would not spoil what we’d already had, and I could not get into another affair, however casual. I had sworn off men, and I meant it. I felt it. “It’s all right, Ellie,” he said gently. “I wasn’t about to entice you into the pub cludgie.” I sat back in my seat. “You think I don’t know what a cludgie is.” A smile flickered across his face. “I thought you would work it out.” Our fish and chips arrived then and we began to eat. It was surprisingly good. “So what are you doing with yourself?” I asked. “Still busking, I see.” “Well, got to scratch a living somehow.” “Can’t be a very luxurious one,” I observed, eyeing his frayed t-shirt and battered leather jacket significantly. “Hey, don’t insult the threads.” “Threads are about all there is! Don’t you want something else from life, Chris?” “What, like a nine–to-five job, a wife and two-point-four kids with matching mortgage, a car to wash on Sundays and a heart attack at forty?” “Well, not quite that. But a house would be nice, wouldn’t it?” “I’ve got a house,” said Chris surprisingly. “Wow,” I said, impressed. In Pisa, he’d said he wasn’t going home because he’d nowhere to live. “My father died and left me it. Good house. You should come and see it.” Quickly, I searched his face for signs of grief. There didn’t seem to be any, although his attention had wandered. He was exchanging nods of recognition with a couple just entering the pub. I said lightly, “Maybe I will!” His eyes came back to me. “What about you, Ellie? Married to that nice, responsible man of your dreams yet?” I blinked, because I couldn’t actually remember discussing that with anyone. But then, I realized with surprise that we had talked. At the beginning, and in between fucking. Even during it sometimes. He had been easy to talk to because he expected nothing, and took nothing seriously. I had even been able to laugh about my step-mother. I shook my head. “I thought I met him, but he turned out to be an arsehole.” “What happened?” “He dumped me for his secretary. Nice girl, good with the vicar, and dinner parties for the boss.” “Bet she’s got sleekit eyes, though.”

Marie Treanor

8

“Do you know, I think she has? Though I don’t quite know what it means, I appreciate the support.” Finishing the last of my fish, I washed it down with wine, and Chris went to the bar to get more. He had already drunk both pints of heavy. It was just the afternoon I needed. Having established with Chris that I was not into a return match of Pisa, I just enjoyed his company and laughed. With Geoffrey, I realized, I would never have laughed. Not like this. I really had had a lucky escape. In a little I would even be grateful to him. Stepping out of the pub slightly tipsy and discovering daylight, I halted on the doorstep, blinking to re-orientate myself. Chris threw a steadying arm about my shoulders and pulled me down the street and round a corner into a much narrower road that was little more than an alley. Relaxing against him, feeling the movements of his warm body as he walked with his long, easy stride, I realized I really wouldn’t mind if he kissed me now. I wouldn’t object at all to being drawn into that doorway for a snog and a grope…only I didn’t want anything more than that, whatever my suddenly tingling body was trying to tell me. That was the drink. Three glasses of wine and wet knickers did not have to lead to sex. No way. We’d got the sex out of the way in Pisa. All that hot, delicious sex...but yes, we’d done that! Now we could be friends. Friends who maybe had the odd snog in a dark alley, I thought wistfully, although Chris showed no signs of even going for a peck on the cheek. In fact, his arm slid off my shoulders, and I shivered. I opened my mouth to speak, and then closed it, because I finally saw what Chris had, two men emerging from either side of the alley, only a few feet in front of us. And one of them had a knife. He held it quite casually, but very visibly in front of him. Instantly sobered, I glanced back over my shoulder. Apart from us and them, the lane was deserted. “Got any change?” asked the man without the knife. He was short, thin, and malnourished but somehow vicious looking. He and his friend, idly stroking the blade of his knife, stood directly in our path, forcing us both to halt. “A bit,” said Chris steadily. “How much do you need?” “Whatever’s in your pocket, my friend,” was the contemptuous response. I wanted to tell Chris not to make a fuss, just to hand it over. You don’t mess with nutters brandishing knives. But to my surprise, Chris just delved into his pocket and drew out the string bag that held his morning’s takings. Both men grinned, and the bag swiftly disappeared inside the thug’s denim jacket. “Good man! Now the guitar.” Chris looked at the speaker consideringly, then transferred his gaze to the knife man. “Fuck off.” At the same time he spoke, he pushed me behind him. While our muggers blinked in some astonishment at this unexpected repartee, he added urgently, “Run, Ellie!” By which time, our men had recovered. “Get him!” said the first viciously, but knife man had already lunged toward Chris. Chris leapt aside, heaving the guitar in its hard case round in front of him, though whether to use as a battering ram or a shield I didn’t wait to find out.

Guitar Man

9

I wasn’t meant to do this publicly, but I figured it was now an emergency. With the ease of long practice, I simply seized the knife with my mind, tugged it free of the mugger’s grip, turned it and hurled it hard into the boarding over the first floor window above his head. The mugger’s mouth fell open. He stared stupidly at his hand, while his mate looked at him with total disbelief. As one, their heads moved to regard Chris. “How the hell did you do that?” But Chris didn’t even look at them. Dragging his eyes away from the knife, he stared at me. He was breathing fast. Then, turning abruptly away, he snarled at the muggers. “I told you to fuck off.” Concern jolted through me. He was shaken all right, and not by the thugs. He’d given them money because it meant nothing to him and he probably thought they were worse off than he was. He may have been right. But he hadn’t been afraid. He was more than prepared to defend his beloved guitar. It was I who’d made him afraid, by manipulating the knife. A lot of people feared what they couldn’t explain. The muggers exchanged glances, backed off a couple of paces, then turned and fled up the alley. I moved quickly to Chris, taking his arm. “Chris…” He shook me off as though I were a disease. Stunned, I dropped my hand to my side. He glanced up at the knife still sticking out of the boarded window, then back down to me. There was no laughter in his eyes now, no passion or lust or pleasure. They were cold and hard. “You did that,” he observed. I swallowed. “Yes.” His arm lifted, his hand tugged through his spiked hair, making it stand up even more. “Oh Ellie,” he said, and let his breath out through his teeth. “Ellie.” “What?” I demanded, stung by this attitude far more than by his lack of gratitude, which I would cast up at a later date. He laughed a short, unamused sound. “Nothing. Come on, the station’s this way.” He didn’t speak all the way back to Central Station. Bewildered, I opened my mouth several times to try, but his set, disinterested profile always prevented me. It was a relief when we entered the station to see Jenny standing by the shell, the remains of a war-time bomb which was, according to Jenny a well-worn meeting place. “There she is,” I said gratefully. “Good,” said Chris. “Take care, Ellie.” And he swung away from me, striding back out of the station without a backward glance. Oh yes. Men are total bastards.

Marie Treanor

10

Chapter Two “So they are,” Jenny agreed tolerantly, knocking back another gin and lime. “Especially when they’re freaked out.” We were in a more up-market city-center bar where a waitress saved you the trouble of moving to replenish your drink. Although I had already come to the same conclusion, I regarded Jenny moodily over my wine. “You think I really freaked him out? Why should I have bothered him when some total loony with a knife never even made him blink?” “Because you’re weird. He’s a busker. He’s been around the world. People probably try and rob him all the time. I imagine no one’s ever disarmed his enemies in font of him with a mind-swipe before.” “I’m not weird!” I objected. “Or at least not as weird as you—” “Yes you are,” said Jenny firmly. “Well, if I am,” I conceded the point, “it’s still no reason to be rude to me!” “Why should you care? He’s an ex-one night stand you ran into by accident.” “Yes, but what a night, Jenny...” I finished my wine and reached for the bottle. “Have you ever had one like that? The all-time best?” “Yes—” “Well, Chris was mine.” I sighed, taking a hefty gulp. “And the thing is, I hardly thought about him from then till now. Except when I was randy, of course. And a couple of times when Geoffrey wasn’t—” I broke off. “But you know what, Jenny? He’s a nice guy.” Jenny filled her empty gin glass from my wine bottle. That girl can mix her drinks. “You sound surprised.” “I am. The sexy ones are never the nice ones.” “Which was Geoffrey?” “Nice, of course. The kind you want to marry.” “Ellie, he’s a total bastard that dumped you two weeks before the wedding! If you ask me, that’s neither nice nor sexy!” “Point,” I allowed. I swallowed some more wine, regarding her over my glass. My brain was functioning a little erratically, but it still worked. “So who was your best? Please tell me not Zack.” Zack was a colleague at the Center who had a thing for Jenny. I never discovered if they’d done anything about it, though I always wondered what it would be like with an empath. Intense or scary? “No!” Jenny exclaimed, apparently revolted. “Not Zack.” “Well, whoever he was, I bet he was no one you’d consider settling down with.” Jenny spluttered into her drink. “Not settle down exactly,” she said when she could speak. “You still seeing him?” Now I was surprised. “Will I get to meet him?” “Probably.” She picked up the empty bottle and shook it. “One for the road?” I found myself watching her as she ordered another bottle from the waitress and leaned back comfortably in her chair.

Guitar Man

11

“You’re different,” I observed. “More…relaxed. Comfortable. Is that because you’re up here or because you like the new responsibility?” Jenny shrugged. “Both, probably.” “How’s the new Center going?” “They’re still building it. Jim’s been great. It’s quite fun sorting it all out, and working out of boxes in a building site.” “Much trouble to work on?” “Bits and pieces. Poltergeists up north. A highly materialized ghost in Edinburgh, a couple of psychic kids. Oh yes, and some mysterious energy in Queen’s Park that no one can account for. What’s been happening in the south?” I burped rudely in response to that, and we both howled with laughter. Clearly it was time to leave. ***** I woke to unaccustomed silence. That is, something was silent. Not the faint pounding in my head. Or the arguing voices I could hear close by. Outside, the birds sang too, but something, some ubiquitous, normal background noise, was missing. Traffic. That was it. The incessant hum of cars, buses, lorries, motorbikes, all entirely missing. For a moment, I lay with my eyes closed, and wondered if drink could make you deaf as well as blind. Then I remembered that Jenny had this cottage in the country. Not so far from the city, but distant enough from the main road. Besides, I could hear lots of things. I could hear Jenny’s distinctive accents telling someone off. And I could hear the lower, calmer murmur of a male voice, saying the odd patient word in among her tirade. Just as I began to get curious, she stopped mid-flow and there was silence. Good. I didn’t know how she could quarrel with a head like mine anyway. And who was there to shout at this time of the morning? The postman? The milkman? Some poor—. My eyes sprang open. That was definitely the creaking of bed-springs enthusiastically assaulted. The odd little mewling, half-smothered sounds were still Jenny. The panting could have been anyone, but judging by the racket the bed springs made over the top of it, she was getting the fucking of her life. Suddenly hot, I got up and staggered round the bed in search of my robe. Jenny was welcome to as much of it as she could get. Especially if this was the man I vaguely remembered her mentioning last night. On the other hand, if I had truly sworn off men, then listening to the sounds of her enthusiastic passion reaching impending orgasm was not helpful. Today, I remembered, pulling the ties tight around my waist and bolting for the bathroom, should have been my wedding day. Running the bath, which blessedly drowned out the noise of Jenny’s sexual encounter, I sat on the side of it and thought about Geoffrey, and the peaceful, mutually supportive life I had planned for us to have together. Perhaps even with children in a year or two. Well, it wasn’t going to be. I just wasn’t the sort of girl men wanted to marry.

Marie Treanor

12

I smiled deprecatingly into the steamy water. “You’re just too sexy for them, Elleonora,” I told myself. Reaching down to test the temperature of the water, I caught sight of my hazy reflection in the mirror above the bath. Slowly, I wiped the condensation of it, and for a moment glimpsed my just too sexy self. Blood-shot eyes above dark, baggy shadows, pale skin and steam-frizzed blond hair. Many men had told me I was beautiful. Too many probably. I had begun to believe it. Yet Geoffrey preferred Miss Twin Set. And even Chris wasn’t tempted any more. Even before I freaked him out by manipulating the knife. I hate self-pity. But just for once, on my should-have-been-wedding day, was I not entitled to five minutes? I couldn’t see any more. I expected it was the steam. ***** Jenny was singing when I wandered into the kitchen. Happily splashing water over a few cups and dishes in the sink, she looked up and grinned at me. “Good morning!” “It certainly was for some,” I allowed, looking theatrically around me and bending to peer under the table. “Where is he?” Jenny actually blushed. “Sorry,” she muttered. “And he’s…er…asleep.” “Not surprised,” I said sarkily. “Is that coffee?” “Help yourself. Want some breakfast?” “No,” I said, revolted. “Fried egg sandwich,” she tempted me. “Best thing for a hangover.” “Next to sex,” I said, just to make her blush again. It was quite fun after all, and I reckoned she could stand a little discomfort after the bed-thrashing she’d just enjoyed. When I had sworn off men. I sat down with my coffee, watching Jenny fry two eggs and butter two bread rolls. Just as she brought them to the table, there was a knock on the outside kitchen door. Jenny wiped her hands on the side of her jeans and opened it. “Mornin’, Jen. Still want a lift into town?” said a cheerful male voice. The one I had heard earlier? I couldn’t be sure. “Hi, Jim. Come in,” Jenny said amiably, as I peered around to see her visitor. “Do you know Ellie?” “’Course I do. Hi, Ellie.” It was Jim. He once worked at the southern Center–a touchy-feely psychic as I called him and his kind, because he could learn stuff from touching objects. He came north with Jenny to set up the new Scottish Center. Nah, I thought. She was too–easy with him, too unaware. Besides, though he was a nice bloke, he was just not sexy. Too weedy, and his ears stuck out. Oh, yes, and he was married. “Hi Jim,” I greeted him. Please don’t ask me about the wedding… “When’s the wedding?” asked Jim. I sighed. Jenny said, “They called it off. Want coffee, Jim?” “Sure.”

Guitar Man

13

Eyeing me a little dubiously, clearly uncertain whether or not he should say anything more on the subject of my cancelled wedding, Jim sat down and accepted the coffee. “Egg roll?” Jenny offered with her mouth full. “Ah, no thanks. Hey, Jen–you know that energy surge we kept reading in the Queen’s Park area?” “Got anywhere with it?” Jenny asked, interestedly. “Yes, narrowed it down to a house in St. Mary’s Square.” Rummaging in the inside pocket of his battered jacket, he brought out a sheaf of folded papers. “It belonged to one Alastair Swan, a rather dodgy cove who lived there alone for about thirty years—” “Dodgy?” I interrupted, baffled. “Unsound,” Jenny translated. “Up to no-good. Dodgy in what way?” Jim shrugged. “Every way. It’s not very clear where he got his money. Links to organized crime, drugs, gun-running, were all suspected but never proved. He was never charged with anything. One belief is that this is because he was a freemason.” Jenny snorted. “And the other theory?” “That he’d the Devil on his side.” “Same thing,” said Jenny cynically and probably libelously. “Well, we’d better go and see this dodgy geezer–see what he’s up to that’s causing such wild energy.” “We can’t,” Jim said apologetically. Jenny stared. “You’ve got a previous engagement?” “No,” Jim protested. “The man’s dead.” I said, “If you’ve finished your egg, I could throw mine at him.” Jim cast me a distinctly nervous glance, though he said forcefully enough, “Swan’s son inherited the house. It was empty for months, but apparently the son moved in a few weeks back and has been living there ever since.” “Do we know anything about the son?” Jenny asked, reaching out for the papers Jim offered her. “That’s him. Christopher Swan. Nothing known against him apart from a cannabis bust eight years ago when he was a student at the University. Apparently he’s lived abroad most of the time since he graduated.” Looking interestedly over Jenny’s shoulder at the photograph Jim had passed to her, I blinked. Under a shock of spiky blond hair, a vital face looked back at me, a half-smile on its full lips, a sort of devil-may-care twinkle in its intense, blue eyes. “That’s Chris,” I blurted. “That’s my Chris!” ***** Jim parked the car in the quiet square, surrounded by imposing, rather beautiful Victorian buildings. For some reason, my heart hammered as I got out and trailed after Jenny and Jim. I knew I didn’t want to be there. It was like spying on a friend. A friend who would very probably run a mile at the sight of me, but when I tried to point this out to Jenny, she just said I provided a useful 'in' with Chris and we had to try it. I was on holiday. I could have put my foot down and refused. I still could. And if Chris needs you help?

Marie Treanor

14

I recognized the house before they did. Not psychically. Just because Chris sat on the front steps in the morning sunshine, re-stringing his guitar. He wore jeans and a black t-shirt that did little to disguise the hard muscles of his arms as he worked. His blond head was bent, letting the sun gleam off his hair like a halo. I saw concentration in his face. His lips moved slightly, continually, as if he was singing to himself. Something twisted through my stomach. Jenny and Jim came to a halt on the pavement, letting me catch up with them. By then, I could hear that he was singing, very faintly. I thought it was Candle in the Wind. Jenny nudged me, forcefully. I said, “Hi Chris.” He looked up quickly, and blinked. I braced myself for a cold reception and wished it wouldn’t hurt too much. But a smile began to tug the corners of his mouth. He stood up, swinging the guitar to his side and came down the steps. “I know I invited you round, but I wasn’t expecting you quite so soon.” “That must be because you ran off without leaving me your address.” “Bright girl like you knows how to use the phone book.” He stood in front of me, not too close. He didn’t seem to be searching my face, just gazing at me, and yet I had the impression he was looking for something. It was only a moment, quickly passed. He said unexpectedly, “I’m glad you came by.” I felt my eyes widen. After his speedy departure yesterday, who could blame me? Chris laughed, and his eyes shifted, seeming to discover my companions for the first time. “Jenny,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’d recognize you anywhere.” Jenny stared at him. “Have we met?” “No. But I’m very good at backs of heads. I saw yours at Central Station last night.” “Before you did a runner,” Jenny remembered innocently as she finally shook his hand. Chris’s lips twitched. I said hastily, “This is Jim, another friend of mine.” Solemnly, Chris shook Jim’s hand, too. “I’ve got coffee, if you’d like some,” he said, apparently proud of this fact. “Okay,” I agreed, and Chris turned, taking the dozen steps up to the front door, three at a time. I followed at a more leisurely pace, taking in the outside of the building as I went. Unlike many of the houses in the square, it was detached. Tall, four stories high, including the basement. The stone around the windows and door was elegantly carved, but the house, though rather beautiful in shape, was neglected. The stone was dirtier than that of its neighbors and I was pretty sure the roof must leak. Inside was much as I expected: high, ceilings, open, spacious hall, with doors leading off, and a wide, sweeping staircase with its original wooden banister. “Good house, Chris,” I said, impressed. “No wonder you came home.” “Needs work and pots of money thrown at it,” Chris returned, “But yes, it’s a good house. God bless my old Dad.” He pushed open a door on the left and ushered us in. “I’ve been living in here, mostly. The other rooms have damp. Got people coming to sort that out next week…” He laid the guitar against the wall and turned back to us. “Have a seat. I’ll get the coffee.” I watched him walk across the hall. He wore a different pair of distressed jeans today, one knee patched roughly with even paler denim, the other just a gaping hole. But they fitted

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snugly across his hips and showed off his tight, sexy bottom to perfection. I wasn’t complaining. Neither was Jenny. “Ooh, Ellie, I am not surprised,” she breathed. I knew what she meant. It was the way he moved, loose and naturally graceful, at ease with his body, yet every inch aware. You just knew he would be good in bed. I’d thought so the first time I saw him playing and singing in Pisa, although even I hadn’t been quite prepared for just how good he had turned out to be… Jim coughed significantly, drawing our attention back to the matter in hand. Jenny glanced at him. “Anything?” He wandered around the room, touching the walls, the fireplace, the sofa. Jim shook his head. “Not so far. Though I’d say the sofa’s seen some action.” Bastard, I thought unreasonably. “Recent action?” Jenny asked, deliberately avoiding my gaze. Jim shrugged. “What about when you shook his hand?” she asked, standing in the middle of the room and turning slowly, getting a feel for the place. After all, we were all sensitive to some degree. “Nothing to cause that energy. He’s bloody mixed-up, though, and he’s grieving.” I stared at Jim. Mixed up and grieving? Chris? No one was more down to Earth, more grounded than Chris! But Chris had lost his father. Chris had come home. And I…I had to stop thinking with my hormones and start paying attention to people. “What do you think, Ellie?” Jenny asked me. “Can you feel anything wrong here?” I swallowed. “Something,” I admitted. “But that’s probably because I shouldn’t be here doing this. Look, I’m going to help Chris with the coffee. You guys keep prodding the goods and chattels.” I left them to it. It wasn’t hard to find Chris. I could hear him from the hall, playing the 'drums' on some hard surface while singing a rock song I’d heard before. For some reason, the sound made me smile, relieving the tension that had held me so tightly since we’d left Jenny’s cottage. I even stuck my head into a couple of other rooms on the way past, to check for pentagrams on the floor or evil presences in the woodwork. I rather thought Jim had got this wrong. I was going to look at his research when we left here. Chris had his back to me, rhythmically and enthusiastically beating the bejesus out of his battered worktop, the kettle and two jars while he sang. I leaned my shoulder against the door jamb and watched with interest. As the kettle steamed itself to a shriek, Chris adjusted his voice to the same note, only a couple of octaves lower, then swung the kettle up in one hand and span round on one foot. Catching sight of me and my superior amusement, he came to an abrupt halt. But then, being Chris, he only grinned without embarrassment. “I’ve always fancied being a one-man band,” he told me, turning back to pour boiling water into a large caffetierre. “You know? One of these guys with a moothie–harmonica to you–wired to their face, cymbals in their oxters, playing the fiddle with their hands and an accordion with their feet and banging an entire drum kit between their knees—” “What’s an oxter?” I asked, moving into the room to take the caffetierre from him while he foraged for cups and milk. I caught a glimpse of the inside of his fridge–a pint of milk and several bottles of beer. Something that might have been very ancient cheese. Nothing else.

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“Arm pit,” said Chris, giving mine a poke on his way past with the milk. It was playful, a return to the Chris I remembered best, and yet even that teasing contact made me blush like a teenager. Worse, having done it, he paused, looking down at me, a faint frown troubling his brow, the smile just fading from his eyes and lips. He really was gorgeous, I thought wistfully. He said, “I thought you’d be mad at me.” I shrugged. “Life’s too short. That sort of thing freaks most people out.” He didn’t quite like that, but moving on to put the milk on the tray with the cups, he said, “Have you always been able to do stuff like that?” “Yes, more or less.” “How come you never told me?” “Never? In all twenty-four hours we knew each other?” His lips twisted. It was almost a smile. “Point,” he observed. “Got the coffee?” “Sure.” I followed him out, across the hall and back to the living room. I watched his bum until, as if he sensed it, he said, “Walk this way,” and began an exaggerated hip-swinging swagger that rattled the mugs together on his tray. I giggled, and kept watching his bum. After that, it was quite civilized for a while. I pushed down the plunger on the caffetierre while he asked politely who took milk. Handing Jenny her mug, Chris said, “So how do you and Ellie know each other?” “We work together,” said Jenny. “Or at least, we used to.” I sat on the sofa beside her. From his squatting position on the floor, Chris followed me with his eyes. “Did I ever know what your work was?” he asked me. “I doubt it,” I murmured, and took a sip of my coffee. It was good and strong and tasty. Jenny said brazenly, “We used to work at the same Psychic Center down south.” I thought he might freak again at that, he had been so skittish about it yesterday. But he only nodded, as if he had already suspected it. His eyes were unreadable. He said, “Can you move objects with your mind, too?” “No,” said Jenny cautiously. “I came close once, but Ellie’s the one with the force in that gift.” “Jenny’s a very strong all-round psychic,” I explained. “Just don’t ask what her special gift is. You wouldn’t believe it.” “I’d believe anything,” Chris said. Jim leaned over the back of the sofa between Jenny and me to say, “That’s unusual. Do you have psychic gifts yourself?” “God, no,” said Chris with the ghost of a laugh. “I had a bad experience in childhood once. Though they all tried, no one ever managed to convince me it was a dream.” “What happened?” Chris smiled faintly. “You wouldn’t believe it. More coffee, Ellie?” “Bet there’s some psychic energy in this old house though,” Jenny said, without much finesse, I thought as I held out my mug for a refill. My hangover was almost gone. “I doubt it.” Chris said. “Not any more.” I said, “What happened to your father, Chris? When did he die?” “He had cancer. Died about six months ago. Why? Do you guys want to hold a séance here?”

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He was blatantly mocking now, and there was an edge to his voice that made me snap back, “Would it do any good? Do you think he’s still here?” “Christ, I hope not.” “Didn’t you get on?” “Never had the chance to find out. My parents separated when I was a baby. More coffee?” “Yes, please.” I held out my mug. “But Jim and Jenny have to go back to the office. If Jenny wasn’t the boss, she’d be fired by now.” I had made a decision, and it wasn’t entirely a professional one. Maybe talking to him in company had quieted my hormones enough to let me hear more than his actual words. Whatever, I knew I needed to talk to him, and without the others. “Yes, well, don’t tell Nigel I’m skiving or I’ll still get fired.” Jenny laid down her cup and got to her feet. “Nice to meet you, Chris. Thanks for the coffee. Ellie, phone me and let me know where to pick you up this evening.” I went with Chris to the door to see them out. Jim, clearly worrying about leaving me alone in the lion’s den, shook hands with Chris once more as he left, anxiously checking for bad vibes. Catching my eye, he shook his head in a very faint, negative gesture. Still nothing there that could cause such an upsurge of psychic energy. I really didn’t think there would be. After all, I’d slept with the man, I would know! “So,” Chris said, closing the door behind them. “Did they come to check on me or the house?” “Both,” I said candidly. “They were investigating some energy readings in the area and I realized you lived here.” “Energy readings? What does that mean?” I followed him across the hall back into the living room where I’d left my coffee. “Don’t know yet.” “Is that what you guys do? Chase ‘energy readings’?” “Sometimes. They can be a guide to unusual psychic activity.” “Like?” I shrugged and sat down on the sofa. “Spirits, poltergeists and other such manifestations. Careless activity by supernatural creatures. Someone gifted that we don’t know about.” “So would you have created such energy last night?” Chris asked, sprawling on the floor so that he faced me across the coffee table. “A little. I control my gift very strictly. I’ve been trained to use maximum force with minimum energy.” His eyes settled unwaveringly on mine. “So what do you do with this…gift? In your job?” “All sorts. We try to free manifestations for entry to their own dimension, hunt and contain malevolent spirits or creatures, try to minimize the damage–and the knowledge–of their escapades. All the gifts we have between us are useful, even necessary, in much of our work.” “And you get paid for this?” “Bloody right.”

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A smile touched his eyes briefly. Encouraged, I observed, “I must say you’re taking all this very calmly compared with last night.” “Well, last night you took me by surprise. I’m afraid I…em…shot the craw.” I blinked. “I must have missed that bit. What’s a craw?” “A crow. Shot the craw means ran away.” “You say these things deliberately to wind me up, don’t you?” He grinned. “Why would you think that?” Just friends or not, his smile still got me in the stomach, radiating tingles in all directions. No wonder I’d been such an easy lay in Pisa. As I watched the twinkle fade from his eyes, he said, “Ellie?” I lifted my brow. “Are you checking up on me, too?” My breath caught. I dragged my eyes free of his gaze and stared at my coffee instead. “Sort of,” I said, and took an emergency gulp for strength. “It seemed rude to investigate a friend. On the other hand, I was worried about you. I wanted to make sure you’re okay.” He spread his arms. “And am I?” “You tell me.” “I’m fine. Apart from being disappointed you’re not telepathic.” Ignoring that, I said, “And this house? Is there something strange happening here?” “Nah. Not unless it happens while I’m asleep. But the neighbors have never complained.” I leaned forward to put down my empty mug. “Do you know much about your father, Chris?” “Beyond the fact that he was a weird fuck and probably a Bad Man, no, not much. And even that I had from my mother, so it’s definitely suspect.” He meant to shock me, and he did, though not by his words. Beneath them was some simmering, churning emotion. The grief Jim had sensed on contact. And guilt. And it surrounded his mother’s memory, not his father’s. I said gently, “Is your mother dead, too?” He rose to his feet in one fluid movement. “Last year. I was still in Italy. Do you want to see the rest of my inheritance?” I was sensitive enough neither to touch him nor sympathize. No one, I realized ruefully as I followed him from the room, is completely free of care and strings. I realized, too, that Chris never had been. Even in Pisa, I had seen in him only what I wanted to find, not the true, multi-layered man he actually was. Yet discovering him now didn’t seem so scary. It was curiously appealing, fascinating, even exciting. He made jokes as he opened doors, showed me the sparsely furnished rooms, pointed out damp and other flaws. I could tell he actually liked this house. There were things he wanted to do with it, renovate it, make it his. It seemed to me the man who shunned ties and roots was putting some down. “Watch this step,” he warned, as we ascended the staircase. “The wood’s rotten and you could stick your foot right through it.” “I won’t sue,” I promised him. “How many bedrooms have you got up here?”

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“How many do you want? There are more on the top floor. And the attic’s floored–for servants’ quarters I can only assume. This room was what my granny called a drawing room.” “Wow, Chris, it’s gorgeous,” I said with awe, standing in the middle of the floor and gazing upwards at the elegant ceiling rose, and the intricate, almost perfect cornicing. There was a huge rosewood mantelpiece, and a big, sweeping bay window looking onto the square. “There’s no damp in here. It just needs redecorated. And furnished, of course. What do you think, Ellie? Shelves of antiquarian books, velvet sofas, grand-piano in the window…” “To accompany your one man band on special occasions?” Chris laughed. “Knew you’d understand. Next door there’s a formal dining room, with one of these little lifts down to the kitchen. Good shape.” It was. Hexagonal, with several hidden walk-in cupboards opening off it. Two more rooms, slightly smaller, and a bathroom, made up the rest of the floor. Chris led me up to the next story, pointing out, “You could have bedrooms down there, too. But I’ve been sleeping up here. Apparently my father slept in this one. When he stayed here, which wasn’t that often.” He pushed open the door of one of the back bedrooms. It was dark in color, dominated by a big double bed. I concentrated, surreptitiously brushed my hand against the wall. I could sense nothing. And yet I didn’t like that room. I suspected I just didn’t like what I knew of Alastair Swan. Or was I picking it up from Chris? We didn’t linger there. “This is the master bed room,” said Chris impressively, throwing open the door opposite. Light poured in here, even through a slightly grubby bay-window. Chris slept in here. The room was littered with his stuff, the untidy clutter I associated with his room in Pisa. He hadn’t made his bed, a large, wooden-framed affair, and a pair of jeans hung off it. Two books, some papers and a pen were scattered across it. This room he’d painted–all in plain, bright white. Yet everywhere else was color. Striking, abstract pictures adorned the walls. A brilliantly-patterned rug covered most of the floor. For no reason, I found myself smiling. “What?” Chris demanded suspiciously. “I don’t know. It just seems completely you!” I wandered across to the window, gazed down for a moment onto the green park in the middle of the square. A couple of women were talking there while children ran in rings around them. “It’s a nice place,” I said, sounding surprised even to my own ears. “And a nice house. I think you’ll be happy here.” “More psychic mumbo-jumbo?” “I can make the teeth drop out of your mouth.” “You should introduce yourself to my dentist. Can you really?” “Don’t know,” I confessed. “I’ve never tried. And to be honest, I’d rather experiment on someone I don’t like.” “Now I’m confused,” he said, strolling past the bed to pick up a rather beautiful guitar from where it leaned uncovered against the wall. “Am I out or in?” “That would be telling.” While Chris lounged on the bed, tuning the guitar and strumming vaguely, I strolled around the room, examining his books–a diverse collection of music, politics, literature and

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popular fiction. I found myself humming along with the melody Chris played, although I didn’t recognize it. I opened my mouth to ask him what it was, when it suddenly changed into a different tune, discordant yet weirdly hypnotic. “Chris, that’s horrible!” I chided. “Play something else.” Since he didn’t, I threw my head back in mock outrage and announced I was going to make more coffee. He didn’t object as I swept dramatically past the foot of the bed, but at the last minute he moved with startling speed. Hanging on to the guitar with one hand, he launched his body across the entire length of the bed and reached out to grip my thigh. Stunned, I stood quite still, staring at his hand. It was warm, its grip too firm around the top of my leg, the palm secure around my inner thigh. I knew I would have difficulty removing it, at least by normal means. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. I liked Chris’s hands. He had never been short on boldness, and I supposed I had been enticed up here for a reason. My ego wasn’t sorry about that, either. His fingers dug almost painfully into my flesh, and yet treacherous tinglings snaked upward from his fingers to my pussy. I felt suddenly hot and moist. Slowly, almost afraid, I lifted my gaze from his rigid hand to his face. His blue eyes gleamed. But he wasn’t smiling. This was a new Chris to me–dominating, determined, almost…scary. He said, “Fuck the coffee. Sit on my cock and screw me.” Shocked, I reacted purely from instinct. I hurled un-necessary force at his fingers, prizing them loose with my mind. In less than a second, I was out the bedroom door and running for the stairs. Stupidly, I could feel the ache of tears desperate to be shed, and I didn’t even know why. Chris had never been mealy mouthed. I wasn’t exactly a shrinking rose myself. In Pisa, part of his charm had been his directness. It had been exciting, compelling. Yet here, I felt…abused. And by a man I was beginning to like a lot. My mobile phone chose that minute to go off. I heard it from the stairs. Dashing into the living room where I’d left my bag, I grabbed the phone out of it. It was Jenny, damn her. “Not a good…” I began, but she interrupted me, her voice high and harsh. “Ellie, are you okay?” “Okay? Yes,” I mumbled in bewilderment. Was I? “Get out of there, Ellie. Now. The readings are off the scale.”

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Chapter Three I grabbed my jacket and my bag and bolted for the living room door, trying to stuff the phone back into my bag with shaking fingers as I went. A shadow fell over me, bringing me to an abrupt halt. I could hear my heart thundering in my ears. Slowly, I raised my eyes. Chris stood in the doorway, distractedly rubbing the fingers of his right hand. His expression was merely puzzled. “Are you going already?” “Have to. Got a call from Jenny,” I babbled. “There’s a bit of an emergency on.” He took a step nearer me, and I took one back. A frown began to form on his brow, but he stood still. “I’ll drive you,” he offered. “Jenny’s picking me up.” “Well, you don’t need to rush off, do you? Have another coffee while you wait for her.” Forcing myself, I gazed directly into his blue eyes. They looked slightly bewildered, concerned, with no hint of the threat I had sensed in the bedroom. “Well, that rather depends, Chris,” I said steadily. “On what?” “On your behavior.” Not quite laughing, he threw up his hands in surrender. “I’ll be good, I promise.” “You’d better be,” I said grimly. “Because it seems I’m too old to appreciate coarse propositions.” His frown deepened. “What’s upset you, Ellie? Was it really Jenny on the phone? Has that bastard fiancé been bothering you?” It was my turn to stare. His handsome, fine-featured face displayed open concern, the sort of anger one would feel toward someone who had hurt a friend. He genuinely didn’t see that it was he who had upset me. If he was acting, he was incredibly good. And I could no longer be sure the threat, the readings, came from Chris. My breath caught. “Chris, is there anyone else in this house?” “Just the squatters in the basement.” “What?” I demanded, alarmed. I began to push past him. “I’m kidding, Ellie. There’s no one else here.” He caught quickly at my arm, and from instinct I flinched away. At once his hand fell back to his side. The frown was back. “Ellie, what’s going on? I wasn’t going to hurt you. I’d never hurt you.” Until ten minutes ago, that’s what I’d believed of him. Chris was strong, physical, he liked to touch, but until now I’d never had a whiff of force, of violence…and it had been there in the bedroom, I was sure of it. That was why I’d bolted. Yet searching his eyes now, I saw only the gentle, open-faced Chris I remembered. “What’s going on?” I murmured. “I wish I knew. But we have to get out of here.” He didn’t argue, just let me precede him along the hallway to the front door, which he opened wide to the sunshine. I stepped through and ran down three steps, where I paused to take several deep breaths. Leaving the door open, Chris came and sat on the step where I stood. Since I was trying desperately to think, I refused to look at him, but from the corner of my eyes I could see his head turned up to watch me.

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After a few moments, as if it was actually difficult for him, he said, “Did he beat you?” Surprise brought my gaze down to his face. “Who?” I said blankly. “The bastard fiancé.” “Geoffrey? God, no.” Keeping my eyes steadily on his, I added significantly, “No man has ever hit me. If he did, he’d only do it once.” Shock leapt into his eyes. Because I’d warned him off? Or because I felt I had to? My gaze fell to the hands dangling between his knees. One hand was abstractly massaging the fingers of the other–where I’d yanked his grasp off my leg. Carefully, I drew all my energy into me, held it poised, and observed as I’d been trained to do, as I’d done in many difficult and dangerous situations over the years. Yet I couldn’t remember my heart ever beating as it was now. I said, “What’s wrong with your hand, Chris?” He glanced down in surprise, as if he hadn’t realized what he was doing. “I don’t know,” he said, holding his fingers straight out. “They feel as if they’ve been bent backwards. By a football or something. Must have knocked them, I suppose. Ellie, talk to me.” Uncertainty must have written itself all over my face. Either he saw nothing wrong in his behavior in the bedroom, or he couldn’t remember doing it, and I was fast inclining to the latter, not least because he’d shown none of the terror of last night associated with my psychic tricks. In his concern for me, I could almost believe, he hadn’t even been properly aware of the pain I’d caused in his fingers. I took a deep breath. “Chris, something is wrong in this house. None of us sensed it earlier, and personally, I even liked the feel of it. But that was Jenny who phoned me, and she called because the energy readings we told you about had gone through the roof. Something happened in there, while you and I were alone in the house. I don’t know if it’s still going on, but I don’t believe it’s safe.” He stared at me. I sat down on the step beside him, and his eyes followed me. At last, he said, “I don’t believe that. No, don’t take the hump. I’ll buy all this stuff about your energy readings. I just can’t believe that it signifies anything unsafe. I’ve been living here for six weeks and I have seen nothing worse than the odd mouse, which I chased out along with all its friends and family. I know it’s your job, Ellie, but I think you’re taking this a bit too seriously.” As if to emphasize his words, a car engine roared its way into the square. Jenny’s red car came tearing round the corner with a screech of wheels, blasted its way along the road till it all but skidded to a halt outside Chris’s house. Jim was in the front seat, but they were both out of the car before the engine had stopped. “Ellie? You okay?” Jenny demanded. “I’m fine. I told you I was.” “Yes but you sounded shaken as hell. What about you, Chris?” “Bewildered, but vastly entertained by the Starsky and Hutch stuff.” Jenny grinned. “I didn’t know I could do that. Hope we didn’t upset your neighbors.” As I stood up, Jim reached past Jenny and took my jacket from me. I felt his fingers brush mine, searching for clues. I wasn’t terribly sure I wanted a touchy-feely psychic picking up my churning emotions right now, but I could hardly make a fuss about something so quick

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and unthreatening. Instead I went down the steps, watched him clap Chris lightly on the shoulder, briefly gripping it. Nothing, I knew. He’ll get nothing. Jim said, “Do you want to come with us, Chris? We can put you up just now.” Chris looked behind him. “Er…I’ve got a twelve room house here, excluding basement and attics. Accommodation is something I don’t need. But thanks for the offer.” “Chris—” I began. “What?” I looked into his eyes, deceptively mild and easy going. About this he was determined. I sighed. “Nothing. Take care of yourself, that’s all.” I walked toward Jenny’s car, feeling suddenly depressed. Why was it one of us was always walking away from the other? I no longer even knew if Chris was friend or foe. It just seemed wrong to leave him. Chris said, “But you can ask me out for dinner if you like.” I felt the instant smile stretch my lips, but I wouldn’t turn to show him that. I didn’t need to. Jenny said, “I’ll ask you. Come to my house about eight. Here’s my card. It’s quite far out, but easy enough to find.” “Okay,” said Chris, sounding amused. “Thanks.” ***** It was I who spoke first to him, I remembered. While he played and sang everything from folk to rock on the step of the Church of St Michele in Borgo, he smiled at me several times, and I knew he’d noticed me from the crowd. I’d certainly noticed him. And not just for his musical and vocal range. True I was at a loose end for the afternoon, since my friend had succumbed to the local siesta habit, but Chris in his black vest and frayed shorts was the most gorgeous thing I’d seen all year. His smile gave me goose bumps, sent tingles to all the right places plus a few I hadn’t been aware of before, and I definitely wanted to get to know him. So when he finished his little show, with a novel version of the old Bread song Guitar Man, I sat on a step near him and asked where he was from. He grinned. “Hey, you’re English,” he observed, in accents that left me with few doubts of his own Scottish origins. Not that he was terribly broad-I couldn’t have pinned him down to a particular city. We talked a little, comparing places we both knew, and then he said casually, “Got time for a drink? I was just going to the café to lubricate.” Since he indicated the gelataria across the road, I had no hesitation in agreeing. I sat at an outside table in the shade, feeling just about as elegant as the Italian women in my white cotton sun dress, and a few minutes later, Chris re-appeared with a large bottle of water and an ice cream cone. “How did you know?” I asked as he presented me with the latter. “Lucky guess,” he said modestly, sliding into the seat beside me. His voice, low, strong and delightfully Scottish, sent butterflies gamboling through my stomach. As he unscrewed the cap of the water bottle and proceeded to ’lubricate‘, I found myself watching the play of muscles up his arms. His skin was a delicious shade of golden brown. His naturally blond

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hair, further bleached by the Italian sun was short and spiky, apart from a slightly longer bit of fringe that fell forward across his forehead. His full lips, wrapped around the neck of the bottle, looked to have a good, strong pull. Oh yes, this was one man I wanted. If I had been a cat, I would have purred. As it was, I licked my cherry and vanilla ice cream and watched him over the top with eyes that must have smoldered. The rest of me did. When he laid down the bottle, I saw his eyes on my mouth as I ate the ice cream. Deliberately, I snaked my tongue right round the cone and drew the cream slowly into my mouth, savoring it. No hardship since it was naturally delicious. Even more appealing was the way his breath caught watching me. I saw his Adam’s apple wobble when he swallowed. Then, catching my gaze on him, he grinned. “Wow, woman,” he observed. “You really like ice cream.” I let my eyes smile back, and took a little more ice cream with my lips. Chris shifted in his seat and took another pull from his bottle. A waiter appeared with a carafe of wine and two glasses, slowing the flirtation down a little. He exchanged quick Italian with Chris, calling him by his name so that I knew he was a regular. He even smiled at me and winked, though with what meaning I couldn’t guess. Chris was funny, telling me stories about his escapades around Europe with his guitar. I thought he made some of them up to make me laugh but I didn’t care. For my part, I liked to make him smile because it made me tingle more. By the time we’d had a couple of glasses of wine, my pussy was hot and wet and aching and our bare arms touched frequently. It was I who touched him deliberately first, tracing the prominent veins of his hand with one finger. “Is it playing guitar that does that?” I asked, to provide an excuse. “I suppose–and the heat. Pianists have even better veins.” He reached across me for the carafe, and I felt his wrist brush against my breast. Already hard, my nipple tightened unbearably as if straining for his touch. “Do you play?” I shook my head. “No. Why?” “You have very sensitive fingers.” I smiled, following the vein over his wrist. He shivered. “Ellie?” “Mmm?” “Can I ask you something?” “Sure.” My heart leapt so high I thought it would come out of my throat. His hand turned, capturing mine, caressing it. “What are you doing later?” “Later than what?” “Later than this.” “I don’t know.” Lifting my eyes from our entwined fingers, I looked into his amazing blue eyes. “Do you have any suggestions?” “Lots,” he said, smiling. His other hand cupped my cheek, his thumb brushed my lips. I parted them, emitting a tiny gasp of pleasure. He leaned in to me and captured my mouth. I was lost. A man who could kiss like that had no business doing it in a public café. Hot and firm, his lips brought sensual magic, parting mine further and exploring softly with his tongue until I melted into his mouth with a sigh of pure satisfaction. Holding my head with both hands now, he deepened the kiss, making me gasp and gasp again. I sucked his

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tongue farther into my mouth, grazed it with my teeth. A growl of desire began somewhere about my toes and rose up to my lips. I threw my arms around his neck and still he kissed me as if he would never stop, thrusting and dancing with his tongue, making love to my whole mouth. It was the wildest, most blatantly sexual kiss I could ever remember and it left me hotter and randier than I’d ever been in my life. “Ellie,” he groaned softly against my lips. “Will you come home with me?” Unsteady laughter caught at my breath. “To be honest, Chris, I’m not sure I can make it that far.” He smiled into my mouth, delving in for another kiss. “God, me neither.” “Where can we go?” I whispered, not even sure if I was serious. “Where is quiet? And close!” “Toilette?” I shook with laughter as well as desire. The knowledge that he was so desperate for me aroused me beyond fever pitch. I said, “We can’t! People will see us go in!” “No one will notice if you’re blatant enough. Come on.” He leapt to his feet, drawing me with him. As we stood, careless of onlookers, he wrapped both arms around me, drawing me close into his body so that I could feel his erection, huge and hard against my abdomen. Gasping, I pressed into it, pushing my breasts into his hard chest, running my hands up and down his muscular arms, roving them over his broad shoulders and back. I just knew he would have the body of a god, and if he was only half as good at the rest of the stuff as he was at kissing, I was in for one crazy ride, and I couldn’t wait. Reaching up, I seized his mouth in mine once more. His hands held my buttocks so that he could grind his erection into me. His breath came in ragged pants. I could think of nothing except that hard cock pushing into me, giving me some release from this intensely pleasurable torture. Tearing my mouth free, I gasped recklessly, “All right. Take me there. In every way.” Laughing softly, he let one arm fall and pressed me into his side with the other, walking me into the café and past the tables and the counter toward the back of the room. To me, full of heady wine and even headier desire, the faces around me were a bland, blurred sea. Chris’s whole body radiated excitement and lust. He reached for the toilet door quite casually, and opened it. A gentle shove sent me inside. He followed, closing the door behind him and bolting it. Like most Italian café toilets it was one cubicle, used by either men or women. It smelled fresh and clean, but I don’t think I would have cared if it hadn’t. Not after Chris pinned me to the wall with his hips and began to kiss my neck. Moaning and gasping, I began to tug at his vest until he obliged me by pulling it off over his head and dropping it on the floor. His chest was hard and smooth and golden. My lips were all over it before I gave them permission, teasing his taut male nipples with my tongue. My hands roamed across his muscled shoulders and back. Driving me wild with the gyration of his hips as he ground his erection against me, he caught the straps of my sun dress and pushed them down my arms. The bodice drooped, revealing most of my naked breasts beneath. “Oh Christ,” he breathed, gazing his fill. As if working on its own, his hand came up and covered one breast, freeing it from the last of its cotton shield. His touch was fire and

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electricity, shooting straight through my whole body. My knees buckled and his groin pressed harder to hold me up. Through his clothes and mine, I felt the whole, rigid outline of his cock. I heard my own animal mewl of need as he caressed my breast. His fingertips felt delightfully rough and hard from playing the guitar so much, and yet he used them with sensual tenderness, teasing around the nipple and then back and forth across it in the sweetest torture I could remember. My hands on his back dived downward, plunging inside the waistband of his cotton shorts, grasping his tight, firm buttocks. “Commando,” I gasped, delighted to find no underpants in the way. “Too damned hot in this country,” he said with a fast flickering smile. His mouth chased his hands off my breasts, and while he sucked my nipple, flicking it wickedly with his tongue, I was vaguely aware of him unfastening his shorts, pushing and shaking them off. I bit his shoulder, pulling the hot skin into my mouth, trying to follow his cock with my desperate pussy. Straightening, I felt his free hand on my leg sliding up under the skirt of my dress, stroking the soft, sensitive skin of my inner thigh, spiraling upwards to my cotton-covered pussy. My knickers were soaking, telling their own shameless tale of lust. I saw him smile before he kissed me again. “Take them off!” I gasped against his lips as his fingers caressed me through them. “No time,” he said, pulling them to one side. I thought I would die when those rough, oh-so-gentle fingers touched my pussy. With his parted lips just touching mine, he stared into my eyes as he caressed among the wet folds, and unerringly found my swollen clitoris. “Jesus,” I whispered. “Not quite…” He traced achingly around my entrance, and with a groan slid one finger just inside me. With amazement I realized his other hand was busy, rolling a condom over his cock. “Neat trick,” I said shakily. “I’ve never tried one-handed.” He winked. “It’s a gift. I’ll let you practice later. Can I fuck you now?” “Yes, oh yes!” I cried out as he thrust his cock inside me. It was only part way in, but I felt filled, stretched. And in heaven. “Jesus, Chris,” I whispered again, and he drew out a little way before thrusting back in, this time the whole way. I thought I would die of the pleasure. And when he paused, full in, I squeezed and caressed him, twisting, trying to make him thrust again. His hands found my hips, lifting them so that he could straighten his knees further. I grasped the wash basin beside me for support. “Hold on,” he gasped, and began to fuck me hard and fast and furious. I had been right, it was one hell of a wild ride, though neither of us was in any condition to make it last. I came quickly, almost immediately, as if a flaming arrow had shot through me, scattering sharp, impossibly intense fires on all sides. Even through that, I realized he was holding back so that he could make me come again, and feeling his own orgasm so desperate for release, I did, and God help me that was even better because we did it together as one. One panting, gasping, writhing beast of pleasure. With two backs.

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When we could move, he staggered backward still inside me, and sat on the toilet seat with me in his lap. His shoulders were shaking with laughter and triumph, his eyes ablaze with satisfied lust and some new excitement. “Wow,” he said. “Just wow. Will you still come home with me?” “I think you’d have trouble keeping me away now,” I said unsteadily. He kissed me and I hugged him while the noise and laughter from the café began again to impinge on my consciousness. “I hope nobody else has wanted in here.” I eased myself off him – even with a used condom attached he was a fine specimen – and stood up, adjusting my knickers and straightening my dress. Chris reached for his shorts. I caught sight of myself in the mirror, all flushed face and rosy lips and cloudy, contented eyes that said, “I’ve just been extremely well fucked.” Laughter bubbled up. “Shall I go first, or will you?” “Stuff it,” said Chris, “we’ll go together.” And we did, to the hearty if somewhat embarrassing cheers of the café staff and patrons. ***** “Ellie? Do you want a drink?” Jenny’s voice dragged me out of the memory with a snap. I was in my bedroom in her house, lying on the bed. Guiltily, I took my fingers off my pussy and dragged my panties back into place. Well, one can’t remember an encounter like that in any detail without immediate need of a repeat of some kind. Do-it-yourself was as good as it was likely to get. Especially since I’d renounced men. I swallowed. “Yes please!” I called back. I hesitated a moment, then figured, “what the hell,” and lay back against the pillows. The memory was so strong, I could smell Chris, almost feel his touch on my hot, aching skin. I couldn’t get through this evening without jumping him now unless I had some kind of release. I took it quickly, efficiently, and in truth I didn’t have far to go. Just remembering that incident was almost enough to make me come without any help. I lay back, panting, letting the orgasm take me in its all too brief, yet wonderfully intense hold. Then, barely allowing myself any recovery time–afterglow without a man to enjoy it with is pointless–I rose and quickly washed and dressed in some fresh jeans and a bright new top I had bought to take to the Caribbean. It was low cut, gathered under the bust from which it fell in wispy, flattering folds. A quick glance in the mirror while I brushed my blond hair assured me I looked pretty good. I refused to think about why I wanted to. Then I trotted downstairs to join Jenny in a pre-dinner drink. I heard a male voice as well as hers talking in the kitchen. I was pretty sure it wasn’t Chris. I hadn’t heard any cars arriving and besides it was only just after seven o’clock. I supposed vaguely that it was Jim, although he’d refused Jenny’s invitation on the grounds that his wife wasn’t very well. Jenny told me his wife was always unwell because she hated Scotland and wanted to go home. It was something Jenny could understand, since I suspected that’s how she’d felt about being in England.

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But it wasn’t Jim. I walked into the kitchen just in time to hear–and see–Jenny’s mute cousin Charlie saying clearly, “Drink it if you must, but it’s weasel-piss. Good evening,” he added politely to me as he caught sight of me standing stunned in the doorway. “Ah,” said Jenny. We all knew I’d been had back at the Center. “Gosh,” I said, looking the man up and down. “Trousers and a voice.” The last time I’d met him, he’d been wearing a very elaborate kilt and claimed to be mute. Or at least Jenny had claimed he was mute and certainly he’d never said anything in my hearing. Outwardly he’d shown me only polite attention, but when I’d made some moves on him he’d definitely been aroused. Now he was still a handsome devil, long blond hair tied behind his head in a pony tail, aloof and supremely confident in the smart suit he wore, silk tie and all. “Thank you,” he said now with a quaint little bow. “At least I think I do.” “Okay,” said Jenny. “He’s not mute. In fact, he’s not really my cousin. I just didn’t want to explain what a left-over Magyar aristocrat was doing hanging around me at the Center. Wine, Ellie.” “Only according to some,” said Charlie, wrinkling his fine nose with distaste. “Charlie’s a wine snob,” Jenny explained as I went to claim my glass from her. Charlie moved toward the cooker, from which all sorts of delicious smells emanated, gave all the pots a quick stir and left the kitchen. “So,” I said low-voiced, sipping from the glass and leaning my back against the work top. “Is this him? The best sex you’ve ever had?” Jenny actually blushed. “Aye,” she mumbled, continuing to cut up pears for the fruit salad growing in the bowl in front of her. I had already started to grin with wicked pleasure for her when I was struck in the stomach by the guilty memory of my own behavior with Charlie at our last meeting. “Shit, Jenny, I’m sorry. I’d never have gone after him if I’d know he was yours.” “Well he wasn’t, not then. Or not really.” She glanced up at me, then back to the fruit salad. For a moment I thought she wouldn’t say anything else. Then, so quietly I almost didn’t hear, she muttered, “I thought you’d take him away from me.” I stared at her. She wasn’t joking. She was frowning so direly at the last pear it should have chopped itself in fright. “Jenny, I couldn’t take anyone or anything away from you. Even if I wanted to.” Her eyes flickered up again in embarrassment, but at least she smiled in a twisted sort of way. “Ellie, you could have anyone you wanted with a flick of your little finger.” It was something of a shock to discover such insecurities in the tough, brash Glaswegian I thought I knew. I took another drink. “Then how come you’re living with the best lover you’ve ever had and I keep being dumped at the alter?” The knife sliced the pear skin slowly. “Maybe,” Jenny suggested, “because you keep trying to marry the wrong men.” “Geoffrey was a good man,” I said defensively. “No he wasn’t. He was a jerk and a sleaze ball. And more to the point, you didn’t love him.” I didn’t bother asking how she had worked out something I didn’t even admit to myself. Instead, I said lightly, “Ah yes, the over-rated L-Word. All right, Miss Wisdom.

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Answer me this: without the sex–if you can imagine it–do you love him?” I jerked my head at Charlie who had just wandered back into the kitchen with a different bottle of wine swinging from his slender, elegant hand. Following my gesture, Jenny caught his eye and his eyebrow twitched in acknowledgement of some private, shared joke, possibly to do with the wine. It didn’t matter. Jenny grinned and glanced back at me. Her direct eyes that always looked at the world head-on to the point of aggression, softened briefly. “Oh yes,” she said, and dumped the last of the pear into the bowl. I sighed and passed her a banana.

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Chapter Four “So,” Jenny said, as we all sat down in her little sitting room to wait for Chris. Although it was still light outside, the curtains were drawn. A couple of lamps and some candles supplied a muted glow that was cozy if artificial. “So what do you think of Chris? The energy surges are definitely from his house. Yet none of us got anything from Chris himself, and long before we got to you, the house readings had fallen to normal, too.” I glanced significantly at Charlie, who was prowling restlessly, if sexily, around the room. Jenny said, “It’s all right. He’s a powerful psychic among other things. That’s one of the reasons I asked him to be here. Because I’m not sure of your Chris, Ellie. I don’t know what’s going on with him, but when I called, you were definitely…wound up.” I took a deep breath. Remembering our first encounter had at least served the purpose of confirming a few things in my own head. “I was. There was a nasty moment when he behaved quite…out of character. He’s a strong man, and a man of impulse, very…physical, but he’s not violent.” Jenny’s eyes flashed. “Christ, Ellie, what did he do?” “Nothing I couldn’t handle. It was momentary, and I dealt with it, but it phased me, I admit. And afterwards, I’m sure he couldn’t remember what he’d said or done wrong. Now I could have been making too much of a fairly coarse pass, but what I know of Chris combined with your readings leads me to think—” “Car,” said Charlie nonchalantly from the other side of the room. I blinked. “I don’t hear one.” Jenny and I went to the window. There was no sign of any vehicle. I said miserably, “I think he’s possessed.” Jenny stared at me. Charlie, who hadn’t been supposed to hear, said judiciously, “That is unlikely if neither your own sensitivities nor your instruments picked it up.” “Intermittent possession?” I suggested just as a car engine smote my ears. My heart lurched stupidly as I turned back to the window. It wasn’t exactly the sort of car one washed to show off on suburban Sundays. It was a beaten up old mini in bad need of a paint job. If only to cover up the three different ones it already had. Laughter threatened to choke me, because it was so exactly the sort of car Chris should drive. Hastily, I dropped the curtain back into place and resumed my seat on the sofa. At the sound of the car door closing outside, Charlie wandered out of the room. Clearly he didn’t want Jenny greeting the possible possession victim alone. Left to myself, listening to his voice in the hall, I felt like a teenager waiting for her first date to call. I hadn’t felt like that since I was fifteen. Maybe I should just screw Chris, get it over with, and remind myself he wasn’t actually that good. Who was I kidding? So if you’re that keen on him, why did you walk away without a backward glance? Why haven’t you thought of him in a year? Because I hadn’t let myself. Chris wasn’t the sort of man one settled down with. Chris was sex on legs, but he came with chaos, not the stability and security I craved. And I would do very well to keep remembering that.

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Chris sauntered into the room ahead of his hosts. He had changed for dinner into fairly new, un-patched jeans and an open necked white shirt. His short fair hair glinted like a halo under the lamp and my heart jumped into my stomach so hard that I felt winded. Catching sight of me, he waggled his eyebrows and grinned. “Evening, Elleonora,” he said, strolling across the room to lounge beside me on the sofa. “Evening, Christopher,” I managed. This was ridiculous. I was tongue-tied as a shy virgin. Had I ever been that shy? “Glass of wine?” Jenny offered, reaching for a clean glass from the cabinet and picking up the nearest bottle. “This one is better,” said Charlie, twitching the glass from her. “Unless your taste runs to weasel piss.” “Don’t waste the good stuff on me,” Chris said, looking amused. “I brought some weasel piss of my own.” “No you didn’t,” said Charlie in some surprise, as he glanced at the bottle Chris must have delivered to him on the way in. “This is very nice!” “Chianti,” said Chris to me. Though his arm didn’t quite touch mine, I could feel the heat of his flesh. “Brought it back with me.” “Oh.” My conversation throughout the evening was full of repartee like that. My mood swung erratically between misery at my own lack of wit and charm and wild excitement whenever he smiled at me. Whether or not my deliberate remembering of events in Pisa last year had anything to do with it, I could no longer deny that I wanted him. And yet I couldn’t follow my normal techniques here. If I wanted a man, I was usually blatant about admitting it, and with all due modesty, I usually got him, too. Yet now, with Chris, he didn’t even seem to notice me in that way. And I really knew I couldn’t have him anyway, not until this possession business was sorted out. It was just too dangerous. Maybe that, the danger, was the route of this newly intense attraction? Jenny’s right. I am weird! “So, Chris,” said Jenny as she laid the huge bowl of fruit salad on the table, “ever practiced Satanism? The Black Arts?” She’d had a few glasses of wine by then, but even so that was particularly unsubtle, I thought. Then, glancing at Chris’s face, I realized she had meant to shock him. And got a result. Instead of laughing at her, his relaxed, friendly eyes suddenly shut down. Hard and cold, they gazed back at her unblinking. “No,” he said shortly. “Apparently,” Jenny pursued, apparently unaware of this discouragement, “your father was famous in such circles.” “My father was a nutter,” Chris said, lifting his glass. “Then you never joined him in his…er…pursuits?” “I never met the man,” Chris said dryly. He took a drink and laid the glass down, though he still twisted the stem in his long, strong fingers. “Look, Jenny, if you want to know something, just ask.” “I just did!” Jenny exclaimed.

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I intervened quietly. “We’re looking for a source of the spiritual energy in your house. Perhaps something raised by your father and left behind.” He glanced at me. The hard look had gone, but the twinkle hadn’t come back. Stupidly, I felt devastated. “There’s nothing scarier than mice and whatever mold lives on damp wood. Nothing remotely inexplicable or strange has ever happened there.” Into the silence that followed that, Charlie said lazily, “He’s telling the truth.” Chris blinked at him. “What are you? Their lie-detector?” “He’s telepathic,” said Jenny. An expression of alarm glinted in Chris’s eyes. “You’re reading my mind?” Charlie smiled. His eyes glinted too, with more than a hint of wolfishness. “Some of it. Wild.” Oddly enough his gaze flickered to me at that point. Chris shifted uncomfortably in his chair. His skin looked faintly pink-tinted. “Charlie, that’s rude,” Jenny admonished. “Stay out of his head! Unless you think he’s lying,” she added judiciously. I frowned. I had never heard of a telepath quite that powerful before. “Does the Center know about you?” I demanded. “I do not frequent Centers,” Charlie said contemptuously. “Not even in your own country?” “He’s a bit of a free lance,” Jenny said, too quickly, but before I could pursue this, Chris broke in. “Okay, he’s a free-lance telepath. She hurls things with her mind. What do you do?” “You wouldn’t believe me,” Jenny said lightly. “Actually, I’m moderately telepathic too, but I seem to need a fellow telepath to communicate with.” I said, “She’s a vampire specialist.” Chris grinned. “Get much work?” “You’d be surprised,” she said with dignity. “I would. No wonder they moved you onto management.” “You’re quite a skeptic, considering,” I observed. I helped myself to fruit salad since no one else was paying it any attention. “In fact, Jenny killed a vampire only last spring, right here in Glasgow.” “Actually, he killed himself,” Jenny muttered, looking uncomfortable as she always did at praise. “So modest,” Charlie sighed. “That’s our Jen,” I agreed. “But you—.” I targeted Chris once more with my, hopefully, searing gaze. “Don’t try and change the subject. You might not know it, but there is something in that house. I felt it, Chris.” I took a deep breath. “And I felt it coming from you.” His eyes had begun to dance again under my scolding, but at the last, all traces of laughter vanished. “What do you mean?” “When you showed me your bedroom. You sprawled on the bed while I poked around your books, and I decided to go and make us both coffee.” He frowned. “I don’t remember the coffee.” “You didn’t get it. You didn’t get what you wanted, either.” “What do you mean?” he said again.

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“He doesn’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlie observed. “Does she?” Chris asked him, and the strength of the hurt took me by surprise, sending me into instant action. “All right,” I said, leaping to my feet. “Why don’t we tell you the times of those weird readings, and you tell us where you were, or what you were doing?” Chris looked at me. His face was no longer friendly. On the other hand, neither did it have that hard look that had driven me out of the house this morning. He took another drink and lolled back in his chair. “Okay.” I sat back down. Jenny fetched the read-out. “OK, excluding today…last night, between 2 and 2.30 am.” “I was in bed, oddly enough.” “Asleep?” “Not really. I couldn’t sleep. I was just lying there, reading, playing, waiting for my brain to shut down.” “Hmm. Yesterday morning, around 9am?” “Got up about 9. Went busking in town.” “All right…the day before, then. Around 6pm.” Chris frowned. “Christ, I can’t remember…I must have been getting changed. I’d been out all day and came back for a bath before I met some friends in the evening.” “And none of these times you ever felt anything wrong? Another presence?” “No, but then I wouldn’t, would I? I’m not a sensitive.” “Yes, you are,” I said suddenly. They all turned and stared at me. I said, “You told us this morning that you’d had a bad psychic experience as a kid. That was why my trick with the knife freaked you so badly.” “Oh,” he said. “That.” “What was that, Chris? What happened?” He shrugged impatiently. “Probably nothing. I was probably dreaming, but my mother took it too seriously and spooked me. I woke up one night when I was two. It was dark, but the overhead light and the lamp were flashing on and off and everything, toys, clothes, books, were flying round the room. I was petrified.” “Christ, I’m not surprised,” I said guiltily, remembering how I made the knife fly in front of him. No wonder he’d been rattled. “Sorry,” I muttered. To my surprise, he grinned and even nudged me with his shoulder. “Hey, you saved me from the wicked mugger men.” “Well I saved you getting into a fight,” I allowed. “It seemed sensible at the time, though something tells me now you’d have preferred the fight.” “Ungrateful bugger, aren’t I?” “Can we get back to the point?” Jenny interrupted. “Which is–do you have any idea what caused this phenomenon?” Chris shook his head. “There was some talk among the people my mother wheeled in the next day. They thought it was me, though since I was asleep at the time it began and since I’ve never done anything like it before or since, I would kind of doubt that. I think my mother blamed the house, because we moved shortly after.”

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“Where were you staying when it happened? St Mary’s Square?” “I hate to disappoint you, but no, my mother had already left my Dad. We were in a house quite close by.” I shoved Jenny’s pen and some paper at him. “Write it down?” I suggested. While he obliged, I watched his face, his eyes patient, his lips slightly parted. I imagined them on mine. I imagined them in some other places, too. Unexpectedly he shoved the paper back at me and lifted his gaze, catching mine. Something leapt in his eyes, something warm and exciting and familiar. His lips stretched into a smile and my heart plunged into my stomach once more. Without taking his eyes off mine, he lifted one hand and pointed across the table at Charlie. “Get out of my head,” he said mildly. Charlie laughed. But I was suddenly afraid. “Chris, you are sensitive!” I pleaded. “Please don’t go back there. Stay here tonight, please—” “You don’t need to be sensitive to know what he’s thinking.” “Yes, you do,” Jenny murmured, but astoundingly, Chris’s attention was still on me and through the heat in his suddenly serious eyes, I saw something soften. “You’re worrying about me.” “You noticed,” Jenny marveled. Chris spared her a quick glance. “I thought you all suspected me of something.” “We did,” she said candidly. “There’s something going on in that’s house and it’s connected with you. However, we don’t believe you know anything about it.” Chris’s eyes widened, staring at me. He blurted, “It was me. I scared you this morning, didn’t I?” I licked my dry lips, then nodded miserably. “That’s why your hand hurts. I bent your fingers too far back prying them off me.” “Christ.” He got to his feet as if he couldn’t bear to be still, striding to the little kitchen window and back. Twice, he pushed his hand through his spiky blond hair, a definite sign of anxiety. “Maybe I’ve got a brain tumor or something. If I don’t know what I’m doing…Ellie, you should stay away from me.” I said simply, “I can’t now. I have to know what’s going on with you.” His hand fell to his side as he gazed at me across the table. The other two might not have been there. His lips twisted into an oddly charming smile. He said, “Because it’s your job?” I felt the tug of my own lips in response. “Because it’s my job,” I agreed. His mood seemed to swing again. Throwing himself back into his chair beside me, he reached for the wine bottle and refilled everyone’s glasses. “This is weird,” he said. “No one else has mentioned seeing anything strange about me. No stranger than normal, I mean.” “Maybe it happens when you’re alone,” I suggested. “Apart from today, of course…will you have another look at those times, Chris? See if there was ever anyone with you when the readings were high?” “Sure,” he sighed. He picked up the paper and stuffed it into his hip pocket. Then, taking a quick double-gulp of wine, he laid down the glass and stood up again. “I’ve got to go guys. If I stay here any longer, I won’t be able to drive home.”

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“You don’t need to,” Jenny said. “Ellie is quite right. It would be best if you stayed here.” “And if I turn into Mr. Hyde in the night?” “We’ve got Count Dracula here to keep you in line,” said Jenny lightly. “But I doubt there’s a chance of it. The readings are only in that house. Nowhere else in the city.” “And only since I moved in?” “Afraid so.” “Weird,” said Chris again. He reached for his sweater. “Lovely meal, Jenny–thanks for everything. I think. Ellie, can I have a word?” It wasn’t unease that caused the drumming of my heart, or the butterflies in my stomach as I walked out of the cottage into the darkness with him. Our feet crunched through the gravel drive toward his battered old mini, but he didn’t speak until he reached the car, when he turned, keys already in his hand. “I don’t know if I should even say this after what you guys told me—” “You do believe us?” I said anxiously. “I suppose I do. I do believe I behaved badly to you and now can’t remember what I said or did.” There was guilt and shame and apology in his voice. I nudged him with my shoulder, much as he had done to comfort me earlier. “Hey. I can deal with you, Chris, in either persona. And I don’t believe that was you.” Adjusting to the dark, I was sure I could make out relief in his eyes. Certainly, they began to smile again, along with his lips. “In that case, do you want to go out?” I frowned. “Go out where?” “You can choose,” he said dryly, and I understood. I felt the blood rushing through my body and into my neck and face, but crazily, I wanted to laugh. “You mean like a date?” “Dating, stepping out, courting, whatever…wynching, they say in Glasgow.” “Wynching?” I repeated with a mixture of fascination and distaste. “Don’t dodge the question.” “I’m not,” I protested, not quite truthfully, for I had no idea what to answer, what I wanted to answer. “I’m just struggling to believe you are asking me out on a date. Considering our past…” No point in ignoring it. We’d had one wild, naughty time, no doubt far wilder and naughtier than if we had ever planned to see each other again. “Well considering our past, it seems an even better idea.” His hand came up, touched my hair, my cheek, so lightly that I shivered. “Ellie, you were the best fuck I ever had, but I never knew you. I’d like to.” Gasping, I caught at his hand, pressing it to my cheek without meaning to. “Was I really?” I said wistfully. Silent laughter shook his shoulders. “By a mile. Come on, let’s do it properly, drinks, theatre, dinner…I’ll call you.” I said breathlessly, “All right.” My whole body burned. I didn’t really know why. Lust certainly, but something else I thought might be embarrassment. Chris smiled. “Kiss me good night then.”

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I lifted my face mutely, lips already parted. Relief and anticipation flooded me as he took me loosely into his arms and bent his head. God, I remembered his kisses, I remembered them so well. My lips actually trembled, and then his warm mouth covered them, brushing, stroking, sinking. I opened for him, touched my tongue to his, felt its long, sliding caress as it twisted around mine. My arms crept around his neck, drawing him closer, remembering the feel of him. It was a long, sweet kiss, full of promise and building passion. Against my stomach, I felt his delicious hardening. His mouth pressed harder too, grew more demanding, his tongue plunged deeper and I was lost. I would have lain in the back seat of the mini with him. I would have got down and dirty in the gravel. God yes, there was something about Chris! But just as I moaned, and began to writhe against him, he broke the kiss. Though his breathing was uneven, his arms loosened again, holding me only lightly as he touched his forehead to mine. “Oh Ellie,” he breathed. “It was worth waiting a year just for a kiss like that.” Enchanted, I gave him another, softer and sweeter, and it was with a definite air of determination that he finally let me go and pulled open the car door. “Good night,” he said, smiling. “Good night,” I managed. I stood there and watched him drive away. I felt dazed, as if I’d been swiped over the head with a club. And yet the feeling wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn’t unpleasant at all. I felt curiously…cared for. I wanted to sing. Instead, I laughed, and headed back to Jenny’s cottage. I’d shut the door on the darkness before I remembered that I’d sworn off men. And even if I hadn’t, I would never consider someone like Chris for a serious relationship. It would be madness.

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Chapter Five Inexplicably dejected, I wandered through the kitchen and found Jenny in her little study, gazing with concentration at the computer screen. “That address is clean,” she told me. “No unusual activity ever reported there; apart from Chris’s childhood poltergeist. No idea who these people were that his mother called in. Nothing to do with the Center. Though I suppose the Center wasn’t very active in Scotland until recently. Maybe he does it in his subconscious,” she added. “When he’s asleep.” “He wasn’t asleep this morning,” I pointed out. “The occasions he went through with us, he was always in the house, and always alone. In fact,” I said, frowning suddenly, “he was always in his bedroom, trying to sleep, getting up, getting changed. Could there be some sort of spirit skulking there without energy until it manifests in Chris?” Jenny frowned, tugging at her lower lip. “I suppose it would explain why you didn’t sense anything wrong there until Chris went odd on you. But there must be something that binds it there. Books, like that crazy library ghost in Edinburgh? The bed itself?” “I don’t know,” I said regretfully. “But at least we’ve been honest with him now. He won’t kick us out the house if we send Jim up there to track it down with his touchy-feely stuff.” Charlie’s voice spoke behind me. “I do touchy-feely stuff.” Jenny sniggered in a Carry On film kind of a way. She’d had plenty to drink. I said repressively, “Thanks, but you don’t work for the Center.” “I look after Jenny and her friends, though. We have a deal.” “Well, you and Jim can fight it out in the morning.” “I don’t do mornings,” Charlie said regretfully. “Problem solved.” I made for the door, my mouth already open to say good night, when Charlie said, “Night is better. He will be asleep and the spirit unlikely to be near him. We can investigate more thoroughly.” “How can we investigate if we can’t get in?” I demanded. Jenny turned from the computer screen to look at us. Her expression was speculative. “Charlie,” she observed, “can break in anywhere.” ***** Jenny and I strolled incongruously round St Mary’s Square in the darkness while Charlie broke into Chris’s house. I wanted to follow him round the back and see what he was up to–I felt curiously protective of Chris’s property–but Jenny wouldn’t let me. “If he gets caught, he’s on his own,” she said callously. I blinked. “That for the love of your life?” “Just that. OK, he’s in, come on.” “How do you know?” I hissed as I ran after her up the narrow lane to the side of the house. “We’re both telepaths. To some degree.”

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“I never knew you were that strong,” I said, impressed “Sh-sh.” Charlie was inside the house, quietly drawing up the kitchen window. Hastily, Jenny and I clambered through and Charlie closed the window behind us. “Lay on, MacDuff,” Jenny said to me with an expansive wave toward the door. Fortunately, I had the forethought to bring a torch, so we didn’t need to stumble about in total darkness or risk putting on the lights. Catching up with me at the foot of the stairs, she nudged my arm to show me the reading on the little energy box she held. It was normal, no anomalies. Of course, it wasn’t as accurate as the big scanners we used in the Centers themselves, but it was clear enough that whatever malevolence lurked in wait here for Chris, it was currently dormant. I felt ashamed, creeping up Chris’s stairs with my friends, even pointing out the rotting step, as if I was spying on him. Which I was, even if only for his own protection. As I reached the landing, I turned impulsively to tell Jenny we should go back. She had paused behind me, half-turned, her eyes flying continuously from her instrument to Charlie, who stood still at the foot of the stairs, head lifted, sniffing the air like a dog. He met Jenny’s gaze and shook his head. Jenny turned back to me. I closed my mouth and went on up to the next floor. Their seriousness had managed to convince me, again, that we were doing the right thing. For Chris. I paused outside his bedroom door, listening. Jenny waved her black box around, pacing up and down the hallway. Charlie came and laid his palm flat against the door. He had very thin, elegant hands with long fingers. In the light of my torch, the skin was translucent. Unexpectedly, it struck me that Charlie himself was quite a dangerous man. Even in the fancy-dress kilt he’d worn in the Center, I’d picked up that much. It had been part of his attraction. Like I suspected Chris’s new dangerous aspect was responsible for rekindling my attraction to him. Oh yes, I was weird. Charlie’s fingers closed round the door-handle. They barely seemed to touch it, and yet he turned it noiselessly and pushed open the door. While Jenny waited in the hall, eyes glued to her black box, I switched off the torch and led Charlie silently into the room. Inside, I paused to take stock, to let my eyes adjust to the deeper darkness. Slowly, the tangled heap on the bed resolved itself into Chris, sprawled on his back with one arm flung up behind his head. The quilt had been pushed far enough down that I could see he slept naked. Across his stomach and legs lay a guitar, as if he’d been playing it when he fell asleep. Charlie brushed past me, trailing his finger across the walls. He didn’t touch things with the same deliberation Jim used, even when at his most discreet. Half the time, he looked as if he were smelling the air. He looked through books as if the darkness was no hindrance to his reading of them, rifled through clothes, an open drawer. He felt the material of the curtains between his finger and thumb as though judging the quality. Reluctantly, I moved toward the bed. I felt none of the malevolence of this morning. In fact, gazing at Chris’s broad, naked shoulders and chest, what I chiefly felt was lust. With a strength that left me breathless, I wanted to run my hands across his skin, curl my tongue around that dark nipple and twist it between my teeth. I wanted to press my breasts into his

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and writhe up and down on his whole body until he woke up and made love to me, slowly and thoroughly. With Charlie watching? And Jenny listening in the hall? Perhaps not! He’d asked me out, like a boyfriend and I was desperate to go. And yet I knew Chris wasn’t boyfriend material. Chris was a treat, someone you savored occasionally when you had the opportunity, not someone that nurtured you for ever and received your care in return… Chris made a sound in his throat, shifting restlessly. His legs moved under the quilt, causing the guitar to slide most of the way off his body and come to rest on the bed beside him. Afraid it would fall farther on to the floor, I stepped backward in panic, bumping into Charlie, who steadied me with cold hands. He whispered words in my ear so softly I didn’t even feel his breath. “Watch for anything. I’m going to talk to Jenny.” Vaguely, I felt him back away from me out of the room. But my attention was all on Chris as, with thundering heart, I saw him thrust the quilt further down. He groaned again, sensuously stretching his long, naked body, reaching downwards to what I suddenly saw was his huge, fully erect cock. Oh Jesus Christ, don’t make me watch this! Not that I didn’t want to. Chris was fantasy material for any woman and there was something wickedly sensual in watching him caress his own cock. I’d seen him do it before only briefly in one of our romps before I took over from him. I couldn’t keep my hands off him then. Now, I wanted to run away and hide because I knew I shouldn’t be seeing this. This was unforgivable intrusion, spying, it was just plain wrong and I had to get out of there. As I stepped backward, I wondered suddenly why Charlie had told me to stay and watch. Did he think the sexual arousal might have something to do with the possession? Or was he just getting his rocks off laughing at me stuck in the bedroom of the best lover I’d ever known, secretly watching him masturbate? And that’s what he was doing. In long, slow, strokes, he caressed his cock in his own fist. I caught glimpses of it standing rigidly, fully upright against his strong, beautiful body, and moisture flooded between my legs. My mouth went dry. I had to get away from here before I was tempted to jump him. I took another step back and turned to flee, just before he said my name. “Ellie.” Just one word, low and sexy as hell and as full of want as I was. I whipped back, staring at him. The rhythm of his hand had increased, but with relief I saw that he was still unaware of my presence. Secretly, I was flattered to have him speak my name while jerking off, even asleep. I just hoped Jenny hadn’t heard, though, or I’d never live it down. His hips arched upward, moving in rhythm with his hand ever faster. His breath had quickened to a pant. I knew I had to get out quickly for every reason under the sun, and yet I stood there, paralyzed, watching as he brought himself to orgasm, pulling frantically at the cock I so wanted inside myself. And God help me, it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. With my back to the door and any possible audience, I felt safe in secretly pressing one palm to my breast, but it was the only relief I could get. Not so for Chris, who was growling out the start of his climax, building up to the crescendo of uninhibited shouting I remembered so well. Desperately, I slid my hand inside

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my shirt, pinching one aching nipple and gasping as Chris came and came, shooting his pale seed into the darkness in a wide arc to fall mostly on his chest and the guitar beside it. His hand was quiet at last, although it kept hold of his cock which still stood up rigidly in his fingers. Afraid he’d hear my quickened breathing, although I was trying desperately to smother it, I snatched my hand back out of my clothes and tried to think of something, anything, other than that gorgeous body and the hopeless need in my own. Between my legs was hot, tingling lust. I was so turned on I didn’t think I could walk. Think, Ellie, think! At least sex didn’t lead to his possession. There were no cries from the hallway to indicate that either Jenny’s readings or Charlie’s sixth senses had gone into overdrive. Only my libido. Drawing a deep, careful breath, I prepared, finally, to flee. Only, he moved again, releasing his cock and turning onto his side with the sort of lethargic, sensual movement of the sexually satisfied. He was like a large cat, purring, pleased with himself. His hand slid up his body toward his head, and instead met the guitar. Instinctively, his hand gripped the neck, slid down it once and held it like a talisman. I found myself smiling. On top of my sexual arousal came an unexpected flood of tenderness for him. I liked Chris, I liked his music and I liked how he felt about it… I couldn’t help it. I took two steps nearer the bed, just to see his face better. His lips were smiling, whether at the dream that had accompanied his sexual high or at something else, I had no way of knowing. His skin looked young and smooth in the dim of the bedroom, and his eyes were…open. Open, and staring right at me. For a second, I froze, like a rabbit trapped in headlights. I knew shame, burning shame and guilt, because I had come here in such a way and seen without permission what should have been private. I waited, almost with resignation, for the axe of his anger to fall. Or at least his astonishment to find me here. But the eyes gazing into mine didn’t look astonished at all. Perhaps, I thought with peculiar longing, he thought it was an extension of his sexy dream. After all, it was my name he’d spoken. He sat up. “Come here,” he said softly. Obediently, I moved closer. I don’t know why. I suppose I still felt like a naughty school-girl awaiting my telling-off. It didn’t come. No words came. He just reached for me with his naked arms and swept me into the bed. In one movement I lay under him, his mouth was on mine and his naked body pushed and writhed against my jeans. God he felt good! The skin of his back under my questing palms, the feel of his hot, hard cock pressing against my pussy…it was already so desperately aroused he could probably feel its wetness even through my clothes. I couldn’t help pressing back in wild, instinctive passion, arching into him, surrendering gladly to his kiss. His lips… His lips were curiously heavy on mine, just pressing into my mouth while his tongue swirled and whirled rhythmically like…like I didn’t remember. It didn’t feel like Chris. He’s half-asleep, I thought in panicked hope, he’s not really aware who I am. But I knew in my heart it wasn’t that. I knew in my heart what was happening. Gasping, I wrenched my mouth free. “Chris?” I whispered. “Please, Chris—” “It’s me who’ll fuck you,” he whispered back. “And I like it rough. You’ll like it too.” “No! No, I don’t want this!”

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“You’re wetter than a rainy weekend, slut, so don’t lie. Just spread your legs like a good girl. Enjoy.” Just for a moment, I was actually tempted. It was Chris’s body and I was so very, very randy for it, randy enough to overcome my doubts and fears for however long it took to achieve completion. Only it wouldn’t have been completion. It wasn’t Chris. It came as another shock to realize I only wanted Chris, not just a Man. Although this man, in Chris’s body, even with the wrong kind of bad language, was tempting. Just not tempting enough. How odd, I thought, quite pleased with my own moral stance for once. Focusing, I hurled him from me. Or at least I tried to. My energy bounced harmlessly off him. Now the real fear began. It had been a long time since I had discovered anyone or anything stronger than me, and the feeling of helplessness was profound and terrifying. From instinct, I began to fight physically, clawing at his skin, bucking at the heavy body that pinned me to the bed. For one dreadful moment, I really believed I might be raped by the malevolence in Chris’s body and was more appalled by how that would affect Chris than I was by the violence of the act itself. Just as the true awfulness of that hit me–how could we ever recover from something like that?–the tall figure of Charlie loomed over Chris’s shoulder and plucked him off me as if he were a puppy, throwing him back down on the other side of the bed. Chris still clutched the damned guitar in one hand. I had a glimpse of glittering eyes, a murderous rage that had nothing to do with Chris. Charlie grabbed my arm and pulled me up. I fled. “Where’s Jenny?” I gasped in the hall. “I sent her out,” Charlie said grimly. “That was our spirit. It’s strong and it’s what Jenny calls a bastard.” “But we can’t leave it there with him!” “It won’t hurt him, Ellie, it needs him.” “Well it bloody can’t have him! We have to do something!” “Research,” said Jenny, emerging from the darkness at the foot of the stairs to grab my other arm. “Come on, time for a conference, not action. It’s too strong.” ***** “I hate this thing,” I said intensely. It wasn’t the first time I’d said it, but no one answered until we were safe back in Jenny’s cottage. Clutching the computer print-out of the evening’s readings, she wandered back into the kitchen and touched my shoulder in a quick gesture of comfort. “I know,” she said. “We all do. It would be violation of anyone, but we all like Chris.” She dropped the print-out in front of me and walked over to the kettle. “It’s almost worse that he doesn’t know anything about it. Even though it would eat him up if he did.” “I know,” Jenny said again.

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Restlessly, while she clattered cups and coffee together, I grasped the print-out and scanned down the readings. There it was, the huge energy surge at 2.20am, while I was in the room with him. A little farther back, I saw there had been another, a little less strong, but very definite, about an hour before. “Weird,” Jenny agreed, laying a large steaming mug down in front of me. “The earlier reading was probably when he went to bed. Perhaps the spirit lives in the bed itself.” “So why the gap?” She shrugged and slid into the chair next to me. “Maybe it goes to sleep when Chris does.” I frowned. “I suppose that makes sense…I could swear it was Chris himself in the bed when we first went in.” And all during that incredibly sexy interlude when he’d called my name. “It was when he woke, when he grabbed me, I knew it wasn’t him.” “That’s when our readings went haywire,” Jenny said. So, it was Chris, not the malevolence, who dreamed so sexily of me. Although I knew it in my heart, the relief was still painfully intense. “So awake and in bed is when it gets him,” I mused. “Would Charlie not have sensed something from the bed, though? He definitely touched it.” Jenny sighed. “Even Charlie’s not infallible.” “He’s hell of a strong man, though, Jenny! He picked Chris off me as easily as I lift up this cup!” Jenny mumbled something about psychic energy. My mind had already moved on. “The point is, what can we do? Take the bed away?” “Keeping Chris away from it would be a start.” “Agreed. I suggest we all go round there tomorrow morning, and try and draw it out. We can surely deal with it if it can’t use Chris’s own energy? You, me, Jim and Charlie?” “Charlie doesn’t do mornings,” she reminded me. I stared. “Couldn’t he make an exception?” “We shouldn’t need him anyway. Without Chris, it’s so weak it doesn’t even give off readings.”

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Chapter Six The energy scanner showed another surge about eight o’clock the following morning, but it was brief, barely a minute. The sort of time there might be between Chris waking in the morning and getting out of bed. So he was free of it for the day. Feeling altogether lighter, I piled into Jenny’s car and we drove into town, picked up Jim from his office in the semi-built Center, and sped off to Queen’s Park, while Jenny filled Jim in on last night’s occurrences. I barely listened. I was on edge, my stomach churning, with unease for Chris I could only suppose. Certainly, I was desperate to see him, make sure he was OK. Tonight, I vowed grimly, leaping out of the car outside his house, tonight, one way or another, he would sleep in peace, either in his own house or in Jenny’s. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t leave him with that Thing for another night. Bounding up the steps, I reached out to bang on the door, just as it opened and Chris strode out, guitar-case swinging from his back. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, catching me as I fell against him. For a moment it felt so intensely good, that I relaxed into his arms, hugging him as relief washed over me in waves. At least I thought it was relief. There was other stuff in there too but I was in no state to analyze it. He held me comfortingly tight, his cheek against my head as he rocked me gently from side to side. “Hey, what’s happened?” he murmured. His breath stirred my hair, whispered against my ear, making me shiver. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing.” I swallowed and with some reluctance, pulled myself out of his embrace. “Nothing now. I was worried about you.” “Ah. I see you brought the cavalry.” His voice was neutral, yet I could have sworn he wasn’t quite pleased. “They’re worried too.” “Well, here I am, hale and hearty and possessed by nothing stronger than a mild desire to play music.” “Morning, Chris,” said Jenny. “Can we come in?” There was a faintly pregnant pause, but in the end civil hospitality won out. “Course you can. I’ll put the kettle on.” “You don’t need to do that,” Jenny told him as we all trooped into the house after him. “We have to talk to you.” “About your bed,” I added. Chris threw himself into one of the slightly battered chairs, and regarded me quizzically. “Why, Elleonora!” I never blush at silly jokes. I had no excuse for doing so now. I retorted, “You wish!” and stumbled hastily into explanation. “Chris, we got more readings last night, and…well, the upshot is we’re pretty sure where the spirit is—.” “Did you sleep well last night?” Jenny interrupted. “Like the proverbial log. Why?” “Do you sleep more heavily since you came to live here?” Jim asked.

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“No, I don’t think so. What is it? Are you imagining this spirit of yours possess me when I’m asleep?” “The opposite,” I said ruefully. “We think it’s in your bed in its passive form, and from there, passes into you. When you sleep, it sleeps, when you’re awake and on the bed, it’s powerful. That’s when we’re getting these massive readings. When you’re going to bed, or waking up, or maybe sitting on the bed to get changed. Or something.” His eyes moved from one of us to the other. He sighed. “It sounds ridiculous. I can’t believe I have these conversations with you guys. But hell, there are more things in heaven and earth, so I’ll bite. You want my bed?” “We want to…er…talk to your bed,” I explained with a quick smile that I was rather pathetically pleased to have returned, even if only as a flicker of the eyes. “Can I watch?” “If you don’t touch it,” I said warily. “And keep stum,” said Jenny. Chris stuck his tongue out at her. ***** An hour later, we still sat there in Chris’s bed room, Jenny, Jim and I, in a little semicircle on the floor, holding hands at the foot of the bed. Jim felt nothing by touching it, none of us felt a damn thing. While Chris sat in the corner, knees drawn up so that he could rest his elbow on them and watch us in comfort, we encouraged, prayed, pleaded with, exhorted and threatened the spirit to come out of Chris’s bed. I have to say I felt a bit of a tit. Especially with Chris looking on. Especially with the bed staying only and completely nothing but a bed. “Sod this for a game of soldiers,” Jenny said irritably, getting to her feet. We had done something similar before, in the south. Jenny had been strong enough then to direct a poltergeist to move on. The rest of us had merely been back-up. But it wasn’t strength we lacked today, I was sure of that. It was means. Or perhaps the spirit itself. Jenny said, “Chris, touch the bed.” “No!” I exclaimed, leaping up after her. “No, I’m serious. We have to see what happens. Because I think we’re barking up the wrong tree. Chris, touch the bed.” Barking up the wrong tree or not, while Chris obligingly got to his feet and walked slowly toward the bed, Jenny took my hand and Jim’s. If the malevolence emerged, it would need all our strength to deal with it. At the very least. Chris reached out and grasped the headboard. He ran his fingers down the wood to the pillow, and across the quilt. He shoved his hand under the quilt and wiggled it comically. He even sat on the bed, quite still with his eyes shut. Nothing happened. “Game’s a bogey,” said Jim regretfully. “Good idea, Jenny, but it’s back to the drawing board.” “So you don’t want my bed?” Chris asked innocently. “Stuff your bed,” Jenny said rudely, and he laughed. Something twisted at the base of my stomach. It took me quite a few moments to recognize it as jealousy. Chris and Jenny came from the same city, shared an understanding

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from which I was forever excluded. On top of which, they had struck up a rapport and I was appalled to discover I was petty enough to dislike that. I liked my friends to get on together. What the hell is the matter with me? Ashamed of myself, I got lost in my own dismal confusion coming down stairs, so it took me by surprise when Chris suddenly turned and threw his arm around my shoulder. “Cheer up, you’ll save me from the bed-monster yet. In the mean-time, you get to make me coffee.” “Bugger off,” I said grumpily, although I didn’t push his arm away, and I did walk across the hall with him to the kitchen, while Jim and Jenny wandered back into the living room. “So where were you off to when we forced you back inside?” I asked lightly as I ran some more water into the kettle. “Hope it wasn’t some important appointment.” “Nah. I was just going busking for a bit.” He flashed me a quick grin. “Want to come?” “Now?” I asked, startled for some reason. “Why not? You’re on holiday aren’t you, and these guys aren’t. Come on, it’ll be fun. I’ll show you my city and sing all my embarrassing songs.” “Like the Welly Boot Song?” “I’ll take it as a request.” ***** He did too. Billy Connolly’s first hit, it’s a sort of eulogy to Wellington boots, and Chris sang it everywhere we stopped. And he was right, it was fun. Chris drove us in his old mini, pointing out landmarks to me as we went, from the Queen’s Park to the Gorbals mosque and the Citizen’s Theatre, then across the River Clyde and around George Square, guarded by its impressive Victorian worthies in marble. Abandoning rather than parking the car, he dragged me into the Municipal Building – the City Chambers he called it – to look at the unexpectedly splendid Marble Staircase, and then dragged me back out laughing when someone from Security finally challenged us. He sang the Wellie Boot Song and several other amusing ditties in George Square and I dutifully collected the money for him. I became used to hearing the phrase, “’Ere yar, hen,” though I had absolutely no idea what it meant until Chris translated. Then it made perfect sense. There you are, hen. Hen being Glasgow’s chief mode of address to females. After a bit, Chris packed up his guitar and said we were off to Glasgow Green. On the way, he bought me a bridie – a sort of stodgy, meaty pie with onions, surprisingly good – and we ate them walking along the road. Glasgow Green turned out to be a large park in the center of the city, where once the local women had met to do their washing in the Clyde and spread it out to dry. Making the most of a blink of sunshine, we sat on the grass, and Chris put his head in my lap and told me more funny stories about his life. I told him some of mine too.

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And I laughed. Almost surprised I realized I was happy. Gazing down at the handsome face in my lap, his eyes temporarily closed in contentment, I felt a rush of tenderness toward him. The smile died slowly on my lips. I thought, “I like Chris.” His eyes opened, catching the expression in mine. His hand reached up, touching my cheek. One hard-tipped finger brushed against my lips as light as a butterfly’s wings. My breath caught. And then he laughed quickly and got to his feet. “Come on. I’ll sing at the People’s Palace till they throw me out. Should make us enough for a cup of tea!” He took my hand as we walked through the park, swinging it up and down occasionally as if we were children. Perhaps it was that which quieted any awkwardness I should have felt. It was all just part of the fun. The People’s Palace is a museum, a big stone building with what looks like a conservatory stuck on the end. We wandered round the exhibits for a while, and I learned a lot about Glasgow’s history. Only then, Chris took out his guitar and sang to a bunch of kids who were visiting and who were clearly more intrigued by Chris than anything else in the museum. They loved the Wellie Boot Song. The security staff didn’t, however, and we were hustled out with Chris still singing at the top of his melodious voice: “If you didnae have your feet in your wellies!” Fittingly enough, we ran out of the museum into a shower of rain, where wellie boots would have been a boon. Instead, hand-in-hand once more, we sloshed and splashed through the park getting wet, and went to dry off over a cup of coffee in an old-lady type tea room. The coffee was good and the cakes excellent. It was tempting, finding Chris’s gaze on me as I consumed the pastry, to make play with my tongue. However, I only had to pause and his eyes moved at once up to mine, smiling. I wiggled my eyebrows and we both laughed. Since the rain had gone off, we walked some more around the city. Chris played under the statue of the great missionary explorer David Livingstone and made another few pounds. Following his lead, I learned to banter with the punters and was delighted to earn us a few more pounds. Then we strolled across to the austerely beautiful cathedral. Dwarfed as it was by the massive Victorian hospital next to it, I was pleasantly surprised by its size and gothic beauty. “Seen it,” Chris said carelessly when I suggested going inside. “You go, if you like. I’ll make us some more dosh.” “Well, don’t sing anything too profane,” I warned. “As if.” And in fact, when I finally re-emerged, I don’t think he’d been singing anything at all. He sat on the step with his back to me. Slightly puzzled, I went and sat beside him. His face was quite still and serious, his blue eyes so distant as to be in another country. For some reason, I felt another pang of tenderness, a tug of compassion. I nudged him gently, and at once his eyes came down to me, smiling again. I said, “Impressive place.” “Yes.” He hesitated, then added with unusual difficulty, “My mother liked it. Loved it, even.” I touched his hand. “Is that why you won’t come in?”

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He didn’t trouble to deny it, only nodded. For a second his hand lay as though dead in mine, then his fingers turned, grasping mine warmly. He said, “She died while I was in Italy. I didn’t even know she was ill.” Guilt. The eternal guilt that got muddled up in grief. There were platitudes I could have uttered, about how he could have done nothing, how not knowing excused him. But the words stuck in my mouth. He should have known. There was nothing I could say that would make him forgive himself for that. Instead, I got to my feet, drawing him with me. “Come on,” I said. When I began to tug him up towards the cathedral entrance, he resisted at first. From shock, I think. But if he hadn’t wanted to go, there was no way short of psychic manipulation, that I could have made him. After the first couple of seconds, he gave in, at first dragging his feet, and then just walking beside me into the sacred silence of the church. He didn’t sit down, he didn’t pray that I saw, just walked and looked, gazed up at the high, vaulted ceiling and the stark beauty of the architecture. But as we left, his face was wet. I put my arms round him and he hugged me back, burying his face in my hair. Emotion caught at my throat, made my whole face ache. I knew the loss of a parent, I knew him and I hurt with him. But being Chris he didn’t let the tender moment last. Releasing me, he strode ahead and turned back to face me, deliberately cheerful once more, still walking backward. “Wellie Boots in Buchanan Street, and then the pub!” Two hours later, after only one drink in the pub, Chris led me into a very nice restaurant indeed. Mouth-watering smells assailed my nostrils as soon as he opened the door, but I could see at once it was not the sort of place I associated with Chris. A bridie in the street was more “him” than waiters in evening clothes and diners in ties. And yet the waiter who greeted us grinned as if he knew Chris, called him Mr. Swan, and ushered us to a quiet table at the back. Not a word was said about dress codes, his guitar and his old leather jacket were taken away with the same reverence accorded the silk wrap of the lady at the next table. “Wow,” I said, looking about me. “Nice place. I feel compelled to ask…er…do you come here often?” His lips twisted faintly in response. “Once or twice. Good grub.” “Then you do know your earnings today are unlikely to pay for this?” “I’ll put it on my account,” he said grandly. I laughed as I was meant to, then, while the smile died, I said a little awkwardly, “Chris, we don’t have to come to places like this. We can have as much fun in a MacDonald’s.” “I can’t. I hate MacDonald’s. What’s the matter, don’t you like it here?” In fact I did like it, very much. What made me uncomfortable was the idea of Chris trying to impress me in this way. I didn’t want him to spend money I knew he could ill afford. I said, “Of course I do, but Chris…my treat?” He pretended to be shocked. “Certainly not! I asked you out, remember?” I opened my mouth to protest some more, and he pushed a piece of bread into it. “Relax, Ellie,” he advised as I spluttered. “I am not as skint as I used to be.” “How come?” I asked suspiciously, when I could speak at all. The bread was good, but I had grown used to feeding myself.

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Chris shrugged. “Inherited it.” “From your Dad?” “That’s him. Contrary to the appearance of the house, he wasn’t a poor man, although I suspect much of it was ill-gotten gains.” “Oh dear. Won’t you lose it in the end, then?” “Apparently not. They never pinned anything on him, and are very unlikely to now. I have to scare off the occasional villainous visitor from my father’s past, but that’s as bad as it’s got. I suspect word is out that Swan junior is straight and no fun, so they leave me alone.” “And are you?” “Straight? Or no fun?” Since the waiter came to take our order at that point, I was side-tracked, but mulling his words over gave me another idea. “Chris, among those villainous visitors, were there any…occult dabblers?” Almost to my surprise, he didn’t laugh. He said, “I don’t think so, but I didn’t really enquire. These people would have no reason to involve me.” “Then none of them left you anything when they called?” “None of them even tried. One tried to leave me his card, but I made him take it away again. Ellie, just for tonight, stop worrying about it.” And that was frighteningly easy to do. Relaxing once more into Chris’s beguiling company, I forgot about everything else. It was just so much fun. The conversation alternated between banter and discussion about everything and anything. There was no, “Tell me about this,” or “So, Ellie, what is your view of that?” It all just flowed naturally and amusingly. I already knew Chris to be intelligent and perceptive as well as funny, but now I began to realize how well-read and knowledgeable he was too. And yet he didn’t have a dull bone in his body. With Chris, I thought suddenly as the waiter laid down our coffees, with Chris, you could never be bored. There was always something new to discover, something amusing or entertaining, something always fun to be around. Looking up suddenly as the waiter departed, he caught me staring and toasted me in his coffee cup. Over the top, his eyes danced as only his could, and my stomach gave that funny little lurch again. Chris took a sip and sat back in his seat. “So what do you say, Ellie?” “About what?” I asked with a quizzical smile. “About going out with me.” The blood rushed up from my feet into my face. “Chris, don’t.” “Don’t what?” “Don’t spoil today, Chris, it’s been such fun.” “Then how can asking you to do it all again spoil it?” “Because you’re living in a dream world about me, Chris. We can’t go out together. Or stay in together. You deserve somebody better than me, and I need somebody more…stable than you.” His eye lashes swept down briefly as I spoke, hiding whatever emotion lay there. When they lifted, he looked merely skeptical. “So what was Pisa all about then?” “Sex,” I said bluntly.

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His lips tugged upwards. “All right, want to come home with me?” I did. I wanted to feel that big, hard body skin to skin with mine. I badly wanted another wild uncomplicated night of sex with him. And yet, knowing him now, it could never be like that again. I said lamely, “Can’t we just be friends?” He shook his head. “No. Not just friends. That was never possible.” “I’m sorry, Chris—” “Don’t be sorry, Ellie. Think again.” “Chris, you aren’t listening to me! The last thing I need in my life, especially after Geoffrey, is someone like you!” “Someone like me,” he repeated. For some reason I felt uncomfortable. “Does it ever strike you, Ellie, that maybe neither Geoffrey nor I deserve the labels you’ve given us?” “What labels?” I demanded aggressively, stung by this male solidarity he was displaying. “Well mine is sex, I believe.” Since he didn’t lower his voice, the woman at the next table stared at him. Chris smiled at her, the brilliant, dazzling smile he used in his act, and she blushed and looked hastily away. However, I noticed her shooting him sidelong glances for the rest of the evening. “What was Geoffrey’s? Security?” I flushed too. “Something like that,” I muttered. “So, sex for the bad boys like me. Marriage for the good boys like Geoffrey. Do you know how awful that would sound if I said it about girls?” “It’s not like that!” I protested. “No it’s not,” he agreed. “Geoffrey turned out not to be such a good boy, so who knows? Maybe I’m not so very bad.” “I never said you were bad, Chris, just bad for me!” “And Geoffrey was good for you?” “For a little,” I said bravely, “yes.” “Bollocks,” said Chris. “He built up your hopes, lied to you, let you down and zapped your self-confidence in just about every way imaginable. And you know what, Ellie? You deserved it.” The blood drained out of my face so fast I felt dizzy. Just for a second, I thought I would be sick. Because Chris thought so little of me. Swallowing the sudden desire to cry, I laughed instead. “It’s true. I’m a prize bitch.” Reaching out, he caught my hand in his rough fingers and gripped. “No you’re not, Ellie. You’re muddled and looking too hard in the wrong places. If Geoffrey had been a saint, you’d still never have been happy, because the truth is you didn’t love him.” The bloody tears threatened again. “No I didn’t,” I whispered, dashing the back of my hand hastily across my eyes. “I didn’t love him. I’ve never loved anyone in my life.” He turned my hand over, lifted it to his lips and quickly kissed the palm. His mouth burned my skin, seared it and I thought the tears would come again. I wanted to jump him. I wanted to run away. “Not in that way, maybe, not yet, but you could give me a chance there. I’ll bet you another meal that I can make you love me.”

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A laugh choked out of me. “Chris—” “Security doesn’t have to be in houses and kids and steady jobs, Ellie. It can be in liking and trust.” “Love,” I whispered. “Love,” he agreed. “But I’m a Scotsman and we don’t talk about love. My grandfather told me that. Drink up! You get refills here.”

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Chapter Seven Bewildered and churned up, I sat beside Chris as he drove out of town. Though I never let myself look, I was very aware of his every movement beside me, his strong hand gripping the gear stick, effortlessly guiding, or throwing, his old mini around corners and through the city traffic into quieter routes. Suddenly he was both warmly familiar and wonderfully new to me. That Chris could be serious was something of a revelation, although it shouldn’t have been. That he appeared to be serious about me was both terrifying and exciting. He had been right in the restaurant, about a lot of things. Not least that I had stuck a label on him and believed it. I did that a lot with men, but right now it seemed incredibly wrong, not to say short-sighted, to have made Chris a mere sex object. Mere sex object? “I like being a sex object!” I said aloud suddenly. “No you don’t. You like sex, that’s not the same thing.” I frowned out the window at the passing tenements. Rain was drizzling down the windscreen again. “What do you mean?” He shrugged, and put his foot down to get through traffic lights that were about to change. He made it, just. “I mean, you were Geoffrey’s sex object. When he realized he wanted someone to organize dinner parties for the boss and charm the vicar, he swapped the sex for…er…security.” Seeing parallels as I was meant to, I turned to stare at his profile. I said, “I didn’t dump you for Geoffrey. There was never any question of you and I seeing each other again. I met Geoffrey after Pisa.” Chris made a right turn, his bare arm just brushing against mine, making me shiver. He said, “You made it clear you wanted it that way. Believe me, it was harder than you might think just to let you walk away, not to look for you again. I thought about you a lot, Ellie.” Oh God, why does he keep making me cry? I said shakily, “Well, it was good sex.” “The best,” he agreed, casting me a glance that suddenly seared right to my core. “At least for me.” “And me,” I whispered. I couldn’t look at him. I stared at my hands until I realized he had stopped the car, and when I looked up, I saw we had parked outside his house in St. Mary’s Square. Reality hit me with the all the force of a cannon ball. “Chris, no!” I exclaimed, in obvious agitation. “No what? Do you think I’m asking you in ‘for coffee’?” “I never thought you were crass enough for that euphemism, but—.” “I was going to say wine, in fact, with sex an optional extra.” In spite of everything, laughter rose up again. “Chris, I’m serious! Please don’t stay here tonight. Come back with me to Jenny’s.” Chris switched off the engine. “I’m touched by your concern—.” “No you’re not. You think we’re a bunch of cranks because we couldn’t find anything in your bed.” He grinned. “You can come up and look some more, if you like.” “Chris, whatever is in there is strong. Stronger than me, much stronger.”

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For the first time since we’d stopped, a shadow of concern crossed his face. “You had no trouble dealing with it last time. Ellie—.” “Come with me, Chris.” A rueful smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Tempting as you are in your vehemence, I won’t.” Changing tack, I nudged him with my shoulder. “Jenny’s got wine. In fact, Charlie’s got amazing wines.” His eyes responded, but in a distracted sort of a way. “It’s not the booze, Ellie. It’s…it’s roots. The same roots you’re looking for in you’re interminable quest for Geoffreys. But I’ve found mine. Here in this house. I like it, Ellie. I want to live here, bring up kids here if I ever grow up enough myself. And I won’t be frightened off.” I swallowed. “It’s not you who’s frightened, Chris, it’s me.” He reached out and touched my face. I thought I saw a glimmer of gratitude that quickly vanished. “Don’t be. Not for me. Listen, come in with me. We’ll have a drink, listen to some music, and then I’ll call a taxi to take you back to Jenny’s. We won’t go near the bedroom.” I had a sudden unwarranted vision of us writhing on the rug before the fireplace, naked limbs entwined. Squashing it ruthlessly, I found myself saying, “All right. Just for half an hour.” ***** It was no good. The lightness had gone. Oh, he was still fun, beguiling company, he still had that sexy edge that made him exciting to be around. But he had moved everything up a level. I knew that if we ever slept together again, it would not just be crazy sex, it would be…making love. And that idea intoxicated me, terrified me, made me doubly aware of his every gesture, every word, every nuance of his smile, every movement of his lean, gorgeous body. He came toward me now, carrying two glasses of ruby red wine, his hips swinging subtly inside his jeans. I tried not to look at his crotch, tried not to wonder too much about my effect on his anatomy. Our fingers touched as I took the glass from him. Then he left me to put some music on and that was a surprise too. No rock or folk this time but Spanish classical guitar. I said curiously, “Can you play this?” “Not like that,” he said regretfully. “But I’m getting better.” He sat down beside me, not touching. I took a sip of wine. “I wrote some music, actually, a sort of mixture of this and Celtic folk stuff. It works pretty well. I’ll let you hear it some time.” “I’d like to,” I said. I realized there were so many things I wanted to discover about him. I realized his blue, dancing eyes had depths and layers. That was what made them so enticing. I realized his lips had textures I wanted to touch and taste. My breath caught. Chris took my wine glass from my hand. I was trembling. Deliberately, he laid it on the floor beside his own and reached for me. His kiss was light, gentle on my mouth. I tasted the wine on his lips, on the tip of his tongue, felt the warm, dry texture of his lips as they moved on mine. The butterflies in my

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stomach danced so wildly that they made me gasp and reach deeper into Chris’s mouth. It felt like coming home would have, if I’d ever had a home. It felt wonderful and right. Happiness surged through me from his mouth, spreading across my body in a haze of pleasure and desire and some powerful, ever-growing emotion. It was Chris who broke it, his fingers touching my wet face with wonder and anxiety. “Ellie, Ellie, what is it?” he whispered. “Nothing,” I gasped. “Nothing. Chris, please—.” I put my arms around him, drawing him closer, and his lips moved across my cheeks, kissing the silly tears with a touch as light as a butterfly wing. Until I caught his head in my hands and reached up with my mouth for his. There was a moment of anticipation, a pause, as if he liked my impatience, and then his mouth came down on mine and ravaged. I clung to him, twisting my tongue around his, drawing it farther into my mouth where it continued its plunder, stroking and caressing everywhere. His arms were around me, under my shirt, his palms on my naked skin, sliding around to find and caress my breasts. I moaned, pulling at his t-shirt, burrowing inside to bring him closer. He pulled my half-open shirt down my shoulders, pushed away my bra. Then, leaving my mouth, he turned his attention to my breasts, holding one in his hand, pushing and caressing the nipple with his rough, sensitive fingers, over and over, while his mouth took the other nipple, sucking, rolling it between his lips, flickering his tongue across it until I was so wild with desire I could barely breathe. His rigid cock pressed into my thigh, hard and hot, rubbing against me. I pushed my hand down there to feel its huge outline through the denim, to find his zip with fingers grown clumsy and shaking with need. Chris traced a line of fire across my chest to my other breast, kissing the hard peak, and then he returned to my mouth. “Ellie,” he whispered. “Let’s go to bed. Let’s make love.” “Love me,” I murmured, drunk on the words, on the idea. “Love me, love me…” He stood up, drawing me with him, leading me across the room and out into the hall. His arm around me, his hand still on my naked breast, caressing, he kissed me while we walked up stairs. I had my hand down the front of his jeans, grasping the huge, ribbed hardness of his cock, totally lost in him. We almost fell in his bedroom door. Neither of us remembered our resolve not to come here tonight. He reached automatically for the light switch, but I grabbed his hand, bringing it back to me, placing it on my hip where it slid with enthusiasm down over my bottom and pressed me in close to his cock. I writhed in his hold, trying to fit his hardness between my thighs, desperate to feel it against my hot, wet pussy. I kissed his throat, his mouth till he lifted me off the ground and carried me to the bed. My bra, my jeans and panties were thrown on the floor. His own clothes quickly followed and I pulled him down on top of me. The weight of him full on my body, his cock nestling and throbbing between my legs, was delicious. He stretched over my head, reaching for the bed-side lamp, flicking it on, grabbing something from the drawer beneath. “I want to see you,” he whispered. He was doing that trick with the condom again, his hand thrust down between our bodies, his knuckles brushing in places that drove me even wilder. “I want everything. I want to watch you when you come. Every time you come.”

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“Make me come,” I whispered, my fingers on his face, stroking, learning. For a moment, he lay quite still on me, then, adjusting his position he held his cock poised at the slick, hot entrance of my pussy. I moaned at the feel of that, in both delight and desperation. Deliberately, he pushed inside me, and I came, the waves of joy washing over me while he gazed in wonder, his eyes clouded dark with passion. I heard him growl, deep in his throat. Reaching for his mouth, I arched into him, reveling in the extra sensation, and he withdrew almost completely before thrusting back in, over and over. Remembering, he slid his hands under my hips, lifting me to change the angle of his penetration, and pushed his cock so far into me that he reached that special place. Again I fell over the edge into wild, helpless orgasm, but this time he didn’t just watch, he pounded into me, over and over, keeping me there while he rose quickly to his own climax. He shouted with the same abandon I remembered from Pisa. Loving it, feeding on it, I did my very best to make it last for him, sliding up and down his shaft, squeezing it, gyrating on it in the way I knew he liked best, breathing my own ecstasy into his ear, biting at the lobe. At last, his mouth came back to mine kissing with deep, uninhibited passion that I returned in full. “Jesus, Ellie,” he whispered against my lips. “A man could die of this.” “So could a woman.” “But not yet, not yet.” Ravenously, as if he couldn’t get enough of me, his mouth fell on my neck, sucking and biting while I twisted under him, reveling in all the new thrills along with the after-pangs. “Well, am I still your best time?” he demanded. For some reason I wanted to laugh. “Christ, I think you must be every girl’s best time!” “I bet you say that to all the boys.” “No,” I said, quite truthfully, as he began to kiss his way across my breasts, teasing my puckered nipples to the point of torture with his tongue. “Have there been many? Between Pisa and now?” “No.” I cried out in protest as he slid out of me, but since it was only to enable him to reach lower with his mouth, gliding down from my breast to my stomach, I gave in gracefully. With difficulty, since his tongue was in my navel and his rough, tender fingers exploring my inner thigh, I added breathlessly, “There were a couple of one night stands, and then Geoffrey. They didn’t make me feel the way you did.” I gasped as his clever fingers found my clitoris, the hard pads of his finger-tips gliding over it in a tide of sensation that made me arch into him. I said provokingly, “Why? Are you jealous?” “I don’t know. I want to kill them. I want to be them.” I swallowed, feeling the sweat of tension trickle down my neck as his fingers worked their magic. I said shakily, “I can’t think why. Chris—.” “What?” Lifting his head, he stared straight into my eyes. He thrust one finger hard into my pussy, and I came, clamping around him, crying aloud at the intensity. He knew how to keep me there, bucking and writhing on his hand, totally awash in pleasure as wave after wave broke over me.

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When I could move again, I knelt, holding on to him because of the dizziness, and kissed him. Since he was kneeling too, I could feel the rigidity of his cock against my stomach. It was more than time to deal with that again. While he knelt, I kissed his shoulders, smoothing my hands across the wide, hard sweep of his chest. I rubbed my cheek against his nipples, biting one while my hand found closed around the hot, ribbed shaft of his cock. He had already disposed of the condom, so I held the velvety skin itself, working it slowly up and down while I teased my way down towards it with my mouth. I knew I was good at this. It was generally fairly obvious. As I swallowed him, he gave a long, deep groan, catching my hair in his hands, winding it around his fingers, tighter and tighter. I slid my fingers around his balls, felt them tightening and gave a wicked little laugh around his cock. The vibration sent him over the edge, shooting jet after jet of hot seed into my mouth, down my throat, spilling onto both of us. “Whore in the bedroom,” I said huskily, when I finally released him. “I never got the others right, but I could always make that one.” “Well, you were pretty hot in the Penguino bathroom too,” Chris grinned lazily, folding me into his arms again. “And the hall of my flat as I recall.” “And the kitchen,” I remembered, giggling. “The leg fell off the table next day. Everyone knew why. And the great thing is, there are plenty of rooms in this house to try.” I said, “I kind of like it right here.” “Me too,” he said, and kissed me. After a long moment, he said, “Shall I bring up the wine?” “It seems in line with the general decadence around here,” I agreed. He leapt out of bed with a ripple of muscles that set my pulses off again. With him, it seemed I was never sated. At the door he turned and caught my smoldering gaze. “Don’t go away,” he warned. “I’ve a lot more to do to that delectable body of yours.” “Such as?” I challenged. “Well – I badly want to fuck you again. From behind, and then sideways, or…I can do oral sex too.” I knew he could. The memory made me wriggle. I said breathlessly, “Do I get to choose?” “Not unless you can think of a way to do them all at once.” “I’m prepared to be proved wrong trying.” Chris laughed and went out. I watched his naked bottom sway across the hall toward the stairs and sighed with pure happiness. Not just the sated contentment of last time. This was deeper. The emotion threatened to swamp me, had already made me cry before we even got up here. Something had changed in my life, irrevocably and for ever. Because I had finally fallen in love. With the craziest lover of my crazy life. ***** When Chris came back, with some cheese and biscuits and apples as well as the wine, I had already been for a quick pee and a freshen up, and I had arranged myself exotically against his pillows. It was delightfully decadent, sprawling naked together in the bed,

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drinking wine and nibbling, exchanging light-hearted banter over the inevitable biscuit crumbs in the bed. Like Pisa, it was easy. But behind that ease and companionship and the exciting promise of even more sex, lurked a wild happiness, a new wonder. I lay on my stomach, watching him as he reached for the guitar beside the bed, and began to pluck the strings. I smiled, for I recognized one of the Spanish tunes from his CD. It didn’t last though. As though determined not to be serious, he struck a discord. And some chord in me struck too. A memory. Of Chris, fully clothed, sprawled on this bed with the guitar, strumming that exact chord. I opened my mouth to tell him this coincidence, but he wasn’t looking at me. His head was bent over the guitar as if it was suddenly more difficult to play, and it was just as well, because the rest of the memory returned to close my mouth. He had played that chord just before he turned…possessed. Memory flooded me now. Chris lying in the dark, groaning my name while satisfying his own lusty body. And then turning over in his sleep onto this guitar. It had still been in his hand when he attacked me. Not the bed, you complete blundering nincompoop! The guitar! Surely one of us should have noticed it, remembered it as significant in both events? I suppose it hadn’t registered that this guitar wasn’t the same one he took busking, not the one Jim touched and tested downstairs. But this one, this guitar was the conduit for whatever possessed Chris. And it was taking him now. My heart thundered with fear for him. Just for an instant, I felt completely helpless in the face of this thing’s power. Then it struck me that though I couldn’t move Chris when he was in its power, I could still move the conduit. My power was always greater with inanimate objects than with those that possessed any life or will-power. But I knew I had to do it quickly, before Chris moved, before it knew that I knew. I focused, gathering my energy as swiftly as I dared, and aimed it. Chris’s head snapped up, his eyes dark and cold and so not Chris. The guitar shot out of his hands. I had another moment of blind panic as I wondered where in hell to put it now that I had achieved my main objective. It began to fall onto the bed, still well within his grasp, so I snatched it away, hurled it across the room and laid it to rest none too gently against the far wall. When I turned back to Chris, he was staring at me. Behind the amusement in his blue eyes was unease and controlled anger. But at least it was Chris. “Ellie? Did you—?” “Yes.” I nodded, pushing my hair out of my face with fingers that shook. Seeing it, he at once took me in his arms and I clutched him. “Chris—Chris where did you get that guitar?” I spoke into his shoulder, but having said the words, I lifted my head for his answer. “Right here,” he said, bewildered. “It came with the house? You just found it here?” “Well, not just. My father left it to me formally in his will. I found it here when I first arrived.” “Your father!” His smile was a little twisted. “I was surprised too. It’s one thing to be left the residue of a parent’s estate. It’s more…personal to be left something he must have known would have

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been more valuable to me than to anyone else. I thought he knew nothing about me, had never bothered to find out. Even the maintenance checks were paid through a lawyer. But the guitar, he gave to me.” Avoiding my eyes he gave a slightly embarrassed laugh. “No one’s all bad, are they?” I rather thought they were, but my heart ached at the thought of taking this away from him. I said carefully, “There’s something in that guitar, Chris. Whatever it is that possesses you, comes from the guitar. I know your father played about with some very dodgy stuff…something’s back-fired here…” Chris got out of bed in one quick, fluid movement. “Yesterday, earlier today, you thought it was the bed. Now it’s the guitar. Tomorrow, what? My shoes? My hair?” “Chris, you accept something’s going on here!” I pleaded. “You have to let us find out what!” He cast his eyes to the ceiling, then sat back down on the bed. “I know. I know. But I don’t want it to be the guitar.” I reached for him, coming right out of the quilt to press my body to him. This new closeness was too precious, too frail to let escape me… I murmured, “I know you don’t. But if we can get rid of the malevolence, it will still be your guitar.” ***** “Did your father not have any books?” I asked, suddenly recognizing the oddity. Back in bed, passionless but still close, we had talked a lot about the possibilities. “Loads, apparently. He left them separately to a friend. They’d gone before I got here. Why?” “It might give us a clue what his…interests…were, what powers we might be talking about here. And that way we’d know better how to deal with it. Do you know this friend’s name? Does he live in Glasgow?” “Aaron something – stays over at the West End somewhere. His address is in the will. Keep my seat,” he added, getting out of bed and strolling across the room, past the guitar and out the door. My pulses leapt, watching him disappear into the bathroom. I wondered if it would feel odd now, making love in front of the guitar. Slowly, I got up too and went toward it. It wasn’t a limb of Satan, it was just a guitar. Boldly, I put out my hand, closed my fingers about its neck. It burned. Something as solid as a fist crashed into me, through me. I flew backwards across the floor, cracking my head on the bed-post. At once, instinctively, I scrabbled further away. “Ellie?” It was Chris, kneeling beside me, holding me. “What the—?” I clutched him till my knuckles shone white, as if he were my one lifeline, as if I were his. “It’s evil, Chris, it’s evil. You mustn’t touch it again, promise me!”

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Chapter Eight Jenny and Jim arrived early the next morning. “Lead us to it,” she said briefly with none of the ribald comments I had been more than half expecting. Inevitably Jim touched me on the shoulder. “Are you all right?” “I’m fine.” A smile, surprised but warm, flickered in his eyes and was gone. “I believe you are,” he said, and I flushed. “Nice sound,” Jenny observed, moving toward the stairs. I closed the door behind Jim and followed them to the muffled strains of Chris’s guitar and fiddle music in its compelling rhythms. “You got the CD player under a cushion?” she asked quizzically. I smiled. “It’s Chris,” I explained, not without pride. “He’s got a little studio set up in the basement.” Jenny paused, with her foot on the second stair. “He’s not got that guitar in there, has he?” “Of course not. Neither of us have touched that one since last night. It’s still in Chris’s room.” Brushing past her, I led the way. Chris didn’t really want to see what they were going to do with his father’s guitar. I knew that was why he still lurked in the basement. The guitar stood against the wall between the door and a book-case, exactly where I had dropped it after extracting it from Chris. It looked small and unthreatening. Its dark shiny wood and the inlaid decoration around its soundhole was pretty and appealing. Yet I gave it a wide berth. “Maybe you should have brought Charlie,” I said nervously. “I think it’s even stronger than the other night.” “We got two high readings last night,” Jenny confirmed. “They’d fit roughly with your …experience. But we can manage without Charlie.” She had her little scanner out, held it in the center of the room, then, with infinite concentration, walked slowly toward the guitar. “Nothing so far,” she reported. She held the scanner closer to the guitar, then hovered over it, kneeling to draw it up and down the instrument’s whole length. She frowned, puzzled. “Nothing. Not a sausage. Jim—.” She backed off to make way. “Jim, be careful,” I warned. With Jenny, I focused my energy, poised to help protect Jim from the malevolence that had literarily floored me last night. Jim reached out with one hand. My heart thundered so loud I thought the others would hear it. I hated this thing with a force I’d never felt before for any spirit, malevolent or otherwise, and I would do anything to prevent it harming my friends. Jim’s fingers closed around the neck of the guitar. My hand gripped Jenny’s so tightly that she squeaked. Jim held quite still for a moment. Jenny said hoarsely, “Anything?” Jim shook his head. He swung the instrument up, held it in both hands, strummed the perfectly tuned strings. “Nothing,” he said flatly. “Absolutely nothing. Beyond that it was owned by a not very nice person and played recently by Chris. Both of which we knew already.”

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“But that’s impossible!” I exclaimed. “The bloody thing hurled me across me the room! I saw it possessing Chris!” “Maybe Ellie should touch it,” Jim said. His voice was carefully neutral, yet I understood he felt his expertise under question. Which wasn’t what I meant, but I couldn’t find the words to tell him that. While I glared balefully at the guitar, Jenny chewed her lip in brief indecision. “All right,” she said firmly at last. “It didn’t damage you the last time, and now we’re here with you. So go ahead, Ellie. Touch it.” “No.” Chris’s voice spoke from the doorway, not loudly or with particular force, yet it was enough to attract all our attention. He walked into the room in his old jeans and t-shirt, his spiky hair rumpled and untidy, and my heart turned over. Unexpectedly, Chris was in command of the situation. “She’s not touching it again.” His tone was still mild, yet curiously, none of us doubted him. “I saw what it did to her the last time.” Jenny gazed at him thoughtfully. “Then you accept this spirit, whatever it is, is in there?” “Don’t you?” That was definitely a challenge. And not generally the right way to go to work with Jenny. Or Jim, where his professionalism was concerned. Jim said evenly, “I think she’s mistaken. I think her…emotions…are confusing her sensitivity.” “Is that,” said Chris, “what you think.” It wasn’t a question. There was a warning, a dangerous tension in his voice that I had never heard before. Jenny said dryly, “Put your testosterone away, lads. I believe Ellie is right. I just don’t quite understand how. Or what, yet. You could be right, Jim. It could have formed some connection with Ellie. Chris has touched her twice while possessed by this thing. It knows her.” “Twice?” Chris repeated, glancing from Jenny to me. “I’ll explain later,” I said hastily. “Listen, do either of you know about this guy, Aaron Leverton?” I filled them in about Chris’s father leaving his library to a friend, and how I believed we might learn something either from the books or from their new owner. “Occult books?” asked Jenny. Chris shrugged. “I imagine so. Some of them anyway. My mother mentioned he had lots. It was one of his…interests that she disapproved of.” “A disapproval you share,” Jenny murmured shrewdly. I shot her a quick, unhappy glance. Chris was uncomfortable in the presence of anything unworldly, and for the first time I wondered how that would affect our relationship. I had grown up with psychic abilities. They were part of me. A big part. Chris’s fingers twined themselves round mine. “Summoning the Devil to give your business rival a heart attack has to be ill-natured at best,” he observed. “Point,” Jenny agreed cheerfully. “You got a computer I can use, Chris? Let’s see what we can learn about this Leverton bloke.”

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***** An hour later, we all sat silently round the house telephone, while Chris dialed Leverton’s number. We could all hear it ringing for quite a long time. In fact, Chris held the receiver away from his ear to prove no one was answering. Just as someone did. Snatching it back to his ear, Chris said, “Mr. Leverton? This is Chris Swan. Alastair’s son.” There was a pause. I had the impression it was on both ends of the phone. Then the phone spoke. “Yes it is a surprise, isn’t it?” Chris replied. “I’m sorry to disturb you. It’s just that I know my father left you his books, and I have some friends who would be most interested in seeing them…Yes, they have an interest in the psychic and the occult so I’m afraid I mentioned my Dad’s books…no, they never met him…I wonder if I could bring them over for a couple of hours? They’d be quite happy shut up in a room out of the way. So long as they can read…Thank you, that’s very kind…bye.” With a rather thoughtful expression on his handsome face, Chris put down the phone. “Four o’clock this afternoon,” he said to us. “Nice one, Chris,” Jenny said in a satisfied sort of a way, and leapt to her feet. “Come on, James, back to the office! We have other fish to fry. Do you want the cottage keys, Ellie to go and change?” “Am I that bad?” “Worse,” she said, wrinkling her nose. I threw a handy sweater of Chris’s at her, and she laughed and tossed me the house keys in return. “Meet you back here at half three? We can all go in my car.” “Or mine,” Chris offered. “No, no, you’re all right,” Jenny said hastily and Chris laughed. ***** Chris drove me back to Jenny’s cottage. For a while, we sat in companionable silence, and I took my own pleasure from watching his profile, his steady eyes on the road, his strong, firm hands guiding the steering wheel or coaxing the ancient and recalcitrant gear lever into its appropriate position. It made me feel warm and tingly all over, just like I imagined most teenagers felt with their first love. I’d missed that part of growing up, but now I rather liked it. “Okay,” said Chris at last. “Spill.” “Spill what?” “The two times I touched you while possessed. The first you nearly broke my hand to get it off your leg. What happened the second time? Was it last night?” He didn’t want it to be last night. I could understand that. Enough had happened already to distract us from the joy of it. For that reason alone, I would have had to tell him the truth. “No, not last night…Chris, you’re not going to like this.” “I was afraid you were going to say that. Tell me anyway.”

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I told him, as succinctly and neutrally as I could, leaving out only the sexy bit about him jerking off in his sleep to my name. That I would describe later, in a more intimate moment. If we ever had another one of those after this confession. Anxiously watching his face, I thought by the time I finished that his skin had whitened. He said, “Thank God for Charlie.” It was too light, too obviously hiding deeper emotion. “Well, I thank Jenny for him instead,” I said miserably. “Chris—” But he interrupted me, urgently, with my own name. “Ellie, I wouldn’t ever do that to you, to anyone! You do know that?” I blinked, staring at his averted profile, his suddenly serious eyes that left the road temporarily to meet mine. “Of course I know. It was how I realized it wasn’t you.” “How have I let this happen? How can I not know? Ellie, this is killing me…if I hurt you—” “You didn’t! You didn’t hurt me, even…that thing didn’t hurt me, though it scared the crap out of me for a brief moment! I…I thought you’d be angry that we broke into your home. I felt sneaky and dirty—.” “You are dirty,” said Chris, winking at me. “It’s one of the reasons I love you.” Flushing with secret pleasure at his words, however little he meant them, I contented myself with rubbing my cheek on his shoulder. Then, listening to the beat of my heart and deliberately calming it, I said, “There’s one more thing you’re not going to like.” “I suspect rather more than one, but go on, get it out.” I took a deep breath. “It seems to me there are two possibilities, about this guitar. And neither of them reflect well on your father.” “I’m still listening,” he said evenly. “One is that he gave you the guitar deliberately, knowing there was something there that could and would use you.” “I’ve considered that. What I can’t figure out is why he would do that, what good it would do him when he was dead, beyond getting back at my mother, who is also dead. He may have hated me through association of course.” I pressed my mouth onto the warm, muscled flesh of his arm. “The other is…have you considered that the spirit which haunts the guitar, which haunts you, might be your father?” ***** It was a lot to think about. I sensed his withdrawal, his need for it, and let him be. That didn’t hurt, only the fear that he would shut me out for good. It’s human nature to shoot the messenger. I just hoped I was wrong. Hell, I was wrong about lots of things, why couldn’t this be one of them? Stripping off my clothes in the little bathroom, I switched on the shower and dug out my favorite lotions, reflecting wryly that I might as well make it as hard as possible for Chris

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to resist me. At this juncture I rather needed all the help I could get, however shallow and skin-deep. The water was hot and refreshing on my body, which ached pleasurably still from all last night’s fucking. After the guitar incident, Chris had taken me to bed to comfort me, wiping away all my fears and inhibitions with ridiculous ease. The oral sex had been astounding, I remembered now, as the water coursed over my breasts, tightening my nipples to hard, dusky peaks. Chris’s tongue was as flexible and as strong as his fingers, and God, he knew what to do with it. He had driven me wild with need before letting me come. It had been so-o-o-o delicious… My hand slid down my breast and stomach to push between my legs. My aim was to wash away the fresh moisture already pooling there in memory of last night, but as I remembered what followed – the full, penetrative sex that brought me a whole series of orgasms cascading into each other before culminating in Chris’s own massive bellow of joy – my fingers gripped compulsively, pushing at my pussy as I longed once more for Chris to pleasure it. “Hey, let me do that.” I jumped, snatching my hand away from my pussy. Through the haze of water dripping past my eyes, Chris stood at the corner of the bath, fully dressed, one hand on the shower curtain, his blue eyes gleaming with appreciation as he gazed at me. “Chris! What are you…? Do what?” I demanded in confusion. “Wash you,” he said gently. His eyes, laughing at me, did little to alleviate my embarrassment. “Just there.” His fingers, pressing on the trim triangle between my thighs, made me gasp. Without meaning to, I pressed into his hand. His head moved under the shower, his mouth came down on mine and I moaned. Unexpectedly, without breaking the kiss, he climbed into the bath. Laughing into his mouth, letting the water in too, I exclaimed, “Chris, your clothes—!” “Bugger my clothes,” he said, putting both arms around me. The water cascaded over us both, running into our mouths when the suction broke for long enough. Unhurriedly, Chris reached above our heads and took down the shower head. “Now where,” he enquired, “was the spot giving you so much trouble? Ah yes, just here. Let me see if I can help you there.” I gasped as the hot jet of water blasted between my legs. Chris adjusted it, used his own knee to part my legs further, and held me from behind with one arm, his palm cupping my breast, while he aimed the powerful shower right at my pussy. It felt so good that I made no further objection, just gave myself up to the arousing sensation. Chris moved the jet, caressing my folds with it, teasing my clitoris, then stimulating it beyond endurance. I felt the climax rise quickly and hung onto him for support, reaching up and back for his mouth. The orgasm hit me with all the force of the power shower, knocking me off my feet as my knees gave way. Chris held me without removing the jet, just kissed me as I screamed with joy and rubbed my thigh on his bone hard cock. As the orgasm began to fade at last, he turned me, opened his sodden jeans in a forceful sort of a way. Then he lifted me and pushed straight inside me. I cried out again. My foot slid a little and we fell back against the tiled wall. Chris pinned me there, fucking me, drawing up one of my legs around his hip. Wriggling forward, I swung both legs up around his waist and

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hung on, thrusting back with him. Chris reached up with both hands to take hold of the shower curtain rail, and using the purchase of that, fucked me harder and faster until we both came in a huge surge of impossibly intense delight. Chris’s knees trembled so much I was glad of the shower rail holding him up. In the end, we slid down into the bath, with me on top of him. “What is it,” I said happily, “about you and bathrooms?” ***** There was, of course, a price to pay for this naughtiness, namely that Chris now had no dry clothes to wear. We wrung out his wet ones and hung them on the radiator in my bedroom. Then, finally dressed myself in a swinging summer skirt and loose top (suitable for a visiting psychic researcher, I felt), I went to Jenny’s room to see if I could find something of Charlie’s lying around. What I found lying around was Charlie himself, sprawled across the big double bed, fully dressed with one arm thrown up over his eyes. He appeared to be sound asleep. The curtains were closed, casting a faintly amber glow on everything. “Charlie?” I whispered. “Are you awake? Is it all right if I take a pair of jeans and a shirt for Chris?” There was no answer. I quickly went and rummaged through drawers till I found the male stuff. It wasn’t much. I did find the kilt Charlie had worn at our first meeting, which made me smile. I wondered if Chris would wear it. I thought he’d look good in a kilt. However, playing safe, I took instead the light cotton trousers and a rather fine shirt that felt like silk. Not Chris’s usual attire, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. I grabbed a pair of socks and left, casting one quick glance back at the figure on the bed. I thought his eyes were open, but he didn’t move. “You know, there’s something weird about Charlie,” I told Chris a moment later, depositing the treasure on my bed. “I thought you liked him,” Chris said lazily, reaching for the trousers. He stood up, butt-naked and measured them against his legs. “Good fit,” I approved. “I suppose you’re around the same height. I do like him, and he’s good for Jenny. Doesn’t stop him being weird. Commando again?” “Make it easier to do you in the library,” he said with a quick grin. “Besides, you didn’t bring me any underpants.” “Excuses, excuses.” ***** Back in Queen’s Park, I picked up the bag of instruments and followed Jenny out to the car. I could hear Jim’s voice arguing about something with Chris in the living room. Silently, I backed Chris to win, whatever it was about, and climbed into the front seat beside Jenny. Reaching up to pull my seatbelt round me, I said casually, “I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to stay away. It just…happened.” She gave me a quick grin. “Good.”

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“I know it must seem rude, all but inviting myself to stay with you, then spending so much time over here—.” “Forget it, Ellie, you deserve the break,” Jenny interrupted. She glanced at me again. “Seriously, it’s been fun working with you again.” I grinned back. “I thought so.” “Well…there’s probably going to be a job going up here in the next couple of months. If you were interested, I could tell Nigel I want you. The downside, of course, is that I’d be the boss, though only just. Nigel still doesn’t like to let my rope out too far.” I stared at her, possibilities jumping into my head. “Is the Scottish Center expanding?” “God, no, Nigel would never buy that, not with me in charge anyway. No, Jim isn’t happy here. He wants to go back south. Because of his wife, he says, although it could just be I’m a pain in the arse to work with.” “You are,” I assured her. “Jenny are you telling me this because of him?” I jerked my head towards Chris’s house. She shrugged. “Struck me you could do worse. You’re good together, you know.” Stupidly, I wanted to cry. “I know,” I whispered. “I know. But Jenny, is that enough?” “For you?” Vehemently, I shook my head. “For him!” The back door of the car clicked open. Jim said, “Jenny.” We both looked round to see Chris stashing a guitar case in the boot. “Oh yes, it’s that guitar,” Jim assured us, climbing into the car. “He got me to put it in the case for him and he’s determined to bring it.” Chris got in the other door. Watching him, Jenny said doubtfully, “You think it will help?” “I think it’s time to bring it all together,” Chris said with unusual grimness. “I think it’s time to end this.”

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Chapter Nine Aaron Leverton lived near Glasgow University, in a fair-sized Victorian villa not unlike Chris’s own. Except that there was a large, winding driveway leading up quite a steep slope to a double garage, and then some steps to the front door. On the other side of the front garden, steps wound up from the street to the house, with one fork leading off to the side of the house, presumable to a back garden. “Nice place,” Jenny observed. “Nice part of town.” “Ready to lower the tone?” Chris enquired, getting out of the car. “I’m always ready for that.” When I emerged from the car, Chris was already extracting the guitar case from the boot. I went to join him. “Chris? What’s on your mind here? Do you really think we can end it here?” He nodded briefly. Closing the boot, he swung the guitar over his shoulder before he looked at me. For a second he hesitated, then, “Leverton’s involved in this, I’m sure of it.” I frowned. “You never even mentioned him before today.” “I never thought of him before today when you brought up the books. He was just a name in the will. But when I phoned him this morning…he was too nice to me, too accommodating. I had the impression that I’d taken him by surprise, and yet…he said he had been going to get in touch with me.” “Why?” “To get to know me, he said, since I was Alastair’s son, and what a shame it was we’d never met before. Now if my father saw no good reason to meet me before – and we lived in the same city for Christ’s sake, at least for most of the time! – why should Leverton? I think he wants me here, and I think it’s something to do with the guitar and whatever’s possessing it.” I caught his arm, although he had shown no sign of moving away from me. “Chris, did he ask you to bring the guitar?” I demanded. Chris’s eyebrows twitched. “Oh no, that was all my idea. Save time. I want this over Ellie, I can’t go on being an unwitting pawn, a danger to you and God knows who else.” “But Chris, you don’t know what we’re dealing with here! You haven’t discussed this with any of us! This thing is strong!” “I know. But I…I feel this is the right thing to do. And Ellie?” His hand touched my face, cupped my cheek. “Yes?” I whispered. “I love you.” And his mouth swooped down on mine kissing me sweetly and thoroughly, quite blatant in front of the others, who stood watching with interest from the curb. Despite the danger I knew we could be walking into, I felt I was floating on air. Because he loved me. Breaking off reluctantly, he grinned, more in his usual style, and began to walk me toward the house with his arm still round my shoulders. The door opened while we were still winding our way up the drive, and a round, balding man of middle years beamed amiably down upon us. “Ah! Which of you is Chris?”

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“That would be me.” Chris sprinted the last couple of steps to shake hands. “Mr. Leverton?” “Please, call me Aaron! How delightful to meet you at last!” He clasped Chris’s hand in both of his for a moment, then led the way inside the house. We were taken into an extremely comfortable sitting room and after Chris introduced us all, our host offered us tea and sherry. We settled on the tea, and Leverton went to the door, leaned out and called, “Tea, please, Annie!” Then he turned back to us, beaming once more. “So, young Chris,” he said jovially, “you have an interest in the occult?” “Not me,” Chris denied instantly. “It’s these guys who look into that sort of thing.” “I see! So how did you come to know Chris?” His eyes, small and shrewd in his amiable face, glanced from one to the other of us, clearly awaiting an answer. I said, “Chris and I met on holiday last year. In Italy. We ran into each other again by accident the other day - I’m up here visiting Jenny.” “How nice. And what is your particular occult interest?” I shrugged. “It’s broad. All aspects of ESP, spirits, ghosts, possession—.” “Well, I do have some rare books of my own on such subjects, as well as the ones left to me by Chris’s father. You understand they are academic books? Also very valuable in many cases.” “We would take great care,” I said reverently. “Jenny here is a librarian by profession, so she treats books with respect. In fact, she beats us up if we don’t keep to her standards!” “Hmn!” he gave a token laugh and turned to greet the arrival of tea, brought in by a young-ish woman who left the tray unhurriedly on the coffee table in front of Leverton. With her sleek, black hair and voluptuous figure, there was something cat-like, almost sensual about her movements. She didn’t give off the air of an employee, and yet neither did she stay to join us. Wife? I wondered. Daughter? Leverton didn’t trouble to introduce her. “What about you, Aaron?” Chris asked easily as he accepted a cup of tea from our host. “What is it you do?” “Oh business, business. I have my finger in many pies.” “But I suppose you must have an interest in the occult if my father left you all his books,” Chris suggested. “Indeed I do. Fascinating subject.” Jenny said, “I hope we’re not intruding. It’s very kind of you to let us come and see the books, especially at such short notice.” “Tush, tush, it’s my pleasure! Books need to be read, and if by someone who appreciates them, all the better! I am expecting guests later on, but that needn’t disturb you. We won’t be in the library. Shall I take you in there now?” Obediently, we all laid down our tea cups and rose. Chris reached for his guitar, catching Leverton’s eye. The older man said, “Leave that here, if you like.” “Oh no thanks. I’d hate to forget it.” “Do you play much?” Leverton enquired, leading the way out of the room and across the spacious hallway. At one end, a rather grand staircase swept upwards. But Leverton only took us across the hall to another room at the front of the house. “Yes,” Chris answered, looking around him. The rest of us crowded into Aaron Leverton’s library and looked too. The same size as the sitting room, this one was lined with

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books. As well as that, a large table in the middle of the room had a couple of boxes on it, and books stacked on it in several piles. “These are largely your father’s,” Leverton said, waving a hand at the table. “I haven’t got around to finding them a permanent home yet. The reading’s too fascinating. But feel free to look at any of the books in here. All I ask is that you put them back where you got them, in the same condition as you found them.” “You’re very kind,” Jenny said. “Thank you.” Leverton beamed upon us all. His gaze lingered on Chris. “Do you want to study the books, Chris?” Chris shrugged. “Wouldn’t mind a quick gander.” “Carry on, carry on! Maybe you’d like to come and meet my guests in a little while.” Chris’s eyebrow lifted. “More friends of my Dad’s?” “Yes indeed! They would be so delighted to meet you! Well, well, I’ll leave you to it – happy reading!” He bustled off, closing the door behind him. We exchanged glances. Jenny said uneasily, “Chris, is that not a little bit too much of a co-incidence?” “What, that he just happens to be entertaining a party of my Dad’s mates the very day I phone him up out of the blue? You bet your ass it is.” He picked up a book, tossed it quickly back down on the table and picked up another. “Christ, where do we start?” “With Jim,” said Jenny. “James, can you tell which have been read most recently?” “By Swan?” “Yes.” “And by Leverton,” Chris added. “The ones they’ve both looked at. Can you really do that?” “I should be able to,” Jim said modestly. “I’ve already got the feel of your Dad, and I shook hands with Leverton. Who, incidentally, is a man without conscience and stuffed full of some intense excitement. Give me a minute.” Jim began to pick books up from the table. In just a couple of minutes, he had three piles in front of him on the floor. Pointing at the middle one, he said, “Swan and Leverton,” and Jenny fell with gusto on those. Sighing, I knelt beside her and reached for the next in line. With Jim sorting through all Swan’s books by feel, and Jenny and I studying their subject matter, we worked intensively for an hour. I made notes. Chris walked restlessly up and down the room, occasionally looking at the books we discarded and tossing them down again with a sound of distaste. Occasionally, we heard cars arrive, presumably Leverton’s guests. Some parked in the driveway, others in the street. It seemed to be a large party. Chris listened at the door to their voices in the hall when they were admitted to the house, then resumed his pacing. Jim finished his task and began to walk slowly past the shelves, running his hand across Leverton’s other books. Abruptly, he said, “I don’t like this place.” “The library, or the whole house?” I asked. “All of it. Particularly, I don’t like this room. There’s evil here. There’s evil in those books.” “Bloody right,” I agreed. I sat back on my heels. “I’m seeing a pattern here.”

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“What?” Chris demanded. “Prolonging the spirit life. Transferring the spirit life.” “As in preserving a spirit in an object?” Jim asked, glancing apprehensively at the guitar propped up against the window. “Yes. And as in transferring it from there into another living person.” “Christ, what is this?” Chris demanded. “Harry bloody Potter?” “Not unlike,” I said ruefully. “And there’s certainly deliberate manipulation here. It’s not so very rare for spirits to cling to this world for one reason or another. Something makes it impossible for them to pass on until one thing or another is resolved. But this, a spirit in possession of one object, where it lies so dormant, and only manifests through another life, that is deliberate. Using spells. Don’t roll your eyes at me, Christopher, you believe in some of this, you have to accept the possibility of all of it.” He gave me a quick, rueful grin. “You’re the boss.” Jenny said slowly, “You’re right. It’s the common point in most of these books. So what’s your theory, Ellie?” I swallowed, trying not to look at Chris. “That Alastair Swan and his mates cast this spell in advance. He had cancer. They must have known well before it happened that he was going to die. They probably even had a time scale. So, when he died, his spirit got locked up in the guitar. Which was left to Chris, his son, the musician who was bound to play it. I think it bonds with him each time he plays, building a stronger and stronger connection. I think that’s what Leverton and co were waiting for. A connection that was strong enough.” “But why? For what purpose?” “To bring Alastair back.” At last, I met Chris’s gaze. He looked stunned. And yet he believed. I could see that. Understanding flashed across his face, and behind that, pain. Chris, Chris, I’d take all your hurts away if I could… Unexpectedly, the door shushed open across the thick pile carpet. As one, we all jerked round to stare. Leverton entered, smiling benignly. “Ah! And how are you getting on?” “Aye, great,” Jenny answered for all of us. “Learning lots of new stuff. You’ve got some amazing books here, Mr. Leverton.” “Aaron, please. You make me feel so old!” He spared one disapproving glance for the pile of books on the floor beside Jenny and me. Mumbling an apology, Jenny and Jim began to pick them up and replace them on the table, but Leverton’s attention had already moved on. “Chris, would you like to come and meet some more of your father’s friends?” With alacrity, Chris pushed himself off the window-sill. “Sure,” he said, and began to move past us. They’re separating him from us! The knowledge cut through me like a knife. I sprang to my feet. Leverton said, “Don’t you want to bring the guitar?” “Nah,” said Chris perversely. “Ellie’ll look after it for me, won’t you, love?” I paused in my determination to go with him. Puzzled as to what he expected of me, I met his gaze once more. Time, I thought. He’s buying us time. We know what they want. We just don’t know how to stop it… But the answer had to be here, in these books.

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I said, “Sure,” and hoped my voice sounded light rather than hoarse. Chris moved on, touching my hand as he past me. He looked his usual jaunty self and yet I felt as if he was walking to his doom. Deliberately, it seemed to me, he left the door open, so I sprinted forward to peer carefully out. I could hear the sounds of many voices coming from an upstairs room, an occasional tinkle of glasses. A civilized drinks party in the house of a wealthy businessman. Nothing unusual, nothing dangerous in that. Chris didn’t look back as he followed his host up the sweeping staircase and through the first opening at the top. I slid back inside the library and closed the door. Low voiced, Jim said to Jenny. “You really think that’s what they’re trying to do? To bring Alastair Swan back to life through Chris?” “In Chris,” I said grimly. “And we can’t let them.” “Absolutely not,” Jim agreed, “but Ellie, it’s by no means certain that such a thing is possible!” “I think we have to assume it is,” I said tightly. “It’s bloody Alastair Swan in that guitar, I know it is.” I grabbed the nearest book and started looking dementedly through its contents. “Why would they bother, though?” Jim pursued. “Why would Leverton and his cronies bother bringing Alastair back? Just because he asked them to?” “Maybe,” Jenny shrugged. “Maybe to see if they could. If it proved possible, it has implications for all of them when they die. Maybe Alastair can make them loads of money, maybe he had – has! – some hold over them. Either way, like Ellie says, we have to assume that’s what they’re doing. Now, we have to find out how to stop this, how to free that bloody spirit from the guitar and send it on its way. Preferably before Leverton gets fed up with us and kicks us out.” She’d come a long way, had Jenny, from the clumsy, prickly girl I’d first met last year. That Jenny had had a big chip on her shoulder and low self confidence. Now she was indisputably the boss. Smiling faintly at the transformation, I settled down to some speed reading. For the first half hour we found lots of theory, with very little that could be any practical use to us. Then Jim found a seventeenth century Latin spell book, and one of these described in detail a ritual which, if performed at the moment of death, could catch the spirit of the deceased and hold it bound to whatever object the dead man held in his hands. After that it rambled about the possibilities of transferring the spirit to another body, as claimed in the notorious Eternal Life and finally denied it could be done. “Bollocks,” said Jenny. But I actually squeaked out loud and delved back into the pile of books we had earlier skimmed for subject matter. There it was, yellowed and unbound, an eighteenth century reprint in English of the original Eternal Life. “Got it!” And then the door opened once more. Fully expecting Chris, I had my mouth open to tell him the good news – only it wasn’t Chris. Again, it was Leverton. “Still at it,” he marveled, smiling at our presumably goggling faces. He ambled towards us. “I’m so glad my books fascinate you almost as much as they do me! On another occasion, you must come for dinner and we can discuss these subjects as they deserve. Ellie.”

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He beamed upon me. I tried to hold his eyes, to prevent him looking at the Eternal Life in my hands, at the equally betraying book in Jim’s lap. “Chris tells me you are his young lady.” I blinked. “I’ve never been called that before.” I didn’t like the term, not on Leverton’s lips, yet the idea of being coupled with Chris was a curiously warm and exciting one, even here, even now. Leverton laughed, and to my relief, began to stroll toward the window, as if to inspect the weather. I had no idea if he had noticed our particular reading matter or not. “Oh well, I’m not up on modern parlance,” he allowed. “Now, my friends, I don’t wish to appear inhospitable, but can you give me an idea how much longer you would like to spend here today? Always remembering that you may come back!” “Would another half hour be all right?” Jenny asked. His back was to us as he looked out the window, but something about his posture proclaimed he was not quite pleased by that. However, he still smiled as he turned back to face us. “Of course,” he said civilly. He didn’t even try to throw us out. I wondered why, briefly, before he began to walk again toward the door, but my relief at this was short-lived, for he carried Chris’s guitar case. My heart lurched painfully. “Chris is going to play for us,” Leverton explained as we all stared numbly at the guitar in his grasp. Once more, I leapt to my feet to go with him, all my instincts urging me to go with the guitar, to separate it from Chris at all costs. I could have wrenched it from Leverton’s hands, psychically if no other way, but we weren’t ready for that kind of show-down. We still didn’t know how to eject Swan from the guitar, let alone how to keep him from Chris. So someone had to make sure the guitar stayed out of Chris’s hands until we had the answers, and clearly it was time Chris himself had some help in this. “Could I come too then?” I asked breathlessly. If necessary, I would skulk outside the door. But Leverton only beamed upon me once more. “Of course. Chris’s young lady must also meet Alastair’s friends!” Jenny breathed, “We’re on it, Ellie,” as I walked numbly after Leverton to the door. It wasn’t much comfort, for I realized, if she didn’t, that I had just played into Leverton’s hands. For some reason, he wanted me there with Chris. With the guitar. But his manners were faultless, holding the door open for me to precede him, making pleasant small talk as we ascended the staircase. The door at the top was closed. My mouth felt too dry to respond to my host in more than monosyllables. My heart drummed so fast I was afraid my trembling would be obvious to him. I tried to concentrate, to focus my energy. The interminable training helped here, calming me, clearing my head, collecting rather than wasting the energy I would need in the next hour. As we reached the top step, I realized I still couldn’t hear even the muffled voices of Leverton’s guests. The room had some sort of sound-proofing. It prepared me a little. Yet when Leverton swung open the door and hospitably waved me inside, my first impression was simply of a civilized party. I was greeted by a wall of noise, chattering, clinking glasses, the odd laugh. My lips stretched into a social smile. I walked into the room.

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A row of glasses stood on the table to the right, some full of sparkling wine, some blood-red, some plain orange juice or mineral water. “A drink?” Leverton offered. “What’s your poison?” He had picked up my unease. He was teasing me, deliberately hoping for a reaction to his mocking words. I didn’t give him the satisfaction. “Orange juice, please,” I said casually, and took the proffered glass with alacrity. Though I was damned if I would drink any of it. Glass in hand, I turned in to face the room, to look for Chris. There must have been more than forty people there, mostly men, but with a scattering of women. Annie, who had brought us tea, stood gazing at me, much as a cat watches a mouse, from a few feet away. She was dressed now in a strappy black dress with a slit up ones side. I smiled at her distantly and carried on with my scan. I couldn’t see Chris. I did see a rolled up carpet on the floor, at the far-side of the room, as if it had been taken up for dancing. Strange, since there was no music. Who ever heard of a party without music? The observation drew my eyes to the floor at my feet, to the more distant parts uncovered by human feet. There was some sort of pattern inlaid or painted on to the varnished wood. Which was odd too. Why would you varnish and decorate a floor like that, then cover it up with a carpet? Either to preserve it, or hide the markings. And since these people were occultists, even Satanists if the rumors about Chris’s father were correct, my money was on the latter. I lifted my eyes, still searching for Chris. Nearly everyone was looking at me. Men in suits and ties, a few more casually dressed, the few women in smart, expensive dresses. Annie, sexy and dangerous…and walking toward me. Or rather, toward Leverton. “Ah, Annie, take this to our musician!” Leverton said jovially, resting the guitar case on the ground, neck upwards, and inclining it towards her. Annie reached out for it laconically. It was easy enough to tip it slightly. Her fingers fumbled and the guitar slid to the floor with a bump. Annie swore in street-manner that accorded ill with her posh dress. It broke clearly into the silence already produced by the instrument hitting the floor. All eyes were now on the guitar. Bending, Annie reached for the clasps on the case. At once it swerved out of her way, sliding across the floor so that several people stepped backward in alarm. A hiss of awe and fear rippled around the room. Annie, suddenly white faced, whispered, “Fuck.” I was aware of a shudder of excitement passing through Leverton. “Look at the power in it!” he breathed. But I paid him little attention, for the sudden movement of people had opened a new path to the center of the room, and Chris. He sat on a sturdy wooden chair, his hands behind its back, presumably tied. Another rope bound his middle to the chair. His mouth was taped. From where I stood I could see the discoloration on his face, the split in his lip. Clearly, he had put up a fight before they’d managed to pin him down. Although the outcome could never really have been in doubt. There must have been at least thirty men here, most of them fit. He’d been well thumped, but his eyes were still bright, focused on the guitar case. Slowly, they lifted, and across the empty space, they met mine. Chris, Chris…

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Abruptly, Leverton bent and grabbed the guitar case, forcing my attention back to the object it should never have left. I was too late to pull it away from him, he had it in both hands and strongly gripped. But I did my best to prevent his opening it. I held the latches firmly shut until he got someone else to help him with that. They simply hacked them off with a hammer and knife, while I relaxed, recruited my strength and watched. Obsessed with the guitar, no one paid me any attention. Except Chris. Though I couldn’t look at him, I felt his gaze on me, warming, encouraging, loving. The other man stood back. Reverently, Leverton pulled back the lid of the case. At once, the guitar flew out, struck Leverton on the head and flew towards the door. “Catch it!” Leverton roared. Several people leapt to obey, and one did manage to get his hands on it. I let it lie quietly until he began to walk with it toward Leverton, then I whisked it out of his hands again and raised it high above them, knocking it against the ceiling. People dragged tables and chairs over, and began to climb. I waited until they were all set up, then danced the guitar several feet off. I even made one of the strings pluck. It sounded like a raspberry. “Wait, wait, this is ridiculous!” Leverton fumed, as they prepared to push the table after it. “It won’t let us touch it. It wants him.” All eyes turned in surprise to Chris, as if they’d forgotten his existence in the mad chase after his guitar. As if agreeing, I let the guitar glide downwards, coming to rest neck upwards against the pile of tables and chairs. In fact, I needed the break. It took a hell of a lot of energy to hold it up there. Vaguely, I was surprised that I was able to. It wasn’t fighting me. “Untie him,” Leverton said briefly. At the same time, he took hold of my wrist, spinning me into his arm. His other closed around my neck. It was almost choreographed. After all, this was what he’d brought me here for. Leverage on Chris. “Christopher, get the guitar or I’ll break your slut’s neck.” “Slut?” I repeated. “Whatever happened to young lady?” I modestly confess I didn’t sound in the least scared. And in fact I wasn’t. I had no doubt that I could loosen Leverton’s grip whenever I wanted to. At the moment, I needed him to believe the guitar was the one with powers of levitation. Nobody answered me. Two men untied Chris and stepped smartly backwards when he stood up. For the first time I realized that both of them and, in fact, several other men in the room, looked almost as bruised as Chris. There was a pile of broken glass at the far end of the room, as if it had been swept there. No, Chris had not gone quietly. Now he tore impatiently at the tape on his mouth. Standing quite still, he stared over my head at Leverton. “Let her go and I’ll play your bloody guitar.” “Play your bloody guitar and I’ll let her go.” Their eyes remained locked together. Neither man moved. I said, “Don’t touch it, Chris. He won’t hurt me.” He can’t hurt me. Chris’s eyes flickered to mine, giving me hope that he’d understood my meaning as well as my words. Leverton’s arm tightened. My ears began to sing slightly. Chris moved, walking toward the guitar, arms at his sides. “Chris,” I pleaded.

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He didn’t look up. Slowly, he stretched out one hand toward the guitar. I twitched it further round the table. Which took a lot more effort than swinging it about the room and pinning it to the ceiling had only minutes earlier. Now it was resisting me. Because Chris was the one reaching for it. Chris moved, following it steadily. This time, I could only make it fall over, and the effort made me tremble. To my dismay, Leverton’s grip changed, turning me to face him so that he could stare at me. His eyes were hard, yet his astonishment was tinged with admiration. The game was up. I was spotted. “It’s not the bloody guitar,” he said aloud. “It’s the girl! You’re rather more than merely interested in psychic powers, aren’t you, my dear? What else can you do?” Deliberately, I lifted a glass of red wine from the table, raised it high above his head and tipped the contents over him. Of course the odd splash fell on me too but it was a small price to pay. Leverton gasped. Chris laughed. Everyone else stood about gaping. Except for Annie, who stepped smartly forward and picked up the guitar, slamming it smartly into Chris’s stomach. “Play,” she growled. Chris stopped laughing. Now it was Leverton’s turn. “Good girl,” he beamed. I tugged at the guitar, hard, but though it swayed against Chris, it didn’t break out of Annie’s hold. Leverton bent my head backward with deliberate brutality. “Play it, Chris,” he suggested. “He can’t hurt me, Chris, he can’t!” I roared. And to prove it, I threw his arms off me. Leverton reeled backward and I made a bolt toward Chris, but it was too late. He already had hold of the guitar.

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Chapter Ten I stopped in my tracks, staring at him with despair. Chris smiled at me, still Chris. He said, “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Remember I love you, and send Charlie to take me out.” My brow puckered with incomprehension. Chris blew me a kiss, and strummed a familiar chord. “Night after night, who treats you right, baby? It’s the guitar man…” “Now,” Leverton’s voice interrupted sharply. “Move it!” Around me, tables were shoved aside, everyone spread out around the walls of the room, revealing the floor markings to be a pentagon, the center of which was Chris and his guitar. And me, a foot away from him unable to move, unable to think anything except: Jenny, for God’s sake hurry up! I could no longer hear Chris’s song. It was a blessing. I knew it would no longer be Guitar Man but some tuneless, discordant strumming. Someone had closed the blinds and heavy curtains, shutting out the early evening light. Annie and two other women were furiously lighting candles at strategic places around the pentagon. Everyone was chanting, the words incomprehensible, the rhythm making me shudder. I sensed the evil. I wanted to weep. Instead, I threw everything I could at them. Glasses and bottles flew around the room, breaking indiscriminately off the floor and walls and people’s heads. I hurled chairs at them, and tables, dragged down curtains to tangle around them. Occasionally, I held them up, but none of it made any real difference now that they were determined, now that the moment had come. Chris played, but his left hand no longer moved on the strings, only his right, in ever slower strums as the chanting grew louder and faster. The candles flickered. A breeze chilled my bones sweeping past my arms. Tears coursed down my cheeks and I didn’t care. The chant had reached some sort of crescendo when my shoulders were caught and spun. Jenny and Jim stood beside me. “Ellie, it’s irreversible!” Jenny yelled over the din. “Has it got him yet?” Agonized, I stared back at the lone figure of Chris, mindlessly strumming out of time with the chant. “I’d say so,” Jim commented grimly. The chant finished on a shout. The candles blew out as one. I’d never felt so cold in my life. Numbly, pushing past Jim, I went to Chris. His head lifted slowly. His eyes were cold and hard and glittered with triumph. It wasn’t Chris. I heard the sound that came from my own throat, a wail of wild grief and despair and fury. At the same time, I reached out and touched him. It was Chris’s skin, Chris’s, and this monstrous spirit had no right to it. “Chris,” I whispered. “Chris—.” “Ellie, we’ve got to go,” Jenny said grimly, tugging me backwards. “Let’s get out of here. I’m so, so sorry but it’s over, Ellie.” Somebody snapped the lights on, making me blink. Somewhere, beyond my desolation, I was aware of fear in the room, fear and awe and guilty excitement. Leverton

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pushed past the three of us to stand in front of the man who had been my lover and my only love. “Alastair?” Only a tiny trace of doubt in his voice revealed uncertainty about this outcome. The man who had been Chris, closed his eyes and smiled. “Aaron,” he murmured. “What a loyal friend you turned out to be.” “So, quid pro quo, my friend. I give you back your life. You give it over to me. Remember that.” “How could I forget it?” “Prove it. Kill me this girl who insults and annoys me.” “Oh no!” said Jenny, catching on long before my bewildered brain did. All I could think of was a life without Chris, of the waste of his vital, beautiful life. She leapt in front of me, but Leverton knocked her aside almost casually. Other arms caught Jim who fought furiously and pointlessly, dragging him off until there was only me and Leverton in the center of the pentagon, and facing us, Alastair Swan in his son’s stolen body. “This girl here?” Achingly, his voice was still Chris’s voice. This was wrong, all wrong. I knew I should care, knew I should do something to prevent my own death. To carry out Chris’s last wishes. Remember I love you, and send Charlie to take me out. Was Charlie some sort of assassin then? Was that the secret of his strangeness, why he wasn’t part of the Center network? Alastair Swan threw away the guitar – he didn’t need it any more – and began to walk toward me. I said to Jenny, “Get Charlie.” “I already did,” Jenny answered. She was lying on the floor, clutching her jaw. Alastair Swan laughed. I didn’t know why. I didn’t care. Charlie would come and kill him. I would already be dead and I wouldn’t care. When he touched me, he looked so much like Chris that I closed my eyes. I wouldn’t fight it. I kept the vision of Chris, my Chris, in my head as he took hold of me. It was a curiously tender hold for the monster, but I expected he liked to kill. His hands smoothed my hair, my face, turning it upwards. His mouth covered mine. It took a few seconds. My eyes flew open, staring into his. “Chris,” I whispered into his mouth. It smiled on mine. As if from a great distance, Leverton’s voice spoke impatiently. “Hurry up and kill her. You’ve got Annie for that!” Chris’s head lifted, his arms left me, swinging back and his fists collided one after the other into Leverton’s face. He fell like a stone. “Leg it!” yelled Jenny, already sprinting for the door through the tangled melee of confused, shouting people. Jim, somehow freed in the chaos, followed hard on her heels. Chris grabbed my hand and we ran after them, fighting our way. A huge crash of glass distracted everyone. This time I was not responsible. Someone leapt through the broken window. It looked very like Charlie. In his kilt. Something like hysterical laughter bubbled up inside me.

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“Time to shoot the craw?” I shouted over the din, and Chris laughed, a sound of pure joy to my ears. ***** “How did you do it?” asked Jenny. We were back at Chris’s house in Queen’s Park, not in the downstairs living room this time, but in his bare, potentially beautiful upstairs drawing room. Jim had gone home, but Jenny, Chris and I sat on the window sill of the big bay window, looking down at the peaceful square below. It was dark, finally. “I don’t know,” Chris admitted. “I had the feeling I could, although I didn’t know for sure. I’d never been aware before of him taking me over, hadn’t expected it. This time, I was ready, and I did feel it.” He fell silent. I touched his hand and he smiled at once, his fingers curling around mine. “I fought it at first, from instinct…I felt how strong he was. I was still there, like a puppet if you like, while he pulled the strings. Then Ellie touched me, and something sparked. A realization, a determination, I don’t know, but it gave me strength. I knew suddenly that I was stronger than him, that I wouldn’t let him do this, that under no circumstances would I let anyone hurt Ellie.” My fingers squeezed his so hard that he winced. “All right, I thought of a few other people too that he might hurt, but I have to confess that it was you at the forefront of my mind. I just…threw him out.” I stared at him. “Threw him where?” Chris shrugged. “Don’t know.” “He’s moved on,” Jenny said quietly. “He’d nowhere left to go. Chris wasn’t touching the guitar, so he couldn’t go back there. He was drawn away as he should have been six months ago. I felt him go.” Chris looked at her. “So did I,” he said quietly. She grinned. “You are sensitive,” she said. “Want to train at the Center?” Chris hesitated. “I don’t know. There are other things I want to do. I’ve got this studio going downstairs and some interest in my music from a few sources.” “You could be freelance. Part time,” I suggested. “Like Charlie.” “Not quite like Charlie,” Jenny said cautiously. “Ellie, why did you tell me to get Charlie?” “I told her to,” said Chris. Jenny met his gaze. A brief communication flashed between them, excluding me, and once again jealousy rose like a tide. Dear God, how had I got to this stage? “Do me a favor, Jenny? Keep quiet about me, keep that bit out of your report and I’ll let you know in time what I want to do. Okay?” “Okay.” Pushing herself off the sill, she turned to face us, just as a figure in the square below caught my eye. It was Charlie, swaggering along the road in his kilt. In one hand he held a guitar. I said dubiously, “He doesn’t look like he’s been in a fight.” The rest of us had a few bumps and bruises, caught as we barged our way out of Leverton’s house. Jenny seemed to be trying not to laugh. “No, he never does,” she said happily. “Chris, is that—?”

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“Yes,” said Chris, opening the window and sticking his head out. Charlie stopped and looked up at us. “Hey,” he said in his charming East European tones. “You want this back?” “No thanks, Charlie, you keep it!” Chris called back. “Really?” “Really.” Charlie held it in position and strummed it. “Out of tune,” Chris observed. As one, Jenny and I began to laugh, but she was already half way across the room. “So long, guys! Give us a phone, Ellie!” A few moments later, we watched her dash out of the house and into the circle of Charlie’s welcoming arm. They walked up the road like that, her laughing face turned up to his. Smiling at her strange happiness, I turned to make some comment on it to Chris, but the words disappeared before they were properly formed. He was gazing at me, unsmiling for once, his eyes warm, intense and serious. He said, “It’s a day for ending things,” he said. “But don’t end this, Ellie.” I stared at him. Again, my mouth opened, and again he forestalled me. “No, let me have my say…I know I’m not everything you want, Ellie. I know I don’t measure up on any number of points, but I swear to you I’ll never be beaten on one—.” “Sex?” Laughter caught in his throat. “I wish that was true too. I meant love, though. I know you, all your vulnerabilities and contradictions, your warmth and fun and bad temper, and I love all of it. I want all of it, all the time. I can’t pretend anything different. Do you know how often I used to fantasize over you after Pisa? I used to imagine you coming back to look for me, running into you by accident on a train, all sorts of scenarios, because I couldn’t believe it was truly over for us. I know you never felt any of that—.” “I used to dream, though,” I confessed. “Quite often you were there, doing unspeakably sexy things to me.” His lips twisted. “I make a good sex object then. I’m not asking you to marry me, Ellie. Just don’t go out of my life. Hang around and I’ll—.” “Show me a good time?” “I hope so.” “And what about me?” I asked. “Would I be allowed to show you a good time too?” “Are we back at the sex again?” “Mostly,” I confessed. He stood abruptly, and I leapt after him, suddenly throwing my arms round him. “That was a joke!” I pleaded. “Don’t lose your sense of humor on me, Chris, it’s one of the things I love best about you!” His mouth was lost in my hair, but he’d gone very still. I could feel his heart beating strongly against my cheek. “You used the L word.” His voice wasn’t quite steady. Neither was mine. “You’ve already broken the custom.” “Ellie, Ellie, you—.” The rest of his words were lost as his mouth crashed down on mine, crushing my lips against my teeth. I didn’t feel the pain although I tried to make a

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sound of protest when I remembered his own bruised and split lips. He ignored me, delving deeper into my mouth as if trying to draw it all inside his with his tongue. I gave up and kissed him back, giving him all my emotion all my passion, all the fear I’d felt for him this afternoon, and all the grief as well as the huge, overpowering relief. By the time he lifted his head, the tears were coursing down my cheeks. “Couldn’t you tell?” I whispered. “Couldn’t you tell what it did to me to lose you?” “Loss isn’t love.” “I loved you before. Probably I always loved you, only I couldn’t let it out. I’m a bitch, Chris, not the sort of woman you should have!” “You’re not and you are,” he said incoherently, kissing me again. He groaned. “Though how I’ll survive when you’re not here—.” “You won’t need to,” I said, kissing my way down his throat. “Jenny says I can come and work up here with her.” He grabbed my head, forcing my face up and staring down into my eyes. His own were fierce with passion and longing. “Really?” he demanded. “Really. But Chris, if you asked me, I’d come anyway. I’d drop anything, anyone for you. It frightens me how much I feel for you…oh hell, Chris, I can’t take any more of this! Take me to bed!” He smiled, roaming his hands across my breasts, lingering to pinch at my pebbled nipples. “Does it have to be bed?” “What did you have in mind?” I asked breathlessly. He pulled me down on to the floor. “Everything,” he said huskily.