Chapter 3
Talk of Shadows
He felt as if he had trawled the City and now he found himself faced with the most insignificant little backstreet shop yet. ‘Dawson’s’, the dilapidated sign above the shop front read. He crossed to the window and looked within. A tiny chocolate Labrador puppy peered back at him, its eyes sparkling with excitement. Its fellows, presumably from the same litter, appeared to be snoozing fitfully, all rolled into a large cream and brown mass that gave an occasional quiver in its collective slumber.
Sleet turned to the door and pushed it open, causing an old fashioned bell to tinkle as he did so. As he stepped across the threshold he was assailed by an unmistakable animal smell which took him back about twenty years. Thoughts of his childhood pets sprang instantly to mind. The small pup stood up on its hind legs to greet him with a series of comical yelps which served only to alert the rest of the brood, the multi-coloured conglomeration pushing itself apart, eyes like little beads fastening upon his presence. They began to yap together and Sleet moved further into the shop in an attempt to reduce their agitation.
The owner of the shop, a small pot bellied and bespectacled gent, surely past retirement age, pushed through a beaded curtain that hung across the doorway at the rear of the shop. He looked his customer up and down before nodding a greeting, “can I help you, sir?” he enquired.
“Help you? Help you?” echoed a Mynah bird from its cage behind the wooden counter. Sleet was caught slightly off guard by this, “Ah, yes….well, maybe.”
The shopkeeper stared at him questioningly as he took up his customary position behind the counter, “is it something exotic you’re looking for?”
“Zotic!” the bird attempted to repeat.
“No, no,” Sleet recovered himself, “I want a whistle, a dog whistle.”
“Ohhh, a Galton,” the old man beamed, “haven’t sold one of those in years, doesn’t seem to be a call for them any more.”
“Sorry,” Sleet interjected, “you said Galton?”
“Yes, Galton’s whistle, that’s what it’s called, named after its inventor, as you might have guessed.”
Sleet looked at him despondently, “so you haven’t got one then?”
The shopkeeper appeared indignant, “never said that, did I!” he blustered, “just said I hadn’t sold one in a while.” He turned to rummage through the shelves beyond him, one by one pulling forth seemingly ancient cardboard boxes and arranging them in a haphazard pile on the counter-top. Sleet busied himself by bending down to examine a hamster, hypnotically scurrying around its wheel and next door to it a pair of albino mice attempting to climb the glass that divided them from him, their tiny pink noses twitching incessantly.
“Here we are!” announced the shopkeeper, “knew they were here somewhere.” Sleet arose to find him wrestling with a small red and yellow striped box. Eventually he prised the top off and they both peered within. “Well, bless me,” the old man chuckled, “it’s the last one.”
“Last one! Last one!” the Mynah shrieked out
The idea of a dog whistle had occurred to him as a result of his recent close call with a Shadow in Hyde Park, during which his skin had been saved by the sudden appearance of a colony of bats. They had responded to the creature’s blood curdling holler, but their own insistent sonar calls had severely affected its balance centre and had appeared to cause it physical pain. Sleet thought that the whistle, with its high range of frequency, may well have a similar effect.
Over the following few nights he had prowled the local suburbs, spending much of the time ensconced in his regular hides, as marked upon the Ordnance Survey map that hung from his bedroom wall. These were the active areas where he had recorded previous sightings. It was in one such location, a poorly lit back-street, that the opportunity to test his latest weapon presented itself.
From his concealed position amongst the dustbins he had spent several hours scanning both the street and the clear night sky. He had almost missed the beast’s descent from on high, but at the last moment he’d seen it glide down between the tall Victorian dwellings that lined the street to land soundlessly upon the footpath. It had simply crouched there for several moments, its gargoyle’s head searching first left, then right, as if sniffing the night air, its pink tongue lolling from its mouth. It was a hideous sight.
Both he and the Shadow had become aware of the click-clacking of approaching heels simultaneously. Sleet had cursed under his breath as he had watched the creature rear up, talons outstretched, poised for its attack upon this hapless prey.
Sleet had watched as the woman came into view, walking quickly along the opposite pavement, obviously anxious to pass through this poorly lit area as soon as possible. Her long dark curls had hid much of her face. She had been wrapped in a long black woollen coat, secured tightly by a wide red belt.
The demon had leaped forward at this point and, reluctant to allow it to get into close proximity with the woman, Sleet had raised the whistle to his lips and had blown fiercely upon it. He had already found from experimenting with it that it was in good working order. He could hear nothing at all, yet the various dogs that resided in his immediate locale had been sent into a frenzy, much to the frustration of their various owners.
Immediately the beast had stopped dead in its tracks, its clawed hands going straight to the sides of its head, an awful gurgling screech emanating from its mouth. The woman had also halted at this point, and had let out an even higher pitched scream.
“Get out of here!” Sleet had shouted at her, but she had remained frozen where she stood, apparently paralysed with fear. “Move!” he had shouted once more as he had launched himself towards the pair of them, blowing again upon the whistle. The creature had flailed about still more, its eyes eventually fixing upon Sleet as he had come to a halt before it.
“Shoot it!” the woman had screamed out from behind him.
“Can’t, no gun,” he’d calmly replied.
“Well, do something!” she had frantically shouted in her strong Irish accent.
Sleet had switched on the ultraviolet torch that he held at his side. He recalled how the demon’s eyes had begun to glow deeply red at this point, but the sudden purple glow upon its leathery hide and face had caused them to instantly dim. Again it had screamed out horrifically.
It was at this point that the woman had latched onto his arm, almost causing him to drop the torch. “Get off, what are you doing?”
“Let’s get out of here!” She had sounded desperate, understandably so.
The Shadow had taken the opportunity in this momentary respite, not to attack, as it perhaps could well have done, but to take flight once more and, with frantically beating wings, it had risen into the sky.
“What was it?” she had asked.
“A Shadow. Just a Shadow.”
As they left the street, heading for a busier part of the City, they had collided with a tall slim figure dressed in a dark grey long-coat. “Excuse me,” the man had muttered, head held low, as he hurriedly moved past them. Sleet had been about to turn around, to warn him that another route might be preferable. What had stopped him he did not know. Perhaps the responsibility of his current charge had been enough for the time being. He couldn’t be on the lookout for everyone in London, after all.
Her name was Helen. Helen O’Mara. Of course, she had been petrified by the creature that had appeared before her, but a calmness had come over her surprisingly soon, together with an inquisitiveness that Sleet had found somewhat disconcerting. He had never related his experiences to anyone and he had been unsure of what to say, how much to tell.
“You’ve seen them before then?” she had asked.
“On a number of occasions, yes.”
“You were looking for it, weren’t you?” This in a somewhat accusatory tone.
“They killed my brother,” he’d felt that this was answer enough and it seemed to satisfy. They had walked on in silence for a short while, Sleet realising that she was leading and that he was following. He had felt uncomfortable, his mind trying to conjure up an excuse to leave her side.
“Why would you go looking for monsters like that without a gun?” she had questioned him, “it hardly seems to make sense, does it?”
“I don’t get on with guns, never have,” they had walked a few steps further on, “that was how my father died.”
“That’s a lot of death so far, if you don’t mind me saying?”
“Anyway,” he’d joked, changing the subject, “I don’t need a gun. I have this dog whistle, oh, and my torch.”
“Aye,” she had laughed, “you’re a real super-hero, aren’t you.”
He was seated in the snug of O’Mara’s Irish Bar, the public house kept by Helen’s father, a glass of cold Guinness upon the table before him alongside a clean plate from which he had just devoured her speciality steak and ale pie. The real fire burned fiercely across the room from him, creating an ambiance within which his mind could freely wander. Since their unlikely meeting this place had become a regular haunt. Although he certainly felt an attraction towards Helen, for she was indeed a beauty, he had convinced himself that he could afford no romantic entanglements at present. Not if he intended to persevere with his hunting of these Shadows. And she appeared to be more than satisfied with his occasional company.
O’Mara’s place had become something of a haven. For a long time now he had been a loner, but here, thanks to Helen’s insistence, he had become accepted. Although it was certainly not a private members club, the clientele was mainly made up of regulars, who were, in the largest part, of Irish extraction. Strangers, as long as they were courteous, were by no means discouraged, but raucous or rowdy groups soon found themselves crowded out by the locals and ignored by Kevin O’Mara when they called out for service. The atmosphere could quickly become hostile and there was normally a sufficient quantity of burly regulars to cause uncertainty amongst even the most troublesome gangs. Only rarely did violence actually flare up and, when it did, it was usually a rather brief affair. The local police were well aware that their services would be better utilised elsewhere.
Helen bustled in through the swinging door, her cheeks rosy from the heat of the kitchen that lay beyond. She began to clear the table before him.
"Thanks," he said, stretching out with a yawn, "that was great."
Instead of her normal cheery smile, her face carried a look of concern. "There's someone asking for you," she whispered, "in the bar."
"I take it you don't mean Declan, looking for a dominoes re-match?"
"No," she forced a smile. "I haven't seen him before. He looks kind of suspicious."
He knew her as someone that didn't scare easily, but had also come to believe that her instincts were pretty good. "In what way suspicious?"
"I don't know," she replied, "I guess....twitchy."
"Okay....," he sat himself upright, "why don't you describe him to me, before I go and take a look myself."
His visitor had found himself a small table in the corner of the bar where he had seated himself and was slowly wilting under Declan's frightful glower. Sleet patted his burly friend's arm as he passed him at the bar, and he duly returned his attention to his pint. As Helen had described, the newcomer was a pretty unassuming character. He appeared to be fairly short and particularly slim, his baggy blue parka hanging loosely on his insignificant frame. He had a freckled face and wore round wire spectacles, perched upon a button nose. The most striking thing about him was his mop of curly ginger hair. Sleet judged him to be in his early to mid twenties. As Sleet approached him, the stranger removed his glasses and proceeded to de-mist them with a plain white handkerchief.
"Looking for me?" Sleet asked, as he came up to the table.
The young man settled his specs back on his nose and peered up at him, "Mr James, yes," he smiled somewhat nervously, held an outstretched hand towards Sleet, "thank you for seeing me."
Sleet ignored the proffered hand, instead turning to drag a stool across the floor and promptly seated himself opposite the man. "What do you want?"
"Just to talk, Mr James," he spoke with hurried assurance, "no more than that, if you don't mind?"
Sleet leaned across the table, "Talk then. You can start by telling me who you're with."
The young man's brow furrowed with concern, "I'm here alone Mr. James, you can trust me on that."
"No," Sleet replied, "you can trust me," he turned to exchange deliberate glances firstly with Declan, then with Kevin O'Mara, and finally with Alfie and Jules who were seated at their customary positions at the end of the bar, "I know you're alone. What I meant was, who do you work for."
His visitor visibly relaxed, "Oh, I don't work Mr James, I have a student grant you see."
"Are you trying to be funny or something? You'd better do some quick talking, and you can start with how you know me, and where to find me. Folks around here don't take too kindly to...."
Sleet's words were interrupted by the raucous sound emanating from a group of five youths who, in a rather obviously drunken state, had literally just fallen through the front door. They appeared to be mid way through an argument and were both too far gone and too caught up with their own affairs to take stock of the comparatively peaceful atmosphere that they had just shattered. They came up short against the bar, for the time being fully absorbed in their noisily intense discussion.
His focus was brought back to more immediate concerns by the stranger sitting opposite him who had leaned forward so that he could be heard by Sleet alone, "My name is Shaun Perry, Mr James," as he spoke he slid an obviously home-made business card across the small table between them, "and I've been studying them too. Not quite in the same manner as yourself, admittedly, but I've learnt quite a bit these last few months."
For the first time Sleet noticed the nervous tic that twitched at the corner of Perry's left eye. He was momentarily hypnotised by it as his mind struggled to absorb the information.
"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked.
"Oi, barman!" came a yell from one of the noisy new arrivals, "a bloke could die of thirst in here. Do ya sell beer, or what?"
Kevin O'Mara's attention did not waver from Declan's glass which he was expertly filling with more of the black stuff, held at the perfect angle in order to achieve the desired head before, with a flourish, allowing the final drops to form the pattern of a shamrock upon the froth. Only when he had placed the finished article on the counter before him did he turn to regard the youths.
"Lads," he began quietly, "no offence, but would you mind moving on? I run a quiet place here you see, and you're only five minutes walk from the High Street. Bars a plenty there for you."
"The creatures, Mr James," Perry said in a hushed tone, "I know that you understand me."
Sleet continued to stare at him, caught off guard for the first time in as long as he cared to remember.
"You think that you've been hunting them, Mr James, don't you?" Perry was close enough now that Sleet could smell his stale coffee breath. "You think you've worked out their movements, when and where they appear."
"What of it?" Sleet countered, extremely conscious of the acknowledgment that his few words conveyed.
"Come on, mate," the youth at the bar shouted, "it's a free country isn't it? And this is a pub by the looks of it," he turned to his friends, "just about anyway." They fell about with laughter. "I can ask for a pint if I want to."
"You can ask, son," O'Mara spoke in a resigned tone, "but you ain't gettin'."
"You see, Sleet, can I call you Sleet?" Perry continued, "all this time you've thought that you were hunting them down. That if you waited long enough in the right place they'd turn up, and invariably they do, don't they?"
Sleet was hooked now, his eyes fastened upon Perry's, behind their wire rimmed glasses.
"But you're not the hunter, Sleet. They are the hunters. They always have been. Oh, they'll prey on anyone they stumble upon, you've seen it and I've seen it, many times. But you're the ultimate prey, Sleet, it's you they're looking for, and time's running out."
Sleet was ignorant of the expletives that were now ringing out from the bar area. But then all hell broke loose and in short order one of the youths was hurled across the room by Declan, colliding with the table at which Sleet and Perry were seated, scattering the pair of them. Another of them, blood already dripping from a split lip was approaching Declan from behind, a broken bottle in his hand. Sleet moved to intercept him easily, forcing his arm halfway up his back, causing him to drop his makeshift weapon whilst crying out in pain. The brawl was over as quickly as it had flared up and the gang of five were soon making there way back through the door, one of their number being half carried by his friends. Declan was already back at the bar, nonchalantly supping his latest pint of Guinness. Alfie was returning to his seat whilst rubbing his knuckles, a sour look on his face. Helen had come in from the kitchen and was fussing around her father.
Sleet turned back to the small table where he had been seated, but Shaun Perry was nowhere to be seen.
"That guy I was just with, ginger hair, where did he go?" They looked at him blankly.
"Must have slipped out when it all kicked off I suppose," said Kevin O'Mara, "can't say I blame him. Didn't look like he'd last long in a fight."
Sleet opened his clenched fist and stared down at the crumpled piece of card that lay in his palm, straightened it out to reveal a name and a mobile phone number. He looked across at Helen, unaware that much of the colour had drained from his face.
"You are not the hunter," he whispered to himself, "they are."