Authors: Lexi Revellian
Scott paled. “Okay, okay.”
Morgan let him go and he backed away.
The lift doors closed. Morgan was still scowling. “Douchebag.”
I took his hand and squeezed it. “Where
are we going?”
“To raid Mike’s flat.”
Ice Diaries ~ Lexi Revellian
We got out of the lift on the sixteenth
floor, and Morgan went to a door and knocked. After a moment,
footsteps approached on the other side.
“Who is it?” Mac’s
voice.
“Morgan.”
Pause. “What d’you want?”
“Spare parts.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.” Another pause.
Morgan rolled his eyes. “You might as well open up. I can bust
this lock.”
Mac opened the door and stood
unfriendly in the doorway, eyeing us. Behind him was the living room
and a glass wall with a view of the Shard and a smaller cluster of
City buildings including the Gherkin. I realized the fact that I
could see them meant the snow was tailing off; we’d be able to
leave.
Mac turned away. “Mike’s
bedroom’s that one.” He jerked a thumb towards a closed
door. Through the other bedroom door were signs of packing; a
rucksack and things laid out on the floor.
“Leaving?” said Morgan.
“Aye.”
“Alone?”
“Aye.”
“Then you’ll only want one
trailer. Where are the rest?” Mac stared at him through
narrowed eyes. Morgan said impatiently, “They’re no good
to you. I won’t take yours. How could I anyway, you can’t
pull two trailers with one sled. Here, have the other key to your
Yamaha.” He sorted through Mike’s key ring, slid one off
and held it out.
Mac grunted and took it. “Inside
a flat in that council high rise, round the far side.”
He retreated to his room and shut the
door as though he wanted nothing more to do with us. We went into
Mike’s bedroom. It was very orderly, except for the box of
spares which had clearly been rifled by Mac, and the parts he didn’t
need strewn over the floor. Morgan sorted through them, then put most
back in the box. He found the Semtex under the bed – less than
before, Mac must have helped himself – and laid it in the box
with the parts. The detonators took some time to find. Mike had
hidden them in the chest of drawers, the space behind the bottom
drawer. While we were searching we came across the ammunition for the
Glock.
“Might as well have it.”
Morgan put the cartridges with the other things and picked up the
box. “Let’s go.”
“Aren’t you going to look
for the gold?”
“I’d forgotten.” He
glanced around; there was very little furniture in the room, and we’d
been through it all looking for the detonators. We went into the
bathroom. I opened the mirrored cupboard; it was crammed with packets
and bottles, painkillers, antacids, laxatives, cough medicines, eye
drops, ear drops and antiseptic creams. There were several types of
earplugs and various prescription drugs; antibiotics, sleeping pills,
morphine and Viagra. None of them any help to Mike now. I helped
myself to the more useful stuff. Meanwhile Morgan had lifted the lid
off the cistern to reveal a small backpack.
“That’s not all of it,”
I said, remembering the huge heavy rucksack he’d arrived with.
“Doesn’t matter.” He
took the bag back to the light and tipped its contents on the floor.
Pirate gold, glittering in the sun; coins, torcs and enamelled Celtic
buckles, a fabulous Gothic chalice, modern jewellery sparkling with
precious stones, all tangled up together and spilling over the
carpet. Treasure; not a film prop, the real thing. Impossible not to
say, “Ooh …”
He rummaged around, then picked up a
gold and pearl necklace, Victorian, with pearls set in each link and
pendant flowers. “How about this?”
I smiled. “It’s lovely. For
me?”
“Yes. I want you to have
something special. Pick out what you want, rings, earrings, whatever.
I’m leaving the rest. I think you were right, it’s dead
weight. We don’t need it.”
I chose a fabulous Celtic torc
bracelet, thick twisted gold, then saw another more elaborate one,
like knotted rope. They were heavy and had the unmistakeable rich
colour of nearly pure gold. I put one on each wrist. “Which do
you like best?”
“Take both and decide later,”
said Morgan.
I added a ring with Alexander the
Great’s head on it, one with a red seal and a third with a
fabulous amethyst. After that a mourning ring, black enamel on gold,
and a necklace with beads, Roman or Victorian, I couldn’t
decide. Morgan smiled at my childish glee sorting through the loot.
I wore one of the bracelets and
pocketed the rest of the jewellery I’d chosen. Something
occurred to me. “What day is it?”
“Monday.”
“That means it’s Sunday
Nina Time, and it’s Toby’s christening today.” I
looked at my watch; it was only quarter to eight. I felt as if we’d
been up for hours. “We could go.”
“Why not? We’ve got to
collect the Polaris, if Mike didn’t torch it.”
Mac had gone by the time we left the
flat. We found the trailers where he had said they were, hitched them
to the sleds and brought them round to the front of Strata. We got
our stuff together ready to go, then went to the Hall. There were
only a handful of people around compared to the night before, but
every single one of them stared avidly at us. Word had spread. Serena
was huddled on a sofa in the corner, her possessions at her feet and
a blanket around her shoulders, drinking coffee. With no make-up and
her hair tied back she looked young and waif-like. Morgan handed her
both keys to her sled and told her the spare parts were in Mike’s
flat. I gave her what was left of the greenies Ginger had given me,
which we wouldn’t need.
Her face brightened. “Thanks,
that’s awesome.”
I said, “You’ll be able to
move back into the flat. Mac’s leaving too, he told us. He was
packing.”
Serena nodded. “I heard
about … what happened on the roof and everything. Scott told me,
he wanted background stuff on Mike. I couldn’t believe it at
first. It must have been dreadful for you … Are you leaving
now?”
“Yup. We’ve just got to
find Randall before we go,” Morgan said.
“Then back home to Toby’s
christening,” I added.
“Ooh, can I come with you?”
Serena’s eyes were hopeful. “I’d love a break from
here. And I want to keep out of Randall’s way for a bit in case
he’s blaming me because I was sponsoring you and there was
trouble.” She looked like someone’s kid sister. It seemed
odd I’d thought her sophisticated when we first met, and Morgan
had her down as a schemer. We’d been misled by her surface
gloss, I suppose.
“Of course you can,” I got
in quickly before Morgan could say no.
“Fab. Shall I show you where
Randall’s flat is?” She glanced at the greenies in her
hand. “I’ll just get a sandwich on the way.”
While she was being served at the
counter (no queue this early) Morgan suggested he went alone to
collect the gun. I agreed, relieved; I didn’t want to see
Randall again. I told him I’d wait where I was in the Hall. I’d
been there only a few minutes when someone sat beside me on the sofa
and roused me from my thoughts. David. At first he said nothing, just
gazed at me, his expression sombre, even doom-laden.
Mildly irritated, I said, “What?”
“I have to ask you … when I
went to the turbine room with Randall, the first thing we saw was
Hong.”
I looked away. He was going to talk
about it, and I didn’t want him to.
“I did what I could to stop the
bleeding, but even if I’d had the right equipment I think it
would have been too late. Mac left once he was dead. He didn’t
say much to me. I heard two shots and Randall came down from the
roof.” David hesitated. “I asked him if you were all
right and he said you were. Then he told me that while I was trying
to save Hong Mac said you’d stabbed him. Look at me, Tori.”
Reluctantly I met his gaze. “I can’t believe it. Whoever
did it knew exactly what he was doing, a long cut to the femoral
artery. You couldn’t do that by chance. It was Morgan, wasn’t
it? You were covering up for him in case Randall shot him too.”
I shook my head. “Mac was there.
He saw what happened. Morgan hasn’t killed anyone. It was me. I
didn’t mean to. Pure bad luck – or good luck depending
how you look at it.”
David saw I was telling the truth; he
sighed and his shoulders slumped. “I was so sure. I couldn’t
believe you’d …” He let the sentence trail away.
We sat quietly side by side for a bit,
then he broke the silence. “So you’re going south with
him and I won’t see you again.”
“Yup.”
His hand reached out and grasped mine.
“I mind that.”
I pulled my hand free. “You’ve
got Katie and Tessa.”
Haven’t we had this conversation
already
?
“I’d rather have you. I
think back to that year we had before all this started … we
should have stayed together, gone looking for our parents together. I
know I shouldn’t say this, but I keep getting this crazy image
of us riding a snowmobile, going south.” He paused, his
remembered greenish eyes looking deep into mine. “Why not? We
could, you know. Just leave everything and everybody behind. Run
away, just the two of us, and start again.”
No point explaining how I felt; he lost
me the day he made love to Katie. And I did not approve of his
proposal to abandon little Tessa. He hadn’t a hope of
persuading me, but that wouldn’t stop him trying. So instead I
said, “How much do you know about sled engines?”
“I’m a doctor. You know I’m
hopeless with anything mechanical.”
“Not like Morgan, then. He’s
a whiz with engines. The sled’s more likely to need fixing than
I am on a two thousand mile journey.”
As I’d hoped, my pragmatism left
him speechless. I looked towards the entrance. Morgan came round the
corner, his eyes searching for me; familiar and heart-warming,
bringing a smile to my face. I stood.
“Good luck, David. I hope
everything works out for you.”
I crossed the room towards Morgan and
whatever the future held without a backward glance, resigning David
to Katie and the past.
The three sleds zoomed across the fresh
powdery snow, sunlight dazzling our eyes. I rode Mike’s sled. I
remembered the time I’d seen and coveted the ACE at the
Gherkin, never expecting it would one day be mine. Three trailers
bounced behind; Serena had brought hers and all her possessions, I
felt sure, just in case Morgan relented and let her go south with us.
Before we’d gone far I slowed my
sled, turned and stopped for a last fleeting view of Strata. Ginger
had got all three turbines working again; their blades turned briskly
in the southwest wind. Everything was back to normal.
I thought about Randall. The summary
justice he’d dealt out had shocked me, but in a land without
law you could make a case for it. He was responsible, among other
things, for the safety of the residents, for keeping the peace in
Strata; Mike had shot him and tried to shoot Morgan; wherever he went
he would cause trouble for someone. Randall had courage, the way he
had faced Mike armed with the Glock. Then after being shot he’d
done the exact same thing with Morgan – and told us to leave,
when if Morgan had taken it amiss he could have thrown Randall off
the building. I was sorry he didn’t approve of me; sorry to be
persona non grata in Strata.
The silly rhyme made me smile, and
suddenly my spirits lifted. I’d been fretting about the faint
buzzing in my ears but now I resolved not to worry about it. I could
hear perfectly well in spite of the tinnitus; it was mild; I told
myself that even if permanent it was not a big deal. We were alive,
Mike was no longer a threat, we had snowmobiles and I was going to
see my friends. Morgan had noticed I wasn’t behind him; he
circled and came to fetch me.
I turned and followed him towards what
I still thought of as home.
Ice Diaries ~ Lexi Revellian
I wasn’t sure of the time of the
christening, nor the venue. When we climbed the stairs to Claire and
Paul’s no one was in, so I guessed it must be happening at
Archie and Nina’s. As soon as we got to Shakespeare Tower I
leaped from my sled in order to arrive first, pausing in front of the
terrace to take in the scene before they saw me. Everyone stood
around in Nina’s living room, dressed in smarter clothes than
usual. Greg wore a cream cable-knit sweater I hadn’t seen him
in before. Archie had put a white cloth over the table beneath the
carved crucifix, and placed a silver bowl of water (the one Nina had
floated flowers in for her dinner party) between two candles. Claire
was in the centre of the group, holding Toby wrapped in a white baby
blanket. For some silly reason my eyes filled with tears.
Morgan and Serena caught up with me and
all heads in the room turned to look at us as we climbed over the
wall on to the terrace. Greg waved with enthusiasm. I opened the door
and we went inside.
“Tori!” Claire said. “How
lovely!”
“You’re just in time, we
haven’t started yet,” said Archie, beaming at us all.
“What a wonderful surprise. Serena, too – welcome. Let me
take your jackets.”
Claire passed Toby to Paul to hold and
gave me a hug, then surprisingly hugged Morgan too. Nina eyed us and
said not to worry that we weren’t dressed for the occasion.
Greg came up and told me he’d swept the snow out of my flat
after the blizzard. I thanked him and asked after Rosie. He told me
she was fine, and had learned to come when he called her, nearly
every time.
Gemma was wearing glittery wings and a
dress with pointy layers of white, pink and blue tulle over woolly
tights.
“Hi Gems, can I have a wish now
you’re a fairy?”