Dust (Bones, Ashes and Dust Trilogy #3) Read online

  Chapter Twelve

  I rummaged through all my stuff in the bottom drawer of my desk. I'd pushed so much stuff in there that the bottom of the drawer was bulging out. I found an old sock, a dried up mascara and, right at the bottom, was my old phone. I took it out but the battery was dead so I plugged it in to charge. I couldn't tell Cassie I'd lost my phone. She'd kill me.

  What was she up to? Was she really going to try and sell the house out from under us?

  I ran downstairs, went into the kitchen, and opened the drawer where she'd stuffed all those unopened bills. The drawer was empty. So she had learned from our confrontation, even if it was only to hide the evidence. I rooted around in the other drawers, looked in cupboards and scooted around the living room trying to find evidence of what she'd been up to.

  Nothing.

  I ran back upstairs and knocked on her door to check if she was in there. There was no reply so I cautiously opened the door and entered.

  I hadn't been in Cassie's bedroom for years. It was unrecognisable to me. Even when I was a child I would go to my Gran to get my tears dried. Never my mother. Her room was extravagant, just like her. Her black silk kimono was hung on the wardrobe door on a coat hanger. Her bed, decked out in black satin, was covered in sparkly scatter cushions. There was a faux crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a large mirrored dressing table on the far side of the room covered in reams of expensive make-up and perfume. A black silk negligee was scrunched up on the bed and I could see a pair of men's boxers on the floor. I tried not to look at them and made my way over to her bedside table. I opened the drawer but there was nothing inside apart from underwear.

  The front door slammed. I heard footsteps. Cassie.

  I dived out of her room, crept across the landing and back into my room. I had just grabbed some dirty washing off the floor when she came in.

  'Hi Hun,' she said.

  'Oh hi.'

  'I hope you're not going to leave that for me to do.'

  I smiled at her. 'No, I'll do it later,' I said, clutching the fabric hard as I tried to stop my anger from erupting. So my own mother was attempting to shaft me. To sell the house my Gran had left me so that she could fund her lifestyle. I suppose her new boyfriend had something to do with that too. Oh God, what if Cassie's new boyfriend was Dexter's father? What if they'd rekindled their romance?

  'Celia rang whilst you were out,' I said.

  Cassie smiled. 'Thanks. Did she say what she wanted?'

  'No. I told her you were at a meeting to sort out the debt and she asked me to tell you she'd rung.'

  'Okay, thanks Hun,' she said, disappearing behind the door. 'Oh, by the way,' she said, 'I'm out with Damien tonight. Is Josh coming around?'

  'Maybe. I don't know yet. Who's Damien?' Damien? Was that the name of Dexter's father? I couldn't remember but I hoped not.

  'Just a friend.'

  I closed my door and fell back onto the bed. Where the hell was Josh? I grabbed my phone. There was nothing to say he'd rung or texted and then I remembered, he didn't have the number to my old phone.

  I sent a text asking him to call me and giving him my new number. Why hadn't he come around? What was taking him so long?

  I threw my phone on the bed. My body was stiff and achy. My forehead throbbed and I thought a migraine was coming. It was being back in that house. Being back home, and knowing it wasn't home.

  I closed my eyes.

  My eyes snapped open. My bedroom was draped in gloomy twilight, and rain was tapping its fingers on my window. I looked over at my alarm clock, my face rolling into a puddle of drool on my duvet cover. Eugh. The alarm read nine-twenty-three. I'd been asleep again!

  I sat up. My head was still throbbing, my bones ached and my eyes were red raw and tired. I grabbed my phone. Still nothing from Josh. My stomach jolted. I didn't like it. Something felt wrong. The air was humming against my skin, like the way it does before a thunderstorm. I shook my head to dislodge the fog in there. My mind was obviously playing tricks on me.

  There were voices drifting from downstairs; Cassie and a male voice I couldn't place. Cutlery was scraping against plates, and there was laughter. My stomach groaned with hunger. I pulled myself off the bed, readied myself for the horror of what awaited me, and went down the stairs.

  I entered the living room. I could see Cassie was at the table in the dining room, and a blonde guy was sitting opposite her with his back to me. I exhaled silently. It wasn't Dexter's dad.

  The air smelled of lamb curry and naan bread and beer. My stomach roared.

  'Hi,' I said, as Cassie looked up at me.

  'Oh, hi Hun,' she said, 'do you want some curry? There's loads to spare.'

  'You sure?' I said, torn between wanting to devour all the curry because I felt like I hadn't eaten for days, and the desire to run away as far as possible from Cassie and her new man.

  'Yeah, come and join us,' said the blonde guy standing up and turning around to face me. 'Hi, I'm Damien.'

  I sucked my breath in. Damien was fantastically good looking. Tanned with golden hair that looked like it belonged in a shampoo advert. He smiled, revealing a row of perfect white teeth.

  'It's Evie, isn't it?'

  'Yes,' I said, wanting the ground to open and swallow me up. It didn't feel right that a stranger would call me Evie.

  'Come on, join us,' he said pointing to an empty chair at the table, 'we've got so much food and besides, it will be nice to meet the girl I've heard so much about.'

  'Okay,' I said, but it really wasn't. I walked over to a spare seat.

  'I'll get you a plate,' said Cassie as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  I sat down, diagonally across from Damien.

  'So Evie, you have a boyfriend?'

  My skin crawled. Please God, no. Not another creep to deal with. I smiled politely. 'Yes.'

  'It's Josh, isn't it?'

  I glanced at Damien.

  He must have read something on my face because he said, 'It's okay, Cassie told me all about him. Hope he treats you well.'

  'He does, thanks,' I said with a brief smile. Cassie came back in the room with a plate. She passed it to me and sat down.

  'Where is he tonight?'

  I looked over to Damien as I ripped off a piece of naan bread. 'I don't know,' I lied. He was totally creeping me out but I was trying hard to not show it and still sound polite. I quickly looked away, unable to keep contact with his golden eyes. It worried me that, if I kept looking at them, I'd spill all of my secrets. And I had a lot of secrets.

  'He's a strange boy,' said Cassie, taking me off guard.

  'What? Because he likes me?' I asked, a little too waspishly.

  'No,' said Cassie, rather defensively. And I knew that was what she was getting at.

  'Your mother tells me you've been away?'

  'Yes,' I said, spooning curry on to my plate. Please get me out of here now, I thought, willing my phone to ring. Willing Josh to get me out of this mess.

  'Anywhere nice?'

  What the hell was with all these questions? Creep. 'Europe,' I replied, tipping some chips onto my plate. I was not going to look up. I could feel him staring me. 'It was a road trip.'

  'A road trip?'

  'Yes, Spain, and Poland.' I popped a bit of naan bread into my mouth. It was soft and filled with deliciously spiced meat.

  'Bit of a strange road trip,' said Cassie, 'not exactly Route 66.'

  'We were doing research for my history coursework.'

  I saw Cassie's eyebrows shoot up, but she didn't attempt to contradict me.

  'History, you say? Interesting.' Damien took a mouthful of curry. Once he'd chewed and swallowed, he turned to Cassie. 'This is fabulous curry.'

  'I told you. Abdul's does the best curry ever.' She looked at Damien with dreamy eyes, and I knew she'd already fallen for the creep.

  My heart sank.

  Damien turned back to me. 'World War Two?'

  'What?' I scooped a spoonful of curr
y into my mouth. Cassie had a crap taste in men, but she was at least right about the curry.

  'You're studying World War Two?'

  I swallowed my food. 'Yes.' Please don't ask me any more stuff about history, I thought, I haven't studied World War Two for ages.

  'I'm quite interested in World War Two,' said Damien, and my heart has sunk so low I think I could feel it in my toes.

  Here we go, I thought, we've got a boring history professor creep. There always seemed to be something strange about Cassie's boyfriends.

  'Yes, I find it amazing how one man could make so many bend to his will.'

  I smiled, hoping that my lack of an answer would make him move onto another topic.

  'It's fascinating how much Hitler believed in the Occult. Don't you think, Evie?'

  'The occult?' asked Cassie.

  'Yes, he spent a fortune, both in time and manpower, trying to find magical and historical relics. Items that he thought would help him to further his cause. He even thought,' said Damien with a wry chuckle, 'he'd be able to find the Ark of the Covenant -'

  'The Ark of the Covenant?' asked Cassie, before she took a swig of beer. She put the bottle down on the table. 'What good would that do him? I mean, is it even real? I just thought it was something Spielberg made up for his movie.'

  'Hitler thought that it would endorse what he was doing. That it would make him invincible.'

  'Really? He didn't really think stuff like that existed?'

  'Oh, relics exist. Take the Spear of Destiny, for example, that's real, but Hitler only ever had a fake copy.'

  'Spear of Destiny? It definitely sounds like something out of an Indiana Jones' film. This conversation's getting a bit deep.'

  My blood ran cold.

  'It's also known as the Spear of Longinus, but you know that don't you Evie?' Damien smiled at me. I thought I saw an edge of menace to it.

  My skin crawled. My heart began pounding in my chest.

  'I've never heard of it,' said Cassie, but -'

  'It's the spear that pierced Christ's side after his Crucifixion,' I said, looking at Damien. Suddenly he seemed familiar, but I couldn't place him.

  'No wonder I've never heard of it,' said Cassie, 'Religion isn't –'

  'So, tell me, Evie, what do you know about the Spear?'

  My nerves buzzed with an anxious energy, my legs prickled under the table, and my stomach rolled.

  The house phone began to ring.

  'Probably double glazing salesmen,' said Cassie, with an uncomfortable laugh, 'I'll let it ring.'

  It stopped.

  Then it began to ring again.

  'I'd get that if I were you,' said Damien. His voice was commanding. For a moment I thought his face changed; another face revealed as his mask fell momentarily, allowing a glimpse of the monster beneath.

  I gasped. Blinked. But his mask had fallen back into place.

  'Yeah,' said Cassie, with a heavy sigh, 'you're probably right.' Cassie wiped her mouth with a napkin. She stood up and walked into the hall.

  'Who are you?' I hissed, once Cassie had disappeared from view.

  He smiled. 'I think you already know the answer to that.' The mask exploded, exposing the monster.

  He looked like he was made of copper, beaten into the shape of a skull, with yellow jagged teeth protruding from his misshapen mouth. The beauty of Damien had disappeared, replaced by the grotesque. He smelled of metal and burnt meat.

  'Hyperion.'

  'Ta-dah! That's me.' He reached over to shake my hand. I left it hanging in the air.

  'Why are you here? And what could you possibly want with my mother?'

  Cassie came back into the dining room.

  'It was some idiot on the phone, couldn't make heads nor tails of what they were saying,' she said, taking her seat at the table. She looked over at Hyperion and smiled seductively. His mask was now firmly back in place. It suddenly struck me that what they say is true; beauty was truly in the eye of the beholder and that beauty on the outside didn't necessarily mean beauty on the inside.

  I shifted in my seat. What was Hyperion playing at? What did he want? How did Cassie fit into all of it? And how the hell did I get him out of here? I rubbed my sweaty hands on my jeans.

  Where the hell was Josh?

  I looked at my curry. My stomach turned. I felt sick. But I had to keep things normal. Well, as normal as they could be with a psychopathic ex-angel at my dinner table.

  'How did you two meet?' I asked, before forcing a spoonful of curry into my mouth. I felt it travel all the way down my food pipe until it landed heavily in the pit of my stomach. Hyperion was too big to overpower and probably too strong. Could I hit him with something? The lamp? He'd know what I was doing before I even got there. Was there anything else I could use? Could I divert his attention somehow and slip out? But slip out to where?

  Cassie smiled. 'Aww, it's quite cute really. I was in Manhattan's, feeling low, drinking myself into...well, anyway, I bumped into Damien. Spilt my Blue Lagoon cocktail all down his crisp white shirt. I apologised. Then we lost each other in the crowds but ended up trying to climb in the same taxi. And that was that. Fate had intervened.'

  Eugh, really? She was sounding more like her tacky romance books by the day.

  Cassie reached over to stroke Hyperion's hand. He subtly removed it from her grasp and picked up his glass.

  The phone rang again.

  'I think it's going to be one of those nights, tonight.' She stood up and went to answer the phone.

  'What do you want?' I asked.

  'Patience Evie and all will be revealed,' he said, placing his glass down on the table. He flashed a crooked smile at me. 'Do you know how easy it was to fuck your mother?'

  'What?' My blood went from cold to boiling hot.

  'She was such an easy lay. First night and I had her. It was far too easy to get her right where I wanted her. Just. Like. That,' he said, with a flick of his fingers and a sparkle in his eye.

  I wanted to bite. But I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. He wanted it too bad.

  'You know, if Cassie wanted to fuck you that's her business. We are living in the Twenty-first Century now, not the First. She can fuck who she wants, when she wants, and that's nobody else's business. And my name's not Evie, it's Evelyn. You don't get to call me Evie.'

  'Ooh,' said Hyperion with a smile, 'you're a feisty one, aren't you?'

  'And that's a problem?'

  'No, I'm just surprised after everything I've heard about sweet, depressed Evie. Oh, I can see what Josh sees in you, yessiree. Just imagine what I could do with you!'

  I focused hard on not shaking. Inside I was crumbling. My stomach churned, and I realised I was bouncing my legs up and down under the table. I clamped my hands on my thighs to stop them moving.

  'Or perhaps I was wrong. You're looking a little shaky. Maybe you're not as feisty as I thought.'

  'Wow. You smell a little bit of blood and you go for the jugular. Classy,' I said, scrambling to compose myself.

  'I try.'

  'Why are you here? Why don't you go and leave Cassie alone?'

  'Because you have something I need.'

  'The Book of Solomon? It's not here.'

  'I know. I've looked.'

  'Unbelievable. You bed my mom just to search her house.'

  'Oh, Evie, not just for that. What do you think I am?' He placed his hand on his chest, a look of fake hurt on his face. 'She is completely fuck-able, if a little predictable in the sheets. I've had better, to be honest….'

  'I don't need to hear this.'

  Hyperion stuck his bottom lip out. 'Does it make you feel uncomfortable?'

  'Just go. Leave her alone.'

  'Why? I haven't got what I come for yet,' he said, with a wink.

  My skin crawled. I shuddered at the thought of him near me.

  He guffawed. 'Oh darling, you do have a thing for yourself, don't you? I don't want you. No. I'm more into that boyfriend of yours.'

&n
bsp; Horror gripped me. Josh?

  'What have you done with him?'

  He smirked at me, and run his hand through his blonde hair. 'Nothing. Evie, I must say I'm a little hurt at what you're implying.'

  Stop,' I said, 'just stop playing games. What do you want from me?'

  'The Book of Solomon.'

  'I've told you, I don't have it.'

  'I know that, but I also know that you know where it is.'

  'I don't.'

  'You're terrible at lying, sweet, delectable, Evie.'

  'I don't -'

  'Know where it is, yada, yada, yada. Save the acting. I know where it is. And you know where it is.'

  'Now you're lying.'

  Hyperion flashed a devilish smile. 'No. No, I'm not. I worked it out. It's in the church.'

  'The church?' asked Cassie, coming back into the dining room.

  Shit. Why did she have to come back now?

  'Yes. St. John's. I was just telling Evie -'

  'Who was that on the phone?' I asked, cutting across him.

  'Evie, don't be so rude,' said Cassie.

  Hyperion put his hand in the air to stop Cassie. 'No. No, it's okay. Who was on the phone?'

  Cassie sat back down at the table. She looked at her curry before pulling a face. 'It was Celia. She's at A and E,' she said, pushing her plate away. It seemed like everyone had suddenly lost their appetite.

  'Is she okay?' I asked.

  'Yes, yes,' she said, but she seemed tired all of a sudden, 'Dan's been in a car crash. She thought I should know.'

  'Ah,' said Hyperion, 'the ex.'

  Cassie bristled in her chair. 'I told her that I didn't care, that I've moved on.'

  'Dan's okay though?'

  She shrugged.

  'Isn't that terrible, Evie?' Hyperion looked straight at me. His eyes hinted at malice, his smile confirmed it. I knew then that he was far more dangerous than I had ever imagined.

  'Do you need to go to the hospital?' I asked, seeing this as an opportunity to get her out of the house. To get her away from him. Surely there was still a part of her, somewhere, that still cared for Dan? 'I'll go with you.' I stood up.

  'But he's her ex,' he said, in a voice that both commanded her to stay where she was, and, hinted at the fury that would be unleashed if she argued with him. And yet, I suspected we were going to feel the force of his wrath anyway.