Dust Read online

  Our journey across the North Atlantic was uncomfortable and tiring. As much as I loved being in Josh's arms, the flying was beginning to take its toll on me. My back ached, my neck ached, and I was so tired but also wired at the same time.

  When we arrived at Lloret de Mar I would've loved to have sunk into a big comfy bed but, even if bed had been an option, I doubted I'd be able to sleep despite how tired I was.

  The sky was azure blue with only a few wisps of cloud. The air was hot and sticky, and I was sweaty and bordering on becoming an over-emotional, grumpy cow. I'd never really been good with heat. Holiday destinations were great when you were on holiday, but when you were trying to find an angel? Not so much. And I was overdressed and uncomfortable in my jeans, tee-shirt and hoodie; They were fantastic clothes for flying in the cold air high above the clouds, but not so great on land, underneath the scorching Spanish sun.

  We landed on the beachfront right in front of a woman wearing a kaftan and a stylish trilby who was strolling over to the sand in bright pink flip-flops. She didn't even notice us as we dropped right in front of her on the white stone pavement. Being invisible was something I could get used to. Josh's wings vanished and the effect unfortunately disappeared.

  Bronzed girls tottered around in barely-there bikinis, their eyes covered by shades almost as big as their faces. Bare-chested men leered at them from their plastic chairs outside the sea-front bars, beers in hand and half-eaten all-day breakfasts in front of them. Cheers erupted from inside a large sports bar down the road as England scored a goal in some football match being played miles away, and dance music pumped from other bars along the strip.

  Tony's Bar, the place which, according to the scrap of paper, we could find Sophia, was just along the sea-front. It was like all the other places along the beach, with plastic chairs and tables festooned with food and cocktail menus, and the beer-branded umbrellas which flapped like birds in the breeze.

  We walked past a large noticeboard covered with flyers for strip bars and excursions and entered the bar. My eyes slowly adjusted as we went from the blinding white light of the sun outside, to the darkness of the interior. A blonde came into view, writhing around on a plinth in the centre of the bar to some dance tune that didn't match her moves, a host of leering lads around her, worshipping their Goddess with beer and all-day fry-ups.

  This wasn't the type of place I imagined an angel to hang out, but then, what did I know about angels? I expected something special, something, I don't know, more heavenly. Instead, it seemed like the sleaziest, dirtiest pub you were ever likely to find.

  I followed Josh to the bar, my feet squelching as they stuck to the floor. There were three people at the counter; a man ordering a beer, a woman that may have been his girlfriend sucking what looked like a Mojito through a black straw, and a woman sitting on a bar stool wearing a khaki baseball cap with the words “Angel-fire Excursions” on the front. She knocked back her drink in one.

  'Another Tone,' she said, shaking the tumbler. The ice cubes jangled against the side of the glass.

  The guy behind the bar poured her another double-shot from a Jack Daniel's bottle.

  'I was here first,' said a small guy with a mop of curly blond hair who'd suddenly appeared at the bar.

  The barman ignored him.

  'I said, I was here first.' He pointed to the empty pint glasses in front of him.

  The guy behind the bar placed the bottle of Jack Daniel's on the counter and scratched his large belly. He stared at the blond guy without blinking once. His face was calm, like a sea on a warm sunny day, and yet his eyes spoke of danger, like a shark lurking under the water waiting for the moment to attack.

  The barman lunged forward, quicker than a large man should. I thought he was going for the blond guy's throat, but instead, he scooped up the pint glasses from the counter. He turned his back and placed the glasses on the shelf behind him.

  'Two Stella,' said the guy.

  The barman's shoulders tensed. I could see him eyeing up the blond guy through the mirror on the back wall, his eyes full of rage. He turned back to the front and stomped to the bar. Reaching down, he grabbed two glasses and poured the lager into them from the tap. They looked more like ice creams when he slammed them onto the counter, the froth tumbling down the side of the glass.

  'Hey,' said the blond guy, 'Where's the...' but his words dissolved as the barman snatched the ten euro note from his hand with a look that would have stopped the devil in his tracks.

  The blond guy grabbed the two glasses of lager and fled from the bar, not even waiting for his change.

  'Hi,' said Josh, holding out his hand to the barman. The barman left it hanging in the air and Josh let his arm fall.

  'Hi, yeah, erm...we're looking for a friend and I was wondering if you could help.'

  'I don't know unless you give me a name.'

  'Sophia. Sophia Alchymysta.'

  The woman in the baseball cap knocked back her drink and lifted up her glass. The bartender grabbed the Jack Daniel's and poured her another. He put the bottle back and turned his attention back to us.

  'A friend you say?'

  'Yes.'

  'No,' he said, in his thick Italian-American accent, his fat finger pointing straight at Josh, 'I don't think you are friends.' He leaned forward and spread his big hairy hands out on the bar in front of us. He sniffed the air before adding, 'I smell a big pile of bullshit. A great steaming pile of it.'

  'What?'

  'Do me a favour and save your breath,' said the bartender.

  'I'm just trying to find -'

  'Your friend, I know, you've said. Only she isn't your friend because if she was, you'd know she was sitting there, right next to you.'

  The woman in the khaki baseball cap swung herself around on her bar stool.

  'It's okay Tone,' she said, 'I'll handle it from here.' She stuck her leg out and placed her foot on the floor. I noticed an intricate lace garter tattoo around her right thigh.

  'You're Sophia Alchymysta?' I asked.

  'So what if I am?' she growled. 'What do you want?'

  'We need your help,' I said, quickly adding 'Please,' as I saw the unimpressed look on her face.

  'Not interested,' she said, swinging back around on her stool to face the bar again. She picked up the whiskey that had just been poured for her.

  'We know where the Spear is,' said Josh.

  She held her glass in the air for a few seconds before saying, 'Like I said, I'm not interested.' She downed the whiskey and stood up. Pushing the stool back with her foot, she said 'I'll be in my room,' to the barman, and then disappeared through the door behind the bar.

  'That went well,' I said.

  'Couldn't have gone any worse,' said Josh, with a forced smile.

  'What do we do now?'

  Josh shrugged. 'I don't know. We can't force her to help us. I can't believe I missed her though. It was pretty obvious she was, you know...'

  An angel? I finished his sentence in my head. 'How so?'

  'She has a faint glow, as all angels do. Her's is tinged with deep red. There's also her music, a strong, war-like tune with lots of drums and stuff. It was muffled, but it's there. I just missed it.'

  'I didn't hear anything.'

  'You wouldn't be able to hear it. It took me a while because she's a fallen angel so it's not as loud. It got lost in all the other stuff going on.' He turned to Tone, the bartender. 'Have you got a piece of paper and a pen?'

  The barman looked at him with a look that said “are you kidding me?” but said nothing. He grabbed a pen and pad from the back of the bar and slammed it down on the counter in front of him.

  Josh took the pen and scribbled his mobile number on the pad. He ripped the sheet off and held it up for him.

  'Could you give Sophia this,' he said, waving the paper in the air, 'in case she changes her –'

  'Look,' he replied, 'the lady said she's not interested.'

  'But -'

  'Listen. I
'm gonna say this only once,' said Tone, pointing his hairy finger at him, 'leave now, whilst you still can.' He leaned over and gently slapped Josh's left cheek with his hand.

  Josh tensed up beside me. I grabbed his arm and pulled him away, through the bar and back out into the heat of the day. We stopped just outside.

  'Shit!' he said, slumping against the noticeboard.

  'Any ideas?'

  'Maybe he'll give her your number.'

  'Or he won't. Which is more probable. You heard him, and, even if he does,' he said, 'it doesn't mean she'll call.'

  'We don't need him to,' I said, pointing to the noticeboard, 'look at this.'

  Josh stood up and turned around. 'What?'

  'This.' I pointed towards a poster on the board for Angel-Fire Excursions, a company specialising in the exploration of abandoned places, or as the poster called them, urban playgrounds.

  'Well, I'll be...That's Sophia,' he said, pointing at Sophia's smiling, or rather grimacing, face on the poster.

  'Yep, and it looks like they've still got vacancies for tomorrow's excursion.'

  Josh nodded. 'To an abandoned doll factory. Location is a secret. Sounds -'

  'Creepy?'

  'I was thinking more along the lines of strange, but yeah, creepy works too.'

  'We should go,' I said.

  'Do you think it will work?'

  'I know it's a lot of euros but we have the cash and it will give you plenty of opportunity to use your charm on her.'

  'Not sure my charm will have an effect on that one though.'

  'We'll see,' I said, reaching over to plant a kiss on his cheek. 'I think you underestimate yourself.'

  That night we ate fish and chips and slept on the beach under a blanket of white-hot stars, cocooned in between the sand dunes and wrapped up in each other's arms. It could've been romantic, but the music booming from the bars lining the seafront and the constant sound of people laughing or puking not far from where we lay, spoiled it. Around 5 am the world turned peaceful again and all I could hear was the sound of the waves lapping against the shore.

  I moved closer to Josh. I was safe.

  Not so long back I had thought I was dead, but now, here in Josh's loving arms, every part of me was alive. My blood pumped through my veins. My heart beat strongly. And every nerve in my body tingled with an energy that seemed to intensify with every second I was with him.

  He gently placed a kiss on the top of my head.

  With him, I felt like I could do anything, or be anything.

  Death's words taunted me from the darkness.

  'I will take his life for the one he stole from me,' she had said. I shuddered as I remembered the coldness of her hand across my cheek. 'He will die.'

  'Are you cold?'

  I nodded, unable to speak. I couldn't betray the sadness in my heart with tears. He pulled me closer to him and I fought them. I would not cry. Death would not ruin the moment. She could at least give me that.

  The sky above us began to explode with sparks of light, beautiful streaks of gold zooming across the Prussian-blue sky like rockets.

  'Shooting stars,' said Josh, surprise in his voice. He sat up but kept his arm around me. 'There shouldn't be any here, not now.'

  'They are beautiful.' A stray tear streaked down my face.

  In the quiet of the awakening sky, I looked upon those stars and wished for his life. I didn't want him to die. I couldn't live without him. I didn't want to live without him. I wanted him to stay with me. I'd lost my father. I couldn't lose Josh. I wished that somehow, although I didn't know how, he could become a fallen angel and stay with me forever.

  'You should make a wish,' he said, pulling me back into the present, 'isn't that what you're supposed to do?'

  'I already have.'

  'And?'

  'And, it's a secret. They don't come true if you tell.'

  'That sounds like a challenge. I like challenges,' he said, running his hand over my thigh. 'You will tell me.'

  Josh lifted his right hand up to my neck and lightly brushed my hair away. He leant forward and gently kissed my skin.

  Heat surged through my body.

  'I'm still not going to tell you, I said, barely holding on to my self-control. 'You're going to have to try harder.'

  'Of course, you will,' he whispered into my ear. He ran his tongue across my flesh.

  'That's not playing fair.'

  'No, this isn't playing fair,' he said, cradling my face in his hands before he kissed me hard on the lips. He stole my words, my thoughts, my body consumed by the fire blazing inside me.

  And when I thought it was going to kill me, he finally stopped. But I could still feel the kiss pulsing through my body, feel the fire burning deep within.

  'I give in,' I said, breathlessly, 'you win.'

  'Yes?'

  I looked into his crystal eyes.

  'I wished we could stay in this moment. Forever.'

  He looked like he wanted to say something but thought better of it.

  'We are all made of stardust,' I said, looking back up at the star-strewn sky 'we are all children of the stars.' I knew why he was sad.

  'What?'

  'My Gran told me that when my father died he was watching over me from his place just behind the North Star. Up there,' I said, pointing to the sky. 'He isn't. He's actually lying in the cemetery, nothing but bones. But maybe, in a small way, I am still looking at him.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'All the elements on earth were formed in the heart of a star, and when that dying star finally exploded, those elements were ejected into space by the force of the explosion. The iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones came from exploding stars. Or so my science teacher says...'

  'Okay but...'

  'We're not seeing the stars in real-time. We see them as they once were because of the time it takes light to travel to earth. Some are already dead. But maybe, just maybe, one of those stars up there is the one that made my father.' I looked at Josh, his face was full of pity. 'It was just a thought. Just a silly thought...'

  'No it's not,' he said, brushing a tear away from my face. 'With the stars above, you are never alone.'

  'You can be in a room full of thousands of people and still be alone,' I said.

  A silence fell between us as the star-show began to fade. Everything must come to an end.

  Slowly the morning began to awake. The sky turned indigo, then cobalt and finally sapphire with splashes of pink-gold and tangerine.

  My stomach grumbled with hunger.

  'Come on,' said Josh, unwrapping himself from around me, 'let's get you some food.'

  I looked at my watch. 'We've got two hours before the excursion starts. There's plenty of time...'

  'We need, he said, standing up and dusting sand off his jeans, 'to get cleaned up, you've got sand in your hair. And you need breakfast.' He held out his hand to me.

  I groaned. 'Okay.' I grabbed my backpack in one hand, and Josh's hand in the other. He pulled me up and I brushed myself down.

  We slipped, unseen, into the poolside toilets of a local hotel. I washed, brushed my teeth and combed my hair before we headed off in search of breakfast; a bacon sandwich and a cup of lukewarm tea. We were back at Tony's Bar at 9 am, ready for our adventure with Sophia and the abandoned doll factory.

  We waited outside Tony's Bar; the rendezvous point for Sophia's excursion. There was one other man. He looked around twenty-five, dressed in camo cargo pants and a black tee-shirt with a dark green bucket hat. He took off his Ray-Ban shades and folded them up, hooking them over the front of his tee-shirt.

  'Hi,' he said, 'you waiting for the excursion?'

  Josh nodded.

  The guy extended his hand. 'I'm Mark Cassidy.' He paused, before adding; 'You know, the Mark Cassidy,' he said, implying we should know who he was.

  'Hi,' said Josh, shaking his hand.

  I smiled politely and shook his hand.

  'Have you done one of thes
e before?' he asked.

  'No, our first one,' I replied.

  'Oh. You'll love it,' he said, a wild excitement in his chestnut-coloured eyes, 'I've never visited this place before. I've been with Sophia to many other sites, but not this particular one. I'm sure it's going to be wild. To be honest, I thought I was the only one taking the trip.'

  'You should be,' said Sophia appearing from inside the bar, a black hold-all slung over her right shoulder. 'Tony should've taken the poster down.'

  'We've got the cash,' said Josh, holding up two-hundred euros.

  'So I see,' said Sophia, slinging the hold-all into the back of her army-green jeep parked right outside Tony's.

  'Well, I was hoping for exclusivity on this one,' said Mark to Sophia's back, 'can we really trust them to keep the location secret?'

  Sophia grabbed her shades from the front of her baseball cap and put them on.

  'We won't tell anyone,' I said, 'promise.'

  'We have cash,' said Josh.

  'How do we know they're not working for some rival urban explorers trying to take me down? My advertisers won't be too happy if they find content on other sites, content that should be exclusive -'

  'Do we look like we have cameras?' asked Josh.

  'I don't know what's in your girlfriend's bag do I?'

  Sophia looked over the top of her shades. 'You can come,' she said, yanking the money from Josh's hand. She folded it up and slipped it into her pocket.

  'But Sophia -'

  'Do you want me to leave you here? I can always give you a refund,' she said, to Mark.

  'Okay,' said Mark, like a sulky child, 'but I sit in the front.'

  Chapter Four

  We took the coastal road from Lloret de Mar, keeping the cerulean-blue ocean to our left. The golden sunlight danced upon its undulating surface like little fairies. The air was hot but manageable, as long as we kept driving with the windows open to the salty sea air. An hour or so into the drive we began to make our way inland, leaving the sea behind us along with the urban, tourist sprawl for Spain's rugged interior.