Dark Harbour: The Tale of the Soul Searcher (44 page)

It felt so unreal, as though Danny was watching a film. He never would have imagined that the universe would have this sort of role for him, that he would get the girl,
this
girl, the most beautiful girl he could imagine.

‘It’s all in the eyes,’ she said to him. ‘Windows to the soul. There you can see everything.’

And so his gaze rested on her eyes, so their souls could be unveiled to each other, as naked as they were in the flesh.

‘Keep looking, deep inside me. Then you’ll know.’

He slid into her, and both of them gasped, releasing such deep, pent up feelings. She wanted to feel his hunger, a desire that was the most powerful she had ever seen in anyone else. Here she had someone who could match her own longing, and help temporarily to fill the massive hole that had engulfed her life.

Danny continued to search deep into her sunset eyes. Within them, the violet exploded into a kaleidoscope of colours and Danny felt as though he was looking into the depths of infinity. He could see his entire life all in one moment, how the tides of the universe had flowed within him, carrying him along to this very moment, being inside the girl he loved.

He pictured an island, far away from him, lost within the cosmic currents, a paradise that was just out of reach. But he couldn’t understand why he was floating elsewhere. The girl he loved was right here in his hold, underneath him. This was the moment. It was all about this moment.

He shut his eyes, feeling a wave of sadness pass through him. The goblin missed a few keys as he played some discordant notes. Stella was the island. She always was. She was the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega. He could not imagine loving another person as much as he loved her now.

‘Danny…’ she whimpered.

And Danny looked into her eyes once more. And suddenly he felt he almost knew what she was trying to show him. It was right there. Right at the edge of his mind’s fingertips.

And Danny knew the revelation would destroy him. But not even that thought would stop him from enjoying this moment; Danny was already destroyed.

Lucas Duffy, the man who didn’t have the name The Dim Reaper on his birth certificate, the man who didn’t have any compunction about shooting people and killing them, the man who didn’t mind parking in zones that were reserved for residents, was sitting in his BMW M3 Saloon, a newspaper resting on the steering wheel. The paper was three weeks old but he wasn’t really reading it, only doing a crossword.

A song had ear-wormed into his head, something that was on television this morning. He’d been watching some kids show as he often did. He found them so colourful and trippy.

‘This old man, he played one, he played knick-knack on my thumb,’ he uttered in a William Shatner style singing voice.

His trilby hat sat on the passenger seat. Beneath it was his silenced SIG, fully loaded. This afternoon he’d been shooting pigeons off the tree in his back garden for target practice.

‘Oh this old man! He played two! He played knick-knack on my shoe!’ he sang, livening it up half a notch. ‘With a knick-knack paddy-whack, give a dog a bone. This old man… is a motherfucking Al Capone.’

Danny reached the ecstasy as she did. He collapsed on top of her in a pile of perspiring flesh. Although she was still beneath him, she suddenly felt distant.

He crawled off her and slid under the duvet. Stella did the same, placing a comforting arm around Danny’s waist.

‘Now, my lost one,’ she panted, ‘now do you understand?’

‘Two ships sailing along the waves…’

‘…and now they will sail on.’

Danny sighed. ‘I don’t want anyone else.’

‘We are lost souls, but you are not meant for me, and I am not meant for you. We are both lost to others.’

Danny closed his eyes solemnly. ‘We’re meant for whoever we choose.’

Stella nodded. She turned away to face the window. ‘And I have already chosen. A long time ago.’

Danny leant up, the confusion writhing in his head. ‘Who? Who can it be? Sam? You left him!’

Stella shook her head as soon as she heard his name. ‘Like I said, I’ve waited for so long. Believe me I’ve tried. I’ve tried to fight the loneliness. I’ve tried other ways.’

‘It’s not Sam?’

She shook her head again.

‘Then who is he? It’s not me, it’s not Sam. Who the hell is he?’

‘You’re only aware of a fragment of the journey your soul is making. Those we have walked beside before, in other times, in other lives, they are our true soulmates.’

‘But I love you. It’s you I want.’

‘Somewhere out there you have a true love. She’s the one you truly yearn for, from your lifetimes gone by. But you’ll find her. As long as you keep looking. It’s the gift I’ve given to you. You’ll know now as soon as you see her. You’ll know she is the one.’

‘It’s you.’

‘No.’ She sat up and started picking her clothes off the floor. ‘I’m sorry, Danny. One day you’ll understand. One day you’ll know what I’ve done for you.’

He knew then that it was all over, that no matter how hard he tried to fight it, she would now fade away from him, like petals on a flower shrivelling up as night inevitably descended. He felt dead and empty, the magic of the universe now just a sadistic illusion, fate just randomness, the goblin just natural chemicals in the brain. There was no pattern to anything. Stars were just stars. Stella was just a beautiful girl with fortunate genetics.

And Danny was some misfortunate nobody who was ready to welcome whatever fate Samuel had prepared for him.

Samuel was indeed waiting for him. Wearing his black beanie hat, he paced up and down the pavement nervously. He was only minutes away now and then it would all be over. Simple. It was all arranged. Nothing could go wrong now.

In his hand he clutched the briefcase that contained the other fifty thousand. Samuel checked his watch. He was only minutes away.

He paced up and down the pavement once more, dodging the dirty puddles that lurked here and there. It wouldn’t be good to ruin another pair of expensive trainers.

Samuel knew this would make quite the story in the
Harbour Gazette
next week. Nobody would have seen it coming and they’d all be shaken to their cores. They never would have known that Samuel Allington was the type.

Staring skywards, Samuel stopped pacing. He could see his crystallising breath floating upwards into the night air like ghostly vapours. One or two drops of rain fell on his face and it felt incredibly refreshing for the damaged young man was sweating like mad. His hands were shaking too, ripples of faint spasms going through his body, as though he was about to disgorge the delicious meal he’d eaten tonight. Steak and chips followed by chocolate ice cream. His favourite.

He looked up the street. Any second now.

Dressed once more in his white shirt and blue jeans, Danny slung on his jacket. Stella had gone to the kitchen to get him a drink of water, but she was taking a long time. Danny just wanted to go, wanted to get out of there and face Samuel’s wrath.

He crept out of the bedroom and peered through the kitchen door. She was rooting through one of the packing boxes, probably looking for a glass. Danny knew that would be his final look at her. His final image of the girl whose beauty had haunted him for so long and had led him to this fatal cataclysm.

There he left her. Danny tiptoed out of her flat and stepped inside the elevator. Down he went, back to the ground and the sobering salt air.

The clear skies had sucked all the heat out of the night and Danny shivered. He felt worse than any hangover he’d ever had, as though someone had doused his soul in gasoline and set fire to it.

What a lucky man he would be to make it back home, to get back to the flat and sit and watch the ten o’clock news with Michael. Or perhaps he should be getting on with his final essay that he was supposed to hand in next week. There was work at the chip shop tomorrow to think of too. He couldn’t be having a late night tonight.

Back at the flat there was an ordinary life waiting for him, and that’s what Danny was feeling once more. Ordinary. Average.

But all of a sudden he longed for that ordinariness more than anything, as much as he’d longed for Stella. If Samuel was indeed about to kill him then he would have to plead with him that there was no longer any point. Stella and Danny were over; Samuel could have her back. Not that she apparently wanted him, not that she wanted
either
of them. No, there was someone
else
she had her eye on.

His breathing shallow, his heartbeat hasty, Danny quickened his pace as though he was late for a lecture. It felt like time had run out. The world had been going on without him. He just hoped that with the little composure he had left he could make it back home…

‘This old man, he played seven, he’s gonna send you along to heaven.’

Lucas Duffy could see him. He was there just as he said he would be. Son of a bitch was even right about what clothes he was wearing.

He walked briskly up the street. There was no one else around. A quick shot to the head and he would be on his way.

He felt the SIG Mosquito in the holster under his jacket and flicked the decocker. Just as he approached the silent figure, he whipped the gun out and pointed it at the guy’s head.

But he did not shoot.

Something wasn’t right, and when the guy turned round he could see exactly why.

‘Holy shit!’ Duffy cried.

He quickly put the gun away and put his hands on his hips, looking around to see where the target was. ‘Fack, when you said what he’d be wearing I thought you meant what
he
would be wearing, not
you
! Jesus!’

Tears were streaking down Samuel’s face. Duffy continued to search the streets, thinking already that tonight’s job was well and truly botched.

Samuel slung down the briefcase, and then Duffy raised his eyebrows.

‘Wait. No! No way!’ he said, a peculiar grin appearing on his face. ‘That’s totally fucked up!’

Samuel cleared his tight throat. ‘I had your word.’

‘Why didn’t you do it yourself?’

‘I can’t. I tried. I failed at everything, I even failed at that.’

‘This is wild.’

Samuel Allington closed his eyes for what he hoped would be the final time.

‘The rest is in there?’ Lucas asked.

‘So dim.’

With that, Duffy shrugged, put the silenced SIG to the front of Samuel’s head and blew his brains out all over the pavement. He picked up the briefcase, wiped the spray of blood off the leather with his sleeve and then skipped off down the street.

‘With a knick-knack paddy-whack, give a dog a bone. This old man came rolling home.’

Chapter 16.3

The place had called her back again as it had done throughout the years, throughout the endless sunsets that had burned onto her doleful gaze. It was the same place where her heart had been broken. The same place that had tried to reconcile her searing pain. It was a place of bitter loss and bitter discovery.

Broken people were often called here. It was somewhere that could show them the things that they dreamt for, if they truly believed that asking the waves could manifest the destiny they imagined. Stella knew this because it had worked for her. It had manifested exactly what she was looking for.

And here he was back again, the forlorn lost soul who’d stumbled into her arms all those years ago. He was her soulmate, lost in another life, but found in this one.

The day she’d lost him was the same day she’d obtained the tool to find him again. It had taken a while to understand her new powers, but eventually she realised what new perceptions she had, that she could wander the world and look into the eyes of every person she met and know exactly who they were. She knew that if she carried on looking long enough then she would find the particular soul she had lost that day.

Once she’d harnessed those powers, she was able to freeze her life-force, her soul in stasis as she wandered around like a living ghost. Time brought no lines to her face, no fading of her honey hair, her springtime energies held firmly within her grasp like an amaranth, until it was time to let go. Until she would finally look into that pair of eyes and find the one she was looking for.

Twenty-six decades later and she did just that. The lost little boy who’d emerged out of the darkness and silently walked up to her shores. She’d seen that he was broken, as he’d remained until now, even though she’d passed on the stone so he could look into her, into himself. To align everything.

‘Hello there,’ she said to him.

Vladimir did not react to her voice, staring numbly at his feet planted in the glistening sands.

‘You’re here again,’ she added as she stepped next to him. ‘Keep finding you here, don’t I?’

At last he looked up at her, but only briefly. Not the penetrating way he would stare at other people; Stella was a soul that he dared not search. She was a breeze that threatened to blow out the flame.