A Crack in Everything (2 page)

She was only halfway there when the phone rang again.

She tried to juggle fishing her ringing phone out of her pocket and avoiding the crowds of afternoon shoppers who would probably just trample her to the ground and keep
going if she stopped. Stumbling out of the way of three suits on lunch break and some tourists who were clearly lost and flapping brightly coloured maps around like sails, she hopped up onto the steps leading to a design shop.

‘Where
are
you?’ Marianne barked, before even a hello or anything.

‘I’m on the way.’

‘I’m standing here on my own. They’re all up there fiddling with the sound system and making a racket. Hurry up!’

Chills ran spiny fingers down her back again, like a trickle of sweat, bringing with it once more the feeling that she was being watched. She glanced around, but couldn’t see anyone. No sign of creepy guy. Where was he now?

‘I’ll be there in a minute or two.’ Surely Mari could stand to be on her own and not the centre of attention for five minutes. Or maybe not. That was Mari all over.

‘Come on, Izzy. I don’t know anyone else. Hurry
up
. Oh, they’re getting ready to start.’

The line went dead and Izzy rolled her eyes.

I promised Dylan I’d be there.

At the best of times Marianne could be a bit of a bitch. She couldn’t help it, she always said. It was just the way she was. A handy excuse, but at the same time, Izzy couldn’t recall a time when she didn’t know Mari and Dylan, or when Mari hadn’t been the centre of all attention. Though they were in the same class in school, they only associated because they’d known each other forever. They just didn’t have a lot else in
common. Mari was boy-mad these days and Izzy never found anything so very amazing about the boys Mari obsessed over. If the truth was told, Izzy was far closer to Dylan than Mari. And sister or not, often enough even Dylan pretended he didn’t know Mari. Most of the time Izzy could follow suit. Mari certainly didn’t want to know her at school. Mari was … well, Mari.

Izzy slid her phone into her pocket and looked up to find a gap in the sea of people into which she could slot. Her eyes fell on the graffiti on the alleyway wall.

It was right next to her, cut off by railings from this side and a massive bin from the other. About ten feet high, starkly drawn in black and white. An angel. The figure crouched there, her hands clasped nervously before her, balancing on the tips of her toes with her wings outspread behind her, as if at any moment she might take off. She looked over her shoulder, right at Izzy. The eyes ate into her soul.

When Izzy looked closer, the face was smudged, a smear of morning-after mascara, half on the pillows and half on the cheeks. She looked as if she’d been crying. Worse, she looked afraid.

Captivated by the image, Izzy stepped down and dodged through the other pedestrians until she could slip into the alley itself. She squeezed past the bin, trying neither to inhale nor imagine what she might be getting on her clothes. Even Mum and Dad might ask some questions when she’d only had this jacket a couple of weeks.

Her boot scuffed on something as she stepped closer to the wall, a mound of ash, as if a pile of newspapers had been allowed to burn right down there. Izzy bent closer and touched it. A shiver ran up her fingers, along her arm. The angel gazed down, with a Mona Lisa air. She did the eyes thing, her gaze following Izzy wherever she stood.

Izzy stepped away, alarm snaking around her spine, all the way down, crashing against the wheeled bin and sending it skittering out onto the path.

Someone yelled at her, cursed and kicked it back in before they carried on their way. She dug out her phone and switched it to camera. It made that overly loud, false camera shutter noise as she took the picture.

Something hard slammed into the small of her back, pitching her forward, off balance and flailing. She crashed face first against the wall, the black and white graffiti blurring before her eyes. The same something snatched her phone right out of her hand. Pain lanced down her arm, like wires beneath her skin. Without thinking, she launched herself up and after the shambling figure retreating down the alleyway.

The creep.

She couldn’t lose the phone. She just couldn’t. The stupid thing cost too much.

He turned back towards her, giving the impression of a dirt-lined face like crumpled newspaper. The same guy she had seen earlier, the old beggar who’d been following her, waiting for a moment like this.

He stopped dead in his tracks and turned side on, still looking at her. And grinned again. A horrible yellow-toothed grin, far too big for his face.

His image flickered like ancient film, newsreel from a bygone age. Vanishing. Izzy blinked, her mouth dropping open as he started to fade from his head down.

Vanishing, right there, in front of her eyes.

No way!

Izzy dived towards him, grabbing at the place he had been and her fingers closed on the tattered edges of a filthy wool overcoat just before the shimmer of invisibility claimed it too. She felt herself yanked forwards, her feet jerking out from beneath her and she tumbled after him into the alley.

Chapter Two

Jinx

A
blast of hot air struck Izzy’s whole body, coming out of nowhere, as if she’d just walked under a shop-door fan. But this air stank of burnt paper and ashes. It sucked the breath from her lungs. Her vision flared, inverting the colours around her and pounding distorted images into her brain like a migraine.

She slammed onto cobbles. The alley, which had looked like no more than a dead end, opened out ahead of her, lit only in patches by a flickering light, the walls and stones slick with a substance that gave them a rainbow sheen. It twisted in and out of sight and it was all wrong …

Her bag spilled from her shoulder, half her things skittering over the alley floor. The old man spoke in a lyric tongue she didn’t understand, trying to yank his coat free of her hand. By his tone and the look on his face, he had to be cursing.

Rage returned Izzy’s voice to her, forced her into action again.

‘Give it back!’ she yelled.

He aimed a kick at her face, but it never connected. He jerked back suddenly, as if something in the darkness grabbed him by the back of the neck and shook him hard. It was dark here, the place thick with shadows that shouldn’t exist on a summer’s afternoon. Izzy’s vision swam and a high-pitched whine cut through her head. Through it she could hear words.

‘What in all the seven hells’ names do you think you’re doing, Mistle? Did you bring her through?’

‘I didn’t mean any harm, Jinx. She came after me.’

A low growl rippled through the air. It shivered against Izzy’s skin, made her stomach dip inside her and then leap up. She let go of the coat, pulled herself up onto her knees. Her brain reeled around inside her skull, lurching sickeningly as she moved.

Concussion? It could be. She’d hit the wall hard enough.

Not to mention seeing him vanish. Had to be a concussion. Her stomach twisted and sweetness filled her mouth. She was going to throw up.

Dear God, she couldn’t. Bile burned the back of her throat, but she forced it down and pulled herself up to stand.

‘Get out of here, you fool,’ said the voice called Jinx.

Was he behind her? How had he got behind her? Was he calling her a
fool
? No, he was talking to the old man. ‘Don’t prey around here. You’ve been warned enough times. You—’

‘My phone,’ Izzy said, before it was too late. ‘He took my phone.’

There was a pause. She tried to focus on Jinx, but he stood in shadows – and here, in the narrow alley she’d never known existed, the shadows were very dark indeed. They were wrapped around him, hiding him from view. ‘Give it back.’

‘But it’s mine. I did what I had to. It’s pretty. It’s mine.’

‘Give it back,’ Jinx’s voice rippled with menace, like the growl of a tiger on the edge of a nightmare. Even Izzy took a step back.

With an inarticulate roar belying the fawning behaviour of a second earlier, Mistle flung the phone at her. It crashed onto the cobbles, shattering into too many pieces to count.

Mistle didn’t give her a second glance. He just ran, darting through the shadows and down the twisting alleyway, out of sight. His footsteps fell away. In the distance a car horn blared.

Then everything else fell away to silence.

And the sound of the gentle rise and fall of someone else’s breath.

‘You shouldn’t be here either,’ said the voice called Jinx. Strangely melodic a voice. So deep it resonated through her. But not kind. In no way could anyone call it kind.

Izzy’s temper bristled. No, ‘
are you okay?
’ No, ‘
did he hurt you?
’ She scowled, searching for him in the shadows. Her vision drifted back towards normality. She could see again, almost. Blinking hard, she tried to focus on him.

‘I’m just fine, thanks,’ she snapped. ‘No harm done.’

Liar
. She hurt all over. Not to mention the wound to her pride. What had she been thinking? Everyone knew not to chase thieves down alleys. Instinct was one thing, but what if he’d had a knife? What if he’d had friends?

A vague outline that had to be Jinx loomed over her. Big, broad. And scary, her instincts told her, a little too late to be of any use. This was
so
not the place to be.

Dropping to her knees she made an attempt to gather her belongings. There was some sort of sludge covering her notebook. She tried to wipe it off, but it clung on stubbornly. Scraping it didn’t work, neither did the crumpled tissue that she found with it.

The sob that tore its way out of her came as a complete surprise. Fat drops of water fell from her eyes and splashed amid the rubbish. Her things tumbled from her shaking hands, even as she tried to scoop them into her bag.

‘Here,’ Jinx said quietly, surprisingly gentle. She looked up to see a pair of long-fingered hands cupped in front of her. Masculine hands, but elegant, like an artist’s. They cradled the broken remains of her mobile phone. ‘It’s banjaxed.’

The apologetic tone made her look up sharply and the first things she saw were his eyes. Sharp as nails, one might say, and the same colour. Bright, shining steel piercing through the darkness. And not quite … normal …

His head tilted to one side, he was studying her as closely as she was studying him. She blinked and the world seemed to contract abruptly around her. The illusion shifted, like the
shimmer of a heat haze in high summer and suddenly his eyes were grey instead of steel. His pale skin was framed by strands of long black hair, silken and glossy. Her fingers itched to brush against his face.

His eyes tilted slightly, cat-like, smudges of guyliner giving their grey that curious metallic illusion. No, not a liner. Shadows around his eyes, cast by thick black lashes. Tattoos covered the right side of his neck, kissed the underside of his jaw and vanished beneath the tight black t-shirt he wore. They emerged again, trailing down his arms and she wondered where else they went. The thought of what lay beneath his clothes made her blush furiously. A nose stud winked at her, a silver ring pinched around one high and elegant eyebrow and a line of earrings ran right up the side of one pointed ear.

Not human, not real
, she thought once more, like one of those crazy alien things in the films Dylan watched, or something inspired by her manga collection, like a stylised sketch, and the image shifted, normalising again.

Shock was making her see things. That was all. Or that concussion she probably had.

Or maybe just the potentially fatal attack of stupid that seemed to be overwhelming her all of a sudden.

Still pierced, still tattooed, still unbearably handsome, but less … alien? She shook her head, desperate to clear it. Taking a deep breath didn’t help. She closed her eyes, tried again and found her heart pounding in her chest. She breathed past it, felt it calm and looked back at him. Normal. Everything was
normal. Or as normal as it got when you were kneeling in a piss-stinking alley with a tattooed stranger.

All the same she didn’t take the pieces of the phone. If shock was making her see things, that was bad enough, but she was still on her knees with a guy who would give her mother apoplexy.

‘Take it,’ he said. His voice carried a sort of lilt she knew she should recognise. It was an old accent, one she couldn’t place. Not local. And yet … not from far away either. She
should
know it. ‘Maybe you can get it fixed?’

Fixed. Yeah, right. Had he actually looked at it? She tried to shrug. ‘It’s just a phone. I … I can get another.’ There didn’t look to be enough of it left worth fixing, to be honest. ‘Banjaxed’ was an understatement. Thanks to the effect she and her dad had on electronics, she’d seen enough to recognise when something was totally borked. All the same, she held out her bag and he dropped the pieces inside.

Jinx got to his feet, towering over her. Broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, perfectly proportioned.

‘I’m Izzy,’ she said, and immediately regretted it.

He gave her a baffled look, staring at her for a long moment as if he could see inside her. ‘Jinx,’ he said at last. ‘Are you okay?’

That was when Izzy realised she was still crouching on the ground at his feet. Something jerked inside her and she leaped up so quickly part of her was surprised she didn’t hear a string snap. Her head swam and that same peculiar glow she had felt
touching the angel surged within her.

‘Yes, I’m … I’m fine …’

The world blurred. Her skin stretched too tight over her bones and her chest caught in a vice. She felt the ground tip and then a hand caught her arm. Strong, but gentle. Careful, but reluctant.

‘Steady. You got up too fast.’

Izzy could only stare at him as if she was an idiot. Any words she might want to say died in her throat. Normally she could come up with a line in a second, something easy and nonchalant, sometimes even funny. Not now though. Jinx released her, his hand still hovering there to catch her again if needs be. But he moved like he didn’t want to touch her for any longer than was absolutely necessary.

Oh my God, pull yourself together
, her brain tried to tell the rest of her.
You don’t just stand here, some kind of moron ogling the hot guy! You do something, say something, anything!

‘Yeah, I … thanks. I …’
Smooth, Izzy. Really smooth
. The sense of uneasiness didn’t pass though. She looked around, half expecting to see creepy old Mistle sneaking up on her again.

‘Maybe you should sit down,’ he said with a wariness that belied the macho image. Probably afraid she’d collapse at his feet. Or throw up on him, she thought, as her stomach gave an ominous heave.

‘Not sure what the coffee’s like here but the seating doesn’t look the greatest.’ She tried to laugh. The sound came out false and twisted. She could see the hardening in his eyes.

God, did he think she was flirting with him? A noise like real laughter floated through the back of her mind, mocking her.

Was she?

‘Can I call someone for you?’ Jinx asked. ‘A parent or a friend?’

A parent? Oh, thank you SO much
. ‘No. Really. I’m meeting some friends.’

He frowned, bit back a comment and then nodded. ‘I’ll walk you there.’

Before she knew what was happening, he slipped his hand around her arm in a supremely old-fashioned manner and escorted her out of the alley, only releasing her to let her get by the bin.

That odd shiver in the air passed over her again and the sunlight was brighter as they passed through it. Her skin drank in the warmth with unexpected relief.

Out on the street, the crowd seemed to melt out of Jinx’s way. Or perhaps everyone just avoided him. In the sunlight he didn’t look half as ferocious. She’d been an idiot, panic and her imagination painting a wild image of him. Still, the long hair, piercings and tattoos didn’t exactly cast him as a conformist.

She glanced at his arm while he marched her down South William Street, his feet alternating between the narrow pavement and the road itself, stepping on and off the kerb as needed, completely at peace with his place in the world. His tattoos weren’t black, as she had thought, but a deep indigo
blue. Whorls and spirals covered his skin in some sort of tribal design mixed with Celtic knots. It was intricate and beautiful, contrasting strongly with the porcelain smoothness of his skin and the taut muscles beneath it.

‘Where did you get them done?’ she asked.

He frowned, then followed her gaze and snorted briefly, dismissively, as if they were not something to be admired. ‘Got them a long time ago. There are few left who can do those right these days.’ He sounded almost relieved.

Izzy tripped over a rising cobble and he had to catch her again before she fell. His touch made her shiver all over and made the warm spark of whatever it was that had invaded her rise again. But it wasn’t comfortable. It made her want to pull away, to rub at her skin where he had touched her until it was raw. Irritated with herself and with his reticent hero routine, she shook herself free.

‘I’m fine, really. You don’t have to come with me.’

Jinx stopped right there in the path and stared down at her. The other pedestrians flowed around the two of them, like water round a rock, their conversations muted and dim. Even the hum of traffic faded when she looked at him. All she could hear was breath, in and out, and the thundering noise of her own heart.

‘Where were you going?’ he asked, the edge rubbing off his patience. He lifted his hand to the nape of his neck, massaging the tight muscles there.

‘Music shop on Exchequer Street. Denzion are playing at …’
She glanced at her watch. ‘Or at least they
were
playing at two.’

Jinx laughed, the same dismissive snort that set Izzy’s hackles rising. ‘
Denzion
, right? Well, maybe you really did have a lucky escape then.’

She’d love to see Mari’s face if she heard that one. Dylan’s band were all she talked about these days. Not for her brother’s sake, of course. She had a thing about the bass player and was determined enough to hook up with him that they all ended up dragged along to every gig and public appearance the band did. Not that Izzy minded.