Chapter 20 NEWHAM
As he reached Gray’s manor, Raif pulled up next to Jan’s Merc and got out. The water from the fountain taking his attention, he headed over to the reception entrance, but the door opened up before he got there.
“Hey, mate.” Jack munched on a piece of toast and waved him in. “Heard you were going human gargoyle out by the gates and wanted in with Gray.”
Raif cocked a brow, and Jack winced, toast halfway to his mouth again.
“I said gargoyle outright, huh?”
Raif nodded, and Jack tapped at his arm.
“Don’t eat me for it. My bones are getting older, more brittle lately.” He winked. “Keep to grinding down those younger ones of Ash’s.”
“I don’t grind down bones,” said Raif, following him in and keeping his smile private. “That’ll be Gray’s department.”
“Annnnd that’s me done with this conversation, then.” Jack thumbed behind him, back down the hall, then rubbed at his head, looking like a headache played devil. Patches around his eyes were a little dark. Raif had been around enough users to know the signs, but he also knew Jack well enough to know it was more than likely down to a change in meds. He didn’t piss about like that. Or he better not do with being boss to Ash. “He’s that way,” added Jack. “Piss off and make it quick, yeah. It’s Friday, and we need some downtime.”
“Mouth.” Jan came on through from the lounge, the scary-ass Maine Coon rubbing up his leg just a second later. “No wonder the neighbours stay away.” Jan smiled at Raif. “Hey, you okay?”
Raif eased into a softer smile seeing him as the huge cat started stalking Jack. “Doing good.”
“Fuck… off.” Jack pointed at the Maine, and Jan rested in the doorway, his small smile on the cat’s play to get at Jack. He looked a little more relaxed, which put Raif at ease from how he’d last seen him a month ago to discuss… Jude.
“I’ve just showered away the last cat hairs.” Jack tried to sidestep the cat, but he only ended up doing a really bad dance of Twister as she slithered in and around his legs. “And how the fuck did some get in my boxers? You pulling them out my drawers as well as leaving the milk out of a night to take those steroids? Because that’s been happening over the past month since Light’s been back, and I know that last one ain’t me despite popular, and I mean Jan’s, opinion. My money’s on Light with the milk and trying to upset you over stealing it, but no… me. I just get called ‘paranoid’ and a ‘trouble…maker’.” He glared at the cat. “Stalking’s an arrestable offence as well. Stop it.”
The cat sat on his feet. Licked at her paw…. Winked.
Jack toed her off. “Asshole. That’s now your name.”
Raif found a laugh and headed for the hall as Jack nearly tripped over the cat now she darted between him and Jan. Jack managed a kiss at Jan’s jaw before a “Fuck” went the cat’s way.
“Cockblocker.” Jack nodded. “Yeah. That’s definitely it now.”
Jan laughed, an arm around Jack’s shoulder pulling him in close to soothe all his butthurt. He looked like he agreed with the last one, but didn’t fancy calling it out around the grounds.
Yeah. Things were kind of settling here from the last time he’d seen Jan but then this was the kind of place where secrets were kept and buried behind soft, sensual smiles like Jan’s. It was just such a shame Jan looked more at home lately keeping those secrets behind his soft smile. “You good?” He still wanted to check with Jan. Out of everyone here, Jan needed the protection.
“Tired,” Jan said eventually, and Jack went in, vampire biting at his neck, all to have Jan try and push him off, because he looked just that: damn tired. Jan went to say something else Raif’s way, then stopped himself, either because he hadn’t told Jack yet about the search or was aware the hall wasn’t as secure as the Oval, and Raif nearly groaned out loud.
A spy Jan would never make. His eyes said too much. A good thing in Raif’s book: raw honesty he could work with. Gray’s look offered the same, only it carried that brutal black or white quality in them, but Raif knew exactly where he stood. Even with Martin, his game play let Raif know where he shouldn’t be treading. But Jack…?
Raif had been a spy for many years, but even he couldn’t conceal himself and hide away as good as Jack did in another identity.
“Gray’s in the Oval,” said Jan, and Raif sent a wink his way, then he left them to it, distracted only by how the Maine brushed against his legs as he stopped by the door. Giving a look down, he pointed back the way he’d come.
“Beat it,” he mouthed. “Your bed’s back that way.”
The cat flicked her tail, sneezed, then headed the opposite way.
Raif snorted as he knocked. Yeah, too many here walked their own path.
“Come,” called Gray.
Raif pushed on through and let the door close behind him before heading over to the main desk. Gray sat working behind it, and he got a glance up.
The look wasn’t good, and Raif stopped a few paces short, hands going in his back pockets.
Blackness ran into Gray’s eyes, but unlike killing the Holly Blue Butterfly killer here a few years back, something set the ink darkness to… off. Like he caught a scent of something and it left him taste-testing the air to understand why he didn’t like the sourness of it on his tongue with how it dodged out of his way. Whatever case that sat on his iPad as he locked it away in one of his drawers, it wasn’t MI5 business. Raif would never ask, and Gray wouldn’t ever tell him.
Gray got to his feet and came to rest against the front of his desk, arms folded. “Talk Jude.”
Okay, so maybe that blackness wasn’t entirely down to any case Gray worked. But he didn’t seem surprised by Raif’s look into Martin’s boy.
“Jan told you.”
Gray nodded. “A month back. Jack as well.” A tilt of head. “I’m surprised you didn’t.”
Raif shrugged. “I honoured Jan’s ask for confidentiality. I didn’t think you’d want me breaking that, even with you. He looked like he needed it.”
Gray didn’t say anything for a moment. “So what changed? Why the call today to break confidentiality?”
“I haven’t broken it.” Raif meant that. “I made it clear from the outset that if this moved into illegal waters beyond just a trace and not locate, then it would be breakpoint. It’s reached that, and I’ll be letting him know shortly. I know if the contract broke because of trouble, you’d be Jan’s next stop. This is me working damage control.”
“Non needed. You got a job done that Jan asked you to do.” Gray frowned. “So what’s voided your surveillance. What did you find?”
The call for business offered safer footing, and Raif took out his phone and pulled out a map before going next to Gray and resting against his table.
“I took Jude’s name to Newham. Here, to be more precise.”
He circled a street on the map.
“I got nothing for roughly two weeks, and I mean absolutely nothing.” Raif gave a hard sigh. “Then on my drive back to the MC psych unit, I caught a glimpse of this young lass.”
He thumbed through to a snapshot of a pretty young teenager, huddled back into the shadow of a building. Her sharp turn of head towards a camera unsettled her tight ponytail, and from under her hood, red hair was caught in a full slipstream of blurred movement as a strand graced the Witch necklace on an all-too delicate throat.
Gray took the phone off him. “She shadowed you?”
“She shadowed me on foot whilst I drove a stolen Merc.”
“She followed you on foot… from Newham?” Gray frowned. “How?”
“Feeder,” mumbled Raif. “A damn good one to build-run through London.” He looked Gray’s way when it didn’t seem to register. “You ever watched Top Gear ?”
Gray gave a rough sigh, one that said… fucking mechanic , and Raif almost smiled. Yeah… Jack. They all knew Top Gear . Raif took his phone back and quickly thumbed through YouTube and brought up one particular clip. “They did an episode years ago, one where they got their top driver, Stig, to race a street runner like this through the streets of London, see who got to the destination faster.”
Raif pressed play.
The driver spun some serious tyre smoke as the clock hit Start, and his shift into gear from a London backstreet came just as hard.
The young man stood beside him, he shifted in the same instance, but he hit the first building, going up and over.
Raif let the clip play out: the skilled slips and turns of the driver through London… the pure skill behind the lad over building jumping found in a pure parkour speed run.
Gray thumbed to the end.
As the car pulled up, the lad sent him a salute. He’d been sitting there for a while, five minutes to be precise, or so the timer called out.
“Impressive,” mumbled Gray.
“I was tied down by the same road restraints as the driver in Top Gear ,” Raif said as he thumbed away the clip. “The usual over traffic lights, roadworks, speed limits… all that has to be taken into account with both. But the runner? Going high and fast over the city brick-and-mortar skyline? Only his skill and sheer balls slow him down. These kids are fast and bloody fearless.”
“Feeder.” Gray said quietly, his look back on the girl. “You said Feeder with the girl not Runner here.”
Yeah, he had. Raif sent the image of the girl over to Gray for his records. “I asked around, using the image here, and the comeback tallied with my own instincts. Feeders…” He screwed his face. “They’re like bloody sewer rats, only working from on high instead of underground: always in packs, always able to get into anywhere, anything, especially pockets as you walk by on the pathway. Feeders take the stolen goods in order to get them off the street as soon as possible, hence the term: feeder. So talent like hers?” He tapped the phone. “It’s eaten up.”
Raif slipped his phone away and glanced around, not really seeing anything now. “She caught me back on the way to see Ash and Lucy at the MC psych unit. That… that’s getting too personal. I detoured, and let her pick me up on a few times after that to test her skill and endurance out.”
“She didn’t back down.”
Raif shook his head. “I set up a half-way house, neutral ground for both of us, and she followed me back there.”
Gray watched him for a moment. “But she didn’t make contact?”
“No. Everything went quiet.”
Gray cocked a brow. “Oh… she fed it back to someone?”
Raif nodded and wiped another hand over his face.
“What’s got you scared, Raif?” Gray asked quietly. “The streets, particularly at night, they’re your home. Why do these kids bother you?”
Yeah, he was scared, and it was why Gray got the call today. He thumbed back through for the Top Gear clip and kept it paused on the final salute of the lad who’d won the race. “You see when this run took place?”
Gray looked it over. “During the daytime.”
Raif flicked him a look. “She did hers at night, with me.”
Nothing came from Gray’s look, but it was a different street level to where his head usually walked, a different street knowledge. And this one here mostly dealt with kids, which wasn’t Gray’s kill-switch level. He’d seen that over Lucy. Over Light.
“Darkness requires a whole new skill level,” he said quietly. Raif brought up a map of London and broke some of the areas down for Gray. “During the day, like with any major city and cells trying to exploit its market, you get your turf wars. East London alone has up to six different Day-walker factions fighting to pick more than a pocket or two.” He divided East London for Gray to see where each was based. “Good feeders can bring in up to three thousand a week each.” He slipped his phone away. “But away from the turf division during the day, there’s only one Feeding crew who own the night when it comes to the whole of London. The Night-walkers.”
“And the relevance?” asked Gray.
Raif held up his phone a moment later. “Get Simon to try, you won’t find mention of why on here. We’re talking kids younger than this lass here with the Night-walkers, but we’re talking the really ill kind.” He frowned. “I knew a Day-walker kid about ten years back. Sketch. About twenty, but looked older, also lived to, well, sketch.” Raif smiled. “Mostly on concrete slabs, but he was really talented with it and lived in his own world. Well he must have done something to piss off a Night-walker, because he was found with his hands and feet cut off, and that was before he was set on fire in a disused building.” Sickness hit his stomach. “You never forget images like that, how his hands and feet were strung up like a wind chime, tapping against a broken window.” He focused back on Gray. “That’s what Night-walkers do. Limbs left swinging in the wind, they’ll stand back laughing at the screams. No trace of DNA was found to be really sure, but that kind of confirmed it for me, because some bright spark took acid-burning of fingertips to the streets, teaching them how to mask DNA. These bastards really own the night.”
Something shifted in the blackness still running through Gray’s eyes, and he eased back. “These Night-walkers…. They ever been known to cross over into daytime to play in the park?” he said flatly.
Confused, Raif shook his head. “They’re the kids with twisted souls who are only comfortable playing in darkness. It’s where most of them were torn apart themselves.”
“And Red here preferred the night when she followed you.”
Raif nodded. “Break point for me. I have Lucy at home. Ash too. I’m old guard night-walker. The streets are just less chaotic for my kind at night, or they used to be. These lot started creeping in about twenty years ago.” He’d also gone into night-walking to keep an eye on his wife after their own kid died. She’d had a breakdown and only found solace in the night, watching over the likes of Lucy when a working mom was forced to work through the night in order to feed her and keep her clothed. “I can’t have this level of ill around Lucy, Gray. I’m sorry. Because these lot, they’re fucking twisted.”
“No apology needed.” That was surprisingly gentle. “Neutral ground was established, but so was the way here and the shift into my handling.”
Raif flicked him a look and the sharpness behind Gray’s eyes didn’t disappoint. Yeah, if the girl had followed him to neutral housing, then it stood to reason she’d keep tabs and follow him here. It was why Raif hadn’t been home in a month, but here?
If Red was as smart as he thought she was, she’d be close now. Here and seeing Raif report back away from a neutral ground. A home nest where Gray was used to luring killers to.
Gray reached for his intercom and left it ringing for a moment.
“Boss?” came the eventual reply off Ray.
“Oval.”
“On my way.”
Gray flicked the comms off, then went around his desk. He tugged out a notepad, scribbled something on it, then handed it over. “Get your head down there a few days. Make sure your tail’s clear before going back to the MC psych unit. Take Simon’s Merc. Leave the stolen one here.”
Raif frowned at the offer. Something had Gray on guard as well, enough to offer a safe house. He read it, then let Gray burn it in the ash tray. “Ash and Lucy?”
“I’ll let Jack know Ash will be on lockdown, working from the MC unit. I’ll have an extra security guard on the flat for them both. But you?” Gray handed him the pad. “Whilst you’re away, note down names, places… every case you’ve witnessed or heard over the grapevine when it comes to these Night-walkers.” He tapped the pad. “Get me a profile. Get me a name of anyone who might call them in and have the medical knowledge over acid-burns to fingers to mask why they’re possibly teaming up.” He also tugged out his phone, and Raif caught a notification a few moments later.
When he looked, his bank balance had been added to.
“Extra-curricular activity,” Gray said flatly.
Raif eased away from the desk. Yeah, Gray’s snout had been working its way towards the Night-walkers even if he hadn’t seen it yet. “You suspect they’re bleeding through into Day-walker time.” Fuck . Some animals were best kept chained in the dark.
“Keep to the safe house.” Gray didn’t commit to conversation. “Get your head down.” A smile, the smallest offer of one. “It’s mine from here on in.”
Raif nodded. “And you want me to tell Jan what?”
Gray flicked him a look. “Nothing. I’ll tell them both in a minute I’m working with the manor being possibly compromised.”
Raif nodded.
“But you heard nothing on Jude?” Gray said that almost distractedly, but that confirmed it was Jack who hadn’t wanted Jude finding. Gray rarely bothered with white noise.
Raif shook his head. “Maybe it’s for the best for all concerned,” he said quietly. “You don’t want a kid mixed in with this level of… illness, especially Martin’s with Cutter’s bloodline in the mix. But Red here? If she reacted to Jude’s name, she might be the one to know what happened to him.”
Gray nodded, taking the intel in.
A knock came at the door, and they both looked its way. “Come,” said Gray.
Ray came in a moment later and nodded Raif’s way before heading over to Gray. “Problems?”
“Precautions.” Gray moved back around his desk as Raif slipped the notepad in his pocket. “Run these security details by Simon after we’ve spoken. Get his input on it.”
“We’re on lockdown?”
Gray tilted his head a little. “Jack and Jan are, East side. I won’t have them pushed out of the security picture here,” he said quietly. “But us? We’re opening West side.” A slow smile. “All child-locks removed, it seems….”