Dead Men's s Boots

She cast one nervous glance at the bound figure on the bed, then she directed her full attention towards Juliet.

‘You brought an escaped murderer into my house, Jules,’ she said, in a tone that had something of a taut string about it. ‘And I let you do it, because I thought you wouldn’t have done it unless you had to. But if it’s just because she’s a woman who kills men and that used to be your – your thing, too, then that’s not good enough. And Felix is right about one thing. If you don’t fix this you’ll have to go away.

I’ll lose you. I’m not going to lose you because of something like this.’

Juliet couldn’t have been more nonplussed if a cavalcade of tap-dancing mice had sung the words at her. She blinked, visibly thinking her way around the situation. ‘If I have to leave,’ she said, ‘I’ll come back to you. They can’t keep me away.’

The taut string snapped.

‘They can send you home!’ Susan shouted, advancing on Juliet with her hands clenched into fists as though she was going to hit her. She was crying again, but she didn’t wipe away the tears on her cheeks or even seem to notice them.

She was incandescent enough that I was surprised they didn’t evaporate. ‘They can trap you and send you back down to Hell, no matter how strong you are. You’d be down there, in the dark, and you’d have to wait until someone called you back up again. Except that they’d call you as a slave, the way you were before. Or else I’d have to find a way to summon you up myself, and then what? Then you’d be my slave! We’d – we wouldn’t be us any more. We’d be a stupid, sick joke. It’s got to stop, Jules. You’ve got to stop it, and then you’ve got to explain and say you’re sorry.’

From about halfway through this speech, she’d been screaming the words rather than just yelling them. Her fists were trembling like tuning forks. Juliet caught them in her hands, pushed them down to Susan’s sides and then embraced her. Susan slumped in her arms, all the fight suddenly gone from her.

‘You’ve got to,’ she mumbled almost inaudibly, her head pressed to Juliet’s breast.

‘Please. For me.’

Juliet stared at me over Susan’s head. She looked unhappy. No, more than that: she looked afraid – and not of the Mount Grace ghosts.

‘Is that the plan, then?’ she demanded, her face a sombre deadpan. ‘We go to the crematorium. We break in. And I keep the three of us alive long enough for you to play your tune and for Moloch to feast?’

I was a bit taken aback by how quickly the tide had turned.