a gruff voice cut through. ‘Is this Lucy Barker?’
‘It is.’
‘We’ve been looking for you, Lucy. What can you tell me?’
‘The incident at the hospital. I went to see a patient I’d attended the previous night. The same man was there who’d been at the scene. I spoke to him a little. Others came and took the patient, threatening one of the nurses.’
‘Putting her in Intensive Care,’ Groom interjected.
‘Is she okay?’
‘She will be. But she said you were there. Recognised you from the paramedic crews. And we got you on CCTV.’
‘Then you know I didn’t steal the patient.’
‘No, and I have the notes from the scene officer who said you told her everything that had happened. But then you didn’t show for work today, and your colleague seemed to think you were in some kind of trouble.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I might be.’
‘So where are you, Lucy?’
‘It’s a street off Fishergate. New Walk Terrace. If you follow it about halfway down, there’s a house on the right that, well, I guess it looks… different.’
‘Cathy tells me you’re being held hostage.’
She winced. That sounded much worse than it had sounded in her head when she said it to Cathy. But there was no turning back now. ‘That’s right.’
‘But they let you keep your phone?’
‘I think they forgot about it.’
The DI paused on the other end of the line, as though he was mulling something over. ‘You know, we went to your apartment this morning.’
Her heart sank. ‘And?’
‘Forensics haven’t been able to find a single fingerprint. Nor DNA. They swear it’s the cleanest place they’ve ever been. All the way out to the corridor.’
‘I’m not sure where you’re going with this, Detective Inspector.’
Silence.
‘Teams are en route as we speak. Are you safe?’
‘I’m locked in a bathroom on the first floor.’
‘How many in the house with you?’
‘Two I know of. Both women. One looks like a child.’
He paused. ‘And you cannot get away?’
She bit her lip. This needed to go quicker. If Elle came in here… ‘I’m afraid so,’ she replied. She didn’t know how to explain any of this when the police got there, but she wasn’t planning on having to, at least not in the short term. She just knew she had to get out of there while the sun was still up. ‘Both are dangerous.’
She could practically hear the Detective Inspector’s frown down the other end of the line. Thankfully, she wasn't familiar with him, because she was about to make him look a right idiot, and she’d hate to do that to someone she knew.
‘Okay. Well, sit tight. We’ll come and get you out of there.’
‘Thank you.’
The call hung up. She flushed the toilet, in case anyone was listening, and went back out to the bedroom, where Missy waited for her.
‘What were you doing in there?’ she asked, her head cocked to one side.
‘Um, toilet?’
‘I heard voices.’
Lucy shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’
Missy sighed, and her head rolled over to one side. Her eyes fixed right ahead and rolled up into her skull, while her eyelids flattered like a trapped moth. For a second, Lucy thought she was having a seizure, but her head came back up and her eyes came back to normal.
Elle appeared at the door, out of breath. ‘What is it?’ she asked Missy.
‘She’s up to something.’
‘I was going to the toilet,’ Lucy sighed. ‘Honestly, I don’t know who the fuck you people are, but…’
Before she could finish, Elle brought her hand up, and Lucy flew backward, crashing into the far wall, the edge of a picture digging into her back. It was as sudden as it was violent. Invisible hands pinned Lucy like buffeting winds holding her inches off the ground.
Elle walked slowly toward her. ‘What have you done?’ she asked, as her eyes flamed with a blue spark, lighting up her face.
‘Wait,’ Lucy said, heart pounding. Pain covered every inch of her body, as though the force holding her against the wall drilled into her, a thousand tiny needles at a time. She struggled for breath.
‘I will not. What did you do?’
‘Police. I called the police.’
The two women looked at each other, panic crossing between them.
Lucy crashed to the floor, landing awkwardly on her knee, which seemed to bend backward. She let out a howl of pain.
‘We should go,’ Missy said, her voice different from before, more assured, less childlike.
Elle looked at Lucy, crumpled on the floor, hatred in her eyes. ‘Humans,’ she hissed. The two women turned and left the room, leaving Lucy panting for breath on the floor.
Lucy half expected them to lock the door behind them, but they left it wide open. Lucy tried to stand, but went straight back over on her knee.
Damn.
Hobbling over to the chaise lounge, she sat and took her jeans down to examine the knee. Already swollen, she worked the muscles with her fingers. Nothing too bad, a sprain perhaps. She should be able to walk on it in a few hours. Except she didn’t have a few hours. The police would be here soon, and she didn’t know what she was going to tell them if they found her in an empty house.
At least she’d gotten rid of the other two.
If she had a crutch, she could get out.
Sirens blared in the distance. She forced herself to her feet and hobbled to the window. No sign of Elle or Missy down there. Day was already threatening its turn to night; the threat to her life was about to expand exponentially.
Hobbling to the door, she hopped over to the ornate staircase, worried for a second she might crash through it and tumble to her death. She caught herself, using the thick bannister as a support as she worked herself down the long, curved stairs. The flashing blue lights spilling through the small window atop the door were the only thing stopping her from hobbling through it. The police were here.
By the door was a round wooden tub, out of which stood two umbrellas and one ornate walking stick. She grabbed the latter. She had to hunch over to use it, but it was better than nothing. The cane clacked over the wooden floor as she set off through the house.
The side entrance door stood open. That must have been Missy and Elle’s escape, if that was indeed what they’d done. Fishing her phone out of her pocket, she stopped and dialled Adrian.
‘Lucy, Jesus, where have you been?’ he answered.
‘I’m having a few issues,’ she replied. ‘Are you working?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Who are you with?’
‘Nobody. Just finished. I’m taking the bus back.’
She gave a sigh of relief. ‘Can you come pick me up?’
Adrian paused. She could hear his brain working overtime at the other end of the line.
‘Where are you?’
She gave him the address, and he hung up.
Edging round the building, she could hear armed police taking up position by the front door. No doubt they’d come through the rear gate, too. Heading into the garden, she tried to find somewhere she could hide. The lush greenery offered plenty of opportunities. She hobbled over to an old stone planter and crouched behind the thick fronds streaming out of it, half expecting to find two witches cowering there before her. It hid her from the rest of the garden pretty well. A second later, the rear gate opened and four armed police swept through, guns sweeping the garden for movement before focusing on the rear patio doors.
‘In position,’ one of them said.
She held her own position, waiting for them to move. She wondered what had happened to Elle and Missy. With their power, they could take down every man and woman the North Yorkshire Police could throw at them, yet they turned tail and fled instead.
Of course. It wasn’t violence they feared; it was exposure. Exposure to a human world they existed in the shadows of. They were probably really pissed at Lucy for bringing the police to her door. She’d like to feel like they deserved it, but was more worried about having yet more supernatural beings enraged by her.
Still, there were more immediate concerns. She’d have to pick her moment.
More armed police arrived on the scene.
‘Breach, breach.’
An officer smashed the door, and the armed officers stormed the building in force. Lucy crawled out from behind the box, climbing to her feet hesitantly. Taking her stick, she walked as calmly as she could to the side entrance. Holding her breath, she walked through it, onto the house’s main driveway.
The garden entrance was far enough away from the main door that nobody noticed her, and she walked to the road without interruption. Parked a hundred metres up the road from where the police were busy breaching the witch’s house was an ambulance, perfectly in place in a street filled with police cars and flashing lights.
Adrian stood beside it, looking at his phone. He saw Lucy hobbling over, and made to start toward her, but she waved him away. Slowly she made her way toward him, expecting with every breath the shout from behind her, the cry for her to stop. But it never came. Adrian helped her into the back of the ambulance without a word, their eyes meeting just once as he closed the doors on her. As she put her weight onto the bad knee, she winced, and Adrian caught her.
‘You alright?’
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said, strapping herself into the family seat, intended for those unable to leave their loved ones on the way to the hospital. The panic chair, they called it, the chair in which everyone got their first chance to contemplate life without the loved one on the stretched next to them as they tore through the streets to the hospital. He nodded and jumped back down before climbing back into the cab. ‘One getting out of here, coming up,’ he said, putting the ambulance into gear and pulling away.