Rivercity

Rivercity

By Gareth Bouch

Copyright © 2011 Gareth Bouch. All rights reserved

ISBN: iBook, 978-0-9567963-0-1 

ISBN: Ereader (Epub), 978-0-9567963-1-8 

ISBN: Kindle, 978-0-9567963-2-5 

Published by Vroom Media at Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

About Rivercity

Acknowledgements

Disclaimer

Appendix

About The Author

Chapter 1

Even as I lay there with my life slipping away from me, I could feel Reuben’s tongue darting around inside the gaping wound in my throat.

His teeth grazed its tattered edges and his tongue lapped my blood away.

I was dying and yet I couldn’t help but notice the near-ecstatic feeling: too weak to move a muscle, laid there on the bloodstained ancient timbers of the wharf, watching him as he fed from inside me.

My shirt was soaked in sticky, coagulating blood, dark as the night and reeking of iron. I must have lost so much I felt completely euphoric. There wasn’t even any pain from the wound anymore.

When the knife had first shot across the front of my neck, searing pain had rocketed out to every part of my body. But as the draining began it slowly receded and was now little more than a numb, feathered warmth around the hole.

I could breathe okay, so I assumed they hadn’t cut into my windpipe: not that it was going to make much difference now. Quickly or slowly, I was on my way out.

At first I’d struggled for life in a series of pathetic spasms, grabbing at my throat to try and stem the bleeding. But it was no good. I may have lost consciousness for a while, but as time went on - and I had no idea how long I had lain there - the battle had slowly begun to seem pointless. Even seeing them standing over me laughing made no difference: I had just looked up at them; detached, resigned, no longer caring.

I gazed up at the stars, my dizziness making them shift away from me in an arc every time I tried to focus. I would shut my eyes and then open them again and the tiny specks of brightness would twist away towards the east of the night sky.

Closer to, the dark, weathered, rusting silhouettes of the warehouses leaned over me.

And there, next to me knelt Reuben, his eyes bloodshot and alive, his musty body hunched over mine, his mouth dripping my gore into the night. I think I might even have been smiling - Every time his mouth went back into my neck a dark, doomed, intense pleasure shivered through me.

My eyes sank shut. Slowly they opened again, looking up at him.

His hair hung down onto the collar of his biker jacket. It always looked about four sizes too big and he constantly had the sleeves turned up so that his hands weren’t entirely hidden inside them. A long, baggy, off-black, tee shirt hung from beneath it and sank in folds into his lap.

I could just discern his eyes hidden under that dark, furrowed brow. He wiped my blood from his full lips.

He told me he was trying to contain the bleeding - massive as it was - until we worked out what to do. But that was only part of it. I’m not that stupid. I could see in his eyes how he was enjoying it. They glowed and flickered with an intensity that looked almost frenzied. So was I, I suppose. It was bizarre: I was dying here, second by second, minute by minute and I was enjoying what he made me feel. Weird… And what the hell, the blood was only going to fall onto the quay otherwise - and drip between its beams into the waters below.

You okay? he asked.

I almost laughed - I wanted to say yes, as I always do, but grunted an almost apologetic-sounding no instead.

There was a long silence.

You’re dying, Coates…

I know.

He paused, turned away for a moment and then looked straight back into my eyes.

I can stop you…

I know. I said.

What a choice. What he was offering me was not simply life. It was never dying… ever.

I shifted uncomfortably in the mess of blood that lay seeping into the dry, dusty wood.

Not a choice I’d ever imagined having to make. Dying actually seemed preferable for a moment.

I think.

Maybe not though.

Death seems to frighten us more now than ever before. In the past it was simply part of life. There was no alternative, no stay of execution - no extension to life. Simple medicine produced simple ethics and simple expectations. The more adept science became at fighting death, the more obsolete the ethics became and the more our expectations of being able to cheat death rose: the more they rose, the more frightening the actual prospect of having to die became.

The more you are able to delay death, the more terrible its inevitability seems.

And here I was, actually able to choose.

It was no longer inevitable.

No, I don’t think it did seem preferable to die after all. But what an alternative: to be undead. To be a vampyr.

Suddenly I felt as if my body had dropped into thin air. I caught myself with a huge, excruciating shudder.

Fuck! I screamed.

It was that feeling of consciousness falling away - the kind you get when you’re almost asleep. when it feels as if the fall might never end.

Sssssh he said, stroking my temple.

I felt as helpless as a child. Hurting, lonely, way out of my depth…

I couldn’t die. I was shit scared, yeah… but there was a lot left to do as well.

The thought just kept burning itself into the front of my mind: I’d found out what happened to Dominic.

And I knew all that was going on - the murders, everything. I’d found out everything: the whole sick, sad story.

I knew the truth and this was no time to take it all to the grave with me.

Suddenly I was going cold. Spasms of icy, heavy night coursing up my arms, through my legs and gut.

Oh shit… Oh shit…

I was shaking uncontrollably now. Trembling. Unless I acted now, I was history.

Reuben?

Here.

Help me… Please.

Sure?

Yes.

There’s no going back, Coates.

There’s no choice though, is there?

There’s always a choice. he said.

Do it.

He opened my shirt and pulled it from where it clung to me; dark and wet.

In that brief moment of complete trust and surrender, I don’t think I ever felt so serene, so utterly at peace with myself. In that moment I was somehow totally free. I actually willed the moment to last forever.

One of his hands moved up over my mouth while the other slowly, softly pinpointed a cavity between my ribs. It pushed and felt its way around and settled somewhere near my right nipple.

In the gloom I saw his sallow features, draped in lank hair, closing in on my chest.

His mouth opened and with a terrible grinding sound his gums seemed to reshape. Dog-like teeth slid from inside them and formed in his jaws. In a sudden final movement they seemed to reach outwards and sank deep into my heart.

I screamed into his hand. He put more pressure onto it, holding it firm against my face. Still I screamed and writhed as I felt myself changing. I burned as if I were filling with molten lead. It churned and boiled and spat inside my aching body. Then as quickly as it came, the feeling went.

I heard a noise.

It was someone moving nearby. I could hear them stumbling towards me.

My head fell in their direction. It was one of my attackers staggering across the quay with a knife in his hand. The others lay still and twisted on the ground; bloodied and battered. Broken limbs and fingers pointed from their flat, lifeless forms.

I was getting really dizzy again, my eyes fuzzing up in front of me.

Suddenly Reuben reared up, his body shifting its balance entirely. His head and his shoulders seemed to arch out towards the guy with the knife. His posture was like some wild cat ready to pounce, his legs waiting to spring him forward at any moment. He crouched over me, protectively, perfectly still, perfectly silent.

Then the guy with the knife moved.

Reuben’s jaws snapped open with a gross crunching sound and his ferocious mouth let out a screeching, wailing noise unlike anything I had ever heard. My ears felt like they might cave in any moment, and it shook every inch of my body so violently I was nearly sick.

It seemed to be made up of four or five different notes, some of gut-wrenching depth, some pure white noise, others nothing short of a piercingly high scream.

The mouth stayed open, screaming for what seemed like minutes and Reuben’s blood-drenched spittle poured out uncontrollably over my face. I tried not to hear the scream, but it tore through my every nerve.

The man stopped dead in his tracks for a while, but then moved forward again, pointing the knife directly towards me.

Reuben’s body left the ground effortlessly as he lunged towards him.

What happened next is unclear. I have only the slightest images. Maybe I had to forget it because it was so terrible, maybe I was falling in and out of consciousness… I don’t really know.

All that I can actually recall seeing is his body being hurled about six feet from the impact of Reuben flying into him.

What else happened I don’t really know.

What I saw beside me when my eyes slowly fell open again was little more than a carcass. I could just about discern clothing and hands and a head… but nothing seemed to be in the right place. The cold pale light of the moon was reflecting out of the blood which covered him and his clothes. Here and there bits of bone jutted out at awkward angles.

Reuben was leaning over me once more, actually wiping my face clean of the bloody mess which slowly ran across it. His face looked normal again.

You okay? he asked.

I could do little more than grunt and nod vaguely back at him.

He leaned me over towards him and pulled back the sleeve of his jacket. Very precisely he moved his long thumbnail until it was directly over the inside of his elbow’s soft curve. With a quick, almost imperceptible movement, he punctured it with a soft thick clicking sound and glossy, dark blood seeped from the tiny wound. He took the back of my head and pushed me, unflinching, towards it. I drank greedily from the warm spring. The strong, bitter taste rolling around the roof of my mouth and sticking at the back of my throat, tasting of life. I nuzzled closer and closer, drawing everything I could from the gash. With every swallow I felt stronger, I felt different.

After a while he gently pulled my face away and rested me down on the quay once more.

He drew his hand across the gash in my neck and held it up to me. His hand was clean. I reached up and felt it myself. It still tingled but, when I held my own hand up saw nothing but dried, flaking patches of old blood. I began laughing. Reuben smiled and then furtively looked up and down the quay.

We’d better get you hidden he said, gently sitting me up.

What’s the hurry? I asked.

Same as always… he replied, dawn.

Weak as I still felt, he managed to drag me to my feet. Suddenly the chill of the night air was invigorating, fresh, alive.

The night looked different. It was still dark but more like twilight. I could discern colours and shapes that would have been invisible to me before. I could reinterpret the language of the dark now. I could see contrasts. The white of the clouds reflecting in the slow, receding waters. The grain in the old wharf. The shimmering mud that pushed up against the quaysides.

As I began to walk, stumbling - slightly weak still - I looked at bricks, beams, cranes and barges. I saw new spectrums of dark colour that had lain dormant in me, burned to nothing in the daylight but here, in the night, they painted everything with rich, saturated beauty.

I looked down at my chest as I felt a night breeze cooling it. My shirt hung open where Reuben had bitten deep into me. There was nothing but the sepia coloured, dessicated scar of some ancient wound.

God, I was lucky he’d turned up. I guess he knew there was something horribly wrong with the whole case. Probably sooner than I did.

By the time I thought that I could really do anything, it was already too late.

Although it might not be too late anymore.

From tonight everything changes.

No, they had to do away with me, and I had just let them do it. I didn’t see it coming at all. But then Reuben had turned up. And he was the only one who could save me.

Still none of that matters now.

As the city slept we walked back by the Old Harbour towards the safety of the dark underground, unknown to everybody and yet right under their very footsteps.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Way ahead.

The days leading up to this - the last days of my life, I guess they were - need to come first. Dominic’s story, Reuben’s story, Pacman, the fire…

No, I’m definitely way ahead of myself here.

We should start at the beginning.

Chapter 2

BODY FOUND IN RIVER

P.C.I promises tough action on Marginals

By Hull Mail News Reporter

Riding Police this morning confirmed that the body recovered from the River Hull yesterday evening was the victim of another sickening attack by Marginals.

They said they believed it to be the latest in a series of ritual murders based around a bizarre rite of blood-letting.

Although they have yet to name the deceased, the police went so far as to say the body was that of a Cottingham man in his mid-twenties, whose family are currently abroad.

The body was said to have been extensively mutilated, suffering considerable trauma to the chest, neck and face. His body had also been almost entirely drained of blood.

At a hastily convened press conference, P.C.I Tony George told the Mail that he believed Marginals to be responsible for a number of recent abductions, mutilations and child murders.

They were, he said, among a number of dangerous elements that the city needed to be rid of and that he had no hesitation in condoning the formation of civilian vigilante groups to help combat the problem.

"We need all the help from the public that we can get. he told the Mail. The Marginals are undermining the fabric of society, challenging it at every step. Good people need to make a stand and say ‘We will not tolerate the travellers or the gypsies or the homosexuals or the vagrants or the prostitutes or drug gangs.’"

Police raids on nightclubs and known haunts of such Marginals have yet to yield any results.

"I sincerely hope the public will help us achieve those results." he said.

Although the exact locations of any hideouts are unknown the police have advised anyone moving about the Old Town not to go alone. The attacks have all been believed to have taken place during the early hours of the morning and the bodies or remains subsequently deposited into the river to be taken out to sea on the tide.

It is only by chance, the police say, that the evidence has been repeatedly caught on mudbanks or trapped by obstructions in the water.

Hull’s murder rate has risen some 18% in the past four years compared to a drop of 7% over the previous four. Abductions and assaults have also risen by 22% over the past four years.

When I looked up Anna was already in my office, in front of my desk.

The door must have been open and, by the time I’d reacted to the sound of her politely clearing her throat, deliberate I’m sure, she was stood there in front of me.

I often left the door open these hot summers. Even this early in the morning. There seemed to be less and less wind or rain each year to shift the oppressive, thick heat. Even here, virtually on the coast, the sea breezes did little to move the air at all between June and September. This morning hadn’t actually started to really warm up yet, but I guess I must have left the door open in case.

I turned away from the Mac and apologised to her.

Straightaway I knew that I recognised her from somewhere.

Sorry… I was checking the news I said, pointing vaguely towards the vivid scarlet Hull Mail logo on the screen.

It floated in amongst curiously unrealistic ripples of water, its crimson reflection petering out above a series of icons depicting the world, the UK, the region and the city.

Below them, boxes marked ‘Letters’, ‘Announcements’, ‘Classifieds’ and ‘Library’ ran down the left hand side of a large area, textured to look like paper - a pale hessian colour defined in parchment contours - and covered with the various stories that constituted the day’s main local news. It was accompanied by a photograph of two people stood bolt upright, shaking hands below a forced grin. The picture caption ended with an invitation to download the image. Yeah right…

I clicked the mouse to restore the Front Page to the screen.

Good morning she said, smiling half-heartedly at me.

I knew the smile - recognised it from the troubled attempt I saw in front of me.

Morning

Anna looked to be young middle-age, her dark shiny hair suggesting a youth betrayed by some deep wrinkles and weathering on her face. That’s not to say she wasn’t pretty. She was dressed well too: from Anlaby, Willerby or Kirkella I guessed… If she was from Hull at all, of course. She might well have come from as far afield as York.

Then I remembered.

She worked, or at least had worked last year, in the history department of one of the colleges. I’d been doing some research for them and had met her on a couple of occasions to go through what I’d found and to develop the brief they’d given me.

I need your help Mr Coates: I just don’t know what I should do…

There was a kind of tremble in her voice that was echoed in her body: you could just see it in her shoulders and in her hands.

I was suddenly aware that something right here in the office was the cause. I looked at the headline of the Mail’s electronic edition up there on the Mac…

BODY FOUND IN RIVER ran the heavy sans serif type.

P.C.I promises tough action on Marginals said a lighter, serifed font below.

I clicked the cursor on the ‘quit’ icon and the paper rolled itself up and disappeared from the screen.

She must have seen me, because she thanked me. I said I’d get her some tea.

I left her to compose herself.

I know you, don’t I? I asked when I returned with the drinks. She looked like she’d cried a bit while I’d been out of the room - her eyes seemed raw and red.

A little… she ventured, Anna… Anna Russell. We employed you to gather information on merchant fleets and trade routes for one of our archives at the college. Last year.

That’s it, I said, nodding confirmation to myself that I’d been right.

Okay I said handing her a grazed earthenware mug, tell me Anna… what can I do?

After a short while, she shrugged herself up into the back of the chair, put down her mug and looked at me.

She took a slightly deep breath, paused and glanced to the window then back at me.

I have a son, Dominic. she began, He’s just turned sixteen. He’s a beautiful boy and… the tremble in the voice was beginning to come back.

I nodded reassuringly.

He’s gone missing and I’m afraid he may be dead. It’s been weeks now… three weeks. That’s why I came to you: you do investigative work as well as educational, don’t you? I wondered if there was anything you could to: whether you could find things out for me?

Sure I did investigative work, but nothing too heavy, and I’d certainly like to avoid dead bodies if I could help it...

You’ve been to the police? I asked.

They looked for him as soon as he disappeared, but they couldn’t find him.

What did they tell you?

They said they thought he’d just run away from home. I told them that I didn’t believe that could be right, but after they’d looked into the case they were more or less insistent about it. They told me that they’d posted his details onto the Missing Persons Network and passed on pictures and case notes to other forces but that there was really very little that they could do.

You’re not convinced? I asked.

Well… no, I’m not.

Why not?

I just don’t believe he’d do something like that.

You think they’re mistaken?

I think they’re lying, Mr Coates…

There was a brief silence as she looked straight into my eyes.

She was deadly serious and it really took me aback. It seemed a hell of an accusation, but she looked so completely convinced: her reddened eyes unflinching, her voice quiet but resolute.

Judging by her reaction to the headline in the Electronic Edition, she clearly believed her son had been abducted by travellers or street gangs and that, for some reason or other, the police were reluctant to tell her