Sister Death (Acid Vanilla Series Book 4), Matthew Hattersley [best book club books for discussion .TXT] 📗

the bathroom,” she squeaked, before Acid grabbed her by the face and stuck her tongue down her throat. The girl kissed her back, the sordid display going on for an uncomfortable amount of time as The Dullahan seethed silently.

Finally the girl pulled away. “Let me go, my shift starts in half an hour, I need to have a shower.”

Acid stepped to one side and smacked the girl on the arse as she hurried away giggling to herself. Once the girl was locked in the bathroom, Acid glared back at The Dullahan, her eyes wide but still with no light in them.

“You got anybody else in there?” he asked her.

She held a finger up to him, stifling a burp as she peered into the dark room. “I don’t think so. Not sure.”

The Dullahan seethed some more. “What the feck is going on with you?”

“Nothing going on with me.” She held her hands up. “I am fucking brilliant, mate. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He stepped towards her, his eyes blazing with ferocity as he employed that infamous stare of his, the one that had made hundreds of grown men shrivel up in fear over the years, from Manchester to Mongolia to Mumbai. Once he’d been the best in his field, the deadliest, the most feared. He was The Dullahan for Christ’s sake. The Dark Man. Despite his senior years and his body not being what it was, he still had a demon inside of him.

“Listen here, missy,” he snarled, keeping his voice low and under control. “I came here because I’ve got a pressing issue that needs sorting out. And unfortunately for me, and you, you’re the only person I know who can help. So I suggest you take five minutes, get dressed, get your fecking act together, and I’ll see you downstairs. Okay?”

Acid looked him up and down, nodding along with some thought she was having. Then as her eyes met his, she grinned. “Yeah, don’t fancy that. See ya.”

“Acid—” The Dullahan started, but the door had already been slammed in his face.

Five

“Interfering old bastard.” Acid walked over to the stereo and switched it off before slumping down on the edge of her bed and casting her eyes around the room. A neighbour’s security system cast long shards of yellow light through the gaps in the curtains and along the walls, illuminating the piles of empty bottles and dirty clothes, the screwed-up tissues and condom wrappers. Like Tracey Emin’s bed rolled out into an entire room.

She closed her eyes, listening to the rain beating hard against the windows, but unsure whether the sound was actually an extension of the invisible bat wings fluttering across her nervous system.

Because right now, the bats – the enlivened way Acid referred to the manic aspects of her condition (Cyclothymia, a rare form of bipolar) – were out of control. Which in itself she could have coped with, having long since learned how to hone this skewed part of her psychology into an almost valuable trait. Yet, she'd become aware of a different kind of beast now fighting for space alongside the bats. One more vile and unmanageable. The gross manatee of depression, which had weighed heavily on her chest and shoulders for the last few weeks, leaving her unable to move, to breathe. To be.

Not lifting her feet from the floor, she moved over to the wardrobe, kicking at bottles as she went. A bottle of cheap vodka caught her eye and she snatched it up, draining it of the last few drops of loony juice. It didn’t even touch the sides. She needed more. Needed out of this place. This life. It was too dark. She’d made a mistake. She was useless here. No point to any of it. To anything. No feelings. No fun. No fun at all.

She opened up the wardrobe to reveal the seven shiny bullets on the top shelf. Each with a name scraped into the metal casing and representing a member of her old team. Symbols of her rage. Her kill list. Five of the rounds were laid down on their side. Already taken care of. But two remained. As the bats screeched across her synapses, Acid reached in and picked up the one marked ‘Caesar’.

“Where the bloody hell are you?” she slurred, over curled lips.

A vision flashed across her pre-frontal cortex. Berlin, Germany. Nearly eighteen months earlier. She’d had a clear shot at him, but she’d hesitated, effectively letting him escape. So what the hell was that all about?

“Sorry, mum,” she whispered, as salty tears ran into the corners of her mouth. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know anything anymore.”

She’d been hunting Caesar ever since, but after their last encounter on the island where he had sent her and Spook to be killed, the trail had gone cold. Maybe that was a sign. Leave it alone. Move on. But if she did that, what else did she have? If darkness was an absence of light, what did an absence of darkness look like?

She placed the round back on the shelf, making sure it remained upright. That was important, for some reason. Then she shut the wardrobe and grabbed at a pair of knickers hanging from the door handle.

Let’s see what the old fucker wants.

Six

Spook was sitting at the kitchen table fiddling with an empty glass when The Dullahan appeared in the doorway.

“You weren’t kidding about her being in a pit, were ya?” he said, shuffling into the room.

“No I wasn’t,” she replied. “I take it you didn’t get through to her.”

“Not yet. But I will. Mark my words.” He scraped a chair out from under the table and sat opposite. “What is it you lot call it – when you get onto a fella with a drink problem?”

“You lot?”

“Aye, the Yanks. It’s some sort of hippie bullshit. Intermediary or something.”

“Oh, an intervention. You think she’d go for that?”

“She might. If we lean on her hard enough.”

She removed her glasses and rubbed them