"I hope you're not trying to make me out as the bad guy in all this?" said Lampard.
"You're the one pointing the gun," said the Walker crabbily.
"Because I know how things usually play out between you and me," Lampard shrugged then grinned wickedly. "But don't tell me that if you had a gun right now you wouldn't be pointing it right back at me."
The Walker smiled too.
"…and tonight there's no time for any valiant heroics I'm afraid. Like you thought you're soul could ever be anything other than dark and shattered, hah. Salvation is such a bitch."
The Walker quickly threw a glance at Nick who was next to George, pressed up against the side of the alley, very still. They stood there confused and frightened, the cold creeping all around them. Listening to the argument play out and not knowing what to do or how to escape. George thought about making a quick get away, but the sight of the gun kept him rooted to the spot. He had seen how fast Lampard could move. No amount of adrenaline running through George's blood could match that mad man's agility. Nick looked back at the Walker, hoping she could read his face for an answer.
"Trying to work out what that shrivelled up prune inside your chest is telling you, Dr. D? How very touching." Lampard puffed his bottom lip out and made a pretend sob. He turned his wild eyes down towards the gun; his finger felt the smooth curve of the trigger. "We both know it's not the long-term benefit of killing we take the pleasure from. For us there is no long-term death. But that makes it all the more fun for our little game, eh?"
"You're crazy," replied the Walker.
"You and me both, pal," Lampard's tongue flicked across his dry lips. "I agree you've trounced me to hell and back more times, but it only makes me stronger. Doesn't mean you're winning though. No such word. Ultimately it's the individual win that we delight in rather than the running tally. The control. The relish. The look in the other's eye as they fade…"
"You talk too much."
"I'd rather hear my own voice than the drivel that exits your mouth."
"Get it over with then. Shoot me. Anything to stop me having to listen to you."
"You're snide comments mean nothing to me. It's been too long. I will kill you, and I will enjoy it. All the better now we have an audience as well." He waved the gun limply at George and Nick but kept his stare fixated on the Walker before aiming back at him.
"It's a bullet," the Walker said in such a bored manner.
"And I recognise your resistance to them. Which is why I've strengthened them with the beyond power a little. Enough to keep you down long enough for me to spill your secrets to the Stone and then you'll be sent to the in-between world so many times, you might as well stay there."
"You can't hurt me."
"No?"
Lampard shimmered and his imprint lingered before everyone's eyes like a ghostly apparition. He had moved before anyone realised he had gone, and only the following events had any say in putting the pieces together about the blip in space.
George fell with a squashed oomph as he was knocked to the ground. Nick's head was yanked back and long fingers grasped at her hair, pulling her skin tight with strained follicles. Lampard now stood behind Nick, edging back towards the main street. He pressed the gun against the side of her head. This time he didn't skip position, his edges which were cloudy and blurred, a thin veil of transparency, became solid and for the first time, he looked human. He honed in on his grip and tightened his finger on the trigger. He moved nice and slowly to see the effect of understanding on their faces grow as time caught up with them. Nick stuttered an uncontrolled gasp of fret and went very pale with troubled jeopardy. George lay unblinking on the ground, scared that any sudden move would cause a blow hole in Nick's brain even faster than even Lampard could move. The Walker's face remained stern, blank and unreadable, but the smallest of muscles below his bad eye twitched and Lampard knew he had tipped the scales.
"Hello Puppet," Lampard grinned.
"Get off me," Nick struggled.
He gave her bad shoulder a light squeeze with the hand holding the gun but it was enough to hurt. She bemoaned a heavy gripe and tried to wince her body away by arching her back at a stooped angle to let her throbbing shoulder drop away from him. But the effort was unproductive.
"Haha, awww," Lampard mocked. He then cocked his head to the side and in a child's voice said; "Am I breaking the rules? No fair."
She lashed back with her foot but her attempts were already second-guessed by him and he shifted clean out the way. He pulled Nick's head back further, raising her onto tiptoes so her head was resting against his shoulder and brought his face so it was touching the side of hers. She felt his freshly trimmed stubble graze against her sore face and his cool breath flowed against her skin, raising chills down her back. He risked a baited take at the Walker, hoping to pique the rage within him as his lips brushed across Nick's cheek to her ear.
"It's not too late for you, you know?" Lampard whispered gently.
Nick wrenched her self sideways but it did nothing to his hold on her. She knew she couldn't listen to his words. Couldn't let them manipulate and distort her judgement. His words were dangerous.
She opened her mouth for some glib comeback but he caught her chin with his hand, feeling her words only as pale vibrations in her neck that were too nervous to escape. His eyes flashed with power. She decided to close her mouth and stay quiet.
"Clever girl," he said. "Like I said, it's not too late."
His hand crept slowly to her neck and rested there softly. Already she felt his words intoxicating her, forcing the walls of her impenetrable protective core to bend, pushing her steely foundations over the edge of submissiveness. Her heart fluttered knowing full well he could clench his hand and wring her neck easily.
"You've not been the most faithful lackey but have a good many years of servitude left in you. The Stone knows your strengths. Lord knows, you're its secret weapon. It hates betrayers but it also needs people who are good at it. And-you-are-good."
He declared the last sentence in slowed, pronounced beats, leaving enough time in between so they buried deep in her thoughts, giving her the time to dissect and master the full meaning behind them.
"So good…" he continued, "that you've fooled even yourself. Lying to yourself into thinking there's a place for you in that lesser world. That there might actually be some good saved in that little, dark heart of yours. But don't you see? That's not what's made you. The Darkness unveiled your true potential. You're skilled. You've learnt to get on by your own, alienating your existence in the world to make people forget. To simply slip by them. The real Darkness isn't inside the Stone, it's inside you. Afterall you're the Shadow, and shadows and darkness blend all to beautifully into one another. And you feel it, don't you? The power you have on people in that moment of control. It's glorious…"
He squeezed her jaw and twisted her head to the side so she was facing George who was backed up against the wall, trying to send her a look of reassurance but knowing he was failing, as inside he was only fretting about the uselessness of him self in this situation.
"…and it won't stop there. You're brimming with ambition. You just don't realise it yet. Dee's held you back. You are destined for greatness; the angels have foretold it to me. They've seen your potential. What does the boy know? Look at him. He's nothing more than a tumbleweed blown into this world by chance and stupidity. A mere chip on this changing world. They all are. Gone in a flash. Yet you will Wander this world and see so many things. You're young, believe it or not, you're a fresh existence on this world of endless discovery. You think the boy understands? You think his mind of limited seeing is worth his blessing of your earning? How could he possibly begin to imagine who you are? What you are. They only see in black and white. Him and his little cherub friends of so called 'right' will discard you and your shades of grey once it's all over. Go back to that world and you'll throw it all away, you'll lose yourself. The Great Fire gave you a chance to have it all…"
"Don't you dare mention the fire! You know nothing of who I am!" Nick yelled.
A flash ripple of a smile bounced across Lampard's eyes. Like he knew something important but didn't want to share it.
"I know more than you think," Lampard whispered. "I could save you from the Stone's discipline. It will be merciful. With me at your side it will forgive you."
He traced a finger down her cheek across the scar she had gotten in the alley. She felt a shudder pass down her body which she'd tried gravely to suppress. Lampard sparked with excitement.
"You can try to live a normal life but normal will always run away from you. Try to be good and bad throws its cards at you. Where's your justice? You don't owe anything to this world, Nick. Stop trying to win its approval and think about your own life. Do what you deserve. The Stone will reward those who help it."
Lampard slapped a hand onto her scarred shoulder and squeezed it. It made Nick jar and grimace in pain behind tight sealed lips. He then lessened the tension of his grip and Nick sunk back onto flat feet, feeling woozy. She rested leaning backwards into him, resisting to fight away, mind fighting a rapid sense of urgency but being inhibited by a overriding wave of calm. She just wanted to scream at the world for her sorrow. But right now, his offer brought her peace like a hushed sedative, wrapping its arms around her like a mother's hug of protection.
"Don't listen to him!" George yelled, now easing to his feet.
"Shut up!" shouted Lampard, wielding the aim of the barrel at George's head.
George stood straight regardless and even took a step forward.
"Don't you forget, Nick," Lampard frowned. "Don't forget who really saved you."
He made a bunched fist and stabbed it down back onto Nick's shoulder as a reminder. She yelled out and her legs crumpled, keeling back into his chest. He held her from collapsing. She swung unsteadily, her head falling back, seeing his face up close as her eyelids drooped.
"You should rethink where you're loyalties lie."
George didn't know what Lampard was talking about, but he chose not to like it.
Lampard's eyes quickly shifted to the Walker after a fleeting second of panic where he'd almost forgotten him. But luckily he still remained there, rocking on the same spot, the same look of tried patience resting on his normal expression of a sombre grimace. Lampard smiled a sketchy smile at him and rested the gun back into the soft spot on the side of Nick's skull.
"Well?" he breathed feverishly. "Have you made your decision?"
In the eased confinement of his strong arms, his handsome facial features struck up close to hers, their bodies touching as the silence tickled the cold night's air around them. She looked into his rouge, autumn eyes, deep with a calculating pull of intrepid but tempting risks. Their eyes conjoined in poker defences as their minds shut out each other's stare for an answer, bestowed by their mind's ability to blur the truth from their witness with a dangerous allure of mystery.
"I'd rather rot in Hell," Nick spat.
She wouldn't have seen it, but a suspicion of a smile planted itself on the Walker's mouth.
Lampard's face detonated with an insatiable grin.
"Oh you will, darlin'. I'll meet you there. Even with immortality we can't escape the world that's waiting for us, so why suffer in this one?"
"I'll never join you. You sick, twisted freak!"
She went to raise a hand to him but his hand jerked out on reflex around her wrist much quicker than she even had the thought of slamming it down on him. He twisted it sharp and Nick yelled out in agony. Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks but she wouldn't surrender to them. She wouldn't give Lampard the satisfaction.
"Last chance," Lampard professed.
"Go jump out a window!" Nick said with venom on her tongue, wriggling once again but failing, so she spat at him.
As she watched her drool dribble down his cheek he calmly smiled in a way that unnerved her. He raised his chin to her, cocked his head at a smug angle and pouted.
"It seems like John's took the pleasure in telling you all about me."
"I worked that one out for myself actually."
Nick yanked her head forward and smacked it into his forehead, the room between them too little for his neck to flex away in time. She heard a crack and him groan, and felt his head pull back away as she snarled viciously and tried to trap the pain behind her eyes. His smile turned to delicate fury behind primed fused eyes of explosives. His grip dug into the veins on her wrist which made her feel queasy as she tried to squirm out of his hold. He snaked one arm around her back, pulling her in close and trapping her hands between their bodies. His other let go of her wrist and held tight over her mouth like a muzzle. He squeezed his fingers together which forced her mouth open and pushed the barrel of the gun in to the back of her throat. Nick gagged on the metallic taste and stiffened as the gun rested on her tongue and her dry breath condensed on the cold metal.
Lampard once again brought his face close. His eyes continued to burn into hers but his head drooped low, emphasizing the striking whites of his eyes and deepening the intensity of the fiery colour of his irises.
"It's a cold, cold night. Dry. A little wind. At sunset it was a red sky, you know what that means, don't you, Nick? Reminds me of another night. A long, long time ago. The night I befriended a certain man called Thomas Farriner. You might have heard of him…"
In the space of a heartbeat all the blood had drained from Nick's face. Her eye's shot wide open, her breath caught in her throat, her pupils turned to pinpricks. All that she couldn't remain hidden through shock burst like a dam opening and sprawled to the surface of her shaking body and scared her even more.
It gave the reaction Lampard had hoped for. His intense eyes showed a flurry of impassioned theatrics. Fuelled by a quench of bottled exuberance; his body danced with boundless ecstasy as the molecules vibrated with mounting kinetic energy. He took the gun out of her mouth, which remained open in a difficult fight for breath, and loosely held it as he cupped her head in his hands on either cheek, blocking off her peripheral vision so that he was close and centre. He stroked her skin with his thumb and the heat rose in her face. She felt her tongue gagging her and her stomach churning and the pain of her heart being crushed by her ribs, chest borders converging, forcing their way into a densely packed space as the truth struck home and left her asphyxiated. He was the only thing keeping her on her feet.
"No," she whispered, heart sick.
"Do you know what night that was?" Lampard teased, licking his lips with the corrosive thirst of rapturous satisfaction. "The same night I put a knife in his maid and let the oven roar and the house catch ablaze."
Nick struck barely before the sentence had left his mouth, which surprised Lampard even further because he was a fast talker. His concentration on remembering the girl had slipped just slightly, and Nick raised her knee sharp between his legs so that he released her and waddled back, bent over his abdomen with a heavy gasp as the air rushed out of him. With his head tucked low he went to reach out for her but she was already being pulled back by the Walker who was on him, throwing himself into Lampard's side so fast, the two of them hit the ground with his own vigour of speed.
"There it is," said Lampard through baited breaths as the Walker grabbed his shirt. "The fury within. You lasted well 007."
The two of them scrambled for leverage on one another. Lampard started shouting in a language Nick didn't recognise, but the Walker seemed to acknowledge it with anger as a response. He pinned Lampard under his knee, pressing down hard into his stomach, his gaseous essence of a body becoming rooted in reality as the air was driven out of his lungs, making him refocus into view. His grasps of breath were distorted and overtaxed as he tried to roll and up heave the Walker's weight on him.
"Although-" Lampard gasped and jutted his chin out at him. "You'll have to knock one of those zeros off your signature now, I see, ahah."
Nick moved forward but George rushed and pulled her back. Lampard managed to get an arm up and push his thumb into the Walker's good eye socket. The Walker howled and tilted back and Lampard twisted his head to look at Nick.
"You know what night it was!" he repeated to her in an inhumane scream of contemptuous pain, rising over the scuffling noises of his and the Walker's heaving breaths and feet scraping along the ground. "The night London burned!"
"No Nick!" shouted George, grasping onto her to stop her going for him.
Lampard managed to wriggle forward his hands trapped against his chest and lift the angle of the gun up.
"The night you should have burned!" Lampard yelled.
The Walker curbed a fist into Lampard's jaw, drumming his skull and knocking his senses into black spots. Lampard laughed manically and the Walker punched him twice more in quick, successive blows so that Lampard's head lolled to the side as his slack jaw dribbled. His gun was knocked out of his hands and skittered a few yards clear.
Nick pushed George away and darted forward in a crouch to pick it up. George ran after her but hesitated besides with his palms out as if telling her to take it easy. He watched her point the gun at Lampard, the aim constantly shifting to try and compensate for the erratic shuffling of the scuffle between him and the Walker. Nick's face creased up and she swallowed hard as her finger hovered on the trigger. Lampard reacted and his hand went to the other, touching the ring on his finger. Nick became swathed in white wisps of smoke, tangling all down her arms and around her body. The whispers returned and Nick became lost to the outside world, trapped in this hazy bubble she couldn't escape. She heard a muffled noise and an arm emerge through the thick veil. It held onto her arm and pulled her forward, and the bonds holding her immobile broke. The whispers died.
Nick came back to the world with George letting go of her arm. She quickly looked around her but any sign that anything abnormal just happened had gone. The gun had fallen back to the floor but she didn't pick it up again. A tear fell down her cheek. She took her attention quickly back to the fight.
The Walker still had Lampard pinned down, scrabbling with his hands on Lampard's hands, trying to wrestle the signet ring off his finger. It finally came free with a growl off Lampard and the Walker chucked it across the ground down the street. Then he rested back on his knees as one hand reached into his own inner pocket of his coat, the other raised high for another punch. However, this time Lampard was ready for him and used his advantage of speed to arch his body up and knock the Walker off balance. The Walker kiltered onto his back, slashing forward blindly with his lowered arm in the process. That arm held the retrieved knife from his pocket and it cleaved through the soft skin by the side of Lampard's mouth and travelled up the side of his cheek, tracing up the fragile scar tissue around the curve of his ear. Lampard screamed and the Walker shuffled back on all fours to find room to stand. In the bat of an eye, Lampard jotted onto a crouched foot and send out a kick in a flash of light which collided with the Walker's stomach, digging into soft flesh as the Walker howled in pain. Just as the Walker started to feel the impact of the assault, Lampard took a mere millisecond to pounce over to the gun and was aiming it at the Walker who lay panting on his back, clutching his stomach.
Through a half-shut eye and a pulsing lower lip, Lampard pulled a half-smile, widening the jagged tear of white-torn flesh in his cheek, quickly forgotten by the numbness. His injury left him with half a Chelsea smile and left one ear half torn along the scar at the top, but he barely seemed to notice. He ran his fingers through his hair, arching the smooth, inky strands back neatly across his skull. Then he straightened up his jacket and brushed some dust off his shoulder. His short-winded breaths of a dark thirst for vengeance hung on his finger resting against the trigger as he steadied the gun and tried to focus his masked vision.
The Walker issued a quick last glance to an undisguised panic in Nick's eyes and rose to his feet with hung, defeatist shoulders and a marked face of pain. He stood square to the barrel of the gun and fixed stares with Lampard.
Their eyes met with unsaid words but clear understanding.
Lampard pulled the trigger.
