Dark Angel 03: Broken Dream (2 page)

In that case, I reasoned, he would try to tune in to what I’d do next. What would be the sensible thing? Maybe he would figure I would go back to the entrance to the park and wait for him, so I should retrace my steps and hope to meet up with him there. Yeah, it was a plan and straight away I felt better as I set off south, with the Fifth Avenue traffic to my left and the multicoloured lights of the carousel twinkling up ahead.

You had to be brave to stay out in the cold but a few hardy tourists had paid their two dollars, or whatever, for the old-time Christmas treat. Inside the brick construction that sheltered the ride there was schmaltzy music and carved horses, rising and falling as they whirled by. It made me feel dizzy just to look at them. Then out of nowhere a short guy in a fur-lined hunter’s hat and a black jacket zipped up to his chin stepped out of the shadows at the far side of the building. I registered him out of the corner of my eye as I trudged through the snow towards the park gates. When he ran at me and hooked his arm round my neck to drag me around the back of the carousel, it was as if my whole life went into slow motion.

The music played and the horses rose and fell. White horses with red and blue saddles, brown horses with carved manes and tails flying, black horses frozen in a full-out gallop, rising up and down on steel poles, going endlessly round.

The mugger’s arm was round my neck. I was choking, staggering backwards in the snow, not even screaming or struggling.

The rafters of the carousel were painted red. Yellow lights were strung between them. The central support concealing the engine was pale blue. Round and round went the prancing horses, carved nostrils flared, sightless eyes staring.

My attacker tightened his hold. He had one arm round my neck, the other round my waist. I couldn’t turn my head to look at him. I thought with a weird kind of mild surprise, Whoa, maybe this guy has a knife!

The horses stopped. I stared up at a rearing black stallion.
Slam!
My brain did its sickening dark angel thing of cutting out reality. A split second later it clicked back into action and shoved me into a nightmare vision of the black horse shape-shifting and coming alive, lunging at me and rearing with its heavy hooves flailing, its black neck flecked with white sweat.

I see its knotted mane caked with dirt and ice, its ears flattened, a bleeding cut across its nose. There is fear in its eyes as it rears over me. I roll to the side as its hooves thud down
.

Slam
– back into ugly reality.

The attacker in the black jacket threw me to the snowy ground and flipped me on to my stomach. He rammed a booted foot into the small of my back.

‘Don’t hurt me,’ I begged. I was face down in untrodden snow. The woman who worked the carousel was turning out the lights.

‘Phone,’ he grunted. ‘And your bag.’

Trapped by the foot grinding into my spine, I struggled to squeeze my hand into my pocket to pull out my phone. I had it halfway out when he stamped on my wrist and grabbed it. Then, instead of waiting for me to wriggle and raise the top half of my body to hitch my bag over my head, he wrenched at the strap and it broke. I was lying winded. My cheeks were frozen, my back and wrist hurt like hell. The mugger had what he wanted.

The black stallion rears again. I can smell him, hear his snorting anger and I feel the ground shudder as his front hooves land close to my face
.

‘Don’t hurt me,’ I pleaded a second time.

The guy was gone. He’d vanished into the snow with my possessions.

There was a click inside my head and the shiny stallion was back on the carousel, skewered on its steel pole, frozen in time.

I should take time out to explain. When my brain does that – splits and gives me two parallel versions of what’s going on around me – it’s a psychic, sixth-sense thing. You might call it a nightmare, only I’m awake.

Actually, it’s me making a connection with a world most people can’t tune into and sometimes I wish I couldn’t either. I mean, how would you feel if objects changed shape before your eyes, came to life and scared the hell out of you? Would you be thrilled to be in contact with the huge forces of good and evil that govern this world, and to know that nothing and no one are what they seem?

That’s exactly what happened to me when the mugger grabbed me and the carousel horse shape-shifted. I refused to make a big deal of it right then because I was in denial. I’d been blessed by a period without these visions for two whole months, travelling in Europe and free of my dark angel. The black stallion was a sign he might be back and thirsting for revenge. After all, I’m one of a very few gifted people standing between him and his planned victory.

Or maybe this carousel wasn’t a psychic intimation that he was back, please God. Dark angel, twisted Cupid. His mission is to draw innocent lovers into his shadowy, tormented world and psychics like me are the only ones with enough energy to oppose him. If he gets rid of me, the door into the dark side stands wide open.

So no. I was in New York, convincing myself I was free, that I didn’t need to warn or protect anyone, and that what had just happened was a city mugging, pure and simple. I got up from the trampled snow and, supporting my right wrist with my unharmed left hand, I stumbled out from behind the carousel.

‘Hey, are you OK?’ a voice asked.

A guy, a total stranger, strode towards me through the snow. I couldn’t make out any details, only that he wore a dark padded jacket but no hat and that he sounded concerned.

Drawing a deep breath, I nodded. I didn’t want to stop and talk, I was desperate to get to the park gates, where I was certain Orlando would be waiting.

‘What happened to your hand?’ the stranger asked. He was closer now – tall, dark-haired, out-of-this-world handsome – and I did a kind of double take.

It couldn’t be … surely not!

‘No, I’m not Jack Kane,’ he confirmed as if he read what was going on inside my muddled brain. ‘A lot of people make the same mistake. I’m Charlie Speke, his stuntman double.’

My wrist ached and I could still feel the imprint of the mugger’s boot in the small of my back. My jacket and jeans were caked with snow. ‘The guy in the hat back there – did you see him?’

The stranger nodded.

‘He stole my bag and my phone.’ I broke down and sobbed helplessly.

Then the Jack Kane lookalike took my arm and led me to the carousel entrance, where the female operator was busy locking a metal grille. ‘Stand here in the porch,’ Charlie Speke told me. ‘Take a deep breath and tell me exactly what happened.’

‘The guy came out of nowhere, grabbed me from behind. I was looking for my boyfriend. I’d lost him in the crowd, back by the volleyball courts. He’ll be waiting by the gates. I have to go.’

‘Slow down,’ Charlie said.

‘Jeez!’ The carousel worker had locked up, glanced at Charlie and made the usual mistake.

‘Nope,’ he said with a smile and a quick shake of his head. ‘I’m not him. I’m nobody.’

The woman checked out his thick, short jet-black hair and hazel eyes under strong, straight brows, his small, neat ears, angular jaw and high cheekbones. ‘You got to be kidding,’ she challenged.

‘If only,’ he shrugged. ‘But believe me – I’m nobody. If I’m Jack Kane, where’s my security team? Where’s my helicopter?’

‘Got you,’ she agreed – an everyday, middle-aged woman in a dark-blue coat and black boots, not the type to be overly impressed by celebrity in any case. She glanced my way and saw the tears. ‘You OK?’

‘It’s cool, I got it,’ Charlie assured her and she nodded then headed for the walkway, taking the opposite direction to the one I wanted to go.

‘What’s your name?’ He was helping me to brush the snow from the back of my collar.

‘Tania. Tania Ionescu.’

‘Tania, I’ll come with you, make sure you’re safe,’ he offered, making small talk as we walked. ‘You were in the park to watch the filming? Did you get a good look at the living legend? I guess you saw the first Siege movie? How did you rate it?’

Then, when I’d calmed down, he asked me again about the guy who had stolen my bag. ‘Can you recall any details about how he looked?’

I shook my head.

‘What he was wearing, how tall – that kind of thing?’

‘Shorter than me, maybe only five eight. He had one of those hats that hunters wear, with the ear flaps. A dark leather jacket.’

‘White? Black?’

‘He looked mixed-race.’

‘And he took your wallet, your money, everything?’

I nodded miserably.

‘But your boyfriend is waiting for you at the entrance to the park?’

‘Let’s hope,’ I said with an anxious sigh.

‘So we’ll soon find out.’

Stuntman Charlie was right. We were past the Wollman ice rink, almost at the gates. In the street beyond I could see the horse-drawn buggies waiting by the sidewalk, blowing steam into the cold dusk air.

I picked up speed, certain that Orlando would be there. It was still pretty crowded on the sidewalk, and messed up by piles of dirty snow, puddles of slush, overflowing trash cans, clouds of exhaust fumes.

‘You see him?’ Charlie enquired.

I shook my head, felt my heart falter. ‘Maybe he’s still back by the reservoir.’

‘You remember his cell phone number?’

‘Yeah, but that doesn’t help. His battery’s dead.’ I was in a rush to get away, ready to retrace my steps.

‘Whoa, Tania. let’s think this through. We’re talking about eight hundred and fifty acres of parkland for your boyfriend to get lost in. It’s a no-brainer – you could be running round there in the dark for hours like a headless chicken. It’s better if you head back to your hotel and wait for him there.’

By now my pulse was racing again. I was listening to Charlie’s idea partly because it was plain common sense and partly because I dreaded going back past the dark angel carousel. ‘You sound like my dad,’ I joked feebly.

He pulled down the corners of his mouth. ‘Thanks.’

‘He’s Romanian.’ I lowered my voice a couple of octaves. ‘“Running like headless chicken.” That’s how he talks.’

Charlie smiled. ‘So going back to your hotel is a good idea?’

I didn’t answer as I looked around for Orlando one last time, stepping aside as a family of shoppers bustled by loaded down with bulky Bloomingdale’s bags. A cab pulled up in a nearby bay.

‘Where’s your hotel?’

‘Way down in TriBeCa. It’s a small B&B.’

‘So take this cab,’ Charlie told me, striding ahead and opening the door.

‘I don’t have any money, remember.’

‘Give me the address.’

‘86 Hubert Street, just off Twelfth Avenue.’

‘You hear that?’ Charlie asked the cab driver, taking bills out of his wallet and handing them over. ‘This covers it, right?’

The driver nodded, glancing from Charlie to me before he took the money.

‘Problem solved.’ Charlie held open the door of the cab.

‘But I can’t … I mean, why would you do this?’ He was just a guy walking through Central Park after a day’s work.

‘Let’s say it’s good for my karma,’ he grinned, and as he did this the Jack Kane similarity sent me weak at the knees. I’ll describe him again: hazel eyes that always seemed to find the funny side of any situation, plus perfect teeth and a quirky smile that puts a dimple in one cheek, which actually and coincidentally is one of the features I love most about Orlando’s face – his dimple, his Irish smile.

‘I want to pay you back,’ I gabbled, leaning out of the window as the cab driver pulled away from the kerb.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ my knight errant replied, striding off.

‘Lucky you,’ my driver grunted as he pushed into the gridlocked traffic. He was looking in his overhead mirror, probably wondering what I’d had to do for my free taxi ride.

What could I say? I sat back and closed my eyes.

N
o Orlando, no phone, no money – it was so not good. But as the cab driver turned into Hubert Street, pulled up outside number 86 and I climbed the brownstone steps, I did actually begin to feel the band of anxiety loosen. The windows of my B&B glowed with a warm yellow light, there was a Christmas wreath on the door and a welcoming smile from my landlady as I walked into the cosy lobby.

‘Had a good day?’ she asked. She was straightening the Persian rugs in the hallway, turning on more lights.

‘Until I went and lost my boyfriend. After that, not so good.’ And I told her about the mugging, the loss of my bag and the fact that Orlando hadn’t showed up yet. ‘I was hoping he’d already be here.’

Mrs Waterman shook her head. She was small and slender, a widow in her fifties with a smart haircut and Botoxed brow.

‘He’s not?’

‘No. Sorry, honey, I haven’t seen him. But don’t worry – he’ll be here.’

I nodded and took the small elevator up to the third storey, found the old-fashioned brass room key in my jacket’s inside pocket and turned it in the lock, still secretly hoping that Mrs Waterman was mistaken and that Orlando had made it back to the hotel before me.

I opened the door on our quaint room with its quilted bed throws and pretty floral drapes.
Be here!
I silently urged.

But no, the room was exactly the way it had been when we left it early that morning, with Orlando’s clothes unpacked and laid neatly at the end of the bed and my stuff scattered everywhere. I sighed then turned on the TV.

I watched Fox News on politics, international unrest, bad weather in Maryland then a showbiz item about the on-location filming of Jack Kane’s next movie. They showed the crowds in Central Park, Jack’s helicopter and the briefest through-the-window glimpse of his wife, Natalia Linton, staring straight ahead as the chopper rose into the sky. Then there was follow-up stuff about the paparazzi harassing Natalia and the kids in the hotel lobby the previous day, footage of her in dark glasses trying to ignore the cameras and the avalanche of questions as they hassled her about rumours of her husband’s latest affair with his current co-star, Angela Taraska.

I channel-hopped and tried not to look at my watch. If it got to eight p.m. and Orlando still hadn’t showed up, I decided I would use the phone in my room to call home and ask my parents what to do next. Not very adult or independent, I agree. But in an emergency Dad never panics. He has the coolest, most practical of brains. And Mom has travelled all over the world – in her time she’s lost luggage, cell phones, companions, maybe even boyfriends before she met my dad.