Free Lady of the Shades by Darren Shan Page A

I’ve been so afraid to get close to you,’ she says. ‘Why my heart beat with terror the first time we kissed. Why I didn’t want to let things go
any further. You know why you should walk away and never look back. Because if Mikis finds out about us . . . if he even suspects . . . ’
    She can’t continue, and I can’t think of anything to get her started again. We sit, staring at one another, until a waiter checks to see if we’re finished. I nod, and he asks
if we’d like anything for dessert. ‘No thank you,’ I mumble, then pay up and escort Deleena –
Andeanna
, Mrs Menderes, wife of one of London’s most notorious
gangsters – outside into the uncertainty of the sultry, menacing night.

 
     
     
     
    PART TWO

 
     
     
     
    SIX
     
     
     
     
    It’s amazing how quickly one’s impression of a place can change. Last week I was in love with London, its architecture and layout, its people, its aura. Now the
buildings look old and crumbling. The people have grey, pinched faces. It feels like a city of the lost.
    Three days have passed. No word from
Andeanna
. I still can’t accustom myself to her new name. I should be working on forgetting both, wiping them from my memory. Deleena,
Andeanna, what’s the difference? She’s poison no matter what she calls herself. A married woman who lied. Worse, a married gangster’s woman. What if the Turk’s henchman had
seen us that night in the restaurant? What if he’d caught us kissing and run to tell his boss?
    I’m furious that she sucked me in like that. I can protect myself when I have to. Mikis Menderes doesn’t frighten me. But unaware of the risk, I would have been taken by surprise and
left to the mercy of a man who had no cause to show me any.
    She should have told me. If she’d been married to an ordinary guy, I might have been able to accept the lie. But my life was on the line and I never knew. She treated me with contempt and
I don’t want anything to do with a woman who plays games like that. I should blow this city, set the book elsewhere, turn my back on London without a farewell glance.
    Except . . .
    I feel her lips on mine every time I close my eyes. I haven’t fallen in love often in my life, but whenever I have, I’ve fallen hard. If I could be logical about it, I’d take
the view that I don’t know Andeanna well enough to claim that I love her. But I know what I feel. She has me hooked. How can I leave her behind when my heart aches with every step I take
without her?
    Two more days pass. My ghosts are having a whale of a time. My misery has given them a new lease of life, so to speak. They circle me like sharks, darting at me when I least
expect it, clawing at my face with their insubstantial fingers, mocking me, mutely urging me to end it all, to join them in their shady realm and take what I have coming for what I did in the
past.
    I tried immersing myself in the book, but I couldn’t concentrate, and not just because of the hyperactive spirits. I’d be sitting over a pile of notes with Joe – he’s
been compassionately tight-lipped, never mentioning Deleena – and my mind would wander. I’d think how like a ghost she’s become, gone from my life, never to return, irreclaimable,
uncontactable. Except she
isn’t
dead and she
can
be tracked down. I could take her in my arms again and . . .
    I told Joe I needed a few days to myself. He said to ring when I felt like it and not to spare a thought for him in the meantime. I took to the countryside, chose a direction at random and drove
west, into territory that was all virgin to me — I’ve rarely been outside London on any of my trips to the UK. It was difficult driving – the ghosts kept wrapping themselves in
front of my eyes, obscuring my vision – but having to focus on the road helped take my mind off my troubles. I wound up in far-flung Devon, which I spent yesterday exploring, clambering over
moors, pushing myself physically, ignoring my ghosts,