Free Frost by Harry Manners Page A

turns and re-crossing their own tracks over and over. His inner divining rod flipped and turned in synch with Barry’s ducking and diving.
    He hadn’t felt the clawed man’s ugliness for a while. He might have been out of range… or whatever the equivalent limit was on the secret mojo.
    Barry stopped so suddenly that Jack collided with him at full speed, receiving a mouthful of oxblood leather. Scowling as he rebounded, he clocked Barry’s grunt of triumph. His divining rod span in circles.
    There’s something funky about this spot , whispered a hidden part of his mind.
    They stood outside a turn-of-the-century apartment block, cracked and blackened by long years of low maintenance and the rigours of housing generations of tenants. The ground floor, however, was a pleasant and frilly affair, entirely at odds with the grubbiness above, as though it had popped into existence from the ether, spliced into place by some clumsy supernatural craftsman.
    It was a teashop, twee and bright, and ramshackle.
    The sign read: Laurent’s .
    “Well…” Jack couldn’t think of anything pithy to add, and so gestured for Barry to lead on.
    Together they passed a row of rickety floral-legged tables outside, at which a dishevelled man in a clichéd Hollywood-bad-guy khaki trench coat nodded to them, adjusting a pair of sunglasses on the bridge of his nose.
    “He in?” Barry said over his shoulder.
    The man riffled a newspaper up in front of his face, clicking his tongue. His teeth were the colour of stained sandalwood. He picked his nose, looked as though he meant not to answer, but then said under his breath, “Be fast. You shouldn’t be here.”
    Barry grunted and pushed his way inside. “There’s a lot of that going around today.”
    A high pitched, delicate bell tinkled above their heads, and they left Manhattan behind. Jack followed, feeling a heavy weight press down on him, like a small child being led into an alley meant for scoundrels. Yet what met his eyes was somewhere between fairy tale and middle-class bliss.
    Laurent’s was a large oblong room that extended away from him towards a glass-topped delicatessen counter, in which there lay not meats or cheeses, but tea-leaves and cakes and scones, breakfast rolls and buns. There was such a selection of each that they vied for space, stitching a rich patchwork rainbow across the back of the large room.
    The air heaved with aroma, laden and weighed down with soupy citrus and spicy undertones, on top of which sat delicate transient whiffs of lavender, coconut, and vanilla. Between the door and the counter lay a spew of the same character of table as those outside, topped with red and white checked tablecloths, made treacherous by heavy compliments of eccentric cutlery and bone china.
    Only a few customers were seated, murmuring amongst themselves, their faces hidden in private, hunched repose. As one they presented a humble hubbub that, accompanied by the steady tinkling of forks on plates and cups upon saucers, both terrified and charmed.
    Jack’s eyes told him it was a delightful scene.
    His mind, meanwhile, rang like a bell to a single tone: Fuuuuuccc—
    He had seen Chucky once. This was like that, but a thousand times worse: something dressed up as cute and cuddly that, quite simply, wasn’t and would never be; was in fact dripping with something that set the heart racing, and the skin prickling with fear. Things breathing and hungry lurked behind hidden corners, just out of sight.
    Barry leaned towards him and spoke from the corner of his mouth. “Keep yer wits about you in here. All’s not as it seems.” He made a noise of satisfaction, and Jack knew he had looked into his mind. “Keep thinking that way. It’ll do you good. Now stay close.”
    “The guy out there was right, wasn’t he?” Jack said, grabbing at Barry’s sleeve. “We’re not supposed to be here.”
    Barry looked back at him, stony faced. “People don’t usually come to this place,