Free Spin by Nina Allan Page B

once she fell asleep on
the bus to work, passing right through Bethsheba where the factory
was and ending up at the terminus out by the skyway. She was woken
by a crowd of schoolchildren, storming their way on to the bus like
a swarm of bees. Her head was still stuffed with sleep. She used
her mobile to call in sick, then returned to her apartment and
slumped down on the bed. Her dreams were noisy and uneasy with the
barking of dogs.
    She woke after
sunset, hungry and restless with the same kind of sexual longing
that had followed her separation from John Caribe. She wolfed down
the remains of a takeaway paella she had bought for her supper the
evening before and then took a taxi to a bar she had heard of, in
the cellar of one of the hotels just south of Amberville,
frequented mostly by actors in search of work and successful
businesswomen in their mid- to late fifties. It did not take her
long to find what she was looking for. The boy was pale and skinny,
his fair hair pulled back from his forehead and twisted into
dreadlocks. They agreed on a price, then he led her through a
curtained archway to a green-tiled corridor with a number of
smaller archways leading off. The booth he brought her to was stark
but clean, reminding her of the room at the Hotel Europa. When the
boy took off his shirt Layla saw that his back was striped with old
scars, the flesh raised and corrugated in places like a section of
torn packing material. She pressed her lips to the hardened scar
tissue, tasting salt, then lifted herself astride him, thinking
that she did not have to ask him how he came by the scars, she did
not have to ask him anything. As her flesh parted she thought of
Alcander, and came at once.
    It was gone
one by the time she got home. She felt filled with an immense
darkness, a starry vacuum in which power and despair seemed evenly
matched. They circled each other warily, like fighting dogs. She
did not think she would be able to sleep, but she was unconscious
less than a minute after getting into bed. She was awoken by her
mobile phone; Nashe Crawe’s name was flashing on the display
screen. Layla felt a flicker of dread, suddenly certain that what
she had done with the boy the night before had pitched Alcander
into terminal decline.
    “ I need you to come,” Nashe Crawe said. She sounded
breathless, strident, as if she had been calling Layla’s number for
a long time without getting a reply. “It’s a miracle.”
    “ Mrs Crawe,” Layla said. She still felt groggy. “Are you all
right? What are you talking about?”
    “ It’s Alcander,” she said. “His arms and face are clear of the
sores – completely clear. There were some scabs but they just
brushed off. The blisters on his legs are drying up, too. Even the
big ones.” There was a catch in her voice, as if she was on the
brink of hysterical laughter. “His skin is renewing itself. He’s –
beautiful.”
    Layla rubbed
at her eyes with the back of her hand. She felt nauseous and hungry
at the same time. “How is he in himself?”
    “ Sleeping, mostly. It’s as if his body is using all his energy
to heal itself. But each time he wakes he seems stronger. He’s
eating well, too.” She broke off, starting to weep. “I knew you
could do it.”
    Layla pressed
the phone to her ear, listening to the woman’s choked crying. On
the other side of the room the night hounds, tawny as cougars,
frolicked and span around the figure of their master Aegesth. They
were shadowy as devils, the canvas worked in such a way that when
you first glanced at it the dogs appeared to be nothing more than a
swirling drift of autumn leaves.
    She remembered
the boy from the night before, taut as a bowstring above her, her
fingers digging into the lattice of scars on his back.
    “ It wasn’t me,” she said to Nashe Crawe. “I didn’t do
anything.”
    “ You shouldn’t deny it, you know. If the gods favour you with
a gift you should feel blessed.”
    Layla fell
silent. She wanted to