Free Jago by Kim Newman Page A

let your idiot brother screw it up for you again.’
    Loyally, he didn’t say anything. Terry was bitching because he was a lowly member of the car-park crew, which would keep him away from the music and whatever else was going on. Mainly, he would miss the drink, the dope and the nymphos. He’d done some pilfering last year. He hadn’t been found out for a change, but Teddy reckoned James must’ve had his eye on Terry and made a few good guesses. The news made Terry feel mean, and he wanted to take it out on Teddy.
    ‘Youm with they stupid kids, then?’
    ‘It’s okay, it’s a good laugh.’
    Terry tried to sneer. ‘Raaahh! You’m a clown, my boy, a stupid clown.’
    Last year, the kids had got into face-painting, and had coloured Teddy like a clown.
    ‘Leave off him, Car Park King,’ said Allison, which shut him up instantly. ‘You’re a one to talk. Everyone knows you’re thicker’n two short ones, an’ twice as dense.’
    Terry tried to laugh but it turned sour in the back of his throat. His brother was scared of Allison. She had once done something to him in the copse by the primary school, something that still made him go white and treat her with respect. They had all grown up since primary school, but some things never change.
    ‘We’re off down the Valiant Soldier,’ said Kev. ‘You boys comin’?’
    ‘Might as well,’ said Terry.
    Teddy was looking around, looking for someone. ‘Teddy?’ asked his brother. ‘You comin’ or goin’ or what?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Pub. You comin’ or goin’?’
    ‘Oh, yurp. Comin’. I was just thinkin’.’
    Kev laughed. ‘Your brother’ll go blind if he keeps up all this thinkin’, Ter. Gonna bust his brainbox proper.’
    They left in several groups. Teddy looked back. Through the gates of the Agapemone, he could see the lawns in front of the Manor House. Jenny was crossing towards the huge doors. She was with people, but he could recognize her by the white dress and blonde hair.
    In his head, he kept hearing Allison. ‘No one home.’ His memory added spite to every syllable. ‘Jago’s been fucking her brains out.’
    His mind made up pictures to go with the words. Jenny, in and then out of her white dress, flowers falling from her hair. And Jago, half the darkly handsome man Teddy had seen several times, half the leather-winged dragon he had imagined earlier, folding her in his long, skin-sleeved arms, piercing her with a scaly, red-tipped cock. As they rutted, the life in Jenny’s eyes dimmed.
    ‘Jago’s been fucking her brains out,’ Allison had said. ‘They’re all gone.’

7
    T he main hall of the Agapemone was both chapel and dining room. The Brethren were assembled for the evening meal, but the great space felt empty. It was as if a light source had been removed; the absence of Him was as tangible as His presence. When Wendy was out of His gaze, the darkness crept in. Old panic stirred in the depths of her soul, waking like Leviathan, preparing to strike for the surface. They were very close to the End of Things, and she must be strong in her faith in the Beloved Presence. Sometimes she dreamed she was on an island in the mists, surrounded by strange shapes, and He was far from her. It was so easy to lose her hold.
    She had come to the meal direct from the meeting, with Sister Marie-Laure and the new Sister, Jenny. She was struggling to put down the pique she felt at Derek’s desertion. He hadn’t needed to go to the pub with Lytton and the outsiders, but it wasn’t her place to instruct him in the path of perseverance. And his was not the absence she felt most keenly.
    ‘Beloved won’t be joining us this evening,’ Mick Barlowe announced as she took her place. ‘He’s tired, and is having His meal in His room. I’ve been asked to read His lesson.’
    Wendy looked at His chair, no place laid before it, and at the wings of the altar which stood in the darkness beyond. In her memory she saw Him as a golden shadow presiding over