Free Dark Vision by Debbie Johnson

sword arm is yours to command.’
    ‘That’s … very nice of you,’ I replied, unsure of the whole goddess/leprechaun etiquette. Behind me, Kevin the barman approached, his floppy blond hair falling over one eye as usual.
    ‘And this is Caemgen,’ said Gabriel, ‘although you might know him as Kev.’
    I stared at Kevin, who was grinning while he cleaned a glass with a dirty tea towel. Kevin, apparently pronounced Kwe-veen. The barman who’d always kept an eye out for me.
    ‘Kevin!’ I said, feeling even more out of control. For a goddess, I didn’t have much of a sense of power. ‘Are you … one of them?’
    ‘Aye, milady,’ he said. ‘Caemgen ni Niall. Also yours to command. And to supply you with fresh bottles of Peroni whenever your heart desires.’
    ‘Who else?’ I asked Gabriel. ‘Which of your other secret squirrels have been watching me all this time?’
    ‘A few. Remember Miss McDonough?’
    ‘My old head teacher?’
    ‘Yes. She was with us. And Roisin, your friend at university?’
    ‘The one who mysteriously moved to Peru as soon as we graduated?’
    ‘That’s the one. You’re too important to risk, Lily. Coleen … wasn’t enough.’
    Damned right she wasn’t. She wasn’t enough for anyone, never mind a six-year-old girl who’d just lost her parents. I swallowed down the bitterness. I had no idea why I’d ended up with her, but I’d always carry the scars. Someone had made a very bad choice somewhere along the line, and when I found out who, there’d be a hefty wet-kipper slapping session.
    ‘These men are to be trusted,’ said Gabriel. ‘With your life. They would give up their souls for you, Lily.’
    I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone giving up their souls for me, whether they were willing to or not. I was starting to yearn for the days when the most responsibility I had was whether to give a band three stars or four.
    I could feel all of their gazes upon me, as though they were waiting for something, some command, some request, some sign that I was anything but an ordinary screwed-up Liverpool girl in a battered pair of Doc Martens.
    ‘I need to pee,’ I said, which may have been slightly less than they were hoping for. Gabriel nodded – as though giving me permission – and I headed towards the ladies, slamming my way through the metal-clad doors and leaning against the graffitied wall.
    I didn’t actually need to pee. I needed to breathe. Away from all the testosterone and mumbo jumbo. Away from the noise and the crowd and my new-found soul-sacrificing friends. I considered climbing out of the window and making a run for it, but it was too small, and the ledge was covered in a suspicious-looking brown gunk. Ah, the glamorous life of a goddess.
    My hyperventilating was interrupted as the door slammed back again, and a woman walked in. A woman who actually looked like a goddess: tall and slender, with a swanlike neck and lustrous ebony hair.
    She smiled at me, and walked over to the mirror, fluffing her already perfect do into a big, black cloud. She pulled out a lipstick, and started to draw a blood-red circle over her lips.
    I had the feeling she wasn’t a regular at the Coconut Shy. And I had an even stronger feeling that she was one of
them
. Privacy was clearly a thing of the past. I should have locked myself in a stall, but it probably wouldn’t have done any good.
    ‘So,’ she said, pouting and checking the lippie, ‘he’s given you the spiel, has he? Cormac Mor?’
    ‘If you mean Gabriel, then … yes, I suppose he has. Are you with him? Are you one of his people?’
    ‘Hardly!’ she said, laughing. ‘I’m one of the bad guys. Or at least I suspect that’s how he painted it. He always was a little narrow-minded. Pretty enough, I’ll grant you that, but haughty with it, don’t you think?’
    I shrank back against the wall, feeling a wave of strength flow from the modelesque creature in front of me. I felt its shadow wrap around me, like tendrils of