Dark Vision Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Praise

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Before

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Lily McCain is cursed.

  With just one touch she can see a person’s future, whether it’s a good fortune or a terrible fate. Afraid of the potent visions she foresees, she distances herself from the world, succumbing to a life of solitude.

  But at the touch of a mysterious stranger – who has powers of his own – Lily sees a new, chilling future for herself: one where she is fated to make a terrible choice...

  About the Author

  Debbie Johnson is based in Merseyside, where she lives with her family. After a lifetime of retelling other people’s stories through her work as a journalist, she decided to make up some of her own. Debbie won the Harry Bowling Prize in 2010, before going on to complete Dark Vision, her debut novel.

  To find out more, go to: www.facebook.com/debbiejohnsonauthor

  Praise for Dark Vision

  ‘A sizzling debut about goddesses, vampires and rock ’n’ roll. You’ll love Debbie Johnson’s sassy page-turner’

  Jane Costello

  For my dad, who loved reading, and my mum, who always believed I could write.

  Wish you were both here.

  Before

  LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND

  Lily McCain stood a few feet away from the crowd. She was dressed the same as everyone else – school blazer, knee-high white socks, purple tie – but something about her was different. Had always been different since she was six years old and her parents were killed in a car crash. Even the other kids knew she was odd, and instinctively avoided her.

  She was thirteen now, and she’d already experienced a world of pain. The kind of pain that made boyfriends and make-up and the new Britney Spears or Robbie Williams single seem dull and irrelevant. The kind of pain that made it hard for her to enjoy gossip, or friendship, or school trips. Or anything at all.

  ‘This song is, like, a million years old,’ said Gemma Gardiner, a plump blonde with orange skin from her daily sunbed sessions. ‘So old I bet my dad has it.’

  The song in question was ‘Ferry ’Cross the Mersey’ by Gerry and the Pacemakers, and the opening bars were blaring fuzzily from speakers stationed around the boat. The Royal Daffodil, en route from the Pier Head to Seacombe in the Wirral. The day was grey, with drizzle slanting horizontally from a thunderous sky on to the bored school-children below.

  It was only a river, but it was a big river. So big, thought Lily as she stared down into the churning waters below, that you could almost believe you were aboard some ocean liner, destined for a fresh start in the New World. Which, she decided, spotting a flock of seagulls pecking at a flotilla of old lager cans gathered around the base of the ferry, had to be better than this one.

  ‘What’s up, weirdo?’ asked Gemma, coming up behind her and giving her a poke in the ribs. ‘Thinking of ending it all? Just don’t expect any of us to jump in after you.’

  ‘Get lost, Gemma,’ Lily said, looking warily at the small group of girls that had followed their Queen Bee over.

  ‘No, I won’t,’ Gemma snapped back. ‘I always thought you looked a bit like a ginger witch … maybe we should see if you float! What do your reckon, girls? Should we duck her?’

  The crowd behind her tittered uncertainly. Gemma was known for taking things too far. Last week she’d held Penny Fox’s head down the toilet for so long she’d blacked out.

  Lily was terrified, but she stared Gemma down, locking gazes, noticing the way her eyelashes clumped together under a mascara overload. She’d obviously avoided Miss McDonough’s traditional morning baby-wipe attack to get rid of outlawed make-up.

  Gemma, knowing she couldn’t back down in front of her disciples, reached out to grab Lily’s bony wrist, and twisted it, hard.

  Lily jerked in pain, squeezed her eyes shut, and felt that weird thing happen. The weird thing that had started when she was six years old, when Mum and Dad went out to work one morning and never came back. The weird thing where she just … knew stuff. Stuff she shouldn’t know, and stuff she really didn’t want to know. Stuff that made her feel like throwing up. Gemma had touched her – and that was a very big no-no in Lily Land.

  ‘You need to stop using those sunbeds,’ she said moments later, staring at Gemma’s near-fluorescent face. ‘They’re going to make you sick. They’re going to give you something called melanoma. And they’re going to make you look really old and wrinkly and ugly.’

  Gemma dropped her hand like she’d been burned with acid.

  ‘You’re fucking mental, you know that?’

  Lily nodded. Yes, she knew that.

  Gemma strutted away, glancing back over her shoulder and giving her the evil eye as she retreated in a cloud of disapproval and the scent of her mum’s Obsession perfume.

  Lily shook off the image, as she’d learned to do, and went back to the side of the boat, leaning over and looking down. The off-white froth of the water slapped against the sides of the ferry as they ploughed on to their destination. Gerry continued to crackle on about life and Liverpool.

  It was then that she noticed the man over on the far shore. He was distant, but she could see him clearly, like her eyes were superpowered, or she was looking through one of those telescopes dotted along the prom. He was dressed in dirty grey robes; a crucifix swung from his neck as he pulled some kind of small boat back on to land. He was … a monk. Like out of the films, but scruffier. A monk with a fishing boat.

  He looked up, met Lily’s eyes, and dropped his wooden oars to the sand. He seemed as shocked as she was, and made a swift sign of the cross over his torso. She could see his mouth forming words as he shouted to the other monks behind him, running towards them and pointing back over his shoulder.

  They were the only people there, on the shore. And there were no buildings, either; no dock wall or buoys … no ferry terminal, no factories, no terraced streets. No flotillas of lager cans. None of the stuff that should be there. None of the stuff that had been there moments ago. Just the water’s edge, trees in the distance. And the monks – about five of them now – running round their boat, all staring and pointing at Lily, a small, skinny figure at the side of the Royal Daffodil.

  As quickly as she saw it all, it disappeared. She blinked her eyes, stared harder: they were gone. The monks were gone. And the buildings were back where they were supposed to be, solid and grimy a
nd grey behind the sheets of rain.

  Gerry had skipped a few verses. He was on to the chorus, telling anyone willing to listen how much he loved this land.

  Lily felt a rush of heat to her cheeks – felt what she could only describe as a blurring sensation in her brain – then fell to the floor, wet red hair straggling over her face.

  ‘Miss!’ yelled Gemma. ‘Miss! Lily’s thrown a whitey!’

  Chapter One

  THE PRESENT DAY, LIVERPOOL

  My name is Lily McCain, and I’m a music writer for a newspaper. You might conclude from that information that my life is a roller coaster of sex, drugs and rock and roll.

  Well, one out of three ain’t bad, as the old song doesn’t say. And tonight, it was rock and roll. Again.

  I drained the final few dregs of my beer, but kept hold of the bottle. I didn’t want anybody offering to buy me a new one. I’d had enough already, and my feet were feeling pleasantly fuzzy in my boots, toes tapping to the heavy bass beat of the band on stage. The Dormice.

  They were, I’d been told, the Next Big Thing. They were going to be Bigger Than The Beatles. In my head, I always give these things capital letters: they are catchphrases I hear again and again. Along with There’s Never Been Anybody Like Us Before, and We Can’t Be Pigeonholed. As an arts reporter for the Liverpool Gazette, they are words that have been repeated to me a million times.

  Also capitalised in my mind are the other phrases, the ones that go with them: Actually You’re A Bit Crap, You Sound Just Like The Beatles, and Please God Send Me Some Earplugs. Then there’s my personal favourite: You’ll Be Driving A Taxi In A Few Years’ Time.

  Lily McCain, girl reporter. So young – ish – and yet so cynical. Still, at least this lot could play. The punk ethos is all well and good, but after the hundredth time listening to sounds that resembled cats being tortured with toasting forks, it’s a drag.

  I’ve heard some wonderful music over the years. Soul-searing acoustics, heart-pumping rock, and even some Scouse cowboy-folk. In some cases, it was a privilege to be there at the beginning. But I’ve heard even more terrible music. If I had to do a pie chart on it, there’d be a huge chunk of mediocre, a sliver of great, and a fat wedge of awful.

  The awful is made up of music that has sledgehammered my brain and violently assaulted my ears. In fact, I have the ears of a ninety-year-old, even if the rest of my body hasn’t yet reached thirty. But those ears were here tonight to do a job: to review the band in question for my weekly pop page in the paper. I’d try not to be too harsh: they were all seventeen – young, dumb and full of strum.

  Music is a nasty business, and the Liverpool scene has its fair share of sharks swimming in melodic waters, but these guys were too young to know that yet. So I’d give them their write-up; give them a few hyperbolic words to send off to potential managers and record companies. Make their mums and dads proud. Mums and dads that were there that night, in the Coconut Shy, taking snapshots and beaming at their talented offspring.

  I stood alone near the bar, far from the madding crowd. I don’t like being too near to people. Don’t like them touching me without my permission. Don’t like the uninvited brush of their skin on mine.

  All of which makes my choice of profession quite an odd one, as I spend vast amounts of time in nightclubs, theatres and crowded gigs. But there is safety in a crowd: a certain anonymity that appeals to me. Some people know who I am, and will try to latch on, but it’s easy to keep my distance. I can make fake friends to chat to over a beer, share an occasional cigarette with outside in the rain, but whom I never have to see in the real world. It’s that type of environment. There is a high turnover of potential fake friends: young kids in bands who split over musical differences (The White Stripes would so kick Nirvana’s ass), students who grew up and moved on, the ‘businessmen’ who soon shifted their cash to more reliable investments.

  You can be best friends one day, and they’ve moved to Prague the next. Which is fine by me. I’m weird that way. In fact, I’m weird most ways.

  The band finished off their final song, the cute singer with the floppy hair doing a spectacular scissor kick off the stage. He won’t be trying that move in ten years’ time. Assuming he hasn’t popped his clogs from a drug overdose by then. Again, cynical, but I’ve seen it a few too many times. Even a hint of success brings a hoard of yes-men, all desperate to service your every depraved need. And showbiz types, I’ve learned, are needier than most.

  I can feel it oozing from them: their craving for applause, for money, for sex, for approval. For oblivion, in some cases, from the seething mass that lives inside their brains. I can feel it, and on a few occasions, I’ve seen it too: a casual hug at the end of the night as the roadies pack up their gear and wheel the amps into the back of the van. That’s all it takes, sometimes – that unrequested embrace. Then the blur appears, along with the vision – of them and their future. All very well when it involves a job at Costco or getting their girlfriends knocked up. Not so good when it involves needles and spoons and sordid corners of squalid rooms. Bad juju, and nothing I want to know about, thank you very much.

  Hence me keeping my distance. And wearing long sleeves all the time, even on hot summer nights when the sweat threatens to drown me. The flashes don’t happen often, and there needs to be flesh-on-flesh contact to kick-start the spinning brain. I’ve picked up a few coping techniques over the years, and wrapping myself up like a mummy is one of them. Still, as long as I dress in black – the unofficial uniform of the music world – nobody seems to think it’s odd. This is also an environment that tolerates – in fact, encourages – the unorthodox: another thing that appeals to me.

  As the tech guys came on stage to fiddle with the backline, I felt someone stand next to me. Felt it strongly, with such a tug that I had to fight not to turn round and stare at them. I’m usually hyper-aware of other people around me, logging them purely as obstacles to be avoided. But this was different. This felt … magnetic.

  I gripped the beer bottle in my right hand and, in readiness, fished my mobile phone out of my pocket with my left. Like a good Girl Scout, I am always prepared to avoid human contact, although I am fairly sure that wasn’t in the Girl Scout handbook.

  I glanced around for Kevin, the barman who usually kept an eye out for me, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘You’ll like the next band,’ the man said in a whisper. A whisper I shouldn’t have heard so clearly, not with the near-nuclear noise levels in the club as the DJ kicked in, playing ‘Uprising’ by Muse very loud indeed. Loud enough that everyone else had to shout into each other’s ears through cupped hands.

  Not this guy, though. Not Mr Whisper. His voice – tinged with the soft lilt of Ireland – came in loud and clear, like it was hot-wired directly into my head.

  ‘Will I?’ I asked, quietly, hoping he wouldn’t hear and would go away. Again, I fought not to turn around. I don’t know why. I just had the strangest feeling that I shouldn’t. Like I said, I’m weird.

  ‘Oh yes. They’re kind of Velvet Underground meets Mazzy Star,’ he said, naming two of my favourite bands. Again, I heard him, clear as day. And he’d heard me too, which was even odder.

  I gave in. Couldn’t resist any more. Maybe he had hearing aids or something. I turned round to get a look at Mr Whisper, the man with the supersonic aural abilities.

  He was tall, a few inches over six feet. Which meant that even at my five nine, I had to gaze upwards. Thick dark hair, just touching his shoulders. Shoulders that were broad and nicely filling out a skinny-fit black T-shirt that left little to the imagination. I suppose if I were built like Captain America, I’d dress like that too. A wide mouth, high cheekbones, and eyes that were … odd. Under the near-fluorescent tube lighting of the bar, they were an unusual shade of deep blue. Almost purple, in fact. Must be some kind of freaky contact lenses.

  ‘They’re not. Contact lenses,’ he said, smiling. Before I could wonder how the hell that happened and whether I�
��d accidentally said it out loud, he offered me his hand.

  ‘I’m Gabriel,’ he said. ‘Gabriel Cormac.’

  I ignored his hand, held up both of mine to show they were occupied with beer and phone, did my usual apologetic grin as I lied and said it was nice to meet him. In fact, it wasn’t nice to meet him. It was scary and strange and it felt all wrong. And I was sure as hell glad I’d taken the time to prep my handshake-avoidance routine.

  ‘Nice tactic,’ he replied, nodding down at my hands. ‘Almost like you’ve done that before. Have you considered gloves?’

  I stared at him, trying to decide what he meant. Did he know? Or did he just have a glove fetish? I couldn’t tell, and was left wondering whether I should leave to get a taxi home or hit him with the beer bottle. He was alarmingly gorgeous, and seemed to know far too much about me. Probably a hallucination, I decided. Let’s face it, it wouldn’t be the first time. Because when I’m not busy getting psychic future-flashes of random people’s lives, I sometimes see dead people. Or imaginary people. Or future people. I never quite know, and it never lasts long enough for me to figure it out – mainly due to the whole going-unconscious-and-falling-over thing that tends to happen just after.

  OK. Deep breaths. Cool, calm and collected. That, at least, was the plan. I edged away from Gabriel a few inches. That tug I’d felt earlier was getting stronger: I actually wanted to touch him. And that is something that has never happened to me before in living memory. I have some vague images of my mother before she died: of hugs and cuddles and the holding of hands. But they are so painful, so raw and agonising, that I learned long ago to shut them down straight away.

  Since then, since I was six, I’ve avoided physical contact with anyone. Even my nan, who took me in and raised me after my parents were killed. She’s a hard woman anyway, not given to physical displays of affection. Or any other kind, in fact. The one time she did touch me – a brief hand on the shoulder at the funeral – I saw her death. I saw her in a hospital bed, with tubes in her nose, and her heart beating on a machine. And I saw a woman I now recognise as the grown-up me, sitting next to her. Fun times.