The Neverloving Dead (Haunted Hearts)

CHAPTER 9

RULE 5: THERE CAN NEVER BE ABSOLUTION

PATRICK

F inding the priest was harder than Patrick had thought.

And he had tried, regardless of the occasional doubtful hint from Gethin. What had happened with the Welshman had been... unsettling. Patrick had meant to wean him that night: to steer Gethin away from him and to steer himself away from Gethin. And look what had happened. He couldn’t even think about it. If anything, it was now twice as important to make sure Gethin left. If he didn’t, if Patrick didn’t get control of his own ridiculous, perilous emotions, it could be another hundred years before he had his body. His senses . His life.

All of that rested upon finding Gethin’s killer. That was what he should focus on.

As he left St Michael’s Church in Cornhill, retreating through the gathering dusk to Gayles , a mile and a half south, he imagined how it would be to feel the cooler evening air on his skin again. To smell the homes and restaurants he passed, instead of just watching steam billow from windows and vents, or hearing things bubble and sizzle emptily on stoves. A couple walked past, bumping hips as they went, laughing and falling into each other.

He shrank into the bushes, so as not to lose any energy.

He wished he and Gethin had more to go on. Priests these days didn’t necessarily live in church chambers or adjacent parish houses, and their work could take them all over their parish. Sundays were the only day they stood in their pulpits, conveniently awaiting visitors.

As such, Patrick had spent the week doing research. Neither he nor Gethin believed the man was called Mike, but Patrick had nevertheless memorised churches headed by anyone called Father Michael or Michaels, or churches named St Michael’s or on St Michael’s Roads. It was now Sunday, so Patrick had endured a ten-hour ordeal of Matins, Lauds, Vespers and Evensong: some two dozen sermons in all. There’d been no flair of fondness for what he’d heard. For someone who’d been cast from the church then hanged and damned, listening to long strictures about forgiveness and compassion had felt akin to swallowing glass. Patrick knew official views had changed. He also knew many there – priests and ‘flock’ alike – still saw homosexual acts as a sin. A reason for their merciful forgiveness and ‘unconditional’ love.

For their prayers.

The worst service had been a funeral. Not that common on Sundays, since they cost more – but the Prayer of Absolution had been read, of course. The same prayer Gethin had found. Patrick knew it well: because he’d been a priest, yes, but mostly because it was the one he’d been denied. When he’d first died, before he’d uncovered his pathway back to life, he’d spent two decades seeking a priest to speak it. To release him.

After all the curses, prayers, crosses and bellowing at him to return to Satan, he’d vowed never to set foot inside a church again.

Until now.

For Gethin.

He pushed down a faint stab of discomfort about that. He was aware there wasn’t anyone else he’d have done this for. And he could tell himself that was only so he could get his body back or because Gethin wasn’t strong enough to do it yet or because the killer’s ‘murder-energy’ was rising, but the truth was he’d let the man get under his skin. After two hundred years of regimented tedium, his discipline had slipped. The Welshman just seemed so alive , so full of determination and surprises and principles. And colour : honey, caramel, gold, tan. All the late summer hues he saw around him now. Next to Patrick’s blanched achromatism, he was a light.

Patrick would have wanted to help him anyway.

Even without what had happened.

Again, he tried not to think about it: watching Gethin fellate Stuart. Their ‘kiss’ over Stuart’s cock.

He crossed the Thames, dragging his attention from the pool of arousal that seemed to be constantly fermenting in his lower gut. Licking Stuart’s sperm from Gethin’s mouth might have been the highlight of his death. For those few moments, he hadn’t so much as contemplated functional necessities or energy costs or maximising his returns or how depleted he was from regularly feeding Gethin. He hadn’t even thought about how it was his first threesome with anyone who knew he was there. All he’d thought about was Gethin’s tongue, smothered in semen, their hands on the backs of each other’s heads; their lips, sliding together filthily...

He'd never be interested in you.

He floated away from the Thames into the deepening shadows of the street, annoyed at having to remind himself, yet again, that he didn’t want Gethin either. They were going in opposite directions. Patrick didn’t want to jeopardise his chance at life and Gethin would move on from limbo as soon as he’d stopped his killer. Patrick could see how much both things meant to Gethin – catching his killer and moving on. Of course he should help the man.

It suited both their purposes, in every single way.

In fact, he was glad he’d put himself through the self-harm of today, he told himself mulishly – since it was now the only way he could help Gethin. Gethin had seen for himself how feeble Patrick’s ‘food’ was, compared to Stuart’s; and from the dozen or so yes-no questions Stuart had asked Gethin since that night, Patrick had no doubt a living person’s help would be more useful than his own. Patrick was nothing next to Stuart. Dead and bodiless. Searching churches was all he could do for Gethin, so he’d left the Welshman readying himself to watch Gayles again, and braved the self-harm of sermons.

London was quiet on Sunday evenings, but Patrick had taken an almost deserted route back, down Southwark Bridge Road then London Road to avoid further draining his energy. He’d kept his distance in the church services, but there’d been a lot of people in some of them and he did need to feed. Gethin had suggested trying Stuart again, of course, even admitting he’d enjoyed it last time. The idea had scraped through Patrick more than a little painfully. He blotted it now, imagining Gethin sucking him instead, then himself fucking Gethin – his alluring, shapely arse – since that would be something just for them. Something Stuart hadn’t done with Gethin too. And surely it would retain the energy just as well as fellatio. It wouldn’t cost Patrick any more than feeding Gethin the other way.

You shouldn’t be feeding him at all.

He pushed the objection away. That kind of sex was a pipedream anyway. He’d only done it once before, when he’d still been alive, and it had been so thrilling he’d lasted less than thirty seconds – so he’d probably just humiliate himself. Besides, Patrick had seen the kinds of men Gethin liked and they weren’t ill-favoured, bloodless men like Patrick. That was without the fact that being sodomised, by a priest of all people, would remind Gethin of his rape.

I’m not a priest , he told himself. Which wasn’t really the point.

He gave a wide berth to the distinctive maroon front of Elephant and Castle Tube Station, heading through a closed guitar shop, then a clothes boutique and an electrics shop, aiming for the wall he knew would bring him out in their alley opposite the bar. He felt an unpleasant surge of nerves at the idea of seeing more men Gethin had ‘enjoyed’, followed by an abrupt, unexpected worry that something might have happened already: Gayles had been open for just over an hour by now, and Gethin would have been there since then. If the killer had struck early, Gethin might have tried to chase him. He was stubborn enough.

Though probably not strong enough.

Patrick picked up his pace in spite of himself, aware he was probably being overprotective, equally aware this was what he was meant to be focusing on and also that he wouldn’t forgive himself if something had happened while he’d been dawdling. Because he’d promised to help, he told himself. Not because he cared.

He saw hardly anyone en route , sticking mostly to buildings, urging himself all the way to be more detached, more professional, more aloof – to preserve his energy until he could feed again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so hungry.

He ignored it, floating through Specsavers and the final wall into the alleyway, emerging from the dim, stained bricks into a row of bins, sending a cat yowling and scrabbling up a wall, heading for the entrance to the street, where he and Gethin always watched together. A man was there.

For a second, he thought it was Gethin, but it was just someone zipping up after wetting the wall. The man turned and disappeared into the street.

Patrick moved up the alley, wondering if Gethin could have moved onto the pavement to avoid the urinating chap, aware, even as he had the thought, that Gethin was usually happy to watch men urinating. This was where the Welshman should be. Right here.

There was no one here.

Patrick drifted onto the street, floating for a few seconds, looking both ways, peering into the twilight.

After a while, he travelled back down the alley, looking more carefully in case something had drained Gethin and he was hunched in the shadows, barely visible. He saw a rat by the bins and the cat again, watching the rat from the top of the wall.

No other life.

Turning, he headed over the cobbles and into the street, towards the busy bar, checking every shadow as he went: dark corners, a porchway, the base of a sycamore that filled half the pavement mere metres from the bar’s entrance. Gayles had no beer garden, but there was a balcony out back, which he checked too, always keeping distance, trying not to lose any more energy.

Just in case he had to go somewhere he’d need it.

Gethin was nowhere.

Slowly, Patrick felt the sense of his death-noose tightening again. Had the killer turned up? How would he know if he had? A gentle hum of chatter emanated from within the bar. No panicking. No police. Though it had taken them days to find both Gethin and Matt.

Had he been here and left, and Gethin had gone after him?

Alone?

The noose tightened further. Like cold sludge, dread rose. He looked again, flitting and drifting more chaotically than he’d intended – moving faster, searching for any sign of Gethin at all. He wasn’t sure, suddenly, what signs a ghost could leave. One Christmas, some forty years ago, Patrick had seen a comedy about ghost hunters where ghosts left trails of green gloop they called ‘ectoplasm’. Ghosts left nothing of the sort. It would use far too much energy to leave anything of themselves lying about.

And if Gethin had followed the killer, Patrick had no way of knowing where, since the only lead he had was ‘a priest who might be called Mike’. He stared around again – for what, he had no idea – trying to compose himself. If Gethin needed his help, the last thing Patrick should do was lose energy with emotions. With panic. He should remain calm. Rigorously unmoved.

Pushing down what felt like a tidal wave of alarm, he turned, racing back to Gethin’s building. Gethin could still be there, he told himself. He might have left late, or he might have got drained and dragged himself back. And if he wasn’t there, perhaps Stuart had another notebook of church contacts as part of his auctioneering job and Patrick could find more vicars named Michael or Michaels.

He burst through the wall into the lounge, whisking past the grey leather sofa towards the open bedroom door, barely slowing as he made for the bookshelf. Surely Stuart kept a notebook...

There was a shape by the bed. Moving.

Patrick had only one thought.

The killer!

He was about to cry out, which would have done nothing, when he recognised the man’s back – his stout frame and naked, furry arse, beating a steady rhythm as he stood fucking a younger man over the bed.

Stuart had someone there.

A man.

In his room.

Patrick paused, uncertain what to do since, as far as he knew, such a thing had never happened before. Maybe he and Gethin had freed him up to experiment, though...

The man on the bed moaned. His face was buried in the duvet and his arse was in the air, being gripped at its sides by Stuart, who was grunting quietly in time with his own movements. There was another moan.

The noose, which had already felt tighter than it had in decades, squeezed. It couldn’t be.

The man on the bed looked at his arms, as if checking them for something – for solidity – then let his head slump again, satisfied.

It just couldn’t be, Patrick thought again. Gethin wasn’t strong enough.

Even as he thought it, he knew he was wrong: the Welshman had proven that already. He’d managed Stuart almost as easily as Patrick last time, perhaps because he was more alive in the first place, perhaps because he had so much more experience of sex than Patrick. Gethin was used to the feelings. And fucking was no different to sucking, was it? Not really. Although what would Patrick know, since it required the one fucking to be conscious.

The thought just reminded him of every reason Gethin hadn’t ever wanted him anyway. Of why Gethin was here. With Stuart. Instead of him.

The noose seemed to be garrotting Patrick all over again. He stared.

Gethin being here with Stuart wasn’t what this was about, he told himself. He couldn’t remember what it was about: his assumption that Gethin wouldn’t want anal sex, the fact Gethin had said he struggled with living bodies, the fact Gethin should be at bloody Gayles. Watching for his killer.

Yes. That was it, he decided. Gethin – who’d done nothing but talk about catching his killer – hadn’t gone to the bar to watch for the murderer, to save another man from the appalling fate he and Matt had suffered. He’d let Patrick go off to search miles of churches, hearing the direst sermons imaginable – while he’d stayed here to be fucked by Stuart.

In the arse, Patrick noted with a sudden swell of rage he was only vaguely aware was unreasonable. He, Patrick, barely knew Gethin. What did it matter if Stuart fucked him, let alone in the arse? Arses were irrelevant. Fucking was irrelevant. The point was Gethin had said he’d be at Gayles . Not here. With Stuart.

Something within him seemed to implode.

On the bed, Gethin groaned blissfully. Not for Stuart’s benefit, since Stuart wouldn’t hear it. The groan was pleasure – pleasure! – when he had a rapist and murderer to catch. Patrick felt like a radio that was slipping from its station. A record that kept skipping.

“What is this?” His voice crackled weirdly over the question.

Gethin’s head came up, bobbing with each pounding thrust into his arse. Behind him, Stuart was grunting out a quiet, calm rhythm, fingertips massaging hips that would be invisible to him. “Patrick,” Gethin smiled. He looked pleased with himself. Pleased with everything.

Patrick stepped away.

“Blimey, this looks incredible !” Stuart growled, plunging into Gethin with a gentle, careful enthusiasm that sawed through Patrick’s non-existent insides.

He supposed most men didn’t get to see their cocks whilst humping someone.

“What the devil is going on?” he repeated as Stuart’s breathing deepened. “After all your fucking moralising at me. You were supposed to... I’ve just been...” What ? In church? Worrying about Gethin chasing his murderer? Nothing he could say seemed to explain anything. His feelings. He didn’t even know what his feelings were . He usually spent all his time trying not to have any.

“Patrick, what’s nnghh ... happened?” Gethin bit his lip as Stuart continued to thump into him. “I thought I’d build,” he huffed, “strength, Hell’s bells, though.”

Stuart was plainly edging towards his orgasm. Gethin looked close behind.

“Strength?” Patrick hissed. “Is that what you call it?”

Gethin frowned. Not like someone in thought.

And Patrick couldn’t do anything but stand there like a cuckold and watch it all happen. Watch, as handsome, powerful Stuart propelled his messy, vibrant, living come deep into Gethin, keening out about how good Gethin’s invisible arse felt, while Gethin puffed out his own orgasm and spilled energy all over the bed, not even managing to hold it like he should. Fucking everything up.

Even as he had the thought, he couldn’t grasp it. What he’d fucked up, exactly.

Worse, Gethin looked right at him as he came.

It seemed to take an eternity.

Patrick did consider, for one reckless, greedy instant, getting his head under Gethin’s elevated hips, so Gethin’s orgasm wouldn’t be wasted, so Patrick could regain some of the energy both men had cost him. Only right now, he’d sooner have died again than take anything from Gethin orgasming on Stuart’s cock.

“Well, it looks like you couldn’t give a fuck whether your murderer will kill anyone else tonight,” he said instead.

Gethin looked shocked.

Patrick didn’t bother waiting for his response. He turned, heading for the bookshelves, since a notebook was what he’d come here for, so it was suddenly all he could think about. He crouched, scanning the bottom shelf: Ecclesiastical Mementos ... A History of Lead Roof Detailing ...

“What the sodding hell?” Gethin snapped. He must have detached himself from Stuart anyway, because Patrick saw legs beside him. Gethin’s freshly emptied cock was hard and dark, bobbing above blood-flushed, gold-tinged balls. “You think me getting stronger means I don’t care about catching my fucking killer! What’s wrong with you?”

Anger surged through Patrick. “What’s wrong with me ?” He rushed to his feet. “What’s wrong with me is I’ve spent the entire day running about for you , listening to the words of my killers, repeated to congregation after congregation, imagining you’re taking this seriously too, while in fact you’re up here getting your arse ploughed.”

“Ploughed? You bloody what? You’re the one who told me I needed come in me – that jizz and blood are the McDonald’s of the sodding spirit world. And now, when I finally manage to break through my–”

“You were enjoying it!” Patrick yelled. His form was solidifying at an alarming rate. He was losing control. He was going to drain himself if he didn’t stop. What the fuck was the matter with him? He hadn’t got this angry in decades . He didn’t even understand why he was angry.

He looked around. Stuart was humming happily to himself, preparing for a shower by the looks of it. Patrick hated him suddenly. Him, his handsomeness, the fact he was alive. Potent.

“Obviously I fucking enjoyed it! We’re not all like you, Patrick, determined to avoid fun at all costs. Stuart’s hot, he lives here, and ‘preying’ on unsuspecting sleepers might work for you, but I need–”

“–your strength, yes,” Patrick said. “Well, I’m delighted for you that you have Stuart then.”

“And what the saints is that meant to mean?”

“It means it’s wonderful that you’ve found such an attractive meal to help you forget about your killer.”

Gethin’s expression clouded where he stood. He raised a fist – a finger. “I never forget about my killer. And I can feel when he gets worse, remember? If you think for one minute I’d be up here if he was out looking for some other poor bastard, you’ve another think coming. I was gonna say I needed to get over what happened. What he did to me.”

Patrick gave him his driest smile. “Well, it looks like you’re just about there.”

Gethin seemed to shimmer momentarily with rage. “Fuck you.” The honey-eyes darkened. “You’ve no idea what it’s like. You can gallivant across London, touch anyone you please. How am I meant to stop anyone if I can’t do anything? What do you think’s gonna happen if I get near him?”

“What do I think will happen? I think you’ll get drained and I’ll have to help you, as usual – not because you haven’t fucked enough people, Gethin, but because you haven’t learned to control your fucking emotions!” He shouted the last bit, completely undermining his point.

“Yeah, well, I’m not here to make you feel useful,” Gethin snapped back. “What you are, Patrick, is afraid of life. This one, the next one – it doesn’t sodding matter, cos you’ll never bloody start.”

Afraid of life ? It was Patrick that wanted to get back to life, and Gethin who wanted to move on , into oblivion. “Not if I have to spend my energy feeding you, I won’t,” he snarled, inflecting it with as much derision as he could.

“Then don’t. I can do it myself now, can’t I? With consent. Which is more than you can manage.” As if the dig might not have been obvious, he added, “You or my killer.”

The comment went through Patrick like a lance, skewering everything in its path. After everything Patrick had done for Gethin. His flimsy, insubstantial ‘body’ rocked in horror. He’d been the world’s biggest fool. He should never have gone near this man. What had Gethin said about ‘pretty boys’? Happy to get serviced, but you should count yourself lucky, right? He was exactly the hypocrite Patrick had thought at the time.

“Shit,” Gethin said, holding up a hand. “Jesus, Patrick, I’m sorry. That was completely out of order. I know you just don’t want to traumatise anyone. It’s just you keep bloody looking down on me and–”

“Stay away from me,” Patrick said, voice quiet and shuddering. “Fuck whoever you want. Fuck Stuart all day and all night. Keep all his powerful, extra-strength come for yourself.” He thought again of licking it from Gethin’s mouth.

Gethin’s eyebrows lifted. “Extra-strength come?”

Before Patrick could do much more than register the fact it did, indeed, sound ridiculous, Gethin’s posture changed.

“Patrick, are you jealous?”

“Of Stuart ?” He did his best to appear repulsed and amused by the very idea he might want Gethin. Also, his anger was fading, he noticed – which meant he was beginning to feel drained. He should leave.

“Obviously not of him. Of me , shagging him, cos he’s so ‘powerful’ and ‘delicious’ and full of ‘extra-strength come’?” His expression said everything made perfect sense now.

Nothing made sense. “You think I want Stuart?” Gethin didn’t understand anything. Patrick was so beneath his notice, the idea of Patrick wanting him hadn’t even occurred to him. And of course of the two of them, Stuart had fucked Gethin. Even invisible, Gethin had managed to achieve in a few months what Patrick hadn’t in two centuries: a living lover, who wanted him. Patrick couldn’t even blame the fact Gethin was gorgeous, since they’d both been invisible.

That meant the problem was Patrick. Patrick himself .

In which case, what hope did he have?

It struck him that all Gethin had ever done for him was make him feel like his entire plan for the future was a fantasy – that he’d never have happiness. Others could have what they wanted, but he would just keep getting punished and punished and punished.

“Well, do you?” Gethin asked.

It took Patrick a second to orientate himself. He couldn’t think. Do you want Stuart? was what Gethin was asking.

Patrick pulled his energy in. The cold, dispassionate discipline was a balm. An abyss seemed to have opened within him. “Let me tell you something about Stuart, Gethin. You can’t control your emotions, and if you don’t learn how, you’ll kill him. I did it once, two centuries ago. Fed from just one man and killed him . That’s why I do what I do now. It’s why I stay detached and why I look at them as meals. So I never forget what emotions do. What pleasure does. But you don’t care about that, do you?” he said, in blatant contradiction to the horror now playing out over Gethin’s face. “So long as you get to tell yourself I’m vile and unprincipled. Just remember, without me, you’d have failed already, because you lack the discipline to do what has to be done. You’d rather fuck than work towards anything that matters.”

“Is that so?” Gethin spat back. His face was paler than Patrick had ever seen it. “Incubi change their m.o. did they? Cos last I heard, they were all about fucking. And maybe you forgot, but you were all over Stuart the first time I met you. What is it, you ghost-licked him first, so he’s yours?”

“Ah, and who’s jealous now?”

“Jealous? Patrick, I thought we were doing this together . Did you know Stuart was thinking about bringing a friend to help us both get stronger at the same time? He even had the idea of a side-business – people paying to watch their dicks wank themselves – so we could get all the strength we need in one night. He’s had loads of ideas.”

“Well, how marvellous of Stuart, wanting to prostitute us.” Patrick could hardly believe his ears. He pushed past Gethin, gliding for the wall to the street, needing to be anywhere but here. Needing to feed. To replace everything Gethin kept costing him. “And you question my morality.”

“We’d know they were willing!”

Patrick laughed a little wildly. “You’ve made your priorities clear, Gethin. Now you’re entertaining Stuart and brimming with life from his seed, I can see I’m surplus to requirements.”

“ Entertaining ? His seed – do you ever listen to yourself?” He rubbed his throat. “You know what, Patrick?” he huffed as Patrick continued towards the wall. “It’s none of your bloody business who I shag. Or why!”

“You’re right, it isn’t,” Patrick said, as witheringly as possible, mostly to disguise the fact that something inside him was hurting horribly. “You and Stuart deserve each other. I’m through helping you, Gethin. You’re not worth my time or my energy.”

Briefly, he saw Gethin’s face crumple. He didn’t stay to watch more.

Instead, he disappeared through the wall into the street.

As he should have done months ago.