Read Marcher: The Author's Preferred Text for Free Online

cold blue fire. ‘Swallow that and in a few hours ye’d be in another world.’
    And now, with the introductions over, it was time for him to present his masculine credentials.
    ‘See these hands Tammy? I’m no’ bullshitting ye, these hands hae killed three men.’
    Tammy shrugged. In her world men had always killed someone, they’d always smashed someone to a pulp, they were always effortlessly in command of the universe; and the fact that they were living on benefits in a Zone and had a nocturnal incontinence problem was somehow beside the point.
    ‘What’s it like?’ she asked him.
    ‘What? Tae kill someone?’ Slug asked hopefully.
    ‘Nah, I can guess what that’s like. I mean what’s it like when you shift over.’
    The little Scotsman laughed.
    ‘I’ll tell ye all about it, sweetheart, if ye treat me nice. Know what I mean?’
    He must have been thirty or more – twice Tammy’s age – and he smelt like a toilet, but he’d got something she wanted more than anything. Luckily enough, she had something he wanted badly too, something that most men wanted in her experience.
    Only I’ll have to watch it , thought Tammy to herself. All blokes told you they’d killed people and smashed people’s heads in and all of that, and nine times out of ten it didn’t mean anything. But a shifter was different. Shifters could commit any crime they liked, knowing how easily they could disappear to some other place where could never be brought to account. Under those circumstances, even someone as pathetic as Slug could really be dangerous.
    ~*~
    Mrs Ripping was still waiting. She’d assumed Tammy would succumb eventually to her weapon of silence, but the ploy had backfired, for her client had forgotten she was there.
    ‘Well, all right then, Tammy,’ she said at length, rather more sharply than she’d intended, ‘if you not going to tell me where you run away to , then why don’t you tell me what you’re running from ?’
    She did not like to be out-manoeuvred, and this made her a little cruel.
    ‘Are you running away from being the child of a rape?’ she asked, counting off the options on her short, leathery fingers. ‘Or from the fact that your mother would have had you aborted if she hadn’t left it too late? Or the fact that your stepfather abused you? Or the fact that all those different foster parents decided they didn’t want you? Our time is almost up now, but think about it for next time why don’t you? What is it you’re running from? What is it you’re so afraid of?’
    Tammy sensed the therapist’s desire to hurt her but was neither wounded nor surprised by it, for she lived in a world where vengeance for the smallest slight was a matter of routine. It didn’t matter anyway because the 3,600 seconds were almost over. There were only fifteen left, only ten, only five.
    ‘You!’ she said with a bark of laughter. ‘I’m running away from you!’
    And she was off.
    ~*~
    ‘Well well well!’ said the prisoner Wayne Furnish in a broad Bristol accent, as Charles came into the interview room. ‘The Ickies, eh? I thought you lot would be showing up soon.’
    Ickies! Charles could have clapped his hands with sheer professional pleasure. A familiar accent speaking a completely unfamiliar word: it was so typical, so diagnostic.
    ‘Ickies?’ he repeated as he sat down. ‘You’ll have to explain that to me, Wayne.’
    ‘Ickies! Incomer Control. That’s what you are, yeah?’
    IC – Ickies: Charles noted the expression and its etymology. It was the same sort of principle that turned ‘DSI’ into ‘deskies’.
    ‘Incomer Control? Never heard of it, mate,’ he replied with studied indifference.
    ‘Ah. Well I don’t come from round here.’
    ‘You don’t come from Thurston Meadows?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘But from somewhere in Bristol? Your card says Daisyfields Estate, Bristol. Only thing is, there isn’t an estate here called Daisyfields.’
    Wayne narrowed his eyes. He was a stocky,