Page 57 of Demon
“The fella just needed some bike sense talked into him.”
“Talkedinto him?” Ciara looked at me pointedly.
“Uh huh.” I tugged her closer, pulling her leather clad body against my own. Anger seemed to do a strange thing to me when I was around her, and the only thing I wanted to break right now was her body.
“Stop distracting me, Demon. Why was he so scared? If I believed in the things, I’d say he’d seen a ghost.”
“Nah. He saw a Demon.” The voice came from behind us, the blond head of one of the twins just coming into view.
“Fuck off, Cade.”
“It’s Caleb.”
“Whoever. Piss off.”
But he didn’t, stepping closer.
“Demon likes to scare people,” he said to Ciara. “And people should fear Demon. If you ever need a crazy mother fucker to fight your corner, it’s this guy right here. What did Beanz do anyway?”
“Nearly clipped us back there.”
“Aye, he’s a shit rider, like. The only reason he’s still a Northern King is that his daddy helps us out from time to time. Good to have friends in the know.”
Ciara looked at me. More questions on her face. Probably more than I really cared to answer. And right now, in earshot of the club, no answers would be given.
“Mate, Indie’s ready to ride again. Just came round here to tell ya that. Seems you were too busy scaring the shit out of Beanz and trying to get the Cock of the North away again.”
He grinned, stupidly.
By the time we were all mounted, I’d changed formation. I didn’t have to tell Beanz to ride with someone else; he was more than happy to stay well clear of me, probably because his inability to ride in a straight line would bring him to the end of my temper again. He’d moved up alongside Magnet and Suzy, Reap, dropping back and flanking us.
Tentatively we pulled off the field, careful to edge the bikes over the slippy terrain and ease them onto the road, only opening the throttle when most of the mud had kicked up off the wheels.
We travelled north, out onto the coastal route of wide, accommodating roads and sea views. Behind us, the black specks appeared again. I didn’t doubt it was the same three riders from earlier. And that now meant something.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Ciara
The bike roared from underneath me, the deep growl from the engine vibrating the whole structure and me with it. We’d left the field of random huge tents and stages just erected in the middle of nowhere, turning back onto the country roads in the same formation as before. The only difference was the person riding now to the right of us. I glanced at him periodically, his stony expression never leaving the road in front of him, other than occasionally glancing in the mirrors and then back in front again.
I recognised him fromTrouble. Reap, he was called. Fuck only knew why, and I definitely didn’t need to know. It seemed they all had a nickname, which meant something to them. But the more I asked, the darker the reasons behind the name seemed to be, so Reap was probably short for Reaper and I definitely didn’t want to know why. Ignorance was still bliss sometimes, and this was definitely one.
Apart from the ominous sounding name, he seemed way too serious. I’d never seen him smile. Ever. He had that constant expression of disdain, not anger like Demon, but contempt and self-loathing. I’d never met an unhappier person. Maybe he should have been nicknamed Dark Cloud. That would have suited him better.
I glanced around the line of bikes, at those in front of me, riding two abreast like some sort of biker royalty, and the few behind us. And I watched Demon’s head move constantly, checking each mirror, then ahead and each mirror again. His helmet covered head never staying in one position too long. We were miles down the winding roads and still he didn’t stop. But this time he motioned towards Reap, pointing two figures at his own eyes and then at the wing mirror of the bike.
Reap’s head moved, examining the mirrors and then nodding at Demon, passing a wordless message that I couldn’t decipher. Leaning around him, I peered into the little glass rectangle, gazing back at the bikes behind us, and the road, fields and bushes that were slipping away. There was nothing to see. Just the bikes behind us and the flecks of traffic behind them.
Reap moved out of the formation, crossing over the broken lines in the middle of the road and roaring up past the rest of the ride. I watched from over Demon’s shoulder as the bike loitered just behind Indie and some conversation of hand signals took place. Then the four bikes sitting directly behind Indie pulled off as well, overtaking and roaring up the road. Demon’s hands tightened over the handles, and the body my arms enveloped stiffened. Against his back, my heart beat, the rhythm increasing with each second. Tension flooding through my body from his. He didn’t need to tell me something was up. But whatever it was, meant that most of the Club’s officers had just ridden off ahead of us.
Yet, a few miles up the road, I spotted the five bikes, the polished silver just catching in the sun from where they were tucked back into a huge layby. The ride continued past. Every biker in front of us focussed on where they were going, or oblivious that some sort of shit was about to hit the proverbial fan. And instinctively I ducked, as if I could cower behind Demon and stay out of whatever was about to go off.
We sailed past, the bike’s engine continuing its rumbling purr beneath us, and Demon nodded his head to the crop of riders waiting in the layby. But his eyes went straight back to the wing mirrors and now I knew that his incessant focus on the glass wasn’t just coincidence. I stared at them too, straining to see something, to understand something. But there was nothing, just the same fleck of traffic behind us. Cars and motorbikes.
The bikes rode on, the scenery of greens and browns rushing at us on either side, until eventually the countryside gave way to a vast view to our right. The darker ridge of the sea merged into the brilliant blue sky of a summer’s day, way out on the horizon. And then we twisted up away from the coast, following a river upstream, momentarily moving us away from the Sea. Warkworth. A village of vast, terraced houses with crops of brightly coloured flowers hanging either side of doors, or sitting on windowsills, or in pots out the front, as if every house was challenging for a Britain in Bloom competition. The place oozed money and prestige. Shit, it even had its own Castle proudly sitting on a green mound, and clearly celebrated even it was missing a roof, and windows, and a wall or two. The engines vibrated, creating a valley of growls, ricocheting off the thick walls of the houses that lined the road on the other side, with brickwork much like what the Castle was missing.
Behind us the flecks of the other bikes were gone, eaten by the vast colours of the countryside and the small group of riders who had broken away from the main ride and were nowhere to be seen either. And that wasn’t a coincidence.