Death is a Welcome Guest: Plague Times Trilogy 2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

of seeing Johnny again, but the night porter on duty at the reception desk possessed the bulk and Zen of Mike Tyson. The big man had been woken by the ping of the lift and raised his face from the reception desk as Magnus emerged into the lobby. Magnus had held his hands in the air and walked to the exit. But the porter had rubbed rabbit-pink eyes with grazed knuckles and shadowed him to the door, complaining about the bloodstains dripping on to the lobby carpet and detailing in a low voice, hoarse with a summer cold, the kind of things that happened to people who bled without consideration. Magnus could still feel the point, low on his spine, where the big man had shoved him into one of the rotating door’s compartments and spun him from the hotel. There was no prospect of going back there.
    He slid his mobile from his pocket and then remembered that its battery was dead.
    ‘Fuck!’
    He hurled the phone across the alley. It hit the brick wall on the other side and smashed open. The battery bounced from its casing, skittered across the ground and disappeared beneath one of the large container bins that serviced the hotel. This time Magnus did not bother to swear. He rose unsteadily to his feet, crossed the alley, lowered himself on to his hands and knees and looked beneath the container. It was dark, but he thought he could see the battery. He stretched a hand towards it, flinching at the touch of grit and detritus, but the battery was out of reach. Magnus stood and put his weight against the bin. Its wheels were padlocked and it refused to move. It was a problem beyond his ability. He gave the container a kick that hurt his foot and then slithered to the ground, rested his back against the bin and closed his eyes.
     
    Magnus woke slumped on his side. His mouth was dry, his face a dull thump of blood and bruise. He had no idea where he was except that it wasn’t bed, it wasn’t home. Something touched his feet. Magnus batted out a hand, and drew up his knees, sharp to his chin. He had been on stage bathed in the audience’s laughter and then . . .  Oh God . It all came back to him in a rush of shame and vomit. He wiped his mouth on the blood-crusted shirt still clutched in his hand, like a baby’s security blanket.
    He had no idea of how long he had slept. Magnus struggled upright and looked towards the mouth of the alley. It was brighter, the sun higher in the sky, but there was a lack of traffic noise that made him think it was still early. Something rattled at the dark end of the lane and he found himself drawing deeper into the shadows thrown by the hotel bins. His mother had warned him more than once of the fall that followed pride. And here he was, like an illustration of a cautionary tale for children, skulking in ordure just hours after his big bow.
    Someone coughed. It was a harsh animal sound, loud in the early-morning stillness. Magnus looked towards the noise and saw a couple locked together in the gloom. His first confused thought was that they were dancing. The man had his arm around the girl, her head rested against his shoulder and they were swaying together. Then he saw the floppiness of the girl’s limbs, the way the man was bearing all her weight, his legs scissored wide, spine pitched back for balance. The couple’s shadows reeled against the alley wall and Magnus realised that they were drunk. No, the man’s movements were quick and sure. The girl was beyond drunk, but her dancing partner still had his wits.
    Magnus had made drunken love to drunken women in shadowy outside places. He spat on his ruined shirt and dabbed at his face, hoping to clean off the evidence of blood and dirt. There was a long walk ahead and whatever was happening at the other end of the lane had nothing to do with him. He was in no fit state to judge anyone. He thought, as he often did, of a woman he had met in a Belfast bar, late one night, after a gig. They had matched each other shot for shot of tequila and then