The Dark Rider Book One: Snow, Time, Bones

Part 21

Two years ago, when Warren started at the grammar school, two friends from his old Year Six class came with him - Robbie and Sam. Rob was a boy a head shorter than Warren with wild, sandy hair and a penchant for fixing badges on his long, beige coat and school-bag, mostly band logos and funny slogans with swear-words on them. He was into punk music from the Seventies and often "borrowed" music from his dad's CD collection.

    Sam was a tomboy determined to grow her hair longer than any other girl in the school. It was still always in a plait whenever Warren caught a glimpse of her but he had no idea if Rob was still into punk, or if Sam was still intent on using her plait as a whip on the boys who tried to steal her pencil-case or her shoes. It had been a long, long time.

    He passed Rob on the way to detention. To his surprise, the other boy hesitated, staring at him with an open mouth in the attitude of somebody wanting to say something.

    Warren waited.

    "All right?"

    "Yeah," Warren said. A polite lie. "You?"

    Rob blinked. "Me, yeah, yes, I'm fine. Thanks. Um."

    "I've got detention, I can't be late."

    "Sorry. Um. I saw what happened the other week, on the field. You saving the ball with your face. Er... it looks sore."

    Warren nodded. Before his ex-friend could say anything else, he turned on his heel and walked away. It had been almost two years of silence and pretending Warren never existed. Rob wasn't going to wriggle his way back into his thoughts just with an awkward conversation in the corridor. It would take a proper apology. By now, Warren was so used to his own company he wasn't sure he remembered how to act around people his own age. Far safer to keep his head down and carry on as normal.

    Mr. Rye - the Dark Rider - tugged the door open a second before his fingers touched the handle. Those black pupils were still shining like bottomless, midnight wells.

    "We are in good fortune," the Dark Rider smiled as he closed the door tightly after him. It was a slow, sinuous smile that made the bottom of Warren's spine turn into margarine. "You are the only reprobate present for punishment this afternoon. We can speak freely."

    He pointed to a chair directly opposite his own, on the other side of Mr. Peters' desk. Warren sat on the edge of it.

    "What happened to Mr. Peters?"

    "What, indeed?" Mr. Rye lowered himself into his plastic chair as if it was a throne made out of his enemies' dead bodies.

    "What I mean is, what did you do to him?"

    "Me?" The Dark Rider's laugh was dark and grim. "Peters has a sudden case of the upset stomach. I seem to have that effect on persons of a nervous disposition. Though over time, that wears off. I notice you hardly seem to lose your balance while conversing with me, these days."

    The realisation hit Warren. The last time Mr. Rye's evil aura caused him any discomfort was the day he'd tried to get into his house. Or perhaps it was after then, when he caught Warren and his brother, George, breaking into the school.

    Warren smiled.

    "That means you're getting weaker."

    "You show pluck." The Dark Rider chuckled. "Talking to me in that manner." He didn't deny it, Warren noted.

    "You are. Spending so much time trapped in a human body, in the wrong century for you... well, it must be draining."

    The man's hard, white hand slammed onto Warren's wrist and sank painfully to the bone. Warren heard his own gasps like an alien child in his ears, his skin closing over the Dark Rider's knuckles.