Here I was again, sat in a bloody meeting, and like the one yesterday, this was also going to last all flaming day.

God, I felt like shit. I’d never had jet lag before, and even though I knew it would be bad, the night flight into Manchester and then straight into work without even a change of clothes, made it a hundred times worse than I had ever imagined.

It was now two days on, and I still hadn’t gotten over it.

Stewart had said that if I wasn’t in the office on Wednesday not to bother coming back at all, and, for once, I believed that he meant it. I’d wanted to stay, but David was right, I needed to keep my job; I didn’t know where David’s money came from, but I didn’t have enough saved that I could just throw in the job, no matter how I felt about being pressured by Stewart.

I was flaming furious that I had been forced to leave though. I wanted to stay and hear as much as possible of Jalholm’s story, that, and I suppose, I was just being plain stubborn. In the end David had almost pushed me out of the door.

And, sod’s law, it was a really crazy last minute rush for the plane.

I took the car as David said he would manage by either walking or using taxis – driving seemed to be a real problem for him.

The traffic was horrendous, and I missed check-in by five minutes. The nice lady behind the desk smugly informed me that, unfortunately, I was too late to check in – they had their rules, she told me, and if they relaxed them for me, then they may as well have no rules at all.

I pleaded, not far short of begged, and that really did not come easy to me; I would have much rather told her where to put her nice shiny airplane. But Stewart’s call had been very, very explicit, and his tone extremely serious – they had a crisis, and leave or no leave I was to get back immediately, or not bother at all.

And so I had pleaded – I had been visiting my uncle William, he was in hospital. He was my only surviving relative, and on and on, laying it on really thick.

The woman cared not a jot, but the young lad who had come to the desk a moment earlier, caught her arm and took her to one side.

I heard a little of what he said, all PR bullshit really, customer relations and how to show compassion. The woman remained completely impassive while he spoke, until the very last when a smile cracked her face. I’d not caught what he had said then, but with the smile still on her face the woman had turned to me and said that she would make a call and see what she could do for me. Then, as simple as that, I was sat in departures less than ten minutes after her call – I could still picture the smirk on the bitch’s face as I looked up and saw the four hour delay flashing on the monitor.

And here I was, two days later, still bushed, sat around a table with fifteen others, all as bored as I was, trying to make sense of the urgent changes the customer wanted.

Which, as always, were complex as hell, would take weeks to design and code, months to test… and the customer wanted them next week.

No, correction, they had to have them next week or the bloody world would end.

What was I doing here? As a kid I had lived in a fantasy world, and then, when I grew up, I moved into the fast paced world of Information Technology.

It had been my life, all I lived for really. I had no real friends, no social life. I lived for my work.

Then David came along and drove a truck straight through my world, leaving in its tracks the most unbelievably fantastic story you could ever imagine, far more so than my fantasies as a child.

I now saw that this, my life, was a sham, utter bollocks. My real life was out there somewhere, waiting for me.

I looked around the room. Robbie was rabbiting on as usual, and most were looking to him nodding their assent. But a few looked towards me, their faces expectant.

It was then that I realised that they expected me to jump in. I had missed something, and did not have a clue what.

Robbie was still blathering on, so I tried to wing it. I put a smug, knowing look on my face, winked at Steve next to me, and ignored the strange looks I got from all those expectant faces.

When I looked up next, one of the women was still looking at me, staring really. She glanced away just as I met her eye. I had seen her about, but was not sure who she was.

They’d done a round the table introduction first thing, but my mind had been back at the hospital with David and Jalholm; Steve had nudged me to give my own introduction, so I had missed hers completely.

The meeting went on and on. I said a few things but was not my usual vocal self, my mind was just not with it.

Jalholm’s tale had gotten to the heart of it just when my bloody phone had rung. He had finally started to tell the truth, and been about to explain how he brought Dar'cen to Ellas.

But it wasn’t just about how he had brought him to Ellas; he would have been able to tell us what he had learned of Dar'cen, and it was possible that he might have known more, something that could be used to hurt or even destroy the demon.

Then, there was the crux of it for David – how had Jalholm come to Earth, and could David use the same method to return there? To take us both there.

Everything else that Jalholm had told us was just dressing. I did like Jalholm, but he really was a bore – he could so easily have given David what he needed in no time at all, but he insisted on telling it all, every little minute detail.

Yes, I had sided with Jalholm when David had gotten irritated, but only to keep him on side. If David had pushed him to move faster, I was sure Jalholm would have clammed up completely.

There I was again, off in my thoughts. I needed to concentrate, at least until this bloody meeting ended.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I could see that same woman looking at me again. What the hell did she want? The presentation was at the opposite end of the table, where everyone else was looking. Why look at me? Again she looked away, but this time a slight flush of embarrassment filled her face.

Good! I thought, and resolved to ask Steve who she was in the break; he knew absolutely everyone.

And then, off I went again, back to the world that really mattered to me.

To be honest, I was really pissed with David; he had promised to phone me, promised to keep me up updated with what Jalholm told him. But had he called? Nope. He had phoned the first night I gotten home from work, but I was in bed then, unconscious to the world.

His message had been brief in the extreme, “Hi, it's me, David. I’ll call back later,” and now it was a full two days later, and nothing.

I’d called him countless times, and got his answer phone each and every time. The messages I left, towards the end, were not very lady like at all.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

I was not really worried about David, but I was concerned. It was not like him to say he would do something and then not do it.

True we had only known each other a short while, but during that time I believed that we had learned to trust each other. Yes, it had been difficult for both of us.

David’s story was fantastic, too much for anyone to believe; anyone but me really – our childhood fantasies, Sarah’s and mine, had left me wide open for a story like his.

But, and it was a big but, I really did not get on with people, and so letting David get close, learning to trust him, had been very hard for me.

And David had his problems too – he had a story that he was reluctant to tell in the first place.

He was in a real catch-22 situation. The few he had trusted enough to tell his story to had not believed a word of it, had thought him mad even.

But he was also terrified that someone might actually believe him, as that, he said, might be far, far worse than the ridicule that came with disbelief.

Yet he had told his mother, and she had believed him, he said. That in itself was very, very strange. How on earth had he been able to tell such a fantastic and horrific story to his mother of all people?

But what had clinched it for me, drawn me in, was the links in his story to me and to Sarah, to our stories.

He had not known of Sarah or our book, could not have known; and yet he had called me Carthia, was convinced for days that I really was somehow Carthia.

Yet the woman Carthia only existed in our stories, the stories he did not, could not, know of.

That hooked me from the very beginning, and, as his story unfolded, I was drawn deeper and deeper into his world, until I slowly realised that, even if I did not completely believe everything he said, I did trust him, and with that trust somehow came the belief that he trusted me, too – so why the hell hadn’t he called, and why didn’t he answer his bloody phone?

To say that I was preoccupied with my thoughts would be a huge understatement. We had broken for lunch, served in the room for fear someone might escape and never return, and I had not even noticed; I was still sat, while everyone else milled around filling their plates and making polite conversation.

What had brought me back to the room had been that bloody woman again, she had sat in the chair next to mine and was speaking to me.

My mind frantically tried to replay what she had said, but it was useless. I had picked up the name David, but nothing else. I looked at her wonderingly; what the hell could she want with me?

Could it be the project, did she know me from somewhere?

Then suddenly it clicked. God, I was slow today. She had mentioned David only a few seconds ago. She must know David, must had seen us together and… and what? What did she know about him? What could she want? I shut down into defensive mode, put on my What the hell do you want face, and used my most aggressive tone, the tone that made so many of my colleagues hate me with a vengeance.

“I’m sorry, I was miles away pondering our current really ridiculous situation with the customer. Did you say something?” and then bulldozed on with, “I don’t believe I know you. Have we met before?” I really had to give her her due, whoever she was, my attitude did not phase her at all. She certainly was not one of the normal bimbo types that I came across here day after day.

She did not flinch, she just looked me straight in the eye, her voice at least as aggressive as mine had been.

“I said, that I need to talk to you about David. It’s not something I want to talk of here, there are far too many people about. Can we meet later for coffee or something?"

As she finished speaking Steve came up, pushed a plate of sandwiches in front of me and said, “I thought I’d get you these. The vultures have almost cleared the table already."

The woman looked up at him, a clear look of annoyance on her face. Steve just did not see it at all – he could be really, really dense at times.

“Oh, Hi Pauline, didn’t know you knew Alex,” he said as he dropped down in the chair on the other side of me.

Pauline turned to me, anger barely contained on her face. “Well?” she said just as my phone chirped.

Now I am one of those people that hate the mobile phone with a vengeance, especially since the advent of text messaging. Oh they have their place, and I use one at work all day and every day, but I still consider them to be the worse device ever invented by man.

It seemed to me that, for most people, when their phone rings everything else ceases to exist, their brain shuts everybody and everything else out. All that matters is the inane text written on the small screen in front of them, and the reply they have just got to send there and then before the world ends.

And then, when its finally over, the world shattering text answered, it’s back to exactly where the conversation with their very best friend left off – like hell it is; it’s much more likely that they don’t remember a single thing that was said for the ten minutes leading up to the phone ringing, just like a car crash victim.

I bloody hated phones – they, of all modern man’s inventions, allowed people to demonstrate just how thoughtless and absolutely ignorant they can be.

And yet, here I was praising the Lord for this timely interruption that would allow me to put off answering this woman, at least until I had time to consider who the hell she was, and what she might or might not know about David. What a hypocrite!

“Sorry, I’m expecting an important message,” I said. But as I pushed away from the table, hand reaching into my bag for my phone, she caught hold of my arm. She really is persistent and not going to give in easily I thought.

But then, phone in hand, I saw that the text was from David. “And about bloody time!” I said aloud. A few heads turned, but I really did not give a shit.

I pulled free of the pushy woman, Pauline, and strolled out into the passage to read the text.

One single line of text. One bloody cryptic line, that raised more questions than I had started with. “Jalholm gone, trying to find him. David."

What did he mean by that? Where had Jalholm gone? Where could he go? He was locked up in a secure institute, and had been for years.

What did David mean, and where the hell had he been these last few days?

I pressed the call button. He had just sent the text, so he could bloody well answer my call; he would have no excuse for ignoring it now. It took a moment to connect, but it just rang and rang.

Then just as the answer phone clicked in, that bloody woman, Pauline, stepped in front of me, less than two foot in front, right in my personal space.

I almost screamed at the answer phone, “Pick up you ignorant shit! You’re there… I know you are! What do you mean Jalholm’s gone. Gone where, and where are you? Damn it, pick up!" The last was said with such venom that Pauline raised an eyebrow, a whole bloody eyebrow – didn’t anything phase this woman.

I snapped the phone shut and glared at her.

“I need to speak to you about David,” she repeated. “There are things about him that you need to know…” and after hesitating ever so slightly, she said, “I know you spend a great deal of time with him. I’ve seen you together, and it’s common knowledge that you’ve both just been away together… it’s just that I think he could be dangerous. In fact, I know that he is dangerous."

“Dangerous?” I blurted. But before I could say any more, memories flooded my mind.

Christ, what about all the things David had told me of, all the violence and the terrible things he said that he had done. Yet he had never so much as raised his voice to me, not since that first day. And on that day he had been really, really angry; his anger had been plain on his face for all to see, and yet even then he had shown no signs of violence.

But I knew deep down, without all he had said, that he was a dangerous man, or would be if the need arose, if someone ever really upset or crossed him.

What the hell has David done to this woman? What does she know? What has she seen of David that makes her think him dangerous?

“Okay, I give up. We’ll meet after work, coffee shop across the road. This better be good!” I said, as a parting shot as I strode away back to the meeting.

The afternoon did not go well or quickly. I checked my phone every five minutes, and glared at Pauline in between wondering what the hell she was going to say and what her game was.