25Chain-Smoking BabiesThe body that Billy found for Joshua belonged to an eight-year-old girl who’d been circling on her tummy around a metal bar, head following heels, in a deserted playground in inner city East London. She’d twirled faster and faster until her hand slipped, and she’d fallen smack onto the concrete beneath.
Her skull cracked on the side by her temple, and blood pooled around her. Death had been instant, and her soul flew free, a luminous deep purple light strobing high into the sky, just as Billy and Joshua manifested beside her body.
Billy regarded the girl dispassionately; her eyes still carried a surprised expression as she lay blindly staring at the sky. Nice and warm—just what Joshua needed.
Close by, an assortment of older teens crowded around an ancient blue For
