Rebecca stuffs the folder back into her jacket then turns her back on me. She walks away. I watch her for a moment, feeling the cold English rain soak into my bones.

"Wait..."

Why am I asking Rebecca to wait for me?

I frown, tasting the water dripping down my face, and shiver. Rebecca turns around and raises an eyebrow.

"Come on," she shouts over the street noise. "It's freezing out here. If you don't like what we have to show you, you can get back to your untimely death in a couple of hours."

She doesn't wait to see if I'm following. I peer over the bridge again, expecting to hear the urging voices in my head prompting me to do it; to end it all. Instead there is an unusual silence. I sigh.

"A couple of hours..."

I turn and implement a half skip, half run to catch up with her. We walk side by side in dark silence. It must be an odd sight for anyone watching; the weirdo and the monster. When we get to the end of the bridge I stop still in my tracks as Rebecca pulls out her car keys.

"Oh God." I say. "No. No way. I know I'm suicidal and all, but I wouldn't be seen dead in that."

Rebecca unlocks the door and looks squarely over the bonnet at me.

"It's a hearse. You would. That's kind of the point."

I look at the long, black vehicle in disgust for a few moments, shivering against the stinging wind. Rebecca opens the driver side and sighs.

"Get in. I don't know why you care so much about what people think. You fell from social graces the moment you came back anyway."

I feel a pang of hurt. Glaring at her, I climb inside, slamming the door shut behind me. The inside smells like polished wood mixed with a sweet unnatural perfume; it's wafting out from a South Park air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror.

"Meet Kenny," says Rebecca, noticing me looking. "He's a bit ripe but still - it beats the smell of death."

I look pointedly away out of the window. She exhales.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that; about falling from social graces. You've been through a lot. It was insensitive."

She puts the key in the ignition and starts the engine.

"Yeah. It was. You have no idea..."

Rebecca says nothing, reversing the vehicle into the road. We drive in silence for a while, joining the traffic that I imagined ripping me apart.

"Why do you have a hearse?" I ask, cutting across the gentle lull of the engine.

Rebecca looks at me and raises an eyebrow.

"My grandfather is an undertaker – it's the family business. He gave it to me." she pauses, "You seriously didn't know that? We've been at school together five years. You've known me since you were eleven..."

I roll my eyes.

"Excuse me for not knowing your entire family tree..." I shrug, "I always thought it must be something like that."

I look out of the window and see we are now winding through the streets of Central London. Rebecca drives us down the Strand, and slows down as we approach Kings College, a vast historical building. I look at her warily.

A lot of academics have been interested in me since my return. I've sat for hours in stuffy offices reeking of sweat and coffee breath, being interviewed by musty oldies in lab coats and over-eager grads. The question is always the same; how did you come back to life?

"What are we doing here?"

Rebecca drives through the gates, and down into an underground parking lot. She looks at me.

"We're here to see Reverend Carter, he looks after the chapel and takes a lecture on Soulology here at the University. Don't worry – he's not like the others you'll have met. Trust me." She gets out of the car and looks at me darkly, "Oh...and Jared might be there too."

Before I can respond she wanders off towards an elevator door at the other side of the car park. I sigh. If I don't like it, I can go back to my untimely death in a couple of hours I remind myself.

I climb out of the hearse and reach her just as the elevator doors slide open. We get inside and she presses the button to the first floor. When it judders to a halt, she leads me out into a standard college corridor and we walk towards a door at the far end. Rebecca opens it.

I stop in surprise and feel my mouth fall open. We have emerged into a vast, high ceilinged church hall. The arched windows are stained glass, and refract dancing coloured light from the rain and streetlamps outside. Rows of pews lead along the floor to a raised altar in the centre.

Atop the altar is a boy who looks a slightly older than me, laid nonchalantly with his muscular arms resting casually underneath his head. A sleeve of tattoos run up his otherwise bare arms, slipping under his black T-shirt and re-emerging up one side of his neck.

He is talking lazily to a blonde, angelic looking man in a reverend's clothing who is stood stiffly a few metres away. The Reverend appears to be a little young to be in this profession - he must be mid-twenties at most.

When we enter the two of them fall into silence and turn to look at Rebecca and me. Then the Reverend's angular face cracks into a grin.

"You must be Frankie," he says. "Our new demon hunter."