by T C Shelley
‘Stop him,’ Woermann growled as Bladder leaped forward.
The imp jumped between them and with skinny arms. He surprised them all by tossing the gargoyle to the ground. Bladder howled as his back leg broke off and rolled towards the shifters. The imp ran towards it, grabbing the leg.
‘Can’t walk, can’t walk!’ The imp laughed as it waved Bladder’s leg in the gargoyle’s face.
Bladder lay in pain.
It terrified the shifters even more, and they howled.
Full moon’ll be out tonight and I need to hunt,’ Woermann said, and leered at the little group.
D.I. Kintamani growled and huddled the little pack against the orb, trying to stay out of the way of Woermann’s cattle prod and crying when the prod struck his leg.
Woermann laughed as he jabbed at the dogs.
‘No!’ Bladder cried out. ‘Leave them alone.’
The animals threw themselves out of Woermann’s way. Wilfred, Amira and Hazel ran for the dark corner. The grown-up shifters may have been subdued by the loss of their souls, but they showed as much courage as they could, growling and barking. Even Mr Kokoni stopped sobbing. He growled and got a prod between his eyes for his efforts.
‘Ooh, you three still have fight in you, don’t you?’ Woermann thudded towards the shivering pups.
‘Run! Wilfred! Amira! Hazel! Run!’ Sam yelled.
The Wilfred, Amira and Hazel inside the orb screamed too. ‘What’s happening?’ Amira’s soul cried out.
Outside, Woermann asked, ‘Who wants to be my dinner?’ He reached down, grabbing at Hazel, who shrank from Woermann’s huge claw. Bladder, three-legged and wailing, shook himself out of his pained groans and hobbled forward, sinking his stone teeth into Woermann’s arm.
Woermann yowled and dropped both his cattle prod and Hazel, then stretched around and yanked at Bladder. The gargoyle stuck. The wildcat’s blood flowed between the gargoyle’s teeth.
The imp reached out and snapped off Bladder’s right forepaw. Bladder screamed at the crunch. His bite loosened. Woermann’s face was pain and fear, but he shook Bladder away. The gargoyle’s stone body fell to the floor. His scream rang true, so deep from inside, that the souls in the orb heard it too and wailed as loudly as the shifters outside.
Hazel’s soul sobbed. She’s so frightened, Sam. Sam knew she meant her physical self.
Wilfred and Amira sobbed with her.
Woermann pointed at Bladder and the imp picked up the gargoyle.
‘Sam! No! No!’ Bladder yelled, but Sam wasn’t out there filling the imp’s body, he was in the orb watching everything, ramming his helpless fists against the glass.
The imp dropped Bladder at the perfect angle and the gargoyle’s head snapped off and rolled towards his dismembered body. The shifters and souls sobbed in unison.
‘The rest of you, into the truck. The pet shop will get a pretty penny for you purebreds,’ Woermann slurred as he picked up the cattle prod, poked it at the animals and herded them to the top of the stairs. Then Woermann leaned over, scooped up the pup and handed it to the imp. ‘For later,’ Woermann said. The imp nodded and carried Hazel up the steps.
‘Please, no,’ both Hazel the pup and Hazel’s soul cried out.
Woermann herded the other animals, leaving the door open. Except for the grey stone carcass lying in pieces on the cellar floor, there was no one who might escape. The cellar fell silent.
CHAPTER 23
Souls buffeted the orb’s surface, hitting themselves again and again and bouncing back like glowing rubber balls. They may not have seen the awful events outside, but they had felt them and seen them through Sam’s thoughts.
Sam had to save Hazel.
Think, think. Pace, pace.
He strode up and back, sure that he knew something. A memory of Daniel. Something Daniel said, and his own memories. He strained to remember the Ogres’ Cavern, the broken blade.
The souls from the sword had appeared to him, they had separated out from the weapon itself and spoken to him. They hadn’t been locked in, but although they had been tied to the sword, they moved freely.
‘What did Daniel say? Daniel said something about that. Someone help me think.’
Daniel had been so uncoordinated. He’d lost all the graceful and divine ability he’d had when Sam had first met him. He couldn’t get through walls any more. For all Sam knew he could be outside the house now, knowing exactly where Sam was but unable to get through the solid bricks.
Then Sam remembered what it was that Daniel had said.
‘Angels are creatures of pure spirit. There is no reason for pure spirit to be contained by anything physical. The physical part can be contained, jailed, manacled, but if the soul chooses not to be bound, nothing can hold it.’
So, nothing should hold us all in here either. Not a glass orb, not magic.
‘A soul is a free thing wherever it is, if it wants to be,’ Daniel had said. ‘Many souls are bound simply because they think they are.’
They could fly free if they’d wanted. Nothing could hold them.
Sam also remembered that even Daniel – who knew this so well – had struggled with cumbersome wings and heavy limbs after weeks of work; how could Sam, who’d never trained at this, be any better?
Because he had to. Sam needed to get out, so he needed to be better.
Better than an angel?
Yes.
He pushed at the glass. It was solid, but it wasn’t the glass that kept him in, it was dust magic. Was magic stronger than spirit?
‘No. Nothing is. Daniel says nothing could keep a soul restrained if it doesn’t want to be.’ Sam pushed again. His hand slid through the glass but hit the magic on the other side. His fingers tingled and when he pulled them back, they smelt of rancid dust and reminded him of Maggie.
For a third time, he put his arm through and this time Sam felt the magic bend until it broke. His arm glowed through the outside of the orb like a ghost. He guessed that maybe that’s what a ghost was; a soul who remembered what it looked like. The way the souls in the sword had.
He pushed again and found his chest moving through the glass. Not his head yet, as if his head didn’t want to leave. His body bent back the way you do when reaching through a small window as far as your arm will stretch.
Sam heard Woermann upstairs, yelling at someone to wake up. Was it the imp? Something about driving. Sam knew Woermann couldn’t drive the truck, it would be almost impossible in the shape he was in, and the imp couldn’t because Sam had never learned. It must be the poor man from the pet shop, the one Titania had so dazed with dust he’d do whatever he was told. He was as much a prisoner as the shifters. Why was Woermann yelling at him?
Sam looked around. The souls in the orb were still spots of bright light, huddling together.
He had to get them out before they became complacent again. He had to use their misery to help them.
Bladder was broken, but right outside, and Sam knew he was fixable. His greatest, immediate fear was for Hazel. Woermann was becoming a monster.
He had to convince the shifter souls to leave.
How close to moonrise were they? How much time did he have to save Hazel?
Finally, time became important again.
‘A soul can’t be bound by anything,’ Sam repeated for the third time.
Well, we have been, haven’t we? Mr Kokoni said.
‘Only because we’ve somehow agreed to it.’
But it’s magic. You can feel it as soon as you get to the side of the orb.
Sam sighed; this was going to be hard.
Don’t give up, Dad, Hazel said.
‘No, don’t.’ Sam sent his voice into every head. ‘A soul is not a body. A soul can imagine itself free, and break through anything.’
Then why are we in here? Amira’s mum asked.
He told you: because we’ve somehow agreed to it, Amira said.
But the magic …
Blow the magic, let the boy fini
sh, for goodness sake, D.I. Kintamani said. Something about what he says makes sense. Go on, lad. We must at least try.
Yeah, Wilfred cheered him on.
Finally, the prattling and arguments died away and the low hush of interest washed over him.
‘We have to be able to picture our way out, I think, imagine it, and for that reason we have to reshape. See ourselves physically, so we have eyes to see out of the orb,’ Sam said.
How we gonna do that? Dr Kokoni asked.
It didn’t start well. At first only half a dozen souls grew eyes. Hazel, Amira and Wilfred, D.I. Kintamani, Dr Kokoni and an old man with a jolly laugh. The slow arrival of bulging globes sticking out of the sides of glowing souls was a bit of a shock.
When those souls said it worked, more joined in. Some struggled.
Can’t do it, a woman’s voice cried.
‘What do you miss most?’ Sam asked.
Not eyes. I want arms, to comfort my little one.
Sam felt what she felt then, the misery of the toddler soul cuddled near her.
‘Imagine arms, want them desperately.’
She did. A sudden explosion of streaks of white light burst out of the side of the soul and sprays of fingers grew from the ends.
I can feel them! I can feel them! she cried out.
It looks like some strange fungal growth, Sam thought.
We can hear your thoughts, young man, D.I. Kintamani said, but he chuckled too, his swollen eyes wobbling as he laughed.
Soul after soul changed shape. Some of the souls managed it after someone they trusted changed and vouched for Sam’s declaration that his soul was in the shape of a boy. Arms, legs, heads, fingers, noses, mouths and eyes all grew from the glowing spots. Those who could see the others laughed at the sight, and realised they too were as strangely bulbous as anyone else in the orb.
The souls’ confidence built; if eyes and legs could grow then so could torsos and heads, and soon hundreds of souls huddled in front of him. As tiny stars they took up little room, in human shape the area was cramped. All eyes were on him, and he needed eyes, because if they could see what he could do, they would believe him.
Sam turned and pushed his arm through the wall of the orb, his hand stretching into the air of the cellar outside, but he smiled. He felt the cold. He wondered if that was his imagination too.
The souls gasped. The souls at the periphery of the group, those against the walls of the orbs, copied him and pushed arms through. Some thudded against the magic, but some younger ones found their arms slipped through. They laughed.
‘Sam, you’re brilliant!’ Hazel said.
If he’d had blood in his form, Sam would have blushed.
Young souls found the idea that they could imagine their way out an easy concept to grasp. Their parents and grandparents, seeing the evidence of their newly popped-out eyes as young arms and legs broke through the orb, were not slow to follow. Families dived out of the globe.
The other souls let the Kokonis, Kintamanis and Salukis push to the front. ‘We need to get out, reunite our souls,’ D.I. Kintamani said to Sam, ‘then we’ll be back for you and Hazel.’
A wave of terror flew from Dr Kokoni and her husband as they pulled Hazel’s soul through the crowd to the glass. ‘Hazel, find your body, get out and make for the road. We’ll come back for you,’ Mr Kokoni said, then turned to Sam. ‘If you can, save my girl.’
Wilfred waited for a space to jump out. ‘We’ve gotta get to that truck. Let’s go, let’s go, everyone.’
Hazel rushed back and kissed Sam on the face. It felt warm, like sunshine, but Sam could feel her thoughts. Where was her body? What if it was somewhere more horrible than the cellar?
Sam thought back at her, I will find you.
Then she and Wilfred were gone, diving through the glass.
The speed of departure increased. The more souls got through, the quicker the next lot left. The power of belief improved by others’ success.
‘Amira!’ her mother called. ‘Us now. Hurry, hurry.’
Sam looked through the glass and saw the cellar exploding in a fireworks display, the room filled with beautifully coloured light, the joy of freedom causing the souls to glow red with courage and blue with confidence, a happy orange, freedom green. Most had reverted to the tiny dot, as if believing that they would move quicker in that shape. He could feel their thoughts, rather than hear words.
Sam had never been so satisfied to be alone in his whole life.
If Bladder hadn’t been lying on the floor in pieces, it would have been perfect.
He dived through the glass and magic membrane. The fairy dust let him go with a resigned ‘pfft’.
CHAPTER 24
Sam watched ghosts whirl around the kitchen, and it would have been joyous to see souls zip out over the grass outside, creating erupting, stirring constellations heading in every direction, if the last blush of pink hadn’t been settling in the direction of the city. Sunset. It was getting darker, and Sam couldn’t see a moon, but he guessed a full one would arrive soon. Woermann’s bristling body hair gave that away. Outside, the truck sat waiting to leave. Next to it, the shopkeeper from Collars and Crufts slept against a tyre; he didn’t even cower although Woermann yelled at him. Sam smelt the air, someone had been too generous with fairy dust.
Sam watched a cluster of souls fly into the side of the truck. Only Hazel hung inside the kitchen.
Sam looked around. ‘You’re still here?’
‘The pull of my other soul is so strong, Sam, I can feel it.’
‘Can you tell which room?’
‘Just this way.’ Hazel moved towards the kitchen wall. ‘Sam, I’ve gotta go to her. I can’t hold on any more.’ She slipped through the bricking.
Sam didn’t have another soul. He stilled himself, listening to the sounds of the house. Nothing. He was going to have to search for his body.
No, wait, Sam thought, I should find Hazel first. It’s no use getting back to my body if I don’t know where Hazel is being kept. Where would Woermann have taken her?
Sam zipped through the French doors into the night air, skirting the perimeter of the manor. He pushed his ghostly arms through a wall and floated back into the house. He checked the bedrooms. Messy, but empty. No Hazel in any of them. No imp boy either. He had an awful thought: what if he couldn’t return to his body anyway? No, don’t think that. He needed it, and it had a variety of useful talents: it could be seen by humans, it could fight and it could carry a small dog to safety.
The shifters barked inside the truck, locked in and frustrated. As soon as he’d sorted Hazel, Sam would let them out. The pet shopkeeper grunted and Woermann staggered away from the vehicle.
Sam floated back downstairs and looked in the rooms along the corridor: a library, an office, a guest bathroom. No Hazel.
Sam shot up the corridor towards the drawing room, diving between open doors and searching the corners. A huge fire twisted and illuminated the room with its dancing shadow; the thick power of fairy dust filled the air. Even as a soul he could sense it.
Woermann sat in the chair Titania had used as a throne. His hands clutched the wings and his wild head turned and turned. Woermann’s eyes shone old gold, his irises narrowed to feline half-moons.
He hardly looked like the Woermann Sam had met in the cafe.
The cat eyes looked up, directly at Sam. Woermann growled. Sam floated up and away, then out of the drawing room.
So, not there. Where would Woermann have hidden Hazel?
The ballroom! Where Woermann went to protect himself when he turned. The scratched walls, the security screens on the windows. Sam’s nose had told him what else the cat man did in there, but he had not wanted to think about it at the time.
Hazel would be there.
An angry barking came from the truck. The truck’s lights had turned on, but the driver moved sluggishly in the driver’s seat as he stared at a hedge. He fell forward on the steering wheel into another dusty nap.
Sam sailed around to the side of the house to where he’d seen the ballroom door and popped through the wall, the graininess slipped away from him. He wondered what had held Daniel back. The bricking tickled, but it didn’t put up resistance.
The ballroom was huge. Twice the length of the school basketball court and twice as wide. It was a good place for a cat to play with its food.
Sam listened.
The dog’s breathing was soft and low.
Sam looked out of the window.
There, low in the sky, a grey settle of clouds glowed with the moon sitting behind them.
‘Hazel,’ he whispered.
‘Sam.’ Hazel’s voice came from the corner of the room.
Hazel’s soul clung to a solid security screen. ‘I want to go back in, I really do, but I’m so scared,’ she said. ‘She’s so frightened too. What if I get back in there and he eats me? What do I do?’
Hazel and Sam studied the dog on the floor. Hazel-pup stared straight at the Hazel next to Sam and whined.
‘She knows you’re here,’ Sam said.
‘Of course she does, we belong together,’ Hazel said.
Outside, heavy footsteps started up the corridor.
Hazel-pup huddled in the corner, making herself small and quiet as Woermann stalked up and down, swearing to himself. Growling, purring, arguing against an unseen foe.
‘I’m here, Hazel. I’m going to help you,’ Sam said. ‘Now I know where you are, I’ll be back with my body.’
Hazel’s soul reached out and held Sam’s hand. ‘She needs me,’ she said. ‘Oh, Sam, I’m so scared.’
Sam felt scared too.
Hazel’s soul zipped across the room, she no longer looked like a ghostly version of herself, but had transformed to a pretty orange light. Hazel-pup ran towards the glow, it knew where the soul was and gave a yap of joy, the fear forgotten in the run.
The orange light zipped closer and the pup lifted off the floor, floating, then the soul and pup collided in an explosion of light. For a few seconds, they spun in the air together, and the small creature glowed with a glorious blinding light. A sound rang in Sam’s ear, two souls singing together in a chorus of greeting and gladness. Welcome, welcome, welcome, they said to each other. Then gently the pup floated down and returned to the floor.