by T Hodden
“And to what do we owe this displeasure?” He asked amiably. I took the coin out of my pocket and showed him. He stiffened a little. “Please, pass it to Miss Baker and she will keep it safe.” He spoke too late. I was already flicking the coin at him. He moved to swat it aside, but it sailed over his gloved hands and touched his head. The glamours and spells that disguised him were gone as the moonlight coloured silver touched him. The woman behind the counter suddenly stood very straight and looked very pale.
Flint looked like nothing so much as a skeleton with the thinnest of skins over his twisted and contorted bones. His mouth had too many teeth and all of them were like needles. His eyes were globes of white marble, his scalp a hairless rotting prune. His clothes hung from him like rags from a scarecrow. He let out an animal cry and swept across the room like a kite, gripping my shoulders and slamming me into the rack of postcards.
“Meddling fool.” He spat. “What gives you the right to interfere?”
“A village full of sick children.” Tiger said bravely. “And two missing children this year. One last year. One the year before that. Two before that.”
“You can not prove a damned thing.” Flint roared, turning on the bears while he still choked me.
“But I bet Lord Shadowbrook could. Or the psychic medium? The chap from the seventies?” Ted folded his arms. “They found the truth.”
“I can't help it.” Flint seemed to be looking past us, at the terrified member of his staff. “I have to feed. I have to survive. Do you mourn your cornflakes? Sometimes the hunger is too much and only a life will satiate it. I can not live with the hunger.”
“Then let me help you.” I gurgled through the choking grip. “I can send you to the Otherside. You will be free of your hunger. You will be at peace.”
For a moment, just a moment his eyes blazed with anger as he misunderstood. He thought I offered to slay him. But then what ever candle flame of humanity was left wrested control from his rage. He slackened his grip a little.
“Do you think,” he whispered in a voice like a glacier, “that I do not know to make a circle? I am no fool. But I can not cross that threshold. I refuse. I will fight to maintain my grip on this realm with every fibre of my being!”
“He's chicken!” Ginger snapped.
“I am not afraid of death!” Flint laughed. “I conquered it!”
“No. But you are still a chicken.” Ginger said, then jumped up and down as an idea occurred to him. “He owes somebody money! He does! I bet you he is outrunning a debt.”
I looked at Ted, and Ted looked up at me as cogs aligned in our minds.
“He does not owe somebody a cheque.” Theodore Edison Bear stood up straight and rose to his full, if unimposing, height. “But he is outrunning a debt.”
“To a demon.” I explained. “A demon on the Other side. That is what the Banewolves and other cults did isn't it? Made Pacts and Covenants with the darkest of beings in return for power, strength or immortality?”
“Power.” Flint hissed. “You understand? You understand that I can not pass over as then I would be forfeit. I would have to pay the debt. Surely you can see...”
“See what?” Tiger kicked his shin until he dropped me. She jabbed at him with one of her stubby fingers. “That people have to sicken, to die? That you have to keep a troll on a leash?”
The troll. An idea struck me.
“No more feeding.” I said quietly. “No more sneaking into the bedrooms of children and sucking out their life. No more illness. No more vanishings. No. More.”
“Or what?” In an instant Flint was huge. He was the size of a polar bear and twice as grizzly. His he loomed and he was wrapped in shadows and murk. “I will crush you. I will destroy you. I will reach into you and...” He stopped and looked around. Tiger was huffing and puffing and full of righteous fury. But she was the only bear in the reception hallway. There was enough cash left by the till for two tickets and a thunder of scampering footsteps in the direction of the tower. For a glorious second there was a moment of profound confusion in the eyes of the vampire. Then it was clouded by utter rage.
“Please.” I said. “You really don't have to fight...”
Flint roared loudly and flung me across the hallway. Tiger ducked as I sailed over her head and landed against a display case with a crash of glass. I hoisted myself up and rolled aside as hand like talons gripped at me and the claws dug into my skin. I could feel the nails ripping my skin and starting to suck at my blood and my life. Weakness and cold flowed through me like a liquid, my head span and my lungs heaved. I tore free of his grip and staggered away. Tiger stood between us and folded her arms.
“Do not,” she warned the vampire, “make me send you to the Naughty Step!”
“You and whose army?” Flint snorted.
“Well,” Tiger grinned, “I know something you don't know.” She sprinted forwards as he lunged for her. She skidded between his legs and darted out of his reach. “I know the plan!” She hopped as he smashed the counter in two to try and reach her. “I know I am a good distraction!” She squeaked as she took shelter behind a suit of armour. “I know the guys are going for those coins!”
Flint stopped trying to kill her and stopped to look at me.
“What is this?” Flint demanded in a low, terrible voice.
“I told my friends that if you wanted to kill us rather than talk like adults they should use the coins to open a circle and fetch somebody to take you to the other side. The King of the Other-Folk can decide what to do with you. He will hear your version of events and pass judgement. He is a good man. He is a kind man. He will show mercy.” I said quietly. “He will help you. If you do what is right. Will you?”
Flint listened. There were heavy footfalls filling the manor, shaking the furniture, rattling the decorations and making terror fill the face of the monster.
That the troll did not through the doorways did not stop it charging through the manor like a runaway train, in a rain of plaster and brick dust. It let out a roar that sounded worryingly like it was calling itself a Ginger Flame. It brushed me aside as it strode past and tackled Flint like a wrestler. The ancient vampire hissed and spat and struggled but to no avail. The sheer brute force of the troll overwhelmed all his animal cunning and ruthless savage bites, claws, kicks and strikes. Heaving Flint under one arm, the troll turned around, gave Ted and Ginger a respectful nod as he lumbered off towards the new magic circle.
“Erm, excuse me,” the nice woman behind the counter said, “but what just happened?”
“Well for a start I forgot to ask if my badge gave me a discount,” Ted said, polishing the white and blue badge with the sailing ship emblem on his jumper. He beamed happily. “Also, we just vanquished an ancient evil. So well done!”
“What?” She looked at me. I answered with a shrug. I had to go close the circle.
*
We sat on a hill top looking out over the moors. It was a fine day. A more expensive day than I had counted on, with the extra hotel rooms, the solicitors fees for awkward conversations with the Police and the cost of lunches having trebled. But it was still a holiday.
“So the strangest thing.” I said brightly. “The woman from the hotel says her kids are feeling a lot better now. And I would guess a lot fewer kids are having nightmares about a vampire visiting them at night.”
“The world does feel a little more fuzzy and a little less chilly.” Tiger agreed. “Are you ready to come home yet?”
“Soon,” I said, “but not just yet. I still need a little time.”
She looked at me. “We have a new friend. She wants to meet you. And kill you a bit too.”
“Sorry to hear it.” I smiled and ruffled her fur. “You were very brave.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You just have to stand up to bullies. Even if they have fangs.”
“I just need a holiday.” I said. “One with out any more trouble.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “So... Do we have to go?”
&
nbsp; “No.” I lay back on the blanket and watched the clouds drift by. “I think you three need a holiday too.” I gave her my warmest smile. “Don't you?”
She nodded. Then she looked away. “But that was why we came looking for you. There is this new bear and his friend at the house...”
I listened to her story and gave her a sad smile. People wanting to kill me could wait until tomorrow at least. We could head home at the crack of dawn and put everything right. But for that evening, for that moment, I could salvage a little of the holiday.
*
That night, when I was alone I sat on my bed in the hotel room, staring at the mirror over the little desk with my coffee, my book of names, my pen and an obsession in my heart.
“Honey,” I said crossing off another name. “Honour.” I crossed it off. “Hope.”
A familiar touch brushed my cheek. The out of focus figure in the mirror looked directly at me.
“Hope.” I said again. Something tugged at me. But it was fleeting, and then it was gone. I put the book of girls names to one side and took the copy of the phone book from the desk and opened it. “Hope Aaban.” I began...
Two: The Horizon
I parked on the edge of the town and waited. My three companions sat uncomfortably, their noses pressed against the window as the wondered what the hold up was for. Eventually I opened the door, stepped out of the van and leant on the iron railings next to the twenty-pence telescope looking out over the town towards the horizon.
Eternity. Home.
On the far side of the town, on the opposite rise was the small stone church that was one of the few remnants of the Order of Azrael among the fields and the farmland. The newer streets full of identical houses in a clean cut style on the outer fringes of the town, slowly reaching further and further in land, up the hill where I stood. Then closer to the seafront and the heart of the town the streets became densely packed as tall Victorian and Georgian town houses, shop fronts and working buildings all bustled and wrestled for room around the town centre. The civic buildings were grand and pompous, everything else tall and austere. Then suddenly at the sea front, where the air was clear, the houses and hotels suddenly had room to stretch out and relax, with gardens front and back, decorative stone work and wrought iron railings. One such former hotel, a little shabby and a little frayed around the seams was ours. Most of the houses on the sea front had been perched at the very top of the property ladder when they were built, but the shifting tides of social upheaval and the constant gnawing effects of the sea air had meant they slowly got a little run down and slipped a few rungs downwards. Mine had been knocked a fair way down by neglect and recession before it entered my price range. It was in the kind of street where there is always litter, somebody broke the glass shelter at the bus stop once a fortnight and on most Saturday nights there was usually somebody staggering home from a club with a traffic cone and a bloodied nose.
The silver spoon lot had moved out of the town to the picturesque villages that surrounded it, the ones that were ballooning in size as barns, oast houses and mills were converted to homes and new houses sprang up seemingly overnight, often to go unnoticed as the tranquil life waned on much as it always had.
I looked down at the sea, at the small harbour for fishing boats at one end and the long pier with the squat theatre groping out into the waves. Birds called out. The sea whispered as it lapped ever further up the shingle.
I gazed down on our own home. It was still standing. There was no pillar of smoke or hole in the ground where there should have been a modest sized retired hotel. All seemed peaceful and serene. Which would not last long, when normal service resumed.
I walked back to the van and did not say a word as we drove the short hop home.
“Did we mention the new girl?” Tiger asked. “The one who wants to kill you?”
*
I stepped into the hotel and dropped my bags. I sniffed the air. No smoke. No nerve gas. Nothing untoward. I let the others in and pushed to door closed, so the little bell chimed. In an instant the lobby was full of excited bears all of them bouncing around as they tried to get my attention. Paws tugged at my sleeves and nudged me as questions were thrown at me.
“Yeah I missed you all too.” I told them. The start of the sentence pretended it was true. The lest few words were when I realised it was true. I crouched down and gave a couple of bears a pat on the shoulder. “Thanks for giving me a few days away. More or less. Mostly less.”
I put a finger to my lips. “Now, where is this girl who wants to kill me?”
I was answered by a series of footsteps as something came sprinting down the stairs towards me. She was tall, scrawny and nimble, sprinting with powerful and determined strides. A couple of bears hung from her ankle as they tried to slow her, but were being dragged along with her. They let go as she started to bound down the stairs towards me three steps at at time.
I wish I could say I froze with fear. That somebody wanting to kill me was a rare enough sight to make me pause and quiver with nervous energy and fear. But it really isn't. I didn't even get a week off for a holiday with out a troll and a vampire wanting to snuff me out. The woman leaping from the stairs at me had wide pink eyes and soft white hair as well as pale skin. I ducked under the punch she tried to throw at me and caught her around the waist, using her own momentum against her as she slammed into the door.
She tried to twist around to face me, only to find a number of bears clinging to her and dragging her to the floor.
“What do you know,” I looked down at Tiger, “she really did try to kill me.”
“Fisher King has to die.” The girl screamed. “Or we all die.”
“Really?” I tried to put every ounce of sympathy I could in my voice. I crouched down and scattered packets of salt around us as the bears let go of the girl and stepped away. Except one, the silver furred pygmy polar bear who was a stranger to me. He stepped between me and the girl and fixed me a stare full of challenges. The girl lunged for me. I grabbed her wrist and powered up the circle. A serene calmness fell over us. In the circle we were neither part of our world or the Other. We were shielded by silence.
The girl stopped trying to kill me. She staggered backwards. Staring at me and panting for breath.
“I'm not going to hurt you.” I said. “I'm certainly not going to fight you. I will defend myself, but I wont fight.” I said. “If you want to kill me you will be able to eventually.”
She said nothing. She glared at me.
“But first, tell me why.” I gave the bear a friendly pat on the shoulder. “You did the right thing to bring her here. To get help.”
He nodded. His friend still did not talk. She was crouched like an animal at the edge of the circle, clutching her wrist and snarling at me.
“Can you tell me why you want to kill me?” I asked gently. She rubbed some knuckles against her head, trying to massage thoughts.
“Fisher King has to die, or we all die.” The girl said, scratching at the tattoo on her wrist. She looked away from me. “I have to reach Eternity. I have to kill Fisher King or we all die.”
“But is it what you want?” I asked. I could see it was not. Her breathing was ragged, her skin beaded with sweat. In the circle the influence of what ever brainwashing had mangled her brain and left that command burned into it was eased. She looked at me, her eyes full of sadness. She shook her head. “So what is your name?”
She seemed a little confused by the question and looked at her tattoo. “Two Two Seven Four.” She said weakly.
“Okay.” I smiled. “So what does your friends call you?”
She shook her head, laughing so I would not know she was crying.
“Would you like some tea?” I asked.
The bear nodded and she followed his example. I eased the power down on the circle. The bears rushed in to help us up and drag us towards the kettle and tea pot. We were carried to the kitchen on a sea of paws.
*
“Inter
esting.” Clarumcoma, said as he inspected our guests closely, armed with his magnifying glass. On the table were their bags, their clothes, and the few possessions they had when they arrived. The silver bear watched him curiously, while the girl was busy fussing over as many bears as possible, to distract herself.
“Can we keep her?” Ginger asked in a whisper. “I will feed her, and walk her, and clean up after her...”
“I think that is up to her.” I said in what I hoped was a meaningful tone. I looked at the few items they had with them when they arrived. The plastic bag was from an American petrol station, branded with the colourful logo. The jar of apple dessert was from France. The seaweed that clung to it was unfamiliar to me. There was a bag of savoury snacks that seemed to be from Japan and a seven year old newspaper, that despite the water stains did not look that old. It was wrapped around something metal about the size of a large book.
I looked up and stared at the girl and her bear. They were hungrily picking cherries and grapes from the fruit bowl and devouring them with enthusiastic smiles and delighted noises, as though the fresh fruit was a novelty. While they were distracted I started to unwrap the paper package. In a flash the bear was leaping over at me, snatching it away and clasping the device to his chest. I held up my hands, conceding defeat. He glowered and shook his head.
“So what about your other problem?” Clarumcoma asked softly. “I have been raking through the census records for some clue, but I am very much afraid that what ever name Doreen Grey may have had before her death, her murderers have edited the records with surgical precision.”
“Hope.” I said with a smile. “One of her names is hope. I am working on the surname, and then any middle names and...” I trailed off. “I will find out.”
He smiled at me sadly. “One mystery at a time.” He picked up the trace of seaweed and and sniffed it, stared at it under a magnifying glass, then at last put it in a little evidence bag that he folded up and slipped into his pocket. He coughed for the attention of the girl. “So my dear, what is your name?”