by Rachel Green
Her answering machine was blinking with several messages. The first gave her some relief. The manager of the night club had her purse and clothes. She could hear the ripple of amusement in his voice as he asked her to collect it at her earliest opportunity, bringing some identification with her. That meant she wouldn’t have to cancel her bank and credit cards and wouldn’t have to fit new locks on her flat and gallery.
The second call was designed to make her feel guilty. “Felicia?” Her mother’s voice echoed through the room. “I don’t know what happened yesterday but it was wicked of you to leave me in...that place...with no way of getting home. I had to ask this nice lady to give me a lift. She works for Mr. Raffles, apparently. She said she’d seen Julie and the policy could be released.” There was a long pause, at which Felicia assumed the machine would click to the next message, but her mother’s voice returned. “I think we need to talk.”
The machine clicked and replaced her mother’s voice with the sonorous tones of Taliel. “Your sister is no longer safe here.” The short message was replaced by the long tone indicating the end of the tape.
Felicia called the hospital and managed to speak to the matron to arrange a consultation with Julie’s specialist in the morning. That’s as much as she could do, short of forcibly breaking her out. She remembered her car was still there as well.
She phoned the bookshop.
Mr. Jasfoup answered in a clipped tone. “Alexandrian Gold.”
“It’s Felicia here. I’ll be late opening the gallery tomorrow.”
“Oh? Nothing untoward happened, I trust?”
“No. Something good, actually. I’m getting Julie released from the hospital. She’s well enough to come home.”
“Excellent news.” Felicia could hear him chewing something. “I’ll pass that on to Harold for you.”
“Thanks, Mr. Jasfoup.” Felicia hung up.
She stared at the phone for a minute and sighed. Her mother’s message had to be answered in person. She called for a taxi to take her first to the night club and then to the hospital to collect her car.
* * * *
When Felicia got to her mother’s, Patricia appeared on the landing at the top of the stairs. She was immaculately dressed but still wearing her robe. “Hello, Felicia dear. Have you finished work already?”
“Mum.” Felicia craned her neck to talk. “You know I don’t open the gallery on a Monday. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“It’s about yesterday and what you saw.” She looked to her left. “Oh my God!”
“What?”
“There’s a fire...” Her mother glanced down at her then back toward the bedrooms. “Darling?”
Felicia stared in numb horror as her mother took a step backward into the air above the top step and tumbled, almost in slow motion, down the remaining seventeen to the first corner, her arm breaking it with an audible crack on the newel post.
Her left leg suffered a similar fate when the banister prevented it from following its twin into a cartwheel. By the time Patricia hit the wall and rolled gracefully down the last ten steps to the polished oak floor, she was in a perfect position to twist her neck a full ninety degrees, snapping like a carrot stick in cheese dip.
Patricia opened her eyes and climbed to her feet, dusting herself down and straightening the tweed skirt that had become twisted in the fall. “That could have been nasty.” She rubbed her elbow. “I shall be surprised if I don’t have a bruise or two after that.” She stepped forward. “Did you say you’d made some coffee?”
Felicia managed to form a few coherent thoughts. “But you’re...” She pointed to the corpse. Patricia turned round and sighed. “Perhaps I won’t bruise, then. That was nastier than I thought.” She bent to look at her body more closely. “Not bad for sixty-seven, though that eye shadow doesn’t work at all. Why ever didn’t you tell me, dear? I feel such a fool, wearing blue all these years when it obviously didn’t suit me.”
“I...I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt your feelings. You always took such pride in your appearance.”
“It doesn’t cost much to be well turned out, that’s what my mother always used to tell me.” Patricia looked at her daughter. “You should take that advice yourself, dear. It doesn’t pay to let yourself go. Jumpers are a shortcut to sloth, I’ve always said. Now dry your eyes, Felicia, tears are not becoming and they’ll leave your skin all splotchy. Do you have any moisturizer with you?”
“Um, no, Mother.” Felicia dug in her shoulder bag for a tissue. “I only use it at night, really.”
“There’s some in my bedroom, on the nightstand. Help yourself. I won’t be needing it any more. It’s funny really. I always took such care to make sure that the stairs were well polished. I wish I hadn’t now.”
“What’s happening, Mother?” Felicia dabbed her eyes and wiped her nose “Are you a ghost? How is it I can see you?”
Patricia left off scrutinizing her body and returned to her daughter. “I don’t really know, dear. I’ve had as much experience with this sort of thing as you have.”
“What did you see that made you fall? You said there was a fire.”
“I thought there was.” Patricia peered upward. “I could see flickering coming from your old room. That’s where Elizabeth slept last night.”
“Elizabeth? Who the hell is Elizabeth?” Felicia tried to grasp her mother’s arm to spin her around but her hand met with empty air.
“She’s the woman who gave me a lift home. She works for Mr. Raffles. She saw Julie and told me the policy had matured.”
“There is no policy on Julie, Mum. I checked.”
“I don’t know, dear. You’ll have to ask him.”
“Isn’t there supposed to be a tunnel or something? A bright light to go into?”
Patricia looked around. “I don’t see one. Do you?”
Felicia shook her head. “There’s a sort of shimmering over there, above the stairs. Is that it?”
Patricia followed her gaze, her eyebrows flattening as she peered into the gloom. “Perhaps. It’s getting brighter. Oh!”
The shimmer grew into the figure of a burning man with flickering orange wings held above and behind his body. He looked at the corpse at the bottom of the stairs and then around the hall, his gaze fixing on Patricia.
Patricia tried to push her daughter. “It’s a demon. Run, Felicia, and don’t look back.”
Felicia hesitated. “What will you do?”
“I’m already dead. What more can it do to me?” Patricia’s mouth hardened. “Now, hurry.” She tried to push Felicia to the door but had as much success in touching as Felicia had had with her.
Felicia looked up. The figure had reached the top of the stairs and was beginning to descend.
Her mother turned. “Run. Remember my advice on dressing for the occasion and don’t forget to moisturize.” She began to walk toward the creature. “My will is in the top left hand drawer of the bureau, and make sure that your uncle Stephen doesn’t get his hands on the bank accounts. Don’t sell the plaster statue of Dionysus, and look after my orchids.”
“Mum!”
“Go.” Patricia shooed her away and faced the fiery man. “Get out of my house. You’ve no business here.”
As Felicia opened the door, she could hear the crackle of fire as the flames took hold of polished wood.
Chapter 11
Felicia didn’t know how she managed not to have an accident between her mother’s house and the gallery. The events of the last ten minutes replayed over and over in her head. Could she have done anything about it? Could she have helped her mother against the fiery man? Or would she have died as well, another statistic in the government records? She parked the car and barely remembered to take the keys out before stumbling the fifty yards to Meinwen’s shop. She sagged through the door of Goddess Provides, catching sight of herself in the jumble of art-framed mirrors at the front of the shop. Her normally immaculate makeup had been destroyed by tears, her skin
blotchy from crying. “Manny?”
The beaded curtain at the back of the shop swished and Meinwen hurried out. She frowned as she took in Felicia’s appearance. “Whatever’s wrong, cariad? You look as if your house burned down.”
“It has.” Felicia gripped her friend’s arm. “Not mine. My mother’s. She was still in it. It was horrible.”
“Oh gods.” Meinwen hurried to move a pile of books. “Sit down here. Have you called the fire brigade?”
Felicia shook her head. “Not yet. There was this thing...this demon made of fire. She fell down the stairs and broke her neck and then I was talking to her and then he appeared on the landing. I ran away.”
Her fingers clutched at Meinwen’s shawl and she buried her head against her friend’s shoulder. “I ran away, Manny. I didn’t even try to save her.”
Meinwen stroked her hair. “What could you have done, cariad?” She rocked on her feet, the motion soothing Felicia’s sobs. “A demon, you say? What’s a demon doing here?”
“I think it was after me.” Felicia wiped her eyes. “It only appeared when I arrived.”
“Don’t be silly. Why would a demon be after you?” Meinwen used a clean handkerchief to wipe Felicia’s face.
“Because I am one.”
Manny burst out laughing. “I’m sorry. You don’t honestly believe that? I think I’d know if my best friend was a demon.”
“But I am.” Felicia pulled out a handkerchief. “Help me, Manny. What do I do?”
“First, you have to stop believing this nonsense. Demons are creatures of the mind.”
Felicia shook her head. “They’re not, you know. I’ve seen two now. One of them was close enough to touch, though he was more irritating than frightening.”
Meinwen laughed. “See? That’s your subconscious at work, dealing with your problems with sarcasm.”
“My mother’s death isn’t going to be sorted out with a cutting haiku. I thought you were a witch? You should know about these things.” She pulled away from her friend and wiped her eyes.
“I do. Witchcraft is the manipulation of the forces of the earth, and the will of the gods.” Meinwen went into the tiny kitchen. “I’ll make some tea.”
“Surely you believe in demons, though. There must be forces of evil in any pantheon, just for comparison or someone to blame the bad things that happen on.”
“Evil is only our definition of morality.” Meinwen returned with two cups of herbal tea. “Here, drink this. It’s chamomile.”
“I’d rather have coffee.” Felicia put the cup down on the table. “What about werewolves? Vampires? Ghosts?” Do you believe in those?
“Spirits, yes.” Meinwen smiled. “Everything has a spirit. The others are just names to romanticize traits and diseases.”
“You’re being obtuse. I can prove them to you. I thought coming to you would be the best thing to do. I thought you’d give me some practical advice. Instead I find that you’re as fluffy as that girl who buys all your black candles.” Color retreated from the world as she got herself worked up. “Manny. Look at my eyes. What color are they?”
Meinwen frowned. “Silvery-blue? That’s unusual.”
“That’s because I’ve changed.” Felicia’s voice was almost a growl. “Pass me one of those silver necklaces.” She pointed to a display of pendants on leather thongs. Meinwen handed her a pentagram which she took by the leather thong. “What creature is burned by silver?”
“Werewolves, but that’s just a legend.”
Felicia clasped the pentagram in her left hand and bit her lip against the flare of pain. She remembered pulling the iron down on her arm when she was little and the pain was worse than that. The room filled with the scent of burning flesh.
“Stop it!” Meinwen stood, aghast. “What are you doing?”
Felicia opened her hand and let the silver pendant drop to the floor. “Now do you see?” She showed her palm to her friend. Etched into the skin was a perfect imprint of the pendant.
“But you can’t be...” Meinwen frowned, sinking back into her chair.
“But I am.” Felicia stood then squatted in front of her. “I don’t know how and I don’t know why and frankly, the whole thing scares me shitless but I’ve become a werewolf. I really have met demons and a vampire, and my grandfather is some sort of earthbound angel.”
“This is all impossible.” Meinwen took a sip of tea. “People don’t turn into werewolves. Not in real life.”
“They do now.” Felicia fought to quell her anger. “All I wanted was a quiet life with a nice little gallery, and I get this.”
“Tell me what happened. I want to understand.”
Felicia began to relate the tale from the sex at the nightclub, though she left out the details, to her dizzy spells the following day. Her trip to the hospital with her mother and seeing Patricia’s scales, the talk with Julie and the little demon on her shoulder, Taliel and the subsequent lapse of memory as well as meeting the vampire, Gillian. She ended with her visit to her mother, Patricia falling down the stairs and the burning demon.
Meinwen sat in silence through it all, not interrupting, though she made some notes when Felicia described the various creatures she had met. She looked up as Felicia ground to a halt.
“I may be able to research some of these creatures. I don’t know how else to help you.”
“Taliel said Julie was in danger. Do you think you could put her up for a few days if I get her out of the hospital? All these things happening seem to be centered around me and I don’t want her hurt.”
“Of course.” Meinwen patted her knee. “Anything. Just let me know.”
“Thanks.” Felicia looked up. “What time is it?”
“Almost seven. Why?”
“I have to go. I’m meeting that vampire again at ten and I need to find out what happened to Mum.”
Meinwen nodded. “You haven’t eaten. Can I get you something before you go?”
“Got any steak?”
Meinwen grimaced and took half a step back. “Your teeth are showing over your lip.”
Felicia ran her tongue over her teeth and followed it with her finger. She smiled into a mirror framed by a crescent moon. “All the better to eat you with.”
Her friend gave her a mock-thump. “You know I don’t swing that way.”
* * * *
Felicia stopped off at the service station on the way back to buy the meat she craved, not even waiting until she got home to cram the raw steak into her mouth. This time there was no adverse reaction and she savored the feeling of the flesh in her stomach. She couldn’t bear to go to her mother’s house alone and elected to wait until she met Gillian to see what had happened.
She didn’t have to wait long. Her answering machine was blinking again when she let herself in. Seven messages from the police asking her to contact DI White or DS Peters on a matter of ‘some urgency.’
She dialed the number and was put through to a desk.
“Peters.”
“Hello.” Felicia was hesitant. Did they know that she had been there when her mother died? “I’ve got some messages on my phone asking me to call you.”
“Miss Turling?”
“That’s right. What’s all this about?”
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you, Miss Turling. Could you come down to the station?”
“Now?” Felicia looked at the clock. It was seven-thirty already.
“If you would please.”
* * * *
The police station was cold and impersonal, despite it being revised and upgraded to make it more inviting for members of the public to come forward and help the police with their inquiries. Posters on the wall of the interrogation room looked as though they hadn’t been altered since the seventies. Felicia remembered the Watch out, there’s a thief about slogan from her childhood, equating it with a campaign of animated drinking straws used to advertize milk.
“So the house is gone?”
Detectiv
e-Sergeant Peters dropped the case file on the table. “Burned to the ground, I’m afraid. We’ve found no evidence to suggest it was deliberate. I’m sorry about your mother, though.”
Felicia shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault. Did she...did she suffer?”
“There’s nothing to indicate she did.” Peters patted her hand. “The fire was very hot indeed. Hot enough to melt the brick.” He hesitated and Felicia looked up.
“But?”
Peters frowned. “It was an unusual fire. You’d think a fire that hot would damage the surrounding property, but nothing else was touched. There was a car in the drive...”
“My dad’s. He died five years ago.
“It wasn’t touched. Not a mark on it. It’s got us baffled.”
“There was a fire like that in the paper. A house burned down with a car in the drive untouched. Is there a connection?”
“Not that we know of.” Peters shook his head. “Leave it to the experts, though. They’ll figure it out.”
* * * *
Felicia kept to the shadows as she followed the leather-clad vampire through dark streets. Gillian set a steady pace over the three miles to Patricia's house but Felicia kept up and they covered the distance in a little under ten minutes.
“Bizarre.” Gillian as they surveyed the site from the relative safety of the garden of the house behind.
Felicia was speechless. Having the police sergeant tell her the facts was nothing when compared to the full horror of the burned house. Not a wall remained, just the black expanse of what used to be a family home, reduced almost to glass as the superheated bricks melted.
A fire engine and two police cars still blocked the drive. Several men were combing through the ruin with the aid of lamps and torches. Gillian shrank back. “There’s nothing we can do here. Are you sure it was a demon? This doesn’t look like demon work.”
“It looked like a demon. It was made of fire.”
“So is fire. That doesn’t make it a demon.”
“How perceptive of you.” The voice was melodic, like a song half-remembered from childhood, and they both swung around. The creature facing them was made of a light so bright they couldn’t look at it.