by M. V. Stott
‘Hold on, Annie!’
I turned the key and stamped on the accelerator. The Uncanny Wagon lurched forward, its tyres not the only thing screaming as they struggled for traction.
There were more eagles after us.
Not one, not two, a lot more.
Blackening the sky.
I’m talking Hitchcock turned up to eleven.
I didn’t have time to make an exact count of the birds as I was in a state of blind terror, but lets say it looked like about a hundred of the bastards. It’s possible I’m rounding up.
‘Everything’s going to be okay, Annie, just a few ticked off birdies, that’s all.’
A dent appeared in the panel of the driver’s door as the first of the feral beasts dive-bombed us.
‘Leave my car alone! It’s an antique!’
The eagles, strangely, paid no heed to my demand. Rude.
I gripped the wheel so tightly my fingers ached as I tried to keep control of the thing, tried to will it forward, as the birds attacked again and again, buffeting the outside of the Uncanny Wagon like one of those plagues from the bible, only worse. I don’t know about you, but I’d take a swarm of locusts over a swarm of razor-beaked, knife-taloned birds any day.
A crash, and a bird’s beak was suddenly through the driver’s side window and in biting distance of my face.
I grabbed the steering wheel lock again and swatted at the animal as I tried to keep the car moving. No time to stop to try and dislodge the maniac, we’d have been swamped by the rest of them in seconds.
‘Ours, ours, ours!’ said the eagle.
That’s right, “said” the eagle.
Despite everything happening in that moment, it still came as something of a shock to hear the animal talk.
‘What did you say?’
‘Ours!’
Not quite the extended vocabulary of my fox friend, but it was getting its point across clearly enough.
‘Sorry, but you can’t claim ownership of a lady these days, this isn’t the Fifties!’
I struck out again and again, the talkative eagle doing its best to dodge my blows and wriggle its way further into the car.
Another crash, an eagle head screeching, this time from the left passenger window.
‘Ours! Ours! Ours!’ it yelled with its sharp, grating rasp.
Things were not going well, and we were still several miles from Carlisle, let alone the hospital.
A thud from behind. One of the eagles had found the hole made by the first attacker, and was attempting to widen the gap.
It’s times like these that knowing how to access a little bit of magic would have really come in handy. I grabbed my phone and called Eva, trying to ignore the eagle’s beak to my right, which was inching ever closer to my eyeball.
‘I’m not here,’ came Eva’s sleepy voice.
‘Eva!’
The call ended.
Even dockers don’t swear the way I did then.
‘Ours! Ours!’
‘Invest in a thesaurus!’
I hit Eva’s number again and she picked up on the fifth ring.
‘I told you, I’m not here, idiot.’
‘Birds! Eagles! Lots of birds eagles beaks claws very very danger and scared and need help and magic!’
There was a pause.
‘Who is this?’
‘Eva!’
‘Rubbish, you sound nothing like me.’
I screamed some more anguished, angry gibberish at her.
‘You finished?’
A beak scratched my cheek, drawing blood. Further obscenities were launched.
‘Ours! Ours!’
‘Oi, is that a talking eagle?’ asked Eva.
‘Yes!’
‘Thought so. Horrible voices, that lot. Like nails on a blackboard.’
I was driving at quite an obtuse angle now, one hand on the wheel, the other holding my phone to my ear as I leaned as far away from the snapping beak of the eagle as possible, whilst still being able to see out of the windscreen. How I was still managing to keep us on the road and more or less in the right lane was a mystery.
‘Eva, loads and loads of eagles from I don’t know where are attacking me as I try to drive. Help me!’
‘How? I’m here, on my couch, enjoying a rather cheap lager, and you’re there, trying not to get pecked to buggery.’
‘Tell me how to do some sort of magic to stop them! I know I’ve done it before, so tell me how!’
Another kamikaze eagle bombed into the side of the car. The tyres met the grass verge before I yanked the wheel to the right and the Uncanny Wagon swerved back onto the road, a large lorry honking its horn as I just about went nose-first into its front end.
‘Eva!’
‘Okay, well, the thing is, magic is all around you, see? It’s just a case of being able to will it into your horrible, skinny, good-for-nothing body.’
‘Okay, okay, it’s all around me.’
‘Ooh!’
‘What? What is it?’
‘I don’t think I’ve seen this episode of Columbo before. That’s sort of magic in itself, isn’t it, love?’
‘Eva!’
The eagle stuck in the driver side window had now wiggled close enough for its beak to nip at the sleeve of my beautiful, long coat. Now it was just pissing me off.
‘Nope. False alarm. Seen it.’
‘Magic! Magic!’
‘Hm? Oh, right, well, it’s all around you, all the time. Everything emits a natural background trace of it, you’ve just gotta allow yourself to see it.’
‘Right. Okay, what does it look like?’
‘Sort of, colourful waves, washing around the place.’
‘Okay, okay…’
I had a bit of a look around.
‘No waves.’
‘Look harder.’
‘That’s your advice? “Look harder”? I can’t see any colourful magical wave thingies!’
‘Listen to me. You can. You can see them better than almost anybody.’
Something about Eva’s voice had changed. It was almost… soothing.
‘The magic is yours, warlock. You are born of it. It is part of you.’
I felt almost calm. Well, as calm as a man barely in control of a speeding vehicle that’s under attack from a swarm of murderous, talking eagles can feel.
‘It wants you to see it. It wants to make itself part of you. For you to soak it in and use it. To realise its potential. Can you see it now?’
And then a strange thing happened.
I could see it.
It’s like someone had flicked a switch, or placed those magic shades from They Live in front of my eyes, and now a world that had been hiding from me was revealed.
Magic was everywhere.
Great, multi-coloured stripes of noisy, beautiful energy swishing this way and that. Sparkling with possibility. And it called to me. Almost sang.
‘I… I see it.’
‘Just let it in.’
‘Hello, lovely magic,’ I said, and the waves responded, changing course, flowing towards me. I felt it enter the fabric of me, bathing me in a warming, static shower.
‘Make demands of it,’ said Eva. ‘It’s your tool. Yours to use. Make it your weapon.’
The eagle’s beak had torn through the material of my coat, I could feel it scraping my skin. But that was okay, because it was about to be very, very dead.
‘The magic is mine,’ I said. ‘I control it. It is my instrument to play.’
It felt right. Natural. For a moment I wasn’t Joseph Lake anymore. I was a warlock. A witch. And I was about done with all these bloody eagles.
‘Do it,’ whispered Eva. ‘Tell the magic what you want of it.’
I sat up and grabbed the eagle by the neck, my hand glowing with white hot fire. It struggled and screamed in my grip.
‘Ours! Ours!’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘Now please do go away, you little swine.’
And with that, the
fire in my hand consumed the bird, turning it to ash.
Which, yeah, was pretty cool.
‘All of you,’ I said, my whole body glowing now, tendrils of pure, white energy weaving out of me, like flames from the sun, ‘you can all piss right off.’
And piss off they did.
11
The ancient coffee machine in the corner of the hospital reception rattled as it spat black tar into my Styrofoam cup.
The eagles were dead, burnt to a crisp at my own hands. How I’d pulled that little trick off I had no idea. I’d seen magic everywhere in that moment, washing around me in colourful, evanescent waves, but peering around the room now, I saw nothing.
Nothing of the magic that I’d used.
That I’d willed into myself and turned into white-hot fire.
As terrifying as the whole eagle episode had been, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a touch thrilled at the way the situation had resolved itself. At the momentary access I’d been given to the world the old me had lived in. The old world I’d used; I’d wielded.
For a few minutes there, I’d been an honest to goodness warlock! A witch! A powerful bastard capable of unleashing fire from my—
‘Shit!’ I swore and blew on my fingers as the hot coffee I’d spilled scorched my skin.
‘A bird?’ said Big Marge from behind her desk, an eyebrow cocked.
‘Yup. A big one. Insane. Just dive-bombed down at poor Annie.’
‘You’re telling me an eagle did that to her?’
‘That is true, yes.’
‘Don’t see a whole lot of eagle action around here.’
‘Yeah. Weird, eh?’
‘Mm-hm. You know, this is not the first lady in distress you’ve brought into this hospital in the last few weeks. Couple that with the disappearance of poor Chloe, and people are going to talk.’
‘If you mean Doctor Neil there, then I think you are unfairly stretching the definition of “people”.’
‘Funny.’
‘Most people laugh when they find something funny.’
‘I will when it happens.’
A fresh burn to join my recent coffee mishap.
‘All I’m saying, Joe, is to watch yourself. You know those police have your number. Don’t make them any more suspicious of you.’
‘Aw, I’m touched. Touched that you care about me, Big Marge.’
‘Well, I’d hate to have to go to the effort of finding a new mop boy. Not easy to find someone willing to clean up piss, shit, and vomit on the money this place pays you.’
With that delightful conversation at an end, I went to find Annie, who was laying in a ward now with around ten other women. I approached her bed, pulled the curtain closed around us, and sat down beside her.
‘Sure you don’t want me to get you a coffee? Tea?’
‘No, I’m okay, they gave me water,’ she replied, nodding toward the plastic jug perched on the bedside table.
‘So, what‘s the verdict?’ I asked.
‘Just a few cuts and bruises mostly, nothing serious. Gave me a few stitches.’
‘Oh, good, great.’
‘They’re making me stay in overnight though, for observation. They said I must have bashed my head pretty hard, so they don’t want me going home yet.’
‘Better safe than sorry.’
Annie nodded, then winced and put a hand to the bandage taped around her head.
‘So, assault by a cloud of angry, talking eagles,’ I said. ‘That’s a bit… weird.’
‘Just a bit. How did you get rid of them in the end?’
‘Oh, my car is pretty, you know, fast. I know it’s not much to look at, but that baby can move.’
Annie’s face scrunched up for a moment, perhaps smelling the fresh poop I was spouting, before shrugging. ‘Okay. Lucky you were there, really, otherwise I’d be dead and they’d have me.’
Ah, right, the whole selling her soul thing.
‘So you’re saying that those eagles were, what? The Devil?’
‘Yes. Well, maybe not the Devil exactly. Demons. I’ve spoken to a lot of different things over the years.’
‘Okay, let’s say I believe all of this “selling your soul” stuff.’
‘You should, it’s true.’
‘Eagle attack aside, I’ve seen a lot of strange things recently, so I’m going to take you at your word until I have a good reason not to. Now, why don’t you fill me in on all of the details.’
Annie frowned and nodded, reaching over to the jug and pouring herself a plastic cup full, then taking a sip.
‘It all started a few days after my seventh birthday. We lived in a little farmhouse, not a neighbouring house in sight. I liked that. Liked to run wild around the land that surrounded us. Out the back of the house was an old stone well. It didn’t have a bucket or anything, and the opening was covered by wooden boards. My dad was always telling me to stay away from the thing, that it wasn’t safe, but I was seven and liked doing things my parents said I shouldn’t. So I would try to lift up the boards to see down into the well, and sometimes I’d climb up onto the boards and stomp my feet like I was tap dancing. One day, they were both out, and I climbed up onto the boards and I stamped and stomped and made a real racket. You can guess how that went. The wood gave way and then down I fell, into the bottom of the well.’
‘Christ,’ I said, on the edge of my seat, coffee forgotten, imagining Annie being swallowed by that black mouth. This girl knew how to tell a story! ‘What happened then?’ I asked.
‘I landed. It hurt like a bastard, and for a few moments I thought I couldn’t breathe, that the impact had knocked the wind out of me so badly I’d never be able to inhale again. But it passed, and I got control over my lungs again, and up I stood. Lucky for me, the bottom of the well was pretty soggy, otherwise I’d have been dead for sure.’
‘What happened next?’ I asked, riveted.
‘What do you think? I yelled, and screamed, and screamed some more. No one came though. My parents weren’t going to be back for hours, so I had a go at climbing up the stone walls of the well. I never got more than a few feet before slipping back down again. I was stuck. Stuck down a dark, stinking well, with no way to get out, scared out of my mind. I was bawling my eyes out; great, heaving sobs as I sat against the side of the well, hugging my knees. That’s when I made a mistake. A mistake much worse than tapdancing on those rotten boards.’
‘What? What did you do?’
‘I asked for help. Again and again. I said I’d give anything if I could just get out of there without my parents finding out what I’d done. I suppose I was trying to bargain with god, like you do when you’re in a bad spot—whether you believe in a god or not—but it wasn’t god who answered.’
‘Who then? The devil?’
Annie nodded.
‘Or something close to it. I didn’t hear it at first, I was so taken up with my crying and begging, but then I started to hear it. A whisper. It was coming from a crack in the wall of the well. I put my ear to the crack, and as I did, the voice became clearer.’
‘What did it say?’
Annie took another sip of her water, then looked at me dead in the eyes for the first time since she’d started her story.
‘It said, “What wouldst thou like?” Just that. Just those words, over and over.’
‘Well, that sounds pretty wet-your-knickers terrifying.’
‘It was. Although I didn’t piss myself.’
‘You go, girl.’
‘I thought it must be an angel, so I answered. I said more than anything I wanted out of the well and for my mum and dad never to find out. The voice said it could help me, but it would need something in return. I said I’d give it anything I had; my best dolly, all my music tapes, even my piggy bank, which was almost full. The voice said it wanted my soul. I said fine.’
‘Just like that?’
‘I was a scared seven-year-old, I wasn’t thinking it through.’
‘Right, ye
s. Sorry.’
‘The voice asked me to repeat my consent, so I did. Then I blinked and I wasn’t in the well anymore. I was stood beside it, and the boards across the opening were intact, like nothing had ever happened.’
I sat back and sipped at my coffee.
‘Well, blimey. That’s quite a story.’
‘I haven’t finished yet.’
‘What more is there? I get it, you were stuck and you sold your soul.’
Annie shifted uncomfortably in her bed, her face flushing a little.
‘What? What is it?’
‘It might not have been the only time I… sold my soul.’
‘Pardon me now?’
‘In my defence, I was seven and thought I’d discovered a wish granting angel, or genie or something, down at the bottom of a well. What would you do?’
‘You went back down, didn’t you?’
‘I did, yes. More than once.’
‘How many times more than once?’
‘I lost count. Any time there was something I needed, from money, to a skill, to some bitch at school who was giving me a hard time being dealt with, I would go over to the well, push the board aside, and climb down a ladder to my wish-giver.’
I could understand that. If all you had to do to get what you wanted was to sign over a soul you’d already given away, I mean, who could resist?
‘Wait a second, this thing did what you wanted because you gave it your soul, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Then why did it keep giving you things? It already had your soul, surely?’
‘Yeah. It turns out I may have sold my soul to a lot of demons. I mean a lot. At first I didn’t really notice, they always seemed to whisper, but I began to realise that each time I spoke to my wish-giver, I was hearing a slightly different voice. Whatever connection that well was giving me to these things, it wasn’t directed at just one demon. I think every time I connected, it was as though I’d dialled a different number out of the book at random.’
‘So, you promised your soul to a different demon over and over again.’
Annie nodded.
‘That’s a good way to piss off a whole bunch of different demons. I mean, they can’t all have your one little-bitty soul.’