The Alchemy Press Book of Urban Mythic 2

by Unknown

  When I got to the landing I moved around, and waved the candle about – none too steadily, I suspect, and none too safely either. It was plainly blowing from one side of the landing. It was, in fact, blowing from a large cupboard. You'd think it's an airing cupboard, being where it is, but it's not, and it's too shallow from front to back to be a lot of use for anything. It tended to fill up with stuff I couldn't be arsed to throw out, or that I use once or twice a year: Christmas decorations, board games, old greeting cards, the remains of a coffee set of my great –aunt's, a broken tennis racket, magazines I'm going to throw out when I'm sure I don't need to keep them; you know the sort of thing.

  Now here's the problem. This cupboard is on an inside wall, and it doesn't have a chimney. So there couldn't be a draught blowing out of it, right? OK, so I put down the candle, which promptly blew out, and opened the cupboard door.

  Inside was quite a large space, dusty and untidy, and still containing the things that should have been in there, but considerably larger than when I last looked. In the middle, sitting on a heap of old magazines, was a tall, pale woman.

  I was so gobsmacked I didn't even have the brain function to scream.

  She looked up, rather startled, and said, ‘You can see me,’ then she spotted the vodka bottle, and said, ‘Ah, you have brought a libation!’

  I handed her the bottle. It seemed the obvious thing to do. I was a bit shocked when she drained it in one swallow, gave a deep sigh, handed me back the empty bottle, and said, ‘That's better. I haven't had a libation in centuries. Have you come to worship me?’

  ‘Umm, no, I don't think so.’ My head was still trying to get round the huge space where my cupboard used to be. ‘Er... Who are you?’

  ‘Who am I? Good Hera, you've brought me a libation and you don't know who I am?’

  ‘Well. It seemed the ... the right thing.’ What am I talking about? I thought.

  ‘You're right, of course. I am Aura, Goddess of the Breeze.’

  ‘Oh!’ I said before I could stop myself. ‘You're the draught.’

  ‘Or,’ she said, with narrower eyes, ‘Goddess of Draughts. Yes.’

  ‘What are you doing in my cupboard?’

  ‘Your cupboard? My dear woman, this cupboard's been here a great deal longer than you have.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Well I could hardly deny it. ‘Have you lived in it all the time it's been here, then?’

  ‘A good while longer than that. If you humans choose to build houses on ancient sacred sites you have to expect to make allowances. We've still got to live somewhere. A lot of the pantheon took themselves off, but I thought, no, why should I? Britain's a remarkably breezy place – draughty if you prefer – so I feel at home here. Have you any more libation?’

  ‘Um, I think there's some gin downstairs. Why don't you live in the drinks cupboard?’ Again the words were out before I could stop them.

  She shrugged. ‘It's too cramped. And until now I've had a bit of privacy in this one.’

  I went down to get the gin.

  While I was going, I thought – or the vodka thought – that I must – must – ask her to leave. It was intolerable. She had no right to be in my cupboard, even if she had been there for hundreds of years. She had no tenancy agreement. She could drink the gin and go. I'm not sure I was being very logical, you understand, but it seemed to make sense at the time.

  When I came back, Aura was still there, as a part of my mind said she wouldn't be. She was reading an old copy of Marie Claire.

  She looked up. ‘You realise I've read this three times? Why do you never put anything new in here?’

  ‘Sorry.’ I poured the gin into two glasses, and said, ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  She looked surprised, but said, ‘No – no, if you wish. Do you want a blessing or a boon? Because I don't do much of that any more.’

  ‘Well...’ It was kind of awkward, I realised. I was sobering up a bit and the fact that I was sitting drinking gin with a personified draught was doing my head in, but it was still awkward. Asking a lodger who doesn't pay the rent to move out is difficult enough for me. ‘Well,’ I said again, ‘I don't suppose you'd consider finding alternative accommodation?’

  ‘What?’ She frowned. ‘Oh! You want me to leave?’

  ‘It's just that the house is awfully draughty.’

  ‘I must say you've got a nerve. I've been here for over a thousand years, and you're asking me to move because it's draughty.’

  ‘If you put it like that...’

  ‘You do realise, don't you, that I keep the imps away?’ She looked at me rather sternly.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The – what do you call them now? Gremlins? Brownies? The small creatures that move things. Haven't you noticed while you've lived here that things are always where you left them?’

  In fact, I had noticed, but I'd thought in my ignorance that I must be getting a bit more organised. ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that's you, is it?’

  ‘The lesser creatures keep away from the neighbourhood of a deity. I may be a minor goddess, but they still avoid me.’

  ‘Right. Well, that – that's good. Yes.’ I considered whether that was worth the draught. Then I thought of something else. ‘Um ... someone ... the other day...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A voice. From the radio. It told me to find out where the draught was coming from.’

  Aura stiffened, the glass of gin in her hand, and said, in a remote voice, ‘Leave me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Leave me. The rage of gods is not for mortals to witness.’

  I stood up, and made to shut the cupboard door. Before I did so, I remembered to put the bottle of gin inside.

  *

  Fortunately there was some cherry vodka in the kitchen that I'd forgotten about, and I had a couple of glasses to steady my nerves. I finally steadied them enough to pass out for a few hours, even without the radio. In the morning; well, all right, afternoon, fortunately it was Saturday, I woke up rather carefully, with a definite sense of looming menace. At first I thought it was just the sense of looming menace with which I always wake up, then I remembered, there's a goddess of draughts in the landing cupboard. I felt my way carefully downstairs – I wasn't able to open my eyes fully yet – and made some tea.

  After several mugs of tea and a bowl of cereal, I was sort of awake, but I couldn't exactly say I was coping. I kept saying to myself as I washed and dressed – aloud, in the hope it would sound more plausible, ‘There's a goddess of draughts in the landing cupboard and I've asked her to leave. On the one hand she keeps the wossnames away and I can find things, on the other hand it's bloody draughty and it's ruining my love life, and she's drunk all the gin.’

  Eventually the moment arrived where I had either to panic and leave the house, possibly never to return, or to confront the cupboard. I took a bottle of cooking sherry, went back for some magazines, and went upstairs.

  She was still there. She looked up from a copy of New Scientist that I'd put in there the week before, and said, ‘It's that bloody Aeolus, isn't it? Not satisfied with bundling us all up in a bag and giving us to that idiot Odysseus, he's been chasing us round ever since, trying to get us back under control. He's the god of air, you see, that's how he's able to take over the radio. Airwaves. He wants you to drive me out, then he can chase me back to that bloody cave. I mean, it's not the bloody Hilton in here, but it's better than a bloody cave.’ She unscrewed the bottle top and took a mouthful of sherry. ‘The libations are a damn sight better too.’

  I noticed, without paying attention, that while we were talking, the draughts dropped a bit; but when she started to get angry about Aeolus, half a gale blew out of the cupboard.

  ‘I brought some more to read,’ I said hastily, handing in a bag of miscellaneous Radio Times, free newspapers and Big Issues. She looked somewhat disparaging.

  ‘They'll do for the time being,’ she said. ‘I realise no-one's going to come and recite to a lute in here...
’

  I asked her, ‘Why is Aeolus talking to me? I mean, if he can't persuade you to go back to the cave, what can I do? By the way, I mislaid a new toothbrush this morning.’

  ‘He has no shame. If he hasn't persuaded the imps back in, he probably stole it himself. Maybe he's promised them theocratic immunity. He can't force me out, you know. But if I leave, well, where would I go? It's not so easy to find somewhere to be inconspicuous in London these days. Property prices are so high, everyone's making use of every inch of space. Finding another cupboard no-one opens from one week's end to the next is almost impossible. Ten to one I'd end up in the bloody cave.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, the way you do when you have no clue.

  She poured some cooking sherry into the gin glass. ‘Well?’ she said, ‘Are you going to let me stay? You can't let that autocratic son of a demi-god drag me back – can you?’

  ‘Er... Well... I... Uh... The phone's ringing, I'd better answer it.’ I fled downstairs, feeling cornered. I hate being appealed to.

  The phone call was Danny. ‘Hi sweet,’ he said, ‘how's the icebox?’ Diplomatic, is Danny.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘I've been talking to the draught.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Never mind. How are you doing?’

  ‘Oh fine, things are great. Just thought I'd see how you were, wondered if you were doing anything tonight?’

  ‘Uh. Well, nothing really.’

  ‘Fancy going to the pictures? I, ah ... I thought you might like to see the new Star Trek movie. If you haven't seen it.’

  ‘No, I haven't. Yeah, that'd be good.’ Well, I did want to see it; and I also wanted to know what Danny's motive was in asking me so we arranged to meet at the cinema.

  I went back upstairs, but the cupboard door was shut, and I left it that way.

  Danny's motive turned out to be nothing unexpected: he was feeling lonely, and missing regular sex, and his default setting was still to ring me up. He wasn't any more inclined to move in, although he was willing to brave the draughts for a bit of nookie. On the way home, I realised that he was still hunky and probably still good in bed, but that I couldn't be bothered. I started to say goodnight, and he got pathetic on me, and tried to pretend he really missed me, and all that, and I got irritated.

  I said, ‘Look, if you want to come in for a shag, say so. Don't make out it's going to be romantic when it isn't, all right?’ I like to know where I am with things.

  Instead of telling the truth, he chose to take offence, and stomped off. I was mostly glad, but between sexual tension and anger I was too wound up to sleep, so I put the radio on. I was just starting to relax, when Aeolus' voice interrupted the Rachmaninov. ‘Well, you see how things are now. Do you want it to go on?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes.’ I was irritated again now. ‘Why is this so important to you? I mean, it's been a ridiculously long time, why can't you just let it go?’

  ‘Time is nothing to the gods. Let it go? I'm the god of winds. How can I have any credibility if I have no winds to be god of? You mortals simply have no idea.’

  ‘Have the rest come back? Are all the others in the cave? Why is Aura so important?’

  There was a certain amount of silence, then the voice said rather stiffly, ‘Boreas came back. Zephyrus … is thinking about it.’

  ‘So who's in the cave at the moment?’

  Silence.

  ‘No-one, right?’

  Abruptly the Rachmaninov began again.

  It was infuriating. On the one hand, I would really like a draught free house. On the other hand, hounding someone out of a cupboard I didn't use much felt rather mean; and Aeolus was getting on my nerves. I felt also massively indignant at being involved in this absurd quarrel; all I'd done was live in a house with a cupboard.

  The Rach stopped again; ‘All you have to do is tell her to leave. Tell her. Then it's no longer your problem.’ This time he was replaced by Bach which continued until I fell asleep; my dilemma still circling around in my mind.

  Over the next three days, I left the radio off and stayed away from the cupboard, and two mugs, six pens, a box of biscuits and the steam iron disappeared. On the third day I bought a new bottle of gin; and once the evening came I turned the radio on, and said, ‘Look, this isn't funny. You have no right to hide my things, or promise the imps theocratic immunity. You're causing me far more trouble than she is. I will not be bullied.’ The Chopin played on uninterrupted. I gave it half an hour, then went to the landing with the gin.

  I opened the door; Aura was sitting on the floor, leaning against a side wall, playing patience with an old pack of cards advertising Woodbines. I offered her the gin, and she narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘That's a nice thing to say. I didn't have a libation. I only managed to get to Tesco's this afternoon.’

  ‘Hm. Very well.’ She poured herself a large measure, and graciously offered me back the bottle; I took a small tot in a glass I'd brought with me, and said, ‘If I agree to let you stay here, is there anything you can do about the imps?’

  ‘Hmph. There might be.’

  ‘Because at the moment I've got the worst of both worlds, imps and draughts.’

  She sniffed in answer.

  ‘Aeolus says all I've got to do is tell you to go. He says then I'd have no more problem. Is that right?’

  ‘You don't want to trust him, you know.’

  I took that as a yes. I said, ‘I don't. But then, can I trust you?’

  ‘Well. Possibly.’

  ‘Because if I can, I've got a proposition.’

  She cocked a haughty eyebrow. ‘A proposition?’

  ‘Yes. Why not? If you can get rid of the imps, then you can stay. If you can stop … gusting in the evenings and weekends. Blow all you like while I'm at work, and I'll bring you libations. How about it?’

  She drank more gin, and stared thoughtfully into the glass, then gazed out of the door. Suddenly she stiffened, and my head swung round to see what has caught her attention: six biros and three odd socks were whizzing past us on the landing, an inch or two above the floor.

  ‘No shame!’ she shouted, ‘no shame at all! He'll do anything! Promise them immunity, will he? We'll see about that,’ and a gale blew out of the cupboard, nearly knocking me over, and blowing the socks and two of the biros on to the floor. The rest of the biros scurried off into the spare room.

  I realised I'd left the radio on in my bedroom; the cultured, rather superior voice of Aeolus boomed out, ‘I will not tolerate insubordination!’

  ‘Insubordination! Who do you think you are, Zeus? You gave us away, you know. You handed us over, and when that sailor let us out, that made us free breezes! You don't have any right to press me back to that bloody cave!’ She glanced at me, and said, ‘Lie down, or hold on to something.’

  It was the sort of tone you don't disobey. I lay down on the carpet and held on to the stair-post.

  The blast that followed must have been quite high on the Beaufort scale. I was pressed against the bannister rail, with no chance of moving, and bombarded by random small objects, as a storm of tiny, angry voices swept past. I shut my eyes and tensed. After some time, the hail of small objects diminished, the voices were silent, and gradually the wind dropped, and everything became unnaturally still. When I was sure it wasn't going to start again, I relaxed, let go of the stair-post and cautiously stood up.

  The house was not, as I'd expected, turned upside down. A lot of small things were out of place, but the furniture was still standing, and nothing was broken. I looked into the cupboard: Aura was very pale, and looked as if she were asleep. I pulled the door to and tiptoed away into the bedroom, where the radio was ominously silent. I turned it off and unplugged it. I would have to sleep without it.

  In the morning, the tooth brush, the mugs, the biscuits, and the iron were sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, beside a heap of pens, pencils, socks, and some notebooks and envelopes I hadn't missed. Since then
, not so much as a paper-clip has mysteriously vanished. The house is draught-free at evenings and weekends, except that sometimes in the summer, if it's hot, a delightful cool breeze might drift through. Once a week I buy a bottle of libation for Aura; sometimes I leave it in the cupboard, sometimes we drink it together. I've taken up a couple of chairs. Danny hasn't rung, and I'm OK with that. The only annoyance is that I have to listen to the radio on the computer – if I turn the set on, every wavelength is full of an angry silence.

  Blood*uckers

  By Chico Kidd

  Thirteen years ago, I was a rookie beat cop, green as an Irish pub on St Paddy’s Day. I was at the ass-end of the food chain, so guess who drew all the shit jobs. Fact is I didn’t really mind too much. They say the real reason so many Weres are drawn to law enforcement is we still want to run in a pack. Though if you ask me I think it’s just ’cause we like chasing stuff. Lunch, bad guys, whatever. Yeah, I’m grinning like a crazy just thinking that.

  So, that day it was like a hundred and two degrees in the shade. You coulda fried an egg on the sidewalk. You know; if you fancied a quick death from cholera. I’d gotten roped in for the grunt work, securing a crime scene. Deploy the yellow tape, clear away the rubberneckers and the journos, and don’t fuck with the detectives or barf on the DB.

  Back then we had a sergeant called Stu Stevens, and he was a fat bigoted old asshole who made no secret of his opinion that I needed to be restrained to stop me snacking on the vic. Lucky for me the LT, Tomas Romescu, was a bit more savvy about Weres and decided to treat my sense of smell as an asset to the department. Said sense of smell did tend to find ripe corpses tempting, but I prefer a burger.

  It was Stevens who showed up first, which meant that the day officially sucked. He ignored me, which made it slightly better, but I couldn’t ignore him. Crap.

  ‘Sarge!’ I called to his fat sweating back. Which was rank. Would not fancy sinking fang into that.