“I think so. I don’t come from your world Usher. But I’m glad to have you as a tour guide.”
She fixed his gaze and they stayed like that for a moment, letting the feelings register. Their fingers still touched a little. Usher was unsure if it was more awkward to leave them or move them. He felt his heart hammer. Gina suddenly perked up.
“You know what I want?”
“What do you want?”
“Ribeye steak, medium rare, proper fries, and a slice of cheesecake. And a beer. Buy me that soldier-boy, and then let’s prep for my interview from hell tomorrow. Maybe teach me a few of those killer martial arts moves you do.”
Usher grinned at her.
“You know it’s a researcher’s role, it’s like an admin position? You’re not going to be fighting anything.”
“Do I get a gun?”
“You’ll get a stapler. Fully automatic.”
“Not even an itsy-bitsy gun?”
“Hey, I’ve seen you with a shotgun remember, you’re a stone cold monster killer. I know that. You saved my life.”
“Looks like you owe me a steak then.”
Usher looked up to attract the attention of their disinterested waitress when something caught his attention.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and he wasn’t sure why.
A controlled steady release of adrenaline filtered into his blood and for the briefest moment his pupils flickered red. He looked around the diner.
A fashionable couple of tourists in the next booth were counting out small change for a tip, bickering over it in what sounded like Italian.
A large flat screen television on the wall above the bar played 1950’s American rock and roll.
A waiter flamboyantly holding a skillet of sizzling fajitas, spitting fat and tangy smoke was weaving amongst the customers at the bar.
A small balding middle aged man in a beige raincoat had just entered and was being approached by a smiling hostess.
The barman wearing Buddy Holly spectacles was performing some flair with a cocktail shaker as a group of Hen-Night girls in faux wedding attire drunkenly giggled at his charms.
A large family was getting their coats on ready to leave their table, birthday balloons tied to each chair.
Usher’s eyes flicked back to the new arrival. The little man with the comb-over and the crumpled raincoat.
“Gina.”
Gina’s fingers automatically tightened on his as she saw him become a soldier.
“What’s wrong?”
“Not sure yet. I can feel Unseelie but I don’t see anything yet. Apart from…”
Gina scanned the restaurant as subtly as she could. Usher flicked his head towards the door.
“..Apart from him.”
Gina’s cherry lips smiled incredulously.
“The little fat guy with the male pattern baldness issues?”
Usher felt a rush of blood to his head. He put his hands on the Formica table to steady himself. There was a thrumming in his brain, a low pulse of energy that drowned out his thoughts.
Gina put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.
“Thom, what’s wrong?”
Usher slowed his breathing but the thrum remained as a steadily building headache.
“I don’t know. Some blast of thaumaturgy. I don’t usually sense these things. Christ it was like a voice.”
“Usher your eyes.”
Usher flicked his eyes to the window and in the reflection saw that his irises had become blood red with the Feral residue that coursed in his veins.
It’s like the magic in my blood knows I’m in danger. But from what? I’m in a restaurant for Christ’s sake.
“You don’t hear that Gina? It’s like the way the bass in a nightclub vibrates through you.”
Gina shook her head, her face a mask of concern but her lips tightening in determination. “I can’t hear anything Thom. But it’s clear that you can. What do you need me to do?”
The sounds in the restaurant began to become a cacophony of white noise. Usher struggled to make out Gina’s words. The light seemed to change, become dim like gauze thrown over the room.
Usher looked up and his heart fluttered.
Every single person in the diner had turned to face him and was staring blankly into his eyes. The just sat there, slack jawed, forks half held up to their drooling mouths, and stared. Slowly each of them raised a limp arm and pointed in his direction. There they froze. Usher looked in front of him and across the table Gina had become insubstantial. She was a fuzzy and inconstant form like a badly tuned television station. Usher could see she was trying to talk to him but he realized that it was he who was no longer entirely in the restaurant. Some part of him, the part of his consciousness riddled with thaumaturgy, had offset to another place one degree removed. The place of portent and prophecy.
What the Hell? Did somebody Mickey my drink?
Usher looked up to the big flat screen television above the bar and noticed that the rock band that had been playing was coming to the end of their song. Except it was not the same band he remembered. The singer and drummer were some kind of heavy metal trolls, tusks protruding from their lower jaws, bright Mohawks flapping as the creatures pecked the air. The saxophonist was a fire and rock Djinn and every time he blew his instrument the hot cracks in his skin glowed like a fire shot with bellows.
So this is what it feels like to be Keith Richards.
Usher was pretty sure he recognized the bassist.
What the hell kind of rock band is this?
The bassist unslung his guitar and peeled a bandana from his sweaty head. The little guitarist walked forward, closer and closer to the camera, and then tapped the glass screen of the television. He scanned the restaurant and then smiled down at Usher.
“Hi Thom.”
Usher stared up at the television with wide eyes. He glanced around the room to check on the state of reality but everyone else was still frozen in moronic place, pointing at him.
Ok Thom you might be losing your mind but just roll with it.
“Uh…hi.”
Gina was gesturing to him, her perfect red nails flickering in and out of existence but the volume was turned down. The only other person moving in the entire restaurant was the downtrodden little middle aged man. He was scanning the room, piggy eyes peering through his thick rimmed glasses, looking for something.
Or someone.
The little man walked in a ridiculously slow exaggerated way through the frozen public, like a child doing an astronaut’s moonwalk. Usher thought the man ridiculous but also realized that he was walking slowly, inch by inch, towards him.
He looked back up at the television screen on the wall. The man inside it was rubbing his sleeve in little circles on the other side of the glass to remove a smudge.
“Nope I think it’s on your side Thom.”
Usher squinted up at the face he knew.
“…Ariel?”
Dr Ariel Speedman licked a tissue and proceeded to wipe off the remains of his rock- band eyeliner.
“You know this man-scara is actually quite cool. Although not how I expected your subconscious to fill in the blanks. You’re a lot more rock than I imagined Thom. Is that smudge gone?”
Usher peered foolishly at the screen.
“Yes. Yes it has.”
“I thought it was your side.”
Despite his confused state Usher felt a wash of relief flow through him.
“You’re alive?”
The Ariel on the screen glanced over his shoulder into some indistinct darkness as if he had heard a sudden noise.
“For now.”
Usher tried to find his senses but it was like thinking whilst half asleep.
“Is this happening? Is this real or have I cracked?”
“It’s happening Thom, in a sense. Your brain is interpreting it in ways you can understand. Part imagination part reality, an interconnected phased event presented as archetypes and dream
logic.”
Usher shrugged.
“I’m just a door-kicker remember.”
“We’re in the spirit-world Thom.”
Why didn’t I think of that? Why didn’t I just pick the weirdest thing I could come up with a go with that?
“I see. Ariel what the hell happened at Marksley Willows? We’ve been turning the country upside down trying to track you.”
“There’s no time for that now Thom. You’re in danger.”
“What kind of danger?”
Ariel flicked his head over towards the restaurant foyer.
“See him?”
Usher followed his gaze to the strange little man who was still walking towards him in slow motion.
“Yes.”
“He’s here to kill you.”
“Kill me? Him? What is he?”
“I think he’s a clerk in an insurance company.”
“I don’t remember us being at war with them.”
“We aren’t. By the looks of those inky peepers of his, he’s under Anansi’s spell. It’s the Black Sleep. Form of Unseelie possession. Not seen it in years. Often used for unwitting assassins.”
Usher glanced again at the little man. He had the purple cheeks of high blood pressure and his sad eyes were magnified by his coke-bottle glasses.
“Well there’s a lot happening this side pal. The Unseelie are cropping up all over the place. It’s like something is powering them, rallying them.”
Usher looked over at the little man. He was still doing his cartoon sneak through the restaurant towards him. Despite how absurd it was, it was very unsettling. Usher frowned and tried not to look. He looked up to the television at his missing friend.
We need you here Ariel, not trapped alone on the other side. We need your brain. And I need my friend.
“It’s Her, Thom. Lilith. She gives them strength. The Unseelie are rising.”
“I don’t know how to stop her Ariel.”
“You need to go back to Marksley Willows.”
Usher shook his head.
“They sent a team Ariel. They found nothing. Now they won’t let us near it while it’s still burning.”
“There’s something there Thom. An artefact. Something that can hurt her.”
“What is it?”
“It’s called the First Knife. I don’t know how it got there but if you can find a way to dispel the magic that shields her, it can hurt her Thom.”
“I’ll get there.”
Ariel flickered off and then back again. His signal was getting weaker.
Usher was acutely aware of the little fat man in his peripheral vision, now only a few tables away. His gaze was drawn to him but Usher was reluctant to look in his piggy eyes. He already knew that he would see madness there. He forced himself to look back up at the screen.
“Can we really stop her?”
“Didn’t you tell me once, that the Empire Teams only start to work once everyone else has lost hope?”
“I did. I might have been drunk when I said it.”
“You probably were. I have to go Thom. They’re hunting me.”
Usher tried to stand but it was like moving through treacle. He reached a hand up towards his missing friend.
“Ariel I swore I’d keep you safe and protect you.”
Ariel’s image began to flicker and sparkling interference snowed upon the television screen.
“Thom.”
“Yes pal?”
“It’s nice to see you on a date.”
“I...It’s not a...”
“Thom.”
“Yes?”
“You need to move fast. He’s here.”
The volume suddenly rose to a deafening cacophony of screams and shattering glassware. Usher woke up as if from a deep sleep and his senses switched on to overdrive. Gina was shaking him and her eyes were full of focussed fear.
“Thom wake up. You need to move fast!”
Usher shook his head free of dreams and tried to stand but he was lightheaded and disoriented.
His eyes began to focus on the restaurant. People were running screaming to and fro in front of him, overturning tables and shielding themselves with their arms. Through them strode the fat balding little man and in his hands he held a fire-axe. With a speed and strength hard to imagine being contained in his saggy frame he was swinging it in wide arcs. A waiter stood frozen in fear holding up a menu like a shield. The axe swung through the laminate menu and sunk into his stomach with a dull thunk! The waiter looked down at it with shocked eyes then gazed up at his attacker.
“I’m...there’s an axe…”
The little man wedged a grey loafer into the waiter’s pelvis and thrust his leg out, dislodging the axe and sending the mortally wounded young man crashing into a chair. His sweaty jowls quivered with effort as he resumed focus on his real target. He grinned at Usher, foaming spit dripping from his chin.
“I’m…I’m living the dream.”
He stood there frozen for a moment, panting like a dog. Usher was crouched half up from his chair, gathering the spring in his legs. He fixed the little man’s gaze and could see the madness boiling in it. The eyes were filmed over with black.
“Good for you.”
Usher grabbed Gina’s wrist and dragged her out of the booth.
“Move, get behind me!”
Usher pulled her sharply across the tiled floor as the axe whistled down to lodge in the table. The little man made a comical show of trying to dislodge it, his black tongue sticking absurdly from the corner of his mouth.
Usher peered at the dark slug that protruded from their attacker’s lips, dripping ink.
He saw that whatever was once the unassuming outer shell of this creature was now taken over by some venom that had corrupted him from the inside out. He gritted his teeth and clenched a fist.
After all the things I’ve fought, I’m not getting killed by this fat guy!
Usher swivelled his hips and delivered a vicious right cross to the Dreamer’s jaw. The little man’s head snapped back, his jowls slapping out like a bloodhound’s and sending a spray of blood and spittle across the room.
A punch like that from someone with Usher’s skills would have switched most opponents off for good. The Dreamer fell to his knees but held on to the axe. His head was held back at a horrific angle, the neck clearly broken. A purple bruise had already begun to swell up around his throat. To Usher’s horror the gargle that issued from his throat morphed into a hysterical peel of laughter. Through his twisted vocal chords he spoke.
“Umm…Lijjing…da…dweam.”
Gina stood behind Usher, a look of disbelief on her face. She grabbed Usher’s hand and pulled. “Usher come on, we need to go. Hurry.”
Usher stared down at the creature, breathing hard. He reached out to put the poor wretch out of his misery when suddenly a hand shot out and clamped onto his wrist with a grip so strong that it made him wince. The Dreamer’s eyes rolled downwards in his jutting head and regarded Usher with glee. Like a televangelist he bellowed out.
“I’M LIVING THE DREAM!”
The pudgy man threw Usher across the room. He crashed over the bar, spilling drinks and smashing plates and then landing in a heap on the sticky rubberised floor.
Usher tried to get up but he was badly winded and disoriented. He heard the axe being dislodged from the table and attempted to struggle to his feet. Suddenly Gina was at his side helping him up.
“Usher move he’s coming.”
Usher disconnected from the pain in his back and rose to his feet, grabbing a bottle of Bourbon on the way. He glanced sidelong at Gina. He could see she was scared but he also could not help noticing that she ran to help him rather than run away.
“How you feel this is going?”
Gina looked at him in disbelief.
“The date?”
“Yeah.”
She shrugged.
“Six out of ten so far.”
Usher winced at the pain in his kne
es as he tried to rise but he managed to nod.
“I can work with that.”
The Dreamer leapt up onto the bar like an ape, drool dripping steadily from his chin. His head was still at a horrific angle. Usher smashed the Bourbon on the bar and its brown contents splashed over the Dreamer’s raincoat. With his other hand Usher flicked his lighter up and the little man went up like a bonfire.
Usher and Gina stepped back and shielded their faces as the little man danced and twirled on the bar, howling and laughing as his clothes burned. Usher grabbed Gina and dragged her out from behind the bar. They ran towards the shattered window next to their booth. Outside the rain was pouring down and a terrified but curious crowd was starting to gather.
“This way, we need to get outside.”
Something hot and cooked hurtled over their heads. To Usher’s amazement the Unseelie has somersaulted through the air and landed poised on the table in front of them, blocking their escape. He crouched there sizzling, his face blackened and blistering. Grinning at them. In his charred fingers he still held the axe.
Usher braced himself for the fight.
Suddenly the Dreamer’s head exploded in a spray of pink mist. His body tottered there on the table for a few moments then collapsed onto the floor in a heap. The terrified clientele of the restaurant screamed and cowered even further behind their chairs.
Usher stared at the decapitated body and then upwards to the broken window behind it. In the window frame stood a very large man with a smoking shotgun propped over his shoulder. He struck a match on the wall and ignited the cigar stub gripped between his lips.
“Sorry to interrupt your date, boss. Got a call from Greystone. There’s been a sighting of Spring Heeled Jack. Ol’ Punch has shown his face In East London.”
Usher let himself lean on the table next to him, breathing hard and trying to ease the shakes in his fingers. He smiled over a Gina apologetically.
“I am so sorry, this is not how I planned tonight to go at all.”
Gina just shifted her gaze from the headless corpse, across the wreckage of the restaurant and then up to the huge Viking puffing his cigar in the window frame.
“Really? This wasn’t your ideal vision of tonight?”
Usher put a hand on her arm and then gathered himself and staggered over to his teammate Brock.
“It’s uh…not a date Brock.”
The Last Line Series One Page 60