The Red Woman shook her head sadly. ‘It pains me that Eva feels the need to keep you so in the dark. You are one of three witches that looked over this county. Now why would she keep that information from you, Magic Eater?’
It was a fair question.
‘Maybe she has good reason not to tell me.’
‘What sort of a reason?’ asked the Red Woman, her hand trailing lightly across my chest.
‘You know, a… good one. Sort of thing.’
‘Ah, now it’s all clear,’ said the Red Woman, pulling me close and planting a kiss on my lips. ‘I never lie to you.’
‘Okay,’ I squeaked.
‘I only want the best for you. Only want you to reach your full, glorious potential. Destiny is waiting for you, Magic Eater. I am waiting for you.’
I blinked and I was alone.
It’s fair to say that the rest of the journey to work found me deep in troubled thought.
Three witches.
Was that true? And if so, why wouldn’t Eva have told me? Perhaps the other witches were like family. I deserved to know about family. I’d often wondered about siblings, about who my parents really were. Perhaps this was it. I was a warlock, and these other two mystery coven members were what passed for my family.
I confess to feeling a little burble of excitement in my stomach. Warlock told me what I did, but other people, family, that would tell me who I was.
‘You’re ten minutes late,’ said Big Marge as the automatic doors hissed closed behind me and I strode towards her reception area, brow creased, hands plunged deep into the pockets of my long coat. ‘It looks like you’ve got a load on your mind, Joe.’
‘A thing or two rattling around upstairs, yeah.’
‘You’re not built for deep thought, you’re built for cleaning up shit. And lucky you, there’s a fresh batch waiting for you on the third floor Ladies.’
With a heavy sigh, I headed for my locker to change into my work things, only to have Chloe push open the reception area’s double doors as I was about to push my way out.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Yes, oh, sorry, did I hit you with the door?’
‘A bit, but that’s okay.’
‘Good.’
‘Yep. Good.’
It felt like awkward had given birth to twins.
‘About last night...’ I started.
‘That’s okay, Joe.’
‘No, it’s not, I was just, all messed up, you know. From the murder! And I was in a pub, and I think my drink was spiked. Someone definitely spiked my drink. I think.’
‘Okay. So that’s why all the...’
‘Crazy faces and witch talk.’
‘And the talking fox. It was a talking fox, yes?’
‘Mentioned that, did I?’
‘Yes you did.’
‘Right. Bloody... spiked drink..’
I could practically see the tension escaping from Chloe’s body. I hated lying to her, but the truth would scare her silly, so a lie would have to do for the time being.
‘I should’ve known,’ she replied. ‘I am a doctor, I should have rationalised how weird you were acting.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘Yeah, you always act a bit weird.’
‘Ouch, but valid.’
‘But not like that. You really had things turned up to eleven.’
She laughed and touched my arm and suddenly any guilt at having lied to her skipped out of my brain to be replaced by a cloud of chirping love birds. So it was a pity that the moment had to be broken by a terrified Doctor Neil half-running, half-falling towards us down the corridor, his face even paler than usual. And his usual face was almost Casper-white.
‘Neil, what is it?’ asked Chloe.
‘They’re dead. They’re all dead!’
Like I say; moment broken.
28
There’s nothing unusual about death in a hospital. People pop their clogs almost every day around these places, and it’s always sad.
But it’s not every day someone is murdered in a hospital.
And murdered by people with octopus arms? I’d say the odds on that one would be so long you’d end up taking home the GDP of the entire northern hemisphere.
I’m not trying to encourage anyone to gamble here, fyi. Unless you’re onto a sure thing of course.
We took the stairs two at a time, Chloe ahead, me behind. She was nippy, that’s for sure.
We heard the room Doctor Neil had made his grim discovery in before we actually reached it. A high-pitched, electronic whine sliced down the corridor towards us. We both knew what that sound was. Multiple heart monitors flat-lining.
We burst into the small ward that currently housed six people. It now housed six corpses, with nurses milling round, some trying to help, others just looking in blank shock.
‘Oh my God,’ said Chloe, stopping so sharply that I almost ran into the back of her. Instead I swerved at the last moment and stepped on something damp that caused my foot to slip and send me crashing to the floor.
Blood.
Around each of the deceased patients beds were those same occult symbols, painted in their own blood. The soul vampires had paid the hospital another visit.
Chloe ran between the beds, obviously overwhelmed at what she was seeing, frantically looking for any signs of life, trying to help the nurses in attendance. It was no use, they were all dead.
I could sense the creatures in the room. They’d gone, but that magic scent that had so infected Oldstone was present. It itched at my skin and made me want to blow my nose.
Eva had been right, these things were stepping up their game. Six people in one go? And inside a room that was so public? They clearly had no fear. They no longer felt the need to stalk vulnerable people through empty streets in the dead of night, or hide in the back seats of cars to lurch out and surprise. Anyone, anywhere, was in danger.
My heart bounced angrily against my rib cage as a thought landed—
‘Mary...’
I ran from the room, desperate to be wrong, desperate that the protection that had been put in place by Detective Myers had made the things think twice. Or maybe they’d just forgotten about her. Surely one victim was as good as another?
I received my grim answer as I turned the corner to find both of the officers who had been left to protect Mary Tyler slumped on the floor, windpipes torn out.
‘Mary!’
No thought for my own safety, no time to allow fear to infect me, I leapt over the deceased officers and shoulder-barged the door to Mary Tyler’s private room open.
The sight waiting for me was something I’ll never forget.
Blood was daubed in thick strokes around the bed, but there was something different to the symbols painted, something unlike the other ones I’d seen. The word that sprang to mind when I saw them was active. An impossible black “light” was leaking from the occult symbols like smoke, accompanied by a low hum.
Stood around the bed were three of the octopus-limbed creatures. Soul vampires. And for the first time I was getting to see what that really meant.
On the bed there were two Marys. One was physical. A body, eyes still open, rolled back so that only the whites were on show. Her windpipe hung from the tear in her throat, glistening with fresh, wet scarlet.
The second Mary was floating just above her corpse. A ghost. An apparition. Mary Tyler’s soul. She thrashed, her semi-transparent form twisting and spasming, clearly in horrific torment as the three creatures began to feast on her soul.
It was too late for me to do anything, though what I would have done if it hadn’t been, I still don’t know. In her final moments, Mary Tyler opened her eyes and saw me. My mouth flapped dumbly, words failing to appear, as she reached towards me, imploring me to do something, to do anything.
I did nothing.
And then, with a sudden, piercing scream that made me tremble, she was gone. Multiple octopus limbs wrapping around her pulling a piece
free for themselves to gorge on.
Mary Tyler was dead.
Her soul feasted upon.
‘Bastards!’ I yelled, my fury overriding any sense of personal danger. I’d saved Mary from these wankers twice, and it still hadn’t been enough. Police protection hadn’t been enough. They’d marked her and they’d taken her. I hadn’t really saved her, I’d just delayed the inevitable. Made them work a little harder for their supper.
They turned to me, their huge, unblinking yellow eyes bulging from their sockets as though on some sort of high from swallowing the essence of Mary Tyler.
‘You stupid, dumb, ugly, fucking bastards!’
They opened their beaks and screeched at me, each taking a step forward. It was at this point a little clarity worked its way through the haze of anger, and I realised I was in very, very, huge and immediate danger.
I wanted to attack them, wanted to wreak immediate, terrible revenge for what they had done to Mary. To the other six dead bodies down the corridor. To Detective Sam Samm. To Mrs Coates. To all of them.
Eva claimed I was a warlock, and considering all I’d experienced recently, I thought she was very likely telling the truth. She’d said we were the people who stood against things like this. The monsters. The mythical, the monstrous, the unbelievable. The things that you wake from as light filters through your curtains, content in the knowledge that such awful things could only exist in nightmares.
I was the thing that protected them from the horrible truth.
And I had no idea how I’d done it.
No idea how to do magic, how to utilise whatever powers I apparently had. Oh, I’d had flashes of my ability, in Mrs Coates’ house, for example; but I had no clue how to manifest such abilities when I actually needed them.
As the creatures stalked towards me, I was hopeful of something just happening. And quickly.
‘Jesus Christ…’
I turned to find Chloe stumbling into the room behind me, staring at the monstrous creatures, their limbs weaving, beaks chittering. I saw her eyes, so disbelieving, so huge, they almost put the octopus men’s dilated peepers to shame.
‘Chloe, no, get out—’
‘Oh.’ said Doctor Neil stood between the two bodies of the police officers, looking past me at the monsters.
I grabbed Chloe and tried to bundle the both of us out the room, but the door slammed shut. Some invisible hand had thrown it closed to prevent our escape. I turned the handle, shook it, pulled desperately, but the door refused to budge. The creatures had somehow locked the thing and cut off our escape.
‘Neil? Neil! Help me with the door!’
‘This can’t be happening, can’t be, this isn’t real,’ stammered Chloe.
I could feel her retreating into herself, not able to cope with this sudden incursion into how she thought the world to be. ‘Chloe, stay with me, I need you to be able to—’
A limb wrapped around my waist and the room streaked and twirled as I span through the air and crashed against the far wall, the floor catching me and knocking the wind from my lungs.
I reached out, tried to call Chloe’s name, but only a dry rasp escaped my throat.
‘Joe!’
The creatures loomed over Chloe as she slid down the wall, hands up protectively, uselessly.
Gulping down air, I pushed myself to my feet unsteadily.
‘Get your filthy octopus limbs away from her!’
I felt a crackle in the air, as though something in the room were flowing towards me. To fill me. It felt almost like I was some sort of computer game character who had just levelled up. I felt sharper. Stronger. Focussed.
I had no idea what I was doing. Not really. But some instinctive part of my brain did. It had done this a thousand times before. It didn’t need me to know, because my inner self knew. The part of me that had lain dormant for ten long years.
‘Leave her alone!’
I clapped my hands together and the room shook, my hands erupting in flames.
One of the creatures broke from the pack and ran towards me. I punched out a fist and the flames exploded from me, catching the creature in the side and sending it smashing straight through the window and landing with an audible, painful-sounding crash in the car park outside.
I’d done that.
Me.
Joseph Lake.
Toilet cleaner and cat-catcher extraordinaire.
I had made fire surge from my fists and knock a monster clean through a window. And because I was suddenly so aware of that fact, it was as though I lost a grip on whatever it was I was doing, and the fire I was emanating spluttered and died.
‘No, come on,’ I shook my hands, clapped them together, willed flames to appear, but it was no use. Lucky for me, it seemed my demonstration had convinced the remaining creatures that it might be time to make themselves scarce.
Unlucky for me, they decided to take Chloe along for the trip.
Before I could attempt to do anything, one of the creatures wrapped a limb around the bed and tossed it in my direction, as the other grabbed the screaming Chloe, then all three disappeared through the broken window and after their fallen comrade.
29
Ordinarily speaking, I’m not the sort of person who drops out of a second storey window. I respect stairs. That’s the way to get from one level to another as far as I’m concerned. On this occasion, though, three octopus monsters had abducted Chloe, and I was fairly certain that taking the conventional route and letting them get away with her would result in my friend ending up dead as a dead thing.
So there I was, casting a fearful eye at the distance I was about to drop, my hands starting to ache.
‘Joe! Please!’
And with those two words, any uncertainty evaporated. I let go, the hospital’s outer wall streaking past me before the ground met the soles of my feet and my ankles made their complaints loud and clear.
This was no time for pain though. For hobbling around, or curling up in a foetal position and tenderly patting down any sore area to see if bones were jutting through the flesh, white and angry.
No time for that.
No time for me.
The creatures had Chloe, whose eyes were still on me, reaching out imploringly.
‘Chloe! I’m coming!’
I ran-hobbled after the three creatures, who were rapidly making their escape through the almost-empty car park spaces at the back of the hospital.
If I lost sight of them, that was that. I knew it. What reason would they have to keep Chloe alive? Either I somehow rescued her, right here, right now, or Chloe was good as done for. Her throat ripped out, her soul shredded and feasted upon by these beaky fucks.
But what could I do? I wished Eva was with me. She actually knew how to wield her magic with purpose, it wasn’t an unconscious bubbling up that she couldn’t control. I remembered her fist bursting through the skull of one of the soul vampires, and sorely wished I’d asked her just how the hell she’d managed to do it.
‘Hey, where are you going?’ I yelled as I ran after them. ‘There’s three of you and one of me! Don’t you want a snack for the road?’
The creatures paused and turned to look at me, a sharp hissing sound escaping their beaks. Maybe I’d just given them an idea.
‘Come on flamey hands,’ I said, shaking my fists, willing them to hurry up and get magical already, but they stubbornly refused to unleash even a faint spark.
‘Oh shit,’ seemed a reasonable response as one of the three octopus-limbed creatures broke from the pack and charged towards me, using its extra arms to give it extra propulsion, its beak wide and screeching.
I had no clue as to what to do, so, screaming like a loon, I put my head down and ran right at the thing. A second or two later I stopped tumbling painfully across the car park surface and lay blinking up at the sky in a daze. Despite my state of “about to be killed-ness,” I found time to notice that one of the clouds above me was shaped like a horse. Strange, the things you notice
when death is almost upon you.
I pushed myself up, ready to dodge out of the way, only for the creature to descend on me, its limbs like the bars of a cage, slamming down all around me to block my escape.
‘You probably don’t want to taste my soul,’ I stammered, ‘I think it’s gone off.’
The beast threw back its head, beak stretched wide, and let loose a bowel-loosening scream as it prepared to tear out my windpipe.
My life did not flash before my eyes.
Instead, I thought about Chloe, and how I’d failed her. I was going to die, which means she was, too. I hoped they wouldn’t hurt her too much.
The creature’s noise ceased and I prepared for the strike, eyes tightly shut, body a hard nugget, only to open an eye when the expected deadly attack didn’t come. The creature was no longer looking at me, it was looking over its shoulder.
It was at this point that a car engine registered.
I peered past the bulk of the creature to see a vehicle hurtling at speed towards us. One way or the other, it seemed the world was determined to put an end to me today.
As the soul vampire lifted some of its limbs, I seized the moment, kicking out with a scream and a swear word, before rolling over and over until a parked car brought my journey to a stop. I looked up just in time to see the speeding car strike the soul vampire square, and carry the thing—its limbs thrashing furiously at the vehicle’s bonnet—straight into a wall.
Wham.
The car reversed, and the creature flopped forward, its torso partially crushed, the yellow shine in its eyes weakening. The car idled as if to savour the moment, savour the knowledge that the creature knew what was about to happen and there was nothing it could do about it. Then the back wheels spun, the creature screamed, the car lurched forward again. The soul vampire reached out defensively with its many limbs, and then the car struck, metal crushed, and the beast screamed its last.
I climbed to my feet, searching for the remaining creatures, for Chloe, but neither were anywhere to be seen. I ran in the direction they’d been heading, but there was no sign of them. They couldn’t have escaped in such a short space of time. They should still be in sight.
Dark Lakes, Volume One: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (A Dark Lakes Collection Book 1) Page 13