Dark Lakes, Volume One: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (A Dark Lakes Collection Book 1)

by Matthew Stott

  ‘Chloe! Chloe, where are you?’

  Silence.

  She was gone.

  Whatever trick the creatures had pulled to hide from view, I was too late. They may have lost one of their number, but they had their prey. They had Chloe. Which meant she was dead. Which meant her soul would soon be eaten and there would be nothing left of her but a rotting carcass.

  Then a thought struck.

  Stupid warlock.

  Stupid, stupid warlock!

  I’d already done this a few times, maybe I could do it again!

  I turned and ran towards the dead soul vampire to find the driver stood looking down at its squished corpse. It was Detective Maya Myers, no doubt answering the call Big Marge would have put through when Doctor Neil stumbled, ashen, into reception.

  ‘One of the things I never anticipated when I started this job,’ she said, ‘was all the damn monsters.’

  I fell to my knees and laid my hands on the thing, its blood soaking through my trousers, which was disgusting, obviously.

  ‘I’m pretty sure it’s dead,’ said Maya.

  ‘Yes, I know, but that’s okay, I did this with a dead cat already.’

  ‘Did what?’

  I closed my eyes, thought about Chloe, about where she could be, and grabbed hold of the dead creature.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Please show me. Show me something!’

  I pushed, I grabbed, I hugged, I even clenched at the pile of spilled intestines, grunting in frustration as I tried to will the darkened corners of my mind to just shine a little light. But it was no good, I wasn’t getting a thing.

  ‘Mr Lake, what the hell are you doing?’

  Distracted, angry, I looked up at Maya’s confused face. ‘I want to make the dead thing show me its home—’

  The world was whipped away and—

  A road. There is a road. Hills. Grass. Walls. Home is close. New home. New home that we have moved to. Bring her back here. Bring her back here. Bring her back here—

  I gasped and fell backwards, the connection broken, Maya looking down at me.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  I laughed, and leapt to my feet, cradling her face in my hands. ‘You distracted me! Thank you!’

  ‘You’re welcome. Now get those gore-soaked hands off my face before I knee you in the crotch.’

  ‘Yes, right, sorry!’

  I wiped my gory hands against my coat, then immediately regretted doing so. Hopefully monster goo comes out in the wash.

  ‘You were driving the car,’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You could have hit me!’

  ‘That was a risk I was willing to take.’

  ‘Good to know.’

  I had a place. An image of an area. It might just have been a road, some scenery, but it was something. It was hope. And right then, that was all I needed to convince myself that I might be able to find Chloe before the creatures murdered her. It was something to hang onto.

  I turned to run for the Uncanny Wagon, only for Maya to grab me by the arm and throw me back against her totalled car. She was, it came as no surprise to find out, really quite strong.

  ‘I have questions,’ she said.

  ‘There’s no time! They have Chloe, and if we don’t find her very, very, very fast, they will kill her. So either help me, or get out of my way!’

  I half expected Maya to stop me. Instead, she looked at the dead soul vampire, looked at her smashed car, then looked back to me and nodded: ‘Let’s go monster hunting.’

  30

  It was only once we were in the car and speeding south out of Carlisle towards the Lake District, that what Maya had said actually filtered through.

  ‘Wait, monsters. You know about monsters?’

  ‘I would think that was obvious. The question is, how do you know about monsters?’

  I ignored the question. ‘How do you know about monsters?’

  ‘I asked first.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I’m also the police.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘So answer my question.’

  ‘Okay. Well, it turns out that secret past of mine involved being a warlock. A male witch. Magic. Fighting weird stuff and generally protecting the public from freaky supernatural turds.’

  Maya nodded slowly. ‘You’re a witch?’

  ‘I know, I can’t say the knowledge sits too comfortably with me either. Now go on, your turn.’

  Maya bowed her head and began to toy at the hem of her leather jacket.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘My partner.’

  ‘Detective Samm?’

  ‘No. My partner before that, in London. Her name was Allie Sanders. We were investigating a drug ring operating out of Hammersmith. We thought we’d tracked down the head of the operation, went to investigate. Got split up. I heard her screaming and when I found her, she’d been torn apart by… by something I can’t even describe. Something that couldn’t be real. And… I ran.’

  Maya’s voice was cracking, it was the first time I’d ever seen her being vulnerable, her armour slipping.

  ‘Go on,’ I urged.

  ‘I filed a report. They thought I was crazy, of course. Monsters don’t exist. I went to find proof, bumped into a lot of scary shit. Once I’d seen one it was like the truth was everywhere. Monsters live among us. But I couldn’t make my superiors hear me. They made me go to a psychiatrist. Eventually, I pretended it had all been a mini-breakdown caused by Allie’s death and they transferred me up here. Out of the way. Out of their hair.’

  I wasn’t sure what to say by way of response, so I patted her leg.

  ‘Do I look like the family dog?’

  ‘Um. No.’

  ‘Then don’t pet me again or I will break that hand clean off and beat you unconscious with it.’

  ‘Righto. Sorry about your partner. Both partners.’

  ‘Two dead partners, both murdered by things that can’t exist. Maybe death is stalking me.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ came a voice from behind us. ‘Death is a well known stalker.’

  I yelled, twisted the wheel, and yelled again as a truck thundered past, swerving just in time so as not to turn us into a leaky, crushed can.

  I glared at Eva in the rear view mirror. ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘Ah, well, geographically, organically, or metaphorically?’

  ‘My car! Why are you in my car?’

  ‘Oh, I came to find you. Couldn’t find you. Broke in here and took a kip on the back seat.’

  That was it, after the octopus monster and now this, I was going to make a habit of giving my back seat a mighty thorough once-over before setting off for a drive again.

  ‘You were not in the back seat, no one was in the back seat.’

  ‘You’re not too bright these days, are you?’ She waved her hands around. ‘I’m magic, love.’

  ‘Who is this?’ Maya asked.

  ‘Difficult question,’ I replied.

  ‘I’ll take a simple answer.’

  ‘Who am I? Is that what the bird in blue just said?’

  ‘Yes, who are you?’

  Eva snorted. ‘We met the other day, bit of a short memory there, love. A bit of a worry that Cumbria’s finest have memories like goldfish.’’

  ‘I can assure you, I have never met you before in my life.’

  Eva looked at Maya like she was insane, then realisation dawned. ‘Oh. Oh! Sorry, that’s right, my mistake. We did meet, but I had a different face on. Not your fault, love, my hands are up on that one.’

  ‘Different face? Did she just say she had a different face on?’

  ‘It’s… tricky to explain.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Eva. ‘Piece of piss to explain. I’m magic. He’s magic. You’re not magic, though somehow you’re really pulling off those sensible trousers. Where did you get those anyway? And where are we going? I’m up for pizza.’
/>   ‘They took Chloe,’ I said. ‘Those soul vampire things, they killed a bunch of people at the hospital and they took a friend of mine and I need to find her before they... well, do things I don’t want to think about.’

  ‘Right,’ said Eva. ‘She’s probably already dead.’

  ‘Not helping!’ I said, turning almost fully around, before Maya shoved my back.

  ‘Hey, driving, remember?’

  ‘Right. Yes. Sorry, Detective.’

  ‘So what happened?’ asked Eva.

  ‘Does it matter?’ I replied. ‘Those things killed people and kidnapped Chloe, and Detective Myers appeared and squashed one dead with her car, and now I’m trying to find out where they’ve disappeared to, which is really very difficult with you two nattering on.’

  There was a brief, strained silence.

  ‘You squashed one with your car?’ asked Eva.

  Maya nodded.

  ‘Rammed into the thing twice. It died screaming.’

  ‘Christ. That is cold-blooded. I like you. You’re now my favourite person. Wait, no, second favourite, I’m still number one in my eyes. Drink?’

  Eva pulled a can of cheap lager from her coat pocket and offered it over. Maya stared at it for a few seconds, then shrugged and took it, settling back to suck the can dry. ‘I know I’m on duty, but monsters.’

  ‘I’m not judging,’ I replied.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Eva. ‘Just drive aimlessly? We still don’t know where these arm-heavy bastards have moved on to. I traipsed all over the place, even got a replacement canary-cat, couldn’t find a sniff for buggery.’

  ‘I know where they are.’

  ‘Well, then why don’t you lead with that?’

  ‘I mean, I sort of know. I don’t know where it is exactly but I know where they are.’

  ‘Does he always talk in riddles?’ asked Maya, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve.

  ‘He’s an idiot and a twat, you’ll soon come to realise that.’

  ‘Ladies, you’re going to make me get a big head here.’

  ‘Just get on with it, idiot.’

  ‘I touched one of them. The dead one. The squished horribly one. And used my, you know, magic warlock man-witch powers somehow. Not entirely sure how. But it showed me a few images, a few thoughts. It showed me where they were, it’s just, I’m not entirely sure where that was as it just looked like, you know—’ I gestured at the countryside spread out around us. ‘It all looks kind of the same.’

  ‘Oi, racist,’ replied Eva.

  ‘What? How? I… what?’

  ‘Do you have another drink?’ asked Myers. ‘This one was only about ten-percent full.’

  Eva produced a full can from somewhere and handed it over. ‘So, you have the image. You have the place. Now, use your powers to hone in on it.’

  ‘How exactly?’

  ‘How did you see the images in the first place?’

  ‘I don’t know how, it’s just whenever I’m distracted, whenever I’m not really purposefully trying, it just happens. If I come at the thing head on, I get nothing. If I don’t think about it, if I keep it sort of just to the side of my conscious mind, the muscle memory takes over and gets on with it.’

  I slammed my foot on the brakes and the car screeched to a halt. Eva tumbled into the footwell and Myers spilled her can down herself.

  ‘What’s with the emergency stop?’ she asked, pissed off.

  ‘I don’t know, it’s like my foot took over for a moment.’

  ‘I know,’ said Eva as she scrambled back up into a sitting position. ‘We distracted you.’

  ‘What do… oh…’

  I looked out to where we’d ended up. I recognised it. ‘Oh!’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Eva. ‘This ain’t my first rodeo, love.’

  We were there. We were at the soul vampires’ lair.

  31

  I stepped out of the Uncanny Wagon and turned in a circle, taking in my surroundings in wide-eyed surprise.

  ‘This is it! This is what I saw, this place! I did it!’

  ‘Alright,’ said Eva, shambling out of the back of the car, ‘I was the one that did most of the distracting. And on purpose, I might add. I’m due the credit. Also, have yourself one of these—’ She waved a middle finger at me.

  ‘Can we please get past the strange, abusive aggression, Eva? We’re meant to be comrades, right?’

  Eva snorted, then as Maya joined us, snatched the can of lager back from her, downed it, belched, and tossed the empty receptacle into a bush.

  ‘That’s public littering,’ said Maya. ‘I could have you for that.’

  ‘Just try it,’ replied Eva, ‘I fancy a bit of girl-on-girl.’

  There it was again… that tingling sensation itching its way across my skin. The same feeling I’d noticed in Oldstone, but, if anything, even stronger.

  ‘This is it. This is definitely the place.’

  Chloe was somewhere near. I’d gotten there as fast as I could, my only hope was that they were still full up from all the food back at the hospital and maybe, just maybe, they’d shoved Chloe into the soul vampire pantry to snack on later. I thought that extraordinarily unlikely, but I had to hold onto something.

  ‘Okay,’ said Maya. ‘Forgive me being non-magic and everything, but it looks to me like we’re just stood in the middle of nowhere. All I see is a dirt road, fields and hills. There’s nothing here. No house, no building, no secret monster hideout. Where exactly are we supposed to be?’

  Before anyone could reply, the ground shook, a giant octopus tentacle burst from under the road, wrapped itself around a still pretty nonchalant-looking Eva, and dragged her beneath the ground.

  ‘Shit!’ I cried. ‘Oh, Jesus-crapping-shit!’

  ‘I hear that,’ replied Detective Maya Myers. ‘That was… a big monster.’

  ‘Very big monster.’

  Detective Myers nodded.

  I edged tentatively towards the fissure that had been created in the dirt road. ‘Eva?’

  A fresh opening led down at an angle into the dark.

  ‘That seems unlikely,’ said Maya.

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Why hasn’t that collapsed in on itself? The giant octopus arm has left behind a perfect tunnel for anyone stupid enough to want to explore.’

  ‘Yes. Ah. A trap, perhaps?’

  ‘Seems likely.’

  ‘Still. That’s where they must be. Where Eva now is. Where, presumably, Chloe is.’ A hopefully not-dead Chloe. ‘They’re in some sort of cavern, or cave system, underneath our feet. So…’

  ‘You’re not serious.’

  ‘I really, really wish I wasn’t.’

  ‘If you go down there, you’re almost certainly dead. Did you see the size of that limb? That thing must be ten times as big as the one that lost a fight with my car. Twenty times the size even! And you’re going to crawl down into its conveniently created tunnel, right onto its home turf?’

  ‘Believe me, I know how stupid this is. I have, for much of the last ten years, been very comfortable in my cowardice, but I am from the Cumbrian Coven, and I think I’m starting to understand what that means.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything! I’m an officer of the law. We should get back-up.’

  ‘You do that, see if they believe you. Meanwhile, Chloe is down there, so I’m going to walk—well, crawl—right into their trap and see what sort of trouble I can get into.’

  Maya threw her hands up, then walked away. Then back. Then away again.

  ‘Stay and call for backup,’ I said. ‘You don’t need to risk yourself too. Those are my friends down there, not yours.’

  Maya sighed, her head hanging limp for a moment. ‘Fine, but if I die down there, like I probably will, I am going to kick your arse.’

  ‘Fair enough. Shall we then?’

  I peered into the tunnel, down into the fathomless black, then had a quick think back to the happy days of a week ago when I had no clue who
I was and that monsters were actually real. You don’t know how good you’ve got it until you’re crawling into the underground lair of an octopus-limbed nightmare that wants to eat your soul.

  And down we went.

  With the way partially illuminated by the light from Maya’s phone, we crawled for what seemed like hours, but was actually closer to three or four minutes.

  This was—I think it’s fair to say without risking my image of staunch macho-ness—really poop-your-pants terrifying. The only thing that pushed me on was the knowledge that Chloe was down there somewhere, and if she was still alive, she’d more than likely have given up. There was no way she would expect help to appear. She was underground, hidden away in a monster’s lair, waiting for the end. There was certainly no way she’d expect someone as daft as me to show up, but I was a-coming, and I was prepared to take whatever happened, as long as I went down knowing I’d done everything I could to help her.

  ‘I take it you really like this Chloe then?’ asked Maya, shuffling down behind me.

  I shrugged. ‘She’s okay,’ I said, cool as a cucumber. A cucumber with really nice hair. Which would be disgusting. Scratch that, I’m not eating a hairy cucumber. Also, scratch that, as it’s just put another image in my mind.

  Then all thoughts of salad—hairy or not—slipped from my mind as my hand met nothing and I tumbled out of the end of the tunnel and hit the dirt several feet below.

  ‘Ow.’

  Maya stepped on me as she climbed down.

  ‘That’s another ow.’

  I stood, brushing off the worst of the loose muck from my clothes.

  ‘Shouldn’t it be a lot darker down here?’ asked Maya, turning off the light from her phone and pocketing it. ‘It should be pitch black.’

  ‘That’ll be my doing,’ said Eva, causing me and Maya to jump and make high-pitched noises.

  ‘You’re okay!’ I said.

  ‘Always am, love. After getting dragged down here, I bit the fucker and it let go. No one likes getting bit, you know. Not even tentacle monsters.’

  ‘So you’re doing the illumination?’ asked Maya.

  ‘You better believe it, sugar tits.’

  ‘Do not call me that.’

  Eva gave a little salute. ‘Understood, twinkle tush.’