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

by Matthew Stott

  ‘So, we were… I was, I mean, split in two?’

  ‘But you kept the body. What they did, what she did, it was supposed to kill us. Instead it did this.’

  ‘So you possessed Myers just to get close to me?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been inside of her since long before you ever met. For years, after what happened, after we were torn apart, I drifted. Barely sentient. More an idea than a reality. But bit by bit, I forced myself back into being. They underestimated me. The sort of power I possess. My iron will. You cannot simply scrub me from existence. I am Janto of the Cumbrian Coven, destined to walk across this small world as the Magic Eater.’

  The old me was a bit of a big head, that much was clear.

  ‘But why Myers?’ I asked. ‘What did she do to deserve this?’

  ‘I needed a body. I couldn’t just drift in and out of this plane of existence, not if I wanted to come back. To really come back. You have no idea what it takes to carry on existing in this state, blown around by the Uncanny winds. Slipping between planes of existence. But I persevered. I refused to fade. And then I met Detective Maya Myers, radiating fury, pain, strength, crouched by the body of her murdered partner. She was a beacon, shining bright, guiding me to her. So I homed in on her. I homed in and I took her.’

  I thought about what Detective Martins had said when he’d found me at Myers’ home.

  ‘She did ask for a transfer up here,’ I said. ‘She wasn’t pushed here to get her out of the way. You made her come here.’

  Janto chuckled. ‘It seems as though not all of the intelligence was knocked out of you.’

  I was trying not to focus too much on the strange notion that I was, essentially, having a conversation with myself. But this was all very bloody weird. ‘You’ve made my friend do horrible things,’ I said.

  ‘Necessary things. I needed to feed. And I did. Deliciously. On fear. On the possibility of a life cut short. On flesh and blood and sinew. Each new death making me stronger. Making me more real. And Eva was correct, that meal from the Dark Lakes, I could not let that pass me by. Could not wait. But I was still not strong enough to tackle the creature head on.’

  ‘So you took my hand,’ I said. ‘That’s why you did that, why I felt like I did for those few moments.’

  ‘For a few heartbeats, we had access to our full potential. Access to enough magic to take the creature down, ready to eat. And now, I am ready to reclaim what’s mine. To take the throne that was promised me.’

  Janto sat bolt upright, the bonds that had held Maya’s body in place melting away, turned to water.

  I darted for the door, only for it to slam shut in front of me.

  ‘Where are you going, Joe?’ asked Janto.

  I twisted the handle desperately, yanking at the door, but it stayed stubbornly shut.

  ‘I think I left the gas on,’ I said. ‘Safety first.’

  ‘Look what she made of us. A chattering fool.’

  ‘But we still have lovely hair.’

  I gasped as I was yanked from my feet and sent flying across the room as if attached to a giant elastic band. I crashed against the wall and slammed heavily to the floor.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ said Janto, stepping from the bed, hands glowing with power.

  ‘You don’t really want to hurt me,’ I said, ‘we’re not the self-destructive type!’

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you, Joe.’

  ‘Oh, good, thanks.’

  ‘I’m just going to take my body back. For good.’

  ‘Right, not so good.’

  ‘A decade of drifting, of barely existing. I’ve been so patient. I had to grow. Had to gather the power to reclaim you, without Eva pulling me back out. And now, thanks to that feast from the Dark Lakes, I am ready.’

  Janto reached out to me, and I scrabbled backwards until my shoulders met the wall.

  ‘Don’t be scared. This is good. Look what she did to us, that lowly bitch familiar. Look at what she did to us. Look how we’ve had to hide inside a lowly human body.’

  ‘But what’ll happen to me? To Joseph Lake?’

  ‘There is no Joseph Lake. You made him up. There will only be me.’

  ‘If it’s all the same to you then, I don’t think I really want you back in here. I’ve not heard the most pleasant of stories.’

  I stood slowly, pulling the magic that swam around the coven into me.

  Janto smiled, amused. ‘You really think you can take me on, Joe? You can barely create a little ball of fire. You’re pathetic. She made you pathetic.’

  ‘That’s good, because hurting you hurts my friend, and she’ll get really pissed off if I ruin that leather jacket of hers.’

  Janto smiled. ‘Then what are you doing?’

  ‘This, you dick.’

  I grunted and swept my hands across him, managing to pull enough power into me to shove Janto out of my path. I didn’t pause. I sprinted for the still-locked door, conjuring a fireball that I tossed in its direction. The fire smashed through the door, sending wooden splinters firing, and out I went.

  I ran from Myers, from Janto, from the Coven, leapt behind the wheel of the Uncanny Wagon, and got the mother-shitting fuck away from there.

  19

  I drove, my heart going like the clappers, my eyes on the rearview more than the windshield. I expected to see Myers, to see Janto, surging after me to reclaim his body.

  I drove aimlessly, not knowing where to turn. I tried phoning Eva, but wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer. I kept replaying that look she’d had in her eyes when she realised who it was that had taken over Myers. The look in her eyes when she said my real name.

  The Red Woman had told me that something was coming. That she didn’t have to trick me into taking my throne, that I would be taking it soon enough without her assistance. And now the part of me that wanted that throne was back, and wanted his body back too. Wanted to be complete again.

  The Red Woman may not have known what it was she was sensing, what was causing ripples to spread across the lake, but she had felt Janto’s return.

  My return.

  I had no doubt that when I was complete again, when Janto got his body back, that I would walk into the Dark Lakes and fulfil my destiny.

  I’d take the throne that sat on top of the blood red hill.

  I’d become the Magic Eater.

  I’d lead an army of the dead into this world.

  It was all a bit grim really, and yet I couldn’t see any way around it. Especially not with Eva playing hide and seek.

  No Eva, no Myers for backup, just me against me. And there was only going to be one victor in that unpleasant tussle.

  I needed to hole up somewhere for a while and try to think, try to bolt together something that I could fool my daft old brain into thinking was a viable plan. But where could I go? Janto knew all of the places I might head to, and those he didn’t, Myers did.

  I couldn’t go home, couldn’t go to the hospital, couldn’t go to the coven. I needed somewhere that felt safe. Some place I wouldn’t have to look over my shoulder for a little bit.

  And then the answer popped into my head. It was obvious where I had to go.

  I made a not entirely safe three-point turn in the middle of the road, drawing a chorus of enraged car horns. And I headed to the pub.

  Mickey Finn’s.

  Of course.

  The Keswick pub, secreted down a blind alley, that served the area’s Uncanny types. The place stood within a magic-dampening bubble, so if Janto did steer Myers’ body there in the hope of carrying on our fight, I would at least be standing on a more level playing field.

  Sure, he could just beat the crap out of me physically instead of magically and then drag me outside, away from the effects of the bubble, but this was the best option on offer, so I parked up, legged it down the blind alley, and breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped inside and pressing my back against the door.

  I headed for the bar, glancing around the pla
ce to make sure Janto wasn’t already here, waiting to get the drop on me.

  ‘Your Fox friend is barred,’ said Grunt, the giant bar man.

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘He hit one of my best customers with an axe.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Could I get a pint, please?’

  Grunt went about pulling the required. ‘She’s been waiting for you over there,’ he said, as he slid the glass over to me.

  ‘What? Who? Myers?’ I whirled to find a figure slumped across a table in a corner booth.

  It was Eva. Great minds and all that.

  I paid, picked up my glass, then walked across the pub to sit on the free side of the booth.

  ‘Look at this,’ I said. ‘Disaster strikes and we both head straight for the pub.’

  Eva sat up, almost knocking over the many empty pots littering the table. She’d clearly made herself busy since running out on me.

  ‘Is it still you?’ she asked. I didn’t like the fact that she didn’t put “idiot” at the end of her sentence. It made me feel uncomfortable.

  ‘I’m afraid so. Just Joseph Lake in here,’ I said, tapping my noggin.

  Eva reached over and took my drink, gulping it down in one.

  ‘Could’ve used your assistance back there, though.’

  Eva slammed the glass down and lunged across the table, grabbing me by the shirt and yanking me forward.

  ‘You have no idea!’ she roared. ‘You have no fucking idea!’ Her eyes practically burned through me.

  ‘You know my shirt collar is digging into me a little.’

  Eva hissed with derision and pushed me away. ‘Oi, Grunt, another round for me,’ she said waving her hand.

  ‘Maybe you’ve had enough to drink?’ I suggested.

  ‘Never. Never enough… not since then.’

  ‘Since when?’

  Her eyes momentarily met mine, then darted away. It seemed to me like she looked, well, ashamed.

  Grunt arrived with a pint and a bottle of whiskey with one glass. Eva pushed the glass away and drank from the bottle.

  ‘Okay, what’s going on?’ I said.

  Eva laughed.

  ‘No, I want to know. What’s up with you? Myers, our friend, is possessed by the bad side of me and you just run away?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘She’s our friend, Eva. It doesn’t matter who’s controlling her. She’s our friend.’

  ‘It matters when it’s him.’ She lifted the bottle to her lips again, but I reached across the table and pulled it out of her hands. ‘Give me that bottle back.’

  ‘We need to come up with a plan.’

  ‘Give me. That bottle. Back.’

  I poured the contents on the floor. ‘Since when were you the coward out of the two of us?’ I said.

  Before I knew what was happening, I was on the floor and I could taste blood in my mouth. I pressed a hand to my jaw and looked up in shock as Eva slid out of the booth and stood over me.

  ‘You just hit me…’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, and now I’m going to kick you.’

  Eva took a step and kicked me in the ribs. I rolled onto my back, gasping for air.

  ‘The things you made me do. Look what you did to me. Look what you made of me!’

  Another boot to the side. I cried out in pain and scrabbled backwards until my back met the bar. I think I heard Grunt say something about taking it outside, but he wasn’t going to step in. No one in this place would risk getting in Eva’s way.

  ‘Eva, stop. Stop, please. It’s me, it’s Joseph!’

  ‘You made me do it. I didn’t have a choice. You made me!’

  I held my hands up, ready for another kick, another punch. ‘Eva; Eva, please, it wasn’t me. Whatever he made you do, whatever Janto did to you, it wasn’t me.’

  She lunged at me, pulling me to my feet by my coat collar, fist raised. I closed my eyes, helpless, ready to feel her knuckles make mush of my cheek, but the punch never came.

  I opened my eyes. Eva was crying. Great, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. I think that hurt more than the kick in the ribs.

  She let me go and slumped onto a bar stool. Tentatively, I pulled the stool next to me out and sat.

  ‘I never told you the truth,’ she said. ‘Not all of it, anyway. Why should I? Why did you deserve it?’

  I didn’t say anything, I just waited for her to tell me in her own time.

  ‘It was Lyna who noticed something was wrong with Janto first. She told me even before she told Melodia. He was always the darker one of the witches. Always the one who had to be tempered. Had to be stopped from going too far. From being too black and white. Too fucking brutal. But he was one of them. One of the trio. Fuck, he was one of the people that gave me life in the first place and I loved… I loved him with every part of me, just like I loved the others.’

  I’d never heard Eva talk like this. So clear and direct, but honest. Emotional. Was this what she’d been like before the coven fell?

  ‘Lyna suspected something was up, had me keep an eye on him. It was me who saw him talk to the Red Woman first, though it wasn’t the first time he’d spoken to her, as it turned out. Lyna and Melodia, they thought they could pull him back from the brink. He made them believe they could. But he was lying. He was just biding his time until he was ready to take them out.’

  ‘And they destroyed themselves trying to kill him. Trying to kill me.’

  And yet, in the end, they hadn’t killed him at all. They’d given their life, and it hadn’t mattered one bit.

  ‘No. They didn’t destroy themselves. Not exactly.’

  ‘What?’

  Eva looked at me directly in the eyes. ‘I killed them.’

  The pub seemed to tilt, like the whole world was drunk and queasy and was trying to throw me to the ground.

  ‘I don’t… I don’t understand. I attacked them, and they killed themselves in the fallout of trying to kill me. That’s what happened, that’s what you said happened. And then I woke up next to Derwentwater. That’s what happened.’

  Eva shook her head.

  ‘They tried. They thought they could. It was two against one, but they’d waited too long. They tried to help him, to believe his lies, long enough for him to gain enough power from the Dark Lakes that he was a match for them both. No, more than a match. But Melodia… she was always one for a back-up plan. She knew if they failed that the Magic Eater would walk the earth. So she handed me a spell. A sort of doomsday scenario spell that she and Lyna created. They fought inside the coven. Janto, he had them on their knees. They were done. So I did what I had to. What they told me to do. I detonated the spell. I saw his face the moment before the spell unleashed itself. The confusion. Betrayal. I killed the witches of the Cumbrian Coven. All three died, because I made it happen. And it turns out it was for nothing. I killed my creators for nothing.’

  And there it was.

  The whole thing at last.

  I hadn’t killed my fellow witches at all. Not exactly. A spell they’d created had done the damage, and it was Eva who’d cast it. I didn’t know how to feel about that. It didn’t make any difference to what I’d been back then. I was still the witch gone bad, ready to become a beast. I’d still caused it all.

  ‘Eva...’

  ‘Forget it.’

  She stood and straightened her coat, drying her eyes with her sleeve.

  ‘You should have told me,’ I said. ‘Why did you carry that on your own?’

  Eva didn’t answer, she just walked away. I knew without asking that she didn’t want me to follow.

  ‘But what about him?’ I called after her. ‘What about Janto?’

  ‘I’m leaving the lakes. For good this time. Fuck trying to be a hero all the time. It doesn’t suit me. It never did.’

  Eva grabbed a bottle from another patron’s hand.

  And then she was gone.

  20

  I slumped back into the booth I’d recently been punc
hed out of and helped myself to the pint Eva had abandoned. Eva leaving perfectly good alcohol behind. Now I knew things were serious. I chuckled to myself, but I didn’t feel jolly at all.

  Oh, was I ever royally screwed.

  Eva was gone and what did that leave? Just me. The weak half of a witch with only a smidge more magical ability than a Las Vegas stage magician. Actually, that was overselling myself a bit; I had no idea how to do the sawing a woman in half bit, never mind card tricks.

  Despite my current, bad situation, all I could think about was Eva. About how she’d carried around that secret for so long. That she’d been forced to kill her own creators. They’d told her too, but I don’t suppose that made the act or the aftermath any easier to take. One look at Eva in all the time I’d known her told me it didn’t.

  Eva was a drunk, a drug addict, a don’t-give-a-fuck mess. That’s what my turning to the Dark Lakes had done to her. No wonder she’d warned me that if she ever saw me near that place, she’d kill me. It’s incredible she ever came back to Cumbria at all, really. Ever told me what I was, ever started to train me up again.

  For ten years she’d stayed away, but something in her, something she couldn’t numb with denial or drink, had pulled her back to this place, and back to me.

  I don’t think I could have done what she did. And I don’t think, if I had, that I could ever have come back, or ever trusted again.

  I winced and held my ribs, hoping that Eva’s boot hadn’t cracked one.

  So what now? That was the question. If I really was on my own, then I needed to try and formulate some plan of attack that made a virtue of my limited knowledge, skills, and magical abilities.

  I mulled this as I sipped at my pint. And I came up with nothing. Actually, nothing would have been a start.

  My phone rang and I pulled it out of my coat, hoping against hope to see Eva’s name. I’d answer and she’d tell me, ‘Fuck it, let’s get our friend back, even if it kills us.’ But it wasn’t Eva’s name I saw, it was Annie’s.