Turned: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (Branded Book 2)

by David Bussell

  Oh shit, I was punning again. Definitely time to go.

  ‘I’ve gotta shoot,’ I said, pushing away the last of my pint.

  ‘Already?’

  ‘Yeah. Got some Nightstalking to do, you know how it is.’ I tottered from my stool.

  ‘Oh, okay then,’ he replied, hangdog. ‘When will I see you again?’

  ‘I dunno. Around. Here and there. Thanks for the beers anyway.’

  ‘Any time,’ he said, helping me into my coat like the kind of gentleman they don’t make anymore.

  Before I could get off, Lauden produced something from his wallet. ‘Take this. It has my home address on it.’

  ‘A calling card? Jesus, you really do belong to another century.’

  He gave me a smile. ‘If you ever need to talk, now you know where I am. Just call me, Abbey, night or day.’

  I took the card off him, nodded, and left before I did anything I regretted. Before I threw caution to the wind and let that handsome bastard ride me with his boots on.

  17

  The air outside was raw and lacerating.

  I pulled up the collar of my jacket and headed for home. Not that the gas tower felt much like home. No matter how long I spent there, I was never going to get used to sharing a toothbrush holder with a couple of angels, especially since I was becoming increasingly wary of them. Why had they been excommunicated? Was it like Vizael said: that they’d been marooned on Earth as a punishment for failing to kill Judas back in the middle ages? Or was there more to it than that? The more I got to know Viz and Gen, the more flaws I detected, the more cracks I saw in their polished facades. And I’d only known them a few days. What would I know about them a week from now? In the short time I’d been running their errands I’d been left with a permanent scar, watched a baby die, seen a man murdered in front of my eyes, had my boyfriend turned into a vampire, and been almost killed more times than I could count. If these were angels, I sure as shit didn’t want to meet any demons.

  The orchestra of urban life played its eerie song as I trudged on through the streets of Ealing: the wail of a police siren, an argument bleeding from an open window, the distant, thrumming bass of a car stereo. The booze had given the evening a fuzzy, slippery filter, making me melancholic, making me think of Neil, making me think of Lauden.

  I cut down a railway siding and headed up a foot bridge to cross the train tracks. I weaved as I climbed, my mind elsewhere, ignorant of the dangers I’d be warned about, forgetting the role I’d been lumbered with. Overhead, a row of lamps lit the way across the bridge, casting sallow pools of yellow so weak as to be pointless. I wouldn’t even have noticed them if they hadn’t begun to flicker.

  Then sputter out.

  When the lights came back on I saw a figure at the other end of the bridge, barring my way. An ivory-skinned woman with plank-straight raven hair was standing there, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, not unlike mine. Her vibe was a bit more conventional though. A bit more proper.

  I stopped where I was and got a better look at her, sizing her up. She was athletic-looking, dynamic and trim. The kind of flat-bellied bitch you see leading a spin class, or laughing at a salad in an advert for a thirty-day cleanse. How was it that vampires always looked so damned healthy? From the very first bloodsucker I’d laid eyes on to the one blocking my path right now, pretty much every bastard one of them could have been an underwear model. Lauden’s claim that vampires weren’t really dead had never seemed so true.

  ‘Are you going to let me by?’ I asked.

  ‘That depends,’ said the woman, lips pursed. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘How about I make it my business?’

  ‘Fucking hell, who writes your dialogue, Dan Brown?’

  The woman raised a fist and it exploded, strobing with orange light, spitting sparks like something from an Eighties hair metal video. I caught an overpowering smell of ozone and realised that my hairdo had gone frizzy with static. Well, frizzier.

  The woman took a step towards me, hand still burning, firing off molten arcs. Vampire magic. I’d seen it before. Not this kind exactly, but other impossible powers. Par for the course with these arseholes.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have time for banter,’ said the woman, taking another step in my direction.

  ‘Me neither,’ I replied, pulling my dagger from its sheath.

  She laughed. ‘You’re going to fight me, is that it? What are you, ninety pounds under that pile of cobwebs you call an outfit?’

  Yeah, we were definitely done with the banter.

  The brand spiked my system, turning my blood into hot lava. I charged at her, my blade swinging back and forth as I ran, a reaper’s scythe.

  I didn’t make it very far.

  The woman threw out her fist and unleashed a surge of I-don’t-know-what that smacked into me, swept me sideways, and almost deposited me on the train tracks thirty feet below. Thankfully, I was able to dart out a hand and grab a guardrail just in time, saving me from the fall. I hauled myself back on to the bridge.

  ‘Right, now I’m proper pissed off.’

  I gave the dagger a flick and the blade extended to the side of a sword. The woman gave a little nod of appreciation then said some words I didn’t understand that made the ball of angry surrounding her fist double in size. The blue glow of my brand was all but washed out by her dazzling light. I suddenly realised what it must feel like to be a guy stood at a urinal next to Jon Hamm.

  Regardless, I rushed the woman again, one arm shielding my eyes from her epilepsy-inducing light show, the other swinging my blade in a big, cleaving arc. The woman’s fist came to the boil and discharged a bolt of yellow fury, but I dodged this one and slashed her across the torso with my sword. She pulled back just in time to stop me doing any real damage, but I could tell from the look on her face that I’d taken her by surprise.

  The woman looked down at the slash in her leather jacket, then back up to me, lip curled. ‘You’d better be my size, girl, because I’m having that coat of yours.’

  She threw her arms out to her sides and a thick, crackling band of energy wrapped around each of her fists, as though she’d slipped on a pair of magical knuckle dusters. This bitch meant business.

  I swung my sword back like I was clearing brush with a machete, then struck out at her. She deflected the blow with her fist, her knuckles meeting my blade with a shuddering clang that fired off another sizzling rain of sparks. I fought back, the brand fuelling me, making me strong, making me electric. The two of us went toe-to-toe, weapons clashing, fighting back and forth across the bridge like a couple of fencers, gaining ground, losing ground, tearing up the piste.

  I saw sweat beading on the woman’s forehead and poured on blow after blow, sapping her strength, wearing her down. I carried on applying pressure, forcing her to the furthest reach of the bridge, keeping her on the back foot. Another step and she’d trip up and go tumbling down the stairs on the other side. Just one more step.

  ‘Enough!’ she cried, and clapped her hands together.

  A deafening shockwave knocked me off my feet and sent me skidding along the footbridge, right back to where I started. My ears rang from the blast and multi-coloured splotches danced before my eyes. I tried to get up but it felt like someone had snuck into my gut and moved my centre of gravity two feet to the right.

  ‘Stay down,’ the woman ordered, as I staggered about like a drunk at her ex-boyfriend’s wedding.

  Sensing that I wasn’t going to give up, the woman decided to take the option away from me. Hooking a hand on to each of the bridge’s handrails, she directed a charge of magical electricity through the overpass that travelled through my feet, locked my knees rigid, and sent me keeling over backwards.

  This woman had zero chill.

  I lay on the floor, groaning, feeling as though I’d been dragged down ten miles of dirt track.

  The woman loomed over me. ‘You know, you fight well for a
young one.’

  I forced a reply through a mouth that felt stuffed full of cotton. ‘You're not exactly Betty White yourself, mate.’

  ‘I'm older than I look.’

  ‘You vampires always are.’

  The woman tilted her head to one side. ‘You think I'm a vampire?’

  ‘Of course I bloody do.’

  ‘Oh. I thought you were a vampire.’

  ‘What are you telling me? If you're not a vamp, what the hell are you?’

  ‘A familiar.’

  I thought back to the scientist with the UV tattoo who Gen stabbed. ‘You mean one of those Renfields who lap-dog for the Clan?’

  ‘No. I’m Stella Familiar of the London Coven. Now, what is it you want with me?’

  18

  Okay, so chances are you sussed that one out before I did, but I’m willing to bet you weren’t half-drunk and fighting for your life when you did. At least I hope you weren’t.

  Stella led me to her home in Hammersmith so we could have a proper sit down and chat.

  ‘It’s through there,’ she said.

  She steered me down a side street that terminated in a dead end, then pointed to a patch of brick wall decorated by a couple of old fly posters advertising a Russian Circus that had long since rolled out of town. Another blind alley, I bet. A solid wall, impenetrable to anyone who didn’t know it was there, just like the one that screened off The Beehive. Another reminder that reality was just a thin skim of ice over a deep lake of dark water.

  I took a step towards it.

  ‘Careful,’ warned Stella.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I assured her, head held high, ‘this isn’t my first blind alley.’

  My nose went squish as I walked it into a solid brick wall.

  Stella made a noise like she’d just watched someone come off a skateboard in the most painful and humiliating way. ‘A little to the side,’ she suggested.

  ‘Yeah I sort of worked that out.’

  I rubbed my nose and took a crab-step to the right. Following her guidance I walked at the wall again, and this time I passed right through.

  On the other side of the fissure was a black wooden door. Stella performed some hocus pocus to open it up, and after that, we were in.

  The coven was different to how I imagined it. It didn’t stink of joss sticks. There was no black cat weaving about the place. To me, it looked like a fairly ordinary home, at least until we arrived in the building’s main room and I saw the rows of dusty tomes and a chalk pentagram scrawled on to a big grey slate on the floor.

  ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ I said, trying to put a positive spin on the decor. ‘Roomy.’

  The coven was a long way from cozy. In many ways, it reminded me of my own place, only with even less cheer. My flat might have been basic and a bit tatty around the edges—okay, very tatty—but it was a home at least. There was love there. Creature comforts. Evidence of a life shared.

  Stella ceded the room’s single armchair and took a seat opposite me upon a three-legged stool. ‘How did you hear about me?’

  ‘A couple of angels told me to seek you out.’

  ‘A couple? Ah, you must mean Vizael and Gendith.’

  ‘You know them then?’

  ‘I know a lot of weird and wonderful people: angels, mystics, trolls, a ghost detective—’

  ‘You didn’t know me.’

  ‘No, but then you’re a normal.’

  I bristled at that. ‘A normal? I’m the bloody Nightstalker.’

  ‘Then you’re a normal with a backstage pass.’

  I was fed up to the back teeth with people making me feel like I’d won this gig in a competition. ‘You think what I do is easy?’ I snapped, feeling my face turn red. ‘I sleep two hours a night if I’m lucky, I get attacked by monsters all day long, and now I have to take shit from you? I never asked for this life. You think I want to be a bitch in a kennel that only gets let off her chain when someone needs chewing on? Do you have any idea what that’s like? To be made into someone else’s weapon?’

  A flicker of recognition crossed Stella’s face and her expression softened. ‘Yes, I do.’

  I sat back in the armchair and folded my arms. ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘Abbey, I know exactly what you mean. I was created by my witches for the express intention of acting at their enforcer.’

  ‘So the Coven just… made you?’

  ‘From dirt, rags and spit.’

  ‘Then you’re not even human. Not really.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  I suddenly felt very sad for this peculiar woman, alone in her draughty old house, living with the knowledge that she was different to everyone around her. Who did she speak to? Who could she call a friend? Viz had told me that the witches of the London Coven were dead now, leaving their familiar to fend for herself. Stella was on her lonesome here, an alien, abandoned on our planet with no place to call home. No wonder she sucked at hospitality (where the hell was my cup of tea?). I mean, I’d had a rough ride since I was given the brand, but at least I got to have a life before I picked up that dagger. Stella had been saddled with her job from day one.

  I changed the subject. ‘How did you end up running into me on that bridge?’

  ‘I got a call from Lenny saying someone had been asking after me at The Beehive. Of course, he didn’t mention that you were the Nightstalker, but then Lenny’s not much for words.’

  I nodded. No, he was not.

  ‘So then, what do you want from me?’ Stella asked, getting to the point.

  I sat forward in my chair. ‘I need a magician to perform a ritual that will stop my boyfriend from turning into a vampire.’

  ‘Stop?’

  ‘Yeah. Thing is, he’s sort of halfway there.’

  I could tell she was about to make some smart comment about the Nightstalker letting her boyfriend get turned into a vampire, but the look in my eye told her to keep it to herself. ‘I take it you’ve considered killing his sire? The vampire who turned him?’

  ‘Believe me, I’d love nothing more than to stick a stake through that guy, but it’s a needle in a haystack situation out there.’

  Stella pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I don’t know. You mentioned a ritual before, but reversing vampirism… I’ve never heard of such a spell.’

  ‘Trust me, it’s a thing. God said so.’

  ‘I see. And which God was that exactly?’

  ‘You know, the normal one. Crosses, Christmas, Communion. Loves an ark.’

  Stella bobbed her head, unimpressed. I guess it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that she wasn’t big into Christ, what with being a pagan and everything.

  ‘I’m perfectly happy to help you, Abbey, but if I’m going to bake the cake, I’ll need the recipe book.’

  ‘Anything. Just tell me what you need.’

  ‘All reversal spells require a scroll of undoing.’

  ‘Right. And where do I get one of those then? Another curio shop?’ I pointed to her book shelves. ‘Sure you haven’t got any scrolls in that musty old pile over there?’

  ‘I’m sure. And in any case, most magic scrolls aren’t really scrolls anymore.’

  ‘They’re not?’

  ‘Papyrus doesn’t have much of a shelf life, but that’s okay, it’s the writing that’s important, not the paper.’

  ‘But if there’s no paper, where do the words go?’

  She cocked an eyebrow at me. ‘Surely you’ve heard of computers, Abbey? I'm sixty years old, and even I have some idea how digitising works.’

  ‘So you’re telling me that the spell I need is on a machine? Do I just need to Google this thing?’ I reached for my phone but Stella stopped me.

  ‘Don’t waste your time. If there is such a thing as a ritual to reverse vampirism—and it’s a very big if—the spell won’t be anywhere online.’

  ‘Then where?’

  ‘Somewhere hidden. Somewhere secure. Somewhere guarded by the people who most want to keep it
from being made public.’

  The Clan.

  If I was going to get that cure, I was going to have to go right to the source.

  19

  I didn’t need the angels to tell me where to head next.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Carlo, his scarecrow frame blocking the doorway to his flat.

  ‘Just a tiny, teensy little favour,’ I said, pinching a millimetre of air.

  ‘Forget it. You’re not getting anything, not after you stiffed me last time you were here.’

  ‘But I come bearing gifts,’ I chirped, holding up a cup with a straw sticking from its lid.

  ‘You brought me a McDonald’s strawberry milkshake?’

  ‘Oh no, I drank that.’

  ‘So… you brought me an empty McDonald’s strawberry milkshake?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ I smiled and popped the lid.

  Carlo’s eyes widened. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  ‘Yup.’

  Carlo snatched the cup from me and scurried back into his grungy little squat like Gollum with the One Ring.

  I followed him inside. ‘Sorry, that was the best blood container I could find. There might be a bit of milkshake mixed in with it, but don’t worry, you can have that for free.’

  He sucked on the straw in a way that was almost pornographic, slurping up the last of the concoction and looking back at me with shiny, doped up eyes. ‘Man, I needed that. I’m telling you, it is not easy making do with regular blood.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked, oddly proud. ‘My blood’s that good, is it?’

  ‘Like flying First Class to Hawaii. Trouble is, now the regular stuff’s like boarding the plane home and having the stewardess point you to Economy.’ He slumped into a ruptured bean bag, making it burp up some more of its insides.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you like it anyway,’ I said, too afraid of catching something to sit down. God, it really was an awful shithole of a place. ‘I know it’s none of my business, Carlo, but you really shouldn’t be living like this.’

  ‘What’s the matter? Worried I won’t get my security deposit back?’