by M. V. Stott
It would be about four metres too far.
Out of options once more, I screamed and threw myself to the side, hurtling into the wall, lucky not to bash my brains in against it. The beast roared in surprise and tried to stop, stumbling over itself and rolling out of the alley, screaming in fury at having been so close only to be foiled once again. The creature was vicious and strong, but it wasn’t smart.
I pushed myself back up and ran for the street. I almost smiled as I stepped out of the blind alley and the dead veil, the absence of magic, was pulled away from me. I inhaled a great gulp of the natural background power of the place as shoppers screamed and sprinted from the insanity that had just intruded onto their day, browsing the Hammersmith high street shops. My every nerve ending tingled as the magic, weak as it was, washed over me and soothed my jangled nerves.
So sudden was the rush that I closed my eyes, a beatific smile upon my face, and I almost forgot about the giant devil dog that was about to feast on my guts. My eyes opened again and I took up an attack pose, legs spread, arms up and outstretched, ready to unleash whatever spell came to me in the moment.
I didn’t have time to consider my attack.
The animal was already up and just metres away from me, teeth bared, the fire in its eye sockets roaring with fury. As it leapt toward me I felt myself shake in terror. I always thought, when death came for me, that I’d be able to face it boldly, but here I was, shaking like a child. Shaking and unable to form a clear thought as six or seven half-formed invocations crashed through my mind and the certainty of death seized my heart.
I closed my eyes and braced myself for the end.
4
After eight or nine seconds, I’d begun to wonder why death was taking so long.
I opened my eyes to find myself looking up not into the furious, twitching face of a monster hell-bent on tearing my skin off, but instead into the face of a man. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, and was wearing an expression of complete surprise.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘How did…’ he started. ‘I… I mean, where did…?’
Somehow, I’d jumped from standing in the street, about to be chewed upon like the favourite squeaky toy of the Godzilla of dogs, to being laid out on my back in some strange man’s kitchen. It was odd, but preferable to the alternative.
The man jerked back as I sat up sharply and took in my surroundings.
‘Have you seen a big monster dog thing that wants to eat me?’
‘I… what?’
I pushed myself up onto my feet and darted for the kitchen window, trying to see if the thing had been able to follow me.
‘A monster! Have you seen a monster?’
‘Of course I haven’t seen a monster!’
‘Good. It was about to kill me and is probably, currently, very, very angry that it’s not crunching my bones between its teeth. A thing like that doesn’t like its target to escape.’
‘Doesn’t it?’
‘Well of course it doesn’t, it’s the whole reason they’re created. Think it through… um…’ I gestured with one hand, ‘Name?’
‘What?’
‘Your name, what’s your name?’
‘David.’
‘Oh, I knew a David once.’
‘Most people do.’
‘He was eaten by a bear. Well, a powerful sorcerer pretending to be a bear. Well, a demon, pretending to be a powerful sorcerer, pretending to be a bear.’
‘Right. Of course. We all know people like that.’
I was babbling, I was aware of that, my brain sprinting.
I turned from the window, satisfied the devil dog wasn’t about to leap through the wall at me. My heart was still flying a hundred miles an hour in my chest, and I realised I’d been saying things to a normal I’d usually have kept under wraps. But then, this wasn’t a normal sort of a day. Someone had murdered the witches of London.
‘So are you going to, I don’t know, tell me what you’re doing in my house or—’
I raised a finger and pressed it to his lips: ‘Shh, David.’ Closing my eyes, I extended my senses out as far as they would go, searching for any hint of trouble. Any sign that I’d been followed. There was nothing; all I felt was the normal background magic of the place. I was safe. Well, safe for now.
‘Good, seems like I shook the thing off somehow. Not sure how though; all the half-formed spells rushing through my mind must have somehow combined, formed something altogether different, and snatched me away from danger, dropping me, well, here. Where is here, by the way?’
‘Can I talk now?’ said David, lips smushed by my finger still. I pulled it away.
‘Go ahead.’
‘Thank you. My name is Detective David Tyler, and you just broke into my kitchen. Not the smartest of smart moves. Because of the detective thing I just mentioned. I’m a detective. You… well, you’re in trouble.’
My first thought was to raise my hand, conjure up something horrible, and toss it in Detective David Tyler’s direction. Then I realised that was a bit rude, especially considering I had appeared from nowhere in the centre of his kitchen. On top of that, with danger passed for now, it suddenly hit me how weak I was. The fight, the strange lack of magic in the alley and the coven, the death of my witches… my masters… it was all too much. It was crushing me.
‘Okay, so I want you to start answering a few questions now, or—’
He cut off as my knees buckled and I collapsed to the floor.
‘Whoa, hey, sorry, are you… okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, attempting to stand, only to find myself instead curling into a ball on the floor. ‘Okay, not entirely fine.’
‘Look, you can’t just—‘
‘—Please. Help me. I’m in danger.’
‘From what? And please don’t say a monster.’
‘I don’t know. I heard a voice. Lots of voices.’
‘A gang attacked you? Is that what all those cuts are from?’
‘I need a place to rest, just for a little while.’
David crouched before me as he came to a decision. ‘Okay. But I’m locking the door to your room.’
He must have carried me, because I found myself in a bedroom I didn’t remember walking to. I lifted my head from the wonderful softness of the pillow to see David stood in the doorway.
‘Thanks. You’re a good person.’
‘Some might say ‘idiot’, but I’ll take ‘good’ for now.’
I smiled and he smiled back. It was a nice smile, open and friendly.
‘I must be mental,’ he said, then lifted a key, waggling it back and forth. ‘One night, then you’re going to tell me the truth. That or I’m taking you on a guided tour of the police station. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘Good. Okay. I left you a glass of water on the side, there.’
‘Thanks, David.’
My eyes closed before the door did, and sleep had its way with me. I heard the key turn in the lock, and then I was gone.
5
I opened my eyes.
I was in the London Coven.
Power rolled around the place in great waves. It coiled and it flowed and it sparked; every colour imaginable strobing endlessly. It was beautiful, intoxicating, and very, very moreish. It would be invisible to most people, but not to someone like me, a Familiar, a thing of the Uncanny.
I spread my arms wide and washed my hands through it, watching as it danced and weaved around my fingers. Few places in the country were as soaked in as high a concentration of magic as this place.
My coven.
It would be too much, for some. Any amateur sorcerer, or lowly creature with a foothold in magic, that walked through the door into this place might find themselves drowning in it, or driven mad. But then very few people ever stepped inside of this place. The coven was not open to visitors, and was protected by layer upon layer of spells from intruders.
Or, at least, it had been.
I loo
ked down at myself. I was naked.
‘This is just a dream,’ I said to myself. I always knew when I was dreaming, and I’d had this dream often enough. It was the day I was created.
‘Familiar, I name you Stella,’ came a voice from behind me. It was Kala’s voice.
‘Why Stella?’ came a second voice, Trin’s
‘It was the name of someone who was kind to me once. Many centuries ago.’
I turned and looked upon them. My witches. My creators.
‘Well?’ said Feal, who had so far remained silent. ‘Can you talk, or did we forget the tongue again?’
‘I can talk,’ I replied. I felt tears prickle my eyes and fought to hold them back. All three of them were dead. But not here. Not in my dreams. Here they’d be able to live forever.
‘You are this coven’s Familiar, from now until your life is taken; do you accept your fate?’ asked Kala.
I nodded. ‘Yes. I suppose I’ve nothing better to do.’
Feal snorted, amused. One of the highlights of any day had been when I’d been able to make her laugh. Now she’d never laugh again. Not really. Not outside of my dreams.
A Familiar is created to serve a coven. Most witches don’t like to step beyond their home too much, especially when their home is as heavily protected as this one. So they use their Familiar, created by them for them, to step out into the world and do their leg-work.
I fetched. I carried. I delivered warnings, and worse. Much worse. Anything my masters asked of me. Most Familiars are not expected to last long. They are sent out into danger, they are not expected to always return. But I had, for sixty years, served them happily. But now… a Familiar was not meant to outlast its masters.
I felt the anger rise in me again and clenched my fists. I would get whoever did this to me. Whoever it was that murdered my coven. I would track them down, and I would make them scream in pain.
‘She looks angry,’ said Trin.
‘Can you blame her?’ replied Feal. ‘After what she let happen?’
That caught my attention, snapping me out of my anger, ‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘What are you talking about?’ repeated Kala, mocking me.
‘It’s your fault—’
‘Your fault—’
‘Your fault—-’
They stepped towards me slowly, making me back up until I was pressed against the wall. Without thinking, I drew in additional magic from the air, ready to defend myself. The witches stopped and watched as the wash of power in the room began to flow towards me.
‘I-I...’ I bit my lip, trying to calm myself so the magic would stop lapping towards me.
‘You think you can attack us?’
‘She means us further harm yet.’
‘No! I’m your Familiar! That’s who I am, that’s all I am; I would never do anything to hurt you! Not any of you, you know that!’
‘You know that—’
‘You know that—’
Mocking me again, but wait…
‘What did you say?’ I asked.
‘It’s your fault we’re dead, Familiar.’
‘Your fault—’
‘Your fault—’
Their voices…
It was only now I was noticing, or perhaps only now I was being allowed to notice…
The witches spoke, but not with their own voices. Each word came out as though a different person spoke it, just like the voice I’d heard in the blind alley outside.
Another trick.
‘I’m not a big fan of people attacking me in my dreams. Especially not when they use the bodies of my masters to do it!’
‘Oh—’
‘She catches on—’
‘Took her long enough.’
I drew the magic toward myself, spoke the words, and threw an orb of energy that turned the three fake witches to ash.
Breathing heavily, trying to ignore the guilt gnawing at me, telling me that I’d just burned up my own coven despite what I knew, I stepped forward. I poked at the ash with the toe of one boot.
‘Come on, you coward, show yourself.’
Silence.
Would it be as easy as that? Well, it was my dream after all; maybe it was giving me this simple victory. Building my confidence and—
—a scream as a hand burst from the ashes and gripped my ankle. I yelled out in shock despite myself, and tried to pull away, but the hand, alabaster white with yellow, ragged fingernails that dug into my skin, held fast.
‘Get off me!’
I crouched and tried to prise the fingers free. They felt like ice. A second hand burst from the ashes, then a third, and a fourth, they were pulling me down!
I tried to raise my hands to form a spell, but more hands shot from the floor like vipers and gripped me, pulling me down into the floor itself.
It was just a dream.
Just a dream, that’s all it was.
I tried to calm myself by repeating that over and over. This was just a dream. A nightmare. It didn’t matter what happened to me here, I would wake up in Detective David Tyler’s spare room any moment, covered in sweat, breathing heavily, but alive.
‘Are you sure of that, Stella Familiar?’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure?’
The words, spat out in a hundred different voices, swirled around me, over and over, like a ribbon made of razorblades, and now all that was left of me above the floor, above the ashes, was my head. I closed my mouth to stop myself from breathing in my master’s remains.
‘I’m waiting for you.’
‘I’m waiting.’
‘Waiting’
‘Waiting.’
Any moment now, I would wake up.
I had to.
Any moment.
Any moment…
…now…
I closed my eyes tight as the ashes swallowed me up.
6
‘Um, how did you get out?’
I looked up from the bowl of cereal I was eating and did my best to give a cheery smile.
‘Morning.’
‘You haven’t broken my door, have you? That’s a nice door, I like that door.’
‘Sorry. Had a bit of a bad dream.’
‘Were you naked? I’m always naked in my nightmares.’
‘Very naked.’
David sat down opposite me.
‘Tell me more.’
‘Then my masters tried to attack me, I killed them with magic, and was dragged down into the floor by twenty or thirty arms that burst up out of their ashes.’
David nodded slowly. ‘Well. Okay.’
‘Then I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided to make myself useful. There’s coffee in the pot if you’re thirsty.’
David narrowed his eyes then went to investigate, pouring himself a cup.
‘Careful, I like it strong.’
‘Me too,’ he replied, taking a sip, then coughing slightly, eyes watering. ‘P-perfect.’
‘Thanks for letting me stay. Not every man would allow a woman who had broken into his home to sleep over.’
‘Well, I’m not every man. In fact, if my ex-girlfriend is right, I’m barely a man at all.’
I snorted. He was funny as well as kind. David took his place opposite me again, raising the cup of coffee to his lips, then thinking better of it and placing it on the table.
‘Well, thank you, I appreciate it.’
‘So… my door? Did you pick the lock, or…?’
‘Oh, I just used a simple trick to open it. Apprentice-level magic. It’s the kind of thing you learn on day one.’
David did his slow nod again. ‘I see.’
‘Do you?’
‘Almost definitely not.’
‘Oh.’
‘Magic?’
‘Magic.’
‘And by ‘magic’, you obviously mean…?’
‘Magic.’
‘Magic?’
‘Yep.’<
br />
‘Got it.’
More slow nodding, this time combined with a look in his eyes that said, ‘Careful, crazy ahead.’ For some reason it felt right to fill him in on my world. Like I owed it to him. Like by sharing with him it would make me feel less alone.
‘Look, Officer David Tyler—’
‘—Just David will do—’
‘—David, I know you’re not of the Uncanny. To you London is just another place, full of people, and buildings, and noise, and fried chicken shops, and everything can be explained. But what if I were to tell you that everything you knew about London, about the entire world in fact, was wrong?’
‘I’d say you and my ex would get on like a house on fire.’
I stopped and stared into his eyes, unblinking. ‘I’m being serious, David.’
He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms. ‘No, you’re being a nut case, and if you’re going to continue being a nut case, I’m going to have to take you down to the station for further questioning. I may be nice, but I’m not that nice.’
I stood sharply, my chair toppling to the floor. David rose, one hand out in a calming gesture, the other reaching to his pocket. I wondered what he had in there. Some sort of spray, or maybe one of those extendable batons?
‘I’m not going to hurt you, David.’
‘Good, getting hurt is one of my least favourite parts of the job.’
‘I’m not going to hurt you, I’m going to show you. Show you that I’m telling the truth.’
David’s hand retreated from whatever he had stashed in his pocket. Good. He gave me a place to sleep things off, the last thing I wanted to do was put him down on his arse.
‘Okay, you’re going to show me that magic is real?’
I nodded.
‘How? I’m afraid I don’t have a pack of cards to hand and you don’t have a hat to pull a bunny from.’
I snorted and shook my head. ‘You normals, you see only one, thin slice of reality. You’re looking at the world through a crack in a door.’
‘Okay, did you or did you not damage my door?’
The background magic of David’s house washed around me, but I didn’t need to draw on it for this little demonstration. My own natural power would be more than enough to turn his head.