Vowed

by Liz de Jager

  ‘Where’s your mum now?’ Dante asks him.

  ‘At work. She’s a nurse. She rang the school and asked if I could stay with Adam, and because I’m only going to school for study periods right now, they let me. As long as I keep up with my homework.’

  ‘Can we see Adam?’ I ask him, standing up. I rub my hands down my jeans, hating that I used the ring to clear this kid’s mind so that he didn’t freak out on us.

  ‘He’s sleeping,’ Colin warns. ‘Or he should be. This way.’

  The passage is small and narrow. Four doors lead off it. Bathroom, remarkably tidy. A smaller bedroom, posters of the galaxy and various constellations dotting the wall, alongside pictures of a few rock bands: Colin’s room, also neat, even by comparison to my own room. Then a larger room, with a double bed covered by a floral duvet and the faint scent of Chanel in the air. The next room is Adam’s.

  Adam, it turns out, isn’t sleeping. He’s sitting in the middle of his bed, with his back to us, staring at the window. He’s maybe eight, I judge from his build. He’s dressed in a Spider-Man T-shirt and pyjama bottoms. His face is a mess of bruises, but even under all of that I can see he’s a sweet-looking kid with the same good features his brother and mother share. His eyes are tired when they turn to look at me.

  The force of his gaze takes me by surprise. It’s as if I am the only person in the room and he’s not noticed Colin or Dante. I kneel next to the bed.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’m Kit. I’m a friend of Colin’s.’

  Adam nods, silent, and turns those big eyes back to the window. ‘Do you think it’s still out there?’ he asks me, staring at the world outside his window.

  ‘Unfortunately, yes. But I’m here to stop it.’ I see Dante making a movement towards me, to stop me from telling the kid the truth, but I silence him with a sharp look.

  ‘How?’ There isn’t doubt in Adam’s voice and I know he is asking a legitimate question. Sometimes dealing with young kids is so easy.

  ‘Magic. I will track it down and either send it back to a place where it can’t come back from . . .’

  ‘Or?’ he prompts me when I hesitate.

  ‘I hunt it down and kill it.’

  ‘I think you’ll need to kill it,’ Adam tells me in his serious voice. ‘It will be back and then Arvind will be gone, like all the others.’

  Colin moves forward. ‘Adam, you can’t say things like that. You can’t know if . . .’

  ‘It’s the same monster as before, Colin. You know it is.’ Adam sits up so that he’s kneeling now and he looks at me, his expression very earnest. ‘Something is stealing the children.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dante’s solemn expression meets mine over the heads of the two boys and he tilts his head to the side, indicating that he wants to talk to me alone. I stand up and step out into the small passage so that he can follow me.

  ‘Are you insane?’ he asks me, his voice low and angry. ‘You can’t tell this boy you’re going to hunt and kill the monster.’

  ‘Why not?’ I counter. ‘I’m telling him the truth.’

  ‘You can’t know if this is a case for someone with your set of special skills.’

  The way he says ‘special skills’ makes it sound as if I’m a small child dabbling with watercolours.

  ‘Can’t you feel it?’ I ask him, gesturing to the room where I can hear Colin and Adam talking. ‘That boy is scared. So is his older brother. They are so scared that they aren’t keeping quiet. Do you think, for one second, that Colin would want to lose face in front of adults or Chem and his mates?’

  Dante narrows his eyes behind his glasses and frowns at me. ‘Do you have to be so honest about what you do?’ he counters. ‘Telling them about monsters?’

  I grimace. ‘Monsters are real, Dante. And they are as happy to eat little kids as they are to eat grown adults. It will do no one any harm to be a little bit more careful.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ he asks me, frustrated, and I’m surprised that he’s letting me take the lead again.

  ‘We talk to Adam. We find out exactly what he saw.’ I sigh and run my hand through my hair. ‘And then we go from there.’

  Adam looks relieved when we come back into the room. Colin is sitting on the small chair at the desk and his expression is miserable.

  ‘My mum won’t be happy if she knows you guys have been here,’ he says. ‘The neighbours will talk.’

  ‘Just say we’re from school. Well, I can be from school. Dante here can be a teacher or something.’ I smile at him and briefly touch his hand again. ‘We’re here to help, Colin.’

  ‘Can I ask you for a glass of water?’ Dante looks at Colin. ‘I think it will be easier if Kit chats to Adam alone for a little while.’

  Colin hesitates, clearly not keen on the idea of leaving his baby brother alone with me. I give him a reassuring smile and he nods briefly. ‘Okay. But not too long. He needs sleep.’

  I watch them go, with Dante leaving the door slightly ajar.

  Adam turns to me and leans forward. ‘You’re magic, aren’t you?’

  I make a show of looking over my shoulder, pretending to make sure we’re alone. I press my finger to my lips in a shhh gesture. A look of delight crosses Adam’s face and he watches in awe as I cup my hands together. A small ball of light forms there, no bigger than a marble. I take my hands away and just let the little sphere rotate there for a few seconds, before I close my hand around it once more and it disappears.

  Adam breathes out and his eyes are huge. ‘That was amazing!’ His smile is sunny and friendly, even if his poor face looks sore and bruised. ‘Why is it that when I told the grown-ups about what really happened with the Raggedy Man they didn’t believe me? The police think I’m lying. The doctors told my mum that I hit my head so hard I was imagining things.’

  I sit down on the floor next to the bed and cross my legs under me. This is going to be an interesting talk.

  ‘I don’t know why some grown-ups are like that, Adam. I think some people, when they grow old, forget how to see impossible things.’ I tap his forehead. ‘They forget to just accept the magic.’

  ‘I never want to be like that,’ he says solemnly, watching me with big eyes. ‘Why is the Raggedy Man here?’

  ‘I don’t know, matey. Can you tell me what you remember?’

  I listen without interrupting to Adam telling me about waking up, about seeing the monster hanging onto the outside of the building a few windows down, shifting and trying to get into another apartment before it turned its attention to him. About the thing coming for Adam and reaching for him through the wall. I watch him carefully and everything about his small frame and honest answers convinces me that this boy is telling the truth. Something really did try and pull him out of his room.

  ‘Do you know whose room he was trying to get into?’ I ask him as he pauses to order his thoughts. I like the way he talks, slowly and clearly. From what I’ve seen of Colin and the way they are together, I get the idea that their mum is keen on making sure her kids are brought up clever, for the lack of another word.

  ‘Arvind. He’s only little. I mean, he’s younger than me. His mum and dad are always working and so his gran lives with them. She looks after him. I like her cos she always has sweets and she’s friendly. She doesn’t speak English but Arvind does, so whenever we play he will tell me what she’s saying.’

  ‘Do you have any idea why the monster would want to steal Arvind?’

  Adam looks up and out of the window again. The clouds race across the blue sky and it looks like a perfect autumn day, not the kind of day to be talking about monsters stealing little children.

  ‘I don’t know. All the children here know about the Raggedy Man. Mostly he’s just around, watching us, making sure we’re okay. But why would he want to take Arvind?’

  ‘Where is Arvind now? Do you think we would be able to talk to him?’

  ‘They left. Gone to India for his cousin’s wedding.’

&nb
sp; ‘Did you know they were leaving? Or did they leave after the creature tried getting into his room?’

  Adam blinks at me and shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’

  I nod and think about what he’s said previously. ‘You told Colin that it’s the same monster as before. What did you mean by that?’

  There’s a flash of fear in his eyes. ‘Before we lived here, other children went missing. All of them little, like under twelve.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  He shrugs, making patterns on his duvet cover with his fingers. ‘The other children talk. Everyone knows.’

  I lean back, propping my arms behind me. We sit quietly for a few minutes and I take in the room. Everything here is completely ordinary. The toys, the books, the clothes, the posters of famous football players.

  ‘Show me the shoe you used to hurt him.’

  Adam scampers towards his bed and digs around on the far side and eventually hands me the shoe. It is a football boot with spikes on the sole. It looks the worse for wear, mangled and twisted.

  ‘What happened to it?’ I ask him. Adam leans forward and points at the shoe before answering.

  ‘I grabbed it and just smacked the thing with it. As hard as I could. Over and over. I must have hurt it, don’t you think?’

  I turn the shoe around and examine the spikes. They look worn away, like melted wax, more than just the normal wear and tear of a football boot.

  ‘It definitely looks like it. What did it do?’

  ‘It spat at the window. Like you see some old men do.’

  Standing up, I lean over the desk and examine the window. There’s a flaw in the glass. My hand touches the spot and I turn to look at Adam in question. His nod tells me that I’m looking at where the thing’s spittle put a flaw in the double glazing. I press my cheek against the glass and look sideways, following the line of the wall. I count six windows, with the window I’m looking out of being the seventh.

  ‘Can you tell me what it looked like?’ I ask him, turning away from the window. ‘This monster?’

  Before he can answer, the door opens wider and Colin and Dante come in carrying mugs and a glass of juice for Adam.

  Colin sits down next to Adam and passes a glass of juice to him.

  ‘We’ve been trying to draw it,’ he says. He reaches into his back pocket and hands me a series of folded pieces of paper.

  I stand up and walk over to where Dante’s standing, making a show of examining Adam’s football posters. He looks down at the sketches in my hand and mutters something under his breath.

  Whichever of the two brothers drew these, did a decent job. The thing staring back at us from the crumpled notebook pages looks as if it crawled straight out of a nightmare. It has flat features, bulging eyes and a wide nose. An odd line runs down from the nose and upper lip and, when I check the next page, it’s clear that this bizarre feature actually split its face open. A shudder roils through me as I look at the rows of shark-like teeth depicted in the picture.

  ‘Any idea?’ Dante asks me, taking the pictures from me.

  I shake my head. My mind’s completely blank. All the research and lore I’d managed to cram into my head over months of intense study seem useless now. But there is one thing I can do.

  My magic sizzles under my skin when I reach for it. I close my eyes briefly, letting it settle over me. I need to see this room through my Sight. The creature, whatever it was, would have left a residue. And that might give me a clue as to what it can be and how to hunt it, capture it and sling its ass back to the Otherwhere. Of course, that’s assuming it is an illegal escapee from the Otherwhere.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The room flares into high definition around me. Both Colin and Adam shine with life and vitality. I examine Adam, concentrating on the arm the creature grabbed during their encounter. It looks fine but I detect a discolouration in what some people would call his aura. He lets me touch his arm and I spread my hand to get an idea of the size of the monster’s grip. It’s far bigger than the span of my hand, taking up Adam’s entire forearm. I ruffle his hair and smile at him and get a grin back.

  I swing myself around and check the wall and window. The window’s badly damaged. Whatever acid it spat at the window has left a definite residue on there. I’ll have to try and get a scraping of it to take back for Kyle to check out. The wall where Adam said the creature pressed through is covered in a weird black mould I couldn’t see before. I have a small baggie ready and scrape some off with the blade of my small bone-handled knife. I return the knife to my hip pocket, seal the baggie and zip it securely in a jacket pocket.

  I pretend not to notice Dante’s highly interested expression as I look around the room, touching things. He makes distracted conversation with Colin and Adam, who give equally vague answers while they watch me drift around the tiny room.

  Adam’s eyes are huge when I turn back to the wall and window. I crouch down in front of him.

  ‘Adam, can I put a protection spell on this window? It won’t take long. I want to make sure that this thing can’t get back in here again.’

  He nods quickly. ‘Yes.’ He shoots a look at Colin. ‘Mum will be okay with it, won’t she?’

  Colin shifts uncomfortably. ‘As long as you’re not using blood or anything weird.’

  ‘Why would you say that?’ I ask him, wondering what exactly he’s read and how he’s heard about spells that need blood to be effective.

  ‘I read stuff. You know, on the Internet.’

  ‘Right. You shouldn’t always believe what you read on there,’ I tell him. I take a small piece of chalk out of my pocket. ‘Can I have the room?’ I address the question to Dante, who gives a sigh, far too long suffering for someone who’s known me for less than forty-eight hours. But he nods, very reluctantly, and ushers both Colin and Adam out. He closes the door behind them with a soft snick, but not before he gives me a long slow look, as if he’s trying to puzzle something out.

  The chalk is not your average blackboard stuff. Before it’s compressed it’s mixed with salt and a selection of herbs that help with protection. This time I actually know what’s in there because I helped my cousin Megan make the stuff. I quickly and expertly sketch a variety of sigils on the windowsills and walls, along the skirting boards and as high as I can reach. The chalk doesn’t leave any visible signs and I work with confidence, having had this routine deeply ingrained in me since the Manor was destroyed a few months ago in a magical attack. The Blackharts have learned their lesson: we no longer ask for outside help when it comes to protecting our own homes.

  My magic flows steadily from me into the chalk, into the peculiar runes I’m drawing. Instead of tiring me out, as it’s done in the past, I feel invigorated and a little bit wild as it zings through me. The basic training I had with Aelfric’s sorcerers in the Otherwhere has definitely changed how easily I can access my well of magic. I’ve been so afraid of it in the past, seeing it as something wholly alien, rather than just one more thing that makes up who I am.

  Half an hour later I’m done in the room. I’ve secured it and double secured it as well as I can. While I did my quick search, I also checked around the room for any fetishes, or the little curse bags that magicians sometimes use. These could have called the creature to Adam, but I find none. The room held only little boy stuff. As an extra bit of caution I drop a spell of protection into the small teddy bear on Adam’s bed. If nothing else, it should help Adam sleep.

  When I step out of the room and into the lounge area, I stop in my tracks, surprised to see Dante sitting on the floor in front of the TV, jacket off, tie gone, game controller in hand. On the TV, his figure, a small human in crappy armour, is battling against a giant robot creature. From the determination on Adam’s face as he sits next to Dante, I can tell Adam is the robot.

  Dante catches my movements in the reflection of the TV, fumbles his controls and goes down in a dramatic firefight, being blown to smithereens. Adam crows and high-fives Colin, wh
o is laughing at his brother’s antics.

  ‘Guys? I’m done in there. The room should be fine now. I put some minor spells in place that should stop some nasty things getting back in. It would take me most of the day to do the rest of the flat so I need you guys to be careful.’ I hand Colin one of my business cards. ‘If you hear or see anything out of the ordinary, call me immediately, okay? I’m going home to research this guy.’ I tap my pocket where their sketches are tucked away. ‘And then I’m going to come back and hunt him.’

  Adam pops around the couch and I lean down to give him a hug. He’s a cute kid and I like him. I like both him and Colin but I feel old around them, having long since forgotten what it’s like to just hang out with mates, watching DVDs and playing Xbox. Admittedly, I get to do that with my cousins, but there’s always shop talk about monsters, the various Courts and rumours about what the Infernal are doing. It’s tiring. I sometimes yearn just to be a teen girl again. My life before the Blackharts claimed me seems really simple and uncomplicated.

  I shake Colin’s hand and I can tell he’s worried. ‘Do you think this thing will come back?’ he asks me, keeping his voice low. ‘What if it does? What if it comes for Adam again?’

  ‘It’s been about a week since the attack, right? It’s either been scared off or is biding its time. I’m going to work hard to get this sorted out so that I can get to it before it comes back.’ I pause and look at him. ‘I will jump on my bike the second you ring me,’ I assure him. ‘Believe me.’

  ‘You have my details too,’ Dante cuts in. ‘Give either one of us a call if you’re worried about anything. We’ll come running.’

  Colin nods, pocketing the business card.

  ‘Thanks. Thanks for coming and for believing us. No one else did.’

  We leave the two brothers in the doorway and make our way back to the stairwell.

  ‘You handled that well,’ Dante says, holding the door open for me. ‘But it’s risky, promising them that you’ll help them.’