A Three-Book Collection

by M. V. Stott

  ‘Then you’re shit out of luck, Casper the skinny ghost. Women are being murdered in Blackpool. The fancy dress man responsible used this axe to kill them, and I’m going to bring him down. Until that happens, the chopper stays with me, got it?’

  Carlisle frowned, retrieved the apple from his pocket, took a bite, then nodded. ‘A pact will be made, then,’ he said.

  ‘You what, mate?’

  ‘I, Carlisle, true King of Great Britain, cruelly deposed, will help you stop this murderous magician who stalks the streets of your cesspool of a town.’

  ‘And you’ll get rid of this shitty hex on me, too, right?’

  ‘Of course. When the magician is found, I will stop him, kill him, and the hex will be lifted.’

  ‘Kill him?’

  ‘It is the only way to end the hex.’

  Rita wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She was about justice, not murder, but maybe there was no other choice. She shook her head, they’d have to deal with that once they got to it.

  ‘Okay, you help me stop this murderer, help me get back to normal, and I will let you have the axe, deal?’ Rita spat into her palm and offered it for a shake.

  Carlisle looked at the hand as though she’d just proffered a fresh pile of horse dung. ‘Please consider it shook,’ said Carlisle.

  ‘Germaphobe?’

  ‘Sane.’

  ‘Fair enough. So then, what’s first?’

  Carlisle climbed back into the car and Rita followed.

  ‘First? Why, first we must visit the Night Fair.’

  14

  Rita was trying to play it cool. More to the point, she was trying not to entirely freak out in front of the insane, scary man who resembled an emaciated Richard E. Grant auditioning for a new Tim Burton film. The one who had, only a few hours earlier, left her knocked out cold on the beach.

  They were driving towards Blackpool Pleasure Beach, a large fairground, popular with tourists, pickpockets, and teenage boys looking to cop a feel of something soft on the ghost train.

  ‘Why did you call it the Night Fair?’ Rita asked.

  ‘You’ll see,’ Carlisle replied.

  ‘Or you could just, I dunno, go ahead and tell me?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘Right, be a cock then.’

  Carlisle smiled, or at least exposed his teeth. ‘Always.’

  So she’d been hexed. It happens. Not to real people in really-real life, but it happens.

  Well, no, it doesn’t, but it had happened, and Rita was now as certain as she could be that all of it was real. She wasn’t mad, or brain damaged, and she wasn’t going to wake up in bed and sigh in relief because it was all a dream.

  Probably.

  Unless...

  Rita pinched her leg and jolted at the sudden pain.

  ‘Afraid not,’ said Carlisle.

  Definitely not a dream. What she wouldn’t have given for such a hacky reveal right about now. Magic spells, magicians, murder. It was all a bit much, but it didn’t change the fact that she had a job to do. A murderer to stop. She’d just have to go with it for now, at least until she knew for sure that the killer had been stopped. It was only then that she’d allow herself to fully freak out, curl up in a ball, and gibber incoherently.

  But not now.

  For now, she was still a detective, and women were at risk.

  Rita pulled to a stop and she and Carlisle got out. She saw a sign pointing them in the direction of the Pleasure Beach. They’d have to go on foot from here.

  ‘Come along, Hobbes,’ said Carlisle, and strode off ahead, Rita having to almost, but not quite, break out into a run to keep up with his long-legged strides.

  ‘Oi, little slower would be nice.’

  He moved like a predator, like a shark cutting through the water, knowing it had nothing to fear. Knowing that it was the thing to fear.

  Rita placed her hand on the bulge of the axe, still tucked into her belt, hidden by her coat. A thing of Heaven? She wondered how much she should trust Carlisle. She touched her still tender jaw and knew the answer to that. He didn’t care about the case, about women dying, he just cared about taking back what was his. For now, he was something she needed. He knew this weird world she’d fallen into, but she wouldn’t let her guard down, because sooner or later, he was going to turn on her.

  You never trust a wild animal.

  You got an instinct for this sort of thing after spending that long on the force. People like Carlisle only looked after number one, and they didn’t give a shit how many people got hurt because of that.

  ‘I’ve got a question,’ said Rita.

  ‘Yes, your hair actually does compliment your face shape.’

  ‘No. I mean, thanks, but not that.’

  ‘Why did the axe bond with you if the magician did not give permission for it to do so?’

  ‘Wait, can you read minds, too? If so, what am I thinking right now? I’ll give you a clue: it’s green.’

  Carlisle sighed and shook his head. ‘You are a prattling fool, Detective.’

  ‘It was a bush. A bush.’

  ‘It’s a fairly obvious question.’

  ‘And is there a fairly obvious answer?’

  ‘No. I do not know why the axe agreed to become yours. It is… vexing. Not knowing is one of my least favourite pastimes.’

  ‘Oi,’ said Rita, as Carlisle veered away from the entrance to the Pleasure Beach, swarming as it was with tired-looking parents and sugared-up kids. ‘That’s the way in, the massive obvious entrance over there. There’s even a sign that says “entrance” right next to it.’

  ‘That’s not where we’re going,’ replied Carlisle, not slowing.

  ‘I thought we were going to the fair?’ she replied, veering around a small boy with a face coated in candy floss and the wild eyes of a hopped-up junkie.

  ‘Correct, but I do not believe I said anything about that fair.’

  ‘Well, that’s the only fair in Blackpool, and it’s the one you had me park up in front of, so…’

  ‘I said we were going to the Night Fair. The Night Fair shares the same space as your Pleasure Beach, but is not the same as your Pleasure Beach, understand?’

  ‘Yep.’ Rita stopped and thought about it some more. ‘Actually, no, not even a little bit.’

  ‘You do surprise me. Just follow my lead.’

  Rita was not a fan of being a follower, but follow she did.

  ‘Wait,’ she said, standing at Carlisle’s shoulder as he stopped, ‘that’s not supposed to be there.’

  ‘Isn’t it? How peculiar.’ Carlisle walked towards the large, gothic, metal archway in the side of a wall – a large, gothic, metal archway that really, really shouldn’t have been there. The metal was coated in rust, and the arch stretched from one fire-blazing torch to another. The flames did not burn yellow-orange, they burned blue and green and made Rita feel funny.

  ‘I know this place inside and out—unfortunately—and that entrance doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Not for you, not yesterday, not even a few short hours ago, but now your eyes have been opened,’ said Carlisle. ‘Welcome to the Night Fair.’

  Rita remained still for a moment or two as Carlisle strode under the archway and into the strange fair beyond. A strange fair that appeared to be much gloomier than the late afternoon sun should allow.

  ‘It’s dark in there. How can it be dark in there?’

  ‘Night Fair, Detective. The clue is in the name. Come along.’

  Rita looked back to the Pleasure Beach’s entrance, where someone queasy from the rides was throwing up noisily into a bin, then to the twisted metal arch in front of her, beyond which lay the Night Fair.

  ‘Right. Good. Night Fair. Got it.’ Rita shook her head and ran to catch up with Carlisle.

  It was indeed gloomier inside the confines of the Night Fair. Rita squinted up at the sky to see stars twinkling and a full moon hanging heavy in the sky. ‘We’re not due a full moon for weeks,’ she noted
.

  ‘It’s always a full moon at the Night Fair,’ Carlisle replied.

  ‘It’s also night here. How is it night?’

  ‘Am I going to have to explain everything in triplicate? Keep close, it’s easy to get lost in a place like this, and things that get lost are often never found.’

  ‘I didn’t realised you cared so much.’

  ‘Of course I care. If I lose you, I lose my axe. Now keep up.’

  Rita kept up.

  As they walked, Rita felt as though her head was spinning. This was nothing like the garish Pleasure Beach, this was older. You could taste the age, smell it even. There were no rides that she could see, but hundreds of stalls and tents crushed together as far as the eye could see.

  At one stall, a large, fleshy man was waving in customers, taunting them, telling them there was no way any of them could toss one of his brass rings over one of the many trinkets laid out on a table, and for only a fiver a pop. Why anyone would want to win the prizes on offer puzzled Rita, as each of them looked as though they’d been fished out of a canal.

  At another stall, what appeared to be a woman—but may well have been a large pile of rags that had swallowed a woman whole—was stirring a rusted pot of something that smelled so delicious it made Rita’s stomach growl.

  ‘Come on, then, Miss! Fill yer skinny belly! I’ve got everything in this pot of mine, from cat, to dog, to rook, to fairy, to them bearded dragon whatsit’s! Enough to sate the appetite of the great beast himself!’

  ‘Did you say fairy?’

  ‘I did indeed, every pot ‘as at least eight-percent real sewer fairy – that’s a Lady Labelle guarantee, that is.’

  Rita suddenly didn’t feel quite so hungry.

  The Night Fair was a chaos of noise, of people, of smells, and Rita was having to try very hard not to become overwhelmed by it all.

  Carlisle stopped suddenly, causing Rita to bump into the back of him.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘The word “sorry” is for the stupid.’

  ‘Okay. Why have we stopped?’

  ‘Because we are here.’

  Rita looked past Carlisle at the tent before them. Its ragged canvas might once have been brightly coloured, but was now varying shades of brown. A sign above the entrance flaps said FORTUNES TOLD.

  ‘A fortune teller?’ said Rita. ‘Really? This is your big idea? How about after this we grab a paper and check our horoscopes?’

  ‘Let me do the talking,’ Carlisle replied, ignoring her shade.

  ‘You know, technically I’m the one heading up this investigation. I have skills in this area. Actual, tested in the field skills and that.’

  ‘How adorable. Follow me.’

  They pushed through the entrance and left behind the gloom of the Night Fair for the much gloomier gloom of the fortune teller’s tent. There wasn’t much in the way of decoration inside. Straw covered the ground to stop the mud being churned up, and in the tent’s centre was a table with a crystal ball on top. Sat behind this table, and giving Carlisle the evilest of evil eyes that Rita had ever seen, was a woman who, if Rita were to hazard a guess, was older than the oldest thing you could imagine. The fortune teller was a strip of gnarled, wrinkled leather in a kaftan and fez, a small cigar clenched between lips so thin they seemed to blink in and out of existence.

  ‘Fuck off,’ said the fortune teller, her voice a wheeze.

  Carlisle chuckled. ‘Now is that any way to greet a customer, Madame Esmerelda?’

  ‘You’re not a customer, you’re a lying piece of shit who should be dead and swinging from a post as a warning to other pieces of shit.’

  Rita didn’t need any of her training to feel the tension between the two, it was practically visible. ‘I’m DS Rita Hobbes.’

  ‘Do I look like I give a fuck, you tart?’

  ‘Oi, I’m not a tart, you old bitch.’

  ‘Oh? Not what the crystal ball is telling me,’ she smirked, and blew out a cloud of noxious smelling smoke.

  ‘I’m not gonna be slut-shamed by a strip of jerky, thanks.’

  Madame Esmerelda threw her head back and laughed. It sounded like a hoover picking up gravel.

  ‘I’m here for information,’ said Carlisle.

  The fortune teller stopped laughing and coughed so violently that Rita thought she might be choking to death, then spat out a thick glob of mucus that hit one side of the tent and slowly oozed down to the straw. As Rita watched, the glob crawled beneath the wall of the tent and away to freedom outside. Rita tried not to think too hard about that.

  ‘Well, you’re out of luck,’ replied Madame Esmerelda. ‘Last time I helped you I lost a leg.’

  ‘An unfortunate turn of events,’ replied Carlisle.

  ‘You chopped it off!’

  ‘It seemed appropriate at the time.’

  Madame Esmerelda narrowed her eyes as a rather tense silence settled over proceedings.

  ‘It’s about a case,’ Rita said at last, after it seemed like they might be stuck in an eternal silent staring contest.

  ‘That so?’

  ‘Women are being taken. Murdered. By a… well. A magician.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I believe by utilising your special skills,’ said Carlisle, ‘you might be able to point us in the right direction.’

  ‘I suppose he’s told you his sob story?’ said the fortune teller. ‘About being the rightful king and all that shit?’

  ‘He did mention it in passing, yeah.’

  ‘Load of old bollocks.’

  ‘I am the rightful King,’ Carlisle insisted.

  ‘Only because you cheat at cards.’

  ‘I never cheat.’

  ‘You never tell the truth.’

  ‘Regardless of how it came to be, I won the game and all that had been placed on the table was mine.’

  ‘Right,’ said Rita, ‘so you’re not actually royalty then. That figures.’

  ‘Royalty?’ screeched Madame Esmerelda. ‘Him? I wouldn’t wipe my arse with the bloke.’

  Carlisle huffed and turned away from the fortune teller.

  ‘So why is he helping you, then?’ asked the fortune teller. ‘He never helps anyone, not him. Not for no reason.’

  ‘I have something of his,’ Rita replied.

  Madame Esmerelda peered into her crystal ball. ‘Oh, so you’ve found it at last, have you?’

  Carlisle grimaced and nodded.

  ‘But she won’t give it to you unless you help her out?’ She began to laugh again.

  ‘Will you help us or not?’ asked Carlisle, irritated. ‘Once I have regained my property, I can give you anything you please. A new leg even, if that’s all it takes, you petty beast.’

  ‘I’ll not help you, your majesty. Why should I do anything that aids you in getting back that infernal axe of yours?’

  ‘Because women are being murdered,’ Rita cut in.

  ‘Women die every day, you foolish thing, that’s just the way of things. No, I’ll not help you and I’ll not help him. Now, get out of my tent.’

  Carlisle turned on his heel, snapping his coat behind him, and strutted outside. Rita hovered at the exit. ‘You’re really not going to help? Not even try?’

  ‘Bit of advice, dear: don’t trust him. Those that do, end up dead or worse, understood?’

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ Rita replied.

  ‘You’re a fool.’

  ‘And you’re a fucking bitch, love.’

  Rita turned and left the tent. She found Carlisle stood brooding, staring at a popcorn machine as fresh kernels bounced within.

  ‘So, I might be reading between the lines here,’ said Rita, ‘but I get the feeling that the old bag doesn’t like you.’

  ‘I should have taken more than her leg,’ he hissed.

  ‘So that’s it, that’s your help? I’m really impressed here. Look at my face, look at how impressed it is.’

  ‘I will not look at your face.’

  ‘Bu
t you’re missing my impressed face.’

  Carlisle grimaced, Rita grinned.

  She was about to ask “what now?” when something worrying caught her eye. It was there for a second and then it was gone, but she was sure she’d seen it. Rita ducked down and peered through the popcorn stall to see beyond, and there they were.

  Rabbit ears.

  Large and old and tattered.

  ‘I see them,’ said Carlisle.

  ‘What is it? Is it the magician?’

  ‘Look away, don’t stare, just look away and follow me as calmly as possible.’

  Carlisle turned, guiding Rita to do so with one hand on her shoulder, and began to walk away from the popcorn stall.

  ‘But he’s part of it, we should go and arrest him.’

  ‘Good idea. I take it you’re tired of living and are looking for a gruesome, horrifying death?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘Well, in that case it’s a really, really terrible idea.’

  As they walked, Rita began to think she saw the rabbit ears everywhere. Poking into view from the side of a tent, reaching high from behind a man eating a hot dog, sticking up from the very ground itself. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

  ‘We have made a wrong turn,’ Carlisle replied.

  The ground before them split.

  From the fresh crack in the earth sprouted a small figure in an old suit wearing a hedgehog mask.

  ‘Run!’ said Carlisle, and sprinted off.

  Rita didn’t need to be told twice. ‘Wait!’ she cried, as all around, every member of the Night Fair, visitor or vendor, was now either sporting a rabbit mask or a hedgehog mask. The whole place was becoming the pair.

  Carlisle ducked around the side of a tent and pulled to a stop, Rita almost bashing into him. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Mr. Spike and Mr. Cotton,’ he replied.

  ‘Right, and who are they when they’re at home?’

  ‘They are, quite literally, the stuff of nightmares.’

  Carlisle dropped to the ground and crossed his legs, shutting his eyes.

  ‘Now’s really not the time for a nap, mate,’ she said, peering around the edge of the tent to see the fair full of the masked pair, slowly walking towards them.

  ‘At some point—most likely when we stepped from the fortune teller’s tent—we walked into a dreamscape created by Mr. Spike and Mr. Cotton. This is how they operate. You step into their nightmare, into a world in which they control reality.’