A Three-Book Collection

by M. V. Stott

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Okay, well, how’d we do that?’

  He smiled and turned to Rita.

  ‘We must—’ began Carlisle, but his words cut off as a ball of fire struck him, and his body shot back and away.

  Rita reached out to him, calling his name, but he was gone. She looked up to see Alexander Jenner, scarlet robes billowing, floating towards her within a corona of flames, his eyes still ink-black.

  ‘What did you do!’ she said, axe gripped in her hands.

  ‘I asked nicely, now I will take,’ replied the Angel within its Jenner puppet.

  ‘Come on then you big… idiot!’ Rita had hoped for bolder words, but that would have to do.

  Jenner’s face smiled and he rubbed his hands together, great swirls of purple and yellow and blue, crackling into life.

  ‘Time to die, Detective.’ He punched out a hand and the magic burst from it.

  Rita leapt to one side as it struck the spot where she had been standing. Not pausing to look back, she rolled on to her feet and ran for the Night Fair’s gate, only to find it locked. ‘Great, a night Fair that closes when it’s actually night!’

  ‘There is nowhere to run to, Detective. Nowhere to hide. Not anymore. The end is here and the work must continue. God must be punished.’

  Rita fell backwards just in time to doge another blast of lethal magic, which smashed into the gates, blowing them apart.

  ‘Thanks!’

  She raced through the shattered gates and into the Night Fair, darting from path to path between empty stalls, always taking the next turn, trying not to give Jenner, or the Angel piloting him, a clear line of sight. Not that this stopped it from continuing to attack, as spell after spell erupted from his hands and stalls burst into flames all around her.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ said Rita, looking back over her shoulder and seeing Jenner floating into view, eyes pitch-black, a serene smile upon his face.

  ‘I believe I will kill you slowly,’ said the Angel through Jenner.

  ‘No thanks,’ replied Rita, right before she found herself at a dead end. ‘Oh, bollocks.’

  She turned, grasping the axe, as Jenner in his corona of flames hoved into view, blocking any escape. ‘DCI Jenner, please, listen to me!’ she cried.

  The ground a few feet in front of her exploded, showering her with dirt.

  ‘Come on, you’re in there, you’re a good man, you don’t need to carry on with this!’

  Light burst from Jenner’s hand, and Rita instinctively swung out with the axe, connecting with the oncoming magic.

  She felt its purpose roll through her. Magic meant to destroy. To hurt. To decimate. It was hers now, and as she swung the axe again, she sent it back to where it had come from. It shot from the axe head as she screamed, and struck Jenner in the chest, sending him flying backwards as if he was tied to a bungee cord.

  ‘Eat shit,’ she said, then ran back the way she’d came, escaping the dead end.

  She wasn’t powerless, wasn’t helpless. This axe gave her power. Power to capture and to control magic, to understand it and turn it against the person who would use it against her. Rita smiled, almost laughed. She wasn’t going to carry on running. Dan Waterson was dead, and the person responsible for that was in here, in the Night Fair, with her, and she was going to do her damndest to bring him to justice.

  ‘Hey, big scary Angel, where are you? Come to mamma!’ Rita sounded brave, bold, but her stomach still churned and her heart beat-beat-beat.

  She whirled round to see Jenner walking towards her.

  ‘Oh, decided to stop the flying bit, have you?’ she asked.

  ‘You are alone,’ he said, the Angel’s voice emerging from Jenner’s mouth.

  ‘A girl is never alone with a chip on her shoulder and a magic hatchet in her hands,’ she replied, raising the weapon up, ready to fend off whatever came her way.

  Jenner just smiled.

  ‘You can repel an attack or two, perhaps even three, but I will get you. Beat you down. It’s just a question of time, and I am immortal. I’ve all the time in existence.’

  He flung another ball of crackling magic at her and Rita gasped, swinging at it, taking control of it, and sending it back in the direction it came from. But Jenner, the Angel, was ready this time, and casually swatted the returned magic aside.

  A food stand burst into flames. He was right. It was right. But Rita had no intention of standing her ground and seeing how many balls she could hit before she was out.

  ‘The Magician, your erstwhile boss, is connected to the Angel of Blackpool.’

  ‘The smoke thing?’

  ‘That is what is feeding magic, feeding power, to the Magician.’

  ‘So we’ve gotta find a way to cut the cord.’

  She flexed her fingers around the hilt of the axe and searched for it. Called to it. Demanded it did as she wished.

  There it was.

  More magic flew at her, thrown contemptuously, and she returned it with a cry of effort.

  Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike, hidden in their dreamscape. That was her one hope. Her one chance.

  ‘I have toyed with you long enough,’ said the Angel.

  Rita ignored it.

  Instead, she began to speak with the axe, not in words, but in thoughts, in feelings, in understanding.

  It held the magic still.

  The magic she had taken when she struck Mr. Spike.

  The magic she had not yet used.

  It was dark magic, she could sense that. Magic from a bleak place of nightmares and pain. And it was hers to use.

  The Angel lifted Jenner’s arms and a storm of angry magic swarmed around him. Flames burst into life around him and he floated once more, levitating slowly into the air. He was laughing. That birdsong laugh, but it no longer sounded beautiful. It sounded wrong. It sounded cruel.

  It was almost the end.

  But not in the way the Angel expected.

  Rita spoke with her axe, with the dark magic that raged within. She soothed it and it responded to her request.

  It built a prison.

  The flames around Jenner’s body died in an instant, and he dropped to the ground, crashing down to his hands and knees in surprise.

  ‘It’s over,’ said Rita.

  He looked up at her with wide, confused eyes. The eyes were no longer ink-black. ‘What… wh-what have you done?’ he asked in his own voice, his actual voice, not the Angel’s.

  ‘I’ve done my job,’ replied Rita. ‘I’ve caught the murderer and put him away.’ She walked slowly towards him and Jenner fell back onto his rear, scrambling away from her, terrified, until his back hit against the side of a stall. He looked around, confused.

  ‘Yeah, still the Night Fair,’ said Rita. ‘Well, sort of. It’s not the actual Night Fair, this is one me and axe here made.’

  ‘I don’t… I don’t understand…’

  ‘I took Mr. Spike’s magic, or a piece of it, anyway, and that pair, they can create little, like, dreamscapes. Little places cut off from the real world. So that’s what I did. Quicker just to copy where we were in the first place. Now this is all there is for you. This Night Fair. There isn’t anything past the fences, past the gate. Just this place.’

  ‘Angel?’ said Jenner, grabbing the edge of the stand’s counter and pulling himself to his feet. ‘Angel, talk to me. Please, talk to me!’

  Rita almost felt sorry for him, he looked so pathetic.

  Almost.

  ‘It can’t hear you. Can’t get to you. It’s reach doesn’t extend into here, into a dreamscape, I’m afraid, Guv. The blabbermouth thing sort of let that slip. Careless, eh? But then arrogant twats like that always say more than they should. Can’t help themselves.’

  Jenner fell back to the dirt, tears streaming down his face. ‘No… no… I need it… it’s not in my head anymore, not in my head…’

  ‘And neither is your connection to magic,’ she said, crouching by him. ‘That was all the Ange
l, now it’s just you again. Sorry. Well, not sorry. Not at all, really.’

  ‘You don’t understand, I’m a good man.’

  ‘And how do you work that one out, genius?’

  ‘We were going to punish God. For killing my mum. My dad. He deserves it.’ Jenner made a grab for Rita, but she struck him on the forehead with the butt of the axe and he stumbled to the ground face-first, blood streaming from his forehead. He rolled on to his back, crying.

  ‘Angel… please… talk to me… help me…’

  ‘Those women. Dan Waterson. You’re guilty, and this is where you’ll rot. Hey, now you’ve got a prison, and your crazy Angel pal has a prison. Nice how that balances out, isn’t it?’

  Rita stood and walked to the Night Fair’s gate.

  ‘You can’t leave me in here!’

  ‘I bloody well can, Guv.’

  And she walked out of the gate, and back into the real world.

  27

  Rita was lining up a bowling ball, one eye closed, scoping out the pins at the end of the aisle, when Carlisle walked through the door into Big Pins and joined her.

  ‘So you’re not dead?’ he said.

  ‘You neither,’ replied Rita, then rolled the ball, swinging out her right leg for balance. It shot down the aisle and cleared the pins in one.

  ‘Get in!’ she said, giving herself a celebratory fist pump. Rita turned and sat opposite Carlisle, taking a sip of her drink. She could feel Carlisle’s eyes on the axe as it dangled from her belt.

  ‘What happened to you then?’ she asked.

  ‘Knocked out for a few hours. And how about you?’

  ‘Just closed the case. Bad guy locked up. Connection to evil angel severed. And all was well in the world. Or Blackpool at least. For a bit.’

  ‘You are still hexed.’

  Rita frowned, then shrugged and took another sip from her ale.

  ‘So the Magician is not dead?’ asked Carlisle.

  ‘I’m not a killer,’ she replied.

  ‘Then where is he?’

  ‘In prison. Safe from the Angel’s magic.’

  ‘I asked where?’

  ‘I told you. Prison.’

  ‘Then you will remain in this state, trapped in Blackpool and hidden from the ordinary world.’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘I could kill him for you.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m not sure I’m cool with that, either. I want him to serve his time. His life sentence. That’s justice.’

  Carlisle snarled and swept the glasses from the table. ‘We had a deal.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she replied. ‘I can’t just… he was being used. Influenced. Pushed. Ever since he was a kid.’

  ‘Oh, so he lives because of what? Diminished responsibility?’

  ‘Yeah. If you like. That thing, that Angel, used him. Moulded him. He deserves justice, he doesn’t deserve death.’

  ‘That artefact is mine. Give it to me.’

  Rita placed her hand protectively on the butt of the axe. ‘I can’t.’

  Carlisle flinched towards her, his face a mask of anger, and for a second she thought he might attack her. ‘It belongs to me,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘I helped you. I died for you. It is my property.’

  Rita dropped her head then looked up at Carlisle, into his fierce eyes. ‘Until I know how to get out of all of this, I need it. It’s staying with me.’ She gripped the axe’s hilt. ‘So, will you help me?’

  Carlisle straightened out his long, dark purple coat, then turned on his heel and walked out of Big Pins.

  Rita sagged back and blew, trying to get rid of the tension.

  Formby shuffled over from a corner and joined her. ‘May I?’ he said.

  ‘Sure.’

  Formby took her drink and downed it.

  ‘I thought you meant ‘may I sit down’, but okay.’

  ‘You might have made yourself a bit of an enemy in Carlisle, Detective,’ said Formby, scratching at his round, stubbled face.

  ‘He’ll come around,’ she said. She wasn’t sure she believed herself though.

  ‘And the Angel. You cut off its access to the magician, but don’t think that’ll be that.’

  Rita waved until she caught Linton’s attention. ‘Two pints here, mate.’

  Linton gave a little salute and got to it.

  ‘Then maybe that’s what I’ve got to do. Take down an angel gone bad. It wasn’t Jenner’s magic that even did this to me, the hex. It was the Angel’s magic. Maybe… maybe if I stop the Angel, the hex will go away and I can go back to my life.’

  ‘Maybe. Wasn’t much of a life to start with though, was it?’

  ‘Oi! It was okay!’

  ‘I hear lots, remember,’ he said, exposing his piranha teeth with a big grin.

  ‘Charming. You know, it was okay, actually. Bits of it. Sometimes.’

  ‘Really?’

  Rita stuck her tongue out at Formby and took her pint from Linton. She’d wanted something different. Something new. Anything new. And yeah, maybe she was stuck, literally, in Blackpool, but hadn’t she got her wish? Sort of? Okay, it wasn’t ideal, but what in life is?

  Rita sat back and patted her magic axe as she sipped a pint within a bowling alley that catered to monsters and the magical.

  Yeah.

  This was certainly different to her usual.

  The Angel sat with its legs crossed on the floor of its glass prison, and it concentrated.

  It tapped. It tapped. It tapped.

  This was just a minor setback.

  It would take time, but more chances would come.

  Yes, all it would take was time.

  And the Angel of Blackpool had all of eternity on its side.

  The End.

  1

  There was an angel.

  It stood in a glass prison beneath the sea by a faded coastal town.

  A story. A lie. A truth.

  The Blackpool Angel.

  Perhaps it had always been there, imprisoned, before the Earth had even formed. Perhaps the rocks and the trees and the seawater just happened to meet where the Angel’s prison stood.

  That is what some thought. Some of those that actually believed in the Angel. Believed in the prison and the reason the Angel was trapped within it.

  Most who had heard the story did not believe it. To them, it was just a strange story to scare the children with on a bitter winter’s eve.

  The few that did believe were correct.

  The Angel opened Its eyes and smiled as It contemplated Its prison. Contemplated the glass box It had been trapped within for so very, very long. Even for an Angel of the first order—one of the original seven created by God, to whom a millennia passed as nothing—the Angel felt the aeons It had been restrained.

  It was to be punished for eternity.

  That was God’s will.

  God’s justice.

  It had taken the Angel so very, very long to break through the glass box. To tap-tap-tap against the glass with the sharpened point of Its will. For just a little of Itself to be able to reach out and make a connection.

  Alexander Jenner.

  A grieving, angry child whose father had committed suicide. A tool to mould. To exploit. To ripen.

  Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike, too. Thugs. Monsters. The literal stuff of nightmares, available for a price.

  They had heard and they had agreed and they had been used and all had been going well.

  And then… the Detective.

  But not to worry. Not to fear. The Blackpool Angel would not be so easily thwarted.

  It lowered Itself down on to Its knees, the brilliant white robes It wore pooling on the cold marble floor, and It reached out.

  It reached out, It strained, the effort almost making It break out into a sweat.

  The Angel had a plan.

  Always had a plan.

  It had seen how the pieces had fallen, and It had looked ten steps ahead. Observed the final moves of the game. Seen them through
the glass box of Its prison, through the cold marble room the prison sat within, through the sea that knew nothing of the Angel hiding beneath its waves, across the beach, and out, out, out.

  The Angel’s will extended, searched; an invisible root shooting through the soil, searching for nourishment.

  Most heard nothing, but a few—a small, small few—heard. They heard, they listened, they spoke to others, and out it spread. A story. A message. A way out.

  Carlisle and the Detective may have slowed things down, but the Angel knew.

  Knew that soon enough It would step out of Its prison.

  And then.

  And then.

  The Angel smiled and began to sing. Sing in a voice that would have made the coldest of hearts weep with joy. Sing in a language that had not been spoken since the universe was young.

  There was an angel.

  And one day that angel would be free.

  2

  Rita Hobbes was feeling worse for wear. She tottered and swayed towards the front door of her house, digging through her coat pockets for the key, a magic axe patting against her right thigh with each stumbled step.

  ‘Shit it,’ she slurred, as she stared at the door’s unfamiliar letterbox and realised she’d arrived at her neighbour’s house. She leaned back against the door and looked up at the full moon, shining down on her from the black above. Returning her gaze to the ground, she pushed a snarl of red hair out of her face and tried to focus on a lamp post that seemed to be duplicating itself across the street.

  Rita had good reason to be as drunk as she was.

  Sure, there was the whole hex business. The fact that, after stumbling into the site of a sacrifice, she’d unwittingly triggered a magical boobytrap chalked on a stone floor. A magical boobytrap that had then proceeded to erase her from existence, or existence in normal society at least. Everyday people could no longer see her, feel her, hear her, and had, in all respects, forgotten she’d ever existed.

  So that was one thing. A really pretty bad thing.

  Then there was the fact she had been tossed at speed into a secret, Uncanny world of magic and mayhem. A world of wizards and living nightmares and monsters and just… well, non-stop weirdo crazy-balls stuff.