A Three-Book Collection
Page 23
‘Come here to me, child. Meet your end at last.’
Magda screamed as she sprang to her feet, ready to charge at him, ready to bite and slash and chew, ready to face her death at last, but death was not ready for her. The shattered remains of the building exploded around them, the concussive blast sending Magda flying back through the air again. This time it wasn’t magic, wasn’t the Wizard. Aircraft screamed overhead, RAF bombers delivering their nightly gift to Berlin. She staggered back to her feet, searching for any sign of the Wizard, but the ground he had stood upon moments before was now a blackened crater.
Magda glanced back to all that remained of Andras, her brother’s death shadow, and fled the battlefield.
7
Jane Bowan remembered dying. Which was strange as she still felt very much alive.
‘Hello? Anyone?’
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been wandering aimlessly for, but it felt like a long time. Hours, days, weeks. Maybe forever.
She’d been chained to a big block of stone in a chamber, with flaming torches flickering shadows up the walls. Then there had been a person, in robes, with an axe, and…
And…
And…
Jane stopped and bent over, resting her hands on her knees, trying to calm herself down.
She’d been murdered.
A weird, sacrifice-like murder; the type of thing you might see in some old British horror film. A cheap one, at that. Probably featuring Christopher Lee, or Peter Cushing, or both. It was usually both.
‘Hello?’ she said again, and carried on walking.
The place she’d found herself in was very strange indeed. At times it seemed formless, like drifting through a vague fog. At other times it was like she was walking through empty rooms in an endless house. Occasionally, she was underwater, or in fire, or in space. All in all, it was a bit of a head fuck.
The rabbit mask dream.
That’s what had started it all.
She’d always had the dream, well, the nightmare. That’s what it had been. A nightmare. A nightmare of a man in a tatty old rabbit mask. Ever since she was little she’d had that dream, but it had occurred more often in her final few weeks. Almost every night, in fact.
And then the nightmare had become reality.
He’d called himself Mr. Cotton. This rabbit mask-wearing thing from her nightmares. She’d awoken one morning and he’d stepped out of her head and into her reality. And he wasn’t alone. He had a brother, Mr. Spike, who wore a hedgehog mask and didn’t speak. She’d known real terror then. More, even, than when her final moments actually came.
Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike had taken her from her normal, wonderful, boring, amazing life and delivered her to the chamber. And then that was that and here she was. In this place. This bizarre, empty, full, never-ending place.
‘Hello?’
Jane stopped. That hadn’t been her voice.
‘Anyone? Hello?’
There was someone else here, another woman.
‘I hear you!’ Jane called back.
The voice sounded familiar.
‘Where are you?’ asked the new voice.
‘I’m here, just follow my voice. Ooh, I’ll stand still and clap my hands over and over and you can sort of zero in on me.’
‘Right, okay.’
Jane clapped, and shortly, out of the indistinct world Jane found herself in, a woman appeared.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ said the woman.
‘Ellie?’
Ellie Mason grinned and rushed forward to hug Jane.
‘Oh God, I thought I was gonna be alone forever!’
They knew each other. They’d gone to school together, been in the same classes for much of it.
‘Do you remember what happened?’ asked Jane.
Ellie bit her lip and nodded. ‘He killed me. The man with the axe. I think he killed me.’
‘Me too.’
‘So where are we, then? Is this, like, the afterlife or something?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose it must be, yeah.’
‘Hey.’ A third voice, another woman.
Jane and Ellie looked around for its source.
‘We’re here!’ cried Jane.
‘Where are you?’ asked Ellie.
A figure faded into view, more indistinct than the two of them. She had long, red hair.
‘What? It’s you two,’ said Rita Hobbes. ‘How can it be you two?’
A cheer from one of Big Pins’ bowling lanes roused Rita from her slumber. Her eyes opened with great reluctance, and she took in the place where she’d spent the night; the back room of a scummy bowling alley. She unfurled her aching body, which had spend the night curled up on a heavily-stained, rank-smelling sofa. Her head felt like someone had snuck inside her skull and stuffed it with rancid meat. She wiped a crust of dried saliva from her chin and groaned.
How did she get here? She replayed the events of the previous night, or at least the ones she could recall. She remembered going home, only to find out that it wasn’t her home anymore. She remembered the strangers sleeping in her bed. And with nowhere else to go, she remembered coming here, to Big Pins, a '50s style bowling alley and Uncanny gathering place.
Linton, the owner, had agreed to let her use the back room as a temporary home, as long as she kept the place tidy. Rita looked around at the room, with its disgusting, nicotine-stained ceiling, threadbare carpet, and creeping damp, and wondered just how much worse Linton thought she could make the place.
She sat up and realised she’d been hugging the axe. The enchanted axe. The axe that gave her the power to take the magic of someone else and use it herself. She’d been dreaming as she hugged the axe. Dreaming about the two women DCI Jenner had murdered, Jane and Ellie. It would have been a third if she hadn’t had rescued Gemma Wheeler, who was still in hospital and under police guard. Because although Rita knew the case was solved—the killer incarcerated in a dreamscape prison of her own making— there was no way for the police to know that.
Jane’s boyfriend. Ellie’s mum. Waterson’s mum. All left hanging. All left in the dark. But at least she’d brought Jenner to justice. At least she’d stopped him, and that creepy bastard of an Angel.
Rita stood, slid the axe into her belt, and made her way into Big Pins proper. She saw the cause of her awakening, a group of drunk women, bowling on lane one. They looked like perfectly normal women, but Rita knew it was best not to take anything in Big Pins for granted. Maybe they were witches. Or vampires. Or vampire witches.
Rita slumped down on a stool at the bar, her eyelids heavy, her throat dry as cotton.
‘Morning,’ she said to Linton, as he slid a glass of orange juice her way. ‘Thanks, big man.’
‘How was your rest?’
‘Your couch stinks.’
‘You are welcome.’
‘So does this place ever close? It’s, like, seven in the morning, and that lot over there are already mullered.’
‘Why would we close?’
‘Places close.’
‘They do?’
‘Yeah, obviously.’
‘Not this place.’
Rita sipped at her orange juice. A plate was placed before her. On it sat a bacon sandwich. At that moment, it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. ‘Linton, I’m pretty sure I love you.’
‘Thank you. I don’t love you.’
Rita chowed down on the sandwich as though she hadn’t eaten for days. She realised that she possibly hadn’t.
‘Hello, Detective,’ said Formby as he took a stool beside her. Rita mumbled a hello around a mouthful of thick, white bread, bacon, and brown sauce. Formby grinned, exposing his set of sharp little piranha teeth. Teeth that could bite through bone. Formby was an eaves, a type of Uncanny creature that looked a lot like a man-sized mole. Eaves traded in secrets, in whispers, in overheard knowledge.
‘Seen anything of Carlisle?’ asked Rita after swallowing a payload of greasy deliciousness.
‘What? Gone where?’
‘Birmingham way as I hear it.’
‘Why?’
Formby shrugged. ‘Buggered if I know. Terrible place is Birmingham.’
Rita sagged. She’d upset Carlisle by not handing the axe over to him, but she still needed his help. If anyone was going to find a way to dispel the hex that had been placed upon her, it would be him. Besides, it’s not like she wanted to keep the axe from the guy, she just couldn’t give it up as long as she was stuck in this stupid situation. She needed it. For protection. ‘He’ll be back,’ she said, and patted the axe dangling from her belt.
‘So. You,’ said Formby. ‘Still here, still hexed. Still cut off from your life and your people. Very sad. Very, very sad.’
‘Yeah, thanks for the cheery pep talk, love,’ replied Rita.
‘What’re you going to do?’
Rita mulled the question over and shrugged. ‘Not sure, to be honest.’ A burble of conversation at a table by the door caught Rita’s attention. ‘Sounds like some early-morning excitement.’
‘One minute,’ said Formby, hopping off the stool.’
‘What are you doing?’ asked Rita.
‘I’m an eaves. I’m doing eaves stuff.’
Rita carried on with her sandwich as Formby shuffled over to the animated table and started poking his snub nose into their conversation.
‘You should be careful,’ said Linton, spraying a pair of bowling shoes.
‘Should I?’ asked Rita.
‘Carlisle, he’s not a man to play with. He’ll get what he wants, one way or the other.’
‘Don’t worry about me, big man,’ replied Rita, ‘I’ve dealt with worse. Not to toot my own horn, but I twatted an evil Angel yesterday. I’m hot shit, me.’
Linton raised an eyebrow and continued to de-stink bowling shoes.
Formby arrived back at the bar, clambering up on to his stool and continuing to enjoy his drink. Rita looked at him in silent expectation. ‘Well?’
‘What’s that?’
‘What did you find out? What were they talking about?’
‘Oh. Just murder.’
‘They’re planning a murder?’
‘No, no. Maybe. Wouldn’t put it past the buggers. But no, someone’s been murdered. Body was found last night.’
Rita turned fully to Formby. ‘Who? Not a “normal” person, I take it, if that lot’s interested?’
‘He was a wizard. Dead wizard now, course. Ha! Big news, that. Dead wizards is always big news.’
Rita looked over to the table, then stood and made her way over. ‘Hey, you lot, what’s this Formby tells me about a murder?’
‘None of your business, hexer,’ said a remarkably ugly little man with dark, green skin. He looked like Yoda cosplaying as the Green Goblin.
‘I’m a detective, murder is my business,’ replied Rita, well aware of how bad-ass that sounded. It wasn’t the first time she’d said it.
‘Not one of us, though. Not properly,’ replied Yoda Goblin.
Rita sighed and opened her coat, revealing the axe in her belt. ‘Know what that is, love?’
Yoda Goblin nodded.
‘Out with it then, tell me what you know.’
Yoda Goblin looked at his drinking companions, who were all leaning away from him as if he was nothing to do with them. ‘Don’t know anything. Just a dead wizard was found in Blackpool. Killed horribly. Taken to the morgue, now.’
Rita took out her notepad and jotted the details down. ‘And that’s all you know, is it? All any of you know?’
Yoda Goblin and his companions nodded, Rita flicked the notepad closed and pocketed it. ‘Thanks Greeny, if you hear any more, let me or Formby know, right?’
Rita headed back to the bar.
‘What you doing there, then?’ asked Formby. ‘Not your business.’
‘You asked me what I was going to do. Well, I want this hex lifted. I want my life back. But who knows how long that will take, or if it’ll happen at all. In the meantime, I’m going to do what I’ve always done. I’m going to be a detective.’
Rita sat and realised she was smiling, just a little.
There was a new mystery to solve.
8
May 10th, 2006, Scottish Highlands
She was going to tell him.
Magda rolled over in bed and looked at the face sleeping soundly beside her. Jamie McAlister. The first person outside of her family that she’d ever loved. Ever allowed herself to love. Love was a weakness, letting someone into her life was a weakness. Because her life was danger.
She sat up, setting the bed in the cottage she’d called home for almost two years creaking.
Two years.
She hadn’t stayed in one place for that long since she’d run off into the forest, cradling her sleeping baby brother.
Death shadow.
That was her dominant image of Andras now. Not his smiling face. Not his dark, brooding eyes. Not the way his mouth would look when he hunted, full of beautiful, sharp teeth.
No.
The ash afterimage.
The death shadow in that bombed-out house in Berlin.
She’d left Berlin without returning to their basement home to collect her belongings. She ran from the Wizard, from Germany, and kept on running. From country to country. From city, to town, to countryside, never staying put for longer than six months at a time. Everywhere was her home, and nowhere too. Always moving forward, looking back over her shoulder, fear keeping her sharp. Keeping her alive.
And it had worked.
She had not seen the Wizard again, not since that night in Berlin. She often wondered if the bombing had killed him, though she thought that unlikely. That night, face-to-face with him, she could feel how powerful he was. Her skin had tingled and itched with the magic boiling off him.
No, he’d survived, but she’d stayed off his radar, for decades, because she’d learned how to hide.
Oh, she’d encountered other wizards. They loved to hunt her kind. Saw it as their duty to cull their numbers, like they were nothing. Like they were animals to put to the slaughter.
Magda was not an animal.
Not in the way they thought.
She was regal. She was strong. She was beautiful. All of her kind were.
A warm hand on the small of her back made Magda jump as it broke her train of thought.
‘Morning, my lovely,’ said Jamie, all sleepy-slurry.
‘Morning,’ replied Magda, leaning over to plant a kiss on his lips. She stood and enjoyed the way Jamie’s eyes roamed over her naked body. She smiled and dressed.
‘Aw,’ said Jamie, jutting out his bottom lip.
‘I believe you saw quite enough of me last night, my dear.’
She was going to tell him. Couldn’t lie to him anymore, couldn’t keep the most important part of herself from him. No, she was going to tell him.
She never got the chance to.
Jamie sat up and pointed past Magda, to the wicker chair in the far corner of the room, and asked, ‘Who are you?’
Magda turned to see the Wizard sat with his eyes closed, like he was meditating.
She darted for the door, but it slammed closed on its own, and a heavy wardrobe slid across the floor, sealing it shut.
‘No, no,’ said the Wizard, opening one eye, ‘you have done very well, wolf. Be proud—if your kind can be proud—but all good things must come to an end.’
Jamie hopped out of bed and grabbed a boot, brandishing it at the oversized interloper.
‘All right, man, I dunno how you just did that, but you can piss off out of here before I call the police!’
‘With your shoe?’ replied the Wizard.
Jamie looked at the shoe, then back at the Wizard. ‘No, this is to hit you with.’
‘I see.’ The Wizard clicked his fin
gers and the shoe shot from Jamie’s hand and landed in his own.
‘Don’t hurt him,’ cried Magda.
‘He threatened to shoe me, wolf.’
‘He’s not like me. He’s just, he’s normal. He’s a normal man.’
‘What d’you mean,’ said Jamie, ‘what am I not like?’
The Wizard mock-frowned at Magda. ‘Keeping secrets from your mate? Tut-tut, wolf, is there no end to your wicked ways?’
It was all falling apart. Her life, her love, her happiness. At long last she’d felt secure, felt happy, felt her heart open up, and here he was. The Wizard. As though he’d allowed her this time just to make its end all the more shattering.
She’d let herself get weak. She would not allow it again.
‘Do you two know each other?’ asked Jamie, self-consciously pulling on a pair of jeans.
‘Oh, we go a long, long way back, don’t we Magda, dear? I killed her family. Her mother, her father, her poor young brother.’
Jamie looked from the Wizard to Magda, dumbfounded.
‘Magda is not what she appears. She is a monster. She is a thing of the dark. She has a touch of Hell in her, which is why I am here to take care of her, for the safety of all.’
‘I haven’t harmed anyone. Not in years.’
‘But you will. You know you will. Perhaps, most of the time, the ache is not so bad, but every full moon, how it must itch and ache. The desire to run wild. To bite, to chew, to feast, and to turn the helpless into beasts to run at your heel, under your black command.’ As the Wizard spoke, Magda’s body trembled, sweat prickling her body. ‘Sooner or later, you will succumb. It is inevitable. It is your animal instinct and it will not be silenced.’
Magda realised she was growling.
‘Okay, what is going on?’ demanded Jamie.
‘Tell me, what do you know of werewolves?’ asked the Wizard.
Jamie blinked twice, the silence thick. ‘I beg your pardon? Did he just say werewolves?’
‘I did, for they are real. Magic exists and so do monsters, and your lady here is very much a monster. A master werewolf, able to control her lycanthropy and turn others with a single bite. That is, if she doesn’t kill and eat them.’