A Three-Book Collection

by M. V. Stott

  Rita stood, blowing the blade of the axe like she was Dirty Harry and she’d just plugged some guy good.

  ‘All in a day’s work, partner.’

  ‘My body, the maggots… that wasn’t normal.’

  ‘Definitely not normal.’

  Rita nudged at the tattered remains of Dan Waterson’s corpse.

  ‘A coincidence that something like this would happen at my funeral? To my corpse?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘Yeah. Thought so. What now?’

  Rita spotted something on one of the pews. She walked over and picked it up. It was a hair band with a pair of tatty old rabbit ears attached to it.

  ‘Now we put on our detective trousers.’

  Rita wished Carlisle was around to help.

  4

  Carlisle was and wasn’t sat at a table outside a charming little Parisian cafe, enjoying a cup of black coffee and a croissant. He teased at the flaking pastry as a young couple on a bicycle—the woman in the saddle, the man on the crossbar—rolled past, giggling. Carlisle considered tossing the pastry in their direction with some velocity. But he didn’t. Instead, he sipped the coffee, delighting in its bitterness, then placed the cup down and stretched out in his chair until his long purple coat reached down to the pavement. He closed his eyes and let the sun warm his chalk-white skin,

  Carlisle was in a bad situation.

  He had been in bad situations before. In fact, a high percentage of his long existence had been spent sandwiched between a bad situation and a probable, painful death. A couple of times he’d even toppled right over into death, but he’d always had an ace up his sleeve. A get-out for when the Reaper came a-calling and laid a cold hand upon his shoulder.

  This time he’d been all out of aces.

  This time, unless he thought of something fast, his number was up.

  ‘Is this seat taken?’ asked the Angel of Blackpool.

  Carlisle frowned and opened one eye to see the Angel stood before him, tall, delicate, beautiful, wearing brilliant white robes that seemed to hum they were so bright.

  ‘This is my fantasy,’ Carlisle told the Angel. ‘I do not believe I handed out invites.’

  The Angel pulled out a chair and gracefully lowered Itself on to it. Carlisle grimaced and sat up, tearing off a chunk of croissant and gnawing upon it.

  ‘They shall kill you,’ said the Angel.

  Carlisle sipped his coffee as the young couple on the bicycle looped through the imaginary scene again.

  ‘You know, I’ve never actually been to Paris. But I did stab a man to death somewhere in the south of France one brisk winter’s afternoon a hundred years back. Jacques, I think was his name. Terrible lisp. Missing half an ear on the right side from a bar room brawl. Stank of stale sweat. Funny, the things you remember, wouldn’t you say? When I think of him I could swear I can still smell that rank odour, and yet for the life of me I cannot recall why I sunk my blade into his belly, nor why I cut out his heart and fed it to a sow.’

  ‘Perhaps we might assist each other.’

  Carlisle raised an incredulous eyebrow. ‘Asking for help? From little old me? My, my, you must really be hitting rock bottom.’

  Carlisle had gone looking for a way to kill the Angel of Blackpool, and had been tricked into thinking the answer lay in the City of the Dead, beneath the streets of Manchester. A man named Horse had been that trick.

  ‘What is it like to be the one being used for once, hm?’ asked Carlisle.

  The Angel did not answer, but Its eyes grew darker, just for a moment.

  There had been no man named Horse, it had been Mr. Cotton and his brother, Mr. Spike, in disguise, and Carlisle had smuggled them out of the City of the Dead and back to the Angel of Blackpool’s prison chamber. The plan had been for them to then carry on assisting the Angel, but it seemed as though Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike had had other ideas.

  ‘Help me and I can help you,’ said the Angel.

  ‘And how would you do that?’

  ‘Escape. Life. Your artefact.’

  Carlisle felt his stomach tighten and his heart jump at the mention of his artefact. The axe that Detective Rita Hobbes currently had in her possession. The craving to hold it, to use it once again, itched at him.

  ‘And I suppose, after I assist in some unspecified manner, I will be permitted to dance off into the sunset? How gullible do you think I am?’

  A hint of a smile teased at the corners of the Angel’s mouth. ‘Gullible enough to be fooled into smuggling Cotton and Spike from the City of the Dead.’

  ‘Well, if you’re going to bring that up, it is rather the pot calling the kettle black, wouldn’t you say?’ Carlisle finished off the pastry and gestured to the waiter to bring him another.

  The Angel opened Its mouth to speak once more, but before It could utter another word, It turned to smoke and was wafted away by the arriving waiter, who placed a plate with a fresh pastry before Carlisle.

  ‘Ah, thank you on two counts,’ said Carlisle, glad the Angel had gone.

  ‘What did It want?’ asked the waiter.

  Carlisle looked up, irritated at the imaginary waiter’s question, only to find himself looking into the fraying, ancient rabbit mask of Mr. Cotton.

  ‘Oh,’ said Carlisle.

  ‘Found you,’ replied Mr. Cotton. ‘Very rude to hide from pain, Carlisle, you know how much my brother enjoys inflicting it.’

  Carlisle sighed and looked around at Paris one last time. ‘My apologies to you and yours, you third-rate cretin.’

  Mr. Cotton’s rabbit mask frowned, though of course it did not, as it was just a mask.

  ‘Get on with it, then.’

  The table in front of Carlisle was tossed aside as Mr. Spike, sporting his dank hedgehog mask, burst from beneath, white-gloved hands reaching for his face.

  And in the time it took to blink, Paris was gone.

  Carlisle was in the Angel of Blackpool’s prison chamber, the ice-cold of the marble floor pressed against his cheek.

  Everything hurt.

  Carlisle wanted to say something smart and condescending—he always wanted to say something smart and condescending—but if he were to open his mouth, he knew the only sound to emerge would be a ragged, blood-flecked scream.

  His eyes fluttered open, the giant, vaulted chamber coming into focus, its huge columns reaching up and up, flickering candles stretching out all around like a wax forest set ablaze.

  Carlisle had been made a pin cushion, only instead of pins, jagged shards of glass punctured his flesh. His stomach, his arms, his legs, his neck; every part of him stung sharply, every nerve end shrieking. He wanted to run, to get up and race away from this chamber, but he had been pinned in place. Mr. Cotton was using some of his newfound power to stop him from creating an exit. He was stuck.

  ‘Back in the room, Carlisle?’ asked Mr. Cotton, stepping into view, hands behind his back.

  Carlisle glanced over to the glass box containing the Angel of Blackpool. It was on Its knees in the centre of the prison, hands resting on Its thighs, head bowed, hair hanging down. Its brilliant white robes pooled around It like a puddle of milk.

  Carlisle could see black fingers of smoke weaving through weaknesses in the glass, reaching across the chamber, winding around Mr. Cotton. Cotton reached up a white-gloved hand and toyed with the Angel’s power. Power that he and his brother-in-anguish were now feasting upon. Using. Unleashing.

  Both the Angel and Carlisle had been taken for fools. He had to applaud Cotton and Spike for that. At least, he would have applauded if it didn’t hurt quite so much to move, and if his right hand wasn’t pinned to the ground by a shard of glass.

  ‘Can you feel the fear?’ asked Mr. Cotton.

  ‘I fear nothing,’ growled Carlisle.

  ‘Not your own fear, dear one, you keep that locked in tight, but fret not, my brother and I shall unlock it in time. No, no, I refer to the fear of the town beyond. Of Blackpool. How wonderful a tool this Angel has prov
en. We plug in and are amplified. Day or night, the people of Blackpool are now our buffet.’

  Mr. Cotton began to tap dance, causing the sound to rattle in Carlisle’s ear, which was still pressed to the ground. He let out a weary groan as he rolled on to his back and looked up to the ceiling, half-hidden in the gloom.

  The nightmare brothers had not returned to assist the Angel of Blackpool. They had decided they were done waiting for It to give them what was promised. Carlisle had gone to the City of the Dead looking for a weapon to use against the Angel, only it was Cotton and Spike that had found one. A set of words. A sentence that allowed them to leech the Angel’s celestial magic and amplify their own particular set of skills.

  Now they would not need to focus on just one person at a time. One dream turned nightmarish. Now they could keep a whole town in their thrall. No doubt if the Angel was not trapped within Its glass box It would put a stop to this, to being used and ignored and double-crossed, but trapped It was. Carlisle was unsure—despite the rather dicey situation he found himself in—whether doing as the Angel asked and helping It was altogether the best idea. Even if he could have done such a thing.

  The damp rasp of Mr. Spike’s breath against the inside of his hedgehog mask let Carlisle know that the torture was about to begin again.

  ‘You… you know… that breath of yours is… is torture enough…’

  Mr. Spike giggled as he oh so slowly slid a new piece of glass into Carlisle’s side. His screams echoed around the marble chamber, and Mr. Cotton danced in time to the music of pain.

  5

  Ben Turner scratched at the beard he’d started growing since becoming a fugitive. He wasn’t sure that it suited him; the beard or being on the lam. But then it wasn’t as though he’d had much of a choice in the matter, and being a fugitive was certainly more appealing than the alternative. Ben was pretty sure he wouldn’t flourish in a prison environment.

  A cheer went up from the second bowling lane in Big Pins—the main hangout for Uncanny folk in Blackpool—momentarily nudging Ben out of his self pity. A woman who Ben had it on good authority was a six-hundred year-old vampire was high fiving a three-foot goblin. Perhaps low fiving would be more accurate.

  Vampires and goblins, and more besides. Ghosts! Ben had seen them all in the last week, ever since he’d been taken under Rita Hobbes’ wing. Each new addition to the Uncanny roster should have been cause for alarm, but since he himself had been turned into a werewolf, it was easier to just accept the monsters and move on.

  At times like this, when Ben was sat alone, three or four drinks deep, his mind would start to wonder how many people he’d murdered. How many had died between his teeth since Magda had turned him into one of her pets? Since she’d afflicted him with this curse. He knew of one for sure, Alan Crowther, the front desk security guard at Ben’s old office. He didn’t remember the actual murder, he had little to no memories of being in his wolf form, but he knew that he had been the one to end Alan’s life.

  So how many more?

  He’d turned more than once, and other bodies had been discovered in the wake of Magda’s reign of terror. Other people had been turned by Magda, so perhaps the additional deaths had been at their claws, but Ben didn’t know that for sure. Perhaps his tally of the dead lay north of one.

  It was very strange, knowing you were a murderer, whilst also knowing that it was completely out of your hands. Knowing that the you who had done the biting, the ripping, the gouging, wasn’t really you at all.

  Rita had told him more than once that he shouldn’t feel any responsibility for what he had done when he was under the control of the lycanthropy magic, and he knew that she was right. She was right, and beautiful, with really great hair. She was right. And yet Ben couldn’t shake the guilt that rested its rotten hands upon his sagging shoulders.

  He wondered where Rita was right now. He pulled out the new phone she’d given him and started writing out a text, then deleted it and pocketed the thing. He was being needy. He had to start pulling himself out of this rolling funk. Still, it would’ve been nice to have seen Rita’s face right about then. To see her smile, and the way she would tease at the ends of her thick red hair as she spoke to him.

  A giant hand placed a fresh pint of beer on the table in front of Ben. Linton stood there, a hulking tree of a man with almost grey skin and a face that wasn’t prone to anything so everyday as expressions.

  ‘Thank you, Linton,’ Ben told the owner of Big Pins.

  ‘Welcome,’ Linton replied.

  ‘Just thinking about how many people I might have murdered again,’ said Ben, in as cheery a manner as possible.

  ‘Hm. More that you didn’t kill than you did.’

  ‘Well, true. I definitely didn’t kill more than I did. Never looked at it like that before.’

  Linton nodded, then turned and made his way back to the bar, where the vampire lady was impatiently waiting to be served.

  Rita had already been using Big Pins as her home, and had now persuaded Linton to let Ben use the basement as a place to sleep. The same basement he’d previously been locked inside of so when the full moon rose and he changed, he’d be safely stashed away.

  He didn’t have any memories from the times he’d turned, apart from one. A memory of being in that basement, a raging beast, looking up to see the door open and finding Magda framed there, a maternal smile on her face, brilliant blue eyes sparkling, reaching a hand towards him.

  Just that one memory.

  Ben shook his head and finished off his previous drink, pushing the empty glass aside and reaching for the new pint.

  Okay, thought Ben, got to think of something else. Something other than guilt and murder and Magda.

  He wasn’t entirely certain why Linton had been so open to him staying under his roof. He certainly didn’t have any money to pay him. Rita had waggled her eyebrows and said she could be persuasive. Ben had asked if that meant she was sleeping with Linton. The dead arm she gave him convinced Ben that he was mistaken.

  ‘He’s open to my whims, Benny. There’s a magic dampening bubble protecting this place,’ Rita had said. ‘But still, you get a lot of bad sorts wanting to cause trouble. It doesn’t hurt to have a bad-ass like me waving an axe about. Also, beneath that gruff exterior, Linton is a big old soft touch.’

  Ben smiled, began to drink his fresh pint, and thought about texting Rita a funny cat video he’d seen online.

  Rita was about to knock on the door of a basement flat when her phone chimed.

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Waterson.

  Rita sniggered, then put the phone away. ‘Ben. Ha, how is that whole kitty fitting in a jam jar?’

  ‘Aw, isn’t that sweet?’ said Waterson, batting his eyelashes.

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘You lurve him.’

  ‘He does look hot with that beard.’

  ‘Roughs him up a bit.’

  ‘Keep your ghostly fingers to yourself, Waters.’

  Waterson rolled his eyes as Rita began knocking at the weathered door. He eyed the mounds of rotting rubbish piled high in the narrow gap between the flat and the wall that reached up to street level. He was sure if he had a solid foot to nudge it with, a hundred fat, greasy rats would explode from within.

  ‘This place is disgusting,’ he said.

  ‘Wait until you see inside. Bob is not exactly the house proud sort.’

  ‘Seeing as you’ve been knocking for almost a minute, I think he’s also not the in-at-the-moment sort.’

  ‘Have a look.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You’re a ghost. You can, you know, walk through shit. Walls and stuff. Just walk in and have a nosey.’

  Waterson made to complain, then wondered what it was he was complaining about and stopped. He certainly felt offended in some way that made no sense. He frowned and stepped through the door.

  ‘Is he in?’ Rita asked through the letter box.

  ‘Give me a bloody second, will you, yo
u annoying woman.’

  ‘All right. Sexist.’

  Waterson sighed and looked around at the crack den he had wandered into. The wallpaper of the corridor was missing in great, torn patches. The carpet was a disaster. Waterson was, for the first time, glad he was a ghost and lacking the necessary nose to smell the place.

  He took the first door and found himself in the front room of Bob’s flat, which was even more foul than the corridor. Mounds of takeaway cartons and wrappers were everywhere, many with maggots squirming around in the leftovers. Numerous plastic bottles lay strewn about, full of what looked suspiciously like piss. It wouldn’t be how he would decorate a living area himself, but then to each their own.

  A man, who Waterson assumed was Bob, the rancid inhabitant of this armpit of a flat, was asleep on an old armchair, the room’s only item of furniture. Bob was overweight, with greasy hair plastered to his fat egg of a head. He wore a pair of trousers that may once, many moons ago, have belonged to a smart suit, and a t-shirt with a picture of Hellboy on it.

  There was a crash in the corridor and Rita joined him.

  She looked at Waterson’s raised eyebrow and shrugged. ‘Got tired of waiting. You found him then?’

  ‘Well, I found the king of all the tramps here, who I’m really hoping isn’t the man you brought me to see. The man you said might be able to help me.’

  ‘Yup, that’s Bob the Uncanny Exorcist.’

  Waterson sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Fuck my afterlife.’

  Rita liked to think she was a good friend. Well, sometimes. It depended on the situation. She knew Waterson was having trouble with his situation. She knew, because he never stopped harping on about it. She’d promised to try and help him, to at least get him the best information she could about what might be in store for him. When he might be finally called to Heaven, or how he could, perhaps, speed the process up. Bob the slobby Exorcist here had been trained at the Vatican. It seemed to Rita that he might be as good a person as any to ask about such things.

  She wasn’t happy about it though.