A Three-Book Collection

by M. V. Stott

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘Was that offensive?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Right.’ Gemma sipped at her hot tea. ‘I hope you haven’t come with bad news.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’ asked Rita. ‘Can’t a girl drop in on a friend for a bit of tea and banter?’

  ‘Yeah. But when you bring the frowning ghost it makes me suspicious.’ Gemma’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh! He’s not got out, has he? The Magician bloke, Jenner, has he escaped? Am I in danger?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that, promise,’ replied Rita.

  ‘Okay. Good. I’m still not keen on the idea of being sacrificed.’

  Rita laughed and drank her tea. She had once dated Gemma’s cousin, a uniformed officer. She’d liked him a lot, he was fun, and cute. Well, “dated” was a bit strong for what the status of their relationship had actually been. They drank together. They occasionally saw films together. They quite often had loud, energetic sex together. He’d been keen to make things more official and “normal”, as he’d put it, but Rita had never been eager to turn it from a good shag into a boyfriend/girlfriend thing. She’d had every intention of leaving Blackpool for one thing, so falling in love with someone there would have been a disaster. Of course, now she wasn’t able to leave Blackpool anyway due to the hex. Funny how things turn out. She found herself sad that, whatever their relationship had actually been, he no longer remembered anything about it. The way he’d look at her with those big puppy dog eyes after they’d had sex, hoping against hope that she’d let him stay overnight.

  ‘We just dropped by to ask you a question,’ said Waterson, shaking Rita from her reverie.

  ‘Okay then,’ said Gemma, ‘fire away.’

  ‘I was just wondering if you’d been experiencing any bad dreams recently,’ said Rita.

  ‘Well, I was traumatised by a man in robes wanting to chop me up with an axe, not sure if you remember, so yeah, I’ve had the odd bad dream here and there.’

  ‘Right. Sorry. But I mean something more specific.’

  ‘You mean the rabbit mask dream?’

  They’d all had dreams about the rabbit mask, the one Mr. Cotton wore. All of the women who Jenner had intended to sacrifice had seen the mask in their nightmares for as long as they could remember.

  ‘Have you?’ asked Waterson.

  ‘No. Not that I remember anyway.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ said Rita.

  ‘Why would I lie?’

  ‘No, right, of course.’

  ‘From what I can remember, the only mask I’ve dreamed about recently was the goat one the Magician was wearing. Doesn’t mean I haven’t seen the rabbit mask in my dreams too, of course, but I don’t remember it if I have.’

  Rita finished her mug of tea and placed it down beside Waterson’s unwanted one.

  ‘Thanks, Gemma. For the drink and for putting up with more questions.’

  ‘That’s all right. Most people pussyfoot around what happened to me. Worry I’ll break down and get all embarrassing on them.’

  Gemma walked them to the door.

  ‘Phone me,’ said Rita, ‘if you see anyone in a rabbit mask, in your dreams or otherwise, let me know. It’s important.’

  ‘Promise.’

  They said their goodbyes and Gemma closed the front door behind them.

  ‘So what now, then?’ asked Waterson.

  Rita rested her hand on the handle of the axe. ‘Time for another home visit.’

  Rita had visited Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike’s house once before. The hidden house nestled within their dream realm. She’d saved Carlisle and put an end to the nightmare of Cotton and Spike. Now she was not so sure that the end had been as permanent as she had assumed.

  Waterson watched as Rita held the axe tightly in both hands, eyes closed, lips moving silently. The axe head strobed with colour, ribbons of magic whirling around it.

  ‘Right then,’ said Rita, opening her eyes and swinging the axe so that the blade stuck into, well, nothing. Into reality. The colours burst from the axe and an opening appeared.

  ‘We couldn’t just take the bus, then?’ asked Waterson.

  ‘Not on any route, Waters.’

  ‘Okay, magic portal it is then.’

  Rita had been to the house before, and the axe remembered the way.

  Detective Hobbes and Waterson stepped into the portal, into the wound in reality, and found themselves in a darkened room.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ said Rita.

  ‘What? What is it?’ replied Waterson, on high alert.

  ‘It bloody stinks in here.’

  Waterson gave Rita an evil glare as she pinched her nose and the magic portal closed behind them.

  Rita flicked the light switch and the candelabras affixed to the walls sparked and sputtered into life.

  ‘Okay, how does that work?’

  ‘Buggered if I know,’ said Rita, ‘but then this isn’t an ordinary house. This is all the stuff of dreams.’

  They were in a nursery. Sat in the corner of the room, a large wooden rocking horse eyed them balefully. Vines reached up through the floor, through the thick shag carpet, wrapping themselves around the horse. The vines had also claimed a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, and an empty crib.

  Rita pressed her foot down on the carpet. It squelched and brown liquid oozed to the surface. The whole nursery was in a state of decay. Rotting. Overtaken by vegetation that thrived in the putrefying room.

  ‘Come on, we’re on a wabbit hunt,’ said Rita, wiggling her nose.

  Waterson rolled his eyes and followed behind.

  Cotton and Spike’s home was large and old and in a state of advanced decomposition. It was as though the house itself had been a living thing, and Cotton and Spike had been its beating heart. Its soul. Without them, it was a husk.

  They moved as quietly as they could down the corridor, past the eyes of the oil paintings that lined the walls. Old, cracked paintings of men in powdered wigs and frilly ruffs. Rita wondered if the people in the portraits could see her, whether their eyes were following her as she walked. That’s the sort of thing you’d expect in a nightmare, and this was where nightmares lived. Where nightmares were born.

  She and Waterson made their way down the grand staircase, each step loudly announcing their presence. If anyone was home, they would definitely know they had unexpected guests by now. Yet Rita was pretty certain that she and Waterson were the only people present. No one else had walked the halls and rooms here for some time.

  ‘I take it you can deal with this pair if they do appear unexpectedly?’ asked Waterson.

  ‘I twatted them last time, I can do it again.’

  Rita opened the door to the large dining room that she had found Carlisle’s corpse in the last time she had been there. Part of her hoped she might find him there again, though alive this time. At the far end was a large table laden high with rotting piles of food. The smell was overpowering, and brought tears to Rita’s eyes.

  ‘Another win for team dead and can’t smell,’ said Waterson, eyeing the terrible, putrid mountain.

  Rita rushed from the room, slamming the door behind her, and tried not to empty her stomach on the floor. The whole house stank, but that room was just a little too much. She composed herself, wiping the spittle from her lips using the sleeve of her coat.

  ‘They’re not here,’ she said. ‘No one’s here.’

  They checked the rest of the house just to be thorough, ducking and stepping over the vines that crept along every floor, every ceiling. If Cotton and Spike were behind the strange events of late—and Rita knew in her gut that they absolutely were—they were holed up elsewhere. Well, they could skulk where they wished, but she’d find them.

  She only hoped she might find Carlisle, too.

  Carlisle’s eyes flickered open.

  He’d been unconscious for a while, passed out from the pain. That was probably the only thing that had kept him from being dead already. Mr. Spike didn’t like p
laying with things that couldn’t feel fear, couldn’t acknowledge pain, so when Carlisle had passed out, he’d left him to go and find tastier treats.

  If Carlisle had passed out even a few seconds later, he would have died. Too much damage, too much pain; his body would have finally given in. Mr. Spike was unrivalled in his ability to keep his victims alive. To slowly tease out his tortures so that the poor person at his mercy would live as long as possible, and in acute agony. But even someone as hardy as Carlisle could only take so much. Sooner or later—likely very much sooner—Carlisle would perish.

  He glanced around, ears straining for any sound, for any evidence that either Cotton or Spike were present, that they would carry on the abuse once they saw him conscious again, but neither were there. It was just him, his body a battered, slashed, purple mess, and the Angel, still kneeling with Its head bowed in the centre of Its glass box.

  Carlisle grunted and pushed himself up, wincing as the glass shards that pinned him dug into the flesh. Slowly, agonisingly, he removed any glass and, his body complaining viciously, propped himself into a sitting position against a column and tried to catch his breath.

  He had one chance, and it wasn’t a favourable one. It would most likely lead to his death in another way, but at least it would not be directly at the hand of Mr. Spike or his rabbit mask-sporting, tap-dancing brother.

  He had to relinquish his physical body.

  Hopefully temporarily.

  He had to step into the astral plane to be able to bypass the lock they had placed upon him, and reach out for help.

  There were three problems with this last resort he now found himself embracing. Well, four.

  Firstly: he might not find anyone prepared to help him. Or capable even. Which would be annoying. Annoying and lethal.

  Secondly: a body left behind in this way would start to deteriorate. It would rot, physically and mentally, the longer it was abandoned. Even if he found help, Carlisle might return to his body to find it degraded beyond repair. He had no idea how long his body would allow him to step outside of it before it passed the point of no return.

  Thirdly: he had little experience of this sort of excursion. He had, briefly, stepped out of his body once before, but that had been a mistake. A spell gone wrong. He’d rather swiftly clambered back inside himself when he realised what had happened. The astral plane was not easy to traverse, so his lack of experience meant he might well be tossing himself into a blender. A leaf in a hurricane. No control, no sense of where he was, or where anything else was. His consciousness could drown in it.

  So far, so terrible; but those first three thumbs down weren’t even the thing he was most concerned about.

  There were… things that hunted for vacant bodies. For physical forms that had been left unprotected. Almost things that ached for true existence, for actual substance. Anyone travelling to the astral plane would first place themselves within a powerful spell of protection: shapes and words sketched on the ground that they would use to fortify their Earthly form. The almost things, the desperate creatures without form that searched for a body to call home, would be kept at bay by these protective spells. Without them, Carlisle would be erecting a giant neon AVAILABLE FOR OCCUPATION sign next to his battered and bruised body. The things were like sharks, they could smell an empty body from miles away. Would his otherworldly whereabouts help hide him? Carlisle hoped so, but he doubted it. Death was one thing, but the idea of something else using his body as their own offended him. Turned his stomach on a primal level.

  But he had no choice.

  He had been backed into a corner and he was going to have to take a leap of faith.

  ‘What’s life without a little risk?’ he muttered quietly to himself.

  He brushed down his coat, squared his shoulders, closed his eyes…

  ...and then he was gone.

  7

  Marie Dwyer had butterflies in her stomach.

  She clenched and unclenched her hands, her grey-painted nails digging into her palms, and hoped to God she wasn’t smiling too insanely.

  Marie was sat in The Grapes, a cosy pub a few streets away from Blackpool’s seafront, snuggled down a dead end street. An absurdly handsome man named Carl Cooper, with gorgeous green eyes and a jawline that made her knees weak, was sat opposite, telling Marie about his dream of setting up a chain of coffee shops. If she hadn’t been so madly hot for him she might have pointed out that the likes of Costa and Starbucks seemed to have the monopoly on coffee shop chains, but right now her heart and, well, her crotch, were doing the thinking, and both of those things were prepared to agree with anything the man had to say. Especially anything dirty.

  ‘I think, within five years, I could have a shop in Manchester, Birmingham, Carlisle, maybe even Newcastle.’

  Marie tucked her mousy brown hair behind her ears and carried on nodding.

  Carl Cooper ran a cute little coffee shop called Blaffee, which—Carl had excitedly explained—was a combination of the words ‘Blackpool’ and ‘Coffee’. It had come to him in a dream ten years previously. Marie had been visiting Blaffee on a twice-daily basis during the working week for the past six months. Every day, on her way into work, she would swing by for her morning Cappuccino, served with a smile that made Marie’s heart jump into her throat. In a good way.

  ‘Have I told you you’re my favourite customer?’ Carl Cooper would say each and every time. And, each and every time, Marie’s cheeks would flush red and she’d laugh, handing over her money and walking out of the shop, both elated at the interaction and crushed that he hadn’t asked her out.

  And so she would go back at lunch. Another coffee, this time with a slice of cake, perhaps, or one of the sandwiches Carl made with his own large, manly hands.

  So that was her routine, ever since she’d stumbled to work hungover one day and passed a shop she’d never noticed before. Ever since she’d shuffled inside to guzzle something that would fool her brain into thinking her body wasn’t collapsing like a failed soufflé.

  This twice-daily visit, angling for a date she was too nervous to initiate, had already cost Marie a fortune. Blaffee was ludicrously overpriced to the point that Marie had been forced to go to the cheap supermarket for her weekly shop, just so she could protect her Blaffee fund.

  And then it happened.

  Marie had gone to the counter with her empty coffee cup and placed it down.

  ‘Thanks. Thank you!’ she’d said, wearing a grin wider than her face.

  ‘Marie, I don’t suppose you’d like to―’

  ‘Yes I would, thank you! I mean… what were you going to ask?’

  And suddenly everything was roses and puppy dogs. Now here they were, sharing drinks and jokes and flirty smiles, and Marie was pretty sure they’d end up having at least two kids and a cottage somewhere green with a lake within walking distance. All she needed was to lock in a second date and perhaps a goodnight kiss.

  ‘Wow, I didn’t realise how late it was,’ said Carl.

  ‘I know, it’s gone quick, hasn’t it?’ Marie replied.

  Carl Cooper handed Marie her coat, and they walked towards the exit, stepping out of the warm fug of the pub and into the crisp night air. The sky was clear above, and Marie pulled her coat tight as she looked up at the stars.

  ‘What a lovely night,’ she said, and Carl Cooper agreed.

  He turned to her. He was really close, and Marie could feel his breath on her skin. Could feel his heat.

  ‘So, I’ve really enjoyed tonight,’ he said.

  ‘Me too. A lot.’

  ‘Will I see you in the morning for your coffee?’

  Marie smiled and nodded and smiled some more.

  There was a held-breath pause and the stars shone brighter. Eyes darted to mouths, and then Carl Cooper leaned in and pressed his lips against Marie’s. The kiss lasted all of three seconds, but Marie was pretty sure she was now fully pregnant.

  ‘Can I take you out again?’ asked Carl Cooper.

/>   Marie nodded and said yes and reminded him that he had her number and he should very definitely call.

  As they parted, walking in opposite directions, Marie could still feel Carl Cooper’s lips on hers. A phantom kiss. She squealed, punched the air, and did a brief funky chicken dance. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was love.

  She turned to a shop window to see how happy her face looked. She saw two faces looking back. One her own, framed by its long, straight, brown hair, the other a stranger. At least, she assumed it was a stranger, as the face was hidden by a tatty old rabbit mask.

  She turned to see who the person was, but found herself alone in the street. Confused, she looked back at her reflection, but this time only saw her own face.

  Unease began to chase the butterflies from Marie’s stomach.

  She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat and resumed walking.

  She only made it another few steps.

  There was a girl standing half in and half out of an alleyway. The girl was young, around six years old, and, like Marie, had long, straight, mousy brown hair. Her eyes were small but her smile was big.

  Marie recognised the girl. She looked just like she had the last time she’d seen her, twenty years ago.

  ‘Laura?’ said Marie, in a voice that sounded like someone speaking from behind a locked door.

  The girl giggled and stepped into the alley, disappearing from view.

  Marie looked up and down the empty street, the stars silently looking down from above, and knew she should turn around and walk the long way home.

  She walked towards the alley.

  Laura was stood waiting for her, a couple of metres into the alleyway, partially shrouded in gloom, her face invisible.

  ‘Laura?’ Marie asked once again.

  Laura giggled.

  ’You’re dead,’ said Marie.

  Laura had been Marie’s sister, younger than her by a year. They’d been on a family holiday to Devon and the two of them had been splashing around in the sea while their parents lay stretched out on towels, eyes closed, slowly crisping under the summer sun.

  It all went wrong so fast. As though death had only needed a split-second, a single moment of distraction, to reach out and sink its bony fingers into life. The waves had been surging towards them, and Marie and her sister had been screaming and laughing and jumping over them. Only, one time, Laura didn’t come up from beneath the salty water, ready to jump the next wave. Marie had ducked under trying to see where Laura was hiding, but couldn’t see her. She’d ducked under again and again, confused, scared.