Fresh Hell: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (The Ghosted Series Book 1)

by David Bussell

  ‘Anything you like as long as it isn’t the truth. The Order’s HQ burned down, so you don’t have to worry about evidence. Find a way to sweep the rest under the carpet. Case unsolved. One for the X-Files.’

  She pouted and folded her arms. ‘You’re asking an awful lot, Fletcher.’

  I smiled, made my hand solid and rested it on her shoulder. ‘It could be worse,’ I told her. ‘At least you came out of this alive.’

  I sat up and went for the door then remembered I had one thing left to say. ‘Kat,’ I called back.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Take care of yourself. You’ve seen the Uncanny now.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So that means the Uncanny see you back…

  ***

  I found Maddox in the ward next door with his arm in a sling. I crept in and waved my arms about in front of him, just in case he was able to see me too now, but he didn’t even blink.

  ‘Oi, Maddox, you massive twat!’

  Not a twitch, so I borrowed an abundantly proportioned Nigerian nurse I found doing the rounds and paid him a visit that way.

  ‘How are you today, Mister Maddox?’ I asked.

  ‘Detective Inspector Maddox,’ he corrected.

  I ignored him and used the nurse’s meaty hands to lift his egg-bald head and plump the pillow beneath.

  ‘Do you mind?’ he protested, squirming as I brushed his fragile wing.

  I chuckled. ‘You have been in the wars, haven’t you?’ I said, in an accent that was, to put it politely, a bit borderline.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied, then looked at me quizzically. ‘I mean, I think so. It’s all a bit blurry.’

  Just blurry? It sounded as if I might not have done a good enough job scrubbing that peanut brain of his. ‘What do you mean, blurry?’ I prompted.

  ‘I don’t remember much exactly. They’re calling it a fugue state—some work-related stress thing—but I have these flashes… hellfire, a five-pointed star, some… thing with claws.’ He shook his head as if to erase the memories like an Etch A Sketch drawing.

  I changed the subject. ‘I bought you something to eat, Detective,’ I said, putting a tray in front of him, on top of which sat a plate of something the hospital canteen generously referred to as “food.”

  He prodded at a scoop of mashed potatoes thick enough to plant a flag in. ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ he sniffed.

  ‘I’ll go back and see if they’ve got anything more to your taste,’ I said, and rolled the food trolley towards the door. ‘Who knows, maybe they’ll have some nice, tasty hot dogs.’

  I gave him a wink that freaked him out more than the hellfire and the demon combined.

  ***

  Back at the nick, Mark Ryan was declared no longer a suspect and cleared of any wrongdoing. I managed to get to him before he woke up and walked him home for a nice, long nap. He’d be okay, even if he did find himself with another gaping black hole in his memory. Something told me the bill for his therapist was going to run pretty high this month, which was only fair. The way he’d treated me at school had given me plenty to talk to my shrink about over the years. Still, I’m not completely heartless, despite all the things he put me through as a lad. I decided I’d go easy on him for a bit, let a bit of time pass before I hopped back inside for another run around. I’m nice like that.

  ***

  The shop bell tinkled as I arrived in Legerdomain to give my old pal Jazz Hands a debriefing.

  ‘Still alive, I see,’ she noted, peering through her magic spectacles.

  ‘Yup. Well, after a fashion.’

  ‘How did it go, then?’

  ‘Piece of piss,’ I told her. ‘Never in harm’s way.’

  She arched a brow so high it practically lifted off her head.

  ‘Okay,’ I confessed, ‘it did get a little bit naughty.’

  I gave Jazz Hands an account of my confrontation with the Ingrid demon, making sure to gloss over the parts I knew she’d lose her tits over. In my version of the events I’d faced my enemy down with a no-fail strategy, not just blundered in there half-cocked and hoping for the best. In the end, my story was less a tale of derring-do than a tale of derring-didn’t-really-do-at-all.

  Still, Jazz Hands was not a happy camper. ‘I told you, she grumbled, ‘I told you you should have deferred to the London Coven.’

  She had a point. I’d only survived this one by the skin of my teeth – next time I’d take whatever help I could get. ‘Do you have a name?’ I asked. ‘A contact at this coven place?’

  ‘Stella,’ she said. ‘Stella Familiar.’

  I nodded and made a mental note.

  After that I gave Jazz back the magic ring she’d borrowed me. She placed it in the wall safe hidden behind the sage face of James Randi and asked after the revolver. The gun was a goner I explained, poached by the police and committed to an evidence locker. She groused some more and then, once she felt I’d been suitably chastised, returned to her celebrity magazine.

  She was reading a particularly scintillating piece on Kristen Stewart’s new haircut when a thought occurred. ‘The sword you slayed the soul feaster with,’ she said, ‘did it happen to have a name?’

  ‘Yeah, it did. The elders called it the seraphim sword.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘The seraphim sword is a tool of the angels,’ she gasped.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘The blade is forged from iron derived from the blood of a thousand fallen demons. What have you done with it? Where is it now?’

  My face pinched. ‘It kind of got burned up by witchfire.’

  Jazz Hands’ face turned white as the proverbial ghost. ‘There will be consequences for that,’ she said.

  I shrugged. ‘Aren’t there always?’

  ***

  I made good on my promise to Frosty and brought him the six pack of Special Brew I owed him, blessed by Jazz Hands for his drinking pleasure. He genuflected as I presented it to him, then glugged the beers down one after the other. I felt a bit sorry for him, watching the bloke sink six cans of bruiser juice, but it’s hard to grieve for someone who looks so damned happy.

  ***

  And what about me? What did I get out of all of this? Nothing I could lay my hands on, that was for sure, but then I stopped caring about material things the day I died. My reward was a spiritual one, a real one, not the bullshit kind the door-knockers with the pamphlets and fake grins are shilling.

  I watched the end of my Ghost DVD. It’s not such a bad film really; the ghost gets to be the good guy for a change, and Swayze smashes it as always. It was somewhere near the end of the movie that Whoopi broke the fourth wall again. Acting as a mouthpiece for whatever jobsworth it was throwing his weight around Up There, she begrudgingly let me know that I’d performed my duty and that I was off the hook. At least for a little while.

  For once I’d done some real good in this world – the kind that buys Brownie points with Him Upstairs. The kind that rubs a little red out of a man’s account. Maybe a whole lot of red even. This wasn’t sending down a pickpocket after all, or solving a little light fraud. This was big boy stuff. I’d sent a soul feaster back to hell, and I’d brought a demonologist to justice too. No wonder the Big Man was so keen to have me send Ingrid’s soul His way, He must have known what she’d done and been champing at the bit to punish her for it. Would have been nice of Him to put me in the loop too, but what the hell. The important thing was that I’d completed His little assignment and bought myself some time before He came calling again.

  I stood and looked out of my office window at the messy sprawl of Camden Town beneath me. It was almost dawn. I watched the sun peek over the horizon and laser off the morning fog before settling in the sky like a great, molten coin. When you don’t sleep, you get to see a lot of sunrises—it’s one of the nice things about being a ghost—but this sunrise was special. A new day was coming. A brighter one than before.

  If I could defeat a rogue magician and win a fight with
a demon, who knew what else I was capable of. What other kinds of Uncanny I could bring to justice. Vampires, werewolves, mermaids (just kidding), they were all on my shit list now. Sure, it might end up being the end of me, but it would hardly be a premature retirement. Besides, I owed it to them. Owed it to every soul I’d unwittingly scrubbed out of existence. Owed it to myself, too. To my future.

  My name is Jake Fletcher. Ex-exorcist. Departed do-gooder. Phantom on the run. And when the Big Man finally pulls me in to judge my soul, I’m going to be ready for him.

  The End.

  ***

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  London Coven: Familiar Magic

  Here’s a SNEAK PEEK at the first Familiar Magic book, another series set in the Uncanny Kingdom universe

  Three dead witches.

  An unknown killer.

  One big mistake: they left me alive.

  1

  It was the absence of magic that first got me, hitting me like a punch to the stomach.

  As I stepped forward my legs actually shook a little, like they might give way and drop me to the ground. So much for the seen-it-all, jaded, powerful Familiar.

  My name is Stella, I belonged to the London Coven as the Familiar to a trio of witches, and I’d just arrived back to find the door hanging off its hinges. After discovering this, I’d just stood looking at the thing for a few seconds, confused. It was impossible. It couldn’t be. And yet there it stubbornly was.

  The entrance to the coven itself sits in Hammersmith, west London; just a few streets away from the underground station. It’s situated down a blind alley, so called because only those who know it exists can actually see it. A simple but very effective bit of perception magic that makes the alley invisible to most, even when looking directly at it.

  Let’s get back to that impossible lack of magic.

  It assaulted my senses like a rancid smell. Like meat gone bad. The coven and the blind alley that lead to its door should be noisy with magic. Alive with boiling, agitated power. It was home to my masters, Kala, Trin, & Feal, the most powerful witches in England, and every inch of the place was infused with magic, old and new, black and white. On top of that, there were the spells of protection. Thousands of them. Anyone that wasn’t meant to be there could find themselves stepping into a patch of superheated air that would melt the flesh from their bones. Or perhaps they’d blink and, just before their heart gave out, they’d find themselves confused as their eyes opened one last time to see their insides were now on the outside. There were any number of ways it could happen. Any number of creative deaths to discover. The coven was locked up tight, it had to be. It was impossible for anything to step inside that wasn’t invited. And yet…

  The door—

  The lack of magic—

  I swallowed hard and ducked through the gap created by the half-off door, straightening up slowly on the other side.

  The place was dead.

  There wasn’t a whisper of magic to be heard. To be felt. Tasted.

  It was impossible.

  I know I keep using that word, but it was true.

  Every building, every street, every hill and river and grain of sand contains some residue of magic. It’s all around us every day. Even if this place hadn’t been a coven, hadn’t housed three of the most powerful magical creatures in the country, the very fact of its existence meant it should emit traces of the Uncanny.

  But there was nothing.

  I reached out with all of my senses, desperate for anything. For a ghost of some ancient incantation.

  I came up empty and it terrified me.

  ‘Kala? Trin...?’

  Silence.

  I stepped into the first room; it was empty but there were signs of a struggle. ‘Kala?’ Chairs on their sides, broken glass on wooden floorboards. The coven smelt the same despite the lack of magic; that weird mix of cinnamon, freshly cut grass, and lavender that seemed to permanently drift around the place, no matter which potion was cooked up or meal was prepared. The smell of my master’s witchcraft. I turned back and stepped into the hallway again.

  ‘Intruder, my name is Stella Familiar and you will show yourself or I… or I will…’

  I pressed a palm against the wall to steady myself and swallowed, throat dry. The emptiness was getting to me, giving me the shakes. All magical beings are connected to the power that radiates from all things. They feed a little on the magic that naturally occurs, and I was no different. I soaked it in, night and day, without even thinking about it. It sustained me, made me stronger, gave me the energy to cast spells, and, for want of a better word, gave me a ‘buzz’. But now, in this place, in this empty coven, I was like a junkie who’d suddenly gone cold turkey after a lifetime of indulgence.

  And it hurt.

  It was actually disturbing to me how quickly I was affected. A minute had passed, tops, and I was a shaking, sweaty wreck.

  I grunted, straightened up, and tried to get my shit together.

  ‘Intruder, my name is Stella Familiar and you will damn well show yourself to me for punishment!’ The words roared out of my mouth with a strength I really didn’t feel.

  There was no reply.

  I placed a hand on the door to the main coven room and pushed.

  I tasted death before I saw it.

  That coppery tang on the tongue that twisted my stomach and told me exactly what I was going to see before my eyes had chance to catch up.

  There were three bodies on the floor inside. Three bodies, but more than three pieces. Kala, Trin, Feal, my masters, my coven’s high witches, had been torn to pieces and scattered around the room.

  Eyes wide, hand to my mouth, I stepped inside.

  ‘No…’

  The world had gone mad.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  Nothing was capable of doing this to the witches of the London Coven. Together, the three of them wielded enough power to crack open mountains, and yet my shoes were now soaking in a pool of their collective blood.

  I crouched and placed a hand on a hunk of meat that could have once belonged to any one of my masters. It, like the coven itself, was empty. Not just of life, but of magic. Of power. Something had broken into a place it was impossible to break into, survived the magical protections it was impossible to survive, and torn to…

  …and murdered my masters. Murdered creatures of immeasurable power. And then, to finish things off, they’d drained every last drop of magic from the place.

  It was impossible on top of impossible on top of impossible and it made me tremble.

  I stood, angry. Angry that I’d allowed fear to infect me. I cradled that anger and blew upon it, igniting it like the first spark of a new fire. It didn’t matter that this was impossible, it had happened. It didn’t matter that the kind of power needed to have even achieved one of the impossible things done to this coven would be enough to turn me into a puddle of bubbling goo.

  None of it mattered.

  All that mattered was that the coven was breached and my creators had been murdered as though they were nothing. As though they were less than nothing. They’d been ripped and shredded and tossed aside. My nails dug into my palms and drew blood, but I didn’t flinch. It felt good.

  I was going to find out who was behind this and do something impossible myself.

  I was going to get bloody, horrifying revenge.

  I was nothing but a lowly Familiar, but I swore on every spell I knew that I was going to avenge my slaughtered coven.

  ‘Listen to me. Listen closely.
You’ve made a terrible mistake. You’ve made a terrible mistake and you don’t even realise it. My name is Stella Familiar, and what’s happened here today will be met with fury like you could never even imagine. Do you hear me? I know you can. Whoever did this, I will find you, and when I do, I will rip your heart from your chest!’

  A noise—

  A movement in the corner of my eye—

  I whirled and caught sight of something my mind couldn’t quite pin down.

  I wasn’t alone.

  And I was in terrible danger.

  2

  Whatever the creature was, it was taking its time. I had the distinct impression it was trying to scare me.

  It was working.

  Normally in this sort of situation, with an unknown beast stalking me, ready to leap and tear my throat out at any moment, I’d draw on the surrounding magic and cast a spell that would turn the thing into confetti. Sling a spell first, ask questions later, that was my usual way of dealing with threats. But there was no surrounding magic. I extended my senses as far as I could, invisible tendrils firing out in all directions, desperately searching for a hint of the strange to draw upon, but everything was cold.

  This was a dead place.

  The creature unleashed a low, rumbling growl that shook the floor beneath me. I was in deep trouble. I tried to ignore the blood, the chunks of my dead masters, and I reached out again to try and make sense of what I was up against.

  A voice—

  A single word, repeated staccato—

  Kill-Kill-Kill—

  The words rolled in my head as I came upon the thing stalking me. It was a slippery creature, hard to get a clear grip on, but it was obvious it wasn’t the person behind this attack. It was a booby trap.

  Okay. It was time to take stock.