Uncanny Kingdom: An Eleven Book Urban Fantasy Collection (Uncanny Kingdom Omnibus 1)

by David Bussell

  Some creatures leave traces in this background hum, like footprints in a snowdrift. I kneeled next to the torn-open corpse, looking for a trace of the killer. The corpse’s mouth hung open in an anguished scream that never had the chance to escape before death took it. I could sense the presence of something foul, a faint scent that put a picture of the victim’s killer in my head.

  It was a shape-shifting demon known as a thalang. A monster with two defences to detection. One, it could use concealment magic to hide its presence for a limited time. It could enter your home and you’d not even notice the thing crouched in the corner, ready to pounce. That magic didn’t work so well against people like me, we’re usually able to see through it, but not always.

  Its second defence is its ability to alter its physical form. A creature that looks like a thalang isn’t able to wander around unnoticed for long, even with its first defence. By shape-shifting, the thalang is able to hide in plain sight. To make you believe that you’re looking at an ordinary person, not a grey, goo-dripping, razor toothed, nightmare beast. The thalang really is not a pretty sight.

  I examined the corpse. It was a fresh kill, and the creature’s magic scent was still heavy in the air. It couldn’t be far away. I felt my hands throbbing with magic, ready to take the killer down before it could kill again.

  ‘Oi!’

  I turned from the dead body to see a police officer jogging towards me, truncheon in hand, ready to bash me over the skull. I stood up, my hands reaching out, trying to placate him.

  ‘There’s been a murder,’ I said, though the evidence of that was plain to see.

  ‘Good God, I…’ His face turned white as he looked at what was left of the dead man at my feet. For a second I thought he was going to throw up, but he managed to more or less get himself back under control. ‘What in God’s name happened here?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing good,’ I replied. I turned from him to carry on my pursuit, only to find a firm hand gripping my wrist and pulling me back.

  ‘Whoa there, hold your horses. You’ve got some questions to answer, young lady.’

  ‘It’ll get away!’

  ‘Who will? The murderer?’ He took out a notepad and a pencil. ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘Are you stupid? It’ll kill more if you don’t let me—’

  ‘I’ll thank you to show some respect. You’re talking to an officer of the law, and what I say, goes, understand?’

  I began to draw the surrounding magic towards me, ready to get rid of this troublesome road block as quickly and harmlessly as possible, when something made me pause. This police officer seemed… odd. Too calm, too bizarre. And then there was that smell. The creature’s magical scent hadn’t gone away. It should already have begun to dissipate, but if anything, it seemed to be growing stronger. Part of me said take no chances; take care of this officer now. He was a fake. The creature in disguise. But I had to be sure.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be blowing your whistle for back-up?’ I asked.

  ‘Telling me how to do my job now, are you?’

  Too odd. Enough was enough.

  The waves of magic flowed towards me and I raised my fists, both alive with fire, ready to be unleashed at the creature in its police officer disguise.

  He saw what was happening and stepped back, seemingly in shock.

  ‘Now, what on earth...? A magic trick?’

  ‘Time to stop playing dumb, you know what I am, and I know what you are!’

  ‘I am a police officer—’

  ‘You’re a monster. I am Stella Familiar of the London Coven and you will—’

  —I stopped when I realised he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He should have been, I was shouting about how he was a monster, my fists alive with boiling power, but instead he was looking at the ground to the side.

  That’s when I realised I’d made a mistake.

  I’d been right, the creature was still close, and it had shifted its appearance to hide from me. But it wasn’t the strange police officer.

  A grey, wet tendril burst from the open wound of the “corpse” and wrapped itself around my throat, cutting off all thoughts of protection spells as I yanked frantically at the tightening rope of flesh that had cut me off mid-breath. Already I could feel my lungs burning, eyes bulging from their sockets.

  I was vaguely aware of the police officer, who’d pulled himself together despite the horrors arrayed before him, and was yelling at the creature, which now resembled a human corpse crossed with something that hid in the darkest depths of the sea. I could hear him shouting at the thing but couldn’t work out the words over the noise of blood pounding in my ears.

  There was a blur in front of me as the officer attacked the thing with his truncheon, causing it to loosen its grip. I managed to pull away, falling to the ground, gasping as I escaped its clutches, my neck glowing with pain. I gulped in air, chest pumping, eyes streaming, and looked up in time to see the police officer’s head being twisted all the way around, the snap of his neck ringing out like a gunshot.

  The dead officer crumpled to the floor, his note book falling to the pavement, its pages rippling in the breeze.

  ‘No!’

  A grey limb shot towards me again, quick as a viper—

  —but I rolled away just in time, clambering to my feet and pulling the magic towards me.

  The officer’s death was on my hands. I’d been sloppy. It didn’t matter that this was my first day; I was here to protect people like him.

  ‘You should have run,’ I said, my voice a low growl, and threw a ball of energy at the thing.

  A second octopus-like limb shot from the corpse and wrapped around a post box, pulling the twitching creature out of harm’s way as my spell blackened a paving stone.

  I whirled around, ready to attack, only to find it already leaping towards me, screeching from its corpse mouth. It was fast. Faster than me.

  I leapt out the way, doing my best to toss some magic in its direction as I tucked and rolled, but a wall halted my momentum. My body complained at the force of the impact, but there was no time to feel sorry for myself. I stood again, ready to go on the offensive, but the creature had taken my earlier advice to heart. It was running. Well, “running” would be one way of describing what this malformed, multi-limbed thing was doing.

  It rounded a corner and I gave chase, barrelling through Hammersmith’s foot traffic that was screaming in a mixture of surprise and terror at the sight of the half-corpse/half-monster shuddering, stumbling, and twitching its way towards the nearest Underground station.

  3

  I raced into Hammersmith Underground, in pursuit of the thalang. The Piccadilly line fed through there, taking people from the east into the heart of London. It was late, almost midnight, and the place would be shutting its doors soon. I hustled across the concourse, my footsteps sounding noisily in the empty, open space.

  I saw the creature flop over the ticket barrier. ‘You can run, but you can’t hide!’ I yelled. A station guard eyed me quizzically, wondering what on earth it was I was shouting at. The thalang must have activated its concealment magic again – all the guard saw was a woman racing across the station after nothing. For a moment I was worried if he’d get in my way, maybe even end up dead like the police officer had after getting between me and the monster.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  I drew the magic in the station into me and placed the right words together in my mind. Without stopping, I swept one hand in his direction and pushed a suggestion spell at him. Without knowing why, he forgot about me and headed outside to look for a brown dog. It was a short-term spell, he’d snap out of it a few seconds after he stepped above ground, but enough to get him out of harm’s way.

  Another sweep of the hand and I was through the barrier and heading for the steps to the platform. The thalang ducked out of sight at the bottom. I was seconds behind it, closing the distance. I took the steps two at a time, almost falling twice in my rush, and hit the bo
ttom, turning onto the platform.

  The platform wasn’t busy, just five or six people standing in a huddle as a train pulled in. The thing hadn’t had enough time to run out of sight, and I could see spots of blood—probably the police officer’s blood—leading towards the people getting ready to board the train. That meant it had shifted, and one of these passengers was the monster in hiding.

  Who was it?

  The smart-looking gent in the bowler hat? The mother and child? The young couple, heading home after one drink too many?

  The Tube train’s doors slid open with a hiss, and the passengers boarded the same carriage. There was no time for hesitation, if I didn’t act fast I was going to lose it. I bolted forward and hopped into the carriage just as the doors slid closed and the train set off with a jolt.

  The passengers looked me up and down, an out-of-breath, sweaty woman with a look of grim determination in her eyes.

  ‘Close one,’ said the male half of the young couple. His companion giggled.

  His companion.

  I’d never get to experience something like that. Love. A relationship. It’s not what we Familiars are created for. We’re made to do the work our masters decide and nothing else. No outside life; no hobbies or lovers. Just this and this alone. Was I even really a person? I hadn’t been born. I’d been created just hours earlier, already a full-grown woman without a past, and a future that could be pulled away at any moment, either by some monster, or just the whim of my witches.

  No, I wasn’t really a person. Not like the young couple. I was a weapon. The life they had was, and always would be, alien to me. I felt the corners of my mouth twitching downwards and shook the strange thoughts clear. I was getting distracted. I had work to do.

  The smart gent was looking at my boots. I glanced down to see what had caught his attention: blood splashed across the toe, smears on the floor from the soles.

  I looked up, catching his eye, and he quickly turned his head away. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want to get involved. Well, bad luck for him, because we were shut in a tin can with a monster, and I planned to get my hands on it before we hit the next station and it escaped.

  I sniffed the air. There was that smell again, the same one I’d noticed when the thing was pretending to be a corpse. Its magical signature. I looked from passenger to passenger, trying to see if one of them caught my eye, or was trying to avoid my eyes too purposefully. That was when I noticed we had an extra passenger – a passenger who must have already been on the train when it arrived. A man, slumped across two seats, snoring gently. Probably passed out drunk.

  Or maybe that was the creature.

  Maybe it had been able to use its concealment magic to hide itself from me on the platform long enough to slip onto the train unseen. Maybe it thought I wouldn’t suspect some passed out drunk. Someone who seemed so vulnerable to attack. Someone I might automatically dismiss. This person hadn’t been on the platform, he’d already been on the train, so why would I ever suspect him?

  Was the thalang really that smart?

  I walked over to the slumped man and sniffed at him. The creature’s scent was present, but it was no stronger than where I’d just come from.

  ‘Is she sniffing that man?’ asked the girl from the couple.

  I looked back to see her clutching her boyfriend, staring at me.

  ‘Maybe he wet himself!’ brayed the boyfriend, and started laughing loudly as the city gent huffed, annoyed.

  I turned back to the drunk and prodded at him with the toe of my boot.

  ‘I’ve got you,’ I whispered. ‘And now I’m going to destroy you.’

  I looked for a twitch, any movement to suggest that it could hear me. That is was readying to defend itself.

  The man continued to snore.

  The train lurched to a sudden halt. I only just managed to grab one of the standing bars to stay upright. The other passengers squealed and complained. The city gent bent over to pick up his bowler hat from the floor. ‘Bloody driver!’ he barked.

  I looked back to the drunk. The sudden braking had caused him to shift slightly, but he hadn’t woken up. He tucked his legs up fully onto the seats and made himself more comfortable.

  ‘Blimey, can we just get going, please?’ said the mother loudly.

  ‘Yeah, we have places to be,’ said the boyfriend, before turning to his girlfriend and nuzzling at her neck.

  Something was off.

  The hairs on the back of my neck were telling me that this was no momentary pause to regulate the train service. Not the driver waiting on a green light to let him know it was okay to pull into the next station. I could feel it on the tip of my tongue: the tingle of a recently cast spell. The monster had made the train stop in the dark of the tunnel. Trapped us between stops. Something bad was about to happen, and I was stuck with no clue as to where the monster was hiding, and which of the vulnerable passengers it might take down in its rush to escape me. I had no choice but to put my cards on the table.

  ‘Everyone, please listen up—’

  But the mother interrupted me. ‘Is the driver going to tell us what’s going on or what?’ she asked.

  ‘Rum lot, tube drivers,’ replied the city gent. ‘No care for common courtesy,’

  ‘Hey!’ I said, clapping my hands together.

  They all turned.

  ‘Good. Now listen to me. We aren’t just waiting to move onto the next station, and we haven’t broken down.’

  ‘What’s she banging on about?’ asked the girlfriend.

  ‘Can’t you feel it? Can’t you taste it?’

  ‘Taste what?’ asked the mother.

  ‘Magic. This train has been made to stop because one of you is a shape-shifting monster, and I’m the only one who can stop it murdering everyone on board.’

  4

  It didn’t have quite the reaction I was hoping for, but in my defence, I was barely twelve hours old. I didn’t have much experience with normals. Or Uncanny’s. Or with anyone or anything, really.

  ‘Did she just say the train stopped because of magic?’ asked the mother.

  ‘That’s what I heard,’ replied the boyfriend.

  ‘She said we were going to get murdered!’ squealed his companion.

  ‘Ignore her,’ barked the city gent. ‘She’s probably been at the gin. The old mothers ruin. It addles the brain you know. Seen many a lady turned feral by it.’

  I paced towards them, making sure not to present my back to the passed out man in case he was the monster, ready to take my turning away as an invitation to tear my spine out.

  ‘Look, I know you don’t know about magic and all the hidden things of London, but I’m telling you the truth.’

  ‘I know about magic,’ said the boyfriend.

  ‘You do?’ I asked, surprised for a moment. Maybe I had an ally after all.

  ‘Yeah, my mum took me to see Walter the Amazing when I was little. He sawed a lady in half.’

  Okay, I didn’t have an ally.

  ‘I don’t have time to dance around this, so here we go, here’s some magic.’ I pulled the power in the carriage towards me, placed the words together correctly and opened my right hand. A ball of fire appeared, hovering inches above my palm.

  ‘Hey,’ said the mother, ‘How’d you do that?’

  ‘I’ve seen better tricks,’ said the gent, sniffing dismissively.

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed the boyfriend, ‘Walter the Amazing sawed a woman in half. Right down the middle. Amazing!’

  That’s the thing about the impossible; once someone has witnessed it—even if it is just stage trickery—they become numb to it. To a normal, summoning a ball of real, bona fide magic is no more impressive than guessing what’s on a playing card.

  I needed to come at this from a more recognisable place. I let the spell putter out and closed my hand.

  ‘I chased someone onto this train. A dangerous someone. A killer.’

  ‘A killer?’ asked the girlfriend.

&nbs
p; ‘Are you a police officer?’ asked the mother.

  ‘Of course she isn’t,’ replied the city gent derisively. ‘Look at her, she’s not one of our city’s finest, she’s a fantasist. A gin-addled fantasist, if ever there was one.’

  ‘No, I’m not a police officer,’ I admitted. ‘Well, I am in way, but I don’t wear a badge.’

  ‘Well that’s cleared that up then,’ said the boyfriend, and the girlfriend tittered at his side.

  ‘There’s been a murder. More than one, actually, across West London. Hammersmith, Ealing, Acton. Bodies found torn open.’

  ‘It’s the ghost of Jack the Ripper,’ said the boyfriend in a spooky voice. He turned to his girlfriend. ‘Be careful, my dear, or his spirit shall come for you!’

  She swore and swatted him away.

  ‘This is serious! People are dead. Do you hear me? Dead!’

  That sobered things up a bit.

  ‘I was on the killer’s trail, trying to put an end to it, when it jumped on this carriage.’

  The passengers stopped and looked around. I could see they were confused. I knew what was coming next.

  The city gent raised his arm. ‘Sorry to burst your bubble and ask the obvious, but if you were following this supposed killer, and they “it” is this carriage, perhaps you might point the horrible individual out to us? I mean, if you would be so kind.’ His voice dripped with condescension, and I had to restrain myself from throwing something nasty in his direction.

  ‘The killer…’

  The city gent gestured for me to continue as I trailed off.

  ‘…The killer is one of you.’

  There was a moment or two of silence as the passengers took this in, looked at each other, then began to laugh. All but the city gent that is, who just shook his head and huffed. ‘Absolute hogwash.’

  ‘Did she say one of us is a murderer?’ asked the mother.

  ‘Complete poppycock. You’ve only to look at us to know none of us could be a killer. A young couple, a middle-aged woman, a man of my obvious breeding, and a sleeping drunkard. Which of us is the beast, young lady? Hm?’