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

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Uncanny Kingdom: An Eleven Book Urban Fantasy Collection (Uncanny Kingdom Omnibus 1) Page 26

by David Bussell


  The alley rippled and writhed, reality warping around me, making me stumble in my beaten down state. Making me feel like I might throw up. Like the world surrounding me was a boat on a wild ocean.

  ‘Children? Where are you, children?’

  Alice Travers was by my side, fear on her corpse face. ‘He will be very mad with you. I think he’ll want to do terrible, awful things to you.’

  My stomach was telling me to go. To run away and hide. To escape the bad man. But that was just this place. I knew that. Infecting me with fear.

  I stood my ground even as the cobbles beneath my feet tried to throw me down.

  A tear split in reality at the far end of the alleyway.

  It was coming.

  He was coming.

  Alice ran to hide behind the bins where she’d died.

  I clenched my fists as a pretend man without a face stepped out of the tear and into the alley.

  ‘I’ve looked all over and I can’t find them,’ it said. ‘In every bad place, in every haunted terror. What have you done with my children, Stella Jake?’

  35

  The creature stood still, arms by its sides, as the two bullies ran into the alley towards Alice Travers to punch and spit and stomp, stomp, stomp.

  ‘Is the music of my realm not beautiful, Stella Jake?’

  ‘You’re done, you hear me? You’re a monster, and you’ve just met the woman who finishes the monsters.’

  I pulled the strange magic of the alley into myself and thrust out a fist, punching an arc of lethal power in the thing’s direction. I never saw it duck, or jump, or run – in the blink of an eye it just wasn’t where it had been. The magic sailed past and died.

  ‘My children liked to dance to the music of my home. Or hated it. Or clapped in joy. Or ran in screaming terror. So hard to know or understand for sure. Whatever have you done with them?’

  ‘I’ve sent them home, you piece of shit.’

  I grunted with effort as I unleashed another arc of power, only to see the same thing happen to it. A blink and the creature wasn’t where it had been, and the magic guttered and died.

  It tilted its head to one side, ‘I don’t understand. Is that not a home for them? I made it just for them. It only exists to hold them. To haunt them. To torture them. For now I am here, to punish them all.’

  ‘Stay still!’ I unleashed arc after arc of power, dragging the magic around me into my body and unleashing it over and over, but it didn’t matter what I threw at it, I missed my target every time.

  ‘Stella Jake, why do you fight so? This is right. Your punishment. All children will come here forever and ever and I will make sure only the very worst happens to them.’

  ‘Run,’ said Alice Travers from her pillow of blood on the alley floor.

  ‘I won’t run.’

  ‘You made yourself a way out? How did you do that, Stella Jake?’

  He passed a hand in front of himself.

  ‘No, no. I’ll take it away.’

  I turned to my exit, but all that was there now was a solid brick wall.

  ‘David? David!’

  I tried to concentrate on him, tried to feel his hand in mine, but I couldn’t feel anything. Was I trapped there now? Doomed to suffer in this nightmare realm for all eternity?

  ‘Children? Where are my children?’

  I screamed and threw everything I had in the creature’s direction. The bricks exploded behind where it had been stood a heartbeat before, shards shooting every which way.

  I ran from the alley.

  The world rushed past me in a jumble as I tried to formulate some sort of plan.

  ‘David? David, where are you?’

  I couldn’t feel him at all, couldn’t hear even the faintest whisper of his voice. I was stuck here, maybe for good.

  I skidded to a halt on the abandoned train platform and tried to catch my breath.

  ‘Where are you running to, Stella Jake?’

  The creature was stood at the far end of the platform. It begun to move towards me, closer and closer with each second that passed, never once seeming to actually take a step.

  ‘Are you taking me to my children? Where have you put them? They have not been punished enough for their wicked ways.’

  ‘They haven’t done anything wrong! They’re just kids!’

  The ground where the creature had been a second before exploded as another volley of magic flew from my knuckles and missed the thing.

  ‘They haven’t done anything wrong? Oh, that’s not true. They hurt. They shame. They kick and they punch. They make lives a misery, and now I am here to punish them all.’

  I tried to run as the creature almost reached me, but jerked back, my shoulder jarring. I turned to see Mark grinning at me, my wrist chained to a radiator. And then I was back in the classroom, with Mark and his gang of savages laughing at me as the heat torched my wrist.

  ‘Nothing wrong?’ said the creature, stood at the head of the class, its head tilted to one side. ‘This is not me, I did not create this. This all happened. And it happens and it happens again.’

  ‘But this is just one bad child, why do you have to hurt all of them?’

  ‘One bad child? None are innocent. All must be punished for the way they made me feel.’

  As he spoke, his voice began to morph into that of Alice Travers.

  ‘They kicked and they punched, Stella Jake. Punish them.’

  ‘No, Alice. That was just those two children. Punish them, not all of them!’

  ‘No,’ said the creature, now using another child’s voice. ‘Not just them. All. Every day at school I was mocked, spat on, had my money stolen, my face pushed in the toilet, and all saw. No one helped me, Stella Jake.’

  ‘I was taken out to the woods behind school,’ said another child, a boy. ‘Four kids from my class. They told me for weeks they were going to get me, so I bunked off, pretended I was sick, but eventually I had to go back. The other kids knew what was coming. They knew what the bullies were going to do and none of them stayed. None of them came to help as the bullies crowded around and ran me to the trees. They made me take my clothes off, Stella Jake. And then… and then…’

  ‘Punish them all.’

  ‘All.’

  ‘They’re all guilty.’

  ‘Guilty.’

  ‘Guilty.’

  ‘No!’ I stood, the handcuffs falling away from my wrist.

  ‘Oi, bender, where’d you think—’

  I turned and swiped a hand across Mark, across his gang. They froze, then blew away like burning paper in the wind.

  The creature tilted its head on one side. ‘How did you do that? You should not be able to do that.’

  ‘My name is Stella Familiar of the London Coven, and I tricked you to get here. This place only has power if you have a real childhood trauma to attack. Every kid has something. Some memory, big or small, that you could hurt them with. Well, guess what? Not me. I never had a childhood.’

  ‘We shall see,’ said the creature, and suddenly it was in front of me, plunging its hands into my chest.

  I screamed, throwing my head back as its fingers wrapped around my heart.

  ‘There must be something. Something. Something.’

  I snarled, gritting my teeth, trying not to pass out from the shock. ‘Afraid not. No childhood fears. I was born this way.’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing. Empty and empty and empty.’

  ‘That’s right, bitch.’ I grunted and shoved the creature away, shivering as its hands left my body. The faceless man hopped back, and back again, lowering its featureless head into its hands.

  ‘What are you?’ it asked in Alice Travers’ voice. ‘You are not a real person. Where is your childhood? Just nothing, and nothing, and terrifying nothing.’

  The classroom shook, throwing me to the floor. I looked up to see Mark stood over me.

  ‘Who are you? You’re not him. You’re not Jake. Where is my Jake?’

  I pushed myself backwar
ds then clambered to my feet as the room began to deform and break apart. Mark began twitching and writhing as the arms and faces and legs of a hundred different kids, a hundred different bullies, burst out of him, their faces twisted with anger, with confusion.

  ‘So empty. Just nothing, and nothing, I am drowning,’ said the creature.

  I fell through the door as the room bucked and found myself in the bathroom where Amy had been terrorised. The semi-circle of girls were now one gestalt beast, their flesh fused together, writhing in confused agony.

  ‘Bitch!’

  ‘Skank!’

  ‘Josh mine.’

  ‘Ours.’

  ‘Ours.’

  The tiles beneath the thing opened up and they fell through. As the floor continued to tear apart I ran from the room and found myself on the abandoned train platform.

  The creature was waiting for me.

  ‘What is happening?’ it begged.

  The truth was I didn’t know for sure. My best guess was that as it tried to latch onto my fear, to hold it, to taste it, my absence of a childhood had somehow infected it. I was the common cold, and this alien’s tripod was bucking and tumbling.

  It stepped forward. For the first time I actually saw its feet move. Slowly it walked towards me.

  ‘Stella? Stella. What are you? What have you done? Where are my children?’

  ‘I saved them. Saved them all. And now it looks like you’re dying.’

  ‘Dying? I do not die.’

  I pointed behind the thing. The platform was crumbling away like sand, leaving nothing behind but emptiness.

  ‘Tell that to this place. Tell that to your body.’

  The thing lifted a hand to see that it too was starting to crumble. It lowered its hand, what was left of it, and turned its blank face back to me.

  ‘I am afraid.’

  I grimaced. ‘Good.’

  ‘You cannot leave. Your way home is gone. I took it from you and I will not return it. We will die together.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. This is what I was created for. To fight things like you. To give up my life in the name of others. So yeah, I’m gonna die, but you know what? This is a fucking good way to go.’

  ‘Stella…’

  The creature collapsed as its legs disintegrated, then its arms, its head, until there was nothing left at all.

  Almost nothing left of its realm, either. Just a few metres of platform and me, watching my time run out.

  I thought about David, back at the coven, hugging his niece. Hugging Amy. Taking her back to her Mum. Leaving me and this life behind.

  I’d done well.

  I’d kept my promise.

  I thought about David.

  ‘Stella?’

  I realised I’d closed my eyes, waiting for things to be over.

  ‘Stella, where are you?’

  Someone was holding my hand.

  ‘David?’

  I opened my eyes. The platform was gone. Everything was gone.

  I should be dead.

  David was stood by my side, his hand in mine, holding me tight.

  ‘I found you, Stella.’

  His eyes burned with white hot fire. He was like he had been in the alleyway again, when the creature had attacked the first time.

  ‘David, how are you doing this?’

  ‘I heard you. I found you.’

  He turned and reached out a hand, pointing. A door with an exit sign above it appeared in the void.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go home.’

  He walked towards the exit, his hand still in mine, and I followed.

  36

  All the kids that had fallen into comas survived.

  One by one, far and wide across the city, they began to open their eyes. When asked what they remembered, all they said was they’d had a nightmare. A nightmare that a woman in a leather jacket saved them from.

  David never told his sister what had actually happened. That Amy had been in a coma, like the kids in the news. He and Amy both thought it better to keep it a secret, and I agreed with them.

  ‘So what’s up with your detective?’ asked Jake, nestled inside his meat suit again as we sat in The Beehive, getting steadily drunk.

  ‘Nothing. He’s just... he’s fine.’

  ‘He doesn’t remember what he did?’

  I shook my head. When I woke up I found him on the floor unconscious with Amy trying to wake him up. When he finally came to he said he’d been having a dream about fishing on a big lake. Like the last time, he didn’t remember changing. Didn’t remember his eyes filling with fire.

  What he’d done was impossible. Stepping into the creature’s realm. Creating an exit and saving me.

  ‘You know, I’ve gotta say, that was all bloody impressive stuff, Stella. I’d written you off as some stuck-up, snooty cow, but what you did? That took a serious set of ovaries.’

  ‘Well, Jake, it was a pleasure having you inside of me.’

  We tapped glasses and got drunk.

  Someone was knocking at the door.

  I opened my eyes, bleary, the thud of that night’s alcohol making my head heavy. It was the middle of the night, who would be knocking on the door in the middle of the night?

  Then another thought: who would be knocking on the door to the London Coven at all? No one came knocking here. Not even David, he always called first. He said it was just manners, but I think it had more to do with all the magical protections I’d told him covered the place. He was just worried he’d come knocking, trigger one, and find his head rolling off down the blind alley, which, to be fair, was a distinct possibility.

  Another knock.

  Every time, three knocks, a beat between each set. They echoed around the room.

  I threw the blanket aside and sat up, my bare feet chilled by the cold of the floor.

  Three more knocks.

  I put on some clothes, my boots, and padded towards the door.

  Three more knocks.

  A few metres from the door I stopped and reached out with my senses, trying to judge what was waiting for me outside. Was it a friend? An enemy? A monster?

  ‘Who is it?’

  Three more knocks.

  ‘My right hand is cocked and ready to turn you into a puddle of goo. Got me? So stop playing around and tell me who you are!’

  ‘You know who it is. You were expecting me.’

  I blinked with surprise, because suddenly, upon hearing his voice, I did know, even though I’d never met them before in my long life. It was like I suddenly remembered I’d been expecting him to visit. Which was very strange indeed. Was this some sort of spell? Magical suggestion designed to lower defences? No, I didn’t think so. I could sniff that out if I know I’m looking for it. This was something else.

  I passed my left hand in front of the door’s lock. There was a noise of invisible bolts sliding aside, then I reached forward and pulled the door open.

  On the other side stood a tall man in a wide-brimmed hat.

  Well, he was sort of a man. A man that looked like he’d been whittled out of a tree, his face an immobile circle of wood with rudimentary features carved into it.

  ‘Stella Familiar, I am the Knot Man, and I have come to deliver the warning. May I come inside?’

  We sat at the kitchen table on opposite sides, facing each other.

  ‘Why are you here?’ I asked.

  ‘I am the Knot Man. I walk through many worlds. Many possible realities. Every parallel potential. My job is always the same. To deliver warnings. I’ve given warnings to kings and I’ve given them to ordinary men. Men about to become all that stands between the light and the spew of Hell itself.’

  ‘Well, it sounds like you meet a lot of interesting people.’

  The Knot Man smiled, only his mouth didn’t move, couldn’t move, so I don’t know how I knew that.

  ‘So, you have something to warn me about?’ I asked.

  The Knot Man nodded.

  ‘Are you ready to hear
the warning?’

  I shrugged. ‘Okay, go ahead.’

  ‘It is about Detective David Tyler.’

  My heart fluttered and I sat up.

  ‘What about him?’

  And then the Knot Man told me.

  The End.

  Deadly Portent

  1

  The screaming came first.

  Not just one scream, but a multitude, jabbing sharply into the street and causing the passing foot traffic to put an extra spring in their step as they propelled themselves away from the sound as quickly as possible.

  ‘Well, Stella, that does not sound good,’ said Detective David Tyler, a master of understatement if ever there was one. ‘Not good at all.’

  ‘Let’s do this,’ I replied.

  As I clenched my fists and made to move forwards, a large, shrieking man shot by me. He’d been ejected at speed from the blind alley that hid The Fenric club, and landed in a bloody mess at our feet. To any of the passing drinkers and characters that patrolled Mayfair at this hour, it would have looked like the man with the windmilling arms was spat from a solid brick wall. A few people gave a double take, but most just kept on moving; you don’t get involved unless you have to in a place like London.

  David took a knee by the man as he looked up at us, wiping blood from his nose with the back of one hand.

  ‘Have a tissue,’ said David, holding out a crisp, white one.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ the man yelled, grabbing the Kleenex and squeezing his nostrils closed with it. ‘We called you an hour ago, what took you so long?’

  I helped the man—who was at least twice my size—up onto his feet, his knees threatening to drop him again before he propped himself against the wall and tipped back his head to stem the bleeding.

  ‘We came as fast as we could,’ I told him. ‘Hammersmith and Mayfair are not exactly side-by-side.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, or more accurately, grunted. The man (not that he was one, not exactly) was Lodo, the doorman of The Fenric, a five story private members club in the belly of Mayfair. It was a place for the Uncanny to hang out and socialise, a little like The Beehive, but for a more elite set of clientele. There were no sticky floors in this establishment, and the smell from the toilets stayed strictly where it belonged.

 

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