by M. V. Stott
‘Magic force field?’ I said.
‘Technically, it’s a ward of protection,’ replied Eva, ‘but yeah, “magic force field” will do.’
‘Are we safe?’ asked Maya.
‘Yep. Well. No. Well, yes. For a bit. I’m not very good at these protection circle jobbies, so sooner or later—and I’m guessing sooner—the spell’s gonna break and they’re gonna get in. And there’s only so many of them I can deal with before they swamp us.’
The Chloe Queen raged at us, her giant limbs as thick as tree trunks, beating against the magical shell Eva had constructed with her chalk circle.
‘So what now?’ I asked. ‘Can we move the circle? Just shuffle right on out of here before it breaks.’
‘Nope.’
‘Ah.’
‘Then we’re still going to be dead, just in a minute or two, rather than immediately,’ said Maya.
‘Pretty much,’ replied Eva.
‘Well, shit,’ said Maya.
‘Exactly. That is of course unless Magic Joe here pulls his finger out.’
‘Me? What the hell can I do?’
‘I need you to fuck these twats up.’
Delicately put.
‘How? I cried. ‘I don’t know how to access the power I have! It’s still all locked up and hidden away and I can’t get at it! Not when I actually want it, anyway. It plays very hard to get.’
We ducked instinctively as a fresh barrage of limbs assaulted us, the sharp sound of whatever magic shell it was that was protecting us straining and complaining, stabbing at our ears. It didn’t sound like it could take much more punishment.
‘Wait,’ said Eva.
‘Wait?’ I cried, ‘I think we’re about all out of waiting time!’
‘I... No… yes! I’ve got an idea. Bound to happen, that. Never doubted me for a second.’
‘What idea?’ I asked.
Eva grinned and waggled her eyebrows. ‘Amplifier.’
‘Amplifier?’ replied Maya, stumbling back against we as the ground began to shake beneath our feet from the relentless onslaught.
‘Ampli-shitting-fier! He might not be able to use his magic himself properly, but I can try and force my magic through Mr Idiot here, and he’ll act as a booster, whacking up the volume to burn these fuckers to a crisp, and leaving us all nice and safe and alive and ready to party. Sound good?’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Maya.
‘Will that work?’
‘Yep. Definitely work. Well. Maybe. Possibly. It’ll either work or it’ll make your brain go off in your skull like an egg in a microwave.’
‘What!’
‘Don’t worry, you won’t feel it if it goes wrong. Well, you will, it’ll hurt like an absolute bastard, but then you’ll be dead and you won’t feel anything at all.’
‘How likely is the egg scenario?’
‘Don’t worry, it’s an 80/20 chance of that happening.’
‘80/20? Is exploding egg the 80 or the 20?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Eva, non-committally. ‘Now brace yourself.’
‘Is it the 80 or the 20? Eva? Wait—’
Her hands gripped my skull, and suddenly I felt like I’d been dropped from a height into a freezing pool of water. I could still see everything around me. Still see Eva, still see Maya. Could still see the monsters, and the Chloe Queen monstrosity. But it was all in slow motion. Distant. A dot on the horizon.
There were threads of fire in my mind. Burning tendrils, flaming worms. They wiggled their way through my consciousness, forcing connections that no longer existed. Images flashed before my eyes. Terrible things. Confusing things. Faces and monsters and places and sounds that I knew must be things I’d experienced. Things the old me, the forgotten me, had lived through. Whatever Eva was doing was giving me access to my past. Would it last? Was it just a temporary glimpse that would be locked away again?
I was a witch.
A warlock.
But who was I?
Those things weren’t the answer. Not really. It didn’t tell me who I really was. What I was like. It didn’t give me my memories, my fears, my loves, my hates. Then two faces, two women, women who I knew, loved, belonged with. Me and them and Eva and we had purpose. Strength.
And then all clear thoughts were lost as it felt like my whole body was being pulled apart. Fingernails dragged down every raw nerve ending and I heard a horrible sound that I think was me screaming in agony.
I was found. I was lost. My heart was broken, betrayed, scattered to the winds.
Chloe Palmer. I had loved her as much as I could remember loving anyone, and it didn’t matter. It was nothing. I was nothing. I was just a means to an end. A tool to be used and cast aside.
Anger.
It swamped me. It fed me.
What had the fox said?
The Red Woman?
Become the Magic Eater.
I’d wanted that, hadn’t I? I suddenly felt like I had once wanted that very much. Desired it. Coveted it. Obsessed over it. Was willing to burn everyone to the ground to get it.
A beast. I was a beast.
I could see the Red Woman looking at me, only it wasn’t me, it was the other me, the forgotten me, and I was holding her hand and smiling. She was smiling back and the sky was on fire and a million-strong army of the dead raised their weapons to the heavens and screamed and hooted and cheered and they were all mine.
We will do such things together.
The Red Woman was right. I wanted it. The power, the power, the power, the power and I think I’m falling apart. I think I’m dying. It’s not working. It’s too much. I don’t know how to handle it, and any second now it’s egg in a microwave time and that’s all she wrote. I needed to control this. Needed to use it. Needed to unleash it. Come on, please, just do it!
‘Hey, idiot.’
A voice. Not out loud, in my head. Eva was in my head.
‘I can’t do it.’
‘Yeah, I know, you’re useless.’
‘Shut up.’
‘I never should have come back to the lakes for you. I was having a good time, but here I am, and look what I find. You’re pathetic, love.’
‘I am not! I am… I am the Cumbrian Coven. I am Joseph Lake.’
I am the Magic Eater.
‘You’re a twat, is what you are.’
Why was she doing this? Why now, when we were moments from death and… oh….
‘Yeah. Distraction. You’re welcome.’
And then the cave exploded.
33
I was lying back on something that felt familiar.
‘Finally,’ said Detective Maya Myers.
I opened my eyes. I was in the back of the Uncanny Wagon, and it was on the move. I sat up to see Maya driving, Eva beside her. ‘I’m alive.’ I gave myself a quick pat down to make sure. ‘I’m alive. How am I alive? How are both of you alive?’
‘We won, that’s how,’ replied Eva, lighting a cigarette and handing it to me.
I took it with a trembling hand and inhaled.
‘It worked?’
‘Yup. You shat out enough magic to turn every single one of the fuckers to dust. Almost killed us too. The whole place started coming down while you were sleeping it off. Me and sensible trousers here had to lug your dead weight out of there, sharpish.’
‘We did it. We did it!’ I laughed, exhilarated. We’d put an end to it. Avenged the murders of Mrs Coates, of Mary Tyler, of Detective Sam Samm and all the rest.
It didn’t take long for the bucket of cold water to be thrown on my high as Chloe’s face swam into my mind’s eye.
My best friend for years. The person I’d been head over heels for. Who I thought I might have an actual future with. Dead by my hands. Okay, it turned out she was a half-monster, that she had allowed the deaths of numerous innocent people, but still. She hadn’t been all bad. I didn’t think I’d be able to just wipe away all the good memories. I didn’t want to. They were real. She’d lied to me, b
ut I don’t think she had about that.
And now this was real. All of it. Monsters. Magic. What I was, and what I could be. I may not have most of the pieces, or any of my memories, but I knew more than I had done for the last ten years, even if the things I knew were a mix of crazy and wet-your-pants terrifying.
I wasn’t just a half-forgotten local mystery. The man who woke up, naked, without a past, beside Derwentwater. I was more. And I was pretty sure this was only the tip of the iceberg.
‘Listen, I’m part of this from now on, right?’ said Maya.
‘You?’ replied Eva. ‘You were about as useful as a chocolate teapot down there.’
‘I’m a detective. I can be useful. Resources, information, access. Also, this isn’t a request, it’s a done deal. From now on, I’m part of this. I’m the police here, and that means I am involved in protecting people from whatever they need protecting from. Understood?’
‘Yes Ma’am,’ replied Eva. ‘Besides, if it was just me and ol’ dickless over there, I’d probably end up killing the fucker.’
‘Hey, I have a penis. And balls. Two of them.’
‘Seen ‘em. Not impressed.’
‘Eva, why do you hate me so much? I mean sometimes you seem okay with me, others you’d be happy to feed my tender, baby-making parts to a wolf. It’s very disorientating.’
Eva snorted, but didn’t reply.
We left Detective Maya Myers at the police station, then I drove Eva back to the coven.
I’d seen the place during Eva’s invasion of my mind. Seen memories of my life there, I know I had. Just flashes, but real things from my past. Now they were like fragments on the edge of my vision. Just frustratingly out of reach, out of focus. But for a few brief moments, I knew something of my life here. Not just my life. I’d seen other people who belonged here too.
Other witches.
I thought back to what the Red Woman and the fox had told me last time I saw them. What they had said Eva was keeping from me.
I looked at her, slumped on the tatty couch, drinking from her vodka pistol, watching a woman try to convince a couple to spend £300,000 on a large detached house by the sea.
‘There were other members of this coven, weren’t there? Others besides me and you.’
‘That house is completely overpriced,’ said Eva, before shooting vodka into her mouth.
‘Eva.’
She watched the TV in silence.
‘Eva, tell me!’
‘There were others, yeah. Two of them.’
‘So, it wasn’t just me. What happened to them?’
Eva sat up and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, then she looked at me and sighed.
‘Eva, tell me, what happened to the other witches?’
‘Well, to put it bluntly, you murdered them, love. Shall we go hit the pub then? You’re buying.’
The End.
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Ghosted: Fresh Hell
Here’s a SNEAK PEEK at the first Ghosted book, another series set in the Uncanny Kingdom universe…
A skinned woman floating in a canal.
A demon on the loose.
Somebody has to take it down, and that somebody is me.
Just one problem... I’m already dead
1
It was half past midnight when the screaming started.
The cry came from the east bank of Regent’s Canal, not far from Camden Lock. The person who called it in said they heard a commotion outside their narrow boat and pulled back the curtain to find a figure running along the towpath, screaming at the top of their lungs. The witness said they couldn’t understand why the screamer was making such a racket; not until they slammed their palm against the boat’s porthole and painted it with a big, red handprint.
The victim didn’t have any skin.
They’d been flayed from head to toe, peeled like a prawn, yet somehow they still had it in them to flee—literally barefoot—from the scene of their suffering.
The victim carried on running after that, but didn’t make it far before they took a tumble and toppled face-first into the canal. It won’t shock you to hear that they were pronounced dead on arrival.
When I picked up the message from DCI Stronge that the Marine Policing Unit had fished a flayed corpse out of the drink, I took an interest right away. Things like this—bizarre, gruesome murders—they’re right in my wheelhouse. All my life I’ve had a preoccupation with the macabre: the creatures in the shadows, the lurkers beneath the floorboards, the monsters in the closet. Believe it or not, back in a past life I used to be an exorcist (although I’d prefer if you did take my word for it, otherwise this story is going to be a real tough sell).
So, why an exorcist? Fact is, I was born with The Sight: an ability to see the spirits of the dead that stay walking the Earth. Ghosts, phantoms, spectres, whatever you want to call them. It made for a pretty challenging childhood, but it set me up great for a career evicting spooks. It’s a job I did for a good few years, waving burning sage about and cleansing haunted properties, at least before I died and became a spook myself. Yeah, I’m not blind to the irony. Since I croaked, I’ve taken a bit of a U-turn on the whole issue of ghosts and their rights. Matter of fact, I’ve become something of an undead activist. Live and let live, I say.
Well, to a fashion.
Most ghosts find themselves marooned on the physical plane because they died a traumatic death and need closure to move on. Not me. I solved my murder – had my chance at the afterlife but passed it up. Well, that’s not entirely true, The truth is, I did a runner from the pearly gates. I didn’t feel I was ready to face the Big Man at that juncture, not after the life I’d lead. Not after the things I’ve done.
So, I found my way back here, back to the physical realm. Now I live somewhere between the two worlds, tucked in the middle and out of sight, like a g-string up an arse crack. I move invisibly in this realm, a rumour drifting through a world of facts. Tell you what, let’s stick with that last one, it’s got more of a ring to it than the arse crack thing.
You’re probably wondering how I wound up dead in the first place. Well, you know that expression, “Die young and leave a good-looking corpse”? I managed to get the “young” part right. The “good-looking corpse” part, that’s a whole other story. The quick version: I succeeded in pissing off the wrong person and ended up cut into four chunks, so... not exactly good-looking.
Anyway, my death’s a story for another time – we’ve already got one sliced-up corpse bobbing in a canal, let’s not muddy the waters with another. The reason I mention it is to remind you that, as a bona-fide “goner,” I don’t have a body. Most of the time I do just fine without one, but seeing as I was about to meet with the police and they wouldn’t be able to see me in my spook state, something needed doing. If I wanted to talk with DCI Stronge, I was going to have to make a stop first.
2
I found him sat in the booth of a late-night bar with his arm around a woman he wasn’t married to. He was ordering table service. Of course he was, he’d always been a wanker. His name was Mark Ryan and I’d known him since we were eleven years old. Since we were at school together. We didn’t run in the same circles. His circle was all sports trophies and hand jobs behind the bike sheds, while mine—thanks to him—was the kind Dante wrote about. No matter what I did to avoid the guy, he’d always find a way to seek me out and give me shit: barging me into my locker, kicking footballs at me, tripping me over in the corridor. Boosting his ego at my expense. Mar
k Ryan was the first person to really make my life hell, and I’ve been closer to the place than most.
One time he bought a pair of handcuffs into class and manacled me to a radiator while the teacher was out of the room. Doesn’t sound so bad, right? Some people pay good money for that. Yeah, he over-tightened the things, but that was too be expected. Besides, that wasn’t what really hurt. The real pain came when the heat conducted by the cuff made its way to my bracelet. That was a new kind of pain. Mark and his crew did nothing to help me – just stood back and laughed as I thrashed around, helpless, howling in agony.
Even as a ghost, I still have the scar.
So yeah, Mark’s not exactly top of my friends list, which is why I decided to make him my designated meat puppet; the body I use whenever I need to pass for living. He’s like my toupee, except instead of hiding my bald spot, he hides the fact that I don’t have a body.
Mark pecked his side piece on the cheek, squeezed past her and headed to the Gents for a slash. I breezed by the rest of the punters unseen and phased through the bathroom wall to follow him inside. When I got there, I found him stood at a urinal, phone in one hand, cock in the other. It was nothing to write home about. The guy might act like a swinging dick, but he has a knob like an outie belly button.
I prepared to stake a pitch in Mark’s body. It took me a long time to get the knack of possession. Meat is a tricky medium to work with. Most ghosts never get a handle on it, but somehow I figured out a way. If you asked me how I pull it off, I’d tell you that my work as an exorcist gave me a unique understanding of ghosts and their ways. I’d be shitting you though. All I know is, that after a lot of practice, I learned to inhabit the living. At least for a little while. An hour, two hours at most, and a living body rejects me like an unwanted kidney. That’s just the way things are, don’t ask me to break down the science of it.