by Davies, Neil
He sighed and opened his mouth to speak, but Susan cut in, a mischievous smile on her face.
“Don’t say it. I know, I know. Why did they have to ruin a grand old building with these boxes?”
“Am I that predictable?”
Susan turned and continued walking towards the college.
“Yes.”
2
Katrina stood at the window of her office, watching the old man and younger woman walking up the path. The visit was not totally unexpected.
She stepped away from the window, pulled open the office door and strode out into the corridor crowded with students moving from one classroom to another. They parted before her, most of them avoiding her, turning their eyes away, afraid to make contact. A few of the older teenagers acknowledged her with afternoon Miss Bayley, and she nodded politely in response.
The first schoolhouse in Byre had been built on this very spot, although it had been nothing more than a converted barn. The barn itself, whose foundations still sat beneath the current building, had been here when Aello first arrived, when she broke free and caused so much destruction. Before she was defeated. Katrina could feel the vibrations, the psychic energy emanating from those buried stones each time she walked through the corridors of the old building. Many of those precious few chosen children, no more than two or three per generation, had experienced the first awakening of their abilities attending this college, and the schools that had stood before it. They were the Village Witches of Byre. Her predecessors.
But they had been weak.
They had been able to do little more than hide and survive. Aello had called to each one, but they had failed her.
Katrina was different. Katrina was stronger and wiser. Katrina had answered Aello’s call.
But then Katrina had discovered her powers long before she had felt the energy of the old foundation stones.
She reached the reception area, and stepping from the old corridor onto the relatively new flooring was like stepping from the sun into an icy wasteland. The energy faded. The ethereal warmth it had shrouded her with fell away.
One day she would tear down all but the old buildings.
When she ruled alongside Aello.
The old man and the woman were at the reception desk and Katrina’s face moulded into the professional welcome she had long ago perfected. She had been expecting this visit ever since the failure or her students. In a way, she welcomed it. It had been so long since anyone had presented a real challenge to her. Perhaps Professor Hall and his daughter would be worthy of her time?
3
Jimmy Stackforth dropped the used condom into the metal waste bin alongside the dressing table and watched Candida pick up her panties from the bedside cabinet. He breathed through an open mouth, his nose heavily bandaged, as she pulled them on. They caught on the heel of her boot for a moment (she insisted on keeping her boots on) and then they were free. He followed their journey up over her thighs, noticing several bruises dark against her pale skin, bruises that excited him more than the even smoothness of the fashion models in his mother’s magazines ever could. As she hitched her short skirt up to her waist, he caught a glimpse of dark pubic hair, and then it was gone, covered by the black silkiness of her panties.
He had just fucked her. Why were these details and brief flashes so exciting to him now?
He realised then, for the first time in three years with Candida, that he never looked at her. She would pull off her panties. He would drop his trousers. She would wait while he put on the condom, then open her legs and pow! He was inside her. Fucking her. Slamming into her hard and fast, not satisfied until she whimpered in pain with each thrust. He came, they both dressed, and she was happy.
So was he, wasn’t he? Isn’t this what everyone wanted? Sex with no commitment? So what were these feelings churning in his stomach? They’d been growing worse over the last few months, and he realised, with a sick feeling in his throat, that he wanted to look at Candida. He wanted to take his time, explore her body. All the countless times she had opened her legs to him, he had never stopped to look.
They both loved violence. Got off on inflicting pain and, in Candida’s case, experiencing it too. Fuck it, if that bastard hadn’t interfered the other day he would have enjoyed raping the shit out of that woman, because rape wasn’t about sex. Even he knew that. Rape was about violence. And he loved the violence. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t have other feelings too, did it?
Candida was straightening her skirt.
How often had he held her breasts in his hands, caressed them, kissed them, not crushed and squeezed, biting her nipples until they bled? Never.
And, quite suddenly, quite frighteningly, he found he wanted to.
He was embarrassed to feel tears welling in his eyes and he sniffed, wincing at the pain his broken nose shot through him.
“What are you looking at?” Candida sneered at him as she made the final adjustments to her clothes. She glanced down to the trousers still pooled around his ankles. “Pull them up will you? I don’t want to stand here looking at your limp dick. Nothing worse than a limp dick.” She laughed, a harsh, high-pitched laugh.
His cheeks flaming red, Jimmy pulled his trousers up quickly. He wanted to tell her, to try and explain these strange, scary feelings that plagued him, but then she was reaching up under her skirt, pulling at her panties, grimacing in some discomfort, and the moment was gone.
“We should get back to school,” he said, his voice sounding strained and false to his ears. “Miss Bayley might have more work for us”
“Yeah,” smiled Candida. “That’s if she’s got her tongue out of Janie’s cunt yet.”
She laughed again but, unusually, Jimmy didn’t feel like joining in.
4
“Professor Hall. Miss Hall. How nice to meet you.”
Susan turned from the L-shaped reception desk that sat to one side of the open reception area. Chattering students moved back and forth, some pushing through the double doors to the left into the college hall, others into corridors leading, she presumed, to classrooms. Through the bustle, a woman approached them, her hand held out in greeting.
The way the woman’s heels clicked on the floor as she walked irritated Susan more than was rational. The strangely masculine-style short black hair and the immaculately pressed black suit, almost a man’s suit in its cut, with no trace of dust or dandruff, was equally irritating. She seemed only a few years older than Susan, and her face was attractive, perhaps even pretty, but Susan could not shake the feeling that someone much older, ancient even, was walking towards them.
As she took the offered hand and shook it, a tingle ran the length of her arm, down her back and settled at the base of her spine. She could not suppress a slight shudder.
The woman’s smile almost slipped for a moment as she held Susan’s hand. Their eyes locked and Susan felt she was looking at someone else, someone behind those eyes very different from the woman before them.
As they unclasped hands, the feelings faded and the woman’s smile returned.
The Professor looked quickly from one woman to the other, feeling a tension, palpable in the air. He forced a smile.
“Have we met before?” He was genuinely surprised that she had called them by name. He had been preparing a long and detailed explanation of who they were and why they were here. He had not been prepared for this.
“Not in person Professor, no. But I feel as if I know you. I’ve read so much about you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, loud enough to be more theatrical than genuine. “I’m something of a closet fan of your work. I have all your books.”
“Really?” The Professor found himself flattered, despite the glare his daughter was directing at him. “Forgive me for saying so but…”
“I don’t look the type?” She laughed, and it was a light, feminine laugh that the Professor found both charming and infectious. Despite the obvious age difference, he was wondering whether she would join him for
an evening meal sometime. They could talk about his books. Perhaps they might even…
Susan stepped between her father and the woman, and immediately he felt weak, his legs threatening to give way beneath him. As if sensing his distress, Susan reached back and grasped his hand. He clung to it, convinced it was all that prevented him from collapsing.
He recalled his thoughts of just seconds ago and was acutely embarrassed. Then annoyed. He had never felt the direct effects of a glamour before, but he should have recognised it. This woman did more than just read about the paranormal.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name?”
He could hear Susan’s voice, but it sounded distant, echoing, as if at the end of a long tunnel.
“Do forgive me. I was so excited at meeting your father that I quite forgot the formalities.” The woman’s voice was honey with the stings of thousands of bees hidden within. Saccharine and deadly at the same time.
He felt his strength returning and he released Susan’s hand to let her know he was okay. When the woman spoke again her voice seemed to have lost much of its sweetness. What remained was pleasant but cold. It made him shudder.
“My name is Katrina Bayley and this is my college. Shall we go to my office?”
Susan turned and looked at her father, one eyebrow raised quizzically.
Her question was clear. Was he ready to talk to this woman face to face again?
He nodded, almost imperceptibly. Now he knew what to expect, he was sure he could resist it. But, looking at the cold stare the woman turned on him, having failed once he did not think she would risk another glamour on him.
But she had made her mark. He could not deny, as they followed her clicking heels away from the reception area, that he felt a little afraid of her.
5
Jimmy stood to one side and let Candida through the school gates first, wondering at the same time why he did it. He watched her wave to Janie and felt confused. What was happening to him?
“Hey, Janie,” said Candida. “So, you managed to prise yourself off Katty’s face then.”
Janie half smiled as the three of them began to trudge up the path towards the school. Candida’s jokes grew very quickly stale.
“You should try it sometime Cand. You might surprise yourself.”
Candida laughed her high, brittle laugh.
“Not my style Janie. Men do it for me. I’ll take Jimmy’s prick over Katty’s tongue any day.” She grinned at Jimmy.
Jimmy smiled back, feeling strangely embarrassed. In a moment of shocking and distressing clarity he realised that all he was to Candida was a prick. The moment someone with a bigger prick came along he’d be dumped.
The thought upset him. He couldn’t imagine life without Candida, and that thought upset him even more.
“How’s the nose Jimmy?” Janie ignored Candida and gave Jimmy a genuine smile.
“Okay.” He touched fingers gently to the bandages. “Hurts like fuck if I sneeze, but otherwise okay.”
He let the girls go ahead of him, watching Candida as she walked backwards for a while, still teasing Janie about her relationship with Miss Bayley. He watched the way her hair, gelled and spiked, glistened in the daylight. He watched the way her leather waistcoat slid and threatened to open, flashing a pale cleavage above a black bra. He watched the way her short skirt creased and rode up her thighs as she walked.
He slowed. He watched. He felt the emptiness inside churn with emotions he was ill equipped to deal with.
Oh shit! I think I’m in love.
6
Katrina saw the teenagers approaching the school from her office window. Casually she took a step to her right, carefully blocking the view from the Professor and his daughter. She did not want a confrontation here, in her college. Not now.
“So Professor,” she said, still gazing out of the window. Another thirty seconds and Janie and her friends would be inside the school, out of sight. “What brings you to Byre? This is hardly a hotbed of… well, anything really.”
As the teenagers disappeared into the building she turned and forced a smile.
“More to the point, what brings you to my college? How can I help?”
The Professor, careful not to look into her eyes for more than a second, broke an equally false smile across his face.
“An old friend of ours asked us to visit. Perhaps you know him. Father Rex?”
“I saw him at the church recently. I heard a rumour he’s run away somewhere. Seems to be a habit with priests round here. He was new to the village so I didn’t know him well.”
“What makes you say he ran off?” Susan’s voice was harsh, clipped, a barely restrained anger buzzing beneath the words.
“Well, why else would he disappear?” said Katrina, turning to look at the Professor’s daughter.
There was a strength in this woman that was quite unexpected. She had felt it when they clasped hands briefly in reception. Susan Hall possessed some kind of power, but it was untrained, suppressed even.
The daughter could be a much greater danger than the Professor. She had shown that when she broke the glamour Katrina was working on the older man. It had been instinctive, Katrina was sure, but nevertheless, the ease with which she snapped the connection had sent a rebounded shock through Katrina’s system that she had struggled to hide.
“For the Principal of the local college you seem remarkably unworried about the disappearance of your priest.” Susan held none of her father’s fear of making eye contact and she and Katrina stared at each other steadily as they talked.
“This is not a church college, Miss Hall. Neither is it local authority. Private money, my family’s money in large part, maintain this place.”
“Even so…”
“Even so, I share some of your concern. But, to be honest, I have always found the Catholic Church’s insistence on celibacy for its priests strange and unusual. It does not surprise me when a priest discovers there are more pleasures to be found in this life than the dubious ones they are promised in the next.”
“I’m guessing Religious Education isn’t high on your priorities here at Byre Sixth Form College?” interrupted the Professor.
It was a flippant remark, but Katrina recognised its considered intent of breaking the growing tension between herself and his daughter.
She turned to the Professor, smiling at the obvious way he avoided eye contact.
“We teach a full curriculum here Professor, but I don’t teach Religious Education myself, as you might guess. Personally I find more of interest in ancient Greek mythology than Hebrew fantasy.”
“Indeed.” The Professor pushed himself to his feet, as if eager to bring the meeting to a swift close. “I feel we were, perhaps, mistaken in coming here. We had hoped that, being a local college, you might have had close ties with the Parish and be able to help us in finding our friend. We were wrong.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help. But it was nice meeting you in the flesh, Professor Hall. Perhaps if you stay in the village long enough we could meet up and you could sign your books for me?”
“We’re not sure how long we’ll be here.” Susan stood, carefully stepping between her father and Katrina. “There might not be time.”
“We often have meetings at my house of an evening. Prominent people in our community getting together to make sure Byre remains as it is. Perhaps you could come along to the next one? Someone might be able to help you track down Father Rex. If you could just tell me where you’re staying?”
“I don’t think we’ll be here long enough, but thank you for the invitation.” Susan gently took her father’s arm and guided him towards the door.
Katrina noted how pale the Professor looked and how slow his movements were. She could see the concern on his daughter’s face. The Professor was getting old.
“Do you mind if my secretary takes you back to reception?” she said. “I have a lot of work to catch up on.”
“That’ll be fine,
” said Susan. “Thank you.”
Katrina spoke to the elderly woman sitting in the outer office and kept the smile on her face until all three were in the school corridor. As the door to her office swung closed she let the smile slip.
Susan Hall was a very real danger. The woman obviously had no idea of the power she possessed, nor would she know how to use it if she did. But she was still dangerous.
The Professor, on the other hand… She knew his formidable academic reputation, but she had sensed no natural power there. He had succumbed to a fairly simple glamour easily. Had his daughter not stepped in…
His daughter was the one she was worried about. More than ever, she wished Janie and her friends had succeeded in their task. If they had, neither the Professor nor his daughter would be of any concern.
Thoughts of their failure brought back thoughts of the mysterious stranger. The likelihood was that, whoever he was, he was just passing through and had long gone. Just an unfortunate coincidence that he was walking past at that moment.
But what if he had not passed through? What if he was staying in the village? And was it really just a coincidence?
She reached into her pocket, pulling out her mobile phone and taking it off flight-mode. She was uncomfortable with not knowing more about the stranger, not having the answers. But there were more than enough people loyal to her cause in the village. One of them would know.
Her phone rang, startling her out of her thoughts. For a moment she was angry with herself. Allowing her thoughts to wander in that way, however important the questions, showed poor self-control. And she prided herself on self-control.
She glanced at the back-lit display and hesitated at the name on the screen. What was her ex-husband phoning her for? She had not spoken to him in months. She had hoped never to have to speak to him again. He was a mistake she would prefer to forget.