5 The Witches of East Malling

by steve higgs

  Hayley had wanted to get naked and play hide the sausage. That was where our relationship started and ended. It was most gratifying. I had enjoyed her company immensely. Mr. Wriggly had enjoyed her willingness to have no clothes on. But what did I do now? I had moved on, I had a date tonight. Even if I didn't, I was too interested in Amanda to consider a second round with Hayley a good idea.

  Before she could spot me, my coffee was ready, and I left the shop. I would be back soon to get drinks for Amanda and James and would have to find the words to make it clear to Hayley that she and I would not be picking up where we left off. As I went out the door, I reminded myself that I had no good reason to believe that she was still interested.

  Time would tell.

  I sipped my drink as I walked around the corner to Frank's bookshop. The Mystery Men was an odd little place that was invisible from the street unless one looked directly at the door on the ground floor that led upstairs to it, or one just happened to be looking up and spotted the sign sticking out from the wall ten feet above one's head. Frank sold books, graphic novels, comic books and memorabilia that all tied into the paranormal. Everything in the shop was of the same theme and much of it was non-fiction, a term I thought odd since the subject matter was pure fiction. Was it an oxymoron to claim to write non-fiction about supernatural creatures?

  Pondering that question in my head led me to his door. I pushed it open and went up the stairs. As the shop's interior came into sight, I saw Poison serving a pair of mid-teenage boys. They were a little scruffy and scrawny looking, although I would never voice such an opinion. Being fair, they looked like most teenage boys and very typical of what one might expect to find in a comic book and graphic novel store.

  Poison was playing to the audience, being engaging and harmlessly flirting with them as she bagged up their purchases. Poison looked up as I came into the shop. She smiled in my direction but stayed focused on taking their money and making sure they would be back next week to buy more.

  I busied myself looking at the figurines on display inside a glass cabinet. Each of them had a price tag with at least a couple of zeros. I couldn't identify more than half of the figures, if I had it right though, the rarer the character, the more desirable it was and thus the higher the price tag it could demand.

  ‘Hi, Tempest. Are you after Frank?' I turned to see that the two boys were on their way out of the door, it tinkled its little bell as they left. Poison was leaning on the counter, looking at me through her fringe in a way that went straight to my groin. Goodness, she was pretty. Too young for me I repeated in my head several times.

  ‘Yes, please.’ I replied. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘FRANK.’ She yelled through to the back of the store behind the counter.

  Silence followed her shout. Two seconds went by, then three and just when I was beginning to feel awkward I heard someone moving in the depths of the store. Footsteps, audible because there was no other noise, preceded Frank's untidy, thin frame appearing in the doorframe behind Poison.

  ‘Oh, hi, Tempest.’ Frank said as he came into the shop. He was holding a small fish tank in which I could see a frog.

  I was used to Frank being different. I applauded it, while at the same time I always found myself scratching my head while trying to follow his logic. ‘What's with the frog?'

  He rolled his eyes as he placed the aquarium on the countertop. ‘It's not a frog, Tempest. It's a toad. A Salem toad to be precise. You do know what makes a Salem toad special, don't you, Tempest?'

  ‘It has opposable thumbs?' I guessed.

  Frank hung his head in defeat like a teacher with a particularly dumb student might. ‘No, Tempest. A Salem toad reacts to the presence of witchcraft.’

  ‘That would have been my second guess.’

  Frank ignored me, ‘It's just an early warning system, of course. The toad will warn the owner that a witch is nearby.'

  ‘How does it do that?’ I was trying not to smile as I imagined the small amphibian conducting witch trials.

  ‘It farts.’

  ‘It farts.’ I repeated with derision or disbelief in my voice. Even I couldn’t decide which it was. Frank didn’t reply though. ‘So, you have to carry the toad around and watch its butt for an excess of escaping gas and then you know that somewhere in your vicinity is a witch. Do I have that about right?’

  ‘Yup.' Frank replied. He had been watching the toad but shifted to face me now, his face serious. ‘The photograph you sent me, Tempest. That's a witch. There aren't many around anymore, not since the great purge of the Salem witch trials, but they are out there, and more dangerous than they ever were because their magic is more focused.'

  ‘Can you expand on that?’ I asked.

  ‘Okay.' Frank held up his hands to make a pot shape. ‘Imagine all the magic in the world is finite. It is shared unevenly between however many persons are born with the skill to practice it, or wield it, if you will. As the numbers of these people increase or decrease, the total amount of magic remains the same but becomes more or less concentrated depending on the number of available recipients. With far fewer witches around and very few sorcerers, each of them has become quite powerful. The power is still shared unevenly, of course, so the most powerful will be incredibly dangerous.'

  ‘What about the lady I took the picture of then?’

  ‘Given that she is killing men by making their hearts explode from their chests, I would say she was very powerful indeed. Wouldn’t you?’

  Normally I would respond to such goading by explaining to Frank what was really going on and how the crime was more likely to be being committed. In this case, though, I still had not come up with a way to make lightning, let alone how to then instruct it to hit a person while they were safe inside their house. It was perplexing.

  ‘Why is that there is only a finite amount of magic?' I enquired. It was a detail that was bothering me like there was a hole in his story.

  He raised his hands. ‘Why is the sky blue? That’s just how it is.’

  ‘So, what can you tell me about the witch in question?'

  ‘Not a lot, I'm afraid.' He paused for a moment while he put on a pair of white cotton gloves, then squatted below the countertop. I listened to the sound of a key in a lock and then what sounded like a padlock being moved and then a length of chain being dragged through a hasp. Eventually, he reappeared holding an ancient looking book, the cover of which looked a lot like crocodile skin. ‘Never touch dragon skin with your bare hands.' He advised as he put the book down. ‘This is more than two-hundred years old and would probably still eat through my skin if I wasn't protected.'

  I opened my mouth to respond, but I couldn’t form a sentence that felt like an adequate reply. Instead, I chose to ignore his delusion.

  He carefully turned some pages, found what he was looking for and turned the book to face me. He pointed to a crude drawing, ‘The art of controlling lightning has been largely forgotten by today's magical practitioners. Of course, most of today's practitioners are almost entirely harmless. The Wiccans are the best-known group but what they do is more of a religion than an arcane art. I have not heard of anyone performing dark spells of this magnitude. Not ever. I have reached out to some of the people that work in this field, they might be able to provide more information on what you are facing this time. Vermont Wensdale should be able to shed some light.'

  Vermont Wensdale. Now there was a name that kept cropping up. He was as bonkers as Frank but far more dangerous. Where Frank might study, Vermont would seek to slay.

  I scrutinised the drawing. It was of a crone in a cowl, like the wicked witch from Snow White. She had her arms aloft with lightning arcing above her. The effect was to make it look as if she was controlling the lightning and opposite her was a man, strong and tall, whose body was drawn as if the lightning was passing through his chest. Above and below the drawing was writing in very old English. It was barely readable, and I gave up after a few sentences.

  ‘I can�
��t read that.’ I said, pointing to the passage. ‘Can you give me the general gist?’

  He rolled his eyes again and turned the book around so that it was the right way up for him to read. I watched as he traced along the lines of writing with a finger.

  I leaned in close to see what he was reading. ‘The spell requires three parts of the chosen to activate it, essence, presence, and seed. These help to form the link between the source and the earth, so the practitioner can guide it through their intended victim.' Frank and I both jumped as a huge peel of thunder echoed through the air to punctuate the macabre subject.

  We looked at each other, our faces inches apart as we were staring at the book. Neither of us said anything, the timing of the thunder undeniably eerie.

  Poison began laughing at us. She was holding her phone and sniggering, then turned it so we could see the face and pressed a button. The thunder sounded again: She had downloaded an App.

  The little cow.

  Frank shook his head and looked back down at the book. ‘The spellcaster must bind the source, that's the lightning, to the chosen using the three parts and has to be present when the spell is cast to guide the source to its target.'

  ‘Sounds simple enough. What does it mean by essence, presence, and seed?'

  ‘Oh, err, essence would be blood, presence has to be a physical part of the body like a piece of skin or maybe some hair.’

  ‘What about seed?’

  ‘This is old stuff. Seed means exactly that.’

  ‘So, the witch needs to gather blood, hair, and semen? How does she get hold of the victim's semen?'

  ‘Are you kidding?’ asked Poison, her face incredulous. ‘Boys give away their semen for free. I could get a dozen samples in half an hour just by going into the street and asking.’

  I volunteer as tribute!

  Ignoring Mr. Wriggly's thoughts on the matter, she was probably right. How difficult would it be to get seed from a man? Pretty tough if you looked like the old lady I had seen with the four murderous wives of East Malling.

  For the case in question, she could obtain it via the wives. I was going with the premise that the witch/old lady was pulling some kind of murderous scam. Were the wives in on it or not? Were they complicit? And, if so, did they believe they were killing their husbands with magic or did they know it was all nonsense?

  ‘You are going to carry on looking into this case, aren’t you?’ Frank asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders. Of course. ‘I don’t think there is a witch at the end of this Frank. I will admit I don’t know how the murders are being committed, but I don’t think a witch is doing it.’

  ‘She used lightning to explode their hearts, but you don’t think it is magic?’ Frank was stood with his arms folded, looking at me sceptically.

  ‘Nope. When I work out what is going on I will let you know.’

  ‘Bye, Tempest.' Poison called as I started to move toward the door. She pressed the button on her phone again to cause another loud peal of thunder and grinned at me.

  I waved a quick salute to her and Frank, then stopped in the doorway as I remembered something. ‘Almost forgot. I moved into Lyndon Parrish’s office yesterday.’

  ‘Oh.’ Frank said.

  ‘I think we can assume he has quit the paranormal investigation business. Anyway, I have a stack of framed pictures that need a home if you promise not to just flog them on eBay.’

  ‘You mean the big ones he had on the walls? Of Tunguska and the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot…’

  ‘And all the other ones he had. You can have them all if they are going up in here.’

  ‘Tempest you are a gentleman and a scholar.’ He replied, a smile revealing how pleased he was with the freebies. They were good quality frames and I could probably have sold them, but they went well with Frank’s theme and he had never once tried to charge me for his perpetually available advice.

  ‘I'll bring them around later.' With that, I was gone. The door closed behind me as I descended the stairs.

  Groceries with a Side of Violence. Wednesday, November 9th 0943hrs

  I stopped in a co-operative store on my way back to the office. We needed basic office supplies such as kitchen towel and toilet rolls, tea, coffee and sugar and I grabbed some biscuits and a quality box of tissues because it was not unusual for clients to begin blubbing while telling their tales of woe.

  My brain was largely in neutral for the task, I was thinking about the lightning, but managed to select, pay for and pack my groceries on autopilot, only coming back to reality when I stepped back out of the shop and into the rain. I was supposed to be picking up coffee. I had left the office more than ninety minutes ago now. Chances were that Amanda and James had gone for their own rather than wait for me and since my hands were now full of bags it was going to be difficult to carry coffee it I got it.

  I would go back to the office and head out again if necessary.

  ‘There he is.' I looked up to find the source of the voice. A fat bloke was advancing toward me from in front of my office as I approached it. He was flanked by two other equally overweight men. They were all forged from the same biological soup and had to be brothers.

  I had labelled him as fat because he clearly had a beef with me and I was instantly feeling a lack of generosity. My hands were full of bags. He looked like he wanted to get frisky and there were three of them.

  ‘You want to tell me why I paid you money to have my wife throw me out of my house?' He had closed the distance to me and was yelling, spittle flying from his lips in his excitement. Adrenalin was coursing through his body, making him twitchy and potentially dangerous.

  I forced myself to relax as his brothers joined him. They were stood three abreast, each of them looking at me, each of them taller and heavier than me. I keep the bags in my hands and looked slowly and calmly at each in turn.

  I was going to have one go at diffusing the situation, after which I was going to get some exercise if necessary. ‘Sir, you have me at a loss. You appear to believe I have been involved in some misfortune you have suffered.’

  ‘He doesn’t even know who I am!’ The man said, throwing his arms in the air. ‘I paid you to prove the woman in the back of my car was a ghost and you went and found a prostitute.’

  Ah. Now I could join the dots. I had only seen his face in the dim light of the photograph Amanda showed me and I had been looking more closely at the woman in the picture. This was Amanda's client, Martin Boynes, the one that wanted us to prove ghosts existed.

  ‘It is my understanding, sir, that the lady in the photograph is indeed a prostitute.’

  ‘It’s a ghost!’ He screamed in my face.

  He reached for my jacket, grabbing the front of it with both hands. I remained calm, but it was almost time to act.

  ‘You have ruined me. I paid you to get me out of this.’

  ‘Hit ‘im, Martin. Go on.’ Goaded the brother to the right.

  ‘I would advise against that.’

  ‘Why. There's one of you and three of us.' The same bother observed. His arithmetic was not as accurate as he thought though.

  ‘Wrong.' His face wrinkled up in confusion. 'There's only three of you.' I had reached the end of my patience and Martin was still screwing up my nice jacket. In one motion, I dropped the bags, their contents spilling at my feet as I reached up with both hands. My right hand went over his arms to grasp his left wrist. I turned it against itself by forcing my thumb into the join between his thumb and forefinger to break his grip then rolling the arm down and toward me. My left arm arced up with a high elbow that struck against his temple.

  Controlling his left arm, I swung him to his right and into his brother there to form a barrier. The brother to his right could now not get to me. The brother to his left was now behind me and starting to react. I kicked my leg out behind me into the inside of his left knee. I needed space more than anything, I could not afford to let them get hold of me.

  I changed direction to push hard
against Martin. He was trying to pull away from me, so the sudden shift in momentum propelled him into his brother and sent them both sprawling. They were on the floor and I had space between me and the third brother. He had recovered his balance after the kick to his knee though and was coming for me.

  I let him come. His weight would become my weapon. As he closed the gap I let him grab for me, but I was falling back as he came, making his centre of balance move beyond his leading foot. Had he swung a punch I would have needed to parry it, but he didn’t, he tried to grab hold of me, wanting to slow me up so his brothers could join him. It was a sensible tactic, the three of them moving together would quickly overpower me. He hadn’t planned well though, just as he started to tip forward I stepped tight into his body, spun as I grabbed his lapels and threw him over my hip.

  Three men down. I was so magnificent.

  They were getting up, still looking angry, but also now looking wet and a little confused about what had just happened.

  ‘Chaps I see no particular benefit to any of us in trying a second round. Shall we move to the office instead?' I had no desire to sit down with them, but even less interest in finding myself engaged in a full-blown street brawl that would most likely lead to someone's arrest. People, most probably tourists, were already staring at us as they hurried by. Were it not raining they might have formed a small crowd by now.

  Martin did not feel inclined to agree to my proposal though. Thankfully, he didn't want to fight anymore either. His preferred option was to call me some names and threaten to set his lawyer on me. I was impressed by how many swear words he was able to string into a single sentence. He was done though, his adrenalin expended without the victory he had expected.