The Teen, the Witch and the Thief

by Ben Jeapes

  *

  The hospice night porter, a middle-aged man called Nigel, was sitting at the front desk downstairs reading a book. He looked up in surprise when two teenage boys walked up to him. The one in a dressing gown looked familiar and the other he had never seen before. His first concern was that the one in a gown was obviously a resident and shouldn’t be up at this hour.

  “Now then, lads–”

  And then he realised that the familiar looking one was Robert Gorse, walking. What the hell? His mind craved information, and in that moment of openness the thief’s will came crashing in.

  “It’s Nigel, isn’t it. Could I borrow your car, Nigel?”

  “Why, of course. Hang on.”

  There was a faint knot of worry at the back of Nigel’s mind but he couldn’t really see what he might be doing wrong. He fumbled for the keys in the pocket of his coat, slung over the back of his chair.

  “It’s the green Focus, in the staff spaces.”

  His mind was still open and in a spirit of giving, so the thief was able to reach right in and pluck out his understanding of how to drive a car.

  “Thank you!”

  The boys went out into the car park.

  And still the thief could feel the stolen treasure inside his head growing! Even the little trick with the gown had made new connections in his brain that opened up into new areas of the arcane. The growth was exponential. One small thing could have so many spin-off benefits.

  Out in the car park he decided to try another trick. His newly enhanced senses showed Nigel’s car as the dark metal bones of a complex animal, dead and lifeless, but power lurked quiescent in the battery and the fuel tank. He could see the gaps in the ignition system that would be closed when the driver turned a key, letting the electrons flow in the starter motor.

  Well, he could do that. Again, it was just a matter of willing the right thing–

  The car coughed, the engine rumbled and the machine suddenly lurched forward. It strained against the handbrake and then stopped with its engine stalled. The thief cursed. Nigel had left it in gear.

  Power always has limitations, as his old master had taught so often.

  “It’s all knowledge,” he murmured to reassure himself, through teeth that were slightly gritted.

  The car cheeped as the doors unlocked and he helped Robert into the passenger seat. Then he leaned on the door and looked thoughtfully at St Osmund’s.

  If only the witch hadn’t interfered he would have finished by killing Ted and left it at that. So really, she only had herself to blame for what must now follow.

  He chuckled wryly. If he couldn’t – yet – move a dressing gown all the way across a room, he certainly couldn’t bring down a building. Not by direct action. Power on that scale would only come with practice. Matter was so much harder to manipulate than mind.

  And so he walked back to the lobby, and Nigel looked up again and beamed as if greeting an old friend.

  “Forget something, did you?”

  The thief smiled back and leaned on the desk with his hands clasped together. How astonishing, he thought. Nigel was as plain and open as the book he had been reading. On his face you could see every nuance, every clue as to the man’s innermost personality.

  He could also see every little block and barrier that sheltered his core being from the outside world. And so, with just a little mental flip, the man could bypass those blocks and project his will directly into Nigel’s brain.

  “Nigel, I wonder if you could do me a small favour?”

  Chapter 13

  A force seized hold of Ted out of the limbo and rocked him so violently his head lashed from side to side.

  “Ted!”

  Out of the dark a stream of freezing water poured onto his face. Ted gagged and choked as it flowed into his mouth and nostrils.

  “Wake up, darn it–”

  Then he was awake. He was lying on the camp bed in the room in the hospice and Zoe was pouring a jug of water onto his face.

  “Blear-ee-ach-yuk!”

  He propped himself up on an elbow and wiped the water from his face with the back of his hand.

  “Finally!” Zoe set the jug down. “Where were you? No, don’t answer. I know where you were. He’s taken your brother. It’s a catastrophe. Come on–”

  Ted blinked resentfully at her through wet lashes. She looked different. Her dark hair was dishevelled and unbrushed. She wasn’t wearing make-up. Instead of the leg-stretching high heels, she was wearing ordinary trainers. She looked like a Zoe who had been got suddenly out of bed in a hurry.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded, “and–”

  Ted suddenly realised that he was only wearing a pair of boxers. He sat up quickly and hugged his knees.

  “... what are you doing here, and–”

  Then his eyes settled on the impossibility of Robert’s empty bed and words dried up. The duvet was thrown back and the sheets were rumpled. It looked like Robert had just got up to go to the bathroom, except that Robert didn’t get up, ever.

  “Where’s Robs?”

  Something had happened, Ted knew: something recent, something very important, something involving Robert. He was trying very hard to remember what it was, but it wasn’t coming to him and the fact of Zoe being here and Robert not just made it too hard to think straight.

  “Oh, God, where do I start–” Zoe rolled her eyes. Then she looked into the corner of the room. “You have to show him,” she told the wall. “He has to know it’s too complicated to explain all at once.”

  Ted looked, baffled, at the empty corner and was just drawing breath to ask again what the hell she was on about when the witch materialised out of the wallpaper.

  “Eek!” He scrambled to his feet and backed against the wall behind him, and suddenly he remembered the dream. A seriously weird and frighteningly real sort of dream: the city of all-the-Salisburys, and Robert, and the cathedral, and the big glowing thing, and the witch who hit him so hard it knocked him back into the real world.

  “What ... what’s she doing here?” he gabbled. “You know her?”

  Like a turned-down TV, the witch’s mouth moved rapidly, accompanied by abrupt and angry gestures. She made no sound but apparently Zoe could hear her.

  “She’s not your enemy, Ted–”

  “Like bollocks she isn’t!”

  “Your enemy is–” Her voice changed, as if she was just reciting words being fed to her. “The man who pretended to be your brother in the place where you were. And–”

  Ted shook his head to clear it.

  “What do you mean, pretended? That was Robs! Well …” It dawned on him that of course it hadn’t quite been the Robert he was expecting. “I mean, uh, Robs like he was four years ago, but–”

  “Everything that defines your brother is in that place. He had everything he needed to knock up a very convincing copy.”

  Ted’s head was spinning.

  “Look, can we start again? Where is Robs?”

  Zoe sighed and spoke with extreme patience.

  “He is with, the person, who was pretending, to be, him.” A pause while the witch kept talking. “She says, it was this person who made Robert as he has been for four years–”

  “Wha–?” Ted ignored the impossibility of receiving this advice from a ghostly bald witch and concentrated on the bit he could understand. “Someone did that to him? Someone made Robs like that? Who exactly is this guy?”

  “Come with me and I’ll explain as we go.”

  With the feeling that he had about half a second to decide who to believe, Ted let the gears spin in his mind. Against the witch: she was just bloody scary, even when she wasn’t angry. For the witch: Zoe was on her side, and she hadn’t been the one to lead him on in all-the-Salisburys. Okay, for now, he would trust her. Correction, he would trust Zoe.

  Ted had left his clothes in a pile on the floor. He looked meaningfully at her when she showed no signs of moving.

 
“Yes?” she asked.

  “Uh– could you–”

  She shrugged a question, eyebrows raised.

  “Could you turn round, please?” he said with asperity.

  “Why, so I don’t see you get less naked?”

  “Just do it!”

  She rolled her eyes but did as he requested (I’m half naked with a totally fit woman and I’m putting my clothes ON ...), and even the witch averted her eyes while he hurriedly pulled his jeans up.

  “So how do you know, you know, her?” he asked. “Still changing!” he added as she seemed about to turn round.

  “How do I know her?” she answered, with her back to him. Her shoulders moved as she breathed in and let it all out again in a whoosh. “Just say I was in a bad place and I was reaching out to anyone who could help me, and meanwhile she was reaching out for anyone who could help her, and our fingers touched. You have no idea how the thief has been covering his tracks. Every few centuries he seems to lay down a false trail and every few centuries she has to recruit someone like me to work for her. You done yet?”

  “Yeah, done.” She turned round as he pushed his head and arms into his t-shirt and tugged it quickly down to his waist. “So, how do we find Robs?”

  “First, there’s a group of people we need to find in Salisbury. She’s been looking for them but the thief has hidden them, somehow. Like ... like pouring mud into water and stirring it up. He’s obscured her vision.”

  “She found me,” he muttered as he pulled on his socks and shoes.

  “The thief has stolen ... never mind what he stole, but when it arrived in this time and place it was like a great big psychic flare marking the spot. She sent me the moment it happened and I found you.”

  “I meant, she found me before. I’ve seen her. Looking for me.”

  “Well, yes. You looked like a good prospect – that’s why she sent me round to your place the other night. She was there too, sounding you out. But even after all that, you could have just been another false clue.”

  Ted tugged his laces tight.

  “So, these people we’re looking for?”

  “The guardians, she calls them. They should be prepared for exactly this eventuality but–” The witch spoke and Zoe rolled her eyes. “She says they’ll be an enclave of some renown in this city, perhaps of warriors or spiritual thinkers ... I know, don’t look at me like that! It’s what she says!”

  “An enclave of warriors?” Ted snorted. “Will they be under E or W in the Yellow Pages?”

  “Or spiritual thinkers.”

  “I s’pose the Bishop of Salisbury’s in the book.” Ted stood up. “Look, he’s not what you’d call a warrior, but would it help if I told you that Malcolm’s book club is all people who have visions of an old guy who looks just like her? Same fashion sense, anyway.”

  Zoe and the witch looked at him as if he had just grown a second head.

  “Malcolm? Malcolm?” Zoe’s smile grew brighter every time she said the name. “Malcolm! He was right under our noses and ... oh, Ted!” She grabbed him and kissed him on the top of his head before he could do anything. “We need to get to this group, right away. They’ll be able to handle the thief.”

  Ted thought doubtfully of Dennis’s notes. He got the feeling the witch was thinking of something more martial than sketching or writing life stories.

  “You sure about that?”

  “It’s the best lead we have.” Zoe already had her phone out and pressed to the side of her head. Her enthusiasm dimmed a little as the call went straight to voicemail. “Dammit! I bet he turns his phone off at night.” She checked her address book. “And I don’t have his landline. He lives in Wilton, I know that.”

  “There’s probably a phone book in Reception–” Ted pointed out.

  *

  The landing was decorated in quiet, gentle colours with a floral frieze at waist height. The lights were on. Ted and Zoe walked to the stairs quickly but quietly, in deference to the sleeping building all around them, while the witch’s image floated on ahead.

  St Ossie’s was a two-floor building shaped like a T, and the stairwell was where the two strokes of the T joined up. Ted pushed open the fire door at the top of the stairs and recoiled as the smell of petrol hit him in the face. A sense of foreboding grew inside him as he hurried downstairs, Zoe at his heels.

  “There wasn’t anyone here when I came in …”

  They pushed through the fire door at the bottom of the stairs and stopped.

  Sometimes, Ted had found, you could come across a scene so wrong that the eye just skimmed over the top of it. You couldn’t take in the details because the brain wasn’t ready to receive them all at once. It refused to believe; it insisted on imposing some other meaning. The clash between what you saw and what the brain wanted to see just led to mindlock.

  The night porter, Nigel – Ted’s visits were usually during the day, but he had met the man a few times – was backing across the room, from the front desk to the wall, sloshing petrol from a red can all about him. The petrol fumes in the lobby were enough to make Ted’s head swim.

  Nigel glanced up and smiled as they appeared.

  “Evening! It’s Ted Gorse, isn’t it?”

  Ted stood rooted to the spot.

  “Uh–”

  “Be with you in a moment. Just doing a favour for the young lad.”

  “Huh?”

  The can was empty. Nigel held it upside down to shake the last few drops out of it, then threw it to one side and patted his pockets.

  “Now, where did I put them ... ah!” He crossed over to the desk and picked up a box of matches.

  “Didn’t want ’em to get wet!” he said. Ted’s brain finally let in a few more details: Nigel’s clothes were soaking wet and his hair was matted. He had poured petrol over himself. “Now then–”

  “No!” Ted yelled. He took a step forward and Nigel struck the match.

  The whoomph of hot air threw Zoe and Ted back against the fire door and suddenly the lobby was full of flame and smoke. It was thick and bitter, gnawing at their eyes and their throats. Ted could no longer even see the far wall. The lobby was a hole into Hell, an infinite tunnel of fire.

  Nigel was a blazing man-shaped statue without face or features. He walked slowly back to his chair as if he was simply returning to his duties. Halfway there he stumbled, then fell to his knees, then dropped face down on the floor. He never made a sound.

  Zoe dragged Ted back through the fire door and it was only then Ted realised the screaming he could hear above the fire alarm was himself. The alarm made his skull vibrate.

  The sprinklers had come on automatically out in the lobby but they were overwhelmed by the sheer force of flame. The air in the stairwell was cleaner by comparison but Ted could still smell the smoke.

  “What did he do?” Ted sobbed. “What did he do?”

  “She says his mind was clouded and ... Oh God, Ted, she’s asking how many more there are in the building.”

  Ted blinked away tears.

  “How many?” He glanced upstairs. “Lots. It’s a hospice ... Oh, crap.”

  He took the stairs two at a time on the way back up. The fire doors on the landing had swung shut automatically, released from their magnetic catches. There was still absolutely no one about despite the shrieking of the alarm. He threw the door to the next room open. The sign on the door said it belonged to a boy called Joe Nicholls. About ten years old, Ted remembered: lymph cancer. Joe looked up sleepily from his pillow when Ted put the light on.

  “There’s a fire!” Ted shouted, and was already back on the landing before Joe could say anything. He stared up and down the corridor. Where was everyone? There were night staff. Nurses. Some of the kids here needed round the clock care. Why weren’t they reacting? And even if they had all run off and left the kids to die – which really wasn’t likely – why weren’t any of the kids reacting either?

  He could already smell the smoke and he remembered the inferno down in the l
obby. God, that was almost beneath his feet, just a few inches away. But the worry gave him something concrete and tangible to worry about. Building burning. Kids here. Get them out.

  He pushed back into Joe’s room. Joe had already curled up and gone back to sleep and Ted shook him awake.

  “Hey, Joe, mate. Wake up. There’s a fire. You’ve got to get out now–”

  Joe mumbled something in protest and turned over.

  “Joe!” Ted shook more insistently.

  “Go away–”

  Ted howled in frustration, pulled back Joe’s covers and hauled him out of bed. Joe began to kick and wail. Ted groaned: was he going to have to do this with every kid in the building? The place would burn to the ground first.

  “There’s a fire, you little– aa-aa-h!”

  Joe had sunk his teeth into Ted’s arm. Ted held on and got him out as far as the landing. Joe looked past him and suddenly stopped struggling.

  “Who’s that?” he piped, temporarily forgetting he was being kidnapped.

  Zoe was having a raging argument with the ghostly image of the witch. Ted wondered if Joe’s question was because he could see the witch, or just the weird woman shouting at the wall.

  “You have to!” Zoe insisted. “We can’t do it on our own, you have to–”

  She went rigid as the witch moved into her and suddenly Ted could see both of them – not the witch standing in the same place as Zoe but somehow a new woman who was both of them at the same time, young and old. The woman held her hands up in the air and chanted words in a language Ted had never heard before. The corridor boomed like the pipe of an organ, drowning out the alarm. Then the two of them moved apart again and Zoe collapsed to her knees with a sob of indrawn breath, bent so far over that her head was almost touching the floor and her hair tumbled down to hide her face.

  “Hey!” Ted ran forward to help her. “You okay?”

  She lifted her head up as if the effort exhausted her, but she managed a brave smiled. Without thinking he brushed her hair back.

  “No. But–” Then she nodded at something behind Ted. “It worked.”

  Doors were opening up and down the landing and worried, tousled heads were poking out.