Past Sins

by Matthew Stott

  ‘Sorry, Paul. Looks like you’re going to be lisping for a while.’

  He turned his attention back to me, so I threw a toaster at him. It glanced off his head and sent him reeling. Seizing the moment, I raced for the door, only for another tongue to wrap around my ankle and tug me back, sending me whirling through the air and crashing into the TV.

  I staggered up and looked down at the smashed television set. No more Frasier for this poor sap. Paul straightened up and his many mouths giggled.

  ‘You can do what you like to me,’ I spat, ‘but how dare you break my TV!’

  Paul screamed and ran at me, but this time I was able to fight back without the distraction of being throttled. I didn’t panic, didn’t listen to the part of my brain yelling, ‘Run, Joseph, you’re gonna die!’ Instead, I concentrated on the magic in the room and focused it into a laser point.

  He was so close now that I could feel the breath of his many mouths. This was the moment. Feet planted, I pushed forward with my hands and allowed the magic to punch through them. Paul’s mouths gave a small note of surprise as he was lifted from his feet and hurled through the air, through the front window, and out into the street.

  ‘Yes!’ I said, giving myself a high-five.

  I had him out of my house, but I couldn’t just let him get away. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to—I still have a healthy amount of the coward in me—but stopping monsters is my job. My very much unpaid job. So, after a rueful swear word or two, I made my right fist ignite with red hot flame and ran out of the front door in pursuit.

  I half expected to find Paul running right back at me, eager to carry on the battle, but as I burst onto the street I found him sprinting in the opposite direction, tongues trailing in the road behind him.

  ‘Where d’you think you’re going?’ I shouted, feeling macho for perhaps the first time in my life.

  I threw my hand forward, sending a ball of fire in his direction. He failed to heed the warning shot though, so I gave chase.

  I managed to keep him in view for the first quarter-mile or so, but then a combination of Paul apparently being some sort of jogging machine, and me having all the stamina of a sedentary sixty-year-old asthmatic, left me outpaced and bent over, coughing and wheezing. Soon, Paul Travers and his weird multi-mouthed head had disappeared from view.

  So that was certainly quite the thing. Paul is apparently some kind of monster, but was he the same monster that was responsible for all the animal slaughter? It seemed a likely connection. Perhaps Paul Travers was Cumbria’s own Jeckyl and Hyde.

  After a sit down and a smoke, I made my way home, only to almost unleash another ball of fire and set my flat alight as an intruder appeared from behind the breakfast counter.

  ‘Hi,’ said the Fox, waving hello with his axe.

  ‘Christ, I almost barbecued you, Fox,’ I said, sinking into the couch and looking glumly at my broken TV set. I’d only had it a year – just long enough for it to be out of warranty. I’d even splashed out on a brand new one rather than my usual habit of only buying second-hand and, if possible, third-hand goods.

  ‘What has happened?’ asked the Fox. ‘Another battle? Did the large man from the public house track you to your home?’

  ‘Yes to the first question, and no to the second. I don’t suppose you know if the Red Woman was behind this?’

  ‘The Red Woman does not want you hurt, nor does she feel the need to push you anymore. You know that already, she told you so herself.’

  ‘And I’m just supposed to believe her, am I? And you too, for that matter.’

  ‘As the Red Woman has said, you will soon want to sit on your throne without her having to threaten, trick, or beg.’

  Fat chance of that. ‘By the way, where were you? I called for you and you didn’t appear. I could have used a helping hand… well, paw at least.’

  The Fox straightened and growled in displeasure, ‘I am not at your beck and call, Magic Eater. I am my own fox, and I come and go as I please.’

  ‘Right. Sorry.’

  ‘I serve nobody. Not anymore. I will not.’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry about what?’ said Eva, who I turned to find swaying in the doorway

  I let out a little cry of surprise, which I styled out and turned into a high-pitched, ‘Hello’.

  ‘I said, what are you sorry about?’ repeated Eva.

  I looked around, but the Fox had made himself scarce. Eva began looking around the flat too, eyes lidded with suspicion.

  ‘No one!’ I assured her. ‘Just me. And myself. And I.’

  ‘I heard you talking to someone,’ replied Eva, her voice low and serious. To say there was a little tension in the room would be an understatement. ‘Why do I feel more and more like you’re keeping shit from me?’

  ‘No shit, no shit,’ I said, my voice still a little too high to sound convincing.

  ‘You know what’ll happen if I find out you’ve been messing around with any of that Dark Lakes bollocks again, don’t you?’

  I nodded, and don’t mind telling you I felt both a little scared and a little ashamed. I didn’t like keeping my dalliances with the Lakes and its inhabitants from her, but I also feared what her reaction would be if she found out. But what did it matter anyway? I wasn’t the old me, I wasn’t about to go to the bad side, I wasn’t going to become that monster again. If only I could make her believe that. If only I could convince her to trust me.

  Detective Myers stepped in, breaking the awful silence.

  ‘Hey! Detective Maya Myers! There you are! And what a lovely jacket that is you’re sporting. How’re the migraines?’

  ‘Break in?’ she asked, ignoring the question and looking around at the broken window and the knackered TV.

  ‘Not quite. I invited a man in and he turned into a monster. And I do not mean that figuratively.’

  ‘What kind of a monster?’ asked Eva.

  ‘Not sure what you’d call it. Basically his head sort of bubbled and bulged and them he was covered in mouths.’

  ‘Well that’s… odd,’ said Myers.

  ‘I agree. It is odd, isn’t it?’ I replied. ‘And then all of these tongues shot out of it, I almost died, but then I was very heroic and, some might say, macho, then I threw it out and chased it away.’

  ‘I’m going to put you in for a medal for bravery,’ said Myers.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right. Of course not. I was just joining in with the joke, so… joke’s on you.’

  Myers arched an eyebrow.

  ‘So, monster spotted,’ I said, ‘and we’re looking for a monster. I say we have a suspect.’

  ‘Yeah, could be,’ said Eva. ‘If so, it was bust before dropping in on you.’

  ‘Another attack?’ I said.

  ‘Another attack,’ said Myers.

  Eva gestured and headed for the door.

  ‘Wait, I can’t leave, my window’s broken. Anyone could get in.’

  Eva turned and clicked her fingers. ‘There you go.’

  And the window was fixed, good as new.

  ‘Wow. How did you do that?’

  ‘I’m magic, idiot. I used magic.’

  ‘Makes sense. What about the TV?’

  ‘Sorry, magic’s used up.’

  ‘That’s not a thing, is it?’

  Eva shrugged and stepped out into the street.

  ‘Eva!’ I sagged and looked at the remains of my poor television set.

  ‘Myers, you don’t have a spare TV at your place, do you?’

  Myers walked out.

  12

  It seemed that whatever was behind the spate of animal slaughters, wasn’t slowing down.

  I followed Myers’ car to a farmhouse inhabited by Mr and Mrs Madden and their two young children. I parked up and jogged to catch up with Myers and Eva. Eva had decided to share Myers’ car for the journey there. She was being notably standoffish, even more so than usual. It was obvious th
at our relationship was on somewhat rocky terrain. I knew she had her reasons, very, very good reasons, for treating me poorly, but surely at some point that had to stop?

  This time there were two different crime scenes. The first was a barn located around the other side of the farmhouse. The barn used to contain thirty pigs, but now contained about a hundred pig chunks.

  But that’s not where we were headed. Because this time the killer had stepped up his game.

  Forensic officers wearing protective, white onesies were gathered around scene-of-crime floodlights, carefully collecting and logging evidence. Myers made sure we had the go-ahead to enter the farmhouse, and then in we went.

  There were three dead bodies in total.

  Mr Madden was the first to be found. He was in seven or eight pieces in the kitchen, his intestines pulled from his torso and draped across the dining table. The other two bodies were upstairs. The kids. Ally, six years old, and Toby, about to see his fourth birthday. Both now torn to bits and tossed around their bedrooms. I decided to take Myer’s word on that, I had no wish to see the broken and ripped apart bodies of two young children. I had enough nightmare fuel logged away from the last few months as it was.

  Mrs Madden had been the one to stumble across the scene, arriving home from watching a local play with her mum. I was happy she’d been taken elsewhere already. I didn’t want to see her eyes. The eyes of a mother who’d just discovered that her entire reason for being had been so brutally blown apart.

  I knew it would be pointless, but I tried my insight magic again, touching something that used to be part of Mr Madden. Just like with the sheep at the first crime scene, and the horses at the second, Mr Madden refused to give up his secrets. I moved from limb, to torso, to limb, but it was useless.

  ‘Oh Jesus, here come the bloody X-Files,’ said Detective Martins, Myers’ less-than-friendly partner, as he stepped into the kitchen.

  I quickly stood up from one of the piles of meat that used to be Mr Madden.

  ‘Martins, you knew I was bringing them in on this,’ said Myers.

  ‘Dead sheep, fine, but this is people,’ he replied. ‘This is kids,’

  ‘I’ve figured it out,’ said Eva.

  ‘Figured out what?’ asked Martins.

  ‘You’re ashamed because you secretly like to visit a dungeon where a big lad called Carl uses sandpaper on your balls, so acting like a twat helps you release the tension.’

  ‘I’m not gay,’ said Martins, snarling.

  ‘Martins, just step out for a few minutes,’ said Myers.

  ‘The mother’s down the station, she’s broken. And you bring in these… these frauds?’

  ‘You’re just going to have to trust me, Martins.’

  He looked at us, then leaned in closer to Myers. ‘First thing tomorrow, I’m asking for a new partner. You got that?’

  ‘As is your right, Detective,’ replied Myers.

  Martins threw a dirty look my way, then headed out.

  ‘Give my best to Carl,’ said Eva with a wave, but Martins didn’t look back.

  ‘Okay. Time to get serious,’ said Myers.

  ‘Always am,’ replied Eva. ‘Especially when it looks like I’m not.’

  ‘Whoever is behind this, Joe’s monster perhaps, is escalating things,’ said Myers. ‘Three attacks in the space of a week and now it’s attacking people, too. I see no reason to expect this bastard to slow down, let alone stop, so that means it’s up to us. This is clearly beyond what the police can handle.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Eva, ‘this is for us alright. This stinks of us.’ She picked up a severed hand out of the sink and gave it a sniff.

  ‘That is, at the very least, a bit disrespectful,’ I said, nose wrinkling.

  ‘I wish I gave a fuck,’ replied Eva, ‘but I have no fucks to give. Literally none. Tis a tragic story, but true.’

  ‘Okay, well…’ Myers faltered and grabbed her head.

  ‘Maya? Are you okay?’ I asked.

  She shook her head, trying to clear it. ‘My head, it’s....’ She faltered, her knees giving way as she leaned on the blood-splattered table for support.

  ‘Whoa, let me help,’ I said, scampering forward to help her into a chair.

  ‘It’s okay, I’m fine,’ said Myers, shrugging me off.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘I told you, I’m fine!’ It was the last thing she said before her eyes rolled back into her head and she crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

  It seemed like I was becoming something of a fixture at Carlisle Hospital. Even when I wasn’t working a shift, I was there. A few weeks ago I was visiting Annie, and now here I was, sat at Myers’ bedside. She was unconscious still. The doctors had run various tests over the last few hours, but so far all they knew for sure was that she wasn’t conscious. Not the most enlightening of discoveries, really.

  She’d been filed away in a private room whilst the doctors tried to make head or tail of what was happening. I reached out and placed my hand over hers. ‘Detective Myers? Maya, can you hear me?’

  I pulled in the magic of the room and attempted to use it to reach her, to speak to her unconscious mind, to wake her up even. Of course I had no idea how to do any of that, or if it was even possible, and so failed miserably.

  The doctors had said not to worry, that she was stable, that she was, to all intents and purposes, “Fine”. I looked at the deathly-still Myers, her breathing barely perceptible, and decided I was going to worry as much as I wanted to. People don’t just lapse into unconsciousness for no reason.

  I couldn’t help but feel a little suspicion itch at me. That perhaps this was connected to the murders somehow. Could whatever had happened at the Madden’s Farm have somehow affected her? Even as I thought that, I recalled the only other times I’d seen her affected, the only other times I’d heard her complain about her head. They’d all been at the crime scenes.

  There was a clear chain there. Three crime scenes, three strange turns. Perhaps something about the crime scenes, something in the air, had reacted badly with her. If an Uncanny thing was behind it, if it was whatever Paul Travers turned into, perhaps some trace of it had affected Myers, but no one else. Like how most of us could munch down peanuts all day long, but for others, that would be as good as a death sentence.

  That could be something, yes? I wasn’t sure quite what, but it was possible. It felt important.

  Or maybe Myers, in a completely unconnected way, was just suffering from a spate of ordinary migraines.

  One of the two.

  Something that was very clear to me though, was the fact that this life of mine was dangerous. People got hurt, people died. Detective Sam Samm, Chloe, and now even the unflappable Detective Myers was laid low.

  I thought about Annie and our burgeoning romance—about the fact that she was a mother to a little girl—and found myself starting to worry.

  ‘D’you know the vending machine in this place doesn’t have any alcohol?’ said Eva, entering the room and flopping onto the foot of Maya’s bed with a bounce.

  ‘Hospitals don’t tend to have an extensive stock of inebriating beverages,’ I replied.

  ‘I know. I mean, what fucking century is this? Get with the times! I don’t know, maybe there’s a suggestion box nearby...’

  We sat in silence for a few moments, the only sound the beep-beep of Myers’ heart monitor.

  ‘I’ve been thinking things over,’ I said.

  ‘Haven’t I warned you about trying to use that lump between your ears? It’s not meant for anything more complicated than remembering names and how to tie your laces.’

  ‘It’s about Myers and the murders.’

  ‘You’ve been thinking there might be a connection between the crime scenes and P.C. Plod’s current condition.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I admitted.

  ‘Wow, consider me blown away by your Sherlock Holmes level of insight that I no way put together several hours ago.’

  ‘You don’t hav
e to be an arse about it.’

  ‘I think we both know that’s not true. Come on then, they fucked with one of ours, let’s get to work.’ Eva stood and patted Maya’s foot. ‘Don’t be a dick and die while we’re gone, eh?’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Your transforming man, he told you where he’s from, right?’

  I thought back. ‘Oh, oh! Combe Village!’

  ‘Give that monkey a lemon.’

  ‘That’s not a saying.’

  Eva ignored me and headed out the door. As I followed, I glanced back at Myers, still and silent, and hoped.

  13

  The beautiful scenery of the Lake District rolled past the window as I steered the Uncanny Wagon towards Combe.

  As I gazed at the hills, at the blanket of fields stretching out in all directions, I wondered how anyone could confine themselves to a big city. To those closed off, smog-filled, man-made places, cut off from the natural world. Living elbow to elbow with millions of people, and yet somehow more isolated because of it.

  Okay, perhaps the people around here could be a little on the, uh, let’s be generous and say “old-fashioned” side, but one breath of the crisp, clean air and you know this is exactly where you belong. That this is the way human beings are meant to live.

  Still, the majesty of the landscape was lost on Eva, who I could see in the rearview, eyes closed and stretched out across the back seats like usual.

  ‘Are you awake?’ I asked.

  ‘Nope. Very much asleep.’

  ‘There’s a woman,’ I said. ‘A woman that’s interested in me. Romantically.’

  ‘Sounds like a nut case to me. I’d steer well clear if I were you.’

  ‘Hilarious. It’s just, I’m worried.’

  Eva sighed and sat up, pulling out her tobacco tin and starting to roll herself a fresh smoke. ‘Okay, I sense you’re not going to allow me to relax in solitude back here, so get on with it.’

  ‘You are so caring, has anyone ever told you that?’

  ‘No, but one man did once describe me as, “That fuck who tore off my balls and dropped them down a well,” so maybe watch your mouth.’