by M. V. Stott
So, I was a witch without magic.
Or at least without magic that I could properly access.
It was as though whatever had happened ten years ago—whatever it was that wiped my memory—had shoved all of my special talents into a room in my mind and locked the door. There was just no getting to it, at least until I found the key.
As the doors to the hospital’s reception area slid closed behind me, Big Marge— manning the desk as usual—looked up from her magazine and waved me over.
‘Hi, Big Marge. Have you done something different with your hair, because you are looking particularly striking today.’
‘Washed it,’ she replied. ’Police are here again.’
Ah, yes. It turns out that when someone vanishes into thin air, as Chloe Palmer had, the police take a bit of an interest.
‘Oh? Have they, um… heard from her?’
‘No. Word on the ward is, she’s been kidnapped. Or moved to Birmingham.’
‘I don’t know which is worse,’ I joshed.
Marge grunted. ‘Hasn’t been in contact with you, has she?’
‘Nope.’
But part of me really, really wished that she had. That somehow it was possible for her not to be dead. Just for me. Just for a little while. There was magic in this world, I knew that for a fact. Was it too much to ask that Chloe come back to life? Okay, sure, she’d gone a bit loopy at the end there, but we all have our off days, don’t we?
‘Have the police said anything?’ I asked.
‘Just the usual. Say they have a number of leads they’re looking into, all the usual crap. Say they’re sure they’ll find her.’
They’re never going to find her, I thought. There’s nothing to find.
Big Marge crossed herself, then slapped her meaty hands together in prayer.
‘I hope they find something. Chloe used to bring me a doughnut every Tuesday. I liked her.’
I didn’t feel much like continuing the small talk, so I made my way sullenly to my locker and slipped into my overalls, hoping that a few hours of manual toil would distract me from my woes.
‘Joseph Lake.’
Detective Maya Myers was stood behind me. Now, Maya not only knew who I really was, but she knew the truth about what had happened to Chloe. She’d been there when it had happened. She was still a detective though, which meant having to go through the motions of an investigation into Chloe’s disappearance.
‘Hello, Detective. Detectives.’
Maya’s new partner was stood next to her. Tall, broad, head like a tombstone, hair-cut severe, pleasantries absent. Detective Martins. Maya had been teamed up with him since the sad death of Detective Sam Samm, her previous partner, who’d been murdered by the soul vampires Chloe had been in charge of.
Seeing Maya, and the lack of Detective Samm—nice, not especially smart, Detective Sam Samm—reminded me that Chloe no longer being around was, on the whole, probably not such a bad thing. No matter how much it knotted my stomach, people had died. Good people. Because of her.
‘Has Dr Chloe Palmer been in contact with you,’ said Detective Martins; or rather, grunted Detective Martins. Unlike the lovely Sam Samm, Detective Martins was, and I’m thinking of the best way to put this, a complete and utter bastard.
‘No. Nope. At least not since yesterday.’
Detective Martins stepped forward. ‘What do you mean? Did she contact you yesterday?’
I backed up until my shoulders bashed against the metal of my locker, Detective Martins’ sour breath savaging my nostrils.
‘No! No, no! Just, since you asked me yesterday. You asked me the same thing then and she still hasn’t been in contact. Believe me, detectives, the moment Chloe Palmer contacts me, you two will be the first to know. Oh yes.’
I looked to Maya, who widened her eyes momentarily at me in a, Get your shit together, for fuck’s sake, sort of a way.
‘Make sure you do, Mr Lake’ said Maya.
‘And you’re sure she will contact you?’ asked Martins.
‘Well, no.’
‘Oh, so you think she’s dead?’
I knew what he was doing. He was trying to bombard me with questions, to throw me off centre, make me inadvertently say something I might be hiding.
Luckily, Maya also knew what he was up to.
‘Just be sure we’re the first people you tell if you hear anything,’ said Maya. ‘Do we understand each other, Mr Lake?’
I nodded vigorously in the affirmative.
‘You better,’ said Detective Martins, ‘because if I find out that you’re keeping anything from me, I’ll make balloon animals out of your intestines.’ He prodded me hard enough in the gut to leave a bruise by way of punctuation.
‘Consider it fully got.’
He sniffed dismissively, then turned and walked away. Maya gave me a quick smile before she made her exit too.
At a time like this, it was good to know I had an inside woman on the case. And someone, like Maya Myers, who had first-hand experience of the Uncanny side of the country.
I grabbed my mop and set off for the first job of my shift, cleaning up some vomit from the first floor bathrooms. It was a job I looked forward to more than my next encounter with Detective Martins.
I suppose you could say that the three of us were something of a team now; that is, myself, Eva Familiar, and Detective Maya Myers.
Maya was a London detective, transferred up to the sticks of Cumbria after seeing another partner of hers murdered horribly by... well, something. Something not normal and altogether monstrous. Now, since stumbling into the strange case of Chloe Palmer and the army of soul vampires, she’d made it clear that she expected to be part of any future paranormal investigations, which was fine by me. I liked her, and I hoped she might act as something of a buffer between me and my violently-inclined familiar.
Plus, like me, she was new to all of this Uncanny stuff. Okay, I wasn’t exactly “new”, but I may as well have been, thanks to my secretive swine of a brain.
‘I know, you know,’ came a voice, distracting me from my musing.
A thin, grating voice. The voice of one Dr Neil.
‘Good to see you as always, Dr Neil.’
Dr Neil didn’t like me. There didn’t seem to be any one incident behind the dislike, I think it was just my personality, which I have it on good authority can be annoying.
‘It’s Dr Smith! Call me Dr Smith, you lowbrow shit-mopper!’
‘You know, name-calling isn’t very nice, Dr Neil.’
He glared at me, pacing back and forth across the bathroom like a pasty tiger, wondering whether or not to pounce on the majestic antelope stood proudly before it.
‘Where is she, shit-mopper? Where’s Chloe?’
‘As I’ve already said, I don’t know. I wish I did.’
I felt guilty lying about that to most people, but with this particular specimen, oh, it felt good.
‘Everyone knows you mooned after her,’ said Dr Neil. ‘Following her around like a little puppy. She was a doctor, she was one of us, the last thing she would have done was touch a little scrote like you.’
Every part of me wanted to say, “Hey, I’ll have you know she fancied me and we mushed our chew-holes together just a few days ago, before I discovered the whole murder thing, but still! Mouth mushing!”
I did not say that.
Admitting to Dr Neil, or any police other than Maya, that myself and Chloe had recently become more than just friends, would very likely put me under a very sharp microscope. Woman goes missing? Keep an eye on the boyfriend and see how he reacts.
Well, almost boyfriend.
More or less boyfriend.
I already mentioned the mouth mushing, yes?
‘Listen, Dr Neil, I’ve no idea where Chloe is, or what happened to her. If I did I would tell you. We were friends. Good friends.’
‘I’ll never know what she saw in you.’
Hm. Did Dr Neil have a crush on Chloe? I’d never really c
onsidered that before. I liked to spend as little time as possible thinking about Dr Neil, generally speaking, but he seemed genuinely upset. Angry even. Had he been nurturing a little unrequited love for Chloe at the same time as me? That would explain the obvious animosity he had for yours truly.
‘I’m sure the police will find her,’ I told him. ‘Safe and sound, you’ll see.’
Doctor Neil grunted, then turned on his heel and stormed out of the bathroom. That must be it. A secret love that had festered inside of him for years. Now, a more unpleasant person might use that revelation to try and shift attention onto that other person. To drop a little anonymous tip that perhaps years of jealousy had finally gotten too much for old, frustrated Dr Neil, until finally he’d snapped and done something rash.
Tempting.
But no.
No matter the pressure I was under, that wasn’t me. Even if Dr Neil was an epic wanker.
It was about three seconds after this thought that I looked up at the bathroom mirror to see Chloe reflected back at me.
Yes, the same Chloe who I had killed just a few days previously.
Which, all things considered, was a bit of a bloody shock.
4
Of course, there’s no way that had actually been Chloe in the bathroom mirror.
No way.
The explanation was simple: I hadn’t been sleeping, I felt a huge amount of guilt over Chloe’s death, and, well, I just plain missed the girl I’d known. Loved even. And so hello momentary delusion.
When I blinked, the reflection had disappeared. The only thing I saw was my own slack-jawed face, staring bug-eyed at something that was no longer there.
Couldn’t have been there.
I felt queasy and decided to cut short my shift. I told Marge I was sick, shoved my overalls in my locker, and hurried out to the Uncanny Wagon.
It definitely hadn’t been her.
I just needed to sleep, and to get away from the place we’d spent so much time together. That was all. Hopefully.
Then again…
Were ghosts a thing in this new world of monsters and magic that I’d stumbled into? If there were souls that could be eaten, then that suggested ghosts were a thing. Maybe there was a book on that back at the coven. I made a mental note to ask Eva about that.
I was halfway back to my flat in Keswick when those familiar words rang out for the second time that day.
‘All hail the saviour!’
‘Getting a mite tired of that,’ I said to the fox on the passenger seat. ‘Don’t you have any fresh material?’
The fox lowered his axe and slumped his shoulders. ‘What?’
‘Never mind,’ I said, sighing. ‘What d’you want now? I was hoping to go home and have a bit of a nap.’
‘I want nothing but my own death.’
‘Right. Cheery.’
‘She, however, wants much more.’
I wasn’t sure exactly when or how it happened, but I suddenly became aware that I was no longer driving down a familiar road. The Uncanny Wagon screeched to a halt as I stamped on the brakes. I stopped with such force that the fox tumbled from the passenger seat and down into the footwell with a startled cry.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
The fox grumbled as it clambered back up and twisted its helmet into the correct position.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘The Red Woman wants to see you.’
I stepped out of the car and looked up at the fire that raged across the sky. No blue, no clouds, just an endless expanse of flames.
I was in the Dark Lakes.
The bizarre, bone and blood smeared counterpart to the Lake District. A place that—so I’d been told—was home to an army of the dead that awaited my instructions.
Well, they could just keep on waiting. The fact they were dead and most likely evil aside, I didn’t feel at all comfortable in a managerial position.
‘She has nothing I want to hear,’ I told the fox, who was trying to encourage me to follow him.
‘How’d you know? Maybe she does.’
‘I’m not interested in whatever is going on here. Not interested in any army, especially not a dead one. Not interested in any of your Magic Eater nonsense. Can’t you just tell her to find some other poor sap to bother? I’m sure there are any number of power hungry maniacs back there who’d welcome a zombie army with open arms.’
‘Not my job. Not my instructions. Not my duty. I am here in service of the Red Woman, and she commands that I watch you, look after you, and bring you to her when she so desires. Best not keep her waiting.’
The fox turned and strode forward. Well, strode as best as its little legs would allow, its bushy tail bobbing along in a jaunty fashion behind it.
I sighed and followed on. What was I supposed to do? I had no idea how to hop back into my own version of the lakes, so the best I could manage was to do as the fox asked and get this over with as quickly as possible.
The Dark Lakes was an empty, quiet sort of a place. Actually, quiet is probably not the right word. It was more like you sensed an absence. A loneliness that nipped at your skin. A raw longing. An itching despair. The scent of tragedy in the air.
My feet crunched over shards of broken bone as we trudged across a field and headed towards a tangle of dilapidated stone buildings. They jutted out at odd angles, squashed together, like teeth in need of a dentist. Decay had long ago set in. No window remained unbroken, no rooftop whole. This was the first evidence of dwellings, of a town or village, that I had seen in this place.
‘Who lives in this town?’ I asked.
‘Hm? Oh. A few skeletons. A few ghosts.’
Ghosts. ‘So ghosts are real?’
‘Course. You saw them vampires. What is they eating if not ghosts? Ghosts, souls, all the same thing.’
Chloe appeared in my mind’s eye for a heartbeat, reflected in the bathroom mirror, her hand reaching out to me like she was drowning.
Distracted, I walked into the back of the fox, who had come to an abrupt stop.
‘Shit, sorry, I’m sorry,’ I said, as I booted him in the rear end.
The fox stood and righted its helmet again.
‘No need for sorries with me, saviour. All hail the Magic Eater.’
‘Carry on with that I’ll kick you again.’
The fox shut up.
‘So, why have we stopped?’
‘Red Woman. She’s in there,’ replied the fox, using his axe to point at the building we were stood before. It was an old pub. A wooden sign hung from a jib, squeaking back and forth, blown by a wind that wasn’t—as far as I could tell—actually blowing.
‘The Old Hen,’ I said, reading the faded sign as I squinted on tippy-toes.
‘In you go. Doesn’t like to be kept waiting, you know, and you’ve kept her waiting for the longest of long times.
‘Right. Right then.’ I yanked at the breast of my coat as I mentally prepared myself, then pushed open the complaining door of The Old Hen and stepped inside.
Music.
It hadn’t been at all audible from the other side of the broken door, but as I placed a foot within the pub, there it was. A jaunty piano was being played with gusto as someone sang:
“That's the way to the zoo, that's the way to the zoo; the monkey house is nearly full, but there's room enough for you!”
The music stopped as the skeleton sat behind the keys noticed me, its empty eye sockets turning my way.
‘So. You’re a skeleton.’
‘Who isn’t?’
I peered closer at the thing and noticed scraps of flesh still clinging to the bones, wisps of hair to the skull.
‘Personal question, but how long have you been dead?’
‘A long time,’ the skeleton replied. ‘I was murdered in the summer of 1873 by a man jealous of my skills on the piano. He beat me with an iron rod, then strangled me to death.’
‘Seems a thin reason for murder.’
‘I was also having frequent intercourse with h
is wife and oldest daughter. Both fell pregnant with my offspring.’
‘Well, that makes more sense. Probably should have lead with that.’
‘Agreed.’
I glanced around the rest of the pub. A heavy blanket of dust sat over most of it. The bottles behind the bar had clearly not been touched in years.
‘I was told a woman would be waiting for me in here. Tall, pale woman. Lots of very red hair.’
‘She’s waiting on the Hill for you.’
‘Right, so why am I here?’
‘You’re not,’ replied the Red Woman.
I span around in surprise. I was stood somewhere else now, on top of a hill covered in blood red grass.
‘Well, hello,’ I said.
‘Hello, Magic Eater,’ she purred in return.
‘So… how’ve you been?’
The Red Woman smiled as she stood up from a macabre throne. A throne made of skulls. A throne that was, apparently, mine to take. It didn’t look in the least bit comfortable. If I ever did take it, I’d be investing in a nice, plump cushion.
‘You know some of yourself now,’ she said, ‘isn’t that right?’
‘I know a little. Warlock, coven, familiar, two dead witches.’
The Red Woman stopped before me and traced a single cold finger across my cheek.
‘There is so much more.’
‘You know,’ I replied, ‘your hand is freezing. A sure sign of poor circulation.’
‘Your familiar told you of the other witches, finally. But not before I did. I wonder why that is?’
‘What was the pub all about? If I was coming here, why not just bring me here?’
‘The Hill doesn’t just stay where you want it. Sometimes it is here. Sometimes it is there. Sometimes it is somewhere else altogether.’
‘Right, not at all enigmatic, that.’
‘She refuses to tell you all of the truth, your familiar; isn’t that right?’
I shifted uncomfortably under her green-eyed gaze.
‘She’s not exactly overflowing with a desire to tell me the whole story, no.’
‘Whereas I tell you things. I told you about your fallen witches. I told you about your destiny. You can ask me anything, and I will tell you the truth.’
