by M. V. Stott
‘Shall we?’ I said, holding out my hands.
‘How do we do it?’
‘Not sure, I thought we might just hold hands and, I don’t know, you could offer me the debt, and I could accept, and we’ll see how it goes.’
Annie reached out toward me, then pulled away. ‘Promise me you can solve this. That you can have the debt cancelled.’
‘Cross my heart and hope to not die.’
‘I mean it, I don’t want to be responsible for anyone’s death.’
Me neither, though I have at least three on my record so far.
‘Trust me. No one is dying.’
I waggled my open hands and Annie reached out, grasping them, wincing a little as her injuries complained at all the movement.
‘So what now?’ she asked.
Well, what indeed. I was winging this, after all.
‘Well, offer me the debt.’
‘Just that, just offer?’
‘I am playing this part a little by ear, but yeah. Offer.’
‘Okay. Okay. Joseph Lake, will you take on my debt?’
The lights in the room dimmed a little, and I could swear I could hear the sound of flames crackling way down in the mix.
‘Do you hear that?’ asked Annie.
‘I hear it. Okay. It’s working, I think. Ask me again.’
‘Joseph Lake, will you take on my debt?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Yes, I will. I would really like and want it. Please. Thank you.’
We each pulled back with a sudden cry as our hands unleashed a painful shock.
‘Was that it?’ asked Annie. ‘Is it done, did it work?’
I closed my eyes, holding my hands tight to my chest. I could feel something new and uncomfortable inside of me. Something that hadn’t been there before.
‘Do you feel different?’ I asked.
Annie looked confused for a second, then her face brightened. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I do. Sort of, lighter. Like I had something inside of me all this time, something uncomfortable and I didn’t really even notice I’d had it there for so long.’
‘Yup. I have that now. Either I’m about to have a heart attack, or it worked.’
Annie smiled and, despite the pain, insisted on leaning forward to hug me.
‘Thank you, Joe. Thank you for saving my life.’
19
As I left, I wondered how long it would take before a demon made an attempt on my life. Yes, I felt somewhat heroic. Somewhat good about myself. What had happened with Chloe had been necessary, or it had seemed so at the time, but it had left me with no satisfaction. All that had given me was a mix of guilt, sadness, and heartbreak.
But this?
This was a purely good thing. I was a witch of the Cumbrian Coven, tasked with helping the people of the Lakes when they were threatened by the Uncanny, by monsters, and I’d done my job. I’d made sure that a little girl would get to grow up with her mum by her side. Just me, off my own back.
Unfortunately, even this unselfish and proper act wasn’t something I could enjoy, as I was absolutely, completely, and totally crapping my pants over it.
Evening was approaching as I left the hospital to drive and meet Eva and Maya. I found myself twitchy, on edge. My head bopped this way and that, expecting the worst to come my way at any moment.
It had worked, the transfer of debt, I just knew it. I felt it, sitting inside of me. I now owed my soul to an unknown number of demons. A rabble of rotten, all squabbling over who would be the one to claim me for an eternity of torment.
Eva had said there was no way out of it. All you could do was pass it on. I wondered if the Red Woman would agree with her.
After perhaps the slowest drive I have ever taken—nervously keeping below the speed limit, waving other annoyed drivers past—I arrived at the stone circle’s location to find both Eva and Maya already there.
‘You’re late, idiot,’ noted Eva.
‘Sorry.’
‘Apology not accepted.’
‘Good, because actually I’m not sorry. I was at the hospital with Annie who was almost killed earlier.’
‘Who?’
‘Who? Who?!’
‘Okay,’ said Maya, stepping between myself and Eva, ‘I don’t know what all this is about, but we’ve got an investigation to get on with, so get your heads out of your arses and let’s get on with it.’
It’s not often I lose my temper, and I admit to feeling a little weird about it. It didn’t suit me.
As Maya walked off ahead to the exact location of the apparently invisible stone circle, Eva stepped into line beside me.
‘You didn’t do anything stupid, did you?’
‘What? No, of course not. Nope.’
‘Good.’
‘Sorry about the whole…’ I mimed my little moment of crossness.
‘Oh, was that you being angry? Huh. You know, in the past, decades ago, you really used to get pissed off. I mean, your temper was the stuff of legend.’
‘Really? That doesn’t sound like me.’
‘To be fair, you don’t sound like you. Not the real you. The other you.’
‘What did I get angry about?’
‘Mostly Lyna and Melodia.’
The other witches. The ones I murdered.
‘Why, what did they used to do?’
‘Oh, you were like family. No, you were family. But you were the oldest, by a few hundred years, so they were like your annoying younger sisters. Big brothers always get pissed off with their bratty younger siblings.’
It was strange to hear Eva being so open with me about something from my past. So lucid, too. No divergence, no swearing, no insults. I wondered if this was what she’d been like, before… well, before everything.
And then part of what she had said suddenly hit home.
‘I was the oldest by a few hundred years? A few hundred?!’
‘Yeah, about that. Two or three hundred.’
‘Wait, so I’m… no...How old am I?’
Eva shrugged and pulled a chrome hip flask from her pocket, unscrewing the top. ‘Fucked if I know. A few thousand years at least.’
I stopped dead in my tracks, Eva carrying on, flask to her mouth, before pausing and looking back at me confused.
‘What’s up? Need a piss?’
‘I’m thousands of years old? Me?’
‘Yup. You don’t look too bad on it, I suppose.’
I couldn’t compute that sort of bombshell. It was too big a number, too out there, impossible to grasp.
‘Hey,’ said Maya, waving us forward, ‘this is the spot, right?’
Eva took a swig, slotted her flask away, and carried on.
A few thousand years old. Well, holy crap. They didn’t bake a birthday cake big enough to hold all those candles.
‘Yeah, this is it,’ said Eva, twirling around.
‘Seems to be a lack of stones,’ said Maya.
‘The moon is on the rise,’ said Eva, ‘any second now, we’ll see the fuckers.’
And see them we did. It took another twenty minutes for the light of day to fully fade away, to be replaced by the light shining down from a canopy of stars and the Moon, bright and full. At first, it was like a smear on a pair of glasses. Something indistinct, not quite there, that you’d get rid of just by wiping the lenses. And then, as if by magic (actually, entirely by magic), there they were.
Elga and her Kin.
A stone circle, solid and real, that surrounded us.
‘Thirty stones,’ said Maya, taking note in her pad. ‘Do you recognise the one that attacked you?’
I walked around the circle, trying not to get too close to the stones as I passed. I remembered the crackling energy that flew from the one that had attacked me.
‘This is the one,’ I said, pointing to one stone in particular. ‘And this one next to it, I think I saw this one in my vision when I touched the mother’s body back at the magician’s house.’
Eva leaned forward, squinting at the stone, ‘Yeah, look
at those dark splashes.’
‘Dried blood,’ said Maya.
‘Bingo fucking bango,’ replied Eva.
It was a strange feeling, being in that circle. No doubt you’d get a bit of a creep running up your spine standing in the middle of any ancient stone circle at night, but this one had an extra something-something. It felt like I was being watched.
‘If,’ said Eva, ‘I was the sort of dick who got creeped out, I would be creeped the fuckity-fuck out right about now.’
‘Me too,’ said Maya, but the way she shifted, the way her eyes darted around a little more sharply than usual, told me that was a front. She was as creeped out as I was.
‘So what now?’ I asked. ‘Do we, I don’t know, blow them up?’
‘Oh, good idea,’ said Eva, and began rubbing her hands together. Energy, thick and brightly coloured, began to form between her hands. ‘Stand back, I’m about to fuck a bitch up!’
With a grunt, she threw her right hand towards one of the stones, as though she were pitching a baseball. The ball of energy exploded from her palm and struck the stone squarely.
And nothing happened.
‘Well, that’s rude,’ said Eva, ‘didn’t even leave a mark.’
‘We have another problem,’ said Maya.
‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Feel free to say something ordinary, like your phone is almost out of battery, or you think you may have left a window slightly ajar at your house.’
‘Nope. There were thirty stones.’
‘Yes, there are thirty stones.’
‘I said were. Count them.’
I counted. And then counted again. There were now only twenty nine stones.
Someone, somewhere, was about to get murdered.
20
It was about an hour before Maya’s phone buzzed.
A man had been roused by the sound of a ruckus next door. Breaking glass, furniture smashing. He’d gone to take a look and found his elderly neighbour curled on the floor of her kitchen floor, quite dead. He hadn’t had to check for a pulse to make sure as she, like the others, was a withered, mummified horror. His screams had alerted a passer-by, who’d informed the police, who’d informed Maya.
There was no need for Eva and I to tag along. We knew what we’d see and we knew what had happened, so we stayed with the stone circle, with Elga and her Kin.
The missing stone reappeared shortly after Maya left. There was blood sprayed across its surface, and not dried blood like the other stone. This blood was very much wet.
‘This is crazy,’ I said. ‘I mean, the soul vampires with octopus limbs, and demons buying souls at the bottom of a well, those are all crazy too, but a crazy I can wrap my head around. But these are stones. Stones aren’t alive.’
‘There’s always a first time,’ said Eva.
‘What’s more, stones don’t kill unless they’re being used as a tool for a living, breathing creature.’
Eva stopped her visual examination of the stone and stood bolt upright, looking at me in surprise.
‘What?’ I asked. ‘What is it? Is there a wasp on me?’
‘No wasp.’
‘Phew.’
‘If there was a wasp,’ she said, ‘I would give you no indication and wait for it to hopefully sting the shit out of you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘But what you said, that flicked a little switch in the brain meat.’
‘What did I say?’ I asked.
‘The stones. The stones. They’re just the tip of the iceberg. I think? Yeah. Or…? Something else. Someone else.’ She knelt and placed her hand against the ground in front of one of the stones.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Not one hundred percent sure.’
Then Eva flopped down, placing her ear against the muck.
‘Hm,’ she waved me over, ‘come and have a listen.’
‘Listen? To the grass and the soil?’
Eva continued to waggle her hand at me so I did as she asked.
‘What am I listening for?’ I asked.
‘Anything.’
‘Right.’
So I listened.
Then listened a bit more.
‘Not sure I’m getting anything.’
Eva hopped up onto her feet and began striding away, lighting a cigarette as she did.
‘Oh, are we off?’
‘Yup,’ replied Eva, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air.
‘But what about the circle, Elga and her Kin?’
‘I think we need to go and ask Malden the dull as ditchwater eaves a few more questions. I reckon we didn’t ask the right ones last time. Come along, idiot.’
I flicked the grass, and a spider, from the side of my face and hurried after her.
Mickey Finn’s, the local drinking hole for magical and monstrous types, was still open despite the fact it was gone two in the morning.
‘This place never closes,’ said Eva, as if reading my mind. ‘Half the things that drink here only wake up at night, so they keep the place running twenty-four seven.’
Malden was at the same table we’d met him at the first time. He smiled a ratty, toothy smile, and waved us over.
‘Greetings and salutations, my coven friends.’
‘I’ll get the drinks in,’ said Eva, leaving me to keep Malden company.
‘So,’ I started, ‘how’s your evening been?’
‘I’ve been to the toilet eight times in the last two hours. Eight times.’
‘Okay.’
‘Four were merely to deposit urine, as you would expect from all of the alcohol imbibing.’
‘Goes right through me, too.’
‘But, and this is where it gets interesting…’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘The other four were a combination of urine and solids.’
‘Your use of the word “interesting” may have been a stretch, I think.’
‘Four times! In such a short space of time, I don’t know what to think. It’s a new record, I’ve made a note of it.’
Eva sat next to me, placing a pint before me whilst she gulped from her own. Which, I noticed, had a shot glass sat inside of it.
‘Thank god you’re back,’ I hissed from behind my glass as I placed it to my lips.
‘Oh, no need to whisper, idiot,’ replied Eva, ‘Malden here knows he’s as boring as marital sex, don’t you, Malders?’
‘It has been mentioned over the years. Can’t see it myself, mind you. Would you like me to tell you about my toilet situation?’
‘You really don’t want to hear it,’ I said.
‘How many times?’
‘Eight within two hours, four for solids.’
Eva whistled. ‘A new record.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Perhaps we could get onto the stones?’ I said.
‘Oh, Elga and her Kin?’ said Malden. ‘How’d you go? You find them, then?’
‘Yes, we found them,’ I replied.
‘Lovely example of a night circle, that.’
‘I think you held out on us, Malden,’ said Eva.
‘Oh?’
‘It’s not just your ordinary night circle, is it?’
‘Depends; everything is ordinary to someone. Just depends who you are.’
‘Those stones are moving,’ I said. ‘They leave, they kill someone, then they return to their place in the circle.’
‘Oh,’ said Malden, wiping at his crusty nose with the back of a filthy sleeve. ‘Suppose that makes sense.’
‘What is the circle, Malden?’ asked Eva.
‘Well, it’s a graveyard, really. The stones themselves aren’t Elga and her Kin, they’re just, well, headstones I suppose is the best way to describe them.’
‘Headstones?’ said Eva. ‘Headstones for who?’
‘Don’t you know, Janto?’ asked Malden, using my, apparently, real name. It felt a bit weird to be addressed with it.
‘Should I?’ I asked.
; ‘Well, it was you and your witches who put them down. Elga and her Kin.’
‘We did?’
‘I don’t know the details, but Elga and her Kin were a powerful cabal of some sort. You sorted them out and that’s where their bodies lay forever more. Trapped under the circle. One under each stone marker.’
‘Sorry, but why didn’t you tell us all of this the first time we asked?’ I said.
Malden looked at me, utterly confused. ‘I recall you asked where it was, not what. It may sound pedantic, but I answer what I’m asked, you see. It’s good to be accurate and not add in extraneous details that the question asker may find dull, and tedious, and in any way not apropos to the answer they actually, in reality, require.’
‘Four poos?’ asked Eva.
Malden held up four fingers. ‘Four. And each of them sizeable.’
21
Eva compensated Malden for the fresh information with some sweet, sweet magical succour, then went to the bar to get us in another round. Meanwhile, I made my way to the Men’s. Yes, the scene of Malden’s now infamous four poos.
If Malden was correct—and Eva seemed confident that he was—it seemed that the stones themselves were not the problem. They were merely the blade used for the cutting, clasped in the real murderer’s hand. It also seemed that I had, in my empty past, dealt with whoever Elga and her Kin were myself, and that their current situation was all mine, and my fellow witches, doing.
I’d asked Eva why she hadn’t known about it, but Malden had said it was before her time.
As I emptied a pint-full into the urinal (honestly, it goes right through me, beer. My bladder is weaker than an Adam Sandler film) I thought again about Eva’s earlier revelation about my age. About how I was thousands of years old. To have lost so much experience, so many memories... I had thought losing twenty or thirty years was horrific, but this took it to a whole new level. If I’d had access to my memories, I’d have known immediately about the stones, about who Elga and her Kin were, what they were capable of, and how to defeat them. I’d done it once, stood to reason I’d be able to do it again. If only, if only, I knew the what, the how, the everything.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t know a shitting thing, and being told about it sparked naught. No half-memory, no sense of déjà vu, no prickle of familiarity.
