by M. V. Stott
I glanced to Eva, but she was too busy yawning to react. Ten years ago, when the coven fell, when I lost my memory.
‘Over the last decade, we clawed our way back into being. At first we were just thought. Just an idea. An ache of nothingness. We had to be patient, but piece by piece, we forced our way back into reality.’
‘Ah, so that’s why the attacks are increasing, hey?’ said Eva.
‘As every night fell, we became more. And then, finally, the stones began to respond to our demands. Now we cannot be stopped.’
‘If you’re so powerful, why only send out one stone at a time?’ I said.
‘Good point,’ replied Maya.
‘I’ll tell you why,’ said Eva, ‘it’s because they’re all mouth and no trousers. They’re still too weak, which means they can be beat.’
‘Oh, well that’s good news,’ I said. ‘Big fan of good news, me.’
Elga hissed at me. ‘We shall drain you dry, and then curse your soul forevermore, warlock.’
Little did they know that there was currently a bit of a queue for my soul.
‘I’ve got bad new for you,’ said Eva, ‘for you and the rest of the Addams Family here. D’you wanna know what that bad news is?’
‘What?’
‘Me, motherfucker.’
Eva’s hands burst into flames and she began tossing globe after globe of burning power in the direction of the cult, until the view was entirely obscured by flames and smoke.
Eva stopped and blew the smoke off one index finger.
‘You can pick your jaws up off the ground now,’ she said to us, smugly. Unfortunately, she had spoken a wee bit too soon and, with a yelp of surprise, was lifted from the ground by an unseen force and tossed in the direction of my car.
The smoke cleared to reveal Elga and her Kin, all perfectly unharmed. All that magic, that power, hadn’t even touched them.
‘I think, maybe, we should retreat,’ said Maya, baton twitching in her hand.
‘Well, you did say you were in charge, and I always respect authority.’
‘Death will come for you,’ boomed Elga. ‘Death shall come for all.’
‘Yes, I think we’ve more or less got the picture,’ I replied, and with that, myself and Maya beat a hasty retreat back to the road. Eva was laid out across the roof of the Uncanny Wagon. I’d like to say I was upset about the dent she’d created, but in all honesty, after the beating it had taken recently, I didn’t think I’d be able to notice the difference.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Maya, helping a groaning Eva clamber down.
‘Fit as a fiddle.’
‘So,’ I said, ‘they’re still pretty strong, eh?’
Eva nodded. ‘That, “Me, motherfucker”, bit would have gone over a whole lot better if they hadn’t handed my arse to me, right?’
That was definitely true.
25
Maya left to drop Eva off at the coven. Eva was being her usual self, but I felt like I’d been around her enough now to see that she wasn’t as blasé about the situation as her actions were trying to suggest.
She was worried.
Very worried.
It wasn’t difficult to see why. The sort-of-dead cult, Elga and her Kin, were already too strong for her to simply blast aside. To barrage with fire and magic. Eva had thrown her best at them, and hadn’t even scorched their scarlet robes. Which was a bit of a pisser. I mean, that’s going to knock anyone’s confidence.
They were too strong for her to tackle head-on. If the fragments of memory I’d seen had taught me anything, it was that Elga and her Kin were almost more powerful than the three of us witches when we were at full strength. Now they were on the rise again, and there was only one witch left. Just me. And I could barely work up a flame when I wanted to.
Yeah.
We were on a bit of a shitty wicket.
Eva had said she would search the coven’s library, that there were bound to be spells, records, that would sort the situation out, lickety-split.
Can’t say I felt too confident about that.
But there was more than just that on my mind as I steered the Uncanny Wagon back to Keswick, back to my flat. There was the question I’d tasked the fox with delivering to the Red Woman.
What exactly did I think she’d want in return for her help? I thought I knew, but I’d deal with that when it came to it. My mind was too clouded by the burning desire to try and help Chloe—to pull her back from whatever limbo I’d banished her to—to dwell on what the consequences of asking the Dark Lakes for help might be.
Just like Annie, I was not always much of a forward-thinking person.
Or even a thinking person.
I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw Chloe looking back at me.
‘Chloe!’
I instinctively looked over my shoulder, expecting her to be sat in the back, but of course the seat was empty. I returned to the mirror to find Chloe, still there, slowly fading from view.
‘Please, Joe. I’m almost all gone… almost all…’
‘Chloe, hang on! Just a little longer, please!’
As my heart beat a furious tattoo in my chest, Chloe disappeared from view. I gripped the steering wheel, teeth clamped. I was running out of time. Chloe was running out of time. I could feel it.
‘Fox, where are you!’ I said, bashing the steering wheel with the heel of one hand.
So preoccupied was I with my thoughts, that I didn’t notice the van hurtling toward me.
Its front end clipped the back of my car and sent me in a spin. My head bounced off the driver’s side window and bright lights exploded in my vision as the car shuddered to a stop.
‘Ouch,’ I said.
There was a frantic knocking on the passenger door, a man, wide-eyed, bending over to look at me.
‘Sorry mate, sorry!’
I smiled weakly and held up a hand, opening the door and stepping out.
‘Sorry, van went fucking mad, I swear. Weren’t my fault.’
The skin on the back of my neck began to prickle, the thing I’d taken from Annie, the debt, I could feel it growing heavier inside of me.
‘Oh shit,’ I said, looking around.
‘Honest, van suddenly lurched forward, like, and the brakes wouldn’t work. You alright?’
‘Get back in your van.’
‘What?’
‘I’m fine, I forgive you, it wasn’t your fault. I think a demon took control of your vehicle to knock me off the road.’
The man, not unreasonably, looked at me like I was a shitting lunatic.
‘I think you might have bashed your head, mate,’ he said.
‘Probably. Actually, definitely. But don’t worry, you can go.’
The man resorted to looking merely confused. ‘What about insurance? Don’t you wanna swap details?’
I had been trying to get rid of him before whatever was about to happen happened, but he was being rather stubborn about the Get Out of Jail Free card I was waggling fiercely in front of him.
And that’s when the wolf showed up.
‘Is that… is that a wolf?’ asked the man, looking into the field beyond me.
I turned to see what appeared to be the same animal that had attacked Annie while I was down the well. Only the man was wrong.
‘No,’ I replied, ‘that appears to be six wolves.’
Five more melted out of the gloom to join the first, teeth bared in saliva-dripping snarls.
‘I might actually go now, if that’s okay,’ said the man.
‘Quite okay.’
He jumped back into his van, the wheels kicking up dirt as he hurriedly reversed away.
I would have done the same—clambered back inside the Uncanny Wagon and left this out of place wolf pack far behind—but as I pulled at the handle, the door refused to open.
The wolves howled as I swore, then one bolted towards me. I scampered to the next door, tried the handle, no dice.
‘Shit, shit, shit.’
Yes, I’m sure I’d have no problem seeing off six hellhounds on a mission to tear me to pieces using a worn-out old boot.
The wolves circled my poor car, growling at me, in no rush. They knew it was all done, but for the actual eating me part.
‘Piss off, you toothy bastards,’ I said, waggling my boot.
I thought back to the alley, the rats, and balled my right hand, trying to find some of the old magic. The car rocked, almost sending me tumbling from the roof and to the ground below, a tasty-treat for the jaws beneath.
One of the wolves leaped up onto the car bonnet, its paws on the windscreen. ‘Ours!’ it said. ‘Ours! Ours! Ours!’
I swung my boot, catching the animal flush on the nose. It fell yelping off the car.
‘Who’s next!’ I yelled, waggling my boot at the other wolves. ‘Fire hand, fire hand, fire hand.’
Sparks and sputters of flame danced into life for a half-second at a time above my palm, but nothing held.
‘Firey-firey-fire-hand!’ I yelled, and laughed in surprise as a globe of magic, of white-hot flame, appeared, spitting with fury an inch above my palm.
‘I did it! I bloody well did it!’
And then one of the wolves barged forcefully into the side of the Uncanny Wagon, sending me off balance and falling to the ground, where I landed heavily on my right shoulder. The magic puttered out, my boot spun away, and my lungs refused to do their job properly.
I rolled onto my back, throat desperately trying to force air in the right direction, to see three sets of giant, hungry teeth hove into view above me.
I would’ve said, ‘Oh shit’, but I was still struggling to take in breath, never mind speak.
I suppose I thought my number was up at that point. I’d done a brave, daft, reckless thing in taking on Annie’s debt, and keeping that information foolishly from Eva, and now here I was. The debt was being called in. My throat, and other bits, were about to be made a chew toy for a pack of wolves, and a demon would step in to pluck my soul out of the mess they left behind.
Well, at least I’d die doing something nice. Something kind.
Or I would have done, if a small, axe-wielding fox hadn’t jumped, twirled, and laughed as he worked his way from wolf to wolf, his heavy axe dancing from hand to hand, the fox and his weapon in perfect harmony.
I sat up, pushing myself back until I rested against the car, finally managing to take in some shallow breaths, as the fox deftly defended itself as the wolves attempted to swamp the small, fierce thing. Beast after beast fell, their blood and guts flying across my vision, as the fox sunk the blade of his axe into stomachs, ribs, skulls, until the last wolf collapsed. Its back legs gave one final spasmodic kick, before life finally left it, aided by the fox raising its axe high above its head, then swinging it down into the creature’s brain with a mighty battle cry.
The fox wiped the worst of the dark red gore from his axe onto the fur of one of the fallen wolves, then wandered over to me.
‘All hail my saviour,’ I said. Or rather wheezed.
26
The blazing sky of the Dark Lakes opened up above me.
‘Cheers for the assist,’ I said, thanking the fox again for his timely intervention.
‘Doing demon work, those wolves,’ said the fox. ‘Sneaky demons.’
We were stood atop the red hill. The same hill that the throne fashioned from skulls sat on. The throne made of skulls that I was, apparently, supposed to take as my own.
‘So… where is she?’ I asked.
‘Hm?’
‘The Red Woman. I take it that’s why you came to find me.’
‘Oh, yes, that’s it.’
‘Well?’
I felt an ice-cold hand snake around my waist.
‘Here I am, dearest,’ said the Red Woman, her voice a purr in my ear.
I stepped away from her grasp with a shiver and turned to face her. She smiled, and for once that smile seemed to reach her eyes.
‘It seems you cannot stay away from here,’ she said, and ran a finger across the arm of the throne. ‘Perhaps you’re ready to take your rightful place after all?’
I dithered, stepping from foot to foot, uncertain of exactly what it was I was going to ask.
The Red Women narrowed her eyes at me. ‘You have demons on your tail.’
‘I’ll do anything to impress a woman,’ I replied.
She shook her head and tutted. ‘So cavalier. That’s the Janto the warlock I remember. So eager to dive into the new. The unknown. The dangerous.’
‘Tell me something,’ I said.
‘Anything, dearest.’
‘Why did I make the choice to join you, back then? Back when I was Janto.’
She took a seat upon the throne and slowly crossed her legs, her fingers gripping the chair arms. ‘Because you wanted to know what true power felt like. What it meant to be a god.’
Well, didn’t Janto the warlock sound like an overreaching piece of poop.
The fox nudged me with his axe. ‘I told her your wants,’ he said.
‘Oh, a warlock who wants. Déjà vu, yes?’ said the Red Woman.
‘There’s a woman. A dead woman. Or a maybe dead woman. I killed her, or maybe did, it’s all a bit confusing, but she’s talking to me. In mirrors.’
‘In mirrors?’ repeated the Red Woman.
‘Yeah. Bit mad, I know, and no one else seems to see her, but I think she’s real and I want to help her.’
‘I see. You believe her to be trapped between realms? Between life and death? Between this short, ugly life and the next?’
‘Yes. Well, I think so. I’m pretty sure. Seventy percent. Or I’m off my rocker, which is also a distinct possibility.’
The Red Woman smiled, her teeth almost blinding in their whiteness.
‘Is it possible?’ I asked.
‘Is what possible?’
‘To save her. To save Chloe. If she’s there to be saved, from being between whatever she’s between, can she be saved?’
The Red Woman stood, ‘She can.’
My heart gave a little leap for joy. If it had heels, it would have clicked them together. But it didn’t. Because hearts don’t have heels. Or feet, generally.
‘Please save Chloe,’ I said, putting it plainly, stepping toward her.
‘Me?’ replied the Red Woman, placing her hands to her chest. ‘Oh, no. I don’t have such power.’
My heart did the exact opposite of what it had just done.
‘Oh. Right.’
Not even the Red Woman could help me. But wait a second… ‘You said she could be saved. Why say that if you can’t save her?’
‘Because she can be saved.’
‘How?’
‘You know how. Whether you’re aware or not, there’s a reason you came back here to ask. And it wasn’t because you thought I would be the one to lend a helping hand.’
‘It wasn’t?’
The Red Woman stepped toward me, resting her arms on my shoulders and lacing her fingers behind my head. ‘No. It wasn’t.’
‘Then… why was it?’ I asked, trying not to look into those sparkling green eyes of hers, which was difficult to do when we were practically touching noses.
‘Because you remember what it was you once wanted. You remember the power that the Dark Lakes has for you. A power that can slay demons, turn all-powerful death cults to ash, and pluck the dead from the veil of shadows and back into the world of the living. Your power.
‘Magic Eater,’ said the fox.
Of course. Here I was again, with a choice to make. A power to resist or embrace. I suppose I’d hoped the Red Woman could help, but at th
e back of my mind, hidden there so I wouldn’t look too closely, was the only real option. I’d felt that power. Felt it burning like a supernova. If I wanted to save Chloe, it meant sitting on that throne.
‘You see it now, don’t you?’ said the Red Woman. ‘You see what you could do, if you just accept your destiny. Nothing will ever hurt you. No cult, no demons. You could shrug off their debt as though it were nothing more than a winter scarf, thrown to one side after coming in from the snow.’
‘I could,’ I said. I knew it. I walked over to the throne, a hundred rictus death grins smiling at me. I reached out a hand and touched the arm of the throne. It felt softer than I imagined. Warmer. Inviting.
‘Become the Magic Eater, at last,’ said the Red Woman, her voice now seeming to be more in my head than my ears. ‘Take your throne, accept your power, and save Chloe Palmer from the hell she is in.’
I blinked shaking my head, realising I’d turned, placed my hands on the throne arms, and had begun to lower myself into its seat. ‘Wait,’ I said, hopping away from the throne.
‘What?’ said the Red Woman, her face momentarily twitching with irritation, an expression I’m very much used to.
‘When the stone attacked me, I felt some of the power of the Magic Eater, which means you must have let me, right?’
The Red Woman didn’t answer.
‘I felt that power, it helped me escape. I didn’t have to sit on any throne or accept any destiny. Can you let me taste it again? Just enough to save her?’
The Red Woman shook her head.
‘Please,’ I said, looking to the fox, who looked up to the Red Woman, then turned away.
‘Please, I can’t become this monster you want me to be.’
‘Monster? So judgemental. You will not be a monster. You will be… magnificent. Glorious. A giant.’
‘But I won’t be me. I can’t.’
The Red Woman shrugged. ‘Then she dies.’
‘No!’
‘You’re right. She doesn’t die, she’s already dead, by your hand. You think yourself so good, and yet you killed the woman you loved. Now you will leave her in the grip of the demons, phantoms, and hellish creatures that torture her, all because you’re too scared to take up a mantle that you once burned like a star to possess.’
