by M. V. Stott
I looked back at the throne, at the skulls that seemed to be imploring me to take my place.
‘Sit! Become the Magic Eater!’
The Red Woman lunged forward, pushing me back, and then, as I raised my hands to stop her, I touched the Red Woman. My hand gripped her arm and her eyes widened.
‘What are you…?’ her voice trailed off and I saw the world around me alter. The air was full of colourful waves now, just like it had been when Eva helped me access my magic days earlier. I saw it, I saw the magic that surrounded me, and without thinking, without needing to know how, I pulled the magic into me. The waves rippled and flowed into my body, through my arm, through my hand that gripped the Red Woman’s arm… and I saw the truth.
I was in my car, the Uncanny Wagon, looking at Chloe in the rear view mirror, only now I saw it wasn’t Chloe at all.
I was at Carlisle Hospital, staring in the mirror of one of the bathrooms, Chloe wide-eyed, terrified, reaching out to me, imploring me to rescue her.
And it wasn’t Chloe.
Over and over, each time she had come to me, I saw the truth.
I saw the Red Woman reaching out towards me.
I saw the lie.
‘No!’
The Red Woman pushed me away from her and the spell broke, the magic waves fading from view as my body shook.
‘It was you. Chloe isn’t trapped. She isn’t looking for my help. It’s just you.’ I felt anger rising, knotting my stomach. The Red Woman grimaced, her hands crackling with what looked like black lightning.
‘Do not test me, boy,’ she snarled.
‘You were trying to trick me. Play on my guilt, on my love for Chloe, to make me sit on your stupid throne.’
‘This is your destiny!’
‘Then destiny can go fuck itself right in the bottom,’ I replied. Which wasn’t the cool, James Bond style retort you’d hope for in this sort of situation.
I turned and ran down the red hill.
‘You cannot escape your throne, Magic Eater! Fate will always win!’
I didn’t reply, didn’t look back, just ran. I lost my footing, took a spill, and the flaming sky above me seemed to flash on and off, as though someone was playing with a light switch, as I rolled over and over and—
—I woke with a start, as though from a dream of falling, on the couch in my flat. I looked around, befuddled, raising a trembling hand to wipe at my damp forehead.
‘Shit,’ I said, not liking how spooked my voice sounded.
My phone was ringing. I pulled it out, Eva’s name glowed at me.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
There was a pause at the other end. I could hear her breath.
‘Eva?’
‘Malden’s dead,’ she replied.
27
As I walked into the dark alleyway, the moon lighting my way, I felt a combination of anger and depression, which, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to discover, was not a pleasing cocktail.
It had been a lie.
All of it.
The Red Woman had given me hope. She’d play-acted as Chloe and made me believe I could save her. Could get her back. Reverse what I’d done to her. Convinced me that Chloe hadn’t been a terrible person after all. She’d been influenced by her dead dad into doing his dirty work. Of course. Of course she had. The Chloe I knew, loved, would never do the things she had done.
But no.
It had been a lie. Chloe was the only one to blame for the things she’d done. For the things she’d intended to do until we stopped her.
Until I stopped her.
Killed her.
‘Well, look at the grim face on this fucker,’ said Eva, turning as she heard me approach.
‘We are at a crime scene, Eva,’ replied Maya. ‘It’s not generally the place for happy grins and a swagger in your step.’
On the ground was what was left of poor, dull Malden. As with the others, his corpse was a shrivelled, dried out thing. An unwrapped mummy.
People I knew didn’t die before I started to find out about who I really was. There was Chloe, and Detective Sam Samm, and Mrs Coates, and now Malden, too. It seemed like death followed me everywhere these days.
Perhaps I’d have been better off not knowing. Plain old Joseph Lake, working in a hospital, with no memories of who he really was. That guy was okay. He had a life, a person he liked, and no one was being murdered by people with octopus limbs, or killer standing stones.
At least, not to the best of my knowledge.
‘Eva,’ said Maya. ‘Tell me you have a plan. Some way to make this the last person Elga and her Kin do this to.’
‘Oh, yep, totally have a plan.’
‘Good,’ replied Maya.
‘Yup. Well, not a plan exactly.’
Maya looked to me, her eyes hooded, and sighed. ‘What do you have then?’
‘A bit of a plan.’
‘Tell me the bit.’
‘A bit may be stretching things a little.’
‘What do you have, Eva?’
Eva frowned and crouched to look closer at poor Malden. ‘What I have is anger.’
‘Anger isn’t enough though, is it?’ I replied.
‘No, but it’s a bloody good start.’
‘Eva,’ said Maya, ‘tomorrow night, someone else is going to die.’
‘And the night after that,’ I added.
‘And the night after that, until those bastards have enough strength to crawl out of their graves, leave the circle, and do whatever nasty shit they’ve got on their half-decayed brains.’
‘Don’t you think I know that?’ said Eva, standing, her eyes blazing.
‘Then tell me something,’ replied Maya, not raising her voice, not blinking.
‘I’ll find something. I will. There’ll be something in the library, or… there’ll be something.’
Eva’s eyes momentarily flickered to mine, and they told me everything I needed to know. Eva had no idea about how we were going to stop this. What’s more, she had no hope.
Well, shit and damn and bugger on top.
I said my goodbyes, turned, and left them to pick over the crime scene. I just wanted to go home.
I didn’t make it into work the next day. I sounded so dreary, so defeated, that I didn’t even have to fake a sick voice when I called Big Marge.
‘Jesus, you sound worse than shit,’ she said.
‘Thanks,’ I replied, and hung up to get back to my busy schedule of curling up on the couch in silence.
Chloe was dead. She wasn’t coming back.
We had no way of stopping Elga and her Kin, and I’d never seen Eva look so worried.
I also had demons coming after me for my soul. I could feel the debt sitting heavy inside of me, like wet concrete. A debt I could only get rid of if someone agreed to take it.
I had no interest in interacting with the outside world. At least staying inside I felt sort of safe from attack, due to the protections Eva had placed over my flat. I could lie inside, feeling sorry for myself, grieving the pretty-evil-after-all Chloe, and not have to worry about any demon getting at me with his eagles, or wolves, or giant frigging rats.
I was safe.
Nothing could get in.
I heard feet shuffling on the wooden floor boards.
‘How did you get in?’ I asked the fox.
‘I get in where I needs to,’ he chirped.
So much for powerful magical protection spells.
‘Then you can get right back out again.’
The fox dithered, teasing nervously at the head of his battle axe.
‘What is it?’ I said, sighing.
‘Feel… bad.’
‘Yes. I feel bad. Now piss off.’
‘Not you. Me. Feel bad.’
I sat up and looked at the fox, who did indeed seem to be looking a little shameful.
‘Bad that you got caught?’
‘Not my idea. I do as the Red Woman asks. That’s me. That’s my job.’
&n
bsp; I narrowed my eyes. Something wasn’t right here. What was the game this time?
‘What’re you trying to do?’ I asked.
The fox placed a hand to his chest.
‘The debt. Your soul. You must get rid of that or you die, yes?’
‘Thanks for reminding me, I’d quite forgotten my soul is promised to a bunch of demons. Funny the things that slip your mind, eh?’
‘I do what I do for selfish reasons.’
‘You want to die to join your partner.’
I looked at him, a little astonished, as his eyes welled up and tears began to dampen the fur on his face.
‘What are you doing?’ I said. ‘Stop that. I can’t stand to see a fox crying, it makes me very uncomfortable.’
‘I work for the Red Woman because I must,’ he said. ‘My destiny is to rejoin my partner.’
‘And what’s my destiny?’
‘You know, Magic Eater.’
‘Well, good luck persuading me of that one, foxy.’
‘She does not know I am here,’ he said.
‘Why should I believe that? Why should I believe anything that you say?’
The fox shrugged, ‘Because it’s true. I tell the truth. I am here on my own, and I wish to help you, Magic Eater.’
‘Fine. Help me how, exactly?’
And so we spoke further, and I decided to do something very, very stupid.
But then when didn’t I?
28
The sky was starting to darken as I pulled to a stop in the Uncanny Wagon and looked out over the green of the Lake District.
‘Right then.’
My phone buzzed again, Eva. It was the fifth time she’d tried calling since I’d messaged her and Maya to come and meet me at the night circle.
At the site where Elga and her Kin lurked, growing stronger with each passing night.
I rejected the call, stepped out of the car, and started to make my way toward the location of the circle. The sun had almost dipped below the horizon and I could already see a faint smattering of pin prick stars above me.
I might be about to die.
I was willingly putting my head into the lion’s jaws just to see what would happen.
Part of me was poop the bed terrified, another part—the grieving part, the angry part—wasn’t worried at all.
The stones were beginning to shimmer into view.
I rested my hand against one. It was strange to feel something that looked like a flickering image have such solidity beneath my fingers.
I felt my phone buzz again and pulled it out. A message from Eva: Don’t do anything stupid, stupid!
I smiled and messaged back: Since when have I done anything else?
I looked up at the moon, shining down on me like a polished coin.
The circle was complete. Solid. Ready to send one of its number out into the surrounding area to find a new person to murder and drain of their power. The stone would return to its place and feed that power, that strength, to the bodies that lay beneath the ground. The cult trapped in an undead state in this circle by me, by my coven, hundreds of years ago.
I rapped my knuckles against the standing stone. ‘Knock, knock. Janto the warlock, witch of the Cumbrian Coven, will see you now.’
Janto the warlock. Janto the Witch. That was me. And here I was, doing what I was supposed to do. Putting myself in harm’s way.
The air was still, not a sound.
‘I said Janto the warlock will see you now!’ I screamed, my voice cracking. I could feel my pain in that cry. The grief. The anger.
A hand reached up from the dirt a few stones over. The same stone Eva had peed in front of the previous night. Elga was answering my unannounced drop-in. I stepped back, out of the circle itself.
‘Sorry if you were having a lie in,’ I said, ‘but this really can’t wait.’
Her head emerged, her shoulders, and then she dragged herself fully into view, her scarlet robe fluttering in the breeze. ‘Janto,’ she hissed, her voice like leaves blowing across a crypt floor.
‘Yup, that’s me, apparently. Janto the witch. The ancient magical bad arse that sentenced you to live like a worm for centuries. How’s tricks?’
I was vamping, trying to hide my fear, as all around the circles, other hands began to break the surface. The rest of this zombie death cult dragging their decaying bodies into the night air.
‘Must be good to get up and stretch your dead bones every now and again, eh?’ I said.
Elga snapped her fingers together, and all thirty stones twisted to face me. Which was scary as hell, make no mistake.
‘Why do you come here again?’ she asked. ‘Do you wish to die?’
‘Maybe,’ I replied.
‘We could… accommodate that.’
I stepped closer, heart beating so hard it felt as though it might crack my ribcage. ‘Do you know what I am?’
‘You are a witch,’ replied Elga.
I smiled and shook my head.
‘No, not just a witch. Do you have any idea of the power I have access to now? The magic that I could give to you?’
Elga tilted her head to one side. ‘I do not understand.’
I pulled something out of the pocket of my jacket and held it forward. It was grass. Blood-red grass.
‘Do you know what this is?’ I threw the grass towards Elga, who reached out, grabbing some blades as they fell.
‘Dark Lakes,’ she said, and the other cult members whispered the words over and over.
‘I’m not just a witch. I’m the Magic Eater.’
The stiff lips of the half-dead thing before me drew back to reveal crooked, yellow-brown teeth.
‘Yeah, you know what that is, don’t you?’
‘Such power,’ hissed Elga.
‘Such awful, boring power,’ I replied.
‘You… offer us this power?’
I swallowed. I could feel my pulse beating in my neck.
‘I do.’
‘Why?’
‘Because people keep dying. All I ever wanted to know was who I am. Who I really am. And nothing about what I’ve found out so far has been good. I’m a murderer. I killed the other witches. The ones that helped me take you down. And I’ve killed the woman I’ve loved for almost as long as my memory goes back.’
‘And so?’
I stepped forward, snarling. ‘And so I want revenge on a world that would let any part of that happen. What good is life if all it is, is shit and pain and loss? If that’s life, if that’s my truth, then it can go to hell.’
I stepped inside the boundary of the stone circle.
‘Idiot, what’re you doing!’
I turned to see Evan and Maya, racing up from the road toward me.
‘I’m getting out,’ I replied.
‘We… feel your power…’ said Elga, her voice taking on an awed quality, as all around me the rest of her cult writhed and moaned in pleasure.
‘Joe, get the hell out of there,’ said Maya, her baton out, warily eying the groaning corpses.
‘What point is there in doing good, if in the end everyone dies anyway? Why not just get the whole thing over with?’
Eva yelled and threw a ball of fire toward me, but it bounced against some unseen barrier that seemed to now protect the circle.
‘No!’ she screamed. ‘Janto, you fuck!’ Eva threw volley after volley, but it was no good, the barrier held. The cult was too strong for her. Soon, they’d be too strong for anyone.
‘I’ll see you soon, Chloe,’ I said, and smiled.
The stones began to throb with energy. Scarlet trails of power strobing up and down the grey of each stone, ready to feast on what I had to offer. Ready to take it all and feed it to Elga and her Kin.
‘Joe, please,’ said Eva, ‘don’t do this. Chloe’s dead, but she had to die. Bitch was evil!’
I ignored her, didn’t turn my head to see her or Maya. Didn’t want to see their faces. All I could do was concentrate on me. On Elga. On not fallin
g into a terrified bundle on the ground.
‘The power of this witch shall be ours!’ said Elga, hands aloft, her Kin cheering, swaying back and forth. ‘The power of the witch, the power of the Magic Eater, all that he has shall be ours and we will at last step out of this prison and tear this world down!’
I thought about Chloe, curled up on the couch beside me, her bare feet touching my leg, as we watched television and whiled away the hours in each other’s company.
That had been real. No matter what else I’d discovered about her after, that had been real. Those moments. Those feelings. The pain I felt now. The ache that only a lost love can inflict.
I fell to my knees, tears streaking my cheeks.
‘Just take it! Take it, please!’
The energy from one of the stones burst forward and wrapped itself around me, making me gasp as it sank into me. Probed me. Scraped against every nerve ending I had.
‘Feed us!’ said Elga. ‘Give us all of you!’
‘Do you want it? All that I am?’ I said, forcing each word out as stone after stone fired its energy at me, invaded my body, made me shake and spasm in pain.
‘We want it!’ said Elga.
Every stone now, all thirty of them, shone fiercely in the black of the night. I thought I saw bright yellow explosions in the periphery of my vision. Eva not giving up. Trying again and again to break in. To save me? No, probably to kill me.
‘Do you... accept... it? Do you accept... all that is…. Uncanny about me?’
‘Yes!’
I could barely speak now, the pain was so intense, it felt as though every atom of me was being torn apart. But I had to carry on. I had to say the words.
‘Do you…. accept…. my magic…. my debt...?’
‘Yes!’
‘Do you want all of it?
They chanted as one. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
‘Say it!’
‘We accept it! Give it to us! Give all of it!’
And so I did.
I cried out, my scream a blade that cleaved the air. Throwing my head back, arms out, the stones dragged power from me. I could feel it draining from me. The energy that gripped me now shot back, too, striking each member of the cult in turn, their dead forms shaking, screeching, desperate for everything I had to give them.
