Wings of Sorrow (A horror fantasy novel)

by Iain Rob Wright

  “This way,” she shouted. “My house is just down here.”

  Sorrow overtook her even though he was carrying Chester on his shoulders, but when he realised she was lagging behind, he slowed down and allowed her to catch up.

  “Put me down.”

  Scarlet and Sorrow stopped when they realised that Chester was conscious again. Sorrow set him down on wobbly feet. Scarlet hissed when she saw the thick lump above his right eyebrow. “Are you okay?”

  Chester rubbed his head. “I’ll live… I think. You need to take this.” He pulled a coil of rope and handed it to her. It was tacky in her hand and smelt coppery. “Hessian soaked in human blood,” he explained. “Reach your house and it will keep The Saint out. Stay home and don’t leave.”

  “I will stay with you,” Sorrow told her.

  Chester shook his head. “The charm will keep you out too, Sorrow. You’re not of this earth. You must keep watch close by.”

  “It will be done.”

  “Then get going. Get inside and stay there, Scarlet. I will contact you in the morning.”

  Scarlet frowned. “But where are you going? You’re hurt.”

  “I need to contact the White Order. We can’t afford to wait for my colleagues to get here, so I will ask for their help now. They might be able to perform a spell to help us.”

  Sorrow pointed down the road. “He is coming.”

  Scarlet saw a grey, hulking shape marching towards them. “How is he on his feet? You smashed him in the head with a concrete slab!”

  “He cannot be killed,” said Chester.

  “What? Then what chance do we have?”

  “Our only chance is to banish him back to whence he came, but you need to stay safe until then. Go!”

  Sorrow grabbed Scarlet and started running. It felt wrong leaving Chester behind, but he wasted no time in fleeing. He headed into an alleyway between two houses and was gone in seconds—pretty fast for an ageing shopkeeper.

  They reached her house around the next bend.

  “Scarlet, what the Hell!”

  Her dad was standing on the doorstep, waiting for her. “I’ve been calling you for the last hour. I was just about to come look for you. Where have you been? It’s almost nine o’ clock. Who’s this?”

  “I am Sorrow.”

  Her dad pulled a face, and then looked at Scarlet angrily. “Get in the house. You better have a good excuse for why you’re out at this time without letting me know.”

  She nodded. “Fine. Let’s go inside.”

  “You first. I want to speak with your friend here.”

  “Dad!”

  Her dad went to Sorrow, who was at least two inches taller. “I don’t know what you’ve been getting my daughter into, but she’s just a child—too young for a grown man like you. Whoever you are, my daughter is off limits. Understand?”

  “I do not understand. I am sorry.”

  Scarlet’s dad grew red in the face. “Excuse me? If you want to make this difficult, then we can do that. Stay away from my daughter, okay? You bring her back at this time; keep her from calling me… I should call the police. She’s sixteen!”

  “Dad!”

  “Inside!”

  Sorrow was confused. “I am sorry that I have offended you, sir. I seek only to keep Scarlet safe.”

  “That’s my job. You leave.”

  Sorrow glanced at Scarlet. Scarlet nodded.

  “As you wish.” He turned and headed down the road. Scarlet hoped he didn’t run into The Saint.

  Her dad followed her inside the house and slammed the front door shut and locked it. Scarlet felt the coil of bloody rope in her pocket and hoped it was as magical as Chester said it was.

  “Who the hell was that man, Scarlet?”

  “He’s just a friend.”

  “He’s a bloody weirdo. Who calls themselves Sorrow?”

  “Yes, he’s a little weird, but he’s harmless, and he’s my friend.”

  “Is he your boyfriend?”

  She blushed. “What? No. I just met him. He’s just a friend.”

  “Where have you been all evening? You should have called. I rang your phone a dozen times.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. I lost my phone, but I’ve only been at the shop.”

  “I’ve been calling the shop for the last twenty minutes and no one answered.”

  “That’s because we’d left by then. Mr Chester gave me a lift.”

  He put his hands on his hips. “You’re lying to me, Scarlet. I saw you walk down the road. Nobody drove you.”

  “We had a crash.”

  “Stop it! Stop insulting my intelligence. What is going on with you? You’ve always been hard work, but lately…”

  Scarlet’s hands clenched into fists. “Hard work? Thanks! That’s just what every daughter wants to hear. You bring me here, where I don’t know anybody—I hardly even see you—and you call me hard work? Well, try being me, and you tell me what’s hard.”

  Her dad slumped down in the living room armchair. He let out a sigh. “I’m doing my best, Scarlet. It’s just been me looking after everything for so long. What am I supposed to do to keep you on the rails?”

  “What happened to mum?” She asked the question before she even knew it was in her head.

  He looked stunned by her question. “You know what happened to her. She walked out on us. I don’t want to talk about her.”

  She sat down on the sofa and stared at him. “You never want to talk about her, but I have questions. Who was she? What was she like?”

  “She was… I don’t know. She was passionate. Everything was all or nothing with Nesta. Once I stepped on her garden that she used to keep at our old place and she exploded—said I’d murdered her beautiful children. She meant the lilies that I’d trodden on. That was what she was like—emotional about everything. It was wonderful at times—she could be so romantic, so compassionate—but eventually it became draining. Every time we had a fight over any little thing, she would fly off the handle. Then she started disappearing at night. I knew then that it was time to finish things—thought she was having an affair to tell the truth—but when she finally returned one time after being gone for four days, she told me that she was pregnant. So we stayed together another seven years—almost ten in total. You say you want to know more about your mother, Scarlet, but the truth is that even after a decade, I never felt like I knew much myself. She never spoke about her past or her family, and her only interests were her garden and… well, like I said, she was passionate.”

  Scarlet tried to imagine what her mother had looked like, but without any photographs, she could only guess. Her mind drew a picture of a woman with long, dark hair matching her own, pale skin and long fingers. “Dad, was mum a witch?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “I mean, did she have any strange hobbies? You mentioned her garden. Did she grow anything strange?”

  He looked utterly confused and a little angry—as he always did when he talked about Nesta. “Other than her gardening, she had no hobbies. She worked as a primary school teacher, until she was fired.”

  “She was fired? Why?”

  “A short while before you were born she scratched an unruly child across the face with her fingernails. Like I told you, she had some pretty wayward emotions. The school set up a disciplinary, but she fell pregnant with you and just quit. She never went back to work once you came along; said that you were her new purpose. That’s what made it so strange that she left us. She loved you, Scarlet. The problem was that she didn’t love me. Not sure she ever did.”

  “You loved her, though?”

  “With all my heart. Life was always exciting with Nesta. Everything was a drama, too, but in the early days I liked that. Things became humdrum after she left—everything lost its colour. I still miss her, Scarlet, but I promise we’re better off without her. She was dangerous.”

  Scarlet sat forward. “Why was she dangerous?”

  “The night
before she left us, I caught her taking your blood.”

  “My blood?”

  “Yes. I have no idea why, but she’d cut your heel while you were sleeping and was draining your blood into a little bowl. She never heard me come in. We had a big argument, and I threatened to call the police, but she talked me out of it—said she had no choice. I still don’t know what she meant, but I figured she had some kind of mental illness—I suppose I always suspected. Anyway, the next day, before I could even think about what to do, she was gone. The letter she left just said to give you her locket, which I did. The one with the ruby in it?”

  She nodded. “So, she left because she was ashamed of what she did, or scared that you were going to call the police?”

  He put his hand up as if to silence her. “If you’re suggesting I somehow drove her away, I didn’t. My only threat to her was that I wouldn’t leave you two alone until I trusted her again. I never told her to leave. I was there for her if she needed me. But she didn’t, and she left.”

  “You never saw her again after she left?”

  He swallowed. “I’m… not sure. You had meningitis when you were eight, remember?”

  Scarlet remembered nothing about it other than what she had been told. She had fallen into a massive fever one night and had gone to the hospital in an ambulance. She’d known for a while that she had almost died as a child. “I remember.”

  Her dad continued. “Well, the doctors had you in the hospital, filling you with fluids and medicines, but I could tell from the look on their faces that things were touch and go. I slept beside your bed two nights straight, but you weren’t getting any better. They said that every day it went on, the worse the chances were of a full recovery. You might get brain damage, or die. It was terrifying. On the third night of me staying beside your bed, I had a dream. I dreamt that I saw your mother standing over your bed, stroking your face. When I woke up in the morning, you were well again, and there was a vase full of lilies beside your bed. None of the nurses knew who had left them, but they were all amazed at how well you were doing. The doctors said your sudden recovery was remarkable—almost like magic. You could remember nothing about it, but you loved the lilies.”

  Scarlet felt a knot in her stomach. She knew the magic that had saved her, and why. Because my mother is an Aldorian witch who needs me to live till I’m eighteen, so that I can bring back magic to the world. Real, pure, world-consuming magic. Thanks mum. Thanks for nothing. Should have let me die.

  “Go to bed, Scarlet. We’ll talk more in the morning. Oh, by the way, did you get your job back?”

  She got up, glad the conversation was over, but still scared that there was an otherworldly assassin outside intending to kill her. “Mr Chester and I had a lot to talk about, but we’re back on the same page.”

  “Super. Then at least you still have a job to occupy your time. Maybe you can earn enough to replace the phone you lost, because I’m not paying for it.”

  “Good night,” was all she said.

  ~ Chapter Ten ~

  Climbing the stairs was an effort, which made Scarlet realise how tired she was, but could she even hope to get any sleep tonight? The Saint had been just a couple of roads away from her house. Could a coil of bloody rope really keep him out? Was there any way to stop him from killing her? He was an agent of Heaven—or whatever stood for it. How could she stop that?

  The hardest part about the whole thing was not being honest with her dad. Despite the awkward divide between them, she had not made a habit of lying to him, and it felt wrong to do so now. Even when she’d been caught smoking weed at school with a boy she’d liked, the thought of lying her way out of things hadn’t occurred to her. She wanted to smoke the weed, and that was what she told him, even when pretending she had been pressured into it might have been easier.

  As she stood outside her bedroom door now, about to go in, she felt like a little girl. She didn’t want her dad to be mad at her; she wanted her daddy to keep her safe and protect her. Maybe if he knew the truth he could do something.

  Or maybe telling him would make things even worse, or even end up getting him hurt.

  At least this way, only she was going to die. He’ll probably be better off, she thought. I’m just hard work apparently.

  The fact that he thought of her in such clinical, job-like terms had hurt her deeply. It made her want to sob and rage at the same time. It made her insane.

  But insane had come to her, not the other way around. She had to keep sight of the fact that she was innocent in all this. She hadn’t asked for any of this—hadn’t even asked to be born, or for her mother—who might just be a witch—to abandon her.

  She let out a yawn and decided she would try sleep. Maybe the morning would be better. Perhaps she would wake up to find that it had all been a surreal nightmare.

  Her door was already slightly ajar, so she nudged it open with her shoulder.

  The light was already on, so she saw Indy’s luminous green baseball cap as soon as she entered. It had been placed on the centre of her bed. Nothing else in the room was out of place, and Indy was not present—so how did his hat get into her room?

  Has Indy been here snooping through my things? Has that perv been breaking in?

  No, Indy might be a little sex-obsessed, but his actions spoke louder than his words. Over the last few days he had done nothing except behave honourably. He was her friend, and one of the only people she could truly rely on.

  Unless you count my demon bodyguard. I can always rely on him!

  Jeez! It’s like Whitney Houston and Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a baby and called it Scarlet.

  Scarlet, the Spark. Maybe the BBC will pick it up if I live long enough to write the script.

  She wished she had her phone to call Indy—ask him why on earth his hat was on her bed—but she didn’t, so she would have to investigate further. She went over to her bed and retrieved the hat, placing her fingers underneath the brim and flipping it up into her hands. When she rotated it, she found nothing inside but a few dark, stray hairs and a line of grime around the headband. “Gross.”

  She turned to her dresser to throw the hat down, but realised something else lay on her bed, something that had been hiding beneath the cap. Something terrible.

  She recoiled, dropping the baseball cap to the ground and raising both hands to her mouth. Sitting on the centre of her bed was a hand. The red and white umbrella tattoo told her it belonged to Indy. The only reason she didn’t scream, was because she bit down on the side of her mouth, drawing tangy blood onto her tongue. If she screamed, her dad would come up, and then he would call the police, and they would question her…

  But Indy needs my help.

  I need to speak to Mr Chester. He said the White Order would help us.

  She couldn’t leave Indy’s severed hand on her bed, so she pulled open one of her drawers and tugged out a pillow case. Poking it open with her hand, she hurried back over to her bed and reached out for the ghoulish item. “Eww, eww, eww!” It was a battle to fight down her revulsion as she prepared to grasp the hand as lightly as possible, using her thumb and forefinger as a pincer. Once her fingertips made contact with the cold, disembodied flesh, a bolt of electricity shot through her.

  Flashes of light. Images.

  She saw Indy. She saw her friend.

  He was screaming.

  When she looked down at her friend’s hand, which she still clutched by only its thumb, she saw that the underside was smeared with congealing blood. It got on her hands and she felt it fizzing against her flesh. Blood Magic. But she didn’t know magic, so how had she been able to see Indy—see that he was suffering?

  She threw the hand in the pillowcase and folded it into a bundle, and then she moved towards her bedroom window. This would be the first time she’d ever snuck out of her room, but she hoped it was as easy as the kids made it look in the movies. Although they always have a handy drainpipe, or trellis, right below the ledge.

  Climbi
ng up onto the windowsill, she felt like the worst daughter ever, but it was better than being the worst friend. Indy needed her help.

  She stooped down over the window sill and let her legs dangle outside. She straightened out, hanging by her fingertips. The drop below her was about seven feet to the grass. It would’ve been a softer landing in the spring, when the ground was wet, but this was Summer and the lawn was baked.

  Okay, here goes. One… two… three!

  Shit!

  She let go of the ledge and pushed off against the wall with her foot, so that she spun to face away from the house and fall away from the wall instead of into it. The ground met her feet faster than she had expected and she went sprawling forwards onto her face. She had planned to land upright, but as soon as her weight had come down, her legs gave way like spaghetti. She waited there for a second, face down in the dirt. She wanted to ensure she wasn’t hurt, but also that her dad hadn’t heard her clumsy flop. Once she was sure only her pride was damaged, she climbed to her feet. Wiping dirt from her trousers, she let out a muffled laugh. Her landing had been so lame, but at least she had made it in one piece. Her first sneaking out at night was a success. She was officially an unruly teenager. If only that was all she was.

  It was time to go find Chester. Please let him have learnt what to do. She needed him.

  But somebody found Scarlet first.

  The Saint had been waiting in her garden.

  ~ Chapter Eleven ~

  The Saint strode towards her at the same deliberate pace he always moved at.

  “Leave me alone,” Scarlet shouted, fear distorting her voice. “Please!”

  “Your begging will change nothing. You must die.”

  Scarlet bolted, but The Saint was too close to slip past. Despite barely seeming to move, he was on her immediately and grabbed her by the arm. Over the fabric of her shirt, she could feel rising heat.

  She did the only thing she could think of, and screamed.

  The giant clutched his head with his spare hand. “Noise. I hate it. A world full of noise and smells.”