by EH Walter
I had a feeling being gutted or decapitated might actually be a preferable fate than being kept as a pet by a beautiful and rather autistic fairy. I closed my eyes and thought of Kansas, maybe I could do a whoosh-out-of-here thing again? I opened my eyes. Nope. Still here. Still about to become lap dog to a supernatural weirdo. That was, if the guy in the hood didn’t kill me first. This wasn't looking good.
"Got a plan?" I whispered to Bob.
He shook his head.
"Damn."
The two of us were shoved a little to the side as the ghouls began to set up for what I could best describe as a séance. Candles in lantern jars and hung on enormous wooden stakes were lit around a circular area, out of which everyone backed out of, as if it was now a holy place. Someone burnt an enormous swathe of sage and wafted it around. Surely this was all for effect? The old man in the cave had given no hint that all this elaboration was required. Despite myself I watched with rapt interest and I noticed Bob did too. We were left with one demon as a guard beside us. He didn't seem to notice our whispering as his attention was also on the ceremony going on in front of him.
"What are they doing?" I whispered to Bob.
"Making a holy place even holier," he whispered back, "they want to impress on the Fae how important he is. How they need them."
"What will they do first?"
He spoke simply, "Probably kill one of us to see if it works."
I gulped. "Seriously?"
Bob nodded. "I always suspected it would be my time soon, despite running from it. I thought they might need to test it. The ring. Maybe they'll see if it works first and then just kill us for good? But why here? Why do they need to be in this cemetery?"
I shrugged. "Good tube connection - easy for everyone to get to?"
Strange words were being chanted in the circle. First, by the hooded man and then echoed by his followers. He held his hands up high and there was a glint of light as he moved and the ring caught and reflected the candle light.
The fairies stood some way off looking bored, they just wanted to see if it worked and weren't at all interested in the nuts and bolts. Some of the sage and incense wafted over to us. It was powerful stuff and I was sure to go home stinking. Oh - if I ever got to go home that was.
I realised I was shaking with fear. I really, really didn't want to die and I certainly didn't want to die horribly.
"I'm scared, Bob."
"There's nothing we can do. We shall just have to accept it."
A sob escaped from my throat. Bob reached for my hand.
"Don't worry Leo, they'll probably kill me first. I'm glad - you're the best friend I've ever had."
Another sob escaped. I had meant to be brave and I was failing miserably.
Suddenly, beside us, our demonic guard collapsed to the floor, buckling in the middle of his legs as if his knees had suddenly disappeared. Then a slimy green figure was upon him and bashing his head in with a large wok. My best wok. Did you know demon blood looked like black treacle? Especially when it splatters all over you. It does.
"Asshole!" a voice rasped quietly.
"Trevor?"
The troll stood in front of us, his hands on hips in superhero pose. "Who else?" He wiped his nose on the back of his hand, that kind of detracted from the whole superhero look. That and the fact he was covered with thick, black blood.
"Can you get these off us?" I asked, showing Trevor the silky silver cord around my wrists.
Trevor shook his head, "No chance - that's Fae magick. Fae magick is strong."
Since the magic was tightly wrapped around my wrists and cutting off my circulation I could not disagree.
"How did you get here?"
Trevor shrugged. "Trolls have their ways. Now d'ya wanna kick ass?"
"Hell yeah!" I smiled at Trevor and then it fell off my face. "How exactly?"
"We need to get the ring," Bob said, "and destroy it."
I shook my head, "I know how to stop it working, but I still need to get hold of it. How are we going to do that?"
Suddenly there was a rumble of earth. Bob and I were thrown to our knees, Trevor - having a lower centre of gravity - just wobbled. The words and the ring were having an effect. We were running out of time.
Another incantation rang loud about the cemetery. The stones shook in the earth. A storm broke above, a crack of thunder deafened us and the lightning lit up the cemetery for an instant. Then all was black.
First, one wail cut through the air. Then a dozen, then a hundred. It sounded like a nursery full of grown babies calling out the pain of life. I looked at Bob and Trevor, there was no reassurance to be seen in their faces - they were just as terrified as I was.
"They've woken!" Bob cried, "It's too late!"
A groan rumbled. Another bolt of lightning illuminated the scene - gravestones being smashed aside and the earth being torn open from within. A grey hand appeared through a patch of earth. I felt sick.
The un-dead figures began to fight their way back to life, some smashed through tomb doors but most had to dig themselves out of the earth. When they appeared it was clear their bodies were as good as their embalmers had made them after they died. Some were good jobs, a Victorian lady stood blemish free in a rotting wedding dress, but some were bad - skeletons with grey flesh hanging off the bone and internal organs sliding out between exposed ribs as a green mess of goo. As if drawn to the illuminated circle they stumbled, walked and fell towards the hooded man. They didn't walk like TV zombies - hands out in front and calling for brains - they walked like people, people in different states of repair. Even the decently preserved looked ugly - pale skin, like they had been in the bath too long, with the make-up of the funeral parlour still bright upon their faces. Some of them looked confused and looked around, blinking in the light. One woman looked at her hands of rotting flesh and sat down to sob. It was like someone had dug up a battlefield.
The hooded man held his hands out. Orla now looked moderately interested and looked at the corpses like children looking at an ant under a magnifying glass. It was all just an experiment to them. They had their own agenda.
"Stay here!" I told Bob and Trevor, "Better still - hide!"
"What are you going to do?" Bob asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. "I haven't got a bloody clue."
"I can help!" Trevor said, palming the wok and looking as tough and hard as only a two foot troll can.
I shook my head, "Your job is to protect Bob, he is still my client and his needs come first."
Trevor nodded. I knew, even now, he was thinking of mangoes.
Bob opened his mouth to speak. I shook my head. "You came to me for help Bob, please take it."
His face was sad, but he nodded. "I wish I was more use to you," he said, "but I'm no use to anyone."
I clutched the back of his hand with my own. "Yes you are. And I still owe you a pizza. We are having that bloody pizza."
Hands still bound, I edged my way forward. A bearded man was ahead of me, entering the circle, shaking his head.
"Where am I?" he asked in a faint German accent.
Holy shit, it was Karl Marx! I looked from the un-dead dead Karl Marx to the enormous stone head that covered his grave. Bloody hell!
"Welcome Herr Marx," the hooded man said, spreading his arms wide, "Welcome back to the living world. We've been waiting for you."
What? All this was for one guy? Even Orla looked faintly surprised although it was hard to tell on her botoxed face. What did the hooded man want Karl Marx for? Hmm - what use could there be for the man who had inspired the political regimes in the world's biggest and scariest countries? Dear god, if China, Russia, North Korea and Cuba heard that Karl Marx was back with us... what could he persuade him to do? What would the hooded man want him to persuade them to do?
"Waiting for me?" Marx said, "You must have been waiting a long time. I appear to have been dead." He turned around and looked about him. "So, I got Highgate then. Very good. Dear God!" He was n
ow confronted by his enormous face of a tomb. "Who the hell created that monstrosity? Why on earth would I want my big fat face all over the place? Schmucks!" He shook his head.
"Please come with me," the hooded man said.
Marx stayed where he was, looking at his enormous face. To be honest his embalmer hadn't been the best and he was a bit flaky, but the resemblance was still fairly clear. "Why should I go with you?"
"I brought you back."
"So?"
The two stared at each other. Good old Marx, truculent and strong willed.
"Persuade me young man." Marx said and sat on a tomb stone, legs and arms crossed. "Persuade me why I should go with you. There are lots of other things I should like to do. Why should I do what you wish?"
"I need you," the hooded man said, "your work inspired millions of people to work for political reform - the proletariat rose. Think what we could do together. Where your work could lead the world next."
Marx sniffed.
"Yes," I said, taking a deep breath and stepping forward into the circle. "The proletariat rose..."
"Let me kill her!" hissed Orla.
Marx steadied her with a hand. "Not so fast pretty one,” he said with a flirty smile to the fairy, “let her talk. I want to hear." He looked at my bound hands, but wisely decided not to comment. "Speak."
"Your words and work inspired the greatest change in political history, but it also inspired regimes of fear and was responsible for the greatest murders of the twentieth century... well except those inspired by fascism, but that's another story."
"Without you," the hooded man went on, "humans would be still scrabbling around in the dirt, the rich would still be rich and the poor still oppressed."
"The rich still rule the world!" I continued, "money always rules. Even the Soviets at the top lived better lives than those at the bottom. Think of the slaughter of 'intellectuals' in Cambodia, anyone who could spell their name slaughtered to free the proletariat - so who was there left to educate the proletariat?"
"People killed in my name?" Marx asked, "Really?" He shook his head. "I didn't expect that."
"People will always kill," the hooded man said, "that is what it is to be human. They mindlessly slaughter each other at the slightest whim. We can educate them to be better - together."
Marx shook his head. "I don't care anymore. I thought it was important, but I died. That is the only sure thing - we die. My new life will be devoted to pleasure. Hedonism. That is what I shall do."
"I'm afraid I must insist." the hooded man said.
Marx threw his hands in the air. "What are you going to do? Kill me?"
"If I must."
"Been there, done that my young friend."
"Then I shall kill her." He looked straight at me and I felt a twist in my guts. The hooded man nodded to Orla. She put one icy hand on my arm and dragged me to him. Her nails were sharp and dug deep through the sleeve of my dressing gown like acid. She threw me and I landed on my knees in front of the hooded man. At any other time it might be a moment for innuendo. Not now.
He reached for my chin with his black leather covered hand and tilted it up as if to take a better look at me. Then he clasped my face and spun me round to face Marx.
"I will kill her."
Marx shrugged again. "If you will you will - it has very little to do with me. Your decisions are your own no matter what I say. Why should she matter to me?"
The hooded man threw me to the ground, it was awkward landing on bound hands and my wrists twisted painfully. It was also cold and I was beginning to shiver with cold. I was trying to suppress it as much as possible because I didn't want him to think I was scared - although of course I was.
From the ground I looked up. The hooded man pulled the Vitam Mortem ring off his little finger and held it up to Marx between his thumb and index finger.
"Do you know what this is? What I can do with it? I can raise armies of soldiers to do my will. Our will. I will show you.”
Orla leant over Marx and hissed, "The Fae will arise and re-conquer your miserable race."
The hooded man held the ring high and began his chanting again. His followers echoed.
Orla’s eyes grew wide with anticipation. She clenched her hands together.
In the distance her double, Jamie, looked uncertain. He glanced around and shuffled on his feet.
As the chanting went on sparks of blue and grey began to appear in the air, gradually more sparks joined them and they began to dance around until meeting a spark they could join with. As the sparks grew larger, more drew in - summoned from afar. The air was soon buzzing with flickers of light. Were these fairy souls?
“It’s working!” Orla said under her breath, “It’s working!”
The chanting stopped and soon everyone was watching the dance of the sparks. One cluster was beginning to look like a humanoid form. The light was filling the cemetery as if it was daylight.
I looked at the ring. It was the first opportunity I'd had to see it close up. It was kind of pretty - old fashioned gold woven into a circle and surmounted with a yellow diamond. Ancient lettering covered each strand of gold and it almost seemed to resonate power. I had to stop it. I had to do something to prevent the rise of these un-dead dead humans and a race of life-challenged fairies from taking over the world. I was on holy, sanctified ground and now I had to find a way of changing the ring's purpose. There was only one way I could think of doing that.
"Hey, toss-rag," I said which drew the hooded man's attention back to me, "I'm going to marry you."
"Marry me?" he repeated with contempt.
"Thank you - I will." and I dived for the ring he so conveniently held out, aiming my left ring finger for the Vitam Mortem ring. It slid on as if it had been made for me. I felt a jolt of electricity and then the throbbing from the ring went silent. A vow made on sanctified ground and a ring exchanged. Just like the weddings before the Christian church organised itself - a simple promise and exchange. That was all that was needed.
The light went out of the sparks and they imploded like black holes. Darkness fell back over the cemetery.
I closed my eyes to let them recover from the change in the light. After three seconds I opened them. I looked down at my hands. The ring sat comfortably on my finger. It's power diminished and I felt a tug. I had done it. I smiled and looked up at the hooded man smugly.
His response was to back slap me across the face, which was not the wedding present I had anticipated.
I flew down on to the ground.
I had won. He knew I had won. It was over.
And then he was gone. Disappeared. As if he had never been stood in front of me.
“You killed them!” Orla screamed, “You killed them!”
She stood over me, her fingers twitching. Her eyes were like shards of glass.
My body became an immovable ice block.
“You killed them! All of them! My family!”
If my mouth wasn’t frozen shut I would have liked to tell her they were already dead, hence her needing to resurrect them in the first place.
“Time to go,” her double said, laying a hand on her arm. “We lost.”
“I don’t lose!”
“Time to go,” he led her away, towards the other fairies.
Was she crying?
As they reached their group she looked back at me and stared until the darkness stole her face away. The demons, ghouls and goodness knows what else creatures followed.
As the last of them disappeared, my body unfroze and I fell backwards. As I got up, I realised my hands were free.
Karl Marx also took the fairies’ departure as his cue and rose from the gravestone he had been perched upon. "Nice meeting you." he said, "I'm off to get laid. It's been a while."
I watched as he trotted off down the hill. A nudge in the ribs turned me around. A small Victorian woman was stood before me.
"Do they still read 'Middlemarch'?"
"Oh yes." I said, blinkin
g at the incredulity of the moment, "there was even a TV adaptation or two."
She rubbed her hands together. "Good, I've got decades of back paid royalties to claim."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Things to do in London when Dead
All around me, the dead of the twentieth century were wondering what to do with themselves. Not all were as determined as George Eliot, who had already marched off to find an agent who dealt in digital rights, or Karl Marx who... well we all know what Karl Marx had marched off to find.
Some just looked around, shaking their heads in wonder. I looked around half expecting to see a catering van and a lighting truck. However - if these were extras in a film their make-up would have looked more realistic. These guys just looked ill.
"You did it," Bob said as he approached me, rubbing his freed wrists "you did it!" Bob looked so happy. His face was completely at ease. He looked well, considering the long and scary night he had just come through.
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. I was still a little confused. What should I do next? There was still a cemetery full of the un-dead dead to deal with, they hadn't reverted back to being dead with the end of the ring’s power.
"What should we do about these guys?" I asked him, pointing at the zombies who had once been the great and good of Victorian London. "We can't just unleash them on London. They'd never survive for one thing."
"Can they live here?"
"I'm not sure they'd want to - I mean, it is a reminder that you are dead. Also it's bit of a tourist trap. I'm not sure what the Americans would make of them. They need somewhere where their slightly... sleepy and creepy appearance doesn't look odd."
One of the un-dead dead stretched and yawned. Give him a newspaper and a cup of coffee and he could have been a commuter.
I smiled, "I've got it! Just down the hill we have good tube links. There are even dozens of unused stations closed up across all the lines. They could live at Aldwych for example!"
Bob didn't say anything, but I could see he would just agree with whatever plan I mooted. I realised I was Fred in the Scooby gang to his Shaggy. I guess that made Trevor Scooby Doo. Scratch that - Scrappy Doo, he was always up for a fight against bigger dudes.
