[Brenda & Effie 04] - Hell's Belles

by Paul Magrs

  The two men were intent. Moving towards him, sloppy grins on their faces, glass daggers held aloft . . .

  Frank howled and tried to kick out at them.

  But he couldn’t move.

  He gave one last despairing screech as they descended upon him.

  The Flying Settee

  Robert saw the miasma of blue light that spilled from rooftop to rooftop. He saw it spread across the old town and creep around the attic eaves and turrets of the Christmas Hotel.

  He saw it all, because as it was happening, he was sitting on the green velour settee belonging to the man he had been seeing for a number of weeks now. It being a very special settee, it was hovering several hundred feet above the seething palaver of the dark sea. For all the heavy rain of the hours before midnight, it was a fine night right now. Perfect for flying about the place with his daring young man on the flying settee.

  Robert didn’t even question it now, the fact that they went floating and zooming about the place in the night. He had a pretty good head for heights, as it happened, so that didn’t bother him. Neither did the magical aspect of the whole business. He supposed it meant that his new fella had some peculiar abilities and, most probably, some dark secrets. He wasn’t particularly forthcoming about these, and since Robert was just pleased to have a boyfriend again, he didn’t push too hard with the questions. Still, it was a new one on him. The flying horsehair sofa. It was pretty comfortable though, and it did add a certain frisson to their fooling around in the night air, the fact that they were swooping about under the baleful glare of the moon. The moon, which, as ever, behaved as if it had seen it all before.

  Tonight was different.

  The atmosphere between them was a little more tense than usual, as Robert had insisted on talking about some of the recent mysterious goings-on. His fella had looked impatient and uninterested. This in turn had piqued Robert, who felt that his fella should be more concerned. ‘This is important to me, what happens to my friends,’ he said. ‘And it should be to you too.’ He looked earnestly at that sharp profile. That gently mocking expression. Those perfect full lips.

  ‘Why? Why should it be interesting to me? The silly things a bunch of old women get up to.’ His fella shrugged and laughed.

  ‘That’s not very caring.’

  ‘I’m not a very caring person. You should know that about me.’

  Yes, thought Robert miserably. And here I am, stuck several hundred feet up in the air with you. At your mercy. With no visible means of support. Oh God. I know how to pick them, don’t I?

  He had never really picked this bloke, though. The bloke had swept down out of the sky one evening on his strange steed and picked Robert up without a by-your-leave.

  ‘Look, Robert,’ the fella said. ‘This is just what it’s like. I don’t care at all about your everyday life. Your daytime life. I just care about you when you’re here with me. Whenever that is, and however long we keep it going. The rest of it is irrelevant. Boring to me. Don’t bring all your mundane stuff up here with you.’

  ‘It’s not mundane! It’s my life! And there’s lots of interesting stuff in it. There’s loads going on lately, actually!’ He couldn’t keep the gall out of his tone.

  The man laughed. ‘Oh dear. I expect you want to hear all about my everyday life as well, don’t you? All the boring details. And then you want me to meet your family and friends. And you can meet mine . . .’ He broke up in laughter, as if he couldn’t imagine anything more ridiculous or banal.

  Robert burst out, ‘Yes! That would be nice! Normal!’

  ‘This isn’t normal,’ he was told stiffly. ‘This is outside all of that.’ It was a cold voice, as fathomless as the North Sea below them.

  Robert felt tears of frustration starting up. ‘I don’t know what you mean!’

  ‘This is enchantment. This is you under a spell. When you come with me, when we fly together around the town, we are beyond the normal human world. We’ve stepped beyond the veil. You can’t share that with anyone else. You haven’t told anyone else about me, have you?’

  Robert pulled a face. ‘No.’

  ‘Good. This is just for you and me.’

  ‘I wish it was less dysfunctional. I wish I could introduce you to Brenda and Effie – well, maybe not Effie, since she’s so disapproving of just about everything, but certainly Penny and—’

  ‘It isn’t going to happen. You have half sold your soul into the world of faerie now.’

  Robert blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘Your soul is half submerged in the eldritch world of the dark faerie.’

  There was an awkward pause between them.

  ‘Yes, I thought that’s what you said,’ Robert said. ‘And that isn’t very good, is it?’

  ‘Depends how you look at it.’ His fella crossed his slim legs as he mused, looking for all the world like a young professor considering a knotty philosophical proposition. ‘From my point of view, it’s a very good thing. Since I’m the one setting out to ensnare mortal souls.’

  ‘For the world of faerie. Yes, um, I see now.’ Robert’s head was in turmoil. At this point he even felt a twinge of vertigo. ‘Let me get this straight. You don’t really fancy me. You just popped down to steal my soul and now I’m half enslaved by the, um, faeries?’

  ‘That’s more or less it,’ said his fella. ‘Though you do me a disservice. And yourself. You are rather cute, as they say, in a rough-hewn, unfinished, exasperating kind of way.’

  ‘Exasperating!’ Robert burst out. ‘I’ll give you exasperating . . .’

  And then he focused on that liquid blue fire hopping around the rooftops of the old town. He watched it dance around the main turret of the Christmas Hotel, and for the first time in his idle observation of its weird properties, he saw where it seemed to be emanating from. A particular sharply pointed rooftop, which, if he wasn’t mistaken, belonged to . . .

  ‘Brenda!’ he cried. ‘Look! It’s coming from her house!’

  ‘Careful, man,’ his fella said crossly. ‘You nearly dropped off the settee. If you do, I can’t be held responsible.’

  Robert turned to him. ‘Take me over there. Over the harbour. To Brenda’s. Do it now.’

  A smile curled on those perfect lips. ‘You want to leave me? Is our night together over so soon?’

  Robert said, very deliberately, ‘That’s right.’ He almost added that after the way their conversation had gone, it was the end of all their nights together. But he didn’t want to go burning his boats just yet.

  Was that shallow of him? Would he really put up with any amount of spooky nonsense and weird suggestions, just for the sake of a snog and a bit of sex on a floating settee? With a man who had never even told him his name?

  Yep. If that was shallow, then yep. That was fine with him.

  His fella dropped him off on the sharply descending street where Brenda had her guest house and Effie her junk shop. The elm trees rustled and swished as the settee sifted gently down and touched soundlessly on the cobbles.

  Robert jumped up. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘Kiss me,’ said his fella.

  Robert leaned close. ‘You’ve never even told me your name.’

  ‘What do names mean?’

  ‘Is that some faerie thing?’ Robert said mockingly. ‘If you give me your name, then I’ve got some kind of power over you?’

  ‘No,’ said his fella, looking up at him and grinning. ‘Okay. It’s Michael. Call me Michael.’

  ‘Right. Michael.’ It felt weird, after four weeks. Putting a name to the face at last. Robert kissed him goodbye. He tasted of spices. Christmassy spices.

  Then he looked up at Brenda’s rooftop, where the blue light was still pulsing and flickering and transmitting itself across the old town. Something was going on. As per usual. Something was up, and Robert wanted to be part of it.

  Time to rescue Brenda and Effie again, from whatever bizarre state of affairs they were embroiled in this time.

  He t
urned back, to say goodbye to Michael. But the settee had already whizzed off again into the night.

  Stumped

  It was very late by the time Karla returned to the Christmas Hotel. Anyone still sitting up in the lounge in the conservatory would have been surprised to see the famous film star trolling home on foot. She looked rather the worse for wear too, having been dragged around the abbey by her director. She had snapped a heel, lost an earring and worn herself to a frazzle. By the time she got back to her hotel, she was in a vexed mood.

  There was no one to see her, however, apart from the ancient concierge, who came to attention and saluted.

  ‘Good evening.’ Karla nodded, and swished past him, towards the lifts.

  From the old man’s point of view it was a pretty impressive entrance. It was just past two o’clock, and the glass doors opened and Karla Sorenson glided in on waves of chilling sea mist. She was all togged up in vampire finery and looking haughty and piqued. It gave the old man a thrill of pleasure to see her issuing past his front desk.

  All Karla could think about was her discomfort from roaming about in the long grass all night. Her aching legs and feet. Her frozen, goose-pimpled flesh. She really hadn’t been dressed for a night out in the October cold. In her opinion, Alex Soames was a singularly selfish, inconsiderate young man.

  Once she was ensconced in her suite, Karla poured herself a generous brandy and felt the warmth seeping back into her body. What about all the things Alex had said about her career, hm? About putting her back on top. Making the world see what a genius she was. The queen of horror. He had really meant all of that, she was sure of it. She could tell by his eyes. He was so earnest, so determined. This film was all for her. She had no right getting in a huff about a bit of physical discomfort. Or the weird sense of foreboding that was tugging at her raddled flesh and her aching bones.

  Where were her helpers? The elf boy and the kidnapped postman? What was the point of having fellas in servitude if they weren’t there to tend to you when you came in at night?

  Ah yes. She’d locked them both away for safe-keeping, hadn’t she?

  She unlocked the attic and creaked open the door. ‘Boys?’

  There was a stiff draught from above.

  The attic was dark, striated with shafts of soft lilac moonlight. They spilled down the wooden staircase. She wrinkled her nose. Beside the scent of old wood and mould and dust, there was a heavy smell on the air. A rancid, bloody smell she didn’t like at all.

  ‘B-boys? Are you up there?’

  There was a shifting, a stirring above. The boys were waking. There was a shout. An awful cry of dismay. Oh, what now? Karla thought crossly. She hauled herself up the stairs in her stockinged feet.

  ‘Hello?’

  What she found at the top of the stairs ranked among the most horrible things she had ever seen.

  ‘What have you done?’ She stared at Kevin and Bobby, who were dragging themselves to their feet and looking in terror at the prone figure with whom they shared the attic.

  ‘I d-don’t know!’ Kevin protested. ‘What’s happened to him?’

  ‘Did we do this?’ asked Bobby, tugging at his beard. ‘Did we? I don’t know . . . How . . . ?’

  His voice trailed away and the three of them stared at the prone body of Frank in appalled awe.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘I don’t know. How should I know?’ Karla went to Frank, steeling herself for the sight of all that blood and carnage. Who’d have thought he’d have so much blood in him? she wondered. There was a bucket beside him, and his crazy assailants had filled it with his turgid liquids. This was the source of that heavy, metallic, slightly off smell.

  The worst thing about the unconscious Frank wasn’t the bucket of his drained blood, or the fact that they had chained him to the wall by his arms and he hung there like a broken puppet. The very worst thing was that they had sawn both his legs off.

  One at the knee, the other at the thigh. The two broad, hefty limbs were lying straightened up a little distance from their owner. They were pale and smirched with darkness.

  ‘You’ve pulled his legs off.’

  ‘It wasn’t us!’

  ‘It had to be you, you idiot! Why did you do this?’

  The two men gawped mindlessly at the vile tableau.

  ‘What’s the blood for?’ Karla asked. ‘Why did you take his blood?’

  Their dumb silence aggravated her. The smell of blood was making her sick to her stomach. This was like appearing in one of her own fricking movies.

  Then she thought: a bucket of his blood. Didn’t the Brethren say something about that in their last message? To do with the ashes and fragments of charred bone they had sent her? Didn’t they tell her that blood was necessary?

  In which case, was that why her boys had turned on Frank? Did they know what she needed? Had they taken the messiest job off her hands?

  Poor Frank. Look at the state of him. How much blood did he still have chugging through him? Was it enough?

  The ragged stumps of legs were no longer bleeding. She examined them quickly and they were strange things. Like something off the delicatessen counter at Waitrose. Pressed meat or something. She had to remind herself. Frank wasn’t the same as other human beings. He was a makeshift being. He was already dead. Taking his legs off in this grotesque fashion might not be fatal to him. It might not affect him at all, apart from preventing him from running about the place too much.

  Which might come in handy, actually, she thought grimly. Perhaps her fellas had done her a service.

  Frank was dead to the world. What would his reaction be when he eventually woke up?

  She shuddered and picked up the pail of blood, with a sigh.

  All Karla wanted was a decent night’s sleep.

  Kevin and Bobby watched her warily. Would they be punished for the terrible thing they had done in their sleep?

  ‘Come with me,’ she told them, and led them downstairs. She was careful not to spill a single drop of Frank’s bloody essence as they descended back into the luxury suite.

  Brenda and Effie Transfixed

  Oh no.

  He should never have given them that DVD. They had all sensed that it was dangerous. Effie had seen what it had done to Penny.

  But they always had to go investigating, didn’t they? You couldn’t hold them back.

  Robert still had his key from looking after Brenda’s guest house in her absence. Now, in the early hours, he let himself in, dreading what he would find when he got to the top and her attic rooms.

  He was careful not to make too much noise. He wasn’t sure if she had any guests staying with her this week. The whole house was frozen and silent, so it didn’t seem that she had. The heating was off. The lights were off. It was as if Brenda’s B&B had died in the night. As if those pale lights he had seen issuing from its chimneys were its life force, somehow.

  Stop being fanciful, Robert, he told himself sternly, and thundered matter-of-factly up the side stairs.

  Silence coming from her sitting room. He took a deep breath and flung open the door.

  ‘Brenda!’ he couldn’t help yelling out when he clapped eyes on her. ‘Effie!’ he squawked, when he saw her friend sitting in exactly the same way. They both looked as if rigor mortis had set in. They were rigid on their respective armchairs, faces slack and hands shaped like talons, gripping the armrests. The antimacassars had slipped off. It struck him crazily that they looked like one of those photos people have taken on roller coasters, their faces forever twisted in wild fright.

  They were both staring at the television, but nothing was playing. Just a monochrome field of dancing snow-flakes. Its restless shadows played across the faces of his two friends.

  Oh my God. They’ve been possessed by whatever horrible thing is on that disc.

  Robert tried to remember what Effie did to bring Penny round, the other morning. What was it? Some kind of witchy spell thing. No way Robert could replica
te it. Should he shake them? Shout in their faces? Make them a mug of hot, sweet, spicy tea? Or brandy?

  He crept over and touched Brenda’s shoulder. She was rock hard with tension. He wouldn’t be able to get her to drink anything at all. She was completely unresponsive. It was as if her mind was elsewhere.

  He tried yelling at them both, right in their faces.

  Not a flicker.

  They disturbed him, the way they sat there, staring straight ahead, unblinking. Their knuckles showing white.

  Maybe he could find something in Effie’s house, among her old magic books. He could find the spell she had used to bring Penny back from her own horror-induced coma.

  Where had the disc come from in the first place? Why, it couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? It had turned up just as Karla Sorenson herself arrived in town. All roads led back to her, it appeared. If – as seemed likely – these investigations were left solely to Robert now, then he’d better look into Save the Kiddies, and Karla herself. That was what Brenda would have done.

  Having said that, the logical thing was never usually what Brenda did next. Her investigations never followed a rational line of development. She’d wind up doing something like this, sending herself into a horrible trance. Robert had to admit that no matter how fond he was of them, he couldn’t lie about their success rate. Brenda and Effie were never the most subtle of investigators. More often than not, when they were supposed to be sneaking about and gathering evidence and clues, they would end up being discovered and having a wild fist fight with their enemies.

  God, he missed them already! Those two obtuse and maddening old bags.

  But he couldn’t let himself wallow in this. He had to get to work.

  He rang the Miramar and was pleased to hear Penny at the front desk.

  ‘Oh, crikey!’ she burst out, when he’d explained what had gone on.

  ‘I know,’ he said, grimly. ‘They’re exactly like you were the other morning.’

  ‘You should never have let them watch that thing,’ Penny told him tactlessly.