by Mark Cassell
Victor placed the box on the table. He still wore his gloves. “Beautiful.”
“How did you come by it?” Polly asked, her voice no more than a whisper.
“By chance. Pure and simple. At the antique shop.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence.” Polly’s voice was so soft, I leaned closer. “These things happen for a reason.”
“Perhaps,” Victor replied.
“How do you know it’s the one we’ve been searching for?”
“Because of its markings.”
Polly stroked her face. “It was last seen in Bohemia, in a small village where superstition clouds judgement.”
“Witches.” Victor glanced at me.
Again, I thought of what Josh had said. Did a witch kill the others he’d spoken of? Was that what he believed? I didn’t know where any of this was leading. I looked at the car key in my hand. I’d been gripping the damn thing so tight there were marks in my palm. I put it in my pocket and sat up straighter.
Polly rolled the tea cup between her hands. “It goes by another name.”
Victor nodded. “Often referred to as The Witchblade.”
“Yes,” Polly said, her voice much stronger. “Of course.”
I had to remind myself I was getting paid for this bullshit.
As Polly’s lips parted to say something else, an electronic warble pierced the atmosphere: four beeps vibrating in Victor’s pocket. He blinked and his hands clamped the case. Then he retrieved his mobile phone. It was one of the old ones with actual buttons. He stabbed it with a rigid finger.
“Stanley,” he said and grunted, glancing at Polly.
Silence.
“Leo,” Victor added, “you’ll meet my brother later.”
CHAPTER 6
Leaning against Victor’s car and squinting at the rain, I looked up to where I guessed his flat was. The rain cooled my skin. I felt as though I needed to be cleansed after the strange morning I’d had. I glanced at my watch—the watch I didn’t pay for—and it agreed with my stomach: lunchtime. After returning Victor home, he told me to wait for a few minutes.
As I considered getting back into the car, I saw him emerge from the building. He held an envelope.
I moved towards him.
“Pay day, my friend.” Victor slapped the envelope into my hand. He’d taken off his shoes and now stood in a puddle. The water covered his toes.
“Vic—” I began, not knowing what to say. He was paying me already?
“You can go home now,” he added. “Come back later, at six. You’ll get to meet Stanley.”
I scratched my chin. “It’s Tuesday. This is my second day, and they haven’t even been full days.”
“Bah!” he replied. He reminded me of Scrooge, yet the weight of the envelope suggested otherwise. “There’s a bonus, given today’s lucky find. Go home or go out. Either way have yourself a jolly afternoon. Oh, and here’s a mobile for you. Take it, I’ve put my number in there. Goodwin’s as well, plus a few others. If it rings, answer it. Make calls to whoever, whenever, wherever. It’s all yours.”
“Er, thanks.” The words were lame, as they often are when someone shows you ridiculous generosity. Goodwin—now Victor. If there’s anyone out there with a cynical view of the world, then trust me, there are good people around us. When we’re surrounded by the good guys, it energises the soul. They might sometimes prove hard to find, and I know occasionally the good can turn out bad…there are many bad eggs.
“Keep it charged and don’t lose it.” His feet splashed the puddle. “Be here bang on six.”
“Will do, Victor.”
“You have a good afternoon.” He jogged back towards the building.
Wage packet in one hand, I managed a quick, “You too!” as he disappeared. The door closed behind him and cut off his slapping footfalls.
It was strange to hold a pay packet—money I’ve earned. My money. A new life was starting.
In the car, I thumbed the lock and relaxed—some would call it paranoia, but I’d call it being sensible; it’s London after all and not Mabley Holt, population 97. After eyeing the car park, I gave the envelope my full attention. I tore it open and took more care when shaking out the wad of notes. I counted £500 in twenties and £500 in fifties. I was glad, perhaps even relieved that I favoured combats and the compartments they sported, as I wouldn’t trust such an amount of cash to sit unguarded in a jeans pocket waiting to be lifted.
Or perhaps someone may rush at me from anywhere and attack me. Again, I scanned the parked cars: no carjackers, nor potential muggers.
Not paranoia, just being sensible.
I had my first pay packet and was high on life. My new life. Everything was going to be okay, even if today there’d been talk of witches and a drug addict saying people had been killed. All nonsense, of course. That guy in the shop had been hallucinating. He was paranoid.
I hoped.
CHAPTER 7
“Who the fuck is this?” Stanley pointed at me. “How much does he know?”
Victor placed one hand on the back of the scuffed sofa and the other on my arm. “This is Leo. And he knows enough.”
I wanted to say I didn’t know anything, but kept quiet. My cheeks warmed and it took a lot for me not to move. I glared at Victor’s brother.
In three strides, Stanley stood before Victor, still holding the TV remote. The buttons looked sticky.
“Why do you need a friend with you?” His jaw muscles flexed with his biceps. “Scared to be in the same room with your own brother?”
I couldn’t believe this guy. Already I hated him, and I wondered if I’d ever met anyone quite as obnoxious. I wanted to leave.
“Stan,” Victor said, “you know I can’t drive. Leo is my driver.”
“I’m a friend of Goodwin,” I said as my jaw relaxed.
Stanley, clutching the remote in a massive fist, ignored me.
“Okay, okay.” He backed away from Victor’s face. “I’ve got something to show you.”
“So you said in your text.” Victor walked the length of the room and slumped into an armchair beneath a poster of a Harley and a bikini-clad girl.
“Help yourself to a seat, bro.”
Arms folded, I strolled towards Victor as he lifted a leg and hooked the ankle on a knee. Stanley—the guy was a bad egg—pointed at him.
“You didn’t get dressed properly.” He laughed. “Still forgetting to put your socks on.”
Victor remained silent.
I lowered my eyes and tried hard not to shake my head in disbelief. I also tried not to wrinkle my nose—the stink of recently fried chips pleased me in knowing I’d not long ago eaten salad with my pasta.
In the corner of the lounge, at the end of a well-trodden rug and propped against a curtain, was a violin case. Stanley headed for it, threw the remote onto the sofa and lifted the case.
“You know the story, Vic.” He stood in the centre of the room. “Back in the Great Fire of London it burned with the rest of the city.”
“You have it?” Victor dropped his leg with a thump and leaned forward. “We’ve been searching too long.”
I stared at both of them in turn.
One side of Stanley’s mouth curled upwards.
“Since we all got together, Vic.” He patted the case. “Long ago. Back when you wore ridiculous outfits.”
“I liked the 70s.” Victor clenched and unclenched his hands. He seemed to always wear those gloves. The leather creaked.
“Sure you did.”
“I know Goodwin’s given up believing in it.” Victor sank into the cushions. “That and The Book of Leaves. Clocks it all as just legend. Polly’s certain of the existence of everything. Always has been.”
“Well, the blind bitch has always seen the world differently.”
Victor grimaced. “Don’t speak like that.”
I gaped at Stanley. This guy was unbelievable.
He eyed the case. “Out of all of us, I was the one who found
it.”
What had this irritating bastard found? A violin? How special could a violin be? I thought of the Witchblade—or the athame. Coincidence there, with Victor finding it at the antique shop. Yet now, Stanley revealing something on the same day—another coincidence. Polly didn’t believe things happened by chance, and I was beginning to feel the same.
“How did you find it?” Victor asked.
“Ah, contacts.” Stanley slid the case onto the table, knocking aside several takeaway boxes. Rice scattered and a pair of flies took to the air. He slapped a magazine to the floor.
Victor stood up, lips parting.
A fly buzzed near my head and I waved it away.
“Well,” Stanley said, “here it is. The Shadow Fabric.”
The case, I’d assumed, would hold a musical instrument. A violin. But no…as Stanley popped the lock and pulled it open, the Shadow Fabric proved to be what its name suggests: a roll of black fabric, loosely bunched in places, the material somewhere between silk and velvet. It played with the room’s lighting which gave the illusion it wasn’t entirely there. The way it toyed with the senses, the way something wasn’t quite right about it, I felt I had to immediately avert my eyes or I’d get caught out. Sussed. It was as though I allowed something to see me…or to see into me; into my being, burrowing into my core.
I shivered.
Stanley stepped away from the table, mouth set. “Victor?”
“Huh?” He dragged his gaze from the Fabric.
Stanley pointed at Victor’s jacket. “What’s that?”
Victor brushed his fingers along the box protruding from an inner pocket. The Witchblade.
“Something I wanted to show you,” he said. “You’re not the only one who’s found something.”
Yeah, I thought, coincidence.
Stanley reached for the violin case. “Not The Book of Leaves. I can see that.”
Victor shook his head.
“That book has been a pain in the arse for the last three hundred years.” Stanley slammed the case closed.
The pressure in the room shifted. With my vision sharpening, I inhaled the suddenly untainted air—such a relief to no longer see and feel the Fabric.
“That’s the athame.” Stanley’s eyes widened. “Right?”
Victor nodded, saying nothing. It was difficult to read his face.
“You trying to hide it from me?”
“Of course not.” He shook his head. “I brought it over to show you. You’re as much a part of this team as anyone. You deserve to see it.”
“I thought everyone had abandoned me.”
“You’re lucky we didn’t. But you’re my brother, Stan.”
Stanley’s mouth twitched. He pulled the violin case open again. “Well, this is why I wanted you here.”
My eyes took in the Fabric once more; the thing shimmered. The air turned stale and my head hurt, my lungs were tight. I wanted to run from the room. No, I wanted to leap out the window—the nearest exit.
Victor slid a hand into his jacket and pulled out the slim box. He placed it onto the table, locking eyes with his brother.
It was Stanley’s turn to say nothing.
“And this…” Victor said, then flipped open the box, “is why I came.”
Stanley sucked air between clenched teeth. He held Victor’s gaze and tugged at the Fabric, caressing the material between thumb and forefinger. He lowered his eyes to the Witchblade.
“You’re not wearing gloves!” Victor held out a hand, fingers splayed. A warning.
“You are, as always, you little weirdo.”
“Yes.” A crease down the centre of Victor’s forehead separated his eyebrows. He pulled off his gloves with fumbling speed. “You can’t touch the Fabric.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Fabric, Stan.” Victor offered him the gloves.
“That’s just it…” Stanley swiped them away with his free hand, the other was a fistful of black folds. His neck stretched and he pushed his face into Victor’s. “You’ve always thought yourself better than anyone else.”
“Stan—”
“Mister fucking clever.”
“Please—”
“All our lives you’ve been the one to follow others…”
Victor gripped the Witchblade with his bare hand. I’m not sure when he had taken it from the box. Where was this heading?
Stanley’s face had turned scarlet. “And now you’re barking orders at me.”
“Stanley, listen—”
“The problem with you…” Stanley yanked the Fabric from the case. “You’ve never known whether you want to be the pigeon or the statue. Most of the time you just allow people to shit on you, without moving a muscle. Me? I don’t stand around, I’m the one who carved the statue.”
“Stanley—”
“No!” His brother slapped a hand onto the table. “I’m the architect who designed the square that statue stands in!”
This was turning nasty and I didn’t know what to do. Then I remembered Victor’s sweeping kick, bringing down the guy in the antique shop—he could look after himself.
Still in Stanley’s hand, the Fabric flowed over the table like liquid, turning everything into a dark shadow of its former self. The edges of the material rippled, seeming to tug as though desperate to grab more of its surroundings. As it unfolded, the light in the room dimmed.
The two brothers stood nose to nose. Victor with the Witchblade tight in his fist, and Stanley with the Fabric quivering in his.
I couldn’t blink. The presence of the Fabric clamped my head. I threw swift glances around the room. Someone wanted to stab me in the back, to kick me in the nuts. To shoot me in the head. I had to get out of there, I had to leave Victor and his brother to it.
“I hate you, Victor.” Stanley’s mouth twitched.
“No,” Victor gasped. The Witchblade shook, his knuckles white. “Don’t!”
I didn’t know if he said it to his brother or the Witchblade. Then I saw it was neither. It was to the Shadow Fabric. It pulled his hand…and the blade slammed into Stanley’s chest.
CHAPTER 8
The tendrils of Shadow Fabric released Victor’s wrist and recoiled from the Witchblade. Stanley staggered backwards. The blade sucked out from the wound and blood spread down his shirt like an obscene inkblot. His eyes wide, mouth agape, he still clutched the Fabric. The tentacles whipped the air once, twice, and returned to the main seething mass.
My lungs tightened as I watched Victor stumble, the Witchblade now gripped in a red fist.
Stanley gulped as blood drenched his shirt. The Fabric slipped from his hand and closed around him. It dragged him along the carpet. His eyes glazed as the shadows curled inwards. Only a pale face and a bloody torso remained.
The darkness hovered, shrinking moment by moment, and I saw only Stanley’s dead stare.
I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw hurt.
Victor’s mouth opened and closed, no more than a step from the twisting shadows, watching as his brother eventually vanished.
Silence.
His eyebrows twitching, Victor looked at the Witchblade.
“Vic…” I whispered, my throat dry.
Beside him, over a gas fireplace, stood a mantel clock. It hammered the seconds into the room. The Witchblade slipped from his hand and thumped on the carpet, leaving a red stain.
He fell to his knees and lowered his head. “Oh, God.”
The Fabric faded to grey and folded into itself. And disappeared.
The combination of streetlights through the curtains and the artificial light in the room was almost physical. Without the Fabric’s cloying presence, I could breathe again. Such a welcome relief.
Victor’s shoulders trembled.
I lunged forward, charged into motion. With the Fabric no longer tainting the air, there was nothing to worry about. Energised and feeling happy and guilty—ashamed of my light-heartedness—for I knew I didn’t deserve this happiness
when there crouched Victor, his brother’s blood at his feet. I stopped beside him and grasped his shoulder.
“Vic—” I swallowed. “Victor…”
The Witchblade glistened red.
My jaw slackened. Blood. Murder. And there I was, an accessory. I’d seen those arms of shadow extend from the darkness which Stanley held, thin tentacles clamping Victor’s wrist and pulling the knife into his brother’s chest.
I’d been this man’s chauffeur for little more than a day, and already I’d witnessed him kill his brother. What the hell was this?
It was supernatural. Paranormal. Whatever this was, it proved the unfolding of a reality I’d assumed was as solid as a paperback in hand. Everything beneath and around us was not as black and white as we believed. All things in life which surround us and are taken for granted since we first came to be, are false. There’s a lot more to what we see, feel, smell, hear, taste….
“Shit,” I said. “What’s going on?”
Victor said nothing. His sobs quaked beneath my hand.
“Get up, man.” I squeezed his shoulder. “Victor. Get up.”
He shook his head; whether in denial, or in answer to me, I didn’t know. One thing was certain, what I felt in the grip of his bony shoulder told me this man’s previous vitality had been drained. It now leaked from him in whimpers, seeping just as Stanley’s blood now soaked the carpet.
“Victor, please.” I was thirsty.
He said nothing, although this time there wasn’t any movement, not even a sob. I let go of him and stepped back. The mantel clock clanked 8 p.m.—the chiming mechanism evidently missing or broken.
This was murder, yet there wasn’t a body.
Victor lifted his head and his eyes focussed on the Witchblade. He closed a hand around it and in jerking movements got to his feet.
I took another couple of steps back, unsure if it was just to allow him more room, or because the man had a knife and he’d used it only moments ago. Being a little further away made sense.
He went to the table, avoiding the yawning violin case and grabbed the Witchblade box. He opened it.
