Pepper had finished and was walking over to Will when he froze and cocked his head to one side.
‘Come on, boy,’ said Will.
Pepper made a strange noise in the back of his throat, and began to back away.
‘Pepper, come on, time for sleepy-byes.’
Pepper barked once and ran into a bush.
‘Jesus,’ said Will, annoyed. He turned to look at what might have spooked Pepper so much. Was there another person out there taking their dog for a moonlit walk? Pepper always was antsy around other dogs, ever since he’d gone up to one a few years back and it had given him a deep bite on the leg for his trouble.
Will squinted, but he couldn’t see any other dog, nor any other people.
A flash of movement in the corner of his eye. Will turned and looked up to the sky, trying to make out what it was he was seeing.
At first it looked like a little black cloud growing larger with each second. Then Will realised it wasn’t growing larger, it was that it was moving closer, which was very, very strange. And what was that sound? A whooshing sound, over and over. Wings beating?
Will’s eyes widened.
That wasn’t a cloud.
He hoped it was just birds, but his gut knew the truth.
‘Pepper!’ he yelled as he turned, a sharp pain in his chest, as the bats descended and Will was swallowed up.
Pepper poked his face out of the bush and whimpered as Will Devon thrashed, screaming, desperate. Soon he was on the ground, in the dirt. It would not be long until he stopped screaming. Until he stopped moving.
A white-gloved hand reached out and stroked Pepper’s silky, chocolate fur.
‘There’s a good boy,’ said Mr. Cotton.
19
Rita Hobbes had never believed in a life for a life. Through all her years on the force, she’d believed in bringing the guilty to justice, and justice did not include death. Could not include it.
This new life of hers, post-hex, was making that an impossible ideal.
She wanted Cotton and Spike dead. She wanted them to feel fear, to know their end was coming, and then to die. She wanted the Angel of Blackpool dead too, if such a thing was even possible.
Her stomach churned as an afterimage flashed in the dark each time she blinked.
Ben Turner’s corpse.
Cold.
Still.
Dead.
‘Are you sure this is the best idea?’ Formby asked again.
‘I don’t see what other choice we have,’ replied Rita, walking towards Big Pins’ exit. She paused and turned to Formby. ‘Stay here.’
‘I can help. Maybe.’ Formby knew that wasn’t true.
‘Me and Waters have got this,’ she replied.
‘You’re sure I shouldn’t stay here and keep the mole man company?’ asked Waterson.
Rita gave him a look that could have stripped paint from a door.
‘I was only asking!’ said Waterson, following her out.
‘Who is the mole man?’ Formby asked Linton, a confused look on his face.
It was obvious as soon as they stepped from the blind alley that hid Big Pins from the ordinary people of Blackpool, that something wasn’t right.
‘It takes a lot to put the shits up a ghost,’ said Waterson, ‘but consider this spook spooked.’
Rita felt it itching at her skin, like she was covered in bugs. A heavy, thick spell lay over the entire city.
She took out her axe, tightened her fingers around the wooden haft, and closed her eyes. ‘Show me.’
She looked up and saw them. Hundreds of dark lines weaving through the night sky. Thousands of them. It was just as Ben had said: the Angel’s power, Its magic, spreading far and wide across Blackpool. On this night, Cotton and Spike were spreading fear, spreading death, on an epic scale.
She wondered how many people had died already. Wondered how many more would end up that way before the night was through.
She realised her hands were shaking as she strode towards Blackpool Pleasure beach, the huge fun fair that also, unbeknownst to most, housed the Uncanny Night Fair, and inside of that, the dreamscape prison where Alexander Jenner was incarcerated.
Sweat prickled her brow and her eyes darted from one shadow to the next. The spell Cotton and Spike were weaving was intoxicating. Heavy. Undeniable. They weren’t even attacking her directly, but it was like suffering fallout from a nuclear blast. The side effects were eating into her anyway.
‘This is really, really, bad, Waters.’
‘I am getting that impression, yeah.’
A man ran past, screaming.
‘They certainly know how to create an atmosphere, your mask-wearing friends.’
Rita was already running.
She found the screaming man on the ground, desperately scuttling backwards.
‘What? What is it?’ she whirled round, axe at the ready, but couldn’t see what it was he was running from.
‘Maybe he’s having a panic attack,’ said Waterson.
Rita crouched by the man, ‘Hey, it’s okay, you’re safe now.’
The man looked at her, sweat pouring down his his face.
‘What is it?’ Rita asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing is wrong,’ replied the man. ‘Everything is fine, fine, fine.’
His torso ripped open and two bloody hands thrust out, grabbing Rita by the neck.
‘Holy buggering shit!’ yelled Waterson, jumping back.
The axe fell from Rita’s hand as she tried to wrench free of the choking hands closed around her windpipe. This wasn’t a man running from a nightmare thing created by Cotton and Spike, he was a nightmare thing. The man laughed hysterically as more arms reached out from his torso and grasped Rita.
‘Everything is fine, fine, fine!’ His left eye bulged alarmingly, then popped out of the socket, a crow’s head poking out, screeching furiously, beak snapping, eager to chew on Rita’s face as she was pulled forward.
‘Axe!’ Rita managed to force out, as she beat ineffectually at the arms wrestling her inside the nightmare man.
‘Right! Shit,’ said Waterson. He fell to his knees and grabbed at the axe, but his phantom hand passed right through.
‘Axe!’ Rita garbled again, as she strained to turn her head to the side, the crow’s wicked beak scraping her cheek, drawing blood.
‘Okay, okay,’ Waterson told himself. ‘Solid. I am a solid.’ He did his best to make his hand corporeal, and slowly reached out for the weapon.
It moved.
He didn’t pick it up, but it had reacted to him. For the briefest of moments, he’d willed himself solid enough to nudge it. Waterson was so exhilarated that he actually laughed. Rita’s strangled screams soon put an end to that.
She was pressed right up against the nightmare man’s open torso now, one shoulder leaning into him, his rib cage opening and closing like the jaws of a steel trap as the crow in his head pecked angrily at her face.
‘You’ll like it inside me,’ said the nightmare man. ‘No, not like it, those are the wrong words. You’ll sit inside all broken and pained and screaming those good, tasty screams and we’ll be best of friends forever and ever.’
Waterson tried to concentrate, tried to block out Rita’s anguish, the nightmare man’s gloating, the crow’s angry squawks, and reached out again and again for the axe. Each time it would move, just a little, but he couldn’t grab it, couldn’t lift it. If he had a few hours to practice, he was sure he could actually do it. But he didn’t have hours. He barely had seconds left.
‘Come on!’ he yelled in frustration, but the axe merely nudged forward again.
Rita felt herself starting to go limp, the fight draining from her as the lack of oxygen began to take its toll and the world turned dark and fuzzy around the edges. She thought she could hear Waterson saying something. Shouting something. But the nightmare man’s laughter drowned out everything, even the crow’s screeches.
Rita was pissed off.
&nbs
p; Even as the black hole of unconsciousness promised to make everything okay, she felt the fury in her stomach burning. They were going to win. That pair of mask-wearing freaks were going to win and Ben’s death would go unpunished. All the deaths in Blackpool.
She’d failed.
Then the laughter stopped and she felt herself crumple to the ground.
‘Rita,’ said Waterson, rushing to her side.
‘Wh… what the…?’ she managed, gasping for air, eyes streaming, as she struggled up on to her elbows. She looked to where the nightmare man had been and saw only a little pile of ash on the ground.
‘How did you…?’
‘It wasn’t me,’ Waterson replied.
‘You must never rely on the help of a ghost, Detective,’ said a new voice.
Rita turned to see a tall, narrow man with the whitest of white complexions and the most wonderful, dark purple coat stood before her.
‘Well,’ said Carlisle, the devil of all grins across his face, ‘what did I miss?’
Carlisle sat on the bench facing the sea, looking up at the thousands of smoke fingers stretching out of the the water, from the Angel’s prison, and arcing high above them into Blackpool.
‘So, do you want to tell me where you’ve been?’ said Rita. ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘Do I detect worry? How sweet of you.’
‘You’ll detect a pissed off woman with a sharp axe if you don’t spill, Pasty Pete.’
‘I’d tell her,’ said Waterson. ‘She once threw a full cup of coffee at my balls because I forgot to tell her there were free doughnuts in the staff canteen.’
‘Very well,’ said Carlisle. ‘I was inside a small boy.’
There were a few moments of silence after that.
‘Okay,’ replied Rita, finally.
‘You have a depraved mind, Detective.’
‘So that whole time you were.. .whatever it was you were doing... inside a small boy?’
Carlisle shifted, uncomfortable. ‘I was… trapped. At the hands of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike. Trapped within the Angel’s prison.’
‘What happened?’
‘I am no longer trapped.’
‘Wow, and you say I have a talent for stating the obvious.’
Carlisle smiled and breathed in the night air. It felt good to be back inside his own body. No, it felt better than that, though he also felt as though he needed a scalding hot shower, or eight, to get rid of the stink of the almost thing that Bob the exorcist had forced out.
His smile faltered as he recalled the price he’d paid. A promise. A big promise. To be called in at any time. Carlisle was not bound by many things, he had spoken more lies and half-truths in his life than most, and thought nothing of letting people down. But if he offered a promise, he did not welch. He did not like the feeling of being in another’s debt, of knowing he could be made to do something helpful at any given moment.
He wondered just what it would be that the doomed exorcist would ask of him.
‘So,’ he said, ‘it would appear that Cotton and Spike are having a grand old time with this wretched resort of yours.’
‘They’ve expanded their operations, so to speak,’ Rita replied.
‘Indeed. Normally they go person by person. Their scope, their power, limited. Now,’ he gestured to the smoke tendrils spreading far and wide, ‘they are playing with everybody.’
‘It’s the Angel’s power, boosting them, isn’t it?’ said Rita.
‘It is. Partly my fault. I may have, inadvertently, brought Cotton and Spike back from where they were held, after which they were able to leech the Angel’s magic.’
‘You what?’ said Waterson.
‘Yeah, that doesn’t seem like a smart move on your part,’ said Rita.
‘I was… tricked.’
‘Oof, that’s gotta sting that mountain-sized ego of yours, hey?’ said Rita. Carlisle did not respond. ‘Ben Turner is dead,’ she continued. ‘They killed him.’
Carlisle nodded slowly. ‘One question.’
‘What?’
‘Who is Ben Turner?’
‘Who is he?’ Rita began, blood boiling, rising up off the bench.
‘Easy there,’ said Waterson. ‘He was one of the people turned into a werewolf.’
‘Ah yes, the wolf business, it had quite slipped my mind.’
‘He was a friend,’ said Rita. ‘He was one of us, and Cotton and Spike murdered him.’
‘I feel your fury, Detective,’ said Carlisle, ‘and I share in it. The indignities I suffered at their hands. Well, I would very much enjoy hearing what it sounds like when they scream.’
‘Can you stop them?’ asked Rita.
Carlisle shook his head. ‘I do not believe so. Not with the Angel’s power at their disposal.’
Rita flopped back on the bench and sighed. ‘Yeah, I was afraid you were going to say that. I was able to knock them back on my own the first time we faced off, but now… I mean, you can feel it in the air. Feel it all around us.’
‘Power upon power,’ replied Carlisle as the nightmare magic caressed his skin.
‘In that case,’ said Rita, ‘I think I have a plan.’
‘Detective,’ said Carlisle, looking at how shifty her eyes had become, ‘I have a sneaking suspicion that you are about to do something extremely stupid. I wish I could say this surprised me.’
‘Okay, I’m just going to come out with it, so get ready to mock me, you lanky twat.’
‘Consider me cocked and ready to fire.’
‘I’m going to release Jenner from the dreamscape prison.’
Carlisle nodded, ‘As usual, I am correct. That is a plan of pure insanity that will almost certainly spiral towards disaster—’
‘—yes, but—’
‘—and I absolutely agree that it is what we must do.’
Waterson, while surprised that Carlisle was on board for suicide, did enjoy the look of astonishment on Rita’s face.
‘You… I’m sorry, what?’
‘I take it the Angel reached out to you, too?’ asked Carlisle.
‘Yeah.’
‘And me,’ said Waterson raising a hand.
‘Hm. It seems as though It will mix with anyone.’
That was definitely a dig, so Waterson did his best not to react.
‘I believed the Angel was trying to trick me,’ said Carlisle.
‘Me too,’ said Rita.
‘And in truth, It is.’
‘It is?’
‘Oh, absolutely, Detective, but it is also the only next step if we wish to bring an end to Cotton and Spike’s reign of terror.’
‘With the awesome side-effect of the Angel taking control of Jenner again,’ added Waterson. ‘The reason I’m dead, in case anyone’s counting.’
‘People die every second of every day,’ said Carlisle.
‘If Jenner is released,’ said Rita, ‘then, according to the Angel, the magic Cotton and Spike are controlling—the magic we can see above us—will automatically move over to Jenner, leaving those masked turds with only their own magic to throw at us.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Carlisle.
‘And we know that, do we?’ asked Waterson. ‘I mean, we know for a fact that with Jenner out, all the magic will go to him and we can get rid of the other two. It won’t just split between them and we have three super-powered arseholes to deal with?’
‘There’s no knowing for a fact,’ said Carlisle, grimly.
‘Well super,’ said Waterson. ‘All I can say, and this is definitely a first, I’m glad I’m already dead.’
Rita had all of the same doubts as Waterson. There was no knowing how things would play out. And even if they did go like they hoped, and Cotton and Spike were pushed aside, they still had Jenner to deal with.
‘A Jenner who will be much more powerful than when you last faced him,’ said Carlisle, reading her expression. ‘There are many more fissures in the Angel’s prison than there were. The compromised structure has bee
n deteriorating at an increased rate. Forcing Jenner back into the Night Fair you fashioned may prove difficult.’
‘I imagine “difficult” is a big, fat understatement, yes?’ said Waterson.
‘Oh, the biggest,’ replied Carlisle.
‘Tell me you see another way, Casper,’ said Rita. ‘Really, anything you’ve got, I’m open to it.’
Carlisle stood and spun so that his coat fanned out like a cloak, the sparkling lining, like a galaxy of shining stars. ‘I do not. The choice is yours, Detective.’
Rita took a look out at the sea as the waves lapped against the shore. She thought about Ben Turner’s body, curled up on the basement floor.
‘Let’s end those fuckers.’
20
The twisted iron gates of the Night Fair appeared before them, and Rita, Carlisle, and Waterson paused, watching the flames that burned atop each gate post flicker in the cool night breeze.
‘We’re totally, totally all in on this suicide mission, then?’ said Waterson.
‘Feel free to run and hide, ghost,’ said Carlisle.
‘I’m not a coward,’ he replied.
‘You’re also dead, so have a little less skin in the game,’ said Carlisle. ‘And I mean that both figuratively and literally.’
‘Okay ladies, enough bickering, time to put on our shit-proof trousers.’
‘I do believe you missed your calling as a poet, Detective.’
Rita grinned and flexed her fingers around the handle of the axe. What they were stood before was not one gate, but two. One lead to the Night Fair itself. The actual Night Fair. The other, the one only Rita could see, lead to the dreamscape Night Fair. The one she had fashioned using Cotton and Spike’s magic and tricked Jenner into stepping inside of, severing his connection to the Angel.
‘So here’s the plan,’ said Rita.
‘Oh, do tell,’ said Carlisle.
‘Let’s say all goes as smoothly as Waters’ chin...’
‘A crack about my inability to grow a beard. Nice,’ he replied.
‘...Jenner emerges, takes on the Angel’s power again and no doubt twats the living shit out of Cotton and Spike for fucking It around, leaving us with the extra-extra-extra-powered Jenner to deal with.’
Night Terrors: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (Hexed Detective Book 3) Page 14
