“You know, I think I like this outcome better,” the murderer sounded philosophical. It’s better that you’re here as witness rather than sacrificial lamb.”
“What the fuck is this bullshit?” Brownlow glanced over his shoulder. He was backing himself into a corner.
“You may as well sit on that chair rather than hide behind it. The best is yet to come.”
“What the f -” Brownlow gave up repeating his questions and took to shouting for help instead.
He saw that everyone else had left. Some of them had shed their robes, which lay like sloughed skins, soaking up that poor guy’s blood.
Outside, lightning flashed and rain fell like a power-shower.
A figure was on the doorstep, backlit by the dramatic weather. Brownlow recognised her.
“Ms Benn!” he cried. “Thank God!”
Then he remembered it wasn’t long since he’d escaped from Ms Benn’s boathouse of doom... “My God!” his chiselled jaw fell. “You’re in this together!”
Ms Benn strode into the chapel, heedless of the blood on her bare feet. She reached the centre and dropped to one knee in deference.
“I am here, Mother,” she said. She bowed her head. Her gills fluttered.
The figure with the dagger reached up and removed his hood.
“At last, my child!” said Jeremy.
***
Trish collided with Harry as she turned the corner from the chapel.
“Trish!” Harry tried to steady her. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
“He - he - killed him! Harry! Oh, Harry, run! Get away from here!” She tore herself from Harry’s grasp.
Harry exchanged a glance with Ariel. He wasn’t sure if Trish could see the spirit at that moment but he decided that wasn’t the point.
“Call the police!” Harry called after his receding friend.
Trish kept running. Harry could only assume she had heard.
“Perhaps we should be running away too?” Ariel suggested. “I’m not that bothered about a reunion with my old adversary.”
“You’re joking! If you know something about this, you’ve got to help put a stop to it.”
“And by ‘you’ you mean ‘we’, don’t you, Harry?”
“Too bloody right. If your old mucker did for Cheese then I’m damned sure she or he or whatever is not going to get away with it.”
Harry was already heading around the corner. Ariel materialised in front of him, and tried to push him back.
“Perhaps you should leave this to the authorities.”
“Perhaps you should let me pass.”
Harry shoved his way right through the spirit. It was a cold sensation, like stepping into the chiller aisle at the supermarket but more tickly. After a brief shudder, Harry continued on his way, picking up his pace into a jog.
Ariel watched Harry go. He didn’t want the foolish mortal to be hurt. He wished the boy wasn’t so stubborn. He was headed for trouble and that was putting it mildly.
Ariel looked at the sky. Storm clouds were gathering over the ancient building. Rain was circling the chapel. Elsewhere, the skies were clear and the streets were dry.
Water, Ariel sighed. If you wanted water, old bean, you should never have left our island.
***
Harry turned up his collar against the peculiarly localised downpour. Bent low he scuttled around the perimeter of the building. The rear exit was locked. All the windows were closed or boarded up. There was only the front door.
Harry dropped into a crouch and pressed his back against the doorpost. The occupants of the hall were occupied with other matters. If he kept close to the ground, he should be able to sneak in...
***
“Mother?” Kelly Benn was puzzled. It had been centuries since they had last met. In the interim, Mother appeared to have changed sex. Which was no big deal, considering how many times in recent days, Caliban had changed shape and gender himself.
Jeremy held a crystal pendant to his mouth.
Hello, baby!
“I don’t understand. Why have you brought me here? Why have you taken this form? Why have -”
Questions, questions! Honestly. What it is to have an inquisitive child!
From behind his chair in the corner, Brownlow watched this exchange. He tried to catch Ms Benn’s cold eye, but the creature in the centre of the circle of blood was no longer Ms Benn, the personal assistant. The figure contorted and rippled. Bones and muscles swelled and deflated as the transformation happened. Thick, coarse fur sprang out on one half of its body; on the other, glistening scales of silver and green. The half-ape, half-fish creature Caliban revealed itself in its true form.
Caliban stood up, favouring the leg on his ape side. He quickly inspected his shape and grunted with approval and confusion.
“But - but I died, Mother. As did you.”
Foolish talk! You shed your mortal form, as all mortals must. But you forget who your parents were - who your parents ARE! Your mother, a witch, skilled in dark magic, redolent with occult power. And your father...
“My father...” Caliban’s heavy forehead lowered in a frown. He had never known his father.
Your father, the demon god Setebos, you plum! You shed your mortal body and unleashed your demonic powers. How else do you think you’ve been able to swan around, nipping in and out of people’s bodies?
“I was wondering about that,” Caliban put a webbed finger to his lip. “There is so much I don’t know. So much I don’t remember... I was alone on the island. I moved into the old master’s cave. I fed myself. I grew old and lonely - oh, so lonely - and then oblivion!”
I awakened you, my son. I raised you from the cave where your bones still lie and have given you the chance to reach your potential. Now, tell me; have you brought me what I asked?
Caliban’s mind was swimming. Lucky mind, he thought. Oh to be immersed in water! His gills flickered.
Ahem! Have you brought the bloody things or not?
Caliban adjusted his ears to Mother’s more contemporary manner of speaking. He didn’t want Mother to be cross. He wanted a proper reunion after all these years. He wanted a hug.
Well?
The things! Of course, the things! Caliban searched his mind - now his mind again and not the repository of the thoughts and memories of others. What had he done with those bits of old stick?
He picked up the scraps of his last host’s garments. Ms Benn’s two-piece suit, shredded when Caliban’s true form had emerged, was heavy with the objects. Caliban’s webbed hand and monkey claw fumbled with the fabric. At last he freed the objects from the pockets and, falling to his knees, held them aloft.
Well, well, you have done well. Two is not four but two should be enough.
Jeremy tucked his fancy dagger under his arm, reached out and took the blackened pieces of wood in his hands. With a broad, triumphant gesture, he lifted the pieces of Prospero’s staff over his head and rammed them together. The chapel was instantly swamped with light. Caliban recoiled with a furry arm over his eyes.
Brownlow squinted. The light shone pink through his eyelids. The madman was indulging himself in a spot of maniacal laughter.
The light shrank back, absorbed into the staff where the pieces joined.
“What now, Mother?” Caliban looked up. Now would come the praise. Now would come the gratitude. Now would come the hug!
“A pox on you, fish-boy!” Jeremy waved the staff. Caliban was thrown through the air. His back struck a pillar and he slumped to the stones.
“I don’t think that’s his mother,” a voice whispered near Brownlow. The American glanced around. Harry, crouching behind a stack of chairs, held a finger to his lips.
Jeremy took the truncated staff and described a
circle in the pool of sticky blood.
“Two pieces will bind him to me. Two pieces will bring two more. Then I will reign supreme. For now and evermore!”
“I don’t think he’s much of a poet either,” Brownlow muttered from the side of his mouth. Harry gave a thumbs-up.
Jeremy raised the staff to the ceiling and threw back his head.
“Come to me! Come to me!” he roared. Above the roof, thunder and lightning vied for his attention.
“I’m here, Mother!” Caliban tried to crawl into the circle but another wave from the staff repelled him.
“Not you!” Jeremy’s face was a mask of contempt. “You’ve done your bit. The one I want will soon be here! Approach, my Ariel! Come!”
Harry’s mouth fell open.
The storm raged outside; the front doors flapped and banged. As though pulled in by suction, Ariel entered, drawn inexorably towards the centre. The spirit’s eyes were wide. His body elongated as he fought against the force that was drawing him in. Harry had to clamp a hand over his own mouth to stop himself crying out.
Ariel’s mouth stretched in a long, downward curve, reminding Harry of the Munch painting, the figure frozen in a silent scream. But the canvas was stretching. Ariel was distorted like elastic as he struggled to keep out of the circle of blood.
“Come to me!” Jeremy intoned.
The elastic snapped. Ariel contracted into a ball and hit Jeremy in the stomach with enough impact to knock him onto his backside. He dropped the staff but quickly snatched it up again.
Righting himself, Jeremy wiped blood from his hands onto his robe and pointed the tip of the staff at Ariel, who was back in his customary shape again.
“My brave spirit!”
“Yes, master,” said Ariel glumly.
The lightning took on hues of red and blue. The thunder was punctuated with the whoop of sirens. Brownlow and Harry exchanged heartened glances but in an instant their faces fell: what good would the cops do against a maniac wielding unfathomable power?
The question went unanswered. Jeremy commanded Ariel to get them out of there. Ariel sent Harry a pained look as Jeremy clung onto the spirit’s arm.
And then they winked out. They shrank to nothing and popped like a soap bubble.
Just as the police stormed in and took charge of the situation.
Harry and Brownlow emerged from the corner with their hands held high. A look of recognition sprang onto the face of the officer in charge.
“Well, well,” he said. “Ill met by moonlight, I should cocoa.”
Harry shivered. He hated it when people did that. Misquoting. It wasn’t even the right fucking play.
“I’m not with him,” Brownlow jerked his head towards Harry. “I was being held against my will. I -”
“Let’s discuss this down at the station,” the officer in charge silenced the American with a raised hand.
“Do you know who I am?” Brownlow turned up the wattage on his smile. His veneers caught the light of a siren. The officer in charge spoke to the walkie talkie on his lapel.
“Looks like we’ve got a case of amnesia here as well.” He pulled Brownlow by the sleeve. “How very convenient.”
He bundled the American and the Shakespeare lookalike out to a squad car.
“Aye, aye, aye,” he surveyed the scene. The dead body in the circle. The discarded robes. Bloody Satanists. No consideration.
He saw the car head off back to base and oversaw his team at work.
If this gets out, he chewed his lip, it can only look bad for the town. The district council is going to go bonkers. It’s going to take more than a couple of hanging baskets to counteract this kind of bad publicity.
Seventeen.
Alicia was alone. She was nursing a mug of drinking chocolate in the kitchen and watching the hands of the clock go around. Olly was late. Oh, she knew very well he would sometimes go to the pub with the rest of the cast after the show. Not that he was a drinker. He was too fond of his trim little waist to knock back the pints. She fingered the rim of her mug. Yes; she was fond of his trim little waist herself. She would try to appease him, to distract him from all this drama over Harry moving out, by placing her hands on his hipbones and then sinking to her knees, while unbuckling his belt...
Something knocked against the window. Alicia jumped. She froze.
It was probably a branch. Something blown against the glass by the wind. Or a poor little bird, perhaps. Alicia would send Olly out to see - the last thing she wanted was to find a clump of feathers with a broken neck.
She listened. There was nothing, not even the wind. The weather was going crazy lately. The town seemed to be going through a spate of storms. Oh well, crazy weather helped to publicise the play (Look! There’s more than one tempest in town!) and anything that helped with the play would help Olly on his road to stardom. How fortunate he was to get this break! How lucky that Nigel had buggered off to London for meetings with Hollywood producers, allowing his humble understudy to take the limelight for several performances! It was surely the stepping stone Olly needed. Leading roles could not be far away and then fame and acclaim. And awards! Alicia began to window-shop in her mind for the gowns she would wear to premieres and parties, elegant frocks in which she would be papped on the arm of this generation’s most upcoming actor...
The noise again! Only this time it was less of a knock and more of a brushing sound. Something was scratching at the kitchen window.
If it was that no-mark Harry, trying to scare her, or trying to get in, well, she would give him a piece of her mind. She’d thought she had made it perfectly clear that Harry was no longer welcome.
The scratching continued. Alicia put her mug down with a bang.
She stormed over to the blind and pulled the cord. The slats concertinaed upwards to reveal a huge bird’s wing, black and glittering. Alicia screamed. The back door flew open. In walked a giant raven with a human face - the face of that boy Harry had brought home. Alicia backed away, putting the table between her and the monstrous apparition.
Ariel, in the form of a harpy, cawed and shrieked. Alicia covered her ears with her hand, shaking her head in disbelief and sobbing in terror.
On the doorstep was a man, dressed in some kind of monk’s habit. Her first thought was: Harry! But the man took off his hood.
Alicia was surprised to see Olly’s boss, smiling at her. He waved a gnarled stick and the squawking ceased.
“That’ll do, bird,” Jeremy patted Ariel’s feathered shoulder.
“Olly’s not here,” Alicia cried. She began to breathe again: this was something to do with the show. It was just a costume, just a costume, just a costume....
“We’re not here for Oliver,” Jeremy said coldly.
“What?” said Alicia. She still had her hands over her ears. Jeremy made a gesture to indicate the cause of her lack of hearing. Alicia said ‘Oh!’ and lowered her arms.
“I said, Olly’s not here.”
“And I said, We’re not here for Oliver,” Jeremy spoke like a man whose patience was in short supply.
“Wh - what do you want?” Alicia glanced around the kitchen for something sharp. Just in case.
“The staff! Where is it?”
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ariel gave a loud caw that made both her and Jeremy jump.
“That’s enough of that,” Jeremy threatened the bird-man with his stick. “You said the piece of the staff was in this house.”
“And so it is,” said Ariel. “I retrieved it from the library of Birmingham myself. It is in Harry’s room.”
“Good.” Jeremy turned to the cowering woman who was edging ever closer to a cheese grater on the draining board. “We shall take what we have come for and then leave you in peace. Which is
Harry’s room, please?”
“Um...” Alicia grimaced, “I’m afraid Harry doesn’t live here anymore. Harry used to room on the second floor.”
“I know where the room is,” said Ariel. “But that’s not what you’re saying, is it, Miss?”
Alicia couldn’t look directly at the freakish bird-thing, fancy dress costume or no. She directed her response to Jeremy the mad monk instead.
“Harry’s things have all been packed away. We put them in bin bags at the side of the road for him to collect at his convenience.”
“What?” Jeremy roared. “You put one of the most powerful objects in human history out in the street like a piece of old rubbish?”
“I don’t know what you’re on about. It was just unfashionable clothes, some dog-eared books and some unsavoury magazines. I -”
“Silence!” Jeremy waved his stick in Alicia’s face. Alicia shut up, from fear rather than any magic spell.
“And has Harry collected these bags?”
“Well, they’re not there anymore. So either he did or the bin men did.”
Jeremy was incandescent. He looked around for something on which to vent his fury. He seized Alicia’s mug of drinking chocolate and dashed it on the floor tiles.
“You fool!” he spat. “You don’t realise what you’ve done!”
“And you can’t come in barging in here breaking people’s crockery. That was part of a set that was.”
Another wave of the stick scared Alicia into holding her tongue.
“Master?” Ariel, smaller now and less birdlike, turned to Jeremy.
“We must find that piece,” Jeremy snarled. “Where do the bin men take the bags?”
“Well, I don’t know, do I?” Alicia reached behind her. Her fingers closed on a corkscrew. Better than nothing.
“The tip, I suppose...We must find it. If this Harry person has it, then we must find him. Come, Ariel.”
With a swoop of his robe, Jeremy swept from the kitchen. Ariel, boy-shaped again, sent Alicia an apologetic smile and followed.
“I knew all along he was trouble!” Alicia called after the departing freak show. “I told Olly from the start!”
Where The Bee Sucks Page 16