by Al K. Line
Then I confused myself, because if George was missing, it meant something magical had happened, and for her to be gone, to be taken from inside our home, meant someone had entered using a portal of unknown origin powerful enough to break the wards.
So I started there. It was a dead end. The wards were still in place, there had been no tampering or disruption, so what happened?
Their shoes were missing. Maybe I had it wrong and they'd gone outside for some reason and then been taken. Kidnapped.
I went outside, reluctantly fed the chickens and the pigs, and checked the stables. The horses were there, none too happy to see me as we had a hate, hate, relationship, mainly because they kept trying to break my back, but there was no sign of George. Her help would arrive soon so I left a note saying George was unwell and not to be disturbed, and returned to the kitchen.
Thinking this all through as logically as I could, the only thing I was sure of so far was that magic was involved with their disappearance. And if that was the case then some kind of Path must have been opened to take George, and someone powerful was behind it. Meaning, it was probably linked to Sasha's disappearance. The portals opened at Vicky's had been Sasha trying to reach us, to get a message, maybe to return to us, or at least show us what we had to do. It hadn't worked, ended up being a trip down memory lane, but maybe that was the point?
What was I missing here?
Everything.
So, save all of them to save any of them. At least I had that to go on.
And Juice, what had happened to him? Did I care? No, not about him, but I cared about his legacy, the Hangman. That would have to wait. I was sure I'd cross his path soon enough. What would happen with Juice out of the picture though? Maybe the rope fetishist couldn't stay, would return to the Nolands?
"Not knowing my bloody luck," I said to the room, wishing someone was there to tell me off about something.
I tidied the kitchen, but there was one bit of mess I couldn't clear up on my own. I called the Cleaner, adjusted the wards so she could come and go, drank another cup of coffee, grabbed anything I could think of that I might need, including the noose still on the table, put my boots back on at the door, and stepped out into the madness that was the world The Hat occupied no matter how much he tried to avoid it.
The Scene of the Crime
All good—and utterly inept—detectives know that the perp will often return to the scene of the crime. They also know that they have to study the crime scene extensively, go over every detail, stare long and hard at things from a multitude of angles, and somewhere, either in plain sight or hidden under the rug, will be a clue.
Failing that, it's a good place to mope and feel sorry for yourself, maybe ponder why it is that you're unable to uncover the slightest clue as to what the fuck is going on.
So I did that. It perked me up considerably.
I sat in Vicky's dining room on the only unbroken chair, and felt sorry for myself.
Where was everyone?
The room was in chaos, everything smashed and reeking of magic. Dangerous magic, not that there is any other. I could smell Faery, taste the Hangman's private slice of hell; none of it gave anything away. Just me in a style-challenged dining room without a chair to put my feet up on. Instead, I put my boots on the table, feeling guilty for such a transgression even though Vicky wasn't here to see it and it was broken anyway.
I leaned back, stretched out my legs, so obviously the chair toppled backward and I landed hard on my back.
Typical.
Staring up at the ceiling, cursing my luck, I noticed the stains. It was like a particularly mind-bending Rorschach test, me having to uncover the meaning of the inkblots or lose everyone I loved. I didn't move a muscle, just stared at the strange blobs on the ceiling like they had the answers to all this madness and confusion.
There were several of them at random places on the ceiling, but the main concentration and the largest mark was over in the corner near where the Path had opened and sucked George and I into Sasha's ghost-memories.
Confused, but excited that this at least meant something, I dragged over the ridiculously heavy table and clambered up for a closer look. It wasn't ink, that was for sure, but some kind of sticky residue, dark brown like dried blood. It took a while to register, but the significance finally filtered though my dim wits.
Swearing and cursing under my breath, heart having already leaped out of my throat and raced up the stairs, I jumped down and followed, taking them three at a time. What was above the dining room? I barged through into the master bedroom, banging the door open. The smell hit before the sight did.
I gagged and staggered back as a wall of putrid stink jabbed at my nostrils like gore-covered knives. I couldn't look but I had to. Please don't be George, please don't be Sasha, please don't be Vicky, I repeated over and over as I slowly looked down. I couldn't do it, couldn't bring myself to look. If it was any of them I knew I'd break down.
But I had to, and so I whipped my head around to get a glimpse at the cause of the stains on the ceiling.
There wasn't much to see, not in terms of a true corpse anyway.
The clothes had been stripped off, and from what I could make out, terrible things had been done to the body. What wasn't putrefying or gelatinous liquid, were badly mutilated strips of flesh seemingly peeled away, discarded around the room. Skin hung from lamps, dripped from where long brown lengths draped over the bed to the floor.
The room was a furnace, a heater plugged in and blasting out heat. I opened a window and welcomed the heavy air that allowed me to take several deep breaths before I returned to inspect the corpse.
The head was smashed, the face unrecognizable as male or female, utterly caved in. The chest had been treated similarly. Just repeatedly bashed in until the ribcage gave way, exposing the organs. Some had been ripped out, thrown to the floor where they oozed and sank through to the dining room.
Legs were flayed, skin peeled back like candy wrappers covered in chocolate, but it wasn't chocolate, and it sure didn't smell like it. Blood was everywhere, more than you would think a human body contained. I'd seen such sights before yet never came to terms with how much the body had inside it, not that much was still in this one.
As I stared between the legs of this poor person I discovered it was a man. I sighed with relief, then felt awful for the fact I was so relieved. Nobody deserved this kind of treatment.
Who was he? He'd obviously been here for a while. Maybe since this all began. Before? No, Vicky would have mentioned it, as it isn't the kind of thing you'd forget. Magic was heavy in the air, yet so was pure malice, an almost gleeful lingering of such dark intent it soaked into the room, emanated from the corpse, telling of the pleasure taken, the satisfaction.
I turned off the heater, threw a blanket over the body, and closed the door on my way out.
This was getting out of hand, and it didn't bode well for the people I cared about most in this world.
Back downstairs, I did the only thing I could think of, and pulled Wand from my pocket.
"Any ideas? You've been quiet."
"Not really. I can show you if you like."
"You can?"
"Sure."
I kept calm and said, "You could have mentioned that back at the house."
"Bit tired. Didn't think."
I took a deep breath, and said, "Show me."
Freaky Goings On
"You sure about this?" asked Wand cautiously. "It's pretty gross. How's your stomach?"
"My stomach's fine, and I've seen worse," I snapped, annoyed by his concern for no other reason than I was in a bad mood with the world in general. Plus, annoyed I hadn't been told about this when everyone had disappeared.
"If you say so. Okay, hold on to something, you're in for a wild and disgusting ride. Oh, and you'll have to go back up. I can't do this without us being in the room."
"Fine." I traipsed upstairs, a lot slower than last time.
Knowing I'd
only be cheating myself by not heeding his advice, I sat on the edge of the bed and gripped the mattress. Images spun in my head like a whirlpool, then snapped to a reality that was so sharp and clear it was painful to watch. But not as painful as what the guy went through.
Magic was in the air. Violent, strange, and menacing. The air crackled as the man writhed and twisted, his face contorted in agony. But he was alone.
He was shouting, maybe at an unseen assailant, maybe at the magic that tore at his clothes. He batted at emptiness as though an invisible enemy was repeatedly attacking, but as far as I could tell nothing was happening. It was all in his mind. Then he began to tear at his clothes, then his flesh, screaming and shouting, spinning, jumping, crying, sometimes even laughing. He was naked soon enough, down to just his socks, and then the frenzy truly began.
The man tore at his skin with blunt fingernails, scratching and violating the skin but not doing the damage I'd witnessed. He charged around the room, clawing at his head, picking up broken pieces of glass, shards of lamp bases, anything to use to hurt himself. Skin began to peel away as he screamed and went to work, flinging away strips of his own body. On it went, the mutilation getting worse, his insane chattering silent, no sound coming through the vision Wand showed me.
There were jumps in the images, bits and pieces Wand couldn't claw back from the past, so one minute the man was slicing flesh, the next he was smashing his head into the wall, slamming fists against furniture, beating against the floor with broken, bruised hands. On and on it went, everything running fast as the images worsened and Wand clearly did his best to save me from living through it in real time.
Now the man was little but a wild animal, doing anything he could to end his own life. Things happened I didn't know a human being could endure, let alone inflict on themselves. He sliced open his own stomach and reached in as he cackled, utterly lost to the deepest insanity I'd ever witnessed. Then he ran and slammed his head as hard as he could into a knob at face height on built-in cupboards and his face caved in.
The screaming stopped, and slowly, ever so slowly, he took several awkward steps backwards then collapsed where he now lay. I watched, stunned, as his chest rose and fell for several seconds more until, thankfully, he died.
The vision cleared and I snapped back to reality feeling sick and glad I was sitting down.
"Hell, why would anyone do that to themselves? How could they?"
"Told you it was gross." Wand shifted in my hand, as if squirming at the memory. Did he get emotional about such things? Did it touch his magical sentience?
"Who was this dude?" I wondered.
"No idea. But he must have done something very bad, to someone even worse than him, to be given that kind of puke-fest of a punishment."
"Yeah, but who?" I didn't like the thought of the person who'd made him act like this still being around, let alone that he'd done it in Vicky's damn bedroom. When had this happened? Where were Vicky and the kids when such acts were performed? Had it happened before the girls were here? I tried to think back to the previous day and the timeline but it was hard to get it straight as so much had happened.
Obviously, George and the girls hadn't been here when it occurred, they'd have heard it. So when? And was this why all hell had broken loose in the dining room? Was the disappearance of everyone even related to any of this?
I put my head in my hands and sighed. This was so out of control I didn't even know where to begin. People disappearing, bodies in bedrooms, the Hangman, Juice and his madness, dead people everywhere and no clue what to do or how to begin to get my family back. I was running out of time, I was sure of it. Where should I go? What should I do?
I stumbled down the stairs, headed for the kitchen. I flipped on the kettle and decided coffee might help. It certainly couldn't make things any worse.
I put instant and some milk in a mug and the kettle switched off. A moment later I heard a sound, like the front door closing quietly. Wand was out of my pocket in an instant and I waited, prepared for the worst.
At that precise moment, my phone rang. Bloody typical. Knowing my element of surprise was gone, and keeping an eye on the doorway, I pulled it out and answered.
"I thought you said there was a body?" snapped the Cleaner, sounding truly pissed off.
"There was. There is," I said, confused.
"Well it's not here now. Don't mess me about. I'm busy." She hung up.
Frowning, I pocketed the phone, looked up, and I don't know why, but I wasn't even surprised to see him.
"Hey, Juice."
"Hi, Arthur," said Juice, grinning from ear to ear.
These truly were the worst few days of my life.
Getting Annoyed
"What the fuck are you smiling at?" I growled, wishing I was tucked up in bed, or anywhere but here. I gulped some coffee, burned my mouth, which was typical, then placed the mug down. I read the words on the mug, World's Best Wizard, and smiled as I recalled the girls giving it to me, making me promise to leave it here and use it whenever I visited. The only thing a wizard such as myself could possibly need for his birthday. They weren't wrong, it was a perfect gift. Then my smile vanished, and I charged across the room and grabbed Juice by the ear.
"Ow, ow, ow," he whined. "What are you doing that for? Careful, it hurts."
"It's supposed to hurt, you utter twat. Now shut up." I dragged him into the dining room, kicked a chair out, and pushed him down into it. I gave him an extra hard yank, just because it was Juice, then released him and stepped back.
"Thought you'd be pleased to see me?" he said, rubbing his ear. He was wearing a new Adidas t-shirt, same jeans, same annoying face, but he'd clearly washed his hair because the blood was gone, although it still looked lank and greasy as hell. How did he manage that? How did he manage not to be very dead with half his head missing earlier? Blood or no blood, I was certain when I'd seen him last the back of his skull was gone.
Then it clicked.
"You fucking coward," I accused. "What happened?"
"I had no choice. You would have done the same. It was freaky, man, and what could I do?"
"You could have tried to help them. And you drugged me, drugged them too I bet. What were you thinking? What was the plan, eh?"
"I just wanted you to cool down a little. I needed time to think. And I, er, well, I wanted to have a nose about the place. Check out your pad. No harm, no foul." Juice grinned; I forced myself not to smack him.
How could I have been so stupid? Juice hadn't been dead, he'd been using magic to make himself look dead. If I hadn't been so out of it I would have seen through it in an instant. But I'd hardly given him a second glance as I honestly didn't care, was glad he was out of the way. Although, at least maybe now I'd find out how to get rid of the Hangman. If I didn't kill Juice before then.
"Talk, and it better be good. So you drugged us, just to be a nosy sod. What then? Where's George and Vicky?"
"Things got freaky, man, I just said. You lot crashed out, and I was just about to take a look around, figure out what to do, maybe stay a while."
"Yeah, I bet. Hide out in my house protected by wards, you mean. Leave us drugged and defenseless. What about the girls, Vicky's kids?"
"Hadn't really thought that far ahead. I just wanted some quiet. Your friends and family are very noisy, Arthur, don't know how you manage."
"Bit rich coming from you. You have heard yourself, right? You're a blabbermouth, you whine, you don't stop talking, and you're a fucking idiot."
"Hey! No need for that. I'm here now, so let's get to it."
"Just tell me what happened," I said, deflated, still grossed out by what I'd seen upstairs.
"Fine. You're such a grump. This where it happened? Where the Paths opened and you and George saw all that weird shit? Wish I could have seen it too. And you saw the Hangman's home! You're so lucky." Juice's eyes darted around the room, taking it all in, a look of longing on his very smackable face.
"How'd you get he
re?" I asked.
"Got a lift from one of my guys. Told you they were loyal."
"Bollocks, it's miles away. You couldn't drive here that fast."
"Not in a car. A helicopter." Juice grinned, smug as hell. "And hey, I was meaning to ask. How did we get down there so fast? I worked it out, the time is all wrong, it would have taken hours."
"None of your business. So your men aren't trying to kill you for what you did?"
"Nope. Turns out Mum kind of freaked them out and they're happy she's gone. Not that any of them said that, but I can tell."
"Oh, yes, I forgot, you're a true pro when it comes to reading people. Ugh, stop sidetracking me, what happened at my house?"
"So, I'd just slipped you a little thing to sleep, so I could catch my breath, although I still hadn't figured out how to handle Steve, and everything went kind of whooshy. All magical and stuff. I could feel the vibe, and it wasn't good. Angry, with a definite murder edge, and I didn't want to be murdered. So I played dead."
"And how did you play dead?" I asked, although I already knew.
"Death spell, of course," he said, giving me a pitiful look like I was a child.
"I know what a bloody death spell is. What I don't know is how you can do one. You aren't a wizard, you can't do magic."
"No, but I have a lot of artifacts. I used one. I had the spell stored, traded it with this old wizard dude a while back as I thought it might come in handy when I, um, sent Mum on to the next world."
"You've been planning this for that long?" I asked, my opinion of him going lower than I'd thought possible.
"I'd considered it. Look, stop judging me. You don't know what she was like. It was a nightmare."
"Spare me. I know what bad parenting is like, and here's how you deal with it. You fucking move out!" I was shouting now, at the end of my tether. Juice was enough to send you over the edge at the best of times but this was too much.
"Okay, temper, temper. So, this weird death vibe was in your kitchen, and I knew it would be bad, so I activated the spell in the bracelet and prayed it would work. Guess it did. Next thing I knew, everyone was gone. So I borrowed some tech, Vicky has good gear, and tracked you down. You gotta watch it with the phones, Arthur, very easy to track someone that way."
