The sky was starting to darken as I pulled to a stop in the Uncanny Wagon and looked out over the green of the Lake District.
‘Right then.’
My phone buzzed again, Eva. It was the fifth time she’d tried calling since I’d messaged her and Maya to come and meet me at the night circle.
At the site where Elga and her Kin lurked, growing stronger with each passing night.
I rejected the call, stepped out of the car, and started to make my way toward the location of the circle. The sun had almost dipped below the horizon and I could already see a faint smattering of pin prick stars above me.
I might be about to die.
I was willingly putting my head into the lion’s jaws just to see what would happen.
Part of me was poop the bed terrified, another part—the grieving part, the angry part—wasn’t worried at all.
The stones were beginning to shimmer into view.
I rested my hand against one. It was strange to feel something that looked like a flickering image have such solidity beneath my fingers.
I felt my phone buzz again and pulled it out. A message from Eva: Don’t do anything stupid, stupid!
I smiled and messaged back: Since when have I done anything else?
I looked up at the moon, shining down on me like a polished coin.
The circle was complete. Solid. Ready to send one of its number out into the surrounding area to find a new person to murder and drain of their power. The stone would return to its place and feed that power, that strength, to the bodies that lay beneath the ground. The cult trapped in an undead state in this circle by me, by my coven, hundreds of years ago.
I rapped my knuckles against the standing stone. ‘Knock, knock. Janto the warlock, witch of the Cumbrian Coven, will see you now.’
Janto the warlock. Janto the Witch. That was me. And here I was, doing what I was supposed to do. Putting myself in harm’s way.
The air was still, not a sound.
‘I said Janto the warlock will see you now!’ I screamed, my voice cracking. I could feel my pain in that cry. The grief. The anger.
A hand reached up from the dirt a few stones over. The same stone Eva had peed in front of the previous night. Elga was answering my unannounced drop-in. I stepped back, out of the circle itself.
‘Sorry if you were having a lie in,’ I said, ‘but this really can’t wait.’
Her head emerged, her shoulders, and then she dragged herself fully into view, her scarlet robe fluttering in the breeze. ‘Janto,’ she hissed, her voice like leaves blowing across a crypt floor.
‘Yup, that’s me, apparently. Janto the witch. The ancient magical bad arse that sentenced you to live like a worm for centuries. How’s tricks?’
I was vamping, trying to hide my fear, as all around the circle, other hands began to break the surface. The rest of this zombie death cult dragging their decaying bodies into the night air.
‘Must be good to get up and stretch your dead bones every now and again, eh?’ I said.
Elga snapped her fingers together, and all thirty stones twisted to face me. Which was scary as hell, make no mistake.
‘Why do you come here again?’ she asked. ‘Do you wish to die?’
‘Maybe,’ I replied.
‘We could… accommodate that.’
I stepped closer, heart beating so hard it felt as though it might crack my ribcage. ‘Do you know what I am?’
‘You are a witch,’ replied Elga.
I smiled and shook my head.
‘No, not just a witch. Do you have any idea of the power I have access to now? The magic that I could give to you?’
Elga tilted her head to one side. ‘I do not understand.’
I pulled something out of the pocket of my jacket and held it forward. It was grass. Blood-red grass.
‘Do you know what this is?’ I threw the grass towards Elga, who reached out, grabbing some blades as they fell.
‘Dark Lakes,’ she said, and the other cult members whispered the words over and over.
‘I’m not just a witch. I’m the Magic Eater.’
The stiff lips of the half-dead thing before me drew back to reveal crooked, yellow-brown teeth.
‘Yeah, you know what that is, don’t you?’
‘Such power,’ hissed Elga.
‘Such awful, boring power,’ I replied.
‘You… offer us this power?’
I swallowed. I could feel my pulse beating in my neck.
‘I do.’
‘Why?’
‘Because people keep dying. All I ever wanted to know was who I am. Who I really am. And nothing about what I’ve found out so far has been good. I’m a murderer. I killed the other witches. The ones that helped me take you down. And I’ve killed the woman I’ve loved for almost as long as my memory goes back.’
‘And so?’
I stepped forward, snarling. ‘And so I want revenge on a world that would let any part of that happen. What good is life if all it is, is shit and pain and loss? If that’s life, if that’s my truth, then it can go to hell.’
I stepped inside the boundary of the stone circle.
‘Idiot, what’re you doing!’
I turned to see Eva and Maya, racing up from the road toward me.
‘I’m getting out,’ I replied.
‘We… feel your power…’ said Elga, her voice taking on an awed quality, as all around me the rest of her cult writhed and moaned in pleasure.
‘Joe, get the hell out of there,’ said Maya, her baton out, warily eying the groaning corpses.
‘What point is there in doing good, if in the end everyone dies anyway? Why not just get the whole thing over with?’
Eva yelled and threw a ball of fire toward me, but it bounced against some unseen barrier that seemed to now protect the circle.
‘No!’ she screamed. ‘Janto, you fuck!’ Eva threw volley after volley, but it was no good, the barrier held. The cult was too strong for her. Soon, they’d be too strong for anyone.
‘I’ll see you soon, Chloe,’ I said, and smiled.
The stones began to throb with energy. Scarlet trails of power strobing up and down the grey of each stone, ready to feast on what I had to offer. Ready to take it all and feed it to Elga and her Kin.
‘Joe, please,’ said Eva, ‘don’t do this. Chloe’s dead, but she had to die. Bitch was evil!’
I ignored her, didn’t turn my head to see her or Maya. Didn’t want to see their faces. All I could do was concentrate on me. On Elga. On not falling into a terrified bundle on the ground.
‘The power of this witch shall be ours!’ said Elga, hands aloft, her Kin cheering, swaying back and forth. ‘The power of the witch, the power of the Magic Eater, all that he has shall be ours and we will at last step out of this prison and tear this world down!’
I thought about Chloe, curled up on the couch beside me, her bare feet touching my leg, as we watched television and whiled away the hours in each other’s company.
That had been real. No matter what else I’d discovered about her after, that had been real. Those moments. Those feelings. The pain I felt now. The ache that only a lost love can inflict.
I fell to my knees, tears streaking my cheeks.
‘Just take it! Take it, please!’
The energy from one of the stones burst forward and wrapped itself around me, making me gasp as it sank into me. Probed me. Scraped against every nerve ending I had.
‘Feed us!’ said Elga. ‘Give us all of you!’
‘Do you want it? All that I am?’ I said, forcing each word out as stone after stone fired its energy at me, invaded my body, made me shake and spasm in pain.
‘We want it!’ said Elga.
Every stone now, all thirty of them, shone fiercely in the black of the night. I thought I saw bright yellow explosions in the periphery of my vision. Eva not giving up. Trying again and again to break in. To save me? No, probably to kill me.
‘Do you... accept... i
t? Do you accept... all that is…. Uncanny about me?’
‘Yes!’
I could barely speak now, the pain was so intense, it felt as though every atom of me was being torn apart. But I had to carry on. I had to say the words.
‘Do you…. accept…. my magic…. my debt...?’
‘Yes!’
‘Do you want all of it?
They chanted as one. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
‘Say it!’
‘We accept it! Give it to us! Give all of it!’
And so I did.
I cried out, my scream a blade that cleaved the air. Throwing my head back, arms out, the stones dragged power from me. I could feel it draining from me. The energy that gripped me now shot back, too, striking each member of the cult in turn, their dead forms shaking, screeching, desperate for everything I had to give them.
It was too much. The pain, the feeling of being pulled apart, I couldn’t concentrate.
But no—
No—
Had to concentrate—
Ignore the agony, the fear, the instinct to just let it all go and for the light to switch off.
I had to concentrate on one thing and one thing alone. Push that forward. Give it to them. Let them have it.
‘Take it!’ I yelled.
I felt the weight leave me, and I smiled. Somehow, through all the pain, I smiled. I may even have started laughing.
‘Now!’ I said, or thought, I wasn’t really sure. ‘Take what is yours! Take it all!’
The ground trembled and the energy bursting from the standing stones crackled and died. I fell to the dirt on my side, the cold grass against my face as I twitched, at the mercy of my frazzled nerves.
‘What is this?’ asked Elga.
I pulled air into my lungs as I weakly pushed myself up onto my feet.
‘Oh,’ said Eva, who looked at me dumbfounded. ‘Oh, you absolute motherfucker.’
‘What? What did I just miss?’ asked Maya.
‘Oh you total and utter motherfucker!’ said Eva.
‘You know it,’ I said.
Elga was gripping her chest. ‘Take it back! I do not accept it! Take it back!’
‘Yeah, no give backsies,’ I said and staggered out of the circle as the ground inside began to crack. I fell to my knees, Eva kneeling to help me.
‘You’re an idiot,’ she said.
‘I know.’
It was the fox that gave me the idea.
I had a debt. A soul that was being fought over by a group of demons. A group of demons that were eager for my death so that one of them could snatch the prize.
‘What has he done?’ asked Maya, staring at the circle as grey smudges with burning red eyes began to seep out of the ground.
‘He tricked them,’ said Eva.
All those demons owed, and only one soul. I drove to the well and I climbed down and I offered them an alternative. Thirty souls. Enough for them all to have a little fun. The best part? They could claim what they were owed right away. No need to try and fight against the others, or attempt to expedite death. The things taking on the debt were already, in most ways, dead.
The souls were ready for the taking as soon as the debt was accepted.
Maya’s eyes widened as Eva filled her in. She looked from me, then to the circle, as the demons tore out what was theirs and dragged the screaming souls down into hell, the vessels they’d been in crumbling to dust at last. Dead. Empty. Defeated.
It had been a risk.
No, a bit more than a risk. I really hadn’t known how it would go. A big part of me assumed I’d never walk out of the circle. That they would drain me dry and I’d die, having given them all that power that waited for me in the Dark Lakes.
But no.
I’d only gone and bloody well pulled it off.
I smiled up at Eva, whose face was fighting between impressed and really shitting annoyed.
‘Go team coven,’ I said.
Then high-fived myself like a really cool idiot.
Then blacked out.
29
I was in no shape to do anything for the next few days, let alone work. Lucky for me, I’d already phoned in sick, so it was no stretch to keep that going for a little while longer.
Eva remained pissed at me. On the one hand, I had just done something fairly awesome: gotten rid of the debt on my soul, and destroyed a super powerful, zombie-looking death cult that were days from breaking free of their prison and raining hell down upon the county, the country, the whole world.
On the other hand, I hadn’t told her the truth.
I kinda thought the first one massively outweighed the other, but in the days since the circle had fallen, I hadn’t heard diddly squat from her, and every message I sent remained unanswered.
Four days later I limped into the reception of Carlisle Hospital to take my first shift since, you know, saving the world.
‘Joe, either you’ve set yourself up as a pimp or your leg is fucked,’ said Big Marge as I approached the desk at a slow hobble.
‘I’m afraid there aren’t many openings for a pimp in Cumbria,’ I replied, smiling. ‘I just fell down the stairs.’
‘You live in a flat. A flat doesn’t have any stairs.’
‘I know, that’s the weird thing.’
Big Marge raised an eyebrow, then went back to the magazine she’d been reading. ‘Glad you’re better. There’s something awful needs mopping in the ladies on the second floor. Something devastating.’
Ah, it was good to be back.
Well, it was, until a few hours later, when I walked into a corridor on my way to shove a fist full of coins into the vending machine, only to find Dr Neil and Detective Martins stood together in deep conversation.
‘Shit,’ I muttered. Those were the last two people I wanted to see.
Apart from the Red Woman. Or some horror movie style sudden reappearance of Elga, her bony hand bursting out of the ground in a surprise-fucker! jump scare ending.
I tried to change course, only for the door behind me to bang closed and draw their attention.
Looks like I used up all my luck in that stone circle.
‘Mr Lake,’ said Detective Martins, walking over to me. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve anything new to tell me about the disappearance of Chloe Palmer?’
I bowed my head and sighed.
‘Just tell us where she is!’ demanded Dr Neil. ‘I know you’ve got something you’re not telling us!’
‘This is your last chance, Lake,’ said Martins. ‘Your last chance to tell me something useful and make things easier on yourself. Tell me where Chloe Palmer is.’
‘Um, I’m sort of, over here.’
To say all three of our faces were slack with amazement as we turned to see Chloe stood before us was something of an understatement.
‘Chloe?’ said Dr Neil.
‘Yeah. Who’s that?’ she asked, pointing at Martins.
‘My…’ Martins coughed and straightened his tie, trying to put his gruff, snake eyed demeanor back in place. ‘My name is Detective Martins.’
‘Ah, right, I was meaning to come in to the station and put your fears to rest.’
‘Chloe, where have you been?’ asked Dr Neil.
‘I know, I know, dick move to just ghost out on you like that, but I was so tired of the pressure of this job. Of my life. And, actually, so sick of you, you boring, dumb piece of shit. Oh, I couldn’t wait to get away from you, you Casper-looking motherfucker.’
I tried to swallow back the smirk that was fighting its way out of my mouth.
I completely failed.
‘Detective Martins, I’m sorry, I took myself away for a few days, and I meant to text work to let them know, and just completely forgot. I’m so sorry for the trouble caused, I really had no idea.’
‘People have been trying to call you,’ he said.
‘I’ll bet, but I lost my phone. I’ve been camping. In Scotland.’
‘Scotland?’
‘Yup.
’ She smiled and winked at me.
‘I’ve decided to live off the grid from now on. Just sick of all this modern shit, you know?’
‘I see,’ replied Martins, his voice emerging from between gritted teeth. ‘Mr Lake, you’re off the hook.’
‘Thank you. I did tell you,’ I said.
Martins grimaced at me, then left.
Eva was leaning against the side of the Uncanny Wagon, a can in her hand and a smoke between her lips.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘Hm? What for?’ she replied.
‘For doing that. For being Chloe. Now she can disappear again and no one will think anything of it.’
‘Yeah. Well. You’re not the only one with good ideas.’
I smiled. ‘So it was a good idea?’
‘I never said that.’
‘You totally said that. Just then.’
Eva turned to look at me, scowling. ‘I was about to say that was the dumbest move you’ve ever pulled, but in all honesty, it’s not even close.’
‘But it worked. I couldn’t tell you. You wouldn’t have let me do it, and it was the only way.’
I climbed behind the wheel, Eva falling across the back seats, her feet sticking out of the open window.
As I turned the key and the engine coughed into life, Eva patted me on the shoulder.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. Just… Malden would say thanks. And then probably go into some very dull story about his bowel movements. I’m going to miss those.’
I looked in the rearview. Eva smiled back at me. I don’t think I’d ever seen her smile at me with anything even close to affection before. The last thing I wanted to do now was ruin the moment.
‘You know, I think you’re starting to like me.’
Well, there we go, I went and ruined it.
I smiled, well, until a stick thwacked across the back of my head.
‘Oi!’
‘What. It’s my whacking stick. It’s a call back.’
‘What now?’ I said, rubbing at my sore head.
‘Call Maya.’
‘Why? Not more trouble?’
‘Nah. But I’m not getting pissed with just you. Drive on, idiot.’
I smiled and steered out of the hospital car park, the pub our destination.
The End.
Dark Lakes, Volume One: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (A Dark Lakes Collection Book 1) Page 31
