Urban Occult

by Various

  This time Rabbit let the mist engulf him as he sat in a spreading puddle of his own piss. The world turned grey, the brash graffiti sprayed across the walls vanished. Layered like lamprey teeth, bone blades cut through the murky coils and extended towards him. These were the same blades that had hacked Jonesy into a thousand pieces while Rabbit had watched, transfixed by fear.

  And they had watched him. As Jonesy died, Rabbit saw that they were staring at him—sucking in his terror. Their beetle-black eyes glittered in the darkness as they carved up Corporal Jones.

  The memory made Rabbit want to scream, to get up and run again, but fear had turned his legs to water, and despair nailed him to the floor…

  Rabbit roused himself from the waking nightmare. He shivered. “What’s he called? Your mate the… you know. The one who was with you when you, when you saved… The night you found me in the underpass.”

  “Un-Twy-do-Maylo,” said Jack. “It means, ‘He Who Speaks with Fire’ in er…” He flailed the skewered pigeon as though trying to conjure words from the air with a malformed wand. “I dunno; whatever made-up lingo he pretends he speaks. S’all bollocks: he’s from Hackney. His old lady calls him Claude.” Jack gave a rasping, sixty-a-day laugh.

  “‘He Who Speaks with Fire.’” Rabbit repeated the name. “That sounds about right…”

  The roar was deafening; it had ripped through the mist a second before the lion leapt onto the Medu’lan Al’haz. Was it a lion? No. It must have been a dog, a mastiff or a pit bull maybe… Whatever it was it tore the demon apart, painted the walls in shades of blood and screaming like a fucked-up Jackson Pollock.

  The next thing Rabbit remembered was Jack shaking him; breathing his stale-beer and fag butt breath in his face. He’d asked Rabbit if he was okay, and what the fuck he thought he was doing bringing them to Clapham.

  When Rabbit got up, drenched in his own piss and vomit, he saw that the underpass was empty except for him, Jack, and a black guy with long, ginger dreads and amber eyes. The mist, the blood, the demons were gone.

  How long ago had that happened? A month—two? He wasn’t sure; time had no meaning in Wonderland. Rabbit reached for the holed stone hanging on a bootlace around his neck. It was smooth, warm and worn—comforting in a weird kind of a way. When he gave it to him Jack had said it was a charm to ward off evil spirits; that it would keep them away.

  Jonesy didn’t have a charm the night they’d come for him. There was no shapeshifter or self-proclaimed sorcerer there to save his mate. But then, Jonesy was the one who’d killed her. Rabbit had only watched. Rabbit tried to wipe the image from his mind, tried not to see the bullets plucking at her abaya, tried not to see her fall again.

  He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until all he saw was a red haze, and all he could feel was the pulse of his blood throbbing in his temples. He climbed out of his doss bag and went over to the fire.

  “As we’re talkin’ names, why do they call you Rabbit, Rabbit?” Jack offered Rabbit the dripping skewer. The pigeon was shrivelled and burnt.

  Rabbit waved it away. “No thanks, I’ll get a ‘bab later. My name’s Matt, Matthew Rabbett and I’m Welsh, so Rabbett became Welsh rarebit—Rabbit. A Lance Jack called me it the first day of Basic and it stuck.

  “That’s borin’,” Jack snorted and bit a chunk out of the pigeon.

  “Never said it wasn’t. So why do they call you Jack?”

  Rabbit laughed, but Jack didn’t. He just looked at him; his eyes glowed like pearls in the firelight. He tugged his hats down. “That’s a story for another day, mi old mucker, for when you’ve finished yer apprenticeship.”

  “Fuck off,” said Rabbit. He needed something to drink. He was in danger of sobering up, of losing the nice, snug beer-blanket he’d wrapped himself in ever since Jones got… ever since Rosie… fuck. Fuck it all. He sparked up his last cig, tossed the packet onto the fire.

  As doss-holes went this one was pretty cushtie It was a warehouse that had until recently housed an illegal still. Fake Smirnoff labels littered the floor and the stink of ethanol still lingered despite the rank odour of man-piss, bird shit, and cigs. Nobody bothered him here or tried to rob him or stab him for a swig of voddie. Sometimes he wished they would, when the night terrors and the sweats had him in their grip, when he couldn’t stop thinking about Jones and Rosie… and them. Those were the times that he wished he was dead.

  Rabbit ground the cig butt into the concrete. “What are we doing here again?”

  “We’re waiting for the event, and then we’re cleaning up the mess they leave.” Jack licked the skewer clean. He’d eaten everything, even the bones. “That was good—nothing like a little taste of evil to spice up a diet, eh?”

  “I’m going for a kebab.” Rabbit grabbed his jacket and headed over to the boarded up window they used as a door. As he pushed the board aside, Jack started singing. Rabbit looked back across the gloomy cavern. The old man was bathed in scattered gold, rocking gently on his car seat throne.

  “I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing that’s real…” The old man’s tobacco-scarred voice scratched the words into the hollow air and filled the warehouse with a melancholy as dark as the gathering shadows.

  Rabbit could see in the dark. He wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened; just that it was some time after Jonesy was killed. Jack said it was part of his wyrd. Being around too many DU rounds, more like. He probably had a bastard tumour, which would explain the hallucinations and the headaches. It might even account for why he felt that time had stopped for him that he was a ghost trapped in the world of the living.

  He tossed the soggy, arse-end of the kebab and sparked up a cig from the new pack. He had enough money for a pint, but he couldn’t go into a pub stinking like a dosser.

  “Excuse me, sir.” Someone who could only be a copper called down the alley where Rabbit had hunkered to eat his kebab without every fucker gawping at him. Rabbit didn’t turn around. He started walking away from the voice, away from the lights of the main road towards the sanctuary of poorly lit backstreets.

  “Oi!”

  Rabbit stumbled, his chest tightened. Run or stop, run or stop, run or… ? His brain froze. Six months ago he’d have known exactly what to do; now he was stuck, crippled with indecision. It was like the logic circuits in his brain had burned out and anxiety had filled the void. He started to sweat, his legs turned to water.

  “I said… Er, are you all right?” The community plod’s tone changed when he caught up and saw what a state he was in.

  Rabbit fumbled for his inhaler before he remembered that he’d chucked it in Long Pond during a drunken bout of self loathing. He slumped against the wall before he fell down. After a few horrible minutes of gasping he caught his breath. The copper just stood there, staring like a bug-eyed guppy.

  “What? What did I do?” Rabbit demanded, still on edge, still stuck in the no-man’s land between fight and flight.

  “No need to take that tone. You dropped your kebab. You know you can be fined up to a thousand pounds for littering?” said the copper.

  “No. Sorry mate. I’ve been away… army. I’ll bin it now.”

  “See that you do,” said the copper. A smug grin spread across his pimply face. That was it. Rabbit’s palms felt hot and itchy. He stalked over to the copper. The grin faded, the cop backpedalled and reached for his pepper spray.

  Rabbit’s hands felt like they were on fire, they were so hot he could hardly stand it. He pushed the copper in the chest; he wanted him not to be there. And after a few seconds, he wasn’t, not really. The burning stopped.

  Stunned, Rabbit recoiled. The copper was still there, but he wasn’t. Rabbit he could see him—reaching for his pepper spray, his fingers creeping agonisingly slowly towards the canister, but he was a shadow, a ghost from another time.

  “What the fuck have I done?” The sound of his own voice shocked him. Rabbit backed away from the spectre then turned
and ran like hell.

  The itching wore off about ten minutes later, but he didn’t stop running until he reached the corner of Cringle Street. When he got his breath back he lit a cigarette. For the first time in weeks he felt clear headed. He perched on a telephone exchange box and sucked the smoke deep into his lungs. Either he was proper mental, and he’d just done something bad to a copper, or he wasn’t and he’d just done something really bad to a copper.

  He took a long pull on the cig. It was no good; he had to decide what to believe because he couldn’t go on living like this. If he opted for being as mad as a sack of cats then he had to go find the nearest cop shop and hand himself in. If he decided he wasn’t insane he had to turn his back on his own life and accept Wonderland and everything that went with it, from magic charms to Harbingers.

  “Or I could just throw myself in the fucking river,” he said to nobody.

  “People like us are special.” Jack had told him. “Not full blown Twisters: wizards that is or whatever they call themselves these days. You and me, we ain’t like them. They’re toffs, an’ we’re bin men.”

  That’s what Jack had told him a couple of weeks ago, while they were sitting drinking a very nasty bottle of whiskey and smoking a spliff. Everything Jack said had made sense that night, everything he told him about visions and magic and Jonesy.

  Here and now, sober and not even a tiny bit stoned, Rabbit knew it was all bollocks. Guilt had fucked him up, driven him mad. Jones had killed the woman; shot her like she was a fucking dog, and he’d watched him do it. In his defence, he hadn’t believed Jones would pull the trigger, he was always fucking around like that, but then he did it. Poor old cow, she was just collecting firewood. Rabbit didn’t grass Jonesy. He didn’t help him bury her, but he didn’t grass, not even after Jones was ripped apart by the… by the IED. He didn’t even tell the shrink who they made him go see when he started dreaming about spirits coming out of the mist and cutting Jones to pieces. The doctor told him that he needed to go home and spend some time with his family, go see his girlfriend…

  Rabbit started walking down Cringle… towards the river. He paused when he reached the junction with Kirtling Street and looked up at the towers of Battersea Power Station, shining like polished tusks. Without warning, the two nearest street lights to him dimmed, then flared white. Before they exploded, Rabbit was already diving for cover behind an industrial bin. Glass shattered; the road was showered by a thousand, tiny meteors.

  Rabbit held his breath and waited for the spatter of gunfire he was sure would follow, but nothing happened. He peered from behind the bin, spots of light danced before his eyes. He blinked, the dancing lights changed shape but instead of slowly fading, they grew in size.

  When they turned into a group of people, he thought he might have a coronary. But then, it shouldn’t have surprised him, this was Wonderland after all.

  A tall bloke was on point; he was wearing an expensive looking suit, and a flash leather coat. His bald head gleamed in… well, there wasn’t any light nearby, but Rabbit could see the group as clearly as if he was looking through NV goggles. Heart pounding, he slid down the side of the bin. Baldy clocked him and smirked as he bimbled down Cringle Street. His entourage followed but none of them made a move towards Rabbit, although a few glanced in his direction as they strolled past.

  “They’re toffs, and we’re the fackin’ bin men.”

  When they were out of sight, he tugged out his fag packet and, hands shaking, hunted for his lighter. He almost shat himself when a flame bloomed in the darkness beside him.

  “Need a light, mate?” It was a girl’s voice. He relaxed. Not that in this fucked-up world girls were nice and safe, for all he knew she could be a werewolf or something, but she didn’t sound like a threat, despite almost scaring him to death. He got up, lit his cig.

  The girl was sitting on the bin. He was sure he would have noticed if she’d been there before the lights exploded and was almost certain that he would have heard or seen her had she climbed up after he’d dived behind it for cover. That he hadn’t told him that she was a native of Wonderland, not just a tourist like him. She jumped down. She was really little; no more than five feet tall. A pair of big baby blues gazed up at him from behind a fringe of dark hair. She smelled of patchouli oil and cigarettes, which smelled good on her.

  “Funny isn’t it—how you know they’re blue even in the dark?” She smiled.

  He was startled, but then reminded himself of where he was. “Funny how you know what I’m thinking.”

  She shrugged. “Not really. Go two’s on that?” He passed her the cigarette. “I’m early. I had to get the bus and… You haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about, have you?”

  “Er, no, not really, I’m new here.”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re with Jack, aren’t you? Everyone says he’s losing it.”

  “Not sure he ever had it to lose. Who are you by the way, and how do you know Jack?”

  She laughed and took a long drag on the cigarette. “Sounds like you missed your calling, soldier boy; you should have been in Intelligence.”

  He took his cigarette back. “No shit.”

  “Sorry, I’m just a bit nervous. I talk shite when I’m nervous,” she said. “This is my first duel and Addis, Baldy is… well, it doesn’t matter. Listen: you need to get Jackie boy to teach you how to hide your thoughts. It’s really easy; I’d show you myself only…” She bit her lip, glanced down Cringle. “I’m a bit busy right now.”

  “Another day then… I didn’t catch your name.” Was he flirting? Fuck, maybe he wasn’t a total lost cause after all. The thought made him smile, the girl did the same.

  “Alice, my name’s Alice.”

  “Matt.”

  She took the cigarette from him. “See you around, Matthew.” She took a long drag then headed off down Cringle.

  “Fack all you can do, son.” Jack folded his arms rocked back on the car seat.

  “Run all that by me again, in English this time,” Rabbit demanded.

  “Sorcerers duel for power, for turf or sometimes just for shits and giggles. It’s what they do ‘cos they’re banned from messing with the normals. They set up these Gauntlets. An’ we clean up the mess they leave behind… if we can.

  “So why can’t we stop them having a fight? She’s gonna get minced, that bald headed bastard has come mob handed.”

  “Not our problem. They’re the toffs and we’re just the bin—”

  “Fucks sake; spare me!” Rabbit shouted. The echo of his words slammed around the walls and came back at him like a plea.

  “Spare me! Please, don’t kill me! Please, God, no!” Jonesy had begged. The serrated blades stabbed out of the mist again, and again, and again, and flensed every ounce of flesh from his bones, scattering it across the yellow earth. Rabbit had started running long before Jonesy stopped screaming.

  Something grabbed him.

  “You’re not well, son.” Jack was standing in front of him, holding him up. “And even if you were, you couldn’t take out a Twister; it’s not your wyrd, boy. Come on; come an’ watch the show.”

  Jack reached inside his parka and pulled out an old pocket watch with a silver and black enamel case. The lid sprang open, a feather tumbled out. Unlike an ordinary watch, this one had dozens of hands, all different sizes, all ticking at odds to one and other. “It’s time to go.”

  They didn’t go far. Jack led them to the back of the warehouse where a vast, open space was all that remained of what must have once been a huge factory, a temple of the Industrial Revolution. The space was bordered on one side by the warehouse; the rest of the industrial graveyard was hemmed in by three crumbling walls. Here and there stood tenacious remnants of internal walls; twentieth century monoliths adorned with graffiti, they towered over sprawling clumps of buddleia that had colonised the wasteland.

  Rabbit wasn’t surprised when Addis stepped out of the shadows by the left hand wall. His cronies were with him, lounging
on piles of rubble like they were in some kind of cheesy rock promo. On the far side of the courtyard, Alice stepped from behind a chunk of wall that had been tagged so much it looked like the only thing holding it up was paint. Rabbit and Jack watched from the doorway of the warehouse, broadside on to the battlefield.

  “When’s it start?” Rabbit whispered. He was struggling to process what was happening. He hadn’t chosen Wonderland, not really. The choice had been snatched from him by a bunch of fucking weirdos blowing up street lights. He felt sick; his palms were hot, sweaty.

  “It already has,” Jack answered. “These things kick off days in advance: it’s like the Butterfly Effect… on acid. Speaking of which—” Jack jabbed Rabbit in the ribs. “Here it comes.”

  Jack pointed at Addis. Rabbit didn’t see anything at first; Baldy was just standing there with his eyes closed. After a few seconds he spread his hands and started to hum a single note. The air around him began to shimmer like heat haze and slowly expanded into a sphere of faintly luminous nothing.

  The humming grew louder, heavier. Rabbit could feel it in his balls; it dragged on him, made his heart throb. Jack grabbed his arm to stop him falling. The sphere burst. A blast of air rushed across the concrete towards Alice. She took another drag of her cigarette and exhaled. Her breath crackled like radio static. Behind her, the paint peeled from the wall. The names, ‘Zappa’ and ‘Mo’ scribed in Wildstyle were clearly visible as they spun in the air before shattering into an angry, buzzing cloud of paint particles that flew towards the nothing. The two forces clashed halfway between the combatants.

  “Nicely done, Alice.” Jack whispered. The droning hum intensified; the static crackle grew sharper.

  The particles of paint infected the Nothing. Alice leaned into the force of an invisible gale, her hair a halo whipping around her face. Addis was sweating. A beam of light appeared out of nowhere and scythed across the factory floor. It lit up the orb of paint and air swirling in the middle of the courtyard. The paint particles sparkled, diamond-bright before they fell to earth like confetti. The Nothing raced towards Alice. Rabbit was shouting, but he couldn’t hear his own voice above the wail of sirens and the distorted caw of someone shouting through a megaphone.