The Infernal Aether Box Set: All Four Books In The Series

by Peter Oxley

  For the sake of normality, Morley was willing to put up with such minor issues, although as the weeks went by the presence of the cat became more and more cloying. Woman and cat were inseparable, even when sleeping, and one day Abigail met him down the alehouse with Polly in tow.

  “Abi,” he said gently, “could we maybe have one night without the cat?”

  Abigail just smiled as she stroked the purring creature. “Are you jealous?”

  From then on he was more and more aware of the cat’s constant presence, as though they were in competition for Abigail’s attentions. What was worse was that he knew that that was a contest he could not win.

  He got home late one night to find Polly asleep on the floor at Abigail’s feet. Their eyes met and he felt an urge for intimacy pass between them, a sensation which they had not shared for far too long. He took her hand and led her—gently, so as not to wake Polly—to the bedroom.

  They kissed and looked into each other’s eyes, smiling uncertainly and then giving in to the moment. He pulled her toward the bed and then gave a cry as he saw the cat sitting there staring balefully up at them.

  “Shoo! Get out!” he said, jerking the covers in an attempt to unseat the creature.

  “No!” shouted Abigail, grabbing the cat and hugging it to her.

  The moment was broken, the pair of them thrown apart once more. He paced to the far wall, hand against his forehead. “Abi,” he said, forcing his voice to be gentle. “This can’t go on. We need some time to ourselves, to be husband and wife.”

  “We can,” she said. “We are.”

  “But I feel like the... like Polly is always there, in between us. It’s good that she’s helping you to feel better, to get over things, but it wouldn’t hurt to send her out sometimes. I’ve never known a cat spend all its time indoors.”

  “She doesn’t; she goes out.”

  “But only with you. It’s not right, I need time with you: just you.”

  “She stays. And if she wants to be with me, I won’t send her out. It’s not fair.”

  “But I’m your husband, and she’s just a cat...”

  “No!” she shouted, with a viscous intensity which forced him to rock backwards. “She’s not, she’s—”

  When she didn’t complete the sentence, Morley prompted: “She’s...?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing. You wouldn’t understand, she said you wouldn’t understand.” She was holding the cat tightly now, the two green eyes glaring at him from over her arms. For an insane moment, Morley felt like a cuckold, intruding in a world where he was no longer welcome.

  Once again, he fought to keep his voice gentle and level, as though he were speaking to an hysterical child. “Who said I wouldn’t understand? Who have you been speaking to?”

  She opened and closed her mouth, hugging the cat tighter.

  “Abi,” he said softly, fighting against the urge to clench his fists. “It’s me; you can tell me.”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. “The old woman, Sandra. She told me I couldn’t tell you, that you’d not understand and you’d try to take Polly away from me.”

  “Look. If you want to keep the cat then that’s fine, I was just saying that I wanted a bit of time just the two of us. I’ve no objections to you having a pet.”

  “But she’s not a pet, she’s...” Abigail looked up at him, tears in her eyes. Morley moved to comfort her and then stopped: those weren’t tears of sadness, they were tears of joy. “She’s Polly.” She grinned, as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “No, you don’t.” She nodded down at the cat, purring softly in her arms. “This is Polly, our Polly.”

  Morley’s heart sank into a cold abyss. So this delusion was the reason behind her change in attitude: the grief had driven her insane. “Abi,” he said softly, “you must realise that you’re holding a cat.”

  “Yes, silly,” she said with a giggle, privy to a joke he didn’t understand. “That’s the point. As far as you and everyone else are concerned, she looks like a cat; but I see the truth, I see our beautiful girl.”

  He sat on the floor and ran his hand down over his face. “Oh, I...”

  “It was after you mentioned about that old woman Sandra, you see,” said Abigail, “so I went to see her. She was so lovely, in spite of where she lives and what she looks like. She listened to everything I said, about what happened and how I felt, and then she helped me.”

  “Helped you,” repeated Morley, a numb feeling in his chest.

  “Yes. She brought back my Polly. It’s all going to be fine.” She grinned.

  Morley took a deep breath and stood, walking over and putting a hand on her shoulder. “Abi,” he said gently, “I don’t know what that old woman told you, but this is just a cat. Our Polly is gone. It’s helped you feel better but this has to end.”

  “No!” she snapped, and Morley could have sworn that her eyes flashed red with the force of the word as he flinched backwards. “She is Polly. You’re the one who’s delusional.” She turned away from him. “Get out.”

  “Abi...”

  “Go!” she screamed.

  The cat watched him as he left the room.

  ***

  “What are you going to do?” asked Smith the next morning.

  “I don’t know,” Morley sighed, cradling the mug of coffee. “Actually, I do know.” He drained the mug and stood up. “I’m going to pay Sandra a visit.” He marched down the road without waiting for his friend.

  Smith hurried to catch up. “And do what?”

  “She’s filled Abi’s head with nonsense, so she will come with me to explain to her that she’s conned her.”

  “Simple as that, eh?”

  “Yep.”

  “And what if she refuses? What if there’s witchcraft involved and the cat really is Polly?”

  Morley stopped and his face hardened. “Then she will undo the spell.”

  “Have you considered that things might be best as they are? Whether or not the cat is... who or what Abigail thinks it is, aren’t things pretty good now? Why not let her carry on believing what she does, for the same of your marriage and her sanity?”

  Morley snorted. “Her sanity? She thinks our daughter is now a cat. Besides, it is not right; whichever of your scenarios is the right one, it’s not right. At best my Abi’s delusional, at worst we have a demonic creation living in our house, persuading her that it’s our daughter.”

  “But what if it really is...?”

  “It is not. The thing is nothing but hostile to me, always has been. My Polly was...” He choked back a tear and marched forward with a renewed intensity.

  They reached Sandra’ hovel and banged on the door, attracting curious glances and whispered pointing from passers-by. “We’ll have a mob here in no time,” muttered Smith.

  “Yes?” asked the old woman from the other side of the door.

  “Open the door or I break it down,” shouted Morley.

  The door swung open and the constables walked inside. Sandra faced them from the centre of the room with folded arms and narrowed eyes. “What?” she asked.

  “You spoke with my wife,” Morley said.

  “Your...? Ah yes, the grieving mother.”

  “You tricked her into believing you could bring back our daughter.”

  “No, I brought back her daughter. As she asked.”

  Morley glared at her and she stared back. Smith cleared his throat. “Shall we agree to disagree?” he asked.

  “That cat, that thing, is not my daughter.”

  “That’s the nature of the spell,” said Sandra. “Only the person who requested it can see the girl as she really is.”

  “I won’t believe that,” snapped Morley.

  “No, you can’t believe it,” said Sandra.

  “It is... monstrous. Whatever you’ve done, you will undo it.”

  “You want me to take away the source of your wife’s happ
iness, return her to what she was before? That sounds monstrous to me.”

  “So you won’t do as I say.”

  “Won’t, and can’t. What’s been done cannot be undone. The price is too great.”

  “Price? How much do you want? If it’s a question of money...”

  She cackled. “I have no need of your money, and nor do those I work with. No, the price I talk of is much more... personal.”

  The world seemed to spin around Morley as he considered this. “And there was a price to what Abi asked of you?”

  “There’s a price to everything. Small requests are cheap. Big requests are...” She spread her arms wide.

  “What sort of request is bringing someone back from the dead?” asked Smith softly, giving voice to the question Morley wanted to ask but dreaded being answered.

  “The biggest of all,” she leered.

  Morley started to breathe heavily and advanced toward the old woman. Smith stepped in his way, putting his hands on his chest and forcing him out of the room.

  “Let me back in there,” said Morley through clenched teeth.

  “Not until you’ve calmed down,” said Smith. “Think clearly. She’s just confessed to spells and necromancy: whether it’s true or not we have her under the Witchcraft Act. We arrest her, get her exposed in front of the beak for the fraud she is.”

  Morley stared at him, his mind whirling with all that had happened over the past day or so. In the space of a handful of hours his world had descended from what he thought was normality to a hell beyond his wildest imaginings. He wanted to believe that the woman was a fraud, but deep down he knew that that was not the case. She had tricked his wife into accepting some form of hellspawn for her substitute daughter, something which no magistrate would accept as fact. His wife would be exposed and derided as insane, maybe even committed to an asylum. And as for the price that the witch had extorted to conduct this spell...

  “It’s not enough,” he said softly. “Maybe if the witch dies, the spell will be reversed.”

  “Don’t be daft, man,” said Smith. “Remember, you’re a policeman. You have a duty.”

  “I had a duty all them weeks ago,” said Morley. “When we last came here. I should have locked her away then, but you stopped me.”

  “I did, because we didn’t have just cause. We’ve got it now.”

  Morley took a deep breath as he felt the lightness of knowing that a Rubicon had been passed. “It’s not enough, and you know it,” he said, before raising his voice. “The witch must die.”

  There was a muttering from the crowd around them, dozens of willing volunteers ready to help him.

  Smith looked around. “William, this is insane. You can’t do this: remember your duty.”

  “You’re the last person to lecture me on duty, Smithy, after all the blind eyes you’ve turned in your time.”

  “I won’t let you do this.”

  “Try and stop me.”

  The two men stood face to face until Smith looked again at the crowd gathered around them. “Help me disperse this mob,” said Smith. “Let’s find another way.”

  “There is no other way,” said Morley. “And these are my people now.” He removed his hat and handed it to Smith. “I’m not a Bobby anymore.”

  ***

  Some time later, Morley returned to his house, his soot-stained clothes and bloodied hands drawing concerned glances from those he passed. He shouted for his wife as he stepped through the front door, more through hope than expectation. Silence and emptiness answered him back, as he knew it would. The witch’s last words had been emphatic on that point. He sank to the floor to wait.

  Dusk was drawing in when there was a knock on the door. “William, I know you’re in there,” called out Smith from the other side. “Let’s do this the easy way, eh?”

  Morley pulled himself to his feet and opened the door. “Let’s go,” he said in a dull voice.

  ***

  The gaol cell was cold and dark but mercifully empty; that was the one favour which his former colleagues had done for him. Even so, he could hear the prisoners from the other cells baying for his blood, bellowing threats and promises of what they would do when they finally got their hands on him. A man of Morley’s reputation could expect a short and painful life in prison once he was sentenced: this he knew and he welcomed the fact, hoping that it would come sooner so that he could bring an end to this private torment.

  The door opened and then slammed shut, depositing a tall, thin man into the cell.

  Morley looked up, trying to scrutinise the figure but failing to do so in the mean light. What he could see though was not encouraging: a top hat and tails, fine clothes on an upright man. “I didn’t ask for a lawyer,” he said.

  “That’s good,” replied the figure. “I’m not one.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Let us say that I represent interests which you also share, namely the eradication of those who have truck with the demons.”

  “Shared,” corrected Morley. “Past tense. I’ve had my revenge; I’m just waiting to die now.”

  “Do you really think it ends with that old crone? No, there are hundreds out there, hundreds all inflicting the same misery on innocent people, like you.”

  He laughed, a short, sharp bark. “I’m not innocent.”

  “Oh, but you are. You did nothing wrong, save for ridding the world of one more witch; and the world is so much better for it. But your work has only just begun.”

  “My work?”

  “We need you to do what you can do so well. In return, we will help you to find your wife.”

  “Abi?” Morley sat up at this. “What do you mean? I thought...”

  “That witch was not the only one with powerful friends. I have the most powerful of all, the man who started all this madness and the one who can end it. He can achieve what even the demons cannot.”

  Morley stared at his feet, his heart racing as he tried to make sense of all of this. “I broke the law, I should be punished.”

  “No,” said the figure with a force which shocked him. “You enforced the law. The rules have changed now: desperate times call for desperate measures and believe me, these are the most desperate of times. I and my people make the law, and we say you did the right thing, and you will keep doing so, for the good of humanity everywhere.”

  “So, what happens? I return to my old job?”

  “Oh, no. We have much greater plans for you. You will be a shining beacon for all of us, for humanity. All you have to do is accept. Become our strong right arm, the weapon of the righteous, hunting out and destroying all those who will have truck with the devil in all His forms.”

  Morley sat and considered. Whilst he had thought that he was resigned to his fate he now realised that an anger burned brightly inside him, ignited by the thought of what had been done to his wife and sustained by the knowledge that he had nothing left to lose. And if there was a chance that he could get her back, while doing the right thing and protecting the innocent, then that was too good a chance to turn his back on.

  “I accept,” he said through dry lips.

  “Excellent,” said the figure, leaning forward to offer him a hand and betraying a smile on thin lips as he did so. “Congratulations, Witch-Finder General Morley.”

  The Potts Demonology

  Foreword and Historical Note

  The following text was found in a pile of documents which had been gifted to the Royal Society some years after the death of Maxwell Potts (or, at least, his last known sighting, for the body has not been found to this day). It appears to have been written some time between 1865, when Andras was defeated and Maxwell crippled, and 1868, when the world was again shaken by demonic conflict. We can be certain that it was written before 1868 due to the many references to concepts such as “science”, which readers will appreciate date the document very definitively.

  As such, it is a valuable first-hand account of Maxwell’s initial thinking in relation to
the changes occurring to the world, as well as the creatures responsible for that chaos. For reasons unknown, this document was not published at the time; possibly due to the violent change in circumstances which happened shortly after its completion.

  The document includes several handwritten amendments and comments in a number of different hands, which appear to be those of Augustus in his review of the text, together with responses by Maxwell and N’yotsu. Whilst some of these are just wordsmithing or grammatical amendments, a number take the form of debates as to certain points raised and have been reproduced (as far as possible, given the quality of the handwriting) in square brackets throughout the paper.

  While, as we now know, some of the assumptions and theories contained in The Potts Demonology were later found to be incomplete or inaccurate, it does provide an important record of the thinking and mentality of the times, and a useful guide to understanding what happened after the original portal to the Aether was closed, and before the Bornless Ones inflicted a new kind of terror on the world.

  Peter Oxley

  St Albans, December 2015

  Introduction

  The purpose of this paper is to document my ongoing investigations into, and findings in relation to, the Aether and the phenomena pertaining to it. This includes my conclusions as to not only the Aether itself but also the creatures which dwell within it and the worlds which exist through and beyond the Aether. It is hoped that this will assist people in adjusting to the new reality which we now find ourselves existing within, as well as to prompt and inform scientific discussions and investigations as we seek a solution to this most extreme threat facing humanity.