A Three-Book Collection

by M. V. Stott

  He could not sense Mr. Cotton, nor his brother, Mr. Spike.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.

  ‘I do not know,’ replied the Angel of Blackpool, and this sent a shiver through the Magician.

  ‘How can you not know? You always know.’

  ‘They are… hidden from me, should they choose to be, whilst in their own dream realm. They do not allow me into their house. Something must have happened to them.’

  ‘I need them,’ said the Magician, feeling weak and foolish.

  ‘No,’ replied the Angel, ‘all that we require is each other, and we will always have that. Their job was done, anyway. The important part.’

  The Magician straightened up, feeling a little better. ‘If they’re missing, then it’s up to me.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the Angel. ‘Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike have served us well, but have failed to retrieve what we need.’

  ‘The axe.’

  ‘The artefact that will break down the doors to Heaven and allow us to take revenge on our cold, indifferent creator.’

  The Magician knew what he had to do. It was time to step out of the shadows and take what was his.

  For his dad.

  For his mum.

  For every single person who’d ever walked the face of the planet.

  24

  It was past midnight and DS Dan Waterson should have been in bed.

  He’d tried to go home once he was off the clock, but had instead found himself driving around Blackpool aimlessly, unable to go home and climb into bed while the world was crumbling around him.

  The door, in the arcade stockroom, it had been there, he was sure of it. He’d gripped the bloody handle and shook it, for God’s sake. But then it hadn’t been there before it had been. It had just been a wall, like it was again now. He leaned his forehead against the steering wheel of his car and scrunched his eyes shut.

  A sharp tap at the driver’s side window made him jerk upright.

  ‘You okay there, mate?’

  Waterson turned to see a familiar uniformed officer bent over and looking through the window. Chris Farmer.

  ‘Yup, fine, just… past my bedtime,’ replied Waterson, pulling the key out of the ignition and stepping out into the police station car park to join Chris.

  ‘On lates, too, eh?’ asked Chris. ‘Hard lines.’

  ‘Yeah. Actually, I’m off duty, strictly speaking, but you know how it is with some cases. They rattle around in there and won’t let you rest.’ He tapped at his skull.

  ‘Not me,’ Chris replied. ‘The minute I’m done, I’m done. Lock it up in the back room and check back on it in the morning.’ He grinned good-naturedly and Waterson attempted to oblige in return, but by the look of Farmer’s expression, didn’t exactly pull it off.

  ‘You sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Rabbit ears, does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Rabbit ears?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, yeah. I mean… well, it means rabbit ears to me. The ears of rabbits.’

  Waterson nodded and headed towards the station building.

  ‘Get some kip, Waters, you need it!’

  Waterson stopped and turned slowly. ‘What did you call me?’ but Chris Farmer was already away, hands in his pockets, a carefree whistle on his lips.

  Waters.

  Nobody ever called him that. He hated it. An Uncle, Uncle Fisher, used to call him that. Used to call him a lot of things. Waters reminded him of Uncle Fisher so he stopped anyone calling him it. Why would Chris Farmer call him—

  Waters.

  Waterson winced and shook his head. For a moment the world tilted and he had to lean against the wall, but as soon as it started it was over. Waterson straightened up and made his way into the station, filling up a plastic cup with water from the machine in reception, nodding at the officer manning the desk, and heading up the stairs to his desk.

  It was sparsely populated at this hour, just Annie Lark in the far corner, buried in paperwork. DCI Jenner looked like he was in his office, too. Lights on but blinds drawn. Waterson sat behind his desk and finished the water, dropping the empty cup into the bin.

  He looked to the empty desk. The one no one worked at but he was sure someone had. He ran his hands over the paper he’d doodled rabbit ears on.

  Waters.

  Waterson stood up sharply, his chair tumbling back and crashing to the floor.

  Annie Lark looked round from the other side of the room. ‘You okay, Dan?’

  ‘Someone… someone did use that desk!’ he replied, stabbing a finger at the always empty desk.

  DCI Jenner’s office door opened and he stepped out. ‘What’s the fuss out here?’

  Waterson pointed at the empty desk again.

  ‘Aren’t you off the clock, Waters?’ asked Jenner.

  Waterson staggered back like he’d just been punched in the brain.

  ‘Red hair!’ he said.

  DCI Jenner looked, understandably, confused. He turned to Annie Lark, who shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘She had red hair. Loads of it.’ Waterson grabbed the chair to the always empty desk and shoved it at his boss. ‘She had red hair and sat in this chair behind that desk and she was my partner.’

  Jenner stopped the chair as it rolled towards him and began pushing it back to its desk. ‘Who had red hair?’

  Waterson opened his mouth to reply, but it wasn’t quite there yet. It was almost in the open, if he just kept chasing it, he’d tease the whole thing out. He began to pace the office, arms outstretched, hands grasping. It was as though he were chasing a thread… a thread attached to an answer, a thread that—if he could only catch the end of it—would let him pull the whole bloody truth into view.

  ‘I don’t know, a woman! My partner, why don’t I have a partner? I did have, I know I did, and she sat there and she had red hair and she called me “Waters” every bloody day because she knew it drove me mental. And the dreams, nightmares, there was stuff about nightmares and rabbit ears and masks and it was all there and then it was gone.’

  Jenner frowned again and looked down at the always empty desk. ‘Now you mention it… that does sound… familiar…’ he winced and placed a palm on his temple.

  ‘Yes!’ said Waterson, face manic with delight. ‘I’m not crazy, something’s happened and we’ve all forgotten her. How could we forget her? How could I?’

  ‘Forget who?’ said a fearful looking Annie Lark.

  Waterson pulled out his mobile phone and began scrolling through the contacts; and then there it was. A name. A name he was sure hadn’t been there the last time he looked. He walked over to DCI Jenner and showed him the name on screen.

  ‘Rita bloody Hobbes!’ said Waterson.

  Carlisle woke with a jolt.

  He sat up on the threadbare couch and sniffed through his elegant nose.

  ‘Big Pins,’ he said, his voice a croak.

  There was a bottle of water by his feet. He picked it up, unscrewed the cap, and drank the lot without pausing for breath.

  Carlisle looked down at his open shirt, at the paleness of his chest, and feathered his fingers over the pink scar that shone like a neon light. He’d always been a fast healer. She’d retrieved him, clearly. Rita had retrieved his body from the home of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike and given his life back to him.

  Carlisle tried to stand, to push himself up on to his feet, but his arms wobbled and then gave out, causing him to slump back and gasp for air.

  He’d died several times in his long existence, and coming back to life never got any easier. His bones positively throbbed with pain. His eyes stabbed by every light, every colour. His mind a jangle of metal chimes caught in strong winds.

  But he was alive. It made him uncomfortable, putting his life in the hands of another, especially the hands of someone like Rita Hobbes, but needs must on occasion.

  He’d made his way to their home and he’d gotten them to tell him the truth. People, even monsters, wer
e always more willing to share when they were sure the person they were talking to was about to die at their feet.

  Carlisle smiled, but the muscles in his face hurt, so he stopped.

  It had been a gamble, but one worth taking. Of course, he’d had no idea whether the detective would be able to retrieve him without stumbling into a similar fate as his own, but sometimes a roll of the dice makes life more interesting.

  Outside, sat with Formby the eaves, Rita Hobbes was trying to take in the news.

  ‘You are clearly bullshitting me,’ she said.

  ‘I am not, I do not bullshit. Actually, that isn’t true, but in this case I don’t.’

  ‘So I’m an angel?’

  ‘No.’

  Rita felt like wrapping her hands around Formby’s thick, bristly neck. ‘You just said I was!’

  ‘Well, you are.’

  Rita let out a little scream.

  ‘I mean to say, you are a bit. About 0.0003 percent of people are. Back in the day, angels used to come down here and fraternise, y’see. Like sailors on leave. Dirty sods.’

  ‘So, you’re saying some great, great, great relative of mine did the nasty with an angel, and a bit of that DNA, or whatever, has been passed on to me?’

  Formby nodded and pushed aside his empty glass to reach over to take Rita’s, only to be met with a slap on his knuckles.

  Rita picked up her drink and took a mouthful. ‘Well, this is huge. No, bigger than huge. Detective Rita Hobbes, angel.’

  ‘A little bit angel.’

  ‘More angel than you, sunshine.’

  Formby spread his arms and nodded.

  ‘Ha! Angel. A bloody angel. And Miss Havers at the children’s home said I’d never amount to anything. Showed you, you saggy-faced old bitch.’

  The door behind the bar opened and Carlisle walked out, slow and stiff.

  ‘Carlisle,’ said Rita, vaulting the bar to greet him.

  ‘If you’re looking for a thank you,’ said Carlisle, ‘don’t bother. It was the least you could do.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Carlisle grimaced, then winced.

  ‘Guess what?’ said Rita.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m only a sodding Angel! Ha!’

  Rita had never seen such a look of honest surprise spread across Carlisle’s face. She rather enjoyed it.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Well,’ said Formby, shuffling over, Rita’s abandoned pint glass in his hand, ‘little bit angel, from a long way back. Not much use, other than being able to handle weapons fashioned in Heaven, of course.’

  Carlisle frowned. ‘The axe.’

  Rita grinned and held it aloft. ‘The axe. You know, it’s thanks to this bad boy that you’re stood there now. Completely twatted both of those mask-wearing freaks with it. You should have seen me, complete bad-ass.’

  ‘I’m… delighted for you,’ replied Carlisle, wincing as he lowered himself on to a bar stool.

  ‘Still coming round, eh?’ asked Formby.

  ‘I will be fine given a little time, this is not my first death.’

  Rita snatched her drink back from a grumbling Formby, and downed the remainder in one. ‘Bloody part angel,’ she said, sitting next to Carlisle at the bar.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he replied, in a way that suggested he meant no such thing. ‘No doubt it was that element of your being that also befuddled the hex so.’

  ‘A lot of surprising stuff has happened recently, but me being a teensy bit angelic? That’s definitely top of the pile.’

  It was at this point that Rita’s mobile phone began to ring. Rita, Carlisle, and Formby looked to her coat pocket, blankly.

  ‘I think that’s my phone ringing,’ she said.

  ‘It would seem so,’ replied Carlisle.

  ‘So what should I do?’

  ‘I’m no expert,’ said Carlisle, ‘but I believe people usually answer them.’

  Rita reached into her pocket and gingerly retrieved her ringing phone.

  A name flashed on screen.

  Rita pressed answer. ‘Um, hello?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, uh, hello. Hi. Is this… are you Rita Hobbes?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Rita, heart beating like a speed metal band’s double kick bass drum.

  ‘This might sound weird, but… did we used to be partners?’

  Rita smiled as she felt a tear race down her cheek.

  25

  It was close to three in the morning, the moon high, and Blackpool seafront was deserted.

  ‘This is a bad idea,’ said Carlisle, for perhaps the tenth time.

  Rita pulled her car to a stop and killed the engine. ‘It’s Waterson, my friend, my partner.’

  ‘And he should not know that you even exist. As far as ordinary people like him are concerned, you do not.’

  ‘We were best friends, for years, isn’t it just possible that some memory of me stayed lodged in there and he, I don’t know, shook it free?’

  Carlisle frowned, ‘It is… possible. I suppose.’

  Rita felt like a child on Christmas Eve. The hex, the stupid magic some murdering bastard in a goat mask had inflicted on her, had erased her from everyday life. The only chance to have it lifted being to, apparently, kill the person behind it. Rita wasn’t a killer. She didn’t think she was, anyway. She took criminals to prison. They didn’t get the escape of death. They lived through their guilt with their liberty taken.

  But then she’d never been hexed before.

  Trapped, only “alive” in an Uncanny between world. Able to walk around the streets like everyone else did, but only as a phantom. A dream forgotten once awake. Her full existence for the Magician’s life, that was the only chance she had, according to Carlisle, and maybe she’d have found herself having to make that choice, but now?

  Now her best friend had called her and she was about to meet him for a chat on the beach. Maybe there would be another way after all.

  As she stepped out of the car, the cold biting at her, she rested her hand on the axe, tucked into the belt of her trousers. Even through the material of her coat, she felt the tickle of the magic it held prickle her skin.

  Carlisle let out a muffled noise as he stiffly got out of the car and straightened up, joints cracking.

  ‘Are you sure you’re up for this?’ asked Rita. ‘I’ve got the axe, I’m okay.’

  ‘No, you are not. If anything happens and you lose that axe, then I will be very upset. So if you insist on this foolhardy venture, it will be with me at your back.’

  ‘Aw, I’m starting to think you only love me for what I’ve got in my pants,’ said Rita, patting the axe as Carlisle frowned. ‘Come on,’ she said, nodding for him to follow as she started towards the steps leading down to the beach itself.

  As the two stepped onto the beach, Carlisle narrowed his eyes at the distant sea, pulled away by the moon. ‘God, I hate this place so,’ he said.

  ‘What was it like?’ Rita asked.

  ‘Be more specific, Detective,’ replied Carlisle.

  ‘Death. What was it like, being dead?’

  ‘Like talking to you on Blackpool beach.’

  Rita mimed hysterical laughter. ‘Come on, Pasty, I’m serious. You were actually dead. Dead-dead. What was it like? Can you remember? I mean, if there’s a Heaven, then I’m assuming there’s a place you go, so…’

  Carlisle sighed but kept his eyes on the ocean. ‘Death is different for different kinds of beings.’

  ‘Well, what was it like for your kind of being?’

  Carlisle frowned but did not reply as the wind toyed with the hem of his dark purple coat.

  Rita sensed it best not to push the point any further. ‘You still haven’t said, by the way.’

  ‘What I found out from Cotton and Spike?’

  ‘You did find out something, right?’

  Carlisle nodded, ‘I did. I discovered whose hand is behind all of this.’

  ‘The Magician? Well, who is it
?’

  ‘No. The power behind the Magician. The real power. There is a story, or a myth, or a lie, about a creature of pure darkness, imprisoned beneath the waves. A creature that raged and screamed and fought against its bonds. Bonds fashioned in Heaven itself. The creature could not be cowed or killed, so a prison it had to be. It would seem that this creature, this horror, is a reality. That it lives and it has, at last, been able to influence an ally.’

  ‘Well, crap. None of that sounds good.’

  Carlisle smiled, ‘No. It is very un-good indeed.’

  ‘So what is it, exactly? This creature?’

  ‘One of the original seven angels created by God to sit at His almighty side.’

  ‘An angel? Like me?’

  ‘You are not an angel.’

  ‘I am a little bit.’

  ‘My calling you an angel would be like saying this beach was an angel, because six grains of sand that lay upon it were actually skin cells from a passing celestial being.’

  ‘Well, I’m still more angel than you are.’

  ‘Most are,’ replied Carlisle, with a wry smile. The smile faltered. ‘I believe he is here.’

  Rita turned to see DS Waterson nervously approaching along the beach. She smiled and waved. Waterson raised a hand to return the wave, stopped, and shoved the un-waved hand into his coat pocket.

  ‘Hey!’ said Rita.

  ‘Hi. Hello,’ replied Waterson, his eyes drifting over to Carlisle, who was ignoring him, keeping his eyes on the sea. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘A friend,’ said Rita. ‘Well, not a friend, a person. Not a person. Sort of a person. He’s someone I know.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘It’s… good to see you,’ said Rita. ‘And really good that you can see me. Obviously.’ Rita felt daft, like she was sixteen and on a blind date.

  ‘How is that you can remember her?’ asked Carlisle.

  ‘I don’t know. I mean, I just remembered that I’d forgotten something. And it itched at me. And then, today, bang, there she was.’

  ‘Bang, there I was,’ said Rita, grinning.

  ‘So, you were my partner?’ asked Waterson.