by M. V. Stott
‘You’re insane,’ said Jamie. ‘I’m calling the police, I’ve had enough of this.’ Jamie reached down to grab his phone, but the Wizard clicked his fingers and the phone melted through Jamie’s fingers. ‘Shit. Shit!’
‘Magic is real. Monsters are real. Show him, beast.’
Magda sank to her knees, trying to fight it. She could control it. She was a master, not a slave to it like the people she chose to turn. She sank her fingernails into the palms of her hands until she felt the blood flow.
‘You cannot fight it. Let it out. I command you.’ The Wizard balled his fists and placed them to his temple. ‘I command you! Show yourself, hound!’
There was a flash of blinding light and Magda felt it overcome her. Felt the wolf emerge. She strained, she struggled, she tried to hide it, but as she looked up, she saw how Jamie was looking at her. The real her. The wolf had been let out of its cage.
‘Don’t look at me,’ said Magda, her voice rough, deep, guttural.
‘Magda?’ Jamie stepped back, horror etched deep into his face.
She leapt to her feet, hands claws, and screamed at him. ‘Don’t look at me!’
He’d spoiled it. The Wizard had spoiled it. If she’d only had a chance to explain. To tell the truth, to show him how beautiful she really was, how beautiful her kind were, how she was nothing to fear, how she would never hurt him, everything would have been fine. She knew it. But not now. Not now. He’d wrecked it. He’d torn down her family, and now this too was ruined.
She rounded on the wizard, her sharp teeth bared. ‘Kill you!’
She rushed him and the Wizard flicked one hand, wrenching Magda off her feet and tossing her against the wall.
‘Don’t,’ said Jamie, quietly, ‘don’t hurt her.’
The Wizard clapped his hands together and Jamie was gone, sent elsewhere. Magda knew she would never see him again. She leapt to her feet, her heart full of rage, of hunger, of violence. ‘Why must you always come? Why?’
‘As I told you in Berlin, you are vermin, and vermin are dangerous. Vermin are diseased. You are of the dark, you taint this beautiful Uncanny world, and I shall send you back to the Hell you came from.’
Lightning fast, Magda grabbed the wardrobe that blocked the door and threw it across the room at the Wizard. He punched out a fist, sending out a ball of boiling magic that obliterated the wardrobe, part of the wall behind it, and much of the floor below, sending Magda, the bed, and the bedside drawers, tumbling down to the room below.
Magda landed hard, the wind knocked out of her, but she recovered fast, hopping back to her feet. She didn’t look for where the Wizard was, or consider going on the attack. It would be useless, she knew that, and she wasn’t ready for death. She wanted to live. No, she wanted more than to live, she wanted revenge.
Now faster than she ever could be in her normal form, she bolted from the house, running directly through the front door, turning it to splinters, and ran into the thick forest of the highlands.
Running again. Running through a forest from the bad man. The Wizard. How many times was her life to repeat the same story? A story of hiding, of death, of pain, of looking over her shoulder.
No more. She could not allow it to happen again.
This was the last time Magda would run.
The last time any wizard would cause her heart to break.
9
Rita Hobbes entered Blackpool Victoria Hospital unnoticed. Well, unnoticed apart from the half-witch sat in the reception area, whose senses were attuned to the Uncanny. Not that it mattered. The half-witch didn’t realise she was the only one who could make Rita out, and in turn, Rita didn’t realise that the woman looking her way could see her. So Rita slid between the doors of the hospital as good as unnoticed.
Rita often wondered how anyone could work in a hospital all day. The lighting, the smells, the palpable tang of despair. It was all a bit depressing. Obviously the saving lives thing came into it, but the other stuff far outweighed that in her mind.
She slipped through the corridors, heading for Gemma Wheeler’s room, entering unseen by the half-asleep officer on guard.
‘Blackpool’s finest,’ muttered Rita. It was a good job that the man who had wanted to chop Gemma to pieces was banged up in a dreamscape.
Gemma glanced up from the trashy magazine she was reading and smiled as she saw who her visitor was.
‘All right, spooky?’ said Gemma.
‘Hey,’ said Rita. ‘I’m in for something else, but I thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing.’
‘Not bad,’ Gemma replied, sitting up in bed. ‘A lot better for knowing the shit that wanted to kill me is locked up.’
Rita did a curtsy. ‘You’re welcome, m’lady.’
‘You still, you know, magically invisible, or whatever?’
‘Yup. Still hexed up to my tits for the time being.’
‘Shit. Bummer.’
‘You said it.’
‘Chris doesn’t remember you at all, you know.’
Chris Farmer. Gemma’s cousin and former casual sex buddy of Rita.
‘Well he wouldn’t do. It’s like I didn’t exist. Better that way, anyway. I’d only have broken the poor sod’s heart.’ Rita grinned, and decided to ignore the little ache in her heart. No, she hadn’t been going to get serious with Chris, in fact she’d intended to leave Blackpool for a new life, and taking him along was not part of the plan, but still. She’d liked him. Enjoyed him. And it hurt to think he’d have no memory of that.
After a few more minutes of chat, Rita excused herself and continued on her mission: paying a visit to the morgue’s latest tennant, the dead wizard. As she pushed her way inside and the double doors closed behind her, she had no idea that she’d missed sharing the mortuary with the ghost of her ex-partner, DS Dan Waterson, by just minutes. Not that she would have seen or heard him if they had crossed paths, of course.
After a little grim trial and error as she checked a few drawers, she discovered the one that contained the wizard’s corpse.
‘Okay, let’s see what there is to see.’
Rita took a breath or two, then unzipped the body bag.
You never really get used to seeing a dead body, no matter how many of them you come across. And you certainly never get comfortable looking at the corpse of someone who had been murdered. But the contents of that drawer, of that body bag, well, that was something else altogether.
After almost a minute spent on her knees, gripping a metal bin and dry heaving, Rita pulled herself together and got back to her feet.
‘Okay. Right. Some nice nightmare fuel. Great.’ She grudgingly made her way back to the murder victim and forced herself to take another look.
It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst dead body Rita had ever seen. The wounds were many and large. The face had been torn off, one arm and both legs detached from the torso, and the intestines had been yanked out of the abdomen. It looked as though the man, the wizard, had been used as a chew toy for an extremely pissed off grizzly bear.
‘Jesus. Jesus Christ. What could have done that?’ she said.
‘What indeed?’
Rita whirled around to see that she had been joined in the mortuary by Carlisle.
‘Back from Birmingham, then?’ she said.
‘As perceptive as ever, Detective. I wonder how the Blackpool Constabulary are coping without your finely tuned investigative skills.’
Rita saw Carlisle’s eyes drift to the axe hanging from her belt, saw him lick his lips in anticipation. ‘You still can’t have it, mate. Not yet.’
‘You’re quite set on that, are you?’ he asked.
‘Pretty much. I sort of need it.’
‘As you wish.’
Carlisle reached into his long, purple coat and retrieved a small pouch.
‘What’s that then?’ asked Rita.
‘A little concoction. A gift.’ Carlisle threw the pouch at Rita’s feet. It exploded with a puff of smoke as it struck
the ground.
‘Uh, what the fuck?’ asked Rita, understandably.
‘You will give me my artefact,’ said Carlisle, fussing at the cuffs of his coat.
‘Yeah, not happening, sorry.’
Carlisle smiled and fixed his dark eyes upon hers. ‘Detective, you will grant me the axe.’
Rita opened her mouth to argue, but heard the following words emerge: ‘Yes. Of course.’
Carlisle chuckled as Rita—straining to defy her own limbs—reached down to the axe and pulled it from her belt, proffering it towards Carlisle.
‘I give this axe to you. You shall now wield it.’ Rita struggled and strained against herself, but nothing she wanted to do happened, nothing she wanted to say came out.
Carlisle sauntered over and took the axe from her. ‘The wise choice, at last, Miss Hobbes. I am most grateful. And now, I believe our association is at an end. Good luck.’ Carlisle grinned, turned towards the mortuary’s exit—
Then fell back hard to the tiled floor as though a giant had punched him squarely on the nose.
Rita strolled over to the prone Carlisle and retrieved the axe. ‘Still mine, I reckon.’
Carlisle sat up, grimacing at her. ‘Damn.’
‘Seems like this baby knows when you’re cheating, Pasty,’ said Rita, waggling the axe as Carlisle slowly rose to his feet. ‘Whatever hoo-doo you chucked at me was making me say that stuff, but I didn’t actually mean it.’
‘So it seems,’ he replied, brushing down his coat.
‘Aw, you look a little embarrassed there; almost a hint of colour in those ghost-cheeks of yours.’
Carlisle snarled and stepped towards Rita, who found herself taking a wary step back. ‘Do not overstep your mark, Detective.’
‘Okay, let’s both just relax before I have to chop you in half with this thing.’
Carlisle looked at the axe in Rita’s hand, at his artefact. He felt the ache in his stomach for it. The craving. The need. ‘This hex of yours, it must be lifted,’ he spat, turning away so as not to look at the axe any longer.
‘Well, duh. Agreed there, mate.’
‘You will take me to DCI Jenner so I may snap his neck and rid you of this curse.’
‘Um. No. We’ve already gone over that. Plus I don’t even think that would do the job.’
‘Trust me. When I twist a person’s neck, it always does the job.’
‘Okay. Disturbing. What I meant was, it wasn’t his magic that fed the hex, was it?’
Carlisle raised an eyebrow.
‘And you think I’m slow. Jenner isn’t Uncanny, is he? It was that Angel. The Angel of Blackpool, acting through him. Feeding that magic to him. Which means…’
‘Which means to lift the hex on you, we must deal with the Angel of Blackpool.’ Carlisle pulled out a chair, sat down, and placed his head in his hands.
‘I’m going to take it that what you’re doing there isn’t a good sign,’ said Rita.
‘You have met the Angel of Blackpool, do you believe dealing with It will be a simple task?’
‘No. But that’s where you come in, right?’
Carlisle stood and walked towards her, causing Rita to slowly back up. ‘This isn’t some rank and file angel we are dealing with, woman. There are a hundred different ways to kill an angel, but the Angel of Blackpool? That is one of the original seven, created before everything, before matter, before time, with God’s own hands, to sit at His side.’
Rita ceased her retreat as the wall blocked her way. ‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying it’s impossible.’
‘Don’t like that much.’
Carlisle smiled, ‘Luckily for you, I do not believe in the impossible. At least, not when it is standing in the way of what I want.’ He licked his lips and his eyes darted briefly to the axe Rita clung to with both hands.
‘That’s… good?’ said Rita.
‘Oh, there’s nothing good about it, Detective.’ He clapped his hands together and turned to leave.
‘Where are we going?’
‘We are going nowhere. I am going to London to pay a visit to an old friend.’
‘It’s nice to keep up with old mates, but haven’t we got more pressing stuff to deal with?’
‘We do, and I am.’
Rita flapped her arms ineffectually. ‘Okay, so, what do I do?’
Carlisle gestured at the wizard corpse. ‘It looks like you have a little pet project to keep you busy. Leave the real work to me.’
‘Okay, you’re not going to help me out with a tip or two?’
Carlisle walked over to the exposed body and took a look, his eyes slowly roaming over the mess of meat and bones. ‘No,’ he replied, turned on his heel, and left the mortuary.
‘Right. Thanks, mate.’
Rita sighed, but couldn’t help but smile. Carlisle was going to help get her life back, and Carlisle was a powerful ally.
10
All Ben Turner really wanted to do was go home, watch some TV, eat bad food, and go to bed early.
It was “hump day”, as Janice from H.R. insisted on calling it, each and every Wednesday morning. ‘Welcome to hump day! It’s bloody hump day again!’ she’d announce, and she’d laugh each time she said it.
Ben was not a mean person, but he had fantasised more than once about Janice slipping at the top of the building’s staircase and tumbling head-first down all five flights.
‘Hump day?’ he’d say, looking down at her battered body. ‘More like lump day!’ He wasn’t really good at one-liners.
Ben was approaching his mid-thirties, was a little softer around the middle than he’d like, and had short, neat, brown hair. He hadn’t always. It wasn’t so long ago that he’d had a wild, untamed mane that reached past his shoulders. Sally had liked it that way, or at least she had before she left him for a Deliveroo driver.
Ben was an accountant at Briers & Travers, and dressed exactly how you would picture an accountant to dress. He knew his work was, to most, about as dull as dull could get, but he enjoyed getting lost in the numbers. What could be more beautiful than a spreadsheet where everything added up just right? The world around him would fade to background noise as he focussed in and bossed those figures around, filing them into their little cells like a diligent prison warden.
He looked up from his desk and realised the office floor had almost cleared. It was an hour past closing time already, and his less professionally-minded colleagues had long since escaped.
‘Ben,’ said Steve, adjusting his thick-framed glasses atop his freckled nose, his hair a copper crew-cut. ‘Hey, Earth to Ben, come in Ben.’
‘Hm?’ Ben replied, stretching back in his expensive office chair, which he’d lobbied Janice in H.R. for, to give his back some extra lumbar support. He didn’t need it, he just knew it annoyed Janice when someone asked anything of her.
Especially on hump day.
‘You on for a pint? Carly, Phil, and Jonno are already in The Goose wetting their whistles.’
Ben made an ‘Urgh’ sound, accompanied by a ‘Not feeling it’ face.
‘Give over, mate,’ said Steve, reaching around and turning off Ben’s computer.
‘Hey! I hadn’t saved that.’
Steve started to laugh, ‘Well, that’s what you get. Come on, you’re practically a shut-in at the moment.’
‘I had a drink with you last week,’ Ben groused.
‘No, that was last month.’
‘Oh. You’re sure?’
‘It happens so rarely these days that it stands out. Trust me.’
Ben made another ‘Urgh’ sound, but he knew he was on to a loser. His couch, his TV, his bed, they were going to have to wait.
‘All right, all right, but just the one, right?’
‘Scout’s honour, mate,’ said Steve, crossing his heart.
‘You were never in the scouts.’
‘No, but I was in a girl guide or two.’
On cue came Ben’s third ‘Urgh’
exclamation, which delighted Steve no end.
‘Okay, I’ll see you down there and get you one in. And a chaser, yeah?’
‘No, no chaser!’ said Ben to the rapidly exiting Steve, who waved off any complaints without turning. ‘Just the pint. A half even would be fine. Steve? Steve!’
Steve was gone.
Ben sat back and sighed again, looking at the black, blank monitor. He considered turning the computer back on and getting another quick twenty minutes in, but realised Steve would only return and, possibly, toss the computer out the window this time. Ben grabbed his coat and headed out of the office.
As the lift descended, he looked at his reflection in its mirrored interior. He still wasn’t used to being clean-shaven. When he was with Sally he’d had a beard bushy enough to hold a pencil, if you slid one in. She’d called him her nerdy mountain man. He’d liked that. He’d shaved it off the day after she dumped him.
‘Full moon again,’ said Alan, the building’s security man, as Ben signed out at the front desk.
‘Yep,’ replied Ben, not wanting to get into a drawn-out thing. Alan loved a drawn-out thing.
‘We’d be up slack alley without the moon, you know,’ said Alan, seemingly only fuelled by Ben’s utter disinterest.
‘Yeah. Suppose so.’
‘No suppose about it. I saw a documentary about it the other day. Slack alley. That’s where we’d be. Fascinating stuff, space and all that stuff up there, don’t you think?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Ben, quickening his step to the automatic doors.
‘Right up slack alley,’ repeated Alan.
Ben sighed with relief as he stepped out of the building and the doors hissed shut behind him. The Goose was across the road from Ben’s workplace, and was one of those empty, falling-to-pieces pubs that should, by rights, have long ago had to close its doors. But open it stayed.
Ben stepped in, the warmth of the place embracing him, to see Steve and the others, almost the only drinkers inside. Steve waved, then held up a pint and a whisky chaser. Ben very nearly said ‘Urgh’ yet again, but instead shrugged off his coat and made his way across the faded, filthy carpet to take his place at the table.
