A Three-Book Collection

by M. V. Stott

  ‘Is this going to go on much longer?’ asked Carlisle.

  Carlisle Two smiled and held the axe aloft. ‘You are nothing without this. Empty.’

  Carlisle snorted, but his palms sweated.

  Carlisle Two grinned and the axe in his hand burst into flames.

  ‘No!’ Carlisle rushed at his mirror image, tackling him to the ground.

  Carlisle Two laughed, and the axe flew from his hands and skittered across the ground, coming to rest by a topiary wall. The vegetation caught alight and the flames rushed in all directions, the entire Maze erupting in fire.

  Carlisle Two continued to laugh as Carlisle watched his artefact turn to ash before his eyes. Anger took hold, pain, anguish. Carlisle stood and reached into his coat to pull out a leather whip. ‘Monster!’

  He lashed out at Carlisle Two, but screamed out in pain as the wound he caused on his twin bit into his own flesh. Twice, three times, four, the whip snapped down and each time Carlisle staggered and grunted and cried out as blood gushed from wounds that tore open his own body.

  ‘I am Carlisle! I create myself, I create myself!’ The whip dropped from his hand as the blazing Maze swamped him with smoke and the blood ran in rivers from his many wounds.

  ‘You are nothing,’ whispered Carlisle Two as he watched him falter and fall to the dirt. ‘Born of the sewer, only to return to it. I see your future.’

  Then all was black and silence.

  22

  Tina Burrows hated surprise parties, especially when she had to pretend she had no idea one was coming.

  She was sat on the bus in one of her best sparkly dresses. Just the normal sort of thing she’d wear to a run-of-the-mill night at the pub. Obviously. She pulled out her phone and checked her make-up as Brian, her boyfriend, made small-talk about work like he wasn’t leading her to anything but a quiet pint or two and a bag of chips on the way home.

  ‘Marion was getting it right in the neck from Colin about the Myers account,’ he said.

  ‘Oh dear,’ replied Tina, putting her phone away.

  ‘She says she’s gonna go to HR about it. I mean, I don’t like telling tales to teacher, but Colin was well out of order.’

  Tina was turning thirty-five in two weeks’ time, so by holding the party early, Brian and their friends thought they were being clever. Of course, Ellen had crumbled and told Tina everything a week earlier. Never could keep a secret that one. A liability.

  Brian rang the bell and the bus pulled to a stop across the road from the bar they’d hired out for the night. It would just be Tina, Brian, a bunch of their friends, and the staff. Many might call Tina miserable for feeling so put out at her friends’ thoughtfulness, but she just didn’t like a fuss being made. Not about her, anyway. Never had. Didn’t like being the centre of attention. It was one of the main reasons she was dreading the day Brian plucked up the courage to ask her to marry him. She loved him, of course she did, but being the bride at a wedding was maximum centre of attention. You couldn’t get more centre of attention than that. It made Tina sweat just to think about it, and a sweaty bride was not a good look.

  Maybe Brian would be up for hopping on a plane to Las Vegas. Just the two of them and an officiate dressed like Elvis. Now that she would be up for.

  ‘Here we are then,’ said Brian, barely able to conceal his giggles as he held open the door. Tina put on her best smile and stepped into the pub.

  ‘Surprise!’ yelled all twenty people who’d gathered, pulling party poppers and cheering.

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Tina, looking around with very realistic-looking surprise. Marion waved at her from the throng. ‘Brian, is this down to you?’

  ‘Guilty,’ he said, and kissed her.

  At first, the extra guest went unnoticed.

  The music was turned up and the alcohol was replaced as each glass was emptied. Tina went from person to person, chatting, laughing, dancing. She hated to admit it to herself, but she realised she was having a good time. It really was sweet of Brian to organise this, even if he did know, and ignore, her feelings about this sort of thing.

  Yeah, there was no way he’d agree to Las Vegas. But what the hell, Tina would marry the annoying goof anyway.

  It was Marion who first noticed the woman sat in one corner, quietly drinking a glass of wine on her own.

  ‘Hi! I’m Marion!’ said Marion, flopping down next to her, drunk and a little out of breath from the energetic dance moves she’d just unleashed to The Killers’ Mr. Brightside.

  Magda smiled. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Nice party, isn’t it? Tina deserves it though, don’t you think? She’s such a love.’

  Magda nodded and sipped her wine.

  ‘How d’you know Tina, then? From work or something?’

  Magda shook her head.

  ‘Oh. It’s just, this is sort of her party. Oh! Did you come as someone’s girlfriend? Are you Mike’s new partner?’

  Tina could see Marion talking to the woman she didn’t recognise. She assumed she must have come with someone else. Something about the woman made her uneasy. It was her eyes, that was it. Piercing blue eyes that didn’t seem to blink.

  ‘Brian,’ said Tina, taking her boyfriend’s arm, ‘who’s that over there with Marion?’

  Brian peered past Tina and frowned, shaking his head. ‘No idea, love. Do you want another glass?’

  Tina nodded and Brian headed off to the bar. The woman with piercing blue eyes stood and wandered to the centre of the room, stopping close to Tina. She was smiling.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Tina, ‘who are you?’

  ‘My name is Magda. Soon, we will be very good friends. No, more than that. We will be family.’

  A lot of confusing things happened after that.

  The woman, Magda, raised her hands above her head and ribbons of colour began to dance through her fingers. At first, people thought it was an act of some kind and clapped, but soon the clapping subsided, to be replaced with shouts and screams.

  They tried to leave, to get out, as the woman’s mouth became full of sharp teeth and her hands sprouted claws, but for some reason the doors wouldn’t open and the chairs refused to break the glass in the windows.

  All around was panic, but Tina stayed calm, almost resigned to it somehow. One by one, Magda moved with grace and speed around the pub, sinking her teeth into the flesh of the party guests, washing the floor with blood.

  Tina was last.

  She watched as Magda pulled her bloody face away from Marion’s neck and allowed her to drop, unconscious, to the floor. Magda’s eyes weren’t blue any more, they were bright yellow.

  ‘It’s my birthday party,’ said Tina, shell-shocked, as Magda slowly padded her way. ‘I never did like my own birthday parties.’

  ‘This is a kindness,’ said Magda, ‘a gift from me to you. Watch how we run.’

  Tina felt the teeth sink into her neck.

  Heard the scream escape from her mouth.

  And then it was over.

  23

  It was night again, and Ben Turner was nervous. Rita watched him fidget, then sit, then stand and pace the basement under Big Pins, before attempting to sit still once again.

  ‘This is bloody torture,’ he said for possibly the hundredth time since the sun had dipped.

  Rita thought back to how she’d felt as the lycanthropy magic had almost swamped her, and knew the fear Ben must have been feeling. At any moment, the woman who had bitten him—Magda—could cast whatever spell she’d tossed out the previous night and turn the moon full again, causing the beast inside him to tear its way back out.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Rita said, ‘if it happens, you’ll be safe in here. Linton says there’s no way you’ll be able to break out and hurt anyone.’

  ‘Yes, apart from me. I don’t remember much about, you know, when I’ve turned, but I do have flashes of actually changing. It hurts. It hurts like my whole body is being ripped apart; bones and joints popping, my skin tearing.’

&nb
sp; Rita went over and hugged him, feeling his body shivering against hers. Rita was not a hugger, but she felt the situation called for it. ‘I’ll be here,’ she said. ‘I’ll be here all night in case anything happens, all right?’

  Ben smiled and nodded, and as their eyes met up close, Rita had the sudden urge to lean in and kiss Ben on his very nice mouth. Instead, she stepped back and turned away. Now wasn’t the time for that sort of thing.

  ‘You know, for a second there I thought, ha, I thought you were going to kiss me.’

  ‘Fat chance,’ said Rita, ‘I’m not that desperate.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Yeah, me neither.’

  Rita’s stomach tightened at the hurt in Ben’s voice. She’d never been the most professional of police detectives, but she drew the line at snogging the civilians in her care. Especially if they had a habit of turning into flesh-eating monsters. Even if they did have a very nice face and a bottom lip that she wanted to bite.

  The next few hours dragged. The night is long when you have to sit through it, waiting for the worst to happen at any moment. Ben, probably drained by all the nervous energy he’d spent, eventually drifted off to sleep on the couch Linton had dragged downstairs for them to sit on. Rita stayed awake and watched over him. She didn’t want him to be alone if he started changing. She wanted him to see a friendly face before it took over fully and she had to dart from the room and lock the door behind her.

  The police must have been looking for him. If she’d worked out the clocking in and out of the office thing, no doubt someone else would have too, especially as he would have appeared to have dropped off the face of the Earth. They would have paid his house a visit and found it empty of him, but full of evidence as soon as they took a closer look, they’d only had chance for a quick tidy and scrub.

  Rita looked at Ben as he slumbered peacefully. She wondered if he knew that no matter how this turned out, there was no way back for him. Like her, he was trapped in this Uncanny world now. Unlike her, the “normal” world wanted to catch him and lock him up. Even if she managed to deal with Magda (and she still wasn’t over the moon at the prospect of having to kill her) and the lycanthropy magic weaving though Ben was purged, he still wouldn’t be able to go back into his life. His home. His job. No matter what, he was the man responsible for the death of Alan Crowther. Ben Turner’s life as he knew it would never be the same again. He’d spend the rest of his days a fugitive. But better that than a monster.

  The door to the basement opened and Linton ducked inside.

  ‘Morning, Lurch,’ said Rita, stretching.

  Linton grunted. ‘Sun’s up.’

  No full moon that night. Rita wondered what Magda had been up to that had distracted her from casting the moon spell again. Whatever it was, she was thankful that Ben had been spared for one night.

  While Ben Turner showered and had breakfast, Rita left Big Pins to stretch her legs.

  It was a little after dawn, and the streets of Blackpool were more or less deserted. Just invisible Rita, eyes heavy from lack of sleep, ghosting her way around town. She needed to work out the next step. Well, she knew exactly what the next step needed to be, she just had to figure out how to take it.

  She needed to locate Magda.

  The woman behind all this was holed up somewhere in Blackpool, but Formby had so far been unable to sniff her out. The grapevine was empty of whispers. If she couldn’t be found, that meant more deaths, more people being turned to werewolves, and more long nights as Ben holed up in a locked room to see if he was about to become a monster.

  Rita needed to figure out some way to flush Magda out into the open.

  Fortunately—or unfortunately as it turned out—Magda was also keen to make Rita’s acquaintance.

  ‘It is a fine morning, Rita Hobbes.’

  Rita jumped slightly. She had taken a seat on a bench by the beach and had started to nod off when the voice slapped her back to reality. Rita turned to see a woman sat next to her, gazing out at the rolling waves with the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen. On a scale of one to ten, this woman was a twelve.

  ‘Whu?’ said Rita, sitting up and rubbing at her eyes.

  ‘I prefer the night,’ said Magda, ‘of course, but even I cannot deny the beauty of a new day’s first hour.’

  The woman had an accent Rita couldn’t quite place. Eastern European perhaps, but muddied, like she’d travelled a lot and called many places her home. Rita was in no doubt as to who she was speaking with.

  ‘Magda,’ she said.

  ‘We know each other’s names. We are friends now,’ said Magda, smiling to reveal a set of perfect, bright white teeth. Rita wondered how many different people’s blood had stained those perfect teeth over the years.

  ‘So you’re the big bad, then, eh?’ said Rita. ‘Nice leather jacket. Very cool. Very Fonzie.’

  Magda laughed. ‘Big bad? Is that what I am? There are many worse things than me. I’ve met them. They have hunted me.’

  Rita slid a little further down the bench, trying to create a little distance, her hand resting on the axe hidden beneath her coat. ‘Well, you do eat people, I’m told.’

  ‘That is true.’

  ‘And you turn people into big, mean wolves against their will.’

  ‘I make them better,’ said Magda. ‘I make them beautiful. We become family.’

  ‘Not everyone gets on with their family.’

  ‘I do. Did.’ Magda turned to address Rita directly for the first time. ‘I had wondered what you were.’

  ‘Well, a bad arse, that sort of goes without saying. Oh, and the detective who’s going to stop you.’

  ‘I saw you through Ben’s eyes. When they turn, when they flourish, they are part of me.’

  ‘Nifty trick, that.’

  ‘I saw you handling the magic. I had thought you were perhaps a wizard. So I decided to kill you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But the moment I sat next to you on this bench while you slept, I realised you are no wizard. You are just a woman.’

  ‘First of all, I was just resting my eyes, and second of all, I’m not just a woman. I’m Detective Rita Hobbes, angel... about a million times removed.’

  ‘Lucky for you,’ replied Magda.

  Rita stood and took a step back. Magda remained seated, relaxed. Too relaxed for Rita’s liking. This was not a woman who was worried, or intimidated. This was a woman who had nothing to fear, and that made her very, very dangerous.

  ‘Why are you killing wizards?’

  ‘Should I not?’ said Magda. ‘They hunt me. My kind. They murdered my whole family.’

  ‘Your family?’

  ‘I was just a child and a wizard paid my home a visit. Slaughtered my mother, my father. I ran with my little brother cradled in my arms. One day they killed him too. Should I not seek revenge for their deaths? For all the pain I have suffered?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Rita.

  ‘I do not ask for your sorries, Detective. They think me vermin? Then I shall act as such. I will infest, I will kill. I tried to run, tried to hide, to live a quiet, humble life, but they would not leave me be. Any pain I unleash, they brought upon themselves. Tell me they do not deserve it.’

  Rita saw pain flash across Magda’s perfect face, just briefly. It was enough to read years of sorrow, of anger. She could understand why she might want to attack wizards, but that didn’t change a thing. A murderer was a murderer, regardless of motive. Rita ignored the thought that came next. The one telling her that to stop Magda, she would have to become a murderer herself.

  ‘Look, I get it. Revenge, cool, what could be better? But even if I could overlook that, there’s the other stuff. Ben, for example.’

  ‘I told you, I have made him better, made him beautiful.’

  ‘You’ve cursed him.’

  Magda stood, snarling. ‘Cursed? We are not a curse. What I give is not a curse! We are beautiful.’

  Rita stepped back and pulled out her axe. �
�Calm down there, lovely face, let’s keep this civil.’

  Magda began to walk slowly towards her, causing Rita to back up. She realised that the axe in her hand might be a futile weapon. What if she struck Magda with it and her lycanthropy transferred, like it had with Ben? It would remain in there, waiting to infect her the next time the moon was full, which could be any night of the week thanks to Magda’s cosmic interference.

  ‘They have hunted us almost to extinction, and we hid, we cowered. Not anymore. I won’t do it. I can’t. We have been persecuted. Never again.’

  ‘Or you could be the bigger woman?’ suggested Rita. ‘Forgive and forget and go live undercover in the arctic on a strictly vegetarian, no-biting people diet?’

  Magda unfurled a fist and a ball of flame ignited in her palm. ‘Now I have what they have, and more, and we shall no longer hide in the shadows, ashamed. We shall walk proud.’

  The ball of flame erupted, blinding Rita for a moment. Before she knew what was happening, Magda was on her. She felt hands, now claws, gripping her, digging into her flesh.

  ‘Don’t,’ was all she managed to say before she felt Magda’s teeth sink into her neck.

  24

  Ben was a monster.

  He sat at a corner table in Big Pins, while on the other side of the room, various shady-looking characters played ten pin bowling, like all was normal and ordinary, and magic and murder and werewolves weren’t anything to worry about.

  A werewolf.

  That’s what he was.

  It was ridiculous. Completely absurd. And yet he knew it was true. He could remember the pain of starting to turn. The full-body agony. The sense of his own self being pushed aside for something other. Something terrible.

  He was a thing from the movies now. A made-up creature from a scary story.

  Ben sighed and leaned forward, cradling his glass of orange juice. He wondered where Rita was. When she was around, he felt a little better. A little safer. A little saner. Without her, he was just a lone weirdo cast adrift in this strange underworld of creatures and magic that he didn’t believe in, but was now neck-deep in.