by M. V. Stott
‘Oi, fuck face,’ she said.
The Angel turned to her, and Its smile began to falter. ‘Oh.’
‘“Oh” is right,’ said Rita. ‘You’re done, mate.’
She swung the axe and magic flew from it, surrounding the glass box, and in a matter of less than a second, it sealed every imperfection.
Carlisle coughed and gagged and fell to the side, gasping for air, as the magic that had been choking him died.
‘No. No!’ said the Angel.
‘Oh yes, mate.’
‘What… what did you do?’ asked Carlisle.
‘We’ve been a bit thick. Jesus, we’ve been stupid. Because you know what this place is made of? Do you know what they used to create this prison?’ Rita turned back to the Angel and grinned. ‘Magic. I mean, Celestial Magic, but magic all the same. And what does this axe let me do? Ooh, I’ll answer that as well for those not following: it allows me to take another thing’s magic and use it as my own. So I just fixed that wanker’s glass box.’
The Angel snarled and beat Its fists against the glass walls. ‘I will escape. Time is nothing to me! You will live and you will die and I will use the sharpened point of my will to destroy this prison once and for all!’
‘Well, yeah, you will be able to do that, eventually. Give you another few thousand years and you might be free. Oh… unless…’
Rita swung the axe and another glass box formed around the first.
‘Shit, double the work now, sorry mate.’
‘Stop,’ said the Angel, pressing Its back against the glass wall of the first box.
‘But I’m just getting in the swing of things,’ she swung the axe and a third glass box appeared around the other two. She turned to Carlisle and grinned. ‘“Swing of things”, do you get it?’
Carlisle rose to his feet. ‘My body is in agony, but I believe having to hear that pun is the thing paining me the most.’
‘Have mercy,’ said the Angel, falling to Its knees.
Rita’s smile faltered. ‘Mercy? Did you give Jane Bowan mercy?’ She swung the axe and a fourth glass box was created. ‘How about Ellie Mason? Either of them get any of this mercy thing?’ A fifth glass box appeared. ‘Then there’s Dan Waterson; where was his mercy?’ A sixth glass box. As each was created, the others within shrank, and the Angel shrank with them. Rita swung the axe again and again, over and over, swung it until her arms screamed in agony and she finally stumbled to her knees, the axe slipping from her grasp.
Carlisle rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘Well done, Detective.’
She smiled and looked up at the nesting doll of prisons she had created. Boxes within boxes within boxes. So many, that the Angel of Blackpool was no longer visible, Its voice hidden.
‘Consider…’ said Rita, gasping for air. ‘Consider that a life sentence with no chance of parole, you prick.’
‘Shall we leave?’ asked Carlisle, reaching out a hand.
22
Liam sat up in bed. His parents had been furious with him, of course they had, but their relief soon washed away any anger. Liam thought that was partly down to their own experiences since the nightmares had began to seep into Blackpool.
He had told them how terrified he had been, and that was why he was trying to escape. Trying to escape the monsters that came to him in the dark. His parents had looked at each other, and he could see in their eyes that they knew something of what he was talking about. He wondered what they had seen. What things had scared them.
Now, as he sat in bed with the lights out, he no longer felt afraid. Things felt different now. He believed that whatever it was that was behind the smoky fingers, that had been delighting in Blackpool’s fear, was gone. He could sense it in the air, a calmness. A cleanness. A bad taste that had been washed away.
He also didn’t feel afraid because he knew for sure that monsters existed. That the strange thrived. And he knew, absolutely, that he was part of it. That the weird lived in him and he could see it. Interact with it. Be a part of it. And if he was part of it, then what was there to be afraid of?
He thought about the man he’d helped. The not ghost whose body he’d helped retrieve.
Carlisle.
He wondered what part he’d had to play in burning away the nightmares that had swamped Blackpool. Felt good that he himself had played some small role in others sleeping soundly.
Liam settled down into bed, closed his eyes, and for the first time in a long time, had the most marvellous of dreams.
Rita and Carlisle approached the blind alley that hid Big Pins, exhausted and battered.
‘Thank you,’ said Rita.
‘For what?’ replied Carlisle.
‘For coming back. For helping.’
Carlisle shifted uncomfortably. ‘It was purely self-serving, I assure you.’
Rita smiled and shook her head. ‘What was it you gave up for that power you unleashed?’
Carlisle didn’t meet her eyes. ‘Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. A promise, that’s all. I do hate to make promises.’
Rita frowned, knew he was covering, but thought it best not to probe any further. ‘So what now?’
‘I imagine you will get very drunk and bitterly regret it tomorrow.’
‘That’s a given. But I meant what next for me and you? I’m still hexed. Seems to me that’s not going to change. The Angel is beyond reach, and even if It wasn’t, it seems like that twat’s unkillable. So the hex is gonna stay.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Which means…’
‘Which means you will not give up the artefact.’
Rita rested a hand on the handle of the axe that swung from her belt. ‘If this is it for me, this is my life, then I need it.’
Carlisle nodded. ‘I believe… I believe it is time… I let it go.’
‘Can you?’
‘I do not know, but it appears I have little choice. At least I know that it is in safe hands.’
Rita and Carlisle met eyes and she smiled, Carlisle smiled back.
‘Okay then,’ she said, and stepped into the blind alley. Carlisle did not follow.
‘Are you not coming?’ asked Rita. ‘There’s a gallon of beer with your name on it.’
‘I think not. I believe I have spent enough time in this stain of a place. London calls me. If nothing else, I need a new coat, and they have the best tailors.’
Rita dithered, not quite sure what to do, what to say. ‘Will you come back?’
Carlisle looked up at the night sky, ‘Who can say? Impossible things happen all the time, Detective.’
Rita stepped forward and hugged him. ‘Thanks. Thank you. For everything.’
‘Please let this be the final time you hug me,’ said Carlisle. Rita laughed and released him.
‘Goodbye, Detective.’
‘Until the next time. Be good, hey?’
Carlisle smiled. ‘Good? Me? The very idea.’
Rita watched as Carlisle walked away. Watched until he turned a corner, out of sight.
‘Where’s he off to, then?’ asked Waterson, stepping in beside her.
‘Everywhere, I think,’ she replied.
‘Not dead then?’
‘Not dead.’
‘Pity. It’s not all that bad. Well, actually, it’s terrible. Just the bloody worst. But look at this.’ Waterson lifted his hand to show he was holding a beer mat. ‘Impressive, right?’
Rita laughed and wandered up the blind alley towards the spluttering neon sign of Big Pins. ‘Right then, I’m going to get wankered.’
There is an Angel.
The Angel of Blackpool.
A wicked creature that wanted nothing but bad things. Selfish things. Revenge, murder, screams, pain.
It rages within a prison, within a prison, within a prison, within a prison, and on it goes, an endless chain. Each link stronger than the last.
Unbreakable. Impossible.
It rages. It screams. It cries. It beats Its fists against the glass and begs for mercy.
No mercy will come.
In Its endless prison, the Angel of Blackpool will remain.
Unseen.
Unheard.
Forever.
The End.
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Branded: Sanctified
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The city of London is infested with vampires.
Only one person can stop them from rising up and wreaking havoc.
Too bad she’s a twenty-something goth working a desk job in a lost property office.
When Abbey Beckett received a briefcase containing a mysterious dagger, she should have left well alone. But no, she had to fiddle, and now she’s got a brand seared into her palm and an angel telling her she’s the only thing standing in the way of a vampire apocalypse.
1
Desk Babysitter.
It isn’t actually my job title, but it might as well be.
I work for the London Underground’s Lost Property Office, or the LPO as it’s known in the biz.
The biz?
Who am I kidding? This isn’t Hollywood. There’s no glitz or glamour to this job. I man a phone, I tag lost items, I enter data into a computer. Any monkey could do it. It’s a career so meaningless that the nameplate on my desk is a piece of paper folded into a Toblerone shape and inscribed in ballpoint pen.
But you didn’t come here to hear me bellyaching about my poor life choices, did you? You came here for the vampire stuff: for the sprouting fangs and the stakes through the heart and the blood spraying phut phut phut against the walls. And spray it will. Gallons of the stuff. But this is an origin story, and you can’t have an origin story without a bit of preamble.
I know. Boo, right?
Don’t worry, you’ll get to meet the vampire-killing machine who strikes fear into the hearts of the undead soon enough, but first of all, say hello to boring old Abbey Beckett.
That’s me.
The Desk Babysitter.
The girl who didn’t get the grades she needed for university and wound up working in a lost & found. I know, I know, I can already guess what you’re thinking...
How bad can it be? A job’s a job. Buck up and stop your whining, girl!
Besides, it sounds like a cool place to work, doesn’t it? London’s famous Lost Property Office. You’ve probably read about it in one of those whimsical articles on The Guardian, or a Buzzfeed listicle if you’re hard of reading. Maybe you’ve cycled through a photo gallery of all the weird and wonderful things that find their way into our basement. The peculiar artefacts that people leave on the Underground, all piled up on top of each other like the treasures of Aladdin’s cave: wedding dresses and false limbs and grandfather clocks and wheelchairs and water skis and burial urns and medieval swords. Only the other week we recovered a stuffed swordfish mounted on a big wooden plaque. It must be at least five feet long. I mean, how exactly do you leave a thing like that behind?
I’ve taken delivery of a lot of strange stuff since I started working in that office. All day long it comes my way, and all day long I tag it, bag it, and send it down the chute to the basement for storage.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Working at the LPO is the same as any other dull-as-dishwater office job. The kind you tell yourself you’ll stick at for a month or two before moving onto something better, then before you know it, it’s been a year, then two years, then some more. I started my stint there as a temp – a stopgap job before I retook my exams and headed off to uni. That was three-and-a-half years ago.
I like to tell myself that everything would have been different if I’d made it into Higher Education. What a laugh. Even if I did have my Honours, I’d still have no prospects. The job market’s a joke these days, and the economy’s in the toilet. It’s not like having a few letters after my name was going to bury me tits-deep in diamonds.
So, there I was, twenty-one years old and already feeling like nothing. Like I belonged down the chute in the LPO’s basement, stuffed to the back of some creaky old shelf, collecting dust, long forgotten.
I know, I sound like a right cheery one, don’t I?
As I sat at my desk, head in my hands, the new temp hoved into view; peppy, eager to please, and done up nicely in zingy colours and respectable footwear. In other words, the polar opposite of me; dressed like Halloween and wearing makeup that has been described, on more than one occasion, as looking like it was applied by a drunk mortician.
I saw the temp mouth a sweet hello as she approached. What was her name again? I’d promised myself that I was going to take the time to remember it one of these days, but this was not one of these days.
A middle-aged woman trailed after her, grossly overweight, and moving with one of those lumbering walks that looked as though it ought to be accompanied by a tuba.
The temp spoke first. ‘Hi Abbey,’ she chirped, as she pulled up in front of my workstation. She’d taken the time to learn my name, and she’d only been there a week. That’s a level of politeness I find genuinely hostile. ‘This lady could really use your help,’ she added, beaming a Colgate smile.
I was about to protest, but before I could think of some other sucker to palm the woman off on, the temp was already flitting away. I tried calling after her but, like I say, her name eluded me. This is what happens when you don’t take the time to socialise with your co-workers; you end up dealing with *ugh* members of the public.
‘Are you who I talk to about lost property?’ the woman barked, which, given where she was standing, ranked pretty highly among the most inane questions I’d been asked that week (the other contenders being, ‘Will you be taking the full hour for your lunch break, Abbey?’ and, ‘Are you going to finish that chocolate pudding in the fridge?’).
I painted on a smile. ‘How can I help you, Miss?’ I asked.
She replied with a tart, ‘It’s Mrs, actually.’
‘Okay,’ I said, measuring just how much of a shit I gave about her marital status and finding the scales tipping not one bit.
‘I’ve recovered a lost item that I’d like to hand in to the proper authorities,’ she went on, terribly pleased with herself.
I’d dealt with her sort before. The type of person who considers themselves a scrupulously honest samaritan, but is really just a pious old shrew.
‘And what is it you’d like to hand in?’ I asked, clicking on the Received tab of the LPO’s computer system, which, would you believe, is called Sherlock. It’s named after the fact that our office is located on Baker Street, right opposite the super-sleuth’s fictitious residence, as though reuniting clueless members of the public with their knackered old brollies can be equated with Holmes solving some great, police-eluding mystery.
The woman reached into her ha
ndbag and produced a wallet; one of those old-fashioned bifolds with the metal clasp that the elderly love to lug around.
‘Here you go,’ she said, digging around in its bulging depths and fishing out a single pound coin.
I watched her place it down on my desk as if it were a solid gold nugget.
‘A quid?’ I said, staring at the thing. ‘You came all this way to give me a quid?’
‘Yes,’ she said, indignantly. ‘Why, what else should I have done with it?’
I could think of about a dozen alternatives, most of which involved her shoving the thing up one of her bodily orifices, but instead of answering, I settled with staying quiet and corkscrewing my hair in frustration.
The woman stared at me, hard and unblinking. ‘You don’t seem very grateful,’ she noted.
‘Of course I’m bloody not,’ I thought back.
The woman snatched up the coin. ‘Maybe I should just keep it then, if that’s the way you feel.’ She said it with the intonation of a serial killer shouting at a victim she was keeping at the bottom of a well.
‘What’s going on here?’ asked a new voice.
It belonged to Gary, my idiot supervisor. Gary was kind of like a man, only smaller.
‘I came here out of the goodness of my heart,’ screeched the woman, ‘but this girl’s been nothing but rude.’
‘I absolutely haven’t,’ I said, and I hadn’t, not out loud anyway.
Gary shook his head in my direction and apologised on my behalf, never once taking my side into account or considering that I might be the one in the right. He then spent the next ten minutes consoling the old bat and assuring her that no, of course she hadn’t wasted a journey, and yes, of course her pathetic donation was appreciated. He even took the lone pound coin and placed it in a Ziploc bag, like it was forensic evidence in a murder. Meanwhile, I sat there with my arms folded, listening as Gary alternated between grovelling for forgiveness and admonishing me sideways for my lack of professionalism. Only once the woman had been reluctantly appeased and had left the building, did he engage me directly.
