by Mark Cassell
The old man lurched away, running off on unsteady legs. He wasn’t even stooping, nor did he seem aware of the blood still gushing from his ravaged ankle.
He’d seen Janice.
The ghost of his wife stood between the two great stones, layers of shadow raged around her like black flames.
Further away in heaps of glistening muck, the fleshy monster quivered, its faceless hulk sweaty and oozing filth between its stitched mass. The Black Cat stepped back, dragging chunks of flesh with it, sinew caught on its claws, stringy and steaming. Although in ragged clumps, its stitches torn and the patchwork flesh shredded, the monster expanded as though it breathed in.
Still the Black Cat paced backwards, its head low to the ground, as was its tail.
“Clive!” I shouted. “Don’t!”
Ignoring me, he neared the apparition of his dead wife. She held out her arms, shadowy tendrils corkscrewing around her fingers. The stones that framed her glowed, and sputtering flames traced the symbols and sigils that covered their surface.
Janice and Clive embraced. There was a solidity to her; a proper embrace.
He smiled, laughed, his eyes shining.
The Cat now glanced around the copse as though seeking assistance. None of the domestic cats, including my Murphy, were nearby.
Janice’s hands lengthened, darkening as more shadows wrapped around her. Clive had his eyes closed, his head buried in her hair. His shoulders jerked; the poor man was sobbing.
“Janice isn’t a ghost,” Leo said and snatched the Witchblade from my hand.
“What do you mean?”
“Look!”
Shadows surrounded the pair. Then Janice’s eyes darkened, her face darkened, her whole body darkened. All the while behind them both, the fleshy monster expanded once again. Several stitches tore, pus and blood dribbling as the segments came apart.
“It’s the Demon.”
“What?”
More shadows flowed around the pair, churning up the mist at their feet.
“It never was Janice, the sneaky little demon fucker!” Leo shouted.
The great patchwork creature ripped open further, the stitches breaking off in wriggling clumps. They snaked away, playing with the surrounding shadows. The split along the creature’s bulk widened to reveal a dizzying haze of blood and darkness. Cartilage and bone spun, grinding together. It buzzed, muted by the fat flesh around it.
Time … began … to drag …
Janice wrapped long arms around Clive, and in a blur of fog and shadow, hurled them both into the monster’s grinding jaws. They tumbled into the gnashing bones and razor-edged cartilage, mashing them together. Janice’s form swirled amid the bloody mess as Clive vanished in red and black whorls.
Leo stepped forward holding out the Witchblade. I had no idea what he intended. It was like I was watching everything in painstakingly slow motion.
Even the churning mess of Clive’s body had slowed and I saw it all in grisly detail. His clothes and skin and bone shredded in a haze of crimson. It spattered across the ground, spewing over the patchwork flesh and dangling stitches. The spinning cartilage and bone ground his body down, like a millstone grinding a punnet of strawberries…
Slowly, round and round, it mashed his body into a pulp.
Still Leo gradually advanced. At his feet, fungus puffed tiny black clouds, and several vines crept towards him. Their barbs clicked as they slithered against small rocks.
My voice was equally slow as I called out to him: “Leeee-ooooo!” Those two syllables echoed, somehow muted.
There was a warmth in my palm and …
I looked down.
I held Gran’s severed and shrivelled hand.
How …?
From the ragged stump of flesh where the wrist ended, faint swirls of white and blue entwined with the shimmering outline of a forearm, then a whole arm, then an entire—
In a long dragged out echo, I said, “Grrrraaaan?”
She stood beside me, holding my hand.
Gran.
Her ghost.
She wore khaki trousers and that big coat she’d favoured when hiking – precisely the same clothes she wore in the photograph where she had one hand on the rock.
In the corner of my eye, Leo had almost reached the grinding mess of Clive inside that spinning mouth. Tiny crackles of white energy spat from the Witchblade. A faint whiff of ozone drifted towards me.
Time slowed even more …
Gran.
Could this be a demon like Janice was? Could this also be a trick?
Her hand twitched. The shrivelled flesh lightened and smoothed out, became pink and wrinkled just as Gran’s hand had once been. Her fingers curled around my own, and she squeezed. Tight.
Words failed me as I looked into the eyes of my dead grandmother.
She smiled.
And then darkness pulsed with each squeeze of the hand. It lowered, embracing me. Coming down, dropping like a blanket – like fabric – now faster than everything else. It came at me in waves, in a flood of gloom, of strangling blackness. But this was soothing … I again wondered for a moment if the whole thing was some demon trickery, just as Clive had been fooled.
Gran turned our hands over to reveal faint traceries of white and yellow energy spitting between our hands. It was similar to what I’d just seen emitting from the Witchblade. She gently released me … a lingering touch remaining as energy spat across our knuckles, transferring a row of symbols and sigils from her palm onto mine.
The warmth enveloped me, and with a sensation like pins and needles it spread up my arm, encasing my entire being.
Electrifying.
Powerful.
From deep within my gut, a growl shook my consciousness alert. Deep, shuddering, it was like an engine. It took over everything, filled my body, shaking me. Still I felt the tingle of electricity as though charged by the energy Gran had transferred.
Darkness. I couldn’t open my eyes.
Was Gran still with me?
I tried to call out for her but my lips were closed. They failed to open and for a moment, panic flushed through me. What was going on? Light from somewhere. Faint. Finally, I managed to open my eyes. Darkness gave way to an orange flickering light. I was still in the copse, surrounded by burning stones and blackened trees. There was Leo, he crouched by the side of—
My body.
Away from where I stood, I lay on the ground, eyes closed. Leo held the Witchblade in one hand, while he searched my neck for a pulse with the other.
Was I dead?
Was I having an out of body experience?
Still I couldn’t open my mouth. I wanted to call for him. My legs moved of their own volition. Only … only I had four legs. I gazed about the copse, looking between the upright stones and splintered tree trunks. Fires licked and raged around me.
I strolled forwards. Again, without wanting to. My legs … Four legs … My tail stiffened.
I was the Cat. The Black Cat.
No longer Guardian, I was now Saviour. I had to end this Daemon here on Earth.
I advanced with an energy that fired through my veins, pulsing and raging through me. I bounded towards the Daemon – the Daemon that was in its final level of Construction.
As my paws thumped the mud and filth that covered the ground, I understood. As fucking crazy as this was, there was I, little Anne of the Holt, finally understanding everything: the Daemon, long since trapped beneath and between the Sigil Stones, had manipulated a Mortal through the guise of his dead spouse. In so doing, it succeeded in reconnecting its Spirit with the blood and breath of several other Mortals. Creating this Construct, it would now be capable of walking the Earth again after millennia, released from the Hell of its imprisonment.
My thoughts reeled, dizzying. They kept switching from the Cat’s to my own. I leapt into the air, claws extended as the Construct below me continued to mash up Clive’s remains.
I had one chance … The Cat had one last chan
ce …
With my full weight – the Cat’s weight – behind me, my front claws speared the Construct above the grinding mouth, and my rear claws sliced through the lower part. Blood sprayed, black muck oozed. Stitches recoiled and whipped the air, dangling free.
And in a frenzy, with fiery energy crackling from my claws, I tore into the patchwork flesh.
Destroy the Construct.
More stitches snapped as the grisly flesh came apart in stringy clumps. I shredded and sliced and ravaged the Construct, tearing it into meaty sections. My growl intensified as the flaming energies trailed through my hair, along my paws.
In a bloody mess, the Daemon and Construct writhed; a collage of flesh and blood and ephemeral translucence. It slumped into itself, and its shriek drilled into my brain.
This Daemon will not rise. Ever.
The ground cracked underneath us as traces of that energy leaked into the mud. Still my claws ripped through stitches and chunks of fat and muscle, detaching the segments of broken bones and deformed cartilage.
Around us the shadows gaped, stretching, enveloping, and more of that energy sputtered around us. The Fabric opened up, a darkness strengthening, all encompassing, a vastness, a Black completely not of the Earth, stretched below and above, reaching from Stone to Stone.
And I sank.
Black Cat, Construct, Daemon … and Mortal.
Darkness stole away the last of the flames. The remaining Sigil Stones crumbled. Plumes of dust mixed with the smoky air and roiling fog.
The great void took me.
Into Beneath.
The feeling of being on my own … of being mere human again … was like a punch to the gut. That feeling of loss made me sink into the mud I lay in. Leo crouched over me. Beside him the Witchblade was stabbed in the ground.
“You okay?” he asked.
Light pained my eyes. Moonlight. No more fire. No more shadows. No more Construct. Faint mist crawled through tufts of grass and mounds of earth. I grabbed him and he winced; I held his wounded arm. I wanted to apologise but my throat hurt. It tasted of smoke and heat, of blood and decay. Gently, I released his arm and sat up. My head reeled in flashes. I could still feel the tingle of energy.
Or was that my imagination?
No more stones loomed over us, no more blackened tree trunks, although the earth was still upheaved in places. A few fragments of rock were scattered around, but all were unmarked. Certainly, none glowed. Ordinary rocks. There weren’t even any shadows mingling with the fog. Beneath the white moonlight, the area had returned to normal. Plus, the atmosphere no longer felt tainted.
“You okay?” Leo repeated.
I nodded as I peered into the shadows of a faraway treeline. I wondered if the Black Cat was still around. Although … I knew it was now Beneath with the Demon.
Something nudged my hand. I looked down.
“Hey, little man,” I said.
Murphy nuzzled up against my leg and purred. He licked my fingers, his rough tongue cleaning filth from my knuckles.
LEO’S LAST WORD
Two weeks later
Leo stood out on the road watching Anne manoeuvre off her driveway and past the For-Sale sign. She waved out the window as she drove up the lane. He noticed the sunshine glint off her grandmother’s ring, which she now wore. She deserved to leave Mabley Holt and better her life, but for him he had much more ahead.
Once her car disappeared round the bend, he walked across the road and onto the bridleway. With troubled thoughts, he emerged out the other side and headed for Pippa’s gate instead of his own. For the briefest of moments, he considered turning back and going home.
He knocked, waited a few seconds, and dug in a pocket for the key.
Behind him out on the road, a delivery van shot past. He looked over his shoulder, hearing branches scrape down the bodywork as the van drifted into the bushes. It jerked and straightened up. Bits of leaves and twigs scattered across the road in its wake. The prick was on his mobile.
“Pippa, it’s me,” he called as he opened the door. He stepped into the warm house with that familiar smell of acrylics, and Georgie came to greet him. He closed the door and crouched to stroke the dog.
“How’s it going, Georgie?”
Together, the pair went through the house and into the studio.
“Hello.” Pippa didn’t turn. As always, she faced a canvas. “Did Anne get away safely?”
“Yeah,” Leo said as he leaned against the doorframe. “Murphy is adorable. It was great to see the pair reunited. She wanted to say goodbye, you know.”
“I know.”
“We could have told her more.”
“I know.”
“Much more,” Leo added and scratched his beard. He’d not shaved for two weeks.
Pippa turned and looked at him from the shadow of her hoodie. “Anne’s been through enough without looking at this.” She gestured to her face with a brush.
It was Leo’s turn to say, “I know.”
“This is my Hell.”
As always, the face Pippa once had teased his perception. Some days it was better than others. Today, her face hid behind wavering shadowy folds and mottled skin. Hundreds of thin veins crisscrossed beneath the tight flesh where her eyes and mouth should’ve been, and just two small holes remained where her nose was. With only a hint of those once-pretty features, it reminded him of looking underwater where everything is blurred and unfocussed. Soon, in one of his books, he’d find something to help her. Somehow.
“You eaten?” he asked. He’d seen how she had to eat. Mainly junk food, lots of microwavable meals, that kind of shit. Mind you, his diet wasn’t too great these days either. He marvelled at how easily she’d accepted it, how she had to wait for her mouth to reappear so she can quickly force food down. And the fact that she was still able to talk to him when her mouth vanished. How was that even possible?
Mental.
This whole game was mental.
“I ate a little earlier,” she said and dunked her brush in some black paint. Too often black.
As for Anne: she’d been through Hell in so many ways, and Leo knew that although they’d banished that one demon, there were many others that would attempt to pass through the Fabric. Anne deserved a new life elsewhere. Indeed, she deserved much more than the life he and Pippa led.
Leo watched the artist do what she did best.
“The Shadow Fabric is still proving to be a bitch,” he said.
A BONUS STORY
Something that happened the year before
THE ARTIST AND THE CRONE
I guess there will always be something in Mabley Holt to keep me here. Even after all the crazy stuff back in the spring, I returned and bought this tiny cottage with its equally tiny garden hemmed in by a precarious ragstone wall. As a man of little needs this was a perfect place to settle.
Perhaps it was stupid to think things wouldn’t catch me up.
My one neighbour whose cottage was marginally larger than my own was a young lady of a similar age to me, with a reserved smile. If I thought my garden needed attention – those nettles were tall enough to sting your face – hers was equally neglected. We’d acknowledged each other when I’d moved in and that had been it.
After three weeks and kind of settled in, I dozed in front of a late night TV programme. A scream jerked me upright. On my feet, I staggered. That shrill cry still echoed, if not through the house but through my head. I yanked open the front door and stepped into the night. A cold moon pushed down on me just as the cold paving pressed up into the soles of my feet. I ran towards my neighbour’s house. The place was silent and dark.
She’d had a nightmare, that was all. I headed back inside to bed.
Morning came and I awoke to the sound of thumps and clatters as though someone threw things in temper. I leapt from bed and raked fingers through my hair. Pulling aside the curtains without thought of my nakedness, I glared out the window and into her garden.
Dres
sed in a paint-spattered jumper and jeans, my neighbour stood beside a wheelie-bin. Its lid was up and rested against the ivy-shrouded fence. She was upending a number of shoeboxes and cartons, pouring out paint bottles and brushes and all manner of art supplies. Swiping away her dishevelled hair, she stepped backwards and looked up.
At me.
I twisted sideways, suddenly realising how naked I was, and the edge of the dresser stabbed my spine. She must’ve seen me. I waited, my back pressed to the cold wood. By the time I leaned sideways and peaked around the curtains, her garden was empty. She hadn’t even put the bin lid down.
The day came and went; a day that I spent reading. Recently, I’d been reading a lot. All the books I’d inherited, books that truly belonged in a museum, were a mine of information that I hoped would help me understand a little piece of my troubled past. I’d even thumbed through a few books relating to local witch trials – it seemed Mabley Holt hadn’t escaped witchcraft back in the 17th century, and given the small dealings I previously had with a magic that was most definitely black, that came as no surprise. The Shadow Fabric, a sentient darkness, was perhaps the most blackest of the arts imaginable.
Having just finished dinner, I heard my neighbour scream again. Only this time much closer, from outside perhaps. I took the stairs two at a time and ran into my bedroom, to the window. She stood in her garden, her face illuminated by the roaring flames from a twisted, shrunken bin. Thick smoke corkscrewed upwards.
Back downstairs again, I snatched my boots and yanked them on. One was bulkier now I’d modified it to conceal a weapon – these days I was always prepared. Keeping the Witchblade to hand was comforting, and as far as I could tell it was the only one in existence. I yanked open the back gate and ran alongside her house, over cracked paving and brambles threatening to trip me. The crackle of flames was louder as I approached. I stumbled into her garden. The stink of plastic and chemicals stung my nostrils.
Dressed in the same paint-splashed jumper as when I’d seen her that morning, she threw me a glance then looked back at the fire. Flames roared. Spirals of grey-black smoke reached the twilight clouds.
