‘Go ahead, ask and ask and ask.’
‘The Uncanny’s name is... Mr. Trick.’
‘Ah yes, the one who did slay the witches of London.’
‘Yes! Where is he?’ I cowered as L’Merrier’s eyes blazed at my interruption.
‘Ignore the insect, I am the one who asks, the one who is in control. The one who—with a few well-placed words—could turn you to ash!’
‘Ooh, threats. You would threaten a thing of the dark?’
‘And more besides. You know me. Know what I have done. What I will do again. Do not think that it is beyond me.’
The creature giggled again, and my knees shook.
‘Very well. Look...’
The creature’s hand shot towards L’Merrier, gripping his broad forehead in its filthy hand. He threw open his arms and screamed as the flames erupted around him from the pentagram’s chalk lines.
‘L’Merrier!’
I shielded my face from the heat, from the sudden bright light. Had the thing killed him?
And then the blanket was lifted. The sanctum was free of the dark magic. The flames were dead. And on the floor, still at the centre of the perfectly chalked pentagram, sat L’Merrier, his head in his hands. He was trembling. That might have been the thing that scared me most of all about this whole thing. The mighty Giles L’Merrier, trembling like a little kid.
I stepped slowly towards him.
‘Is it over?’
He looked up to me, his eyes wide, and nodded. ‘I know where the thing is. But… It is like nothing I have ever…’
He stopped, stood, and strode across the room, grabbing a pen and paper and scribbling down the address. ‘Here.’
I took the piece of paper and read it. I knew where it was. Knew where the monster that had murdered my family was hiding. Knew where David, my friend, was being kept.
‘Now get out!’
‘Wait, what if we take on Mr. Trick together? I am only a Familiar, as you seem to like to remind me. Maybe you could—’
He rounded on me, his eyes ablaze with fury: ‘The debt is paid. More than paid. Do not come to me asking favours again.’
‘Wai—-’
—But before I managed a second word, I felt the outdoor chill cool my skin. I was stood outside of L’Merrier’s Antiques again, and something told me I wouldn’t be allowed to walk in a third time. I looked at the address on the piece of paper, then stuffed it in the pocket of my leather jacket.
I knew where the thing was.
The thing that seemed to frighten even Giles L’Merrier…
…and I was going to kill it.
22
I felt my stomach churn as I lowered myself into the sewer, my boots splashing down into something disgusting. It’s amazing how often I find myself sloshing through these underground, waste filled tunnels in my line of work. For some reason, more than one dark Uncanny feels at home in these disgusting places.
I passed my hand in front of my nose—
‘Fresh.’
Instantly, the smell of other people’s piss and faeces was hidden by an artificial smell of flowers and meadows. I didn’t usually like to trick one of my senses whilst I was in a place like this, a place—as I’ve already mentioned—that bad things call home, but I was so full of fear, expectation, and anger, that I was worried the stench would overpower me and have me chucking my guts up.
I slid my hand into my jacket and felt the crumpled piece of paper that held Mr. Trick’s address. Who knows how long the thing would remain at that location. I should have gone straight there to confront whatever it was, but what it had been able to do so far, and the look in L’Merrier’s eyes, told me that it would be a mistake to go rushing in head-first. I was a weak Uncanny compared to any of these people, so to even stand a chance I needed to be as powerful as my body could handle. To be topped up with enough magical juice that it was practically leaking it out of my ears. And that meant paying the fairies that lurk in the London sewer system a visit.
I looked back and forth, stretching out my senses as far as they would go. I made a choice, turned to my right, and set off.
One way or another I knew this thing was almost over. Mr. Trick would be where the piece of paper said he was. I felt it, deep in my gut. The way things had been going, I wasn’t just expecting him to be there, but was sure he’d already know I was on my way. That he would have felt L’Merrier stretching out into the dark arts to locate him. He wanted me to find him. Wanted a final confrontation. I felt like I understood the thing, its motives. It wanted to play with me, like a cat with a wounded mouse. But not forever. Letting me know its location meant that it was at last tired of its tricks. It wanted the grand finale; to take me off the board and start a new game elsewhere. Even the most cruel and delicious games can overstay their welcome, and Mr. Trick was ready to have this one be over.
A flicker of light in the distance, a stuttering pinprick of white in the stinking dark. Here we go. I ran towards it, filthy liquid exploding from my heavy footfalls to soak the bottom of my jeans.
Why was I chasing after a fairy, underneath London, in a crap-smeared tunnel? Because real fairies aren’t the creatures of delight they’re portrayed as in kid’s books. They’re like flies, feasting on waste, passing on infection to normals. They’re dumb animals that live only to breed, and the way they do that? By laying their eggs in a host. Generally a human host. They’re not above sneaking into your house and filling you full of their eggs whilst you sleep, but for ease of access they usually venture out after dark and attack a passed-out homeless person. They’ll extend what looks like a stinger from their rear ends and sink it deep into the person’s stomach, injecting hundreds of eggs, thousands sometimes. The infected person might wake up with a bit of a stomach-ache, but they won’t suspect anything. Why would they? Fairies aren’t real, especially the dirty little bastards that they actually are.
In a few short days, the host will find their stomach horribly distended, but they won’t look for help. The infection tricks the brain into seeking out a place to hide. So the sewer. Down here, out of sight, they will wiggle and writhe in agony for up to a week, until finally their flesh will tear, killing them, and out of the fresh corpse will pour a cloud of new fairies, ready to go and do the same to some other poor sod.
We Uncanny people do our best to try and cull their numbers to stop the normal population from plummeting, but the fairies do have their uses. They are chock-full of magic. Magic that can be extracted and devoured. Many use it as a sort of drug. There are dens all over London in which Uncanny people lounge on beds, drinking down the magic from a freshly-dead fairy, getting drunk on the sudden hit of magic coursing through their system.
So that’s why I was here. Stalking through a fairy-infested sewer. I needed to power up for a fight.
The fairy I was following was so fast I was beginning to lose sight of it. As I ran, I reached out a hand-
‘Here—’
I placed the magical words together in my mind and felt energy fly from my palm, catching the fairy like the sticky tongue of a lizard and drawing the thing back and into my grip.
‘Got you, you little shit.’
It wiggled in my hand, squealing in its high-pitched but unintelligible voice.
‘Take me home.’ The creature stopped and blinked rapidly in confusion as the spell took hold. ‘Well?’
The thing nodded and I opened my hand, allowing it to hop into the air on its dirty wings. It flew from me, just slow enough that I could keep up. One fairy holds a nice amount of magical juice, but not enough for where I was going. I needed to find a whole nest of the things and take my fill.
Ten minutes later, the fairy stopped and allowed me to catch up. It pointed eagerly into the gloom. I squinted and saw it: a large nest stuck high to the wall. The thing writhed like a blister full of spiders. Seemed like almost everyone was home.
‘Thanks,’ I said, patting the fairy on the head, then I tore it in two and sucked out
its innards. I gasped, my eyes wide as the magic filled me, warming my innards like I’d just downed a double of whiskey.
‘More.’
I threw what was left of the thing to the ground. I was too focused to hear it splash down. I reached up and thrust my hand into the nest, pulling out a fistful of fairies.
‘Stop wiggling,’ I said, and then filled myself so full of magic I thought my body might explode.
Okay.
Nothing else to do.
No reason to put it off any longer.
It was time to go and finish this.
‘I’m coming, David.’
I left fifty fairy corpses swilling around in the watery filth as I made my way to the nearest exit, praying to everything I held dear that David was still alive.
23
It was an ordinary street in Ealing, West London. A nice stretch of three bedroom houses, away from any busy roads. The sort of street that nice families with money lived on. People who went abroad three times a year and left the kids with a live-in nanny.
Ever since I’d read L’Merrier’s scribbled down address, I’d been confused. I’d expected Mr. Trick to be lurking somewhere sinister, somewhere barren. Somewhere he could hide away from prying eyes. But here I was, in a densely populated and well-to-do street, tracking down a monster.
I walked forward, down the centre of the road, my senses on high alert, searching for any sign of attack. Any magical booby traps that might turn me inside out in a heartbeat. I didn’t think for a moment that this monster was going to make things easy for me.
I was so full of bubbling, raging energy from the fairy banquet that it took me a minute to notice something familiar: just like the blind alley and the coven when I’d discovered my witch’s bodies, this street was completely empty of magic. Not even a remnant, not a wisp of smoke twisting in the breeze. Just like earlier, the impossible had happened, and every ounce of the area’s magic had been removed.
I still had no idea how that was even possible. It shouldn’t be. Mr. Trick was not like anything I’d ever taken on before. Maybe not like anything anyone had taken on before; at least no one had ever mentioned a creature capable of such a thing.
Unlike last time, I didn’t feel the withdrawal. I was so hopped up on the fairy juice that I was furiously noisy with magic, and it seemed to be cancelling out the lack of surrounding magic’s effect on me. Good. This was clearly part of Mr. Trick’s M.O., a way to disorient any Uncanny that came its way. Putting them on the back foot before any confrontation, making them even easier pickings. Perhaps it just liked to watch as its victim began to sweat, twitching like a junkie, gasping for magic. It liked to see people suffer.
‘Who are you?’
The voice came from behind me. I whirled on my heels, hands instantly alive with power, ready to unleash. What I found was a small boy, maybe six years old, looking at me from the door to one of the houses. He was smartly dressed with neat hair, like he was about to head off to church on a Sunday.
‘It looks like it might rain,’ said the boy, his voice flat, empty of emotion.
‘Where is he? Where’s David?’
‘If it rains, we shall get wet.’
Was this Mr. Trick? This skinny boy? Could it really be? Or was this just a puppet of some kind? A part of the thing’s game. A fresh piece to throw me, keep me off-kilter and guessing.
‘I said, where is David?’
‘Dead. Or alive. Here or elsewhere. Up or down, a smile or a frown? It’s so hard to keep track in this day and age, don’t you find? And lose? And find again?’’
I began to walk towards the boy. His eyes fixed on mine, an empty smile on his rosy-cheeked face.
‘Don’t think talking in riddles is going to stop me. You’ll either tell me what I need to know, or I’ll beat it out of you.’
The boy laughed, the sound coming out in a multitude of voices at once. I clenched my right fist, the energy burning, desperate to be unleashed.
‘Nice of you to come and visit, Familiar.’ The speaking voice had changed now too, shifting into the style I’d heard before, as though a different person was speaking each word.
‘I know your name, Mr. Trick.’
‘Mr. Trick, will come to town, and all of the Uncanny, shall fall and frown.’
‘Is that what you want? To kill us all?’
‘So many dead and worse besides. Dead fairies, floating in filth under the streets of old London town; oh what a dreadful sight to see. You know when I was last here, the city was nothing but a huddle of wooden buildings. Even then, the stink of magic tainted the place.’
The thing was crazy. Had to be. Some sort of self-hating Uncanny? That was a new one on me.
‘I’m only going to ask you one more time: where is David?’ I threw a line of molten power that exploded from my palm like a lava lasso, scorching the brickwork to the boy’s right.
‘Your temper is a terrible thing, Familiar. It’ll get you killed; or worse. If you want David, just come along inside and find him. Mother said it’s okay, you’re expected.’
The boy turned and disappeared into the house. I paused for a second, aware that I was almost certainly walking into a trap. Maybe I could attempt to pull the front of the house off in one go to see what was happening inside without having to enter. Had all of the fairies I’d slaughtered and fed from given me enough energy to do something like that?
A noise.
A tap at a window.
I looked up to see a desperate figure waving down at me—
‘David!’
A hand grabbed him by the throat and pulled him out of view. All thoughts of caution evaporated, and before I even knew what I was doing, I was sprinting over the threshold into the dark innards of the boy’s house.
24
I stopped in the entrance corridor, the temperature inside a good ten degrees colder than the street outside. I turned and looked back to where I’d come from, to see the front door swing shut of its own accord, cutting off the view. Cutting off the exit.
And then the door disappeared.
I ran to it, very aware that I might have just made a mistake. I felt around, but couldn’t find any sign of the exit, just rough brick, solid, like it had been that way for years. Had always been that way.
‘Stella…’
I whirled round, glowing fists up, to see the boy skipping out of view at the other end of the corridor.
‘I’m coming for you!’ I screamed, hurling a ball of energy in front of me to show I meant business, practically crisping my own hair as I sprinted through it. I rounded the corner to find the corridor ahead empty, a staircase to my right.
‘Pssst, Familiar—’
The boy was crouched at the top of the stairs, looking down at me through the banister.
‘Enough with the messing around, Mr. Trick, are you actually going to stand and fight?’
I felt it before I heard or saw anything. That prickle on the back of my neck that told me I had to get moving. I turned to my right, just in time to see a large knife glinting as the blade embedded into the banister, where my head had been moments earlier. Still holding the knife’s handle was a woman in her late thirties.
‘Oh, I don’t think mother likes you at all, Familiar,’ said the boy, as mother yanked the blade free and swung it in an arc, only just missing my neck as I threw myself backwards, landing with a crash onto the floor.
‘Mother knows best, Familiar,’ she said, and stamped on my knee. I cried out in pain and reflexively tossed up a ball of flame that engulfed the woman. Her hair caught fire, in fact her whole head seemed to catch, but the woman didn’t flail, or fall to the floor, even yell out in agony as her flesh broiled. Instead, she giggled.
‘What are you?’ I asked, as the boy appeared at her side, holding her hand.
‘We’re bad and bad and bad all over, Familiar,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that right mother?’
‘Right as rain, son,’ she replied.
They stepped towa
rds me, the flames dying and revealing the woman’s now blackened face, flesh scorched, eyeballs molten in their sockets.
I pushed back across the floor and attempted to scramble to my feet, my knee sharp with pain and almost dropping me as I staggered.
‘Already hurt?’
‘Already?’
‘You’re even less sport than your bitch, whore witches.’
I snarled: ‘You made a mistake coming into my city. Into my coven. If you think you’re going to walk away from this alive, you’re wrong.’
‘Stella? Stella, where are you!’
David.
I didn’t stop to think; I found the right words leap into my mind and unleashed a concussive wave of energy, sweeping the pair aside and depositing them in the kitchen. I ran for the stairs, taking them three at a time, any pain in my knee forgotten.
I moved from room to room until there was only one door left. I turned the handle and shook the door, but it refused to open.
‘Stella? Is that you?’
‘David, it’s me, are you okay?’
‘Just great, apart from being kidnapped by creepy mum and her even creepier son.’
‘Step back!’
I placed my hand over the lock, placing the correct phrase together in my mind. The lock clicked as it opened, the door swinging back. David was stood in the room.
‘David!’
‘Well, you took your bloody time!’
‘You’re welcome. Now come on, I’m getting you out of here and then I’m coming back to finish this thing.’
He followed me as I made my way back to the stairs, trying to ignore that tickle that was telling me this had all been far too easy. This couldn’t be the end of it. They weren’t going to let me just run out of here with him, right?
I soon got my answer.
There was a thump behind me and a yelp. I turned to find David on the floor, trying to get back up.
‘Sorry, tripped, classic damsel move.’
‘Stop messing around, we’ve got to get out of here!’
Uncanny Kingdom: An Eleven Book Urban Fantasy Collection (Uncanny Kingdom Omnibus 1) Page 12
