27
The first thing I heard were trees.
Branches, leaves, swayed back and forth by the breeze.
Then I felt the breeze myself, against my face, flowing through my hair.
I opened my eyes. I was in a field. No, I wasn’t really in a field, I was in the memory of a field. David’s memory. L’Merrier and Eva were back in the safe house, a heartbeat from death, and I was in the memory of a field, of trees, of sky, of grass, of wind.
‘Who are you?’
I turned to see the back garden of a house, a small fence between it and the field. A young boy, maybe six years old, was looking at me, eyes wide, head tilted.
‘Hello, David,’ I said.
‘How d’you know my name? Are you a friend of my mum’s or something?’
Young David was small and skinny, a bowl-mop of hair that he kept pushing out of his eyes because it was past-due a cut, mud on his cheeks and on his hands from digging in the dirt.
‘It’s complicated,’ I said.
‘Oh, like maths you mean? ‘Cos that’s well hard and complicated, and I’m not even a stupid person.’
I’d never seen a picture of David as a child, but this was just how I’d imagined him. The house with the garden backing onto a field, he’d told me about this. It was in a small place called Hitchen, just outside of London, where he’d lived for a while growing up. This must be the field where one day some bad kids will torment him so badly he’ll pee his pants. No wonder this memory burns strong, no wonder it’s the first place I find myself after L’Merrier projected my consciousness into his.
‘Is it okay if I climb over the fence to join you?’ I asked.
David looked at me, then over his shoulder to his house, then back to me again. He nodded. ‘Okay, if you’re a friend of my mum’s, I suppose that’s okay.’
I gripped the fence and swung myself over as David dropped back onto his knees and picked up a trowel to continue his digging.
‘What are you looking for?’ I asked
‘Buried treasure, of course.’
‘Found any yet?’
‘Nope, but I reckon there might be, like, a chest of gold, or a mummy down here, maybe. Something old and cool. It’ll get me on the telly I’ll bet, make me famous and rich and really popular. I won’t have to go to school or nothing anymore.’
‘Oh, of course.’ I knelt down to join him, digging at the hole he was creating with my hands.
‘I suppose, if we find anything together, you can have a share of the cut. Not as much as me though, ‘cos I’ve already dug a pretty big amount of this hole before you even got here. That’s just fair.’
I smiled. ‘Oh, absolutely.’
We dug in silence for a few seconds.
‘David?’
‘Hm?’
‘How do you feel?’
He shrugged, ‘Okay, maybe.’
‘Why just maybe?’
He stopped digging and sat back, thinking. ‘Not sure.’
‘Try to remember, David.’
He rubbed at his nose with his wrist. ‘Hurts to try.’
‘Hurts? In your head?’
‘Yeah. Like, my head's too full of stuff. Sometimes it feels like it’s getting fuller and fuller and it’s just going to explode like a big balloon. Just go Bang and I won’t be me no more.’
David’s mind knew something wasn’t right. His memories felt the change. The intrusion. He knew that he was under siege.
‘You’re not supposed to be here, are you?’ he asked.
‘I came to help you. Help you stop the balloon from bursting.’
He nodded, face grave beyond his years. ‘Do you believe in monsters, Miss?’
‘Yeah. I believe in monsters.’
He sat back, his legs crossed, digging for mummies forgotten. ‘I’m not even talking about monsters under the bed, or in the wardrobe. I mean, I used to believe in that sort of thing, so I’d have my mum leave my bedroom door open a crack with the landing light on, just in case. But that’s kid’s stuff really, isn’t it?’
‘What sort of monster do you mean, David?’
He hugged his knees and closed his eyes tight.
‘It’s okay,’ I said, ‘you don’t have to be afraid. I’ll let you into a secret: My name’s Stella, and I’m the person monsters run away from.’
He looked up at me, eyes wide with wonder. ‘Really? You kill monsters?’
‘I kill monsters. Well, bad monsters. Not all monsters are bad.’
‘This one is. I know because I feel it here,’ he said, placing a hand on his stomach.
‘Then it’s a good job I came here today, because getting rid of evil monsters is my thing. What does your monster look like, David?’
He hung his head again, then looked back up, eyes watery, and pointed to himself.
‘It looks like you?’
He nodded. ‘Like me, but I know it isn’t. Though even my mum and dad thinks it is. They ask why I just did something and it wasn’t even me. It was the other David, and they tell me off for making up lies and send me to my room to think about what I’ve done and why lying to my parents is a rotten thing. He’s always up there waiting for me, then. The other me with the fire in his eyes that my mum and dad don’t seem to notice. Why don’t they see his fire eyes, Stella?’
‘Because he doesn’t want them to.’
David’s eyes snapped wide and he began to push himself away from me in a panic.
‘What’s wrong, what is it?’
David pointed past me to the hole he’d dug, a beam of light was shining out from within.
I stood, pulling David up to his feet and placing him behind me, his hand gripping my leg so hard it hurt.
‘It’s the monster!’ said David. ‘It’s other me with the fire eyes!’
An arm reached out of the hole we’d dug, shedding soil from its skin like scales. Then a second arm, the hands gripping the edge of the hole as a head rose into view, eyes burning bright and furious. Apart from the eyes, he looked just like young David. Same skinny arms, same unruly mop of hair.
‘What do we do?’ asked David, as the Other David pulled himself up out of the hole.
‘Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay.’ As I said the words, I had to believe them. Had to believe that I was going to save him. I tried to pull the magic into me, to conjure something to punch out of my hand and burn Other David to dust, but there was no magic. No magic in the air, no magic inside of me. Just my astral form, inside of someone else’s memories. I felt dizzy at the realisation as my body pulled again and again at nothing, not understanding the emptiness.
‘It’s okay, David, it’s going to be okay.’
A shiver passed over me and I realised I couldn’t feel David’s hand gripping my leg anymore, couldn’t sense him behind me.
There was a reason for that.
He wasn’t there anymore.
‘What did you do to him?’ I yelled at Other David, now stood before me, calmly smiling. I knew what he’d done. He’d erased him. Pushed the real David out of this memory. Now the only David that existed here was Other David. Memory by memory it was taking over, replacing him, until this other version owned him completely. No, didn’t own him, was him. There would be no David, just this thing with its fiercely blazing eyes. And when that happened—if it happened—David would tear open and London would die. Every person, normal or Uncanny, every family pet, every insect, every bird. All gone.
Other David stepped towards me and reached out a hand. I turned away, tried to run, but as I did the whole world seemed to be whipped away, like someone yanking a tablecloth from a restaurant table, the plates remaining still and unharmed upon it.
And then I was somewhere else.
It was getting dark, early evening, and I was stood in a park. In the distance I could see a set of swings. A girl was sat on one of the swings, a boy stood next to her. It was David, now a teenager.
He leaned in and kissed the girl.
What memory was this? His first real kiss? Or just some precious memory of an old girlfriend?
I began to move towards the set of swings, looking over my shoulders as I went, trying to find any sign of Other David appearing. I wondered what my plan would be this time. How would I stop David being pushed out of another memory?
I felt the small box L’Merrier had given me bouncing against my side as my jacket moved. A splinter, that’s what he’d said. A splinter lodged in David’s psyche, caused by the black magic giving him life. But where was it? Would I even know what it was if I saw it?
The girl had left, walking away from the direction I’d just come from. She turned and smiled and waved, young and happy and full of the fury of teenage love.
David waved back as he sat down in the swing, a big dopey smile on his face. He looked more like the David I knew now, though thinner, gawkier, with shaggy hair and a sprinkling of weak face fuzz.
‘David,’ I said.
He looked up, seeming to notice me for the first time.
‘Oh, hey… do I know you?’
No, not yet, but one day.
‘I don’t have time to explain, he could turn up at any moment.’
He looked at me warily, obviously taking me for a nutcase.
‘Right. Okay. I think I might just head off.’
As he turned I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back. ‘No, it’s not safe, you need to stay with me.’
‘Don’t touch me you weirdo!’ he cried.
‘What do you remember?’
He blinked. Was that a twitch of recognition?
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I think you do. When you try to think back on your past, it’s like there are holes, am I right?’
He shrugged, ‘Everyone forgets stuff.’
‘But not like this, not like you.’
Confusion crept across his face. ‘We dug a hole.’
Digging a hole; he could remember that? But he’d been pushed out of that memory. Maybe something clung on, maybe you couldn’t be made to forget everything.
‘It’s you. I remember you. I sort of remember you, I think. Only… we never met, but we did. A long time ago, but… I can’t quite remember it. It hurts when I try, like it’s a lie, or something.’
‘David, you—’
A sudden light from behind me caused David to squint and turn his head away.
‘No—’
I turned to see Other David moving fast towards us.
‘Oh. It’s the other me. But that’s just a bad dream, isn’t it? How can he be real?’
There was no time for explanations. I grabbed David’s hand and pulled him after me as I ran.
We ran across the park, not looking back, just moving, just going, going, going. The world shot past, streaking like a painting that someone had just knocked a glass of water over. The image blurred, the colours ran, and when I finally looked back I wasn’t holding David’s hand anymore. Other David’s eyes burned and I heard myself scream as I twisted, pulled my hand away, fell towards the grass and—
—I landed on a tiled floor, banging my head. The ceiling above me swayed drunkenly. I was failing. Another memory the real David had been pushed out of, more of him submerged under the new persona. I had to find the black splinter – had to search every memory until I had it. Did I have enough time? How much of the real David was left? How long did I have before L’Merrier and Eva were killed in the real world and this was all done with?
I sat up and looked around, rubbing at the back of my head. I recognised the room, I was in David’s kitchen. What memory was this, and where was David?
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I turned to find my answer. Other David was stood behind me. I pushed away, scrabbling back with my hands and feet, sliding across the kitchen floor, as there was a flash and a blast of air and then suddenly another me appeared in the room. I knew what memory this was. It was when I first met David. When, moments from death, Mr. Trick had yanked me out of the street and deposited me into his life.
And now David had been pushed out of this memory. I felt a surge of pure, wonderful fury ransack my body. How dare they rob him of the first time we ever met? Standing, I grabbed a chair and threw it towards Other David with a scream. I wanted to hurt this imposter. Wanted the chair to shatter his skull. Spill his brains. I wanted to hold him down and choke the life out of him.
Other David lifted a hand and stopped the chair in mid-air. He tilted his head, regarding me curiously, then with a flick of the wrist, launched the chair back in my direction.
I jumped out of the way, rolling and hopping back up onto my feet as the room blurred—
—I staggered, heart pounding. I wasn’t in David’s kitchen anymore. It was night time and I was in the street, close to the coven. So when was I now? What memory had I fallen into this time?
‘David? David, where are you?’
I soon got my answer: he was nowhere.
I watched as a memory of me swayed and stumbled down the street towards home, clearly drunk as a skunk, as Other David accompanied me. The memory of me threw my arms around Other David.
It was the almost kiss. The drunken moment of stupidity on my part.
Other David leaned in and the fire in his eyes spread out, enveloped the memory of me. Tendrils of pure white began to worm their way out of the fire and rubbed at the surrounding memory of the street like an eraser removing a mistake.
I ran from it and the world blurred once more as I—
—Another memory, and another. What good was I doing? Each memory went by faster and faster as every trace of the real David was removed. All I found were partial memories with Other David, his eyes burning furiously, at their centre. Time was running out and I could feel panic beginning to overwhelm me. To make me sweat and shake as I moved through each old recollection, desperately trying to find a true David, to find the splinter in his paw and remove it.
I was inside The Fenric. The members only Uncanny club in Mayfair. I walked up the stairs, calling out David’s name, already fearing the worst. I’d walk all the way to the top, only to find Other David already here again. Another moment between me and David pulled out of him and stomped into the dirt.
There was noise up ahead, the crashing of furniture, the breaking of glass. I stepped into the bar, a figure was swaying back and forth in the centre of the room, like the building itself was rocking, buffeted by the waves at sea.
‘Eva?’
David’s memory of Eva turned to me, ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just giving this club a bloody good twatting.’ An orb of fire appeared in her hand and she tossed it nonchalantly over her shoulder, the energy smashing into the bar and reducing it to splinters.
‘Magic? How can you be using magic here?’
‘Because I am actually here, a memory, not like you; an astral form projected into someone else’s mind.’
I really hadn’t expected her to say that.
‘You know what’s happening? How is that even possible? You’re not you, you’re just David’s memory of you.’
Eva shrugged as she picked up a bottle of vodka and took a swig. ‘Beats me, love. Maybe his memory of me is just of one really top notch, one-of-a-kind magical bad-arse that would know they weren’t real if such a, you know, situation occurred. Memory’s a weird thing.’
I thought back to mine and David’s actual encounter here with Eva, when we were called to take down some wild beast terrorising the club, only to find a drunk, indignant familiar trashing the place. I remembered what I’d told David about Eva. About how she was the oldest familiar in the country. Possibly the oldest ever. That she had power, knowledge and skill way beyond mine. It would seem that David had really taken that information to heart.
‘So, what’s the deal, then? I mean, I might be very, very, very, mildly tipsy, but I can sense things falling apart in here. This memory’s not right for a start, is it? You and David should be stumbling in here to confront
me, but oops, no memory of you or David, just me and an astral projection. Something’s eating away at his subconscious.’
I took out the box L’Merrier had given me.
‘Ah,’ said Eva, ‘black magic? You know it’s really not smart to fuck around with that fuckery. Take it from someone who knows.’
‘Did you use it?’
She bowed her head. ‘No.’
It was strange to see her suddenly so sombre. Was she feeling something real, something true at last, even if she was only a memory of herself?
‘What happened, Eva?’
‘Do we have to? You’ve got someone to save and I’ve got alcohol to drink – we shouldn’t waste any more time on memories.’ She snorted. ‘Well you should, clearly, but not me.’
‘Eva, just tell me. Tell me why you’re like this.’
Her shoulders sagged and she dropped onto the only chair she hadn’t already shredded. ‘My coven. One member of my coven. They… I couldn’t stop them. None of us could. What do I do now, Stella? How much longer can I run from my purpose? It hurts.’
I opened my mouth to answer but the words caught in my throat as I felt a coldness prickle the back of my neck.
‘Oh, who’s this then?’ asked Eva as I turned to see Other David step into the room.
‘I’m too late, again,’ I said. ‘He’s already gone, he’s already erased the real David.’
‘Oh,’ said Eva, ‘No, that’s not true, I think he just ran into the Gents. He was white as a bastard.’
Other David turned to go, turned to hunt David down, to burn him away with the fire in his eyes.
‘Eva, I need you to slow him down, can you do that?’
Eva opened her palm and energy crackled. ‘Does the pope shit in the woods?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, consider it done anyway.’ Eva clapped her hands together, thick ropes of sizzling, brightly-coloured magic appeared between them as she began to pull her hands apart again and mould the spell. ‘Oi, big lad, think fast!’
Other David turned in time to see a wave of energy explode from Eva and sweep him aside, sending him crashing through the window and plummeting to the street below.
Eva lifted one hand and blew on two fingers as though they were a smoking gun barrel.
Uncanny Kingdom: An Eleven Book Urban Fantasy Collection (Uncanny Kingdom Omnibus 1) Page 37
