Pariah

by Donald Hounam

  I could run for it, but she’d just come after me and beat me up. So I trail after her, back the way I came, down the hill and over a wooden bridge across a ditch piled up with garbage – bicycles, a dead dog . . .

  ‘You can come back later for that,’ Marvo says over her shoulder.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Even by my standards, the dog is a bit far gone.

  We’re on a narrow path beside a line of poplars. The rain is easing off, thank God. A pale, sad rainbow rises behind the houses.

  ‘How old’s your mum?’ I ask.

  ‘Fifty-three.’

  ‘She looks older.’

  ‘She’s had a rough time. First Daddy, then Sean.’

  It was weird, listening to Marvo’s mother. I mean, she’s a right old bat and I’m sure she gives Marvo a hard time. But even so, it’s like she cares.

  I don’t think my mum ever cared much about me, one way or the other. If I was in a job that actually paid money, maybe she’d think differently; but my recruitment by the Society . . . it was a one-off, a lump sum—

  Quite a big lump, as it happens.

  Anyway, my dad drank it away in no time at all. I think my mum got a pair of shoes out of it, and that was about all. She never forgave him. Or me.

  She never told me whether she minded that I’d killed him. To be fair, she never really got a chance to express an opinion: the Society had got hold of me by then.

  There’s a rusty sign on the wall: Littlemore Old Cemetery. The iron gate groans as I push it open. Inside, it’s more like a wood than a graveyard, with heavy drops of water falling from rotting trees held together by shrouds of ivy.

  I like cemeteries. You can turn up all sorts of useful bits in cemeteries that you wouldn’t find anywhere else.

  ‘So which way?’ I ask.

  I follow Marvo along a muddy path through a tangle of brambles. A rat scuttles between my feet and I look round in time to see Preston bare his teeth at it. The rat squeaks and vanishes into a pile of soggy leaves. I can see the dead now: moss-covered, broken headstones scattered among the trees, tilted by the roots, leaning against each other like a crowd of drunks trying to get each other home.

  The rain has stopped and the sun is struggling to push out through the clouds. We’ve come to a clearing with a circular stone platform and a tall plinth supporting a statue of a woman clutching a cross. There’s an inscription: ‘In the vault beneath this tomb are interred . . .’ The rest has worn away, except for a final paragraph: ‘Her bereaved husband, in token of respect for her virtues and in grateful remembrance for so good a wife, erects this monument to perpetuate her memory.’

  ‘So come on, Marvo,’ I say. ‘Where have you perpetuated Sean’s memory?’

  She doesn’t say a word. Just leads me past a headless statue of an angel and along a path between black yew trees that block out the light, through a gap in a crumbling wall and down a flight of steps into the new burial ground. A couple of dozen sheep look round at us, then go back to grazing on the grass between neat rows of simple headstones.

  ‘He’s over here,’ Marvo whispers.

  She leads me towards the far corner of the cemetery, where the crosses and slabs peter out into open ground.

  It’s just a simple rectangular stone, a couple of feet high. There’s an inscription carved into it: Sean Michael Marvell.

  ‘No dates?’

  And I’m still waiting for a reply when Preston comes shooting between my ankles and charges full tilt into the headstone. He falls back and rolls over.

  ‘What was that about?’ I ask.

  ‘Sorry, boss.’ I can actually see small red and yellow stars orbiting around the feather sticking out of the top of his head. ‘Nothing yet.’

  ‘Well, just concentrate, OK?’

  The stars pop like soap bubbles. I look along the row of headstones . . . and here’s a funny thing: all the way along, the sheep have cropped the grass close to the graves.

  Except Sean’s. Up to about six inches away, all around his headstone, the grass is long. I crouch down and touch the stone and I get a tingle through my fingertips. I know the buzz of residual magic when I feel it. I push the long grass aside and at the bottom I see another inscription.

  I read it aloud: ‘Our beloved boy.’

  I can hear Marvo sobbing quietly. To be honest, I’m feeling a little teary myself. I wipe my sleeve across my eyes and stand up.

  Marvo is sitting on one of the other headstones. She’s gone deathly white and her cheeks are wet with tears. She’s trembling, and she’s clutching the corners of the stone each side of her like she’s terrified it’s going to rear up and throw her off.

  ‘I can’t think,’ she whispers.

  ‘Welcome to my world.’

  ‘It’s not a joke.’

  No shit. In the twenty-four hours since I tripped over her in the Hole, she’s been getting paler and paler. She’s lost weight and she even looks smaller.

  ‘Marvo, you need to see that healer.’

  ‘Don’t need one. I’m fine.’

  ‘Yeah, but you don’t look fine.’

  ‘I was OK till you came back.’

  Is that true? Sailors – not that I know any, but I’ve read about it – they have this expression: a Jonah. Someone on board who brings bad luck and ends up sinking the ship. Is that what I’ve done to Marvo?

  Closing the cemetery gate behind us, I stare back between the bars. The reason I like graveyards, well, it’s not just the parts . . .

  I didn’t ask to be Gifted. Since I got dropped into this world, I’ve met dozens of Presences who’ve been very clear about what they’d like to spend eternity doing to me when I fall out the other end.

  Just lying there, in the still, silent darkness under the trees, looks like a far better plan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Kicking

  ‘SO I WAS right,’ says Marvo.

  So far we haven’t agreed about much. One thing there’s no argument about, though: we’re both starving. Marvo’s paying for breakfast in a little café off the main road.

  ‘About Sean,’ she says through a bacon sandwich. ‘It was a Ghost. I mean, if you got this – what did you call it? – magical residue off the headstone . . .’

  ‘Yeah, but a Ghost—’

  ‘Spooked him too.’ She jerks her knife under the table, where Preston is hiding.

  ‘Sorry, boss,’ he mumbles.

  ‘Just stay out of sight, OK?’ I turn back to Marvo. ‘A Ghost doesn’t give off magic.’

  ‘It works by magic.’

  ‘Not the same thing.’

  ‘You told me a Ghost’s not supposed to be able to knock somebody down, right? So if it did happen—’

  She’s waving the knife around. I lean back. ‘Don’t you get it? It’d have to be something pretty weird.’

  I can’t argue with that, even if it doesn’t make sense.

  We’re just round the corner from her mum’s place, when Marvo stops in her tracks.

  ‘Come on, Marvo. I’m getting wet.’

  Yeah, it’s raining again. A woman with a shopping basket and an umbrella brushes past her, but Marvo just stands there and when I look round I see why.

  Across the road, people move aside for a man, about thirty, walking uncertainly along the pavement. He’s waving one hand blindly in front of him, while the other clutches the leather harness strapped around a dog.

  Only it isn’t a dog; it’s a guide elemental. And this isn’t just any blind bloke. He used to be a tatty.

  Talent gone. He’s got this fixed, anxious expression plastered across his face. It’s like Marvo said: when it’s time for the tats to go, they don’t hang about.

  I take her arm and for once she doesn’t whack me one. Like the dog with the blind man, I lead her down the path to her mum’s house. I ring the bell. The door opens. Mrs M fishes her medal out from under her cardigan and kisses it, then we both wait for Satan to come and haul me off to hell . . .

  A
fter a while, when he still hasn’t shown up, I step back so Marvo can go inside. The door slams behind her.

  So I’m halfway up the wall at the back of the termite nest, soaked to the skin and looking forward to the sharp knife on my bench, when there’s this whisper behind me – only it’s two voices . . .

  ‘Hey, boss.’

  I look round. I’ve got two wet Prestons, standing side by side on one leg, sort of hugging each other.

  ‘I’ve found her!’ they both say together.

  ‘Whaddya mean, found her? Found who?’

  They give me this puzzled look. ‘Come on, boss, don’t play games.’ And they turn and splash off, side by side, along the alley. I drop down and follow them, round two corners—

  ‘How did you find her?’

  Stupid question. I instantiated Preston, so if I don’t know, who does?

  We’re at the front of the termite nest. ‘Where are we going?’

  They both stand there looking pleased with themselves. Then, before I can tell them to stop messing about and get on with it, they sort of shuffle up to each other and go back into the hug. I don’t actually notice it happen – you never quite see it, no matter how hard you try – but next thing, there’s just one Preston. Still looking pleased with himself.

  He turns and points. ‘There, boss.’

  Kazia? Nope.

  A dozen men standing around a glowing brazier. Thick coats to keep warm. Heavy boots to administer a good kicking.

  I look down at Preston. ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘It’s him!’ one of the men yells. ‘The nekker!’ He’s overweight, with a black birthmark bang in the middle of his forehead, wearing a priest’s cassock and a whole heap of crucifixes strung around his neck. He’s waving a long pole with a pointy metal cross on the end. ‘Repent!’

  Won’t you give a big friendly welcome, please, to the boys from the ASB: the Anti-Sorcery Brotherhood. The name says it all, really: they’re a brotherhood and . . . wait for it . . . they don’t like sorcerers.

  They move away from the brazier and form a line between me and the monastery gate. They’re all wearing the ASB’s emblem round their arms: a burning five-pointed star.

  ‘OK, arseholes,’ I say, trying unsuccessfully to stop my voice shaking. ‘Come and get it.’

  Obviously, this can only go one way. I make a vague attempt to fight back, but I keep missing and after I’ve taken a couple of heavy whacks I realise: (a) that this is much less fun than I thought it’d be; and (b) that I’d be much safer curled up on the ground.

  The kicking settles down to a routine. They’re taking it in turns, in silence, mostly aiming at my back and legs, and at my arms which I’ve got wrapped round my head. Then someone grabs me and turns me on my back. I try to stay curled up, but I’m getting it in the stomach and shoulders now. I can’t keep my legs tucked up any more. I flop out and I’m just thinking that if I was still thinking straight, I’d be thinking what a stupid fool I am, except I’m not thinking, just hurting . . .

  When it stops. Just like that.

  I’m lying there, too scared even to open my eyes because I’m sure they’re just taking the mickey and as soon as I move they’ll start in again. But then I hear feet running away.

  Silence.

  A single set of footsteps coming closer. Is this the coup de grâce?

  I’m dead impressed by this next bit and I hope you are too: I open my eyes.

  And it’s Kazia.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Malformed

  MY MUM USED to sing me this song about how love makes the world go round – usually when she’d had a few drinks and the bruises my dad made didn’t hurt so bad any more. She was wrong, of course: any fool knows it’s money that makes the world go round.

  But love sure can make your head spin. My heart has decided that my blood can do its own circulating and has stopped dead. There’s this magic moment where it’s like the first time I ever saw Kazia . . . before she started trying to kill me.

  ‘Hello, Frank,’ she says quietly. ‘Surprised to see me?’

  She holds out her hand. I don’t want to, but I can’t stop myself: it’s chillingly cold as I take it. Like an angel, she draws me to my feet.

  We did love spells at Saint Cyprian’s. Except that when I say ‘did’, I don’t mean that we actually performed them: the Society wouldn’t go so far as to stick you on a bonfire for doing a love spell, but it’d do several things to you that hurt.

  Fact is, before the Society came along and started handing out gold stars and badges, sorcerers were a sad bunch of flea-bitten losers, hiding out in caves and cellars and desperately in need of something to cheer themselves up. And what better morale-booster than a maiden taking her clothes off? Of course, when the Society came along it wanted to convince everybody that sorcery was about serious things like comprehending the full mystery of the divine creation in all its complexity.

  Girls in their underwear, they kind of give the game away, you know . . .?

  Most love spells are very silly. Scraping the gold paint off a statue of the Virgin Mary. Pulling chickens apart and throwing the bits around. Sleeping with a wax image under your pillow. Or invoking a demon to compel the victim . . . which is what got Kazia into so much trouble in the first place.

  Preston is bouncing up and down. ‘Told you, boss!’

  I put my finger to my lips. I turn back to Kazia and croak, ‘A bit surprised, yeah.’

  Suspicious too.

  I’ve lost my hat, but I realise that’s good because the cold numbs the pain. Did I mention that everything hurts? Trust me: it does. I shuffle round and try to move towards the monastery gate, but my left leg is protesting that it’s happy where it is.

  Kazia steps up and puts her arm round my waist, to support me. Her clothes are wet from the rain.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say. But I don’t pull away.

  ‘Who were they?’ she asks.

  ‘ASB.’ With her help, I limp a few steps. ‘Who else?’ I want to ask her how much she saw – how long she watched before she stepped out from wherever she was hiding. Was she afraid they’d turn on her? Did she wait until I’d got the kicking she thought I deserved?

  Questions best not asked. Try a different one. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I need your help.’ I can see bruises on her face and a smear of blood under her nose.

  ‘I’ve heard that one before.’ Specifically, a few hours before she sent Alastor to nail me.

  ‘I made a mistake,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, Frank.’

  I know I’m making a mistake too; but I’ve got to know. ‘So who wanted the boy dead?’ I manage to raise my hand and ring the monastery bell. ‘That demon you were summoning . . .’

  For a moment, I think we’re both expecting her to ask, What demon? But she just looks down at the pavement.

  ‘It turned up,’ I say. ‘Malformed.’

  The Society says demons are maleficent, conscious spiritual beings that a sorcerer can compel to manifest in the physical world. Sometimes the ritual’s wrong, or something interferes, and they turn up broken, like the pantomime chicken in the autopsy room.

  The gate opens. Andrew stares out at me. ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘None of your business.’ I grab the side of the gate and try to haul myself over the threshold, but he just stands in my way, giving me this reproachful look.

  ‘Brother,’ he says. ‘Brother. Beware lest your sins should find you out.’

  Welcome home, Frank. I’m tempted to ask him to compile a complete list, in case it ever comes to any serious repenting.

  ‘The other Brothers—’ He sniggers. ‘The rest of the Brothers are in the chapel.’

  ‘I’m pleased for them,’ I groan. ‘Now get out of the way.’

  His eyes have opened wide like saucers. ‘Brother Tobias,’ he whispers. ‘It’s that girl again.’ Yeah, Andrew’s met Kazia. He doesn’t know she’s a sorcerer, and I’d prefer to keep it that way. �
��You shouldn’t be talking to her: she’s a proximate occasion of sin.’

  I should be so lucky. ‘For Christ’s sake, Brother, will you just get out of the way?’

  Andrew’s probably about to explain why he can’t do that when another voice breaks in. ‘Who’s that?’

  Just what I needed: Brother Thomas sticking his fat, shiny head over Andrew’s shoulder. My popularity knows no bounds.

  And my cloaking spell takes no prisoners: Brother Thomas is too close to see me clearly without his spectacles. He steps back, blinking furiously. He focuses.

  ‘Just me,’ I say.

  He makes a noise like a lavatory flushing and tips over backwards.

  Kazia’s eyes widen and I realise she recognises a cloaking spell when she sees one. No time to discuss the finer points, though. I drag her inside, but Andrew’s still in the way.

  ‘I told you, she’s a proximate occasion—’

  ‘And this is a proximate occasion of pain.’ I wave my fist under his nose. ‘Now get lost.’

  But he won’t. He trails after us, out into the cloister, where I prise Kazia off my arm and sit her down on a bench.

  ‘I did it, boss!’ Preston crows.

  ‘Yeah, now don’t bother me.’ I sit beside Kazia. ‘It was supposed to kill the Crypt Boy, right?’

  She just stares at me.

  ‘The demon.’ I’m whispering, so that Andrew can’t hear. ‘It was supposed to kill the boy . . .’

  She shakes her head, but I don’t think she’s denying it. She just doesn’t want to talk about it.

  I do, though. ‘I guess it’s kind of my fault. I made you jump. But I checked the summoning room and I was sure nothing had manifested.’ Yeah, should’ve looked more carefully. ‘Which demon was it?’

  There are several books that list all the demons a sorcerer can invoke. If you want to take a crack at it yourself, the best is Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire infernal. Names, appearances, special skills, unpleasant habits . . .

  Kazia’s eyes are this amazing cornflower blue, but there’s this thing across them, the thing that’s always defeated me . . . like sunlight sparkling on the surface of a pond, hiding what’s lurking beneath.