by M. V. Stott
A month had passed since then, and David hadn’t shown any other signs of that sort of power. In truth, I was hoping whatever it was that lurked inside him had burned itself out. That whatever changes had been brought about by being possessed by Mr. Trick, and by the black magic I’d tapped into to save his life, had guttered out already. Eva’s questions had put that idea to bed though.
‘Whatever it is,’ said Eva, ‘It’s interesting. I was planning to head off in a day or two, pop up to Manchester to see a man about a God, but maybe I’ll stick around longer. I’ve got this feeling in the bottom of my bottom that something interesting is on the horizon, and my rear end never lies. Not like these tits of mine.’
‘Here we go then,’ said David, entering with a tray of coffees.
Eva had already crashed out by then, so the two of us shovelled her up and tossed her into one of the coven’s spare rooms.
As I lay in bed later, I thought about what Eva had said. Yes, she was drunk, but she’d seen the truth. Her eyes were older than mine, and more attuned to the Uncanny. You can’t hide what you are from a familiar that old.
She saw what was inside of David.
She saw what the Knot Man had come to the coven four weeks back to warn me about.
That whatever had happened to David had changed him, and that the change could spell disaster for the whole of London.
3
The next morning there was no sign of Eva, just an empty bottle at the foot of the bed and the covers in a corkscrew on the floor.
I found the note on the kitchen table.
At first I thought it must be from Eva, a thank you for letting her stay, or a message to tell me she’d see me later. What I didn’t expect was that it would be from Giles L’Merrier.
The note was business card sized and written in large, flowing letters. It simply read: To me, now. L’Merrier.
A summons from the mighty L’Merrier? What on Earth was going on? L’Merrier wasn’t one to entertain visitors, least of all from a lowly witch’s familiar. Something told me he wasn’t inviting me over for tea and biscuits and a gossipy chat.
I rolled the card over in my hands, tracing the crisp edges with my fingertips, wondering what in the hell L’Merrier could want from me. He’d made it quite clear during my last few unwanted visits that my presence in his shop was far from desired. In fact, I got the distinct impression that he rather disliked me. A lot. Then again, that just put me in the same boat as everyone else walking the streets of London. Giles L’Merrier had long ago retreated from the world, a virtual hermit, content to stay hidden away in his shop, his past a thing of whispered, awed myth.
Perhaps this invitation was proof that he’d finally decided to step out into the world again.
I slid the card into the pocket of my leather jacket, fully intending to head straight to L’Merrier’s Antiques. You don’t keep a man like that waiting. As I reached the front door though, I felt my phone vibrating. It was David.
‘Morning, sunshine,’ he said, brightly.
‘What is it?’ I grunted.
‘Ah, there’s that friendly disposition I’ve come to love.’
‘David…’
‘I’ve got something. A body. I think we’ve got a new job on.’
David was waiting for me at Ealing Hospital.
I strode in, detectives and medical staff nodding and smiling at me as I passed. Technically, I shouldn’t be anywhere near an official police investigation. I wasn’t on the force, I had nothing to do with the case, and I didn’t even technically qualify as a human being. But I did know magic, and I knew how to use it to cloud the thoughts of normals and make myself welcome in places I didn’t belong. I never pushed it too far. All I did was put out a suggestion that I was meant to be there. Just a gentle nudge. People would never be sure quite who I was, but they also wouldn’t question it.
Oh look, it’s what’s-her-name. She’s expected. She’s down. She’s on the list. You know who I’m talking about... what’s-her-face.
...And they’d nod politely and let me by, no questions asked. Don’t get me wrong, the spell has its limits. The effect crumbles if I stick around too long, but for a quick visit, it does the job nicely.
I followed the signs to the hospital morgue, where I found David stood next to a ceramic slab bearing a covered body. Opposite was a wall full of small, metal doors, I wondered how many of them hid bodies of their own.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘How’s the booze hound this morning?’
‘Eva? Gone.’
‘Oh, I thought she might end up taking up in one of the coven’s spare rooms.’
‘Yeah, well, she hasn’t.’ I realised that I’d been vaguely hoping that, too. My witches were dead; it was just me and David trying to keep the Uncanny peace in London’s sprawling streets now. An extra-experienced familiar like Eva mucking in wouldn’t have hurt. I mean, it’s not like she really had a coven of her own to go to. She’d been wandering the country, a free agent, for years now. It was time she got back to work.
‘So, what have we got?’ I asked, changing the subject.
‘This is a weird one,’ replied David, ‘so hang onto your breakfast...’
He reached down to the slab and peeled back the white plastic sheet to reveal the naked body of a man.
He’d been found that morning by his teenage daughter. She’d called up to his room to let him know his morning coffee was ready, and he hadn’t answered. Hadn’t arrived downstairs, bleary-eyed, hair a mess, desperate for his morning rocket fuel. So, she’d called again, and again, getting louder and more annoyed each time. Finally, she’d stomped her way up the stairs, thrown his bedroom door open, and yelled, ‘Are you coming down or what?’
The final word had caught in her throat as she’d flicked on the light and saw her dad, laid out on his back in bed, quite dead, his body completely drained of moisture. It looked like he’d been left out in the desert to mummify. The man was a withered husk.
‘Jesus,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ replied David. ‘This is one for us.’
‘This is definitely one for us.’
‘Oh, it’s you again,’ came a woman’s voice from behind me. It was Detective Layland, David’s partner. She was a hard-faced young woman who, on the few times I’d met her, had made it very clear she didn’t like me. Just like the others, she put up with me because of the suggestion magic I pushed at her whenever she got near. She thought I was a specialist of some sort. A gopher from some strange department or other that dealt with the weird stuff, an associate of David’s who he’d call in from time to time. If she ever tried to examine the thought too closely—to really subject it to scrutiny—the thought would be pushed out of her mind, like she was trying force two magnets of the same pole together.
Despite the magic, or perhaps, subconsciously, because of it, Layland didn’t care for my presence one bit.
‘Hello, Detective,’ I said, without turning to look at her.
‘Another freak show.’
‘The body, or Stella here?’ asked David.
I raised an eyebrow.
‘Please don’t hurt me.’
‘Any ideas?’ asked Layland, even though her voice made it very clear that it pained her to even ask.
‘One or two,’ I replied.
‘Care to enlighten me?’
‘Not sure of anything, not yet.’
‘Right, right. You see, solving this sort of shit, murders and so on, is kind of my job. We like to find killers, and arrest them. One way of doing that is to share facts, opinions, thoughts, hunches.’
‘She has a very good point,’ said David.
‘As soon as I have something worth saying, I’ll say it.’
‘So, never then?’ said Layland.
David snorted, then took a half step back as I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘Hey, come on, that was a solid return of serve.’
Layland sniffed derisively, then headed off. ‘Fill me in on whatever shit she spouts, I’m go
nna go and bang on the neighbour’s doors. You know: police work.’
David grinned at me. ‘You know, I think she has a crush on you.’
‘How about a little respect, David? We are stood over a murder victim.’
‘Alright, alright.’
I ran my eyes over the corpse again; at the leathery skin that looked as though it had been left to dry out in the sun for decades. The wide open eyes, their colour drained away. The mouth cracked apart, stretched in a silent scream. The withered tongue that hung from it, burnt to a crisp like a rasher of overcooked bacon.
I didn’t like the way my thoughts were turning.
Because I recognised the signs.
Yes, there were a few different ways a body might end up in a state like this—and I’d have preferred if one of those ways had turned out to be the actual way—but as I reached out with my senses and probed the corpse for answers, they only came back with bad news.
‘I know what creature did this,’ I said.
‘Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to be over the moon with the answer?’ replied David.
‘Come on. We have to go pay a visit to Anya.’
‘There it is. Bollocks.’
David covered the dessicated corpse and we headed from the morgue and out of the hospital, quickly, before my suggestion spell broke apart.
4
Anya and the rest of her family spent most of their time holed up in The Den, the Soho club they owned.
And fed in.
‘You’re sure there’s a connection?’ asked David, warily looking towards the entrance of The Den, its door flanked by Jack and Jake, the two giant, shovel-faced doormen.
‘Only one creature I know leaves a body like that,’ I told David. ‘A succubus did this.’
‘I thought you said they were under control these days?’
That was true, or had been when my witches were alive. Since then, who knew? Maybe Anya and her family had decided all bets were off and were starting to step outside of their club to feast.
The deal between the succubi and the London Coven had been struck to put an end to a no-win war. The witches agreed to leave Anya and her family unchallenged, and in exchange, the succubi had acquiesced to limiting their feeding to the confines of their club. They also promised not to drain any of their clientele to death. They got to take a nice, big gulp, and then their victims walked out, alive and healthy.
The Den was a no-holds-barred fetish, sex, violence, and whatever else got your engine running club. Your wildest fantasies could come true within the walls of the place, and the succubus family would then feed on all the wild explosions of emotion unleashed. The building lay hidden in plain sight. A place that you didn’t know was there, no matter how many times you walked past it. Not until, that is, you heard a whisper about its existence. About the things you could experience if you went there. And then it sunk its hooks deep and you found yourself walking through its doors, ready to indulge in your most depraved fantasies.
The succubi family had you then, because there was no way you weren’t going to return again, not after a taste. And even if you were strong minded enough to resist, enough to want to try to get it closed down, it was too bad, they already had you. They knew your darkest recesses, had them recorded for posterity, or blackmail. And if that wasn’t an option? Well, a family member would just pay you a visit as you lay in bed one black night.
The Den had existed, unchallenged, since before I was created.
‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘Anya and her family have grown tired of restrictions. Perhaps they think they can kill again, now that it’s just me in charge.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ asked David.
‘The plan is, we talk to Anya. And, if we have to, we stop the succubi from hurting anybody else.’
‘And how exactly do we do that?’
‘We’ll think of something.’
‘Phew, that’s my worries eased,’ said David. I believe he was being sarcastic.
‘Come on.’
‘I was being sarcastic by the way.’
Told you.
I headed towards The Den, David nipping at my heels. As we approached, a furtive looking man stepped out of the place and pulled his collar high, his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
‘See you again,’ Jack said to him.
‘See you again,’ said Jake.
‘No,’ replied the man, ‘I won’t be back.’
‘That’s what they all say, ‘int that right, Jake?’
‘That’s what they all say, right enough, Jack.’
The man scurried away. That was the thing about The Den. It wormed its way into your mind. Became an addiction. Once you’d had a taste of it, once you’d experienced the kind of things it offered, it was difficult not to make a return visit.
‘Well, well, well; look who it is,’ said Jake.
‘Well, I never, look who it is,’ replied Jack.
‘I’m not looking for trouble, boys,’ I said, making sure to draw in some of the surrounding magic, just in case.
‘We never look for trouble,’ said Jack.
‘Never look for it, do we?’
‘Never.’
‘It always finds us, though.’
‘Always knows exactly where we are, does trouble.’
‘Exactly where we are.’
‘We’re here to talk to Anya,’ squeaked David, then coughed to get his voice back into a more masculine register. ‘Anya. We’re here to ask her a few questions. If that’s okay. Please.’
‘It’s the detective, Jake.’
‘Look, Jack, the detective.’
‘Are you going to show us your badge again?’
The two slapped at each other, laughing it up.
‘No. Not if… you don’t want me to.’
‘Okay,’ I said, as the two doormen regained control of themselves, ‘Are you going to let us in or do we have to do it the hard way?’
‘Ooh!’
‘So tough, I’m scared, really, aren’t you, Jake?’
‘I am. Very scared indeed.’
Jake turned and opened the door, ‘In you go, missy. Maybe Anya will tear off one of your arms or something.’
‘Or a leg.’
‘Could be a leg, could be.’
We stepped into the club, leaving the two doormen behind, grateful that our little confrontation hadn’t turned into something worse. Those two were a pain to fight head-on.
‘Remember,’ I said to David, ‘The spell I placed on you should protect you from the suggestion magic that rolls around this place, but stay close to me anyway.’
‘Oh please,’ he replied. ‘I have amazing self-control.’
‘Then stop staring at that woman rubbing oil into her four giant breasts.’
‘I was just… checking. Surveillance. That’s a police thing.’
I smiled and made my way towards the second floor of the club, towards Anya’s private office. The seating in The Den was vinyl, wipe clean, the tables and bar metal, and the walls were covered in dark, red velvet. As we walked I tried not to take in too much of what was going on around me in the sweaty, darkened corners.
‘There’s no way that’s going to fit in ther—’ David started saying, before a scream and the sound of a big, wet insertion cut him off. ‘Oh, no, in it goes,’ he added, correcting himself. ‘I feel a bit queasy.’
‘Good. Better than the alternative.’
I can’t say I relish the times I have to meet Anya, or any of her family, come to that. She’s strong, all succubi are, but Anya is stronger than most. Her kind might seem friendly, seductive, even lovable, but they can turn in an instant and tear your guts out with one hand. They like to keep you off-balance, wary, as they prowl in front of you, prodding and poking.
You can never be sure they’re going to let you walk away without a fight, or worse.
‘Oh my god,’ said David.
‘What now?’
‘I think I just saw Todd over there. He’s a desk sergeant I know!’
‘Don’t stare,’ I replied. ‘Get your focus back, David, we’ve got work to do.’
‘Right, yes, sorry. But I’m never shaking Todd’s hand again. Not after what I’ve just seen him doing with that gibbon.’
5
Anya was stretched out on a couch in her office, propped up against the arm as she slowly drank something red and thick from a crystal glass.
‘Anya,’ I said, nodding my head in greeting.
‘I see you brought your little friend with you again,’ she replied, her voice smooth and playful.
‘Hello. Yes. I’m just going to stay behind Stella if that’s okay.’
‘Aw, I don’t think he likes me,’ replied Anya, pouting.
‘No, no, you’re very nice. Not at all terrifying.’
Anya placed her glass down and stood, her red, silk dress that hugged her like a second skin sliding down to cover her bare feet.
‘Tell me, detective, how can I convince you to visit my jolly little club without the chaperone?’
‘Anya,’ I said. ‘Someone’s died.’
‘Careless of them,’ she replied, never taking her eyes off David as she seemed to almost glide towards us.
‘Do you find me attractive, Detective? I know that you do, I can taste it.’
I took a step to the side so that David was now hidden fully behind me. ‘I came here to ask questions, not to watch you flirt with my partner.’
Anya looked at me unblinkingly for several seconds, during which the world seemed to hold its breath. Finally, she smiled and turned from me, heading towards her desk.
‘What could you possibly need to ask me about, familiar? And why should I answer? You are not your witches, why should I feel beholden to anything you say?’
‘You’re right. I’m not my witches. Not even close. But I am of the London Coven, and that still means something. So please, answer my questions, and I’ll be out of your hair. I promise.’
Anya settled into her chair like a cat and offered me a dead-eyed smile.
