by M. V. Stott
‘You know, your masters used to be a lot more fun than you. Such a pity they were torn to pieces.’
I felt my stomach twist and I took an involuntary step forward, fists clenched. I felt a hand lightly touch my arm.
‘We have a job to do, Stella,’ David whispered.
I controlled my breathing and unclenched my fists, feeling my palms sting from where my nails had dug in.
‘That’s a good girl,’ said Anya.
The truth was, an attack on Anya might have been the last thing I ever did. A familiar going toe-to-toe with a succubus? She could have beaten me into a bag of loose bone shards.
‘Okay, if you’re not going to stamp your feet and throw your little fists, could you ask the question you came here to ask? I’m growing tired of your company already.’
‘A body was found,’ said David. ‘A dead body, just to be clear. A corpse.’
‘And?’
‘And this,’ I replied, holding up my phone, which displayed a picture of the mummified man’s body.
‘Strike you as familiar?’ I asked.
‘I don’t believe we had ever met, no.’
I pocketed my phone. ‘Notice the way his corpse looked? He was alive the night previous, then was found like that in the morning. Completely dried out, not a drop of moisture left in his body.’
‘Perhaps he had the heating turned up too high.’
David laughed, the sound catching in his throat as I glared at him.
‘Sorry, but, you know, that was kind of funny.’
‘Anya, you know what I’m asking.’
‘You think that he may have met his end at the hands of a succubus.’
I nodded.
‘You are treading on thin ice, familiar. If I were you I’d choose my next words very carefully.’
‘We’re not accusing anyone here,’ said David. ‘Just a few friendly questions. Standard, you know, police stuff.’
‘Oh, I think your partner here is very much accusing my family of something, is that not so, Stella? Do you believe myself and my sisters to be guilty of the poor man’s untimely demise?
‘You’ve seen the picture. And I’ve seen the body up close.’
Anya stood and glided towards me. ‘I am the head of the succubus family of London, and whether your witches are dead or alive, a pact was made. I do not break my promises. My sisters do not break their promises. We agreed to feed within these walls and within these walls alone, and never to the point of a subject’s death. All who enter, all who we feed upon, walk out of this place alive.’
I studied her face, looking for a tell, but came up with nothing. She seemed to be telling the truth.
‘Could another succubus be out there?’ asked David. ‘One who isn’t in your family?’
‘No. We would know. I would know.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘We always know.’
As Anya spoke her eyes never left me. A blink and her eyes were black. She raised a hand, now more like a claw, and ran one rough, long, sharp finger across my cheek.
‘Maybe’ I replied, ‘someone in your family has a got a little tired of living by the rules and wanted to fully embrace their nature. To really sate their appetite.’
Anya’s nail stopped tracing my jaw. Instead, the point began to press against my flesh. The pressure began to increase, ever so slightly, with each passing heartbeat; sooner or later she was going to break the skin. Finally, I blinked and jerked my head away.
Anya sneered and turned from me.
‘When was the last time you had a, well, a full feed?’ asked David.
‘Too long,’ she replied, almost wistfully it seemed. ‘We were at war with the London Coven, and they fought with all they had to deny us our feeding rights. The last time I drained someone to death was one evening almost ninety years ago. She was a young thing, perhaps twenty, with lily white skin that had never known the touch of a man. I sat astride her and drank her down. Every last emotion, every desire and fury. All of it, until her perfect skin puckered. The truce was called the next day, after both sides had finally realised we’d fought to a standstill. I am a monster of my word, and neither I nor my sisters have fed fully since, no matter how much our stomachs beg us to.’
‘It must be, you know, difficult,’ said David. ‘I mean, I used to love a nice ciggy, puffed those things all day every day since the age of fifteen, only gave up a year ago. Went on the patches, the gum, but it wasn’t the same. It didn’t scratch that itch in the same way. I still find myself buying a pack every couple of months, just so I can smoke a single cig before chucking the rest out.’
Anya smiled, ‘He’s smarter than he looks, isn’t he?’
‘Oh, thanks. I think?’
‘It is difficult, but we are not human. We are not so weak. We can and do restrain ourselves. No occasional cigarette just to appease the itch.’
I held up my phone again, the picture of the man’s corpse still on display. ’You’re sure of that?’
Anya’s eyes snapped black again for a second before she caught herself and her composure returned.
‘You come to my home with accusations, questioning my control over my own family? That shows either surprising bravery, or extreme stupidity. Which is it?’
‘I’d say a little from column A, a little from column B,’ said David.
‘Can you explain the picture, Anya?’ I said. ‘If it wasn’t caused by a succubus, what else could it be?’
‘There are any number of things that might have done that, as well you know. I’m sure you yourself could manipulate a spell to do something similar.’
Perhaps I could, but I’d been close to the corpse, and no magic spell had caused it. I would be able to see evidence of that, be able to taste it. The specific Uncanny residue of witchcraft.
‘Well, thanks a lot for your time,’ said David, in his best police man voice.
‘Oh, it’s always a pleasure to see you, detective. Do come back any time.’
‘Yep,’ said David, his voice a squeak, before looking to me and pointing to the exit.
‘Stella?’ said Anya.
I stopped and turned.
‘If you come in here and accuse my family on such flimsy evidence again, I will mount and feed upon you until that old body of yours finally gives out. It will be… delicious. Do I make myself clear?’
I nodded and left.
6
We made our way back through The Den, again doing our best to ignore the various acts of depravity going on around us.
‘Do you believe her?’ asked David.
‘Not sure. Maybe. Anya’s a very good liar, but then again, why lie? If it really was one of her own, it would make more sense for her family to have jumped us en masse back there and torn us to pieces.’
‘Right. Well. That’s reassuring.’
Then again, maybe Anya wasn’t in quite such close control of her sisters as she liked to think. That’s not something she’d admit to easily, or at all to someone like me. No, as far as I was concerned, Anya and her family were still very much in the frame for this, at least until a more likely culprit raised their head.
‘Hey,’ said David, ‘isn’t that your new bestest bud in the whole world over there?’
I turned in the direction he was pointing and saw a pile of rags piled upon a couch in a darkened corner of the club. It was Eva, curled up in a ball and snoring as a fat woman wearing leather lederhosen whipped a hairy-backed man in a gimp-mask chained to the wall beside her. As the whip cracked and the man screamed, Eva remained fast asleep, oblivious.
‘Shit,’ said David, looking at his watch. ‘The guv is going to think I’ve gone missing again.’
‘Go. Let me know if Layland has anything new for us.’
‘Will do, magic lady. Stay safe.’
I watched him leave. He looked and sounded fine. You’d never know he’d turned into something so… Uncanny, just a few weeks earlier. Maybe the Knot Man was wrong. Maybe Eva was wro
ng. Maybe it would all be okay.
Yeah, wishful thinking.
I made my way over to Eva and sat beside her.
‘Hey.’
‘I’m asleep,’ she replied.
I shook her and she sat up, groaning, the whites of her eyes as red as strawberries.
‘Christ on a bike, I think someone crawled inside my head and knocked some walls down.’
I picked up a glass half-full of something and passed it over to her; she downed it in one and shuddered.
‘That’s the stuff,’ she said, then glanced about to collect her bearings. ‘So, where are we, exactly?’ She jumped as the fat woman’s whip cracked against the gimp’s back and he let rip a sharp cry.
‘The Den.’
‘The what? Oh, yes, yep, I’ve got you. A whole lot of filthy buggers in here. I mean, I’d heard stories of course, but blimey. This right here is some next level filth.’
Another cry as the whip left a fresh, livid mark.
‘’Scuse me, love, do you mind,’ asked Eva, trying to get the woman to let up her assault for a moment.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I’m a tourist, just taking in the sights.’
‘You do know who runs this place?’
‘Mr The Den?’
‘Anya, a succubus.’
‘Oh, one of those sorts. I thought I caught a whiff of something, but then I’ve stuck so much up my nose recently it can be easy to make mistakes. Know what I mean?’
‘Not really.’
Another whip crack, another scream.
‘Oi, tons of fun, I won’t tell you again,’ said Eva.
The woman grunted, her flesh quivering in annoyance.
‘So, what are you into then, my girl?’ she asked me.
‘What?’
‘What’s your poison? You must’ve come here for a reason. A little light bondage? Fight club? Daddy play?’
‘No! No, no, no. None of that. I came here to ask the succubus who runs the place some questions, about a murder.’
‘Ooh, I do love a good murder.’
I pulled out my phone and showed Eva the dried-out corpse.
‘Now that, is one ugly fucker.’
‘Look like a succubus attack to you?’
Another cry from the gimp.
‘One moment, love,’ said Eva. She flashed out her hand and caught the whip just as the fat woman was about to give the gimp another bloody streak across his arching back.
The woman turned to Eva. ‘Oi,’ she said, ‘what’s your game?’
‘Me and my friend here are trying to have a civil conversation, you sack of mayonnaise, and it’s awfully tricky with all the screaming.’
The woman shrieked and lunged at Eva, who uttered an incantation under her breath and sent the woman flying through the air, pudgy legs whirling like she was on a bicycle, before a wall broke her fall and she crashed down to the floor, unconscious.
‘You know,’ said Eva, ‘in my experience, women in lederhosen are always very unreasonable.’
‘Ladies.’
‘Ladies.’
Jack and Jake, the Den’s bouncers.
‘What is it now?’ I asked.
‘Familiar’s Anonymous meeting is it?’
‘Sorry,’ I said, standing slowly, trying not to give them any more reason to get agitated. ‘The lady in the leather trousers started it when she charged my friend here.’
‘Is that so?’ asked Jake.
‘Oh, is that so, is it?’ said Jack.
‘Yes,’ replied Eva, ‘So why don’t you two numbskulls toddle off before I rearrange those flat faces of yours, hm? Come on Stella, are we going to chat with Giles L’Merrier or what?’’
Eva stood and shoved past the pair, staggering towards The Den’s exit. Jack and Jake looked at each other, slowly blinking in surprise, then turned to me.
‘Sorry guys, bit of a mouth on her, that one.’
I jogged past to catch up with Eva, leaving the befuddled pair behind before their surprised confusion turned to anger.
7
‘Do you mind telling me how you knew I was going to pay Giles L’Merrier a visit?’ I asked as the tube shot Eva and I towards L’Merrier’s Antiques.
‘Oh, I saw the summons on the card you keep teasing at without realising you’re doing it.’
I pulled my hand away from the card that I was holding onto in my pocket.
‘Did you see who delivered it?’
‘Nope. But then I don’t suppose the big man utilises delivery boys and such, do you? More of a flim-flam and away we magically go sort of message transference, I’d say.’
Well, if anyone had the power to bypass the coven’s security so they could deliver a note, it would be Giles L’Merrier. Better that than actually leave his shop, or pick up the phone. If anything, I was surprised he hadn’t transported me there already against my will.
Eva placed her hands behind her head as she propped her boots up on the frayed seat opposite. ‘Lyna, one of my witches, she told stories of L’Merrier over the centuries. Truth be told, I think she had a bit of a crush on the big man. I asked if they’d ever knocked boots and she turned me into a frog for six months.’ She threw her head back and laughed uproariously, which drew more than a few concerned glances from the other passengers in the carriage.
‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘My witches used to talk about the sort of things he’d get up to.’
Eva nodded, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes onto her sleeves as her giggles finally died down.
‘Lyna once told me about how a gaggle of witch hunters had the coven surrounded. Before my time this, you understand.’
Before Eva’s time was a hell of a long time ago, by the way. If what I’d been told was true, she was probably the oldest living familiar in existence, though to look at her you’d swear she was in her late thirties at most.
‘So, they’d tried everything against these Godless fuckers and nothing had worked. What’s more, the turds had already dispatched my predecessor. Chopped her up and fed the bits to their horses. Bit grim....’ Eva’s eyes dropped and her head began to nod.
‘Eva!’
‘What? Yes?’
‘L’Merrier! L’Merrier and the witch hunters.’
‘Right! Are we on a train?’
Focus was not one of Eva’s gifts.
‘So, Lyna and the rest are completely surrounded, their familiar dead, powers drained, thinking they’re goners. Would’ve been too, but then up out of nowhere appears L’Merrier, large as life and twice as fierce. Is that a saying? I think I ballsed that up. Anyway, he had an enchanted tree branch in his big hands, and he whack-whack-whacked each of the witch hunters’ heads off, then threw their bodies into Derwent Water, one of the great lakes. Threw their horses in too for good measure. Trapped ‘em for good in The Nether. That’s just the sort of shit he did, before he went soft, figuratively and literally, judging by the blubber he carts around on him these days.’
Every story anyone told about L’Merrier in the old days made him sound like some sort of a god. To meet the grumpy sod who never strayed from the insides of his shop, it was difficult to match the two pictures up.
‘Do you know why he stopped?’ I asked. ‘Why he just stays in his shop these days?’
Eva shrugged. ‘Buggered if I know, but then even the best of fun gets boring, given time.’
Eva seemed to sag, her eyes becoming hooded, distant, looking at something I couldn’t see. I knew what it must be, because I know I often have that expression when I’m thinking about a certain something. David had told me often enough.
‘You’re thinking about them aren’t you? Your witches?’ he’d say, and I’d nod, hoping a tear wouldn’t escape if I blinked.
Eva’s witches were dead, just like mine.
We sat in silence for the rest of the journey, listening to the clack clack clack of the wheels on the track.
8
Like I said, L’Merrier isn�
��t the type of person who encourages visits. As a matter of fact, he’s warned me on more than one occasion to never darken his doorstep again. Needless to say, this mysterious summons of his had me more than a little curious.
And wary.
‘This the place is it?’ asked Eva.
‘Yes, the shop with the sign that reads “L’Merriers Antiques” is the shop we’re meeting L’Merrier in,’ I replied.
‘Smart arse.’
I pushed the door open, the little bell jangling to announce our entrance.
‘L’Merrier, it’s me, Stella Familiar.’
I peered around the shop, packed full of a jumble of strange objects, some everyday, others of the more Uncanny variety.
‘Is that a giant’s heart over there?’ asked Eva.
‘Yup.’
‘Now that’s not the sort of souvenir you pick up in your average gift shop. That’s something else, that is.’ She stopped and sniffed the air. ‘It stinks of magic in here. I mean, I thought your coven was heavy with it, but this place...’ She wafted a hand in front of her nose.
‘Familiar.’ A deep, smooth voice rolling out from the shadows.
‘Christ,’ said Eva, ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’
L’Merrier, in his floor-length robe with its sewn on symbols of protection, glided out of the dark, his fingers interlaced and resting on top of his bulging stomach.
‘I came,’ I said, ‘as asked.’
‘Congratulations for indicating the obvious, familiar,’ he replied. ‘I do not recall adding a “plus one” to the invitation.’
‘You’re bald,’ noted Eva. ‘Lyna never mentioned anything about you being bald.’
L’Merrier turned to Eva, ‘Ah, it is you, the errant leftovers from the Cumbrian Coven. Always running, running, running from her responsibilities. From her true place and purpose. As though she has any future that does not include her return to the dark lakes.’
‘Yup, that’s me,’ she chirped.
Was that almost a smile on L’Merrier’s face?
‘A pair of tragic orphans in my humble shop; it seems witches are becoming an endangered species, does it not?’
‘That’s enough,’ I said, feeling a little seed of anger sprout. He could say what he liked about me, but I wouldn’t stand for him mocking my dead.
