‘Be brave,’ said the constant voice at his ear. Said the Angel of Blackpool.
His mother was dying.
He remembered the first time he’d heard the Angel’s voice, knelt down on the beach, digging a hole in the sand, trying to ignore his mother as she cried. He’d give just about anything for there to be enough life left in her for tears.
The door to her room opened and a doctor stepped out. The Magician thought he looked like a bird. A pinched face and hook nose.
‘She’s not long left now,’ said the doctor, and the Magician dug his nails into the palms of his hands to stop himself from smashing this bird in the face.
‘Be brave,’ said the Angel.
He smiled and nodded and the doctor walked off down the corridor, the Magician’s cold eyes watching him until he turned out of view.
‘I could kill him,’ he said.
‘Yes. You could kill everyone in this hospital,’ replied the Angel.
He smiled at that.
‘Yes. I could send them one by one by one into the sea, just like Nelson. Someone would walk along the beach, with a metal detector maybe, some sad, useless old man full of life he’s no use for, and he’d see them all. See all the bodies floating on the water’s surface like grim lily pads.’
He walked to the open door of his mother’s hospital room and paused, fingertips brushing against the door handle.
‘Why don’t I do that? Just send them all to sea and not go in this room at all.’
‘Because that would be the end and you know we have much more important work. A destiny, you and I. We’re meant for great things.’
The Magician nodded, then stepped inside the hospital room. His mother was laid out in the single bed, a thin cotton sheet over her. Her face was thin, cheeks shallow. She’d lost so much weight over the last few months that she barely looked like his mother at all. This was a stranger. A thing. Trying to think of her like that helped him not to scream.
He pulled a chair over to her bedside. He didn’t look at her, instead he looked at the window in the far wall. He could see the sky through it; the brightest blue with barely a wisp of cotton floating through.
‘Where is Heaven?’ he asked.
‘Not there,’ replied the Angel. ‘Not in the bright blue sky. Not beyond it either. Heaven exists elsewhere. Other. Aside from. Apart.’
His mother gurgled, a wet rattle in her throat.
First his dad, and now his mum, taken cruelly and before their time.
‘God cares not for your tears. Cares not about the pain He has caused. An indifferent monster, that is what God is. That is the great truth hidden by those with something to gain from the pretence, in their houses of gold and shame.’
‘When can we start?’ asked the Magician.
‘It’s almost time. The first step we take today, at last.’
The Magician smiled, even as the beep-beep-beep of the sad machine became one long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep and the creature he could not believe was truly his mum finally ceased her nauseating, shallow-breathed gurgle and what lived in her left the cramped hospital room behind.
Nurses entered and attended her, said words to the Magician that he didn’t hear. He stood and walked through the fog, down the hospital corridors, past room after room of those ignored by God. Left to die slowly in the terror building.
Soon, he found himself staring through a large window at a room full of new born babies, wriggling in their cots. New life. New death. More lambs to the slaughter before the chilling indifference of their creator.
In the room beyond the glass, the new born children were not alone. Two men were stood in old, dusty suits, facing the magician. One wore a rabbit mask, the other a hedgehog mask.
‘Step one is here,’ said the Angel in his ear.
‘Who are they?’ he asked, looking from Mr. Cotton to Mr. Spike, a shiver running down his spine.
‘They are believers in our undertaking. They have gifts of their own, which, when combined with my power, can be turned to our advantage.’
As the magician watched, black smoke began to stream from the eyeholes of the masks. The black smoke weaved like snakes above the cots, moving from each, until six of the children were selected and the smoke wiggled into the children through their eyes, their noses, their mouths.
‘These six,’ said the Angel, ‘they are anointed by me through Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike. The magic placed inside of them, the taste of their dark dream, shall ripen as they age, and when the time is right, each shall be plucked with the artefact.’
The magician thought about his dad, about his mum.
‘Why can’t I take them now? I can get the axe and finish them.’
‘Patience. I have huddled trapped beneath the sea for centuries. There is no rush. My touch, through Mr. Spike and Mr. Cotton’s dark dreamings, must fuse with their souls fully over the coming years, or their sacrifice will mean nothing.’
The magician was impatient. His anger boiled within him. But the Angel was right. It never lied to him. He would wait. Their time would come. The time when he would take his axe to each of them. The time when he and the Angel of Blackpool would face God and punish Him for His sins.
17
Rita killed the engine as she and Carlisle pulled to a stop in front of a pleasant-looking semi-detached house.
‘I think this is it,’ she said, pulling out her notebook and double-checking the address.
‘Must we?’ asked Carlisle.
‘Well, if you have any other leads like the fortune teller who hates your guts and won’t tell us a bloody thing, let’s go and see them, ‘cos that wasn’t a massive waste of time at all.’
Carlisle pursed his lips.
‘Or we could do some proper detective work and start interviewing this list of known classmates of the missing women, how about that?’
Rita got out of the car. ‘Oi,’ she said, leaning down to see Carlisle, ‘are you gonna keep sulking or should we get on with this?’
Carlisle huffed, then stepped out of the car. ‘I do not sulk. I brood.’
‘You also nick stuff from your partner and try to leg it away.’
‘You realise I could pin you like a butterfly and pluck out your limbs one by one?’
‘Yeah, and you realise I could take your axe and shove it up your arse?’
‘Touché. Obviously this woman will not be able to see or hear you, so I shall take the lead.’
‘Okay, but listen to what I have to say, right? I have actual training in this stuff.’
‘I look forward to being wowed by your staggering interview skills, detective.’
Carlisle rang the doorbell.
There were 28 names on the list, including the three women who had so far gone missing. 28 classmates who moved through school together. Of the 25 who weren’t the missing women, only ten had remained in Blackpool, and it was these ten that Carlisle and Rita intended to visit, one by one.
As luck would have it, they struck gold with visit number one. Wanda Radcliffe: a plump woman with a giant mane of dark blonde curls.
She’d peered at the card Carlisle offered, the card that was very definitely not police identification, and waved him and the invisible-to-her-eyes Rita through to the kitchen.
‘Oh aye, I’ve heard all about it,’ said Wanda. ‘I’m still mates with a couple of people from school and we’ve been messaging non-stop on Facebook about it.’
‘I’m sure it’s all very exciting,’ said Carlisle.
‘Oh, it is! I mean, sad and that, obvs, but exciting too. You never think this sort of thing’ll happen to people you sort of know, do you?’
Carlisle smiled thinly.
‘Ask about grudges,’ said Rita.
‘I will,’ replied Carlisle.
‘What’s that?’ asked Wanda.
‘The three women that have been abducted, do you have any information about someone that may have a reason to dislike them? A grudge?’
‘Oh yeah, Miste
r Nolan.’
‘Who’s that?’ asked Rita. ‘Wait, you ask,’ she said, nudging Carlisle.
‘And Mister Nolan would be?’
‘Oh, this perv of a maths teacher. Was always leaning over you, just a bit too close, you know? Looking down your shirt. He eventually made a pass at Jane. Jane Bowan. Squeezed her tit, so she said. Her and a bunch of her friends went to the Head and Mister Nolan got the sack. I’d say he’s probably pissed off with them.’
‘Ha! There we go, we do a bit of proper police work and we get an actual lead. Weird that, heh?’ said Rita.
Carlisle ignored her smug smile.
Waterson was sat at his desk at the station, idly doodling on the edge of a newspaper.
‘Oi, dickhead!’
Waterson looked up to see DS Nation, a colleague with a year round tan who swore he never went near a sunbed, waving at him.
‘Hm? What?’
‘For the third time, you coming down for a few pints later or what?’
‘Right, yeah. Probably.’
‘What’s wrong with your face?’
Waterson sat up straight. ‘Do you ever get the feeling that you’re missing something? Something big?’
‘Is this your way of confessing you’ve got one of them micro-dicks, mate?’
That got a big laugh from the office. Dick jokes always did.
‘Yes. that’s it. I thought you’d be the person to go to about it. Idiot.’
Waterson went back to his doodle. He was scritch-scratching a pair of rabbit ears. Over and over.
‘Anything useful yet?’ asked DCI Jenner, peering at Waterson’s doodles. ‘Hard at work, I see, Waterson.’
‘Yep, sorry Guv, just, you know, thinking things through.’
‘By drawing Playboy bunnies? What about the case? You got anything?’
‘Not yet, but I’ve only been to see two of the other classmates so far. Something will turn up.’
‘Hm. It had better. Upstairs is on me like a bastard about this. They’ve got the press hounding them every two minutes, so give me something I can take to them and make it soon, right?’
‘Yes, Guv, will do,’ replied Waterson with more confidence than he felt.
As Jenner set off toward his office, Waterson stopped him and pointed to a vacant desk opposite to his own. ‘Guv, whose desk is that?’
‘Hm?’ DCI Jenner looked at the empty desk and his brow creased. ‘Well that’s… um… I don’t think anyone’s used that for a few years, have they?’
‘Nope,’ said Nation, chiming in.
‘Right. Of course. That’s what I thought,’ said Waterson.
DCI Jenner looked at the desk for a second more, then shook his head. ‘Right, no rest for the wicked. Back to it Waterson. Get me something useful.’
Waterson looked at the empty desk, then back to his rabbit ear doodles. ‘Yes, Guv. Will do.’
A ping from his computer caught his attention, a new email from Nation. ‘SPURT: PILL GUARANTEES YOU AN EXTRA THREE INCHES!’
Waterson deleted the email and offered a middle finger to the guffawing Nation.
Mister Derek Nolan, former Head of Maths at Old Lane Secondary School, currently assistant manager at a local supermarket. The picture of him Rita had found did not make him look like a fearsome magician capable of consorting with dream monsters and chopping up innocent women with an axe. The picture showed a rather meek-looking man with thinning hair and a bushy moustache.
‘What do you think?’ she said, wagging the picture under Carlisle’s aquiline nose.
‘That one should never judge a book by its cover.’
After his third knock on the door failed to rouse an occupant, it became clear that Mister Nolan was not home.
‘Come on, we can wait in the car,’ said Rita.
‘Or we can just go inside to see what might be found.’
‘Yeah, that’s sort of against the law.’
‘Most of the best ideas are.’ Carlisle crouched and placed the side of his face against the door.
‘What are you doing? Can you hear someone in there?’
‘I am attempting to persuade the door to unlock itself.’
‘Course you are, you skinny nut-bag.’
Carlisle sighed. ‘Could you please hush that mouth of yours for a few, short seconds? This is a delicate waltz I am undertaking, and it requires the utmost concentration.’
Rita put up both hands and stepped back. ‘You go for it, weirdo, you sweet talk that sexy door.’
Carlisle closed his eyes and placed the palm of one hand over the lock. After ten silent seconds, at which point Rita had just about reached the maximum amount of time her mouth was willing to remain silent, the locking mechanism clicked.
‘Et voilà,’ he said, grinning and bouncing to his feet.
‘Get to fuck. No way.’
Carlisle pushed open the now unlocked door. ‘As I believe you moronic types like to retort, “Yes, way”. Shall we?’ Carlisle stepped across the threshold. Rita glanced over both shoulders to see if she was being watched, remembered that she was invisible, and was glad Carlisle hadn’t seen her do it. She scooted into Mister Nolan’s house.
Inside it was clear that Mister Nolan lived alone. The sort of man who would feel up a teenager’s chest was rarely a catch for full-grown women. The rooms were sparsely dressed and worn. The decor had not been updated in at least ten years; everything was faded and tatty and Rita could almost smell the loneliness. That and the other man smells. He really needed to crack a window on that place.
‘Do you sense it?’ asked Carlisle, emerging from the kitchen, his eyes seeming to glow a pale yellow in the gloom.
‘Yeah, this guy is bloody tragic. He needs to invest in some industrial strength air freshener, like, immediately, if not sooner.’
‘Not the unpleasant, musty odour and general funk of tragedy; the magic.’
‘Magic?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And what does that feel like?’
‘Like… potential.’ He made his way to a small wooden door beneath the stairs. ‘Down there. It is stronger down there.’
‘What are you saying? Mister Nolan the boob-squeezer is magic?’
‘No, I am saying that the magic within this house is not just the expected background amount, but that it has been used. Drawn upon. And often. So we investigate.’
Carlisle opened the small door and ducked inside. Rita took the axe from under her coat and followed him inside. She’d expected little more than a small, cramped cupboard, instead, she found Carlisle descending a set of worn stone steps. Not the kind of worn stone steps you’d find in a house, but the kind you’d see Indiana Jones descending, right before he was chased by a huge, rolling boulder.
‘Okay, nothing to worry about here,’ said Rita, fingers flexing around the wooden handle of the axe.
As she made her way down the steps, making sure not to fall too far behind Carlisle, she had a similar feeling to the one she’d had as she entered the stone corridor hidden in the arcade.
‘This definitely fits with the other hidden place, hey?’ she said.
‘It is similar, I agree,’ replied Carlisle, running a finger along a stone wall and licking his fingertip.
‘Gross,’ said Rita.
Carlisle spat on the steps.
‘Grosser.’
‘Hm, this is not the same level of magic, but it is, perhaps, still a little too coincidental.’
Rita joined Carlisle at the bottom of the steps and peered up to see the light from the house, still just about visible.
‘If this guy is a super-duper magician, how much danger are we in exactly?’
‘If he is the man responsible for the abductions, we could barely be in greater danger.’
‘Great, thanks for the confidence booster.’
Carlisle walked forward, almost seeming to drift, his heavy boots light on the stone floor. By comparison, Rita’s own footsteps sounded like a heavy metal drum solo. The space
at the bottom of the stairs was cramped, with flickering torches clamped to the rough walls.
‘Atmospheric, eh?’ said Rita.
‘Magicians do like to set a scene,’ replied Carlisle, as he approached the wooden door set into the far wall. He gripped the metal ring at its centre, glanced back to Rita with a nod, then pulled. The door creaked outwards, the noise setting Rita’s teeth on edge as she clenched and re-clenched the axe.
‘Behind me,’ said Carlisle.
‘No worries, if he’s in there, you’re welcome to get hit first, mate.’
Carlisle smiled, then stepped into the room, Rita wary at his heels.
Inside, there was not a dingy sacrifice chamber, like at the games arcade, but rather a giant study that would not have looked out of place at Hogwarts.
‘Shit,’ said Rita, ‘I think we just broke into Dumbledore’s man cave.’
The room was huge, with plush carpeting and fine wooden bookcases that stretched up for three impossible storeys, sliding sets of brass ladders giving access to the highest shelves.
‘Uh, that’s sort of not possible, right? If this place was as tall as those bookcases, it’d be jutting out the top of the house.’
‘Bigger on the inside than out,’ said Carlisle.
‘Okay, so maybe it’s Doctor Who’s man cave.’
At the centre of the room was a large oak desk with a green, leather chair sat behind it. Dominating the table was a giant, ancient-looking book, its leather cover now ragged with age.
‘What are all these books, then?’
Carlisle ran his fingers over the open pages of the volume on the table then peered at the shelves packed tight with book after book.
‘Magical texts. Rare, some of them. If we took just a few I’ve spotted, we could make enough money to live like sultans for eternity.’
‘Yeah, we’re not on the rob, so keep your hands off.’
‘Just an idle thought.’
Rita snorted and flopped into the leather chair as she took a look at the book open on the desk. It looked like the ancient bibles that monks used to delicately transcribe, but with much stranger pictures. Not of saints, or angels, but of internal organs, and animals with their throats slashed and their blood dripping into a cauldron.
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