‘Right. Sounds great. Wait, didn’t you get married last year?’ said Waterson, remembering how he’d dodged the work drinks celebrating the nuptials.
‘Yeah. Karen. Cracking lass.’
‘So…?’
‘So there’s a pint and a bag of crisps with your name on it,’ said Karl, swaggering past. He paused and leaned close to Liz Peters’, so close that Waterson could feel the man’s spittle in his/her ear. ‘And maybe, if you’re lucky, there’ll be more than that on offer.’
Karl Jenkins slapped Liz Peters on the arse, then strode away without looking back, a jaunty whistle on his lips.
‘You’re well in there, mate,’ said Rita.
‘Shut up,’ replied Waterson, wiping his damp ear with his sleeve (her ear/her sleeve).
They hustled through to the cells and found the one holding Ben Turner. Rita opened the little hatch and peered through, Ben was sat on the small cot.
‘Did someone request a rescue?’
‘Rita!’ Ben stood and ran to the door.
‘What’s up, handsome?’
‘Oh, you know, one of those days.’
‘What happened to not being stupid?’ asked Rita.
‘Did you get the latest cat video?’
‘Yes, it was adorable.’
‘Get out the bloody way,’ said Waterson, placing the correct key into the cell’s lock.
‘Why is she helping exactly?’ asked Ben.
‘Oh, that’s Waters in someone else’s body.’
‘Right. Have you done something different with your hair, Dan?’
‘Hilarious,’ replied Waterson as he opened the door. ‘Now let’s get a wiggle on, I think this body is going to vomit me out any minute now.’
‘Aw, but you’ll miss your big date with Karl!’
‘Shut it,’ replied Waterson, not giving Rita the satisfaction of seeing the shit-eating grin she was sporting.
Liam turned his phone back on and looked at the screen. Three more missed calls. He wondered if his mum had phoned the police yet. He stood, ready to run back home before he was in any more trouble.
‘Got to go, ghost,’ he said, turning from the sea.
There was a shape rippling before him. Liam stopped and took a step back.
‘Ghost. You came back.’
Carlisle reached out a hand towards him.
15
Ben Turner had never been so grateful to find himself in Big Pins. Sure, he’d basically swapped one cage for another, but at least the bowling alley wasn’t an actual prison.
‘Big man,’ said Rita, signalling with her axe to grab Linton’s attention, ‘the heroes have returned from their quest. We shall celebrate with much booze and bar snacks.’
Linton grunted and set about providing the requested. Meanwhile, Rita lead Ben and Waterson to the table Formby was sat at, cradling a half-pint between his small, filthy hands.
‘Heard he was in prison,’ said Formby, touching his ears.
‘You heard right,’ Ben replied, pulling up a chair.
‘Ben here was a big, big idiot,’ replied Rita.
‘Thanks.’
‘But he’s learned his lesson, right?’
Ben nodded and accepted a drink from the tray Linton set down. ‘Lesson learned. From now on, I’m going to stay in my kennel like a good dog.’
‘So,’ said Waterson, trying not to lick his lips with jealousy as he watched the other three tucking into their drinks and snacks, ‘what exactly made you break the really very simple and, I believe, only rule Rita gave you?’
‘I was going mad cooped up in here, okay? A lot has changed all at the same time, and it’s just been sitting on me, crushing me. I just needed to breathe for a minute.’
‘A lot has changed?’ replied Waterson, raising a hand. ‘Recently deceased bloke over here, hexed out of her life over there. Join the club, mate.’
‘All right, zip your lip for a second, Waters,’ said Rita, butting in. ‘It’s not a competition.’
‘But being murdered and turned into a ghost means I win though, right? At least you got a magic axe. What do I get? Bugger all, that’s what.’
‘Ben,’ said Rita, reaching out and placing a hand over his. ‘I understand, okay? This whole thing is mad as a box of frogs, and there’s no right or wrong way to cope with it.’
‘Though me running out and getting arrested was the wrong way, right?’
‘You are correct,’ replied Rita, grinning.
‘You know, the whole time I was sat in that cell, I wasn’t worried. I knew you’d come for me.’
Rita met Ben’s eyes and held them. She felt her cheeks start to flush, her heart flutter. Suddenly, it seemed very, very hot in there.
‘Uh, I did most of the heavy lifting, thank you,’ said Waterson finally breaking the spell. Rita busied herself with coughing and fiddling with her bag of nuts.
‘Thanks, Dan,’ said Ben.
‘Waterson. Only my mum calls me Dan.’
‘She calls you Daniel,’ said Rita.
Waterson gave her some serious side-eye, then left the table to stretch his legs, which was something he found he needed to do even though he didn’t strictly speaking have muscles that required stretching.
‘I’m not sure Waterson likes me all that much,’ said Ben.
‘Oh, that’s just him. He’s a pissy little bitch to most people, you get used to it. Even enjoy it. Plus he was murdered recently, as he keeps pointing out. That’ll bring out the grump in anyone.’
‘He doesn’t like me much, either,’ said Formby.
‘That’s because you smell,’ replied Rita.
‘He’s dead, he can’t smell nothing,’ said Formby, checking his breath against a grimy hand and recoiling at his own stench.
‘He might not be able to smell it, but intellectually he knows it. Always liked things very clean, that boy. I think his first word was “bleach”.’
Formby sniggered, then his eyes went wide and his pointed little ears twitched as he looked at Ben. ‘Oh!’
‘What?’ replied Ben. ‘What is it? Do I have food in my beard?’
‘You have information. New, tasty information.’
‘How on earth do you know that?’ asked Ben.
‘Can see it in your eyes, the way you sit, you have news.’
‘What news?’ asked Rita, turning to Ben.
‘I met a young boy, before I was arrested.’
‘Okay,’ replied Rita warilly. ‘You were arrested on suspicion of murder and not suspicion of… anything else, right?’
‘Har-de-har. He was a weird little bloke. Kept talking funny, and I think he knew I used to go, you know, a bit wolfy.’
‘You’re sure this wasn’t like Magda? Another trick courtesy of Mr. Bunny and Mr. Hedgehog?’
‘No, no, there was nothing scary about it. He showed me something. He took my hand and pointed out to sea and suddenly I could just see them.’
‘See what? Tell!’ said Formby, desperate to taste some fresh information.
‘They were like smoke trails. Thousands of them.’
Rita leaned forward, ‘Sorry, did you say smoke trails?’
‘Yeah, they reached out from the sea and over into Blackpool. The boy said that’s what’s causing all the nightmares.’
Rita sat back. ‘The Angel.’
Carlisle was drifting apart.
Having made it back to the marble chamber that the Angel of Blackpool was trapped within, Carlisle found it increasingly difficult to keep himself together.
Astral projection was a tricky thing to keep a grip on, even for those trained in the art, and Carlisle was very much not trained in the art. After so long roaming free, and with his body now M.I.A, Carlisle was increasingly at the mercy of the astral plane’s raging, vicious winds. He could feel himself being pulled apart. His form drifting. Smoke in the wind.
He frowned, or thought about how a frown would look if he were still able to frown. If the astral approximation of his face w
asn’t now spread across several metres.
There wasn’t enough time. To keep himself together he needed to get to his body, now, or at the very least find an anchor point he could cling to. A shell to crawl inside of like a Hermit Crab.
But he didn’t have one.
He di…
...gone for a moment. The gaps between thoughts, between sentience and nothingness were growing longer.
So this was…
...end.
Fog and…
‘Got to go, ghost.’
A flare!
That voice. He’d heard it before.
With his last ounce of effort, Carlisle found himself stood before a small boy. The same small boy who’d anchored him the first time.
‘Ghost, you came back,’ said Liam.
Carlisle, unable to even remember what words were, rushed forward into the boy. The sound of the raging winds cut out, all Carlisle could hear now was the boy’s heartbeat. That had been far too close. Another few seconds and his essence would have been stretched too thin. He would have drifted into oblivion. It seemed as though he’d pulled himself out of the fire at the last moment once again. He laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’ asked Liam, far less perturbed at being possessed by a phantom than one might have expected.
‘Everything, depending on your point of view,’ Carlisle explained, delighted to find that he could speak again, if only inside the boy’s head. Now his form was settled inside of a receptive, Uncanny form, he was safe, he was strong.
‘What do you want with me, ghost?’
‘I am not a ghost. Ghosts are of the dead.’
‘Are you not dead, then?’
‘I’ve been dead a few times,’ replied Carlisle, ‘but not currently, no. I am in my astral form.’
‘Astral?’
‘Astral.’
‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘I am overcome with shock.’
Carlisle was secure inside Liam, but he wasn’t able to control the boy’s body. His astral form did not afford such luxuries, he was just a passenger.
‘There is something of the Uncanny to you, boy,’ said Carlisle.
‘The what?’
‘The strange. The out of the ordinary. When I first left my body, you shone like a lighthouse. We connected.’
‘I could see the smoke fingers after that, and what they meant.’
‘You anchored me, and in return gained extra insight through me. But you could only have provided me such a service if you were of the Uncanny world already. No ordinary human could do such a thing.’
‘I have always seen weird stuff. My mum and dad say it’s just me remembering bad dreams, or making stuff up.’
‘No. Either they do not know or are choosing not to see. Magic is connected to you in some small way.’
‘So I’m special?’
Carlisle laughed. ‘Oh no. Magic has touched you, but that is all, you are just one of thousands. About as special as a ten pound win on a scratch card.’
Carlisle felt Liam’s body sag a little.
‘Buck up, boy, you’re still part of something most will never even be aware of.’
‘Yeah. And that actually is pretty special, isn’t it?’
Carlisle held in a long sigh so as not to dispirit the donkey he was riding. Finally, he said, ‘Now I have a very important mission for you.’
‘What?’
‘We need to locate a piece of chalk.’
Rita was confused.
‘You’re sure?’ she said. ‘Dark, smoky trails reaching from the sea and into Blackpool?’
Ben nodded. ‘That’s what I saw.’
‘The Angel of Blackpool’s magic,’ said Formby.
‘But Mr. Cotton said him and his brother weren’t working with the Angel. That this was just the two of them.’
‘Maybe they were lying,’ said Ben. ‘I don’t think they’re exactly trustworthy.’
‘Yeah, but why bother? It doesn’t get them anything to pretend the Angel isn’t helping them. It’s not as though, if I found out, I could stop the Angel anyway. It’s way too powerful.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Formby, his long, yellow fingernails scratching at his stubble, ‘Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike have found a way to use the Angel’s power for themselves.’
‘You think they might have, what? Tapped into the Angel somehow?’
‘Maybe. Could be.’
‘Wait…’ Rita sagged back.
‘What is it?’ asked Ben.
‘The Angel, it sort of came to me. When I was asleep. I think it was the Angel anyway, and not a trick, but either way I did think It was trying to trick me.’
‘Trick you into what?’ asked Formby.
‘Into helping It. Perhaps this is why. It’s being used.’
‘So you think Cotton and Spike really are using Its power for themselves?’ said Ben.
‘If they are,’ replied Formby, ‘then the whole of Blackpool is in very bad doo-doo.’
‘Oh, you absolutely are,’ chimed a new voice.
They looked up to see who it was that had joined them. Only Rita recognised him. ‘No…’
His name was Gavin Dylan, the victim of the first murder case Rita had ever investigated. The one she hadn’t been able to solve. The one whose memory had been a sliver of ice in her heart ever since.
‘Why did you fail me, Rita?’
Gavin Dylan, his neck slashed three times, blood oozing from the wounds, reached out a hand towards her.
16
Liam’s mum was not at all impressed with him.
‘You little monster!’ she yelled, teary-eyed, gripping him so tightly that Liam thought she might crush him to death.
‘Mum…’ he said, just about audibly.
His mother pushed him back, keeping a tight grip on his arms. ‘Your dad is out there right now, driving around looking for you! Why do you do these things, Liam, and why can’t you answer your bloody phone?’
‘Chalk,’ said Carlisle, from inside his head.
‘Just a minute,’ replied Liam.
‘You were not gone for just a minute,’ said his mum, ‘it’s been hours! You’re too young to be galavanting around the place on your own. Ten more minutes and I was calling the police.’
‘I climbed inside you for help, not to bear witness to a tiresome domestic,’ said Carlisle, wishing he had access to his magic so he could push the ranting, blubbering woman into another realm and get on with the task at hand. Namely obtaining chalk and locating his body.
‘Maybe I should go and wait in my room?’ said Liam.
‘Yes! That’s where you can sit until your dad gets back so he can…’ she broke down again and gave Liam another desperate, relieved hug.
‘Sorry, Mum. It was the bad dreams.’
‘Okay. Okay. Go on up, then.’
Liam felt bad, of course he did. No child wants to see their mum cry, and the fact that he was going to make her worried again very soon only made him feel even more guilty as he trudged heavy-footed up the staircase and closed his bedroom door behind him.
‘She’s going to be really angry.’
‘She already appears to be at the very apex of angry,’ replied Carlisle.
‘Do we have to leave again straight away?’
‘Yes, unless you want us to lure my monster-infested body to your home?’
Liam did not want that.
‘That is what I thought. Now hurry, chalk, let us get on with this so I can get out of your extremely cramped body.’
Liam dropped to his knees and dragged a box out from under his bed. He tossed away the lid and dug around inside until he found a box of coloured chalks.
‘There! Knew I had some. Mum bought me them ages back, barely used them, though I’m actually pretty good at art so I don’t know why.’
‘What a thrilling anecdote. Let us away.’
Liam opened his bedroom door. He could hear his mum in the corridor downstairs. ‘I’m telling you,
he just walked back in, he’s okay, he’s safe.’
She was on the phone to his dad, and also blocking any escape. Liam closed the door again, quietly, then scampered over to his window. He opened the curtains and pushed up the sash window. The tree stood waiting, that one, long branch reaching out towards him.
‘The branch might snap,’ he said, warily eyeing the alarmingly thin limb.
‘Indeed.’
‘I’d fall and hurt myself.’
‘Yes.’
‘I could break my leg, or worse.’
‘You should meet Detective Rita Hobbes, you both have a gift for stating the blindingly obvious. Now get on with it.’
Liam scrambled up to the window ledge and reached out for the branch. He looked down at the ground below. If he fell it would be on to grass, not concrete or paving stones, but it still seemed an awful long way down. Long enough to hurt a lot.
He grabbed the branch in both hands and swung out. The world seemed to go head over heels as the branch bent, his grip slipped, his stomach leapt into his mouth, and then his descent abruptly stopped as his arms wrapped around another branch, jarring them almost out of their sockets.
Body shaking, Liam descended, dropping down the final few feet to the grass, his heart a thrash metal kick drum.
‘Well you made rather a meal of that,’ said Carlisle.
‘I did it!’ Liam cried, exhilarated.
‘Hurry along, we have a trap to set.’
Liam ran for the garden fence, tumbled over, and sprinted away.
At some point between witnessing the dead Gavin Dylan and standing up, Rita had realised she was no longer inside Big Pins, and was instead in a dirty alleyway.
‘Really?’ said Rita, axe in her hand, ready. ‘Didn’t we just do this?’
Gavin Dylan stepped into view at the other end of the alley, a pair of rabbit ears sprouting from the top of his skull. ‘Rita Hobbes, the defective detective.’
‘I’m starting to think you have a personal issue with me, cottontail.’
‘You did attempt to murder my brother and I.’
‘Wow, you really hold a grudge.’
Rita gripped the axe and closed her eyes, the dreamscape magic around her rushing into it. She crouched and slammed the butt of the axe against the rain slicked ground at her feet and unleashed the magic. She’d told it what she wanted, re-shaped it do one thing: burn away the dreamscape. Destroy the pretence. Return her to the real.
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