Stray Souls (Magicals Anonymous) (40 page)

It was Mr Ruislip’s turn to be silent. Sharon ploughed straight on, warming to her theme, provoking a dangle of astonishment in the corner of Rhys’s mouth, and filling with an energy she hadn’t known she possessed.

“But the great thing about uh is it’s so context-specific, you know? I mean, like, when you just called now, and I went ‘Uh,’ it wasn’t so much ‘Please hold’ as a kind of ‘Bugger me, I’m talking to a wendigo.’ So there was, I guess, fear and surprise and a bit of curiosity, but mostly terror in it, as well as the ‘Please hold’ meaning. So you see, actually, uh is this really flexible sound; I mean, it gave you all of that, didn’t it, so didn’t really need me to say it.”

Eventually he said, “I see.”

“See!” she went on, almost hysterical now with enthusiasm for her theme. “ ‘I see’ is another example of those filler things. Because, when you said that, it was totally obvious that you don’t see, that you haven’t, in fact, got a frickin’ clue what I’m talking about. But you felt this need to fill the space, didn’t you?

“So your ‘I see’ didn’t mean ‘Yes, I comprehend.’ What it actually meant was ‘Bloody hell, this isn’t going where I thought it would and what is this woman talking about I really don’t get this crap but I wish I did.’ And, Mr Ruislip, I was thinking about this, because it seems to me that you’ve got serious issues, with like, language and death and stuff, and I was wondering if you’d considered talking to someone about them.”

Rhys’s mouth was now hanging all the way open. So, for that matter,
was Swift’s. “Recognising the problem,” she hissed down the phone, almost conspiratorially, “is the first step to recovery.”

This time she let the silence linger.

“Is Eddie Parks dead?” The question sounded to Sharon’s ear like a retreat to familiar territory.

“Why, should he be?” she asked.

“Apparently Mr Parks heard a howling,” sighed the wendigo, “which is usually indicative of an imminent demise. However, my office informs me that a few hours ago the professional gentlemen I hired to conduct some private research for this company vanished. And though Dog howled, it seems there is not as much blood being spilt as I would have predicted from this event. And so, I wished to enquire of Mr Parks directly whether he was, in fact, deceased.”

“Uh… no, he’s not. Sorry.”

“In that case, may I speak to him?”

Sharon glanced at Eddie, who shook his head, hands shaking in his lap.

“I think Eddie here has got some issues he needs to work on in a private way,” sang out Sharon down the line. “Maybe another time?”

“In that case, would you kindly inform Mr Parks that, in the light of his attempting to run away and contact the Midnight Mayor for assistance, his contract has been terminated, and his blood, muscle, bones and all other associated vital bodily fluids are now mine for the taking?”

Sharon raised her eyebrows. “Wow,” she said. “That’s like, one hell of a contract.”

“In matters of private enterprise, penalties must be equal to rewards,” replied Mr Ruislip primly. “We are not running… a
public-sector
enterprise.” The words dripped off his lips like venom. “On a similar theme,” he went on, “I must inform you that, should you and your ilk fail to hand over the spirit known as Greydawn, I will most reluctantly be forced to hunt you all down and kill you one at a time. Is reluctantly the word? Was its usage correct?”

“I dunno,” murmured Sharon. “Depends whether you’re going for literally ‘I’ll be really sorry to do it and it’ll be a right pain in the arse,’ or more kind of ‘Whoopee, I’ll kill everything that moves and bathe in its blood, but let’s be all polite while telling people about it in order to freak out my prey.’ ”

“Oh, the latter, absolutely.”

“Then, yeah, I guess you could go with ‘reluctantly’.”

“Thank you, Ms… Sharon, was it?”

“That’s right.”

“Sharon, thank you. It’s so refreshing to meet someone willing to clarify these finer points. Tell me, if I were to inform you that I shall take great satisfaction in ripping you apart limb by limb, tearing your body asunder to the smart pop of bones pulling out of their sockets, the gentle tear of tendons ripping under a slow but inexorable pressure, would that add to the sense of growing terror and imminent destruction that I am attempting to imbue?”

“It’s pretty good,” she admitted. “I like the way you said ‘satisfaction’ there–kinda like it was more ‘I’m a professional, controlled psychopath and therefore you should be afraid’ vibe than if you’d gone with ‘glee’ or ‘delight’ or anything like that, which would’ve implied you’re a wacky out-there psychopath and therefore kinda easier to deal with.”

“How marvellous!” exclaimed Mr Ruislip. “Satisfaction it shall be, then.”

“Excuse me?” The speaker was Swift, one hand raised. “I’m sorry to butt in like this, but as the Midnight Mayor I really feel I should be threatening to rain hellfire down upon the wendigo’s head, if that’s okay.”

Sharon turned to listen, then added down the phone, “Mr Ruislip sir, I hope you don’t mind but the Midnight Mayor wishes to inform you that he shall rain hellfire down upon your head. How’d you feel about that?”

“Kindly inform the Midnight Mayor,” murmured Mr Ruislip, “that I have long relished the opportunity to hunt one worthy of my skills. And when we two at last meet in the heat of bloody battle, and the stones turn black beneath our feet, and the sky cracks at the screams torn from our throats, I shall experience an immense…
satisfaction…
in the experience of the moment, quite regardless of who is destroyed at the end of it.”

Sharon covered the mouthpiece and muttered at Swift, “The wendigo says he’s groovy with that.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“As it is,” went on Mr Ruislip, “I believe the Midnight Mayor right
now should be more concerned by the fact that Burns and Stoke will be withdrawing all its finances from Harlun and Phelps, thus seriously undermining the stability of the company and depriving a large number of Aldermen of their Christmas bonus.”

Sharon covered the mouthpiece again. “He’s gonna use finance on you,” she hissed.

Swift scowled but made no reply.

“As for yourself and all the other members of Magical Anonymous… May I call your organisation quaint? Quaint… curious… unexpected… really, what adjective would best describe it? Anyway, would ‘annihilate’ do or is that rather jumping the gun? What is the origin of the phrase jumping the gun, do you know? I understand its usage but not its—”

“Let’s stick with quaint,” interrupted Sharon.

“Oh, very well. As for yourself and the members of your
quaint
organisation, if you hand Greydawn over to me right this second, I may spare the majority of you. If you refuse to cooperate, I will be forced to take aggressive action, namely to
annihilate
you and all your kind. I hope these terms are agreeable to you?”

Sharon considered long and hard. “You know how you have language concerns,” she said. “Have you considered evening classes?”

“What?”

“Evening classes,” she repeated. “I mean, I know it’s kind of a middle-class thing, because, like, everyone who really needs extra education is probably too poor to pay for it and the government is totally trashing public services. But you sound like a rich guy, and money buys you time and time buys you opportunity, and I seriously think you’re the kind of limb-rending psychopath who’d do really well with a few evening classes, a bit of counselling, maybe a course in ethical philosophy and cookery or something. Maybe Italian food or that, because that’s quite relaxing.”

“I’m sorry, is this your fear reaction?” asked Mr Ruislip. “I do find the telephone makes it so much harder to judge, as I cannot actually smell the terror dripping off your skin like blood from a butcher’s blade. So I am forced to enquire: do you in fact manifest these words as a result of a deep horror and dread of who and what I am?”

“Uh… I guess a bit,” she admitted. “But actually I really think the
world would be a better place if people just sat down and looked at their lives. I keep lists of things I’ve gotta do before I’m thirty, and I practise breathing out slowly while counting to ten. But I’m guessing you’re not into that sorta thing, which is really sad. And I like completely see how you’re probably not gonna get past the rending-limb-from-limb thing, which you’re stuck on, any time soon. So I guess all that’s left to say is… well… uh… bring it on?”

Even as the words passed her lips, she flinched.

“Bring… it… on?” Mr Ruislip echoed each word with dull astonishment.

“Uh, yeah. Kinda. I mean, in that if you
do
try and hurt me or anyone here, then I guess we’ll have to like, get all aggressive with you, which is really sad. But you know, sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. So, uh. Yeah. Sorry about that. I just want you to know how embarrassed I feel to have to resort to mystical violence like this. But so it goes. Was there anything else?”

Mr Ruislip was silent save for the slow in-out of his breath between clenched teeth. Sharon found herself grinning at nothing much and no one in particular.

“Okay then!” she sang out. “Well, it’s been great talking to you. Hope you’re okay with this and are moving on to a new and groovy place, and see you on the other side of the bloodbath! Bye!”

She hung up, and nearly dropped the phone in her haste to pass it back to Eddie. Eddie whimpered as it fell into his hands and threw it to Rhys, who just about caught it and looked around for guidance as to what to do with it. The nearest person who could help with that turned out to be Gretel, who very carefully picked up the phone between her thumb and index finger and crushed it to a handful of electronic debris.

Throughout the room every eye was on Sharon, mostly in astonishment. Sammy and Swift were looking at her open-mouthed, and there was a glow in the goblin’s eye that could have been disbelief at the foolishness of his apprentice but also pride in her work. Rhys was looking at her with a strange dreamy grin plastered on his face. He was, Sharon thought, a man lost in thoughts that she didn’t particularly want to divine.

As she turned, the flash of Dez’s white suit was visible as he flickered
in and out of existence between the crowd, and she half-imagined his tanned-orange thumbs were raised at her from behind Kevin’s head.

“Now you’ve done it,” whispered Dez in a corner of her mind, but was he laughing?

“Right,” she said, sensing that something profound was expected.

“Well,” she added.

Then, “Okay.”

After the rush of talking to the wendigo, she evidently wasn’t handling her audience well.

“So,” she concluded, “we’re screwed, aren’t we?”

The walls are singing.

This is what they say:

Help us, help us, help us, help us!

Help us, help us, help us!

HELP US!

HELP US, SHAMAN!

They’ve been singing for a long time now, calling out from the dark.

Except, perhaps, singing isn’t the right word.

Perhaps what it’s been, all this time, is a scream.

Rhys woke with a start.

It was something he’d been doing a lot lately, in fact ever since he’d encountered Sharon at Burns and Stoke and learned of captured spirits and angry wendigos.

For a moment he didn’t know where he was, and then something large–no, not large–huge–turned over on the floor beside him.

Oh yes.

He was on the floor of Sally the banshee’s gasometer, sleeping in a borrowed blanket on a piece of card next to a troll, a vampire and a goblin.

“Consider all homes, flats, houses, dens and lairs dangerous!” the man called the Midnight Mayor had proclaimed. “Burns and Stoke are clearly on to you lot as being guys in the know, so stick together and don’t be arseholes!”

Motivational speaking, Rhys had decided, was not one of the Midnight Mayor’s job requirements.

My gasometer really is very roomy,
Sally had suggested,
and I find the touch of moonlight to be rather stimulating if you need a nocturnal guard…

Rhys looked up and, yes, there she was, her wings folded in tight around her body, head dangling and mouth open wide to reveal in full,
tongue-dangling glory the sheer black depths of a banshee’s throat. Somewhere behind those deadly fangs was a set of vocal cords that could freeze the blood of man. As Sally slept, her body swayed, the whiteboard she used for communication dangled from her neck, with a washable marker pen Sellotaped to its top.

Rhys felt at the bandages round his middle. They, and he, were intact despite the exertions of the night before. Somehow Magicals Anonymous hadn’t left the shattered remnants of St Christopher’s Hall until four in the morning, when Sharon had posted a note on the splintered front door:
Bomb fell–sorry for the inconvenience.
He looked at his watch; it was 2.30 in the afternoon, and the rest of the society was still mostly asleep.

Moving with a vain attempt at stealth he crawled out from under his blanket and stepped around the others’ unconscious forms. They included Chris the exorcist, Edna the Friendly and Jess I-turn-into-pigeons. She’d finally turned back into a human, while the long-suffering Jeff shouted, “I’ll black the eyes of anyone who peeks!” before producing clean clothes and a towel kept packed for the occasion. Kevin lay sleeping with a note taped to his shirt warning,
Do not wake until sundown or else.
Underneath, someone had written,
Or else what?

The door to the gasometer was a rusted iron affair, which shrieked as he eased it back before wriggling through the narrowest gap he could and out into the sunlight.

The air was mild, the day brisk and clear. The gasometer stood in a wasteland of buddleia, brambles and tall Japanese knotweed, where piles of toppled brick were stained orange-green by lichen, and the inevitable broken shopping trolley lay upside down with the remnants of soiled plastic bags dribbling out.

Ms Somchit sat on a small pile of breeze blocks by the door, reading a novel. Its cover featured women in romantic floppy hats and a title promising exotic adventure and love ever after. Without glancing up the tiny Alderman informed Rhys that there was a greasy spoon up the road that served breakfast all day.