Stray Souls (Magicals Anonymous) (31 page)

Rhys found himself distracted by a new thought.

Up till now part of his mind had been experiencing a delay between receipt of a signal and the actual processing of information attached. Now, it groaned, shuddered, and hit “Reset”. Thoughts tumbled into his brain, and words tumbled straight back out.

“Ms Li,” he said, “where am I and what is going on?”

The flat was in Kentish Town.

It was owned by a woman called Frances (Hello, Frances) who had “the most
amazing
story about this alchemist called Bill who used to manufacture these enchanted bracelets in Hunan province and then the gnomes got wind of it and we had to flee via Kuala Lumpur to collect on the insurance and I’ve still got some of them here but obviously the actual master bracelet was sold for £1.99 in Brixton Market and now we’re not quite sure where it’s got to but we think a girl called Alice has it and that’s kind of a problem because no one knows where Alice is, so actually I guess the story isn’t that amazing because if we don’t get them back then that’s the mid-Atlantic rift gone for starters…”

–and her more taciturn boyfriend, Raymond.

In the decor of the flat two competing wills had met, fought and ground each other to a draw. In the living room, with its view of a communal garden containing one swing and a broken trampoline, someone with a love of everyone and everything had laid down soft carpets, purple pillows, padded chairs and scented candles. Meanwhile in a former cupboard, now labelled
STEEL GREEN ELECTRONICS,
a less sociable character had made it a life mission not only to collect hammers, but different types of hammer for very different types of nail. Because you may not think it’s important now. But just you wait for
when you need to fix the kitchen in a hurry, then we’ll see who’s laughing…

The kitchen was barely large enough to hold the grey fridge and greasy hob, above which someone had stuck a sign demanding
TURN THE GAS OFF IDIOT!

It was most definitely not large enough to hold the four people who currently occupied it, none of whom were actually the owners of the property. Rhys, in blue dressing gown and borrowed pyjamas, leaned on Sharon’s arm in the doorway and tried not to gape.

A goblin sat cross-legged on the kitchen table; he was licking the end of a tube of toothpaste with a foul grey tongue. The fridge door hung open, and a troll, in fact the most troll-like troll Rhys had ever seen, was considering which cheese would serve best as the topping to her five-cheese lasagne. By the kitchen sink Kevin the vampire was unloading a fresh bag of anti-bacterial handcreams, while, from a pipe on the ceiling, Sally dangled, head buried in an copy of
Van Gogh–Life and Times.
A thump from the bathroom and an unmistakable smell heralded the arrival of a fifth–Mr Roding, who greeted Rhys as he swanned into the living room, trailing the odour of lavender and decaying flesh. Over the sound of the TV Rhys heard Edna exclaiming, “Good grief, and what did the gnome do next?” As his gaze returned to the kitchen, the certainty came to him that he wasn’t dead, and this couldn’t be hell, because even Lucifer couldn’t have thought of it.

To Sharon, he said at last, “There’s um… there’s a goblin on the kitchen table.”

“Oh yeah! You haven’t met Sammy, have you?” Sharon waved at the goblin, who exhaled a fluoride-laden grunt of discontent. “Sammy, this is Rhys!”

“Runny-nosed Welshie!” replied the goblin.

“Hello, Rhys,” offered Gretel, holding out one fingertip for Rhys to not so much shake, as pat in greeting. “I am glad to hear you are feeling better.”

He felt the pull of stitches somewhere under his bandages and managed to respond with “Uh-huh.”

“You
totally
need to get yourself checked out,” offered Kevin. “I mean, I know the doctor was all like, ‘I’ve handled it,’ but you got torn up by
claws.
They hadn’t even been
washed
first. There could have been
wendigo spit on those claws; those could be the claws he eats with and… does the other stuff too.” The vampire leaned forward and whispered, “Sometimes it’s okay not to put your faith in the NHS.”

“Bloodsucker,” sang out Sammy.

“So, yeah,” muttered Sharon in Rhys’s ear. “So, like uh, Magicals Anonymous is getting all, you know, ready… on this shit.”

The words landed one at a time in the tender places of Rhys’s conscience and settled like bricks. “We’re what?”

Sharon was trying not to cringe. The druid had never seen her cringe; but now her whole body was twisting, as if attempting to curl into somewhere behind her spine. “Thing is,” she said, “it turns out that like, the whole city really is threatened, yeah, and spirits are disappearing. And that is like, a major thing, yeah, and actually like, most of Magicals Anonymous have issues with that, because there’s, you know, witches and druids and Tuatha Dé Danaan and all that joining us. And the Aldermen can’t do shit because of politics, but the Midnight Mayor said someone had to do something. So basically…” she drew in a breath, forced her shoulders back and proclaimed “… we’re gonna save the day.”

Silence.

“Do I have to?” asked one voice. “Only I’ve got this appointment with the Citizens Advice Bureau about suing my dentist.”

Sharon glared. Kevin cowered.

“I think it’s an excellent and noble cause,” intoned Gretel. “Together we shall rid the city of evil and then we shall have a celebratory feast with aperitifs.”

I personally think that this is in the finest spirit of the community,
wrote Sally, from her position hanging off the ceiling.
It is appropriate that we give something back to our society.

“Ms Li?” asked Rhys. “Can I have a word?”

He hurried her out into the hall. “So, uh, Ms Li,” he said, his voice urgent and low, “it’s not that I’m not happy to see everyone, see, but are you, I mean… are you really thinking we should, maybe, pick a fight with a wendigo and his minion hordes? We just met the men who could turn the ground beneath your feet to liquid sucking concrete and it didn’t go well last time with just four of them, and did I mention the minion hordes?”

“They work in finance–how bad can it be?”

“Exactly! It’s like bankers, but with claws! And, with the greatest respect, Magicals Anonymous is a wonderful thing, but we’re not fighters. We’re… well, we’re…” he gasped down air, seeding the words, “we’re only good in support!”

Something rather remarkable is happening.

It begins here:

Posted at 13.13 on Magicals Anonymous by Rhys Ellis:

Amazing meeting everyone, tell all your friends–Magicals Anonymous is here to stay!

Posted 14.28 on Magicals Anonymous by Sally:

I would like to say thank you to everyone at Magicals Anonymous for all their support, and a very big thank you to Jess in particular for recommending the Kandinsky; once the security guard had passed out, I found the exhibition very stimulating.

Posted at 21.38 on Magicals Anonymous by MS (Protector of the City, Defender of the Night, etc. etc. etc.):

Hi everybody! So, someone’s sucking the soul of the city and I was wondering if any of you guys felt like doing something about it? Drop me a line if you do! Cheers!

Posted at 21.48 on Magicals Anonymous by S.Rafaat:

Oh, no! Is the city going to be all right? I’ll bring snacks if anyone needs them.

Posted at 23.41 on Magicals Anonymous by Burns & Stoke Ltd:

If you wish to live another night, you will give her to us. We will not warn you twice.

This last post was censored by admin within half an hour of being placed. But half an hour was more than enough.

The word spread.

It began with the techno-literates: young summoners who couldn’t quite get their containment circles right and who had fallen back on Facebook to keep themselves occupied while the sacred incense was cooked in their mum’s microwaves; eager diviners who scoured the internet for clues as to the future of tomorrow, and who read the truth of things in the static at the corners of the screen; bored vampires who knew that it was too early to go out and hunt, too late still to be in the coffin. The message was tweeted and texted onwards, sent out through the busy wires of the city, from laptop to PC, PC to Mac, from mobile phones the size of old breeze blocks through to palm-held devices that not only received your mail, but regarded it as their privilege to sort it into colour-coordinated categories for your consideration. The word was whispered between the statues that sat on the imperial buildings of Kingsway, carried in the scuttling of the rats beneath the city streets, flashed from TV screen to TV screen in the flickering windows of the shuttered electronics stores, watched over by beggars and security cameras, and the message said:

We are Magicals Anonymous.

We are going to save the city.

Later, scholars would detect more than a little digital technology in how quickly the word was transmitted. They would study the emails that spurted forth, examine the text messages and consider the stories of those lonely ghouls in their cellars who, in the dead of night, received phone calls with no voices but which seemed to impart through static alone a sense of urgency and fear.

Some might question why the Midnight Mayor, usually to be found on such nights prowling the streets of the city, was sighted sneaking into a telephone exchange a few minutes before the word began to spill across the streets, spreading outwards from the website of Magicals
Anonymous. Some might wonder why one or two computers, having received their messages, exploded three minutes after. But, as the Midnight Mayor was the first to point out, all this was speculation. Nothing could be blamed on him.

It paws the earth.

Paces.

Its snout is longer than a child’s arm, its fangs–and let us make no mistake, for they are fangs–are ancient bone flecked with spittle and blood. Its lips curl back from its mouth in a great growl that sends vibrations pulsing through its flesh like ripples over muddy water. By day it is still too weak to break through the city gates, the ancient, unseen gates of London which stand guard against the nightmares. There’s thousands of years of magic in those old black stones, too strong to penetrate while the sun shines. But by night… by night when the minds of the city are sleeping, and the barriers between what is and what is perceived grow thin, by night there is nothing to hold it back.

It growls at the setting sun, willing it to sink faster, and as it paces the shadow lands beneath the veil of what is seen, its footsteps burn the earth.

The scholars call it–or possibly him, although no one has got close enough to speculate–the Lady’s Companion, for whereas Greydawn is a comfort in the night, her companion is the terror of the dark. The goblins call him Great Growling and hide their spawn from him as he goes out to hunt. To the White City Clan his are the mad eyes that
they paint on the columns beneath the city bypasses; to the Neon Court he is Blackpaw, the footstep in the dark from which there is no hiding.

To everyone else, to the Friendlies who dare not whisper his name, to the shamans and the sorcerers of this city who know enough to fear the rumours, he is simply known as Dog, the companion of Greydawn, loyal and unstoppable.

Dog has lost his mistress.

Time to get her back.

Magicals Anonymous, assembled again at St Christopher’s Hall in Exmouth Market.

Some came because it was that time of the week–meeting day–and because they’d heard about how positive the last meeting was.

Some came because friends recommended the biscuits and said it was a nice place to chill.

At least one came because she was looking for a hot date who didn’t mind the occasional lump of lava between the bedsheets.

But many came because of the message, blasted out via emails and telephones: the city is in danger, and now so are you.

Rhys came in a wheelchair. He didn’t really need a wheelchair, but once the idea had been suggested everyone was very much in favour. Sally the banshee said he shouldn’t take risks with his health after a wendigo attack and explained that banshees had never like wendigos to begin with, though she was sure that wasn’t a species thing. Kevin pointed out that you couldn’t be too careful with stitches. Gretel said she didn’t mind pushing, and, actually, with seven foot of troll at his back Rhys did feel rather more safe.

Sharon hadn’t really approved of the wheelchair, but then Sharon had a lot on her mind. Rhys had seen her talking, in corners, voice
lowered, with the goblin about what he could only assume were Shaman Things.

Mr Roding the necromancer had decided to attend because, “The Midnight Mayor gave me this spiel about the fate of the city and said he needed a necromancer. I told him how poorly I thought of that idea, but then someone firebombed the local Friendlies shrine, which left a very bad impression on me.”

The Midnight Mayor visited me too!
wrote Sally as chairs for the guests were laid out beneath her in the church hall.
He is a little ignorant of modern art, but I think we had a breakthrough with some of the bolder sculptures. Also, four angry men attacked an ambassador from the Beggar King, proclaiming that none would survive unless they showed them where Greydawn was, which I think is very bad manners.

“Firebombing is a very unpleasant reaction,” confirmed Gretel. The plastic chairs were warping beneath her fingertips as she gingerly placed them in a ragged circle around the centre of the room.

There were more attendees this week, Rhys noticed. He’d heard the clattering of laptops as he recuperated in Frances’s flat but hadn’t appreciated just how far the word had spread. As Junior Judo cleared out and Magicals Anonymous filed in, he spotted a family of imps wriggling out of an air vent at the side of the hall (“Is there more to life than landfills?”), felt the wash of cold air as a grubby ice demon wafted by, spawned from the back reaches of catering freezers (“Global Warming really concerns me”), heard the snicker-snack of tiny claws on the polished floor as a gremlin spider (“You just can’t get the recycling”), its plastic head spinning above its articulated body, tried to climb up a plastic chair and into a splayed sitting position. Kevin had retreated to a corner, a white face mask pressed over his mouth and nose.