Stray Souls (Magicals Anonymous) (38 page)

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I am moderately satisfied with your efforts so far. Stocks are recovering and there shall be Christmas bonuses for us all.”

He liked to talk about bonuses a lot, even when it was only spring, did Mr Ruislip.

“I now feel confident enough in your endeavours to propose a far more ambitious project. There is a spirit known to the sentimental as Our Lady of 4 a.m. To date we have only attempted to bind petty souls, little dabbling shadows, but Our Lady is a different creature entirely. She can command life and death itself and grant the wish of any standing before her willing to pay the price. I have produced a mission statement and business strategy for our next steps in capturing, binding and compelling her; you will all find your tasks inside.”

We did it–I mean, of course we did. Our heads were spinning with money, with the taste of it, especially since so many other firms were struggling, but we–we were the smart ones, we were frickin’ gods! I was tasked with finding appropriate sacrifices to compel this spirit–which
took fucking weeks I may add–and then we all assembled at 11 p.m. sharp–Mr Ruislip always meant sharp when he said sharp–nine of us, to perform the summoning. McGafferty was leading it, and as it got under way Mr Ruislip came in with a woman.

She was a cleaner.

She was shaking.

Crying.

Scared.

And you know how you know something, you know it but you can’t quite believe it? I didn’t believe it, I didn’t think we could, but then they put her in the middle of the circle and she was sobbing, this Indian woman with greying hair in a blue cleaner’s overall, and she was begging and McGafferty had a knife and I thought no, he’s not gonna, it’s a trick, he’s not really gonna, but I knew he was, he had to, but I couldn’t say anything because no one else was saying anything and fuck knows I wasn’t gonna be the prat who asked a stupid bloody question or blew everything now, and besides she’d seen my face! I didn’t know… I mean, I couldn’t…

… so I guess I didn’t. Because no one else did. And looking back now, I suppose everyone else there was kind of thinking the same thing. But fuck me, why did I have to be the guy to speak? Why did I have to do it; why couldn’t someone else?

We got to the height of the spell, and I could feel the power, feel the moving, and it was 4 a.m., bang on 4 a.m., and I thought, here we go, and McGafferty stepped into the circle and raised the knife and just… he just did it. We were all swaying and chanting and there was this power in the air, this incredible pressure, and I was burning hot from it and felt like I was about to be snapped in two and McGafferty stuck the knife in, wham, and I nearly laughed. Jesus, I nearly fucking laughed because when the blood came out of the cleaner’s chest you could feel it, the power of it, the weight of it. I could taste it in my mouth, boom! She fell to the floor and we all waited but…

… nothing happened. McGafferty just stood there, blood dripping off the blade, shaking, this stupid fucking grin on his face, but nothing happened. The spell was fucking working, we knew it was working, but Greydawn wasn’t there. We must have stood there for five minutes, waiting for something to happen, until suddenly McGafferty dropped
the knife like he’d only just realised he was holding it, and the stupid grin vanished from his face and he just stood there, still trembling all over, muttering, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck…”

Then someone was sick. Someone else went to the door and puked outside. Other guys just sat down where they stood. I felt dizzy, confused, the blood still spreading across the floor. I went to the window and pressed my head against it, and Mr Ruislip was standing there, silent, hands folded behind his back, and I thought, he’s gonna kill us, he’s actually gonna kill us.

“Gentlemen,” he said when the last of us had found some sort of composure, “shall we adjourn to the boardroom?”

And we would have adjourned to that fucking boardroom, blood still on McGafferty’s hands, but someone said, “Where’s the woman?” and we all looked round and she was gone. There was this trail of blood, not footsteps, just a great wide dragged-along streak of red, heading through the side door to the emergency stairs, and we all followed in a panic, fighting with each other, and I knew then, if she was still alive, I’d kill her, not to finish the spell but because she’d seen my face and had to die. She’d pulled herself all the way to the office below and collapsed on the floor. There was paper everywhere, like a whirlwind had been through the room, like a tornado had torn it apart, and she was already dead, staring up at nothing, and the lights were on and there was no fucking blood in her left to bleed and I felt relief, so much I nearly cried, to know that she was dead. But I thought I heard someone running down the hall, and I was too frightened to follow.

Only after, when Dog started hunting, did we begin to realise what had gone wrong with our spell.

It takes all your blood, every last drop, to summon and compel Greydawn.

But by the time the cleaner died, she wasn’t in our summoning circle any more. The magic was good and true, but it was the dead woman who got her wish, not us. I just hope she wished for something good.

We didn’t try that spell any more. All of us, we were too shaken. I knew Mr Ruislip was angry about it, but when we tried to scry for Greydawn, see where she was at, we got nothing. Like she wasn’t even in the city any more.

Then things started to happen.

Rumours at first, odd warnings of things breaking out into the night which shouldn’t have been there. Then one night Christian said he thought he’d heard howling, and Gavin said that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, and Scott said he thought there’d be consequences. And the next day Gavin was dead, torn apart in the dead of night, and there was no sign of his killer, except these footprints that had burned the earth. Then Christian heard the howling again, and he was dead two days after that, and Scott said, “We have to run we have to tell someone,” and Mr Ruislip said, “You are entirely overreacting. Please, consider your bonus,” and Scott, I think, did try to run, and did try to get help, but he didn’t make it in time and the police asked me to identify the body, and I knew, Jesus, I knew it was gonna come for me too. There are nine of us in the summoning circle; now only three are left. I said:

“We gotta go to the Midnight Mayor! We have to get help!”

But Mr Ruislip replied, “Should you be so foolish as to refer to this gentleman for assistance, I shall be forced to refer you to that clause in your contract regarding premature termination.” And by now I wasn’t standing still for shit, I wasn’t gonna do that stupid fucking thing of going “Does he mean it?” Because I fucking
knew
he meant it, he meant every word.

Then last night I heard the howling.

And I rang this guy at Harlun and Phelps and said, “I know everything. I know about Greydawn. I know why she’s missing. It was us, we did it,” and then the Midnight Mayor got on the line and he said:

“You’re a shifty stupid little shit, but you’re the best I’ve got to work with, so run.”

And I ran.

I ran so hard, and so fast, and so far…

… and it brought me here.

Eddie Parks was sitting, a wretched bundle of twisted suit and tie, in the centre of a wide circle of Magicals Anonymous. Members stared at him, mouths, or perhaps jaws, agape.

“Well,” said Sharon at length. “So,” she added when no one stirred. “Usually I’d offer you a cup of tea and ask you about your issues and that. But actually I think you’re gonna crash and burn, and I’d kind of like to point and laugh while you do.”

Hearing herself, she flinched. “Did I say that out loud? Sorry, that’s really unprofessional of me, I mean… sorry. But yeah.”

This wasn’t the sympathetic reception Eddie might have hoped for. But any urge to come back with a sharp reply was discouraged by a low grumbling from the pit of Dog’s belly. It seemed unlikely that the animal understood much English, but he did seem to have got the gist.

“The cleaner,” ventured Sharon, “was Mrs Rafaat?”

As he talked, Eddie had gone to great lengths not to look at Mrs Rafaat. But now there seemed no choice.

“Yes,” he admitted. “It was… it was…” He gestured feebly towards the old woman, who couldn’t quite prevent herself from touching a hand to her chest and raising her eyebrows in a “No, me?” manner.

“But I’m not dead!” she exclaimed. “And I certainly don’t remember being used as a human sacrifice.”

“Ever worked as a cleaner?” asked Sharon with forced brightness.

“Well, yes… but that was years ago!”

“Maybe… two years, for example?”

Mrs Rafaat rubbed uneasily at Dog’s back, a comfort gesture she didn’t notice herself making. “But surely I’d remember being stabbed?” she suggested. “I don’t want to disappoint anyone here, but really this all seems very unlikely.”

“Blood,” said a voice so soft that at first no one believed it had spoken. Sharon peered around to look at the speaker.

“Blood,” she said again; and there was Edna, high priestess of the Friendlies, very still on a broken plastic chair, staring at Dog and his mistress.

“Uh… blood in a nice way?” hazarded Sharon.

“In the old days, in the darker days,” murmured Edna, “Greydawn was… more complicated. Before street lighting, when the smog was in the streets, when the rats brought the plague and traitors’ heads were put on spikes on London Bridge… she was still the protector of the wall, she guarded the lonely travellers in the night. But her touch was… more than just protection against the coldness and the nightmares. Her favours could be bought, with blood.”

Several pairs of eyes tried their best not to stare too hard at Mrs Rafaat, who’d just become distracted by an earnest conversation with Sally the banshee about whether green was really such a bad colour for a sari.

“What kind of favours?” asked Sharon. “Though I really think I’m not gonna like the answer.”

“It was said that for a prick of blood on the end of your finger, she could guard your path against all ill. But that for the blood of life, for a dying breath, there was no power that could stand before her.”

There would have been silence, except that Rhys sneezed.

“Okay…” said Sharon. “I guess that kind of explains the whole Burns-and-Stoke-hunting-her-down thing.”

“But why?” demanded Swift, scowling with frustration. “I mean, put me on the spot and ask me what I’d do with unimaginable power and I’d have… well, a failure of imagination.”

“Lots of toothpaste,” replied Sammy with a malignant glow in his eye.
“And
I’d make sure everyone got the truth about stupid bloody Blistering Steve and his stupid bloody spontaneous combustion.”

“I need a new job,” admitted Sharon. “I mean, I’m okay with working nine to five, but I’d kind of rather do ten to five, or maybe even ten to four, and I’d have a short lunch break and work really hard, and un-install solitaire from my computer and that…”

“People!” cried Swift. “We’re talking about she who divides the night from the day, Our Lady of 4 a.m., Greydawn herself, being paid for with the lifeblood of mortals! I think we’re a bit past a supply of toothpaste and reasonable working hours!”

“Yeah, but
you
didn’t graduate into a recession,” grumbled Sharon. She raised her voice. “Hands up everyone here who wants infinite power.”

One hand was cautiously raised from the far end of the room, before someone swatted it back down.

“And hands up everyone here who wants an annual income of around £35,000 after tax and a reasonably sized one-bedroom flat within Zones 1 or 2 and easy walking distance of an Underground station?” Nearly every hand shot up, including one or two which bore talons. Sharon turned to Swift, grinning with satisfaction. “This,” she explained, “is why I’m a shaman, with people skills and that, and you’re just some git in a tatty coat.”

Swift threw his hands up in exasperation. “Okay. But the fact remains that Mrs Rafaat–the
first
Mrs Rafaat–was stabbed and died and made a wish, and now this Mrs Rafaat,
our
Mrs Rafaat, is sitting here alive and very not dead. Can you explain that, shaman?”

Sharon looked at Mrs Rafaat, who shrugged. “I’m so sorry, dear. I rather feel like I’m having something of an existential crisis. Might I have another cup of tea?” Rhys was at the kettle before Mrs Rafaat had completed her request. This was something he did know how to accomplish. In the confusion of recent hours, replete with human sacrifice, blood-soaked monsters and a CEO with an ambitious and unusual business model, tea was a lighthouse of certainty in a stormy sea.

“You said–” Sharon resisted the urge to kick Eddie as she spoke “–that Mrs Rafaat–the other Mrs Rafaat–died on the floor of the office. That by dying she completed your spell. What if she made a wish with her dying breath? What if Greydawn granted it?”

“What on earth could she have wished for that would lead to all this confusion?” demanded Mrs Rafaat.

“ ‘Oh God, let me live’?” murmured Sharon.

Breaking the silence that followed, Swift admitted, “It does make a certain sense. I know that’s what I’d be thinking.”

“Maybe she made this wish,” Sharon pressed. “And maybe Greydawn heard it, but maybe she didn’t quite understand. The blood had been spilt; the spell had been cast; they’d summoned Greydawn. But it was Mrs Rafaat’s blood on the floor and Mrs Rafaat who whispered her desires–and Greydawn tried to fulfil them? Only, she couldn’t bring back the dead, couldn’t undo the blood, so she tried the next best thing. She tried to make Mrs Rafaat live.”

All eyes turned inexorably towards Mrs Rafaat.

“No,” murmured the older woman. “That’s just not…”

Dog crooned at her feet, turning all attention back to him. He’d rolled onto his back and now lay, stretched out with his paws in the air, tail beating like a piston. Mrs Rafaat hesitated. Her gaze roamed from Dog to Eddie to the eyes fixed on her from all round the room, then up to the cracked walls and shattered windows.

“No,” she repeated, shaking her head. “No, it’s not…”