The COMPLETE Witching Pen Series, Boxed Set (13 page)

“How?”
 

“She said she killed him.”
 

He looked surprised. “One does not kill their soulmate easily.”

Amy sighed at the hopelessness of the situation. “You know that Elena's a thirteenth generation witch, and that she's half Shanka. What you don't know – what none of us knew – was that Elena was a virgin. Until tonight.”

Pueblo's face turned grim. “So, she did kill him. When he took her virginity, her succubus energy would have become fully accessible to her, and as a newling, she would have been hungry – she sucked his life right out of him.”

“But she didn't
mean
to,” Mary interjected, angrily, her tears streaking her face. “She had no
idea
what she was until she read this diary just a few hours ago. Her mother always told her that if she gave up her virginity, she would lose all her powers and the right to her lineage – that was her mother's, if I might add,
poor
attempt to protect her from her inner-succubus.”
 

“Mary, she didn't tell her the truth, because Elena simply knowing it would have sent an energetic alert, rippling through dimensions, straight to the Shanka, that she existed.”
 

“But if she'd known … if she'd just
known
before she slept with Karl, she wouldn't have slept with him, and he wouldn't be dead right now.”
 

Amy placed a hand, softly, on the woman's arm. “I suspect that's why this book was left for Elena to find – she just clearly didn't find it in time.”

Mary shook her head. “Her mother should have told her. Instead, Elena was led to believe all she was giving up was her magic, when in actual fact, whoever she lost her virginity to would be giving up his
life!
”
 

“Mary, calm down.”
 

“I told her to go for it. At the shop, earlier today. She told me they'd started seeing each other, that she had something special planned for tonight. I was so happy for them both, and I teased her and told her it was about fucking time, and I told her to go for it. God, I told her not to come in tomorrow, that I would open up … I told her...” She broke down.
 

Amy kept her hand on her arm and squeezed in reassurance. She wondered if she should hug her, but felt what she really needed was space. “You didn't do this Mary. You didn't know, and none of this is your fault.”

“I never thought I'd be the reason behind one of my dreams,” she whispered.
 

“What?”
 

“It doesn't matter...”
 

Pueblo's voice broke through the dense air. “We're wasting time.”

“Have a heart,” Amy snapped at him.
 

“No,” Mary sighed, “Amy, he's right. I'm done now. I'm fine. Thanks.”
 

“You sure?”
 

She nodded. “So … where were we? Oh yes – the only hope we have of saving Elena, is dead.”

They all looked at each other.

“What now?”
 

~*~

His footsteps made no sound as he made his way down the long corridors towards the morgue. It was five in the morning, and no one was around this section right now. There had been two deaths from that explosion in Wimbledon: one was a sixty-two year old man, that lived alone in the basement flat, and the other had been Karl Warden. They'd been pronounced dead on site, and brought in around 1 a.m. But humans, as wonderful and genuinely caring as they could be, had always struggled to look beyond the end of their noses. They loved the world black and white – it was so much easier to handle that way.

Voices sounded far off down to the right. He stopped and waited, making himself temporarily invisible until the two nurses had passed.

Unlike others of his kind, he loved hospitals.
Loved
 them. Nowhere else in the world, could you find such a mix of real emotions. Nothing's hidden, nothing at all. Love, grief, fear, anger – it was all real, bold and in your face. At hospitals, people became their real selves with no masks to hide behind. It was a great shame that it always took such a life changing event for those moments of honesty to become manifest in the human world.
 

He continued on his way, taking a right turn, then another left, until he finally reached the morgue. The security box on the wall by the steel door flashed its red light in a silent command, a little arrow pointing downwards towards the slot where the identity card should go. He ignored it and walked through the locked door instead.

He knew exactly where to look – the boy's blood sang to him. Draw number 72. He pulled it open, revealing the covered body, then pulled the sheet off him.

Karl Warden looked dead … to the human eye.

He leaned down and placed his ear to Karl's chest, and waited. One minute passed … two minutes, then three...

There. There it was, the heartbeat he was waiting for. It would only ever beat about once every five minutes from now on, each beat holding all of human life within it.

“I hope you're ready for this, son, 'cause you don't really have much of a choice,” he muttered. He placed his hand on Karl's chest, over his heart. The golden light that came from his hand was strong and sure; the light that came from Karl's chest was weak. “Not for long...”
 

He allowed the light to glow, surrounding them both in an aura of what could only be termed, holiness. A sense of bliss, peace and powerful ecstasy showered over him. It wasn't often he got to do this – it wasn't often his bloodline sang in someone's DNA so strongly – it didn't suck. Lost in the moment, he gave in to the pressure between his shoulder blades and down his spine, and his wings erupted – great, white feathers reaching out for metres either side of him, almost touching the ceiling. He smiled and stretched like a cat, unfurling them to their full extent, and thanking God that this particular morgue was especially roomy.

A small groan sounded from the metal table.

His smile widened. “Wakey-wakey, rise and shine, my boy – welcome to your new life!”

Chapter Ten

When awareness finally stirred within him, the first thing Karl felt was warmth – beautiful, wonderful warmth, flooding his being.
Maybe I've swallowed the sun,
he thought, then laughed at himself.
Funny how you think strange things when you're on the brink of death...
 

Brink of death?

Memories he couldn't quite get at pressed at the corners of his mind. He groaned. A strong, Cockney dialect bounced off his ears, bringing him one step closer to reality.

“Wakey-wakey, rise and shine, my boy – welcome to your new life!”
 

He slowly opened his eyes – slowly, because he wasn't sure what scene was about to greet him.
What in God's name...?
 

His thought ended right there, as he found himself ogling at a pair of enormous, white wings. Tracing them down from the ceiling, he discovered they belonged to a man who looked like an ageing rock star.

“Dead,” he muttered, his voice hoarse. “I'm fucking dead.”
 

“Nope, my son, you are not dead.”
 

He glanced gingerly around him. “Am I in a morgue?”

“Yeah, but not dead.”
 

“You sound like Alan Sugar.”
 

“I have been told that, yes.” The …
angel …?
folded his arms across his chest.
 

“Are you an—”
 

“Angel? Yes. You can call me Gwain.”
 

“You look like Roger Daltrey.”
 

“What, all angels need to look like prissy twenty-year olds?”
 

He had no answer for that, so he tried to get up instead. “Ugh … I ache.”

“Well, your soul was almost ripped from your body by a succubus – so technically, you should be dead. Thank the Lord, you're not entirely human.”
 

“I'm not?
Succubus?
” And every memory of the night's events hit him all at once. “Elena!” He scrambled off the table and stumbled.
 

The angel caught him by the arm. “Easy. You need to give yourself a minute here.”

“What happened to her? Is she all right?”
 

“Well, that depends on what you mean by all right. She's alive.”
 

“Thank God.”
 

“She's also so consumed by grief, and a blind rage, that it'll turn her into a full-blooded Shanka demon, unless we do something fast.”
 

Karl felt all the blood drain from his face. “How did this even happen?”

“I'll fill you in...” He paused.
 

“Go on then.”
 

“Yeah … er … you may want to put that sheet there around you.”
 

He stared down at his naked body. “Oh, right.” He grabbed the sheet Gwain was pointing at, and wrapped himself up as best he could.

“Okay … I need to give you access to the Akashic Records. Do you know what they are?”
 

“Elena mentioned them once, I think. Is it like The Bible, or something?”
 

“Ha! Yeah, if The Bible was actually the size of Mount Everest, and, you know, complete. The Akashic Records is the whole story, my boy. Everything that's ever happened, on Earth and in Heaven, is written in them. Now, this is gonna feel strange – just go with it.”
 

Karl nodded.

The angel –
Gwain
– came up close to him and cupped his face in his hands, a dreamlike expression taking over his face.
 

Okay, this
is
strange.
 

“Open your mouth,” he said.
 

Hesitantly, Karl obeyed.

Gwain closed his mouth over Karl's, sealing it completely, and exhaled.

Images flooded his mind, like a movie on fast forward, painful at first – wings, swords, blood, clouds, fields in bloom, men, women and children, animals – all the images told a story, but he couldn't catch what they were. So he closed his eyes and gave into what was happening. As soon as he did, a sensation like nothing he'd ever known caressed his body.

Gwain pressed up against him in a tight hold. The images sped up, and Karl relaxed into the angel's body as bliss took over his being. He moaned into his mouth. Floating, he was floating. And then all the stories began to make sense – he understood it all. Clarity took form in his brain and expanded to embody all of who he was.

My God!

And he meant it. His connection to God was astounding – he
felt
it. He knew his mission, his purpose in life. And he saw himself, as he truly was – he saw his wings.
I have wings!
 

The images slowed down, and came to a close, the euphoria fading slightly.

Gwain pulled away. He looked at him, tenderly, compassionately, proudly.

Karl was lost for words, his breathing uneven, still reeling in the rapture that racked his body.

“Take your time,” Gwain said softly.
 

“I-I'm … there are memories that are … I'm an angel?”
 

“You're half-angel. The other half of you is very human. There are many humans with angel DNA in their bloodline, but yours … the angel within you has always been strong.”
 

“I've always healed quickly; I've never bruised.”
 

Gwain nodded. “You're not quite immortal I'm afraid, but your life expectancy has just increased by about five hundred years.”

“No way!”
 

“Yes way.”
 

He suddenly turned to look behind him. “Do I have wings?”

Gwain laughed. “You young ones always want the dessert before the main meal.”

“How old are you?”
 

“A little over ten thousand years.”
 

Karl whistled.

“Yeah, Roger Daltrey never looked so good … Right, if you're ready, we have to get going.”
 

“Elena...” As soon as Karl thought of her, everything that had happened made itself known to him. “Oh, no … I can't believe it...” His heart ached for her.
 

“Yeah, she's not in a good place.”
 

“How do we save her?”
 

“With your love for her … and with this.”
 

Gwain flashed the witching pen in front of his nose.

“How did you—”
 

“I went back to that rubble of a building right before coming here to get you.”
 

“You can hold the pen?”
 

“All angels can. That's how you've been able to hold it all this time.”
 

“Why can angels hold the pen?”
 

“Because, my boy, we're the ones that created it.”
 

~*~

“I've got her!” Amy shouted, almost choking on her second coffee. She ran into the living room, only to see Pueblo and Mary sleeping on the sofa, their heads touching. It caught her unawares, and for a moment her stomach lurched and she felt sick, then she pushed the feeling to the back of her mind and kicked Pueblo in the shin.