Stray Souls (Magicals Anonymous) (23 page)

“Depends on the spirit, dear,” said Edna. “Your local household protector, your little guardian spirit–you could steal its nest, smoke it out, summon it, without too much effort–most wizards would know how. But Greydawn… she’s one of the powers of the city, and she’s not defenceless. She has a dog.”

Sharon’s lifted her head; on her face were the beginnings of suspicion. “Mr Roding mentioned… What dog?”

“It’s how she’s symbolically represented. A woman with a dog. It might just be a romantic ideal, but there was always a certain… darker side, shall we say, to Greydawn’s nature. She doesn’t keep the nightmares at bay by being just a harmless zephyr. There has been blood associated with her. We don’t talk about it in the Friendlies of course, dear; it’s rather unpleasant for our tastes. But if our Lady of 4 a.m. is a protector of the lonely in the night, then Dog is the stick with which she might be said to do her beating. Not that it really should affect us, as Dog, like most creatures she protects us from, lives in the shadows, in the places where only the shamans go. So really it’s not worth getting worked up about.”

“Lived,” corrected Sharon.

“Pardon, dearest?”

“Lived,” she repeated.
“Lived
in the shadows, the places where the shamans go. But now Greydawn is gone, you said yourself. So… things can start getting through, yeah? Things that shouldn’t be, coming out of the dark. Like Dog.”

Edna didn’t speak, thinking it through. Rhys leaned forward, for all the world like a fascinated child about to hear something forbidden and possibly gross.

“Perhaps,” conceded Edna at last, “it is… possible.”

“Don’t look back. It wants you to look back.”

“What’s that, dear?”

Sharon’s head jerked up from her contemplation of the table. She was surprised to find Rhys and Edna both staring at her with an expression of tight concentration. “What?”

“You said, ‘Don’t look back. It wants you to look back,’ Ms Li,” offered Rhys.

“Did I?”

“Yes, and it was very shaman-like,” he added, turning to Edna for reassurance. “Didn’t you think it was very shaman-like? I mean, this glassy look you had on your face was really spiritual, and I’m not saying you usually look glassy because you don’t, you look really nice. I mean, not nice, I mean of course
nice,
but nice doesn’t really imply what aaaahh… aaahhh…”

Sharon and Edna leaned away as Rhys’s face began to contract.

“You know, sweetie, I hate to suggest the obvious,” said Edna. “But anti-histamines really are wonderful things.”

“They… they make me… make me dr… drow—”

“They make him drowsy,” said Sharon. “This dog of Greydawn’s–if it was here, I mean, if it really had, like, come out of the shadows or whatever, what do you think it’d do?”

“I imagine he’d look for his mistress,” mused Edna as Rhys buried his face in his napkin. “That would be my first response, if I was a living spirit of rage and blood tasked with protecting the guardian of the wall.”

“Rage and blood?” squeaked Sharon.

“Why yes, dear. Of course.”

“No one said nothing about rage and blood!”

“Well, what did you expect? It’s all very well having a spirit who walks beside lonely travellers in the dead hours of the night, a guardian who protects her flock, but this is London. There has to be some blood somewhere. There was a rumour—”

“What about candy floss and teddy bears?” demanded Sharon, banging her fist on the table. “Why couldn’t this Dog be a nice kind of terrier or something? Or rabbits–I was distinctly promised rabbits would come up in all this.”

“There was a rumour,” Edna went on, “that Greydawn was once a spirit of sacrifice, not protection. In the old days, when the Temple of Mithras was still standing, a gift of blood was rather more appreciated. Naturally we’ve grown more civilised since then, but blood has always been potent. Derek would know more about this, of course.”

“Who’s Derek?”

Edna’s fingers flexed uneasily in her lap. Her face turned down and aside, as if deflecting an invisible blow. “He’s… well, he’s the high priest,” she confessed. “Well, we don’t like to say ‘priest’, so he was appointed high social secretary of the Friendlies; but everyone knows he’s the high priest really. He knows about all of this business.”

“Hold on… I thought you were the high priestess.”

Edna shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I am, dear, but only really on an… acting basis, if you see what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“Well—”

“Whoa there, gonna stop you right now. I know that ‘well’. That was the ‘well’ my careers adviser used when I asked her why I couldn’t be a biomechanical engineer in space. Besides, I know what it means when people go ‘well’ like that. It means ‘I’ve got this really nasty problem, like maybe it’s so nasty I don’t want to tell you about it, so just leave it alone even though I know you ain’t gonna leave it alone.’ Well, lady–” Sharon’s finger was out, the trembling finger of pure indignation, the pointing finger of a thwarted general who can’t believe her troops won’t Go Get That Cannon “–screw your ‘well’ because, like you said, it’s all gone to crap, hasn’t it, with Greydawn missing and spirits missing and buildings dying and cities withering. So don’t you give me this ‘well’, and you just tell me about Derek.”

Howl

Howl

Howl

Howl

HOWL!

HOWL!!

HOWL!!!

She said, “He’s gone. Derek’s gone.”

Sharon said, “What do you mean, gone? Have you told the police?”

She said, “We were at the temple and I went out to get some Blutack and when I came back he was gone. But his bag was still there and his coat and his keys were in his coat and he’s… I’m worried about him. That’s all. I’m worried about him.”

One lamb bhuna, chicken korai and prawn madras later, Edna, Rhys and Sharon stood in the gloomy interior of the Friendlies’ temple (
CUT + BLOW DRY £35 WOMEN’S HAIR
), and Edna wrung her hands. Rhys tried not to stare. He’d heard of people wringing their hands, of course–it was something women possessed of a certain frailty were expected to do in difficult circumstances. He’d just never seen anyone go for it with such panache, such muscular vigour. Edna stood in the middle of the concrete floor and exclaimed, “Derek was such a lovely man, I can’t believe he’d just pack up and leave!”

Rhys met Sharon’s eyes. Neither of them could believe it either.

Rhys, realising he didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation, did some wall leaning and hoped he looked okay. Sharon puffed her cheeks and said, “So… spirits vanish, Greydawn vanishes, and now the high priest—”

“Social secretary,” corrected Edna.

Sharon gave her a look that could have withered brick. “Also disappears, and you’re like, ‘Wow, that’s strange, look how screwed up things are, but I’m sure it’ll be okay in the end.’ ”

“We are not like that!” fumed Edna. “The Friendlies are just… we’re friendly, do you see? We don’t deal in all this high drama.”

“Excuse me?” hazarded Rhys. “Do we–I mean, I don’t want to interrupt, see, but does Magicals Anonymous deal in high drama? Only, we’ve only met once and I thought we weren’t big on drama, but I still got this sort of swelling under my arms—”

Sharon opened her mouth to speak, but too late.

“Magicals Anonymous?” Edna cut in. “What’s that?”

“It’s a support group,” said Rhys. “It’s for everyone who has issues with their mystical state. Miss Li founded it.”

A look of grudging respect came over Edna’s face. “That’s actually an interesting idea, dear. It can be difficult dabbling in the mystical in this day and age. Which isn’t to say it wasn’t difficult when you were burned at the stake either. But do you know how hard it is to find someone to represent your southern pole during a pepper dance? In Tooting?”

To Sharon’s surprise, Rhys leapt into the conversation. “Oh I know!” he exclaimed. “And getting ritual stains out of white robes is a nightmare too. I’ve tried all the brands but nothing quite does it.”

“White wine vinegar,” offered Edna. “I’ve heard people swear by white wine vinegar.”

“Does that work on linen?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never tried it. But I used to get this hideous sticky stuff under my nails every time I—”

“Hey!” blurted Sharon. “Missing people? Spirits? Fate of the city? Priorities, people, please?” Somewhat abashed, Edna and Rhys fell silent.

“This Derek,” Sharon was slightly breathless with the effort of controlling the moment, “would he know how to… I don’t know, how to trap or vanish or do whatever has been done to this Greydawn chick?”

“Well,” murmured Edna, “I suppose he might, but do you feel that ‘Greydawn chick’ is very reverent?”

“Okay, how do we find him?”

“Well, you’re the shaman. Shouldn’t you…” The words trailed away in the face of Sharon’s glare. “How about scrying?” asked Edna.

“Sounds good. How the hell do we do that?”

“Well, we’d need something personal of Derek’s…”

“You said he left his bag here.”

“… and we’d need someone who knows how to scry. Derek did hire a couple of very nice wizards to try and scry for Greydawn when she… but they didn’t find anything. Which I thought was quite odd, as you’d have expected
some
sort of mystical residue or glow or something like that; but it’s really as if she’s just vanished into some part of the city. But you’re thinking about Derek, aren’t you, and I’m sure it wasn’t the wizards’ fault; they seemed very nice. That said, I don’t know if they’ll do call-outs at this time of night.”

“How about Mr Roding?” demanded Sharon. “He’s gonna break down wards and that. Could he do scrying?”

“Who is this Mr Roding gentleman?” asked Edna.

“He’s a necromancer, but he seems okay.”

“Oh, I say! Is he one of your… Magicals Anonymous too?”

“Wouldn’t be very anonymous if I answered that, would it?” replied Sharon primly.

“But Mr Roding was going to the pub with the Society of Morticians, Taxidermists and Necromancers tonight,” pointed out Rhys. “They’re doing a quiz on the theme Great Footballers of the 1990s.” Then he snapped his fingers in triumph. “It’s all right! I know who! I’ve got just the guy!”

Oh my
God
it’s hard work being a vampire. I mean, so totally not-cool.

I know what everyone says. They’re all like, “Wow, the black leather, the chic hair, the eternal youth, the sexy fangs,” and I’m like, “Darling, do you know what that jacket is made from, and babe, do you think I’m putting
that
gunk in my hair, and sweetheart, these fangs, they ain’t just for fashion.” You know what I’m saying?

And you get these freaky people! These freaky people who are all like, “Bite me, sexy,” and I’m like, “Hello? Your breath stinks, your skin is covered in other dudes’ saliva, your blood-alcohol content is way over the legal limit for driving, and I don’t want to wake up with your hangover in the morning, and besides, I don’t know where your blood has been! You could be shooting up with stuff, you could be infectious, you could have a fungal disease or something, and I am not going there. Eternity is a really long time to be a vampire, and I’ve gotta look after myself, you know what I’m saying? Sure, maybe once I’ve got a full medical history and the test has come back from the lab on a reasonable sample, maybe then I’ll have a little nip but, Jesus, you gotta let me sterilise first!”

The others say I’m letting the side down. They’re like, “We’ve got an image problem,” and I’m like, “Hell, yeah, of course we’ve got an image problem; when was the last time
you
flossed after you ate?”

He said, “I love what you’ve done with your hair.”

Edna beamed. “Thank you, dear, and may I say I’m loving your look. Do you use herbal conditioner or is it merely fragrant?”

Kevin flashed a brilliant, slightly fangy smile at Edna before turning to inspect the Friendlies’ temple. He was still wearing the same skinny blue jeans that Sharon felt sure she’d seen him in at Magicals Anonymous. But his T-shirt had been swapped for a dowdy tartan shirt and a thermal jumper on which an old peeling sticker which read
SAVE A LIFE–GIVE BLOOD
had been proudly placed like a target over the heart. His black sports bag–his very large black sports bag–lay by the door, the zip partially open to reveal a huge array of toothpastes, sterile wipes and latex gloves. Kevin turned one more time through the room, examining its every feature, before concluding his wander and fixing Sharon with a questioning stare.

“You said you could like, put me in touch with a good lawyer? This doesn’t look like a solicitor’s office.”

“A lawyer?” murmured Rhys.

“Kevin wants to sue his dentist,” explained Sharon, her smile once more locked in the attack position.

“Really?” breathed the druid. “Well, that’s… that’s, uh… that’s very…” His words dissolved into hopeful gestures and a desperate grin.

Convincing the vampire to come to Tooting hadn’t been as hard as Sharon had expected. Certainly she’d lied a tiny bit, offering up promises of lawyers yet to come, and dentists whose practices would be ruined, and quite right too, for their discriminatory behaviour–but Kevin, it turned out, lived in Earlsfield anyway. And, as she suspected, like many in that part of town, he was so pleased and surprised to discover something happening
nearby
as compared to
on the other side of the river,
that far-flung place of wonders, he’d picked up his box of sterile wipes and come almost immediately. The revelation that actually there weren’t so many midnight-opening solicitors in Tooting had only slightly dampened his spirits.

“Edna here runs a group called the Friendlies,” Sharon hastened to say. “They’re very… uh… friendly, aren’t you?”

“Oh yes, dear, we’re definitely that.”

“And they can help me sue that gargling bastard?”