Stray Souls (Magicals Anonymous) (46 page)

“I promise,” said the troll.

With a sigh and a little “Whoops!” Edna pushed herself off. Gretel caught her, carefully cradling the old woman as she set her down.

“Well, yes,” the high priestess proclaimed, brushing herself down. “In an odd way, this experience is really rather marvellous, isn’t it?” Her gaze settled on Kevin, framed against the sparkling lights of the city through the long windows behind. “My, but he really doesn’t look well. Should we do something for him?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about vampires,” admitted Gretel, “other than their powdered fangs make for interesting seasoning in casseroles.”

There was an unexpected thump.

It was the sound of Kevin going from vertical to horizontal in a single falling-tree movement. He hiccuped. Blood ran from his nose.

“Oh hell,” he whispered. “Why do I never get any of the good stuff?”

Something moved behind them. It rustled along the floor, a thin, crinkling sound. Neither Edna nor Gretel paid it much attention, but Kevin, grinning up at the ceiling, raised a trembling finger.

“Oh look,” he said. “Bag.”

A plastic bag was billowing in the air behind them, as if caught in an upward draught of heat. As Edna watched, it seemed to expand and contract like a jellyfish, before sinking to the floor, to rustle and roll away.

“Would troll blood be of any assistance?” asked Gretel, still mindful of Kevin’s condition.

“Wow, babes, that is like the sweetest offer…” groaned Kevin, “but,
uch
.”

“I had jaundice as a baby,” stammered Edna. She was half-turned towards the desk behind which the plastic bag had billowed. “So I’m not sure if I’m allowed to donate—”

“Bag,” repeated Kevin, pointing again.

The plastic bag was back, drifting up like a balloon on a breeze. This time, however, it had a companion, a crumpled blue bag whose logo said it had at some point contained shoes and which floated up from a waste-paper basket, buoyant as a Chinese lantern. Another joined it, then another, drifting upwards with the delicacy of oceanic squid, from bins and desks around the office, until the air was full of plastic bags, gently billowing.

“Um…” began Edna.

As if this were a signal, all the rustling bags snapped to attention. With unerring aim and gathering speed, they spun in the air and accelerated towards the three invaders.

Rhys turned frantically on the spot as Mr Ruislip stretched his fingers through the cold air of the pit. But Sharon was not there.

“Are you here to release the spirits?” asked Mr Ruislip. “I like saying that: ‘release the spirits’. It’s almost as empowering as ‘release the lions’ or ‘unleash the dragon’.

Rhys sneezed, colossally.

“Is… nasal phlegm,” enquired Mr Ruislip, craning in so close Rhys could feel his breath on his face, “a common fear response?”

“I don’t think so,” he babbled, “but I can only speak for me, can’t I?”

“I remember you,” murmured the wendigo. “When my claws went through your flesh, I had to look again to see if any blood had been spilt. Your skin was so soft, I couldn’t feel it tear. Why is that?”

“Moisturiser?” gasped the druid. His back was pressed against the railing round the pit and his head bent back over the drop, so much did he want to avoid the wendigo’s stare.

“Did you bring Greydawn? I did so hope you would. That’s why I let you come so far, travel so deep, bringing the mistress to her master.”

“Uh… bring who to what?”

“I know you have Greydawn,” Mr Ruislip murmured. “I know you’ve found her, because Dog howls in the night but he does not kill. And
we watch him, by the streets burning in his wake. Now he comes here, still submissive to somebody… and no one but Greydawn can tame the Dog.”

Rhys sought for something manful to say. Nothing came to mind. He was, he realised, grinning inanely in the hope that this might make the problem go away.

“There was a girl with you,” murmured Mr Ruislip. One finger absently wrapped some of Rhys’s hair about it as if he couldn’t comprehend the gingerness of it. “The shaman. But she’s run into the shadows, leaving you here. Call for her.”

“I… don’t think I should, see?”

Mr Ruislip’s other hand closed gently around Rhys’s fingers. “Call her,” he breathed, “or I’ll break each bone, one at a time.”

His grip tightened on Rhys’s little finger. Rhys barely managed to bite down on a shriek of pain. “I can’t!” he gasped. In response, agony shot through his fingers, his hand, his wrist, up to his elbow and into his shoulder: a great tearing lance that lingered and burned. “Only thing is, Ms Li, she’s really nice, see, and–” another burst of fire, and Rhys’s words dissolved into a scream that echoed round the hall. Behind Mr Ruislip, senior management cowered, turning their eyes away “–and while I don’t want you to hurt me, Mr Wendigo sir, I really don’t want you to hurt Ms Li, so–” this time something cracked in Rhys’s hand. He shrieked, his knees buckling his and eyes filling with tears “–sooooo,” he wailed above the sound of his own gasping, “so please stop hurting me, because, see, nothing you do will make me call for Sharon!”

“I think you’re wrong,” breathed Mr Ruislip. His fingers danced over the pulsing of Rhys’s blazing hand. “I have observed that when females and males of your species are put together in situations of extreme stress, bonds may form which have no bearing on the reality of their various natures. Thus, the shaman-female may regard you, with the rationality of objective thought, as merely a dribbling male of dubious sexuality; yet where danger induces a chemical response, it is more than possible that she, like you, may mistake such a hormonal reaction as, in fact, an inclination towards
affection,”
the word was spat with contempt, “and thus act without the intelligence that such a situation demands.”

Rhys strove to think beyond the pain shooting up his arm and down the length of his spine. “Eh?” he managed.

Mr Ruislip mimed patience. “Then let me demonstrate. If I hurt you like this…”

This time senior management turned their backs as Rhys’s body arched and his scream bounced away down the hole.

“… then the shaman will react in a manner resembling—”

“This!”

The voice came at the same time as a blow that swung out of nowhere, to connect with the side of Mr Ruislip’s head.

Sharon appeared where she had always been. She pulled back her bag for another strike and swung it as hard as she could. The wendigo staggered.

“You!” The bag swung again, with a crack of metal badge on bone. “Do not!” Again, knocking him back off his feet. “Get to tell me!” Smashing into the crown of his skull as he sprawled across the floor. “About my chemical responses!”

Senior management glanced at each other as Sharon knelt on Mr Ruislip’s chest and hit him again and again.

Then Mr Ruislip moved.

His hand shot up and, through every obstacle, locked itself round Sharon’s throat. Her eyes bulged and the bag slipped from her fingers as she clawed at his stick-wrist and its steely strength.

“Little girl,” hissed the wendigo. “Were the grown men too scared to come and play?”

Something spasmed across Sharon’s face. As her vision blurred and the blood sang in her ears, she grabbed the wendigo by a thin handful of hair and pulled his head up, even as she smote it with her own.

Her skull, his nose.

Mr Ruislip wailed, an animal keen of distress. His grip loosened and a hand flew to his shattered nose. Blood rolled down, thick and dark, curling over the contours of his mouth. Sharon crawled away, gasping.

But now senior management moved. One staggered forward and grabbed Sharon by the collar, pulling her to her feet. Another caught hold of Rhys and swung him against the wall with a jarring thud. Rhys groaned and sank to the floor, cradling his arm, his chest, his whole body with whatever limbs he could spare.

Mr Ruislip staggered up, swaying from surprise and feeling around his nose. Cartilage clicked as he twitched it this way and that, exploring the depth of the break. His mouth twisted with dissatisfaction and pain.

“I think…” he muttered, spitting blood, “that this must be… rage.”

Sharon tried to close her eyes as the wendigo approached. Shuddering, she pulled away from his stare. One of his hands ran up her arm, and she swallowed bile at its touch. For a second she saw a flash of what he really was: flayed skin flapping beneath a silk-suited surface. His hand tightened on her shoulder. Somewhere in the black hole below shadows moved, though there was nothing there to move them.

Help us, shaman…

“Tell me,” the wendigo breathed, “does the human body have a fixed resistance above which it may be ripped apart? Or does it vary from one specimen to another?”

“Okay,” muttered Sharon. “That’s gotta be up there for one of the most whacked-out questions I’ve ever been asked. Sorry, didn’t pay attention in biology.”

His fingers dug into her flesh, creaked against bone.

“Shall we find out?”

“Excuse me?”

All eyes turned to see who had spoken.

Rhys was staggering to his feet, leaning against the wall for support. There was something in his hands, something thin and silvery, possibly covered in foil. As Sharon watched, he slipped it back into his pocket, and his neck tightened and stretched with the effort of swallowing what might well have been a couple of Dr Seah’s anti-histamines.

Aware of all eyes on him, with an effort Rhys straightened and repeated, “Excuse me, I don’t want to cause trouble, see. But I think you should let go of Ms Li.”

Sharon glanced down at the pit, and heard…

     
footstep on stone

wind through old newspaper

         
glass shattering in the night

thump of door

       
swish of window pane

Help us, shaman!

“Are you… attempting to fulfil a gender obligation?” suggested Mr Ruislip, his grip on Sharon not slackening. “I have observed that it’s considered apt for the male of your species to defend the female, regardless of whether the effort is appreciated.”

“This isn’t a bloke thing,” asserted Rhys. “This is me asking you, politely, to not rip Miss Li limb from limb, because that would make me very angry.”

“Angry? And what form, dare we ask, will your anger take?”

Rhys drew a long breath.

And there it was, that flicker of power about him, that flash of magic which Sharon had glimpsed when she had been in the shadows but which had never got past the hay fever long enough to make itself known. The filaments in the bulbs around the edge of the room flickered and flared; a cold wind, stinking of factory chemicals and ammonia, gently stirred the air. Wires rippled beneath Rhys’s feet. It occurred to Sharon that
this
was what a druid was, always had to have been, even in the city–somebody at one with their surroundings.

“I’m a druid nearly of the first circle,” he hissed. “I was almost the leader of my peers, practically the chosen one. I didn’t quite summon the essence of the waterways from beneath the city streets, nearly brought forth the glory of the heavens, was almost on time for a conversation with the whispering dryads of the thousand and one lamp posts, and was only a few words away from sealing up the nether gate across the rotting railway tracks. You should maybe fear me, perhaps.”

A stunned silence greeted this statement.

Mr Ruislip raised his eyebrows at one of the suited members of management who, after a second of hesitation, rounded on Rhys and drew back his fingers in the opening gesture of a ritual spell. Rhys threw out his hand and the bulbs around the room flared, a vivid stream of tungsten light. Thin filament coils, burning cherry-red, burst up from the floor and lashed themselves around the feet of the unfortunate member of management, who turned red, then white, then grey, then finally, trousers smoking and hands twitching in pain, began to scream. The filaments, spider-thin and electric-fast, grew and wound themselves
round the wizard like a cocoon, dragging him to the ground and smothering him in a writhing, glowing mass of wire, cutting off all sound from within.

Rhys took a step towards the wendigo, and the three remaining members of management took a step back.

“Interesting,” murmured Mr Ruislip. “You appear not to be leaking organic compounds any more from your nostrils.”

Another member of management made the mistake of raising his hands into an attacking spell. Rhys turned, eyes flashing fluorescent-white, and the wizard choked, clawing at his throat, his mouth opening and twitching, his cheeks bulging, until with a hacking cough that brought him to his knees, he spat out a great fat mouthful of tar-stained goo that dribbled from his lips and stained his teeth grey.

“The next person who tries that,” murmured Rhys in a dream-like voice, “will drown in liquid tar, see?”

Mr Ruislip caught Sharon’s eye. She gave a tiny shrug. “Hey,” she said, “this is your own crappy fault.”

The woman, smartly trouser-suited, turned and ran for the door. Her colleague hesitated, eyes flicking from Rhys to Ruislip and back, then with a little gasp he too ran, bolting out into the dark.

Mr Ruislip, still grasping Sharon by the shoulder, yelled, “Betrayal will be reflected in your Christmas bonuses!”

Footsteps echoed down the corridor, the man and the woman running for the lift.

There was the swish of…

… a bicycle tyre?

And the footsteps stopped.

Sharon strained and heard…

She heard…

A child laugh.

Somewhere out there, in the dark.

She turned to stare into Mr Ruislip’s pale eyes. “What’ve you done?” she breathed. “What’s out there?”

“The gates are down,” replied the wendigo with a tiny-toothed smile. “Did you think I was the only one to come through the wall?”

“Rhys?” Sharon raised her voice, louder than she’d meant. “You feeling druidic enough to blast this guy into lots of sticky bits?”

“I can try, Ms Li.”

Mr Ruislip turned abruptly, pulling Sharon across his body, one arm over her throat.