Stray Souls (Magicals Anonymous) (51 page)

“Greydawn,” whispered Mr Ruislip. He crawled towards the shape even as Sharon’s breath faded. “Greydawn, I have a wish. I’ll pay you in blood, so much blood. I’ll pay—”

There was the soft sound of crunching glass. Mr Ruislip looked past Sharon to where Dog, blood in his coat and hatred in his eyes, was walking towards him across the pavement.

“I’ll pay you. I’ll pay blood, anyone you want, as much as you need. I’ll give you anything, everything…” he babbled. “Greydawn!”

“Sorry, Mr Ruislip,” replied Sharon. “The city doesn’t want you any more. Time to go.”

Muscles bunched in Dog’s back. The ground beneath his feet smoked and charred.

“Anything you want, anything you desire,” whined the wendigo. “Just grant me my wish!”

Dog leapt.

It seemed to Sharon that Mr Ruislip went on screaming for a very, very long time.

Is this… confession?

Confession is the deed, is it not? But it brings with it feelings such as… cleanliness? Is cleanliness not a state of hygiene? Relief, is that the notion we are struggling towards here? I confess to you, and through the act of expressing my inner secrets I acquire a… relief? From a burden? Are emotions a burden; do they have a physical weight? Frankly there is so much nonsense surrounding this ridiculous humanity business I find thoroughly distressing. Why can you creatures not find a reasonable means of expressing whatever it is you’re feeling without resorting to all these unnecessary physical concepts such as
weight
and
burden
and
cleanse.
Or is it a language problem? Have you not yet developed suitable language to distinguish the physical concept of a burden from this emotional idea you carry, whatever that may be? I would have hoped for better from you, after all this time.

Well, then, my… confession.

I am wendigo.

My ancestors once roamed the forests, now I roam your streets. I am mighty, unbound, unlimited, unstoppable and… alone. It isn’t merely that my species only mates once every sixty-three years and the rest of the time devours its own kind. It is that I move among you, a shadow
in the crowd, and I am, for all my glory, unseen, unregarded, unremarked and alone.

There is no loneliness greater than being the stranger in a crowd, the one who cannot be accepted into the tribe. All I seek–all I ever sought–was to understand what it was that made your tribe, your city, what it seemed to be. What is it, this secret thing that you call humanity? Men have tried to explain it to me, but the words they use have too many meanings. Sorrow, grief, longing, happiness, loss, despair, fury, rage–why can you not apply one simple term to one simple state of being? Why must there be layers beneath layers of all these things? Why must you hide the truth of it from me? Why will you not share your secrets?

So I “confess”, if that is the word you wish me to use, to my deeds. It was I who summoned Greydawn. I who ordered the rite. I who have spilt blood and I who have sought this knowledge that your entire species seems determined to deny. I would have asked her to show me the way; I would have asked her to make me human. And for this you would condemn me?

All I ever wanted was to understand.

Time passed.

It passed, reflected Rhys, with a certain lethargy, as if, having kept itself busy with adventure for the last few weeks, the universe as a whole was now sitting back and reminiscing like an old man by the fireplace as the night drew in. Through the clouds the sun made a harmless golden stain on the surface of the river as Rhys crossed Southwark Bridge on his way to the evening’s meeting of Magicals Anonymous, his hand swathed in a clean bandage, a new pair of shoes on his feet and in his pocket a fresh pack of tissues. He paused in the middle of the bridge to indulge in the traditional pastime of waving at the tourists on a passing boat and wondered exactly
why
Southwark Bridge had been built in the first place, connecting as it did nowhere especially exciting with nothing much in particular. On either side far more glamorous constructions across the busy waterway linked hubs of transport and glorious monuments.

He kept on walking as the sun slipped below the horizon.

The doctor had said:

“Broken fingers? Do I look like I deal in broken fingers? I’m an expert in magical conditions, dammit!”

Dr Seah could be precious about her work when she needed to be.

“But Dr Seah,” he’d pleaded, “they
were
broken by a wendigo.”

“And you think that affects the quality of the bone?” she barked. “If you
were
a wendigo, maybe we could talk, because you’d have that extra little joint in your hand which is surprisingly hard to set and I wouldn’t trust orthopaedics with it for shit, but as it is, you’re not a wendigo, you’re a druid, and when I last checked, druids’ hands were
boring
hands.”

Then Sharon, who, to Rhys’s surprise, had insisted on accompanying him to the clinic, stepped up to Dr Seah and used her not particularly impressive height to tower over the tiny doctor. Dr Seah glowered up for a second, standing her ground, then saw something in Sharon’s eye that reduced the glower to a half-hearted smile of NHS-funded warmth and compassion, only slightly tainted with professional pride.

“Dr Seah,” said Sharon, “Rhys here just stood up to a wendigo and all his evil minion hordes. He was stupid when I was in danger and noble when I wasn’t, and now his hand hurts and he’s only had some paracetamol and the anti-histamines you gave him. And I think that even if his fingers are really, really dull, you should still consider the taxpayer and that, and bloody well fix it, okay?”

Dr Seah bit her lower lip for a second, then shrugged. “Okay,” she sighed. “Fuck it.”

A few hours later Rhys woke from an anti-histamine-induced drowsiness to find that his fat, plastered hand already bore the message, in felt-tip, Sharon woz ’ere.

“You know,” whispered Dr Seah when the druid was sleeping again, “I never really prescribed him anti-histamines.”

“Seriously?” said Sharon.

“Totally! Placebo, yeah?”

“But he took the pills down there in the tunnels and went all like, mega-druid.”

“Gotta think about the NHS cutbacks,” muttered the medic. “ ’Sides, I can recognise psychosomatic shit when I see it: seven years medical training, yeah?”

When Rhys woke again, several hours later, he had expected to be alone.

Yet, oddly, he was not.

Rhys had not been the only visitor to Dr Seah.

“Oh my God, I love what you’ve done with your trolley! And the colour coding on your files is so to die for.”

“Sweetheart, I’m glad you noticed! I’m a little obsessive about my files, in fact, but people don’t seem to care. Now, what can I do you for?”

“Well, Dr Seah, I like, totally went and drank the wrong blood type.”

“Oh no, poor lamb!”

“I know, but it was like, this mega-mega-emergency, and everyone was like ‘Oh Kevin, save us!’ and I was like, a vamp’s gotta do what a vamp’s gotta do, so I stepped up there. And I know it was stupid, but I need to know… have I got haemophilia?”

“Sweetheart, haemophilia is a genetically transmitted disorder, and you’re a vampire, so like, deal with it. We’ll do a few transfusions to flush out the wrong blood type from your system…”

“Okay, babes.”

“… and I’d like to keep you in overday for monitoring.”

“Whatever you want, Dr Seah. You’re like, such a professional, it’s so good to be in capable hands. Tell me–where do you get your sterile wipes?”

Time passed.

A small bell in the doorway of a little French restaurant on the overly-restauranted highway of Upper Street announced the arrival of new customers a few hours before closing time. The waiter scurried to greet them, all white sleeves, only to pause by the door, struggling to make sense of what he saw.

There was a girl–that much was easy. She had black hair streaked with electric blue at the front, and carried a large bag sagging with badges. There was a man with ginger hair and a bandaged hand, and then there was…

… it was hard to say what it was.

An impression of largeness, a sense of overwhelming mass, and yet when the waiter looked away, he realised that there was nothing to worry about really, of course not, because he
couldn’t
have just seen a seven-foot troll come through his door. And frankly, what a ridiculous
notion, what an absurd idea; it was just a person… a person whose face he couldn’t quite remember, that was all.

The three sat at a small table lit by a candle stuck in a bottle, and one of the wicker chairs sagged, beneath the… the large individual. The waiter handed out menus and didn’t fully understand why his hand shook.

“Tonight’s specials,” he gabbled, “are on the board for you. May I especially recommend the rabbit on a bed of black cabbage, or the swordfish in white-wine sauce?”

The man and the woman looked at their companion.

Gretel gently laid the menu down on the tabletop, careful not to break anything, and brushed the ends of her knife and fork with the rounded mass of a fingertip.

“Can I have… all of it?” she asked.

Time passed.

In the great turbine hall of Tate Modern a security guard wandering late at night, torch in one hand, radio in the other, thought he heard something flap up in the high, dark ceiling. He shone his torch up and for a second imagined he could see great leathery wings and hear the scrape of claw on iron. But as this seemed so unlikely, he shook his head and, cursing pigeons under his breath, continued with his patrol.

Behind him a single crumpled piece of paper drifted, swaying in its descent through the still night air.

THANK YOU FOR VISITING TATE MODERN. YOUR FEEDBACK IS IMPORTANT TO US. PLEASE RANK THE FOLLOWING ASPECTS OF YOUR VISIT FROM ONE TO FIVE, AND WRITE ANY OTHER COMMENTS IN THE SPACE BELOW.

In the “Any other comments” box, a careful, neat hand had written:

I especially enjoyed the current exhibition on street art in the 21st century, although thought that the curator’s interpretation of Two Men, One Stick” was over-laboured. The toilet facilities are clean and pleasant, but the café is, I feel, very overpriced and doesn’t sell pigeon. Many apologies for the broken skylight; I have left some money and the number of a very professional glazier trained in safe working at heights by the till. Yours faithfully, Sally.

When the note was found during the morning shift, it was dismissed as something of a joke. Then again, someone
had
broken the skylight above the finance office. Again. And not from the inside.

In Coffee Unlimited, finest coffee within a good five yards, the door opened on an unexpected customer.

“Sharon!” squealed Gina, dropping her tray to run and hug the woman who stepped inside. “Babes, I’ve been so worried about you when you didn’t come in for work, and then when you stopped answering the phone, and there was all this stuff on Facebook and—”

“Sharon?”

She turned. Mike Pentlace, erstwhile employer, iPhone still glued to his hand in a way that made Sharon wonder if, in fact, he’d had an industrial accident, stood there, flushing to the roots of his hair.

“I assume you’re here to buy a coffee, yeah?” he asserted. “You can’t think you’ve got a job here any more. Sorry, yeah, but your behaviour has been outrageous–utterly outrageous–and I always said you had a bad attitude, yeah, but now I see just how bad it was, yeah, so don’t think you can come in here and just beg for your—”

“Mr Pentlace,” Sharon cut in, “let me put your mind at ease. I am not here to ask for a job. In fact, asking for a job from you is probably the last thing I would ever do on the planet ever, after eating boiled cockroaches, learning to juggle a chainsaw and doggy-paddling in an oil slick.

“The thing is, Mr Pentlace sir, your shop sells the worst coffee in north London and you’re the worst manager I’ve ever met, and even if you paid me a million quid I wouldn’t wanna work for you, because a million quid isn’t enough to buy comfort from all the bloody grief you give, albeit on a habitual rather than personal basis.

“And I can see–course I can see–that you’re actually a frail little man with deep-seated self-confidence issues which manifest as a flagrant abuse of power, a bullying aggression and a reflexive sense of righteousness. And I really think, Mr Pentlace sir, that you should look at joining a self-help group in order to learn how to be more at one with yourself, and then maybe you can cope with being more at one with everyone else. Something like t’ai chi, perhaps. Or knitting.

“Either way, I figured you’d wanna know that I officially resign
because, at the end of the day, working for you just isn’t worth my time. I can do so much more. Goodbye, Mr Pentlace. I hope you can find a group willing to take you on.”

So saying, Sharon walked away.

This time she remembered both to open the door and close it behind her.

Night settled over London.

One place where it didn’t settle as thoroughly as it might have wanted to was the scaffold-encrusted remains of St Christopher’s Hall. Lights burned through the brand-new windows, chairs scraped across the fresh plastic covering on the floor, and the smell of tea was almost as unignorable as the noise of gossiping voices from within its walls.

“So what kind of exorcism do you do, Chris?”

“I believe in the psychological approach. It seems to me that if the souls of the departed aren’t moving on, then it’s almost certainly because they have issues they need to resolve. The book, bell and candle business is very Middle Ages; I’ve studied Freud and firmly believe that his essential principles can be extended into the nether realms.”

The sound of a teaspoon being rattled against a teacup bought the meeting to order. There was a scraping of chairs, a folding of wings, a relaxing of talons, a hiding of fangs, a lowering of bristles and a diminishing of intense magical auras.

The sound of a throat being cleared.