Warlock

Warlock
by Andrew Cartmel

It was the ruthless pack instinct of the primeval forest. But warlock magnified it a thousand times and made it lethal.

There

Ace woke up between clean sheets. For a moment she experienced that sort of total disorientation which is almost a deliverance from existence. She didn

There were three women in the small apartment: Miss Winterhill and the two girls who were keeping the Mayans company.

At first Creed thought both the women with the Mayan brothers were hookers. Then he revised his opinion and decided that one of the girls was actually the older brother

The tattooed girl called Shell was standing waiting by the gate on Allen Road when Ace arrived.

Chick the cat was strolling back and forth, rubbing his lean body against the wrought iron bars. Shell reached through to stroke him and the cat rocked back on his haunches, purring and pushing his small head up to meet her caressing hand. Ace felt this was somehow an act of disloyalty on Chick

Outside the skyscraper the wind howled, spinning around the building. Beyond the window New York seemed lost behind roving charcoal storm clouds.

The room was silent except for the pulsing of the plastic on the window. Like big lungs breathing, thought Creed.

Jack came back from the bar carrying two dark pints of beer and, delicately balanced between them, a fresh gin and tonic for Ace.

It took Russell three hours to die.

It had been the older Mayan

Apple orchards and fields of hops flashed by in the Kentish night. The headlights of the VW carved a tunnel out of the shadows as it sped along the dark, winding roads, dense green trees closing in an arch overhead then opening again as the hills descended to fields and the ancient woods relinquished the road.

Ace gripped the steering wheel of the Mazda, dabbing the accelerator with her toe, breathing curses. She was sweating with frustration at not being able to take the lead and roar off down the open road.

But she didn

Chick was trapped.

And the humiliating thing was that he

Artie kept glancing back over his shoulder and asking her if she was okay.

Benny kept nodding yes, but the truth was she felt cold and light

Ace wondered what sort of man had so many clothes that he had to keep them in his office as well as in his bedroom.

She had never seen so many suits in her life. The interior of the wardrobe was mirrored, doubling the apparent number, but even allowing for that there were more men

Creed was coming home. Bert knew that even before he heard the familiar sound of the car.

It came thundering into the garage under the apartment, followed by a sudden silence which gave way to the ticking of cooling engine, slam of car door, scraping of the small back gate, creak of footsteps on the old wooden staircase that ran up the side of the building.

It was none of these sounds in itself that confirmed Creed

The girl called Maxine

For one horrified moment Creed thought that his dog had used his doorstep as a toilet. The thought gave him a nasty turn because Creed prided himself on having brought his dog up as a well

Benny collected the Mercedes from the airport car park at Heathrow where she

It was brilliant daylight outside but the annexe at the far end of the laboratory where Tommy stood was almost totally in darkness. The building didn

The house was in London, just south of the river. They found it after an hour of late

Tommy picked up the scissors. They were designed for right

It had been a pure accident.

Sure, Webster had been looking through the computer network ever since he

Dieter reflected how strange it was that vast changes in someone

In the darkness of the hangar the cylinder glowed with an eerie green light that reminded Creed of an aquarium. It was made of some kind of specially reinforced glass so it could withstand the pressure of the fluid inside. It was about two metres high and half a metre in diameter, more than adequate for its contents.

Vincent Wheaton floated in the cylinder, his head rocking back and forth at the touch of some micro

Ace

Creed liked driving at night. Ever since he was a kid, riding sleepily as a passenger in his dad

Creed walked through the beaded curtain that separated the bathroom from the small bedroom. There was a faded rug on the green linoleum floor, a battered pine dresser, two mismatched chairs and the sagging double bed with its fake brass frame.

The room had been rented to him by a Cypriot couple who had been eating supper in the back room and watching some Euro

Creed was watching a feather. It floated above him as if it was defying gravity, spinning and rising. It would gradually begin to sink back down towards his face, and then he would breathe out and the feather would float back up and begin its cycle again, its slow random tumbling linked to the rhythm of his breathing.

Creed felt that if he watched the feather long enough it would reveal a secret to him.

He lay on the battered mattress in his hotel room, feeling the warlock start to work on his mind, watching the feather and listening to the sounds around him.

There were voices echoing from the corridor. Three men were playing cards in the room opposite Creed

Canterbury Cathedral looked beautiful covered with snow. Shell felt her spirits soar as she looked up at it. The winter afternoon was just dimming to an early twilight. Shop windows were bright along the cobbled street, light flooding out into the cold air. Shell stole a glance at the man walking beside her.

He saw her looking and smiled.

The red

The phone rang when Maxine was running her bath. It was an antique wall

It was the first really cold morning of the year. There was the promise of winter in the air and you could see your warm morning breath fog on a pane of glass.

Ace leaned back from the window. The garden below looked cool and crisp, with white streaks of frost on the unruly grass. Too late to get the lawnmower out this year, she thought. Maybe next spring.

Ace put on a long T-shirt and a pair of espadrilles, then eased the door open. The old house on Allen Road had half a dozen bedrooms, usually plenty. But last night they