Nightmare Realm: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (The London Coven Series Book 2)
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NIGHTMARE REALM
A London Coven Story
by
M.V. Stott
The Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy Universe
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Published by Genre Reader
Copyright © 2017 by Genre Reader. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.
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1
Blood sprayed across my face, but the creature kept moving.
‘Run all you like, you’re not getting out of here alive!’
A panting noise at my side let me know that David had caught up to me. He looked at my clenched fists spitting arcs of magical energy from my knuckles, saw the gore covering my face.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Have a wet wipe.’
‘Maybe later,’ I replied.
‘It’s lemon scented...’
In the short time I’d known Detective David Tyler I’d become used to his sense of humour and the way he used it most during bad situations.
This was a bad situation.
We were chasing down a monster that ate and replaced family dogs. If that doesn’t sound so bad, just wait until you hear the rest.
This creature—despite looking like an eight-foot-tall skinned orangutan when not disguised—sits in your home being fed and petted like loyal old Rover, panting and wagging its tail, and then, once it’s nice and settled, it gets to work. The creature, known to the Uncanny as a ‘best fiend,’ for hopefully obvious reasons, secretes a noxious gas. The gas is invisible, has no scent or smell, but has a very particular effect on those within your household.
It gets them pissed off.
Your family begin to turn on each other. Old grievances sting anew. New grievances are given fire. Even made-up resentments will arise; anything to stoke the toxic feelings and make your formerly happy family scream and shout at one another.
And then worse. Much, much worse.
Someone, at some point, will be pushed over the edge. Maybe it will be your father, it often is. It might even be your youngest daughter, braces still on her teeth. The best fiend will sit, quivering, in the corner of the room, pumping out more and more of its gas, until finally one family member creeps up on another, kitchen knife in hand. A rolling pin. A pillow to force over a sleeping face. A match and something flammable.
The family will be found—what’s left of them—and their neighbours would be shocked and tell the papers that they seemed so happy. So content. Such a nice household.
No one will pay any mind to the family pet sat on the pavement, watching as the police arrive, the fire brigade, the TV news. Not even when it wag-wag-wags its tail and takes off down the street.
So, why does the best fiend do all of this? Apart from being a complete bastard of a monster? There are a few theories on that, the most popular being that it somehow feeds on unrest. On anger, and pain, and fury. It sits on the edge of things, a raw pink nightmare, soaking up every shout, every narrowed eye, every dark thought that bubbles and brews in its presence. Drinks it all in until the family are dead and its belly is full, and then off it goes to sleep it off for a few years, before waking up and seeking a new family to destroy.
Well not this time.
This time I’d received a tip-off about one of the best fiend’s hibernating spots, and had arrived just as it woke and twitched its way out of the sewers.
I thought it would be an easy job. Thought the creature would be dazed after its years of sleeping, its belly grumbling and defences down. Using the Amulet of Kanta—created to cleanse a house of such a creature—I would focus a spell onto it, and hey presto, end of problem.
But no one warned me just how tough and vicious these things were.
So, yeah, it hadn’t quite gone to plan, hence David and I running through the streets at night, me slinging spells at the fleeing thing as he puffed and panted by my side.
‘Do you see it?’ I asked.
‘Three o’clock,’ he replied.
I turned, ‘I don’t see it!’
‘Other three o’clock, uh, 9 o’clock,’ he yelled, pointing in the other direction. ‘Sorry, I’m more of a digital watch man.’
We ran.
I don’t mind admitting I had a huge grin on my face as I readied for the attack, heart beating, body coursing with magic as I soaked in the area’s natural reserves. This was what I did. What I was created for. To hunt monsters and keep the normals of London safe from the worst the Uncanny world had to offer.
‘Over there!’ yelled David.
I followed his hand to see the best fiend pressed against a wall, desperately looking for a way out.
‘It’s run into a dead end,’ said David. ‘Not the brightest bulb, is it?’
I thought otherwise. This thing had—at a conservative estimate—six-hundred deaths to its name, spanning more than nine centuries. Whatever it was, it wasn’t stupid.
I held out my hand as we approached the best fiend and David tossed me the amulet. The metal was cold but fizzed with energy, needling my skin like static.
Best fiends were catalogued centu
ries back by a warlock who had taken it upon himself to rid England of the vile creatures. Unfortunately, the monsters could withstand a great deal of magic, which allowed them to escape even the most accomplished magicians. It would sometimes take six or seven concentrated assaults to see the things off, so the warlock went to his workshop and created the Amulet of Kanta: a tool fashioned from the remains of one of the creatures and designed specifically to combat the best fiend problem. Instead of focussing his magic on the creature itself, the magician would focus their spell into the amulet, which would redirect the spell towards the monster in a concentrated form, ending it once and for all. Don’t ask me how it works exactly, or why it only works on best fiends. All I know is that, according to the warlock’s instructions, it does the job.
David and I stood a few metres from the monster, its black eyes flicking every which way, desperate to find a way out. Except there was only one way out this time, and it wasn’t going to like it.
I held out the amulet and concentrated. The surrounding magic flowed towards me as I placed the correct word form together and fed the result into the amulet.
It began to glow.
Dimly at first, then brighter, and brighter still, until it hurt to even look at the thing, though it remained cold in my hand.
I think the best fiend screamed. I hope it did. Hope it recognised the tool in my hand, burning fiercely, and knew what was about to happen.
‘Goodbye,’ I said, and the amulet unleashed the intensified power.
It surged in red and blue molten lines of furious energy that smashed into the creature, pinning it to the brick wall, then coiling round and round, over and over, in ever-tightening circles.
And then the best fiend exploded.
I hurled myself to the side as blood and chunks of bone and flesh shot in my direction, landing with a jarring thump.
I stood, smiling and wiping the gore from my face, sliding the empty amulet into the pocket of my leather jacket.
‘Eat shit, monster.’
‘Wh-wha…?’
I looked down to see a David looking up at me, dazed and laid flat.
‘What happened?’
‘When the monster exploded a chunk of it hit you and knocked you out.’
‘Oh. Which bit?’
‘A big wedge of torso I think. Mostly stomach.’
David nodded.
‘Okay. Well, it’s probably about time to get drunk then, right?’
I smiled. ‘Oh yes.’
2
‘Fill these up if you would, Lenny,’ said David, sliding the two empty pint glasses across the bar.
‘Don’t I get a “please,” Detective?’ asked the giant barman and owner of The Beehive, the most popular Uncanny drinking hole in London.
‘I’ll put a little sugar on top if you throw in a bag of cheese and onion.’
Lenny grunted and went about his business.
My name is Stella Familiar and I belong to the London Coven. Once upon a time it was home to Kala, Trin, and Feal, the three most powerful witches in the country. Together we were, for want of a better term, the “police force” of the Uncanny in London. I was their familiar. The blunt tool they created to deliver warnings and—more often than not—beat the hell out of monsters. We were winning the battle until the most powerful creature I’ve ever come across, Mr. Trick, murdered them and left their bodies in bloody pieces.
‘To another monstrous turd, successfully dispatched,’ said David, raising his pint glass.
I reciprocated, then glugged a third of my drink in one go.
‘Whoa, slow it down, booze hound.’
I answered with a burp.
‘How are you still single?’ asked David, rolling his eyes and digging into his bag of crisps.
It had been three months since I’d taken out Mr. Trick. Three months since I’d discovered the creature was hiding inside David. Getting rid of it had almost killed him; I’d had to tap into the dark realm to save his life. That was a big no-no. A witch’s familiar using black magic? There’d be a price to pay for that, that was for sure. But right then I had other things on my mind. Since my coven had been destroyed I bore the responsibility of protecting all of London on my shoulders. The rightful protectors of the city were dead, and now here I was—their simple, blunt instrument—trying to fill their shoes. Was I up to the job? I wasn’t a tenth of the Uncanny they were. I was just a creation, something they’d conjured into life sixty years ago to do their bidding. Was I even really a person? I had no parents, no birth certificate. One day I hadn’t existed, and then the next I just had, exactly the same as I looked in the mirror today. No growth, no childhood, no ageing, Always this. Always the same.
Then there was David.
The effects of my black magic aside, there was also the matter of him having unwillingly hosted the most powerful Uncanny I’d ever met. I’d dealt with Mr. Trick. Killed him. At least I hoped I had. That’s the thing with magic, with the Uncanny – nothing can ever be “for sure.” Maybe David would turn out to be a weak link. A toehold for Mr. Trick to cling onto and pull himself back into the world. Back into existence. There was no way of knowing for certain.
So many questions and dark thoughts fighting for space inside my mind. I’d never had to cope with such worry and responsibility before. Not like this. The only way I could keep my thoughts from going to dark places was chasing monsters and drinking beer.
‘Penny for them,’ said David, pouring the remaining crumbs from his crisp packet into his mouth.
‘I was just wondering at what point tequila slammers might make an appearance.’
David was just about to answer when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck dance as the air behind me turned cold.
‘Stella Familiar,’ said a voice I didn’t recognise. ‘We meet at last.’
I swivelled on my bar stool to see a man in a black suit and tie. He had a face with a natural resting point set to a smirk.
‘You know,’ he went on, ‘when my friend told me to seek out a familiar, I imagined a cackling imp sat on a witch’s shoulder. But you? Well, you’re much easier on the eye.’
‘And who would you be?’ I asked, polishing off my pint.
‘Aw. Thought you might have heard of me. I’m Jake Fletcher, the ex-exorcist.’
‘Ex-exorcist?’ asked David.
‘Very ex.’
‘You can see him?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Of course I can, I’m drunk, not blind drunk.’
‘Yeah pal, I think the reason Stella here is surprised is that you’re a normal, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Right,’ said Jake. ‘So how in the name of sweet Bruce Dickinson are you able to see a ghost?’
3
‘David,’ I said, ‘Maybe have another go at blinking.’
He looked at me, then back at Jake, and finally blinked, shaking his head.
‘So, when you say a ‘ghost’, what you actually mean is…?’
‘A ghost,’ replied Jake, ‘As in dead as a dodo, pushing up the daisies. I am an ex-man, and not the fruity superhero kind.’
‘Right. So there’s ghosts as well as monsters and witches and all the rest of it?’
‘Afraid so,’ I replied, then waved Lenny over to refill our pint pots. ‘One for you?’ I asked Jake, then remembered the whole ghost thing.
‘I’d kill my own gran for a pint, but I’m not in my meat suit. Booze would pass right through me in this state, and I wouldn’t want to make a mess of this disgusting, sticky floor.’
‘Meat suit?’ asked David, sipping from his fresh pint, his eyes scanning Jake up and down. ‘Also, can you walk through walls?’
‘I can, yeah. And by “meat suit,” I mean the guy whose body I possess when I need to chat with you normals.’
‘You possess someone?’ I asked. ‘That sounds like the sort of thing the coven would frown upon.’
‘Not if they knew the prick I possessed, they wouldn’t. Bloke used to b
ully me something rotten growing up. One time he handcuffed me to a radiator and stood back laughing while it turned red hot and cooked me.’
He rolled up his sleeve and showed me a scar on his wrist.
‘Jesus,’ said David. ‘Sounds like a prize cock.’
‘Still is, but now he helps me do my job, whether he likes it or not.’
‘And what job is that?’ I asked.
‘Solving murders and showing dead people the way to the hereafter. So yeah, forgive me if I bend a little rule here or there.’
I stared at him hard, then shrugged, ‘What do I care?’ I lifted my fresh pint and blew on the head, making the foam splatter through Jake’s phantom form.
‘Very mature,’ he sighed.
‘Okay, I need pee-pee,’ said David, getting up from his bar stool and weaving towards the Gents.
I turned back to Jake, ‘Well? I take it there’s a reason you came looking for me.’
‘Something’s happening, Stella. Something not good.’
‘Could you be a bit more vague about it, please?’
Jake snorted, ‘Funny. Listen, I just had to deal with a demon running wild around Camden. Not one of your higher plane demons—this was a low-level turd of a thing by comparison—but it waltzed into my manor like it owned the place. As though the barrier between here and there was tissue paper.’
I shrugged, ‘Things slip through sometimes. It happens.’ I lifted my glass of tequila and dropped it into my pint glass, watching it sink to the bottom as the two liquids began to mix.
‘Look, Stella, I’m not an amateur. Something’s happening. Something bad. I can feel it in my bones.’
‘You don’t have any bones.’
‘True, I feel it in my... whatever it is I’m made of.’
‘With all due respect—’
‘—None taken—’
‘—You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve been chasing monsters for sixty years. I clean up messes the likes of you would have no idea about. If anything was going on, I’d be the first to know.’
I took a sip of my new concoction and winced. It was good.