Illicit Magic (Book 1, Stella Mayweather Series) Read online

CHAPTER TWO

  I was sprinting for all the world like the hounds of hell were on my tail, ruing the day I decided to buy this stupid bag. Why couldn’t I have gotten a neat little rucksack? Still, the bruises of my own bag’s making would surely be preferable to whatever this crazy gang had in mind, which I was sure it wouldn’t be pleasant. What could possibly be nice about a single woman being chased down by a dozen men who were drawn solely to her magic? From the second the hand grabbed for my throat, I knew for certain that I was in far more serious danger than a run-of-the-mill kidnapping.

  When I opened my eyes and found myself across the street, I could hardly believe that, for once, I had actually done what I meant to do. I’d accidentally moved myself in the past by blinking one minute and then opening my eyes to find myself yards away. For a long time while growing up, I thought I was going loopy. There was the week I caught a cold when I was nineteen and every time I sneezed, I zapped – for lack of a better word – myself somewhere else, somewhere never too far, but far enough that I had to wear day clothes, including shoes, to bed for a week, house keys stuffed in my pocket, lest I sneeze, vanish and pop outside by accident.

  After that episode, I certainly didn’t need any more persuasion that I was different from everyone else. Very different. If only I knew what the hell it was all about and why it was happening to me. I didn’t need to be convinced to run; I was already pounding the pavement.

  “The witch,” they hummed as one behind my fleeting back. “Catch the witch! Burn the witch! Burrrrrn her!”

  I was desperate to put as much space as possible between us as fast as I could. My feet thundered across the pavement in the strangely empty street. I dashed past houses, lights on, the blur of movement showing a montage of people moving past windows, serving dinner, greeting their loved ones, leaning forward to change the TV station. Normal family life that was oblivious to my pursuers and me. I wanted so badly to be inside these safe, warm homes that my heart ached as much from fear as from need.

  My lungs, not yet recovered from the previous sprint, were starting to burn. I took the corner to my right, leapt into the road with barely a glance in either direction, and darted between a car and a red bus that was just pulling out. I earned myself a hoot of the horn from the driver, his angry fist shaking as I turned my back and stumbled across the gutter onto the pavement, slipping on the wet kerb. I put my hands out to stop my fall and caught my sleeve on the jagged edge of the vandalised bus shelter, its window smashed the third time in as many weeks. I wrenched my arm free and cursed as the fabric tore. I righted myself and sprinted on.

  The bus pulled out. Behind me a voice shrieked and I heard the impact of something large hitting the bus’ bumper and bouncing with a dull thud onto the road. It sounded awfully like a person but I didn’t dare falter for a second to look backwards to see if the person was all right. There hadn’t been any passengers left at the bus stop so I hoped it was the man who had stared at me with such hatred.

  I recognised my attackers for what they were. I’d seen the news, the headlines of the newspapers, and heard about the women. The thought of it made me shiver: all were found burned alive, their bodies twisted in agony long before their final moments of death. Their corpses charred and all but unrecognisable, yet bizarrely similar no matter when or where they were found. They had all been bound to wooden stakes which, laced with accelerants, had been torched.

  The newspapers were in their heyday. Nothing thrilled a paper better than a string of vile unsolved crimes; the very words “serial killer” sent them into overdrive. They quoted “official sources”, which said there was more than one suspect, possibly a gang of killers lurking to abduct women to their fiery deaths.

  No wonder the women at work were all concerned for each other. I didn’t give myself the indulgence of wondering if they were at all concerned about me. I doubted they would give a damn unless...

  I couldn’t help the feeling that I was going to be next.

  They would probably grimace at work when they heard about my death. Maybe they would pretend to have been my friends as well as co-workers, purely for the TV time. I pushed on, the fear bubbling in my stomach. Run! my brain screamed.

  As I took the next left and sprinted forwarded, racing across the road, I wished I was somewhere more public. I knew feinting right would take me into a smaller, safer residential street where I knew a shortcut across a small children’s play park that sat incongruously in a partially fenced roundabout. It would get me home quicker but it would also take me away from lights and, crucially, people. Witnesses. There was no time to think. I dashed right and ran full pelt, slowing to slip through the gates, bypassing the swings that were swaying by themselves on creaking chainlinks and slung myself forwards into an alley that divided the houses and led closer to my street.

  I couldn’t hear any footsteps behind me so I slowed just barely enough to allow me to glance over my shoulder without tripping in the poor light and landing on goodness-knows-what in the alley.

  My forehead knitted into a frown as I strained to hear any sound. No one was following me. At last I had a chance to gasp for breath and fill my lungs with air as I reined myself into a fast walk. I could easily have brushed the chase aside as a nasty coincidence or a random attack but that nagging sixth sense fizzling in my nerves warned me to continue to be wary and I kept up the steady jog that would carry me home.

  As I came out of the alley, instead of taking the pavement, I slipped through a crack in the fence into a corner garden and then proceeded through front gardens, hopping over small dividing fences until I could hang back in someone else’s drive, a few houses diagonally away from mine. The lights were off in this house and there was no car; I vaguely recalled the man who lived here worked away often, so I doubted anyone was going to step out and ask me what I was doing loitering in the shadow of their house.

  When something brushed against my leg, I nearly screamed but looking down, saw that it was just a black cat with a single white front paw that had chosen this moment as the perfect time to terrorise me. I stooped to scratch it between the ears as I kept my eyes on my front porch. From my low vantage point, I couldn’t see much, but at least it made me temporarily invisible. The cat purred and nuzzled at my wrist, twisting around my ankles and arching its back, so I scratched it there too until it got bored and stalked away through a narrow gap in the fence.

  I waited, trying to decide if my house was being observed by anyone other than me but, after a few minutes, I decided it wasn’t and that I should go inside or risk standing outside, getting soaked now that the wet air had morphed to grey drizzle. My coat was ripped and my hair started to plaster itself to my forehead and I could feel sweaty damp patches sticking to my skin. What a catch.

  “Grow some backbone,” I muttered to myself, my voice catching in the cold as I examined the sleeve sadly. I’d only owned the jacket since last autumn and had gotten it on sale for a snip. Damn. Maybe I could fix it later, sew on a new button to cover the rip or give it some kind of nifty patch. Anything so I wouldn’t have to eat into my savings to buy another coat.

  I fished the key from the inner pocket of my bag and palmed it, the jagged edge poking out from between my clenched fingers. It wasn’t much of a weapon. Perhaps I should get something else to keep about me, but I couldn’t think of anything as legal and effective as a baseball bat, only smaller. It’s all very well outlawing weapons but when you are about to be set upon by a group of beefy, potential serial killers, it’s small comfort to have a Yale key, a wing and a prayer as your only protection.

  I huffed in contempt and darted a glance to the left, then right, before jogging across the road and along the narrow, chequered tile path, made ugly with weeds in their last throes of life. I slid my key into the lock and twisted right once, closing the door quickly behind me, ensuring the Yale lock had snapped shut. Not for the first time I wished the owner would spring for a deadbolt and a more substantial door.

  H
ome was a very euphemistic way of describing the unremarkable terrace where I had been living for the past two years. The owner, my landlady, Mrs Kemp, had the whole ground floor. The small hallway of what had once been a family home had been portioned off so there was the door that led into her flat and then the staircase. It was now boxed in lest any tenant, God forbid, decided to spy on Mrs Kemp and upload pictures to Grannies Uncovered.

  Upstairs were two flats – one mine – that had been carved out of the former bedrooms on the first floor. A second staircase led to another flat nestled in the eaves. Mrs Kemp and her long-dead husband bought the house in the sixties, so she told me on the days when she wasn’t whining, and raised a family who now lived out of the city and barely visited. (“Good-for-nothings who won’t see a penny of my will,” was Mrs Kemp’s catchphrase. Privately, I thought they were rather sensible.)

  The old woman turned the second floor, which her arthritic legs couldn’t reach, into an income provider for her dotage. It was a cramped set-up, not particular well kept outside or in, but affordable for Zone 1 and easy to reach the tube or walk to work on the occasions that I found somewhere closeby to temp. That’s where the perks ended.

  The front door had a large, glazed panel to let in the light but even though it was sandblasted for privacy, I didn’t dare linger once I grabbed the mail that had been put on a shelf for me. I bounded up the stairs and, after stopping for a moment to examine if the lock had been tampered with – it hadn’t, used the second key to let myself through the door. It would need more than one coat of paint to disguise that it was worthless plywood. Given the lack of consideration regarding security, I was constantly surprised that none of the flats had been burgled. Maybe it was pure luck that the house looked like crap on the outside and repelled burglars.

  I thumped the door shut and leaned against it, bracing myself for Mrs Kemp’s bang on the ceiling – there it was, predictable as ever. Grateful to be inside my tiny flat, my heart still hammering, the awful fear still swam through every inch of my veins, though I felt a lot happier now that I was enclosed in familiar space. It might not be a castle but at least it was my home. A tear slipped down my cheek in relief and I brushed it away with the back of my hand.

  After a succession of ill-fated flat shares and grimy, overpriced bedsits with communal – and even grimier – bathrooms, having my own place at a price I could afford was something for which I was persistently grateful. It was the only reason why I hadn’t moved on. I would have to have a good long think about that, now that security might be a problem.

  I moved my head forty-five degrees to the side and let my ear press against the sheets of laminated wood. I tried not to breathe. There were no sounds from the other side of the door. Slowly, I rolled my head a little more until my eye was level with the peephole, my forehead gradually becoming indented with the peeling paint job on the thin door. The hall lamp, operated by a sensor, was still on and the hall seemed clear. The two other flat doors were shut but I couldn’t hear familiar sounds of footsteps or TVs through our thin, shared walls. My nearer neighbours were not home yet and paranoia was apparently becoming my middle name.

  I exhaled, relief replacing fear, and stumbled away from the door, dropping my shoulder bag on the floor next to the sofa, tossing my mail on the little wooden table that I salvaged from a skip one night, and made use of after cleaning it up. I shrugged my coat off and dumped it on top of the envelopes. It landed in an untidy heap and I winced again at the sight of the rip. I tossed my gloves on top and pushed my hair away from my face.

  My flat was small, just like my unspectacular wages. Even calling it a flat was spinning out its size as something better than it was. In reality, it was one large room with enough space to squash in a bed-slash-sofa with arms so worn that the colour had all but gone in those spots. Across the room there was a TV that dated from the late eighties – requiring a thump every time the picture went – almost museum-worthy and, like everything else in the flat, in need of replacement.

  It was dark inside but I left the lights off as I entered the kitchen. The room was far too optimistically named and resembled a slightly over-sized cupboard (which it probably had been once), with a tiny worktop, a microwave, mini-fridge and sink. There was no oven or washing machine, much less a window. The other cupboard held the bathroom which had just enough space for a toilet, sink and shower cubicle. Though it always smelled damp, I was just thankful that I didn’t have to share it with other people and their sketchy interpretations of personal hygiene.

  The only light came in through a broad bay window in the main room and it cast shadows over my past-it furniture. The bay looked out over the street and had the unfortunate position of being right next to a bus stop, so the net curtains, sprinkled with mildew at the hems from where the creeping black fungus, which frequently appeared around the windows contacted them in spots, were a necessary evil. I left the curtains open. Smart move, I told myself. That way, anyone who happened by the house wouldn’t know whether I was in or out.

  I flipped on the kettle and rested my lower back against the countertop as I looked out onto the main room. Thankfully, due to my lack of belongings, I never needed much space. I had always travelled light after being shunted from foster home to foster home and never had the inclination to hoard, like some people who desperately try to put down roots. I guess I’ve just never been materialistic because stuff doesn’t matter that much to me.

  As such, my few possessions included a cluster of clothes hanging on a rail: a basic combination of smart casual that I could wear to work, two pairs of shoes and a pair of boots (on my feet). A little silver box contained some earrings and bits, and there were a half dozen books stacked by the door that I bought at the charity shop and returned when read because it was cheaper than clocking up a library fine every time I forgot to return them. Aside from two sheets, two duvet sets (one on, one tucked away) and a couple of plates, mugs, bowls and cutlery, I owned nothing else in the world.

  The carpet was threadbare and my landlady had never been one for kicking the boiler up to a decent temperature so I kept my boots on to keep my feet warm. I pressed the button on the television set and gave it a thump on top so that the green picture hazed into colour. The news was on so I went back into the kitchenette as the kettle clicked off and paid no attention to the news anchor droning on behind me while I dunked my teabag in the mug and added the boiling water.

  As I sat down, my mug in one hand so I could pull the duvet from the back of the sofa over my knees, my head suddenly snapped up and I leaned forward, listening intently to the last of the news broadcast.

  “... was found burned on a playing field in Birmingham. Her body was bound to a stake amidst what appeared to be a bonfire and she appeared to have been...” The news anchor swallowed, repulsion etched on his face, then looked straight at the camera, and, in an even voice, enunciated carefully, “burned alive. A source revealed that red paint near the body spelled out ‘burn the witches’.”

  I gulped but couldn’t turn away from the smouldering scene captured by the camera. The body was gone, I assumed hidden in a police tent almost out of view, but the bonfire’s ashes, her ashes, still sent smoke spiralling up. I wanted to close my eyes so I didn’t have to see where this woman died. The news anchor continued with a voice-over. “The crime scene resembled those in Leeds, Manchester, Harrogate, Birmingham, Grimsby and London where several other women have been found burned to death. The women are not thought to have been connected in anyway. Police say they are considering the idea that a serial killer, or killers, are at large and advise women to be vigilant.”

  I sipped the too hot tea and contemplated what the newsman had said. Of course, it wasn’t new. The newspapers had been full of grisly details for the past few weeks. They tossed theories around like the bodies piling up – first one, then two, then several within a few weeks – were the best thing to have happened to them. The current theory was a team of serial killers, roaming th
e country intent on dispatching women to the next world at random. Every paper was whipped into a frenzy and ruminating on who could possibly do such foul and evil things.

  But, women burned as witches all over the country? I shuddered. It was a new one and too horrible to contemplate. We were in the twenty-first century! There was no such thing as witches, I thought, not quite convincing myself. The killers had to be crazy, I decided as I sipped my tea and wriggled my toes to get some feeling back.

  Thankfully, the news anchor had segued to his colleague who had moved impassively on to another story about fraud in a supermarket chain. As she was concluding the story, she pressed her hand to her ear, listened for a moment and spluttered, “Breaking news. A source has passed us a video purporting to be from the people responsible for the so-called ‘witch-burning’ murders. We’re bringing that tape to you now.”

  The TV screen flickered again and the picture zigzagged. “Work, damn you,” I snapped as I thumped the top impatiently. The screen went black then slowly a face swam into view. I sank back on the edge of the sofa bed.

  The man was perfectly non-descript. White face, a little too pale, like he didn’t spend much time outdoors, brown eyes, short brown hair and a neatly clipped beard. He wore a black suit and thin blue tie and held a big book in his hands. He seemed utterly relaxed where he sat in a large, leather wing chair against a wall papered in taupe stripes. He could have been a professor or a TV grandfather reading a story. His voice, a rich baritone, was the only remarkable thing about him as he began to speak. “We, the Brotherhood, claim responsibility for killing the witches. For centuries, our forefathers have ignored these wicked beings but the time has come to cleanse our world of these...” Here he looked directly at the camera and waved a pointed finger as he spat out the words, his mouth twisted in disgust, “Monsters. They who try to dazzle us with their magic, who claim to be good women, why, they are nothing more than witches! They are evil incarnate!”

  The man swam out of view and new pictures flickered onto the screen. But it wasn’t the television reception fading again; it was image after image of silent women writhing amidst flames. Someone had filmed them as they burned. I pushed my hand into my mouth to stifle my screams for them.

  “We have hunted the witches in France, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Spain, Norway, Russia and England,” continued the man, his voice narrating the horrendous scenes. “We will find every witch and we will not rest until every last one of them has burned and their blight driven from this earth. We are the Brotherhood and we have spoken.”

  The video abruptly ended and the camera panned back to the horrified news anchor. Her mouth opened and closed like a dying fish before she recovered her composure. “We have just seen a video purporting to be from the ... Brotherhood, who claim responsibility for the murder of ... witches ... of women, throughout Europe.” She collected herself quickly, ending in an even tone, “We will bring you more news as developments arise.”

  I reached for the remote and switched the channel over. The next station was just finishing the same clip. And the next station, and the one after that and by then, I had run out of TV stations. Had all the cable stations just relayed the same message across the country too? Did every viewer have to see those images of the women dying so brutally?

  When a fist pounded on my door, I jumped so high that hot tea slopped over the edges of the mug and splashed on my fingers. I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming out loud more from fear than from being scalded.

  I was tense with fear as I got up. I was sure no one else was in the building other than old Mrs. Kemp and she never came upstairs, so whoever was at the door wasn’t someone known to me. I didn’t need to look around to know there was no way out of the flat other than the door by which I had entered.

  I wished I had an arsenal that I could draw on to protect myself or some kick-ass ninja skills. I wanted to zap my way out of there but I had to remind myself it wasn’t an exact art and I would probably materialise somewhere I didn’t want to be, like in the arms of a gang who wanted to burn me to death. Not an option.

  Instead, I slipped towards the kitchen as lightly as I could, trying not to make the floorboards squeak. I snatched a dinner knife from the drawer and with this pathetic little weapon in my hand, I crept towards the door.