There was something about the three blonde, black-eyed women that was not quite right. At least that was Colin’s opinion as he finished one pint and considered starting another. His thoughts turned as they always did to his bitch ex Jackie, who was giving him grief and not letting him see the wee man until he paid what she said he owed. Fat chance of that when he’d just lost his job in the off-licence where he had worked for ten years. Who could have predicted offies in Scotland would ever go out of business? You had to get through the cold, smothering dark of the winter months somehow and it had long been a family tradition that a vast quantity of booze was just the way to do it.
He decided on a another pint and whisky chaser and lumbered to the bar to get them in. The Bingo Wings was a run-down sort of place, but you could sit in the gloom and nurse drink and grievances in equal measure with no interference from anyone who knew what was good for them.
So the hot glances thrown his way from the blond bints, weren’t really what he’d come to expect from his inner sanctum, least of all on a blustery Tuesday afternoon. No, talent-spotting wasn’t the usual pastime in the Bingo Wings and there were other more likely venues for that sort of nonsense. This was where silent, angry men sat and drank themselves into a well earned oblivion before picking a fight outside to round the evening off.
Christ they were fit though: lush, full figured and from the long legs, not much shy of his six feet frame. He thought maybe they’d been to a fancy dress party because they were all dressed in white see-through dress things that rode right up when they sat down on the bar stools, so you could pretty much see everything. Little tarts.
The nearest one turned her head to look at him, a sinuous, twisting motion accompanied by a fall of arctic-blond hair that was so long she could have sat on it. Well, if the little slag played her cards right, she’d be sitting on something else before the end of the night.
“Are you sisters then?” he said controlling the slurring with a mighty effort.
The other two turned to stare at him with that same serpentine motion and three pairs of black eyes fixed on his face as though he was the most fascinating creature in the world. Probably couldn’t believe their luck.
They must have been sisters because their features were almost identical. There was also a sharpness about the nose and cheek-bones that he hadn’t noticed at first, but they were still stunners, no doubt about it.
“In a way,” the nearest one answered in a soft voice.
She was definitely up for it. Wait until Jackie found out that he still had the old one, two magic.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Eh, Colin. Colin McQuarrie. Yours?” he asked, finally remembering the finer points of leg-over etiquette.
“Margo. And this is Morgan and Marjorie.”
The blond in the middle, Morgan, slithered off her stool and came to stand next to him. Christ, maybe he’d be in a four-way before the night was out if he minded his p’s and q’s. He hurriedly calculated just how much he’d had to drink because it really wouldn’t do to disappoint the ladies. Not if the abuse Jackie had regularly showered him with was anything to go by.
Morgan put a hand on his arm and was so close he could smell her: an intoxicating scent that brought with it the green promise of spring woods. He was just about to press his mouth to hers and maybe even give her a bit of tongue, when she ruined the moment by speaking. That was women for you.
“Did you know you have an elemental attached to you?”
“An elephant? Are you pissed hen?”
The third blond, Marjorie had joined them and stood on his other side. He felt hemmed in for some reason and started to wonder where Rab the barman was; quelling a sudden surge of adrenalin as though some part of his brain was telling him to make a run for it. Why would he run from three lassies?
“An elemental,”
“It’s a lower form of spirit-”
“That attaches itself to people who have done bad things in their lives. It feeds off the energy that creates-”
“And for every bad deed, the elemental gets bigger-”
“And bigger and-”
“Yours is the size of this room. And it’s still growing. You must have been a very naughty boy Colin.”
He’d lost track of who was saying what but it didn’t matter because it melded into a seamless whole as though the conversation was taking place inside his own head. The three hadn’t taken their eyes off him, tracking his progress like a deer or some other prey that didn’t have a hope in hell. Being hopeless had never felt so good.
“You know those angry, frustrated feelings you get where you want to burn the world and everybody in it?”
He was pretty sure that was Marjorie who was stroking his arm, snaking a trail up to the back of his neck. He nodded, a heroic effort in what was turning into an epic afternoon.
“That’s from the elemental. Like waste products if you see what I mean. You’ll have noticed how it’s getting worse no doubt? That’s the elemental getting stronger. Soon it’ll be powerful enough to…extinguish you. Your essence as it were. Oh, don’t worry, silly billy: it won’t kill you. Isn’t that something?” Margo smiled. Was it just his imagination, or were her teeth more prominent than they had been a moment ago?
He felt dizzy as though the women had slipped him something in his drink. As long as they stayed with him, he wasn’t sure he cared.
“Can’t I get rid of it? I mean, couldn’t you help me?” he said, a little boy pleading not to be sent to bed. He didn’t question the truth of what he was being told: it was as if he’d always known. Ever since that hit and run that he’d been responsible for as a teenager nothing had gone right for him.
“Ah, now. We were just getting to that,” said Morgan tapping him on the nose. “But first there’s something you need to do for us.”
Monthly Archives: August 2014
Dragon Act
Legend had it that an imprisoned dragon lay coiled in the rock under Edinburgh Castle and that the day it broke free and wreaked its revenge would be the city’s last. I had never been particularly interested in the story, but the supernatural critter that had wrapped itself around Maud Mulroney’s corpse in her open-casket coffin, appeared to be doing its very own winged worm tribute act.
A blob of phlegm flung by the corpse cuddler in question just missed the top of my head and that’s when it started to laugh, a rasping, guttural noise that sounded like thirty years of dedicated cigarette smoking put to good use. Its long, snake-like body curled tighter around the dead woman, so tight in fact that it pierced the bloodless skin with its razor-sharp scales.
This was Maud’s living room, or at least it had been when she was alive. She had lived in this house, a terraced affair in the village of Gilmerton, for fifty years and I wondered what she would have made of her wake. Ordinarily I could have just summoned her spirit to find that out given she had only just kicked the proverbial bucket. But not today, not here, because the fact was that this little supernatural charmer was not only holding the corpse hostage, it was also preventing the spirit from leaving the body.
The creature began to convulse, spasms running along it’s entire length before it vomited green bile all over the corpse’s head in an explosive rush. The acrid stench was overpowering and I had to fight not to add my own contribution to the gunge-fest.
Supernatural vermin extermination wasn’t my usual gig and it was beginning to show. My normal day job was hunting down and killing the perpetrators of unsolved murders but it was all I could manage after my last starring role had damn near killed me. I was, as the Fox twins kept on telling me, recuperating; which was why they had succeeded in foisting this particular no hoper on me. But it was true: I wasn’t back to anything like full strength and now it looked like I might not even be up to getting rid of this parasitic bottom-feeder.
I had to concede however that it was a bottom-feeder with a sense of humour because it had now transferred Maude’s blonde bobbed wig from her head to its own, the red glare of its eyes visible through the strands of hair. Slowly and with great deliberation it winked at me, opening its mouth to reveal rows of wicked looking teeth before settling down to nibble at the corpse’s nose.
Question was which of us had bitten off more than we could chew?
Edinburgh Dreaming
I had the dream again last night, always the same sequence of events, the same cataclysmic outcome. Except now I was dreaming it every night, proof as if any were needed that it was about to become reality.
It starts with me drying myself after a shower in the bathroom. I go over to the mirrored medicine cabinet on the wall, rooting around for something I can never find. As I open it, something catches my eye, a flash of movement, I’m never entirely sure. I slowly adjust the mirrored door knowing I’m being watched I rub the steam away and see the outline of a young woman standing directly behind me, clouds of water vapour eddying over her.
I whirl around and she puts her finger to her lips with one hand holding out the other with an odd formality as though asking me to dance. An alien thrumming through my head tells me she’s dead, although the solidity of her body belies that fact. But it’s her face that disturbs me the most: devoid of features apart from two indentations where the eye sockets should have been. What passes for skin is malleable like putty as though flattened by inefficient careless fingers, leaving bumps and ridges in their wake. She’s dripping from head to toe and her dirty white dress is torn and hanging off one shoulder.
I try to call out but my voice has deserted me and I know I’m alone. With her.
She moves towards me, the mottled flesh of her narrow frame discernable through the thin fabric of her dress. I press myself as flat against the wall as I can, eager to put as much space between us as possible not least because my traitorous legs are about to give way. I try again to shout, but can’t summon the breath and begin to choke as I fight for air.
My own power blazes through my bones and before I can direct it, bursts from me slashing the thing’s face and body; again and again until I lose count. Bright blood wells to the surface of the featureless face like jagged red mouths and there is a pause as though the world is holding its breath before it begins to gush onto the floor in a waterfall of red ruin. Something is moving around beneath the skin like a frightened rodent and the more I cut, the more excitable the burrower becomes. I throw myself to the left towards the bathroom door, but the bloodied figure gives me a contemptuous, almost lazy swipe that connects with my shoulders. I hit my head off the tiles, and feel a warm wetness running down my face and pooling beneath me as it cools. My vision blurs and I fight to stay conscious, but it’s only a matter of time.
I can only see the creature’s bare feet from my vantage point on the floor and now they begin to walk towards me slowly, no need to rush, not now. With a detachment born of blood loss and shock, I watch it approach, stand over me for what seems like an age and then it squats down beside me, so I can see its face. The wounds I’ve slashed into its skin gape wide and move of their own volition. Inside the raw meat, the wet flick of an eye, the extrusion of a decayed tooth roils in fevered constant motion. I whimper and try to edge away but I can’t move, can’t call out, can’t get out of this one.
The Beastie Girl
All I could see of the beast at the bottom of the garden was a pair of red eyes shining out from the thicket where it hid. A trail of blood on the grass told me it was wounded and all the more dangerous for it.
The question was: what flavour of beastie was I entertaining in my own backyard? Judging by the neon glare it wasn’t one of the usual suspects. Or at least none of the critters that usually roamed the mean streets of Bruntsfield.
A low, trickling growl grew in ambition to a full throated roar. What the hell was I going to do with the damn thing? It wasn’t exactly a SSPCA or council call-out because if it was what I suspected, everyone would die. And die hard as Bruce Willis would no doubt have said if he’d known.
Then I remembered the steak in the fridge. It was to have been my Sunday night treat: burned to a crisp and washed down with a bottle of Talisker. Now it was bait for whatever skulked in the bushes. A beast whose tastes, I was willing to bet, were rather more rarefied than my own.
An icy north wind nipped the back of my neck and I noticed for the first time that no birds sang. It would be dark soon and whatever it was I was going to do, I needed to do it now. I turned to head back to the house until a desperate rasp stopped me in my tracks.
It took a few precious moments to figure it out, but when I did there was no cigar.
The thing was laughing.