Page 74 of A Skirl of Sorcery
I grabbed Slasher’s arm and hauled her back just as she gained a decent grip on the box, then for one strange moment everything seemed to stand still. Keres’ face was a rictus mask of fear and Slasher’s wasn’t much different. Arthur Dinsbury was holding aloft his bag of silly powder.
Slasher tried to grasp the box as I wrenched at her arm, and in the confusion it slipped from Keres’ fingers and fell to the floor, breaking into shards and releasing what was inside it.
The ban sith cried out sharply and fell to her knees, but it was already too late. A strange mixture, not quite a liquid and not quite a gas, was leaking from the broken box. It was sliding across the floor and rising up at the same time, as if it couldn’t make up its mind what it was.
It certainly didn’t look like the black miasmic goop that had been left behind after Leighton had performed his magic thefts. It glittered and sparkled and contained threads of black, royal purple, iridescent yellow and glowing green.
This was magic; this was the ban sith power that had been ripped from Keres’ body – and it was leaking everywhere.
Keres threw herself towards the substance and tried to gather it up. One tendril had already snaked towards Arthur Dinsbury’s foot and was coiling around his ankle and his shin; another had reached Slasher and, horrifyingly, was entering her body via her open, lipsticked mouth.
I looked down as a thin ribbon attached itself to my arm. My skin tingled and I realised my skin was absorbing the power. Bloody hell.
Slasher was choking, while Arthur Dinsbury was slapping violently at his leg as he tried to beat the substance away. I scratched vigorously at my arm, but I knew that some of Keres’ magic was already seeping into me. It was only a fraction of her power because most of it was being reabsorbed into her body, but it was still magic that didn’t belong to me and that I didn’t want.
‘Get off!’ Dinsbury roared. ‘Get off me!’
Slasher wheezed. ‘I can’t breathe! Help me.Helpme!’
Keres was smiling beatifically, her expression one of pure ecstasy. ‘Mine,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Me.’
And suddenly a fourth voice entered the mix. ‘Who the fuck are you lot and what are you doing in my house?’
I looked up. Oh. Jimmy Leighton was home.
I stopped caring about the unfamiliar magic soaking into my skin and sprang to the far corner where hopefully I’d be behind him when he came into the room. With three mostly innocent people here, the game had changed and I had to react appropriately.
If Leighton had any nous he’d lock us in until he found a magical grenade to toss in and end us all, but I doubted he was used to confronting his victims. Hopefully the shock of finding four people inside his home would be enough to encourage himto come into the basement to see who we were. He would also want to protect his bone boxes – and their gruesome contents.
When he clumped down the last few stairs and barrelled towards Keres, I knew my guess had been right. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘That’s my box! That’s my magic!’
Keres was still smiling broadly – and that was chilling, considering the circumstances. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘It’s mine. It’s all mine.’ She touched her chest and gazed at Leighton as he clenched his fists and prepared to swing at her. ‘I am whole once again.’
‘Fuck you!’ he shrieked. ‘Fuck you!’ He punched her on the side of the head and she went reeling.
My dagger was already back in my hand but I hadn’t yet moved in Leighton’s direction. I had to get this right; an ill-thought-out move might ruin everything. Unfortunately getting my moves right was easier said than done given the presence of both Arthur Dinsbury and Slasher.
Slasher, whose choking fit appeared to have been more psychological than physical, was staring open-mouthed at Leighton. ‘Beautiful,’ she said. ‘So beautiful.’
Then Dinsbury got in on the act. The tendrils of magic around his leg had almost disappeared and he was gazing at the bearded, thieving bastard with genuine awe. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.’ He reached forward as if to stroke Leighton.
What the hell…? Then I saw what they were seeing.
Jimmy Leighton, resident of Danksville, son of witch and minor druid, stealer of souls, destroyer of lives, was glowing. I couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. A silvery light that resembled nothing I’d seen before in my life was emanating from his pores.
Something deep inside tugged at me; a deep desire was forming in my gut and I wasn’t sure I could quash it.
‘You broke into my house!’ Leighton howled. ‘You destroyed my box!’ He raised his leg and kicked Keres then rounded on Dinsbury and smacked him in the face before taking a flick knife from his pocket and releasing the blade to wave it in Slasher’s face. ‘You bastards! You’ve tainted my collection!’
Slasher didn’t look at the knife, she just smiled tenderly and opened her mouth. It wasn’t a scream that escaped her lips or a cry for help but a song. I winced: she was mostly tone deaf.
Her lack of singing ability didn’t affect Arthur Dinsbury. Within a few seconds, he’d added his baritone voice to hers. Then, despite the attack she’d received, Keres joined in from the floor. A similar sound involuntarily left my own lips.
All four of us raised our voices, gaining in pitch and tenor with every beat. The sound was discordant but that didn’t matter; I could no more have stopped singing than I could have stopped my heart from beating. It was extraordinary.
Suddenly I realised what was happening: we were singing the skirl of Jimmy Leighton’s impending death. We could all see it coming and we couldn’t stop it from happening.
Leighton snarled, ‘Shut up! Shut the fuck up!’
