The Alchemy Press Book of Urban Mythic 2 Read online

  ‘Oh, I think we can do a little better than that, my dear’ he whispered.

  The cellar door banged again and something inside let out a saturate roar, its voice bubbling eagerly as it thrashed against the wood.

  Elise swallowed dryly and prepared to make her escape. As if sensing this, Phillips stepped aside and waved his hand at the door.

  ‘You are of course free to go, my dear, but I’d much rather you stay on for a while. It’s not often I receive guests.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ she replied nervously. ‘Then what’s that down in the basement?’

  Phillips chuckled. ‘All in good time. Do sit down, please.’

  Unsure of herself, Elise slumped dejectedly into the armchair, glad of the respite for her foot.

  Phillips turned, hands clasped behind his back, and solemnly paced the room, his reedy voice become that of a teacher. ‘Your passion is clearly art, Miss Pygmalion, but mine has always been the written word.’

  He strolled from one set of shelves to the next, inspecting them like a gardener nurturing soil. ‘I’ve been in love with books all my life, like my grandfather before me, and though I may not have acquired his talent for writing, I have seen fit to devote my existence to the acquirement of those many texts which have propagated the work he began.’

  Elise watched him uneasily, jealous of his strong family ties but still of the opinion that the man was a nutcase.

  ‘You see, Miss Pygmalion,’ Phillips continued. ‘I believe in the absolute power of words, in their power to describe things to their fullest extent, and by doing so, gain complete dominion over them.’

  His face was unholy as he approached her chair, lit from below by the candelabrum.

  ‘Words have a power,’ he whispered. ‘A power to bring life to the lifeless. To that which is no more or unknown. To that which might yet live again.’

  His fervour was unsettling and Elise got to her feet, ignoring the pain in her foot as she manoeuvred round so that the leather chair stood between them. ‘Why is it,’ he continued, hungrily circumventing the table and forcing her to begin limping clockwise round the furniture in an effort to maintain the distance between them. ‘That those heroic Greek tales of old still enchant us so much? That those ancient stories of Norse Gods still resonate with us in this technological age of ours?’

  The thing in the cellar became excited at his voice, repeatedly hurling itself against the foundations of the house and loosing great chunks of plaster from the ceiling.

  ‘There is a great energy housed within words,’ Phillips said, as dust rained down from above. ‘An arcane force, that has brought these tales to life across the centuries. That has turned story to myth and transformed men into…’

  ‘…legend,’ Elise finished, her thoughts straying to Jack and wishing he was here with her now.

  Phillips grinned maniacally, wrapped up in his gospel. Grabbing hold of her wrist, he pulled her towards the cellar, ignoring her repeated yelps of pain as her ankle dragged along the carpet. Whatever was housed downstairs seemed to sense their approach, for it let out a loamy dirge of excitement and attacked the door again; cracks began appearing in the wood.

  ‘You see ... my grandfather and his associates discovered something about those myths of old, Miss Pygmalion. The best stories are those which are rooted in fact.’

  Elise fought to extricate herself from Phillips grasp, but he stamped down on her ankle with the heel of one foot, the blow bringing fresh pain.

  ‘Belief is rooted in fact,’ he preached. ‘And fact is the essence of being. So if a group of like-minded men hold a strong enough belief in a thing, then they have the power to bring it into existence. From the beyond, as it were.’

  Elise stared at him numbly, suddenly understanding that the two of them were more alike than she could have ever guessed, or desired. What she had sought to make real with her art, Howard Phillips had worked to create by the action of words. Spring-Heeled Jack was her own personal project, but Phillips saw the potential of his grandfather’s work and had continued to publish other authors who expanded on his stories, cementing the myths within popular culture and gaining new legions of fans.

  ‘From small acorns grow mighty oaks,’ Phillips giggled, but she was no longer listening.

  The sound of the creature filled her ears, its eldritch mind burrowing into her brain, whispering dark arcane secrets. It needed something from her she sensed, to make it finally whole.

  Phillips grabbed her shoulders and threw her down at the door.

  ‘She is here!’ he cried as the timber splintered and burst.

  An inhuman bellow reverberated through the door as a long greenish tentacle pushed its way through, reaching for her.

  ‘You are the key I’ve been waiting for’ Phillips chuckled, watching the tentacle wrap itself round her wrist. ‘Over the years, my publishing empire has brought the Old Ones the worship they craved, but it takes real human fear to open a doorway between our world and theirs. We thank you for that.’

  Elise glimpsed something massive through the hole in the door, layers of undulating, putrid flesh sporting tiny mouths without teeth. Twisting her wrist violently, she managed to free herself and wrenched a long splinter from the shattered hull of the door, driving it down into the flesh behind Phillips’ kneecap and causing the old man to emit a high-pitched shriek as he collapsed on the steps.

  She ran then, as hard and fast as she was able, clawing her way back up the steps and limping across the crumbling library. Masonry fell from above and behind her, as the creature burst forth from the cellar. She ploughed through the open door, hobbling down the corridor into the study. Elise retrieved her crowbar from where it lay on the floor, shaken loose by the tremors, and used it to smash through the window. Hurling herself out, she ran hell-bent for the trees.

  An inhuman roar burst forth from the house and the voice was quickly joined by others. She realised to her infinite horror that there was more than one of the things. Reaching the safety of the undergrowth she took off down the road, not daring to look back.

  *

  Dawn found her huddled at the base of her painting, Spring-Heeled Jack standing watch over her in the dark underpass as she slept from exhaustion.

  Stirring from a nightmare of smothering tentacles, Elise jolted awake and cried out, her ragged voice echoing through the dark tunnel. Off in the distance, the terrible sounds of Howard Phillips’ Elder Gods could still be heard rampaging their way through the streets of West Dulwich, the accompanying screams a clear indication of the human banquet they’d found.

  She burst into tears and clawed desperately at Jack’s brickwork with trembling fingers. More than anything now, she wanted him to be real, to come to her rescue. This was anarchy of a kind she had never envisaged and Jack would surely know what to do. But he was only art on a wall; a collection of bitumen stencils and masonry paint, a teenage girl’s wanton dream. She lay down on the pavement and wept.

  Fires burned in the distance, bright patches of flame like mini-sunrises on the horizon. Elise watched the smoke-filled skyline and retched on the stench of death in the air. Curling into a ball, she hugged herself against the cold morning dew.

  Something stirred in the brickwork and she jerked fearfully away from the movement, scurrying crablike across the cement floor of the underpass to the opposite wall. From beneath the supporting struts of the roof came a rough scraping sound, like bricks sliding slowly down over one another. She glanced at the mural – at Spring-Heeled Jack – watching her intently. She had painted those eyes in such a way as to always look down upon passers-by, but the more she stared at the piece, the more she felt sure that Jack’s gaze rested solely on her. Leaning back against the wall, she tugged thoughtfully on her lower lip just as a train rumbled overhead and the fluorescent lights flickered. In the brief strobe, Spring-Heeled Jack moved. She was certain of it this time, the whole position of his body changed, so that when the lights came back on, he was peering down at her, resple
ndent with his cape round his shoulders.

  Elise didn’t remember painting that cape and felt suddenly scared. Not daring to move lest she break the spell, she watched as piece by piece, the bricks began to rattle in place, detaching themselves from the hub of the wall and clumsily rotating as Jack clambered down from his perch.

  The sound of his boots was like a demolition, clattering noisily against the pavement. Poking a long cement tongue out from between paint-splattered lips, he tasted the London air for the first time in over a century and let out a crass high-pitched giggle that Elise felt in her teeth.

  He peered westwards, towards the screams and destruction. Then he lumbered eagerly forward into the daylight, the devilish look in his eyes signalling his mischievous intent.

  Clambering to her feet, Elise limped forward to stand beside her live action hero; no longer afraid. The gigantic brigand peered down at her for a moment, as if deciding her fate, and then bounded away, traversing the road upon vast springs as he headed for West Dulwich and something altogether more fun.

  Elise did her best to keep up, commandeering a child’s BMX from a nearby front garden and pedalling as best her ankle would permit back towards the main high street. By the time she reached Lordship Lane, Jack was almost half a mile up ahead. Stopping to catch her breath for a moment, she scoured the street for signs of life – and noticed something missing. Along the back wall of the Plough, a vast hole had appeared in the brickwork, the plaster walls beneath clearly visible where Nunca’s mug-laden Queen Bee had vacated her hive. In the air above Elise’s head, she noticed a tiny cloud of bees, rising on dust-thin painted wings as they buzzed industriously about in the dawn light. Away ahead she heard what she thought was the clink of a mug and clambered back onto the bike, following the erratic trail of tea on down the high street. Something large and shaggy loped into view between the buildings and let out a wolfish howl as it headed west, answering Jack’s call to war. She heard the sound of rendering brickwork on the wind and smiled at the thought of the graffiti army Jack was bringing to life.

  By the time she reached Belair House, the battle was well underway with Jack and his paint-splattered band of artistic impressions driving the Elder Gods back into the grounds of the house. The driveway was a war zone, littered with smouldering flesh and loose bricks. Beneath the house’s immaculate Georgian façade, Spring-Heeled Jack held a tentacled thing high above his head before hurling it gleefully through one of the windows. A guttural roar sounded from within as the enraged creature righted itself and came clambering back into battle, only to be set upon by Liqen’s insectoid horror and wrestled unceremoniously to the ground in a pool of peach-coloured goo.

  Grinning from ear to ear, Elise stood by the gates and watched ROA’s dog worry at the many ankles of a multi-limbed cloud of flesh desperately trying to climb up the side of the house. By the tree-line, Conor’s bare-fisted pugilists dragged a large bat-like creature with detached yellow eyestalks down out of the air and set about mashing it to pulp with their fists.

  Elise ducked just in time to see a large stone mug explode against one of the gateposts, showering her with lukewarm, sugary tea. A large slug-like creature slithered into view, spitting viscous brown fluid at her from the metallic spines on its back. Retreating, she watched the Queen Bee drop down from above and begin pounding the creature. A brief hiss escaped the slug’s neck as its face imploded between two mugs of tea and it collapsed to the floor, blackened ichor scorching the gravel beneath.

  As battle continued to rage, Elise saw other paintings join the front: Remi Rough’s Girl At A Window attacked two Elder Gods with her spray can, whilst AP’s L-Plated Three Graces ganged up on a human-faced spider creature over by the patio, beating it into submission with one of its own torn-off legs. Clearly outnumbered, the tide turned against the house’s otherworldly denizens and in less than ten minutes, only one God remained – a towering octopus-faced figure with cloven hooves which stood atop the roof of the house and roared its defiance.

  Bounding up onto the edge of the roof, Jack looked down upon his army and let out a wild battle-cry, willing them onwards. From the garden below came a plethora of squawks and chittering screams, as the army of street paintings began to scale the sides of the house. Uncertain of victory against this combined onslaught of art, the Elder God turned and fled from the rooftop, crashing un-ceremoniously down onto the rear lawn and lumbering desperately away towards the trees with the grafittied mob in pursuit.

  Elise watched Spring-Heeled Jack leap down from the roof and flex his metal talons back and forth with practised ease as he came to stand alongside her. They watched the flames began to lick hungrily at the ruined shell of the house, a great fire rising up from within.

  Howard Phillips lay curled on the lawn, whimpering pitifully to himself. Observing the wretch from a distance, Elise saw just how wrong they had been.

  ‘True legends aren’t created by making art into a reality, are they Jack?’

  The brickwork giant remained silent, watching the ruined house crumble to ash.

  ‘It’s about turning real life into art’ she finished.

  In the distance, sirens could he heard coming steadily closer. The urge to run was a deep thrum in her chest as Spring-Heeled Jack reached out one shining claw, calling her to him. For a moment, Elise hesitated, unsure of whether to trust this Victorian prince of mischief and the path which he walked. Jack smiled wickedly and gave her a nonchalant wink, hinting at the legend she might become in his company. Unable to resist her sense of adventure, she put the smouldering ruins of Dulwich behind her and grasped Jack’s taloned hand tight as they became art once again.

  *

  Several months later, a small gang of kids trouped wearily home along Brick Lane, their clothes muddied by football. The end of February had brought an icy wind to London and many of them were white-faced and bleary. Passing the Hanbury junction, one of them gasped and as one they stared down the abandoned side street at a large mural being painted on a nearby wall. The more curious of them moved closer, finding the artist to be a little grey-haired old man with a face like a ferret, who was feverishly adding layers of paint to the mural like a man half-possessed.

  The image was that of an elephant’s head, devoid of tusks, but beneath which hung a squirming mass of grey tentacles. Noticing the children standing there, he came over to speak to them.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he asked, wiping paint from his face.

  ‘I love it,’ murmured the eldest, admiring his handiwork.

  ‘What’s it called?’ asked another.

  ‘It’s called Cthuluphant’ he answered proudly.

  With dusk descending, the kids headed home and the old man returned to his work, content in the knowledge that his newest fans would most likely return with their friends.

  ‘Small acorns’ he whispered.

  The Cupboard of Winds

  By Marion Pitman

  The first thing I noticed was when the radio cleared its throat. I don't sleep well, and tend to leave the radio on all night, so when I wake up at five in the morning, it's there. I was just wishing I could sleep for another couple of hours, when in one of those pauses between discs, I heard this throat-clearing. First I thought, that's odd; then I thought, the presenter must have left the mic on, or not realised the piece has finished. Then a voice said, ‘Are you awake?’

  I realised then that I must be still asleep and dreaming so I said, ‘No.’ And saying it woke me up.

  The radio said, ‘Good. It's about the draughts.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You must have noticed how draughty this house is. Haven't you wondered where it's coming from?’

  ‘Uh.’ I'm talking to the radio. It's talking to me. I must be dreaming. OK, it's one of those dreams where you think you've woken up but you haven't. ‘Yeah. Yeah, it's a very draughty house. I've tried putting stuff round the doors. It doesn't seem to come from the windows. Maybe it's air currents. From the radiators. Um, who ar
e you?’

  ‘Who I am doesn't matter.’ I'm listening to the voice now; it's male, cultured, hard to tell the age. ‘Just find out.’

  Then the music cut back in. I decided to get up and make a cup of tea, and go back to sleep, so that when I woke up I'd know I was awake.

  It is a draughty house. It doesn’t worry me most of the time; I prefer older buildings. This one is from around 1890, terrace house, well built, original windows; you accept they’re not going to be airtight, and it also means I don’t worry so much about carbon monoxide poisoning from the boiler. But the conversation in the dream stayed in my mind, and I started taking more notice of all the random little cold air currents around the place. I had vaguely assumed that they were coming down the chimneys, and escaping through imperfectly blocked off fireplaces, or as I’d said in the dream, air movement created by the radiators. Then I started noticing how they would spring up when it was quite still outside, and the direction – well, more often than not they came from the upstairs landing. Hot air rises, I thought, so I suppose cold air sinks. I didn't entirely convince myself, though.

  That was when Danny and I had the conversation about living together. I wasn't, to be honest, entirely sure I wanted to; but when Danny said it wasn't going to happen in this house because of the draughts his exact words were, ‘If you think I'm moving into this fecking icebox with the Arctic gales you must be joking.’

  I got riled, and, well, I suppose we both said things that were not very polite. It wasn't quite, ‘If you loved me you wouldn't care about the draughts’, but anyway, it put an end to the relationship. Which in the long term was probably a good thing, but the long term is the long term.

  Whatever, it made me more pissed off about the draughts and not long after that, when I'd spent an evening drowning my sorrows a little, I decided I would track down the draught once and for all. It had to be coming from somewhere. I lit a scented candle, and with that in one hand and a half full bottle of vodka in the other, I went upstairs: the draught was definitely coming down the stairs.