The Black Cat Cleaning Co.
By P.D.Blake
Copyright 2011 P.D.Blake
Smashwords Edition
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Chapter One
Monday
The Great Tower of Faenfell loomed in the night. A nightmare of stone, it straddled the foul waters of the Lake of Fire. Jagged towers reached for the heavens like clawed fingers trying to rake the sky. Red lights gleamed pale from windows and arrow slits. In the midst of the dark mass stood the crooked keep, a thousand openings pouring vile light and foul, billowing smoke to shroud itself in a miasma of evil, like a multifaceted beast wallowing in its own stink.
Aristel felt Fleetwind shift beneath him and patted the brave beast's flank, steadying him for one last charge. The stallion, last of the white steeds of Elaria, snorted, his nostrils flaring, hooves stamping the ground like righteous war hammers. Aristel spurred him closer to the lake, where the dusty road collapsed into the bubbling waters and was replaced by a plank causeway raised on timbers.
The way was rotten and stinking. Foul gases belched from the lake and crept over the timber roadway, stinging Aristel's eyes and making Fleetwind snort and stamp all the way to the deadly drop at the end of the causeway.
Faenfell filled Aristel's vision with a wall of black, punctuated with red lights and cloaked with an eldritch sheen. The great gate was up and thirty feet of foul water and mud, brimming with death, stood between Aristel and his goal.
"Gamestafael!" Eledel, the sword of his fathers, rang free. The name meant Honour, in the ancient tongue. And honour this day would be done. "It is time for the end!"
The great gate, darkness slick on its iron clad timbers like slime on the water before it, swung open with a banshee shriek. A timber drawbridge as big as a castle wall juddered through the night as it fell on rusting chains to slam down with a ground tilting thud. Aristel dug his heels in and spurred Fleetwind forward. The horse screamed defiance and leapt onto the drawbridge, charging into the mouth of the beast with his master roaring a battle cry as his sword whipped the air.
Flames tore the night away. Crimson tongues singed Fleetwind's mane, lashed Aristel's glimmering armour to a dull sheen and licked the length of Eledel until the blade glowed white. Gamestafael, The Great Dragon, had come forth. The end had finally come. The last quest.
Fleetwind's hooves clattered on the cobbles of Faenfell's great courtyard and crunched to a standstill. The Great Dragon filled the night with his huge bulk. Scales as black as jet layered a body pulsing with fiery evil so intense it seemed that Fleetwind had galloped from night into day. Eyes like beacon fires stared from a head the size of a small house, swaying on a muscular neck, sinuous and long as a tall tree. A forked tongue tasted air thick with the stink of sulphur and the acrid odour of burning horse hair.
Aristel felt sweat rolling down his back and running off his face. Beyond that horror, somewhere in that nightmare keep, was the princess, Alicandra, and Aristel was charged with finding her and taking her home to her mother, Galysinda, Queen of the Fae.
But this quest was about more than a princess, no matter how fair. Honour demanded that Aristel rescue her, or die trying, but this quest was also the final battle. The last triumph of good over evil. Tonight The Great Dragon would be vanquished and the world would be free.
The Great Dragon laughed, a sound of barely contained thunder. Aristel looked up the length of the beast, all the way up to those eyes, to those portals into the very depths of hell, and saw mirth.
"So great knight," the voice echoed inside Aristel's head, words with no sound, "this is the end then?"
Every muscle in Aristel's body tensed, involuntarily clenching tight as the words tore through his mind with burning claws. He refused to scream in agony.
"Yes wyrm." He said, his voice rising in volume and fervour as Gamestafael's own words faded to nothing. "This is the end! Tonight you die!"
"And then what will you do?"
The words bit with more than mere pain. Aristel flinched, his legs gripping Fleetwind tight, as he saw the truth in them. This was the end. What would he do next?
His whole life had been spent preparing for this moment. The years of training, from as soon as he could walk, day and night, hour after endless hour swinging sword and axe, mace and shield. Countless quests, rescuing damsels, slaying trolls and ogres, lesser dragons and demons, witches and the walking dead. All had been for this. When this was over evil would be gone from the world. There would be no quests, no galloping to the rescue, no glorious combat. What would he do?
For an instant Aristel felt the weight of Eledel like he had never felt it before. The burden of his forefathers' was like an anchor in his hand, or a millstone around his neck.
The Great Dragon laughed. "There will be nothing. You will be nothing."
No! Aristel dragged the blade up again. While there was life and light there was hope. With evil gone he could be anything he wanted to be. A man didn't need a blade and armour to be a man. He thought of a lesson his father had taught him the very day Eledel had been entrusted to him. A lesson in humility.
A knight should never think he is above all others, that glory and honour are all. Even the humblest farmer is stronger than the knight. All day and night he toils, sometimes fruitlessly, yet never gives up. When blight and disease take all he has he strives to grow more. He hears his children cry in the night from hunger, sees them waste away. His life is not one of glory or honour, yet he is no less honourable for living it and the glory of his achievements are greater than even he believes.
"I will carry on foul beast!" Aristel cried, spurring Fleetwind. "You will die this night and I will be whatever the fates have willed for me. This is the end!"
The brave mount lurched forward and Eledel swept out. Flame and fury lashed the air.
And the world vanished with a bright flash of nothing.
Sally twitched back the net curtains and watched the sun rise on Carswell House. Carshill Road was already crammed with cars, bumper to bumper, blocking each other and choking up the roundabout. Horns hooted impatiently and kids struggled to cross the road to the bus stop without being crushed in the chaos.
The house loomed over it all like a shadowy spectre. Windows, empty and dark, stared across the road at her like dead eyes and the whole thing seemed to shudder whenever a lorry or a bus passed by. It was old, Victorian, a great big thing sat in waste ground and surrounded by fly tipped rubbish contained inside chain link fencing. Chipboard and corrugated iron covered the ground floor windows, but Sally could see where the local two legged rodents had torn away some of those that blocked access to the dilapidated cellars. Many a night she had heard noises coming from across there, drunken shouts, mouthfuls of abuse flying around, or seen lights in the upper windows, shapes skulking around the nettles and butterfly bushes.
Mostly it was the local idiots, as evidenced the next day by the empty two quid a throw cider bottles, puddles of puke, used condoms and knickers abandoned in the long grass. But last night was different. Last night there was no screaming and swearing, no broken bottles. Just a flash of light and what Sally could only describe as a shriek.
There was more to Carswell House than just drunken louts. She'd suspected that for months. Every now and then she'd catch glimpses of shapes in the upper windows, the odd four by four parked up in the middle of the night.
It could be anything. Squatters maybe, the owners preparing to do an insurance job on the place. But her money was on traffickers. Little Rhampton seemed fit to burst with foreigners lately, and there was room for dozens in those cellars alone.
The stink of burning toast dragged her away from the window and all speculation of international crime rings. The clock on the kitchen shelf said half past eight and the kettle was making those little pipping noises it usually spat out just before it started to whistle. Sally Larne, investigative journalist, would just have to go back in her box for now, along with Sally Larne, pop star, and Sally Larne, whopping big lottery jackpot winner. The real world was dragging her back with long talons of utter boredom.
Still, the shoe shop paid the rent and bought the stationary and exercise books for the collage course that would eventually pull her out of the dump that looked out on Carswell House.
Strong coffee and burnt toast still lingered in her mouth and nostrils when she dragged her coat on and locked the door behind her. It was a chill morning, even by January standards, with a sharp wind whipping all the way up Carshill Road, shoving exhaust fumes and discarded scratch cards with it.
She thought about popping back into the lounge to ask Mrs Collis if she'd heard anything in the night. But the sight of the number forty two bus rattling around the roundabout told her she was running late enough as it was. Besides, her landlady was as deaf as a post anyway, and likely still asleep with Messer's Gordon and Smirnoff.
Sally's watch said twenty to nine by the time she'd crossed the road, skipping in front of a white hatchback doing a slalom run between moving traffic and cars parked more on the pavement than the road. Double yellow was just an inconvenient colour on Carshill Road.
She crossed right outside her own doorstep, or rather Mrs Collis's doorstep, and landed on the other side of the road in front of Carswell House's chain link fence. Sally Larne, investigative journalist leapt to the fore as Sally Larne, shoe shop assistant, made her way to work. The waste ground ringing the house like a green moat was littered with all sorts of debris, as it usually was. There was a thin scattering of bottles, whole and broken, plastic and glass, litter, scrap, a battered wardrobe, a leather armchair and bits of what looked like Robin Reliant. There were no thugs or drunks, foreign or domestic.
An old woman stood on the path, leaning on one of those pull along shopping trolleys, muttering to herself and staring at the house as if it wasn't even there. Sally caught an odd whiff of something not quite nasty, but not altogether pleasant, as she passed her. She was dressed in blue, from head to toe. Blue head scarf, blue cardigan, blue dress, blue tights and blue shoes. Even the under-the-breath language escaping from her thin lips was blue.
Then something remarkable happened and Sally stopped in her tracks. For the first time since moving into Mrs Collis's, the front door of Carswell House swung open. It was big and black, rotten and blistered. Rusted hinges screamed in protest and a man, short and looking almost as old as the house, stumbled down the old, Victorian steps. Drunk most likely, or escaped from somewhere.
Escaped! Escaped from the cellar. A trafficking victim, locked in those dank old cellars for God only knew how long.
The sound of an air horn almost made her jump out of her shoes. She turned to see a lorry driver wave a fist out of his cab at a woman in a black sports car. Bloody maniacs. Why they had to try and race around a bloody roundabout Sally would never fathom.
When she turned back the old woman in blue was dragging her trolley down the road, shaking her head and swearing at the traffic. The black door stood open but the old man had gone. All that occupied the grounds of Carswell House now was a flea bitten dog cocking a leg on the steps.
Bertha hated January with a passion, give her June or July any day, better still August. There was no chill wind in August, no ice on the ground. No bloody slippery paths.
The hem of her third best frock trailed in the gutter and the patch of black ice glimmered beside her, reflecting the rising sun as though it was grinning at her. Bloody January!
Her knee was skinned, she could feel blood running down her shin, but she'd be buggered if she was going to roll up a couple of feet of warm cotton with half of Little Rhampton wandering past. And wandering past was just what they were doing. Not one of the three buggers who'd past her had stopped to help. Her, an old lady, lying on the kerb giving the world her best agonised scowl. Sods.
She'd known it was going to be a horrible day from the moment she'd rolled off the sofa and dragged herself out of the cottage. She'd felt it in her bones just as sure as she knew the sun was going to rise every morning. There was something odd in the air. Something different, and Bertha knew a skinned knee was likely to be the least of her worries.
Carshill Road was looking busy now. The rush hour traffic was building up and kids were herding together for the hike to school or the short slog to the nearest bus stop. There were four down Carshill Road, with a sweet shop strategically placed near the most popular one. Petunia's Paper Shop was packed with tatty uniforms, not one of them giving a toss about a poor old woman lying on the path.
Bertha tutted and decided to get up by herself. The Black Cat Cleaning Co, which this morning consisted of Bertha and a pocketful of spare dusters, would never get the job done with her lying about in the gutter. Donaldson and Jones had been missed twice in the past month as it was and Jack Donaldson was a grumpy old sod at the best of times. Bertha pulled herself up into a sitting position and scowled at the patch of ice. It looked like it wanted to laugh. Bloody January.
"'ere, you alright love?"
The voice was bland and dull, quiet, with an air of utter boredom. Bertha looked up and found a face to match it. It was a face that would get lost in a crowd of three, one of those you saw and then forgot again as soon as you'd lost sight of it. It was the kind of face that screamed ordinary, average and anything for a quiet life. Beneath it a pair of skinny arms reached out to her.
Bertha grabbed a hand and let the young man haul her up, ignoring the strain on his face, reminding herself that cake and pie on the same plate is not necessarily a sin. She used her free hand to smooth her frock down over her hips and shake the hem out to some semblance of normality.
Out the corner of her eye she saw the last three people to walk straight past her heading up the road towards town. One of them, a slender woman with too much slap on and carrying a bright green handbag cast a haughty glance back. Bertha gave her the eye, that look that says "I'll remember you" and the woman whipped her eyes front and picked up her pace. The other two were walking together, a couple pushing bikes and wearing sports clothing far too tight to be good for you, or decent.
"Are you alright?"
Bertha looked the lad in the eye, there was always a lot to see in a person's eyes, and felt a chill that had nothing to do with black ice or the January air. This lad looked a plain as paper, as bland as shop's own white bread, but there was something in those eyes.
His hand still held hers and he clapped the other to her shoulder as though he thought she might fall down again. His grip was as manly and strong as a wet lettuce, but a strength borne of heroes poured from those eyes.
Bertha shook herself free and hid her surprise by pretending to fuss with her frock, smoothing the black cotton down and inspecting her mucky hem. "Yes." She said, a little sharper than she meant to. "Yes thank you young man. 's just me knee." She feigned a groan and slipped back into feeble old granny mode. "Gettin' old son." She said. Bloody ice, she thought.
"Well," he said, stepping back and letting her go, a frown creasing his thin face, watching her as though she might suddenly drop dead, "so long as you're alright."
"I'll be fine." She said, giving him that slipped dentures grin that never failed to get rid of someone. "I've 'ad worse knocks than this love." And she had.
He didn't look to sure and Bertha saw his hand slip inside his coat pocket and, sure as night followed day, pulled out a mobile phone. Bertha groaned inwardly and grabbed his wrist, patting his arm gently with her free hand when she saw the panicked look cross his face. "I'm alright love. 's only a skinned knee and a mucky frock."
"Are you sure?" He said, looking from her hand grasping him like a clawed vice, to his phone, to her face. "I can call someone if you like."
"No." Bertha said. "I'm fine." She let go of his wrist and walked away, tentatively at first, feeling her frock stick to her scrubbed knee and making it sting like mad, then a little faster, as if to prove all was well. "Thank you very much." When she looked back over her shoulder he was lost in the paper shop crush.
Bertha smiled. Out of a street full of people he was the only one to stop. That had to deserve a little good luck. Didn't it?
Ethel wouldn't approve. Blue Alice would swear at her, but that always happened. Glenda would tut and tap her wooden spoon on the table. But what was the point in being a witch if you couldn't spread a little good luck about?
Bertha flicked a finger in the direction of the paper shop and wished a bit of good luck on the lad. It didn't take much, just the silent wish would have done, but Bertha had always been one for the theatrics of the craft, even the surreptitious gestures, just in case anyone was watching. An air of mystery was becoming of a witch, even if people didn't know they were looking at one.
Of course all things needed balance, every witch knew that. A little bit of good luck was worth an awful lot of bad luck too. Bertha smiled again, more maliciously than before, and glowered down the road at a pair of bikes and a green handbag. She flicked a finger.
Kevin watched the old woman melt away into the distant greyness of Carshill Road. He rubbed his wrist and frowned at the black clad figure. She'd had a grip like a pro wrestler on her. He hoped she'd be alright. The last thing he needed right now was some old biddy's family suing him because he didn't know the right flavour of first aid.
He shook his head, and his hand. She was gone now, pushed between a couple of idiots pushing their bikes to work and batting aside a woman with a green handbag. Kevin gave his head another shake. He had better things to do, or things to get over and done with anyway.
Once again it was the first day of the rest of his life, a chance to start over, to get it right this time. He was on the dole again. Quirk's Electrics would see him no more. Never again would he grace their customer service area, or the box room down the bottom of the shop as it was more properly known. He still didn't know what he was going to say at the job centre. And why did you get the sack this time Mr Beadle? He could almost hear the patronising, belittling voice now, and wondered if he would get the old fat one with her vinegar breath, or the good looking blonde one who heaved her chest onto the desk then looked at you as though she was about to be sick.
By the time he'd decided he preferred neither his feet had carried him into the paper shop and the morning school kid crush. There was a big sign in the window announcing that only three unaccompanied children were allowed in the shop at once. Kevin doubted most of the dozen or so kids in there could count that high. Not without help anyway.
Kevin elbowed his way through them. Petunia was red faced behind the counter, sleeves rolled up over arms a builder would be proud of, making up sandwiches and trying to count newspapers out into piles. A young lad was stuffing them in to a fluorescent orange bag, getting nothing but furious looks for his trouble. Kevin noticed his trousers were ripped at the knee and saw the sticky mess of gravel rash peering through the tattered material. He had the same fat face as Petunia, and was rapidly gaining her hips and thighs to match it. Bobby, Kevin thought the shopkeeper's son was called, but he wasn't really sure, even though he'd heard the lad's mother shout his name down the street often enough.
Petunia's mother, a shorter, skinnier version of Petunia herself, with grey hair instead of black, manned an old grey till. It was one of those manual things and spoke volumes about Petunia's profit margins. Either that or her deep pockets.