Bitter Moon: Urban Witch Series - Book 2

  BITTER MOON

  R.L.Giddings

  “The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

  W.B.Yeats

  ©R.L.Giddings – all rights reserved

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was still dark when the taxi pulled up outside the church. I strained to try to get a good look at the top of the spire. It was an impressive steeple split into three stages each one, perversely, taller than the one beneath.

  “Are you sure this is it?” I asked.

  The taxi driver slid back the partition. “Christ Church, that’s the one and that’s Spitalfields market over there.”

  I paid him and then stepped out onto the pavement. There was a steady flow of traffic even at that hour. The church was lit from below which made it seem inert, and two dimensional, in no way ominous. Even so, it took an act of will not to get back in the cab and ask him to drive me home. I checked my phone for messages before turning it off and slipping it into the messenger bag, which hung across my body.

  My little bike light was in there too. If I was going to investigate the impossible, I wanted to do so with a decent flashlight. It was only small, fitting easily into the palm of my hand but it was powerful. Over 1,000 lumens.

  Further down, at the bottom of my bag there was something even more powerful. I just hoped that I wouldn’t have to use it.

  I knew exactly why I was there, of course. I’d been anticipating just such an opportunity for several weeks. The truth of it was that I found it difficult to hold the idea of what I was pursuing in my head. It kept changing even as I attempted to focus on it. It was like trying to catch a fish using only your hands. It wasn’t completely impossible, it was just difficult to accept that it was something you could accomplish on your own. To make it easier, I had decided instead to pretend that I was doing something more mundane: like looking for an old friend who’d inexplicably gone missing.

  That made sense to me, at least. I could work with that.

  I’d been woken by the sound of my phone vibrating on the nightstand. All the time I was scrabbling to pick it up I was scared that the phone would stop ringing.

  But it didn’t.

  “Where are you?”

  A man’s voice, a voice I didn’t immediately recognise.

  “I’m in bed. Who is this?”

  “A well-wisher.”

  “Macrory! What the hell are you doing ringing me at this time?”

  “You asked me to keep an eye out for you.”

  “You’re right, I did,” I said, trying hard to sound civil. “What have you got for me?”

  “Might be something, might be nothing. Either way you’ll owe me. Still interested?”

  Macrory’s favours weren’t to be assumed lightly. But things had gone very quiet over the last few days, I needed help.

  “Alright. What is it?”

  “London Zoo. They’ve been getting a lot of interesting calls in the last couple of hours.”

  I sat up and tried to concentrate. “London Zoo, you say?”

  “Yes. A lot of people have been ringing up asking whether they’ve had any animals escape recently. A lot of people are quiet concerned.”

  I almost didn’t want to ask.

  “What sort of animal?”

  “The reports vary. But they all agree about the noise. Someone said it sounded like a fox, only bigger. Much, much bigger”

  “And where are these people ringing from?”

  “Are we clear about that favour?”

  I didn’t see that I had much choice in the matter.

  “Yes, yes. Now, whereabouts?”

  “Shoreditch. There’s a big old church down there. Opposite Spitalfields market.”

  I cradled the phone in my neck while I searched for a pen.

  “What’s the name of it? This church?”

  “That’s not my area of expertise: churches. But there’s a pub next door. The Three Tuns.”

  “I’ll find it.” I wrote Three Tuns on the back of my hand.

  “I rang you because I know that you’ve had experience of this sort of thing.”

  “Very public spirited of you,” I said and ended the call.

  I decided that I couldn’t wait for an Uber taxi so went out onto the road and flagged down a black cab instead.

  The traffic was pretty light and we arrived within half an hour.

  As I approached the church I found my way blocked by an ugly wire fence. Looking at the stark whiteness of the walls I thought I knew why this might be the case. I’d seen countless examples of graffiti along the Commercial Street as we’d been driving in. Vast expanses of white walls would have proven to be too much of a temptation for some people without some decent security in place. There was a gate at the front of the church but that was securely locked. There had to be some other way in. Normally, I wouldn’t have hesitated in using a spell to get the gate open but now I hesitated. With no idea who else might be in the area, I didn’t want to advertise my presence if I didn’t have to.

  A small residential street was situated to the left of the church and I decided to try my luck down there. The rectory was built in the shadow of the church and I assumed that the two were attached somehow. There was a service door immediately to my right but that proved to be locked so I followed the railings along the front of the house, the main entrance veiled by a shadowy portico.

  A yellow dustcart was being loaded at the far end of the street and when I looked up I saw that the sky was beginning to brighten. There were no clouds. It looked like it was going to be a nice day.

  Taking the bike light out of my bag, I pointed it downwards before switching it on. I mounted the steps, pointing the beam towards where I presumed the door handle to be. There wasn’t one but that didn’t matter – the door was standing open. I stepped through into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind me.

  I took a deep breath. I wasn’t thinking rationally, I was aware of that much even as I stood there. I was being driven by a desire that I had little or no control over. It was all bound up with Silas; that much at least was obvious. I still couldn’t accept the circumstances surrounding his death even though I had been a witness to it. I’d been on-board the boat when Melissa Stahl’s men had tied him up and thrown him in the river. For any normal man, that would have been enough to kill him, but Silas wasn’t any normal man.

  Silas was a lycanthrope. A werewolf. And somehow, I was hoping that he had survived his ordeal and was hiding somewhere inside.

  I was standing in an enormous Victorian entrance hall complete with black and white floor tiles. A solid staircase ran along the right hand side before making a neat quarter turn at the bottom. There were several doors leading off the hallway. Plenty of places for something to hide. Everything else looked normal.

  There was a door to my left and I hesitated before
opening it.

  The room was unlit and I quickly shone the light around. A leather sofa and two chairs. The light reflecting off a glass coffee table stacked with various pamphlets.

  Further along the hallway was a fairly spacious kitchen. Inside, I discovered an Aga cooker, brushed my hand against its metal facing. Cold. It hadn’t been used in days.

  What I couldn’t ignore was the smell. The stink of the house hung all around me. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed it when I’d first come in. Decay. Whatever was causing that smell it wasn’t something you could easily ignore. Perhaps the drains were backed up. Perhaps that was it.

  When I stepped back out into the hallway I found myself standing opposite the foot of the stairs. As I made to explore further I sent something skittering across the tiles. I angled the bike light down but there was nothing there. I took another couple of steps and stopped. Shone the light at my feet. A pair of rimless spectacles glistened.

  I picked them up and slid them into my pocket.

  The smell intensified the further back I went. When I opened the door at the end of the hall, I raised a hand to cover my mouth, expecting the worst. But it was an ordinary suburban living room with a wide-screen television sitting over in the far corner.

  To the right of this was an alcove which led onto a downstairs shower room. Weak sunlight illuminated the mottled glass of the window. I gave the shower cubicle a cursory glance but it was empty. In the middle of the back wall there was a toilet bowl sitting in a puddle of brackish water. I stood there taking in the reek of wet dog.

  A thought occurred to me and I leaned over the toilet bowl as far as I could without actually stepping in the water. I angled the bike light so I could look inside the bowl. The water was clear, sparkling as I adjusted the beam. No suggestion that there was anything wrong with the pipes.

  But the toilet seat had been broken off and was languishing over in the corner and there were dark animal hairs all around the lip of the bowl.

  Something had been using the toilet as a source of fresh water.

  The creature – whatever it was - had turned completely feral. There was not the faintest hope of me communicating with it in this state, let alone appealing to its better nature.

  I was making my way back down the corridor when the ceiling groaned.

  There was something moving about up there, something big.

  Back in the hall I was aware of the sun coming through the windows of the stairwell. The light caught the floor at a different angle and that’s when I noticed something odd about the floor tiles. The chequer board effect was disrupted by a dark wedge shape. I angled my light at it. The beam illuminated a solid brown trail which disappeared through a doorway over on my left.

  What’s in there? I thought. But, secretly, I felt I already knew.

  As I moved towards the door, a floor-board creaked overhead and a devastating sense of isolation seized me. I turned off the torch and just stood there attempting to hold back the growing sense of panic. At first I couldn’t work out why I felt that way and then I realised why. I’d ventured too far. By the time I had made it back across the hallway the animal would be halfway down the stairs and I’d be cut off.

  The rules of engagement had just changed.

  The animal was at the top of the staircase now, its tail buffeting the stair rails.

  I had no choice. I couldn’t risk going back through the main door so I pressed on, following the dark trail. The door was slightly ajar and I was about to push it open when the full smell hit me. Half organic half metallic. It was so overwhelming that I was forced to step back. Even then, I couldn’t get the stench of it out of my head, it had a revolting, cloying presence all of its own.

  I grasped the handle intending to pull it closed. But the door had other ideas.

  A jolt went through my arm causing every muscle to spasm involuntarily. I gripped the handle hard.

  I should have been more careful, I thought. Should have worn gloves. My sensitivity to latent emotional impulses can be debilitating at times.

  This had been the killing room then. They’d still been alive when they’d been brought in here. The house-keeper had just arrived with three bags of shopping when the leopard had skittered across the chequered tile floor. Two sharp strikes were all it took to inflict the terrible wounds to her face and chest. She’d managed to stay conscious even after her head had hit the ground. It was as she was being dragged across the floor that the full weight of her predicament struck her. That’s when she’d grabbed the handle.

  My body started to go into seizure then as her memories melded with mine, repeating themselves over and over in some steady, heady loop. I felt the crushing weight of the leopard as it scored her with its claws. As her life-force began to ebb, a stew of bitter-sweet emotions washed over me. It’s a concoction that only those who have teetered on the brink of death can ever fully appreciate. Older moments of clarity came bleeding through: the terror she’d experienced on her wedding night; the pinched moment of joy when she’d realised she was pregnant; the utter relief at watching her husband squeeze the last of his possessions into the back of their camper van.

  Her final thought was the sharp realisation that the Reverend Michael – the only man she’d ever truly loved - was already dead.

  The connection was broken when I let go the handle and flopped to the floor, the last of the woman’s thoughts still whirling in my head.

  Rebecca, I thought. Her name was Rebecca.

  I sat like that for a good few minutes gathering my wits.

  Then my worst fears were confirmed as something stirred overhead.

  What had I been thinking? I had been so certain when I’d taken Macrory’s phone-call about what I’d find here. So certain that it would be Silas; so certain that I’d be able to soothe him, to placate him, to protect him. I’d been so naïve.

  I couldn’t see the staircase but I could see the animal’s shadow as it spilled across the floor. I could clearly make out the shape of its enormous head, the high arch of its shoulders, the flick of its tail. The sound of its breathing filling the void between us.

  After an eternity of waiting, I heard the subtle change in sound as it moved from the stairs down onto the floor tiles.

  From where I stood, I could just make out the silhouette of its ears. That’s when I knew for certain: this was no wolf. A wolf’s ears would have been flat against the side of its head. These ears were tall and proud and swivelled in my direction. A leopard then, that much was obvious. It was hard to stand in such close proximity to it. A huge, airless pressure was bearing down on me, crushing me against the wall.

  My left arm extended until my palm rested on the door to my left. A solid oak panelled construction which looked out of place with the other furnishings. It took me a moment to realise why. This was the door which connected the rectory to the church.

  It opened inwards and I had to lift and heave at the same time to get the door to clear the foot plate. With the door only half open I eased myself through into a gloomy corridor. Then I pulled it shut again. The door creaked.

  The corridor ahead of me ended in a T-junction. To the left was what I took to be the entrance to the church itself and to the right was the door back onto the street. The street would have been the obvious way to go if I didn’t know already that it was locked. The question was: could I open it from the inside?

  As I considered my options the leopard launched itself against the door pitching me forward. The impact jarred the door so hard that it started to swing open. It took several attempts for me to grab the handle and pull it shut. My eyes darted about, looking for a length of rope that I could tie the handle off with. But there was nothing.

  I used all my weight to pull against the door fearing that as soon as I let go then the leopard would be upon me. Only the animal didn’t seem to understand the mechanics of how the door worked. It continued to launch himself against the panels, each impact harder than the last. And its efforts a
ppeared to be paying off as the door seemed to give a little further each time it was struck. On the next assault there was a loud ‘crack’ and the panel on the top right burst open.

  The animal pressed its muzzle through the gap and then, when that didn’t work, it tried to force its paw through. The paw scrabbled around the hole in a desperate attempt to gain some purchase. When it eventually withdrew I could see the claw marks it had left in the paint work.

  That was enough for me and I set off down the corridor. I was just drawing level with the little office at the far end of the corridor that I heard the unmistakeable crack of the door’s central spar finally giving way. Glancing back, I caught sight of the beast’s upper body squeezing itself through the gap.

  I collided with the wall in my panic and turned left towards the church. There was no light in this part of the corridor and every step felt as though I was traveling down some creature’s gullet.

  Behind me, I could hear the sound of the leopard forcing its way through the gap in the door. I could hear the sound of its exertions, could hear too the sound of the wooden panels giving way.

  I threw myself down the corridor, careening off the walls. My eyes focussed on the thin rectangle of light just ahead of me.

  My knee struck something in the darkness and I lurched forward, bowling into the door before stumbling out into the body of the church itself. I took a moment to gather my thoughts. It was as if I’d come up from the bottom of the sea too quickly and was having to acclimatise myself to my surroundings.

  The church interior seemed vast after the restrictions of the corridor, the first rays of daybreak starting to filter in through the lofty, vaulted windows. Huge, cavernous and splendidly empty the white panelled ceiling soared over-head, whilst at ground level everything was dark brown beech. Even the Corinthian columns rested on solid wooden plinths. The contrast between the white of the plaster and the dark wood was striking, highlighting the contrast between the earthly and the divine. This was especially true for someone who hadn’t stepped inside a church since an ill-advised visit in primary school.