Part One can be found here.

The darkness was broken by two lanterns, flaming torches that guttered low, casting an uneven light across the floor. She noticed, and wish she hadn’t, that the floor was slightly soft, and the colour of dried blood. What was it with the dodgy horror metaphors? It was dark brown, that’s all it was. It was squishy though, like wet grass. That was better, wet grass was ok. Unless it was wet with blood, of course.

She shook her head, swearing quietly to herself, and rushed to keep up with Martin as he strode away down the tunnel. The darkness was relieved, here and there, by more torches, which did little more than chase shadows around, chasing her imagination down nasty little holes. She grabbed his hand, ignoring the look he gave her.

They emerged from the tunnel into a huge hall, the walls lined with tapestries, more flaming torches thrusting out from the walls. She stared at the tapestries, and blinked, looking closely. They were moving, the figures writhing, and doing things… ewww, that’s nasty, really nasty. She didn’t want to see stuff like that.

She turned her eyes to the end of the hall, and broke into a run. Mum was at the end, slumped against the back of the cage, eyes closed. Scarlett was halfway there when the fog came down. The hall around her disappeared, hidden by a thick white blanket. She stopped, turned, and held her hand up in front of her. She couldn’t see it, she couldn’t see anything.

‘Martin!’

Her voice was swallowed, the shout sounding like she’d barely spoken. She started walking, then stopped as she heard it, a scratching that made her wrap her arms around herself and burrow her face into them.

‘MARTIN!’

Still nothing, and the sounds were getting closer, the scratching of feet on the floor, but feet was the wrong word. Claws. She broke into a run, panting as the sweat poured off her. Her foot caught something on the floor and she went down, hands outstretched. She screamed as they struck the floor, the softness giving just enough so her wrists didn’t break, then her entire body smacked down with a thud.

She moaned, sitting up and rubbing her nose, and fell silent. The skittering was louder now, all around, getting closer. She screamed. Arms wrapped around her and she lashed out, flailing about with her arms and legs.

‘Easy, easy, it’s me, it’s Martin, calm down, please.’

She stopped, looking at the arm wrapped around her chest. Yeah, that was him. OK. She took a deep breath, followed by another. ‘Can you hear them? What are they?’

‘There’s nothing here, you’re listening to your fears. Remember the hall, remember the tapestries.’

At mention of the tapestries, she blushed, and giggled. ‘You noticed them too, huh?’

He laughed as the fog cleared. It didn’t drift away, it just went, transparent.

‘What happened?’

‘Castle defences, I think.’

‘Isn’t that, like, boiling oil and stuff.’

He shook his head. ‘The boiling oil thing is a myth actually. In medieval times, oil was far too expensive to throw on people. It was normally boiling water.’

‘Really? That’s, like, fascinating, really.’ He either missed the sarcasm, or chose to ignore it, waving a hand toward the cage. Mum was standing up, hands wrapped around the bars. She was shouting, a smile on her face, but Scarlet couldn’t hear anything, which was both weird and oddly pleasant. It was like having a volume control for mum. Yay!

She rushed over to the cage, Martin just behind, and searched around for a door. The bars travelled from floor to ceiling, a ring of them embedded deep in the concrete. How the hell had she got in there? She waited as Martin did a closer inspection, and groaned when she saw his face.

Next instalment: Monday 28 October

Part One can be found here:

They wound round and through the valley, sometimes losing sight of the sky as the slopes went vertical and crowded above them. The scrub faded away, leaving nothing but bare rock. Her feet ached. Walking wasn’t something you were supposed to do for any length of time, like, ten minutes, max. This guy was a torturer. He’d brought her here as some sort of evil cross-country challenge, some sick plan between him and mum to help her get fit.

She was about to turn and tell him, when the valley opened up, the walls replaced with a plain, stretching away to the slate-grey sky. Squatting slap bang in the middle of the space was a castle. An actual, turrets, battlements, portcullis castle.

‘Yeah, alright, that’s not bad.’

Martin laughed. ‘It’s funny you should say that because actually, it is.’

She looked up at him, eyebrow raised.

‘It’s rare for a demon to be quite so overt with their presence here. He must be powerful.’

The second eyebrow followed the first. ‘Sorry, confused. Demon? Powerful? Um, huh?’He nodded, quite calmly, as though she’d asked him about the weather. ‘Yes, most demons, despite their bragging as and when they get to earth, live in holes in the ground, or maybe a little shack. There aren’t many I know of that live in something like that.’

She put a hand on his arm, mmm, muscley. ‘Where are we?’

He looked at her. ‘You really need to ask?’

‘Yes, I really need to ask.’

‘Hell.’

‘Jokes.’

‘No.’

‘Oh. So, like, actually hell, you know, where the devil lives and all that?’

He nodded again, smiling slightly. She thought about slapping him, then decided against it. He was actually quite nice, when he wasn’t being completely infuriating. She thought she should probably be more surprised, or scared, or something, about where they were, but she just couldn’t summon up the energy. He waved a hand out across the plain.

‘It doesn’t look much like the pictures, does it?’

‘I don’t know, could do with a bit more fire, but otherwise, you know, dark, scary. Seems to work to– Why did you bring me to hell, you crazy?… uhh, you’re mad, completely mad, Jesus.’

He patted her shoulder, smiling sheepishly, and pointed at the book she still clutched in one hand. ‘Because your Mum’s here.’

‘If Mum ended up in hell, she deserves to stay here for being so bloody stupid.’

She turned away from him and stomped across the open stone. He came alongside and they headed toward the castle in silence. Only when its long shadow fell across them did she get the urge to run. This was, without doubt, the stupidest thing she’d ever done, which was an impressive claim. Martin put a hand on her shoulder and the warmth of it gave her some small hope, kept her moving.

‘What’s the plan?’

‘I can locate your mother, once we’re inside. I’m hoping we can slip in without the demon knowing we’re here.’

He stepped up to the door, and tried the handle. With a creak like an opening coffin, the door swung inward, pulled by an invisible hand. With one last look at the dying sky, she stepped into the castle.

Next instalment: Friday 25 October

Part One can be found here.

She turned to mum’s page, winced at what she saw, then turned to the next one. She’d need to go to the shop to get a couple of bits, but there was nothing too strange. She shrugged on her coat, and headed out.

She was just leaving the Co-op, weighed down with two bags, featuring a reasonable mix of spell ingredients and microwave food, when a hand brushed against hers. Creepy homeless guy waved a filthy hand at the bags. ‘Some interesting things you’ve brought there. In my experience, combining some of them might lead you to opening a gateway to somewhere you might not want to go—‘

‘What is it with you? Stop looking at my stuff, Jesus. And anyway, I don’t really have much choice.’

‘Your mum—‘

‘Is like, hotter, and way cooler than yours, alright?’

He smiled, revealing a remarkably good set of teeth, and held his hands up before him. ‘Please, let me finish a sentence. OK, so, I was suggesting that the gate you intend to open will lead you somewhere I wouldn’t class as being particularly suitable for a girl of sixteen. So how about I come with you?’

She looked at him. Either he intended to do nasty stuff to her, or he was completely mad. Or both. How did he know she was going to open a gate? ‘Who are you?’

He nodded, smiling as though she’d asked the right question. ‘My name is Martin, though I have been called other things in my time—‘

‘Bet you have.’

‘I have been here for some time, long before your mother and her friends began dabbling in things they would have best steered clear of.’

His voice had changed, becoming clearer and less mumbly, and he was standing straight now. He was actually quite tall, and looked possibly quite fit, in a… eww, no, really not, not ever, what was she thinking? She shrugged at him. ‘Don’t care, really, come if you want. I’m not sure I want you in my house though.’

He nodded, and fell into step beside her. They walked in silence back to the house, her with her shopping, him with a huge bag of rattling cans and random bits of material. When they reached the front door, he stopped, and she looked back at him. OK, probably not completely mad. Still a bit smelly. She sighed and held the door open and he nodded again, and stepped in. They entered the lounge and he took the bags from her, rapidly sorting out the things she needed, giving the crap junk-food dirty looks.

She ignored them, grabbing a pizza from him and going into the kitchen. She stuck it in the micro, and by the time she went back into the lounge with it on a plate, the ingredients were open and he was busy spreading them across the floor. He waved the packet of sage at her. ‘Did you get any matches?’

She shook her head and took mum’s lighter off the TV table. He nodded, opened the sage and rolled it into a tube that he tied tightly with string. She sat on the edge of the sofa, watching him work. She’d expected shaking hands, but he moved like he’d done this before, lots of times before. She was only half done with the pizza when he straightened, clicked his back and turned to her. ‘Are you ready?’

‘What, like, right now?’

He nodded. She sighed, placed the pizza to one side, and stood. ‘Yeah, s’pose so. Umm, what do I do?’

Next instalment: Monday 21st October

Part One can be found here.

Mum was scared, one hand holding onto the bars, as she looked at something just past Scarlett. Then, and she would swear to this a million times, the eyes moved and suddenly her mum was staring at her, out of the book. The mouth moved, no sound reaching her, but she could recognise ‘help me’ any day of the week.

She turned the page, quickly, ignoring the trickle of sweat that ran down her temple. On the next page, put there, she thought, through no coincidence, she found.

For the rescuing of those trapped.

That was just bloody typical. This was like some crappy moral dilemma rubbish they’d spoken about in school. Do you a) face certain death to rescue your stupid, greedy mum, or do you b) put yourself up for adoption in like, one of those really nice places in Chelsea or Kensington or somewhere? Hmm, decisions, decisions.

She closed the book, looked at the TV, and abruptly turned it off. ‘OK, so, this isn’t actually real, so trying the spell can’t do any harm, right?’ She knew she was lying. Magic was real. That her mum had realised that before her was just embarrassing, but no one else needed to know. So, doing the spell, assuming she had the ingredients, could very well wind up with her in a cage, just like Mum, and there was a good bet they didn’t have wi-fi where she was.

Maybe, if she went to sleep, she’d wake up with mum shouting at her about school, and all would be well. She looked at the book, then placed it carefully on the corner of the sofa where she’d found it. Then she closed the curtains (uh, creepy stalker homeless dude), went upstairs, got changed, got into bed, and closed her eyes.

This was weird.

What did you do at night, when you didn’t sign off from Facebook? What about all the people who didn’t know she was going to bed? With considerable effort, and more than one deeply felt sigh, she drifted slowly to sleep.

Her eyes cracked open, the grey dawn light badgering her to wake up. She tried to ignore it, and rolled over. Her eyes lit on the computer and came fully awake, and with a smile, she hoisted it onto the bed. Flicking the power on, she logged in. The screen went black.

….Still not kidding. Go away please….

Gahh! With a shout she dumped it on the floor (not too hard though, that would just be stupid), and flumped back onto her bed. OK, any second, Mum was gonna start shouting. Any second.

With another huge sigh, she shoved the covers off and staggered into the bathroom. Good lord, what strange creature was this. Oh, no, hold on, that’s just me. Shower and make up, quickly please, don’t make me look at that. She emerged, feeling slightly better, and only marginally less hideous, and wandered into Mum’s room. The bed was empty.

With one final sigh, she stomped down the stairs and checked the rest of the house, before meandering into the lounge. The book was waiting for her.

Next instalment: Friday 18 October.