Reality Bites (17 page)

He nodded.

She gulped down the brandy in one go.  ‘Can I have another?’ she asked, ‘while I think about it.’

Stiles rose at a nod from Tamar, and headed for the bar.

She and Tamar sat in silence while they waited.  Tamar knew they had won; Cindy was just fortifying herself.  Stiles returned with another glass, which she drained in silence.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll take you to the old witch on one condition – that you take me with you – on the quest.  I stay with you until you kill this Ran-Kur and then you give me the Hart’s Blood, for safekeeping.’

‘Deal,’ said Tamar immediately.  She had expected much worse.

‘Oh no,’ laughed Cindy.  ‘I’m not just going to take your word for it. A Djinn and a
man.
’

‘Former Djinn,’ said Tamar.

‘Whatever,’ said Cindy.  ‘Same thing, I want the oath.’

Tamar sighed.  ‘Do I have to sign my name in blood?’

Cindy looked disgusted.  ‘Of course not, what is this, the Middle Ages?’

Tamar spat on her hand, and Cindy did the same.  They held their hands up, palms out an inch from each other.  A strange shimmering energy sparkled between them.

‘Rimminy rimminy rimminy roke – we seal the oath that cannot be broke,’ they chanted.  Stiles had to stuff his fist in his mouth to stop himself from laughing.

‘Come back at ten tonight,’ said Cindy.  ‘I’ll be ready then.  Will the other one be coming?’

‘Hecaté?’ asked Stiles.

Cindy laughed.  ‘No, I just knew. I
am
a witch you know.’

‘Yes, he’s coming too,’ said Tamar.  ‘See you later.’

When they had gone, Cindy smiled to herself.  ‘Well, that all went according to plan,’ she said to herself.

 ‘So, how went it with the witch?’ asked Denny, when they returned.

Tamar smirked and dug Stiles in the ribs.  ‘Jack seemed quite taken with her,’ she said.

Denny raised his eyebrows.  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Quite the ladies’ man, aren’t you?’

As this was possibly the worst description of a man, since somebody said. ‘He’s not such a bad bloke when you get to know him,’ of Adolf Hitler, Stiles hung his head and blushed furiously.

Denny laughed.  ‘Well, you seem to be in a good mood.  Do I take it, she’s agreed to help?’ he addressed himself to Tamar.

‘Yes, she’s insisting on coming with us though.’

‘Well, it could have been worse.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ agreed Tamar.

‘Well,’ said Denny, ‘our hands are in the fire now.’

~ Chapter Twenty One ~

‘We have to walk,’ said Cindy.  ‘There are no shortcuts.’

‘Where are we going?’ asked Stiles – it would be him, of course.  Both Tamar and Denny already knew the answer to this.

‘I don’t know,’ said Cindy, ‘we just follow the instructions and we get there.  It isn’t on any map; that’s why we can’t jump the astral plane.’

‘She means teleport,’ said Tamar.

‘I was wondering how you did that,’ said Stiles.  He thought for a moment.  ‘No, still no idea,’ he admitted.

‘Well …’ Tamar began.

‘
People
,’ interrupted Cindy, ‘are we going or what?’

‘Lead on Mac Duff,’ said Tamar.

Cindy took Stiles by the arm.  ‘I’ll explain it to you on the way,’ she said sweetly.  Denny and Tamar grinned at each other and fell in step behind them.

‘You see,’ Cindy was saying,  ‘in order to travel all over the globe in seconds, you have to pass into an ethereal plane, where time doesn’t exist, you actually travel within that plane in the normal way – well, actually you fly, well, witches do, and other magical beings I suppose.  Non-magical people can’t do it at all, so I guess that’s not the point.  Anyway, you fly along the astral plane; the journey
feels
instantaneous because there’s no time there, you see?’

‘I – I think so.’

‘Obviously you can still see
this
world; otherwise you’d get lost, or land on somebody or something.  All that star trek nonsense about de-materialising, well I mean … what if you re-materialised inside a cliff or a tree or something? Ouch!’  She laughed. 

Stiles laughed too, just to be polite.

‘And that’s how invisibility – or rather the illusion of invisibility, is created,’ she continued, ‘you just pass into the astral plane but stay where you are, see?  Better than a hidden microphone – not that I would ever …’

Denny looked at Tamar.  ‘Is that true?’ he asked.

Tamar shrugged.  ‘Close enough,’ she said.

‘It doesn’t feel so complicated when I do it.’

‘It’s instinctive, like blinking – you don’t notice what you’re doing.’

Cindy was clearly trying to impress Stiles.  Her attitude to Tamar was a wary competitiveness.  Denny, she had dismissed entirely. 
N
either handsome nor rich, and anyway quite clearly spoken for, he was invisible to her, but she seemed quite taken with Stiles.  And, since Tamar was also spoken for, Stiles had no objection to this.

‘How do you know where to go?’ he asked.

‘Oh, the witch of the caves is an old witch tradition,’ said Cindy.  ‘We all know the story, but no-one’s sought her for decades, I don’t think.’

‘And how …?’

‘Ah, ah, ah,’ said Cindy, flirtatiously, tapping her finger on his nose.  ‘I can’t tell you witch’s secrets just like that, I only just met you.’

Denny rolled his eyes; Tamar giggled.

‘I just hope she knows what she’s doing,’ Denny whispered.

‘Shhh,’ hissed Tamar, ‘witches have excellent hearing.’

But Cindy was twittering away in a high pitched tone and did not hear him.  Denny did not register on her radar anyway.  This suited Denny fine; he did not like Cindy much.  Besides, he knew he could command her full attention if he chose to.

They were, in case you are interested, wandering along the High Street, apparently aimlessly, stopping occasionally for Cindy to check a piece of paper, which she, rather theatrically concealed from them.

‘Aha!’ she said, stopping suddenly.  ‘This’ll do.’

‘Taxi rank?’ said Tamar.  ‘Are we catching a cab?’

‘You might say,’ said Cindy.

Tamar snatched the paper from her, before Cindy could stop her.  ‘Says here, “Coaching Inn”.’

‘Modern equivalent,’ said Cindy.  ‘Don’t forget, this was first written in the middle-ages, you have to interpret.’

‘So we
are
catching a cab?’

‘Trust me, we just wait.  I’ll know when it happens.  Remember, witches traditionally never used coaches or cabs or any mortal method of transport, so a witch at a taxi rank, well, it’s not usual.  But I think
something
will come for us.’

‘You
think?
’

‘Hey, I’ve never done this before; I’m just following the instructions.’

‘Maybe you need to send a signal or something.’

‘It doesn’t say so here.’  She stabbed at the paper. ‘Just wait.’

Cindy had turned down three cabs, and it was getting close to eleven when Denny asked.  Anyone think we should just take the next one and go clubbing?’

‘Mmm, tempting,’ said Tamar.

‘I’m getting really hungry,’ said Stiles.

‘There’s a burger place across the road,’ Denny pointed.

‘Now
that’s
tempting,’ said Stiles.

They were all getting restless, even Stiles.  All of their experiences had prepared them for just about anything, except this awful tedium.

By eleven thirty, they were all giving Cindy dirty looks and complaining loudly. By midnight, they had subsided into a mutinous silence and Stiles was asleep on a bench, when suddenly Cindy pointed at some lights in the distance.  ‘There,’ she said.

‘It’s just another cab,’ said Tamar, wearily. 

But it was not, the lights were moving in a very odd way, sort of cycling around each other; there were three of them too.

‘It’s an optical illusion,’ said Stiles; Denny had shaken him awake.  ‘Like headlights in the rain.’  But he did not sound either convinced or convincing, perhaps because it was not raining.

‘It’s not raining,’ pointed out Cindy. The lights drew nearer.

‘What the hell is it?’ said Stiles nervously.

It was a glass coach – motorised, apparently – no horses and no driver.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ exploded Tamar.  ‘I can’t believe they’re still pulling this stuff.’

‘No driver,’ observed Denny, dryly.  ‘Do you think they ran out of mice?’

‘Oh hell!  Let’s just get in,’ said Tamar. ‘At least it’s not broomsticks.’

‘Well, it was a distinct possibility,’ she said, defensively, when they all looked at her strangely.

They all clambered in.  ‘Oh yes,’ said Denny with caustic sarcasm, ‘we won’t be
at all
conspicuous in this.’

As soon as they all settled in, they fell asleep.

When they awoke they were in a field, the coach had vanished.  Tamar spotted a pumpkin a few yards away, but held her peace, this was not the time.

‘Now what?’ she asked Cindy, who was currently more interested in re-applying her lipstick.  Tamar had to admire her really; she took vanity to a whole new level.

‘Mmm? Oh yes,’ Cindy consulted her paper and looked around.  ‘Where is it?’  She muttered.

‘Where’s what?’ asked Tamar.  ‘The yellow brick road?  Three bears cottage?’

‘Um.’  Cindy looked embarrassed.

‘
No?
’ said Tamar.  ‘I was kidding.’

‘No, no,’ said Cindy, hastily.  ‘Not that bad. It’s – er …’

‘The “Primrose path”,’ said Denny, pointing at it.  ‘Leading into a dark and scary forest? Presumably to find Hansel and Gretel.’

‘Um, yes, it doesn’t say anything about a forest, but – primrose path, yes. I’m sorry; I didn’t make it up you know.’

‘We know, we know,’ said Tamar.  ‘Oh well, better load up our groins.’

‘Er isn’t that “gird up our loins”?’ queried Stiles.

‘I know what I said.’

‘Anybody know where we are?’ asked Denny.

‘Yes,’ said Tamar.  ‘We’re being led up the primrose path by a witch, and I’m not sure I like the symbolism of that.’  She turned to Cindy.  ‘If we run into a “Big Bad Wolf” there’s going to be trouble.’

‘I would say that’s a given,’ said Denny.

‘I meant from me.’

‘So did I.’

As it turned out, the journey was uneventful, not so much as a stubbed toe occurred until they arrived at the mouth of a large cave, partially concealed by undergrowth and a trickling waterfall, well more of a drip really.  It looked cold, dark and uninviting.

‘This is it, all right,’ said Tamar, resignedly.  She turned to Cindy.  ‘Any more instructions?’ she asked.  ‘Or do we just go in?’

‘Well, we’re supposed to … um, it says … no, we just go in.’

The cave was all that the exterior had promised it would be and worse.

‘It’s like being inside a rusty iron lung,’ said Denny.

‘With extra slime,’ said Tamar.  ‘Yuck.’

‘So, where’s this witch?’ asked Denny.

‘Ahem,’ said Stiles, from behind them.  They turned.

‘I think maybe we’re too late,’ he said.

Beside him, half embedded in the wall of the cave, like a fossil, was a stone figure in the shape of a crouching old woman. There was a constant stream of water flowing over it wearing it away in places, and it was unattractively festooned with weeds and algae.

‘That’s not her,’ said Tamar.  ‘The water’s worn away the rock face, it
does
look a little bit like a …’

‘Face it,’ said Denny. ‘That’s the witch. It’s all been for nothing.’

‘It can’t be.’

‘So, what do we do now?’ asked Stiles.

Cindy was poking the – for want of a better word – statue.  ‘Sister? Hello. Sister?’

‘Idiots,’ said a voice from the back of the cave.

‘Now
that’s
a witch,’ thought Stiles.  What faced them as they turned around, was indeed the archetypal witch. A withered, warty crone, with long, straggly grey hair, a hooked nose and a hump you could seat three people on.  The only thing missing was the conical hat.  She cackled at them revealing three stumps of what could only be her teeth, since they were in her mouth and not a graveyard, and the picture was complete.  Stiles had been expecting almost anything but this cliché – a witch who actually looked like a witch – it took him by surprise.

She hobbled towards them.  ‘Hmm, five of you – there’s a thing, so what do you want?’

‘Four,’ said Tamar.

‘So what’s that?’ cackled the witch, pointing at the bottle containing Peirce,
‘
Scotch Mist?’

‘Actually, I think he’s a Londoner,’ offered Stiles.

‘Ha! So London fog then, what do you want?’

‘Don’t you know?’ asked Stiles in surprise.

‘No,’ snapped the witch.  ‘I don’t do that clairvoyant stuff.’

Tamar looked shrewdly at her.  ‘So what did you do?’ she asked.

The old witch started. ‘What?’

‘To end up here,’ said Tamar.  She turned to the others.  ‘Look at this place,’ she said.  ‘It’s got to be a punishment.’

The crone glared at her.  ‘It’s no never mind of yours what I done – did. So mind your own business.’

‘You’re quite right,’ said Tamar.  ‘I apologise.’

‘What’s your name?’ asked Stiles.

The old witch peered at him.  ‘Hmm, a mortal,’ she said.  ‘Well I never. And you!’ she poked Tamar in the chest, ‘you’re no witch you. I dunno what you are, but you ain’t no witch. No more are
you
,’ she said to Denny.  ‘What do you want here?’

‘We’re searching for the Purple Hart,’ Tamar told her.

‘Ha!’ said the witch. ‘I should have known.’ She gave them a gummy smile.

‘Well then, you have to face the labyrinth, which one of you is it going to be?’

‘Labyrinth!’ groaned Tamar.  ‘Why is it always so complicated?  Why can’t they just give you a written test or something?’

‘Actually,’ said Denny, ‘we sort of thought we’d
all
be going.’

‘Hmm,’ said the witch  dubiously.  ‘I never sent more than one person into the labyrinth before.  Mind you, I don’t usually get parties. I suppose it’d be all right.’