Stray Souls (Magicals Anonymous) Read Free

closer, and that ripple–for that is the word–could almost be defined as the sound a soft leathery lip might make as it rubs its way across protruding fanged teeth, while a deep rumble inside a ribcage pressed within a hundred pounds of taut black flesh might yet prove the source of this persistent grumbling.
    Idiots look.
    Idiots look.
    He’s not an idiot. Jesus, he’s Gavin McGafferty, he’s the shit, he’s the stuff, he’s the guy on the up, and all those fucking idiots around him who talk behind his back and try to bring him down because of their envy, their
envy
for Christ’s sake, they don’t understand. They’ll never get it, they’re the kind of guys who’d look, they’d look and he wouldn’t he wouldn’t he…
    Looks.
    The start of the scream doesn’t make it all the way to his voice box before it finds itself some three feet away from the air that should have supplied it. The teeth that remove his left ear dig deep enough to crack the solid sphere of his skull like a pistachio. Arguably, it’s the combined weight of Gavin and his attacker hitting the ground that causes the fractured pelvis. But frankly, given the time the paramedics spend trying to identify the body afterwards, no one really bothers to check.

Chapter 6
In the Friendship of Others, I Find Myself
    The first one arrived on time, at 9.05 p.m. exactly.
    The next at 9.07. There was a lull at 9.08 and then, as if an infrequent and much-denounced train had finally pulled up, at 9.11 they all started to tumble through the door of St Christopher’s Hall, with sideways glances as if to say, and you are who? Some smiled nervously and offered to shake hands–or whatever limb seemed suitable. Others kept their eyes on the floor, or clasped the shoulder of a more approachable companion come along to give support. One or two sneaked in under the mantle of their own very special disguises or glamours: there was the ever-reliable yellow fluorescent jacket that nearly guaranteed invisibility to all who wore it, through to a full-blown burka, rather let down by the hint of talon protruding beneath as the wearer folded herself uncomfortably into a plastic chair.
    “Tea, coffee?” Sharon asked the gathering assembly as they shuffled their seats into place. A chorus of grunted affirmations came back, no one wanting to acknowledge that they were so difficult as to
need
tea or coffee but, that said, if someone else was having one anyway, they didn’t see the harm…
    One or two braver guests tried talking to each other, stop-start conversations that fell into a lull as they gathered into a communal circle. Watching from the corner of her eye, by the time the door to the alleyfinished banging shut Sharon had counted fourteen individuals of various shapes and sizes.
    Not a bad number, she decided as steam began spouting from the kettle. And considering how limited her biscuit budget was, it was probably for the best. Not that anyone was going for the biscuits, though many eyes were upon them. Sensing this might be just the incentive to socialise that everyone needed, she grabbed two from a paper plate and munched loudly.
    A voice said, “I’ve got ginger nuts.”
    Sharon looked round. A freckled face peeked from beneath spear-straight hair that his mother probably told him was rich auburn but which no one else could deny was carrot from its pudding-bowl line up to its thick roots. The accent was Welsh, tinged with an apology for same, the height was average with an inclination towards short, the frame needed an extra ration of chicken soup, and the clothes were pure nerd. From the ends of the battered leather jacket one size too large, black fading to green where time had done its damage, to the ends of his never-run-in running shoes; from the beige trousers that sagged around the middle to the unironed tartan-pattern shirt with its mismatched buttons, this was a man who understood that he should care about fashion, but couldn’t quite make fashion