I was beginning to feel a little faint. ‘Like … like the smell of the earth, deep, deep down below the surface?’ I sniffed the air. Even now, inside my flat, I could still smell that smell, and it was a scent I knew all too well. What did that mean, considering Shane had already brought me back to life?

  ‘Yes. Exactly like that. But Ned, you need to speak to your sister about this. She knows far more about it than I do. You’re not going to like this, but … well … I’ve always suspected it was your sister who stole the Infernal Artefacts in the first place.’

  Before I could ask her anything more, my mother faded from my view.

  6. Cacklers Are No Laughing Matter

  It would have been nice if I could simply pop over to my sister’s place and ask her about the Infernal Artefacts, but as she was currently an inmate at Witchfield Prison, the visiting schedule wasn’t up to me.

  After much back and forth with various departments at the prison, someone called the Visitor Liaison Officer called me back.

  ‘Nedina Marvin?’ he said, sounding exhausted. ‘I hear you want to move up your visiting time with your sister from Tuesday night to this evening.’

  ‘Mm hm. It’s really important. It’s a family emergency.’

  ‘Yes, so you said when you first called. The thing is, we do try to work with families when there’s an emergency, Miss Marvin. And if we could, we’d let you in to see your sister this evening.’

  ‘If you could? What does that mean?’

  He made a small cough. ‘The thing is, one of our guards has already approached your sister directly after your first phone call, to tell her there was a family emergency. And your sister, well … she said it could wait. She says she has a yoga class this evening, and she’s not missing it for anything.’

  I stared at the phone in disbelief for a moment, too irked to speak. Finally, I said, ‘Fine. Well, when shall my sister deign to see me?’

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon.’ He sounded relieved to be nearing the end of our conversation. ‘We can fit you in at four.’

  ≈

  I spent much of the remainder of the day kicking things, screeching, and generally having a temper tantrum. My sister had that effect on me. Finally, night-time rolled around, and I prepared for work.

  My night job was even creepier than my day job. And yes, I know what you’re thinking – this woman can’t possibly get any creepier. Sorry to disappoint you, but I can.

  It was a role I inherited from my mother, and it was this role that gave me ‘certain protections’ – such as the fact that I was supposed to feel my death coming, so that I would have time to pass the necessary magic and knowledge on to some other poor fool.

  The title sounded very grand – I was The One Who Sings – and it came with an incredible deal of power, power that I needed in order to row the canal every night, singing a creepy song and stirring up the foul-smelling canal water into a vapour which would pervade the entire enclave.

  I admit it, I was fully responsible for the fact that Samhain Street stank, and no one was sorrier about that than I. But I was the only one who could do it, and that was why I was stuck in Samhain Street for the rest of my life, instead of living in a pretty cottage as I’d always craved.

  There was a reason for the stirring of the stench, of course. The canal water contained a powerful memory potion which would tamp down the memory of the ancient demons who were buried in Samhain Street, demons so deadly and insidious that even the mere mention of them is enough to make people long for their return (what can I say – some people gravitate towards unhealthy relationships).

  In short, they were the bad guys. They weren’t likely to return anytime soon, but I had to perform the ritual night after night, just in case. I’d played around with the rules as much as I could, so my friends could help me out sometimes. Plus, the building next to mine was home to a group of witches called the Society of Cacklers, who – despite their fearsome reputation – were always keen to help. Most people think that the Cacklers are witches so evil that they don’t even like puppies or unicorns, and that they can make a warlock wither before their eyes. The truth is, their purpose in this enclave is just the same as mine – they live here so that they can make sure that those big, bad demons never return.

  But despite the help of my friends and the Cacklers, no one could completely take over my role until the day I died.

  ‘Hey, Cleo.’ I grinned at my cat as I got my things together. ‘Maybe tonight is the night I finally get to retire. There have to be some perks in return for dying in the Wayfarer morgue and suffering through mouth-to-mouth from Shane Moore.’

  She snorted. ‘Your power goes to your least favourite Cackler when you die. If she’d gotten it this morning, she would have come straight over here to arrange your funeral – you know, so she could make sure your coffin was nailed shut.’

  I sighed. ‘Yeah. You’re probably right.’ As I spoke, I did a final check of the items in my bag. I had a torch, a drink, some snacks, and my Cackler cloak. When I wore the cloak, it transformed me into a witch of nightmares and fairy tales – a wart on my nose, a green tinge to my skin. It was kind of fun.

  ‘I think I’ll stay in tonight,’ Cleo said, stretching out in front of the fire. ‘It’ll be too cold. Anyway, you’ll have Jay to keep you company.’

  Jay was my boyfriend (yes, I probably should have mentioned him before now), and he often came out on the canal with me. It made for an interesting date night. As though on cue, my phone buzzed with a message from him:

  Sorry to text so late, but I’m really sick, Ned. I can’t make it to the canal with you tonight. See you soon. Xxx.

  ‘Huh.’ I shrugged, turned off my phone, and headed to the place my mother had always called the Deep, Deep Down Below. The Deep, Deep Down Below is one of the reasons why I’m well acquainted with what the earth smells like, far beneath the surface. The other reason is that I spend far too much time in graveyards, but let’s not talk about that.

  In order to get to the Deep, Deep Down Below, I had to journey through my many basements (good for a lower-body workout), and go down past a few more levels which were lacking in basements but ample in soil and rock – you know, the usual below-the-earth features.

  When I’d journeyed down far enough, I came to an underground waterway. There, I had to perform a spell to make a bridge appear, then cross said bridge over the kraken-filled water of the underground canal, before getting into the boat on the other side, opening up a lock to bring me into the main, above-ground canal, then spend a couple of painful hours rowing around (good for an upper-body workout) while I performed the ritual.

  For security reasons, there were no short-cuts. It kept me fit, I supposed, if you consider being slightly underweight and perpetually exhausted as the epitome of fitness.

  I was just about to take off, when a figure appeared beside me. It was a woman in a Cackler cloak. With the hood pulled up, she looked ugly and frightening. As she pulled it down, though, she revealed porcelain skin, glossy black hair, and green eyes.

  ‘Fiona,’ I said, unable to keep the irritation from my voice. Fiona was the Cackler Cleo had mentioned – the one who would inherit my job when I died. She had a habit of creeping up on me when I was down here, so I should hardly have been surprised. Tonight, though, I’d been so lost in my own thoughts that I’d forgotten about her.

  ‘No Jay tonight?’ she asked in a faux-casual manner.

  ‘Nope. He’s sick.’

  ‘Really?’ Her brow furrowed. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a sick vampire before. Hey, maybe you shouldn’t be here tonight, then. I can take over for you and you can take him some soup.’

  I winced. ‘Sorry, Fiona. I wish I could, but I let you take my place only last week. I need to carry out the full ritual for at least another couple of weeks before I can let anyone else take over.’

  ‘I’m not anyone else. I’m the one who should have had this job. You didn’t want it, remember?’

  She had me there. I’d been oddly reluctant to spend my evenings rowing around the swathes of canal-kraken and causing a literal stink. ‘Well, I have the job now, so …’

  ‘Let me help you, at least. You’ll be passing the knowledge and the magic onto me when you die, anyway, so we may as well get some practise in.’

  ‘Look, I know you’re officially the next in line for this awesome job, Fiona, but I mean … we’re roughly the same age, and I’m not planning on dying anytime soon.’ Unless I happened to accidentally touch any more dangerous wands.

  ‘You never know.’ She smirked. ‘A hunter can kill you. Maybe you’ll rub Katy up the wrong way one of these days.’ She waved a hand. ‘Only kidding.’

  ‘Sure you are,’ I said. ‘Listen, on an unrelated note, do you happen to know how long I’d have to be dead before the power passes on to you?’

  Her smirk intensified. ‘Of course I know, because I actually care about this enclave. The power transfer begins once you’re dead for nine minutes, because nine is the immortal number. Now look, you need my help Ned, and you know it. Your arms will be killing you if you have to row for the next couple of hours and work the spells. Let me come along. You know you want to.’

  I didn’t. She usually spent the entire time telling me I was doing it wrong. But I really was tired, and she was a much stronger rower than I was. ‘All right then,’ I relented. ‘You can come.’

  With a gleeful smile, she hopped into the boat. ‘I knew you’d come around. It’s kind of dumb of you to let your friends and your boyfriend come out with you so much, instead of sticking with a proper Cackler like me. Even if your friends do put the super into natural, it’s not the way things ought to be done, is it? The Cacklers always work alone.’ She nodded to my hand. ‘And by the way, you should really put a bit more oomph into your finger movements tonight. I don’t think that the vapour’s been nearly as strong as it was when Minnie or your mother had this job.’

  Oh, Holy Hecate. Was I actually going to let myself in for a couple of hours of this?

  ‘You know what?’ I said. ‘I think you’re right. Cacklers ought to work alone. Starting with tonight.’ I waved a hand. ‘Bye, bye.’

  She blinked at me, her green eyes filled with shock and fury. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Deadly serious, actually. Do one, Fiona.’

  She climbed angrily and noisily out of the boat. As I unhitched the rope and began to row away, she screeched after me, ‘Enjoy your alone-time, Nedina! Because that’s your destiny, after all! You’re destined to spend your nights alone forever, and to protect this enclave until the day you die, and don’t you ever forget it!’

  7. I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself

  Big Dog Groceries and Deli was open late, so I headed there after my night-job and bought some soup. I felt a little ashamed that the soup was Fiona’s idea. It should have occurred to me sooner.

  It also should have occurred to me to call on Jay earlier in the day, when I was missing Hamish and Katy. I could have saved myself an awful lot of trouble if I’d stayed away from the Wayfarer Station. Sure, the Infernal Artefacts would have been coming my way eventually, but I would have much preferred to delay the arrival for as long as I could. Sometimes, procrastination is the wiser choice.

  With the soup purchased, I clicked my fingers and took myself to Jay’s flat. My arms ached from rowing as I rang his doorbell. The tune to an old song called I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself began to play. I gritted my teeth and tried to stop myself punching the doorbell. It was one of those psychic doorbells vampires were so fond of. The tune it played was supposedly relevant to the bell-ringer. It might be a favourite song, or one you couldn’t get out of your mind, or even a song which reflected how you were feeling at the time you rang.

  But as usual, the doorbell got it wrong, because the only song which would accurately reflect the way I was feeling right now would be the current hit from That Stick Is Mine! called I Hate Psychic Doorbells.

  A few seconds later, Jay opened the door, a look of surprise on his face. ‘Ned. It’s … it’s late.’

  He was fully dressed in double denim and a pair of leather flip flops. His hair was longer than ever, reaching to the centre of his back. Women who met Jay often said that he was one of the few guys who could pull off long hair and double denim. But no matter how ridiculously handsome he looked, it didn’t change the fact that he did not look sick.

  I held up the chicken soup. ‘I thought that even if you were feeling under the weather, you’d be up late. Y’know, because you’re a vampire. So I brought this.’

  I walked past him and headed up the stairs, tensing a little as I did so. I was growing tense because he was tense. I wasn’t imagining it, was I? Only a week ago I’d turned down the offer of a key to his flat, thinking it was too soon. We’d only been together for a few months, after all. But maybe I’d offended him when I refused to take the key.

  I paused at the doorway on the small landing at the top of the stairs. The door was ajar, and I could smell something spicy.

  ‘Oh. Is that Indian food I smell?’

  He nodded, rushing in past me and clearing the plates from the dining table. ‘Yip. Just … thought it would make me feel better. They say spices are good for colds.’

  I frowned. ‘A cold? That’s what’s wrong with you? Y’know, Fiona isn’t right about many things, but when she said to me this evening that she found it weird to hear of a sick vampire, well … I have to agree with her for once. I didn’t know vampires caught colds. I thought you had a super strong immune system.’

  I glanced at the table. He’d rushed off with the plates, but there were two glasses remaining. One of them had a lipstick mark on the rim.

  As he came back from the kitchen, he caught me looking at the glass. ‘That was … Melissa. You know, Miles’s business partner. She popped over and we had a drink.’

  I narrowed my eyes and went absolutely silent. Miles was Jay’s flatmate, and he often had his partner, Melissa, over for dinner. But someone else was here right now, I could sense it, and it wasn’t Melissa or Miles. Miles’s bedroom door was wide open, as was the bathroom door. No one was in either of those rooms. And if on the off-chance that Melissa or Miles happened to be in any other room, they’d pop out to say hello.

  But why would Jay lie? He never lied to me.

  As he squirmed beneath my gaze, I heard a crash in Jay’s bedroom. Before he could stop me, I pushed open the door and dashed into the room. A woman was standing by the chest of drawers. On the ground at her feet there was a smashed photo frame. I knew without looking what it was – it was the one and only photo Jay had in his room, one of him and me on the stage at our favourite pub, the Bank, singing Abba songs on karaoke night.

  But instead of focusing on the broken frame, I looked at the woman. She was tall and willowy, dressed in a long, bronze, tunic-style dress with a split that revealed most of her tanned, toned legs. She wore old-fashioned leather sandals with leather straps which wrapped up those perfect legs. On her arms there were tattooed symbols. She had piercing blue eyes and waist-length red hair.

  I’d taken off my Cackler cloak, but no matter what I wore I would never be as glamorous as this woman. As I looked at her, I noticed that she wasn’t alone in the room. Well, not quite. Ghosts swarmed around her, mostly the ghosts of men who gazed adoringly in her direction.

  ‘Ah, you must be Nedina.’ She placed the broken frame on the chest of drawers and stretched a hand out to me. ‘I am Cassandra, an old friend of Jay’s.’

  When I didn’t take her hand, she gave me a knowing smile and said, ‘I see you’ve come to the conclusion that Jay and I were fooling around behind your back. I assure you, we haven’t fooled around for at least three decades.’

  I stared at Jay, who was in the doorway now, looking more uncomfortable than ever. ‘She’s a vampire? Like you? And she’s your ex-girlfriend? Why did you lie to me, Jay? Why didn’t you just tell me you were seeing her tonight?’

  ‘I …’ His mouth hung open. ‘I … it’s not what you think, Ned.’

  I glared at them both. ‘A million psychic doorbells couldn’t tell you what I’m thinking right now.’ With that, I clicked my fingers and took myself home.

  8. Rejected, Ejected, It’s All The Same

  My bed was a circular one. When I saw it in the shop, it seemed like such a good idea. In reality, it had no headboard, and even if I pushed it right back against the wall, I still couldn’t sit up comfortably. I had trouble buying bedding for it too, and usually had to have my sheets specially made. At the moment I was having a rounded headboard crafted for it, but it was probably going to be just as bad an idea as the bed was.

  I tell you this only so you’ll know that I am a woman who, when she makes a bad decision, will often stick to it, when what she really ought to be doing is throwing it out and buying something better.

  And, as stubborn as I’ve been to hold onto my bad-decision bed, I’ve held onto boyfriends who I ought to throw out, too. The thing is, you can be absolutely aware of a personal flaw, and yet feel helpless to change it. Here I was, with yet another dodgy boyfriend, and what was I going to do about it? Yes, I’d left his flat and come home to sulk on my stupidly-shaped bed, but what about tomorrow, when I missed him? What about when he called and made a perfectly rational excuse that I’d reluctantly accept?