Nightmare Realm: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (The London Coven Series Book 2) by M.V. Stott

Author:M.V. Stott [Stott, M.V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Genre Reader
Published: 2017-04-05T16:00:00+00:00

21

I met David at the gates to Acton Cemetery. It was dawn, the sun just pulling itself clear of the horizon. Forty-eight more kids hadn’t woken that morning. Forty-eight more families, confused and terrified, demanding to know why their child lay dead to the world.

‘Are you sure Amy will be okay on her own?’ asked David.

I wanted to reassure him, but I also didn’t want to lie.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, now I feel loads better.’

‘She’s as safe as anyone can be at this point. No one will be able to get to her at the coven, but if all we do is sit by her side playing nurse, we’ll just be watching her die. So let’s get on with this.’

I strode through the cemetery gates with David at my side.

It had happened eighty years ago. Twenty years before my witches created me. David had read about it on an old police blotter – a matter-of-fact rendition of something terrible. Something beyond terrible.

Alice Travers had been nine years old, sent by her mum to buy some bread early one morning. She never made it to the shop. Two kids from her year at school had been out early too. A boy and a girl who had made it their daily routine to terrorise Alice. Eventually, it lead to their exclusion from the school they shared, and Alice had thought it was over.

It almost was.

The two kids knew Alice would be out alone, bright and early. Being sent to the shop for bread was a daily chore. The boy had been the first to see her. It seemed like he was on his own. Alice had run, straight ahead, towards the shops, and the boy had given chase. Alice met the girl soon after, blocking the path ahead. The bullies has purposefully cut off two paths of escape, forcing Alice to blindly run down the back alley. The back alley out of view of any passers-by. The back alley with the dead end.

Alice must have realised right away that she’d made a mistake. Did she know what was about to happen? She must have been terrified but thought, at worst, they’d punch and kick her. Taunt her. Spit on her. Did she have any idea at all about what the two bullies really had in store for her that morning?

I wondered how they’d gone about it. Had they padded towards her, slowly and deliberately, enjoying the fear? Dragging it out until Alice’s heart felt like it was going to give out? Or had they run into the alley, sprinted towards her, hungry to get started?

The kids, when the police picked them up, claimed they hadn’t meant to kill Alice Travers. That they’d just wanted to teach her a lesson for getting them into trouble. For getting them excluded from school and in terrible strife with their parents.

Had they been telling the truth? Was it a case of bullying gone too far? Or maybe a mania had overtaken them, a blood lust as they egged each other on, past the point of no return.

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