Dark Horse

Dark Horse is the forty third chapter in the Wombles Eight.

Katy lounged on her throne, holding the staff in her hand and singing to herself.

*Don’t…make me your enemy, your enemy, your enemy                                                                                                            So you wanna play with magic?                                                                                                                                                     Boy you should know what you’re falling for                                                                                                                                 Baby do you dare to do this?                                                                                                                                                         ‘Cause I’m coming atcha like a dark horse                                                                                                                                   Are you ready for ready for                                                                                                                                                           A perfect storm a perfect storm?                                                                                                                                                Cause once you’re mine once you’re mine                                                                                                                                 There’s no going back – I want what I deserve!*

The Superlative Three – Esmerelda Summers, Penny Stewart and Aaron Donaghy – came in accompanied by Dora Aniston.

“Good evening.” Purred Katy. “What may I do for you, my beautiful subjects?”

“Your Majesty, Tara Keel and Gordon Kingston have both survived your curse of deep sleep. The Superlative Spirits showed it to us.” Claimed Penny.

Katy clicked her pearl-pierced tongue. “Superlative Spirits, my foot. They can’t have done.”

“She’s telling the truth!” protested Aaron, who had a long-standing romantic relationship with Penny. Katy looked to Esmerelda. Esmerelda just shrugged and said dryly, “Hell if I know, Your Majesty.”

“Dora!” said Katy in a sickly-sweet manner. “Haven’t you any reason to be here? I doubt you’re wasting my time with this Superlative Spirit nonsense.”

“No.” said Dora, pulling out a gun from her jacket pocket. Katy sat back and hissed, “What is this for? I am far too powerful to use human weaponry, Mrs Aniston.”

“It’s not for you to use, it’s for me.” Said Dora. She clicked the safety catch and pointed it toward Katy’s heart with a shaking hand. “I’m sorry, Kathryn. The multiverse can’t be ruled by you. You are *insane.*”

Dora pulled the trigger, but Katy just smiled, snake-like. The ember in her staff glowed strongly, and the bullet rebounded. Dora screamed as she collapsed to the floor, and Aaron and Penny squirmed a little. Esmerelda just smiled slyly, which was echoed by Katy’s far more wicked one. She cackled and repeated the lyrical line *I want what I deserve!* Before drifting off into a dreamy sleep.

*Katy was in her LA apartment watching a horror movie. It was an advert break at the moment – currently advertising Monin Christmas syrups – so she was texting back and forth with her newish friend Inez.*

***Katy:*** *Hey Inez, what’s up?*

***Inez:*** *Nothing gurl. Just chillin.*

***Katy:*** *Wanna come over then?*

***Inez:*** *Yeah, sure.*

*When Inez got there, Katy was sipping on a banana milkshake.*

*The dream’s image quickened and blurred and Katy saw flashes of scarlet hissing, “I am Inez.”*

Katy woke up with a start. “What?” she groaned to herself, sounding remarkably ordinary for once. The Superlative Three had chopped up pears for her while she was asleep, but she still had her eye mask on from Esmerelda pretending to fuss over her in order to prevent her fellow Superlatives from noticing her slip out to look for Katrina.

Katy peeled off the eye mask and saw the chopped pear. She pushed some sleep out of her eyes, then sprinkled caster sugar on the fruit and ate it sleepily. She absentmindedly switched her diamond-framed TV on, and it went onto a news story about her. She listened carefully, as she felt she should know what was being said about herself. There were some rather nasty comments thrown in, so she reassured herself during a yawn, “Multiverse domination soon.”

She was really doing anything to distract herself from the dream, as it distressed her greatly. She’d never heard of anyone called Inez, and she’d never liked horror. Nor had she ever acted like that. No, one thought and one thought only clouded her mind, it ruled her like a tyrant. *You shall rule.*

And that she would.

Tara had been sent the piece of paper with the riddle on it in the post and was reading it over and over and over. She thought it through with a deep effort and stress while Gordon watched her with concern.

“In The City Of Angels this power was hunted.”

Well, that was simple enough. It was riddle-speak, unlikely to be too literal, so that must mean that someone had gone searching for some form of mysticism in Los Angeles.

“A figment of the depths of burning hell.”

A demon, maybe?  That would make sense…

“A manifestation no-one wanted.”

That was tricky. Some form of unpopular item? Or perhaps someone with not many friends?

“Important help.”

Important, important…the police were important. The doctors were important. The people like her and Inlustris were important. Pretty much everyone was important in some way, actually.

Tara screeched in frustration and threw the paper in the fire, accidentally ripping it up before it landed. It had to mean *something*- but what on Earth *was* that something?

White-and-gold glitter, far softer and less magic-like than Tara’s or Katy’s, clouded the room. It landed gently on places including Tara and Gordon, but didn’t really do much else – except that Inlustris appeared.

“Hello, sweetheart.” She said to Tara. “I’ve come to tell you…you need to find the power that was corrupted by I.N. James.”

“By *what?*” asked Tara incredulously. “I.N. James.” Repeated Inlustris, and disappeared in another cloud of soft glitter.

A frantic knock sounded at the door. Which was odd, considering it was technically a dead woman’s door. Neither Tara nor Gordon answered, yet the door creaked open and in walked Melissa Mackennan. Unfortunately, Tara and Gordon both had no idea who she was, and so they saw her as a potential threat.

Tara walked right up to her and demanded, “Who are you.”

“My name is Melissa Mackennan.”said Melissa. “Or Anastacia Melissa Mackennan-Black, if you went by my legal name. But please don’t.”

“Well, Mackennan,” said Tara. “What are *you* doing in Venus King’s unsold apartment?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?” Melissa questioned in shock. “I’m here because I can’t afford an argument with Katy. You?”

“Needed a place to hide out to help him, without being found.” Said Tara, gesturing towards Dr King.

“Oh.” Said Melissa, glancing towards him. “Mind if I stay then? I’m kinda exhausted. Running in six-inch heels doesn’t do you much good.”

Tara shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

Melissa opened Venus’s kitchen cupboard (it was a living-room and kitchen in one) and poured herself a glass of rose wine. She found a tube of Black Forest syrup and added a dash of it in her wine then sat on the sofa and began to sip.

“I’m investigating Katy, by the way.” She explained. “I’ve been hoping to stop her, but I’m used to ordinary human criminals. She doesn’t seem like an ordinary human criminal.”

“Why don’t you use your legal name?” Gordon asked bluntly. Tara shot him a warning look, but after a long pause, Melissa replied, “My father -Rowan Black – was a very wicked man with sick business deals which he made me work with. When I was nine years old, he got found out and my mother – Melanie Mackennan – had been made mentally sick by him. Too sick to look after me, and so I was sent to live at a place where they look after the unfortunate kids of sociopaths. Not some dark type place, a very nice place, really. I lived there for the rest of my childhood and some years onward. I only ever made one fellow-child friend there, and for a long time I even wound up romantically involved with him. Our parent stories were far worse than most, so it was hard to get people to understand. But like calls to like, and so we’ve never stopped considering each other close friends. He had an abusive father, who killed his mother, but…”

Melissa’s lips twitched into a smile. “You may know him today as King Lord Sir John Steed of England.”

Tara and Gordon both started a little, but said nothing. The odd thing was that Melissa was very clearly telling the truth.

“Well, while you’re here,” said Tara. “Are you any good with riddles?”