Prayer for a Fallen Angel: Chapter One

The Theological College of St Van Helsing

My apologies, I’m in the middle of a course and I’m lousy at multi-tasking, so instead of a short story, this month I offer you the first chapter of the final novel in the College of St Van Helsing series. You’ll have read most of short stories that build up to this point, so without further ado, here is Chapter One of Prayer for a Fallen Angel.

Image: Public Domain.

Chapter One

Josh Analay slammed the lid on his jar, with the Will-o'-the-wisp caught inside, and screwed it down. Light pulsed as the creature fought against the seals. Pulling out his permanent marker, he scrawled the final prayer that kept the malign spirit secure. Then, using the handy label, he added a date and type of capture.

A chilly wind rattled the yew trees and tried to crawl down his neck. Probably wouldn’t snow before Christmas, but you never knew. He dropped the labelled containment vessel into his black backpack and turned to his companion.

“There, all caught.”

“Plastic now?” The old vicar’s nostrils flared in disapproval. “That looks like something to give a specimen to a doctor, not a place to keep a demon. I wouldn’t have thought anything other than a secure glass jar could give proper containment.”

He didn’t say like the proper old Witch-Finders use, but it hovered at the edge of speech.

“It’s our faith and prayers that control it, not the man-made vessel.” Josh kept his tone as easy as possible. The longer he argued with the old vicar, the longer he’d have to stand over this grave smelling of piss.

Granted, it was a G.O.A.T. spell that had a Will-o'-the-wisp leading drunks to piss on this grave, but he had enough of foul smells from his work in London.

“A very respectable man, and a fine teacher, was Mr Lockyer,” the old vicar rambled on. “He’d have caned any boy that did this, no matter the modern namby-pamby laws. Died last year of a broken heart. Dedicated to teaching he was, and they forced him out. Too old-fashioned.”

Not that grave desecration was something Josh should approve of, he reminded himself, but that explained why someone had decided to cast the spell. Some past student taking revenge. He gave a wisp of a smile and opened his senses. Other Witch-Finders required special consecrated mirrors or other devices to help them trace a spell. He just had to ‘smell’ them. His early years of training had been in how to switch off his Witch Sniffing abilities.

At his side, the old vicar wittered away.

With his other senses wide open, Josh saw. With each passing moment, the lines of the spell were disappearing. The peculiar colours of old blood and stinking, stagnant canal mud flowed around the edge of the grey stone church that dominated the darkening sky. Tangled lines of power weaved their way out of the churchyard. Josh chased after them.

“Don’t you walk off when I’m talking to you, young man!” the vicar huffed. “I was giving you a list of who might have done this.”

Josh held up a hand to shut the man up as he hastened to the Lych Gate and through to the street beyond. A last burst of light and the spell fizzled out. Boots pounded on the stone paving slabs as Josh sprinted to the place where it had died away. Ah ha! X marked the spot, or rather a yellow bin set out by the council, containing grit salt for the paths. Probably not used yet this year, with the mild, wet weather.

Josh yanked up the lid—it was heavier than he expected—revealing a pattern inscribed in the sand. Underneath the bin cover, someone had taped a book encased in a plastic bag. Josh pulled out his phone and photographed the summoning pattern. The old vicar’s shoes tippy-tapped on the pavement as he trotted up, still whining about Josh’s attitude.

The vicar’s face formed a perfect scream emoji when he saw the pattern gouged into the grit. He hastily crossed himself. Josh managed to avoid rolling his eyes.

No power remained in the setup now that Josh had captured the summoned wisp. He ran a gloved hand over the inverted pentacle, wiping it away. Whoever had cast that summoning would have an enormous backlash hangover right now from Josh breaking the spell. He turned his attention to the plastic-covered package. Pulling the tape off, he pressed the plastic down to read the cover, Hygromancy of Solomon: 13th edition. Another of these students taking the Nocturn Seminary correspondence course. He shook his head and shoved the entire package into his backpack. With the ‘Seminary’ shut down, they wouldn’t get a replacement. He lowered the lid against the gathering drizzle.

“There,” Josh said. “All sorted. I’ll be off now.”

The vicar pulled himself up to his full height and peered down at Josh. “When I was a young vicar, the Witch-Finders would have tracked down the perpetrator of such a heinous act and given him such a walloping!”

“And they wonder why the younger generation doesn’t come to church anymore,” Josh muttered. Raising his voice, he added, “I’ve got their book, they won’t be able to do that again.”

Drizzle caught in Josh’s ginger hair. He’d come out wearing a hoodie, which was ridiculous considering it was the Winter Solstice. But the weather wasn’t that cold and someone had called in an emergency. Nothing urgent about this call out. A third-year student could have cancelled the spell, if all the lower years hadn’t been on their way home for the Christmas vacation.

“I need to head off,” Josh said again. “If you get any more trouble, send to over to our College.”

“What is the world coming to?” the vicar huffed. “Once upon a time, your College turned out gentlemen who followed these things through.”

Josh waved goodbye. That was the problem. The College of St Van Helsing didn’t turn out gentlemen. It recruited them from the private schools that only the Sons of Gentlemen attended. Josh scuffed his boots on the pavement. He was so far out of his league, having failed his A levels at the local sixth form college. Yet, while he was working as a double glazing salesman, they recruited him. And hadn’t his mam gone ballistic about his abandoning a steady career like that to study theology?

He pulled the hood over his hair and tucked the long ginger cue of his plait inside. Water dripped from his nose. He grinned sourly. If only he’d remembered an umbrella it probably wouldn’t be raining now.

At the station, he fed change into a machine for a sandwich. He ate his lunch while waiting for an Overground train to Liverpool Street station where he transferred to the Underground. He rode the Northern line to Tower Bridge. From there it was a short walk to the College. If he’d spun the call out all afternoon he might have missed Chapter. He had been too eager to get away from that miserable old man.

As he arrived at the College, the lower years participated in an ongoing exodus. Cars with chauffeurs, cars with the latest year number plates. Some students trundled their luggage along the street to the station, but most of the young men’s parents or chauffeurs collected them.

These were the Gentlemen that the old vicar had expected to turn up to solve his problem with a cursed gravesite. Their posh public school voices grated on his northern ears as they called out their farewells, but part of his job, even now, was to teach the younger students. And next year—always hoping his Ph.D. thesis ever got finished and he passed—he would be a proper lecturer here at the College. A Council House brat from Barnsley, mixing with the Gentlemen.

“Bye, Mr Analay. Merry Christmas!”

Josh pulled up a smile and acknowledged the greeting with a wave. He weaved through the crowds and went inside. At least it was warm entering the college buildings. With everyone gone, only the lemon-scented wood polish, used to keep the wainscoting below the dado rail in tip-top condition, filled the space. The porter looked up from The Times as Josh opened the door and folded the paper onto his desk.

“Would you like me to dry your jacket, Mr Analay?”

‘Mr Analay’, who’d ha’ thought it? He shrugged out of the hoodie. “Thanks. I should have taken my coat, but I didn’t check the weather report.”

“You should warm up with a cup of tea, Mr Analay,” the porter said. “You wouldn’t want to get ill just before Christmas.” Balancing the hoodie on two fingers, expressing his disdain for the shoddy garment, the porter retreated into the back room.

“No time. I’ve got work to do. But thanks.”

Josh trotted through the lobby. A smell of gravy drifted out of the dining hall to the left of the mahogany Grand Staircase. His stomach growled, pointing out that the cardboard sandwich from a vending machine failed to match the glories of the meals they provided here.

Josh ignored the complaint and stomped up the stairs, carrying his backpack and wondering why he’d got mixed up in all this posh stuff. The college echoed, more so than the normal end-of-semester hush. He filed the thought away as he swung by Dunkley’s office and the secure storage facility, to lock up the contraband he carried.

He tapped on the door, but there was no answer, so he opened it and peered in. The office was empty and Josh stepped through.

Empty was relative. The only thing that meant was Dunkley wasn’t here. Books lined the walls, some of which Dunkley had written himself. Four wooden filing cabinets stood to the left of the door. Piles of paperwork on the cluttered desk suggested that the owner of the room had been called out unexpectedly.

A package in the in-tray caught Josh’s attention. A curious blankness to its psychic aura suggested heavy shielding. That was a Dunkley-eyes-only thing. He’d be the only one with the key to open it safely.

Skirting the desk, Josh opened a five-panelled wooden door on the right wall. Behind it was a metal vault. Josh entered the code and chanted a prayer, breaking the seal. He heaved open the heavy door. Inside the vault, jars and boxes, tomes and grimoires lined the shelves.

All the prayers that he and Mr Dunkley had worked into the walls damped down the pervading psychic stench but someone with Josh’s heightened sensitivities still felt the anger and despair—sort of soggy and mouldy—leaking from so many inhabitants.

Setting down the backpack, he retrieved his haul. The book, he filed on a shelf with seventeen identical copies. Beneath the shelf hung a chart. He filled it in, registering date and location of confiscation.

Under the ‘W’ section of the shelves, Josh placed the scorned plastic vial containing the Will-o’-the-wisp. Again, he filled in the paperwork, noting the circumstances of capture. Somehow, he doubted Mr Dunkley would find it funny to summoned drunks to piss on a grave.

Josh retreated from the vault and reset the lock with an invocation. The air filters whirred to remove any dust or moisture. Not the smallest particle of dust or water vapour was permitted to settle and potentially compromise the containment.

With the busy work done, Josh closed the concealing wooden door. A glance over the desk showed him there was no paperwork he could help with, so he left the office to get on with his work.

Walking along the upper corridor, he passed two of the older working Witch-Finders having high tea in a window embrasure. Mr Toller was drawing containment circles on the table in salt, explaining something to Mr Carside. Neither of them acknowledged Josh, and he wasn’t in the mood to get into a conversation over the relative merits of old versus new restraints.

As Josh passed, Toller’s phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and, after a brief conversation, swigged the remains of his tea and stuffed a cream scone into his mouth. He picked up his staff as he chewed and left Carside to finish off the snack.

Josh continued one to the Senior Student’s library. Now, he could return to the work he’d been doing before his call out. At least it was Toller, not Josh, who had been assigned to that new task.

Josh’s laptop sat where he had left it on a highly polished wooden table. The heavy weight of generations of knowledge sat on bloated shelves around the walls of the room. The dusty vanilla of the old books eased his senses. He skirted the thick Turkish rug laid on the parquet floor—Mam would give him a right bollocking for tromping his boots over that.

Glancing at his watch, he swung into the chair and booted up. He still had time to compile the results of several more social media polls before the Final Chapter of the year was called. But first, he had to fill in the digital forms to log his call out. So much paperwork, just to do the day job. With the busy work finally done, he could get back to his studies.

Over the last two years, he’d gathered data on the prevalence of folk superstitions in the modern era. Such as remembering to carry a brolly to make sure it didn’t rain. Or believing that leaving the laundry on the line was the best rain-summoning spell in existence—even Mam believed that one, and she was the least superstitious person he knew. He’d already included most of the results in the graphs and charts embedded in his Ph.D. thesis. But a few more were still coming in. He added them, noting the change or lack thereof to his pie charts.

A knock sounded on the library door.

“Hello?” Josh lowered the screen over the keyboard

One of the waiters from the dining hall entered, carrying a silver tray. On the tray was a reusable travel mug with the lid firmly screwed on.

“The porter suggested you might require some tea, sir.”

Josh accepted it. “Umm, thanks.”

“You’re welcome, sir.” The waiter left. Josh was just grateful they didn’t bow.

He sipped the tea. It was weak, just how the locals liked it. He supposed he should be grateful they hadn’t sent Earl Grey. On the plus side, it was hot and wet, and the cup had a lid to prevent damage to either computers or books.

Typing one-handed, he gulped down the warmth and set the mug on the edge of the desk to be picked up. A heavy feeling of being a class traitor weighed on him; having a waiter bring him tea and tidy up after him.

He was deep inside his data sheet, updating the main graph, when Pitt-Keithley poked his head in the door to disturb him. Despite the prevailing college fashion, Pitt-Keithley wore his hair in a short back and sides. Most of the men in the College grew their hair to shoulder length. Those first years who had greeted him at the door were already growing out their hairstyles, and they’d only been here two months.

“Josh, it’s time for Chapter.”

Josh stared at the clock over the door and he realised he’d lost two hours somewhere. “Oh, thanks, Ken.”

The young man at the door winced. He came from the old school (public variety) where everyone (i.e. men) addressed him by his surname. Josh couldn’t be having any of that stuff. He’d convinced most of them he was ‘Josh’ not ‘Analay’.

Setting his laptop into sleep mode, he shoved it among the rest of the junk in his backpack. Leaving the library, he joined his colleague on the walk down to the chapel.

“Do you know if I’m supposed to attend Chapter? I mean…” Pitt-Keithley trailed off.

“I’m not sure.” Josh knew exactly what he meant. Depression caught in his throat. Halloween had claimed the life of Mr. Kilbride, Pitt-Keithley’s principal teacher. There was no one to take his place.

“Has there been any progress on finding a replacement for Mr Kilbride?” Pitt-Keithley asked.

“Replacing the Inner Circle is problematic because you’re trained up to it,” Josh said. “So the replacement for Mr Kilbride is you.”

“I’m not trained!” He tugged at his shirt collar, easing off his tie.

“Don’t I know it?” Josh ran a hand through his hair, digging his nails into his scalp. “And the only potential replacement for our other vacant Inner Circle position, which Mr Trewithick used to hold, has just started his third year. I’m assigned to improvising his training because I studied under Mr Trewithick until he… got unwell. At least you’re a lot closer to full membership.”

“That’s the Inner Circle at half capacity,” Pitt-Keithley said.

“Well, let’s pray there’s no crisis that requires the full Inner Circle for the next five years, hey?”

ENDS

Hopefully, I’ll be back on track for short stories next month, if not I’ll post Chapter Two.

My other Theological college of St Van Helsing books are available on Amazon