There Are Consequences
The Chelsea flat was soulless with his tenants gone, without the stamp of his partners’ personalities or his own taste. It was the first place he’d bought for himself with his lottery win; a two-bed ground-floor flat in a red brick Victorian mansion, with fitted wardrobes and king size beds.
Wes stayed overnight in the master bedroom, but woke up thinking he was in an AirBnB. That would have to change, if he was going to be on his own for any length of time. Katy still hated him for teenage reasons and now he’d shot himself in the foot with Ricky and Carrie as well, which was where honesty got you.
Tina was pretty much the only person he had left, and he’d accidentally destroyed the friend she’d been trying to protect from his cousin, so that phone call wasn’t one he was relishing.
Sure enough, as he put her on speaker and ordered in brunch from a café he knew well, Tina was not best pleased with his explanation of recent events.
“I can’t believe you,” Tina snapped at him. “How could you be that reckless?”
“That’s a weird way of pronouncing ‘heroic’,” Wes said, trying to keep it light. “I saved Carrie, I freed Charlie, and nobody’s going to be addicted to me anymore. That’s good, isn’t it? Plus, no end of the world. Bonus global salvation. That’s not bad for an afternoon.”
“Why didn’t you let Ricky do it? He could have wished for all the same things, Katy could take your Grandad on and eat the cult, and he wouldn’t be in a position to hurt Carrie, or do all that eldritch god shit.” He could almost hear her glowering at him. “Did you even wish for the end of the world not to happen as you foresaw it, or was that a bit too sensible for you?”
“I—” Wes stopped. “Oh. Yeah, that would have been a really good idea.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? You jumped into a wishing well, got rid of your glory, which was the only thing keeping you alive as far as I can tell, and you didn’t even…” She trailed off, and Wes heard her take some steadying breaths. “What did you wish for? What was occupying your mind to the point you forgot to wish for that?”
“Carrie and Charlie’s restoration were the main ones,” Wes snapped, “I only had three.”
“Right, Carrie, Charlie—”
“I actually said, ‘all lovers past and present’, so that covers everyone I’ve fucked, including you. Just in case. I thought that was pretty ethical.”
Tina made a small sound he couldn’t interpret, a tongue-click, maybe, or else she’d bitten the top off a pen she was chewing.
“You had three wishes. What was the last one?”
“Uh…” Wes realised his mistake. “Oh. Right, I could’ve… Yeah, well, I figured that wasn’t necessary, if I lose my glory and Ricky’s destiny is to kill Grandad then we’ve got it in the bag, right?”
“You didn’t think to guarantee that?”
Wes backtracked. “Well, maybe my glory wasn’t valuable enough for that kind of a wish. It might not have worked at all, and then it would be wasted.”
“Doesn’t Ricky know some basic wish-magic too? You didn’t think to ask him to boost any wishes you made? Make sure they came true?”
Wes blinked. “You don’t like him messing with all that stuff.”
“No, but if it came down to saving the world, I’d have helped him.”
Wes closed his eyes, sinking his head in his hands. “Oh, fuck.”
“What did you wish for?”
The intercom buzzed, interrupting with perfect timing.
“I just need to get the door,” he said.
Tina gave an indignant gasp as she worked it out.
“You did not. You did not, Wesley.”
“Just got to get this, hold that thought,” he tried to hang up but the call remained stubbornly connected, his touch screen not registering his taps.
Tina was very hard to get rid of when she was riled.
“If you chose your dick over the end of the world, I will curse it off, I swear, Wes, I swear, I will curse it off you.”
He left the phone on the table and Tina swearing to the living room while he collected his takeaway brunch, and the rider gave him an embarrassed half-smile as her strident voice rang through the flat behind him.
Wes grimaced back and shut the door.
“—Why are we even friends, why do I bother with you in the first place, I just can’t—”
“I’m sorry!” Wes yelled at the phone, at the living room, at the world in general. “I’m sorry, all right, I’m sorry. I don’t know. I don’t know why I did that. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Yes you were,” Tina retorted. “You were thinking about yourself. As usual.”
He groaned, tossing the bag onto the table.
“Come on Tee. I sacrificed the one thing that makes me special. I’ve lost everything.”
“Yeah.” Her voice was clipped and low. “You have now.”
The phone went dead.
Wes snarled at it and the sudden silence, and swiped his brunch off the table in a fit of temper. A box of avocado toast fell out and splattered its contents on the floor.
“Oh, fuck me,” Wes growled to himself, and ordered a taxi to Kensington instead, although the walk might have done him good.
penthouse after making triply sure nobody would be there. Charlie wanted to come back for a bit, but didn’t want reminders of a man who’d torn a black hole into her emotional universe.
Wes didn’t know how much time he had before Hugo came home, and he’d promised himself he’d be quick.
“Where are you?” he muttered, hunting for the ointment as his first priority.
He’d put it somewhere safe. He knew that much.
He was sure it had been in one of those white hand cream tubs his grandmother liked to repurpose, but something told him he was wrong. Hadn’t it been a jar, not a tub? Was he thinking white tub because of the colour of the ointment in a glass jam jar, or something like that?
Had it even been labelled?
Wes went through every wicker storage basket in the wardrobes, every drawer in every bedroom, including Katy’s, although he knew it wasn’t there, and poked around under every bed, increasingly frustrated.
The one thing on this earth that could subdue an eldritch god with the power to suck out thoughts and drain people’s energies and auras was in his boyfriend’s apartment, and Wes couldn’t remember where he’d put it, or what the fuck he was looking for.
Finally, beneath the guest bed, he found it duct taped to the underside of the frame along with a packet of pills and three coke wraps he’d forgotten were there. He pulled those out first, wondering how wasted he must have been to stash something like this and forget. His memory was shot to shit anyway, and his mother had always said he was scatter-brained, even as a kid.
Wes pulled out from under the bed, the unexpected treasure trove in his hand. He’d always been more focused with a bit of snow. What was he going to do, call Tina and tell her he needed some support? A dark scoff wrenched out of his bruised chest.
This was his moment: the Sisyphean tragedy, when he gave up and watched his boulder roll back down the hill.
His phone buzzed.
Wes clapped his hand to his pocket, dropping the packet on the carpet. It was Hugo.
:Coming home in about an hour, is that ok? Did you send someone over for your stuff or?:
Wes exhaled in a rush, and kicked the packet back under the bed where he couldn’t see it.
:Fine. Should all be done by then.:
Clutching the jar, still tacky from the duct tape, Wes left the guest room and slammed the door, trying not to think about what he needed, what he really, really needed, and how easy it would be…
It took a few brisk circuits of the apartment to calm himself down. He found a smoothie Katy had left in the fridge and downed the whole thing in one go, desperate for some stimulation that wasn’t a thin white line.
Why can’t I fucking focus?
He had an hour. Under an hour. He hadn’t packed a single bag.
The lash of failure was motivation enough, and he made himself start with his wardrobe, dumping all his shirts and waistcoats and statement pieces on the bed, shoving them into a large suitcase in their plastic wrapping, throwing hangers into a tangled trip-hazard behind him.
Inevitably, when it came to keepsakes and lotions and all the small things, he got distracted, finding random things from the last few years that yanked him off-task and into a pit of tainted memories, snatching for things to be close to them both. He ended up on the floor of their shared bedroom, bags full, his back against the bed.
The front door opened, and Wes cursed, unaware of the time.
“Hello?” Hugo called into the entranceway, and Wes took a steady breath.
“I’m just going,” he shouted, snatching up his stuff and heaving himself upright. “Sorry.”
Hugo was in the hall, and when Wes emerged from the living room, he blinked.
“Oh! Sorry. Did – did my boyfriend give you a key?”
Wes froze. The friendly blank stare from his boyfriend of four years kicked him in the gut. Hugo was face-blind, but he had, quite literally, never seen Wes before in his life.
“I – yeah.” He wondered if he sounded different on the phone, or if Hugo was so unused to remembering his voice that he simply didn’t recognise it. “You want it back?”
Hugo gave him a sympathetic smile. “Yes please, if you’ve got everything. Don’t worry if you’ve missed stuff, I’ll drop it off to his place myself later. Kind of you to do this.”
Wes nodded, digging in his pocket for the key.
“Sorry, you sound familiar.” Hugo frowned in his apologetic, good-natured way. “I can’t place your voice, though.”
“Why should you? I think we’ve only spoken a couple of times.” As soon as it was out of his mouth, he kicked himself.
No, but it’s me. I might sound a bit different on the phone, but it’s me.
Wes did his best not to let it show, but that hurt.
He shot Hugo his best, flirting smile, trying to see something.
“He didn’t tell me his boyfriend was so good-looking.”
This earned him a short, embarrassed laugh.
Wes handed the key over, brushing Hugo’s hand.
“You, er. Do you see other people?”
“Not at the moment.” Hugo’s fingers closed on the apartment key, and he moved his hand out of reach. “Not really looking. It’s – it’s a bit complicated at the moment.”
Wes shifted his weight, blocking the hall. “Do you fancy dinner? A drink, or…?”
“Thanks. No. I – no offence, but, you’re not really my type.” Hugo shrugged his broad shoulders, wincing, red-cheeked. “Sorry.”
Not his type.
Wes took that like a slap. “I mean, how do you know?” he managed, covering with a toss of his head. “I don’t have to be a particular type to give good head, that’s… your loss.”
“Yeah, guess it is.” Hugo backed up and opened the door. “Thanks for coming over.”
Wes squeezed the handles of the bags until his hands lost circulation.
He could have said, “Do you really not know who I am?” but he didn’t. He could have just told him. He could have made a joke out of it, a terribly awkward, cringey joke, but he didn’t.
He could have said anything at all.
Instead, with a pained shrug, Wes rounded his shoulders and slipped by his boyfriend like a stranger.
It was amazing how a single moment could ruin your life, he thought, trudging to the lift.
So much for heroism.
Wes seethed as the lift doors closed, caged in an opulent box of mirrors.
“You bastard,” he muttered at his reflection. “You bastard. You let me jump in for nothing. I’ve lost everything, and I’m nobody now.”
You’re not my type.
Hugo’s apologetic dismissal broke through his attempts to focus on bigger things.
He just didn’t know it was me, Wes thought, as the lift bore him away from his lover and back to the much colder arms of the concierge. He loves me. He wouldn’t fall out of love with me that fast, it’s not the same as Charlie.
Not the same, no; but still oceans of complicated.
Wes paused in the lobby, trying to collect himself.
He’d made a terrible mistake. It was too difficult, re-learning how to guard his expressions, relying on his personality and subjective attractiveness to get a foot in the door, being someone nobody knew, starting again.
Wes felt tricked. He had no idea who to call, who to talk to. He texted Carrie to let Ricky know he’d retrieved the ointment, hoping for an invite back down, but didn’t get one.
Her thank you was curt and emoji-less, and not at all promising.
Wes knew he had a lot of ground to make up there, but that was all right. He could play the long game, provided they all lived that long.
He got a taxi back to his flat, dumped his stuff in the door, went straight back out for a pack of cigarettes, and chain-smoked them in the lonely garden for the next hour and a half.
Katy turned up on the weekend, said very little about his face or anything else, and cleaned the whole flat before making him something to eat.
Wes let her. He couldn’t bring himself to answer his phone.
He drank a bottle of red, took an edible and went to bed, blissfully numb and incapable of coherent thought, and over the next few days that became a ritual that bled into any and every waking hour.
Katy put up with it for the next few days until one morning when she dragged him out of bed at the ungodly hour of eight o’clock, announced that she had arranged for a cleaner to come in, tipped every bottle of wine in the flat down the kitchen sink, and rang Carrie.
“We’re coming down to see you,” Katy said on the phone, putting a vegan Full English breakfast in front of Wes without looking at him.
Her ruthless efficiency terrified him more than her godly transformation. He started on his grilled mushroom and meat-free bacon, wondering when she’d learned to cook.
“Yeah, I know it’s a bit short-notice, but he’s going to drop that stuff off for Ricky, and he needs a change of scene. Plus, Lay messaged me, she says she’s talked to her brothers about exile and after everything that’s happened, they want out. So I want to discuss that with us all together.”
Wes raised his eyes from the plate, smoke-sore and dehydrated, and blinked at her. “Exile?”
It came out in a croak.
Christ, how much have I been smoking?
Katy poured him a glass of orange juice and set it in front of him, listening to whatever Carrie was saying.
“Sure. We can come down this afternoon if that’s easiest. Is it okay for us to stay over, though, he won’t be driving down.”
“Are you still talking about me?” Wes asked, amused by this presumption, but she held up a finger.
Silenced, he drank his juice and let her handle it.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine. He’s got to sign some paperwork at the club this morning. Yeah, the new manager’s nice, I think. I’ve only really emailed him.”
“What?” Wes caught her by the elbow as she paced by his chair, phone in one hand and a piece of toast in the other. She rolled her eyes at him, holding the phone away from her mouth so she could reply.
“You have the same password for, like, everything. Your inbox is a mess. I’ve rearranged a ton of stuff for you and put it all in your calendar. You can thank me later.”
Wes stared at her.
Katy shook him off and took a bite of toast, speaking around it. “Sorry, he’s really not handling things at the moment. It would be good if we could all be together for a bit. Yeah, I know. I know. But to be honest, it’s also not fair I’m dealing with him on my own, you know?”
“Dealing with—”
She shushed him, taking another bite of toast.
“Okay, great. Thanks so much. We’ll be down later, I’ll message you when we’re on the train.” She hung up, sat down, and finished her toast.
Wes forgot his own breakfast, the last few days of wine, cigarettes and weed curdling unpleasantly with the acidity of the orange juice.
“Did you hack my email?”
She eyeballed him, and he couldn’t hold her gaze.
“No. You never sign out of anything. Your phone’s been ringing non-stop. You’ve got actual shit to do, did you forget that? I sold a load of stock for you as well on that app you’ve got. Ricky said the omens were good, and the prices were up pretty high, so you made a fair bit on them.”
“It’s – what day is it?”
“Friday.”
“Friday?” Wes couldn’t recall a single distinguishing feature of any day of the previous week. Dread slithered into his chest and he smacked his forehead as an appointment resurfaced, far too late to change.
“Shit, shit, shit-eating fuck, I had a meeting on Wednesday…”
“Which I rearranged for ten o’clock today, yeah.” Katy sucked butter off her fingers. “Right. Eat. All of it. And get dressed. Taxi’s coming in about forty minutes. Ricky said you’ve got something for him, right, so put that in the suitcase and bring it.”
“Suitcase?” His entire vocabulary was reduced to an echo.
His baby sister gave him the look of a tired, aged woman.
“I packed for the weekend. We’re sharing a case because we won’t need much stuff, it’s only Ricky and Carrie. Put the ointment in the little zip part in the top.”
“But you only just told her we were coming.” Wes wondered if he was losing whole stretches of time and didn’t know it. Had she packed sometime between the phone call and this conversation? He was sure she’d just sat down.
Katy nodded. “Yeah, I packed last night. I mean, I wasn’t asking.” She cocked an eyebrow. “You’re a dick, but you’re my brother.”
Wes didn’t know what that meant.
“I’m not just going to leave you to have a massive crisis and get shit-faced on your own,” Katy translated, “And there comes a point where, like, that’s done with. You know? And this is it. We’re done now. Okay?”
He realised his mouth had dropped open.
“Right,” he managed, and she nudged his foot under the table.
“Eat. Clean plate, let’s go.”
Wes picked up his knife and fork and did as he was told. He finished the whole plate, dressed in a haze, and took the jar in his coat pocket with him to the club.
“What the hell did Layla say to you?” he asked in the taxi, and Katy just smiled.
He wondered how much she knew.
“Tina’s not talking to me,” he said, testing the waters, and Katy gave him a sidelong glance.
“Carrie told me why.”
“Oh.” Wes chewed his fingernail. “And?”
Katy shrugged. “Did it work?”
He snorted. Ironically, that was the one wish he hadn’t had time to test. “Not really been in the mood, to be honest.”
Katy fought a smirk and lost. “God, you’re such a twat.”
This cheered him up. They reached the Blue Rose Club, and Wes hopped out, aware they had a train to catch.
“Park ‘round the corner and keep the meter running, mate. Be ten minutes.”
Katy made to get out and he shook his head.
“No, I’ve got this. Ten minutes.”
“Timing you.” She waved her phone at him, and he shut the door and headed in to his new office above the club’s main dancefloor.
Wes was so preoccupied with keeping to time, more to impress Katy than because he really wanted to catch a train to Pagham-on-Sea, that he switched off. He patted himself down and turned out his pockets to find a pen, even though there was one on the desk, and signed the papers without reading over them.
“Send me copies,” he said, absent-mindedly shoving everything off the desk and into a drawer, rather than carry the assorted collection of ticket stubs and random heavier objects around.
He and his manager shook hands, and Wes was back on time and back in the taxi before Katy sent out a search party.
When did she get so grown-up? he thought, as she produced two First Class tickets. How did she get the efficiency genes?
He needed to stop thinking of her as a kid.
The journey down passed in a comfortable, mutual silence.
Katy put her headphones on, got out her tablet and started reading something, leaving him to stare out of the window, collecting his thoughts.
It was Katy who passed him a bottle of mineral water and told him to drink it, and Katy who called a taxi from Pagham Parkway to Fairwood House; she used Uncle Bill’s firm, and they didn’t have to pay.
Wes found himself once more in the clutches of the house, and to his surprise, Ricky patted him on the back in greeting.
“Right, family meeting,” Katy announced, wheeling the shared case into the living room. “Carrie, you too.”
Wes and Ricky exchanged glances.
“Don’t look at me,” Wes said. “She came back from our Layla’s like this.”
Ricky let out a grunt of unease that Wes fully empathised with.
“Boys!” Katy called from the living room. “Come on, this is serious.”
Ricky gestured for Wes to go first, and Wes shook his head. “No, no, after you, it’s your house.”
They trooped in and took opposite ends of the sofa, the avatar filling the living room with its presence, perched on the arm beside Ricky, and Katy faced them all.
“So, I’ve got some bad news,” she said, but not in a tone of voice that suggested she was upset by it. Wes and Ricky exchanged glances again. Before one of them could ask, she said, “Me and Layla were attacked at her house while I was there, and long story short, we’re down a few mechanics.”
“Oh, not the Foremans,” Wes said, as Carrie coughed into her fist in a way that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
Katy raised her eyebrows. “That’s part of the bad news. The thing is, they came for Layla because she was marked for sacrifice. And you’ve lost your glory, so that means the cult hasn’t gone away just because you’re regular now.”
Wes closed his eyes, the weight of this sinking in.
Beside him, Ricky drew in a sharp breath and rested his arm on the back of the sofa, hand brushing Wes’s shirt.
Wes leaned forwards. “Are you… are you saying… I did all this for nothing?”
“No. Because hopefully you’ve still averted one of the apocalypses, right? And you made sure Ricky and me can deal with the other one.” Katy cocked her head. “I don’t think we needed a wish for that, to be honest. Can’t fight fate, right?” She looked at Ricky for corroboration, and Wes shot him a look, looking for his tells. Ricky had always been a terrible liar.
Ricky leaned back with a shrug. “That bearded old bastard seemed to think that was our destiny, not that I can see it if it’s mine.” He stroked Carrie’s arm, draped around his shoulders. “But if he ain’t worried, I ain’t worried.”
“Can you tell Tina that, please?” Wes asked, vindicated. “She doesn’t seem to trust destiny much.”
Ricky gave him a crooked smile. “You know she hates me.”
“Okay, back to the point,” Katy said loudly, pacing on the rug. “The cult is still out there. I can’t find them. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I can’t just go around eating everyone who thinks they’re doing the right thing or people who taste a bit holier-than-thou, can I?”
“You need to get in their heads,” Ricky supplied, meaning himself. Wes buried a twinge of bitter envy. “Get ‘em all together, and have someone dig around in their collective consciousnesses, and mark the cultists. Drain their auras for you to see.”
Katy clapped her hands, making Wes jump. “Right! Right, so we need to summon the family for that, don’t we? Like, just, get everyone together, and you do your thing, and then I eat them. Boom. No cult. Done.”
“What am I in this plan?” Wes demanded. “Window dressing?”
“We’ll use your club, like we talked about,” Katy said.
Wes choked on his own saliva. He’d hoped she had let go of this idea, but no such luck, apparently.
“Yeah. Uncle David’s boys can run security, you’ve already got the staff, and it’s big enough for everyone to pack in.” Katy had that this-lady-is-not-for-turning look that Wes both admired and dreaded.
Wes exhaled, recovering from his choking coughs. “And then what?”
“Then we lock them in.” Katy was deadly serious.
“That could work.” Ricky looked at Wes. “What d’you think?”
Wes blinked. “God, that’d be satisfying.”
You petty bitch, Wesley.
His head was swimming.
“But I can’t be there. It’d be like feeding time at the zoo.”
Ricky sighed. “All right. Listen. The only way for you to get your glory back—”
“I can get it back?” Wes nearly sprang off the sofa, heart leaping to his throat. “Whoa, whoa, how long have you known that? No, never mind. How? How do I get it back?”
Ricky rubbed his forehead. “I said listen.”
Wes shut up, quivering.
“The only way to get it back for good is if you go through the Changes again, and as far as we know, you need Grandad for that.” Ricky grimaced. “And he hates us. And he’ll probably want something in return, like—”
“We know what He wants,” Wes cut in, scowling. “So you’re saying I can’t, unless I end the world.”
“I’m saying you can get it back temporarily, for a day at most, but the rite ain’t vegan.” Ricky cocked his head. “Speaking of rites, where’s the ointment you said you’d bring me?”
Katy checked the suitcase. “Wes? I told you to put it in here.”
“It’s in my coat.” Wes recalled that part of the morning at least; the rest was a blur.
“No, it’s not.” Katy patted his coat and Wes went cold.
“Oh, Christ. I – I left it at the club.”
Ricky stared at him. “You what?”
“I wasn’t thinking, I had a quick meeting this morning in the office and I turned out my pockets and shoved everything in a drawer and I remember, I remember thinking I’d grab it before I went, and then I shut the drawer…” Wes broke off. “It’s fine. It’s safe. You can get it when we go over, when we do the… the thing.”
“So you do want your glory back, then?”
Wes examined his hands, his real hands, the lines on his palms that now stuck in his memory, the length and breadth of his fingers, the perfectly shaped nails. He had a small freckle at the base of his thumb, near the join of his wrist, that he’d never seen before. The phrase to know something like the back of your hand had always been a mocking one as far as he was concerned.
Well – at least he could say he’d memorised himself now, and it wasn’t worth it.
He looked up. “I don’t care if I have to bathe in the blood of a million virgins in a bath made of calfskin, to be honest.”
Temporary was fine, he told himself. That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? A way to switch it off and on? And it wasn’t as if anything awful was going to happen if he couldn’t get it back for good. The death cult still existed, sure, but ideas were hard to unroot once they’d taken hold. That was very different to cultists in an orgiastic frenzy, dancing their way to global destruction. At the very least, Wes told himself, listening to Ricky’s graphic explanation, he’d avoided that.