8. Simon
eight
Simon
Archer
At least it wasn’t the hot one.
Okay, that may seem cold, but how many times did I have to tell him to put that fucking gun away?
Did he listen? No. No, he did not.
And now I’m going to have to throw that rug out, and it will probably take me another six months to find one that matches the wallpaper so well.
It’s a short walk before I’m in front of him again, Simon de la Grange, looking just as smug and shifty as ever. Ugh, I wish I’d never let him in this house.
“Simon, get out of that body.”
“Urrgggfffff,” he replies.
He hasn’t figured out how to use the vocal cords yet, but I know exactly what he’s trying to say, so I reply, “Okay, but he didn’t shoot you, and now it’s over. Please, can you get out of there and—”
“Blfff!”
“Simon, I know. Give me one more month, and I’ll get it done.”
“Armmmfffff!”
“A week then!” I throw a hand towards the stairs. “You know, I’m dealing with a much bigger problem up there, and I would appreciate some grace right now, because after all, I am doing you a favour.”
He takes a step towards me, raising his arm to point, blood spilling all over the floor from the broken joint.
“Jesus Christ, if you get that on the sofa…”
“Armmmmffff.”
“I’ll put you back in your grave, back to sleep, then you’ll never get what you want. Now, I’m asking you nicely, respectfully, get the fuck out of that dead man! That is not your body!”
His arm extends regardless, pointing down the hall this time, and my heart, weirdly, skips a beat.
“You leave Liam out of this. This is between you and me, and you’ve scared him half to death as it is.”
Simon smiles then, with Raul’s face, and his smirk turns from mocking to lascivious. And I know exactly what he’s thinking, because he’s not the only one who’d like to take control of a body like Liam’s, just not in the same way.
I lower my voice to sound as authoritative as I can. “Liam’s not dead, and he’s not about to be. If you touch a hair on his head, I will send you straight to hell, one-way ticket. Get the fuck out of there. I’m not messing around anymore.”
He holds eye-contact with me for a long moment, as much as he can with that one remaining watery eye. Then it rolls to the ceiling before the entire corpse falls on the floor, properly dead.
I drop to Raul’s side, pulling his legs and arms out long, arranging his head as comfortably as I can.
“Kraa!” comes the excited screech from the window, accompanied by a frenetic tapping with that long beak.
“I really don’t see what the big deal is,” Simon drawls, now back in fully corporeal ghost form, taking a drag on his ghost cigarette.
“Could you put that thing out? You’re making my house stink.”
He taps ghost ashes to the floor, performatively disdainful. “Do you know how long it took me to figure out ghost props like these?”
My head drops to the side in pure disbelief. “Do you think I care? You just killed my guest! Would you look at this mess?”
“Then a little cigarette smoke should be the least of your problems,” he counters.
Asshole. Wish I’d never brought him in.
“Kraa!”
“Could you at least open the window for him?” I bark at Simon, then mutter, “It’s the least you could do.”
He doesn’t need to breathe, obviously, but he huffs out a dramatic breath anyway, then flutters a hand upwards, opening the window with his poltergeist powers.
There’s an immediate flap of large black wings, and relief sweeps over me with the knowledge that finally I can start to fix this. “Edgar, I need something big this time,” I tell the raven. “Not a mouse or a bird. I need… maybe a rabbit? Can you do that? Really, really quickly?”
“Kraa!” He nods his great, glossy head once, and he’s back out the window.
Weirdo. He’s entirely too excited about this. Every single time.
“Now, about my revenge,” Simon starts.
“Does it look like this is the time for a discussion?” I shout at him.
He stomps his foot, as petulant as a child. “It’s never the right time with you!”
“I’m working on it!” I seethe. “If you could help at all?”
A tsk of his tongue, a wave of his hand, and the chandelier wobbles, shakes, then rises up, the same wires that snapped and sparked before melting seamlessly together, the base of the thing screwing itself back into the ceiling, with all the broken plaster settling around it as if it the whole scene never happened.
This ghost is scary-powerful. I guess that’s what two-hundred years of wandering gets you. Good thing he’s still on my side. Mostly.
“I don’t suppose you can do anything about these bones, can you?”
“He had it coming,” he offers uselessly, fiddling with the lace at his cuff.
“Yes, but I didn’t! What did I ever do to you to deserve a broken corpse on my floor, leaking all over my carpet?”
“You invited him in. You let him point that gun at me when you know guns trigger me. So I’m afraid you’re on your own with this one.”
He dissolves into the atmosphere, the pure essence of smirk filling the room for a moment, before I’m left alone, me and this dead body, and a whole world of fucked.
Fucking prick.
It’s then I hear Liam down the hall. “Archer? Mr Gravely!” The door handle rattles and his hand slams down on the wood. “Please let me out!”
“It’s okay, Liam! Never to worry!” I try to make my voice cheery, but I’m pretty sure it comes out shrill.
“Mr Gravely, please!”
Mr Gravely. Why is it so cute that he calls me that?
Cuteness aside, I feel like six litres of hot shit right about now.
Poor guy, trapped in there. But what am I supposed to do?
He was going to faint, or hurt himself, or run all the way back to the village and tell them I’ve killed a man.
They’re suspicious enough of me as it is, without that adding to it.
And lord knows, I’d believe him if I were them. One look with those big brown eyes and I’d believe just about anything he said.
A snap of wings whips me out of the completely inappropriate reverie I’m about to fall into, some daydream about a too-handsome handyman in his overalls come to fix all my problems, and it’s already turning into the bad dialogue at the start of a porno.
Thankfully, or not, Edgar drops a fast, writhing mass of fur down at my side. “Kraa!” Then he snaps it up again before it can escape.
“A rat? That’s the best you could do?”
The little round eyes blink at me, as if to say, could you do better? And he’s quite right about that.
“Sorry. It’s a lovely rat. You did great.” I stroke my hand down his back, and he leans into the touch. He’s pretty cute actually, for a murderous demon bird. “Are you ready?”
Another nod of that shining head, then he slams the rat down, breaking its neck and killing it in one go.
I’m fast to snatch it up, squeezing the still-warm body in my hand, letting the life force of the creature pulse into me.
It’s a beautiful sensation, rat or any other life, enormous or tiny. Beautiful and sad.
It’s hard to put a price on it sometimes, who deserves that life more.
All I know is Raul didn’t deserve to die today, and an adult farm rat probably didn’t have so many years left in it as he did.
Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself as I close my eyes and let the energy flow.
Up my arms, all through my chest, my heart beating so hard it aches.
Then I force the energy back out, down my other arm, and into Raul.
I hold my hand tight to his skin, feeling it heat beneath my palm.
This bit hurts. This bit burns. My hand shakes, but I hold it there regardless, transferring the life force from one creature to the other.
I’ve seen this before, plenty of times. Usually with animals, not humans, and rarely one in as bad a state as this, but it’s always mesmerising.
His bones, split and broken, begin to fuse themselves back together, glowing with energy.
Torn muscle threads itself whole, creeping over the bones.
His heart starts to move, even there in his torn and exposed chest cavity.
Then all the skin, bloodied and broken, stretches and heals, every bloody cut sealing tight.
Even that missing eye regrows itself. And next should come the breath.
But this small creature isn’t enough. The energy has run out already, just as Raul’s lips part, just as his lungs try to pull in that first breath of air.
Which means it’s on me now.
Thanks a lot, Simon.
I place the rat down, press two hands to Raul’s chest, and close my eyes. It helps me to do that. To visualise the energy running from my own body to his, blue, shining, bright, from my hands to his heart.
The life spills out of me, weakening me, tearing through my lungs, my heart, every atom of my body screaming in growing agony.
Then the breath. I hear it. I feel it beneath my hands.
The breath comes first, then the soul.
A great exhalation rips out of him, so violent it makes my shoulders shake, then he sucks in an enormous gasp, his heart slams awake, and finally, “What the fuck?”
I wrench my hands away before I kill him again, once and for all.
Kill him and me both. Dizziness crashes over me like a tornado, bringing with it a full-body weakness that feels like I’ve been deep in a fever and unable to eat for three days straight.
I press a hand to the floor, trying to support myself, but it gives way, and my head slams against the ground.
I vaguely hear the tick-tack of Edgar’s talons as he jumps around my head, then feel the press of his beak, gentle on my cheek, as the world turns black.