18. Thickening Plot #2
On a deep frown, I explain, “I’m not sure he’s dead either.
If I were, I’d tell Liam, of course. Call him up, if he wanted.
But something happened last night. Something very strange.
There were some ghosts over at the hospital.
And Liam saw them just as clearly as I did. And that shouldn’t be possible.”
Her red lips part, keeping a very round shape for a good three seconds. “Do you think…” She does an excited little bounce. “Is he like you?”
“No! No, not from what I can tell. I haven’t seen any signs to suggest it. Yesterday was his first ever ghost sighting, apparently.”
“Oh. What a shame.”
“I know. But the thing is, he did see his brother among some other ghosts. So while it’s possible he’s dead and not at rest, it feels like there’s something more complicated going on.
More likely, it was a mass hallucination, ‘mass’ meaning just the two of us, but still…
” I check the door once again before revealing, “I am planning to try to call him up when Liam’s not around, but I might have to go there, where he is, because maybe he’s trapped there, like hospital ghosts usually are.
But don’t you think, if he’d died in the hospital, they would have told the family?
Identified him and passed the news on? But all Liam knows is his brother is a missing person. ”
“That is odd,” Helena agrees.
“It’s very odd!” And since I’ve started, I may as well carry on.
“Meanwhile, you’re here from a bridge I didn’t provide for you, and that’s another thing that shouldn’t be possible.
And did I mention the thing in the attic?
There’s a thing in my attic. A bad thing.
And I think these occurrences might all be connected somehow.
The bridge, Liam’s brother at the hospital, the thing in my attic… ”
I’m on a roll now, so I don’t stop, spilling the last bit of my guts out for her to dissect.
“And I actually think I’ve fucked up, and made a mistake, and caused this really big, really huge problem myself.
A possibly catastrophic one. I’m worried that all these things, all these happenings, might be because I’m a necromancer.
Because how can this not all be connected to me when it’s all happening here in my house and around me?
So, to be frank, everything is fairly and increasingly fucked right now, if I’m honest.”
Okay, that felt good. Kind of. Someone knows. I told someone. That’s progress.
“Oh, Archer.” Helena tsks her tongue sympathetically.
“These things happen. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
” She purses her lips and stares into the middle distance, considering my ramblings that would seem insane to anyone else.
But she’s a ghost, after all, so it’s not long until she says, “I don’t see how this can be your fault.
You’re certainly the loveliest necromancer I’ve ever met. ”
I chuckle over her compliment. “Aren’t I the only necromancer you’ve ever met?”
“Well, yes, but that doesn’t change the fact,” she agrees fondly. Then she switches the conversation up by asking, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
I love this woman. Honestly, she’s one of my favourite ever clients. Especially right now. “I think you could, actually.”
She nods eagerly in response.
“I want to know… You say you saw the bridge. The same one I made for you. But I didn’t make this one. Can you tell me…” I let out a sigh at the hopelessness of even asking the question, because she clearly thought I’d made it so how can she answer questions about why it’s there?
“I wasn’t the only one on it,” she provides. She’s incredibly smart, and she’s already put her finger right on the issue. “It wasn’t specific to me, like when you called me. There was a boy a little way ahead.”
I click my fingers. “I saw him. Downstairs. Fred. Any idea where he comes from?”
“None. And no idea what he was doing on my bridge. He ran off before I could talk to him. But why should there be strangers crossing into your house on my bridge?”
“That’s exactly it. There’s been an uptick in ghosts turning up here—I haven’t invited any of them. I think the thing in my attic might be doing it. Only it’s letting the nasty spirits through as well as the good, and I feel like it’s just a matter of time until some really bad shit goes down.”
“Language, Archer. That’s the third time.”
“Sorry.” I cough an apology, having entirely forgotten her Victorian sensibilities, few as she has.
“It’s just, I’m afraid I’ve done this. That I’ve let some big evil into our world somehow, and now I don’t know how to get rid of it.
And all of this with Liam’s brother… I can’t have him knowing this about me.
God knows what he’d even think of me. And how can I tell him something like this when he’s hurting over that? ”
Another nod, but a definitive, panic-easing one. “All right. I won’t tell him a thing. I’m just your friendly neighbourhood ghost. What I can do is ghost reconnaissance. Find out some more information for you about this bridge.”
“That would be amazing. Simon’s been bloody useless—”
Another of those unearthly moans reaches us, and though Helena’s eyebrows rise, she keeps the rest of her face strangely still. “You were saying?”
“We were just about to go down the hall,” I recommence.
“To the attic to investigate. I’m pretty sure that’s the epicentre of trouble—where the thing crossed over, or where it resides.
If I can get rid of it, I’m hoping I can close this…
this bridge it seems to have built. Or stop whatever it’s doing.
Raising spirits for… for no good reason that I can think of. ”
That groan again. Or moan. That sound. It draws my gaze towards the window. It’s as if it’s coming from outside. But where? Why? Some new thing that’s come through?
I take a step towards the window, and Helena raises her voice a little. “Archer? I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe we should look a little further into this bridge problem of yours. Have a little chat out here in the hall?”
But her voice fades away, and not because of the warding around the door, or that dark/light barrier between us.
Because I catch sight of something out in the yard, and my breath drops away with it.
Shoes.
Just at the edge of the window frame.
And somehow, I already know what I’m going to see if I keep walking, so I want to stop. I do. But I can’t.
One foot in front of the other, I approach, to find those shoes, just as expected, attached to long and thin legs, clad in overalls, wrapping a body fallen flat on the grass by a tree, eyes shut, blond head rolled back, skin bloodless and perfectly, utterly dead.
Fabian.
My hands slam onto the windowsill, my head spinning as I try to process what I’m seeing.
Two days, two dead Spirit Extraction Specialists.
But this time he was supposed to have left. He told me he was leaving. So how is he dead out in my yard?
“These things happen,” Helena calls, forced cheer in her voice. “I’m sure it’s…” I lock eyes with her, furious, and she blinks. “Want me to help you hide the body?”
I advance on her, and she steps back, hands already on her dress as if it’s even possible for me to crumple it. “You knew what was happening down there, didn’t you?”
“I mean…” Her eyes roll up to study the ceiling. “I had a small inkling.”
“Have you already been to see Simon?”
“Well, I tried, but…” A small laugh bubbles out of her, then a guilty shrug and a coy smile, and then… that moan.
That ghostly, ghastly sex moan.
“Oh my god.”
“I wouldn’t go down there if I were you.”
“Oh my god!”
“Archer, is it really worth—”
“Fuck!” I take the stairs two at a time, dashing across the living room and out into the garden, around the side of the house, to Fabian’s corpse, lying there by the tree. And the fucker has a smile on his face, even in death.
That moan again, but now I know exactly where it’s coming from. I make for the barn double time and fling the door open. “Simon, you fucking prick!”
Some hideously perverse ghost sex noise cracks out of Fabian, then Simon’s head pops up from behind the hay bales. “What?”
“What? You… I swear, I am sending you straight to hell!”
He only laughs, disappears again, then, ugh, that sound from Fabian! They’re just carrying on as if I’m not even here!
This is insanity. This is completely insane, and I’m not having it. That fucker is going straight back in his body, whether he likes it or not. And before Liam sees.
Two dead colleagues in two days? I don’t think so.
This one’s going back in one piece with a ‘fuck you’ note for Gerald attached to his forehead.