35. Shit Gets Real
thirty-five
Shit Gets Real
Liam
Archer’s so bloody hot, down on the floor, flapping his robe about the place dramatically. He’s tall, and that makes his thighs long, and I can barely stop staring at them, even if I’m supposed to be the one keeping this day on some sort of track.
And did I mention his feet? I’m not a feet man, or I didn’t think I was, but his are beautifully shaped. I can see myself clutching them with both hands, riding him backwards until he can’t take any more, when he pushes me onto all fours and finishes me and…
Fuck.
Okay, stop looking at Archer.
Okay, stop thinking about Archer.
Stop obsessing about magical sex where I can feel every single thing I do to him as if he’s doing it to me, and it’s like being double-fucked, and how did he do that?
I think I’m wrecked. Ruined for other men. Necromancer sex or nothing for me from now on.
“You’re staring.”
Archer’s words rip me from my filthy thoughts, embarrassing me at the same time. But why should I feel embarrassed? Five minutes ago I was clinging onto him, begging him to fuck me.
And when he does… Oh my god. How will he do it? Where will he do it? How incredible is that going to—
“Liam?”
“I’m not! I’m not staring!”
I’m totally staring, and his chuckle lets me know he knows how ridiculous I am. As if I need the reminder.
But does he really have to stretch out like that? All long legs and muscular arms and—
Fuck.
How am I supposed to work like this?
I stumble around his desk, trying to get my thoughts on literally anything else. Amongst the scattered papers, I spy a couple of Dead Vengeance pamphlets, which I snatch up just for something to keep me busy.
The way I found that name so scary only yesterday when in fact… it’s weirdly wholesome?
I don’t think it’s struck me until just now how sweet his whole business idea actually is.
Archer has this amazing gift that he could monetise in so many exploitative ways, going after the grieving, the desperate, staging fake or semi-real séances.
Yet here he is, alone in his house, designing these pamphlets, then rewriting the stories of the long dead.
Giving them justice, even after so many people have forgotten them.
It’s a very peaceful way of doing things.
The sense I get of that caring and thoughtful personality makes me feel…
safe. Oddly safe in such a strange and dangerous world.
I toss down the pamphlets, but one catches on the air.
It’s not as though there’s any breeze in here, but it does a little swirl all the same, slips away, then comes to land on a newspaper.
Which also strikes me as strange, but very homely at the same time, because who reads actual newspapers anymore?
I snatch the pamphlet back up, and as I do, the image beneath catches my eye. Black and white, dark, it displays a round object that… I’ve seen somewhere before…
I slip the paper from beneath some other bits and pieces to read the headline:
MANCHESTER EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS MISSING DEE ARTEFACT
“What’s this?” I ask aloud, half to myself, scanning the article.
“Research,” says Archer, suddenly standing across the desk from me, apparently only going to wear his robe with nothing underneath, and that’s hardly fair.
I fix him with my most serious face. “Can you get dressed, please?”
He grins. “Is it bothering you?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I roll my eyes and try to focus on the page. “You need to research this missing mirror? What for? This says it’s been gone for three years, presumed stolen.” I lower the paper as the thought occurs to me. “One of your ghosts didn’t steal it, did they?”
“They did not!” he breathes out, pretending to be offended. “Though I wish they would. Or could. That mirror is an incredibly powerful object. I’ve got some suspicions about…” He drifts off there, pressing his lips, a frown making me want to kiss his forehead to get it away.
But we have business to do. “What suspicions? About who’s taken it?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’ve got no clue about that. But I do have thoughts on what it might be doing. To us. To England. To the ghost situation here.”
“To England? I thought this ghost situation was just at your house?”
He sidles around the desk, coming next to me, leaning back all sexy and shit, his robe hanging open to his midline. I could get so used to this. “Remember I told you there’s been more ghost activity recently? And our friend upstairs is connected?”
Our friend upstairs. As if I could forget. I could have skipped the reminder, though, just now. I give him a nod to show I’m following, more or less.
“Well, that’s the situation at my house since it arrived. But there’s a bigger picture, with more happening elsewhere. Gerald didn’t mention that to you?”
“No. Why would he? How would he know?”
“Seems fairly relevant for a Spirit Extraction Specialist. But I guess preparing his employees to deal with said spirits isn’t exactly Gerald’s strong suit.
” He wrinkles his disgruntled lips, but he talks on calmly, as though he feels like he’s doing Gerald’s job for him, which we both know he totally is.
“For the last few years now, three years, in fact, if I had to pinpoint it, I’ve been hearing more and more reports of hauntings, of ghost activity, where there never used to be any.
The rare times I get away from here, usually for work, I’ve barely been able to stay in some towns because there are so many spirits.
But it’s not the case for every town, so… I began tracking where they are.”
He slips away with that same fresh enthusiasm he had when he was telling me about his business.
An infectious excitement that throws energy into his step, taking him swiftly to the wall where I hadn’t actually noticed a map, what with all the other weird things in this room.
It’s mostly a very normal-looking map. Except for all the red pushpins in it.
And except for all the red lines, drawn in pen, criss-crossing it.
In fact, now I think about it, maybe it’s not normal at all.
I rush around to him as he runs a finger down one of those lines. “Do you know what these are?”
“Flight paths?” I throw out, though I’m actually pretty sure I’m way off.
His lower lip juts out in a ‘not bad’ sort of expression. “You know, in a manner of speaking, they are. Only they’re flight paths for ghosts.”
I blink at him. Hard. “Sorry, what?”
He’s enjoying this, I think, being my teacher of all things ghostly and supernatural. I don’t think either of us could have imagined how fun this would actually become, him all brilliant and clever, me his ever-willing student, assistant, employee, fuckboy—whatever the hell he wants me to be.
All too professionally, he carries on, “They’re called ley lines.
They criss-cross the country, connecting ancient spiritual monuments all throughout Britain.
The science is still a bit iffy, in that no one understands why these structures of various ages and religions should be capable of imbuing the spaces between them, or the spaces themselves, with any special energy.
However, these…” He points to the red pushpins, some singular, some in little groups.
“They represent spirit activity. And what do you notice?”
“Well… they’re all on or near ley lines?”
“Correct.”
“And… there are more of them where the lines intersect?”
“Exactly correct.”
I preen far too readily beneath his approval, and trying for a bit more of it, I attempt to sound astute when I suggest, “So, spirits are moving along the ley lines, they’re congregating in areas where ley lines join, and… and somehow, you think, this is all connected to that mirror?”
“Smart and hot,” he observes, and I totally don’t melt. I’m fine. Not at all begging him with my eyes to bend me over his desk.
He does not bend me over his desk. Sadly.
He steps away, picks up the newspaper, and flashes the image of the missing mirror at me again.
It’s so familiar. I know I’ve seen it somewhere before, but I can’t think of where.
“This mirror belonged to…” He pauses. “Are you familiar with Doctor John Dee?”
“The occultist, mathematician, astrologer, astronomer, spiritualist, scientist, and chief advisor to Queen Elizabeth the First?”
Archer’s eyebrows rise. “Quite familiar, then?”
“No, not at all,” I admit. “My mum took me to see the musical once. It was really good.”
He laughs that warm laugh of his that’s been giving me life since the minute we met. “You’re full of surprises.”
“Not so much as you are.”
“I don’t know about that…” He eyes me steadily for a moment, as if he can see right into me, and for a few seconds, I wonder if he can. If that’s part of his powers. But he breaks away, says, “This mirror belonged to him. Doctor John Dee. And he used it to talk to the dead.”
Everything begins to clear. Like one of those 3D puzzles you stare at until your eyes cross, then it all makes sense.
Well, somewhat. Hauntings starting, or increasing dramatically, when this mirror went missing—this mirror that is a powerful occult object that can be used to communicate with spirits.
“So you think it’s possible someone, whoever has this mirror, is talking to the dead?
Communicating with them? Raising them up? ”
He gives me a solemn nod. “Yeah. I worry this thing has opened more gateways like the one you heard Helena mention. And maybe that’s why we have so many hauntings.
That could also be how the thing found its way into my attic.
Because, as you can see…” He drops his finger back onto the map, right in the centre of a half dozen pushpins, red lines swirling all around them.
“My house is right in the centre of a conglomeration of ley lines. And if I’m right, and that mirror is somehow opening holes between worlds, or making these already-existing lines of travel bigger, easier, more accessible, it would make sense that something new would find its way here. ”