23. Deliverance
twenty-three
Deliverance
JAMES
My composure is barely hanging on by a thread.
Seeing Ewan, hearing him, the real him, feels like a punch in the gut.
I've missed him so much and for so long, it turned into a shard buried in my heart, and now that it has been yanked out, it feels like I'm bleeding all over the floor.
All I want is to walk over the salt circle, hug him, and never let him go.
But I can't. He's not free of the ghost. The stencils barely contain what used to be Earl Lynch, and we're lucky he didn't wake up before being chained.
Lana and Shirley help me light the candles around the circle.
We have a protocol to evict ghosts. We tried it twice before to expel spirits from hosts, though none as powerful as this one.
It's a combination of spells and herbs and anything that can have an effect on the dead.
We don't have the earl's remains, and that complicates things, but Lana managed to track down a few of his belongings left in the house, plus his journal.
Shirley placed them in a large crucible to be burned.
Ewan convulses on the floor, veins popping and chains rattling, and I wish I could make it stop.
"Let's do this." I offer my hands to Shirley and Lana, and we form a tight circle around him. "No matter what you see and what he says, keep chanting. He'll try to stop us, but we need to go through with it."
Both women nod. I can feel their hands shaking in mine. The cats pace around us, eyes glowing. Last year it would have creeped me out, but now I feel safer with them by my side. The candles flare, and I know it's the house's way of telling us she's ready.
We start chanting. Poems from classical literature about death, burial hymns and laments, Wiccan spells and Greek prayers.
We combined them all. Some appear to work better than others depending of the ghost. I still don't understand the mechanics of the veil, but death seems to be a very personal experience, even as it is an universal one.
Ghosts of children, for example, tend to ignore complicated prayers, but recoil when they are told tales of darkness and solitude. Their fears are simple ones.
Earl Lynch, as a practitioner of the occult, appears to hate reminders that we are nothing after death, I realise as I quote Epicurus. "Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not."
The ghost pulls on his chains, bending Ewan's body to the point of breaking.
I roar the next lines. We're on the right track.
Lana lets my hands go just long enough to crack a match and set his belongings on fire.
During the first week when we arrived at the hostel, back when we were still green ExorSquad team members, I wanted to see the earl's journal burn.
Now I'm glad it's going up in flames, just as the the ghost's screams turn feral.
Let it all turn to ashes, his spirit included.
But he's fighting it. As he bends forwards, there's an audible crack as Ewan's arm breaks. Shirley screams.
"Motherfucker!" I say. "Keep going, it's working!"
"He iiiiiis miiiiine...!" the ghost shouts. "My boooody…"
"Fuck you!"
I'm so enraged, I wish I could rip the entity apart with my own two hands.
Glowing spores escape Ewan's mouth as he cries out, followed by blood. The ghost would rather kill his host that release him.
"Oh no, you fucking won't," I say.
I let their hands go and step inside the circle. Both women try to pull me back, but I order them to keep chanting. I step over Ewan's writhing body, and the spirit looks up at me from his borrowed eyes.
"I wiiiill… not… relinquiiiish… this… liiiife…"
"You're long dead, you fucker. There's no coming back from that, and there's no room for you left in this life. Give him back to me," I say.
I grab the large bead of salt I keep in my pocket. This is the tool we didn't want to use, for it's extremely risky for the host, and extremely painful.
"I'm sorry, my love," I say to Ewan. "I promise I'll make it better."
Then I open his jaw with my hands. The spirit tries to bite my fingers, but I push the bead between his lips and drop it down his throat.
Then I close his mouth and use all my strength to keep it that way.
He bucks under me like a wild horse, and he almost manages to eject me twice.
He even headbutts me, and I feel my nose crack, but I hold on.
Blood pours on the both of us, and the coppery taste touches my tongue.
Salt, when in ingested in great quantity, can be deadly. As of now, it's burning it's way down Ewan's gullet. I spent days researching the subject and weighing the beads of salt carefully, hoping to find the right dosage.
And yet, in his weakened state, it might very well kill him. But we have time before his body starts to digest it.
Please… Please… Please…
The ghost of Earl Lynch explodes out of Ewan's body in a writhing, black mass.
Ewan suddenly goes limp, and I fear I have killed him anyway.
I curve myself on top of him protectively, just as Earl Lynch engulfs us both.
He tries to get a hold of me, thinking he can just switch host, but I've been ready for that eventuality for months now.
An intricate tattoo joined the others on my back, one made of runes and symbols similar to the stencils we put on Ewan.
It forbids entry to spirits and protects me from possession.
The ghost roars in anger, spouting toxic spores. Luckily, we installed air purifiers in the basement months ago, and hopefully they're doing their job. Shirley turned them on earlier.
The cats surge from the dark in a wave of claws and fangs, their eyes aflame. They fall on the creature of darkness like avenging guardians.
"This house isn't yours anymore!" Lana shouts. "And you have no power here!"
The cats bite and tear and claw, shredding the spirit's unsubstantial body. Earl Lynch is diminishing, fading away like smoke under the sun. The felines are doing to him what he did to the nāga.
At last, his voice dies down, and the spores float away harmlessly. The light in the basement flickers bright, the house fighting back as much as her furry minions.
Earl Lynch, original owner of this house and centuries-old pest, sputters like a dying candle. I raise my hand and give him the finger one last time.
Ewan shakes in my arms, taken by a coughing fit.
"Water!" I shout nasally, blood still running down my face. In the matter of seconds, Lana pushes a bottle in my hands. "Help me." The two of us force him to drink as Shirley unchains him. "Drink, baby," I say to him. "Drink and we'll make you puke the salt bead."
He chokes and sobs. Once I'm satisfied he has ingested enough liquid, I push my fingers down his throat to make him vomit. It all comes back up, and I cringe when I see all the blood. I don't know if it's from the salt, the spores, or even the ghost invasion, but it's terrifying.
"I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry…" I kiss his forehead.
He whimpers, cradling his broken arm now that he's unchained.
"I'll go get the gurney," Shirley says.
We knew he'd probably need to go to the hospital after this, so we planned accordingly. At this point, we don't care if it brings the police down on us, as long as he's alive.
"Ja…mes…" Ewan rasps.
"Yes, baby. I'm here. I've got you. I finally have you, and I'm never letting you go."
His eyes are glassy as he looks up at me. He looks so thin, cheeks hollow and long hair falling around his shoulders in a mess. It looks like he aged ten years in the span of one. His shaggy beard doesn't help.
"We're taking you to the hospital baby," I say.
"We'll fix you right up. And when you're all healed, we'll have a long talk.
I'll tell you how much I missed you while you were gone, and how I stared at your picture every night before bed like a fool in love.
" His eyes widen at that. "I'll tell you how the two weeks we spent together here were the best of my life, and that I'd kill to have you by my side again. "
He reaches for my face with his good hand, his thumb caressing the tear tattooed on my cheek. I got it done at the same time as the piece on my back. He whispers my name again, and his hand falls down. He's losing consciousness.
Lana and Shirley help me place him on the gurney, then the three of us carry him up the stairs and to the back alley where we left the car. The cats yowl worriedly and follow us outside.
"Protect the house while we're gone," Lana tells them.
Only Pearl joins us in the car and curls up by his side. I sit in the back with Ewan's head on my lap. Lana puts her foot down on the pedal.
We park the car in front of the hospital in broad daylight, and Shirley screams to get the attention of the nurses by the door. In the matter of minutes, she has them in an uproar. Vomiting blood, apparently, is taken seriously. Ewan is wheeled away hurriedly, and we can't follow.
Lana takes the car to the parking with Pearl while Shirley and I pace the hallways.
It takes an hour for someone to come find us and ask for the patient's name, and another hour before Ewan's family rushes in.
The Hamiltons are all giants, all except his mother, who even though she'd be called tall by normal standards, appears small in the midst of them.
They fly past us, tears running down their faces.
Ewan has been gone for a year now, and I wonder if they were starting to think him dead.
Eventually, a nurse insists on cleaning my face and put my nose in a cast. Apparently it's a clean break, and it'll heal on its own.
It's five hours after bringing him in that one of the doctors comes to find me. "James? He wants to see you."
My legs are shaking as I stand up. Shirley and Lana have their hands on my lower back. Pearl is hidden under Lana's coat, and she knows not to be seen.
"How is he?" I ask.
"We just set his arm, and he's under medication for the pain. He's weak, and it appears he has internal burns, but nothing life threatening as of yet. We're waiting for his blood work."
I follow her to his room. Inside, the entire Hamilton family is standing by the bed. As soon as Ewan sees me, a tentative smile lights up his ashen face. He opens his good arm, and suddenly the world disappears as I rush to his side. He pulls me to him and buries his face in my neck.
"I wanted to be sure I hadn't imagined you," he rasps. "You're really the one who brought me here."
"Of course, I'm here. And the girls are here, too."
He lets out a sob. "James…" His hand is holding on to me tightly.
"I'm here… I'm here…"
The Hamiltons are probably staring at us, but he doesn't seem to care. I wonder if they even knew he was gay. I guess it's the least of their worries now that he's back from the dead.
"Boys, let's give them a moment," says a female voice behind me. Probably his mother.
A minute later, we're the only ones in the room.
"Baby, I'm so fucking sorry," I say to him, my forehead on his.
"For what?" he whispers.
"For everything. For failing to protect you. For taking so long to find you. For—"
He shakes his head. "You saved me. James. You found me."
I bite my lip to stop it from quivering, and he kisses me. This kiss feels like an earth-shattering event, even though it's only a peck.
When we separate, he says, "Two police officers were here earlier."
"What did you tell them?"
"Part of the truth. I said I was confused, and that I was kidnapped.
I suspect they think I was on a bender for a year, and so they asked for a detailed blood work.
I told them I was kept in the dark, and that I finally escaped last night and walked to the hostel and found you. They want to ask you questions."
I nod. "We'll get our story straight with the girls. You did so well." I caress his hair. He's filthy, but I couldn't care less. "How's your throat?"
"A little sore, but they put me on some powerful painkillers, and I'm floating."
It must be why he appears so calm. I have no doubt that the upcoming days will be hard, when all the events of the past year finally come to bite us all in the ass. But we'll be here to help him process.
I hug him again.
"James?"
"Yeah?"
"I might have told the nurse and my family you were my boyfriend so that they'd fetch you."
My heart skips a beat. "I'll be anything you want me to be, baby. Even the rug under your feet if it pleases you."
He lets out a surprised laugh. It sounds rusty and a little unhinged. "What?"
"I'm serious. I love you so much, I'll do anything for you."
He pulls back and stares at me, eyes glittering. "Oh."
I chuckle and embrace him again, heart hammering. "No need to say anything. I just wanted you to know. Now relax and enjoy the drugs they gave you."
We have a long and tortuous road ahead of us, I don't add.
Later that evening Lana, Shirley, and Pearl come to visit Ewan in his room. The nurse, of course, barges in on us while the cat sits on Ewan's chest, and she isn't too keen on it. They kick us out, visiting hours being over anyway, and we promise him to come back tomorrow.
The next morning, the two police investigators drop by the hostel around nine to ask us questions.
The guests watch them leave curiously. Ewan's blood work came out clean, and apparently his low level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D indicates an insufficient sun exposure, matching his story.
They're now looking for his kidnapper, a middle-aged man.
Of course, they'll never find him. I almost feel bad for the wasted time and resources, but we can't very well tell them "It's alright officers, we kicked that particular ghost to the curb. "
Two days later, Ewan is released from the hospital.
His family insisted on taking him back to his childhood home, but he refused and told them that what he needed was the be with us at the hostel.
He couldn't explain, of course, that his trauma was related to the afterlife and that he needed to be with people who understood what he went through.
He promised to come visit them very soon.
When at last, he walks through the hostel entrance in the evening, he falls to his knees on the carpet as the cats all rush to him, purring and meowing. The three of us pull him into a group hug, ignoring the guests walking around us.