The Ghost's Story: A Morgan Rook Investigation

by Kit Hallows

  At first, distinguishing his handiwork amongst all of the other corpses piling up of late, had been a challenge. Death had hit the city hard. Cases were extreme and they got bloodier and bloodier as the summer progressed. The fine line dividing the magical and non-magical worlds seemed to be thinner than ever, and monstrous creatures like Tudor grew bolder by the day.

  No one was safe, not even those with ties to The Organization. Which is why I'd told myself that this would be the last job. No more commissions, I had to get out of this dark game, just like I'd promised the woman I'd loved. And I would. Just as soon as I found the murderous bitch who had killed her.

  But first, Tudor.

  I moved carefully as I made my way up the stairs, but not cautiously enough. A trigger snapped below my foot as I reached the third step and I heard a wet, slithering sound. Like a slug slaking off its skin.

  A heavy metallic and aniseed scent filled the air. An illusion trap. I clamped my coat sleeve over my mouth.

  Too late.

  The staircase shook and trembled as if the planet was turning in on itself. I flinched as the yellow wallpaper writhed and crawled like a living mosaic of millions of yellow ants. I dug into my bag for a means to break the spell and recoiled.

  It felt like I'd plunged my hand into a corpse.

  A burnt smell of soot seared my nostrils and my head swam. I glanced upstairs, expecting to find the beast descending, claws raised, ready to strike a killing blow as I squirmed in this half-paralyzed state.

  But the staircase was empty.

  The world heaved again and sent me spinning out of the here-and-now, to a place in the past I'd long since chosen to forget.

  To the place I was born, aged ten. The asylum on the hill.

  The walls turned from yellow to grey and a familiar stench pricked my nostrils; industrial disinfectants, shit and madness. Ancient screams echoed from the dilapidated corridor that appeared at the foot of the stairs, and a long shadow flickered below the fizzing fluorescent lights.

  I stifled my cry as the stairway transformed into a line of black, brittle teeth and the carpet undulated like a tongue. I yelped as I grabbed the sizzling hot handrail and checked my palm for livid red marks, but it was clean.

  "It's not real. None of it's real." It was my voice, but muffled. Like it was coming from an old chest in an attic in some other dimension. "Keep it together."

  I took a breath that went nowhere and tried to gasp for another as the edges of the world dimmed and darkened. The whole universe seemed to shake and contract and suddenly I was propelled from my body and as I looked down I saw myself below the stairs. Nothing more than a boy.

  Someone was leading me away, their hand in mine. I tried to see who it was, but their face was pixilated and blurred.

  I froze as I descended toward the specter of my past self. Something brushed my corporeal throat and then I felt the rake of razor sharp nails as they punctured my flesh. This, along with the muffled whimper from Tudor’s victim was enough to break the spell and draw my perception back to the present.

  The asylum vanished and I found myself on the stairway with my head wedged against the yellow wall. Pain exploded through my neck as fingernails tore into the side of my throat.

  Chapter Two

  I forced myself to remain perfectly still as the nails raked my flesh because as far as my attacker was concerned, I was somewhere else altogether. Locked in the illusions of his magical trap.

  He moved around to face me. I stared ahead, looking past his eyes as if I was still lost in the terrible, dead black dream.

  It was a vampire, but not the one I was looking for. This one hadn't fully turned yet. There was still a crazed thrill of excitement in his pinprick pupils, and his face hadn't yet taken on the lines and cracks of the fully initiated. He'd been a man once, and not long ago. Young, with a hipster mustache and pseudo Victorian clothes that served to make his appearance all the more grotesque.

  He giggled as he tapped his nail on my jugular, ignoring the blood that trickled down toward my collarbone.

  A wail came from the room at the top of the stairs, this time the sound was agonized.

  It was feeding time at the zoo.

  I whirled round and grabbed the vampire by the throat, my grip tight enough to silence him. His head was horribly malformed, his skin almost translucent, his eyes milky blue.

  He bared his needle-like teeth and grimaced as I pulled my fist back and punched him hard in the side of the face.

  Bone shattered beneath his skin.

  I shoved him away. He tumbled down the stairs, his head striking the floorboards below with a horrible crack. He lay slumped by the doorway as I leapt down and twisted his head until his neck snapped. The light in his undead eyes dimmed as one foul, final breath wheezed through his lips.

  A fresh wave of nausea passed through me, a side effect from the magical trap. I reached into my bag, grabbed a vial of Clariberry and pulled the cork free with my teeth. It smelled like rotting seaweed and burned my throat like cheap whiskey, but within moments the serum cleared the toxic spell from my mind.

  I was back in the present and my past was back where it belonged; buried beneath a rock at the bottom of an endless well.

  My heart raced as I climbed the stairs, watching for the telltale glint of magical traps. I found one hidden near the top step and cleared it as I leapt up into the hallway.

  The short murky corridor ended in a wash of light that flickered as a shadow crossed it. The music roared with a blast of brass as a ragtime tune started up and someone inside the room gave an almost ecstatic sigh.

  Time was running out.

  I pulled my gun from its holster.

  I'd had the silver bullet in its chamber modified, it was hollow, and filled with premium garlic oil. The garlic was totally unnecessary, but I hoped it would cause my quarry additional pain as he died.

  I wanted him to feel every agonizing second of it.

  I was no sadist but when it came to creatures delighting in long drawn-out deaths, I believed a little karma was apt.

  I rushed to the end of the corridor.

  The shadow remained fixed on the wall and the swell of trumpets grew louder. I glanced down to see if the charge of magic in my pendant had dimmed. Shit. I reached out; searching for any stray undercurrents of magic I could tap into. There had to be some around with all of Tudor's recent activity.

  While I wasn’t a magician per se, I was pretty good at finding errant streams of magic. It was like wifi, just waiting to be tapped into as long as I was close enough to the hub. And right now I was about as close to Tudor’s magic as I could be. I drew some of his energy in. It swam through me and filled me from head to toe, but its charge was weak.

  Tudor had likely exhausted most of its potency when he'd set his traps and masked his true form to seduce his victim. From what I knew of his ways he’d reveal his true face once his prey was about to pass so he could enjoy the bloom of terror through her veins.

  I peered around the edge of the door.

  The first thing I saw was the blue LED light blinking on the music player sound dock. It rested on an upturned crate next to a sofa that looked like it had been made in the Seventies, and would have been considered bad taste even then.

  The woman slumped across it looked old, in her sixties. But then I noticed her clothes and make-up, and realized she was probably in her twenties at best. Her drawn, ashen face was turned towards the ceiling, her mouth slack and eyes wide. She was lost deep inside whatever abyss the drug coursing through her veins had taken her to. It looked like heaven and hell had collided as she grinned and twitched and grimaced.

  Tudor sat before her, almost somber in his expensive charcoal grey suit.

  He looked like a banker. His dirty blonde hair was slicked back, his pale eyes narrowed with ecstasy. A clear thin tube jutted from his wrist and snaked across the floor to the woman's throat.

  The bastard was mainlining her blood.

  He
reached out with a remote and switched the music to a funereal New Orleans dirge, then he grinned and his eyes flickered like a junkie's. No doubt he was getting high on whatever he'd spiked her with.

  My leather bag scraped against the wall as I raised my gun.

  The sound jogged him from his trance.

  I fired.

  Tudor vanished and the bullet exploded into the wall, tearing a hole in the plaster as the oozing IV fell to the floor.

  "Morgan Rook." Tudor's words were a warm whisper in my ear. I whirled round and threw a punch that connected with nothing but stale air.

  Tudor reappeared on the other side of the room and leaped forward, throwing spells from his sinewy hands. Shadows whirred towards me, magical fear-laced shurikens.

  Three of them shot past the side of my face but the fourth found its mark, striking me below the eye with ice-cold precision.

  The room vanished and I was thrown back into the past. Back to the asylum. Trapped. Someone shrieked in the darkness, the sound shrill, urgent and primal.

  It was a child's cry.

  The child was me.

  My heart pounded, like it was trying to escape through my ribs. The thought made me want to vomit.

  Everything made me want to vomit.

  My spirit form shot down a dark corridor, and collided with the boy. I became one with my distant self and looked down to see the hand cradling my own. It was large, calloused and covered in silver scars, but somehow it made me feel warm and reassured.

  A loud churning hiss filled the room behind us. The room we'd just left. The room I was even now trying to forget. Goosebumps broke across my ten-year old neck as I turned to look back.

  The hall was long and dimly lit, but I could still see the huge canvas hanging on the far wall. It was covered in thick ridges of iridescent black paint that seemed to swirl and shift as I gazed at it. That was the place I’d been born from, one minute nowhere, the next standing in the room with no memories of anything at all. Awake in a new world and doomed to make my way through this dank, broken place.

  I tried to look at the man holding my hand, but his face blurred and shifted. He gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry," he said. "We're fine now."

  A woman cried out somewhere. I leaned over and threw up, and as I straightened, stars exploded before my eyes. The sound of the mounting cries and screams brought me back from the past.

  The house on Bury Street reappeared, along with the woman and her pinched, haggard face. Her life, youth and blood was spilling from the IV and pooling across the filthy carpet.

  Her eyes found mine and grew bright with panic and realization.

  I tried to open my mouth to reassure her, but a fresh wave of nausea stole my words.

  "Let's end this nonsense now." Tudor strode towards me, the scalpel in his hand gleaming silver as it plunged towards my heart.

  Chapter Three

  I threw up my arm and Tudor's blade slashed into the wrist guard concealed by the sleeve of my coat. It stuck. I wrenched my arm free and yanked it out.

  Tudor began to back away.

  I threw the scalpel. It struck him in the center of the chest.

  Not one drop of blood spilled from the wound as he pulled the scalpel out and flung it down. The blade tumbled across the floor, chiming like a bell. "You've ruined my shirt," he said. "It's Givenchy." His eyes flitted over my sweater and jeans. "Not that that would mean anything to you."

  "My condolences." I reached into my pocket for another bullet and loaded my gun. The weapon was powerful, but it had a serious limitation in that it could only hold a single shot and each cartridge had to be handcrafted.

  "Screw you, Rook. You're an affront. A jobsworth for a corrupt outfit."

  "I really don't think the boss would describe me as a jobsworth but it’s true I enjoy ridding the world of trash like you."

  "You're not even one of us. You're blinkered. Humans shouldn't blindly wander into worlds that don't belong to them."

  "You might be right, but regardless of what I am," I nodded towards the woman on the sofa. "It's the last time you're going to torture and feed off an innocent. Now, I can make this fast or slow, it's up to you."

  Tudor's eyes roved over me, calculating his odds. "How's it up to me?"

  "If you tell me something useful, I'll put the bullet in your head, you'll be dead before you know it. Otherwise I'll put it in your stomach and rub salt in the wound."

  "What do you mean useful?" Tudor took a tentative step towards me.

  "I'm looking for Elsbeth Wyght. Do you know where can I find her?"

  Tudor grinned. "Oh, I heard about that. She killed your sweetheart, didn't she? And now you're going to make her pay. So noble. So manly. Does the Organization know you're hunting witches on their dime?"

  I brought the gun up. "Are you going to tell me where I can find her, or not?"

  "I've seen her." Tudor's smiled widened. "We move in some of the same circles. She's a strange one, I'll grant you. Strange and very, very powerful. A true wild child of darkness."

  "Where'd you last see her?"

  Tudor muttered something.

  "What?"

  His lips continued to move in a slow, deliberate mumble.

  An invocation.

  My finger curled around the trigger...and then...

  ...then he was gone.

  A wet, tearing sound filled the room. Tudor reappeared before the haggard girl. A pair of gnarled, leathery wings ripped through the back of his suit and curled up around him, their boney tips clacking together.

  All illusion of humanity was gone, in its place, the face of a monster. Gaunt, angular, sunken cheekbones, skin like boiled leather. He looked like something that had spent most of its life in some deep forgotten cave, and for all I knew he had. The black pinpricks in the centers of his pale eyes fizzled and curved teeth jutted from his lips.

  His eyes found my throat and I could see his yearning to tear it out and feed, but I also saw his caution as he glanced at the barrel of my gun.

  If I missed again, he wouldn't.

  "The night is coming." Tudor flexed his long, curled claws.

  I fixed my eyes on him, half expecting him to dematerialize. I couldn't miss this time. "It's already night."

  "Not this night. The night." Tudor gave a smug, contented grin as he swept his withered hand towards the boarded windows. "You've seen the changes. You've felt them. We all have. The city's going to hell and the ones who have kept to the shadows are venturing out. Taking what they want. The horde is at the gates. Can you feel them, Rook? Can you feel their breath on the back of your neck?"

  "The only thing I feel is relief, knowing the bullet's spiked with garlic oil. It took a while to get the formula right, but I'm sure a connoisseur like you will appreciate it."

  Tudor began to flicker.

  I fired.

  Into thin air.

  The room darkened as he appeared at my side, his teeth sinking into my shoulder. I dropped the gun. It thudded to the floor. The pain in my shoulder was worse than anything I'd ever felt. Like ripping off a bandage and cleaning the wound with sulfuric acid.

  I forced myself to stand tall as I waited for my little surprise to kick in.

  Within moments, he began to howl.

  I clapped a hand to the wound on my shoulder. "Essence of hedgeberry. I took a concentrated dose before I got here. It tasted like shit, but it was definitely worth it."

  Tudor splayed a hand against the wall as he leaned over and retched. Strings of vomit hung from his mouth as his wings spasmed and thrashed madly. I took his head and slammed it into the wall twice, then dove for the gun.

  He fell upon me before I could reach it and scratched at the wound his accomplice had made in my neck. I struggled to right myself while the girl's bare feet twitched on the floor inches from my face.

  The room dimmed as Tudor dug further. I couldn't suppress the agony as he grabbed my forehead and his needle-like claws pierced my scalp.
<
br />   I pulled his finger from the hole in my neck and twisted it until it cracked. Tudor howled and grabbed my head harder, his claws digging deeper. I reached into my bag.

  The world turned black. A sharp ringing tone overwhelmed me, and somewhere below it came a faint whimper from the girl on the sofa. It was enough to give me a boost of strength.

  My fingers found the pouch I was looking for. I pulled the drawstring loose with my thumb and finger as a wave of searing agony burst through my skull.

  Bright, golden light spilled from the bag.

  Tudor began to scramble away, his wings jittering, his face a grimace of nausea and disgust. "What's that?"

  "This?" I held the pouch up and forced myself to my knees. The room swam around me as I forced a smile. "Sunshine in a bag."

  I threw it. His reflexes out-paced his thinking as he opened his hand and the bag landed in his sinewy palm.

  He screeched like a child as the glowing light shone upon his face.

  I grabbed my revolver and loaded the final bullet into the chamber while he shuffled towards me like a broken automaton.

  I fired.

  There was a brief flash of light and the bullet smashed into his chest.

  Tudor slumped to the floor, his eyes wide and glassy, a vile noxious black stream oozing like ink from the corners of his mouth.

  The woman on the sofa stared, but it was clear she wasn't seeing me. Her thoughts were somewhere else altogether. She rubbed her wrists and her hair, as if they crawled with lice.

  I rifled through my bag for the pocket where I kept salves and tinctures. Inside was a small silver flask of clear, odorless liquid. A healing water from one of the last truly blessed places. I gently placed the bottle between her cracked lips and tilted it up.