by Matt Hilton
Not to be outdone, I offered, “Would this also explain my vision when I was pulled out of the river when Cash died?”
“You said you saw him as a scarlet serpent, bearing Cash’s face. Perhaps your vision was only a figurative expression of your misunderstanding of what it was that you did see. Your mind twisted the vision into some sort of nightmare that fed off your fears. But, yes. What I now believe you saw was his auric energy, his spirit. Scarlet, muddy red, some greens, all these are associated with anger, fear, resentment and jealousy.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “They’re all traits that aptly sum up my brother.”
“Arsehole.” The word whispered through my mind, the briefest of interaction before Cash returned to wherever it was he lurked when I wasn’t holding him in thrall.
“What colours did you see around Professor Hale?” Broom asked. I noticed that it was Professor Hale again, and not Janet, so berating him must have done some good.
“Yellow. Orange.” I watched his face for any negative response but only detected acceptance.
“Yellow is indicative of inspiration, intelligence, creativity and a scientific mind. Orange denotes confidence, good health and vigour. In fact any bright colours are good signs. You might say that Professor Hale’s auric field epitomises everything that she is. The paranormal equivalent of wearing ones emotions on one’s sleeve, huh?”
“So what’s the likelihood of her being a murderer?” I was purposely sarcastic.
“Your auric field is complex, Carter. It is built of various bands of light, each band having a different meaning. What I suspect you saw around Janet was her mental aura. The mental aura is indicative of the intensity of the thought process. What is more important to defining the over all state of one’s mentality is what is termed the emotional aura. This is usually seen as a rainbow-like pallet of colours. Positive feelings and thoughts generate bright colours. Naturally, negative feelings generate dark.” He looked at me.
“No dark colours,” I confirmed.
“Huh.”
“In fact,” I went on. “Janet was anything but dark. It was almost as if her skin was translucent and I was looking inside her at the very essence of her being.”
A nerve ticked at the corner of Broom’s mouth. His breathing became perceptively quicker. “You could actually see within her?”
Flexing my hands, I explained, “Well, it’s difficult to explain exactly what I did see, but yeah, I could see through her and could see swirling colour. There was nothing gross about it; I could detect a faint impression of her skeletal structure, but it was nothing like looking at the skinned face on that man’s corpse. It was…it was…”
“Beautiful?”
My vision hazed into the small area of space between my knees and the dashboard. “It was beyond beautiful. It was heavenly.”
Wind whistled out of Broom. “Well, Carter. I have to extend my apologies to both you and Janet. If what you say is correct, there’s no way that she could be tainted by the haugbonde. I still stand by the cause and effect of her responsibility in the man’s death, but I accept that Janet is an unwilling party in all this. Her spirit is clean.”
I gave him a sharp nod. Apology accepted. Unfortunately my satisfaction was transitional to depression. “Makes me wonder what colours I’d portray to someone else with an ability to see the auric fields.”
“If only I had the ability,” Broom sighed. “But I suspect that your field will be predominantly made up of your astral and celestial auras. A brightly coloured rainbow cloud and bright shimmering pastel lights. I suspect that your aura will be made up of gold, silver, and royal blue. You are, after all, a seer.”
A seer? Just one more title to add to the list.
Broom said, “Your ability, though untrained at this time, is of the highest order. Makes me wonder if you are a star child.”
Despite myself, I laughed. “Christ, Broom! A star child? What are you saying? That I’m a flaming extra-terrestrial?”
“No, no, no. Of course not. A star child is the term used where a soul is in its very first incarnation. Do you recall our conversation regarding reincarnation? This is the belief that our energy is never destroyed, but continues on after our physical death and is reborn in a new form. Though not commonly accepted here in the West it is a firm belief of most Eastern religions. The idea is that such souls go through an infinite number of reincarnations until Nirvana or enlightenment is finally achieved. Of course, modern science tells us that there are in fact more living human beings on the face of the earth at this very moment than have existed throughout the entirety of human existence. Therefore it is feasible to assume that new life energy must be born all the time, running concurrent to all the other old souls already in the world. Well, when a new soul is born, this is seen as a pure form of energy, untainted by the sins and failures garnered in previous lives, extremely spiritual. These people born with a pure soul are designated the term of star child, as they have been born of the unadulterated power of the cosmos.”
My laughter this time was tainted with a large chunk of sardonic disbelief. “You’re definitely off your head if you think I’m some sort of untainted soul, Broom. I’ve the same failings and ineptitudes as anyone else. I have the same faults; greed, cowardice, vanity, whatever.”
Broom’s head bobbed in agreement. “But you didn’t possess any of those faults at inception, Carter. Those are all adopted traits, the experiences of your thirty-odd years on this planet. The product of trial and error we all must endure.”
Choosing to take the conversation no further along these lines, I told him about the other time that I’d experienced the power within me. My description of the building energy that seemed to project out from me had him grinning. Breathless, he said, “I have heard of only a few other cases of living people with this power, but I have always discounted the stories as fancy and exaggeration. There are monks of the Buddhist tradition purportedly adept at expelling their inner chi in a blast of power capable of extinguishing a candle flame, but I held the belief that this was more trickery or illusion on their part.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think it was anything along those lines that I felt. It was more like the energy was seeking something. Like a tentacle was snaking out of my body reaching and feeling to grasp onto something. It wasn’t a nice sensation. It was frightening. When I panicked, the energy whipped back at me like an elastic band. Maybe you didn’t notice, but I felt like I had been knocked on my arse.”
Chewing his bottom lip Broom considered this. It was a good minute or so until he said, “Unusual. Something that requires further study. Let’s leave it for now. We are here.”
He brought the Subaru to a bumpy halt with two wheels on the verge. The scrubby grass making up the verge stretched twenty-or-so feet to the base of a chain link fence. The fence showed signs of corrosion, but it retained the semblance of potency associated with concentration camps. Not least, it stood twice my height and was topped with barbed wire. Warning signs strung on the fence every hundred metres forbade entrance. Disclaimers made mention of guard dogs and armed personnel; a coy way of saying ‘Enter uninvited and you can kiss your sweet cheeks goodbye’. Didn’t take the insight of a cosmic star child to guess we were parked at the perimeter of the Burra Ness nuclear submarine tracking station.
“What are we doing here?”
Broom jerked his head, indicating a small brick and tin-sheet building standing beyond the boundary fence. It had the appearance of the small huts utilised by the power companies to house substations. Cables like a handful of eels coiled from beneath the corrugated roof and met a tall telegraph pole sheathed as high as a tall man could reach in razor wire. I followed the pole skyward to the crossbeams and saw that it was equally sheathed at the top, this time by the silhouetted forms of dozens of crows. If they were the same flock that we’d followed from Trowhaem it didn’t matter, the way in which the birds actually stared down at the utility hut held the promise of dark porten
tous activity. Just a glimpse of them gave the impression that they were hungry to pick at whatever lay within.
“You don’t mean…?” I was thinking about the missing girl.
Broom shook his head. “Not yet.”
“So why all the crows?”
“It’s a sign. Just like I told Professor Hale. They have foreseen the future and are prepared to be patient and await the inevitable. Someone will die here, Carter. This very evening, I suspect.”
Challenging him about the power of animal precognition was pointless. It had grown so it was easier to simply agree with his fanciful notions than sit through another of his essays pertaining to the weird world of Paul Broom.
“So what’s the plan, Broom? If you suspect a crime’s going to happen here, wouldn’t it be wise if we went back to Trowhaem and informed the police?”
“The police don’t put much faith in superstition or the portents of nature. But what are the chances of them believing I wasn’t a complete head case who required locking up?”
“Zero to nil, I assume.”
“There’s only one thing for it,” Broom decided. “You are going to have to stake out the hut.”
I placed fingers to my chest. “Did I just hear you correctly? You meant me? Alone? As in me, myself and I? You can bloody forget it.”
Broom’s sigh filled the car. “I need to return home to carry out some research. I do not have the necessary materials to hand. Don‘t worry, though, I’ll join you later. In the meantime, it’s not a good idea that we leave the hut unattended. One of us has to stay here. You’re armed, so it’s the obvious choice that you stay.”
“I’m not hanging around here all afternoon on the whim of…” I cast my eyes around, finally settling on the flock of crows. I jabbed my hand at them. “On the whim of a load of scabby old birds.”
Broom’s nose wrinkled. “Carter, how would you feel if something happened while we were gone? If someone died?”
“Don’t, Broom. Don’t try to lay that cause and affect bullshit on me, too.”
“I’m not trying to do anything of the sort.”
“Yes you are. You’re hoping to play on my guilty conscience.”
“What a distasteful notion,” Broom said. “I’m merely using logical deduction. I need to return home. You don’t. I’m unarmed while you have a gun. Plus, I do not share your ability in recognising evil. It stands to reason that you should be the one to stay.”
“Logical deduction my arse. You just don’t want to be the one standing out here in the cold. I’m not doing it. You can forget it, Broom. There’s no way you can talk me into getting out this bloody car.”
I was adamant.
Set in my ways.
Defiant.
Stubborn as hell.
Still, I was the one standing on the grass verge watching with a hollow sense of disbelief as Broom’s Subaru headed back the way we’d come. The fucker best had bring back the flask of soup he promised, I thought, or there’d be more harsh words between us.
TWENTYSEVEN
The Dungeon
Crying was pointless. So was beating at the door with her small fists. All either action achieved was a pain in her chest or agony in her hands. Ineffectual. She did not understand the word. So she kept right on doing what came natural. If she thought about it, maybe she’d realise the futility of it all and stop. Only thing was, it was all that her desperate senses could come up with.
She sobbed. Tears fell. Her nose ran. Her chest ached.
She banged at the rough wood with her balled hands, feeling the static-like itch from the splinters already embedded in her flesh.
The door remained impregnable. It was like the dungeon doors that populated the stories in her favourite book of fairy tales. Not surprising really, for all the ogres and monsters in her tales had dungeons where they locked away children whilst they plumped them up for the cook pot.
The walls were as impregnable as the door. Rough bricks that were slick with damp and smelled like mushrooms. Even the floor was hard-packed gravel that had resisted her attempts at digging an escape tunnel. Her hands had been ineffectual, the heels of her shoes quickly worn down when she’d tried to scoop away the dirt with the pawing motions of a pony.
In the gloom it was difficult to guess the passage of time. Was it night or day? Is it tomorrow already, or still yesterday? She’d slept once, but couldn’t tell if the blissful respite of ignorance had been for the briefest of time or that she’d slept for a hundred years like Sleeping Beauty.
By now someone must have found Wee Jimmy. Poor Wee Jimmy. Her Ma must have missed them by now. Ma must have gone out looking for them. She’d have been mad at first, but now Ma must be beside herself with worry.
She collapsed against the door, wracked with sobs. Mind screeching.
Why hasn’t Ma come for me? Has she found Jimmy? Maybe she thinks the same thing has happened to me, too. What if Ma has stopped looking?
Phlegm cracked in her throat.
Does Ma blame me?
It wasn’t me, Ma. It was Wee Jimmy. He hurt the bird. Not me. It was his fault. He made the Skeklar mad.
TWENTYEIGHT
Four of nine.
That shall be your number, Professor.
Now his stupid friend has diverted that Carter Bailey, you shall be the next to die.
I have decided.
Carter Bailey does possess power. I know that now. He saw you. He looked and he recognised your spirit. As I look at you now and recognise you. He saw an angel. Not me. I see meat. I see bones. I see fear. I see a whore.
You are connected. The attachment is made, though neither of you fully realise it yet. The gods have tipped their hands and brought you together. But remember this; the gods are fickle and cruel. They enjoy the taste of your impending destruction as much as the promise of what your coupling may wring from the future strands of destiny. They care not if you live or die. They do not take sides, these grim gods. Failure or triumph, it has no bearing on their schemes, their greater plans.
They have set the scene, ordered the protagonists, then sat back to watch how the game plays out. Uncaring. Unhelpful. Full of disdain for all us lesser beings.
Forget the gods, Professor.
Carter Bailey thinks he’s your protector.
Aye. But, I am your ruination.
The gods are happy with their lot. The die is cast and it us up to us to decide all our fates.
Professor, I have decided. Your fate is to die. Can you not see?
I am fate.
I am here.
You are here.
Carter Bailey kicks his heels with only the laughter of my cohorts ringing in his ears. He is useless to you now.
How do you suppose it will affect him to know that I have drank of your blood? Will it weaken or empower him? Will his righteous fury embolden him? Will it make him a worthy opponent in this game?
Will he be man enough to finish the task?
Only time will tell. Time and your death.
Hmmm? Shall I kill you now or later?
I have decided to kill you. Your number is up. You are four of nine.
It will not be easy, I admit. Not surrounded as you are. The police might try to stop me. They have weapons. But that is not why I pause. I could be among them and kill them all before they could lift their weapons. But that would not be right. The numbers would be wrong. Most of their blood is worthless to me. They are unworthy. Not of the nine.
The dark-haired woman I have marked for later. The one who carries the stripes on her shoulders, as if they have the weight of boulders pulling her down. If I kill you now, will that make her more watchful? Make her more difficult to take.
So.
I have decided.
I shall wait.
Your death will be sweeter this evening when I come for you. When you are alone. I will ensure that you are not found so easily. Sergeant McCusker will not be forewarned.
Enjoy your last hours on Earth, Professor
.
Make the most of the time I have given you.
I go now.
Bethany calls.
And she is most important of all.
TWENTYNINE
Near Burra Ness
Broom’s promise of a return within two hours maximum had become four hours and there was still no sign of him. For the entire time he’d been gone, I sat beside the road, uncomfortable on a moss-covered rock. I had been still so long that the crows had taken a keen interest in me. They watched me with their blank stares, their beaks partly open like peeping butlers’ mouths at keyholes. Thwarting them, I lifted a hand and gave them a two-fingered salute. They shifted and grumbled. Some of them cawed in scorn.
“Friggin’ vermin,” I said under my breath. Not for the first time.
Evening was settling in, a purple veil lowering on the eastern horizon. Off to my left there was still a hint of the sun behind iron clouds, fingers of light tickling the Norwegian Sea like a mother’s caress. Despite my dark frame of mind I could appreciate the beauty of my surroundings.
With little else to do than sit and watch the utility hut, or insult the crows, my time had been spent contemplating my lot. I hadn’t been on the island twenty-four hours, but in that time I’d become embroiled in the fall out from two murders and the abduction of a child. I’d gone from being a suspected bi-polar schizophrenic to a cosmic star child with the ability to read a person’s inner soul by simply giving them the beady eye. Not bad for a guy who used to sell T-shirts and tennis rackets for a living. Or it was extremely bad, depending on your outlook.