He handed me a memory stick. Plain, unmarked. I took it from him, feeling a weird sensation as my fingers touched the same smooth plastic that just days ago, Tish would have touched.
By the time I’d pulled myself together, wiped the tears from my eyes, and stared at the shiny silver gadget in my hands for a few minutes after Richard had left, Dan had got out of bed and pulled his jeans back on. He was waiting for me in the living room, fiddling with the coffee machine.
I couldn’t help but notice that his fly buttons were still undone, fine hair trailing down the lean angles of his stomach to a waistband that was riding super-low on his hips. His dark blonde hair was mussed up, the pupils of his blue eyes still slightly dilated. At least his earlier swelling issues seemed to have subsided. He looked at me, wrapped inelegantly in a sheet, like an gatecrasher at a toga party.
‘I suppose I’d better—’
‘Put some clothes on?’ he suggested, starting to smile. I looked at him and laughed.
‘Yeah… Dan, I know this is a stupid question, but how come you were in my bed this morning?’ I said.
‘You invited me,’ he replied, scooping ground coffee into the filter. ‘You were a bit, ah, tired and emotional and wanted to be held.’
Oh Christ. Pissed as a fart and blubbing like a baby, then, I realised.
‘And we didn’t…’ I made a vaguely obscene gesture with my fingers.
‘No. We didn’t,’ he said, looking amused at the question. I nodded. I knew deep down that we hadn’t. I just wasn’t sure whether I was relieved or disappointed.
I nodded and disappeared off for a quick shower and to find some passably clean clothes. The last week had been hell on my laundry pile. I walked back into the room feeling as fresh as it was possible to feel with a hangover, a large portion of unfulfilled lust and the terrible feeling I’d let Tish down hanging over my shoulders.
‘I hope we’re not going to have one of those conversations,’ I said, walking to my laptop and booting it up.
‘One of what conversations?’ he said, putting a mug of coffee down in front of me.
‘One of those analyse-it-all-to-death conversations. I fancy you. You fancy me. It probably won’t work. End of story.’
Obviously, I didn’t feel anywhere near as cool as I hoped I sounded, but this wasn’t the time for affairs of the heart. There were other affairs to deal with first – like truth, justice and the Liverpool way.
‘Oh. I see. Well, I’m glad that’s all sorted then,’ he replied, standing behind me so close I could feel the heat from that bare chest. Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it, I thought. I couldn’t, and swayed back slightly so we were touching. Now it was his turn to laugh, and he moved away so quickly I almost fell over.
‘We don’t need to have that conversation right now, Jayne – but at some point? I think we will. Now shut up and do your thing. I’ll be in your shower if you need me.’
I made a harrumphing sound and refused to entertain the image of Dan, naked, soaped up and spread-eagled under jets of hot water. For more than a few seconds, anyway.
I inserted the memory stick into the laptop and waited for the password request to ping onto the screen. Richard had been confident I’d know it, and I tried a few obvious ones straight off. Edward Cullen. Mr Bean. Various manufacturers of overpriced footwear. Her parents’ names and, at a long shot, Tash’s. Nothing. I cast my mental net wider, tried the boy she’d lost her virginity with on a school trip to Barcelona. Her full name, middle name, surname. All of the same for Richard. Even, in a final attack of ego, my own. Nothing. The daft cow – never made it easy on herself, did she? Or on me. I fiddled a few more times, adding numerics after the words, failing with each.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Tish,’ I muttered, frustration growing like a ball of undigested food in my chest. ‘Why can’t you come back from the bloody dead and tell me?’
There was something. A flicker in my senses that made me inhale quickly and look around, so subtle and swift that it was gone before I could catch it. A shadow of a feeling, faint and undefined, like a cobweb you only see in the rain.
Dan walked in, still shirtless, water dripping from his hair and over his golden shoulders.
‘Can you smell that?’ I asked, still sniffing.
‘No,’ he replied, frowning.
‘It’s… nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing. I can’t do this password thing – I’ll have to try later. Assuming I’m not pinned down to a sacrificial altar and covered in goat’s blood, that is. What do we do next?’
‘We go to Will’s. I have some prayers I want us all to say, and to learn. And things to prepare with Betty and Justin… what was it, Jayne? What did you think you felt?’
I shook my head, dismissed it and grabbed my bag. I was sure I’d imagined it, and if I told him, even I’d sound insane.
Because it was insane, wasn’t it? That for one fleeting moment, the whole room had blossomed with the sweet fragrance of Tish’s favourite perfume.
Chapter 44
‘There’s no electricity,’ said Dan, flicking the light switches on and off.
‘Um… I suppose that would be my fault,’ said Will meekly, following us into the shadows of Hart House’s lobby. ‘Gas leak, remember? Health and safety and all that.’
Right. Which not only meant no light, but no lifts. Which meant the stairs. In the dark. In a building that came with its own supernatural self-defence system. Brilliant.
‘It’s okay,’ said Betty, her brown face all but hidden in the fading light. She cracked a smile and I saw her teeth. ‘Some of us were girl scouts,’ she added, hoisting her big black travel bag from her shoulder and to the ground. She scooped out flashlights, handed one to me, to Dan and Will. She kept one for herself and told Justin they’d have to share. He nodded, head dressing bobbing white.
‘So…’ I asked, wandering around, pointing the light at anything that looked strange or suspicious. Like the killer desk, and the evil potted palm trees in the corner. ‘Where do we do this thing?’
‘Here will be fine,’ said Dan, taking in one long deep breath and holding it as he surveyed our surroundings. ‘This is the biggest communal area. It’ll come to us.’
‘Why would it be that co-operative?’ I asked, aware I was being overly chatty, but unable to stop. Because, you know, I was bloody terrified. Give me a dawn drugs bust any day.
‘It won’t have any choice,’ said Betty, rummaging around in the bag, ‘Dan will summon it to us.’
I nodded, shooting the torch around to highlight a particularly dastardly looking water cooler.
Betty was laying out all kinds of paraphernalia – crosses, washing-up-liquid bottles full of holy water instead of Fairy, rosary beads, a thumping great copy of the Bible. She handed me a small pink water pistol and I took it. Great. A weapon at last. I’d have preferred a taser, but beggars can’t be choosers.
‘What’s this?’ I asked, to break the thirty seconds of silence that had descended.
‘Freshly squeezed virgin’s tears from the foothills of the Himalayas,’ said Dan, patrolling the edges of the room. Sarcastic bastard.
‘From Father Kerrigan’s baptismal font,’ Betty added. Okay. Worst came to worst, I could shoot myself in the mouth and choke to death.
‘Dan,’ said Will, following him around like Peter Pan searching for his shadow, ‘I have a question, if you don’t mind?’
God. He was always so bloody polite. When this was all over, I planned to get him hammered and take him to a lap dancing bar. See if a night of filth couldn’t wash out some of the Deerborne starch.
Dan nodded, as he barricaded the front door with a chair. That made me nervous – was he trying to stop passers-by from getting in, or us from getting out? My eyes scooted round, looking for the nearest window big enough to squeeze my arse through if I needed to.
‘This… thing. It took over Joy’s body and killed her. And we saw it take over Sophie’s body and try to do the same. You have your suspicio
ns it was somehow involved in Tish’s…demise. Yet you also say it has no physical form of its own, and just uses the children, so how will this work? How will we see it?’
Ah. A very good question. Maybe one I’d have come up with myself if I wasn’t so busy trying not to poo my pants.
‘We’ll know it’s here,’ replied Dan, straightening up and wiping his hands down the thighs of his jeans. ‘The usual way – flying objects, voices, drop in temperature. Possibly the children. And then it may well try and enter one of us.’
‘What?!’ I shrieked, almost dropping my water pistol. Justin, Dan and Betty stopped what they were doing and stared at me. Oops. Might have broken the sound barrier with that one.
‘This might be just another day at the office to you guys,’ I said, my voice so high and squeaky I sounded like I’d been inhaling direct from a helium balloon, ‘but for me this is all new. What do I do if it happens? Can I stop it? Should I fight it? Spray myself with virgin’s tears, what? I am really so not happy at the thought of a demon…entering me!’
Dan moved towards me, held my hand in his. Warm fingers stroked my palm, and I felt my anxiety smoothing out. I was turning into a big girl, and I wasn’t at all sure I liked it. He’d made an attempt to talk me out of coming earlier; citing the ridiculous – yet true – reasons that I didn’t know what I was doing; I might get in the way; and I was grieving. Once I explained that I was coming, whether he liked it or not, he’d retreated. Right now, he was probably wishing he’d stood firm.
‘If we’re lucky it’ll try Justin first,’ he said. ‘If that happens, it won’t be able to move on, he’ll block it. If not, and it chooses you, then there’s nothing you can do – you won’t be you any more, and you won’t remember anything about it. Don’t worry. We won’t let it hurt anyone.’
Yeah. Right. Tell that to Joy Middlemas.
‘You’d better not’ I said. ‘Because I don’t want to die here. I want to die on the night of my 100th birthday party, on the way home from stuffing tenners down the Chippendales’ pants.’
I vowed to pull myself together, and asked if there was anything I could do to help. I was given the role of official flashlight holder as Betty worked setting out crosses – more to shut me up than anything else, I suspected.
When she finished, we all sat on the floor in a circle, as instructed, holding hands. I couldn’t help it. I giggled. A bit hysterically.
‘What is it now?’ asked Dan, his tone deliberately patient.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Except it looks a bit like we’re all going to start singing “Kum Ba Ya”.’
‘We’ll do that later,’ he said, squeezing my hand. ‘In the pub.’
Aaah. The magic words. I felt better already.
‘Before we begin,’ he said, ‘I need to warn you and Will about some things that might happen. I don’t think this is a simple haunting by the children. I think the demon is feeding off their energy, their pain. If it is, it will have certain abilities. It can’t read minds, not in the traditional sense, but it can… sense things. Pull out images and thoughts. It will be looking for vulnerability, and will use it to throw us off balance, try and distract us. We know it can move objects, so look out for that. It can possess bodies, we know. But try and guard your minds as well – protect yourself from thinking of anything that might upset you.’
Tish. Lying in a body’s worth of blood in the rain. Red slash across her throat. Yeah. That’d count.
‘A lot of what I say will seem repetitive,’ he continued. ‘And it might not seem like it’s having any effect. It will be – but the demon will do everything it can to appear unbothered; it might mock me or laugh at me. Ignore that. It’s normal – it’s a sign it’s weakening.
‘Remember to pray. Prayer is its enemy. God is with us, and listening, so never underestimate its worth. If you need anything, ask Justin or Betty – I’ll be concentrating fully on what I have to do. Now, let’s pray together.’
I closed my eyes. A reflex.
‘Saint Michael the Archangel,’ began Dan, his voice low and strong and strumming with strength, ‘defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, oh Prince of the Heavenly Host…’
I felt a familiar rush of cold pricking my skin as the temperature started to plunge. A whisper of cool air past my face, a child’s shrill scream echoing round the hall, the sound of tiny feet skittering on the stairs.
We had company.
Dan didn’t pause, his grip on my hand staying firm even as my fingers began to tremble.
‘By the divine power of God, cast into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits who roam throughout the world, seeking the ruin of souls…’
A crash. A sloshing sound as the water spilled from the cooler, spreading to reach our legs. I jumped as it soaked into my jeans, ice cold on my skin. The sound of small feet splashing towards us.
‘Amen,’ said Justin and Betty, followed hastily by me and Will.
‘In the name of Jesus, say your name. In the name of Jesus, if you are present, show yourself.’
Childish giggling. Like Satan’s nursery, demonic toddlers chortling as they pull the wings off flies. The slamming of doors all over the building, an orchestra of bangs floating from all around us.
Dan leaped to his feet and we all followed. Justin and Betty held firm to their crosses. I held even firmer to my water pistol.
‘In the name of Jesus Christ, Demon, show yourself!’ Dan shouted, his teeth chattering slightly in the sub-zero climate.
The banging stopped. The laughing ceased abruptly, like someone had turned the radio off.
Will suddenly slumped to the floor, knocking his head as he went down. Dan ignored him and carried on reciting words in a language I couldn’t understand but knew was Latin. I dashed to Will’s side, kneeling down next to him with Betty.
She cradled his head in her lap, her voice calm and soothing as she called his name. His eyes flickered open.
‘I’m okay,’ he said, embarrassed, ‘I think I… I just fainted…’
On the final word, his head jerked back and his whole body went rigid and started to shake. Vibrating like he was lying on a super-size washing machine. His fingers flapped, banging onto the wooden floors, making an unhealthy crunching noise as bone slammed against solid ground. I may be a novice when it comes to exorcisms, but that didn’t look good.
Betty pulled his eyelids back – nothing but shining white orbs. She laid him down gently, and stood up, backing away. If she was doing that, I knew it was a good idea, and did the same. Justin stood nearby, his face grim and… greedy. Like Will had something he wanted.
Will’s body was still shaking, and started to rise from the floor, levitating inches into the air, water from the cooler dripping from his clothes and splashing onto the ground. His lips were blue with the cold, twisted into a sneer. Holy fuck. I realised we’d found our demon.
‘Your name, Demon!’ Dan yelled, getting close enough to touch him, skimming a hand over his torso.
Will crumpled to the floor, then straightened up and stood tall. Taller than he usually was. Tall enough to tower over Dan and Betty and possibly Michael Jordan.
‘I have many names, priest. And this body is mine.’
He sprinted for the stairs, so fast he was a blur of movement, leaving a trail of water behind him. It froze into ice-crystals, a kind of Demonic slug trail heading towards the steps. Dan headed the chase, me and Justin right behind, Betty following. I rubbed my hands together against the cold, losing sensation in my fingers.
Chanting bounced off the walls as we dashed behind him. ‘Chase! Chase! Chase! He’s it, you’re it, we’re it… run!’
Demon Will was too quick for us. He was superhuman, and not at all the man I’d seen in a pinny baking cookies a few days earlier. All we could do was follow, air gasping from our frozen lips, cold breath chilling our lungs as our legs pumped up the endless flights of stairs. Past Geneva’
s room. Past Joy’s. Right to the top of the building.
He slammed through a service door, and we tumbled behind him. I was exhausted, my brain screaming for more oxygen, my chilled muscles shrieking with pain.
The roof. Desolate, dark and windswept. The red brick turrets and fake castle walls surrounded us. There was debris – discarded bricks, plastic containers, a shattered umbrella, litter howling around our feet in the wind. I glanced down at the street below. The treetops were still. The weather up here was just for us. My eye was snagged by a flash of white; I whirled to follow it, but found nothing. Just an impression, a visual memory: ragged, dirty clothes, flapping in the breeze.
The singing again. ‘A-tishoo, a-tishoo, we all fall down.’ I could see the traffic down below, orange headlights glowing in the dark. Should have been able to hear it too, but couldn’t. Silence, apart from those ghoulish giggles and a song about the bubonic plague.
I felt something hit my ankles, sharp and hard, like a wrap of wet rope.
‘Skip, silly!’ said a little voice, prodding me in the back. I ignored it, and the non-existent rope kept slapping into my leg, harder each time.
Will stopped at the very edge of the low-slung castle walls, throwing his arms into the air as we approached.
‘Stop, or I’ll kill him!’ he said. The voice was Will’s own, but laced with the echo of dozens of others, like it was reaching us through a distortion chamber, layer upon layer of childish vocal chords on top of Will’s bass note. We all stopped dead. This wasn’t Will. But the bastard still had Will’s body, and he was going to want it back at some point.
‘Or maybe…’ said the voice. Voices. ‘Maybe you don’t care about him… I can see right inside him, and he’s not very nice, you know, this current Deerborne? Not very nice at all. He has secrets. Dirty ones. I wouldn’t play with him if I were you.’
Fear No Evil (Debbie Johnson) Page 29