Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More

by Rebecca Hamilton

“I’d rather take my chances alone than with her. You don’t understand. How can I make you understand?” Leland pushed a spidery hand through his graying hair, letting the bottle fall from his fingers. Gasoline began to drip out onto the concrete. “I don’t fit in with… with you lot. I don’t, and I don’t want to. I have no interest in interacting with you… people” – the word came with difficulty and disgust, like a gob of bile – “at all. I want to be left alone. I thought she had begun to realize that.”

  “I know. You… you still h-have free w-will.” Leland was stained. He was a killer, as much as Rhona. Lenny could feel it, but all death felt the same to him. His ghost sense did not distinguish between the slaughter of a serial killer and the self-defense of a victim; it perceived, but could not judge. He knew that Leland had killed in fear, in anger, in vengeance, and with cold and practiced efficiency, but there was no way for him to know why, and he chose to believe it had been necessity. None of it was recent, either. Lenny had felt the same in soldiers, sometimes.

  “You still know right from wrong, and you c-can choose. You’re not the only one like that.”

  Leland smiled grimly. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you’re like that? Or that Rhona is?”

  But Lenny could see that uncertainty back. He could see that the man had wondered about it before, had known that, logically, the chances were slim to none that he was unique. Leland wanted it to be true.

  “I am. Rhona’s not. I mean, ‘m not saying I always make the b-best decisions, but… I wouldn’t ask you to g-go if I thought she meant to hurt you. I c-couldn’t.”

  Leland crossed the yard slowly, his shoulders tight, and moved to stand in front of Lenny. “That sounded true,” he allowed. “Or you’re a bloody brilliant actor. I admit, though, I am a bit disappointed. If you’re able to choose right, then I’d have to say killing my friends was a very poor decision, indeed.”

  His hand flickered out to catch Lenny in the shoulder, tearing flesh and driving the medium back into the corrugated steel wall behind him. Leland was fast, as fast as Sebastian or faster, and strong. Lenny saw the blow coming, but there was no chance for him to block or avoid it. He began to pick himself up, found Leland standing over him, and struck out once, frantic. He was not fast, nowhere near as fast as Leland or as strong, but by sheer luck his foot took Leland in the knee, and he seized the second that bought him to scramble up and run.

  He skidded around a corner and into the side of a building with a clang. His head spun and his shoulder throbbed. In front of him was the chain-link fence, which he doubted he could scale one-handed. There had to be a gate in it somewhere, but circling around the perimeter of the lot would waste time, and Leland would catch up in moments. It was not a skill he used often, but Lenny knew it was possible to scale a vertical wall, sticking to a flat surface like a gecko. But with one arm out of commission, that was as impossible as going over the fence. There was no way up and over. Instead, he ducked inside the building. He knew immediately that it was useless; the place was cluttered with parts and equipment, but there was nothing that could conceal him adequately. It was not like hiding from a human, when silence and stillness would be enough. Leland would be able to follow his scent and the indefinable sensation that let the undead identify one another. But maybe it could give him an extra moment, if Sebastian happened to be nearby, if Sebastian was paying attention…

  Lenny scrambled around something that looked like a hydraulic lift, but fear made him even clumsier than usual, and he froze as his foot made loud contact with a plastic bucket. The noise echoed strangely off the metal walls.

  A shadow moved in the door, momentarily dimming the light.

  Lenny backed away. To him, his steps were almost deafening, but the shadow made no sound at all.

  “I d-didn’t,” he whispered. “I didn’t k-k-kill anyone.”

  “No?” The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Just pretending, then? Very convincing.”

  “I d-didn’t. Sebastian… I c-couldn’t stop him. I d-didn’t know what he was g-going t-t-t-”

  The air whistled, and Lenny’s knees splintered. He hit the ground with a scream and a thud.

  “And yet you ally with him. I ask you to leave me alone, and your friend responds by hurting the people I care about. Killing. You’re making a poor case for yourself.”

  Lenny tried to draw breath, and could not. It hurt too much. Something cold touched his good shoulder, and he heard a tremendous crack, as though the concrete floor itself had broken. The fire struck a moment later. He tried to pull himself away and found himself stuck instead, fixed to the floor with a length of rebar like a pinned butterfly.

  “I-I-I-I’m like y-you. H-he’s n-no-not.”

  “I don’t much care. Maybe he’s cruel, but you’re clever, and that’s worse. You, at least, won’t be following me for a while.”

  A sharp kick landed in Lenny’s ribs, and a foot ground down on his pelvis until the bone crunched. Lenny gagged. The tip of a piece of rebar came to rest against his left pectoral, poised directly over his heart. Despite the pain, he froze.

  “I could kill you. It would certainly be prudent, but dead men can’t deliver messages, and I’d like you to deliver this one to your friend. I have survived much worse than a pair of thugs. I will survive you. Good luck.”

  The steel spear lifted away. But then it came back down. Twice. Thrice. Again. Again. Again.

  Lenny writhed until a blow snapped his neck, and the pain abruptly receded. He could hear the ocean, the tide coming in. He thought he could feel it closing over him. It was warm.

  * * *

  IT FELT LIKE a hallucination or a dream. He was floating, mostly numb, but his senses seemed at once dull and preternaturally acute. There was no moment of confusion between unconsciousness and awareness; he knew exactly what had happened and how precarious his situation really was. Even though he could not feel it, Lenny knew that his body was mangled beyond its present ability to heal. If the wrong person found him, he would be taken for dead. There were two possibilities beyond that point. Sooner or later, his spinal cord would repair itself, and he would regain a degree of motion. That would almost certainly be after he had lost the ability to think rationally. Either he would attack someone, or the City would cremate him before he was able to move again. If he was honest with himself, the first possibility frightened him more. True death at least would get him out of the mess he was in, and with his nerves severed, it would hardly hurt. He shrank from that thought. It was not his time. He had always, always been aware of his own death waiting on the horizon, at the very edge of his ghost sense. It was on the horizon still; it had not yet arrived. He could not welcome it before it was time.

  Welcome it or not, though, there was nothing he could do to stop it, if it came.

  When it came.

  He heard a footfall nearby, and through the blood and weakness, he was able to focus his eyes enough to make out a woven sandal of leather and hemp. Other than that, his perception was hazy. He knew beyond doubt that the person who had found him was a ghost. He also knew beyond doubt that the person who had found him was not a ghost, and there was no logical way to reconcile those two certainties, so he did not try.

  The figure knelt, and Lenny received the impression that it was talking, but the voice was only a rush of sound, no more meaningful than wind. He could hear the words, but they were nonsense.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”

  There was a distant tugging sensation and a vile, wet sound as the piece of rebar was jerked out of Lenny’s chest. He felt himself lifted up and carried out into the light – moonlight, so intensely bright it was painful.

  “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”

  He was propped up against something, and as the figure moved away, he caught a glimpse of the face. It was a man, and though he seemed familiar, Lenny did not know him. He was tall and broad-shouldered, olive-skinned, with curly black hair cut even with his chi
n. The shape of his face was hidden by a thick, short beard. He wore a long, black garment, some kind of gown or robe, woven from coarse material, belted with a length of hemp rope. A wooden cross hung on a thong around his neck. Under the curtain of dark hair, his eyes were sad.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t… I don’t know what to do. It’s not as simple as blood for you, is it? If something died, it would only hurt you more.”

  Panic would have taken too much effort, but Lenny felt a twinge of fear. The man knew what he was, seemingly both sides of his dual nature. The possibility of a city morgue seemed further and further away, but new ones, no more comforting, were springing up.

  The man took an abrupt step away, then seemed to think better of whatever he had planned, and fell still again, thinking. He looked back at Lenny and attempted a smile.

  “It’ll be okay.”

  The absolute truth of that statement was irresistible. Lenny could feel it with complete certainty, the blood-deep knowledge that it would be okay, everything would be okay. The fear vanished, replaced with calm. It would be okay.

  “You feel that? Good. Good, hold onto it. Keep feeling that. Listen, now. Go deeper for me. That’s it. Don’t be scared. I’m taking care of you.”

  Lenny listened, because the first thing the good ones do is make you want to listen. That knowledge was familiar, too, but he could not quite place it; he was too still inside. That fact in itself should have scared him even more, he knew, but stillness felt infinitely better than fear. He didn’t want to be afraid. He wanted everything to be okay. He wanted to be taken care of.

  “Deeper. Good. Stay like this, now. Stay like this until I tell you to come out of it. Listen. Your neck is broken. When it heals, you’re going to hurt a lot, so I’m going to keep it broken until everything else is working again. I’m taking care of you. I’m so sorry, Hugo. You stayed. You stayed, and this is what you got for it. I promise I will make that bastard pay for this.”

  Lenny’s vision wavered. The ghost faded, melted away like hot wax, subsumed into the not-ghost. Clean-shaven, hair cropped, clad in blue jeans and a fitted t-shirt, the not-ghost was someone Lenny knew.

  “I’ll hurt him,” Sebastian swore. “I’ll hurt him good. No one touches my friend.”

  After that, Lenny stopped paying attention. Nothing made sense anyway, so it really didn’t matter whether he was paying attention or not. At some point, he lost it, and when he came back around, the kid from San Antonio, Efrain, was gone. Lenny knew he hadn’t killed him, couldn’t have killed him. It was possible that Sebastian did, but neither of them brought it up. It was also possible that Lenny drained him out and Sebastian left him somewhere, and maybe someone found him and he ended up in a hospital in time. That was the version Lenny chose to believe. They kept moving. Sebastian had feelers stretched out everywhere, sending back whispers and clues. That seemed strange for a man with no real friends – no real friends except the one he had newly declared – until Lenny realized that every one of them was someone he had touched. It only took a smile to get anyone to tell Sebastian anything. People with airlines, people with moving companies, car dealers, career forgers, anyone Leland might have used, anyone who might have seen him. Sebastian always knew exactly who to ask, and they always told him. It took a while, sometimes. Baltimore took nearly eight months, living out of Sebastian’s car, before they got the clue that sent them to Elko, Nevada. They had been in Elko only two hours when someone mentioned in passing that some old man had run into town on foot, hotwired a semi, and took off. They kept moving.

  Nothing really changed after Lenny saw the priest’s ghost in Tampa, but at the same time, it changed everything. Spirits did not haunt their own bodies, as far as he knew. He supposed it was possible, but like an undead medium, it was simply something that did not happen. The undead were not truly dead, and if Sebastian was dogged by his own ghost, it was a sign that something was wrong. A medium existed to fix such problems.

  Lenny saw the priest again, always in the same way, superimposed over Sebastian’s body like a mask. The priest was kind to him. The priest never hit or touched him, never reached into his blood to inflict pain or twisted pleasure. The priest used Sebastian’s power sometimes, but only to give peace, assurance that everything would be alright, to apologize over and over and over again.

  It was almost tolerable, sometimes.

  But Sebastian always came back, and Sebastian was willing to do anything to ensure his “friend” could never leave.

  Lenny never tried. The priest was trapped and needed him, and by extension, so did Sebastian, because they were the same person, and so Lenny stayed. Sometimes, at night, he was drawn into their dreams. With them, he cowered and shrank away from the woman with the cleft skull and the mismatched eyes, the one who changed a man into a madman, a monster.

  When he woke, he pondered those dreams. There was plenty of time, in the car. The woman was memory, he decided, not symbolism. She was the one who had changed the priest, almost certainly against his will, but that could not possibly have been all of it. Most vampires had never wanted to be what they were, but those ended up like Tony and Edith, like Kate had been before, tough and practical, doing what they pleased without ever actively seeking to cause harm. The priest had been a good man, had still cared for people even after his conscience was stripped away. She had made him kill when he did not want to. It had taken more than undeath to turn him into what he had become, cursed with a thirst for control stronger even than his thirst for blood.

  But Sebastian did not dream about that, or if he did, he kept it to himself. Lenny did not dare ask, and there were centuries of memories coded in the matter that made up Sebastian’s flesh, too many for Lenny to sift through them all. Besides, if it had been the key to fixing the problem, he would simply have known.

  And they kept moving. San Antonio to Tampa, Tampa to Baltimore, Baltimore to Elko, Glendo, San Diego, Seattle, Faulkton. After a while, Lenny stopped looking at the city limit signs they passed. It was about the time they reached Fort Wayne that he realized it had been more than a month since he had so much as thought of Kim. He could still point straight to her, but when he concentrated, he realized that he would have to point almost straight down. She was further away than she had ever been before, and she was not coming any closer.

  Sebastian kept killing. When they had started out, he had focused on Leland, but Leland remained always just out of reach, and Sebastian became more creative. He waited, sometimes months at a time, giving his prey time to settle down and settle in before dismembering his life with surgically-precise strikes. Leland would run, and they kept moving. Sebastian trailed the death-echoes behind him like a cloud of smoke, occasionally even a ghost. The spirits, Lenny could send across, but the echoes remained as reminders. Some of them told him it wasn’t his fault, but he thought he caught cold glances as they flitted on the fringes of the Veil, halfway but not quite people; they knew he could have tried harder, could have said something. Maybe if he just told Sebastian that he didn’t need to be avenged… But he didn’t dare.

  The priest disappeared for days, often weeks, and it became so hard for Lenny to remember why he stayed, why dying would not be better. Then he would wake sobbing from a nightmare and find someone sitting beside him, silent and patient on the edges of his ghost sense, and he would stay.

  They took a motel room sometimes, and Lenny would watch television, but never the news. He did not want to see the dates and have to count the months. After losing a decade, a few more years did not matter, but they did hurt.

  He did not know what day it was when three thousand deaths crashed into him from the east, but like every American, he would always remember where he was at that moment. It hurt so horribly, his vision went dark, but there would be so many, the shades and specters and spirits, some of them were bound to get lost. He had to go. He threw open the car door and nearly tumbled onto the freeway as it sped past at seventy miles per hour, but Sebastian pulled
him back, screaming obscenity as he swerved into the nearest gas station. The woman at the checkout was crying too hard to notice the two men watching her television through the window.

  “Oh,” Sebastian breathed. “Damn.” With all the power he could gather, he looked Lenny in the eye and commanded “Stay.”

  Lenny looked right back, brushed it off, and walked away. The second wave hit then, and he collapsed, and Sebastian carried him to the back seat and held him still as the onslaught continued through the day and into the night. The priest was there for a while, and before he blacked out again, Lenny thought he heard a whispered Ave.

  “Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.”

  They drove for nearly a week straight after that, and by the time they got where they were going, Lenny was no longer sure who he was supposed to be. He stayed with a monster for the sake of a ghost he did not know he could save. He lacked the spine to stand up and protest meaningless death, and he lacked the courage to seek out the dead his nature demanded he help. He touched his ring and tried to find the echo of Kate, but something had come loose inside him, like an anchor weighed, and he found himself adrift, floating steadily away from the man he had been.

  Chapter 17

  THEY CROSSED THE border between Wyoming and Colorado in the wake of a blizzard, following behind the snow plows as they cleared the highways inch by inch.

  Sebastian had been silent for several days, from Bangor to Chicago to Cheyenne, though he blasted the radio whenever there was a good enough signal. At times, Lenny glanced over and had a hard time telling whether he was looking at the lunatic or the priest. It made him nervous, but for those days, Sebastian had not hurt him once – had not hurt anyone, as far as Lenny was aware. That made him nervous, too, but he refused to look a gift horse in the mouth. He knew he would either find out what it was all about, or he would not, and so he waited.