Diary Of An Occult Resolution Assistant

by Chris Norgate

  The conversation continued but I lost interest as the door moved forward yet again only this time more forceful. Finished talking and dropped the phone into and said with all humour.

  "Who would call at a time like this?"

  We sat there, legs out stretched against the barricade pushing hard enough for the effort to cause Adym and I to perspire, he looked a lot worse for it than I. It looked as if he was struggling with an inner dilemma, then as if he had wrestled an answer from deep within - or got to that point where he didn't care anymore.

  "You're stronger than us." he said calmly looking straight at the shaft.

  "Correct." replied Xanthic.

  "And you have must faster reflexes than us."

  "Most definitely."

  "And you're far more agile and responsive too."

  "Are you coming to a point or are you trying to chat me up here because boy you are far too.......human to be my type." Xanthic through gritted teeth as we had to hold the door shut after another massive blow.

  "I'm just saying that we need to get up there to get out. Stay here and we all die, but if you can hold them back long enough for us to get up there and then you can run after us." Adym finished and there were a few seconds while this statement sunk in. Although it sounded plausible I didn't want to leave Xanthic here on his own.

  "I am stronger than any mortal but haven't you noticed how it’s taking all three of us to keep this door closed." as if to prove this point we were shoved forward a good distance and it took everything we had to push back. "and that shaft is sheet metal, so unless you have your 10m sheer wall scaling certificate I doubt you'll make it in the time you have and your ankles will be at a convenient height for a mid rampage snack. I, on the other hand, could claw my way up there in half a heart beat; which would be all the time you would have if I left you."

  "Is there another way out?" it was pathetically asked full of hope and only slightly tinged with sorrow but I had to ask it.

  "There is one way I can think of. Do you trust me." Xanthic asked.

  "No, you're a demon and as trustworthy as a snake in a gerbil cage but you're the best we have. So whatever it is I say we go for it." I hoped he had a plan better than mine which was to sit here and hope Superman would fly in and pull us out.

  "Get in one of those cages, lock it and take the key in with you. Both of you go now." we followed Xanthic's order without hesitation and I quickly backed into a bottom row kennel pulling the door closed. There were no keys evident so I pulled hard and the mess door clicked in place. I saw Adym disappear into one nearer the wall.

  "Good luck." Xanthic called and with a leap entered the broken shaft and I heard metal tear as he punched holes into the sides with his extended claws.

  "He's left us." called Adym. "He just ran off and left us."

  "I'm sure he's got a plan, he wouldn't just leave us here." I said it with a strength I didn't really feel.

  The door gave showering parts of our barricade around the room and with almost as much destruction the now barely unrecognisable, slavering, shrieking Unalive girls. There were only five now, each looking worse for wear. A rapid deterioration in their appearance shocked me more than them being so close. Their skin was rotting on their bodies, thick black blood dripped from their eyes and mouths and their gums had receded exposing long decaying teeth. Any wound sustained in their previous battle festered alarmingly causing those that had them to appear slow and sluggish next to their uninjured friends.

  Their eyes were milky and I judged they were blinded or close to it as they hit into the walls searching us out by smell and touch. It didn't take one long to find me and her squeal of delight, not only painfully off key and shrill but caused the other to leave their search and stagger straight at me. I pulled far back into the cage and it hurt as I forced my spine to bend the curve of the box. The wire mesh door started to bend as fingers and arms pushed without pain as they tried to push straight through.

  I stayed quiet huddling myself pretending I wasn't there hoping they would leave me alone before the door gave in. They did. Adym screamed and they left me. I could hear his agonised wailing and the gleeful playfulness of the soulless girls high shrill callings. I preyed whatever it was that was happening it would be quick as they banged and banged and banged against the metalwork.

  There was a thing. A light with a rush of air and as I stated, a thing. The Unalive horde grudgingly left their quarry as their auras sounded their displeasure.

  I waited. It felt like a lifetime.

  "I know he’s gone." it was the vampire. He must have entered the room, I moved forward to look. He was there and the girls were around him like a pack of hunting dogs. "Left you to your fate. Don't worry he will share it alongside you all too soon."

  I heard his footsteps come deeper into the room and then I saw his face, sideways, through the kennel door.

  "The enigmatic Miss Valentine. DO come out and join us." he wrapped his long thin fingers around the wire and effortlessly ripped it from its hinges, the metal tearing like thin plastic film where it met the lock.

  I climbed out, there didn't appear to be many other options.

  Adym was dragged by the leg out of his cage, he was bleeding from the ankle and it looked broken from using his feet to push back the bending cage from the onslaught of the Unalive for which they mercilessly punished him for. He lay on the floor unable or unwilling to erect himself.

  "Upstairs my Lord." the voice echoed from elsewhere. The vampire grabbed each of us by the neck and unsubtly escorted us through the filthy laboratory stepping over the bodies of his staff and three girls with no emotion and up the staircase towards the kitchen. He let us go when we got to the large dining room. The remaining girls followed us up the stairs with difficulty and joined us behind their Master but snapping to move forward as if held back by an invisible wall.

  A figure came out of the dark pushing a wheeled table as long and wide as a man and adorned with wide straps. He reminded me of the Gnome in his mannerisms and pleasure in serving his Master's orders. It didn't take a genius to workout what or who it was for.

  "What are you going to do with us?" babbled Adym through the pain. The statement answered a lot of questions for me regarding my comrade.

  "Why, I plan to operate on your mortal body and remove all parts that aspire to go further when you depart this world and take what the Heavenly Host or Him downstairs fight their eternal fight over. And then, while you still have that spark of humanity within you I will fill you up with a Being that has never been granted your opportunity. It may hurt a lot, right up until the end of time. I will enjoy your screams."

  They say when you accept your own death you are calm when you look it straight in the eye. I guess I've never been that quick on the uptake and I never accept things on face value; that’s probably why I ran at him screaming defiance and tried to punch him in the face.

  The vampire released the girls and they poured forward.

  "To the Limbo's with you." he called as he raised the ward holding them back. "There will always be more, humans have a habit of always making more. It’s such a shame to waste such a talent."

  A huge crash came and from behind us and the noise deafened me making me stop in my action. Fragments of wood and stone flew through the air stinging my in a multitude of places like little stinging insects and the buzz of their wings whined until they died like the engine of the Jaguar presently sitting on three of its wheels in the reception in its most fatal of actions. The screen smashed out and the shards flew into the room cutting everyone who didn't dive for cover amongst the tables.

  Through the empty screen came a howling beast with wild eyes and claws outstretched ready to bite into flesh of the enemy. The Beast cut down the table pusher who poured his blood over the floor. The vampire hissed exposing elongated canines. Xanthic took up the space between myself and the creatures who could no longer be called girls or human. He spread himself wide warning off any attack and I heard the
violins playing fast and tight with the brass horns ringing mightily at a tempo that commanded the elements. I watched terrified as Xanthic spun in attacks that no human could parry and great chunks of flesh and bone flew from the things who pushed forward but never gave up. The vampire weighed in with a punch that floored my Boss and he had to roll to the side to miss a crushing foot which smashed into the wooden floor of the dining room raising splinters and shards. Two of the things tried to fall onto him but he was too quick but I knew he was reacting and not recovering. I took the chance to reach out to Adym who had pulled himself into a strange shape on the floor all for the better to cradle his injured ankle. I could see he was injured with an expansive wound that bit into the flesh. A handkerchief and sock pulled from the injured foot were tied very tightly around the wound inexpertly but effective.

  There were only two of the ghoulish things still in a position to fight and one was coming at the two of us. All its long hair was gray and matted in blood and the skin was tight across its face, arms and legs. Its belly was swollen and greatly distended and housed deep gouges that ran with foul black blood. Adym had lost his bag of stakes and I had precious little left on me with which to fight. A table leg came to hand as my fingers searched and I swung it at its head and I felt a wet crunch as the wood encountered bone. It did not stop it so I hit it again and again bringing the wood around to land on the bony arms which cracked as the bone gave but it did not stop. Its leg gave, the left thigh bending above the knee keeping it down. I brought the table leg down again and the neck snapped. It fell then onto its back and, for the first time since I watched it change from a scared young woman into this soulless ghoul, it sucked in a large lungful of air and coughed up bodily fluids. Through almost completely blind eyes she tried to see and clear tears welled in the corners.

  "Mum. Are you there?" it said in the most tender of feminine voices. "I want you Mummy."

  "I'm here." I said dropping the wood and kneeling over it. I ignored Adym's brief warning and reached out picking up her only remaining hand.

  "Mum, I'm sorry. I...I didn't mean for this to happen."

  "Don't worry yourself." I said back trying to be some comfort.

  "I was tricked." she sobbed.

  "By who? How did you get here so far from home?" I asked.

  "The old witch." the poor thing cried with large tears rolling across her face. "It was that old witch who took my dreams away."

  I held her hand to my chest and brushed with my fingers her hair from her face.

  "I'm scared." she said.

  "So am I."

  "Mum."

  "Yes?"

  "I love you."

  "I love you too." I was crying now, uncontrollably and unashamedly. And right at that last second when all life was released from her body I thought I saw a beat of light from deep within her flash brightly in a golden shine and then she was dark forever.

  When I looked up Xanthic, Adym and the vampire had gone and I was alone amongst the dead and dying. I could hear sirens in the distance, I assumed heading this way due to the damage caused by my employers spectacular entrance; they were the only noise other than pits and pats of settling debris.

  I took everything in, burning it to my memory, taking every second personally.

  I heard someone moving behind me and I didn't care who it was, I was numb, deaf and blind to all things and still holding the hand of this poor dead girl. Someone was talking, well let them, I had better things to do.

  I watched motes of dust drift within the tides and eddies of the air circulation and slowly fall mixing with the liquids that covered the floor in expanding seeping puddles.

  I felt myself being pulled to my feet, I felt the hand slip out of mine and I was pulled out of the hole in the wall. Xanthic lit two new thermoses by their short fuses and threw one towards the basement stairs and the other up into the hollow reception room stories so it would land somewhere higher on a landing. I was placed with some care, not that I would have noticed any heavy handedness, into the back of the only vehicle Xanthic had to hand and as we drove away the black Zafira was buffeted by a pressure wave as the hotel expanded outwards and fell into itself with a colossal explosion of sound and light.

  Saturday 2nd May

  14:00

  The day passed like I was watching it in a black and white movie with the world staging the acts for players both familiar and foreign to weave, dance and deliver their monologues to the inside of the cloud lazily hovering around my head. There was a car drive, I could tell you that, but by what route I couldn't say. The big boys were fighting, not anywhere as physical as of this morning but just as violent and with as much at stake. I don't know how we had ended up back At Xanthic's emporium where the familiar smells and shelves full of antiques and rare items not fully of this world. Harahel had arrived, that I do know but when and how were again mysteries. In my head I replayed the events that led me here; swimming within the cloud were images of hospital demons, girls playing at witchcraft dancing under the moon. Old Witches cackling over black cauldrons and young Witches bringing the power of the universe into themselves with flowers and dance. The I saw girls, teenagers all on the cusp of womanhood with suitcases filled with dreams and potential which had been tricked off of them by grossly inflated cartoon villains and a vampire with widow's peak all wrapped up in its extra long cape. Then, as if my subconscious was tired of my slowness it hung the image of all the girls in the pub, a number of them so large the walls were bulging out and the roof lifting off only for one girl to disappear in front of my eyes until there was just me left alone with Melody stood over me telling me I would never be a witch.

  I got up, walked without thinking and through the doors of Xanthic's office where He was in full discussions with the Angel. They were extremely put out with my intrusion but I cared little of their initial outrage.

  "I want the keys." I said holding my hand out.

  "You want the what?" said Xanthic incredulously.

  "I want the car keys. Those girls, some of them anyway, came from Wykeham and there will be others taken if we don't do anything. We can stop this now if we go there and stop the old Witch from stealing them away. We can stop them being turned into those things whatever you decide to call them." It was an outburst, it wasn't a well crafted argument designed to endear them to my cause; what it was came from emotion.

  "This is bigger than just a couple of silly girls." snapped my employer back at me. "There are powers at large that can remove souls from humans and imbue their husks with something from the outside. Do you know the importance of this discovery? Do you understand the ramifications of what this knowledge will lead to? To the entities that could use this new technomancy to escape from any number of between dimensions where horrors this world could never and would never imagine in the most Hellish of nightmares, horrors that make even The Lords of Hell quake in fear and would cause Angels to flock back to Heaven and cower behind His throne."

  Xanthic spun away from his conversation with the Angel, thrust his hands into his trouser pockets causing his coat to peacock out behind him and marched towards me.

  "People are sent to the Limbo's for a reason, they stay there, that’s the point, purgatory would be a blessing compared to their suffering; but there are wills and strengths of character that should never be released. Not everybody with a soul come from human descent and these things should remain 'away'. Do you know the destruction and death that would occur if they could return to embody a mortal on this Earth? Not to mention the war that could descend upon us all if both our superiors knew of the extent of this. It would mean the end of my life here, Hal's too. A line would be drawn and all agents called back to their side of it where we would have to sound off and stomp around showing our strength and the mortal realm would be the staging ground for any altercation. And worse of all, the very worst, it would be the end of my shop and all the sparkly things within it." He paused for a breath I knew he didn't really need, it was all for effect.
"And you want to risk showing our hand anymore than we already have to go and save the life of one or two spotty teenagers who would run away at so easy an opportunity?"

  I stood shocked but unperturbed, resolute in my desire. I wanted to save one of the girls I befriended, would befriend when my past become the present.

  Harahel gently offer his worldly wise wisdom. "His plan is great and oft appears confusing. He loves you all but bad things do happen to good people and none of us can save everyone."

  "Well you bloody well should or do everything you can till you can't do anymore. We maybe mortals, humans, or whatever but we all count, even the smallest most unfulfilled life counts a billion times for both of you right now, so either give me the damn keys to your car or I'll start walking this second."

  I must have appeared like a spoilt brat in front of their parents demanding a return trip to the toyshop after returning from the store with new games.

  "I meant it when I said this was bigger. There is a network of girls being trafficked from several sites around the Country and we need to bring about the cessation of all of these not just that one. I will admit that Wykeham offers more intelligence than any of the others with locations and suspects but........." Xanthic let the word hang and I leapt on the opportunity opened to me.

  "But you're going to go......try and stop it there first?"

  "Go and get some clothes, I have a place in that part of the countryside where we could information gather before making any final decision."

  "I know, I've been there. You must tell me how you got the jungle so green." I said happily almost jumping on the spot. And there it ended, for me at least. As I grabbed a few clothes, my best and hardest wearing that I pack to take everywhere and personal effects from my room upstairs I heard the raised voices of those that know better acting like they knew worse.

  14:50