The Cold Kiss of Death

by Suzanne McLeod

  The hairs on the back of my neck rose as another ghost shuffled into view, his bloated, blackened feet scuffing along the dirt floor, sending little puffs of dust into the still air. A deep cut marred his left cheek; the bone it revealed was white and glistening. His eyes stared blankly out of sunken sockets and the end of his nose was eaten away by a huge black sore. He headed straight towards us and I counted the seconds down - three, two, one - then winced, half in sympathy, half in teeth-gritted anxiety, as he hit the wall of the protective circle in which Finn and I sat. The ghost’s lipless mouth flattened against the magic while his skeletal hands scrabbled for purchase not more than four feet in front of me. I suppressed a shudder, shifting nervously in my deckchair as he slid his way round the circle until he was back on route and shambling off on his way.

  Sighing with relief, I touched my laptop keypad and entered the time against the ghost’s name - Scarface - on the spreadsheet, then duplicated the info on my pad, just in case. The laptop might have an extra-strength Buffer spell in the crystal stuck to its case, but I wasn’t taking any chances. All it needed was a stray bit of magic and I’d end up with one cracked crystal, one dead hard drive and an irretrievable ghost survey.

  I tapped my pencil on my pad and wondered for about the hundredth time what I’d done to deserve a night sitting under London Bridge counting ghosts, especially after my frustrating run-in with Cosette. And not just any ghosts, but the ghosts of fourteenth-century plague victims. My phobia’s bad enough when the dead look relatively normal, without adding in all the stomach-roiling stuff. Not to mention we were camped out deep in the bridge’s foundations in the area known as the tombs - right on top of the plague victims’ burial pits.

  Could my night get any worse?

  ‘That’s the fifth time he’s done that,’ I said, drawing a little Edvard Munch face, mouth wide open in a scream. ‘I was sort of hoping he’d catch on that there was something in his way by now.’

  Finn looked up absently from the book he was reading - a history of London Bridge - and my heart did its usual stupid leap inside my chest. I gave it my standard lecture. Sure, Finn looked great; his handsome, clean-cut features always had plenty of females - and not a few males - drooling, never mind the broad shoulders and honed muscles that stretched his old navy T-shirt. Even his bracken-coloured horns that stood an inch or so above his hair and marked him as a satyr just added to him being a gorgeous hunk of male. But it was just a look. He was wearing his usual Glamour, one that made him appear more human, so even in his snug, washed-out jeans there was no hint of his sleek furred thighs, or the tail I knew he had. It’s just a look, nothing to get worked up about. Yeah, and I didn’t believe myself either. Not that his true form was any less gorgeous, just different - wilder, more feral. But his Glamour made things easier when dealing with humans. A bit of Otherness is tolerable, even sought after, but show too many differences between our species and monsters like prejudice and bigotry raise their ugly heads and the humans start reaching for their not-so-metaphorical pitchforks.

  Damn, running into bitchy witches’ daughters and tangling with paranoid neighbours was turning me into a pessimist.

  ‘Who’s done what?’ Finn asked, a faint line creasing between his brows.

  I sighed. Or maybe it was spending time with a hot satyr who didn’t seem to notice me any more. Previously he’d asked me out often enough that I’d wished he’d stop. Oh, not that I hadn’t wanted to say yes - maybe not for Happy Ever After, but I’d definitely wanted a chance at Happy for Now with him - but keeping my secrets meant I’d always said no. Then the Mr October thing happened. Finn had been determined to play the white knight, and in a desperate attempt to scare him off and end his sacrificial tendencies, I’d told him that saving me from the vamps was really a moot point seeing as my father was one, and my ending up back with the suckers was probably inevitable. He’d gone quiet at my confession, an expected but still painful rejection, then in the end we’d both sort of saved each other and ourselves. But afterwards, when I’d been sure I’d lose everything now he knew - my job, my home and most of my friends - he’d kept my secret, and done some smart talking for me with the Witches’ Council. But as for any sort of relationship other than work, knowing about that half of my parentage seemed to have been the kiss of death. Not that I didn’t understand why.

  The old adage of being careful what you wish for was never so true.

  Or so disheartening.

  ‘Gen, who’s done what?’ Finn repeated the question, his moss-green eyes losing their vagueness.

  ‘Scarface just passed by.’ I pointed my pencil at the ghost disappearing into the distance down the tunnel nearest to Finn, one of a row that led off at right angles from the one we were in, areas between the foundation supports once used for storage, until they’d started to dig the place up and turn it into a tourist exhibition. We sat at one of the T-junctions facing each other, watching for ghosts from all directions. ‘He bumped into the circle again,’ I added, pleased my voice came out steady.

  Finn cast a professional eye over the eight-foot circle. He’d drawn it - literally and magically - in the clearest part of the site, using salt for binding, shredded yew to keep out the dead and sage for clarity and protection. When I looked I could see it enclosing us like a huge bubble - not a comforting thought when bony fingers kept poking at it.

  ‘Hell’s thorns, Gen, the circle’s fine,’ he said, pushing a hand through his dark blond hair and scratching behind his left horn in faint exasperation. ‘It’ll take more than a couple of knocks from a ghost to break.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ I lifted up the laptop to give my jeans a chance to cool down and balanced it on the chair’s frame. It wasn’t just the circle, though; I felt like I wanted to warn Scarface or something, tell him to walk round the side.

  Finn gave me a reassuring smile, teeth white against his tanned skin. ‘I know you’re worried, but just try and relax, okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ I agreed, and he went back to his reading.

  Except relaxing wasn’t an option, not with the sweat still itching down my spine. So instead I stared down the brightly lit tunnels, watching for the next ghostly spectre, telling myself yet again it was irrational to be scared. Scarface was just a soul-memory trapped by a traumatic death, stuck on replay like a faulty DVD, nothing more. If he’d ever felt anything like fear or panic, or wanted anything from the living, those feelings were long gone. I flashed back to Cosette waiting for me in the rain. Despite her wounds, she was angry, not frightened or distressed. Damn, I really needed to find out what she wanted. My phone call to Constable Taegrin had been a part success; he’d been happy to chat to Mr Travers about polishing tips, but his voice had turned disapproving when I’d mentioned my ghost problem and asked about necromancers. He’d not refused outright, but I wasn’t pinning my hopes on him. I thought about asking Finn if he knew any necros, then decided against it. Cosette wasn’t work, and Finn was snowed under seeing as he’d only recently taken over the franchise and become the boss for real. The laptop flipped over to the screensaver - Spellcrackers.com ~ Making Magic Safe - and tired of balancing it on the chair, I leaned over to settle it on my backpack.

  ‘Here, let me.’ Finn reached out to help and his fingers touched mine. Green and gold magic - his and mine - flashed where our skin met like excited sparklers going off.

  I froze. The magic was doing its usual, urging us to get together like we were the last two fae in the world. And even though I knew it wasn’t going to happen ... a foolish hope still surfaced that this time he might say something, anything other than—

  ‘Sorry,’ he murmured, carefully removing his hands from mine and letting go of the laptop.

  The magic fizzled away into nothing.

  ‘No probs,’ I said readily, making sure I kept the disappointment out of my voice and carefully placing the laptop on my backpack.

  He settled back in his chair and concentrated on his book.

  I tried to
settle back in mine, and decided that focusing on the ghosts was marginally better than angsting over might-have-beens, so I checked out the spreadsheet for who was next. Posy. Right on time, the hairs on the back of my neck rose and Posy - a dirty bandage hiding most of her face, the hem of her skirt in rags - ambled by clutching a withered bunch of flowers. I marked her details on the pad and tapped them into the laptop, fingers trembling slightly. Something about this ghost job had me spooked - even without the bad pun - and not just because of my phobia. But when I’d mentioned my vague suspicions to Finn, he’d dismissed them.

  Chewing the end of my pencil, I scanned the underground site again. Bare bulbs in their yellow hanging cages lit the place brighter than the midday sun, even though it was past midnight. The bright lights didn’t make me feel any better: they cast weird shadows over the abandoned builders’ tools, turning them into hiding places full of staring eyes, watching. Thick cobwebs stretched across the arched brick roof and damp stained the walls with algae-slimed patches. And it smelled old and musty, with an underlying whiff of putrefying flesh - a smell Finn had assured me existed only in my overactive imagination, not that his assurances made the smell go away. The place was creepy enough even without the steady stream of ghosts drifting by. Finally my gaze skittered over the more modern breezeblock wall blocking the River Thames end of the tunnel and landed on the cordoned-off area in one corner. An avalanche of grey human bones spilled out over the floor. The very bones I’d been trying to ignore all night, especially as I had an odd notion that they kept whispering my name.

  ‘Tell me why we’re here again?’ I asked, more to shut the whispers out than anything else.

  Finn briefly looked up, a flash of irritation crossing his face. Hell, irritated was better than half-heard whispers, so I prodded a bit more. ‘I mean, they’re developing this as part of the tourist attraction and they want the ghosts to hang around to add to the spooky ambience, but apparently something is frightening them off.’ I could sympathise with how they felt right now even if I didn’t like them. ‘What I don’t understand is, why hire Spellcrackers? I mean, we find magic and break or neutralise spells, right? And ghosts are nothing to do with magic, so why doesn’t Mr Developer just get a medium down here to check them out?’

  ‘I told you, he doesn’t want that, Gen,’ Finn said, smoothing out a page. ‘He’s worried that any contact might disturb the ghosts even more. He just wants them watched, to see if we can discover why they’re disappearing.’

  Happy Head limped past, half his skull missing, a vacant smile on his face, his body transparent as a reflection in a glass window. Suppressing another shudder, I leaned over, tapped the laptop and keyed in his info. The ghosts were all following the same pattern, each one appearing so many minutes after the previous and almost at the same moment in every hour. So far all the ones we’d surveyed appeared to be turning up on cue. Of course, the place was a quiet as the proverbial grave just now.

  ‘How does he know they’re taking off for wherever anyway? ’ I dug the heels of my boots into the dirt. ‘I mean, all the workers are human, aren’t they? So they can’t see ghosts.’

  ‘He says the builders have noticed a difference - a change in the atmosphere, fewer of the usual chills that humans get when they’re around ghosts.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the builders themselves who are causing all the problems.’ I drew a hammer hitting the top of the Scream-face’s head.

  Finn mumbled something unintelligible and turned another page.

  I subsided into silence, frowning at him from under my lashes. Definitely something not right, but what? I looked, but other than the circle - now faintly glimmering with green and gold - and a vague ash-like haze over the pile of old bones near the blocked-off wall, that wasn’t so much magic as maybe the remnants of a ghost, there was nothing. I couldn’t even see Finn’s Glamour, but then he’d obviously worn it long enough it was part of him now. I doodled, plucking at my T-shirt where it was sticking to me with the heat, as I tried to pinpoint my unease.

  Finn flicked his fingers and a bottle of water appeared in his hand. He held it out to me. ‘Want some?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said as I took it, careful not to let our fingers touch; the bottle was ice-cold, straight out of his fridge at home. Brownie magic’s a wonderful thing, if you’re able to use it, which unfortunately I’m not. I took a grateful, cooling drink as he flicked his fingers again to call another bottle for himself.

  ‘Here comes another one,’ he said, pointing with the bottle. ‘Lamp Lady.’

  Goosebumps pricking my skin, I watched from the corner of my eye as she came into view and slunk past, hugging the wall, her shawl pulled tight over her head, the full skirts of her blood-splattered gown dragging a wide swathe in the dusty floor. As she passed each hanging light, it flickered and hissed out, then sparked back to life as soon as she reached the next. It’d been the same routine every time she’d appeared.

  I put the water down, and tapped away at the laptop, then backed up her details on the pad, frowning as my doubts about the job started to click together in my mind. I stared at the little figures I’d been drawing. A horned man on a horse - okay, so it looked more like a monkey riding a pot-bellied pig - but I finally realised what my subconscious was trying to tell me, where my unease was coming from. It wasn’t so much the job, but Finn and his attitude. He was doing his usual white knight act again. Damn, I was usually quicker than this at catching on.

  ‘Y’know,’ I said thoughtfully once Lamp Lady was out of sight, ‘I think this job is one of those wild goose chase things.’

  Finn didn’t look up, which sort of confirmed my suspicions. ‘How do you work that one out?’

  ‘Well, the ghosts have all been down here for so long, they’re stuck. They’re all following exactly the same pattern, right down to the exact second they appear, one after the other.’ I tapped my pencil. ‘They’re used to the place being creepy, and even bumping into the circle, Scarface still keeps to his routine. So I don’t see how there’s anything that would disturb them.’

  ‘Gen, we’re being paid to do the job, and at night rates too.’ He said that as if it should have been enough of an answer.

  ‘Uh-huh. So why doesn’t Developer Guy want anyone here during the day time?’

  ‘Because he wants it all done on the quiet.’ He turned another page. ‘Doesn’t want any bad publicity.’

  ‘Bad publicity!’ I snorted. ‘A tale of ghosts disappearing wouldn’t be bad publicity; it would be a whole lot of great free publicity.’

  He didn’t answer me, just unscrewed his water bottle and tipped it up. I waited until he’d finished, trying not to stare at the way his throat worked as he swallowed, then said, ‘C’mon, Finn, what’s this job really all about? Because no way does it look like any of the ghosts are dong the vanishing act.’

  He sighed in resignation and closed his book. ‘The job’s as described, Gen. I even talked to a couple of the workers. It all sounds like a normal run-of-the-mill haunting. You know, chill spots, figures seen out of the corner of the eye, invisible touches, the odd smells—’

  ‘Hah, putrefying flesh, right?’ I gave him a told-you-so look.

  ‘Yeah well’ - he half smiled - ‘the ghosts disappearing is probably just the builders getting used to them, sort of like white noise. And I told him that, suggested he didn’t waste his money, but he insisted he wanted it all checked out.’ He shrugged, aiming for nonchalance and not quite managing it. ‘Once I give him the results, that’ll be the end of it.’

  ‘And that’s it, nothing else?’ I asked.

  ‘I know you’re nervous about the ghosts, Gen, but there’s nothing to worry about, really.’

  ‘Then why are you being evasive?’

  ‘Leave it, Gen.’ He gave me an unhappy look. ‘It’s not important, okay?’

  ‘Fine, so I’ll tell you then. Mr Developer asked for me to do the job. He probably got snippy when you said I couldn’t do it on my own and off
ered to provide his own security or something. Probably even said he’d supervise it himself, didn’t he?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Finn muttered, flicking his fingers and making his empty bottle disappear.

  ‘Damn, I should’ve known. It’s one of those pseudo-job things. The guy’s got all curious about the sidhe sex myth, how we’re all supposed to be gagging for it.’ The jobs had got more frequent since the internet video of me kissing a vampire had surfaced; the girl-on-girl aspect of it seemed to be adding fuel to the fantasies. Of course, if any of those oh-so-curious humans had bothered to read up on the myth they might not be quite so enthusiastic. The myth had survived from back when the world was closer to nature. The fae held the fertility rites to replenish the land and encourage its fecundity. And yes, there was a lot of sex involved, but it was only on specific dates, not a free-for-all thing as most of them seemed to imagine.

  ‘You should have told me, Finn,’ I carried on. ‘You can’t keep doing your usual and trying to protect me. I can look after myself, you know. I’ve been doing it for long enough.’