“Sorry man, I’ll have to talk to you later.”
Mark tried to follow, but he’s footsteps fell short as he watched me go. I had never kept a secret from Mark before. He had been my best friend through all of my childhood. He knew everything about me, my crush on Anita, the problem with my family and the fights that would break out between my parents. I had escaped to his house more times than I would admit, and Mark would always accept me over without question. Same as I knew everything about him. And despite my golden child reputation that Nathan seemed convinced I cheated him for, Mark always treated me as an equal.
Once we left within ear shot of Mark Elliot shook his head astounded. “I can’t believe it… I was … acknowledged.”
“So? You can’t be surprised; I mean you do look weird.”
“Reapers are faceless nobodies to the living; only upon death or direct contact can they see us for what we really are.”
“So… what did Mark just see you as then?”
“Just a generic face, someone who he will forget almost instantly. These people still recognise you… this isn’t right. Perhaps the bond between you and Raix was not completed… Regardless we are here now.”
We had stopped outside a house near the outskirts of town. It was just an ordinary house with a car parked in the driveway. Elliot walked forward and went to the front door, ready to let himself in when I stopped him.
“Whoa – you just said that people can still see you right?”
“Not when we do this.” He pulled the hood of his cloak over his face, throwing the light over himself and ultimately creating a type of void that made him transparent. He was completely invisible, nothing but a small flicker where his body moved.
“I do not have a cloak-” I whispered into the seemingly empty space.
Elliot answered back unconcerned, “It’s fine, he is home alone.”
Elliot stepped through the wooden front door and unlocked it from the other side, letting me in. In the house was a musk smell of wood, as if they have an open fire or some fresh wood scraps left out for heating. We walked through the lounge and into the kitchen, silently of course, till Elliot held his hand up to stop our advancement. There was an older man sitting by the kitchen table. He was busy with a newspaper, eyes down casted and his glasses sitting on the tip of his nose. Above his head was a clock with a swinging cat tail, just a constant tick, tick, tick, tick.
We waited for just a few moments as Elliot kept his arm out to bar me from advancing and his shoulders hunched prepared. Ripping through the tender stillness, the old man started to cough. It was a deep, hearty cough that came from down in his chest, probably from a chest infection. But he just didn’t stop coughing. He couldn’t.
Red climbed up his straining neck and into his cheeks and pinched on his ears, making his eyes water but no matter how hard he tried to suck air in the coughing wouldn’t let him. Struggling he leapt up to take a hold of the phone but his shaking hands couldn’t grasp the handle and ended up knocking it to the floor. He fled to the sink, trying to draw himself a cup of water, coughing the whole time that the liquid wouldn’t go down.
I fidgeted on the spot, feeling awkward and guilty about just standing there watching the old man fight for air. Till he finally collapsed to the floor, clutching with one hand at his throat and the other on the back of the chair head in an attempt to keep himself up. When he did roll over his body went limp and the blood in his face started to fade away.
“Okay, just watch.” Elliot whispered as he finally stepped out from behind the door and into the body of the kitchen. He took the invisibility cover off himself and let the light touch every part of his skin, now illuminating his hair and the crystal shine to his eyes. Like when Mrs Flitch died, a soft breeze of blue floated above the body before completing the sketchy form of the old man. He was dazed and slouched, almost like he had woken up from a very deep sleep.
“First.” Elliot summoned as his shadow peeled off from the floor and walls, stretching and building it’s self into the body of the Goon. First shook its mane and glanced wearily over at me, its hyena shackles standing on end at my presence. I took a step back when a sudden pinch made my right eye twitch and sent a flooding of tingles down my face.
The darkness behind me remained sprayed across the wall when a heavy shiver broke underneath my skin. Raix stepped out of the blackness with his head high and his body strong, holding himself like he was the rightful owner to the loose spirit. He was snarling viciously.
“Jordon…” Elliot called as I quickly ran to Raix.
“No. Raix, bad dog-thing. I command you to step down. ”
Without a second of hesitation, and like I wasn’t standing in his way pointing at him Raix leapt forward and collided head on with First. But, instead of the fight breaking out in the kitchen, both Goons seemed to have leapt through a transparent portal at direct contact and disappeared. Elliot looked up worried before he was dragged into the darkness as well; attached to his Goon by a leash. In a split of a second I felt the same pressure haul at my throat as I was whisked off my feet and thrown into the abyss.
There was a loud, booming clap that shook me to my bones like a crack of lightning hit the ground next to me. The ringing kept my head spinning even after I felt my body land, rolling a good two meters down a stretch of grass. The colours twisted in a blurry circle for a moment or two, the green of the plants plotted out by the swimming darkness. When I finally got the chance to glance up, Elliot was face down as well struggling to a stand as the continuous sounds of the two fighting Goons remained brawling in front. The next second, boom we were whisked away again, this time throwing us through the blackness and into an old barn. I fell into a pile of hay and rolled to a stop once hitting my back into a horse stable. The animals scurried in their panic but the noise was lost behind another teleportation that dumped us near a children’s playground.
Near… no we were in the centre of the playground. The bubbling laughter of the kids made me leap up onto my knees, eyes as wide as saucepans as I looked up to only realise I was on all fours in the middle of the sandbox. There was a toddler sitting in front of me, stunned baby blue eyes wide till he broke into tears.
Elliot was caught on top of the monkey bars, his legs twisted around the metal pipes as he groaned and tried to sit himself back up. He hadn’t yet thrown his invisibility over himself as one of the playing children screamed and leapt off the play equipment at the sight of him. We caught each other’s frantic glances before scanning the area for the fighting animals, spotting them near the fence line where Raix had First locked in a bulldog bite. First was howling and thrashing, but to our luck no one seemed to notice the giant beasts. The downwards tug hauled me forward, tipping my stomach up to my chest that I actually felt like vomiting from all the nauseating movement.
They leapt through the shadows of the spirit world, jumping from spot to spot without thought, before they finally came to a stop in an empty field. It looked a like a football oval with a stadium of stands sitting around the hem of the circle. Only giving us seconds to stand up, Elliot was fast enough to grab a hold of First and throw his fist into Raix’s cheek. The punch was weak and pitiful, Raix hardly reacting to the attack at all, but he was lucky enough to strike Raix right in the eye. Raix fell onto his hind legs, shaking his head bothered by the dirty hit. I also jumped upwards and took Raix by the tail, pulling him into me.
“Raix! Down” I shouted with every fibre in me, letting my voice hit an octave I had never reached before. Raix snapped his jaws and I could feel the heat of the electricity within him, burning inside his body like a cooking fire. Finally he stepped away and dispersed into the ground.
“I… I did it? I did it! I controlled Raix.” I cheered and raised both my clenched fists into the air in victory.
“This is not good.” Elliot was panting and sweating as I was. He grabbed a hold of First’s back and offered his arm out. “Quick, grab a hold of me.”
Without arguing
I took Elliot’s sleeve as First teleported us back through the whirlpool of shadows and into the kitchen of the old man. But the kitchen was left vacant and quiet, the spirit’s presence no longer within the room.
“Crap!” Elliot walked into the room clutching at his hair with both hands, “No! No! No!”
“What? What? What?” I followed him, glancing around like I had missed something.
“This is why we are needed to be there as soon as the person dies. We’ve just caused a haunting.”
“Err…a what?”
“The loose Spirit would’ve attached itself to an object in the house, now that object could be almost anything. It could be this fork, or this table cloth or the newspaper, or even his clothes. It could be the entire house its self. We don’t know. Now he’s stuck here.”
“Wow… so you mean-”
“Yes that’s right; this house has a spirit connected to it. It’s a Haunting.” Elliot kicked the chair over and went to punch the wall but quickly gained control over himself.
“Why are you so mad? Can’t we just, I dunno… find him?”
“And do what hmm? He’s not a loose spirit anymore; he has pretty much just given himself a new material body. We can’t do anything. We need a…” Elliot stopped and touched his mouth.
“A what?”
Bitterly, Elliot hung his head and tossed a grumpy look to the side. His eyes were tight in their glare, lips stern and his brows scrunched down, contemplating the problem. The glare was so intense I had thought he was trying to set fire to the table till he dropped his gaze and let his hand fall back to his side. “We need a Hunter. They are the only ones who have the power to break connections.”
“We can get that lady then-”
“No way! Hunters don’t care about hauntings like this and it’ll just make them mad. We’re on thin ice as it is. Let’s just hope that no one finds out about what we did, or we’ll both get incinerated. That’s it for today; let’s just get out of here.”
Chapter Seven:
Once I was home I had tried my best to fall asleep but it was impossible. The reality of everything was like a giant jigsaw and I felt like I was always missing a piece. With the missing part the complete picture was muddled. Unable to catch any shut eye, I decided to get up and indulge myself with a long, hot shower.
Just as I walked into the hallway I noticed a shift in the shadows before Raix stepped forth from out of one of the back corners. The wolf walked as if he were prowling, his neck craning downwards and searching the air for a sweet trail. He was so large; it was as if a horse was trying to walk through the hallways. The electric glow that illuminated from within him dispersed out of his eyes, mouth and nostrils like acid smoke. The black skeleton body and heavy head shifted about the space weightlessly.
“Raix… what are you doing?”
It was just my luck that at that exact moment Nathan decided to leave his room for a late night snack. He was just in his boxers; hair an unruly mess like a brush hadn’t seen it for weeks. He barely glanced up from the floor, rubbing his eyes trying to get the sleep out.
“Whoa! Oh- Hey Nathan. Hey” Panicked I waved him down.
Nathan squinted his eyes at me but barely paid me any attention. “What?”
“Just… hey, umm… what are you doing?”
Subtly I glanced over his shoulder, watching as Raix perked his head up intrigued by Nathan’s sudden company. The creature tilted his head to the right, soaking Nathan’s scent in, tasting it the back of his throat as if Nathan’s soul was ready for the picking. Nathan grunted something before he turned to walk down the hallway, rubbing at his eyes again when I grabbed his shoulder and spun him back to face me.
“What are you doing?” He growled obviously startled.
“I just… I haven’t spoken to you in a while. I just want to know what’s going on, that’s all.”
“Get out of my way weirdo.”
“Are you hungry? You look hungry, hey why won’t you just let me get you something to eat. You can go relax, I was up anyway.”
“Are you drunk?” Nathan screwed his face up.
Raix wasn’t cautious anymore; he had definitely caught interest in Nathan and was soundlessly stalking up behind him. The longer I hesitated the more speed Raix seemed to pick up, eagerly licking his wolfish lips. The darkness seemed to be getting thicker and thicker and the closer Raix got the more my right eye started to burn and itch. Desperately I shoved both Nathan and myself back into Nathan’s room, slamming the door behind us.
“What’s your problem?” Nathan shouted, shoving two flat palms into my chest and slamming me against the door. I tried to wrestle with my younger brother, holding him away from me with my arm but he was quick to land a hit into my stomach. I recoiled at the blow, crumbling in on myself but I still didn’t let him open the door.
“Just… just wait…I have… girl troubles…” I gasped but Nathan still managed to shove me over, knocking me onto my knees. I attempted to grab his ankles as he stepped around, my fingers just missing him as he threw the door into my side.
“Wait! Come back!” I shouted and scrambled to my feet, flinging the door open.
“Get away from me freak-” Nathan snapped before he made his way down the hall, grumbling under his breath, “bloody weirdo.”
The hall was vacant. Empty. Goon less. I collapsed against the wall, panting from both panic and pain. I started to follow Nathan down the stairs to ensure Raix wasn’t ready to pounce from around the corner when I heard something shift and crash to the floor. The disturbance came from Evan’s room. I leapt for his door just at the same moment the bathroom door swung open, the light spilling into the dark hallway and casting Evan’s shadow across the walls.
“Hey… what was all that shouting about?” Evan ran a towel through his hair, glancing wearily down the hall where Nathan’s footsteps could be heard stomping down the stairs.
“Nothing... just mucking around.” I laughed and stepped away from his door, subtly checking over Evan’s shoulder as he entered his bedroom.
“Well… the showers free now.”
“Cool thanks.” It was clear thankfully.
***
Oh man… I’m going insane.
I let myself into the warm steam filled room and turned the shower back on. The water ran hot, so hot that is painted my skin red at the slightest touch. I pulled the shower curtain closed and tilted my head up, letting the high pressure stream hammer into my forehead and rain down my back. It sleek my hair against my head, and the continuous tapping of water was strangely comforting and relaxed my entire body from its stress. I opened my eyes to get the shampoo and screamed a less than manly scream when I noticed Raix trying to get into the shower with me.
It was almost like he was laughing at me, stepping one giant paw after the other forcing me to be sandwiched between his massive body and the wall. Somehow, I managed to scamper out from underneath the wolf and slipped over on the puddles on the tile floor. I kicked backwards away from him, clutching my heart.
Raix though was having a marvellous time. He was shaking through the water like a normal wet dog, letting the water engulf his face and run down his throat. Of course, not all of him could fit in, only his two front paws and up to his shoulders was under the stream. Despite it all, I had actually found myself laughing at the sudden playful nature that washed over Raix.
“You like water huh? Good to know.”
Raix chuckled in his own, strange cracking bark before bending his neck down and letting the water rush over him. Not bothering to fight for shower space, I beckoned Raix to follow me as I leant over and turned off the tap. He did get a little snappy, not pleased with the sudden cut off. He dissolved into my shadow, sulking the entire time.
Fully clothed I went outside and walked far down into our backyard which led into wild bush. There was a fence built up around our property, but it was only a formality. No one ever really went beyond the boarder anyway. I found the switch near the s
hed and flicked it on, watching as the tiny knobs sprouted out of the ground and started spitting water across the grass. Thrilled with the sprinklers, Raix bounced out of the shade and played among the water, snapping and biting the air trying to catch the airborne droplets.
“You stay here – I’m going to finish my shower in peace.” I made my way back up the path, stopped as Raix turned to follow suit and held my hand up. “I mean it Raix, stay here. I don’t want a shower buddy.” Content with my command, Raix returned to his frolicking.
***
My peaceful, relaxing shower wasn’t as peaceful or relaxing as I had hoped. Paranoid I kept checking the bathroom window, making sure Raix was still entertained with the water outside and not stalking my family. But that really wasn’t a comfortable feeling. I slouched back into the shower, my thoughts suddenly overfilling as if the water hitting me was tipping the scale.
Raix is a dangerous monster. He is an omen, a creature of death. Even though Elliot had said we don’t cause death, Raix is clearly unstable and capable of adjusting ones’ fate. And me… I know I didn’t imagine the sensation when Raix approached Nathan. Nostrils flaring; tongue swelling and his lips peeling back in his hungered smirk. And the way my eye sparked with the familiarity of the Reaper tattoo printing my face with ink. I was putting them all in danger.
I am a Reaper. I am death. There’s no way I’m going to be able to weasel out of this. I bear the markings just like those other Reapers do, and though I still walk the earth, my soul does not belong to me. Raix was a part of who I was, and why he chose me I’ll never understand. Maybe he has always been there and that he was the darkness within me? Maybe he was the bad thoughts that I tried to burry underneath my consciousness? I turned off the shower taps, got myself dressed and went back down to Raix in the yard. He was on his back, belly up, grinding his spine into the dirt like he had an itch. I turned off the sprinklers before the water could turn the dirt to mud.
In my solemn silence I lent up against the fence looking back up at my home. The kitchen light was on as well as mum’s and dad’s bedroom light but everything else was in a still darkness. Raix rolled back over and shook himself clean. He then walked over and slumped down next to my legs. He rested his chin on his crossed paws, finally exhausted from all his playing. The beast’s heavy chest moved up and down, each exhale like a hiss through his nose.
My Demonic Ghost Book two (The Reapers 2) Page 7