“The paranormal investigators? Yes, indeed I do. I didn’t think much of them, and, to be honest, whilst they were here, most of what they did revolved around insulting my husband and our home.”
He sat forwards, genuinely interested. “How in God’s name did they do that?”
“Oh, Andy did, by playing Western music and using forbidden words within these walls.”
“I suspect that would have struck a low note.”
“To be honest, I am surprised that Andy did not get struck himself, by my husband. But anyway, all was forgiven in the end. He did what others failed to do: he removed the entity. It’s gone, and my husband is delighted.” She frowned.
“That is the problem, my lady. Rachel somehow transported the entity back to her house; it is haunting her.”
“So you are here to try to help her?”
“Yes, by finding out about the entity and how to get rid of it. Can you assist me?”
She got up and walked to her bureau, where a jug of water was sitting; she poured herself a glass. He couldn’t stop his eyes being drawn to her figure as she stood with her back to him. After turning around, she stood there, still smiling and glass in hand. He quickly averted his gaze.
“I’m not sure that I can. I can only tell you the entity is bad but not evil. I would say that there are worse things Ms Holloway could invoke. A good medium could be rid of it. I could command it, I suspect,” she explained.
He looked at her. “You? But your husband called someone else to banish it from your house; why did you not just remove it yourself if you didn’t want it here?”
“I didn’t want it to go. It gave me something to occupy my mind; it used to visit me at night, in bed… unlike my husband.”
Dr Maxwell felt embarrassed, and most certainly did not wish to pursue that particular angle any further. “I er… see…”
“I liked it… It paid me attention. I made the mistake one night of shouting out when it came to me. My husband interpreted it as a scream of fear… I screamed out, but it wasn’t fear. He called in various people to get rid of it; they all failed, until your friend.” Her mouth turned down unexpectedly in a look of disappointment.
She drank deeply from the water again and put the glass down. “This Andy Horton man, he claims to be a psychic, so can’t he get rid of it and send it back here perhaps?”
“Madam, I do suspect Mr Horton could not remove a wasp from a window. In any case, I am worried as the entity appears to have tried to attack Miss Holloway.”
“Then it clearly doesn’t like her. It never attacked me.”
He stood up. “Dear lady, if you would be so kind, may I reserve the right to call upon you again if you permit?”
“You are leaving so soon, Dr Maxwell? Why not stay longer?”
He went to doff his hat again, and remembered once more that he had no hat. “I am afraid not, my lady. I fear for Miss Holloway and need to try to help her; not only to get rid of this spirit but to try to protect her from the dangers of the underworld. She is, in my view, somewhat naïve to the ways of men and spirits.”
She walked from her position by the bureau and stood across the closed door to her room, barring the exit. “You are in love with this woman, yes?”
He stared at her. “Love? I am dead, a spirit, mere ether… How can I love a living woman? I could not touch her, kiss her, hold her…”
“You have not denied it.”
He cast his gaze downwards. “I am married; my wife…” His eyes closed a little. “She died just after me.”
“In the fire?”
“No. Afterwards… When I died in the fire she found me and it brought on…” He looked up at her, his eyes glistening. “That doesn’t matter anymore, but I believe that I could have possibly prevented it.”
“In answer to your question, William, you are always very welcome here in my room; you do not have to ask…”
He wiped his eyes and stood in front of her. Her beauty was captivating. He couldn’t fathom why on God’s earth her husband paid her no attention; he certainly would if she were his wife. “Madam, I must bid you good day. If you would step away from the door.”
“You can move through doors, walls or anything else if you wish to; but if you want to leave you need to pass through me.” She smiled captivatingly at him and gave a little laugh.
They both heard a loud male voice, shouting in Arabic, coming from somewhere outside the room. Someone was bounding up the stairs; it sounded like a heavyset man.
Understanding her request, Dr Maxwell said, “Farewell, my lady,” and, within a second, he passed straight through her and out of the door.
As their souls met for a second, she closed her eyes with the quick rush of bliss that pulsed through her body.
For a moment, he remained on the landing, savouring his first emotional contact with a woman for over a century, but it was not to last. Standing at the top of the stairs, William witnessed a particularly well built bodyguard (the same one who had been at the shrine opening) hurrying up the stairs, his robes flapping. When he reached the landing, the bodyguard began to push heavily on Laya’s bedroom door, shouting in Arabic, presumably demanding entry. With a smash, the door gave way, and William heard Laya scream.
Dashing for her bureau, she snatched up a veil lying on the top and held it roughly to her face. “Idiot!” she shouted at him, “I am not in my niqab!”
“What is happening up there?” roared Sheikh al-Rahman from the entrance hall.
William stayed rooted to the spot, slightly amused.
The bodyguard, with aviator sunglasses stuck to his swarthy face, shouted back. “Your wife was talking to someone in her room; I heard her!”
“Which wife?” inquired Sheikh al-Rahman.
Laya carried on shouting, struggling to cover her body with a black shapeless robe that had been lying on her bed. “Fool! If I had anyone in this room, where has he gone? He would have to be invisible, yes?”
Smiling, William walked down the stairs, straight past the furious sheikh, through the front door and out into the bright sunlight.
Outside, another scene of chaos greeted him. Two equally burly bodyguards were yelling at each other in Arabic and pointing to a wide, low-slung sports car that was hovering gently, several inches off the ground.
Standing nearby was Henry, laughing and pointing. “Greetings, Dr Maxwell; did you find what you sought within?”
“Er… yes… What are you doing, Henry?”
“Isn’t it a mirthful sight? I have made their motorised horseless carriage levitate… It is a new trick.”
The Lamborghini started to float smoothly towards where they were standing, as if some invisible breeze were pushing it. Meanwhile, the bodyguards were calling out to the skies, and the sheikh appeared in his doorway. “What evil is this?” he exclaimed.
“I think it is time to go, Henry; put that contraption down, please. I think we have caused enough mayhem in this place today.”
The supercar fell slowly to the ground with a gentle bump, and Dr Maxwell and Henry vanished.
William’s last two thoughts as he disappeared were, firstly, about Laya, and then a wish that they did not reappear in the stinking public house latrine on the way back. He had experienced more than enough excitement that day, and revisiting a noisome pisser – even in spirit form – was certainly not welcomed.
Chapter 39
Rachel had seen the entity three more times during the week since the first incident, in which Andy had come to rescue her. It had not attacked her again, so to speak, but she felt strongly that it was trying to force itself on her in some way. The first time it appeared in her living room, again manifesting from the top corner of her room downwards, with no face, just darkness. The second time was in her bedroom; this time the face was there as it slid from under her bed like a black fog. Th
e third time it appeared from the ceiling of her bathroom, together with the eerie, white-faced women. Not only did the women poke their heads through the ceiling, but just to add to the horror, had started whispering as well.
Every time the entity appeared, she experienced the silent-bass vibration emanating from it, which made her feel like her head had been placed in a vibrating vice that was crushing down on the plates of her skull bones. The first time it had gone into her, in the sheikh’s house, she had felt heat. Now, when it was around, all she felt was intense cold – icy, freezing cold.
She wondered, firstly, what this thing was and, secondly and most importantly, could Andy get rid of it? She had asked him about it a few times, but he had been very non-committal. This lack of answers was beginning to worry her.
It was a Friday afternoon, and Rachel was lying in bed even though it was only 2pm. That past week, she had felt no urge whatsoever to rise (was she depressed?) and a migraine was coming on, yet again. The gentle pulse of pain began like a lover’s hand touching the side of her head, but then grew in intensity over the hours until it was like a drill tearing through bone and sinew into her brain. She had taken her meds, just like the doctor had told her to, but, as was the typical case now, they didn’t seem to be working as well as they used to.
She felt the pain pulsing, not only through her skull but seeping into her consciousness. What if this was all she had left now? As each week passed, the pain of her headaches and migraines grew worse and more frequent. She had spoken to neurologists, who just kept trying her on new pills, which either made her gain weight or become tired. She felt exhausted enough as it was. Every spirit she saw took a little more of her energy and hope away each time she laid eyes on them, to lose more energy now was a disaster.
Rachel picked up the local paper she had laid on her bed earlier. Her vision was quite blurred now; she would need glasses soon. The headline read ‘POLICE STILL SEARCHING FOR BABES-IN-THE-WOOD KILLER’. She wrinkled her nose at the title. Since the death of the second girl, a local paper had christened the murdered girls the ‘Babes in the Wood’ and it had caught on. She mulled it over in her mind: So who the hell killed those two poor girls?
She must have fallen asleep for a couple of hours after that, as, upon wakening, she first felt the throb – crushing all the left-hand side of her face and head, like a powerful neuralgia – then heard the noise. What was it? Rachel lifted her pounding head from the pillow to hear it more clearly.
There were male voices – a lot of voices – in a foreign language, seemingly coming from her living area. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back onto her pillow. Should she move and investigate it, or leave it be? It was probably more spirits come to torment her.
With a grunt, she forced herself up from the bed and walked slowly towards the deep drones that seemed to be coming from the living room. She didn’t suspect burglars; it was obviously some spooks who had worked themselves up, or perhaps the entity was speaking with many tongues. God help me.
Stopping by the door to her living room, she gave her head and temples a final rub before entering; the pain had been made worse by her moving. The sight before her made her gasp aloud. In her living room – rocking, praying and calling to the heavens – stood about fifty Orthodox Jewish men. Pressed together, they knocked against each other in an aggressive fashion as they bobbed to and fro, clasping their religious texts to the ends of their noses. Some wore over large black hats, and others, smaller skull caps.
She felt acute annoyance, which turned to mild anger when she saw her old acquaintance, Rabbi Lieberman, two rows in, bobbing back and forth, yelling very aggressive sounding words and, presumably, praying with the others.
Summoning up additional courage to grapple with the pain which threatened to blind her, she spoke out loud from her position just inside the doorway. “Look, I don’t know what you want, but I cannot help you get to heaven, OK?” Her voice was low and weak. At first, she thought no one would hear her against the chanting, wailing and loud astral shuffling caused by the numerous sets of spiritual heavy boots on her floor, but hear her they did.
As soon as her first word was uttered, they stopped and became silent, as if a plug had been pulled from each one of them; like puppets with their strings cut, they stood motionless, staring at her as if she were a circus oddity.
“Look, fine, I know. I see the dead. But I don’t know how you can move on to God and heaven, OK? If I did, I would tell you, but I don’t bloody know… You are all stuck here being ghosts, and I am sorry, but I really can’t help you. So standing outside my flat doing this…” She waved her hand in their direction. “And praying to me and stuff won’t help your cause.”
A middle-aged man, dressed in the usual uniform of black frock coat and a white shirt and hat, came forwards. He also wore a white shawl around his neck with two blue Stars of David on the end pieces.
He walked towards her and stopped only a foot away. He looked her up and down. “My name is Rabbi Shapiro. I do not know why you believe we come here seeking salvation, for this is the last thing we would want from you. You have no power to grant it, nor would we taint ourselves by courting your favour.
“We have, in fact, been congregating to tackle the immense evil that is being spread by your folly and necromancy, as it was foretold would come to pass by the boy child.”
He turned to face the silent men who were hanging on to his every word, then looked straight back at Rachel. “As you seem completely in the dark about this, I will enlighten you. During your brush with death, evil forces touched you and granted you the eyes to see the departed. Instead of turning your back on this and praying for the cleansing of your soul, you seek fame and money with this so-called power. This is yetzer hara, and we are here to stop it. Your bridge to the world of the dead has opened up a way into the world of the living for the darkest and most malevolent creatures, so they can create havoc in our world. You stand there as an innocent, but you are not.”
Rachel was struck speechless by Rabbi Shapiro’s words. For a silent moment, they just gazed at one another.
“Your dabbling with the darkness was foretold by a boy whose family is touched with the ability to be able to see what will come to pass,” continued the rabbi. “Brothers were told that if we did not tackle this problem, devote to putting an end to what you are doing, then evil would reign upon this world.” He stood there frowning.
“A boy?” Rachel responded. You are here because of what some boy said? “Look, I didn’t ask to be able to see the dead. Every night I go to sleep and pray that when I wake in the morning this… power… will be gone. But it isn’t, and it grows stronger.”
Rabbi Shapiro seemed unmoved. “At least you confess that you pray, but I doubt even that can close the diabolical gate that has been opened. As I have stated here before my brothers, the deepest, darkest evil stalks you now, and – like the man standing in a clear lake who drips ink into the water – you are tainting us all with eternal blackness. We are here to stop you being used as a tool for the shedim.”
“Shed… him? What’s that?” She was getting worried now at the urgency and harshness of his tone.
Four men walked forwards, all with the white scarves on and black books in their hands, which she assumed were their holy books. Rabbi Shapiro held up his hand in front of her face and began to recite more words loudly, she assumed in Hebrew.
The rest of the crowd remained silent, standing, watching…
The four men encircled her, then began speaking the same words as Rabbi Shapiro: harsh, sharp, ancient Hebrew words that she felt were forming an invisible verbal ring around her very soul.
Enough of this, who did they think she was? Feeling like her head was about to explode, she went to walk away. Her aim was to call Andy, to tell him to come over and help her. But she couldn’t move; she was rooted to the spot. She felt panic rise up within her, making her ex
tremities tingle with fear.
Rabbi Shapiro’s hand was only inches from her face; she could see the wrinkled palm moving in front of her transfixed eyes. Then the entire crowd of men joined in, bobbing, shouting, casting incantations towards her. Was this some kind of exorcism? She felt the pain in her head pulse along to the chants, making her feel waves of nausea and dizziness.
Please God help me… She tried to close her eyes, but they would not shut. Was this some kind of panic attack, or had the rabbi cast a spell on her? Would she die here? Condemned, like those she saw every day, to wander the earth seeking the answer or trying to find peace with their maker?
How long she was standing there, with the throbbing voices rising over her she didn’t know.
Then it happened. Like a giant hell-bound Cheshire Cat, the entity – the thing that had been wafting around the walls of her home – appeared in the far corner of the living area. She saw the mouth first, then the eyes formed, slanting upwards. It then crept out along the walls and ceiling, its black and purple mist intertwined, behind the shouting men.
Her frozen eyes remained unblinking as she stared at it, her pupils immobile as it now covered one-third of her living room wall and ceiling in impenetrable, light-draining blackness. Her body screamed contradictions; Rachel so desperately wanted to move – to run away as far as she could, from the men and this evil entity – but she was frozen completely, like a statue, facing this horror.
Then the silent bass started, the almost inaudible pulsing that came from the entity, driving her back yet compelling her forward towards the darkness.
One of the men, right at the back, must have felt the entity’s throbbing, as he stopped chanting and spun round, then turned back and began screaming something, again in a foreign language. More men turned now, some didn’t make a sound, some vanished and others simply fled through the doorway.
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