by N. P. Martin
Jesus, she’s serious.
Frowning, shaking my head, knowing there was something greatly amiss, I did as she ordered, slowly placing my old custom made Smith and Wesson on the floor. As I straightened up again, I looked down at the red laser light dancing over my chest, knowing full well she would shoot me dead if I made one wrong move, despite the fact that I remembered calling her to tell her to meet me there.
But she was treating me like a stranger. Like she didn’t know who I was, which was bullshit because she knew me better than almost anyone. We slept together, for Christ’s sake! She was, although she would never freely admit it, my girlfriend. And yet there she was pointing one of her cannons at me, ready to put a hole in my chest big enough to fit your fist through. There could only be one explanation for her lack of recognition. The damn spell. “Are you saying you don’t know me?”
Leona Lawson came forward, her boots thudding loudly on the floor, her leather coat swishing against her legs. “I’m saying I don’t know you from Adam, motherfucker. As far as I can see, you’re a lunatic who just killed that girl right there, and for that, I’m going to put a bullet in your head, so you don’t ever kill anyone else.”
My heart missed a beat when she pulled back the hammer on the Beretta. “Wait!” I said. “Jesus…how would I know your name is Leona Lawson and that you work for a secret government division that investigates magickal and occult goings on, huh? I called you, for Christ’s sake, told you to meet me here.” I thought of something. “Check the call records on your phone. You have me listed as Creed. Do it.”
Leona shook her head as she said, “There’s no one named Creed in my contacts and nobody called and told me to come here.”
“Then how did you know to come in the first place?”
Her stare turned a frown. “I…”
“You don’t remember, do you? That’s because your memory has been wiped, along with my name off your phone it seems. Does it not seem strange that you don’t know why you came here?”
She stepped closer, frighteningly imposing, her face an impassive mask as always. But underneath I sensed her confusion. “You think I don’t know you’re trying to trick me like the dirty hedge magician you are?”
“Wait, hedge magician? That’s a bit low, even for you, Le—”
She stepped forward and stuck the gun in my face, the barrel looming large and dangerous in my sight line. “Why’d you kill the girl? Some fucked up ritual is it? A sacrifice to one of your messed up gods?”
My hands were up as I leaned my head back slightly away from the huge gun. “Look, Leona, I called you, remember?”
“Stop using my name. How the hell do you even know my name?”
Oh Christ, this was worse than I thought. She didn’t seem to know me at all, even after more than three years of friendship, if you could call what we had a friendship. Leona didn’t do friends particularly, or relationships (not normal ones anyway) for that matter. If you asked her to describe our relationship she probably would have said, “Working.”
“Listen,” I told her, knowing I was wasting my breath, but stumbling ahead anyway. “My name is August Creed. We’re friends. We work together sometimes. We even, you know…”
“What?”
“Sleep together.”
A snort of derision burst through her thin lips. “First of all, I would never sleep with someone like you—”
“I take offense at that, but anyway.”
“And second of all, I have no idea who the fuck you are, except that you’re a killer and I’m taking you in. Although I’d prefer just to shoot you in the head right now, since that’s what you obviously deserve. My boss, however, will want to talk to you, see what kind of psycho you really are.”
This wasn’t good. I was only then starting to understand the full extent of the spell that blasted me earlier. It had been designed to make people forget that the killer ever existed, but in the process, I got caught in the blast (intentionally or unintentionally, I wasn't sure yet). And now, by the looks of things, no one remembered me anymore. All memory of me had been wiped, and I was now a stranger to my closest friend in the world.
I shook my head. What a goddamn disaster. “Alright,” I said in a vain attempt to explain things. “I can see how this all looks. I know it sounds crazy and everything, but Leona, you have to believe me. I came here to confront the real killer, the person who murdered that poor girl right there. I called you to tell you to meet me here as well. Only when I got here, the killer set off a spell that erased all memory of themselves from existence, and I got caught in the blast. So now all memory of me has been wiped out of existence as well.” I paused to see if she believed me or not. It didn't appear that she did, going by the look of disdain on her face. I couldn’t say I blamed her. It was a lot to take on faith. “Don’t look at me with that face. I know that face. You think I’m some crackpot trying to lie my way out of this. I’m not, I swear.”
“Turn around, put your hands on your head. I’ve heard enough of this bullshit.”
She didn’t believe me. It was Leona after all, so I should have known. She didn’t care about the sob stories that spewed out of the mouths by those she hunted. She only cared about catching them and bringing them in. The rest she left up to Brentwood, her boss at the underground government facility where she worked (The Division, as it was known).
I couldn’t let her take me in though. If no one at The Division remembered who I was, they would send me to the “Containment Unit” (or The Pen as it was more commonly known by Division personnel) and I would just be another powerless inmate among dozens of others. I had to do something, and quick, before she handcuffed me. Not that I couldn’t slip the cuffs if I wanted to, but why make things harder for myself?
“I know you, Leona,” I said in a last ditch attempt to get through to her. “I know you have a birthmark in the shape of a star on the inside of your left thigh and a scorpion tattoo on your back. I know you work out every day and that your favorite exercise is barbell squats, simply because you know so many people hate doing them, which motivates you to do them. I know your favorite food is Chinese and you like to eat at the little restaurant near where you live, which is in Worthington, by the way. And I also know that you love oral sex and that when we sleep together, you hold my head down there so long sometimes that when I come up, it feels like I’ve been deep sea diving.”
A snorting laugh involuntarily left her mouth when I said that, but she quickly caught it and shook her head, resetting her stony expression.
“You also have a hell of grip,” I continued, fully aware I was now at serious risk of pissing her off beyond the point of no return. She had a habit of shooting people when that happened. “Which is why you favor big guns over small ones, like that Beretta you’re pointing at me right now, which you had custom made two years ago by a gunsmith called Tony Brasco over in Pinehurst. I could go on, but we both know I’m telling the truth here. And given the crazy magickal world we live in, is it so beyond the realms of possibility that this shit could happen? You’ve encountered stranger, Leona. I know you have.”
Doubt was creeping up on her, I was glad to note, causing her normal stone cold expression to falter somewhat. She never lowered the gun though, despite the fact that she was clearly having doubts. “Either you’ve read my file or you’re using magick somehow,” she said, though her voice wasn’t as certain as before.
Building upon her growing uncertainty, I said, “Sorry, but no. We both know your military and government records are completely sealed. It would take a top level hacker or a highly skilled Technomancer to get a hold of your files, and I wasn’t aware that ‘loves oral sex’ is on your file anyway.” I gave a small chuckle and she didn’t respond, just kept staring at me with those cold blue eyes that always seem to lock onto you like magnets. I shook my head. “Alright, you know what I’m saying. I’ve never seen your files. And I’m also not working any magick either. Don’t forget, you’re wearing that talis
man around your neck, underneath your top. The talisman I gave you shortly after we met. It’s Alexian crystal, bright blue, imperfectly cut, wards you against most magickal attacks. I have a similar one around my own neck.”
Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head to the side slightly. “Alright. Let’s say I believe you—”
“Yes, let’s do that. Good idea. Then you can finally lower that cannon from out of my face.”
“Are you always this annoying?”
“Only when guns get pointed at me.”
She shook her head. “So let’s say I believe you. Maybe you did know me, though I can’t believe I’d ever sleep with you. I mean…” She snorted as she trailed off, leaving her supposed lack of interest in me as a fuck buddy (we were more than that, but whatever) hanging in the air for me to notice.
I started shaking my head at her. “You see, you say that now, but you actually couldn’t resist my charms, and if you’d just lower the gun, then you—”
Leona pressed the gun to my forehead. “You talk too much.”
“Only when—”
“Yeah, I know. Only when you have a gun pointed at you.”
“Something like that.”
“Fact is, whether you knew me or not, it doesn’t matter. You still could have killed that girl there.”
“True,” I said.
“So then I wouldn’t be doing my job if I just let you go, would I?”
I couldn’t argue with her logic. Leona had a habit of doing that, mentally or physically maneuvering people into corners they couldn’t get escape from. It was a special skill of hers, honed to perfection when she was an interrogator in Iraq. “No, you wouldn’t.”
Which is why, the whole time I’d been talking to her, I’d been inwardly reciting a spell and charging up my magick. A spell that I knew would bypass the defensive capabilities of her talisman (I gave her the thing after all).
But just as I was about to unleash the spell, something dark and screechy whooshed over our heads, causing us both to flinch and duck.
“What the fuck was that?” she asked, looking around her, the gun still on me.
“That,” I said, “is something that might be trouble if you don’t take that gun away and let me deal with it.”
She seemed to consider hard for a moment as the dark entity continued to rush around the room, still making that awful screeching noise as it went. Then she finally shook her head and lowered the gun. “Goddamn it. Sometimes I hate this fucking job.”
“I know you do, love,” I said, breathing easy once more. “And you’re not the only one.”
3
Specter
THE SCREECHING ENTITY whooshing about above our heads was called an Atavism, which is distinct from a Trauma Ghost. A Trauma Ghost is, as the name implies, the spirit of someone who has died in generally traumatic circumstances and who refuses to move on until they correct their unfinished business as it were. The thing flying around the room that Leona and I were in was not so much a ghost as a specter. It was the ectoplasmic leftovers of the dead girl’s soul. While the girl’s soul had by now probably risen into the Astral Plane and beyond to the River of Forgetfulness, the extreme emotions she gave out just before her violent death remained behind in the form of the ghostly specter that was swooping and darting around the room like a trapped bird, making an unholy noise that was part terror, part fury. A noise that sounded like scores of long fingernails being scraped along a blackboard. Both Leona and I had our faces screwed up as we flinched away from the noise. Leona was also trying to draw a bead on the specter as it rushed blindly overhead.
“Don’t bother,” I said, speaking loudly to be heard over the constant wailing and screeching. “Your bullets won’t do any good. Haven’t you come across one of these things before?”
“I’ve seen ghosts,” she said, still eying me suspiciously, almost like I had called the specter there myself as part of some elaborate escape plan. “Not quite like this though.”
We both ducked when a plastic chair came flying towards us, which sailed over our heads and crashed into the wall behind us. Then the specter itself—somewhat approximating the previous physical form of the dead girl, only more stretched and translucent, its face twisted and grotesque—barreled right at me at speed. Before I could move, the specter hit me like a gust of screaming, Arctic wind, passing right through me as it took my breath away and filled me with a psychic pain that manifested itself as deep fear and dread. For a long moment, I was all but crippled by the emotions the specter had caused in me, and I crouched over, my body tense with debilitating fear, my chest so tight I could hardly breathe. It was like the specter had left a part of itself inside me and I was feeling everything that that the woman felt before her death. I found myself unable to move as the woman did, then felt the stabbing pain in my eye sockets as if someone was carving out my eyes with a blunt knife. Then over various parts of my body, I felt a sharp, burning pain as if my flesh was being carved. And finally, the quick but shocking pain across my throat as if someone had just slit it open. The pain only lasted a few seconds, but it was some of the most intense I had ever felt, especially with the feelings of sheer terror that underlined it all.
I jumped when I felt Leona's strong grip on my arm as she tried to pull me up. "Come on!" she shouted. "We're getting out of here!"
"No!" I said, my paralysis easing a bit so I could at least stand up again. "We can't let that thing roam free. It'll just get more powerful and then it will cause real damage somewhere else. I have to take care of it."
“Take care of it? How?”
The specter turned at the end of the room and began to fly towards us—towards me—again. Leona raised her Beretta and fired twice at the aberration. The specter seemed to disintegrate for a second as the bullets passed right through it and hit the far wall. Then it reformed as it started doing circles in the center of the room, creating a whirlwind of energy that began to pull whatever was lying around on the floor—chairs, bottles, dead rats and pigeons, even the pools of water on the floor caused by the leaky roof, as well as the the dead woman’s own blood—into itself. For a specter, its power was unusually strong. Normally, such entities didn't exhibit such poltergeist abilities, the extent of their influence usually being no more than a faint spirit manifestation and perhaps the transference of whatever emotions it held onto. In this case, the girl's death had obviously been so traumatic, so horrific for her, that the accompanying emotions ended up strong indeed. It made me wonder what kind of monster the killer was, if they could inspire such terror in their victims.
Free now from the negative emotions put in me by the specter, I stood up straight and started to gather myself, beginning to shape and form the magickal energy that was already crackling inside me. The only option was to destroy the specter. The dead girl's soul had already moved on, so obliterating her insane and translucent ectoplasmic leftover wouldn't cause the girl's soul any harm. Unless of course the girl's soul was still in the Astral Plane and she was actually manifesting and controlling this spectral thing herself, using it to lash out at the world she had been so cruelly snatched away from. The only way to tell if that was the case was to travel myself to the Astral Plane and confront the girl's spirit if it was there but I didn't have time for that now. If the specter was being controlled, the worst that would happen to the girl's spirit when I killed the specter was that she would experience a bit of physic pain and not much more. She was already dead after all.
“Are you going to do something or not?” Leona asked me. “Before this thing gets any stronger.”
Yes, I was going to do something. I was already sub-vocalizing the appropriate spell to deal with the specter (a Disintegration Spell) and it was almost ready to go. First though…
“That depends,” I shouted above the noise and the wind now howling throughout the room. “Do you believe me yet?”
“What?” Leona shouted back. She was still pointing the gun at the specter, not because she thought
she could hurt it by shooting it, but because it made her feel better when she pointed her gun at things, less insecure about situations she couldn’t always control due to the magickal forces involved.
"Do you believe I didn't kill the girl and that we are friends?"
She shook her head at me in angry frustration. “Just get rid of this fucking thing, will you?”
That was as much as I was going to get out of her in the way of agreement, I knew, so I turned my full attention to the crazy specter busy tearing up the room around us. My magick crackled just below the surface of my skin like electrical energy begging to be released. Magick didn't like to be held in too long once conjured. It always wanted to be out there, bending and shaping reality to whatever form intended by the user. In this case, I intended for the magick to wipe the specter out of existence, which the magick would happily do as long as my control over it was strong enough. You still had to be careful though. The spells that conjured and propelled the magick had to be exact, and your control and belief had to be spot on, otherwise things could go awry.
Fortunately for all concerned, I'd had a lot of practice at that stuff.
Muttering a few last words in a language which wasn't well known to anyone outside of Mage circles, I directed the magickal energy I had inwardly conjured so that a sphere of amberish light the size of a soccer ball formed in my right hand. The ball of energy turned bright yellow in the center as I charged it up further, and the air around the ball crackled and sparkled with animated light particles.
The specter stopped in the center of its whirlwind and gave an ear piercing screech that would have cracked the windows in the room if they weren’t already broken. It was reacting to the magickal energy in my hand, even though it didn’t know what it was. The specter was just having a primal reaction to something it didn’t understand. Everything it came across was a threat to it. Everything was worthy of being lashed out at.