Blessed by Fire

by P W Hillard

  “Excuse me?” said the voice behind Brenda. She jumped startled, dropping her car keys. She had finished her late shift and was climbing from her car on her driveway when the voice had spoken. She turned to see a girl in a red dress bringing down a meat cleaver into her skull. It stuck at a forty-five-degree angle in her forehead. She stumbled backwards.

  “Ow, what the fuck?” said Brenda confused. The girl stood there, intrigued at the woman still standing from what would be a lethal blow on anyone else.

  “So, what are you then? Revenant? Wight? Ghula? Dragur maybe? Something along those lines.” Clare stepped forwards toward Brenda slowly, one deliberate step at a time.

  Brenda tugged at the cleaver, which rocked back and forth as she did so. “What in the shitting hell do you want? What are you some crazy hunter bitch?” A trickle of blood ran down from her wound. It was thick and dark crimson, almost half coagulated already.

  “Nothing so crass!” said Claire, her face a mocking display of fake incredulity. The charade dropped as her face became sullen. She thrust her hand forward, Brenda’s chest collapsing as Claire’s arm dug deep into half rotten flesh. Claire cracked a twisted smile and the two stood there staring at each other for a brief second before Brenda burst into flames. The smell was horrendous, her already dead skin quickly burning into a layer of thick dark ash. Claire skipped over to a large black bag that had been left at the entrance to the drive way. She pulled out an empty jar and skipped back over to the burning corpse. Brenda had made no noise, released no panicked screams. She had burnt like kindling and was already slowly collapsing into dust. Clare bent down and scraped some of it into an empty jar, before walking back and tossing it into a black bag. She lifted the bag over one shoulder and walked off down the street.

  Aasif rubbed his eyes as he stepped out into street. He was glad to breathe in the fresh night air, after spending so long in the stuffy station. Over and over he had been asked the same questions, and over and over he had answered them. Mark had been careful to advise him to leave out the weirder parts of the last day and the rest of the questions had been easy as he had simply told the truth. He had given a lift to a detective and had assisted in the arrest of a man attempting to assault two officers. His superiors were clearly frantic, they seemed to be treating both him and the detectives as suspects. Mark had stated this was normal, and that whilst they would have clear orders not to interfere local forces apparently always got jittery. It made sense, if Aasif didn’t know the truth he would probably be involved in the station gossip himself. There was probably already plenty of nonsense stories about what had happened to him floating between every constable in town. His supervising Sargent had told him to take a few days off, which was an obvious a sign they didn’t trust him as he could get. He leant his hands onto the metal railing which lined the ramp up to the station doors and took another deep breath of night air.

  Claire stood in the middle of a field. Before her further down the valley was the town of Pontypridd, a cluster of lights nestled together in the dark. A galaxy held between two mountains. Her dress was torn, another burn covered her arm where one of her targets had slashed her. She was covered in mud where she had dug a hole into the field. In this hole she had poured the contents of the jars, blood, viscera and in one case, ash. Remains of all the supernatural beings she could find. Around the hole she had dug lines into the ground, a series of scratchy runes slashed into the field. She held out a finger, a tiny flame flickering from the end. Reaching over the pit she shook her finger and the flame fell like a water droplet. It gently landed on the gory mixture which burst into a roaring flame. The world itself seemed to bend for a moment and the flames seemed to freeze in place, a horrid red hole in reality.

  “Come on brothers and sisters I don’t have all day!” A burst of flame shot from the frozen fire, flying off into the sky like a firework. “Next, next keep it moving.” Another bolt shot forth, followed by another, soon they sprayed forth like a roman candle. “There we go! Welcome! Welcome!” cried Claire, bursting into a manic laughter.

  Ethel sat in her chair. She was waiting, impatiently staring at the clock. Her daughter was supposed to pick her up an hour ago. Ethel knew she wasn’t coming, but she clung on to that hope anyway. She was wrinkled and frail, it had taken her hours to put on her best cardigan and beige trousers on her own. On the side table her phone buzzed. She picked it up, lifted her glasses from the beaded cord that held them around her neck, and moved her arm back and forth in an attempt to see. Once she hit the magic distance of close enough to read but not too close to be blurry, that seems to be common for everyone of a particular age, she squinted to read it. “Sorry mum can’t make it tonight. I’ll take you out next week I promise.” She put the phone down, leant back into her chair and picked up the television remote. She slammed the buttons angrily, as she changed the channel to a soap opera. A man was tending the bar, he turned and looked directly into the camera.

  “Ethel” said the man through the television. She ignored him. “Ethel!” he shouted.

  She stared at the screen in disbelief. “He-Hello?” she said.

  “Alone again Ethel? She doesn’t care about you anymore. A burden that’s what she thinks you are.” The man walked out behind the bar and towards the camera until he blocked out the rest of the image.

  “No, no she’s just busy,” protested Ethel.

  “You and I both know that’s rubbish. Broken promises, lies, deceit. She doesn’t care about you.”

  “I don’t know what else to do.” Tears had formed in Ethel’s eyes. “What do I do?”

  “Oh, I know what to do, you just need to do a few things first. Get a pen, we’ll need a list.”

  Chapter 11

  Chief Inspector Harold White stood in the street staring up. The houses in Pontypridd town centre were tall things, much older than the rows of terraced houses that ran like veins through the valley. Faint mist was forming on his glasses from the ever-present cloud of rain that covered the town. Around him officers buzzed hurriedly, cutting off the street with tape and keeping away gawping bystanders. Even at this early time in the morning a crowd has materialised from buildings like dust settling on a table.

  “Grim isn’t it?” Asked Sergeant Jack Hayes, a man who had known Harold for nearly as long as Harold had been in the police. No matter what promotions had come his way, Jack had refused, choosing to instead stay where he considered himself most useful. “This is what, the eighth body now?”

  “Eight we know of,” clarified Harold, “I’m getting really sick of cleaning up after these so-called specialists.”

  “I know what you mean. They turn up somewhere and not five minutes later they call us in to clean up the mess. And they sent Detective Constables! To deal with murders! They didn’t even send us people with the appropriate ranks,” said Jack.

  “Sounds about normal around here. We are low on the order of priority. Funding, equipment, investigators,” Harold gestured at the scene above him, “always bottom of the pile.”

  “Still, think we should take a crack at this ourselves.” Jack rubbed his chin for effect. “Can’t do any worse than they are. Get anything from that bobby who spent time with them?”

  “Nothing. He is either keeping his mouth shut or really does know nothing. Not that it matters, you should see the names that have signed their paperwork. I couldn’t touch this even if I wanted to.” Harold’s gaze remained fixed upwards as the two had spoken. Above them, in the second story of the building. A small beauty studio was situated directly above a low-end pawnbroker. Both stood directly opposite the great hungry maw of the train station stairs. The window had been thrown open, its long stained beige curtains hung out into the breeze. The curtains had been twisted into a line of two knots. Each knot had been tied around a woman’s limb, an arm and a leg on each curtain. The swung in the wind like a morbid set of wind chimes. “I better call them,” sighed Harold.

  Jess stood in her living room. A Changeling, its s
trange elongated limbs, its terrible foot long talons hissed. At its feet Hannah lay dead, her throat torn open with a flick of the changeling’s wrist. In front of it sat a trembling Lana. Her eyes streamed with tears, too terrified to move.

  “Come on, come to mum!” shouted Jess, beckoning to the toddler. She sat still shaking as she sobbed. The entire room suddenly vibrated, and a loud unpleasant buzzing filled Jess’ ears. The creature cried with pain and snatched up Lana into its arms. “No stop!” The buzzing started up again and the creature began to stride towards the window. Jess tried to follow, but her legs refused to move. The buzzing returned, shaking plaster loose from the walls. The changeling began to climb through the open window. Jess fought against her stationary body. Slowly her legs began to move, she stepped forward, brought her foot down to the ground, and woke with a start. She tumbled onto the hotel floor, her duvet collapsing atop her. Her side throbbed from the impact. On the side table, her phone buzzed incessantly.

  “Hello?” said a weary Jess. She blew her red hair out of her face and held the duvet wrapped tight around herself.

  “D.C Holden?” asked a voice at the other end.

  “Speaking,” Jess replied. The words felt strange in her tired mouth and she rolled her jaw around trying to wake it.

  “This is Chief Inspector White. Sorry to wake you so early, but we have another one for you.” He sounded more annoyed than truly sorry.

  “Ok, I’ll wake my partner and we will be right down.”

  Marks door creaked open. He stood there, bleary eyed. He was wearing only his boxers yet had somehow acquired a bag of iron filings. He held it in one hand expectedly.

  “Jess? What time is it?” He asked.

  “Just gone four a.m. Expecting company, were you? Not going to ask where you were keeping that?” Jess pointed at the small black cloth bag in Mark’s hand.

  “Under my pillow if you must know. And yeah, could have had another visit from our ghostly friend. I wasn’t taking any chances.” Mark turned and walked back towards his bed. “Ow, Ow Ow,” he said as his bare feet walked across the carpet still covered in sharp iron dust. He sat on his bed and picked up his glasses. He wiped them on his bedsheets and then slid them onto his face. “Guessing you aren’t here for a glass of milk and a bedtime story?”

  “Get your clothes. There’s another body. Call just came in.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Mark. He stood inside the beauty salon. The limb laden curtains had been pulled inside and the windows shut so as not to provide a bizarre puppet show to the nosy locals below. The victim’s torso had been leant against the windowsill. It had no clothing on and had large thin oval burn Marks covering its body.

  “Right so,” Jess said, walking back into the salon, staring directly at her note book. “Victim is a Gillian Mason, owner of the salon. It’s only a rough estimate but they think time of death was about ten p.m. last night.”

  “So, she’s been out there for hours an no-one noticed? Poor woman. Any idea what these burn marks are?”

  “You really are such a man sometimes. Those are from hair straighteners. The first victim in the park had burns as well,” Jess noted.

  “That makes sense, I checked my email, got some intel from Raj last night. I’ll go over it once we’re away from prying ears.” Mark cocked his head.

  “That bad huh?” asked Jess.

  “Yeah that bad. We know anything else about this victim?”

  “Not too much. Single, no children, late forties. Has one relative we know of, an Ethel Mason, lives in a care home outside of town.” Jess flipped her notebook closed. “Why this woman then?”

  “What do you mean?” replied Mark.

  “Well, so far the victims have all been linked to that girl the uh,” she opened her notebook for a moment, “Claire Powell. How is a salon owner linked to her? Bad haircut maybe?”

  “Could very well be, look, meet me outside I’ll go over what we know.”

  “So Rajan says it’s a Jinn.” Mark lifted a mug to his lips. The warm coffee within releasing a cloud of pleasant-smelling steam. He took a sip.

  “The fuck is a Jinn? Like a genie, right? Big, blue grants wishes.” Jess wrapped her hands around her own cup, a hot milky tea. The two of them were sat in a small café someway away from the crime scene. The small Welsh town was starting to stir, rousing slowly from its slumber like its nation’s great dragon symbol.

  “No, It’s some kind of spiritual entity. Apparently, something in the middle between an angel and a demon.”

  “Coming down more on the demon side so far.” Jess dipped a biscuit into her tea.

  “So, Demons, whist evil little shits, do everything they do for a reason. It’s not wild random plans. Jinn apparently lack a certain, moral compass. In a way that is much more dangerous.” Mark took another drink from his coffee slurping loudly as he did.

  “So, the torture, eating people, gruesome over the top murders, that’s because they felt like it. Why were the first murders so personal to Claire? The real Claire. Ah shit.” Jess swore as the biscuit she had held too long in her tea collapsed as she pulled it out. She picked up a small spoon and began trying to fish out the soggy paste from her cup.

  “They need permission to possess someone it says here,” said Mark, looking at his phone. “Guess that’s the deal? Let me possess you and I’ll help you get vengeance. Maybe you were right, and she did get a bad haircut once. Maybe it really is that petty?”

  “That’s a scary thought,” said Jess putting down the spoon, evidently happy her tea was now biscuit free. “A teenage girl has a lot of petty grudges. So, what’s the plan.”

  “No idea. We’re out of leads a little. Until she resurfaces we are a little stuck,” admitted Mark.

  “We can’t sit here on our arses twiddling our thumbs. There is already far too many victims here. Hell, one is too many. We need to do something. What about the burns?” Jess took drink from her cup and then coughed, having not gotten as much of the biscuit out as she had hoped.

  “Oh right. Apparently, Jinn take the form of smokeless flames naturally. Explains the obsession with burning stuff I think,” replied Mark.

  “Burns…burns…” Jess snapped he fingers excitedly. “Claire had a burn on her hand. A leaf shape, real distinctive. In the park there was signs of burning on part of the gate. That was also a leaf shape. The gate burnt her somehow.”

  “What was the gate made of?” said Mark intrigued.

  “It was this old wrought iron thing. Must be some kind of reaction, like with the ghost.”

  “Makes sense. Iron has a bunch of symbolism, its tied strongly to the earth itself. Its why it works on things like ghosts and faeries. They aren’t of this world so it’s like kryptonite to them. Report says Jinn exist normally, uh, between realities it says here, so must be a similar effect.” Mark thought about it, opened a note on his phone and wrote the fact down.

  “Ok well, let’s go,” said Jess putting down her cup with a loud clink. “Can’t sit here all day.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Mark, following her out of the café, sliding on his woollen coat as he did.

  “To get some backup.”

  “Oh,” said Aasif. “It’s you.” He stood in the doorway to his home, wearing a black tracksuit. His arms were crossed.

  “Morning, we got your address from the station. Hope you don’t mind,” said Jess waving from behind Mark, who was stood directly in front of her.

  “What do you want? I’m on forced leave because of you. For hours they questioned me. Hours!”

  “We are really sorry about that,” apologised Mark. “Look, we need someone who knows the local area. We’re a bit stuck and honestly, it’s a lot easier than having to explain what’s going on to someone else.”

  “I’ll get in trouble,” objected Aasif.

  “You’ll be fine,” said Mark dragging out the last syllable to an almost obnoxious length. “You’ll be amazed what a letter from our boss can clear up. Ow!”
He turned to face Jess who had jabbed him in the small of his back with a pointed finger. She cocked her head and gave him a disappointed look.

  “Fine, come in,” Aasif rolled his eyes and walked deeper into the home beckoning them to follow.

  “That sounds pretty nasty,” said Aasif after they explained that mornings discoveries. “How am I supposed to help though?”

  “Well first we need a lift,” admitted Mark candidly, “can’t keep getting taxis everywhere. Expenses only go so far.”

  “More importantly!” interrupted Jess. “We don’t know the area. Like where would a teenage girl hide around here?”

  “It’s not a teenage girl though is it, it’s a Jinn you said?” Aasif shook his head. “You know my old man was pretty devout, always telling I needed to beware of Jinn and their influences. Never thought he would be right.”

  “You are right,” interjected Mark, “but possessing beings can normally tap into the mind of their host. Know what they do. It’s going to seek out the same kind of places.”