by P W Hillard
“Interlopers in my house,” croaked a voice behind his ear. He could feel a chill in the air, the figure behind him casting a long unnatural shadow. He spun around and came face to face with a young woman in an old Victorian maids’ outfit. It was the same one who had come to his hotel room.
“Hi, uh, remember me?” Mark waved nervously.
“Why of course I do. Welcome home dear.” The ghost smiled, revealing rows of needle like fangs hidden behind her otherwise sweet face.
“I need to borrow the uh, parlour I guess? Whatever the largest room is. It’s for…business.” The woman nodded as he spoke.
“That would indeed be the parlour, downstairs, first left from the doorway. The former master of the house used to host business matters in there regularly. Will be you requiring tea?” The spectral figure bounced on her heels excitedly.
“Uh yes, actually, tea for two. My associate is downstairs, she’ll take it with two sugars, I’ll have it with none,” answered Mark.
“She?” asked the spirit, her face stretching as she spoke, her eyes beckoning sunken.
“A work associate only, a policewoman actually, she’s married,” Mark explained, “strictly business relationship.” The onryo seemed driven by a vindictive jealousy, Mark hoped he could convince her that Jess was not a threat. His plan relied on it.
“Married you say?” replied the spirit, her face snapping back to normal. “And a policewoman,” her voice stressing the gendered syllables, “well I never. Personally, I was never one for the suffrage movement myself. I shall get the tea.” Between blinks she vanished, taking her leave of them.
“Tea?” Jess asked, still stood in the doorway as Mark trotted down the stairs. She took a step into the hallway, now she seemingly had leave to enter.
“It keeps her occupied for a minute or two. We’ll set up in the parlour here, start by opening those windows wide.” Mark stepped into the large room, its furniture long gone, any semblance of once being a home stripped away. The walls were mostly bare aside from decades of scrawled graffiti. In a few spots tattered wallpaper remained, scant remnants of a once room encompassing pattern. The floor was covered with litter, glass bottles and plastic cups mixed with leaves blown in from outside. “Once that’s done we’ll get the spray paint from the car and start I guess.”
The door swung open, knocking a bell which tinkled gently. It was an old thing but shined brightly catching the light. The bell had been there since Clive’s great-great grandfather had opened it, and he proudly kept it in peak condition, just as his father had done so. Slowly, over the last two hundred years the shop had morphed from a grocer into the sort of everything shop people tended to label as hardware stores. It had proven necessary to compete with the out of town supermarkets. The new Valueways had proven especially detrimental to business. A young woman stepped through the doorway. Clive was always excited to see young people in his store. His clientele was loyal, but they were older and came in more to chat than to buy. Recently a young woman with bright red hair had come in and purchased his entire supply of black seed oil. Maybe she had spread the good word to her friends. Clive’s wife had sneered when he had bought some alternative medicine goods to add to the already over stocked and eclectic store.
“Can I help you Miss?” he asked, waving from behind the counter.
“Ah yes, tea please, I seem to be all out, and I have company.” As she approached Clive realised she was dressed oddly, like an old Victorian maid. Something seemed off about her, like she was somehow faded. He found it difficult to keep his gaze on her.
“Oh tea, yes we have some somewhere, what kind? Round or pyramid bags?”
“Bags? I’m not sure why what kind of bag it comes in matters. Round I suppose?” The woman looked genuinely puzzled. Clive turned around, scanning the haphazardly stacked shelf behind him. After a moment he spotted what he was after, pulling a blue box for the shelf. He blew dust from the top and placed it on the counter.
“One box of tea. That will be two pounds please.” He smiled, opening his cash draw ready.
“Two pounds? Are you mad, that’s more than a month of my wages. I suppose I have little choice, place it on the Davies account please.”
“I’m sorry Davies account? We don’t do tabs. Cash only, tried to convince the wife to get a card machine but she doesn’t trust them. Do you want the tea or not love?” He tapped the top of the box.
“Where is Llewelyn? He’ll know about the Davies account. Where is the owner sir?” The woman seemed to grow slightly taller, her skin a little paler.
“I’m the owner. Is this a joke? Who put you up to this?” Clive pointed his finger accusingly. The woman sneered. She pointed behind Clive at an old photograph behind him. It was of the opening of the store. He turned his head to look at it. When he turned it back the woman loomed tall, her limbs thin, her colour faded to be almost white. He face stretched and contorted, her fingers dripping talons. “D-D-Davies account was it?” he stammered. “Of course, please, take them.” Like elastic snapping back into place the woman shrunk back her initial appearance.
“Thank you, sir, good day,” she said cheerily, picking up the tea and wander out through the doorway, bell chiming as she did.
Jess drew her spray can around in a circle, completing the rune. Mark was crouched on the floor painting his own. A stacked pile of debris sat at one side of the room where they had cleared the floor, revealing the solid wood floorboards below. Jess had spent many evenings curled up with Hannah watching one of the many home improvement shows her wife recorded. She often spoke about her dream of one day buying a house in the country, to strip its floors and repaint its walls, to breathe new life into an unloved building. Jess was sure she wouldn’t approve of defacing the building in this manner.
“Tea is served!” came a voice from the doorway. Jess looked up, getting her first glimpse of the onryo. She looked like a normal young woman, though slightly ephemeral, as though her existence didn’t sit right with Jess’ vision. She was carrying a wooden tray, one which two teacups and a teapot rested. “I am sorry it isn’t the finest china, that seems to be missing. I had to get one of the older sets from the attic.” She held out the tray, offering a cup to Jess. “The tea may not be the best, I had to pop out special and what I got isn’t the best quality. It came in these little cloth bags for some reason. Not sure how your supposed to make a proper pot with those.” Jess took the cup, it was cold, a horrid looking pale brown water swirling with.
“Oh, thank you,” she said, trying to remain polite.
“Merfyn tells me you’re a policewoman,” the ghost looked impressed, “I wasn’t even aware such a thing was possible.”
“Yes well, you would be surprised,” replied Jess, holding the teacup close to her chest. “Me and Mar- Merfyn, are nearly ready here. Could we get some privacy when our guest arrives. We’ll call you if we need you. I’m sorry I didn’t catch you name.”
“Rhiannon” answered the phantom. “Are you sure you don’t need me?”
“Not yet,” said Mark stepping over and taking the tray from her hands. “Like Jess said, we’ll call you when we need you.”
Dale sat on the ground, his back leaning against the wall of the bakery. He took a long drag of his cigarette before offering it to Rajan.
“You know I don’t smoke,” Rajan said. He was sat next to Dale, coat pulled over his head to try and protect from the rain. “How is that even alight?”
“Cosmic benevolence, the universe understands that after today, a cigarette is well earned.” Dale placed it back to his lips and too another drag. The ruins of the bakery smouldered, the building collapsing under its own weight during the fire leaving only a blackened skeleton. The air above the building shimmered slightly. It could be heat form the fire, but it could be that other, darker thing. Dale and Rajan knew to take no chances and so sat in the rain and waited, two sodden sentinels.
A tiny orange flame danced in the parlour as Mark sparked his lighter. He
knelt to the bowl before them, ashes poured into it. In the centre was a flyer, “Rave at the haunted house! it read. He had thought it ironically appropriate. He held the lighter to the edge of the flyer which caught aflame slowly burning down to the ash like a candle wick. There was a brilliant flash of bright blue flames as the ashes burnt for a brief moment, before all that was left was a foul-smelling smoke. Together, facing the windows, they waited.
Claire sat on the hillside, the grass from the fields surrounding her. She stared down at the tiny pathetic town. Its people sleeping despite the events of the night. From here she could see everything. Claire’s home, the house she took refuge in when that accursed woman had first found her. The warehouse where she had scuffled with demons. The office block where humans had stripped her of her allies. The bakery where she had been reborn. She was sick of running. From humans, from angels, from the nightmare things that hunted in the gap between worlds. She had poked and prodded at the crack in reality until she had slipped through and found her host. A sad lonely girl twisted by betrayal. She was an easy target, all too eager to say yes to something offering to take all her pain away. She was gone now, her soul squeezed out from her flesh shell. Claire was surprised to find she missed her a little.
She sat there, the rain bouncing off her body, tiny jets of steam erupting as they hit her when she felt it. Just for a moment, a brief fleeting second. The same cry as before, but faint, the last drops of magic to be squeezed from it. Across the valley, just outside the town. She stood up. Running, that was all she had done. Run from the void, run from that woman, ran from the bakery. No more. Fire swirled around her, scorching the field, the grass being swept up into the twirling inferno. The first rocketed into the air, over the sleeping town of Pontypridd, a spear of flame jetting from one side of the valley to the next.
The pillar of fire crashed down into a courtyard. Claire took stock of her surroundings. She stood before an old farmhouse that had been expanded until it sprawled outwards, a stitched together corpse of a home. A police car sat in the driveway. Claire snarled and began to walk forwards towards the house, steam rising from the footprints her bare fear left in the mud, her heat cutting a path through the pouring rain.
“Here she comes,” said Jess, more from nervousness than any kind of warning. “I hope this works.” She patted Mark on the shoulder. “Showtime old boy.”
“Right ok. Hello? Rhiannon? Can you come to the parlour please,” he shouted, cupping his mouth as he did.
Rhiannon stood where her mirror had been. It was there this morning. Where was it now? She frowned, adjusted her uniform and began to walk out of the room when it hit her. Rage and jealously pounded in her head. It filled her, as it had filled her on the night she had thrown a harlot through a window. It was stronger this time, the emotion spilling out from inside her, warping her body. She grew stretching outwards as she had done before, but further now. Her limbs became long spindly bone, her fingers and toes stretching into long stiletto like talons. Her eyes sunk until they were pools of black, her fair flowed freely as though it were submerged in water. Her skin become ashen grey, her outfit fading until were completely white. She grasped the doorway with her claws, pulling her now massive form through the doorway, squeezing through with a wet squelching noise. She dropped onto the landing and began crawling down the stairway on all fours, hissing as she went.
“This is the last time. You will not survive this night,” said Claire, a smell of burning wood filling the room, burn marks running across the floorboards where she had stepped in through the window and walked across the room.
“Dear, you came!” shouted Mark, stepping forward. The heat radiating from the Jinn was almost overpowering. “I am so glad you accepted, we are to be married within the month!”
“What are you blathering about? Have you finally gone mad human, has this all been a bit too much?” Claire sneered at him, as he continued his advance.
“Mad with love for you my dear! I couldn’t be happier!” He grabbed Claire’s hand, holding it with both of his own. Mark winced as his hands began to burn. “Oh Rhiannon,” he said as a loud scratching noise got closer. “I would love for you to meet the love of my life.”
A massive creature extended its head into the doorway, its neck stretching through into the room. It snarled and bared its fangs, a woman’s face stretched across a beast of unbridled frenzy. It squeezed through the doorframe, cracking it as it pulled itself through, talons dug deep into the floorboards.
“What is this? Stay back beast.” Claire thrust her hand forward, a jet of white-hot flame erupting from her palm. Mark dropped to the ground, rolling across the floor as the blast struck Rhiannon’s grotesque body. It struck her in the torso, which rippled, the flame vanishing inside her.
“I have lived worse infernos,” croaked the creature, it had a voice like a creaking door. It lunged forward with its talon hand, grabbing the Jinn tightly in her fist. She thrashed in defiance, small jets of flame escaping from between the onryo’s fingers. “You come to take everything from me! Again! Harlot!”
“You are deceived, this is a- “Claire began, her words cut off as she began to gag. The onryo’s other hand was melting into a fine mist, which was filling Claire’s nose and mouth. Panic filled her eyes, then rolled back in her head as the mist continued the fill her. Rhiannon placed her onto the floor, because collapsing completely into a roiling cloud, which force its way inside the twitching girl. She shook for a moment, then stopped, lying motionless on the floor.
“Holy shit, did, did that work?” exclaimed Jess. She ran over to the prone girl, touching her hand to her neck. “She’s cold, well normal human cold, there is a pulse, I think she’s alive.”
“Call an ambulance, well one for each of us,” Mark held up his hands, which were red with welts. His shirt was soaked through with sweat.
The doors to the ward swung open as Jess rolled the wheelchair onwards. Aasif sat in it, his one arm bandaged at the elbow, the forearm missing.
“I brought you a visitor,” she said. Mark looked up from him the paper he had been trying and failing to read, his hands wrapped tightly in bandages.
“The burn unit huh? And I thought I had it bad,” joked Aasif.
“You lost an arm,” Mark replied, shifting himself more upright in the hospital bed.
“At least I have one usable hand, which is more than you do right now. Push me a little close please Jess?” he asked, looking over his shoulder.
“Can do.” She pushed the chair further forward. “Thought you might like to know Claire is alive, but still in a coma, they’re not sure she will ever wake up. Her father has woken up himself but has no memory of anything. That was a ballsy move we pulled.”
“How did you know that would work?” Aasif asked, “I’m not sure I follow it one hundred percent.”
“Rhiannon, that was the ghosts name, went from a normal, well normal being relative. A normal ghost to an onryo because the weakness between this world and the other was affecting her, it empowered her. Or I guessed so. That’s how Claire, well Jinn-Claire got in, through that weakness. It seemed like when she super charged herself she was affecting that weakness just by being here. I guessed that’s what caused the rift. I also guessed that being near Rhiannon it would have a similar effect.”
“That’s a lot of guesses,” Aasif said. “A lot could have gone wrong there.”
“We didn’t have many other options left,” Jess added. “I do feel bad, we manipulated her to get what we wanted, and it seems to have destroyed the both. She didn’t deserve that.”
“Either way, I want to apologise Aasif,” said Mark. “It’s our fault what happened to you, we should never have gotten you involved.
“I could have walked away at any point, it’s not your fault. Plus, the doctors say you saved my life cutting the blood flow like you did. There’s no hard feelings on my end. Gives me plenty of time to study up anyway. Already had transfer papers to move to London for a D.C.I West
on I think? She seemed nice on the phone. Better get used to my face buddy,” Aasif said, holding out his hand. Mark took it and shook. “I always wanted to be a detective.”
Epilogue
They burst from the tree line, greenery showing the roadside as they sprinted happily to the roadside.
“Blessed civilisation!” shouted Bill, twirling excitedly. “Finally. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good spruce, but I’ve had enough Norwegian wilderness for a while.” His suit was torn, green stains across his shirt. He was accompanied by a tall stocky man whose suit was in a similar state of disarray.
“I know the feeling. I just need to sit at home for a few weeks. Watch a lot of Netflix. Stay as far away from green for as long as possible.” Aaron brushed off a sprig of pine that had gotten caught in his jacket. “There’s some documentaries I’ve been saving, seems like a good time to start working through them.”
“Oh, there’s a real good one on beautiful undersea reefs!” said Micky as he emerged from the tree line behind them. His white tracksuit was still perfect, untouched by the ravages of the wilderness. He had been annoyingly chipper the whole time. Micky adjusted his flat cap, pulling a cigarette from under the brim, he placed it between his lips.
“Not really my style,” said Aaron. “More into the serial killer documentaries myself. Just find them fascinating. What’s it like in their heads, you know?” Micky stared at him slightly puzzled.
“I would of thought that would have been easy for… your kind?” he asked.
“Hey not cool Micky, your kind? I thought you were better than that.” Bill closed his eyes and shook his head, disappointed at the angel.
“Not what I meant, and you know that.” Micky rolled his eyes. “Getting humans to kill each other is like step number one in your playbook that’s all.”