Past Sins

by Matthew Stott

  She was unconscious, but alive.

  ‘That really fucking hurt.’ said Eva, propping herself up on her elbows.

  ‘What did you do?’ I asked.

  ‘Told you. I can yank something that’s set up home in another person right out of them. So I pulled that fucker out of your detective friend and stuck him deep into me. I can feel him wriggling about in there, and not in a good way.’

  She stood and made her way over to the Fox, who snarled and brandished his axe. ‘I remember you,’ she said.

  ‘And I know you,’ the Fox replied.

  ‘It’s okay, Eva,’ I said. ‘He’s my friend.’

  The Fox grinned.

  ‘Hey, who you choose to mix with is up to you.’

  ‘I am a good fox, now,’ he said.

  ‘So this is what all the fuss is about,’ said Eva, walking over to the skull throne. ‘Bit tacky.’

  ‘Eva,’ I said, ‘Your nose.’

  She sniffed, then ran her coat sleeve across her nostrils, wiping away the blood that was starting to drip out. ‘He’s really fighting in there,’ she said. ‘It won’t take him long to get out. You remember those fairies I had in the fridge?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I feasted on a sewer full of them to power up for this awesome final stand, but even with all that extra magic juice, he’ll bust out in a minute, tops.’

  ‘Why did you come back?’ I asked.

  ‘Maybe you’re not the only stupid one, love.’

  ‘Did you listen to my message?’

  Eva tried to walk over to me, but she stumbled, and fell to one knee.

  ‘Eva!’

  ‘Stay back. It’s okay, I have a plan.’

  ‘Okay. That’s good. That sounds good.’

  ‘It’s a really good plan. A bit of a downer for me personally, though.’

  ‘Why.’

  ‘Kamikaze, bitch,’ she said, pulling out a knife and holding it to her heart.

  ‘Eva, what’re you doing!’

  ‘I need to kill him, Joe, and the only way to do that is to make him physical, then kill the body. Unfortunately, I’m the body. I’m the only one who can hold him long enough to do it.’

  ‘It won’t work,’ I said. ‘He was going to kill Myers while he was inside her! Held a knife to her neck!’

  ‘He was bluffing, love.’

  Bluffing. He was stuck and he’d tricked me.

  ‘Okay then, gotta do this now, no time.’

  ‘No, there must be another way.’

  Eva smiled at me and shrugged. ‘There isn’t. Wish there was. Right—’

  I yelled out as Eva tensed and tried to thrust the blade into her heart. But it didn’t happen. Eva struggled and screamed with the effort, but the knife wouldn’t enter her.

  ‘Eva?’

  ‘Can’t... He’s too strong... He’s stopping me…’

  She began to tremble all over, and blood poured from her nose, her ears, even her eyes. ‘Die, you fuck!’ she said, but her body bucked and fought and refused.

  ‘We’ll find another way!’ I said, dropping to my knees beside her. What way? Was there another way? I just couldn’t lose her. We were family.

  ‘This is the way. This is it, Joe!’

  She took my hand in hers and pulled it towards the handle of the knife.

  ‘Push, Joe.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Push!

  She wanted me to kill her.

  ‘Do it, Joe. Do it! Kill him!’

  I looked at my hand holding the knife, Eva’s over mine.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You have to. You have to be the hero here, Joe, I’ve done all I can.’

  Eva screamed, her head dropping, she was fighting like a lion. I could only imagine the pain, the effort, and there I was, on my knees, as weak as I’d ever felt.

  ‘I can’t hold him!’ She was terrified. But not because she was about to die, but because he was about to escape. About to burst free and then no one could stop him.

  Hell on Earth.

  I leaned forward, both hands on the butt of the knife. I could do this. I had to. I had to kill her. I had to kill Eva. Kill her, and kill Janto.

  I tried, I screamed, willing myself to do it, but still the knife didn’t move. Didn’t thrust into her chest.

  ‘You have to, love.’

  Tears blurred my vision. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’

  ‘I don’t matter.’

  ‘You’re wrong!’

  I felt a hand rest upon my shoulder. ‘Saviour, step aside.’

  I looked back to see the Fox, battle axe in hand.

  ‘Do it!’ screamed Eva.

  The Fox looked to me.

  ‘Now! Kill me now!’

  ‘It is my honour.’

  The Fox raised his battle-axe high above his head. I could see the flames that rolled across the sky reflected on its surface.

  I looked at Eva, and Eva looked at me, and I knew what was right. It had to be me.

  It had to be.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Let me.’

  ‘Second time’s the charm,’ she said, smiling, blood across her teeth. ‘This time I’ll stop him.’

  I wouldn’t defer to the Fox to help me out again. To do the dirty work. Eva was mine. I’d brought her into this world. And as she did the bravest thing imaginable, I should be brave enough to do as she asked.

  So I gripped the handle of the knife.

  ‘Let’s end this bastard,’ she said.

  I nodded. ‘Together. Together, we win.’

  ‘A pair of bad-arse motherfucking fuckers.’

  Eva let go of the handle, spreading her arms wide.

  And the blade slid into her heart.

  And she died.

  26

  Three days passed before I could bring myself to bury Eva.

  I sat with her body the whole time, just me and her in the coven, waiting for her to open her eyes at last and call me names. Yell at me to go get her a beer out of the fridge, and tell me about the secret trick she’d had up her sleeve all along that allowed her to cheat death.

  But she didn’t open her eyes.

  She didn’t call me names.

  She didn’t stop being dead.

  So I dug a hole next to the coven and placed Eva inside. I shovelled dirt onto her body, and sat a stone on top to mark the spot.

  Myers and I pulled chairs outside and sat by the grave. We didn’t talk for a long time, just sat and drank and let the silence wrap around us.

  Finally Myers put down her empty can and stood, walking over to the grave.

  ‘You know, sometimes I still feel like he’s in there,’ she said, tapping at her head. ‘It’s like I can feel scars he left behind.’

  ‘He was part of you for a long time,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll never have the words to thank you properly,’ said Myers, as I stood and joined her, looking down at the stone sat atop the freshly-turned soil.

  ‘They’re not needed,’ I replied.

  Myers hugged me, then kissed me once on the lips.

  ‘You’re leaving, aren’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘I only came up here because of him. Because of Janto. I don’t belong here. I want to go home.’

  Go home. Back to London.

  Another one gone.

  I wanted to try and talk her out of it. Persuade her to stay here, stay with me, carry on fighting the good fight.

  But I didn’t.

  I just nodded and hugged her again, then watched as she walked away.

  So now it was just me.

  I crouched and brushed my hand gently over the soil.

  ‘Thanks, Eva. Thanks for everything.’

  I looked up, a bird was circling above. It’s feathers were black, its wings huge.

  ‘I’ll never believe you’re really gone. Really dead. You’re too much of a hard-nosed bastard to let something as ordinary as death take you.’ I brushed the tear that was rolling down my cheek aside, then sipped
at my drink. ‘You know, you always bought really disgusting beer.’

  The chill night air brushed past me as I stood, and I hugged myself, shivering.

  It was time to become the witch I should have been. I’d study the books, I’d practice all the hours available to me, and I’d make her proud. I’d keep people safe. Me. Because I’m not Janto, I’m Joseph Lake of the Cumbrian Coven. The man the monsters should run from in terror.

  A small figure stepped in beside me, an axe in one hand, a bundle of possessions in the other. He took off his helmet and looked down at the freshly turned soil.

  ‘I don’t want to be in the Dark Lakes anymore,’ he said. ‘And I don’t think the Red Woman wants me there, either.’

  I nodded and ruffled the fur atop his head.

  Maybe I wouldn’t be entirely alone after all.

  ‘Come along, Fox,’ I said.

  He smiled up at me with his sharp little teeth.

  And we walked into the coven together.

  The End.

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  “A skinned woman floating in a canal.

  A demon on the loose.

  Somebody has to take it down, and that somebody is me.

  Just one problem... I’m already dead.”

  1

  It was half past midnight when the screaming started.

  It came from the east bank of Regent’s Canal, not far from Camden Lock. The person who called it in said they’d heard a commotion outside their narrow boat and pulled back a curtain to find a figure running along the towpath, screeching at the top of their lungs. The witness said they couldn’t understand why the screamer was making such a racket; not until they slammed their palm against the boat’s porthole and painted it with a big, red handprint.

  The victim didn’t have any skin.

  They’d been flayed alive from head to toe, peeled like a prawn, yet somehow they still had it in them to be running barefoot—literally barefoot—alongside the canal.

  The victim ran some more after that, but didn’t make it much farther before they took a tumble over the bank and toppled face-first into the water. It won’t shock you to learn that they were pronounced dead on arrival.

  When I picked up the message from DCI Stronge that the Marine Policing Unit had fished a skinned corpse out of the drink, I took an interest right away. Things like this—bizarre, gruesome murders—they’re right in my wheelhouse. All my life I’ve had a preoccupation with the macabre: the creatures in the shadows, the lurkers beneath the floorboards, the monsters in the closet. Believe it or not, back in a past life I used to be an exorcist (although obviously I’d prefer if you did take my word for it, otherwise this story is going to be a really tough sell).

  I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Jake Fletcher. I’m six-feet tall, I fill out a suit real nice and I’ve been told by more than one woman that I have—and I quote—“nice teeth.” Oh, and I’m dead. Dead as a doornail.

  Now, don’t start giving me any, “Ghosts aren’t real, Jake,” bollocks, alright? You’re just gonna have to go with me on this. I’m dead, ghosts are legit, and Two Broke Girls is the nadir of human accomplishment. These are the facts. Deal with them.

  Where was I again? Oh, right, me being an ex-exorcist.

  You’re probably wondering how I wound up being an exorcist in the first place, right? I mean, it’s not exactly your run of the mill, garden variety profession. My school careers advisor had me pegged as a newspaper reporter or an English teacher, but I guess I was always destined to work with the dead. I was born with The Sight, you see, a special sensitivity to the Uncanny. No one knows how it works exactly—whether it’s a sixth sense, an overactive pineal gland, or just plain bad luck—but I have an ability to see the spirits of the dead. Ghosts, phantoms, spectres, whatever you want to call them, I can see the lot, and more besides. If I was to show you some of the “besides” that I’ve seen, you’d lock yourself in your house and soil yourself for seven days straight. It made for a challenging childhood—Jesus, it did—but it set me up great for a career evicting spooks.

  I spent a good few years doing the exorcist thing, Screaming bible passages, waving burning sage about, cleansing haunted properties. That was until I died and became a spook myself. Yeah, I’m not blind to the irony. And don’t worry, I’m not the bad kind of ghost who makes the walls bleed and writes threatening messages in the condensation on your bathroom mirror. Honestly, I wouldn’t say boo to a goose, nor can I think of a single good reason for doing so.

  Anyway, since I croaked, I’ve taken a bit of a U-turn on the whole “ghost rights” thing. Matter of fact, I’ve become something of an undead activist. Rights not rites, that’s what I say. Because I learned the truth. The real truth about the consequences of what I was doing as an exorcist. But we’ll get back to that later.

  So… ghosts. Most of them end up marooned on the physical plane because they died a traumatic death and need closure to move on. Not me. I solved my murder – had my chance at the afterlife but passed it up. Well, that’s not entirely true. The truth is, I did a runner from the pearly gates. I didn’t feel I was ready to face the Big Man at that juncture, not after the life I’d lead. Not after the things I’d done. I had a feeling he wouldn’t be too quick to hand me a gold card to the exec lounge, not until I’d cancelled out the stuff I’d been up to while I was still alive. Of course, I hadn’t known then that I was up to no good, but something told me ignorance wasn’t going to earn me a pass.

  So, I found my way back here, back to the physical realm. Now I live somewhere between the two worlds, tucked in the middle and out of sight, like a g-string up an arse crack. I move invisibly in this realm, a rumour drifting through a world of facts. Tell you what, let’s stick with that last one—the rumour/facts line—it’s got a bit more poetry to it than the arse crack thing.

  So, you probably want to know how I wound up dead in the first place, right? Well, you know that expression, “Die young and leave a good-looking corpse”? I managed to get the “young” part right. The “good-looking corpse” part, that’s a whole other story. The quick version: I succeeded in pissing off the wrong person and ended up cut into four chunks, so... not exactly good-looking. Unless a horribly mashed up corpse gets your motor running, in which case, hey, I won’t judge you (actually, what am I talking about? Of course I will, that’s messed up).

  Anyway, my death’s a story for another time – we’ve already got one sliced-up corpse bobbing in a canal, let’s not muddy the waters with another. The reason I mention it is to remind you that, as a bona-fide “goner,” I don’t have a body. Most of the time I do just fine without one, but seeing as I was about to meet with the police and they wouldn’t be able to see me in my spook state, something needed doing. If I wanted to talk with DCI Stronge, I was going to have to make a stop first.

  2

  I found him sat in the booth of a late-night bar with his arm around a woman presenting enough chest to be charged with indecent exposure. He was ordering table service. Of course he was, he’d always been a wanker. His name was Ma
rk Ryan and I’d known him since we were eleven years old. Since we were at school together.

  We didn’t run in the same circles then. His circle was all sports trophies and hand jobs behind the bike sheds, while mine—thanks to him—was the kind of circle Dante wrote about. No matter what I did to avoid the guy, he’d always find a way to seek me out and give me shit: barging me into my locker, kicking footballs at me, tripping me over in the corridor. Boosting his ego at my expense. Mark Ryan was the first person to really make my life hell, and I’ve been closer to that place than most.

  One time he bought a pair of handcuffs into class and manacled me to a radiator while the teacher was out of the room. Doesn’t sound so bad, right? Some people pay good money for that. Yeah, he over-tightened the things, but that was par for the course with a shit like Mark Ryan. Besides, that wasn’t what really hurt. The real hurt came when the heat from the radiator conducted through the cuff and into my bracelet. That was a new kind of pain. Mark and his crew did nothing to help me – just stood back and laughed, waggling the key at me as I thrashed around, howling in agony.

  Even as a ghost, I still have the scar.

  So yeah, Mark’s not exactly top of my friends list, which is why I decided to make him my designated meat puppet; the body I use whenever I need to pass for living. He’s like my toupee, except instead of hiding a bald spot, he hides the fact that I don’t have a physical form.

  Mark pecked his side-piece on the cheek, squeezed past her and headed to the Gents for a slash. I breezed by the rest of the punters unseen and phased through the bathroom wall to follow him inside. When I got there I found him stood at a urinal, phone in one hand, cock in the other. Not that his downstairs department is anything to write home about. The guy might act like a swinging dick, but he has a knob like an outie belly button.

  I sidled up and prepared to stake a pitch in Mark’s body. It took me a long time to get the knack of possession. For a while there I was just jumping into people and going arse over tit through the other side as they stood there oblivious. What can I tell you; meat is a tricky medium. Most ghosts never get a handle on it, but somehow I figured out a way. If you asked me how, I’d tell you that my work as an exorcist gave me a qualified understanding of ghosts and their unique metaphysical properties. I’d be shitting you though. All I know for certain is that after a lot of trial and error I finally sussed out how to inhabit the living. Well, at least for a little while. An hour, two hours at most, and a living body rejects me like an unwanted kidney. That’s just the way things are, don’t ask me to explain the science of it.