by Robert Wilde
“Okay, okay, so, let me make a hypothetical. Was the spirit that tore him apart in the dog, was the dog, or with the dog?”
“No idea,” Joe confessed.
“Great, you’ve just made this a lot, lot more confusing.”
“Has this bloke been making annoying dinosaurs?” Dee asked.
“No, no he’s an occultist. Come into his study, have a look round, maybe he knew who was coming after him. Oh,” and he pulled a newspaper out from his coat pocket, “this has an obituary.”
Steven Stranos, who died yesterday aged sixty two, took pride in being called ‘The British Occult’s Greatest Bastard’ by a pair of rivals who crossed (ceremonial) swords with him. Born in Hong Kong to a mother and father working in the colonial services, he was returned to Britain aged eight and adapted swiftly to private schooling, graduating Oxford with a First which, by his own admission, he never let anyone forget about.
Stranos’s first job was as a journalist working on a local London newspaper, but thanks to his ability with the written word and his focus in sending the same letter every single day to the broadsheets asking for a position he was taken on by the Telegraph. One of his first jobs was to assist in an investigation into the Gorley Abbey hauntings, having been sent by an editor who wanted to take an objective, sceptical look at what was turning into a tabloid romp. Stranos fully believed his research would uncover fraud at Gorley, but he was only partly right. After an experience one evening Stranos became convinced that, yes, there was an afterlife, and a truth to part of the occult, but that also the investigators at Gorley, and indeed most other places, were total frauds. Stranos soon left the Telegraph to begin a career which was thirty per cent writing about spirits, monsters, demons and the rest of the esoteric canon, and seventy per cent demolishing the work of rival ‘occultists’, who reacted consistently badly to the ease with which Stranos’ waspish pen could harm them and, it has to be said, their book sales and tour bookings.
Titles such as ‘The Liars’, ‘The Truth Behind Thirty Hauntings’, ‘Spiritualism and Sewage’, and the seminal ‘He Made It Up’ earned Stranos both the title ‘The British Occult’s Greatest Bastard’ and what is considered to have been a record number of curses, all of which Stranos appeared to have survived until his tragic tangling with a dog yesterday. It is, perhaps inevitable that his end is already being mythologised, with a Wiki page listing a number of rivals who might have possessed the dog, surely a use of esoteric legend Stranos would have taken great pleasure in dismissing.
Stranos married once, but Martha Stranos died of cancer before the marriage produced children, and Stranos later said if he couldn’t share his children with Martha, he never wanted to share them with anyone. His collection of occult works, which numbered into the many thousands, remain something of a question, with calls for them to be donated en masse to a museum, perhaps that in Boscastle, or turned into a lending library. Critics have said the best thing to do is sell them on eBay, such was Spanos’ scorn for the rest of the occult field.
Supporters are asked to send money to charity rather than sending flowers to his funeral, although animal charities are considered as bad taste recipients by the executor.
Dee finished reading the obituary out.
“Sounds like our sort of arsehole,” Nazir concluded.
“Speak for yourself, I’m lovely.”
“Princesses don’t give blow jobs.”
“Disney would approve of me.”
“I think,” Pohl said taking over, “we have a large list of potential killers.”
“Oh yeah, well if you want to get back on topic.”
“A man has died. Horribly.”
“Yes,” Jeff said, “so if we can’t ask him what happened, is there any chance you could search this house and find what did.”
“Haven’t forensics done it?”
“Oh yes, but forensics don’t entertain ideas like ‘a rival occultist send an evolved dinosaur spirit to tear his soul to shreds’, so you can how things get missed.”
“We can do that. What’s the makeup of this house?”
“It’s a bungalow. All one level.”
“We know what bungalow means.”
“Sorry, you’d be surprised. Anyway, most of the rooms are piled floor to ceiling with books, which either makes this a contender for a Channel 4 hoarding programme or the oddest piece of caving ever. I think the targets will be the only rooms he lived in, namely bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and study.”
“He didn’t have a lounge?”
“Filled it full of books once his wife died. Watches TV from his desk. Did everything from his desk.”
“Dirty bastard.”
“Nazir,” Jeff began, “were you trained to find something sexual in everything that was said?”
“Hard experience.”
“That one was my fault. Right, let’s try the study first, I doubt he left any clues written in his own blood. By which I mean I thought of that and checked, he didn’t.”
Soon they were in a study which redefined the term lived into something far lower.
“Is that a hand in a jar?” Dee said peering in and turning her nose up at the same time.
“Yes, but we don’t know if it’s real or fake. If he was alive I guess I’d have to do some police work, but as he’s in a morgue in a funny shaped piece I’m going to turn a blind eye to his collection of old body parts.”
“It’s going to be a real hand isn’t it; I’m getting that sort of vibe off this case.”
Pohl sat herself on Stranos’ chair. The leather was worn, the padding worn out. He clearly spent many hours in that position, and probably many happy hours slagging other people off. How he must have enjoyed the arrival of the internet, the lifting of the great veil that revealed what people had always really thought in private. “It must be more complicated than simply reading what was on his desk,” she said, doing exactly that.
“There’s a first time for everything,” Dee replied coming and standing behind her. “Does that say what I think it does?”
“Yes. Here Stranos has recorded a series of conclusions, presumably based on the rest of this folder of poorly punched A4 paper - the man was an enemy to lines obviously - and these conclusions claim a spirit of evil intent will find a way to incarnate itself and a helper into this world, where they can use human bodies to work out their frustrations as brutally as they wish.”
Jeff screwed his face up. “Like an antichrist?”
“No Detective, in fact Stranos has underlined ‘not like an antichrist’ in red pen, which I suppose is a fitting colour.”
“Colour?”
“Yes. Red. Satan. Hell. Red. Anyway, moving swiftly on.”
“Then what are they?”
“I imagine, having read only the obituary and then the face up pages of notes, than Mr. Stranos did not like myth making or exaggeration. He isn’t talking about Satan, he is talking about particularly annoyed and immoral spirits finding a way into the world.”
“Then Stranos wanted to stop them coming,” Jeff concluded.
“No,” Dee sighed, “the last notes conclude, sadly, that they’re already here. What he wanted to do was stop them doing anything. And someone stopped him first.”
“These, err,” Jeff tried “demons.”
“Do we have to call them demons?” Pohl asked. “It seems against everything he stood for.”
“I can’t think of a better term given that we’re yet again dealing with the arsehole version of them. So, we have another old spirit, in a body, killing people. Do we have any better idea of what to do this time?”
“Yes,” Pohl said. “This talks of the struggle these demons have had finding human bodies. These are not skilful possessors, these are once in a generation attempts.”
Nazir smiled. “So we can just kill them.”
“Indeed. Equally brutal perhaps, but at least a fair fight.”
Jeff nodded. “Alright, but perhaps we can imprison them too if
they’re stuck inside. Kill, bind, whatever, we can stop them. They can’t move between us. Excellent. Makes the last one look world class, more’s the pity”
“There is the dog,” Pohl cautioned, “it seems to be a vicious beast. Do we even want to find it?”
“We can kill a dog,” Jeff nodded to himself, “after last time, we can do this. Stop them before anyone else dies, that’s my job, that’s what I’m here for.”
“Cliché,” Dee coughed.
“So how do we find the demon?” Jeff asked, but everyone looked at everyone else. There was silence. “No one?”
“Well, err…” Dee grasped around. “We could set a trap?”
“A trap?”
“Yes,” and Dee was warming up, “the demons killed this man because he knew about them. We just need to advertise we know about them too, and they’ll come after us.”
“Is that a good idea?” Pohl asked looking up.
“Yes, because we know it’s coming, so we’ll be ready. We still have the pistols the, err, contact gave us when we went to Ukraine.”
“You have guns?” Jeff spat out choking.
“Don’t tell Jeff that,” Nazir smiled, “he might object.”
“Well I guess we’re both in trouble with the firearms department. So you want to set a trap?”
“Oh yes.”
“With you as bait?”
“Oh yes.”
“Jesus, this is more dangerous than giving ISIS free cuddles. Sorry Nazir.”
“It’s alright, it’s just my homeland being murdered.”
“So a trap. You think whoever did this to Stranos is, what, continuing surveillance?”
“Yes.”
“Then what did you have in mind?”
Dee came down the stairs yawning and found her front door open. There was a brief moment of panic, before she remembered what was happening, and then another brief moment when a badly dressed robot seemed to come up the path carrying a box of books. Of course, Joe and Nazir had been tasked with moving books into her house, and they’d done it early so the mechanical muscles could get a bit of a stretch when no one was around. Still, coffee was required, so Dee went into the kitchen and found Pohl’s washed up breakfast bowl and a supply of coffee ready made. Hmm, it was looking more and more like Dee was actually late. Fuck.
Cup in hand she went into the lounge and froze. Once, it had been a place of warmth and safety, except for that night where they played Diplomacy and ended up wanting to commit a string of murders, and now it looked like a library after god had farted out an earthquake. There were books everywhere.
Pohl appeared behind Dee and put more books down. “Best get your smart clothes on, Jeff is here.”
“I do not… fuck, hang on.” Two minutes later she came back down without her pyjamas, and smiled as Jeff came in and peered in the lounge.
“Wow, are you taking the whole building?” The detective asked. “Why not just move in there?”
“Firstly, that would be creepy.”
“Oh, that would be creepy.”
“Secondly, we asked the executors and they said we could borrow as much as we needed to make our trap look convincing, so we’re taking as much as possible so whoever is spying gets the fucking picture. And thirdly, they said we could keep whatever we wanted as long as we could provide a satisfactory explanation of the death, so it has to be moved sometime.”
“A satisfactory explanation,” he said it awkwardly, “that’s an odd thing to say.”
“I think they realised we’re in a world where convictions and prison sentences are not the usual outcome.”
“Ah, so there’s a paranormally minded legal firm out there. Something to remember.”
“Indeed. Marley and Sons.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. I can’t decide if they like literary jokes or are just mocking the world.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Not really. Right, do you have time for some exertion.”
“Easy,” Nazir called out behind them.
“Because we need some of this stuff moving.”
“Can’t you just ask the tireless exoskeleton to shift it all?”
“That, Jeff, is a very good idea, but apparently he thinks he’s being picked on if we all sit around watching him. Diddums.”
“I have the power to rip your arm off,” came a call.
“Then you’ll never get a handjob.”
“When did joking about my lack of sexual organs become acceptable?”
“I decided it just did. So come on, let’s move stuff.”
Jeff picked up a pile of magazines. “Are you sure this will attract the attentions of whoever is watching?”
“Nope, but we’ve got to do something, right? I mean, they knew enough about Stranos to kill him, and he didn’t exactly sky write ‘there’s a fucky demon coming’ so somehow they knew.”
“As long as it’s not got some sort of weird scrying bowl,” Jeff said, worried for Dee.
“Oh I don’t know,” Nazir said passing them, “I quite like being watched.”
“I can see why you didn’t want to try the immigration morality clause.” Sometimes Jeff felt this house transported him to a strange netherworld where his usual job was turned inside out.
“So what will you’ve done when you’ve moved in?”
“We advertise ourselves, locally of course, maybe get one of the magazines to interview me.”
“They have paranormal magazines?”
“Yes. Turns out pretentious esoterics love a bit of printed media, think it makes them better than all the websites going on about orbs.”
“Oh, right, so there’s a caste system for this shit is there?”
“Yes. But I thought the first thing we should do is all go out for lunch.”
“That does sound very good, yes. I suppose you want me to pay?”
“Jeff, I’m offended. I’m a twenty first century girl with a million quid in her bank account, I demand to buy the first round.”
“That sounds about right.”
“Are you calling me tight? Nazir, stop fucking sniggering and get bringing things inside!”
“Yes Mistress. I’ll be sure to lick your feet when I get back.”
“You joke Nazir, you fucking joke… Actually, Jeff, do you have a day off or something? You should be at work now.”
“Yes. It’s my birthday.”
“Fuck…drop everything. Everyone drop everything, we are going to the pub.”
“Mistress has spoken and we obey!”
Five hours later everyone returned from the pub and dropped into their chairs, which were about the only things still free of books. Coffee was supposed to be served, but everyone snuggled in and carried on taking, all except Nazir who picked his laptop up.
“What are you looking for?” Dee asked. “More dating emails?”
“I thought I’d check out the webcam I put back.”
“Oh yeah, haha.”
“Yeah, apparently we missed a delivery and…”
“Oh, sorry,” Pohl began to explain, “that must have been my order from Yale.”
“No, no, look at this,” and as Nazir looked everyone leapt up, swayed slightly, and came round the back.
“It’s a postman.”
“No, beyond the postman.”
“It’s a fucking dog. Sat watching.”
“Right, right, so, if I turn the feed off and we see what’s outside now…”
Jeff drew breath sharply. “The dog is still watching.” There really was a large, muscular dog sitting there, just looking in their direction.
“Yep. We are being spied on by a dog. And that means…”
“A demon.”
“Right. Outside.”
“Hang on, there’s someone with it.”
“No, no, oh shit, that’s our neighbour.” They watched as the man walked over, bent scratched the dog’s head, and took a look at the collar. Then the neighbour wr
ote something on his hand, and walked back to their house. At this point the dog turned and ran off.
“What was that about?” Jeff asked.
“Got it,” Dee hissed.
“What?”
“He took a number off the collar. He knows the phone number. He knows where the dog lives. It was too busy being camouflaged to realise it had fucked up and now it’s cleared off.”
“So we need to get that number sharpish.”
“Easy, he really likes me.”
“He really likes you when you’re drunk and falling over him.”
“You can shush. Right, stay here, I’m going to go stick my head in.”
It was easy enough to acquire the phone number from next door, and even easier to identify the address that connected to. It was a little harder to decide who was going to take their car, park a little up the road, and then sit in it for the next day and make a list of everyone who came and went. Would the dog recognise them if it saw them? They thought possibly, so disguises were the order of the day, which was why Dee sat with a blonde wig and Joe’s robot hooded in the back. Lunch was packed, coffee was in several flasks, and by the end of the day they had returned with a report. But debriefing began, Dee looked in the hall mirror.
“This blonde look is freaking me out. Women live like this all the time?”
“Yes,” Nazir began to explain, “now you know what it’s like for men to assume you have a lower IQ than normal.”
“Well they already assume I’ve got a lower one because they’re men.”
“Even lower than that. They think you’re an amoeba.”
“When you did you become an expert in men Nazir?”
“I’ve been inside a few.”
Soon it was mealtime.
“Okay,” Nazir said, eating his Chinese meal, actually his because he’d cooked it, “what have we got?”
“There are three people in the house, four if you include the baby.”
“Babies are people,” Jeff protested, as Dee raised an eyebrow and said “shitting, pissing people.”
“Right, there’s only three people capable of doing harm, plus a dog,” Joe explained. “We have a man in his late thirties, stocky, who takes the dog for twice daily walks. We have a woman, late thirties, possibly stocky but also carrying baby weight, who left only once to post a letter a little down the road, and we have a woman in her late twenties we’ve identified as the woman’s sister, and she was in and out like a yo-yo. Assuming they still have them and we don’t say in and out like an X Box game.”