Bad Soul

by David Bussell

  The wraith raised an arm and reached out towards me as it shuffled forward, mouth growing ever wider. The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention, and my survival instincts finally wrestled my curiosity to the floor.

  ‘Nice meeting you, gotta go.’

  I turned to leave, only to find a second wraith had made its way down the stairs to cut me off. I yelled out in surprise and instinctively threw a punch—a punch heavy with Uncanny strength—but these things weren’t solid, weren’t meat and bone, and my knuckles passed right through the—

  —‘Jamesy?’

  I was my baby brother’s bedroom, looking down at the empty crib, red rocket ships circling, confused, scared, heart racing. Wasn’t I just in a cellar somewhere?

  Wasn’t I investigating a man’s disappearance?

  But that’s dumb because I was only nine and I didn’t have a job.

  But no, I did have a job. To look after James for half an hour. Thirty minutes, that’s all, hardly any time at all. And my stomach was so tight, like a fist was gripping it, and I felt sick, and the bedroom window was open, the curtains billowing towards me as the evening breeze weaved its way indoors.

  ‘James!’

  I was sat under a table crying because I knew it was all my fault and my mum and dad didn’t believe me, even though I told them everything I could remember over and over and it wasn’t my fault it was all a jumble and all so strange and I heard them shouting at each other. Saw their eyes glaring at me. Felt where my mum’s fingers had dug into my arms as she shook me and told me to stop lying.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? Just tell the truth!’

  He was floating in a ball of red. It was magic. I knew it was. And the tablecloth was lifted and I saw Lana’s smiling face as she bent down to see me.

  ‘Found you!’ she said, and got on her knees to crawl underneath beside me.

  ‘I wasn’t playing,’ I said, eyes red raw, jaw trembling.

  Lana put her arm around me and I laid my head on her shoulder as I told her again and again about the face with the burning eyes, The Red-Eyed Man, because Lana believed me. Lana always believed me.

  I’m not a liar!

  Not then.

  Not then I wasn’t.

  But now I lied all the time. Now I had to.

  Now?

  When is now anyway? I was nine, sat under a table with my cousin crying and I was also seventeen, living in a single room bedsit that Parker had found me, and my parents had no idea where I was and I thought that was good. It was scary because the man who lived in the room upstairs was always twitchy and high on something and shouting and crying in the middle of the night so loud I couldn’t sleep, but I wasn’t really scared. Couldn’t be. I brushed my fingertips along the tattoos Parker had given me. Watched them glow red and felt my heart surge, my body feeling full of power, of energy, of potential. I grinned. More than grinned. My smile was so big and stretched that it ached. I was the one the bloke upstairs should have been scared about. I was the one everyone should be scared about because I was strong and I was fast and I wouldn’t stop and I didn’t care.

  I was twenty and being introduced to the most drop-dead sexy man I’d ever seen in my life. He took my hand in his and it felt like I’d been struck by lightning. He smiled at me and I felt like my knees were going to fold in two. His eyes roamed over my face, my body, and I wanted to feel his hands, his mouth, his everything, all over me. Wanted him to bite my lips, my neck, my chest.

  ‘Kirklander,’ he said. ‘It’s Celtic for “really great in bed’’,’ and he winked and it was such a crap thing to say, but I giggled and went red anyway like I was a fifteen-year-old virgin.

  And I was in bed with him, watching him snuffling gently in his sleep, and I reached out to brush his hair out of his face so that I could—

  —‘Holy shit,’ I managed to gasp as my fist exited the wraith and I tumbled down to the flagstone floor. ‘What the fuck?’ Bewildered, I scanned my surroundings, trying to work out what had happened. I felt like I’d been thrown at force through history. My head felt jarred and my nerve endings screamed in complaint. I lifted my hand to my face and realised I was bleeding. Bleeding from my mouth, my nose, my eyes, even.

  I looked up to see both wraiths were stood by the door, watching me.

  My tattoos glowed as I pulled in magic to soothe my aching body, to reverse whatever damage had been inflicted upon me by whatever the hell had just happened, but something was wrong. The light from the tattoos flickered and died, leaving me half-healed at best. I willed them back to life but nothing happened. There was no way I could have burned through their effectiveness already, it hadn’t been long enough and I’d barely used them. No, this had to be to do with touching the wraith. It was as though its touch had short-circuited my powers somehow.

  Well, great. Awesome. Totally ideal.

  All that from a quick touch. If one of those things got a proper hold on me, I was done for. I couldn’t use my strength against them even if I had it, and that was really all I had. One more touch from the wraiths would end me, and they were blocking the only exit out of the cellar.

  Great work, Erin.

  I needed to lure the things away from the exit, just enough that I could make a run for it.

  ‘Here, wraithy, wraithies,’ I said, slowly edging my way around the circumference of the basement. ‘Lots of tasty history and pain here. Come fill your bellies. Do you have bellies?’ I asked, peering at their stomach areas and spying the wall of the basement through them.

  The wraiths opened their mouths wider and wider as they moved around the basement, following me like I wanted them to, although it felt almost as though they were drawing me towards them. Like their mouths were black holes, sucking in all matter. My foot nudged a wooden stool as I backed up, pulling away from their tractor beam maws. I grabbed the stool and tossed it in the direction of one of the wraiths, and as the stool made contact it seemed to come apart, to devolve until it clattered to the stone floor as several lengths of unvarnished wood.

  ‘Neat trick,’ I said as I passed by the jagged wound in the wall.

  A web-arm burst out of the wound and grabbed for me, but I ducked and rolled, passing through the chalk circle and destroying it before I bolted for the door. Legs pumping, I sprinted up the stone steps at such speed that I lost my footing and my shin connected painfully with the edge of a step.

  ‘Shit!’

  I looked over my shoulder to see three wraiths looking at me, their entire heads now gaping, hungry mouths.

  I pushed myself up and ran from the basement, leaping into the corridor beyond, the front door to my left, the kitchen and back door to my right. Unfortunately, both were blocked by more wraiths.

  ‘Shitting, shitty, shit!’ I cried, and I’m not sure anyone could blame me, considering.

  I took a step towards the front room, only for another wraith to judder into view from inside, its arms reaching towards me like a cartoon sleepwalker’s.

  ‘Great. Brilliant. All going to plan so far.’

  I turned and pulled myself up and over the staircase banister, scrabbling upstairs on my hands and knees. Easy escape now, right? Just find a bedroom window, dangle out of it, and brace myself for a short drop. Might tweak an ankle, but that would be the worst of it.

  So of course the upstairs was swarming with wraiths.

  ‘Oh, come on, really?’

  The creatures surged towards me, along the landing, up the stairs, a crashing wave of darkness, mouths growing ever wider, arms clawing for me, trying grab me, to hold me, to feast on my past. There was no time for a measured escape, for a gentle drop to the outside.

  ‘Time for something stupid,’ I said, and smiled as I turned and sprinted into a bedroom, wraiths surging after me. I lifted my hands over my head and threw myself through a window.

  My world became a cloud of stinging glass shards and rushing wind.

  I landed hard on the paving stones outside and the world turned blac
k.

  9

  I awoke with a groan.

  Now, I’m used to waking up with a self-inflicted bad head, but this was different. When I came around this time, the pain I experienced shamed the very worst of hangovers. And I’m talking hangovers. Four-day bender hangovers.

  Everything hurt as I peeled my face from the paving stone beneath me. I levered myself up on my elbows and inspected myself for damage. My leather jacket had protected most of me from the glass, but my hands and face were cut-up pretty bad. I spat to one side and turned the paving stone to my left into a one-tone Jackson Pollock. I had at least four breaks that I could count. Left wrist was shot, right arm, left ankle, and a rib. As I strained to sit I felt a spike of pain in my chest. Make that at least two ribs snapped.

  But I was alive. I’d made it out before the wraiths could grab me and gorge on my past. I looked up to see them huddled before the broken window, looking down at me. It seemed as though I’d only been out for a few seconds at most. They turned from me and disappeared from view. It didn’t take a genius to work out where they were headed next.

  I wouldn’t get anywhere in the state I was in. Somehow, I needed to get my tattoos working and put them to use. I clenched my eyes tight and tried to push the agony into a background buzz as I willed the magic around me to flood into the tattoos.

  ‘Come on, come on…’

  Nothing. How long had it been? How many more seconds until the first wraith emerged from Brian Teller’s house? How long before the first hand, woven from black webbing, took hold of me and sent me hurtling through my past again? Sent me hurtling towards an early death.

  ‘Come on!’

  The tattoos flickered to life and began drawing in the surrounding magic. ‘Ha! Back in business, baby!’ I felt the arcane energy soaking into me, felt the pain starting to dull. My broken ribs fused, good as new. I gasped and pulled in deep, ragged breaths.

  I looked to the house. No sign of any wraiths yet, but they’d soon be on me.

  ‘Let’s do this,’ I spat through clenched teeth.

  My runes glowed a fierce crimson as they worked on putting the rest of my broken Humpty Dumpty body back together again. I felt a wrist click back into place I rolled my hand, testing it out. Not a pinch of pain.

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  A dark head poked out of Brian Teller’s front door.

  ‘Shit.’

  Time was up.

  With my broken arm useless still, I used my now good wrist to push myself up to my feet. The broken ankle screamed in pain and I stumbled to one side, gripping the garden fence for support, my broken arm jarring painfully and forcing an anguished cry from my throat.

  ‘It’s only pain. That’s all it is. Just a little excruciating pain.’

  The wraiths were stuttering their way out of the house, across the short front garden that I’d arced over when I took my trip to the pavement beyond.

  ‘Move, you dumb bitch, move!’

  Teeth clenched, eyes watering, I began to shamble away from Brian Teller’s house, my broken ankle threatening to drop me at any moment as the horde of wraiths nipped at my heels.

  My tattoos throbbed and I gasped as my busted arm snapped back into place. Of course it would be my ankle that was seen to last. Typical.

  ‘Keep going, keep going.’

  I made it to the green at the centre of Highstaff before I bent double and threw up a mixture of food, bile, and blood.

  ‘Better out than in,’ I mumbled, wiping my sleeve across my mouth and continuing my agonising journey across the hamlet and back to my car, my only means of escape.

  I looked over my shoulder to see the wraiths just seconds behind me, their dark fingers scratching the air. One more stumble and I was dead.

  ‘Come on, come on!’ I slapped at my tattoos, chastising them, urging them to get the hell on with it and fix my damned ankle.

  ‘My mummy bought me a new bike.’

  The cross-legged woman watched me stumble by, her eyes wet and wide. As I passed her, several wraiths broke free of the pack pursuing me and began to feast on her. No doubt they’d already sampled her, which was why she was acting the way she was, but the wraiths were hungry again and eager to return to the plate. Their giant mouths stretched even wider, then latched on to her, and the woman began to grow younger and younger. Each time I blinked she’d jumped back a year, three years, a decade, until the wraiths were cradling a mewling newborn, their mouths biting and slurping. Soon, there would be nothing left of the child. No body. Not even a memory. Nothing left at all.

  I’d seen a lot of messed up, evil stuff in my time, but that was a sight I wasn’t going to forget in a long, long time.

  My foot came down and I braced myself for the pain, only this time there wasn’t any. My ankle wasn’t broken anymore. My ink had done its job. I turned, running backwards, and flipped the pack of wraiths a couple of middle fingers.

  ‘Eat shit, you bouquet of dicks!’

  I turned and ran out of that village like my arse was on fire.

  Well, that was a close one, eh? I wasn’t keeping an official count, but I believe that was somewhere around Close Shave with Death number 1000 in the thrilling life of Erin Banks. What a rush, being that close to the end and wriggling free of the hook. Man, this job is addictive.

  My near-fatal visit to Highstaff had been fruitful for two reasons. One, I’d found the means of Brian Teller’s escape. Found the circle of protection that had been drawn on his basement floor to shield him when the time had come to collect his soul. A circle that had allowed him to dodge his obligation to a demon. I didn’t know yet how he’d managed to get access to magic, but I had piece one of the puzzle, and when you find one piece, the next tends to turn up sooner rather than later.

  The second reason? Well, if there’s one thing my trip to Highstaff had made me very sure of it was this: I was tracking down Brian Teller and having away with his soul. No ifs, no buts, no coconuts. It didn’t matter whether or not he knew what welching on his deal had done. Chances were he had no idea he’d cracked a hole in reality that was leaking otherworldly creatures bent on snacking on the locals. Who cared? And if what I’d been told was true, the wound Brian Teller had caused wasn’t going to stay local. The longer he spent on the run, the longer he clung to a soul that hadn’t been his for a long time, the further the wound would reach out, would infect. Left unchecked, the whole of the south coast could become a dead zone, writhing in wraiths, and the damage would only creep out from there.

  No, this arsehole was getting run down, and I was bringing his soul back to the Long Man. After what I’d seen in Highstaff, after what I’d felt first-hand, a little eternal torment was too good for the twat.

  My car hurtled along the motorway as I headed for my next stop, the home of Alisha Myles, an expert on the subject of Uncanny magic. I had a picture of a chalk circle I needed an opinion on, and Alisha’s was an opinion I knew I could trust. Well, at least in regards to her chosen field. Outside of that, the woman was a complete cuckoo.

  Alisha lived a little off grid. Well, a lot off grid, in all honesty. The grid was barely a dot on the horizon to this woman. You could say she liked to keep herself to herself. You could also say she was a paranoid conspiracy freak who thought the government—every government—was out to get her. Plus all things demonic. Or vampiric. Bartenders. Minimum wage sales assistants. Some breeds of dog. Basically, Alisha hadn’t met a group of people, or animals, that she hadn’t accused of having it in for her.

  Despite all that, she was a font of knowledge when it came to things like magic chalk circles, and how to trace their origin. She also happened to like and trust me. That was partly down to the fact I’d saved her life about five years back, and partly because she was a randy little sod who fancied the pants off me. Hey, can you blame her?

  I thought it best not to tell her that I wasn’t into women. Nor that the whole “saving her life” thing had been an elaborate ploy to get her on my side so I could
use her skills in the future. I know, aren’t I a rotter?

  Alisha lived in a caravan in some remote woods out on the South Downs. No road went close by, so I had to park up at the edge of the tree line and make the rest of the journey on foot. A five mile trek into the wilderness. As I trudged through the forest, I reached into my jacket and pulled out a silver band, slipping it on my wedding finger. As far as Alisha knew, I was married to a foxy woman named Tammy. Tammy had it going on in all the right places—I’m talking curves upon curves—but she wasn’t just eye-candy, oh no. I’m not shallow. She was also super smart. In fact, she’d recently qualified to be a brain surgeon.

  I know, can I pick them or what? I was a very lucky lady.

  I rounded a thick oak to find the caravan sliding into view. It was heavily camouflaged, covered with vines and leaves to help it blend into the surrounding woodland. I paused and hugged the tree, keeping myself behind it for protection. Anyone just wandering up unannounced was likely to get a bullet between the eyes. I placed my fingers in my mouth and whistled. Three low notes, two high. It was the, “Hi, it’s Erin, please don’t murder me”, code we’d agreed on years back. So far, it had worked well. I only hoped it did today, too.

  I saw a face peeking out of the window and waved at her. ‘Hi Alisha! Get the kettle on, then!’

  The caravan door opened and she poked her head out, rifle in hand, eyes darting left and right.

  She scanned the forest either side of me. ‘You alone?’

  ‘Aren’t we all when it comes down to it?’

  As I reached the caravan, Alisha grabbed my jacket and yanked me inside, slamming the door behind us.

  I gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘Good to see you, sexy.’

  Alisha blushed and tucked a clump of dreadlocks behind her ears. She was rail thin and tall—too tall for the caravan—which forced her to hunch over when she was inside, an act that had saddled her with a permanent stoop. Perched on her nose was a pair of small, wire-framed glasses that shielded her twitching brown eyes; eyes that never settled on a spot for longer than a second. She wore a dark green set of overalls that had been patched up too many times to count, and completing the look were a pair of black, clumpy Doc Marten boots, and some multi-coloured fingerless gloves that showed off her well-chewed fingernails. I’d offered to bring her new duds many times, but she’d always insisted that store-bought clothes contained hidden trackers in their stitching that were undetectable by the human eye. Yeah. Cuckoo.