The cat he’d been chasing stood front and centre where it meowelled at him, a deep, evil noise that spoke of violence and spitefully sharp claws. A ball of worry found its way to the pit of his stomach as yet more cats pushed their way through the undergrowth or walked along the top edge of the fence six feet above the ground.
He tried a defiant bark, ‘Oh yeah, kitty cats!’ Even he could hear that it sounded forced though. He backed away a pace, only to hear another cat emit its low mournful growl from the wall that blocked off the alley. Now scared for his exposed back-end, Rex started to look for a way out.
The cats were edging closer, their tails bolt upright and the fur spread out to make them look like bottle brushes. Coming in on all sides and from above, there wasn’t a single direction he could go that appeared to be safe.
Seeing no choice, he bunched his muscles.
Confession Time
‘Randall, it’s Dad,’ Albert whispered into his phone.
Randall slumped his head onto his free hand. He was getting nowhere with the stupid insurance scam case and his dad wouldn’t leave him alone. He accepted that he wasn’t the best-behaved child growing up, but he was forty-one and surely his past crimes ought to be forgiven by now. Why was his father continuing to punish him?
‘Why are you whispering, Dad?’ he asked.
Albert didn’t answer immediately. The sound of Ophelia moving around downstairs had stopped, like she thought she heard something and froze her body to listen more intently. When he heard her flick the kettle on, he let go the breath he held and continued to whisper, ‘Son, I’ve got a confession to make which you won’t like, but I also think I might have found your insurance scammer. Or one of them at least.’
Randall jerked forward in his chair, excited for a second, but then, analysing what his father just said, he closed his eyes to ask, ‘What is the confession, Dad?’
Albert considered how to broach the subject but decided there really wasn’t a good way to admit he was guilty of trespass.
‘Dad?’ prompted Randall, still waiting for the confession to come.
‘Okay, Randall, here it is. You need to come to number twenty-three Hibiscus Drive. The woman I asked you about earlier—Ophelia James? Well, she is involved in the insurance fraud you are investigating. Or she is involved in a separate insurance scam, but either way, you need to seize her laptop and have your forensic computer boffins go over it. It’s in her front bedroom.’
Randall’s deep frown deepened yet further, creasing his forehead to bring his hairline almost down to the point where it touched his eyebrows. ‘How do you know… hold on, are you in her house?’ The idea that his elderly father might misbehave that badly horrified him, but he already felt certain it was true.
‘Of course not, son,’ Albert lied. ‘I’ll explain when you get here. You probably ought to bring a crime scene van.’
Randall wanted his father’s claims to be true. The computer and phone fraud people were so elusive. Catching them always took months of painstaking hard work and then they had to prove, without question, the person’s criminal intentions only to find, all too often, it was the minnow they had snared, not the big fish running it. Nevertheless, he knew he had to at least check out his father’s claim. He was due to brief the chief constable at five o’clock and it would be nice to have something to tell him for once.
With a huff of exhalation from his nose, Randall, pushed back his chair and started to get up. ‘All right, Dad. I’ll be there shortly. If you are in her house…’
‘I’m not, son,’ Albert lied again. Roy tugged on Albert’s shirt, trying to get his attention. Albert lifted a finger to beg a moment’s grace.
‘Just don’t be by the time I get there, okay?’ warned Randall.
‘We’ll meet you outside.’ Albert promised, hoping he could find a way to make that true. Roy was tugging on his shirt again, so he ended the call quickly by adding, ‘See you soon.’ Putting his phone away, he turned to see what Roy wanted so urgently and felt the blood drain from his face.
Ophelia was standing in the doorway to the back bedroom, holding a small calibre handgun on them. Cocking her head to one side, she snarled, ‘Who the heck are you two?’
Hellcat
The cat had lured him into a blind alley and the only way out was through the platoon of feline horrors facing him. Rex leapt as the cats came for him. His powerful jaws were no match for hundreds of tiny, razor-sharp claws and he knew it. His only way to minimise injury was to put his head down and run, so that was what he did.
In the house, Ophelia took a step back, leaving the doorway as she moved into the upper hallway. Her gun never wavered, pointing directly at the two men. With her left hand, she reached into the back pocket of her jeans, producing a phone. She didn’t speak to Albert and Roy as she lifted it to her ear.
‘Donny? Yeah, I’ve got intruders in my house. I think they know about the scam.’ She turned her head away slightly, grimacing at whatever Donny said in reply. ‘I don’t know, do I? I just heard them upstairs in my house. No, the new house.’ Clearly Donny was displeased with what she had to tell him. ‘Look, they need to be disposed of. Just get over here.’
The call ended with a note of finality and she backed up further to the stairs. ‘Come along, old codgers. You picked the wrong house to snoop today.’
‘Why were you snooping at my house?’ asked Albert, thinking it was a good idea to keep her talking.
Her brow furrowed. ‘Your house. I have no idea who you are, old man.’
‘I live at number nineteen. My name is Albert Smith and I have already called the police. They are on their way here now.’
Ophelia snorted a laugh. ‘Nice try, old man. Even if the heat do show up, you won’t be here and there’s nothing in the house to prove I’ve done anything wrong. Donny’s system is perfect: no overhead, isolated units working alone, undetectable. Much better than any of the other scams I’ve worked. Now, move!’ she jerked the gun at them, beckoning they both follow.
Albert didn’t want to, but he saw little option, and they couldn’t hope to escape from upstairs, so they needed to go down anyway. With their hands aloft, Albert, then Roy, followed her down the stairs. Ophelia walked backwards, but the faint hope Albert held that she might trip and fall, came to naught.
Donny, it seemed, lived close by, for the call was only two minutes old when a van pulled up outside. ‘You see?’ smiled Ophelia, ‘You’ll be long gone before the police can show up. You’re going for a nice drive in the countryside.’
The door opened to reveal a large man with a crew cut. He had a bullet-shaped head which was tattooed to create a mask of sorts on his face and he had multiple piercings which distorted his nose, lips, and ears. His outfit, if one could even call it that, made him look like an Ewok who had been attacked with a hedge-trimmer.
Donny’s face curled into an unpleasant sneer. ‘Who are these two?’ he growled.
Her gun still pinning both men in place, Ophelia replied, ‘My neighbours, I think. That one,’ she jerked the gun at Albert, ‘Says I was looking through his window earlier.’
‘Were you?’ asked Donny.
‘I was looking for my cat.’
‘That flea-bitten thing is still alive?’ he growled.
‘You leave Hellcat alone,’ she frowned. ‘He and I have been through a lot together. He’s just settling into a new place, that’s all. He likes to explore other people’s houses.’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ Donny shut off the conversation. ‘The van’s outside, and there’s no one around.’ He looked directly at Albert and Roy. ‘I’ll have to gag and tie them. I’ve got some carpet in the van to roll them in. They can go into Cliffe Lake. It’ll be a few centuries before anyone finds them.’
Albert couldn’t stop himself from gulping at the calm manner in which Donny discussed their dispatch. Behind him, Roy was fiddling with his walking cane. A nervous habit, Albert was sure.
Donny opened the front door to
get the things from his van, but as he took a step forward, a blur of something brown hit his shins.
With a girlish squeal of shock, Donny flew into the air, but the blur wasn’t done yet. Unable to slow down, it piled through Ophelia who was facing Albert and never even saw it coming. She too went from perpendicular to horizontal in the blink of an eye, crashing back to the hallway carpet in a confusion of limbs and a cry of pain.
Albert was fast to seize the slim chance they’d been given, kicking the gun from Ophelia’s hand where it skittered free to hit the skirting board.
Roy went around Albert’s back, a glint of reflected sunlight drawing Albert’s eye to the thin sword the wing commander had drawn from his walking cane. His eyes went wide, but not as wide as Donny’s who found the tip of the sword skewering the front of his shirt.
Like an old, yet still dashing Robin Hood, Roy barked, ‘I may be getting on, young man, but I’m willing to bet my sword can find your heart before you can draw your next breath. I suggest you lie still.’
Bewildered by the turn of events, Albert looked at Rex. His dog was panting hard and he had blood dripping from half a dozen different facial cuts. With a finger pointed at Ophelia, Albert commanded, ‘Rex, guard!’ The dog instantly curled his top lip and growled at the woman who stank of the cat.
Outside the door, a flash of red and blue caught his attention: Randall was here, his son’s disbelieving face framed in the side window of his car.
Aftermath
The sun was beginning to set when Roy’s wife wandered across with his evening glass of port. She brought one for Albert too, the men clinking their small glasses together in a toast.
They were sitting on two fold-out garden chairs, also provided by Mrs. Hope. Rex’s wounds proved to be superficial, tiny slices in his nose, eyebrows, and ears but the combined effect made it look like he’d run through a reel of razor wire.
Randall emerged from the house, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘We’ve got it all, Dad. The contacts on their phones have led us to the other scammers in the ring. They are all being arrested as we speak. The chief constable is over the moon.’
Donny and Ophelia had been arrested and taken away already, both protesting their innocence but with evidence stacked against them. Albert didn’t think they would see freedom for a while. Her possession of a firearm and the likelihood that Donny’s van had been used to transport other captive persons, would carry more weight than the fraud charges anyway.
Randall checked around to make sure no one was within earshot before lowering his voice to say, ‘I just have one question, Dad. Why were you anywhere near her house?’
The sound of a cat hacking loudly stopped Albert from answering straight away, but it was his giant fearless dog backing away that made him pay attention to it. The cat was Ophelia’s, they discovered. When it appeared earlier, she begged the police to look after it. They were waiting for the RSPCA to arrive because it looked like it needed urgent veterinary treatment, or perhaps euthanasia. Right now, it was hunched over, its mouth open as it heaved a giant hairball onto the lawn.
Disgusted, but unable to look away, Albert, Roy, and Randall all saw the glint of something shiny ooze out of the slimy mess. It finally broke free of the gunk, plopping to the ground where it rolled over.
Randall moved closer, the cat opting to scurry away with a hiss. ‘It’s a ring,’ he observed.
Rex laid down with a huff and put his head on his front paws. ‘I told you it was the cat,’ he sighed.
Now retired from the military, Steve Higgs lives in the south-east corner of England with a trio of lazy sausage dogs. Surrounded by rolling hills, brooding castles and vineyards, he doubts he will ever leave. The beer is just too good.
68
Caught Dead
by Kenzie Kelly
It's Myka's first Halloween as a reaper and she's lost her cat to a demented specter. If she doesn't get his soul back into his body by sunrise, he forfeits a life—and it's his last one.
Myka swung the scythe with all her strength, her entire body reverberating with the impact as the blade sunk into the side of a crypt. “Son of a gun!"
Dax slid, his claws scrabbling for purchase on the damp marble before latching onto the cloak of the wraith. "I got him!"
She heard a sickening crunch as the wraith backhanded the cat into the same crypt that trapped her weapon. She put her foot on the wall and pried the scythe loose just in time to spin the handle and knock the ghostly form of the fuzzball back into his body. "Stay out of the way! You've only got one life left!"
She spun, searching the cemetery for their quarry. It was several feet away, moving fast into section C. She groaned. That section was full of old-growth trees and mausoleums. Plenty of places to hide.
She sprinted to catch up, mumbling under her breath. "You had one job, Myka. Stop anything that comes through the breach before it leaves cemetery grounds without losing your watcher. Simple, straightforward, no big deal. Can’t even do that properly."
She jumped onto a sarcophagus, hoping for a better view, the concrete lid wobbling under her feet. Spotting the wraith, she took off running.
Her first swing missed. Shifting her grip, she swung again, this time catching the middle of its robe. It screeched as green light leaked from the gash in its back.
She pushed for an extra burst of speed to get closer, swinging the scythe overhand in a wide arc and cutting it from shoulder to waist. It stopped and she ran straight through it.
She knew he'd been young, but when she turned around the face staring at her with wide eyes was more childlike than she imagined. She panted. "I'm sorry."
He shrugged. "Don't be. I'm..." He glanced at the black hole widening under his feet. "Relieved."
Myka nodded as the blackness swallowed him and the ground snapped back with a soft pop.
It had been a year since one of the Keres had killed her. The spirits of violent death created reapers and hunters and were in charge of managing them. Reapers dealt with the living, separating spirits from flesh. Hunters dealt with the dead. It was their job—her job—to send lingering spirits where they belonged.
This Halloween, her first as a hunter, they had assigned her to Beckwith Cemetery. Sprawling across one hundred acres, three other agents of death were stationed there for the night. She didn't want to know why one was a reaper.
They were there to guard breaches—pathways that opened up between this world and the next. Only on Halloween were the spirits who had crossed into the light able to return to the land of the living. It was exceedingly rare anyone who’d gone to Heaven tried to come back, which meant nothing coming through a breach was good.
There were normal residents of the cemetery, of course. Spirits who had chosen not to cross when they’d been reaped. As long as they caused no trouble, they were left alone. The hubbub of Halloween night generally kept them underground for the duration.
Myka stepped around the still smoldering patch of ground and made her way back to the crypt. She found Dax where she'd left him, his black stripes a scant shadow in the dim light among his dark gray fur. "You alive?"
"Barely," he croaked, rolling to his paws and stretching.
She tucked him into her jacket and smiled when his body vibrated from the force of his purr. Making it back to her assigned post, she set him on the stairs of a mausoleum and sat next to him.
Tapping the handle of the scythe twice on the ground caused it to disintegrate into a swirl of smoke. It circled her arm twice before settling as a simple black tattoo on the inside of her wrist.
Dax sat on his haunches, his tail swishing. "How long has it been?"
"Two hours since sundown." They were on duty until sunrise, when the cemetery’s breaches closed for another year. They had plenty to do the rest of the year—taking care of ghosts and spirits who didn't cross and caused trouble. But those who had gone into the light would have to wait for another chance to return if they had the inclination.
"It'
s been quiet." His ears flicked.
"I'm not going to complain."
"It makes me nervous. I'm going between to look around." Cats were watchers for death. Mentors of sorts for reapers and hunters. They could walk between worlds, giving them insight into what happened in both. Myka could see and talk with spirits, but she was firmly planted on this side of the divide. Dax straddled the line.
"Don't stay long. Your spirit being outside your body is what makes me nervous."
His body settled and only his spirit stood and walked away. His head disappeared when he peered into various graves, and he'd wandered a good distance when the ghost of a precocious child appeared behind him wearing a formal gown trimmed in lace. The wide collar and straight skirts marked her as from the Victorian era.
Her ringlet curls bounced as she clapped with excitement. "Kitty!" She scooped him up and hugged him tight as she spun in a circle.
Myka chuckled at his distressed attempts to push out of her arms.
Then both of them disappeared.
"Son of a bucket!" Myka shot to her feet and ran after them. She hadn't gone five feet when she screeched to a halt. "Dagnabbit!" She went back to grab her backpack and shoved Dax's lifeless body inside it.
She made it to the spot they’d vanished from in record time, but they hadn't reappeared. Grabbing the map of the cemetery from her back pocket, she scanned the list of graves in that section for any children. Coming up empty, she double-checked where a large group of kids were buried. Yep, section F.
Her assigned breach was in section A. She hesitated. If Dax's spirit wasn’t back in his body by sunrise, he'd be dead for real. If anything from her rift made it off cemetery grounds, she'd be dead for real. She hadn’t been a model hunter, and even for being new made more than her fair share of mistakes. She’d been warned if she messed up one more time, her job offer would be rescinded. Since you had to die before becoming a reaper or hunter, being terminated from your position meant something far more permanent. You didn’t get a severance package.
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