My Demonic Ghost: Banished Spirits

by Maree, Jacinta

A frown crept across my face and my grip tightened, Lock glancing back over his shoulder before following my gaze to the couple before I could shake my head away. He knew as well as I did, that he would never reach that age, never reach beyond what he is now, and that their future was not for us.

  He wouldn’t grow up, he wouldn’t learn wisdom, not have the experiences of the world and life that I would. Sure, we’re two years apart now, but I’ll only get older and older whereas he’ll stay this age for all eternity. This thing we have, there’s no chance for us. He was dead and I wasn’t. Even if I did die, if that truck had hit me and turned my body to paste, even then we wouldn’t be together because the Goons and Hunters would tear us apart. And who is to say these feelings would be carried across with me when I die? I would be a Banished spirit, too, and my only interest would be to find a Host, a Host of my own.

  I lowered my head. Neither of us said a word.

  Lock took my elbow, hurrying me along. “I don’t like being out here… I can feel them watching me.”

  I glanced around. The streets were empty of demons, nothing except houses and cars. But I wouldn’t let my guard down; it’s their speciality to move undetected. As far as I know, in every shadow waited death and every light sounded the alarm.

  Chapter Sixteen:

  Night came just as quietly as an outside breeze and soon we were huddled together in the living room, waiting for the sun to completely die out behind the buildings. Eric and Jake were with me and Nail’s Host Melanie, too, of course. We talked about everything other than the Banished spirits, and once the sun had disappeared I stood and flicked off the switch. In the blink of an eye, sitting perfectly in between us as if they had been there the entire time, Howl, Betrayal and Nails appeared, mixing within the shadows. It was a shock to see the brilliant eyes of the Banished sparkling in the darkness. Lock and I stepped into the centre of the room, hands held out and lips posed ready to call Mother forth when we were interrupted by abrupt rapping at the door.

  The knocks were too urgent to just ignore, so I called out in a weary chirp, scared that my mother’s voice would be on the other end. Instead, a male’s tone beckoned for approval to come in. He straight out admitted to having a Banished soul with him, one named Rope, instructing me to pass the name on to the others inside. This happened a few more times, about four other Hosts joined us in my apartment, decreasing the room space dramatically, but no spirit agreed to leave or keep their Host outside.

  There was Rope, an older gentleman with a leather vest and a nasty rope burn ringed around his wrinkled neck. His head rested at an awkward slope against his shoulder as if it had become detached. His Host was close to his age, male as well, and red in the face. Rope’s eyes were the familiar colour of brown, so close to Gluttony’s in colour that I nearly dry retched remembering our visit to her. He was a quiet spirit, more than happy to sit in the corner with crossed legs and simply watch.

  Another Spirit, a teenage girl dressed in dark gothic clothes had long, miscoloured dreadlocks falling around her face, was named Cult. She stood in the corner by herself, as motionless as a wax figure. Her Host, a female in her 50’s sat alone as well, but nowhere near Cult. She looked dazed, as if she was living off drugs.

  Cult’s eyes matched her face. She had fiery red eyes that only intensified her rage. Standing beside her was a business man, a spirit who called himself Booze, who looked so tired that he could pass out and drop to the floor at any second. His eyes were grey, that same pasty grey I had seen on the man in the train carriage. Close to him, sitting by his feet like an obedient pet, was his Host, a woman in her early 20’s.

  Lastly there was one more teenage boy, handsome but street tough, his vibrant eyes had the same yellow gleam as Howl’s. He gave Howl a one handed hug and pat on the back in greeting. Howl called him Rip and invited him to the front of the group along with his hesitant Host, who was eyeing the door with an urge to run.

  I looked at Lock as he moved towards Betrayal, pulling her down so he could hiss into her ear.

  “Who are these people? And what are they doing here?”

  “I dunno. Friends of Howl’s, I think.” She, too, shot the extending crowd a worried glance.

  Howl walked over, laughing awkwardly, “Don’t worry, these guys are my friends. They overheard me mention Lock’s plan and wanted in on the free deal.” Free deal?

  “Overheard?”

  “Well, I only planned on telling Rip but why not help everyone?”

  “Never thought of you as being the caring type.”

  I turned to Betrayal, looking across the seemingly packed living room, “How many Banished spirits are there in the world, exactly?”

  “Countless,” Betrayal laughed.

  “Then, if there are so many, how come no one has ever discovered you guys before?”

  “We never used to show ourselves to our Hosts. You know when you get the shivers out of nowhere? That’s usually us passing by, but once we heard about the Staff, we needed help from our Hosts to find it. But it’s no problem; we can control the Hosts and if necessary, we can also have their minds wiped clean.”

  I moved my attention swiftly through the new faces. “Everyone has such strange coloured eyes…”

  “You know that old saying,” Nail’s voice startled me as she peered over my shoulder; “the window into one’s soul is through their eyes… Banished spirits are humiliated by the fact that the worst sins of our human life are so publicised. These colours reveal to everyone our greatest faults, seven sins…seven different eye colours.”

  I glanced over at Rope who had brown eyes just like Gluttony. I couldn’t deny it; that bloated patch of mud in his eyes resembled Gluttony’s presence perfectly, yet the copy was not as powerful as the real thing. Rope licked each fingertip as if he were touching his last meal and rubbed contently across his belly. How sad, to have your faults as your only memory…

  “I guess it can’t be helped,” Nails sighed as Lock growled and sighed too, returning to his spot in the vacant floor next to Betrayal and I. He held out his hands, palm flat and fingers spread wide as I mimicked him carefully. The same stretch of black began creeping across the floors and walls. Mother appeared momentarily, snapping her bones and ripping through the shadow sac that carried her. The new spirits flinched at the sight of the seven armed serpent woman, their Hosts taking cautious steps back. Lock held a dagger ready in his hand, running the sharpened spike along the tips of his fingers. The black and gold blade was covered in a rusty brown stain, no doubt the ooze from Gluttony’s side where Lock attacked her. Six more to go.

  I guess no matter how many times one would look upon the form of Mother; your throat would always pinch closed at the mere sight of her. I choose a new mask and watched Mother slip it over her watery face. The cracking of her shifting bones echoed and the darkness opened its mouth to swallow us up.

  The darkness faded to a soft baby blue and my hands shot up instinctively to cover my nose. Thankfully no smell knocked me down. The room had shifted without us being fully aware of the changes; it was here one second and became this new world in the next. It was like a moving shadow that shifts underneath you with the gradual roll of the sun, it just changes. We were greeted by a dense forest and an even thicker weight of fog sitting on our heads. Above us, a layer of grey clouds completing the sky’s face, raining down drizzles of cold spit, the haze was so thick it was difficult to see past one’s own toes. We quickly moved closer together, hands held out and fingers stretched in an attempt to touch as much as we could.

  Ba-Boom…“What was that?” I shivered as my entire body became rigid, the trembles sprinting up from my feet where the vibration of the earth’s heavy heartbeat moved underneath me. I glanced at Lock, standing only a few steps away, but only his outline could be interpreted.

  “Guys….” I whispered, making sure that they weren’t leaving me behind.

  “Come Rachael, we have only until dawn to do this…” Betrayal’s voice cut short as
a distant screech broke through the mist clouding in on us. I jumped again and wanted so desperately to cling to someone, to anyone. “Let’s just do this quickly,” she finished. We continued to walk, carefully as if there were land mines underneath our feet, us all except for Betrayal who was hovering above the ground.

  My head was burning with strain as I stretched my eyes and squinted into the distance, into the blanket of smog that settled upon the air like airborne snowflakes. There was a steady Ba-Boom of the ground breathing; each gulp pulsating under the dirt every fifteen minutes, just like clockwork.

  “Listen, I’m going to go on ahead and check out what’s out there. You think you can manage not to getting killed while I’m gone?” Betrayal’s voice spoke up from in front of me. I faintly heard Lock’s grunt a little further up beyond Betrayal, which only made me feel more uncomfortable. They were getting farther and farther away from me. I jumped at the snap of every twig, the rustle of leaves made by Lock or the Sin, or even just the passing breeze. The air its self was dragging my body down, trying to smother me back into the murkiness collecting at my heels.

  Lock took my hand tenderly before giving me a reassuring squeeze. I hadn’t seen him approach and the touch startled me. He was close, so close that I had to lean my head back to stop my exhaling breath from blowing into his eyes.

  “Rach,” I could see the faint, clouded image of his face smiling at me, “Right now, no matter what, you cannot let go of my hand.”

  He gave me another squeeze, his slender fingers pressing into my palms. We walked forward, Lock pulling me behind him with every step. My hand was on fire. The fear of being eaten was replaced by the fear of tripping and crushing Lock underneath me. Oh no! I hope my palm isn’t sweaty.

  Ba-Boom… The heartbeat moved below us again, another 15 minutes. I glanced down, expecting to see the dirt ripple like a wave when I accidently walked into the back of Lock with my head still bowed. I glanced up awkwardly at the impact.

  A ghostly grey silhouette was standing in front of us, her large cloud of hair sitting in thick knotted curls from her shoulders down to the middle of her back. I inspected her closer to find out that she wasn’t so much standing as she was leaning in the curve of a tree branch, her back arched in a perfect bend with it as her legs, slender and bare swung effortlessly below. Her body was distorted through the bulk of the mist but her eyes, those grey smothering hues, shone through like fog lights. This must be the Sin. Then, in a second, she was gone. It took one blink, just one.

  “Did you see her?” I whispered. Lock nodded his head and I felt his hair move against my nose. I was too close again. He had his blade out, clenching the handle so hard that it trembled under the pressure.

  “Where’s Betrayal?”

  The forest was so still it swallowed his words instantly, as though he hadn’t spoken at all. Unexpectedly, a soft whisper rode on the waves of air and blew gentle breaths against our ears. She appeared again, this grey woman, yet this time stood a bit further back, running her hands up the base of a tree trunk. She was laughing before she disappeared. “Damn… BETRAYAL?” Lock called as he dropped my hand, moving forward.

  There was no answer, nothing but the same motionless forest staring back with its deafening silence.

  “Lock, we should wait for Betrayal to return. It’ll be safer…”

  “We can’t… we can’t wait…” Ba-Boom “We’re taking too long…”

  “So what? Last time we rushed things and we nearly got killed…”

  “If we don’t get out of the Sin world before the sun rises we’ll be stuck in here forever. Didn’t I tell you that already?” his voice snapped.

  “Wha-What? No you forgot to mention that!” I snapped back. “Why don’t we just head back to Mother before time runs out and try again tomorrow night?”

  “That’s against the rules. We have to visit the sins in order. We can’t just pick the same one again and again…”

  The leaves rustled against each other to my left at the same moment as the woman’s voice beckoned me from the right, appearing and disappearing in rapid succession. She was playing with us and Lock was quickly losing his temper. He kept stepping forward, farther and farther out of my reach at each of the Sin’s baiting. I grabbed hold of his sleeve. Ba-Boom tickled past our feet. I felt it through Lock’s clothes when his shoulders suddenly tensed, his neck jerking sharply to the right.

  “Got cha-”

  My fingertips slipped free as the warmth of Lock’s shirt was ripped from my hands. He dashed forward madly, way beyond my reach. My feet moved on their own, my knees knocking together weakly; the smog felt thicker and heavier with Lock’s absence. The spreading haze overwhelmed my senses, turning the sky into ground and moving the dirt from underneath me and into air. I couldn’t keep myself from tripping, catching myself on outstretched arms before my face hit the ground. The dirt felt moist on my bare palms. I couldn’t grab the breath to call for help, I couldn’t breathe.

  Chapter Seventeen:

  I quickly flipped myself over and sat up. The dreamy blur of the blue snow and quiet forest leaving me both content and unnerved. My shoulders loosened as a cascade of relaxation flowed calmly through me, my arms curling in to the rest of my body; my heart beat and my eyes, everything about me slowed to a gradual thump. It wouldn’t be long until my heartbeat came into tune with the beat of the earth, just a single Ba-Boom every fifteen minutes. The vibrations sat underneath my skin and moved through my lips and my tongue, removing all ability of speech as the paralysing sensation took out my legs and arms, dropping me flat on my back. If my eyes were to rest, I knew I would not get back up; that was a certainty.

  This is not right… I was falling asleep unnaturally, but even so, I couldn’t manage to panic and fight it off. I had no energy, no motivation to keep myself alert… to deflect this drowsy spell.

  “You lost little sheep?” The Sin appeared above me. Her voice held an echo as if she were speaking into a long hollow tunnel. My eyes were unfocused, slipping between the blue smog above me and the obscurity of darkness behind my eyelids so simultaneously that I hadn’t even registered it happening. I would’ve been in full blown panic if I had the brain power to process the danger I was in, but everything was so slow and mellow that it barely appeared to be worth the struggle. I craved nothing more than rest, to fall into my anesthetizing bliss and just lie here behind the shelter of sleep.

  How nice would that have been to slip away, uninterrupted by the worries of the world outside me? To escape any means of responsibility or anything required of any kind of action or energy. No longer my problem, no longer my desires…

  Why should I get up now, do the dishes, fight off spirits, summon the sins, or obey the rules? I’m exhausted, I want none of that. Nothing…. Yeah, nothing would be perfect right now. My nothing, only the emptiness of the abyss as my company. No rules, no responsibility, just this cycle of contentment circling over and over again. I was so close to my paradise that the effort of keeping my eyes open burned them bitterly. I could have reached this oasis if it wasn’t for a voice that kept waking me. The Sin kept talking, turning her head in fascination to behold my melting eyes and setting the echoing drone deep into my ears.

  “Oh, not one not one, ba-aa-ad mistake… Not spirit then, what you doing in Sloth’s home? Not good, not good at all when living play with the dead.” My eyes fluttered in my struggle to keep them open, living playing with the dead… she knows what I am. The smile pressed my lips, what a weird dream…

  “Baa-haa baa-haa! Let’s play a game silly girl. Yes, I love games…” She held her hand out above my face. I could see her eyes perfectly through the haze, gelatinous greys and blues twisted inside her irises, much like watching a storm of angry clouds brewing in a spiral pot. She had thin eye lashes that melted into white powder with dark purple rings underneath each eye socket. Her face was long and narrow with a large, white coat of curls framing her head like a pillow.

  Sloth leaned in and p
laced her lips so close to my mouth that I could feel the warmth of her exhaling breath. The heaviness of each inhalation almost removed me completely from consciousness. I was drunk, drunk in a whirlpool of dizziness and anaemia. It was like a constant blood rush to my head, I couldn’t allow my eyes to stay close longer then a second or they would’ve glued themselves permanently shut.

  My eyelids were heavy and their fluttering became slower…and slower…….and slower……. until they stopped altogether. I was certain my eyes weren’t going to open again, that I had just closed myself into a coffin of my own body, when an internal chill shot through me. It stung through my veins, going deep into my bones, forcing my skin to react and quake against the chilly cold.

  Sloth’s face had moved back, her eyes tore away from me, releasing me from my fatal coma. But drowsiness continued to sit on my eyelids and anchor me down. Voices moved invisibly above my head. My suppressed panic, though still hidden visibly by my lethargic body, had been released mentally. I suppose Betrayal’s suggestion turned out to have actually saved my life, for the string of words that sprinted through my mind, bellowing in loud demanding howls, were my pleas for Lock. Over and over again, subconsciously and unable to stop myself, I kept calling his name, Lock! Lock! Lock! Lock! Lock! A gentle icy stroke on my shoulder told me he had answered my cries.

  Sloth backed away from me, moved by Lock’s presence, the chilling prick of his spirit formation lingering close to my side. I slowly sat up, leaning myself up against a tree. With the distance between Sloth and I, the depression of Sloth’s spell wore off me.

  The fog was lighter, less concentrated, and weak enough that I could see both Sloth and Lock in front of me. Lock’s clothes rippled with the spiritual energy sizzling off his back, his fists tight and coated in the cloud of dark smog, his fingers curling tightly around the knife. He called to me without turning his head, “Rach, are you okay?”