So much for my ‘don’t mess with me outfit’ I think. I literally bite my lip to stop myself from retorting and taste the copper of the blood from my lip.
Following him in, I stop in my tracks as soon as I walk through the door.
“There’s something…. Different,” I say, almost to myself.
“What’s that lady?” I hear from behind me.
“Aidan, my name is Jemma.” I’m exasperated by hearing chick and lady.
“I know that,” he says with a smile.
I just roll my eyes but smile back.
“Anyway, it’s like there’s something, I can feel something.” I turn to Mitchell. “Can’t you feel it?”
He just looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. Walking through the house, I’m hit by the smell of raw meat and cover my mouth and nose with my sleeve so I don’t have to smell it. I take short, shallow breaths and keep on walking. Following the smell, I walk into the kitchen and see a woman in the middle of the floor.
It’s the same pattern, circle of blood, random symbols, and a butchered person. I don’t want to look any closer, but I can’t help but notice the look of horror and pain frozen on her face. Her ash blonde hair is stained red.
Spinning on my heels, I walk out of the room and follow my instinct. Getting to the bottom of the stairs, something spurs me on. I run up them, not even noticing the trail of blood. Standing at the top of the stairs, a moment of indecision hits me before I turn left and head to the room at the bottom of the hallway with a partially open door.
Taking a look behind me, I see I have a trail of people following me. I laugh at the fact that for once everyone seems to be listening to and following me.
Pushing open the door, I steel myself for something gruesome. But there’s nothing. Walking further into the room, I still don’t see anything, but the feeling is there. It’s like the lead ball is back, firmly sitting in my stomach.
“What’s this all about then? If you think it’s going to stop you from doing what I want, you’re wrong.” Mitchell grabs me by the shoulder and spins be round to face him. “All it’s going to do is delay, and piss me off.”
Opening my mouth to tell him to get off me, my angry words turn into a gasp as I see what’s behind him.
Sitting on the floor is the ghost of the woman from downstairs. Her head is buried in-between her knees, her body shaking with unheard tears. As though sensing me looking at her, she looks up. I’m completely taken aback by the difference in her appearance. She looks like an angel.
“You can see me?” she asks, her voice quivering.
“Yes,” I croak out, my voice thick with tears.
Walking over to sit opposite her, I notice everyone else still crowded in the room, Mitchell the only one actually knowing truly where to look. I need to tell everyone what’s here to get them to leave, but I don’t know how to say it without sounding cruel — the woman has been through enough.
I look at Mitchell, knowing he’s the only one who can truly understand this situation.
“I need you to leave. And take everyone with you. I need to chat,” I tell him.
“With who?” Aidan asks.
So much for subtlety.
Turning to let the torrent of abuse that’s building up inside of me finally out, I’m stopped as she speaks again.
“Only two of you can see me, can’t you?”
I nod.
“So I really am dead?”
Her voice is deadpan; all emotion seems to have fled from her face. She still looks beautiful, but now she looks like an avenging angel carved into stone.
The words just won’t come and so I nod again. Becoming a nodding dog seems like it would be a better profession for me at the moment.
“We need to ask you some questions,” Mitchell says from me behind me.
Spinning from the woman I turn on him, “Seriously? Jesus Christ, have some heart. Leave the woman alone for a bit.” Turning, I see that everyone is still standing in the room.
“Will you all just get the fuck out?” I scream at them. They leave. Even Mitchell starts to leave but he’s stopped in his tracks when she speaks.
“It’s okay; you don’t have to protect me.” A sarcastic laugh that’s bordering on hysteria comes out of the her mouth. “I’m already dead after all. I’ll go answer his questions.”
She stands up and starts walking towards me but I quickly open the door wide and move out of her way before she has a chance to walk through me, I’ve had that happen before and it is not a nice experience. Mitchell wasn’t so lucky though. Pain flashes across his face as the woman walks straight through him and down the stairs.
Allowing her to go first, she kind of floats down the stairs. When she gets to the bottom, she looks towards the door that leads to the kitchen, then shakes herself and heads into the living room. Going over to one of the sofas she sits down and it actually looks as though she is sitting on it. I don’t understand how they can do that: they can walk through people and walls that are no longer a barrier to them, yet they can sit on a sofa without falling through it. It baffles me. I sit down on the sofa opposite; Ripper comes in and sits next to me. Mitchell leans up against a wall, arms crossed across his chest, feet crossed at the ankles. Aidan just stands in the doorway, watching. I’ve no idea where Maria has gone.
Once we’re all settled, Mitchell and I look directly at where she’s sitting, the others just look in her general direction. It must be quite awkward for them.
I turn to Ripper and whisper, “Why don’t you and Aidan go and see if you can help Maria with anything?” He gives me a questioning look before agreeing. Standing up, he walks over to Mitchell and whispers something. I watch in fascination as Mitchell’s face pales. Ripper carries on walking out of the room and grabs Aidan by the arm as he goes. Everything in me is shouting to follow him and find out what he said, but I know I need to concentrate on the task at hand and turn my attention back to the woman’s ghost.
“I suppose you want to know what happened?” She asks it as a question, but really it’s a statement. I stop Mitchell before he can talk; he’s got about as much sympathy as a sociopath.
“We do want to know what happened, but that’s so we can try to stop the person…”
“Ha, person? That was no person. I don’t know what he was but he wasn’t a person.” She pulls her legs up on the sofa and curls herself into a small ball. Mitchell opens his mouth but I glare at him and he closes it again.
“He—” She stops herself. “It rather, just appeared. I was in the kitchen making a start on dinner; I was supposed to be having a dinner party tonight you see, so I wanted to get everything ready.” She trails off, the realisation that the dinner party won’t be happening tonight.
“One moment, please,” Mitchell says.
He pushes himself off the wall and goes to the doorway, shouting at Ripper.
“There’s supposed to be a dinner party here tonight. You know what to do,” Mitchell tells him.
“Yes, boss.” Ripper replies.
I’m glad someone’s going to hopefully be able to stop the guests turning up to a murder scene. I don’t envy whoever has to make those phone calls.
Once Mitchell is back in his position, she starts again.
“I heard a noise and spun around and he was just stood behind me. This thing was in a pristine white suit. He had piercing blue eyes and was just staring at me. I pulled my gaze away from his.”
She stops for a moment and takes what would have been a calming breath, had she needed to breathe anymore, however it seems to do the trick.
“I looked away from him. I was looking for the phone. I, I looked down and saw that he had a knife in his hand.” Her hand starts moving, clenching and unclenching as though trying to grip something.
“It was the one I had just been using to chop the beetroot; I could see the red on it. It already looked like it was stained with blood.” She does that sarcastic kind of laugh again, but I can hear the tears that are
stuck in her throat. I’m drawn into the telling of her story, amazed at the little details she remembers.
“I, I looked back up and he stepped towards me. That’s — I — I screamed.” She gulps. “I screamed and screamed, and that’s when he stabbed me.”
She clutches her stomach as though she is reliving the pain of the knife going in.
“I started to slide to the floor and he just laughed. It made my skin crawl. I was on my knees and tried to edge away but he just started laughing more. Then he started chanting in some awful language. It was so guttural.”
Another deep breath. I want to stop her. Hearing it was so much worse than seeing it. When I see it, I can detach myself from the emotions — not always, but normally. But seeing the poor ghost of the woman in front of me, knowing what she had to go through and that she’s brave enough to tell us about it. I just want to hug her. Looking at Mitchell his face is the same as always, I can’t believe he doesn’t seem moved by this. I go to move over to her but she starts talking again,
“I’d just been concentrating on trying to get away. I didn’t notice what he’d been doing – there was a circle on the floor. Of blood. He’d drawn a circle in my own blood.”
Not being able to cope with this anymore, I stand up and move over to sit next to her, to offer any support I can. Ready to tell her to take a break, that this can wait even though I know I can’t, she grabs my arm and everything goes black.
Instantly I can tell something’s different, but I don’t know what. The ball of lead in my stomach is now pulsing. I look around me and see that the woman is lying on the floor of the kitchen. I can tell she’s still alive, there’s a faint blush to her cheeks. Not quite as pale as the flashes of flesh I got of the dead body.
Looking closer I see the faint rise and fall of her chest. Then I let my eyes look at what they’ve been trying to avoid. The Soul Catcher is straddling her chest, knife in hand. I can see the gaping wound in her stomach and it makes me want to be sick.
Watching him, he lazily strokes the knife across her cheek. She grinds her teeth and I realise that she’s still awake. I cry out, wanting to stop him. He seems to tense and I put my hands to my mouth, but I know he can’t hear me: we’ve tested that theory. A light trail of blood wells to the surface of her cheeks where he’s running the knife.
She squirms beneath him but it just makes him laugh. His laugh is going to haunt me in my sleep.
“I wish I could take you. Your soul would make a good contribution to my collection. Alas, I need you for something else this time.” He leans down and licks the line of blood from her cheek.
She screams, and I have to stop myself from doing the same.
“Mmm... you taste good,” he says licking his lips. “Maybe I’ll come back for the bit of you that I leave.”
I see a flash of hope run through her eyes that maybe she’s going to make it out of this alive. He swaps the hand his knife is in and slashes it down deep on her face, nicking the corner of her eye.
Finding a reserve of strength from somewhere, she bucks and screams. He stands up slowly, completely ignoring her, and begins to chant.
Pojď ke mě!
The air in the room is becoming hard to breathe again, shadows start crawling out of the walls and into the circle.
Pít bratry
The shadows fall on the woman, drinking the blood from the wounds that had been made across her body, taking with them the last bit of life that she had remaining. The shadows leave and a silvery substance starts leaking from the body onto the floor, forming into the shape of the woman. The ghost looks down and silently screams at what it’s seeing.
His laugh echoes around the room, bouncing off every surface. The woman’s ghost runs and makes it through the circle. She doesn’t look back, just keeps on running.
I sit and wait for the vision to end.
“I have a message for you,” he shouts.
My breath is stolen away. He is staring straight at me.
“Tell the others that it didn’t work. I found the device and I found a way to see you when you hop into these visions.” He moves closer to me, bending down in front of me so out faces almost touch.
“I hope you like the present I left you. I’ll be coming back for her.”
I can’t speak, I can’t move. I’m frozen in place by a fear I didn’t think I would ever have.
“Midnight on Monday, at the old paper factory on Lund Avenue. Be there.” Before I have a chance to even think of forming a reply, the world goes black around me.
* * *
I can’t breathe properly. I try to open my eyes but it feels like they’ve been glued together. Someone is shouting my name in the distance. I try to answer them but my throat has been glued shut.
A weight is dropped onto my chest. It takes what little breath I had left away. My insides are crawling with pain. I want to tear myself apart to stop the pain. I want to cry and scream but nothing will come out. It feels as though something is moving inside of me, filling up the spaces that shouldn’t be filled. Darkness is eating away at my bones.
“Don’t touch her with your bare skin,” I hear shouted. I try to laugh that it’s too late for anything like that anyway. I know what’s happening now: I’m dying.
Wetness falls onto my cheeks, the weight keeps pressing down and then releasing on my chest. Something touches my hand. I try to grip it, but my fingers won’t obey me.
“Get out of my fuckin’ way.” The accent gives away who it is but I can’t think why he would be bothered if I’m dying. There’s chanting in the background but I can’t make it out. The pressure finally lifts from my chest and I’m left feeling light.
Then I scream out loud for real as a burning pain flings its way through the centre of my chest.
Chapter Fourteen
We’re back in the underground station again. I’m struggling to concentrate on what’s going on around me. I’m exhausted and in agony. I’m lying on a sofa in a big conference room. My chest is bandaged to stop the burns from becoming infected.
“How did you know?” I ask Aidan.
He’s sitting at the bottom of the sofa and my feet are resting in his lap.
“I’ve dealt with demons before, chick. Most need a good old dose of fire and it gets rid of them.” He looks at me, the face that normally seems to look so carefree etched with a seriousness I didn’t think was possible.
He lowers his voice and leans a bit closer, “I can do different types of fire, don’t tell none of them, they think I can only do the one they know of an some party tricks.” He looks down to where we know the burns are. “It’ll scar, but it’ll look like a tat.” He grins at me at this part; it softens the lines on his face. “It burned away the bit of the demon that was left.”
His last statement sounded like an apology and I didn’t want that.
“Hey, don’t apologise. You saved my life!” I let myself relax little and match his grin, “I’ve always wanted a tattoo.” He lets out a laugh and then we both settle back down watching what’s going on in the room.
Maria and her mum are sitting pouring over textbooks, talking in hushed, quick tones to each other. Simon is sitting with them, occasionally leaning in to offer an opinion. They’re trying to create a spell that they think will bind the Soul Catcher. I’m more thinking we should be killing rather than binding. Apparently, the binding is just to help with it all, I’m hoping by the time it’s created, it’s more this will bind him rather than a think.
There’s someone new in the room too, I’ve not seen her face yet or been introduced to her. She’s standing near the door, shrouded in shadows, with a hood pulled up around her face. She looks like the grim reaper. I might not know who she is, but do I know what she can do. She can create portals into different dimensions. I understand her being here; it seems like a very invaluable skill to have on the team. I groan inwardly at the fact I just thought of us as a team.
Maria made me up a concoction when I came back round; e
very glass of it I have makes me feel stronger each time and eases the aches and pains that were left over. It would appear that after being tortured and beaten, mentally and physically, and then having a demon put some of his essence into me, practically killed me. They had to restart my heart three times. It was only when Aidan burnt away the part of the demon essence, that my heart started beating on its own.
And it all still hurts. Not as much as it did though. I scoot myself up, being careful of my feet on Aidan’s lap. Once I’m in a comfortable position I start looking around for more of the drink but can’t see it anywhere.
“Looking for this?” Tilting my head back, I see Ripper standing just behind me with a glass in his hand. The drink looks so appetising I can’t wait to get it. It’s a deep purple colour with silver swirls and it tastes like I imagine sunshine would. I grab it out of his hands and greedily drink it down. Sighing in relief as the drink works it magic, soothing everywhere it touches.
Putting the glass down, I smile at him. “Thank you.”
After giving the drink time to work, I gingerly swing my legs over the sofa and stand up. Ripper and Aidan are both by me, ready to catch me if I fall, but I’m okay. I stretch out like a cat, a slight twinge in my chest letting me know that my wound isn’t yet healed, but the rest of me feels fantastic.
Steadily, I make my way over to the woman in the corner.
“That’s close enough, vision girl. I don’t want to know how and when I’m going to die.”
Laughing at the nickname I decided two can play that game.
“It only works if you’re going to die soon, portal girl.” She looks at me and laughs, the hood falls back slightly and I’m lost in her face. Her eyes are swirling and moving, changing colour. I move a bit closer and stare deeper, seeing the universe in her eyes.
I step back blinking. About to ask her what I’d just seen when the door slams open and Mitchell comes through.
“Right everyone, let’s gather around,” he shouts as he bangs the door shut behind him. He walks over to where Maria and the others are sitting and I make my way over slowly.
The Soul Catcher Page 8
