Something Rotten: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (The Ghosted Series Book 2)

by David Bussell

  ‘Yes, mother,’ I sighed, taking the hand grenade.

  7

  I was hoping not to need Mark again so soon, but a job’s a job.

  The next stage of my investigation—finding the vampire den—would call upon all my powers of persuasion, and though I do consider myself a man of no small charm, I’d need Mark’s good looks to really seal the deal. My natural charisma coupled with his genetic makeup makes for a pretty unbeatable combination. Don’t get me wrong, I'm easy on the eye, but Mark has the kind of classic, chiselled looks you rarely see outside of that filthy rich, country club set. Plus he has a flesh and blood body that your everyday person is able to actually see, which chicks seem to like.

  When I homed in on Mark I found him sat in a chair getting an eighty quid haircut from a late-night barber. It was one of those swanky, hipster places where all the staff wear waxed moustaches and sailor tattoos they haven’t earned. In other words, a typical Mark establishment. The salon was packed, every chair filled, but neither the stylists or customers could see me. To them, I was as invisible as a homeless ninja.

  I glided up behind Mark and prepared to make him my soul mule, when a sudden flash of light bounced off the mirror in front of me. I turned over my shoulder to see a slim black man dressed in a long white coat and a matching wide-brimmed hat. At first I took him for a ghost, but no, he was something else. Something very else. The black man in white was wreathed in a divine light and emanated a faint gospel music, like a distant choir. The guy absolutely hummed with the Uncanny.

  ‘Mister Fletcher?’ he purred.

  The voice sounded familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. ‘Who’s asking?’ I replied.

  ‘My name is Adonael,’ he explained. ‘Angel and celestial attendant of God.’

  ‘Sorry, sunshine,’ I replied. ‘Still none the wiser.’

  He placed a hand on his heart in mock consternation. ‘You really don’t remember me? I have to say I’m disappointed, I rather thought I’d made an impression upon you.’ He cleared his throat, and when he spoke again he did so in the voice of the actress, Whoopi Goldberg. ‘You drifted from the light, Jake. You revolted against God.’ He smiled and returned to his usual masculine, if still a bit effeminate, purr. ‘Remember me now?’

  ‘So you’re the Big Man’s stooge, are you? The one who spoke to me through my Ghost DVD?’

  Yeah, it’s a long story. Needless to say, I’d dealt with the bloke before, but never face to face. I didn’t really know much about him except that he’d been given the job of keeping tabs on yours truly. The rest was all hypothesis, but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say he was some low-level, letter of the law, paid on commission, apple-polishing jobsworth of an angel.

  He frowned and hooked his thumbs into the belt of his coat. ‘Take your last look at London, Mister Fletcher,’ he said. ‘You’re coming with me now.’

  ‘I very much fucking doubt that.’

  His face contorted into a scowl. ‘I have been duly sanctioned by the Almighty to retrieve you from this earthly plane and transport your soul to the afterlife, where you will be judged for your mortal—and now immortal—sins.’

  ‘What are you banging on about?’ I asked. ‘I’m already off the naughty step, you told me so yourself. I sent a soul feaster packing, and if that wasn’t enough to put me in the clear I helped banish a nightmare demon, and now—if you’ll get out of the way and let me do my job—I’m going to nip a couple of vampires in the bud. I’m not saying my account’s in the black just yet, mate, but it must be near as.’

  ‘You are a long way from having a clean slate, Mister Fletcher. A very long way indeed.’

  What was this? Crossed wires? Some administrator upstairs putting my name on the wrong form? What had I done wrong to have this traffic warden writing me up a ticket?

  ‘So what is it then? What’s got you so hot and bothered that you decided to come down here and stake out my meat suit?’ I spat, pointing to Mark, who sat oblivious in the barber chair getting his hair cut into something out of a GQ magazine.

  ‘You destroyed a heavenly relic,’ the angel replied. ‘The seraphim sword.’

  Oh right, that thing.

  During my run-in with the soul feaster I’d kind of let it get burned up by witch fire. It was an honest mistake. The kind that happens to the best of us.

  ‘The seraphim sword was an invaluable weapon in our eternal fight against the forces of evil,’ said the angel. ‘It was ancient and irreplaceable, and you are to be held accountable for its loss.’

  ‘It was an accident!’ I explained. ‘An accident that happened while I was saving a bunch of people from getting murdered.’

  ‘Rules are rules,’ he scolded, curtly.

  I was right. The man in white fancied himself a bounty hunter, but he was really just a pious bureaucrat. An errand boy. Yet another thorn in my dead arse.

  ‘Isn’t this all a bit petty?’ I said. ‘I thought you'd be above all that, what with being an angel. Well, I mean, you say you're an angel…’

  ‘I am an angel!’

  ‘Then where are your wings and a halo?’

  ‘Wings and halo?’ he sputtered. ‘Where do you think you are, Mister Fletcher, Sunday School? Angels don’t wear gowns and play harp music, and God isn't some old man with a white beard sitting on a cloud.’

  ‘So, he is a man?’

  I felt pretty sure that information wasn’t meant for my ears.

  The angel went silent, realising he’d been caught talking out of school, then decided he didn’t care. ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ he told me, and unlatched a set of glowing manacles from his belt.

  Now, I don’t take too kindly to handcuffs. Haven’t done since the day the toolbag sat next to me getting his barnet done chained me to a red-hot radiator. Besides, there was no way I was having this little Hitler getting paid commission for banging me up.

  ‘Sorry, pal,’ I told him. ‘Looks like you’re going home empty-handed.’

  I went to give the angel the old Irish goodbye, but when I tried to teleport, nothing happened. I looked in the wall mirror and tried again, but instead of vanishing, I came apart like a couple of misaligned transparencies and snapped back together again.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to work,’ said the man in white. ‘Now kindly put on the cuffs before I’m forced to do so myself.’

  “Not bloody likely,” I thought, and said, now I come to think of it.

  ‘Catch me if you can,’ I told him.

  I leapt into the customer to my right—a twenty-something getting his man bun trimmed—and took possession of his body.

  The angel laughed. ‘What are you doing, Fletcher? You realise you’re only prolonging the inevitable?’

  Was anything this guy said not a cliche?

  I leapt again, this time into a customer getting his hair styled into little points that made him look like a crap dinosaur.

  ‘Stop it,’ demanded the angel.

  Again and again I leapt, moving from one body to another.

  Find the lady!

  The angel knotted his brow as he began to lose track of me. To make things even more challenging, I planted some suggestions in my hosts as I did the rounds, leaving each of them with an impression that they were dancing at a Christmas disco. Customers and hairdressers alike formed a line, each with his hands on the waist of the man in front.

  ‘Choo choo choo!’ they roared, shaking their hips, ‘come on and do the conga!’

  It’s an imprecise science, the old out-of-body mind control trick, only good for a few seconds after I’ve vacated a host, but good enough to allow for this caper.

  The conga line snaked around the angel, forming a ring around him. Around and around the circle went, faster and faster, kicking their legs and belting out more Black Lace lyrics.

  By this point the angel was completely lost; stupefied by the shell game I was playing. He span about, trying to get an eye on me, muttering some distinctly non-kosher word
s under his holier-than-thou breath.

  ‘Show yourself!’ he screamed. ‘I demand you show yourself!’

  I would love to have seen his the look on face when he realised I'd hoofed it and taken Mark along for the ride too, but I suppose you can't have everything in this afterlife.

  8

  With that palaver out of the way, I returned to the job at hand.

  It was around ten in the evening when I arrived at the Royal Free Hospital. The A&E’s reception area smelled of bleach and a heady undertone of vomit. The walls were lit by harsh strip lighting and coated in scuffed magnolia paint scarred by the thousands of trolleys that had scraped by them over the years.

  I checked behind the reception desk to see who’d been lumbered with night duty. I was in luck. A young woman sat plonked on a cheap bit of revolving furniture; not too pretty, not too smart looking. The perfect mark for my charm offensive.

  ‘Hello love,’ I chirped, as I swaggered over and placed my hands flat upon her desk. She looked up at me and I saw her eyes widen, just a smidge, but enough to let me know she was liking what she saw. ‘I’m after a couple of your paramedics,’ I told her. ‘Two of your night shift boys.’

  ‘Karl and Dimitrie?’ she asked, taking her gum from her mouth and depositing it into a nearby bin.

  ‘That’s the ones,’ I replied, making a mental note of their names. This was too easy.

  ‘They’re on call tonight,’ she told me, fluttering her eyelashes. ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’

  ‘There is as a matter of fact. See, they were round my mum’s gaff a few hours back. Came by after she took a spill—’

  ‘Oh no, is she okay?’

  ‘She is now, thank God,’ I replied, allowing Mark’s eyes to mist up, then looking away. ‘The old bird’s getting on in years and... well, I don’t know what I’d do without me mum...’

  I stole a glance at the receptionist as I choked back a hot sob. She made an “Awww” face and placed a warm hand on top of mine. I smiled. I was worried the old loving son act might come over a bit Norman Bates, but from the looks of things, it was working a treat.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Anyway, Mum tried my phone first but I wasn’t able to pick up.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m embarrassed to say it, but I was driving a bus load of special needs kids at the time, and I didn’t have my hands-free.’

  The receptionist melted some more. ‘You help special needs kids for a living?’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘just in my spare time.’

  By this point she was putty in my hands.

  ‘After I didn’t pick up, Mum rang 999,’ I went on, ‘and from what she tells me, your ambulance blokes were with her in five minutes flat.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘Too right it is… sorry, what was your name...?’

  ‘Tracey,’ she replied, unflinchingly.

  ‘Tracey,’ I said, smiling. ‘That’s a nice name. So, like I was saying, Karl and Dimitrie got to her like a bullet out of a gun, and according to Mum, they were amazing. Really went above and beyond. Got her back on her feet, fixed her a cuppa, even stuck around to play a game of Hearts with her during their tea break.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Too right. And mum’s not usually great with strangers either, especially ones that ain’t from around here if you know what I mean.’

  She chuckled. ‘Yeah, my mum’s a bit like that as well.’

  We shared a laugh, then I moved onto phase two of my plan. ‘Thing is, while they were at Mum’s, one of them managed to leave this behind...’ I held up a wallet. It was Mark’s wallet, but she didn’t need to know that.

  ‘That’s good of you to bring that in,’ she said. ‘Not many good samaritans left in this world.’

  She reached for the wallet but I snatched it back.

  ‘Thing is, I’d like to return it myself. Personally, like.’

  She seemed surprised. ‘It’s no trouble.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, Tracey, it’s not that I’m not grateful, it’s just…’ I whispered, leaning across her desk conspiratorially; a move she was only too happy to mirror... ‘I thought maybe if you gave me an address I could drop it off myself, along with a little something to say thank you.’

  ‘Hm, whose wallet is it, Karl or Dimitrie’s?’ she asked, then decided it wasn’t important. ‘Actually, it doesn’t matter, they both live in the same place.’

  ‘Well, that makes life easier, doesn’t it?’ I joked. Seemed Jazz had been right; the vamps were cohabiting.

  I pulled a piece of paper from my pocket and slid it across the reception desk. ‘Do us a favour, Tracey, scribble that address down for me, would you?’ I gave her a wink. ‘And maybe bung your phone number on there while you’re at it...’

  She giggled and reached for a pen, but then— ‘What am I thinking?’ she said. ‘I can’t give that out, It’s data protected.’

  Ugh, so close.

  ‘Come on, Tracey,’ I said, giving her the old puppy dog eyes, ‘let’s not get all wrapped up in the rules...’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she replied, ‘it’s more than my job’s worth. Why don’t you just give it to me to pass on? I promise I’ll take good care of it.’

  Damn it. So much for my charm offensive.

  Plan B it was then.

  I don’t like to play the possession card, I really don’t, but she was leaving me no choice. Forcing your will on someone is a creepy thing to do, but forcing your will on a woman… that’s something I like to stay clear of altogether unless it becomes absolutely necessary. Thing is, stopping a couple of Draculas from draining another poor sod dry fits that criteria like a glove.

  I left Mark with a message to stay put then pulled the ripcord, passing from his body, through the reception desk, and into Tracey. She wasn’t a tough nut to crack. Within a few seconds I’d taken control of her brain and rifled through her mental Rolodex to find the information I needed. She didn’t have the address I was after committed to memory, but she did have the location of the staff records and the password to get at them.

  I rolled her chair over to her workstation, accessed the database and tapped in the necessary digits. A quick search of Dimitrie brought up his record, only instead of finding contact info, all I found were a few lines of asterisks. No address, no phone number, not even an email. Same for Karl. They’d covered their tracks well. Shit. This trip had been a total waste of time.

  Annoyed, I implanted a bit of conversational filler in Tracey’s head to cover the last couple of minutes I’d spent digging around in her brain, then jumped back into my ride.

  ‘Thanks anyway,’ I told her, replacing Mark’s wallet in his pocket before making off.

  ‘Wait,’ she called after me, ‘your bit of paper…’

  ‘Keep it,’ I said.

  ‘But I didn’t give you my number…’

  As I exited the building, the hospital doors sighed shut behind me, making a sound like I felt. What the hell was I going to do now? Any minute now Mark’s body was going to reject me, and I wouldn’t be able to go back to him after that for fear of being rumbled by the angel again. I was proper fucked now. Being intangible made being a detective nigh on impossible… or should I say “playing” a detective. I mean, it’s not like I have a P.I. licence or anything. I make this job up as I go along really. I take my cues from TV shows and film noirs, old pulp novels and Humphrey Bogart movies. I’m just a dead man with a thing for gumshoes, that’s all. The fact is, I knew as much about being a P.I. as I did about being an exorcist.

  Yeah, I was having myself a real pity party. I strode through the hospital car park, looking for something to kick or a car aerial to snap, except of course cars don't come with those anymore.

  Then I saw it.

  There, sat in a staff parking bay… a long, black hearse. A 1960 Superior Cadillac Hearse, to be precise, with polished chrome stylings and a giant speaker system where a coffin would sit. Hanging
from the rear view mirror was a plush toy of Count Dracula. I shook my head in disbelief.

  ‘You're having a laugh…’ I actually said out loud.

  I may have been a bit generous when I attributed two brain cells to this pair of clowns.

  I pressed my face up against the driver’s window and took a peek inside the car. Stuck to the windscreen, just above the dash, was a sat nav unit. Perfect. Having checked to make sure the coast was clear, I pressed my hand against the driver’s door and used a simple bit of magic to jimmy it open.

  Did I mention that I was a magician? I meant to say something about it up top, but I worried the info dump was stacking up high enough already without me adding more to the pile. You know, what with all the ghost stuff and everything. I didn’t want to come on too strong, so I decided to portion the story out. One thing at a time, I told myself.

  So yeah, I know a bit of magic. I used to dabble back when I was an exorcist, but I decided to dedicate myself to it properly after I carked it. It’s still very much a work in progress. Right now the best I can manage are a few simple cantrips: a glowing light here, a magic flame there, that sort of stuff. None of your Gandalf the Grey shit. If it's real magic you're after, talk to Jazz Hands, or better yet, my witch’s familiar friend, Stella. That girl can sling a spell eight ways to Sunday.

  If I do have a knack for one thing though, it’s unlocking stuff. Show me a bolt, a latch or a padlock and I’ll have it open in a jiffy. I’ve had safes open before. Big ones. Compared to that, popping a car door was a piece of piss.

  I reached inside the vehicle and laid my hands on the sat nav. I turned it on and I checked the device’s GPS settings. There it was, a few notches below the last inputted location; an address.

  An address marked Home.

  9

  Seeing as I couldn’t drop Mark off at his pad in case the angel was sat there waiting for me, I left him in a nearby boozer with a few empty pint pots and a half-done crossword (just the easy answers filled in, obviously).