The Spirit Box (The Freelancers Book 1)

by Lee Isserow

  Ana hadn't heard anyone use her grandmother's full name for as long as she could remember. Her mother always referred to her in her matriarchal title of 'grandmother' or 'granny', never by her name, let alone her full name.

  “It's over,” she said, trying to hold in a quiver on the words. “You missed it by twenty minutes or so.”

  “Damn,” he sighed.

  “Did you know her?” she asked, curious about this man, who looked not much older than herself, a stranger that had intended to be present for the few moments of her grandmother being lowered into the ground.

  “Yeah,” he said. She wasn't convinced, and he could see as much, elucidating “I was a neighbour.”

  “I've met all her neighbours. . . You're not one of them.”

  “What is this, an inquisition?” he chuckled softly on the words. “Live a couple of doors down, just wanted to pay my respects. You family?”

  “Granddaughter.”

  “Sorry for your loss.” He let a small smile curve along his lips, eyes expressive, that Ana read as genuine compassion. “She was a sweet woman. Deserved a better. . . exit from this world.”

  Ana's eyes began to prick with tears. She could see that he was attempting to be kind with his words, but he hadn't done a great job.

  “I'm sorry,” he said, sighing the platitude out. “I shouldn't have come, this was a mistake.” His hand swung behind him for the door handle, scrambling wildly, unable to find it. “I'm very sorry,” he said again, “for your loss.” His feet tore into a stride, skirting around Ana with a half-pirouette, feet moving as if he were dancing.

  She turned on her heel to follow after him. “Wait, who are you?”

  Her mother looked up as he passed by, glance swinging round at her daughter as she followed the man deeper into the building, one of his hands in front of him, fingers moving through the air.

  He strutted confidently to a corridor, as if he knew exactly where he was going. Ana heard him say something, talk to himself, muttering about “a door.”

  At the end of the hallway, he turned to the right, hand grabbing a door knob, twisting it, light bursting along the corridor. There was a soundscape that roared with the arc of the door, one that seemed incongruous to Ana, given that this was such a solemn locale: screams and coos, laughter and electronic squeals, as if a fairground had been set up on the other side.

  He slipped through the door, it clicked shut behind him, and Ana made it to the end of the hall, turning clockwise as he had done. There was no door handle, no door, just a wall with a framed print of a serene landscape.

  She looked around, this way and that. It wasn't her imagination, the man had definitely gone through a door. . . Ana doubled back on herself, checked the next closest door to the right. It opened into a small, dingy office. Seated behind a cluttered desk, an elderly bearded man was reading a book. He looked up over the top of the hardback cover, popped his glasses down and stared at her inquisitively.

  “Can I help you?”

  He could, of course, not. The man had not walked through that door. He had vanished into a door that, as far as Ana was aware, never even existed.

  Little did she know that this peculiarity would turn out to be the most innocent of the many mysteries that would befall her as the days and nights went on.

  Chapter 7

  Ripped to shreds and torn asunder

  Going to the funeral was a dumb thing to do, and he knew it. How the hell was it supposed to bring new leads. All he did was upset the bereaved daughter and granddaughter. It cut Rafe up, the idea of causing the girl more pain than she was already experiencing. As he walked through the fairground―Tali's idea of a discreet location for an emergency door to translocate away from the cemetery―he tried not to think about her.

  Such a beautiful face, those big, green, Disney princess eyes brimming with tears as he said the wrong damn thing. He always said the wrong damn thing, particularly when death was a factor. And in his line of work, death was all too often a factor. . .

  The girl, the granddaughter, she deserved better than him screwing up her day on top of having to bury her progenitor. A chill on the air, he slipped his hands into his coat pockets. Felt something, cardboard maybe, sharp corners, and pulled out the 'we tried to deliver' postcard that he nabbed from the old woman's house.

  “God dammit,” he grunted under his breath, trying not to appear like a crazy man talking to himself amidst the guttural Germanic speech sounds around him. The card was an actual lead, and that made him feel even worse for bogarting the funeral for his own ends. His eyes scanned the date of the attempted delivery, four days before the woman's death. What would it take, he asked himself, twenty-four, maybe forty-eight hours to set a new delivery date? This might have been it, the box being sent to her. But for that to be the case, she had to be expecting it, or expecting something. No mention on the card of what the item might be, or where it was being sent from, just the company's name, “XPRESS DELIVERY”. There was, however, an address for the depot. This was a bona fide lead. Certainly better than his crude attempts to divine the path of the damn thing across continents.

  His fingers danced through the air, Tali's face in mind's eye as he called her.

  “What do you want?” she grumbled, a disgruntled tone sighing heavily in his periphery.

  “Any chance of a door? Need to get over to Essex.”

  “I am not your bloody chauffeur!”

  “Come on Tali, where the hell have you dumped me this time? Some German carnival?”

  “You needed an emergency exit, so I bloody gave you one.”

  “Somewhere more local would have been nice.”

  “You get what emergency means, right? Best I could do at a moment's notice.”

  “Yeah, and thanks for that, but now I need to be elsewheres. Xpress Delivery depot on―”

  “Yeah, give me a minute. . . Got actual work to do, you know.”

  “I'm trying to save lives here.”

  “A life. One snuffed out at a bloody time. I'm in the middle of op-ing a mission over in Italy that might have global ramifications.”

  “Like most days of the week. . .” he grunted. “so, about that door. . .“

  “Xpress Delivery, Essex. Only got the one depot. . . Door six metres to your left. You're bloody welcome,” she said, hanging up.

  Rafe swung a left between two carts that looked as though they were selling identical mysterious foodstuffs that smelled of salmonella and rat farts, and found the door. He turned the handle and felt a chill running through his body. The door had been sent with haste and an ill temper. Before he stepped through it, he already knew how that combination was going to shake up his stomach as he translocated.

  *

  He dropped to his knees as soon as his feet found the ground on the other side, trying with all his might to suppress the angry twists and turns going on in his gut. There was nothing he could do to calm it, and despite his best efforts, a stream of vomit exploded out of his throat, doing its best to sear every scant inch of raw internal flesh it could on the way up his gullet.

  If Rafe hadn't emptied his stomach of its contents then, he would have likely done so upon standing up and inhaling the mephitic odour that hung in the air in the delivery depot. Fortunately, there was no more bile to spit up. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, trying to set a mental note to get his coat dry cleaned at some point soon. The reminder was swiftly forgotten as he stepped closer to the ghastly scene on the floor of the depot.

  It was a massacre, pure and simple. Close to twenty bodies ripped to shreds and torn asunder. As he navigated his way through the pools of bodily fluids of all descriptions, trying not to dry heave at flayed skin that was crusting and drying to look like human crackling, and the organs that were scattered around, some stamped on, turning them into a sickly sludge.

  He took a long, slow breath, regretting it instantly as the stench coated his throat momentarily. His fingers pirouetted through the air around him as he
tried to invoke a sigil, and exhaled slowly.

  Nothing happened.

  “Dammit!” he grunted. It had been a long day, a long bunch of days, a long week or weeks. However long it had been, he had been relying on magick all too often, and these days his blood wasn't exactly brimming with the stuff.

  Composing himself, he reasserted the intention in his mind. Took another breath, trying to ignore the foul taste on the air, attempted the sigil once more, and exhaled. A thin, black smoke swum out from between his lips, flowing through the depot, taking on the form of the many corpses before their deaths. The ghostly shadow men and women walked around, picking up phantom packages, scanning them, placing them on shelves or sending them on conveyor belts where they dissipated into nothingness.

  One of the shadow men was of interest. He had what looked like an old wooden box in his hands, carrying it off to a corner. This phantom was skittish, constantly looking over his shoulder, as if afraid he might be caught. His hands struggled with the box, attempting in vain to wrench it open. He slammed his fist into its side, as if giving up, picked it up and threw it on a conveyor to be sent back on a truck to its intended destination.

  Rafe walked towards the ghostly box as it slowly moved off across the depot. The smokey doors of the things opened, just a crack. Enough to garner the attention of the man who sent it down the conveyor. He was staring at it, wispy ebony eyes focused on it, as if the thing was speaking to him.

  His hands reached around whilst his gaze was fixed, as if they were working of their own volition, seeking something they knew lay nearby. Under the conveyor belt's legs, his fingers wrapped around a wrench. He moved in an instant, almost balletic, as his limbs swung with his body's flow, the wrench finding skulls to bury itself in with the greatest of ease. Others ran to stop his assault, and were rewarded by being covered in an explosion of blood and guts as something hideous burst out of his back, spine whipping through the air like a snake, slicing a few throats en route to skewering a man in the abdomen.

  It was as if the possession was transmitted with the injury, as that man then grabbed hold of the wrench from the spineless aggressor, and set about smashing in more skulls until he was apprehended and the desire for blood continued to be passed on until there was nobody left.

  Having run out of victims, the doors of the box―that had only opened a crack―closed, as it disappeared out of the building on the conveyor belt into a truck that was waiting outside.

  The smokey reconstruction ended, and Rafe scanned the bodies one last time. All mundanes, he reckoned. Not a drop of magickal blood amongst them to act as white cells, protect them from the damn thing, hold off its possession. Soon as it got out, it was in their heads, able to turn them into its death-dealing puppets.

  That still didn't answer the question of why it ended up at the old woman's house, let alone who had been sending it from one victim to the next. If anything, it just posed more damn questions.

  “Hey!” an angry, authoritative voice shouted from across the depot floor. ”You're not supposed to be in here!”

  Rafe turned, a cop―a bobby, as they were called there―staring right at him. It was only then that he noticed the police tape around the scene, the markers left out on the floor. The smell, followed by spitting out the smokey reconstruction, had distracted him from the very obvious physical presence of police laid out around him.

  He launched into a run, through rows upon rows of aluminium shelves, each piled with packages due for destinations unknown. The cop followed, heavy boots tick-tacking against the tiled floors, leaving an audible path behind him. Rafe turned a corner, attempted to dial Tali―get a door the hell out of there―but there was no response. He rolled under a stack of shelves, turned back the way he came, and hid around the corner.

  The tick-tack of the bobby's boots slowing, getting closer. For a moment, he wondered if the cop would have a weapon drawn―then remembered that barely any British police officers had guns, so he was probably safe. Worst the guy could do was hit him with a taser, and Rafe had certainly experienced worse than a couple of thousand volts burning through his veins. . .

  Tick, tack. . . tick. . . tack. . . closer, and slower. It was possible that the cop knew he was standing at the end of the row of shelves. There were only a few packages stacked up, might not be enough to hide him completely.

  He took a deep, silent breath as the ticks and tacks came within a few feet of him, finger dancing through the air as he raised it to head height. He probably didn't have the strength to mesmerise the guy, wouldn't be able to wipe his memories, but he could do the next best thing.

  The cop peeked around the corner, his eyes catching Rafe's. “Sorry about this, mate,” he said, as he tapped the bobby on the forehead.

  In an instant, the cop's body went limp, his eyes rolled back into his head, and Rafe attempted in vain to catch him before he hit the floor. His skull bounced off the tiles with a crack that seemed to echo all around the massive warehouse.

  “Oops,” Rafe whispered to himself.

  He dropped to his knees and turned the police officer's head, a small pool of blood was starting to dribble out of the back of his skull.

  With a heavy sigh, the tip of his first finger met the skin of the cop's forehead, tracing out a healing glyph on the skin. Rafe gritted his teeth and threw all his concentration into undoing the man's injury, and as he completed the glyph, the small pool of blood began to recede, body pulling the lost fluids back into the cop, fractured bone repairing itself, skin sealing back up.

  Rafe fell to the floor, and leaned himself back against the shelving unit, catching his breath, and trying to shake off the first glimmers of a migraine from exerting himself in such a short span of time.

  He looked down at the cop, breathing, alive, but unconscious. Rafe was almost jealous of the guy getting to have a nap. This was turning out to to be a bad day. And it was only going to get worse.

  Chapter 8

  Possessions

  It felt strange and somewhat cruel that the will reading be arranged right after the burial of her grandmother, and yet Ana was unsure what else they might do with the rest of such a solemn and stoic day. It was, if nothing else, a way to keep the kindly old lady alive in their memories for just a little longer―which was how Ana decided to look at the grisly affair.

  They had followed Mister Bunkle to his office, where he had welcomed them to his inner sanctum with a freshly brewed pot of tea, as he leafed through his desk for the paperwork he had created at the request of his dearly departed friend.

  “Do you require anything further?” he asked. “Can I fetch you a biscuit, perhaps?”

  Her mother shook her head, and Ana did the same, once again finding herself wondering why biscuits might be seen as comforting amidst dwelling on the passing of a loved on.

  “Very well.” His eyes skirted the document swiftly. “All property, and the contents of all bank accounts are hereby bequeathed to my daughter, Dorothy.”

  Ana's mother began to tear up again. She put an arm around her daughter and snivelled in her ear. “I don't know what to do with properly. . . can't imagine ever visiting that house ever again!”

  “It's okay, mum, you don't have to.” She glanced up to Mister Bunkle. “Perhaps you could arrange a sale, an auction of her belongings or something, so we don't have to. . . go back there.”

  “That leads us to the next order of business, actually.” His eyes darted to the next line of the document. “All clothing, bedding and blankets are to be donated to the local homeless shelter.”

  Ana smiled at this, her grandmother was always so caring about others in need, and it felt good to know that even in her passing she would be continuing in that spirit.

  “In terms of possessions. . .” Bunkle continued, taking a moment as if he had just lost his place. “I bequeath my dining room table and chairs, living room furniture and wine box to my granddaughter Ana.”

  “What?”

  “Dining room table a
nd chairs, living room furniture and wine box,” he repeated.

  “Why would she give me her furniture?”

  “Well, your place could do with a few more chairs, love,” her mother offered, never shy to give constructive criticism. “Granny's couches were―are―very comfortable.”

  Ana raised an eyebrow at the statement. She thought that she had done a pretty good job at minimalist interior design in her place, and never for a moment thought that her mother and grandmother would have conspired behind her back with regards to her choices of furniture, or lack thereof.

  “What's this wine box? I don't drink that much wine.”

  Bunkle shrugged with a thin attempt at a smile that showed gum, his lips parting like an old wound that had reopened. “You don't just have to use a wine box for wine, consider it a wine box in name only.”

  “It would be a nice reminder of Granny, wherever you put it, and whatever you put in it,” her mother added.

  “I guess?” Ana said, unsure that she would want a constant reminder of the hole left in her life by her grandmother's passing.

  “All other possessions are bequeathed to my daughter, Dorothy, to do with as she wishes,” Bunkle concluded.

  “Is that it?” Ana asked.

  Bunkle nodded. “I can arrange for someone to deliver the furniture if you so wish, for a small fee, rather than you having to visit the house.”

  Ana bit her lip. The idea of living surrounded by the furniture of her recently departed relative was not sitting well with her. However, it had been the old woman's wishes, and it dug a blade into Ana's heart, the idea of letting her down.

  And so, reluctantly, she accepted Bunkle's offer of sending someone to pick it up and drop it off at her house.

  *

  Ana drove back with her mother, and sat with her for the rest of the day. Very few words were exchanged between the two. There was nothing to say. It was what it was. A beloved relative had been taken from them too soon, in too brutal a fashion, and words could do nothing to remedy that.