Oh yeah, Hell is the real deal. It's not a place for your common or garden sins. It's not for drunks and over-eaters and adulterers. It's not for parents who lose their rag and give the kid a clip around the ear. Hell is for people who know what they’re doing is wrong and get on with it regardless. Hell is for people who take pleasure in the pain of others. Who revel in taking what isn’t theirs. Hell is the place where killers and bankers stand shoulder to shoulder. Hell is the place Damon and Sarah are headed, and there’s nothing they can do to avoid it.
Not that I'm bitter. Really. It's not healthy for a ghost to obsess about things that happened to them pre-death. You've got to move on. Look to the future. Tomorrow's a new day and all that. Yes, I still live among the breathers, stuck between their world and the next, but I try not to get caught up in all their to-do. I've got bigger fish to fry. I have a soul of my own to save.
My conscience is far from squeaky clean. Since I died and became a phantom, I’ve become aware of some black marks on my record. Black marks that I’ll need to expunge in order to save my immortal soul and gain entry to the Good Place. Right now I’m blackballed from that little club, at least until I earn my VIP pass, which may be a long time coming. See, after I took a trip to slab city, I learned a few things about my former life, chief of which was the fact that I was a serial killer.
Yeah, I was surprised too.
Apparently, I’d been spree-killing with gay abandon, not because I wanted to, but because I had no idea I was doing it in the first place.
I should clarify what I mean before I lose you completely.
Like I said earlier, back when I was alive, I plied my trade as an exorcist. My specialism was house cleanses. Let me be clear here; I didn’t cleanse properties of their residents (which would be counterproductive, seeing as they paid my bills), no, I cleansed properties of infernal invaders. Poltergeists and demonic entities. Got a case of the bleeding walls and mysterious chills? Call Jake (no middle name) Fletcher. Get yourself in trouble mucking around with a ouija board? Give me a bell. Little Timmy chucking up pea soup and doing the spinny head thing? I'm your huckleberry.
I was good at my job. Too good, I realise now. See, it turns out that exorcism isn’t a one-stop shop. What’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander, by which I mean exorcisms are for demons, not for ghosts. Common consensus in the exorcism community (not a booming community, I’ll grant you) is that cleanses send demons back to Hell, and transport lingering spirits to their final reward. It’s certainly the understanding I was operating on, but having learned the truth of the matter, it seems I was off.
Way off.
Here’s what I know now: when you perform the ritual of exorcism on a human spirit, you destroy that spirit. You’re not showing it the way home, you’re not releasing it into the wild like some freed animal, you’re destroying it, once and for all. Which means I had personally overseen the obliteration of hundreds, possibly thousands, of innocent souls. A spook slaughter, if you will. As far as I knew, I was just doing a job, but in truth, I was going from house to house, exterminating human souls like the Rentokil man exterminates cockroaches.
So yeah, like I say, I’m a long way from having a spotless record.
I work hard to right my wrongs though. Since I earned a stay of execution for my sins, I’ve made it my personal mission to do things properly this time. I can’t undo the damage I’ve done, but I have enough knowledge of the way things work now to be able to send spirits off the right way. Instead of going at the problem like I’m swatting at a piñata, I make contact with a spirit, ghost-to-ghost, and detach them from their locality by healing the trauma that trapped them there in the first place. More often than not, that means solving their murder. Once the person responsible for killing them is brought to justice, they get to go Upstairs, and I earn some much-needed karma, bringing me one step closer to entering the pearly gates myself.
It’s a win win.
So far it’s proved a tough gig. Since I started in this line of work, I've come up against demons, fought vampires, and even bumped fists with the Grim Reaper himself. And yet, despite it all, I persist. I get the job done. I gather the clues, I collar the bad guys, and I give my clients what they need to pass on to the Great Beyond.
When I have any clients, that is.
Work's been a bit slow lately, and when I say “slow”, I mean practically nonexistent. For the past two weeks I’d been sat in my office with my thumb up my arse, staring at my telephone and begging it to ring. Instead, it just sat there, quiet as a nun.
My office is based on the top floor of a five-storey warehouse in Chalk Farm. As well as being my place of business, it also serves as a general hangout spot; somewhere I can kick my heels and while away the hours between jobs. My one-man agency—Fletcher Investigations (don’t bother looking for it on the Companies House website)—operates out of the primo, south-west corner office, and offers a grand, panoramic view of the surrounding Camden area. The inside is a lot less impressive. There’s little to look at there except for a knackered desk, some dented filing cabinets, and an outmoded TV/DVD player combo that I use to watch old ghost movies (mainly so I can rail on them for their factual inconsistencies).
Before I moved in, the building was an old gin distillery, about to be converted into luxury flats at the whim of an Israeli billionaire. Sadly, the refurbishment was put on hold due to the building being—would you believe it?—haunted. It started with cold spots, flickering lights, and mysterious creaking sounds, until finally the place went full-on Amityville Horror and the property’s investors went running for the hills. Awful business. If I ever get my hands on the disruptive, malicious, and no doubt rakishly handsome phantom responsible for that poor billionaire’s misfortune, well, I just don’t know what I’ll do.
Since the developers abandoned the place and construction ground to a halt, the building has fallen into a state of disrepair. Cobwebs lace the walls, the dust lies undisturbed, and a damp patch has appeared on the ceiling above my desk that’s so severe it looks as though somebody drew a bath of gravy upstairs and forgot to turn off the tap.
I sighed and felt my eyes go to the phone again. Time moves at a crawl when there’s nothing to occupy an idling brain, particularly when sleep isn’t on the cards. As a ghost, I don’t get tired, which means I’m fully cognizant from dusk till dawn. Don’t get me wrong, not sleeping has its advantages, particularly when it comes to working night shifts and sitting endless stakeouts, but the tradeoff is that I have to find things to do with myself while the rest of the world sleeps off its day.
This evening, I was all out of ideas. I was bored, bored, bored, and lonely with it. Maybe it was time I went legit and employed an assistant for a bit of company. A smart-mouth secretary I could enjoy some sassy repartee with, like in those old film noirs. But then what would I pay her with? It’s not like I make any money in this game, seeing as I basically take my fee in good vibes.
I went to look out of the window to stare out at the night, but the moment I took my eye off the phone, it rang, sending it skittering across my desk.
Surprised, I checked my wrist watch for the time. It had gone midnight already. Who’d be calling at this hour?
I caught the phone on the second ring, scooped it up and flipped it over. The Caller ID displayed a familiar name.
Jazz Hands.
Jazz is a spellbinder I know, the proprietor of a magic shop in King’s Cross that sells stage magic to regular punters, while providing bona fide enchantments to me, your friendly neighbourhood spectre-man.
The last thing I expected was to see Jazzer’s name on my phone. Sure, she was the one who’d made the phone usable to me in the first place, but in all the time I’d known her, she’d never once called up for a chat. There it was though, right there, plain as day: CALLING: JAZZ HANDS. It didn't look right. Seeing her name on my phone’s display felt like finding a shopping trolley on the moon. All wrong.
I swiped the answer butt
on and put the phone to my ear. ‘You’ve reached the spook house, who’s calling?’
Jazzer’s voice arrived as a sharp whisper. ‘Fletcher, I need you at the shop right now. There’s been a break-in.’
It struck me as a bit late for house calls, and much as I’d been yearning for some company, being around Jazz is way too much like hard work. Don’t get me wrong, I love the woman to bits, but she’s got this nagging, motherly affection for me that makes me want to slam doors and scream at her like a disaffected teenager.
‘I’m a bit tied up at the moment,’ I lied. ‘Why don’t you nail a bit of chipboard over the broken window, and I’ll be over first thing in the morning.’
‘Don’t bullshit me,’ she said in a snakelike hiss. ‘You get your undead arse over here right now!’
Like I say, the woman can be a bit of an alarmist. ‘Don't have a spaz, Jazz,’ I told her. ‘Get some kip and I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘I swear to God, Fletcher—’ she started, her anger still strangely muted.
‘What are you whispering for, Jazz?’ I asked, wondering why she was keeping the volume down. ‘Have you got someone there you don’t want to wake up? Is that it? You dog!’
I heard her teeth grinding on the end of the line. ‘I’m whispering because the burglar is still on the premises, you gobshite! Now get here this minute or I swear to God I will beat you where it doesn't show.’
4
I was there in an instant, and I mean that literally.
Among my practically endless list of talents, is the ability to translocate, by which I mean I’m able to transfer myself instantaneously from the place I’m occupying to anywhere within a certain locale. One of the limitations of this power is that my destination point has to be somewhere I’ve visited previously, but Jazz Hands’ magic boutique, Legerdomain, is a place I’m more than familiar with.
I opened my eyes to find myself on the shop floor. It was too dark to make out much, particularly with all the dust that was floating about. Jazz Hands isn’t known for keeping the place particularly tidy, but tonight, the shop was more than just a bit disorganised. Tonight, the shop was plundered.
The door leading into the establishment was ajar, and from the looks of things, someone had tossed the shop’s contents with some enthusiasm. I was busy surveying the carnage when I heard the creak of a floorboard and caught sight of a silhouette at the far end of the shop. The hairs on the nape of my neck snapped to attention. Someone was stood behind the shop counter with their hands dipped in the wall safe, emptying its contents into a rucksack.
‘Jazz?’ I said, hopefully.
Squinting at the figure’s outline, I could see the shape was all wrong. Jazz must have been upstairs, hiding in her flat. This was obviously the culprit.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I got a better look at the mystery figure and made out a pair of glittering eyes, staring right at me. Whoever this intruder was, he had The Sight.
‘Evening, squire,’ I said, but the stranger stayed quiet. ‘Bit late to be shopping for cups and balls, isn't it?’
The stranger reached down and grabbed his crotch. ‘How about you cup these balls, ghost?’ he suggested.
‘Nice,’ I replied. ‘Listen, as much as I’d love to stand around chatting about your ballbag, I’m a busy, sexy man. So, how’s about you put whatever you’ve looted back in that safe and we’ll call it a night, eh?’
‘I don’t think so,’ replied the thief.
We discussed the matter at some length; me describing the futility of his situation, while he argued that there was nothing I could do to stop him. In the end, we might as well have saved our collective breaths. It’s like that old saying: arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are, the bird is going to shit all over the board and strut around like it won the game anyway.
‘See you around, ghost,’ said the thief as he slung his rucksack over his shoulders and got on his starting blocks.
‘Stay there!’ I yelled, but he was having none of it.
I went to cut off his departure, but as I made to block the exit, he zig-zagged past me and punched through the door, disappearing into the night.
‘Looks like we’ve got ourselves a chase scene,’ I sighed, before giving pursuit.
Having seen which direction he was headed, I translocated instantly to a patch ahead of him, throwing a roadblock in his path. ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ I said, as he screeched to a halt, eyes wide.
Translocation is a rare talent for a ghost, so it must have come as something of a shock to the fleeing thief to see me popping up in front of him, bold as brass.
Gathering his wits, he dodged by me again and hot-footed it further down the street, loot bobbing on his back as he made off on his toes.
Futile.
I knew this area like the back of my hand. Without even looking, I could see the patch ahead of him with crystal clarity. Putting a picture of it in my mind, I gave chase again, covering the distance in a flash and appearing in front of the robber like Jason Voorhees hounding a libidinous teen.
‘Give it up,’ I said, wafting a tea towel under the stupidity alarm. ‘There’s no getting out of this one, mate.’
But instead of paying heed, he evaded me a third time, ducking, landing in a roll and springing back to his feet to continue on his journey undeterred. I watched as he sped by me, pegged it past a pile of fox-munched bin bags, and took a sharp turn into an alleyway.
Slippery bugger.
The guy was determined, I’ll give him that. He was also fortunate enough to have taken a shortcut that I wasn’t familiar with, meaning I couldn’t summon up a good enough picture of his escape route to make the jump there (apparently I wasn’t as well-acquainted with the back of my hand as I’d assumed).
I considered translocating to the opposite end of the alley—which I did know—and cutting of his escape that way, but decided I’d rather give chase on foot. It was a nice night and I fancied stretching my legs, plus I don’t tire like you breathers do, so the bloke had no chance of outrunning me. Sooner or later, that little scrote was mine.
I took off after him, savouring the thrill of the hunt, sprinting past the torn-open bin bags and cutting deftly into the alleyway, when—
Pow!
The sky and the ground switched places as I collided with something rock solid laid out at eye-level. I left the pavement, performed a 180 degree flip, and followed quickly with a devastating face-plant.
Crunch!
My noggin felt like it had been sat on by an elephant. Thrill of the hunt? Jesus, what was I thinking?
Groaning, and rolling onto my back, I looked up to see the burglar, who’d taken me down by clotheslining me with his arm, WWE style. It turns out he was unusually strong, and that he could see and touch ghosts, which made him Uncanny for sure (some supernatural creatures are only capable of one or the other, such as the tentacle-sporting janitor I’d dispatched at the crematorium).
The burglar grinned, exposing two rows of needle-like teeth. That explained that. The guy was an eaves, an Uncanny race of semi-men that lurk in the underworld and make a habit of finding their way into places they weren’t meant to be.
‘Say goodnight, ghost,’ he said.
‘Bastar—’ was about as far as I got before he brought his heel down on my face.
5
I came to beneath a stampede of leather shoes and high heels. This time the feet passed right through me though, and the people they belonged to remained wholly unaware of the face they were trampling.
The sun had dawned on a new day, and the rat race was already in full effect. Commuters on their way to the office were using the side street as a thoroughfare to St. Pancras Station, blissfully ignorant of the fact that they were striding through a ghost as they sipped their coffees and munched on hot croissants.
I sat up and recalled the events of the previous night, shaking my head at the memory of getting KO’d by that burglar, c
ursing myself for being so cocky. Christ, I’d made a right pig’s ear out of that. Whoever that eaves was had left me looking like a proper wally.
I limped back to Legerdomain, readying myself for an earful from Jazz Hands. She didn’t disappoint. There she was, sat behind the counter with her arms folded, dressed like a woman twice her age. She wore a mess of mismatched fabrics under an Afghan shawl, and had an unruly tangle of brown hair. She looked, as she did every day, like a sentient pile of dirty laundry with a bird’s nest on top.
'Where have you been?' she screeched, as I entered her shop. 'My whole inventory of magic items… gone!'
I threw up my arms. ‘Oh, I'm sorry your trinkets got pinched,’ I replied, acidly. ‘Don't mind me, an actual human being, risking the tiny sliver of life he has left.’
‘Trinkets?’ she parrotted. ‘This is more than a bit of harmless stock shrinkage. This is grand larceny!’
As Jazz Hands continued to rage, I went about assessing the damage to her establishment. I examined the burglar’s point of entry and was surprised to find that the door hadn’t been forced. Instead, the lock had been expertly picked, though not with any conventional tools. There was a magical residue on the doorframe that betrayed the use of kleptomancy; a form of sorcery used for unlocking doors and cracking safes. It’s a school of magic I’ve specialised in personally, so I recognised the signs.
Uncanny Kingdom: An Eleven Book Urban Fantasy Collection (Uncanny Kingdom Omnibus 1) Page 68
