have absorbed most of the shockwave from the previous bomb, it hadn't absorbed all of it. I just hadn't felt it because I'd been at a kind-of safe distance.
I wasn't this time. And oh my, it didn't feel very good.
I lay on my back, ears ringing, chest feeling like I had been hit in the torso by a wrecking ball. I think I might have said, “Ooooooooow...”, but I wasn't sure because I couldn't hear anything and I couldn't feel my face. I decided, and not just because I couldn't do anything else, to lay there for awhile and ponder the nature of the universe. It seemed the thing to do.
The universe was boring. I fought my way to my feet.
I looked around, checking the hall. No blood. No hideous amalgamation of ghostly monsters. A big damn scorch mark on the floor... again. So that was, what, three floors I would need to replace? This house was turning into a bigger financial investment than I'd originally planned. Sure, it was mainly for storing gear and stuff, so it didn't need to be comfortable or luxurious but it still had to look good, or what was the point? I'm sure you've figured out by now that I do this job 50% for the money and 50% for the opportunity to look cool. A safehouse that didn't have any style was gonna send the wrong message.
I heard something scraping behind me, like metal scratching against wood as, for example, something huge and carrying a weapon in one hand struggled to its feet.
I dove for my knife, lost in the impromptu swim and subsequent explosion, caught it up in one hand, and rolled to my feet, spinning to face the source of the sound with dagger held at chest height and gun leveled at the source of the sound the event I needed to repel an attack at my upper body...
And realized just a second too late that I'd fallen for one of the simplest and weakest ghostly tricks in existence. Just a simple little fake noise, intended usually to get humans jumping at shadows and panicking without reason. Intended, in this case, to make me look in the wrong direction.
I spun, just barely in time to keep the hook from slashing into my spine and leaving my legs useless forever... and just a second too late to stop the hook from digging into a less irreplaceable portion of my back anyway.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The wound wasn't fatal. If it had hit an artery or a vein, I would already be unconscious from the blood loss. But it wasn't something you could call a flesh wound, either... muscle had been torn in my lower back, and that muscle group is tied up to almost all the others in very annoying ways. I didn't think I could stand up, at least not without some time to right myself and get my mind on something other than how much it fucking hurt.
The ghost, flickering like a static image on an old television, smiled. He took what looked like a deep breath, and the bizarre visual flickers that made up his form began to stabilize, solidify. I could still see through him, but it wasn't as simple as just looking in his general direction anymore; he had the visual consistency of a thick fog again.
For a second, I had no idea what he'd just done, how he had pulled that off, what source he had drawn power from now. When it finally hit me, I almost laughed. Couldn't help it... it really was kind of funny, you know? I had come so close, managed to really, really hurt him, and more than once, but in the end? It really was over this time, and there wasn't much I could do about it.
I was scared.
Really scared. I didn't want to die. I tried to contain it, I really did, but the instinct for self-preservation is a damn powerful influence. I couldn't suppress it, not fully, not now when my life was in such clear danger. And that was good enough for my buddy to draw on my fear, consume it, pull himself at least partially back together.
Stupid emotional control. If I had been better able to stop myself from being afraid of dying, I wouldn't be in a situation where I was about to die. In some dark corner of my mind that was able to have thoughts through the pain and fear, I wondered if that counted as irony or if it was just 'a really shitty situation'.
I took some small comfort from the fact that even now, my thoughts did not make a whole lot of sense. At least I was gonna die as I lived.
The thing smiled, and God, it really did have the worst smile imaginable. Rotting black teeth and maggots crawling along his gums and... ugh. Just ugh. I didn't want that to be the last thing I saw, I just didn't. It was a wholly instinctive reaction, and it was the wrong reaction, as the manifestation grew once again more solid.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit, I was just making him stronger, and I couldn't control it. I needed to move. My dagger was out of reach, I needed to fight through the pain, suppress my emotions, get a weapon in my hands and get to my feet before he-
I never even saw him move when he crossed the room. One second he was calmly watching me crawl, the next he was standing over me as I tried to crawl for my weapon. With a black chuckle, he quite cheerfully stomped his foot onto the wound in my back.
Oh.
God.
It.
Hurt.
White lights flashed behind my eyes, and the only reason I didn't scream was because it hurt too badly for my brain to get messages to my mouth. And I knew it had a practical purpose, knew it stopped me from getting my hands on a weapon, and that was in his best interests, but I also knew Stanfield. He didn't care about that, had no practical thoughts in his mind right now whatsoever. Something weak and small and suffering was in front of him, and he wanted to hurt it more. That was all. Nothing else mattered to him beyond that scream of agony.
He might have been a great businessman, but that had been more like a hobby to him, really. His day job. His real passion was and always would be pain.
I looked up at him, teeth gritted. “You know...” I said. “If I have one regret? It's that I only got to set you on fire twice before I died.”
The ghost's head tilted to one side, and his smile widened.
“The tongue next,” said that voice from everywhere and nowhere.
Ugh. I'd been trying to goad him into killing me, not trying to give him spiffy ideas. Harry, you asshole.
Well, I tried to look on the bright side. Maybe being tortured to death by a serial killer's ghost was good enough karma that I would get to be reincarnated as something neat, like an eagle or a souffle chef. Or even something that was just practical, like a guy who had enough common sense to not choose 'monster-hunter' as a valid career option. Because I had to be honest? While it had its upsides, it turned out the retirement plan kinda sucked.
The ghost raised his hook, and just. Kept. Smiling.
I closed my eyes. I admit it. There was no point in pretending to be brave anymore, really... I was gonna die and I didn't want to see it coming. Simple as that.
Later, I would wish I had kept my eyes open. I apparently missed something really cool, and I mean... seeing cool things is half the reason I kept doing this job despite the aforementioned crappy retirement plan and total lack of benefits (Though I do get to set my own hours, which is pretty cool.).
There was a sound like someone tossing dried ice into a volcano, and no, I don't know how that's what it sounded like, I just knew. It sounded like the coldest thing you could imagine hitting the hottest thing you could imagine, and the resulting sizzle was the mother of all sizzles. The image of ice and fire colliding ripped through the minds of any who heard it, along with a certain hunger for bacon (Though any bacon that sizzled like this would be the bacon of gods, hewn from the flesh of Celestial Pigs. Which might be a real thing!).
Stanfield screamed.
To put this in perspective: I had stabbed knives into his ghost arms and set him on fire twice, and he had been completely silent through all of it. I had only been damaging a manifestation; I hadn't actually caused him any pain, just some expenditure of energy that he had shrugged off without much effect beyond inconvenience. But this time, he screamed; that echoing, booming ghostly voice raised in abject agony, probably the first it had felt since death.
Combined, these two things caused me to open my eyes. And I saw, standing between the ghostly killer and myself, the most beautiful woman in the universe, all soft curves wrapped in a pretty peach dress and elegantly coiffed hair... and the best part, the most alluring part, what set her forever above all other women in my mind: a big, sharp knife in her hand, the dagger I'd lost in the other room.
I love a girl who kicks ass. Sue me.
Harry didn't look as enamored as I very much was, but that might have been because of the way that my lovely lady was glowing, her entire being suffused with a faint blue aura that was brightest around her weapon. Or, possibly, because of the long, thin slash across his chest that was currently bleeding brilliant white light. Either or.
I smiled up at Lydia, despite the pain. “I think I'm in love.”
Lydia rolled her eyes. “I am married, good sir.”
“Aw, c'mon. That was a long time ago, baby,” I said, chuckling with a very slight, almost unnoticeable, edge of insane glee. I couldn't help it. The sudden absence of terror was like a drug, and I could freely admit I was a tiny bit delirious. “Besides, you remembered my knife. Shows you're thinkin' about me.”
“You said you wished that you could give me a present. This one seemed fitting,” She said. Her gaze locked on Harry, and her eyes narrowed. “But I'm not here
Eviction Notice Page 14
