G is for Ghosts

by Rhonda Parrish

  “You should really stop before you hurt somebody, heroes.” The Bozo was standing on top of his tank like some kind of demented sportscaster.

  The Girls were fast on their long, supernatural legs, racing into the kiddie section. The calliope chimed and the air was fragrant with candy but the people had vanished, leaving behind the cheeriest ghost town ever.

  Where to run, where to hide... the stream. There was nowhere else she knew of to go.

  She slipped between two tents and motioned to Burning Girl. Come, come with me, but another small band of guns emerged from behind a pizza stand and spotted Burning Girl. A second pack that had been signaled by the first pack, a similar group of baseball caps and hunting gear.

  Burning Girl stepped back. Her eyes darted around for an escape. The setting sun picked up the metallic paint of tiny cars and made them glitter. A circle of friendly dragons rested their wings around a motorized castle. The calliope sang on like it was still a beautiful day.

  Backing away, her frightened gaze went everywhere except right behind her. Her heel slammed into the metal tub of the duck pond and backwards she tumbled into the water. The shooters came closer, and they watched as her body began to effervesce. Her eyes stayed open as the water bubbled, and she disintegrated—her face breaking up first, then her arms, spreading down her torso. Within seconds, there was nothing left but her dress, a tattered rag floating among the tiny yellow ducks.

  “What the... what the fuck?” The pack stood around the tub and peered in, murmuring in amazement to each other, while Buzzsaw Girl dashed away. Silent, and fast, she headed for the trees behind the Castle.

  Can’t catch me!

  The Bozo, from his elevated perch, spotted her breaking for the woods and called out to the mob that had shot down Bondage Girl.

  “What are you idiots waiting for? She’s over there! Go get her!”

  Into the woods, into her memories: radio in hand, rolling the heat of a fresh menthol around in her mouth. The noise of the carnival fading behind her, hood pulled down to obscure her face.

  Strange men are following me, all right.

  Up ahead, a shimmer. The water! As she ran closer, she saw that the stream had widened, bigger than she remembered. She halted at the edge. Jumping over was impossible—even with her long-legged stride, she wouldn’t make it. She’d fall right in and go out just like Burning Girl.

  She flashed back to what she’d seen in her brief moments of freedom. A teenage girl’s hair, pink as bubblegum. The strange beats that thumped out of the park’s speakers, those tiny television sets all over the place... the world had gone on after she’d died, and she’d gotten only a glimpse. No! There had to be a way, somewhere to hide in the woods and wait them out—

  A bullet sliced the water.

  “Stop right there.” The Bozo, through his megaphone.

  She turned around to face a clutch of guns coming towards her, three of them.

  The bullet with her name on it clicked into position, loud, ready.

  “No, no,” said the Bozo, dropping his megaphone, his voice dripping with contempt. “Let’s not rush.”

  He raised a pistol towards her face.

  “I’ve got her covered.”

  He stood back while the other two holstered their guns and walked up to her, hands at their belts. Mustaches, jeans, sunglasses—they all blurred together, united into the ethos of Eat It, Fuck It, or Kill It. She shivered in her thin negligee. Absolution glinted behind her.

  It would be so easy to just let go, and crumble away. Nothing to mark her time on earth but a filthy nightgown. She lifted her arms and closed her eyes, poised herself to fall back into the cleansing stream. It wasn’t California, but it would do. Time to go.

  She heard gunshots and felt something wet hit her cheek. She opened her eyes, as the dazzling blood-rush came on again.

  The Bozo stood motionless, his pistol smoking. Before her, the two men had collapsed to the ground, their heads oozing red into the dirt.

  “God, how easy it is to rile them up. I’ve been itching to do that forever.”

  Stunned, she watched as the Bozo peeled off his rubber cap of thinning red hair. Not another agonized spirit come back from the dead, no—just a guy.

  “Sorry for egging them on after you, but it was the only way to get them out here. Usually it’s just a bunch of posturing, all tough, y’know, but every night, someone’s seriously trying to drown me in that tank—that’s why I pack.” He holstered his gun. “In case some wise guy wants to follow me when the night’s over. I’ve had more than one scrape just trying to get back to my car.”

  She watched as he shucked off his costume. Someone else from the same side of the midway curtain, who had to watch out for the weirdos.

  “These two shot your friend from the haunt, and they killed those kids, too.”

  He kneeled on the ground, pulled a jacket off one of the bodies.

  “Here—you must be freezing in that costume. This asshole won’t need it anymore.”

  He didn’t know she wasn’t human, not truly. Or that she’d left a couple of very real corpses behind in the Dark Castle. Absolution, after all.

  He handed her a zippered sweatshirt. Warm and sticky on her shoulders, absolute ecstasy inside, from the most exquisite blood of all—the blood that had been ready to take her life.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  A hand was leading her to the rippling doorway out of the flames, out of the firestorm of flashing lights that had descended on the parking lot.

  They ran towards the employee grounds. He unlocked a battered pickup and she leapt up into the cab. She gazed out over the few cars left—how ugly, shiny and hunched, not the smooth cool land yachts she remembered—and looked to the highway beyond. More red and blue lights flickered in the distance, all of them still far enough away to hit the gas and disappear.

  He turned out onto a back road. His wheels were old but his stereo was pristine, and he thumbed his way onto a rock station, Iggy and the Stooges. He offered her a cigarette, and her breath lit up a tiny red glow in the dark.

  Ashes met ashes, and exulted.

  Enormous teddy bears, lions, snakes hanging above the midway lanes, the top-shelf odds so long. And yet, every so often, someone won. Right now she’d scored a free ticket to a second ride, a chance to enlighten herself way beyond juice fasts and chanting affirmations, for however long it would last.

  California—what would it look like now...

  She exhaled a long plume of luxuriant smoke and stared out the window. There was no one left to talk about the fire, but all around them, as she watched the lights coming on in the houses, texts and chats and blogs were thrumming with new rumors, new legends.

  She gazed up at the telephone poles threading the sky, and snuggled into her bloodstained hoodie, and Powderpuff Girl headed west after all.

  V is for Verve

  Rachel M. Thompson

  This is not the story of how I died. Nobody wants to hear that story. Rusted boring, it is. Face down in a slimy gutter, throat slit by that little weasel Dren for the handful of silvers and the two watches in my pockets. Stole my whole night’s take, meant to pay off our boss Jaren Bidderk. Sad, it was. Just sad. No, this is not that story.

  This is the story of what I did after.

  “After Dren did for me, everything went all peculiar, like a nightmare. So when the air in the alley tore open I didn’t pay it much attention until the Thing crawled out. It was terrible, all mouth and too many eyes. It went straight at Dren and wrapped its claws around his throat. The noises when it latched onto his face were ruddy obscene.” I shrugged. “I suppose I shouldn’t be happy that the Thing did for Dren, but it gives me a mite o’ satisfaction that the little git won’t be making use of my silver.”

  The posh lady sitting across the table—Liza, she’d introduced herself—made a little noise in her throat like she’d choked. Her man shot her a look I couldn�
��t read and shook his head. Her face smoothed over as she said, “Go on. Do you remember any other details? Anything about the creature or what happened next?”

  Shaking my head at the strangeness of the rich, I was immediately distracted by the unfamiliar feel of curls bouncing around my face. “Rot it. This is too bleedin’ weird.” The room around us was distracting, too. It was barely big enough for the small round table and three chairs. Dark blue curtains draped from the ceiling and across the walls made me feel like I was about to be smothered in blankets.

  Liza offered a thin smile. “Try to focus, Wils. I’m not sure how long Aunt Clara can keep channeling for you.”

  “Right, sorry. Don’t recall much else about the Thing. It was dark, and all the colors are sort of washed out and splotchy when you’re…dead.” Saying the word sent a shiver up me, so I hurried on. “There was a sort of flash of something pale, misty-like, around Dren’s face. Then the Thing dropped him and went back through the rip. That was it. You lot showed up about the time I realized Dren wasn’t gonna get up—not in his body nor out of it, like me.” I wasn’t sure about the next part. It gave me the collywobbles near as bad as the Thing. “Then you did…whatever you did to the rip, to make it go away.” I’d watched her cut herself and pull the blood out solid as you please to stitch up that rip in the air, like it was no more trouble than mending a shirt. Ma always told us to stay away from magickers that mucked about with blood, on account of them being either cracked or wicked, but this lady didn’t seem to be either. “Then your man there called the lockies.”

  Liza nodded. “Calling the lawkeepers seemed the thing to do when faced with two dead bodies. Though I’m very glad now that Vash—Mr. Drake—had the forethought to retrieve a lock of your hair for Aunt Clara.”

  I looked down at the two locks of hair resting on the table in front of me. That was why I’d followed the posh couple in the first place, to see what they wanted with my and Dren’s hair. I touched mine with the unfamiliar hand I currently controlled. It was a large, strong hand, but clean and feminine and clearly not mine. Looking at it made me a little ill.

  “Thank you, Wils. I need to speak to Aunt Clara, if you don’t mind?” Liza’s voice was polite enough, but I’ve dealt with enough toffs to know she wasn’t asking.

  “How do I—” There was a wrenching sensation, like somebody grabbed me around the middle and yanked me sharply to the side. The small room with its heavy draperies and dim lamps resumed the faded, streaky appearance I remembered from the alley. Except Drake, who still looked sharp and solid. That seemed…wrong.

  The big, matronly blonde woman in the chair patted at her curls and took a couple deep breaths. “He’s a strong one, young Wils. Might have had a touch of the Gift in life.” She seemed to be the only one who could see or hear me. “Were you uncommonly lucky, lad?”

  “Not at the end.” I wasn’t normally a grouser but being dead put a damper on my mood.

  She laughed like I’d said something really funny. “No, I suppose not.” Her focus shifted to Liza. “Do you recognize the creature? If it came through a Breach, I assume the Church will be after you to contain it?”

  “That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.” The younger lady fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve, rubbing at a spot where a drop of her blood marked the fabric. “I can’t take young Wils here to the Church to help me research, as they’d exorcise him straight away, but it doesn’t sound like any of the Aetherlings that tend to cross over on their own.”

  “Something sent, you think?” The gentleman, Drake, spoke for the first time since we’d arrived in Clara’s shop. He scared me a little. More so than either of the ladies, even though they were both magickers.

  “Or something called.” Clara rose, weaving neatly between the chairs to exit the room. She was back within minutes with the biggest book I’d ever seen, the leather cover worn shiny with age and handling. “The flash of mist Wils described reminded me of something. Look here.” She placed the open book on the table and tapped an illustration.

  The other two leaned over to get a better look. Liza spoke first. “A soul eater? Well, doesn’t that sound delightful.”

  It didn’t, actually.

  “Not particularly, no.” Drake turned his head in my direction even as he echoed my thoughts. I could tell by the vagueness of his gaze that he couldn’t see me, not really, but he always seemed to know roughly where I was. “If it eats souls, why didn’t it take Wils here?”

  I looked at Clara, who shook her head. “If you would read a little further, Mr. Drake, you might notice that the soul eater only feeds on the living. Departed souls are of no interest to it.”

  Lucky me. “So what happened to Dren, then?”

  “Consumed, I’m afraid. There’s no summoning back a spirit destroyed that way.” Clara waved away the questioning looks from the other two. “The question is why would someone want to destroy souls this way? And why a no-account streetie like this Dren?”

  Liza tapped the page, having continued reading the old book. “I think you’ve got the wrong end of it. This suggests that the soul eater could be summoned to destroy one’s enemies, but only for a price. Its favored prey are ‘creatures of Aethereal nature, or those of Gifted blood.’ I suppose it makes sense for a creature of the Aetherwild to feed on magic.”

  “So you think the thing was summoned as a sort of assassin, and the boy was its reward for a job well done?” Clara still sounded skeptical.

  “Gifted blood? Magickers?” If I’d still had a heart, I’m sure it would have been pounding. “Four magickers gone missin’ in the past three weeks. Ol’ Dotty Beggley, who tells fortunes at Bayside Market, Granny Keeling in Westenham, and Stickels the herb-man in the Sprawl.”

  “That’s only three,” Clara prompted.

  I hesitated. It was stupid, since the crews couldn’t kill me for revealing their secrets anymore. “The last one was Walten Quelch, one o’ Murderous Murdo’s crew down in Bayside. Word was, he was strong enough to make people see what wasn’t there. Kept his boss from getting nicked by the lockies.”

  “What’s the lad saying, Aunt Clara?” Liza watched the medium curiously, never glancing my way. She was deaf and blind to me. Even waving my hands through her got no response, though it left my fingers feeling curiously warm.

  “Stop that, Wils, it’s rude. He says there have been four Gifted deaths in the lower districts within the past three weeks.”

  Drake nodded slowly, “That tracks. We’ve also lost four prominent citizens in the past three weeks. Lord Gambrill on the King’s council, two aldermen, and a very influential businessman.”

  “Why do I suspect that the dates of these deaths would match up?” Liza pushed her chair back and stood. “We need to stop the person summoning this thing.”

  Drake put a hand on her arm. “We need to determine their identity first.”

  I kept mulling things over. Something about this idea still didn’t sit right. Finally, it came to me. “Dren wasn’t a magicker, though.”

  Clara looked at me sharply. “You’re certain?”

  “Positive. Only magicker in Bidderk’s crew is Lodie. When the other magickers started dying I decided it was time for us to run. That’s why I was workin’ by myself so far from the Sprawl. Take’s a lot o’ money to get out of Westingmot, and more to pay off Bidderk so he’d let her go.”

  The medium tilted her head, pale eyes locked on me like a bird with a bug in its sights. It looked odd on a woman who otherwise appeared soft and matronly. “Who is this Lodie, Wils?”

  Again, I hesitated. It felt wrong to give away information to strangers. But I had no way to rescue Lodie now. Maybe if I helped them stop this soul eater she’d at least be safe. Once I made up my mind, the words came out in a rush. “My little sister. She’s twelve. Old enough for a dollymop, Bidderk said, and he’s kept us since Ma died so we owe him a lot.” My hands balled into fists with remembered anger. “He’d have had her
on the street already if she hadn’t come up peculiar all of a sudden.”

  Clara’s gaze grew colder, and her lips compressed to a thin line. “Peculiar how?”

  “Speaking in this queer deep voice, like a man, and tipping Bidderk and his boys off on where the lockies were going to be. And where they weren’t.”

  She sighed. “That explains everything.”

  “What explains everything?” Liza fair vibrated in place, still standing next to her chair like she was gonna do a runner any moment.

  Clara turned her attention to the younger woman as well. “It sounds very much like the lad’s younger sister is a medium, and of course the Gift runs in the blood. That soul eater wasn’t after Dren.” She looked back at me. “It came for you, but arrived too late.”

  It took a bit for Clara to explain everything I shared with the other two. I sat down to have a think while they talked it over. I wasn’t tired, exactly, but I felt sort of thin. It was worrisome. The more I thought about it, the more worried I got. If I thinned out too much, would I just disappear? Where would I go?

  “Wils?” By Clara’s tone, this wasn’t the first time she’d called. She was seated again.

  “Yes, mum? Sorry, mum.” I stood up and dusted myself off out of habit, trying to look presentable. I’d lost more time ‘thinking’ than I realized. There was a tea set on the table now, and Liza was missing, though Drake still sat flipping pages on the heavy old book. I hadn’t even noticed anyone leaving the room.

  “We’re going to need your help, Wils. As I can’t go trotting about the Sprawl at my age, we’ve had to make other arrangements.” Clara waved a hand toward the teapot, clarifying nothing. “You’ll need to lead Liza and Mr. Drake to your sister.”

  “What?” Served me right for sitting around thinking. I’d missed something crucial. “I can’t lead them into the Warren. And what d’you want with Lodie?”

  The medium smiled, but there was still something hard about her eyes. “I will not leave a budding medium in the hands of a street gang. Whether she stays here or we send her into the country to another teacher, little Lodie needs someone to guide her. Buck up, lad! You’re getting what you wanted.”