by Mac Flynn
He led the way up the stairs to the hallway on the second floor. The doors to the two rooms lay on our left. The closest to the stairs was the large bedroom, and the second one was the small bathroom. The noise had come from the bedroom, and he moved over to that door. I remained attached to his back and was right behind him when he grabbed the knob. He reached into his coat with his other hand and looked over his shoulder at me.
"Move back down the hall," he ordered me. "And get ready."
"For what?" I whispered.
"We'll see," he replied.
I pursed my lips, but stepped down the hall closer to the bathroom. My heart thumped so loud in its chest I wondered how it didn't alert the intruder to our presence.
He flung the door into the room and jumped back. His hidden hand pulled out a slip of rectangular paper with some thick black writing on one side and he held it out in front of him like a small dagger he meant to throw. I held my breath waiting for the dark shadow to fly out and attack the detective.
Good thing I breathed out because nothing happened.
The detective relaxed his stance and frowned. He disappeared into the room and I heard his feet clack along the old wood floor. I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.
"I guess we imagined it," I spoke up.
The bathroom door behind me flew open. I spun around in time to see the dark shadow from earlier leap out and fly towards me. Its pale white hands reached for my neck and its burning eyes froze me in place. My eyes widened and I raised my arms to protect myself.
The detective slid out of my room and sprinted towards me. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pressed me against his side as he held up the slip of paper. The black creature stopped so suddenly that its cloak billowed out in front of itself. The thing dropped its hands to its sides and glared at us from two yards away.
"This is none of your concern," the creature hissed.
"Humanity is my concern," Osman shot back. "Now what do you want with the girl?"
I whipped my head to the detective and glared at him. "I'm not that young!" I snapped.
The creature in front of us let out a raspy chuckle. "You foolish mortal. You believe a protection talisman can prevent me from my prey?"
"It can do more than that," the detective countered. "It can destroy you."
The creature hissed and tensed. "Nothing you hold can destroy me."
The black thing sprang at us with its long hands outstretched. Its fingers lengthened into claws that would have skewered us clear through. The detective tossed the paper like a ninja tosses a star, and the slip of parchment cut through the air and stabbed itself into the creature's chest over the heart.
The thing let out a blood-curdling scream and fell face-first onto the floor a foot short of where we stood. Its body twitched for a short while before it stilled. I clutched onto the detective's shirt and shuddered. It was a close call.
Unfortunately, it wasn't done. The thing shuddered and raised itself onto its arms. I saw black blood ooze from around the stiff paper. It clutched its chest with one pale hand as its eyes glared at us as though we looked into the fires of hell.
"You. . .who are you?" it gasped.
The detective slipped out of my grasp and knelt down in front of the black thing. "Someone who doesn't like you," he quipped.
Osman reached out and yanked the paper from the creature's chest. The paper left a slit that widened. The hole spread over the creature's body, and caused its black body parts to crumble into small specks that disappeared before they reached the floor. The thing tilted back its head and let out a long wail. I clapped my hands over my ears and cringed at the terrible, echoing sound. The rest of its body was consumed and transformed into the vanishing specks until nothing remained.
The detective stood and pocketed the clean piece of paper. He turned to me with a smile.
"You won't have any more trouble with that thing," he assured me.
I realized my mouth was open and my ears were still clapped over my ears. I snapped my mouth shut and pointed at the empty floor.
"W-what the hell was that?" I questioned him.
"A dark spirit. One of the worst in the paranormal world," he explained. He studied me and his smile slipped off his lips. "Do you have any idea why it would have followed you home, and what it wanted with you?"
I partially turned away from him and threw my arms up. "How am I supposed to know? I just walked home form the store and it was here!"
"They're usually attracted to others like them, or to humans who have a certain aura around them," he told me.
Osman's eyes narrowed and they took on a strange, terrifying hue. Their autumn depths changed to a distinct bright yellow that made me stumble back. They had the look of a predator, and I had no doubt of where I stood on the food chain. He reached into his overcoat at the same place where he'd taken out the sharp-as-a-dagger piece of paper.
"Do any of those descriptions fit you?" he questioned me.
I stepped back way from him and held my hands in front of me. "Wait a minute. I'm the victim here, remember? The haunted one. Scared out of her mind. That ring a bell?"
He took a step towards me. "Paranormal creatures have been known to masquerade as humans," he countered.
I rolled my eyes and gestured down at myself. "If I was a paranormal creature would I really take this chubby a form?"
"They've been known to take worse," he told me.
I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest. "Listen, I don't know why it followed me or why it stuck around, okay? I just want you, your piece of paper, and this night to just go away. I'm really grateful for your help, and I'll be really glad to pay you for your trouble, but this has kind of taken a couple of years off my life and I'd like to keep what's left of them, so could you please stop scaring the shit out of me and leave?"
The detective scrutinized me for a few seconds before he dropped his hand. He rummaged in his pocket before he held out another one of his cards. "All right, I'll believe you, but keep my card. Just in case."
I furrowed my brow, but took the card. "Why? The thing's gone, isn't it?"
"Until we can figure out why it followed you home others may do the same," he pointed out.
"'We?' I want nothing to do with this," I told him.
"I'm afraid it can't be helped. You're who it wanted," he reminded me.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and groaned. "Wonderful. . ." I muttered. I sighed and dropped my hand. "Anything else I should know before you disappear into the darkness?"
Osman walked up to me so we stood shoulder to shoulder and faced different directions. There was a mischievous smile on his lips that made me frown. "Only that it was a pleasure to work for such a beautiful woman."
I blushed and turned away from him. "Yeah, well, nice to meet you, too," I returned.
"Well, good evening, and-" He paused and frowned. "Hold still for a minute. There's a spider in your hair."
"What? Where?" I yelped. I reached up to brush my hair through my fingers, but he captured my wrists in one of his hands and pressed his other hand against my scalp.
"There. Got it," he told me. The detective released my hands and bowed of his head. "Goodnight."
My shoulders drooped and I sighed. "Goodnight, and I hope goodbye."
A sly smile slipped onto his lips. "Only Cronus will tell."
I blinked at him. "Cronus?" I repeated.
He bowed his head, and strode past me and down the winding staircase. I heard his feet clomp across the floor, and soon after the door opened and shut. I leaned against the closest wall and ran a hand through my hair.
"Thank god it's over. . ." I mumbled.
How wrong I was, and how tired I felt from all the harrowing excitement. I shuffled into my bedroom and flicked on the light. My shoulders drooped and I rolled my eyes.
"Really? You just had to do this?" I asked aloud, and was glad there wasn't a reply.
"Why can't terrifying phantoms be a little cleaner. . ." I muttered as I got to work cleaning up the mess.
I finished the folding, flipping, and cursing a half hour later, and was left with another mystery. There was one piece of underwear missing, and it was one of my skimpier articles. My eyes narrowed and I ground my teeth together as a thought hit me.
"Osman," I growled.
He'd been in here for a few seconds snooping around. The flatterer probably took the underwear as his payment.
I grumbled the entire time I slipped into my nightshirt and shorts, got into bed, and rolled over. My curses upon his bloodline were still on my lips as I drifted into sleep.
CHAPTER 5
