Tag: Short Fiction

The Kickstarter campaign for 99 Tiny Terrors is up now!

Just in time for Halloween, I’m so happy to announce that the Kickstarter campaign for 99 Tiny Terrors, edited by Jennifer Brozek, is now live, and that it includes my story “The Mummy’s Hand”.

This is a collection of horror flash fiction from writers all over the world: it’s still a little surreal that I’m in an anthology alongside people like Seanan McGuire, Ruthanna Emrys, Meg Elison, Wendy N. Wagner, Scott Edelman, Cat Rambo, Tim Waggoner, and more. 

Feel free to check out the campaign here: there’s a bunch of cool physical and digital rewards available as stretch goals

Dark Scotland now available from Darkstroke, featuring “The Devil’s Business”

Just in time for Burns Night, “Dark Scotland” is now available from Darkstroke Books. This is a wonderful anthology of tales from the darker side of Scotland, and I’m honoured to be included with my short ghost story “The Devil’s Business”, set in St Andrews on the most debauched night of the year. It’s like a cross between Burns’ own Tam o’Shanter and Dance of Death by Iron Maiden, only with more snark.

All proceeds from Dark Scotland will go towards The Halliday Foundation in Glasgow and ME Research in Perth.

Get your copy of Dark Scotland here.

The Boy With No Shadow

One day in June, a boy was born who had no shadow.
His parents were amazed. They wondered if they had done something wrong. They asked the doctor how it was possible for a baby to be born without a shadow. The doctor told them that it was indeed unusual— almost unheard of— but he’d heard of a few cases, and in any event, he could see no reason why a boy without a shadow could not live a normal and productive life.
The parents named him Lucian because that seemed like the name to give to a boy who had no shadow.
When he went to school, Lucian saw that the other children all had shadows of their own. It didn’t seem fair: wherever they went, they had their shadows with them, but he was always alone. So he tried to play with the other children, but they could see that he was different. The kind children asked him questions, wondered why he didn’t have a shadow if he felt any different. Lucian said he didn’t know how it felt, because it was the only way he ever felt. He got tired of them asking him questions. He just wanted to be like them.
The less kind children just laughed. They called him names. They asked, “where’s your shadow”? And when they played their games, and they needed to shove someone’s face into the snow, it was easy to find Lucian because he had no shadows to darken the snow.
One day, Lucian made his own shadow out of black tissue paper. He glued it to the bottom of his shoes. It didn’t last long. The unkind children just laughed, and his mother shouted at him for ruining his shoes.
So Lucian didn’t enjoy school. He liked to learn things, about the names of animals and the things that happened long ago. He liked to draw and make up stories. But he never wanted to work with the other children, and that made the grown-ups wonder if maybe there was something wrong with him. They had Meetings, and asked what was wrong, and all he could say was that he wished he had a shadow and that he felt so alone.
But then he met a girl who had a shadow.
Her name was Clare. She had hair that made him think of beaches in summer, and she smelled of fruit pastilles, and everyone seemed to like her, and that didn’t seem fair at all, because it was easy to make people like you when you had a shadow. So Lucian refused to talk to her because he felt that she had somehow stolen something from him.
One day after school, Clare came up to Lucian and asked him what was wrong.
‘Why do you care?’ He asked. ‘You have a shadow. You don’t understand.’
‘Oh,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘Come with me.’
Lucian didn’t see the point, but he went anyway. He followed Clare towards the setting sun until she stopped outside the school gym.
’Stand there,’ she said, pointing.
Lucian stood there.
‘Why are we here?’ He asked.
‘Just wait a minute.’
Lucian sighed, watched as the sun disappeared behind the roof of the school.
‘Alright,’ Clare said. ‘Look behind you.’
Lucian looked down at the tarmac.
‘There’s nothing there.’
‘Look at me,’ she said.
Lucian looked. And he saw what she meant; he realised that he was normal after all.
‘See?’ Clare smiled. ‘When it’s dark, no one has a shadow.’

Read “The Black Oracle” now at Inside the Bell Jar

(Trigger warning for discussion of depression)

The second issue of Inside the Bell Jar has been released, and it features my flash-fiction piece, “The Black Oracle“!

I honestly never thought I’d do much with this piece. I wrote it into my journal after a particularly difficult day, mostly for my own benefit to work through how I was feeling. I didn’t think much of it until Vic shared the call for submissions on the subject of mental health.

In the story I tried to personify that voice in my head that tells me I’m going to fail, that always seems to know the future. Depression is an ugly thing, but part of the reason that it works is due to how it presents itself as fair and reasonable, like it’s got out best interests at heart. I suppose the lesson to take to heart is to remind myself that the Black Oracle is not my friend, and it’s certainly not as infallible as it thinks it is.

I honestly couldn’t more thrilled to be featured in the new issue. It’s still a little strange seeing my own work on a website that I didn’t copy-paste myself, complete with a bio and a headshot! And I really love the photo they chose to go with it: lonely and oppressive, yet ambiguous enough to be the Oracle itself.

Anyway, if you liked the story (or appreciated it, at any rate), please feel free to leave a comment and share it around. And please check out the other stuff that Inside the Bell Jar is putting out: they’re doing good work.

Blood From The Quill ebook now available

So I’m in a book.

The digital edition of Blood From The Quill is now available. You can read my own humble contribution, “Her Voice In The Rain,” here, but you should totally buy the book, because books are the best.

Big thanks to V for putting the whole thing together

Take care of yourselves.

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Nemo

 

In the year of the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus, fifty-nine years before the birth of Christ, there lives a prostitute in Rome named Nemo.

I hope I shall be forgiven for the conceit of naming my protagonist: “Nobody”. That is not her birth name, of course, nor is it the alias she provided to the aedile when she registered her profession. Indeed, I have not fully concluded any details about her or her life. There is much about her that remains mysterious to me, and so the duty falls to me to paint upon the blank canvas of her existence.

Now there were many classes of prostitutes in the twilight days of the Republic, though I suppose she is rather more successful than the common sort, for she eats well keeps quarters of her own upon the Aventine, perhaps keeping a slave or two. There are so many possible backgrounds from which to choose, each offering such a surfeit of narrative potential that I am loath to choose just one. Perhaps she is a foreign slave, a woman from Pontus captured by the legions of Crassus when he vanquished Mithridates. No, that will not do: she must be a Roman, well-educated and literate, as many of her profession were. She needs to be of gentle birth, from a well-to-do family, a patrician gens of great antiquity that has fallen on hard times in the tumult of the Republic’s death throes- perhaps they were reduced to poverty by the proscription of the tyrant Sulla, and this poor dove must now endure the infamy of harlotry if she is to survive in an uncaring world. Yes. There is pathos to her plight that I find most appealing. Perchance her family is a famous one, and she is a hitherto anonymous descendant of Brutus the Regicide, or Cato the Censor, or an unknown cousin of Tully. I wonder what other great scions of Rome could trace their ancestry to my Nemo: it is within my power to make her the progenitrix of Agrippina, Honoria and Theodora. Perhaps she is my own ancestress, and her blood calls to me across the abyss of time and space.

It is past midday, a fine spring morning. Nemo is waiting for someone in the Forum Romanum. Ironically, she is standing next to the Temple of Vesta. Most common harlots would avoid the Forum, but Nemo is a woman of taste and distinction, able to simply imitate the manners of a respectable Roman maiden so that she move effortlessly among the upper crust of society without attracting attention.

She listens to three senators of some small importance whose names have been lost to history. They discuss their misgivings over some plot or other between Crassus, Pompey and Caesar. I deem that Nemo is an intelligent and engaged young woman who believes that Crassus is too good a man to need the support of butcher Pompey and philanderer Caesar. One of them turns and sees her, and she smiles. He is one of her clients, an overweight man who refers to his wife as “that frigid shrew”, and orders Nemo to call him Domine! and Taure! and other such nonsense to compensate for his lack of vigour. Last time he was inside her he lasted two minutes and eighteen seconds, though he demanded that she attend to him for another hour, since he is a rather miserly soul who demands his money’s worth in all things. He flushes as he sees her, and then wanders off, leaving his colleagues bewildered. Nemo laughs.

An hour passes. Nemo watches the pigeons defecate on the curia. Then she spies a young man in the distance and waves to him to attract his attention. He is a client of hers, a man of equestrian rank and therefore still eats well enough to afford my Nemo. He is younger than the fat senator, and handsome, after a fashion, though his hair is prematurely thinning to reveal an oversized forehead, and he tends too much towards the skinny. He is a poet, by inclination and vocation, and though I would dearly like to believe that my Nemo is not so shallow as to be swayed by such frivolity, I must conclude that she is somewhat smitten with the young man. If her heart were easily won then it would not be worth winning, but I must allow her some small weakness. It would only add to her charm.

She greets him, Salve, Gaius Valerius. It is not entirely proper for her to address him so without his cognomen, but alas! I cannot bring myself to name the undeserving wretch who has so easily swayed her heart.

The poet responds. Salve, Nemo. He remarks that it is a fine day, today, and suggests that he walk with her a while. She agrees, and they promenade about the forum. They hear a nuncio announce from the Rostra that Calpurnia Pisonis is engaged to marry Gaius Julius Caesar, to general indifference from the crowd. The impertinent youth is in favour of the marriage, since he is an ignoramus who does not realise that the marriage will founder upon the rocks of childlessness and Caesar’s dalliance with the last of the Ptolemies.

The youth is nervous, and stumbles over many of his words. Nemo finds his awkwardness charming, and takes it as a compliment, for he is clearly in awe of her. I do not blame him, for it goes without saying that she is beautiful, since that is a basic requirement of her employment, or least for its success. Moreover, it is not the insipid beauty of emaciation and ultraviolet bombardment favoured in the twenty-first century, but a classic, Roman beauty. She is full figured: her hips are broad and sensual, her thighs firm, toned. Her skin is fashionably pale, though I suspect it would have to be painted with cosmetics, since maintaining a natural pallor would be difficult when one must endure the Mediterranean sun every day. It is a great shame, for she doesn’t need to paint her face to be beautiful: her face is a perfect heart shape, framed delicately by her long, iridescent tresses. Her hair is dark, a shade of midnight black that reflects the light of the world. She reminds me of a comely young lady I knew once, an enchanting maiden with whom I was enamoured until she laughed at me and rendered me a cuckold.

The couple speaks for a while about pleasant irrelevances. The price of wine. The difficulty of finding a good tailor. They would not be out of place in a Victorian novel or a fashionable Sunday night drama. Comfortable civility fills the air between them. He recites a poem about a girl playing with her sparrow. She smiles at that. She thinks it is about her, poor thing!

They wind their way out of the forum and up towards the Palatine, which in my own day is pleasantly forested. I would like to imagine it was also so in that charming afternoon in 59 BC, before Nero inflicted his monstrously gaudy palace upon it, so that Nemo and her unworthy suitor may spend a while in the shade, away from the heat, and talk about nothing in particular.

Twilight falls on the Eternal City. Nemo looks about the hill, to ensure there is no one else about. There isn’t. They are alone beneath the awakening stars. She moves in close to the boy –and be assured, whatever his age, that he is still a boy! – and brushes against his thigh with long, delicate fingers. She runs her hand up his chest, his neck, and cups his face just below his ear, and kisses him. Gently at first, then with greater passion.

She feels the urgency start to grow deep within her, in the tingling of her chest, the warmth between her legs. The boy is slow to respond, of course, so she reaches down to his groin, begins to stroke him. Slowly, he starts to stir. He moans a little, bites his lip. She unties the girdle around her waist, lifts up her skirts, lowers herself onto him, starts to rock gently back and forth.

She sighs as she rides him, and for once her pleasure is not feigned. He begins to caress her breasts, to kiss her neck. Then he turns her around, violently, pushes her onto her hands and knees, enters her from behind, mounts her. He whispers a name, but it is not hers. Lesbia. Over and over, faster and faster, he says the name. Lesbia. Lesbia. Lesbia.

Ungrateful swine! Most wretched of sinners! You have before you the most exquisite woman in the Seven Hills, a jewel among pebbles, all yours to take delight in, and you profane her so with the name of another woman! You will not even look upon her perfect face and see her sighs of pleasure for yourself. You cannot see her face, her bright-eyed desire that she has only for you, unworthy Catullus! Even here, even now, in the presence of this goddess, you cannot forget your adulteress and her fucking sparrow! You long for a mere girl who is beyond your grasp when you could have a woman, willing and expectant! No shame, no ignominy is too great for you!

But I am the author of your tale, Catullus: this is my realm, and I am more powerful than Jove and Apollo and Hercules combined. You shall not escape my retribution! You reach your pinnacle too soon, leaving dear, sweet Nemo unsatisfied. She employs her powers in an effort to rouse you, only to be rewarded with flaccidity. She sighs and whispers falsehoods in your ear, that it happens to all men, that you lasted for far, far longer than most, that she enjoyed it nevertheless and reached the plateau of her own pleasure several times. But you and I know better, O Catullus. We know the truth: that when called upon to perform you have failed as a lover and as a man.

It is dark now. Nemo leaves for her quarters. She sleeps pleasantly, though she must attend to herself first to finish what Catullus could not. She does not think of him. But another fate awaits the poet when he returns home. For I am already waiting for him, lurking behind his door with the knife in my hand, ready to inflict the same fate upon him that Caesar will endure scant years from now. Once the scoundrel has laid down his head, I make my move. I stand over his sleeping form with my blade drawn, and then…

I realise that death would be too easy for him to endure, and that it is within my power to inflict a far greater doom upon this wicked bastard. I lean into his ear, and I smile as I echo his own words back to him:

I shall bugger you and fuck you in the face,

Faggot and shirt-lifter Gaius Catullus,

You who think that because your little poems

Are rather girly, you have a trace of shame.

For a true poet should exercise virtue

Himself, but you have never practiced any.

Your poems are witless, without any charm

They mistake sensitivity for passion

Useful only when they arouse some small itch

In hairless youths and little rich buggers who

Suffer from acute erectile dysfunction.

Since you cannot escape the throes of clichĂŠ

You are worthless as a man and as a poet.

I shall bugger you and fuck you in the face

I shall use the power at my disposal, far beyond the cretinous imaginings of this human sputum. I shall send him somewhere cold and distant- perhaps to Bithynia- where he shall know the company of no woman. I shall curse him so that his precious Lesbia never loves him, and spurns his every advance. I shall ensure he dies young and unremarked, and condemn him to centuries of obscurity. The greater lights of Horace, Virgil and Juvenal shall eclipse him: no one shall ever ask Gaius Valerius Catullus to be their guide through the Inferno! Finally, many centuries later, when he is rediscovered, he shall little more than a figure of fun amongst English grammar schoolboys, who shall delight in his childish vulgarity and mock him for his failure to win the heart of his beloved. His obscene words shall be better known than the sensitive ones he is so fond of, and the entire world will know that I am the better man!

I take my leave of him. There is only one thing left for me to do. When dawn awakens, fresh and rosy-fingered, I go to Nemo’s home and take her into my arms. I kiss her. She tastes of pomegranates and full summer days. She tells me that wants to know only me, that she would refuse the embrace of Jupiter himself over mine. We make love, over and over again, until every nerve is numb with the sweet, desperate ache for each other. The days melt together. How much time has passed? Every morning I cover her with kisses, more kisses than there are grains of Libyan sand in salty Cyrene. Every time, I watch the light of her eyes as she climaxes. Sing, O Venuses and Cupids, for we have triumphed over Catullus and his accursed sparrow!

I realise that she deserves better than this, my queen, my Nemo. She deserves better than to live in an age of squalor, war and uncertainty. And I realise that it is within my power to grant her every happiness. I could ensure that she lives a long and happy life, that she will never want for anything, but shall eat with finest meals and keep the finest servants. Of course, I shall have to make it so that she never knows the touch of another man: for she must be mine, and mine alone. I could have her join a priesthood- not the Vestals, of course, since she must remain free for me to enjoy. I can make it so that she keeps her beauty for many years, so that folk wonder how she remains so radiant, fresh, perfect, until at last she comes to an end in the year 4 AD, so that she may now peace under the reign of Augustus. She shall be forgotten by history and known only to me. My world. My love. My Nemo.

Yes. It shall be so. Tomorrow.

 

When morning comes I wake up, and turn to face my beloved. She isn’t there. I search every room in the house, desperate, feverish, aching for the touch of her fingers, the warmth of her breath. She isn’t there. I head out into the street and I interrogate everyone who might have seen her. Blank stares. I call her name- her true name, the name I didn’t give her- until my throat is coarse. For days and days I search, from the catacombs to the Capitol, from the Esquiline to Tiber Island. In all the streets and caponae, in all the bathhouses and temples, mansions and slave-markets, there is not the slightest sign of my darling.

Where has she gone?

Who has taken her?

Has she left me?

Why would she leave me?

How could she leave me?

 

I hate her, and I love her. One may ask why I would do that to myself.

I do not know, but I feel it, and I am tormented!

Her Voice In The Rain

It rained on the day of my uncle’s funeral.

It rained on the day of my uncle’s funeral.

It was a mean sort of service, held in a little church on the shores of Lough Merrow, a short way from my uncle’s house. My house, I reminded myself. My uncle did not have many friends at the end. The staff at Merrowley were there, of course, as was my uncle’s solicitor. I would not have thought to return myself, had it not been for his passing: we had parted on sour terms when I left for England. He had not kept his intention that I should take over the running of our ancestral home a secret. Nor had I hidden my disinterest in being tied in a mouldering house, filled with the somber shadows of ages past. I could only hope that the old fool didn’t go to his end thinking ill of me.

My uncle had never married, and had no children of his own, so Merrowley had passed to me. I was the master of the house I grew up in, and I still had not decided what to do with it.

After the service the mourning party shuffled out of the church, eager to get out of the rain. But as I stood in front of the door, shaking the hands of each mourner while they offered their condolences, I heard the strangest sound: the voice of a woman singing. I could not say where it came from: it felt like it was coming from all around me, as if carried by the rain itself.

How can I describe the voice? My knowledge of Gaelic is rudimentary so I could not understand the words, and it is hard for me to put into words, except to say that it spoke of an inestimable sadness. There was no mistaking that sentiment, that aching sense of loss, as if something vital had been ripped out of the world, and the land itself was weeping. She sang as if to move all the angels of Heaven myself Yet despite that I could help but feel a certain familiarity, as if the voice came from a dream of my youth, long forgotten. It moved me to tears, and I had to dab my eyes with a handkerchief before I regained my composure.

I looked around, hoping to find the mysterious singer, but there was no sign of anyone.

My uncle’s housekeeper, Mrs White must have caught the look of confusion on my face. ‘Something troubling you, Master Donal?

‘Do you know who that is?’ I asked?

‘Whoever do you mean, sir?’

‘That voice. The woman singing. Who do you suppose it is?’

She frowned.’I hear no voice, sir.’

‘Come now, Mrs White, how could you miss such a thing.’

Her eyes were wide. The colour had drained from her cheeks. ‘There’s no voice, Master Donal.’

Now I have known Mrs White since before I had begun to walk. A solid, sturdy woman, who had weathered nine children and at least two husbands, one of home was a drunk and a gambler, she always seemed to me as sturdy and indefatigable as an ironclad warship. She was never one given to flights of emotion.

‘Mrs White,’ I said, ‘are you feeling alright?’

‘Quite alright, Master Donal. Best we head on inside, don’t you think? Get out of this rain, and forget about such things.’ She smiled, but it was forced, taut, as if she had to squeeze her muscles to contract as she pulled on my arm and dragged me towards the house.

I thought to protest, but she had already grabbed me by the arm, and begun to pull me back towards the house. I turned my head, looked on last time around the churchyard for the mysterious singer, but there was no one there.

So Merrowley was mine, in name if not in spirit, for I could not help but feel a distance between the house and myself. It was like I viewed it through a mirror, coated in dust and the detritus of long years, as if the house was a mirage or dream, always out of reach of my fingertips. Mrs White’s presence did little to comfort me. I still felt the absolute loneliness at night the chill of the autumn air wrapped around me like a shroud, squeezing all joy and mirth from my lungs as surely as a constricting serpent.I slept little and fitfully.

To pass the time until sleep took me, I decided to sort through Cillian’s old correspondence, the entire drawers in his study left overstuffed with unsent letters, bills, deeds and journals. Even the occasional poem, though my uncle was at best an indifferent wordsmith.

In the evenings I would wade through his paperwork, sorting through what was to be kept, what needed to be sent to the relevant parties, and what could be safely burned. I would work through them for hours at a time, until the light outside became dim. One night, as I sat at my desk, sifting through my uncle’s journals to wile away the hours, I happened upon one entry towards the end which caught my interest:

March 12th, 19__

Have heard her voice at last.

Happened while taking evening constitutional by the lake. Rain caught me by surprise: had to take shelter in the boat shed.

Unclear how long I stayed there. Mind feels heavy, fogged, like waking in the middle of the night. Reminded me of the night we found her. Heard the song from all around me, felt like the rain itself was calling to me. Then was gone, and the rain eased off.

Woman’s voice: lament, maybe? Reminiscent of keening I heard at mother’s funeral.

Troubles me. Surely it must be A. Has she has come for me? Is it time? Must warn Donal: there is not much time left.

The mention of my name startled me. What could he have wanted to warn me about? I could not help but think of my own experience, of the voice I had heard in the rain. Could it have been the same voice that Cillian had heard?

I had to know. I kept on reading.

It soon became clear that my uncle had entertained a particular interest– bordering on obsession– with the recent history of our family. He made painstaking notes about every death in the family, whether they happened in Ireland or abroad. Most often, he wrote of some figure simply referred to in his notes as A.: “A. appeared at Diarmaid’s,” he would write. Or, “is this A.?”, circled and underlined, in relation to a sudden storm that caused some distant cousin’s ship to capsize. Again and again, I saw the pattern: a death in the family, a sudden change in the weather, and a woman singing, heard but never seen.

Who could this person be? And why did they haunt the edges of my uncle’s imagination so?

As I read, it became clear to me that this investigation wore on my uncle’s mind. His penmanship, at first so florid, became ragged and terse. His words attested to a prolonged, fevered desperation, as if he wrote against some unspoken deadline that feed the fires that drove his mad search for answers.. Ocassionally I would find scraps of paper, cuttings and photos that my uncle had left in the journal: a weather report from half a century ago; a police file about the death of some unknown relative; and the faded photo of two young men and a woman, who judging from their dress were attending a wedding. The men I recognised easily enough as my uncle and my father in their youth, perhaps sixteen or seventeen. But the young woman standing between them, starting out at me with melancholy eyes, was a stranger to me.

All of a sudden, I was startled back to wakefulness by the noise outside my window, the murmur of the rain battering the house from the outside. The wind carried the sound through the house, crept through the cracks in the walls, the secret places under the floorboards, moaning and whispering around me.

My mind was racing. Sleep would have been impossible: I kept on reading, page after page, word after word, until at last I came to the final entry in my uncle’s journal.

April 30th, 19__

Hear her song constantly now.

Hear it when I wake up, thudding on the roof with every wretched raindrop. Follows me through the rooms of the house, reverberates from the foundations to the rafters. I stop up my ears: does no good. Mrs White hears nothing, she thinks me mad. I pray to God and the saints that I she is correct, and the song is only the weary imagining of a lonely old man. It would be better than the alternative, that I am haunted by an omen from the past.

If these are to be my last words, let them at least do some good.

I have failed. All my research and long studies have come to naught. I had hoped to make some final breakthrough before the end, if only for Donal’s sake. But I have not, and time is short.

I suppose you will read this, Donal. Despite the passage of time and the scars that I still bear from our parting, I want you to know: you are my heir, the son I never had. And although I shall leave you Merrowley and all its holdings, I must inform you of another, darker legacy that is now your burden to bear.

I say you are the son I never had, Donal, but I will not say you are the last of our family. For there is another out there, hiding in the rain, a some phantom from beyond the veil of logic. It has haunted our family since I was young, ever since we found her in the lake. I have no doubt now that it is my sister, your aunt, Aibell, and it has been my life’s work to break the spell she holds on our line. I hope you can forgive me for never mentioning her to you, but the memory was too painful to bear: it was your father who found her body by the lake, the day after the great storm. I should have been there to keep her safe, I should have been there.

But the evidence is now incontrovertible. I heard her sing for Father and Mother when they passed. For Gerald, and Mary, and Steven. For as far back as I can remember, every time one of our family has died, the rain has come, and brought her song with it. No, that is not entirely true: for in every case I heard her song before someone died. I have long wondered whether Aibell is warning us that our death is coming, or whether– and I shudder to imagine the possibility– she is somehow responsible. Could it be that it is her song itself that caused my father’s heart to fail, my mother’s breath to give out? Is it possible that she stalks me through the rain even now, biding her time, waiting for me?

I can hear her now: her voice is coming from outside the window, echoing with every raindrop pounding on the glass. She will be here soon. I wish I knew how to break her curse, but I have no succour to offer you except for this: make your peace, Donal. Prepare to meet thy God. It is my fondest wish that you should marry and have children of your own, but I fear I know you too well. You take after me too much: you shall live alone, the last of our line. Perhaps that is for the best, and her dreadful curse will die with you.

Oh God, the window! She is calling my name. Goodbye, Donal. God be with you.

Here my uncle’s journal ended. The page was crinkled, warped by the ink, stained by water.

My fingers quivered as I laid down the book. My heart raced, beating so loud in my chest that I feared it would burst. I could hear the whisper of the raindrops dancing on the roof. light-headed, I peered behind me, at the window I had left open to let in air.

There was nothing there.

I let out a sigh, and the tension left my lungs like the air from bellows.. I was alone. These scrawlings were nothing but the troubled phantasies of a man in pain. Who could say what twisted imaginings had passed through his addled mind as he wandered his house alone as he saw his end approach. He had always had a a passion for the fantastic. Was it truly a surprise that he had dressed up his demise as ghosts and goblins?

I laughed, though the cold air made my chest hurt. Thinking of him sent a sharp pain through my soul, as had his cold reminder that I was the last of our family left alive. For a moment the notion passed through my mind that I should sell Merrowley, or maybe even burn it to the ground, and lay whatever power Cillian’s ghosts had over the place to rest

But that decision could wait until morning

I stood up to draw the curtains before retiring to bed. The wind had died down and the evening was calm. The whole world was at peace. The only sound as I rolled onto the bed and closed my eyes was the gentle patter of raindrops above my head. I listened for a moment, letting the sound lull me to sleep.

Then…

My eyes snapped open.

No, it couldn’t be.

Somewhere, far away, I heard it. The sound of a woman, singing, calling my name.

The Thing That Should Not Love

I knocked on the door of the study. ‘Niall? Are you there?’
No answer.
I knocked again.
No answer.
I pushed open the door, felt it open with a creak. The study was dark, lit only by the gas lamp on Niall’s desk, casting shadows on the bookcases. The smell of salt in the air made my head ache.
I walked over to the desk: one top of the pile of papers there was the same old book that I’d seen Diego with. There was something embossed on the front in gold, shaped like a shrimp or a cuttlefish: as I ran my finger down it, feeling the cold numb my skin, I thought I saw the shape… change somehow. Like I was looking at it from underwater, watching it ripple into something new. The face of a golden angel, staring at me with emerald eyes.
I couldn’t stop myself. I had to know what was inside.
Trembling, I undid the clasp and let the cover fall on the desk with a thud. I winced as the briny stench intensified, covered my mouth and looked at the page: at with red words in a language I didn’t recognize but somehow understood:
I did not know what was to come. I was a child, and He taught me the truth: that mortal love is frail, but the love of that which is dead is eternal. Ia, He is risen: and you shall come to know His love, or you shall perish.

Tech Support

The blonde woman at the front desk gave me a weird look as I stepped out of the elevator. I guess I stood out: everything about the office space screamed “class,” from the modern art paintings on the wall, to the automated water-cooler, to the huge windows opening out onto the city below. Potted plants, stone sculptures, office drones in suits and ties, wearing stress on them like cheap aftershave. And then there’s me, some Yank urchin rolls in, with her jeans and her hoodie and her dyed hair. It gets noticed. The blonde woman was arguing on a phone while another pair of phones lit up in front of her. Her smile spasmed when she saw me: I could almost see the fight going on her head, like she couldn’t decide whether she should help the scruffy intruder or call security. Poor thing. You’d think she ‘d never seen a necromancer before.

‘Ummm…’ The receptionist covered the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand. ‘Can I help you?’ Faint accent, northern English. She was trying to hide it, and failing

‘Yeah. Hi.’ I tossed a business card onto the counter. Hey, free advertising. ‘I’m here to fix the computers?’

The receptionist went for a half-smile. ‘Oh. Hang on a moment.’ She hung up the phone, picked up another, dialled a number.

‘Mr Roberts? It’s Sarah. Hi. There’s a… young woman here to see you. Yes. Yes, a woman. Really. Yes. I see. Thanks, I’ll tell her.’ She put the phone down. ‘Mr Roberts is busy at the moment, He’ll be with you as soon as he’s available. Please take a seat.’ She gestured towards the chairs on the opposite wall.

‘Nah, that’s alright.’ I leaned on the desk. The receptionist smiled a smile that she must have learned from TV, then turned away and started dialling another number.

‘Busy today?’ I asked, but she was already talking to someone else.

I waited. Drummed my fingers on the desk. Looked around the office. It was a wide-open space, separated by cubicle dividers, filled with the sounds of phones going off and the frantic rhythm of typing. Someone had spent a lot of money here: the monitors were knife-thin, sporting glossy, high-def displays. Each of the desktop towers could have paid for my college tuition for a semester. Someone took this stuff seriously. On any other day the staff might have been working peacefully at their desks, waiting out the clock until lunch or the end of the world, whichever came first. Not today: the staff were scurrying around like ants at a picnic, red-faced and flustered, filling the air with desperate shouting and the acid stench of frustration. Something was wrong.

A middle-aged man with a red t-shirt stained with sweat wandered over to me, offered his hand. I took it. It felt like week-old fish in my palm.

‘Hello. Ken Roberts, head of Information Services.’ He spoke with a lisp and couldn’t quite close one side of his mouth. ‘You’re Liz?’

‘Yeah. Liz Brink.’ I hadn’t given my real name over the phone. “Jennifer Bromley” is on too many watch lists, but “Lizzy Brink”? She’s everyone’s friend. ‘I hear you got a problem.’

‘A problem.’ He snorted, shook his head, spraying sweat onto the floor. ‘We don’t have a problem. Management thinks we have a problem, but I can assure you, we don’t’

‘Sure. Do you mind if I take a look anyway? Since you guys are paying me.’

He scratched the spot on his head where his hair used to be, scowled. ‘Follow me.’

I followed him past rows of cubicles, full of people fighting with machines. One guy picked up his mug and threw it through the monitor. Another shook his laptop to try and stop the theme to NYPD Blue plying over the speakers. I watched as one guy tried and failed to close a window on the screen, filled with the pulsating skin. I hoped the picture was meant to be upside down.

‘Really, we don’t need your help,’ Roberts said, walking so fast that I had to take strides to keep up. ‘The issue is being sorted.’

‘Uh huh.’ I nodded. ‘Any idea what it could be?’

Roberts shrugged. ‘We believe it might be a cyber-attack. Initially we thought it might be the Evenstar trojan, but…‘ He pointed at screen playing a five second clip from The Wizard of Oz ‘—Some of the symptoms are a little… peculiar.’

‘What are you doing to fix it?’

‘Everything we can. Rebooting the system. Running anti-virus. Verifying the symptoms online.’

I nodded. Of course. Switching it off and on again. Asking Doctor Google. Checking for bugs. All pretty routine. If you were reading from a checklist.

‘So we don’t need your help,’ Roberts continued ‘But Management has decided we might need a fresh perspective from an outside source.’

‘And here I am.’

‘Yes,’ he sneered. ‘Here you are. Didn’t think a professional IT consultant would be quite so… young’

‘Young?’ I rolled my eyes. What he meant to say was female. I watched his expression, saw the way his jaw set and his eyes narrowed. He thought I was on his turf. Just some punk chick, treading on his toes. Great. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

Roberts grunted something. He led me past a door marked “IT Services”, into a little room with a computer cluster in the center, servers towering against the walls. It was like stepping back in time: dank and dirty after the shiny lights and glass surfaces of the office. Old legacy hardware yellowed by age, a few old floppy disks strewn about the Sinclair keyboards. Would have made a nice late-80s themed retro bar. But as IT hubs went, it was only a few steps beyond a blackboard and smoke signals.

‘Okay.’ I ran my finger along the top of a monitor, tracing a line in the dust. ‘Your… situation. What are the symptoms?’

‘Well.’ Roberts coughed, cleared his throat. ‘There’s the network disruption, obviously: we’re down to kilobits per second, at best. Then there’s the bug checks, the fatal errors, the security failures, the nuisance calls, the phone disruption, the–’

‘Alright,’ I said. ‘That would be consistent with an outside attack. But that’s not why you called me, is it?’

Roberts tilted his head from side to side. His lips were tightly pursed. ‘No. There are… a few other problems.’

‘Yeah?’ I folded my arms. ‘Like what?’

He didn’t have time to answer. I felt something shoot past my face, fast as a bullet. Heard it shatter on the far wall. Saw the ruined innards of a laptop that had been sitting on the desk next to me fall to the floor.

‘Like that,’ Roberts said.

A moment later something else whizzed past me. A hole-puncher. Bang. A Printer. Crash. A phone: I watched as an invisible force ripped it from the wall, trailing cables.

‘Get down,’ Roberts yelled. I fell to the floor, scrambled under the nearest desk. Roberts followed after me. We watched as the hurricane of stationary and IT equipment gathered pace in the air above us.

‘Aww, nuts.’ I said. ‘You’ve got a geist.’

‘A what?’ Roberts’ face was blank.

‘A poltergeist. Your network is haunted.’

‘What? Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Look, has anything else weird been happening? And I mean really weird, not just buggy computers.’

Robert made a click with his tongue. ‘Well, there’s the servers. They’re… leaking.’

‘Leaking what?’

Roberts cocked his head towards the tower in the corner of the room. I crawled towards it, ducked behind it to hide from the whirlwind around me. Checked the fan: saw the residue encrusted underneath it, like ketchup around the ring of a bottle. I sniffed, got the tang of copper. Oh. Great. ‘Anything else I should know?’

‘The printout.’ Roberts pointed at the printer beside me. The mechanism was still buzzing, the light was still on, but it wasn’t printing anything. ‘It’s been like that all day! Even when it ran out of paper, it wouldn’t stop!’

I picked up a page from the floor. Two columns of text, smeared from the printer. Most of it was gibberish: some of it wasn’t even alphanumeric. The only pattern I could see was one word, repeated every couple of lines.

Abbey.

‘That’s why we called you.’ Roberts yelled. ‘Your website says you deal with this sort of thing. Freelance IT consultancy and–’

‘Necromancy, right.’ I’d designed the website myself. ‘Okay. Here’s what we need to do. First, shut down the network, now.’

‘Shut it off? All of it?’

‘Yeah. This thing is in your system. We have to stop it spreading.’ I slung the bag on my shoulder onto the ground, reached in and pulled out my tablet—the Trinodia with the cracked screen, with the skull engraved on the back. ‘I’m gonna start an adjuration program.’ I unrolled a USB cable, and connected the tablet to the server. ‘It’ll clear out the most common bugs. If it doesn’t stop this thing, at least it’ll slow it down.’

I started the program. Part antivirus, part exorcism ritual. I watched as the sigils danced and whirled on the screen, cleansing the system of any malicious code.

Something flashed on the screen, red and loud. The program had stopped. Behind me, I heard Roberts grunt as a user manual slammed him in the gut and knocked him into the wall.

I swore. ‘It’s not working. We need to get out of here.’

I dragged Roberts out of the room, slammed the door shut and sealed it with my weight.

‘Okay,’ I said, between breaths. ‘So. You’ve got a geist.’

Roberts leaned forwards, looking like he might hurl. ‘What?’

‘A geist. .gst. A digital ghost. The remnants of some dead guy clogging up your network. Majorly unhappy, and throwing itself around to make sure we know it.’

Roberts shook his head. ‘Look, love, I don’t know what sort of scam you’re trying to pull, but–’

‘Has the temperature dropped lately? Has anyone being hearing stuff at night? Strange voices, stuff moving around when they’re not looking? A feeling that they’re being watched?

He gave me a blank look, but said nothing.

‘Anyone been off sick lately? Suddenly coming down with something that the doctors couldn’t explain?’

‘Steve in Statistics was a bit off-colour, but that doesn’t mean…’ He trailed off, sighed, looked at me. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘Yep.’

‘It’s a ghost?’

‘Yep.’

‘How did it get here?’

I bit my lip. ‘Dunno. You receive any suspicious emails?’

‘There was one with just a URL in the text box. But it was so obvious! I warned everyone not to open it.’

‘Someone didn’t get the memo. But we still need to figure out who it is. Or was.’ I pinched the bridge of my nose, tried to concentrate. ‘Are there any other employees who’ve been absent lately?’

‘Absent?’ Roberts stammered. ‘What do you mean by “absent”?’

‘Permanently absent?’ I saw the empty look, sighed. ‘Has anyone died recently?’

‘Oh. Like Phil? He works… he used to work in HR, I think. I didn’t know him that well.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He was in an accident a month ago. A bus crash.’

‘Untimely death.’ I made a clicking sound with my tongue ‘Probably unfinished business. Can you show me where he used to work?

***

Phil’s desk had been cleared, but not cleaned: there were still rings on the wood where someone had left a mug of coffee. I opened the drawer, checked the collection of knick-knacks rattling inside. I sat at the chair at the computer, brought up the login page.

‘Alrighty. Do you know his password?’

Roberts snorted. ‘Why would I know his password?’ Anyway, we wiped the hard drive.’

I gave him a grin. ‘Well, we can work with that.’ I plugged my tablet in with the USB cable, tapped on the screen a few times. The login details flashed on the screen, then it changed to the home screen. ‘There we go.’

Roberts blinked as I started to type. ‘How did you do that?’

‘Information daimon. Includes a function to search through his keystroke history.’

‘That’s impossible! The memory’s been wiped clean!’

‘Only in this plane of reality.’ I opened a web browser. ‘There’s still an Akashic signature in the Acheron Network. Look, here’s his Friendlog page.’

‘That should be locked! What are you doing, going through a dead man’s Friendlog page?’

‘Ghosts don’t just rattle their chains and make the walls bleed for the fun of it. They scream for attention. He wants something. We need to find out what it is.’ I scanned the page for data on Phil. Thirty-one years old. Educated at Northumbria University. Libra. Liked spy novels, chicken korma and post-grunge. He’d worked in HR for six years. There was a memorial wall. Shorter than I’d have thought. I searched through the friend list, the condolences, searching for a name, for—aha!

‘There.’ I pointed at the screen.

‘I don’t see anything,’ said Roberts.

‘There she is. Abigail Rene. Abby.’

Roberts squinted at the screen. ‘Hang on. I’ve seen her. She works in accounts.’

‘Hmm.’ I smiled. It was starting to make sense. I clicked on an icon on the desktop, searched for something that used to be there. Brought up dozens of image files, taken from Friendlog. All of the same face. The same woman. At a table with relatives, out with friends, on the couch with a cat on her lap. Big brown eyes, auburn curls. A smile like a cocker spaniel puppy, asking for a treat. Easy to love. Easy to obsess over.

I logged out, stood up. ‘I think we should talk to her.’

***

Abby was pretty in the photos. In the flesh, she could break hearts.

She was short: maybe an inch or two taller than me in her heels. A little thinner, too. Well-shaped: the expensive business suit made the most of what she had. Her skin was like polished amber: her hair bounced like a shampoo commercial when she tilted her head. Her eyes shone like dark marble. Some people have all the luck.

‘Sorry,’ she said, wrinkling her button-nose. ‘I don’t think I quite understand.’

I sighed. ‘Well, the short version is there’s a ghost in the company network causing trouble, and I think it’s ‘cause he has a crush on you.’

Abby blinked, twice, and stared at me. ‘And who are you again, Miss Brink?’

‘She’s helping me,’ Roberts said. ‘There’s a… bug in the system. I’m sure you’ve noticed.’

‘I have, actually. My computer froze, and there’s an odd hiss coming from the speakers. It sounds like someone’s trying to say my name.’

‘Did you know Phil?’ I asked.

‘Who?’

‘Phillip Barber,’ Roberts added. ‘From HR.’

‘Oh. He was the one in that accident, wasn’t he? I was at the service. Gosh, it was a shame. I wish I’d got to know him better.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘ ’Cause he liked every one of your Friendlog posts.’

Abby gave a dainty shrug. ‘Lots of people like my posts. If someone sends a friend request, I don’t think too much about it.’

Maybe you should, I thought. ‘How many of your friends comment on your photos?’ I handed her my tablet, let her take a look. ‘ “Looking good lol”,’ I read. ‘ “Red suits you” smiley face. “Looking forward to seeing you”.’

Abby screwed up her face. ‘He was just someone I saw at work. Why would he do something like that.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘I can see a couple of reasons. Look, could you just come with us, please? I think you can help us fix it.’

***

Roberts opened the door to IT Services. I ducked to avoid a router as it flew through the air towards me.

The room was a wreck. Every surface was coated in debris. The wind ripped through the air like a gale in a teacup, flinging anything light enough at the walls.

‘I don’t see how I can help.’ Abby yelled over the wind. ‘If Phil left a virus, I don’t think there’s much I can do about it.’

I gestured for both of them to stay back, and dashed to the nearest table. I pulled it towards me, until it fell on its side and scattered the contents across the floor. I crouched behind the table to take shelter from the maelstrom of flying electrical equipment. Then I gave the signal, and Roberts and Abby rushed into the room and ducked beside me.

‘Alrighty,’ I yelled, fighting to make myself heard above the roar of the wind. ‘Here.’ I shoved the tablet into Abby’s hands. ‘Log into Friendlog.’

‘What? Why?’

‘You’ve gotta talk to him. Try to get him to calm down.’

She sat back behind the desk, tapped on the screen. ‘This is ridiculous. If he was a ghost, couldn’t I just… speak to him?’

‘He’s passed beyond the analogue world. He’s a digital entity now. Just code. You can’t just sit him down for a chat: you need a medium he’ll understand. Send him an instant message.’

She sighed, but she typed something into the chat window:

Hello Phil.

The roar behind us stopped. The room went quiet. I peeked out of the side of the desk. The debris of the room had stopped moving, and just floated in the air like decorations hanging from a Christmas tree.

‘What did I do?’ Abby asked.

‘What you had to,’ I said. ‘Look.’

Something beeped on the screen. A new message appeared in the chat window.

Abby?

I smiled. Now we were getting somewhere.

‘What now?’ Abby whispered to me.

I bit my lip. ‘Say something nice.’

Abby typed:

How are you?

A moment later, there was a beep, and a reply:

I could be better.

Abby looked at me. I shrugged. She typed.

Sorry to hear that.

Beep.

Thanks

Type.

You’re welcome.

How are you?

Oh, you know. Busy with work.

Yeah.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So we’re talking. Now you have to ask him out.’

Abby made a face like something was choking her. ‘I have to what?’

‘That’s why he’s hanging around, causing a nuisance. That’s his unfinished business: he was hung up on you but he never had the guts to act on it. We have to fix that. Ask him out on a date.’

She looked at me with a raised eyebrow. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes!’

‘But I have a boyfriend!’ She whispered the last word like it was a secret.

‘So? Phil’s dead: It’s not like you’re gonna go through with it! Just… make him happy, and he’ll go away. Probably.’

‘Urgh!’ Abby’s mouth twisted like she’d swallowed a lemon whole. Started to type.

Phil, I’m sorry I didn’t get to know you better.

Beep

Thanks

I’d like to fix that, if I could.

There was a long pause. I watched the fragments of equipment hanging the air, threatening to fall at any time.

Beep.

Really?

Yes. You seem like a really nice guy. I’d like to find out more about you.

Another long pause.

Beep

You want to go on a date?

Yes.

With me?

Yes. 🙂

Pause. The only sound I could hear was my own pulse, pounding in my head.

Beep.

You’re lying.

Abby looked at me, confused. Then something struck the wall opposite us and shattered. The clutter in the air started whizzing around. Damn. Maybe the smiley face was a bit too much.

Beep.

You lying cow. You’re just like all the others. “You’re a really nice guy, but… I don’t want to ruin our friendship… you’re like a brother to me.” I wanted to talk to you for so long, and you had to wait until after I died?

‘You’ve made it worse!’ Roberts whined. ‘What do we do now?’

I closed my eyes, tried to shut out the racket all around me. I needed to think.

Beep.

It’s not fair. I am a nice guy, but you never bothered to find out!

I felt the next thud in my back when it hit the table. And the next thud. And the next. Phil was done just throwing his toys about: now he was aiming at us.

Beep.

I treat people well. I deserve someone who’ll love me!

The edges of the table were starting to fray. Every impact sent splinters flying into the air. I had to do something. I had to get out. I had to—

Abby started to type.

No. You don’t.

The thudding stopped. The room went quiet.

Abby focused on the screen in front of her.

Phil, maybe you were a nice guy. Maybe you weren’t. I wouldn’t know, because I never got to know you. You had a whole lifetime to let me get to know you. You could have just asked. Now it’s too late.

I waited for a moment, forgot to breath. But Phil said nothing.

Abby typed:

I hope you find someone who you can love, and who’ll love you back. But it won’t be me. And so long as you keep acting like a spoiled baby, then it won’t be anyone else, either.

She hit enter, sent the message, and we waited to see what would happen.

Phil didn’t respond.

A moment later, the junk in the air crashed to the ground.

For a moment I didn’t move. I needed to make sure it was safe. Then I stood, walked over to the nearest terminal, typed something. No frozen screen, no bugs. No sign of anything out of the ordinary. I took the tablet from Abby’s limp fingers, and ran a diagnostic.

‘Nope,’ I said. ‘It’s clean. He’s gone.’

Abby peered over the top of the upturned table. ‘Really?’

‘Looks like.’ I reached into my bad, picked out a jar of salt, unscrewed the lid. I started to sprinkle it around the room to purify the air. Just in case. ‘Guess he just needed to hear the truth, so he could move on. Good work, Abby.’

She blushed. She looked good when she blushed. Of course she did. ‘Thank you.’

I put the salt back in my bag, and slung it over my shoulder. I turned to Roberts, and offered him my hand.

‘Well, dude, looks like I’m done here. Problem solved.’

He stared at my palm, with a face like a thundercloud. ‘ “Solved”? Have you seen this mess?’ He looked around at the devastated room. ‘How am I supposed to explain to my manager that a poltergeist caused this?’

I shrugged. ‘Tell him whatever you want. Tell him there was a break in. Or a power outage. Or a pack of wild monkeys escaped from the zoo.’

He shook his head. ‘He won’t pay, you know. He’ll just say there’s no such thing as ghosts, and that you’re just running some sort of con.’

I frowned. ‘Well, then we’ve got a problem, haven’t we? ‘Cause the way I see it, I just saved all your butts!’

‘I doubt he’ll see it that way.’

‘Huh. In that case–’ I pulled out my tablet, did a quick search. ‘Tell him I know all about the Bermuda accounts. And while you’re at it, tell him I know about the overflow site at Kielder. And the missing Oslo portfolio. Oh, and the list of user emails that got leaked. Tell him that I’m sending him my invoice, and if I don’t get paid by Monday morning, then…’ I scrolled down the screen. ‘Ah, then I’m gonna start telling a whole bunch of people about what happened in Dundee. Starting with his wife. Okay?’

Roberts had gone pale. ‘I understand.’

I smiled as nicely as I could. ‘Great. Here’s my card. Tell your friends about me. Let me know if you have any more problems.’ I pushed the door open. ‘See you around, Abby. Have a nice day.’

Then I walked out of the room, and headed towards the elevator

***

I took the Metro home. It was pricier than the bus, but it got there faster, and I wasn’t in the mood for playing musical chairs at the bus stop.

I wish I hadn’t lost my temper. The guy was just doing his job. Can’t blame him for finding it hard to believe when some strange chick waltzes in and tells you ghosts are real.

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket: I’d had a cantrip installed on it so it worked underground. Useful thing to have when you dig up graves for a living. I fished it out, pressed “accept,” spoke into the headphone mike. “Yo, Catrina.”

‘Good afternoon, Shayde.’ Catrina’s voice was musical, like the strings of a harp, slightly out of tune, fuzzing in my ears. ‘I trust everything went well with the client?’

That was Catrina: all business. Good thing to have in a secretary. Or a familiar ‘Pretty much. They tried to stiff me on payment, but I got them to reconsider. Make sure they get the invoice, okay?’

‘Certainly. Then they did not suspect anything?’

I bristled, felt a pang of guilt uncoil in my stomach. ‘No. They’re just your usual, everyday IT types. They’d never seen a real haunting before.’

‘When can we expect payment?’

‘I said Monday. Don’t worry, they’ll pay.’

‘And if your assessment is incorrect?’

I chewed on the nail of my thumb. ‘They’ll pay.’ I repeated. ‘I made it real clear what would happen if they didn’t.’

‘Hmm.’ I could almost hear Catrina frown on the other end of the phone. If she was actually on the other end. ‘One of these days, Shayde, you may have to back up the threats that you make.’

‘Yeah. But not today. I’ll see you at the office.’ I hung up, and stared out the window. The train was underground: there was nothing outside but darkness.

It wasn’t like I was proud of myself. But there wasn’t as much money in the Black Arts as people thought. It’s the twenty-first century: when people want advice, they call into reality TV shows, or read a self-help blog. They don’t pay the chick with the tarot cards and Ouija boards to solve their problems. And a girl’s gotta eat.

Besides, I was doing them a favor by sending them that email. If anyone was dumb enough to click on a URL that contained an evocation that woke up any geists on the local network, then hey: they needed to be taught a lesson. Security systems are no good if no one tests them. They were lucky it was just me, trying to drum up work, and not one of the really nasty hackers. The ones take “Human Resources” very literally. The way I saw it, the ghost was gone, the problem was solved, and I got to pay the rent this month. Everyone was happy.

Yeah. Happy.

I sat back in the seat, turned up the volume on the headphones, and waited for the train to stop.