Crimson Midnight (A New Adult Dark Urban Fantasy Series) (The Crimson Series Book 1) (29 page)

Maxwell looked thrown, then,
recovering himself, shrugged. “Thistle is a creature of the night, not alive,
yet not dead.”

“Undead.”

“Er, yeah, anyway, the spell
doesn’t work for vampires, zombies or ghosts.”

Rose nodded.

Richard glanced at Roman who nodded
then leant in toward Rose. “Do you think you could find him, like you found
Thistle in the park?”

She sat up straight. Of course, her
strange new ability, she’d completely forgotten about it.  She could go to
Hackney and visualise Raven and let her power lead her to him. She felt excitement
bubble up inside her, she could find Raven
.  But what if you can’t do it
this time? What if you can’t control it? Look at them, hope in their eyes. They’re
counting on you and you could very well let them down.
 

Fuck you, voice of doubt!
She shook her head to clear it.

She would not fail.  She could and
would do this.  There was no way they were going to lose Raven like they had
lost Thistle.

She stood slowly, brushing off her
jeans. “Let’s do this.”

The luxurious car – a perk for being
the Alpha - pulled up along the road by the canal entrance.

“Thank you,” Richard said to the
driver as they exited the car. “Wait here.”

Harold, Maxwell, Rose and Roman got
out next.

The Alpha breathed in the air, his
incredible sense of smell alert and decoding the scents around him. People,
petrol, diesel, the grass, the mud, the concrete, the tarmac, dirt, a dog, a
cat, a fox, and a rat– he peeled away the layers one by one. He walked closer
to the canal. The smell of the water, the smell of…a faint trace of strange
cologne, sickening cologne. He chuffed to clear his senses and tried again,
trying to pick up his Beta’s scent to no avail. 

“Rose, would you mind?” he asked
politely. 

Rose stepped forward, her
expression serious. Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes bringing to her
mind a picture of Raven– his silver eyes twinkling with amusement as they
bantered at the dinner table.  His warm handshake and his kind smile.  She
grasped the image fiercely, allowing it to burn within her mind. It happened
pretty quickly after that, the dull throbbing of an internal pulse and the
disorientation as it got quicker and quicker.  This time she didn’t even feel
her feet as they moved across the ground, following that subconscious beacon.

“Rose, Rose…”

She felt firm hands shaking her.
“I’m…did I do it?” She opened her eyes looking about expectantly. She blinked
against the sun, surprised to find herself on her hands and knees.

“I think you did.” Roman’s voice
was expressionless as he stared past her to the ground beyond.

Turning her head, she followed his
gaze to find the smashed remains of what seemed to be a mobile phone. 

38.

ALL THINGS DEAD

“You will be thrown into the
deepest pit of hell for your atrocities! Maggots will feed from your flesh for
eternity, fire and sulphur will be your bedfellows. And Satan himself will be
your king. All you will know is sorrow, torture and pain. That is the price for
such blasphemy, for witchcraft!”

“So you’ve said.”

Tom was being yelled at yet again
by Lord Andrew Butterfield. The Lord had been born in 1860, and was head of the
family in a grand manor that had long since burned down somewhere in Surrey–
way, way back in the day. Rumour was that the good Lord Andrew burned his
beloved home down because he’d squandered the family fortune, an incredibly
vast fortune, on booze, prostitutes and gambling. Out of shame he took a match
to the manor that had been in his family for many, many years, going up in
flames with it. That was in 1912– the sinking of the Titanic and the burning of
Butterfield Manor had made headlines that year.

“Heathen! Blasphemer! God will not
take kindly to this!” Lord Andrew spat out more of his venomous spiel.

Tom sighed. Why did he have to do
that spell? Why did it have to be this ghost he was stuck with? What about John
Lennon? What about Marilyn Monroe? What about any other ghosts from the spirit
plane that didn’t have Butterfield as their surname?

“Pray for your soul! Pray for His
forgiveness!”

It had started at around nine that
evening. Tom had registered himself in the afternoon at the little antique shop
and was now a fully legal necromancer. The old man, Mick his name was, had
handed him a battered old leather book, a vial of chicken blood, a bag of
bones, some incense and some salt. He then told Tom to read the book carefully,
that necromancy magic was not easy and not for the faint hearted. Mick also
added that once Tom felt comfortable with what he was to learn from the book,
he could then join a necromancer training course so he could be contracted for
jobs that required the skills of those dealing in all things dead.

When Tom got home to his flat in
Clapham he devoured the book on necromancy, aptly titled ‘
Necromancy: An
Introduction
.’ There was a chapter on zombies and how to raise them. The
book said that the raising of a corpse, and then its animation, was not to be
undertaken by a necromancer in his or her early career. Channelling such dark
magic took a spiritual strength that developed with time. An iron will and
sturdy stomach were also required. Tom decided he’d steer clear of zombies, for
a while at least.

The book focused on simple spells
to summon ghosts and outlined the etiquette required to converse with them.
Necromancers could see ghosts without the use of magic. It was part of their
gift. Tom had seen plenty of them, sometimes resulting in embarrassing
situations like the time one made him jump as he was relieving himself in a
public toilet, leading to him missing the urinal and spraying piss up the wall
and over the man next to him. He’d got a black eye for that. And the time when
he was having sex with his ex-girlfriend. Yep, ghosts didn’t really care if you
were busy or not. If they found a necromancer they were quite vocal about
asking for whatever help they needed.  It didn’t matter if you were stark naked
on top of your girlfriend and having a merry old time. Emily, his girlfriend at
the time, had not been impressed when he had suddenly lost his impressive
erection.

Sometimes ghosts found the
necromancer, but summoning a ghost was different. It took the right ingredients
and the correct incantation. Only then could a ghost be called upon for a chat.

So Tom had followed the spell to
every last detail. It was an easy spell, the book said, a great one to
introduce you to your powers.  He had pulled out his dad’s old watch, an item
left to him in his father’s will, and used this to open a channel to the
correct spirit.  His father had worn the old thing until the day he’d died. Tom
was pretty confident that it provided a good link to his father.  He should
really have collected some soil from his father’s grave, but as his father had
been cremated and the ashes sprinkled into the Thames, it wasn’t a possibility.

A circle of salt for protection
from evil, the chicken blood poured onto the bones of unknown origin– the book
didn’t say what the bones were, the incense lit and an incantation in very old
Latin. It was all going so well.

However, what Tom had failed to do
was take into account his noisy neighbour below. He was in the middle of the
incantation when the stereo being turned up to full volume in the flat below
distracted him. He dropped the watch, stumbled over the words, made a grab for
the book to get back on track and knocked over the incense.

“Bollocks!” he’d yelled.

“I beg your pardon?”

And there, standing in the centre
of his living room was the well dressed, snooty-looking cliché of a man, Lord
Andrew Butterfield. The spell had been well and truly screwed up, leaving the
pair of them bound together.

The rants began shortly after.

As well as the book and
ingredients, Tom had been given the address of a lady who dealt with all things
dead. There was no contact number. And to make things worse he had to get from
Clapham to Upminster to sort the whole mess out. The entire journey had
consisted of verbal tirades and put downs from the Lord. Tom had Googled him on
his iPhone, learning about Manor Butterfield and all of the Lord’s rather juicy
history.

“You were quite the lad,” Tom said.

“Excuse me?” Lord Andrew said indignantly.

“You liked the women.”

Lord Andrew’s pasty white face
didn’t go red with anger, but Tom could see it was bordering on it. “I loved my
wife dearly.”

“Didn’t say you didn’t, but you
didn’t love her enough to not dip your wick in every…I had a good line there
but I’ve lost it. Bollocks!”

“I do not care for your language,
Heathen.”

“It’s Tom.”

“How much longer will this journey
take? I am growing tired of being in your company. I wish to return to…” Lord
Andrew trailed off.

“For someone who likes to go on
about Heaven, Hell and Sin all the time-”

“Say no more.”

“I’m just saying that they don’t
seem to factor into it do they? You came from the spiritual plane, I read about
it in my book. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s not what you expected.”

Lord Andrew turned his head and was
silent for the first time since he and Tom had been stuck together. Tom knew
he’d suddenly struck a nerve with Lord Andrew. He’d broken all the sensitivity
rules in ghost aftercare according to the book, but he had to say it. The book
did not state what the afterlife was or any description of it, simply because
ghosts refused to talk about it. Whether this was by choice or by some higher
rule, was unknown. The book had pretty much glossed over that subject
mentioning the words ‘spiritual plane’ but giving no further information. Tom
had hoped naively that he would be able to trick the talkative Lord into
revealing something. The Lord was obviously on to him.

Tom sighed. “It’ll be over soon.”

Nothing more was said as the tube
train made the rest of its journey to Upminster.

Margaret Lewis lived in a small,
first floor flat. Heavy red curtains blocked out all natural light, and candles
and incense burned away in the cluttered living room. Margaret was an elderly
woman with long white hair, a wrinkled face and dressed in black. She hadn’t
greeted Tom or Lord Andrew, and they took it upon themselves to follow her as
she skulked into the living room.

Tom sat on the arm of the worn sofa
because the rest of it was taken up by piles of newspapers. Margaret and Lord
Andrew were both living, and dead, breathing, and non-breathing,
real-life/ghostly clichés.

Margaret scowled at Tom from her
armchair. “So what do you want?”

Tom explained his predicament.

Margaret roared with laughter.

“Now see here…” Lord Andrew started
to protest.

“Shut ya mouth, ya old ponce,”
Margaret spat.

Tom laughed.

“I beg your pardon, Madam?”

“You ‘erd. And I don’t know what ya
laughing at.” She pointed a wrinkly finger at Tom. “Ya need to be with it when using
magic. Can’t be messing about with this stuff. Too young they let you start
nowadays.”

“The book says I need banishing
powder, salt and incense,” Tom said. “And I need to break the spell myself.”

“That ya do.”

“And I can get it from you?”

“That ya can.”

There was a very uncomfortable
silence.

“So…”

“Fifty quid.” Margaret held out her
gnarled hand

“What?”

“You ‘erd.”

‘Fifty quid for a bit of powder and
incense? I’d rather be stuck with him,” he bluffed.

“Fair enough.”

“No, no!” Tom held up his hands. “I
was joking, fifty quid it is.”

Margaret nodded and left the room.

“I have a good mind to invoice them
bastards below me! They’re the ones who started this!”

“I will just be glad when this is
over,” Butterfield said.

Margaret returned with a jam jar filled
with grey powder and some sticks of incense. “Cash first.”

Tom handed over the money and
Margaret gave him the jar.

“Thanks,” Tom said.

“That book don’t tell ya what that
powder is does it?” Margaret said with an evil grin on her face.

Tom shook his head.

“Ground up cat bones and ash!” She
said and cackled as if it were the funniest thing she knew. “Now get out.”

It was getting late and the tube
was taking ages. If the old cow hadn’t cleaned out his wallet he would’ve
forked out for a taxi.

Lord Andrew was still silent,
pacing up and down the empty tube carriage.

“Look,” said Tom. “You hate me and
I’m not a big fan of you. But I wanna say I’m sorry. I should’ve paid more
attention to what I was doing. I was excited about doing the spell, I didn’t
realise it would cause so much trouble. This can’t be easy for you. So, yeah,
I’m sorry, mate.”

Lord Andrew looked at him and shook
his head. “And I am sorry for what I have said to you. I have been dead for so
long, living in the…” he hesitated. “I cannot say.”

“Can’t say what?”

“I cannot say any more about life
after death. I am forbidden to say too much. There are rules.”

“Right.”

“However, I will say this– live
your life and respect your life. It is precious. Nothing can compare.” Lord
Andrew looked suddenly so despondent that Tom actually felt a pang of sympathy
for him.

“Is it bad?” he asked tentatively.

The train came to a stop in the
tunnel.

“No.”

“We are currently being held at
a red signal,”
the train driver announced,
“we should be moving again shortly.”

“That’s the third time we’ve been
held now.”  Tom slouched in his seat.

Lord Andrew was silent.

The lights flickered and came back
to life. That was normal for lights on the tube trains. But then the carriage
was plunged into darkness. He could still see Lord Andrew.

White noise followed, a horrible
crackle filling the carriage through the microphones in place of the driver’s
voice.

“Is this normal?” Lord Andrew
asked.

“It’s certainly new.”

The white noise stopped and there
was silence.

Tom made an exasperated sound.
“Great, looks like the train is knackered.”

There was a scratching noise on the
outside of the carriage.

“What the hell is that?” Tom said.

The next thing he heard was glass
shattering. The next thing he felt was a cold hand on his arm.

 He leapt up. “FUCK!” The cold hand
wrapped tightly round him. He dropped the jar and heard the powder and shards
of glass spill across the floor.

“Oh my…” Lord Andrew gasped.

Tom froze as he caught the look of
terror on the Lord’s face.

Whatever it was that held his arm
was hidden in the darkness. Another cold hand went to his throat. Before he
could react further he was dragged out of the carriage with a whoosh.

Lord Andrew was shouting again,
crying out for help as he unwillingly followed the necromancer he was bound
too.

But no one can hear the cries of a
ghost.