Paranormal Investigations: No Situation Too Strange (16 page)

The hooded man held his hands out.  Orla now looked moderately interested and looked at the corpses like children looking at an ant under a magnifying glass.  It was all just an experiment to them.  They had their own agenda.

"Stay here!" I told Bob and Trevor, "Better still - hide!"

"What are you going to do?" Bob asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.  "I haven't got a bloody clue."

"I can help!" Trevor said, palming the wok and looking as tough and hard as only a two foot troll can.

I shook my head, "Your job is to protect Bob, he is still my client and his needs come first."

Trevor nodded.  I knew, even now, he was thinking of mangoes.

Bob opened his mouth to speak.  I shook my head.  "You came to me for help Bob, please take it."

His face was sad, but he nodded.  "I wish I was more use to you," he said, "but I'm no use to anyone."

I clutched the back of his hand with my own.  "Yes you are.  And I still owe you a pizza.  We are having that bloody pizza."

Hands still bound, I edged my way forward.  A bearded man was ahead of me, entering the circle, shaking his head.

"Where am I?" he asked in a faint German accent.

Holy shit, it was Karl Marx!  I looked from the un-dead dead Karl Marx to the enormous stone head that covered his grave.  Bloody hell!

"Welcome Herr Marx," the hooded man said, spreading his arms wide, "Welcome back to the living world.  We've been waiting for you."

What?  All this was for one guy?  Even Orla looked faintly surprised although it was hard to tell on her botoxed face.  What did the hooded man want Karl Marx for?  Hmm - what use could there be for the man who had inspired the political regimes in the world's biggest and scariest countries?  Dear god, if China, Russia, North Korea and Cuba heard that Karl Marx was back with us... what could he persuade him to do?  What would the hooded man
want
him to persuade them to do?

"Waiting for me?" Marx said, "You must have been waiting a long time.  I appear to have been dead." He turned around and looked about him.  "So, I got Highgate then.  Very good.  Dear God!"  He was now confronted by his enormous face of a tomb.  "Who the hell created that monstrosity?  Why on earth would I want my big fat face all over the place? Schmucks!"  He shook his head.

"Please come with me," the hooded man said.

Marx stayed where he was, looking at his enormous face.  To be honest his embalmer hadn't been the best and he was a bit flaky, but the resemblance was still fairly clear.  "Why should I go with you?"

"I brought you back."

"So?"

The two stared at each other.  Good old Marx, truculent and strong willed.

"Persuade me young man." Marx said and sat on a tomb stone, legs and arms crossed.  "Persuade me why I should go with you.  There are lots of other things I should like to do.  Why should I do what you wish?"

"I need you," the hooded man said, "your work inspired millions of people to work for political reform - the proletariat rose.  Think what we could do together.  Where your work could lead the world next."

Marx sniffed.

"Yes," I said, taking a deep breath and stepping forward into the circle.  "The proletariat rose..."

"Let me kill her!" hissed Orla.

Marx steadied her with a hand.  "Not so fast pretty one,” he said with a flirty smile to the fairy, “let her talk.  I want to hear."  He looked at my bound hands, but wisely decided not to comment.  "Speak."

"Your words and work inspired the greatest change in political history, but it also inspired regimes of fear and was responsible for the greatest murders of the twentieth century... well except those inspired by fascism, but that's another story."

"Without you," the hooded man went on, "humans would be still scrabbling around in the dirt, the rich would still be rich and the poor still oppressed."

"The rich still rule the world!" I continued, "money always rules.  Even the Soviets at the top lived better lives than those at the bottom.  Think of the slaughter of 'intellectuals' in Cambodia, anyone who could spell their name slaughtered to free the proletariat - so who was there left to educate the proletariat?"

"People killed in my name?" Marx asked, "Really?"  He shook his head.  "I didn't expect that."

"People will always kill," the hooded man said, "that is what it is to be human.  They mindlessly slaughter each other at the slightest whim.  We can educate them to be better - together."

Marx shook his head.  "I don't care anymore.  I thought it was important, but I died.  That is the only sure thing - we die.  My new life will be devoted to pleasure.  Hedonism.  That is what I shall do."

"I'm afraid I must insist." the hooded man said.

Marx threw his hands in the air.  "What are you going to do?  Kill me?"

"If I must."

"Been there, done that my young friend."

"Then I shall kill her."  He looked straight at me and I felt a twist in my guts.  The hooded man nodded to Orla.  She put one icy hand on my arm and dragged me to him.  Her nails were sharp and dug deep through the sleeve of my dressing gown like acid.  She threw me and I landed on my knees in front of the hooded man.  At any other time it might be a moment for innuendo.  Not now.

He reached for my chin with his black leather covered hand and tilted it up as if to take a better look at me.  Then he clasped my face and spun me round to face Marx.

"I will kill her."

Marx shrugged again.  "If you will you will - it has very little to do with me.  Your decisions are your own no matter what I say.  Why should she matter to me?"

The hooded man threw me to the ground, it was awkward landing on bound hands and my wrists twisted painfully.  It was also cold and I was beginning to shiver with cold.  I was trying to suppress it as much as possible because I didn't want him to think I was scared - although of course I was.

From the ground I looked up.  The hooded man pulled the Vitam Mortem ring off his little finger and held it up to Marx between his thumb and index finger.

"Do you know what this is?  What I can do with it?  I can raise armies of soldiers to do my will.  Our will.  I will show you.”

Orla leant over Marx and hissed, "The Fae will arise and re-conquer your miserable race."

The hooded man held the ring high and began his chanting again.  His followers echoed.

Orla’s eyes grew wide with anticipation.  She clenched her hands together.

In the distance her double, Jamie, looked uncertain.  He glanced around and shuffled on his feet. 

As the chanting went on sparks of blue and grey began to appear in the air, gradually more sparks joined them and they began to dance around until meeting a spark they could join with.  As the sparks grew larger, more drew in - summoned from afar.  The air was soon buzzing with flickers of light.  Were these fairy souls?

“It’s working!” Orla said under her breath, “It’s working!”

The chanting stopped and soon everyone was watching the dance of the sparks.  One cluster was beginning to look like a humanoid form.  The light was filling the cemetery as if it was daylight.

I looked at the ring.  It was the first opportunity I'd had to see it close up.  It was kind of pretty - old fashioned gold woven into a circle and surmounted with a yellow diamond.  Ancient lettering covered each strand of gold and it almost seemed to resonate power.  I had to stop it.  I had to do something to prevent the rise of these un-dead dead humans and a race of life-challenged fairies from taking over the world.  I was on holy, sanctified ground and now I had to find a way of changing the ring's purpose.  There was only one way I could think of doing that.

"Hey, toss-rag," I said which drew the hooded man's attention back to me, "I'm going to marry you."

"Marry me?" he repeated with contempt.

"Thank you - I will." and I dived for the ring he so conveniently held out, aiming my left ring finger for the Vitam Mortem ring.  It slid on as if it had been made for me.  I felt a jolt of electricity and then the throbbing from the ring went silent.  A vow made on sanctified ground and a ring exchanged.  Just like the weddings before the Christian church organised itself - a simple promise and exchange.  That was all that was needed.

The light went out of the sparks and they imploded like black holes.  Darkness fell back over the cemetery.

I closed my eyes to let them recover from the change in the light.  After three seconds I opened them.  I looked down at my hands.  The ring sat comfortably on my finger.  It's power diminished and I felt a tug.  I had done it.  I smiled and looked up at the hooded man smugly.

His response was to back slap me across the face, which was not the wedding present I had anticipated. 

I flew down on to the ground. 

I had won.  He knew I had won.  It was over.

And then he was gone.  Disappeared.  As if he had never been stood in front of me.

“You
killed
them!” Orla screamed, “You
killed
them!”

She stood over me, her fingers twitching.  Her eyes were like shards of glass.

My body became an immovable ice block.

“You killed them!  All of them!  My family!”

If my mouth wasn’t frozen shut I would have liked to tell her they were already dead, hence her needing to resurrect them in the first place.

“Time to go,” her double said, laying a hand on her arm.  “We lost.”

“I don’t lose!”

“Time to go,” he led her away, towards the other fairies.

Was she crying?

As they reached their group she looked back at me and stared until the darkness stole her face away.  The demons, ghouls and goodness knows what else creatures followed.

As the last of them disappeared, my body unfroze and I fell backwards.  As I got up, I realised my hands were free.

Karl Marx also took the fairies’ departure as his cue and rose from the gravestone he had been perched upon.  "Nice meeting you." he said, "I'm off to get laid.  It's been a while."

I watched as he trotted off down the hill.  A nudge in the ribs turned me around.  A small Victorian woman was stood before me.

"Do they still read 'Middlemarch'?"

"Oh yes." I said, blinking at the incredulity of the moment, "there was even a TV adaptation or two."

She rubbed her hands together.  "Good, I've got decades of back paid royalties to claim."

CHAPTER TWELVE

Things to do in London when Dead

All around me, the dead of the twentieth century were wondering what to do with themselves.  Not all were as determined as George Eliot, who had already marched off to find an agent who dealt in digital rights, or Karl Marx who... well we all know what Karl Marx had marched off to find. 

Some just looked around, shaking their heads in wonder.  I looked around half expecting to see a catering van and a lighting truck.  However - if these were extras in a film their make-up would have looked more realistic.  These guys just looked ill.

"You did it," Bob said as he approached me, rubbing his freed wrists "you did it!"  Bob looked so happy.  His face was completely at ease.  He looked well, considering the long and scary night he had just come through.

I opened my mouth and then closed it again.  I was still a little confused.  What should I do next?  There was still a cemetery full of the un-dead dead to deal with, they hadn't reverted back to being dead with the end of the ring’s power.

"What should we do about these guys?" I asked him, pointing at the zombies who had once been the great and good of Victorian London.  "We can't just unleash them on London.  They'd never survive for one thing."

"Can they live here?"

"I'm not sure they'd want to - I mean, it is a reminder that you are dead.  Also it's bit of a tourist trap.  I'm not sure what the Americans would make of them.  They need somewhere where their slightly... sleepy and creepy appearance doesn't look odd." 

One of the un-dead dead stretched and yawned.  Give him a newspaper and a cup of coffee and he could have been a commuter.

I smiled, "I've got it!  Just down the hill we have good tube links.  There are even dozens of unused stations closed up across all the lines.  They could live at Aldwych for example!"

Bob didn't say anything, but I could see he would just agree with whatever plan I mooted.  I realised I was Fred in the Scooby gang to his Shaggy.  I guess that made Trevor Scooby Doo.  Scratch that - Scrappy Doo, he was always up for a fight against bigger dudes.

It wasn’t hard to round up the reanimated corpses.  Bob and I managed to gather most of the un-dead around us and I told them about the tube system.  I even drew them a rudimentary tube map on the muddy ground with a twig.  Most of them had travelled on the old Victorian cut and shut lines in life, so it wasn't completely new to them.  It wasn't ideal, but it was better than anything else I could think of.  No one would notice them on the tube.   They would just look like commuters.