Thirteen Days of Midnight (8 page)

“What do you want?”

“Pater noster, qui es in caelis! Sanctificetur nomen tuum! Adveniat regnum tuum!”

Ham is still barking, throwing himself against the kitchen door. I have double chemistry tomorrow morning. This isn’t what I want to be dealing with. The ghost starts to walk up the stairs toward me, hobbling on charred stubs.

“Sometimes one needs a classic ghost in the retinue,” says a voice from the landing behind me. “For old times’ sake. It’s tradition. You need a screaming skeleton in your collection if you wish to hold your head up in the company of accomplished necromancers.”

“Thanks for warning me about this,” I say, waving my hand at the skeleton. The Vassal raises one thin eyebrow, tugs at his cravat.

“The Heretic is . . . tiresome, I must admit. He’s the eldest of all the Host. He’s forgotten everything, even their reason for burning him.”

“So all he does is scream?”

“He can recite several prayers in Latin. It seems to be all he managed to retain.”

“Awesome.”

“His animus is badly corroded. He was bound by several necromancers before your father. There is power in old spirits, but a long binding dissolves their reason.”

I can see the scraps of melting skin up close now, blackened fat bubbling on his bones. I try to work out where the fire is coming from exactly, but it seems to flow out of the Heretic’s bones. There is no heat cast by the ghost, but I can still smell the burning flesh. The ghost takes another halting step toward me.

“Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra! Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris!”

“What’s he talking about?”

“The Lord’s Prayer,” says the Vassal. “First section. He could recite it in its entirety when your father first acquired him, but even that seems beyond his abilities these days. It is a sorry sight.”

The Heretic is right in front of me, empty eye sockets bubbling. He takes another step and suddenly his fleshless face is right inside mine, and then through, the spirit lurching into my body and out the other side. I feel cold and greasy. The ghost continues to stumble onward, across the landing and through an outside wall. I can still hear him screaming.

“Can you make him shut up?” I ask. “I’ve got homework to finish.”

“I do not have great influence over the Heretic,” says the Vassal. “Nobody does. There is not enough of his animus left to communicate with.”

“So I just
wait
until he shuts up?”

“If I may, sir, a quiet word . . . I hope you will not feel me outside my bounds to say that you seem very lax on the Host.”

“You’re all dead. I’m still sort of getting my head around the whole ‘ghosts exist’ thing. How am I supposed to act, exactly?”

“Your father, sir, he understood the needs of the Host. We need discipline, structure. There must be rules and boundaries. There used to be control, sir. You have shown no control of the Host at all. We are not usually given days off.”

“I tell you all what to do, don’t I? Isn’t that enough?”

“For me, sir, it is. I am a loyal servant. I believe that if I must be bound, then I will bear it with the dignity befitting a gentleman. You will never need to use any discipline on me, sir. However . . . my colleagues are not all willing servants, sir. Some of them see themselves as slaves. Some, like the Heretic, have no conception of their position in the world at all.”

“What are you saying?” I ask.

“The Host needs proper discipline. You need to learn the protocols, the rituals. You need to issue a general summons to every member and clearly lay out boundaries.”

“I thought you were bound to me? I thought you all had to do as I said?”

“We are, sir. We are your Host, your property. However, words of command mean nothing to us if they are not backed up by spiritual power. You are a necromancer now, sir, by inheritance, if not by choice. You must fulfill your role.”

“Well, Dad left me his book.”

“It might be wise,” says the Vassal, “to read everything that he left to you. Ordinarily I would never advise anyone to delve into the Book of Eight. I am a God-fearing man, but I fear the works of the Devil even more. However . . . some of the Host . . . some of them are dangerous, sir. I won’t speak ill —”

“— of the dead. I know.”

“Quite, sir. Nevertheless. Your father’s collection was the envy of many who moved in his circles. We are not some flea-market amassment of second-rate chain rattlers. We must be managed, as one would manage anything that one knew to be powerful and dangerous.”

“Well, that’s nice to know.”

“My pleasure, sir. I would advise that you look at your father’s correspondence, at the Book itself. He left them to you for a good reason.”

“I will.”

The Vassal nods and fades away into the darkness. He’s got a point. I don’t know the first thing about the Host, except for what the Vassal and the Judge have told me. If I’m going to be the boss, I need to know what I’m doing, especially if the ghosts are dangerous.

The Heretic keeps it up most of the night, bellowing out the Lord’s Prayer at foghorn volume. He walks a loop around the outside of the house before marching into the kitchen, setting Ham barking again. Mum, unbelievably, sleeps soundly. I’m very tempted to pop some of her pills. I’m sitting at my desk, homework forgotten, trying to make sense of the documents Mr. Berkley gave me. You’d think if he knew he was leaving his Host to me, if this was all planned, Dad could’ve left me a simple sheet of paper. Bullet points, typed up on a computer.

Instead I’m faced with a kaleidoscope of bullshit. Dad’s papers are a mess. They’re in no particular order and don’t seem designed to be read by anybody who isn’t him. Some were composed on a typewriter, some written by hand. Some of the papers are yellowing and crinkled; a few are caked with something thick and dark that I can only hope is spilled chocolate milk. Most of the handwritten pages are done with an old-style dip pen and ink, with script packed into dense little rows, hundreds to each sheet, both front and back. They’re completely covered in tiny columns of numbers, like the math homework from Hell. Some of the numbers, I realize, squinting closer, seem to be written backward. They’re unreadable. The pages are gibberish. I sift through the pile until I come across something that isn’t.

It seems like a diary entry, but without context or date there’s not much I can learn. He sounds depressed. Who is Ahlgren? Why betray him? Did Dad have enemies that I don’t know about? How did he die, exactly? I look for other pieces of clear prose like this, something that might follow on from here, but I can’t find anything.

I put the papers to one side and pick up Dad’s green book. The Book of Eight. I hold it in one hand, turning it in the glow of my desk lamp, the golden star on the cover reflecting the light. The Vassal called it an infernal tome, I remember, but it’s the key to necromancy. I run one finger down the book’s spine. The leather is supple and smooth to the touch. I remember that the last two times I tried to open it, the clasps were stuck, but I have a feeling that if I try them now that I’ve actually spoken to ghosts, something different will happen.

I pull at the clasps, expecting them to snap open, but they’re stuck as fast as ever. I really ought to tear the clasps off the book. Who cares about damaging it? I need to know what’s inside. I get a pair of scissors and prepare to cut the front cover away from the book’s binding. The scissors are poised to cut through the green leather when I start to feel really strange.

I
wake up at my desk with a headache. Somehow I managed to fall asleep in my chair, at the desk. I remember reading some of Dad’s notes, and then trying to open the Book of Eight, and then — this doesn’t feel right. The Book sits in front of me, looking as innocent as it can. There’s a pair of scissors next to it. Something happened, I’m sure of that. I just don’t understand what. I try to open the Book’s clasps, but they’re fastened shut. I can’t feel the cold of the ghosts anywhere in the house, and I decide that I’ll try to pretend to be normal today.

I catch my usual bus.

The road to the school gates is dark from the night’s rain. The gutters are tiny rivers, frothing downhill into greedy sewer grates. I brush past a wall that’s coated in ivy, and the leaves stroke my shoulder like cold fingers. My head feels heavy, as if at any second it’ll snap off my neck and roll back down the hill. There are other kids walking the same route as me, younger students from Dunbarrow High. I swear I was never that short or high-pitched. They’re scuffling about, a mass of hair gel and sports bags, pushing one another and screaming.

I can see the school gates now, aging pillars of concrete set against dark fir trees. Kids are crowding through them, pointedly avoiding Elza Moss, who’s leaning against a wall, smoking. Her head is tilted upward, and she’s staring at me over the heads of the crowd. I meet her gaze.

I don’t know what this girl’s deal is. I’ve known her by sight since we were twelve, and she’s never shown the slightest bit of interest in me before this Tuesday. I’m tempted to keep the she’s-in-love-with-me hypothesis, but it isn’t ringing true. Like, what, I’m going to spend time with her and start seeing her inner beauty and then I’ll slow-dance with Elza at the prom and everyone will start to clap and cry and see how empty their judgmental lives are? I don’t know her, I don’t want to know her, but I’m already having the strangest week of my life, and I’m not stupid. Whatever’s happening to me, a freak like Elza suddenly showing an interest in my life can’t be a coincidence.

“Morning,” I say, smiling as best I can when confronted by her stupid haircut.

Elza blows a wall of smoke in front of her face.

“Hi,” she says.

“So,” I say, “hello. Hi.”

“Can I help you?” she asks.

“I was just wondering why you keep staring at me. You know, like a massive weirdo?”

“I wouldn’t dream of acting like a weirdo. Nor would I dream of staring at anyone. Least of all you, Luke.”

“Well, if you weren’t staring, what were you doing?”

“Observing.”

“Observing who? Because it really looked like you were staring at me.”

“I was observing interesting things.” She taps her cigarette with one long nail. The ash floats to the ground, leaving an apple-red ember.

“Like what?” I ask. This conversation is pissing me off even more than I thought it would. Elza takes another draw on her cigarette. She plays with her hair, a bracelet jangling on her wrist.

“Look back down the road.”

There’s a group of girls walking up the hill. They wear expert mascara and lipstick, and their legs are so tan and sleek they look digitally enhanced. One of them, I realize, is Holiday Simmon. The girls walk in smooth strides, laughing about something.

Beside them lopes a monster, stumbling on long brown legs, wispy hair like white mold, wiry arms swinging as it walks. The thing is naked apart from grubby boxer shorts. His torso and arms are crisscrossed with long scars. He walks from one girl to the next, passing through their bodies like mist. A pair of shears glint in his hand.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, hearing my voice catch.

“Yeah,” she says, smirking. “No idea what I’m talking about. That’s why you’ve gone as white as . . . well, as white as a
ghost.
”

“I was up late,” I say, still looking at the horrible thing.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I know you can see it. A man looking like that, holding a pair of shears? Out in the street? There should be panic. But instead . . .”

I look at the girls again, at the ghost.

“So you really see it?”

“I’m as surprised as you are. I’d gotten used to being the only one. No fun, is it?”

“There’s just no way.”

“It’s happening,” she says.

“You’ve always seen these things?”

“Look, second sight isn’t even that big a deal. It can be pretty useful.”

“Your whole life?”

“Let’s put it this way,” Elza says. “Would you rather be blind? Rather be in a wheelchair? Sure, we’re different, but plenty of people are worse off than us. Some people think it’s a gift, actually.”

Holiday walks on, smiling, oblivious. This new ghost is the most horrible by far. What the hell was my dad getting himself into? What has he gotten me into? The ghost’s skin is dark, wrinkled, and stretched over his bones. Close up, I can see that almost every inch of his skin is cut with scars, some trailing all down his body, others small dashes only an inch long. His face is like something left in a bathtub on a warm summer day. His eyes are milky, like he’s got cataracts. His mouth is wide and wet, lips barely covering small white teeth. Holiday grins at her friends, and the withered face leers over her shoulder.