My Demonic Ghost: Banished Spirits (16 page)

Chapter Seventeen:

I quickly flipped myself over and sat up. The dreamy blur of the blue snow and quiet forest leaving me both content and unnerved. My shoulders loosened as a cascade of relaxation flowed calmly through me, my arms curling in to the rest of my body; my heart beat and my eyes, everything about me slowed to a gradual thump. It wouldn’t be long until my heartbeat came into tune with the beat of the earth, just a single
Ba-Boom
every fifteen minutes. The vibrations sat underneath my skin and moved through my lips and my tongue, removing all ability of speech as the paralysing sensation took out my legs and arms, dropping me flat on my back. If my eyes were to rest, I knew I would not get back up; that was a certainty.

This is not right…
I was falling asleep unnaturally, but even so, I couldn’t manage to panic and fight it off. I had no energy, no motivation to keep myself alert… to deflect this drowsy spell.

“You lost little sheep?” The Sin appeared above me. Her voice held an echo as if she were speaking into a long hollow tunnel. My eyes were unfocused, slipping between the blue smog above me and the obscurity of darkness behind my eyelids so simultaneously that I hadn’t even registered it happening. I would’ve been in full blown panic if I had the brain power to process the danger I was in, but everything was so slow and mellow that it barely appeared to be worth the struggle. I craved nothing more than rest, to fall into my anesthetizing bliss and just lie here behind the shelter of sleep.

How nice would that have been to slip away, uninterrupted by the worries of the world outside me? To escape any means of responsibility or anything required of any kind of action or energy. No longer my problem, no longer my desires…

Why should I get up now, do the dishes, fight off spirits, summon the sins, or obey the rules?
I’m exhausted, I want none of that. Nothing…. Yeah, nothing would be perfect right now. My nothing, only the emptiness of the abyss as my company. No rules, no responsibility, just this cycle of contentment circling over and over again. I was so close to my paradise that the effort of keeping my eyes open burned them bitterly. I could have reached this oasis if it wasn’t for a voice that kept waking me. The Sin kept talking, turning her head in fascination to behold my melting eyes and setting the echoing drone deep into my ears.

              “Oh, not one not one, ba-aa-ad mistake… Not spirit then, what you doing in Sloth’s home? Not good, not good at all when living play with the dead.” My eyes fluttered in my struggle to keep them open,
living playing with the dead… she knows what I am.
The smile pressed my lips,
what a weird dream…

“
Baa-haa baa-haa! Let’s play a game silly girl. Yes, I love games…” She held her hand out above my face. I could see her eyes perfectly through the haze, gelatinous greys and blues twisted inside her irises, much like watching a storm of angry clouds brewing in a spiral pot. She had thin eye lashes that melted into white powder with dark purple rings underneath each eye socket. Her face was long and narrow with a large, white coat of curls framing her head like a pillow.

Sloth leaned in and placed her lips so close to my mouth that I could feel the warmth of her exhaling breath. The heaviness of each inhalation almost removed me completely from consciousness. I was drunk, drunk in a whirlpool of dizziness and anaemia. It was like a constant blood rush to my head, I couldn’t allow my eyes to stay close longer then a second or they would’ve glued themselves permanently shut.

My eyelids were heavy and their fluttering became slower…and slower…….and slower……. until they stopped altogether. I was certain my eyes weren’t going to open again, that I had just closed myself into a coffin of my own body, when an internal chill shot through me. It stung through my veins, going deep into my bones, forcing my skin to react and quake against the chilly cold.

Sloth’s face had moved back, her eyes tore away from me, releasing me from my fatal coma. But drowsiness continued to sit on my eyelids and anchor me down. Voices moved invisibly above my head. My suppressed panic, though still hidden visibly by my lethargic body, had been released mentally. I suppose Betrayal’s suggestion turned out to have actually saved my life, for the string of words that sprinted through my mind, bellowing in loud demanding howls, were my pleas for Lock. Over and over again, subconsciously and unable to stop myself, I kept calling his name,
Lock! Lock! Lock! Lock! Lock!
A gentle icy stroke on my shoulder told me he had answered my cries.

Sloth backed away from me, moved by Lock’s presence, the chilling prick of his spirit formation lingering close to my side.  I slowly sat up, leaning myself up against a tree. With the distance between Sloth and I, the depression of Sloth’s spell wore off me.

The fog was lighter, less concentrated, and weak enough that I could see both Sloth and Lock in front of me. Lock’s clothes rippled with the spiritual energy sizzling off his back, his fists tight and coated in the cloud of dark smog, his fingers curling tightly around the knife. He called to me without turning his head, “Rach, are you okay?”

“Y-Y-Yes I’m fine now…”

“I didn’t mean to, I thought… I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay Lock, just concentrate…”

Sloth chuckled as she studied him, “Ah, what’s this? Interesting. Relax little spirit; you get your turn…” She ran her crippled, bony fingers along the dead skin of her stomach.

“I wonder what your anger will taste like after I’ve devoured her. Precious girl, isn’t she?”

Lock jerked his arm up and went to plunge the knife into Sloth’s chest, when suddenly his wrist became floppy and he failed to meet the stretch. He growled lowly at his loose arm, the knife barely sitting in the weak bend of his fingers. Sloth was taller than Lock and used her height advantage as a means to size him up as she walked a few steps closer. She could stand within an inch of his face if she had wanted, with her eyes sitting on him like that, on both of us; it acted as a paralysing injection and left us defenceless. 

“Tsk tsk. You should play nice. You should go now,” she said with her mouth propped opened, her lower jaw dislodging from its joints and dangling loosely open. She leaned her neck in just as Lock used his good arm to shoot a small streak of dark magic in the direction of her head. Sloth veered away, quickly weaving to attack him on the other side, the side where his arm was useless and dangling like rubber next to his hip. He quickly shifted to his back foot, spinning away from her chomping mouth within a second of impact. With every move she made, he was one step ahead, sliding on the tips of his toes and using his arm as a means of building up shields to reflect her.

“Heh, you’re pretty fast, considering what you are,” Lock grinned after successfully taking a side step and avoiding another snap. The back of Sloth’s head straightened up, wearing a copy of his arrogant smile on her face.

“And you, Banished boy, are very slow to not realise what you’ve done…”

With each snap Sloth took Lock was quick to step to the side allowing Sloth to take his spot; the two of them side stepping around each other in a small circle. Sloth now had her back turned to me and I could see Lock’s stern face peeking up from over her shoulder, the scrunch between his brows showing that he was clearly confused.
What he had done? What does that mean?

Her body twitched and soon disappeared, as if the air itself had swallowed her.

“Just try and stop me…”

Her voice, it rang loud and clear into my ear, my left ear to be exact, as her echoing laughter boomed against my chest. She was near… right here next to me, sitting her chin on my shoulder and pressing the tip of her nose into my cheek. Lock’s eyes flew open, his lower lip swung loose and the blade in his fingers dropped to a soft thump onto the ground, removing him from protecting me.

“NO DON’T!” He reached out to me with spread fingers as his eyes were franticly lost in panic.

A cold sweat broke out across my forehead as Sloth’s touch skimmed my cheek down to my jaw line. Lock didn’t move. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t doing anything… Why he wasn’t rushing to my side, summoning up his powers to knock her away. Then it hit me, I understood his hesitation… I was directly in his line of fire. If he were to shoot, there was a high probability that the fire would strike not only Sloth, but me as well. If he tried moving quickly to knock her away with his hands, no matter how fast he was, she was still much too quick for him and would merely kill me here and now.

The very fact that I was still alive, still conscious and aware meant that her intentions were not just to destroy. She was playing with us; this was all some sort of game for her.

Ba-Boom…
“Please…don’t…” his soft voice whispered. “Don’t…”

SLASH

A heated torch skimmed up my back and along my spine at the same time Sloth shrieked into my ears. She bounded away from me so quickly that I could feel her presence on my shoulder for a second longer; then she was back, steaming with an electric blue flame, as she turned to face her attacker. In that same second, Lock scooped up his dropped blade, having foreseen the hidden attack. As Sloth turned her back to him, surprised by the strike on her, he spun the knife handle between his fingers. This would be his chance to attack. He drove the blade down hard and fast into her shoulder before Sloth had the chance to turn back to face him. She screamed and flung her arm out to knock his away before a gush of wind swept her into the trees. There was a loud bone breaking crack as Lock was pushed over, the blade falling to the ground in two pieces.  The knife had broken from the deep plunge. It reached deep into Sloth’s bones, snapping off inside her arm. Out of panic she ripped the blade out, throwing it onto the floor before vanishing. 

I was staring at the broken weapon, frozen, when a shapeless breeze brushed my arm.

“It’s okay Rachael, you did well…” Betrayal said, leaning down and smiled reassuringly.  I nodded my head, flustered. Lock heaved himself up, groaning when he looked down at the blade. It had snapped in two, the tip of the knife stained with both Gluttony’s brown ooze and now Sloth’s grey blood. He scooped it up, holding the two pieces together, matching them together in a perfect curvature, before grunting once more.

“Oh, crap. The blade has been broken…”

Betrayal took the pieces from his hands to inspect them herself. “Ah, this is a Hemispike. How did you even get this?”

“I didn’t, it was Howl’s. He gave it to me.”

“This blade was fused together for the sole purpose of wounding the Spirits; no other blade can even scratch the sins. We have to get this fixed…”
Ba- Boom….
“Come on, it’s time we headed back…”

Lock nodded, appearing in smoke next to me, his dark ash-smeared face peering down gently at my own. He looked different, as if it wasn’t my Lock looking down at me. “Come on Rach, let’s get out of here.” I pushed myself up from the tree and nodded again. We held our hands out flat and stretching over the land beneath us, before my living room rematerialized over the picture of the forest.

Chapter Eighteen:

We were greeted by the same pairs of eyes that we had left; the colours of the room would have been a pleasant sight if it wasn’t for the lingering feelings that lodged inside me. Red, grey, brown, gold, purple and green; a cluster of highlights that stared down at me intensely, trying to carve their image into my brain. I could feel the burn of sleep poking at my eyes but I tried my best to blink them away.

“Lock?” A shrill voice called from the front of the room, bouncing up to capture Lock into her longing arms. She swung herself around him, her black long hair whipping out behind her like a fan as her ankles kicked up into the air. Lock chuckled softly as they landed back on their feet, his arms tucked around her petite waist. She kept hers ringed around his neck, nose touching his as her lips peeled back into a smile. “I missed you so much Lock, why did you run off on me like that?”

He rolled his eyes mockingly before placing her back down on the floor. She didn’t remove her arms from around his body; if anything, she tightened them to keep him closer to her. His arm lifted up, stroking her hair, looking down with a gentle grin that reached into his lantern green eyes. The pair didn’t move their eyes from each other, not even for a second and I felt… I felt pain. Pain of jealously, of abandonment… of confusion and despair all at once, just firing right through me; hot like a bullet but spreading through each vein like poison.
Who was this? What’s going on?

I held my head in my hands, blocking them out.

Surely, what I was looking at was the gentle and caring eyes of a brother and sister? Yes, that’s it. That’s what it was… but if that were true then why am I so terrified of looking up? Because I’m certain that I’ll find them kissing, that I’ll see Lock’s eyes turn to me and he’ll point and laugh, saying something like, ‘Ha ha ha! You really think I would choose you?’
Argh, I feel so sick. Just stop it already...

“You know how things are, sorry if I made you worry.” My ears were burning, surely this wasn’t Lock talking. Gentle, caring, nice, lovingly…
lovingly
!

I struggled to lift my head, plastering a weak smile over my protesting lips and looking over at them once more. His hand was still entwined within her locks; her arms still tight around his shoulders and grinning down at each other like two attracting magnets were pulling at their noses. They looked so cute together. Perfect; like a jigsaw that couldn’t possibly be complete without each piece.

“Rachael, are you okay?” Eric asked from my left. My head shook quickly, pretending to be loosening a yawn before I rubbed at my eyes.

“Ah, yes just really tired…”

“I bet. What was it like in there?”

“Umm, foggy…” I was looking back at Lock and this girl again before I could stop myself, Lock now moving his hand down her hair and placing it on her cheek where she pouted childishly at his caress. He laughed warmly. The girl craned her neck and balanced gracefully onto the tips of her toes, placing her lips onto his jaw line and announcing in a whisper, just loud enough so everyone in the
entire
room could hear, “I missed you so much,
my love.”

I couldn’t bring myself to look again, my throbbing heart weakening me so I couldn’t even stand to be in the same room with them.
Why does it matter anyway? Why should it hurt this much…?

“Lock? What’s happening?” Her high voice cried out in alarm. My head spun as well did everyone else’s, watching the sooty mask over Lock’s eyes sink into his olive skin. His darkened hair shot out from the roots of his head to the tips in toasted brown as his intensely blazing eyes faded. But I suppose what caught her most off guard was her hold on him, her arms falling through his body as they became two separate wholes, her body being the body of a spirit whereas his was turning into a solid corpse.

“Oh, promise that you won’t be mad, but I’ve change a little,” Lock said bashfully.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Don’t freak but, you know about the Forbidden Act-”

“For-Forbidden Act?” The words fell from her lips as her eyes roamed the room in sharp, dagger slits; hunting for something or someone to blame as I side stepped to hide myself.

“Yeah, I made a deal with her…”

“You mean your Host? And it’s a
her?
Who?” This wasn’t looking too good. The blaze of her eye colour only seemed to flare with each passing second; each new discovery had lit another flame under her building rage.

“Someone…”

“Who?”

“Someone very special to me…”

And just as the spark of anger had almost reached its point of wild, flaming fury, it was extinguished. Her lips fell open but no words tumbled out. Her eyes were flared wide and wild, a clear mixture of pain, anger and sadness. Her anguish was very visible and clear to the point where even I could feel her emotions flooding through my skin.
Heartache...
Lock stepped back from her hands until he was standing next to my side, taking a hold of my wrist and holding our hands up above our heads as if he were showing off atrophy.

“With her.”

If looks could kill I would’ve snapped in half right there and then. The entire room had gone silent. The young girl finally turned to me and I wished immediately that she hadn’t, that I had still been nothing but a speck of dust on the bottom of the floor. Her eyes were bruised purple and with a black pattern of twisted leaves spinning around her iris. They were lighter, shining out against her pale complexion and under the rim of her fringe, like Vegas lights piercing the night. The look she wore twisted her face in absolute pain, as though I had betrayed her; that I had shoved my hand into her chest and ripped out her heart. Yet, as I watched the rage over take her I was also fully aware of Lock’s hand around mine, his fingers curling around my wrist, holding it into the air.

“Sabotage…” a husky voice from the back of the group spoke up.

I had figured by the intensity of her glare that not even a comet smashing the earth would shake her, but she jerked at the voice, turning her flaming eyes back over her shoulder. “That’s enough…”

Sabotage… that’s her name…
She nodded her head at him, dropping her gaze back onto the ground.

“I can never forgive you for this,” she said.  And with that she became a cluster of smoke, spiralling above his head before disappearing back into darkness. Her Host, the boy who called out to her, cocked his head against his shoulder and gave me a weak smile. His hair was black; jewel black and long, down to his chin, where it kicked out in the messy ruffles of a rock star. His entire outfit screamed delinquent; black pants with chains attached to his pockets, a dark grey shirt with a V cut collar underneath a heavy, open black coat with the hood tipped back.
How do people keep getting into my house?

“You’ll have to excuse Sabotage, she has bit of a fiery temper when it comes to Lock, but she really is a sweet girl…”

Lock shifted and snorted in dismissal, letting our hands drop to our sides with the swift release of his fingers.

“I’m guessing she doesn’t like me very much…”

The boy smiled at me but didn’t deny anything. His silence hurt more than if he had actually nodded his head.

“Oh, that reminds me… Howl, something happened with this knife you gave me,” Lock said, frowning as he held out the disjointed knife. Howl jumped at the sight of the broken blade, snatching it from Lock’s open hand and caressing the weapon as if it were a baby bird.

“You broke it? How did you even manage to do that?” Lock shrugged carelessly. “You must’ve been fighting some wild, angry beast out there-”

“No,” Betrayal’s voice interrupted, “He just got too frustrated and rammed the knife in without restraint.”

“Guess I don’t know my own strength.” He shrugged again, dusted off his hands and shoved them back into his pockets.

“Wow, geez Lock, be more considerate next time. This is a one of a kind weapon; anything else would prove useless against the Sins.”

“How do we fix it then?”

“Well, you have to return back to the store where I found it back in Glendale. The old man there is a Spirit fanatic, but even he doesn’t fully believe in the blade’s power, so he won’t restrain from fixing it.”

“Can you get it fixed by tomorrow night?”

“Me? I’m not going. You’re the one who busted it, you go!” Howl placed the pieces onto the table and turned his back to them.

“Oh geez, don’t have a huge cry over it.” Lock snatched at the weapon and tucked it back inside his pants pocket, “Rach and I’ll go tomorrow and get it done.”

“You best be getting some rest then Rachael, you’ll need your strength for tomorrow night,” Nails cooed, gently brushing my arm with her ghostly fingers.

“Yeah, you’re right. Okay, I’ll be going then…” I made my way to my room and closed the door softly. I was tired, tired of a lot of things; of not understanding Lock’s feelings let alone my own.
Special to him…. I’m special to him…. Because I’m his Host? What does he mean?

The darkness faded with each flutter of my eyes. It was late into the next morning, or should I say afternoon, as I rolled over to read 1:37 pm on my clock. I kicked back the sheets and got myself dressed.

Knock knock
. “Hello Rachael?” I pulled the door back, peeking through the gap to find Sabotage’s Host at my door.

“Oh, umm yes-?” I looked at him, still fully aware of my bed hair and glad I’d changed out of my childish pyjamas.

“Sorry about last night, I didn’t get to introduce myself. I’m Dean.”

“Nice to meet you Dean, I’m Rachael. Did you need something?” He leaned sideways against the wall. He was handsome, really handsome, and had a look of rebellion about him.

“It’s about Lock…” he said and I pulled the door open urgently.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, no, everything is fine. But he won’t be joining us today. It seems my young mistress has stolen him from you…”

“Stolen him from me? You mean Sabotage has-”

“There’s no need for alarm, those two go way back so I’m sure they’ll be fine. I’m going to accompany you to the get the knife fixed instead.” I stepped back, leaning into the door frame. Lock isn’t coming and is hanging out with Sabotage instead… I don’t know why, but I feel very uneasy about this.

“Does she like him?”

Dean paused for a moment but then answered me without changing his tone, as if it was an obvious and not worth pointing out, “Yes, she has a huge thing for him.
”

“Right…”

Lock. I don’t understand anything about him. What am I to him exactly? These feelings, are they between two lovers or Host and Banished soul? Am I a special person because of his feelings or is he just treating me special out of instinct? “I guess it’ll be just you and me, then?”

“I hope that’s okay?”

“Its fine, really I’m not bothered.”
Liar liar pants on fire.

“Okay great! Howl gave me some directions on how to get there. It’s only a few bus rides away from here, shouldn’t take us too long.” Dean’s hand slipped into his jacket pocket and revealed the weapon inside a clear plastic bag.

We headed for the door; I allowed myself one last scan across the room but the apartment was empty. Even Eric wasn’t here.

“They’re not here,” Dean said bluntly.

I didn’t respond to him and continued walking ahead… like I care anyway. Heading down the hallways, we were stopped by a man whose forehead was drenched in sweat. He grabbed at my arm as I tried to pass, holding the other hand out to Dean.

“Oh, glad I caught you. I’ll join you…”

“Why?” Dean’s voice was stern and direct, bearing his dark brown eyes on the man as though he was holding twin barrel guns to his forehead. I recognised this man as Rip’s Host.

“They all said it’s better if at least one Banished soul comes with you, and considering both Lock and Sabotage are preoccupied, they sent me…”

“But why do we need a Banished soul there if we’re just dealing with an old human?”

“Oh, err you know, just to be safe…” Sweat started to double up across the man’s forehead.

Dean held his eyes stern for a while. “Sure, guess you can come um...”

“I’m Michael,” the man grinned and held his hand out to shake Dean’s.

“And this is Rach-”

“Rachael. Yes, yes. I’m fully aware of who she is. You’re quite famous now.” I smiled awkwardly.
Famous
?

“Alright, well let’s go…” Dean hooked his hand around my elbow and steered me onward.