Needle Rain (17 page)

On the last page a passage caught her eye.

The needle combination used on this woman would never be considered by any sane Needle Master, however some anecdotal stories suggest that Rogi Vassbinder may have attempted similar combinations during the latter years of his Experimental Stage. If there were any documentation regarding such experiments they have been lost over the many decades since his death. None can be found in our archives.

“Sane,” suggesting that Drager was insane when he attacked her. Did she believe that? Though sane or insane, what did it matter to her? She’d never find out unless they captured him. The words revived an echo in her memory. Had she said something similar about Leonie’s funeral? That he’d never turn up? She shuddered. The man had a habit of turning up when least wanted.

And to think she’d liked him when she first saw him. That somehow made it worse – that a man she found physically attractive could have done this.

What was that?

It wasn’t much – just a shifting of the shadows, a sense that something had changed in the room. She looked up. Stared. Where the blackest, deepest shadow lurked, something twisted, wormed, its very presence distorting the space it occupied. She’d seen ghosts many times before, everyone had. They weren’t common but neither were they incredibly rare and this was definitely different. She heard whispers, not-quite-words, that overlapped each other and rendered the sounds incomprehensible.

If this is a ghost, should I go over there and get this over with?

The blackness grew until it was a bloated contorting shape.

Her body prickled alert but she couldn’t make herself move. She gripped the report with cold fingers that might never let go.

The black thing dragged itself forward, crunching and rustling, as if some deformed creature limped across a floor strewn with dead leaves. Dread blossomed inside her. Heloise put a hand to her middle, gasping and hunching over her stomach as she felt a jab of pain

This was not simply a ghost, it was a wrongness. She scrambled backward, pushing against the headboard, pressing close to the wall, desperately scrabbling her heels amongst the bed clothes for purchase.

“Bull! Open the door! Open the door! Please!” She knew she was screaming and that there was a word she should say but the thing was at the bottom of the bed and panic had taken her body and scoured her mind of any sensible thought. “Bull!”

Beside her sibilant voices whispered and sighed, “You don’t want to talk to that. She’s not nice. Choose one of us.”

She ripped her head round, feeling neck muscles burn. Two ghosts stood near the bed. Indistinct and luminescent. One small and one tall. Their arms stretched toward her. Choose? Taking a last fearful glance at the other thing – a tortured blackness seeping across the quilt – she decided.

“You!” She pointed at the smaller ghost. Its mouth opened in a silent scream then it flash-shivered at her. The frozen numbness enveloped her, filling her body from top to toes. Slaving her to the ghost’s will.

The door slammed open and Bull rushed in, panting, brandishing a club.

“What is it?”

In the doorway, Uncle slammed to a halt, dumbstruck.

Come on
, said the ghost inside her.
Let’s go somewhere else.

She half-fell off the bed, picked herself up and ran for the door, barreled into Bull, past Uncle, who tried to grab her but she ducked, side-stepped and was away. As if she were an old shoe with hollows in just the right places, the ghost had burrowed into her body.

There were ways out of this labyrinthine house that avoided the guards if you waited and timed it. The ghost did just that – sneaking and running and skulking in the shadows. Avoiding the shouting and the running people searching for them. Within minutes they were out on the rain-washed streets. In pajamas, satin-gray ones, but still pajamas.

Does this get easier for them each time? Heloise wondered, despairing at what the future might hold. What was that thing back there?

An answer came.
Something young and something old and all squished up together in a very nasty way. You wouldn’t have liked it.

Heloise stilled. Had the ghost said that?

Course I did, you silly cow.

What! Even slaved to a ghost, she didn’t need this. Silly cow? How old was this ghost?

Eleven
, came the reply.

And...are you a girl, or a boy?

Girl, if you really want to know.

Ah. She thought a while. What is it you want to do? The silence stretched. Could a child ghost know what it wanted?

Quietly, as only a body inhabited by a ghost could be, they drifted along the streets, past a vendor of oranges dragging his cart homeward, past a man and woman, arm-in-arm, staggering to some place of assignation for quick and profitable copulation.

I...need to see my mother and my father.

Oh. But first, child...tell me more about that thing.
Gods, that seemed important – to know what that had been.
The fear. She felt the echo of it judder through her. The fear had been all-consuming. I’ll help you, Heloise said in her mind to the ghost. If you tell me, I’ll help you.

Promise?

Promise.

It was something made from two things.

Two what?

I don’t rightly know. There, that’s everything I know. Now, help me find my mom and dad.

But, you’ve told me nothing!

I told you what I know!

Crud. What’s your name?

Milly.

Here she was arguing with a child ghost who inhabited her own body.

So, Milly...you don’t want revenge on anyone, or...or to murder them?

I want to see my parents! Last I saw them was, was...I used to help mum weave stuff, for the markets. I did. Long time ago.

Onward they drifted, walking, walking, until the ache in Heloise’s legs and bare feet brought her to the surface of awareness.

The street was dark and deserted. A light rain fell making the pajamas damp but not yet sodden. And somewhere someone was crying. Somewhere distant. Were they down a side street? Heloise patted her own body. She was back, had control. What time was it? They’d been wandering for quite a few hours. Going in circles even maybe. Eight, nine o’clock?

Frightened that she’d encounter some cutthroats or drunks or simply men of low morals and lower lusts, she shrank beneath the overhang of an awning. The street ended at a run-down warehouse a few houses down. Her eyes sprang wide. The other creature, ghost, whatever it was. The black thing. Could it return? Though she strained to search every corner of this dead-end street, she found no signs that anything supernatural had followed her – unless you counted a scruffy gray cat with moon-gray eyes.

Which way back? The sea was to her left, she must be turned around. Nervously, she flicked her eyes back and forth, checking the dark places, and knew that all along the way back she’d be watching for that creature. Being possessed by a plain ordinary ghost had its advantages. Least then the other thing stayed away.

The sobbing continued.

Ah. It came from within. The child-ghost, Milly, remained, somehow huddled small and quiet in an offshoot part of her mind. Well, at least she seemed to be harmless.

“Here, lady.” A man’s voice slurred from the shadows deeper under the cover of the awning, “You don’ wanna hang about here too long. Itsh...it’s not likely healthy. Somebody’ll deshide you’ll make a nice bedmate.”

Peering closely, she made out a man in a dark overcoat, propped between the building and a crate. The smell of unwashed human blended with spilled alcohol to create an odor more pungent than a moldy rat. Ideal. She fumbled at her left hand, found the small garnet-inlaid gold ring that Kane had given her.

“You. How would you like to make a profit? That coat for this ring.” She held it up and let the faint moonlight gleam off it.

“Wha? That looks really, really, really lovel-ly. Sure thing girly. Here.”

Within a few minutes she had the coat wrapped about her and had backtracked to head in the direction of the terraced district. The lights up there among the wealthier houses and the slope of the ground made it simple. The girl ghost still sobbed but she could stand it, she could...

Or maybe not.

Scummin’ hell! Why do you cry?

The sobs turned into whooping gulps, louder and infinitely more distracting.

You’re being cruel, she told herself. What could she possibly want from me that would be dangerous? Eleven years old!

Crossing her fingers, and praying the child’s parents hadn’t poisoned her, she gave in.

Milly. Milly, please, what is it you want from me? Maybe I can help you? Hey. Talk to me, kid. Finally the crying stopped.

I need to find my ma and pa, but...but I don’t know where they are!

Well. Where do they live?

They’re dead.

Oh. This was looking so utterly promising. Dead parents.

Um. How did they die, Milly? Why do you need to find them?

To tell them what happened to me. They’re with a lot of other dead people. But I don’t how to get there.

Heloise swallowed. You mean a cemetery? A place with a lot of gravestones, sort of slabs sticking up in the air with writing on them?

I think so. Some don’t have those stones. Some people are put in together, like my ma and pa. To save space, ma says. She likes it though, being together with da. I can see it, but I can’t find my way.

A cemetery. A poor one from the description. Well, she had offered. Besides, this way she had a ghost inside her, a shield in a way, from the
other
.

The graveyard for the poor was over south of a manufacturing district with its blacksmith’s, foundries and tanneries. At least it wasn’t the same as the one where she’d been attacked. They could get there before dawn, just, if she walked fast. Nighttime was a limiting factor with ghosts. It was raining heavier but at least this old coat was waterproof to a degree. No doubt due to the layer of oil and grime on the outside.

A horse whinnied, then hoof beats clattered on the stones of the street, coming from where she’d seen the drunk. She pulled up the hood of the coat, turned her back to the approaching rider.

“Heloise? It is you, girl!” Bull’s voice. He set the horse to a trot, and as he drew close, dismounted and ran to her before his mount had come to a halt. “Girl!” He gathered her in his arms, holding her tight. “Phew! You smell.”

“Hey! It’s the coat.” But even in the excitement and joy at being found, she couldn’t forget Milly. “Oh, Bull, thank you for coming after me!”

“You think I wouldn’t? ‘Sides. Once that sot back there pointed you out I’d have found you by smell alone.”

She braced her shoulders and stepped away. “Can I ask a favor? I need your horse.”

“Hey. Tell me the story and you can have it, but I come with it.” Moonlight silvered the tips of Bull’s short spiked hair. He looked her square in the eye.

She barely hesitated. “Sure, but it’s complicated.” If any man could look after himself, it would be Bull.

“The interesting things generally are.”

“Um.” She wriggled her bare toes. “Could we get going? I’ll explain as we go.”

It wasn’t as difficult as she’d thought, telling Bull. The man was unrockable. Though she’d not told him of the
other
. She sat behind him on the horse and felt the warmth he radiated – comforting, manly, solid. If she’d known her father, this is how she’d like him to be.

“So,” he said in his deep voice. “The south-side cemetery? Any more details than that?

No
, Milly whispered shyly.

In the pause before she could answer, Heloise felt Bull tense.

“Are you talking to that ghost now?”

“Yes. I am. I guess that’s a bit creepy?”

He grunted.

“She says, no. Maybe when we get there she’ll know more?”

“Tell her, we’ll find her ma and pa, and tell her if she messes round with what’s inside your head she’ll be in big trouble.”

Heloise grinned. “She heard you.”

The ride there took barely an hour. The streets grew steadily less respectable, while the number of people out foraging, profiting, having fun, or fornicating grew steadily greater. Sour and speculative stares came their way, as though some were calculating the price of the horse. Sobering. If she’d walked by herself, the odds were she’d never have made it without being molested.

Bone Street, a short but straight thoroughfare leading up to the cemetery, was bare of people.

The entrance to the cemetery went under a metal arch half-conquered by tangled vines. One street lamp shed a weak yellow light. Crickets chirped from the low weeds and scattered shrubs, and gaggles of fruit bats squabbled in the wide canopies of a few trees to the left.

Bull held the mare to a slow trot, gravel crunching under her hooves. Tendrils of the vine dangling from the arch stuck to Heloise’s hair when they passed beneath, as if making a half-hearted attempt to guard the cemetery from intruders.