The back door was open when they circled the shop. It was an old wooden door, quite thick but obviously not thick enough to stop determined burglars. Someone had taken a blunt object to the two locks on the door, breaking one open and bashing the other off so completely that it lay in pieces around their feet. The door was gently swinging in the breeze.
“Remember what I said about there being trouble?”
“Oh my God.”
Dina put a hand on Katie’s shoulder and tightly laced the fingers of her other hand with Jaye’s. However you looked at it, this could be nothing but a bad thing. The tattoo shop was in silence. Would it have been any better if there had been any noise coming from it? Katie shrugged Dina off, fiddled with loose threads on her jumper to buy time then inched forward. “Ssshh.” She held a finger to her lips as she nudged the door with one fingertip. They probably did not need telling to keep quiet - it just felt a bit more normal to have something to say. Like they were doing it properly. Whatever ‘it’ turned out to be. The splintered door swung open, millimetre by horrible millimetre, and Katie let her mind drift to what awful sight might be there to greet her on the other side. She was far too wound up by now to let her focus slip though.
“Katie,” whispered Jaye. She looked even smaller than usual hunched over and dressed in black. They said it was a slimming colour but Jaye was virtually vanishing in it. Tiny and pale and afraid, she looked suddenly younger than Katie. She pulled herself up straight and closed the worried look off her face, going for something between a blank expression. “I should go in first,” she bravely volunteered. “If there’s someone in there, they can’t hurt me.”
“Oh Jaye.” Katie leaned back against the wall to get her bearings. The room Mademoiselle Romani had taken her into earlier that (yester)day had been right behind the main shop and right, so it should be slightly to the left now. And it wasn’t hard to guess which of the two doors at their left was the one they wanted. One was slightly ajar and completely dark. The other was shut tight. It was going to be the shut door. “You don’t need to.”
“I do though. After what I did to you... I have to even it out somehow.”
“No, you don’t. You didn’t do those things, She did.” Katie was reminded of the horrific things Jaye had done – been forced to do – when she had been bodysnatched last month. Jaye remembered each and every one. Shooting Katie, throwing her around the common room, breaking her wrist, threatening her friends and her home. And, despite all of that or maybe in spite of it, Katie had not given up trying to save her, had not thrown in the towel even when she had looked too far gone to be brought back. “You shouldn’t have to pay for what She did.”
“I still feel guilty.” And before anyone could speak or stop her, Jaye had whipped around to the front of the door and was pressing down on the handle. The door opened and Jaye just stood there for a few seconds.
“Well?”
“Hang on.” She fished out her keys and chose one keyring that looked like a pen. It turned out to be a slim torch. She popped it into her mouth, braced her hands on either side of the door frame and leaned in. The smell of oils and lotions was wafting out. No wonder Jaye didn’t want to go further in if that stench was anything to go by. “Hmm hmm!”
Katie reached over and plucked the torch from her mouth, raising her eyebrows in a ‘try again’ gesture.
“Fake tan! Stinky aromatherapy oils! Stinks like it’s not been used in a decade.”
“You’d reckon they’d get it shifted. Fire risk,” Leo pointed out.
“So, that leaves door number two.” Katie swallowed hard and kicked it open before she had chance to think herself out of it.
She wished she had thought herself out of it.
The words weren’t there to describe the horror inside that room. Katie took in the sight in just a glance – it was impossible not to look at Mademoiselle Romani before anything else – then averted her gaze. For, in the centre of the small storage room was a body half lying on the floor and the head lying sideways on the seat of a leather topped stool. Thankfully, Mademoiselle Romani was not staring at Katie with what she knew would be marble eyes and a mouth so slack a line of drool snuck out of one corner. She did not think she could see that and not let loose the acid bile that was travelling up her throat. She was already trying to ignore her stomach doing backflips at the sight of all that blood. It was everywhere. Not in pools or messy splodges like the TV showed; but there were spits here and there, arcs decorating the walls. And her clothes… God, her clothes were the worst of all. The white roses topping her blonde hair were splashed with red, giving the impression of some gruesome art wear. Her layers of muslin were slashed and lay around her in shreds. Her pale skirt was fine. It was intact – untouched by gore or lash. It only made the destruction wrought on her upper body more shocking. The skin on Mademoiselle Romani’s back had been slashed this way and that so many time there was hardly any clear skin left visible.
“Oh my God.”
“What’s in there?”
Dina and the others came tumbling into the room. They all stopped and stared, taking in the horror as Katie had.
She glanced up. Even the strip light above had a line of blood across it. So much blood. Don’t look then. Okay, that was simple. She just wouldn’t look then. Not look at this poor, ravaged body – skinned alive and bleeding. Because, although Mademoiselle Romani’s blood had obviously long since stopped oxygenating itself, thick trickles were still oozing lazily – dead – from one or two of the deeper wounds. Trouble was, there wasn’t anything else to look at in this place. Not unless she had a burning interest in tattoo inks. So she let her gaze flick back to the body. And then the whole thing just became too much. Her stomach twisted violently and she barely made it across the room before vomiting in a formerly empty cardboard box. A cool hand found her neck and scooped her long hair out of her face, holding it back while she finished throwing up whatever dinner she had left in her system.
“It’s okay. Just let it come up on its’ own.” Dina’s own voice was shaky but she sounded more in control of herself than Katie. How she wasn’t joining the spew party was a miracle but Katie was glad of it. Someone had to be the adult here and she was definitely not it. “I think you’re brave just for staying here. in all this…”
“She was my friend, my psychic. And now-“ And that was it. Katie was bending over the box again, closing her eyes tight but seeing a whipped and bloody body etched into her eyelids. God, what she must have felt. The agony.
“Don’t hold it down, Katie.” Then she must have turned to face the room because her voice changed slightly.. “Is she definitely-?”
“Unless she’s some kind of superhero, I don’t see how she could not be.”
Katie straightened up and squeezed Dina’s hand, communicating everything in that one touch even though she didn’t have the words for it. A thank you for holding her hair, for being here, for not calling her a baby or making her feel like one, and for moral support for what she was going to do next. She turned back so she was facing the body and fixed her gaze at some imaginary picture just above it. There. Not looking. There was somebody missing. She was here, Dina was beside her, Leo was staring with morbid fascination at the body. No, at the slashes, Katie realised. She saw something silver glint and light up in blue and white. Snick.
“Jaye went to get some air.”
“Oh. Why didn’t I think of that?” Katie asked, half to herself.
Leo put something in his pocket and edged towards the body.
“No. I should do it.” But she didn’t really want to.
Katie wished then that she had brought a coat, at least then she could cover her up – Mademoiselle Romani deserved that much. But none of them had. Jaye had a jacket but she was outside. The best they had was Leo’s shirt and she wasn’t even going to ask in case it left fabric fibres the poli
ce would trace back to him. That was if the police even came to town to investigate. These hypotheticals had kept her mind off centre long enough to reach a hesitant hand out to touch Mademoiselle. She could feel the cold coming of the flesh at just a few inches but she had to check for a pulse. Had to be sure. And just as she neared the neck, something flickered in the corner of her eye and it sent her skittering back on her backside.
The translucent form of Mademoiselle Romani rose from her dead body. She looked as healthy as she had earlier in the day only now she was incorporeal and you could see right through her. She opened her mouth to speak. A perfect mouth – no blood, no drool.
“Yes… I am.”
“Mademoiselle Romani?”
“I’m sorry you had to see me like this. It was the only way. Truly, it was. I know you’re there Katie, I know you’re all there. I can’t see you yet but one day I will again.”
“What happened?”
“I died.”
“Why? Did you do something?”
The ghost shrugged. “It’s hard to say. But you need to listen to me. I saw things earlier and I found out what they meant tonight. I saw you, child, and you alone. There will be a battle. You kick and scream and punch your way through. You will face monsters – monsters so fierce that I can’t even describe them. I saw you fighting. Under the sun, under the moon, under the storm and the stars. There will be tests and you can’t fail, Katie, you mustn’t. The price will be too high.”
“Fighting? When? ‘Cos I have work in, like seven hours.”
“Don’t go!” She moved forward to touch Katie’s arm but caught herself just in time. “Promise me you won’t go there! All those hands trying to get a piece of you. I can’t stand to watch.”
“I also don’t know how to fight.”
“You don’t need to. Not like a boxer or a martial artist. Just fight it.” That made a lot of sense. “Oh Katie, you have to be on your guard every second. The monsters could be anywhere, anything, anyone.
“Before you ask, I don’t know who did this to me. I’m not sure of much at the moment. I just had to tell you what I saw.”
“But you’re coming back… right?”
“Not like I was before. Sometimes the dead have to stay dead.” Mademoiselle Romani glanced at Leo and gave him a thin smile, as if just noticing him standing there. “But I’ll be around to help when I can.”
“Wait,” she shouted as the dead psychic began to fade further.
“Just fight them. They think they can win, that they can control you, but you can resist. But fight.”
And then she was gone.
“Well… that was interesting,” Dina piped up from the corner. “Anyone know what that was all about?” The question was met with a wall of silence. No-one knew the answers and no-one wanted to make a suggestion.
“Bobby Fish!” Katie blurted and ran over to the goldfish bowl, her stomach bouncing unhappily with every step.
“What?”
“Bobby Fish.” The name alone wasn’t the explanation Katie had been hoping for. “Mademoiselle Romani had a pet goldfish. Bobby Fish. Poor little thing must have seen it all.”
“Too bad he can’t tell us who did it.”
“And if they’re coming back.”
Monsters. Now that the word was fresh in her mind, Katie could think of nothing else. They’re not coming back.
They’re right here.
“Out!” Katie bellowed. The sound echoed around the tiny room and she felt a bit stupid for being so loud. Really, there was no need for this volume but an unidentified panic had gripped her and plain instinct was running the show for the foreseeable future. “Get the door!”
“What’re you on?”
“Just do it. There’s no time to – oh, hell, I’ll do it myself.”
But trying to rest the weight of a sloshing goldfish bowl on her good arm and get the door was proving to be a bit of a problem. Leo stepped in front of her and grasped her shoulder, stilling her pushes forward.
“Leo, get out of my way.”
“Not until you tell us what’s going on.”
“I don’t know. But I’ve got a feeling and we need to get out of here.” She glanced down at Bobby Fish. He was swimming around calmly – likely thinking this was a fun ride.
“Why?”
“Something’s going to-“ Katie coughed. A thin line of smoke was drifting under the door. “Listen to me. Can you see that?” She pointed down at the smoke, hoping the sight would shock him into doing what he was told. But Leo only shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. Dina also denied seeing it, with an apologetic smile. Katie looked down once more. Thin grey wisps were still below the door but, she realised, she was wrong. There was no smoke. At least – not yet. The grey breaths were floating wisps of energy. The dark energy leftover from the events that had happened here? Shouldn’t that be inside? Even so… “We need to move it! NOW!”
That was a voice not to be ignored. Okay it was shakier and more strained than Katie would have liked but it definitely got her friends moving. Even Dina, who was pressing herself further and further into the shadows, looking vulnerable and scared and very much like the wretched figure she had been a month ago, was slowly edging towards Katie with one hand out. Katie reached her strapped wrist around and laced her fingers with hers. It was easy to forget that Dina was still being counselled for depression after her suicide attempt –she could seem so grown up and in control – but really she was just a girl who had a brave face. Leo gripped the door handle and pushed. It opened easily. But black smoke rushed at them and flames licked the back door.
Their escape route was blocked.
I was right, Katie thought with a strange sense of satisfaction. It was a fire.
Chapter seven