STORY A
'Where The Heart Has Lied'
The cobble path is unstable beneath your feet. The shifting weight of the ground distracts you, but not enough. The cold air cuts at your face, threatening to sweep your heavy trench away.
Another rich airhead bearing likely-false ghost claims (you would know the true ones); another death bringing you closer to your own. Fortunately, it pays well.
The ghosts, of course, pale in comparison to the true monsters you deal with. The ghosts themselves are docile, friendly creatures who yearn for closure. Humans, however, are worse than the devils. You’ve seen terrible acts, all human, and only ever seen the dead wish for a final goodbye. Eyes gouged by a spectre becoming a jealous sister who wants attention. Flickering lights becoming a prankster father. Possession being illness of the mind. It’s entertaining, truly, to see what humans are capable of.
You approach the manor, a stone house on a grassy knoll with ivy covering a vast majority of the walls. The door creaks as you push it open, inviting yourself inside.
The house certainly fits the bill of a stereotypical murder scene, save for the ghastly faces warped by death staring you down whilst you stare ahead.
A few more steps, and someone appears. It’s an elderly man wielding a cane and wearing gold-rimmed glasses; he instantly notices your lack of surprise at his sudden appearance and lets out a low grunt of approval. He walks away, and you tighten your coat and follow. He leads you into a drawing room, filled with five people standing in ways that show their two dimensional character. It’s all wonderfully cliche. Convinced that a demon is haunting them, no one is suspicious of any of the others. The true killer - needless to say, probably not a ghost, demon, or any of the variety - would look relieved, having thought they were off scot free.
Instinctually, rather, habitually, you scan the faces of the suspects, and the faces of the ghosts which lurk behind them. The man in a velvet, high quality suit - clearly dubbed Rich - looks anxious, and for good reason. There are at least ten ghosts crowding around him, and you’ve no doubt the man has abused power to gain his wealth. You’re sure it’s the usual story, a business man doing business typically ends up with lives crushed beneath an unsuspecting foot. It wouldn’t translate murderous intent. The old man takes a seat, allowing a small smile to creep on his face. Mentally, you dub him Old. The mother of the dead child is sobbing; she isn’t faking it though. You know what that sounds like. Her devastation is apparent and you trust that she has not killed her daughter. You decide to call her Mother.
No, the ones you’re truly interested in is a lady wearing a simple purple dress, chatting up the others. Her ears perked up when you came in the room, and she bears a resemblance to the dead. The only ghost watching her wears a bloodstained Tragedy mask. You’ve come up with a moniker for this lady in the purple dress. Mistress. You don’t know what she’d done to get that poor soul in a past life, although, it had to have been horrible. The trickery to get a human to willingly touch with a spirit was usually of the immoral kind.The other who catches your eye is a burly man wearing quite the getup - his sparkling golden tuxedo nearly makes you burst out laughing, his eyes brushed with gold, his hair blond as a retriever. Easily, this man is Goldie. The man clearly has a brand, and even better, he has no spirits around him. Not one ghost, ghoul, or demon has attached itself, meaning that Goldie has never had a regret, so even if he were the murderer, neither him nor the ghost blamed himself. He keeps an air of confidence, and you smile. Too obvious, of course, but my, he’d be a fun one to question if it came to that. You feel it always gives a rather interesting twist when psychopaths are involved. In an instant, the tone shifts as they notice you. You are the center of attention, and your heart palpitates when all their eyes are staring down your soul like a murder of crows come to gouge your organs.
“The P.I. is here!” Goldie shouts, jumping up with a clap. The exclamation breaks the wandering your mind has been doing, and sets you to business.
“He was acting so strange,” Mother blubbered, “before he died - I shudder to think what that demon could’ve done…”
“Right,” you reply, entirely disinterested. “I’ll need to see the victim.” You beckon Old to show you to the body, and he shuffles along with you. “I’ve set up sigils-” you absolutely had not, there was no malevolent presence in this household anyway, if there were you wouldn’t have come- “so do not leave this room. For your own safety.” For yours, more like.
The old man leads you up a set of cricket stairs, long worn from thousands of feet wandering over them. The first door on the left of the second landing reveals a gruesome scene. A little boy, no older than six, is lacerated down the middle from the neck to the groin. His organs are in plain view behind his ribcage, and a heart that eerily almost still seems to beat every minute or so. Behind him is a pale imitation of the body on the floor.
The specter is perfectly still as he stares at his own corpse, glancing occasionally at his fully healed ghost. You dismiss the elder with a flick of your wrist and move closer as if approaching roadkill you aren’t sure is dead. The boy shivers, holding onto an equally ghostly teddy bear. You’re somewhat impressed, most spirits need weeks before being able to conjure ghostly apparitions of items.
At the same time, a familiar twinge of cold creeps up your arms. A reminder of your weakness as a human, how this little boy could kill you and steal your soul in a heartbeat. You get on one knee, adopting a soft tone of voice.
“Hey there, what’s your name?” You smile, hoping it will calm the boy down.
He turns his eyes to you, full of childlike innocence. The second your stares meet, though, you try not to scream. It’s as if death itself is staring you in the eyes, taunting you for this unnatural ability of yours, gifted to so few. The boy sniffs, and you’re snapped out of it. He’s only a child. “I- I- I’m James.”
“Well hello hello! What’s that bear’s name, kid?” James smiles. A shiver goes up your spine at the sudden, startling shift in his mood.
“This is Pablo. I named him after a guy in town who played guitar for me once ‘cause he was so cool but then Mommy said I couldn’t talk to him anymore which is weird ‘cause he’s over here tonight. But apparently he did some bad things. Hey sir, am I dead? Mommy says that dead people can see their own bodies but also it might just be a prank because Grammpa likes to play those but then who are you?” The boy’s long-winded dialogue confuses you, but always the expert, you sort it out.
“James, I have to tell you, you are dead. A guide should show up soon to see if you want to try a different life or linger as a ghost. I’m going to ask you to move on, okay? I’m just a friend of your mother’s who is worried about you.” You try to say it gently, although it comes out a bit brash. The smile drops from the ghost boy’s face, and he starts wailing.
“B-But I wanna stay with Mommy!” He chokes this out in between his ear-shattering screams. You envy the other people in the house, who can at most hear a faint whisper of a voice. You haven’t the foggiest of how to calm this situation down. So you do possibly the dumbest thing you could have done. You move towards the boy and wrap your arms around him, embracing him in a hug. If he wished, he could take your body right now with this physical touch. You’d have to serve his soul, his reincarnations, until the end of time, wearing a mask he chose without remembering why his luck was so plentiful - instead, the boy turns semi-material, hugging you back as he sniffles into your shoulder. He feels distinctly inhuman, the cold aching against your skin. You force yourself to relax. Just a child.
“I’m going to help you, James. I can’t get you back to your mother, but I can tell her anything you’d like to say. I’ll find out who did this and they’ll get their karma, you hear?”
James sniffles and nods, gripping his teddy bear closer. “Tell Mommy I love her.”
You nod and leave him, wandering back to the drawing room.
Well. That whole excursion was entirely to let the suspects stew while you gave closure to the victim. You had a pretty good idea of who had done it the moment you’d stepped in the door. The rest was just confirmation, and typically, confession.
A small thumping noise starts in your ear. Typically, you’d chalk it up to another hallucination… (Common, in this line of work.) But… The Tragedy ghost behind Mistress is staring at your chest. Your heart is thudding against your ribs, and you double over in immense pain as you hear them crack.
Suddenly, you’re back in the bedroom, little boy on the ground, specter behind. He blinks at you. “Sir, are you alright?” The thumping grows louder as you see the smile on James’ face.
“Yes, James, sorry, I’m just tired. Haven’t slept in days, you know? I’ll be on my way. Good luck passing on, tell the Ferryman I said hello.”
“Where are you going?” James pouted. The pounding in your heart stopped - suddenly, too suddenly - so that, in fact, your heart was not moving at all.
That was when you knew exactly who had done it. You stare at the child, those cold, weary eyes making sense.
“Figured it out, have you?” James laughed. “I was too great for this life - my previous one, I was a king! A king, relegated to a measly upperclassman? That woman-” he spits it out like a bad word- “my mother?! No, no. If I have been given this gift of remembrance, I will use it to trap idiot Paranormals like you to gain glory for myself.” The boy’s spirit shifts into a man, a wound encrusting his heart, a void is there where an organ should be.
“Why-”
“Because it was useless. A true king need not love, don’t you know this? And now you’re mine!” He said it with such giddiness that he almost looked like a child again. You were swiftly reminded of the contrary when spectral chains sprang up from the ground, wrapping themselves around your limbs and neck. James conjures up an old Il Dottore mask, and you flail about, knowing the moment it is on, you’ll never be able to escape this monster’s bidding. James gazes on with amusement as the mask floats towards you, instantly settling perfectly on your face as it fuses itself to your skin. You scream, even though you know nothing can be done now. You feel yourself eerily fading away, your soul disturbed by obedience creeping into your veins. Then- it was over.
