CHAPTER 10
The door crashed open and a man barged in, wearing an army dress uniform. He stormed across the room, fists banging against his forehead. “Enough!”
Major Simon FitzRoy. He was just like that photo in the newspaper. He had a ruggedness to him, like her dad in many ways. A life of soldiering had left its mark. Yet he was frayed at the edges, hair too long for parade, his trousers badly creased and his jacket unevenly buttoned. His shoes were scratched and dull.
Simon stared frantically around him straight past both Billi and Faustus. They weren’t in his personal hell.
She could touch him. He was as solid as her or Faustus. But his eyes gave away his true nature. They were as silver as mirrors, hollow reflections of a person without a soul. This was no living man. This was the bitter remnant that couldn’t let go of the mortal realm. FitzRoy stiffened; his neck muscles stood rigid against his tanned skin. Then he took a deep breath. “There is a way to stop you. Delay you, at least.”
He took a Zippo lighter from his pocket. He turned the device over his hand. “You haven’t won, despite what you may think.”
Who did he mean?
FitzRoy lit the lighter and waved the flames along the edge of the curtains. The velvet burnt easily and quickly. He then went to the shelves, ripping pages out of books, setting fire to them and scattering them over the study.
How much of this was real? How much could harm them? She felt the heat from the flames and tried not to cough from the smoke. The psychic energy radiating from the ghost was powerful, enough to bring the torment of the past into the present. That’s what ghosts were, memories that had been so horrific they’d left a wound on the world. The house itself contained the pain and Billi and Faustus were on the edge of that memory.
The ceiling was already swelling with smoke. The wallpaper caught light.
FitzRoy slumped down on the armchair. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I can’t fight any more. I’m so sorry.”
He reached into a drawer and pulled out a Browning pistol.
She had to save him. It was a stupid, impossible instinct but she had to try. She took a step forward, but Faustus grabbed her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“You can’t, Billi.”
The pain in his voice stopped her. The way his voice cracked as he spoke. He’d tried it himself. Of course, he would have. Who? Someone who’d meant a great deal to him. That pain was too fresh to be anything else. Billi nodded.
Then she turned back to the horror show of Simon FitzRoy’s last few moments.
Simon checked the pistol, loading a round in the chamber. His fear and anxiety were lifting. He’d made his decision. Still, a tear rolled down his gaunt cheek. “I hope you find the strength I never had. You have to make sure he never finds it. Find a way to stop him, once and forever. I love you, Erin.”
Simon then pressed the barrel in the centre of his forehead.
Billi closed her eyes as he pulled the trigger. She jumped at the sound of the shot. There was a thud as the pistol fell to the floor and the room suddenly filled with the acrid smell of burnt gunpowder.
She thought she could handle ghosts, she’d fought a few by now. But Faustus was right, each was a victim of a unique tragedy. Some suffering was so great that even death wasn’t an escape.
She didn’t want to look. She knew what a bullet could do at that sort of range. Ghostly manifestation or not Simon’s body was slummed in the armchair, right behind her.
The heat subsided now, the flames dulled. She walked to the window to get some fresh air into the room and clear her head. “What do you think, Faustus?”
He leaned over the body. “I want to take a look.”
Why hadn’t Simon faded yet? He shouldn’t be lingering at all…
Faustus reached out to touch him.
FitzRoy hissed as he snapped his eyes open. He leapt up, locking his hands around Faustus’s throat. Bile, black and oily, seeped down his face from the grotesque hole in his forehead. The back of his skull was a crater of bloody hair and brains.
Billi flicked the fetters from her hand. They lashed around FitzRoy’s wrist and she pulled hard.
The fetters snapped.
The silver links scattered across the floor as the entire chain disintegrated. How was that possible? Any ghost would have been held fast. The Templars had used those chains for centuries without fail.
No time to worry about that. Simon had both hands around Faustus’s neck and try as he might, Faustus couldn’t break free.
She jumped up on the table and lashed out with her boot, taking FitzRoy hard in the jaw. His head jerked back so far, she thought his neck would snap but the ghost, or whatever it was, held his ground, gritting his teeth as he squeezed. FitzRoy lifted Faustus off his feet and hurled him against the broken furniture. Faustus landed badly; his arm being torn from wrist to elbow by the jagged shards of wood.
FitzRoy spun around to face her, snarling. Scrub ghost. No spook moved like that. This thing was much, much more powerful. A revenant. Sometimes the hate, the rage is too much. The ghost goes from being a bitter memory, a stain on the psyche, to something filled with pure destruction.
Billi flipped open the satchel and scrabbled inside until her hand locked around the bottle of holy water. Whatever it was, this would take care of it. She flipped the lid off with her thumb. “Come on, then.”
“Billi, it’s not what —”
FitzRoy charged, she threw the bottle straight at his chest. The glass shattered and the water splashed over him. And burst into flames.
Okay this is officially bad.
“Simon! It doesn’t have to be like this!” she yelled, ducking under
