Furthermore

[badgersandjam.livejournal.com]

When Shine knew a bit more, and was a bit more Awake...

Death and the Maiden

It wasn’t Shine’s worst nightmare. Her nightmares were much, much worse.

 

EXPLICIT

She and Juvenal hadn’t paid much attention to the radio announcement of a death in a nightclub.  It was Birmingham, after all.  It was only when the Asphalt Conspiracy intervened that they realised that Zombie Boy (Shine couldn’t catch his name; the accent was too difficult and he mumbled) hadn’t been watched carefully enough.  What the hell had hit the nightclub?

 

Malady and Faraday and others trooped off to investigate in their own way.  She kept to the shadows, where she belonged.  Death gathered about her, deepening its handprints on her body.  She felt the ache of old wounds, but closed her eyes and listened out for the footfalls of the newly dead.   When she opened them, a wavering figure with pleading eyes stood in front of her, looking around, not registering that the only one who could see him was she.  Ten or so yards away the Martyr closed the ambulance doors on his dead body.

 

Shine had never had to tell anyone he was dead before. She was suddenly very painfully aware that she was bad at it. She’d met ghosts who didn’t realise they were dead before, and it struck her that it must be odd, that there must be subtle clues, especially after a while when no faces were familiar any more and the styles of dress and speech had changed.

But Richard didn’t know. It was so soon. He bore the marks, like others she had known had, of his death, and since she had a horrible suspicion what might have killed him, especially when he spoke of his killer’s stench, she got angry, really angry, and her coin appeared in her hand. And then she blinked, and saw his—flesh was the wrong word—knit and flow back together again, and he stared at her. She didn’t really realise that she’d done it, but what else was there to think? Richard didn’t know enough to do anything to himself, and he was too new to have many powers, or talents, or means, or whatever you like to call them to effect himself or anyone else.

He was angry, and he was right, it wasn’t fair. But she knew what happened to ghosts if they fed on anger, so someone had to get him on the right track. She thought hopelessly of the movie Betelgeuse where they’d had a Handbook for the Newly Deceased and fought the urge to giggle nervously. The way he was picking up on meanings she wasn’t trying to put into her words meant that he was cleverer than she was, and she was struggling to say things. She wasn’t a teacher. When all was said and done, she was just a little Southern girl who was good with her hands.

Then he sadly drew her attention to the fact that she was distinguishing between people and ghosts, and her first thought was of course she was, one was dead and one wasn’t, and then she thought, he doesn’t think he’s a person any more, and knew that that was the first step to a ghost going bad. But she knew how to talk to people. And now that he didn’t have the wounds that reminded her of the others she found she could talk freely, honestly, and she found herself explaining things about her past, things that she hadn’t talked about in years, and anchors, and how some ghosts had more than one and maybe he wasn’t just tied to the place where he had died, maybe he could see his girlfriend and kid again, but he’d have to work hard. And then the Southern took over and she was talking about all manner of things, and they both started laughing and she even got him to make a joke or two, and the laughter healed him a bit further though of course she couldn’t give him life; but she could give him this, a start where somebody cared about him.

And she did care. Not because Richard was a particularly nice guy but because this was wrong, wrong, and the only reason she hadn’t done anything was that there had been too goddamn many witnesses and she didn’t know them enough.

So she made promises.  She was going to Star City Casino to play instead of work, and playing was something she could do really well. Tonight, she promised, she would win enough money that she could give some to Richard’s girlfriend and little boy and maybe it’d be enough to cover some of their expenses. She wasn’t going to risk enough to get herself noticed as a high roller, but she was sure she could make a difference. Then she’d go back the next night and start off by losing big, and only pulling back only enough to make a decent margin, and people would remember the loss more than the steady wins of the night before. She couldn’t help but think of Reilly in Rio.

The problem was how to start with the girlfriend. “Have you seen Ghost? I know I don’t look like Whoopi Goldberg, but…” was probably the wrong approach. Or maybe it wasn’t. It would depend on whether Richard found he did have enough of a tie to that photo of his family that somehow she had known he had, and whether he could travel to it. Then she could act as a medium, she could use Richard’s words, and it would be hard but she could pull it off with time. As long as the girlfriend promised she wouldn’t mention her charity to the police, or to the Asphalt Conspiracy.

She’d not gotten noticed—of course she’d been careful—and made her way back to where she found Juvenal waiting in the car. She couldn’t put into words why she felt shaken, but he listened anyway, sometimes with more of an air of distraction than others, but then, he wanted to talk to Judas, and Judas’ phone was still off.

She’d arranged to meet Richard at dawn, in the alley, and she’d help as much as she could. Then she smiled at Juvenal and said she had a cab to catch, and in the cramped confines of the car he’d managed to sort of bow and kiss her hand like a gentleman caller, and she thought, tiredly, I’m going to have to talk to Judas.

* * *

The casino proceeded as planned. She called Judas once to get an idea of who ran the casino in the grand scheme of things, but Judas had had no idea, so she’d proceed with her two nights’ running scheme, and then she’d hare back down to London.

* * *

When she finished in Harbourne, where Richard had lived, she was exhausted. It had been difficult—she had known it would be—but Richard had managed to get there, and that made it both easier and infinitely harder, because his girlfriend couldn’t see ghosts (what was it with Brits?), and Richard couldn’t hear her, not yet, so she’d been talking back and forth like a mad crazy Blanche DuBois, only this time she was the stranger being kind.  She gave them Judas’ shop’s number as a contact for her, should they need it.

By the time she got to the shop, Shine wore death like a mantle. She dropped into the exhausted sleep of the just.

 

INCIPIT