Fisher And The Bears Read online

  “That doesn't scan.” Tiger giggled. “So she was up here, then she went down there. Then somebody,” she picked up a brick from the broken wall and hurled it over the cliff. There was a boing as it hit Santa, followed by a yelp as it hit a bear. “Sorry!”

  “So what made her go running down there?” I asked.

  “Then all her videos had a pillar of insects.” Tiger chewed her lip. “Or was the thing in her videos first, and it was looking for something that brought her here?”

  “We only have part of the puzzle.” I looked around. “If she was here, she was probably looking in there.” I thumbed at the church. We stepped inside.

  The church had rendered walls painted the colour of sand, a surprisingly modest altar and old wooden pews. Ginger was looking at the stained glass windows, his head cocked to one side.

  “That is Saint George,” Tiger told him.

  “I know that.” Ginger waved his paw at the idea. “The George Cross, the dragon and the crusade era armour kind of gave that away.” He pointed at some figures in black tabards with red or white crosses. “Those are sergeants of the Knight Azraels. They were common men at arms, the bulk of the fighting force of the Order reporting to the Knights. Each was pretty heavily armoured for their time. Easily comparable to a noble Knight of any other order. They were like the SAS of their day. Highly trained shock troops.”

  “So, what are they holding?” I asked. Each held something that looked like a plank of wood.

  Ginger shrugged.

  “More to the point, where are they standing?” Tiger tilted her head. “That looks like the beach. I mean the cliffs probably eroded over time. Changed. But that cross on the top is meant to be the church right?”

  I looked at the window at the opposite end of the church. The Lord Jesus looked down on his congregation as they came through the door. Something odd occurred to me. “This church faces the wrong way.” I said. “It faces North South, not East West.”

  “I know. That window probably never gets any sun.” Ginger muttered. “And why is Jesus looking directly at those Azrael sergeants?” Then she shook her head and looked at the sill. “No he is looking at this. There is something etched into the stone.” She thought for a moment. “Nonsense, or a code. The same four letters, VXCD, over and over again. In different orders and combination. What kind of code uses four letters?”

  “One that is very hard to crack?” Tiger suggested. “Or only uses very rude words.”

  “Okay.” I said quietly. “I think we can safely say that she found something. Or was about to save something. But lets go to the library, get some books for research and think about what it could be.”

  We turned to walk out the door. On the fence the magpies were predicting a girl.

  “Where are all those coming from?” I asked.

  “Nests.” Tiger said with a nod. We walked back to the van.

  *

  Eventually I went to bed and tried to sleep. My mind was filled with ideas that did not quite fit. That Stoke had been killed because of some secret she had unearthed. That the secret had been planted there by the Knights Azrael. That something had killed her to stop her getting away with the item.

  That should have closed the book. Something or somebody had defended the secret at the cost of her life. Presumably the secret had been hidden once again and the affair was over. Yet it felt as though there was still something there. Something in the air.

  Perhaps I dozed off. Or perhaps the bird calls that haunted me were not in my dreams, despite their ethereal and mournful nature. At some point it was dawn. I did not feel much like I had slept at all. And yet something occurred to me. I went back to the computer, this time armed with one of the discs Al had shown me. I watched the snippet of video time and again. Looking at the haze that might have been a column of insects.

  “What is it you want?” I asked of the smudge on the screen. “Why did you have to kill her?”

  Something itched in my head. Something I had looked at but not seen. Something about the events. I opened the police file and looked through again. I started to place the pages around me on the floor as I tried to see something that was wrong. Something wrong with the bigger picture.

  “Why was she on the beach? If she found something on the cliff top why was she on the beach?” I closed my eyes. She was up by the church. She found something. She had to walk past her car, by the car she should have gone home in, but instead of getting in she went down the beach and got her head caved in by a brick thrown from the cliff top.

  Because she was running. Because when she reached her car something was waiting for her and she turned to run, down the beach. Blind panic taking her away from... Something. Something that had searched her, scattering everything she carried around her. But not her car keys. Why were they on the cliff top?

  “Why were the keys on the cliff top?” I asked. “Why the images on the video?”

  “Because the ghost wanted a lift home?” Tiger asked, waddling in to the office. There was a towel on her head from the shower, a noxious green face pack on her snout and a dressing gown tied tightly to her waist. She had bunny slippers, a paper under her arm and a mug of tea in her paws. She grinned at the joke.

  I realised what looked wrong with the big picture.

  “Why did she go to the church?” I asked.

  “To find a treasure the Knights of Azrael tried to hide there?” Tiger said. “Obviously.”

  “Unless she was trying to hide something.” I said. “She wanted something scary. Something dangerous. Something that would be the kind of story she wanted for her show. So what if she took it and was on her way home, but the heat was too much. So she stopped at a church. One she had known because she had spent so long looking at it. One that happened to be built by the butt kicking demon hunting keepers of secrets from the Crusades. Probably by my ancestor. It was his Order. But...” I caught myself. “I'm drifting. Point is she knew the reputation of the order, she knew that the Church was hallowed ground, protected, so she tried to put the... Whatever it was... There in the church and-”

  “And she was right in that what ever was chasing her was hampered by sacred ground.” Tiger realised. “But it drove her into a trap.”

  “They.” Ted was already pristinely dressed. Theodore Edison Bear shuffled into the kitchen already in his favourite tweeds and flicking open a broadsheet newspaper. “One on the cliff. One by the car that chased her along the sea front.” He poured some tea and came to join us. “I had a thought about the keys too.”

  “You did?” I asked.

  “They did not want her getting in the car.” He held out my car keys. “So lift these from you and you are at my mercy. So to speak.”

  “Ted.” I looked at him thoughtfully. “That is brilliant.”

  “Well, you know....” He blushed.

  “So what did she hide there, and is it still there?” Ginger asked sleepily as he poured three different cereals into a bowl and added a dash of milk.

  “I should go find out.” I looked at them, and the rest of the bears who were suddenly surrounding us. “Alone.” I said. They nodded. “Sans Bear. Without Assistance. This could be dangerous, so I am going on my tod.”

  “Yep,” and “yup,” and “yeah,” the bears agreed. Yet when I went to the van, there they were. Waiting for me.

  “What are you all doing here?” I asked. They had been told not to use pitchforks or sharp objects, and certainly no flaming torches. Mrs Sussex had helped me take the pointy, burny, hurty things and lock them in the bear proof shed. But the bears had done what they always did. Adapted to my rules and bent them to breaking point. Ginger for example, had replaced his favourite soft toy with Mister Smashy, a sledgehammer on which a face had been painted. Tiger had a frying pan. Theodore Edison Bear was a cricket fan so in love with the game he carried a bat. There were lumps of two by four, spades, shovels and croquet mallets.

  “Back up.” Ginger said, putting on his shades.

 
“Right.” I said. “Okay.” I knew better than to try and dissuade them. I got in the van and we drove to the car park near the old Azrael church. We walked up the cliff top path, through the field and to the church. Ginger was saluting the magpies with a recital of the song one line at a time. We walked around the outside first, looking in the long grass and behind the fallen wall and in nooks and crannies. We found nothing. No uneven or loose dirt. No trinkets or old books. We went into the church and looked under the benches and behind the bookcase and several bears stand on each others shoulders so they could check the decorative beams up at the ceiling. It was there that they found it.

  “What is it?” Tiger asked, turning the box over in her paws.

  “A camera.” I said. “An old camera.” I smiled. “For taking spirit photographs.” It was a small wooden box, with a lens that was operated by removing the brass cap and a hatch at the back for film. There were marks on the side. “This is why the films, all that footage at her house was contaminated with a ghost.”

  “Ah yes.” Ted put his thumbs in his pocket. “Back in the Victorian Era the easiest way to ensure that a ghost showed up in your photos, if you wanted the photo to show a real ghost and not a trick, was to bind the spirit to a device like this. I suppose if it was left too close to other images it might radiate Paradox energy and put an imprint on it all. Like the ghost we saw.”

  “So, why are the other ghosts or demons, or whatever protecting this?” Tiger asked.

  “Because it was stolen.” I said. “It belongs somewhere and it should go back.”

  “Fish,” Ginger said, “what is the line about there being twenty seven Magpies.”

  "Cheeseburgers.” Said Tiger, with authority.

  I walked to the door of the church and froze. The fence, the trees, the scattering of grave stones. All of them were covered by birds. Birds who were normally noble and beautiful things of white, black and electric blue, but whose beaks looked very sharp and whose black eyes were staring at us with malice.

  “Ah. I should have known before. There were two. One waiting at the car, which could chase her with out leaving footprints and the other,” I looked past the flock of magpies to the line of trees at the edge of the church yard. There was something in the shadows of the trees. Something tall, thin, thinner than a man and more jagged, like a skeleton wrapped in a bed sheet, with pointed shoulders and jagged lines. “A Scare and Crow. Or a Scare and a Magpie at least.” I closed the door to the church. The bears looked at me blankly. “We are in big trouble.”

  A Scare and Crows. They are spirits bound to tombs to protect the treasures of the dead. If you break into the wrong tomb, or dig up the wrong casket of treasure, then they will do what every they need to protect it. They were a sledgehammer used to crack walnuts. They efficiently made sure that nobody lived to spread what ever secret they had been bound to protect.

  “Seems like a lot of effort to protect a ghost camera.” Tiger frowned. “There is a plate still in here!”

  Scratching at the door. Rotting bones on wood. Fingers like claws. Like sticks.

  “And what are the bets that plate has a photo on it that somebody really, really, did not want anybody to know about?” I put my head in my hands. “Even if we give this back the Scare and the Crow will still try and kill us. They are not programmed to find the treasure first and kill if they need to. Find who has the secret. Kill them. No if. No buts.” I looked at the bears. “Maybe you should all hide under the pews and make no sound. If I get hurt, go find my dad when it is safe.”

  Something shook the door. A bunch of bears piled against it to hold it closed.

  “I will draw their fire.” I said. “I can take the camera and run.”

  “Then?” Tiger asked in a rising tone.

  “I'll think of something.” I said. “I will be fine. I promise.”

  The window at the end of the church shattered in a shower of painted glass. The bears dove for cover under the wooden pews as a black, white and electric blue swirl filled the church. There were claws, feathers, beaks and squawks that filled every inch of the air. I was nipped, bitten and scratched as I covered my face with my arm and held up the camera to the swarm of magpies that kept thrashing and slashing around me.

  “I have this!” I shouted. “See! Leave the bears alone!” I scooted the last of the bears into cover and ran outside. Most the birds followed me. I stepped out into the church yard and saw the Scare looking at me, with dark, empty eyes. It hissed to show me a maw full of broken teeth. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of paper sachets. Salt, the kind of packets you get from a chip shop. I scattered them at my feet, a quick and easy mess free circle. “Now, I really can't let anybody else die so be a sport and stand still while I-”

  The Scare ploughed forwards, hitting me like a tidal wave and slamming me back against the crumbling wall. Fingers closed around my throat. They dug into my neck and crushed my windpipe closed. I hammered at the side of his head with my palms, but the leathery flesh was unyielding. The empty sockets of the dark eyes gazed into me and I felt my body growing weak as my lungs burned and my heart hammered against my tonsils.

  Then something changed. There was still noise and confusion in the church, but the tone, the sound of that confusion changed. The whirlwind of countless birds came exploding out of the open door, not in victory, but in a rout. It was followed by a hurricane of anoraks, scuffed shoes and paws. The bears let out a war cry and were whipping the air with bats, boards, pans and clubs.

  “Oi!” Ginger roared at the Scare. “We said nobody else dies.” He thumbed a stud in the side of his hammer. Click. Click. Woof. Flames blazed around the head of Mister Smashy as there was a whisper of gas. He charged at the Scare and was tossed aside. He landed in a heap. The Scare let out a banshee cry that pierced the air and made the bears back off. The grip on my throat loosened a little. I had just one breath I could draw. I made it count. My fingers closed on the camera.

  How did it always take a picture of a ghost? It had a ghost trapped in it. A shadowy figure that would easily be mistaken for a column of insects. I held it and I whispered the rites that would turn the circle from a line of salt to a piece of the Other World.

  Ted waved his cricket bat, screamed at the bears to remember the Alamo and swatted two of the birds aside so he could take a running jump at the Scare. The Scare was so shocked by the spectacle of a portly bear in tweeds taking to the air that it did not have a chance to parry the blow.

  I did not have the time to exorcise the Scare and the Crows. They were too strong, and would not stop fighting the bears while I loosened their grip on reality. So I did something crude and desperate. The camera was a box for keeping ghosts in. I pulled the old ghost out and gave her some freedom. A column of grey fog that might have been a girl in grey skirts. Far older than the camera. A remnant of another age. When the circle closed she would be in the Other World. Of course the Scare and Magpies would not oblige me by being in the circle unless I did something oh so very clever.

  Like using the camera as a trap. I whispered some very clever magic into the camera. Very crude, very ad hoc and utterly stupid, but nonetheless very clever magic. And I tossed the camera through the swirl of birds to the Scare. It caught it by instinct, plucking it from the air with long talons for fingers. The moment they touched there was a sucking popping noise. The birds vanished from the air in a pop of feathers and displaced air. The Scare just ceased to be. The camera fell to the floor and hopped around a little. Unfortunately the birds having gone suddenly did not mean that the bears would just stop. Momentum meant that there were a lot of swings and blows and swipes that met empty air and carried the bears into a crash, wallop and thump of unintended consequences.

  I sat up in the circle and nursed my bruised throat. I could not see what was there with me, but I knew that what had been released from the camera was there. I could feel a presence and it suddenly struck me how cruel a device the Spirit Camera was. A ghost had been caught,
not allowed to move on to the next world, nor to enjoy this one. I wondered how long it, she, had been in there, trapped with only her own thoughts for company.

  “Would you like me to send you There?” I asked the cool, still air around me.

  “No.” Whispered a voice. I was not going to argue. Maybe she deserved a little time to see the world. A little freedom. I cancelled the circle with out casting her off. Ted took the camera to keep it safe until we could deal with the contents more permanently. A scent of roses brushed against me as the freed ghost went away.

  *

  Al held the camera. He stared at it with a frown on his face.

  “I need to know where this came from.” I said. “Where she found it. Took it from. What caused all this.”

  “She did not steal it. Or find it.” Al laughed, but it was hollow. He was in his best suit, ready for the funeral. He looked dapper. “This was sent to us. Anonymously by post. Came in a parcel with a letter saying it had been causing all kinds of trouble. I couldn't read anything on it. It was harmless.”

  I took out the photographic plate. “She developed this. Revealed the secret.” I said, turning the plate so that he could see the picture it held. A man and a woman, Victorian dress, shabby gentile, smiling, holding hands so that we could see their matched wedding rings.

  “Who are they?” Al asked.

  “I don't know. But once upon a time this picture meant so much to somebody they would kill all who saw it. Who might have seen it.” I said.

  “So this was deliberate.” Al looked angry now. “Somebody sent this to her knowing she would develop the picture. Because they sent it with her kind of story. I am sorry I could not prevent this.”

  “You cleaned it up. You did a good job.” He answered. “Thank you.”

  I did not tell him my fears. I did not tell him that somebody had sent an equally deadly trap to my father. I did not tell him that there were some very dark clouds coming our way. For him it was over. I let him believe this was a happy ending.