Fisher And The Bears Read online

  The Angel nodded. He struggled against the weeds that bound him, then reached out with a clawed gauntlet and gripped Sylas by the throat. He lifted the Immortal clear of the ground as he choked the life from him. Sylas thrashed around and struck the arm of the armoured fiend with the palms of his hand. The blows rang out, but the Knight did no flinch. Sylas gave a scream. His body was immortal but his soul was as ripe to be consumed as any mortal. I looked around. Sylas was not meant to die, and he certainly was not meant to be defeated ahead of schedule.

  “It is me you want.” I snapped. The Angel released his tormentor and looked at me. “You crossed between worlds to kill me. So come kill me. Then you can retire here and leave the world alone.”

  “I accept.” The Angel growled, ripping free of the ground to stomp towards me. I backed away. Looking in the direction of the woods. I could feel the next stage getting closer. But the luck of the bears had not rubbed off on me. Or it was countermanded by the curse. The Angel retrieved his sword and held it out at me. “Your soul for your world.”

  “You speak.” I said. “If you speak you can think.” I tried my best to look brave. An idea hit me like an iron bar to the cheeks. “You screamed too. You felt pain. Pain you caused others. You keep being called a weapon. Who is wielding you? Why does something that can think, that can feel, let itself, himself be-”

  It was a good try that ended in another series of quick dodges and dives out of the way of the sword.

  “Be still and boy!” Sylas ordered me. “Appease the weapon. I command it.”

  “Right.” I stumbled away from the pointy end of the sword as it slashed at me. “I will get right on that in a second Sire.” I smiled. I could hear a sound on the wind. A burbling little engine in a rusting hulk of a car. I had touched its soul and it knew me. But it was drawn to me by the Curse.

  Oh yes.

  “Armed Retreat.” Ted had said, dropping a toy car onto the game board. “Bring troop transporter into the territory to pick up friendly units. I don't have a card to accurately describe how stupid this bit of the idea is, but you get the idea.”

  The bears had remained quiet.

  “What happens to Fish if this... If it works too well?” Doreen asked. My Dad had answered by putting a hand on her shoulder. “Oh.” She said mutely.

  The timing was either perfect, or terrible, depending on how you wanted to think about it. The Angel lunged forwards and the sword plunged into my chest at the same moment as the car came rolling in my direction. I could feel the sword ripping into me, ready to consume my soul. But as I reached out towards the car, and my fingers brushed the obscenely cold metal I felt the magic reaching out, snatching me, drawing my soul into it.

  And in the Other World, a soul was all I had. The sword hurt like more than anything I could imagine or describe. But it didn't seem to matter. I was being dragged away from it, into the car, and thoughts that were not my own were rushing in to fill my every sense and-

  I had to do it. I could not stop. I could not look back and see if he was alive. He stepped out in front of me. And what happens if I stop to help? The Police turn up is what. They ask how much I had to drink. They make an excuse to look in the back. They see the ski mask and the hammer, the cable ties. Then they decide I am guilty and what happens then? What happens when they try and twist those to make me look like some kind of monster? What happens when one of the girls has me in an identity parade? They wont say they lead me on. They wont tell the pigs how they smiled at me, or laughed at my jokes, or said 'no' in the way that didn't really mean 'no' at first.

  They say I did it. I am a criminal. I am wrong.

  So I drive. So I have to keep driving. I have to keep driving. I have to keep moving.

  I have to slow down. Let the Angel know I am in here. I have to let him work out I am hiding in these nightmare tatters of a terrible human being. I have to ignore that I now know why the Eternity Stalker vanished somewhere around nineteen eighty four and I have to ignore all the thoughts that linger from a soul that is long past saving and try to keep the bits of me that are Fish King together long enough for the Angel to give chase. He swoops aloft, flapping his stone wings and he soars down onto the roof of the car. He plunges the sword down into the cadre in the driving seat. It crumples to dust. For a heartbeat he understands. He feels the magic that saturates all the material of the car. He tries to burn it away like he would consume a soul. But I think the words-

  I thought the words of the rite and made the magic in the car react. It reached up and all those thoughts flow into the Knight. The Knight tried to consume the car. I broke free while both were distracted. The car tried to consume the Knight. The Knight sank into the car as though it were quicksand, struggling far too late against the tide. The car bubbled and fluxed as the battered paintwork took on the texture of armour and stone wings. For one painful moment I was both, just as I was tumbling free from the car.

  Sylas gave me a slow clap.

  “I ordered you to die.” He said. “I do not like to be defied.”

  “Unfortunately I thought my service to your father over rode that order Sire.” I said. “Unfortunately I did not have time to inform you of the alternative plan that would save you any conflict of his orders.” I hated myself as I added: “And I hoped you would find this amusing.”

  He nodded.

  “I will expect that order to be obeyed at some point boy.” He smiled like a wolf. “Regardless of what my father may say. Now get out of my garden. I wish to see what happens when an Angel of Death knows nothing but the need to drive forever.” He tapped his lips. “Both want to consume each other. Both are ageless and endless. I wonder which if either will ever win? Are you still here?”

  He clicked his fingers.

  For a while I was dead. Then my soul dropped back into my body. Smell was the first sense to return, but that told me little. Hearing came back next, the world sounding like it was muffled by cotton wool.

  “No hang on.” Tiger was saying. “I think it might have been breathing into his mouth and pumping his chest.”

  “Ah!” Said Ted. “That way round makes more sense.”

  “Don't.” I said quickly. “I'm fine.” I opened my eyes. The light was painfully bright, the air cold and bitter with hints of rain. The road was not comfortable to lay on. I sat up. “It's done.”

  “Good.” Ted said. “It worked?”

  “Kind of.” I groaned. “So, is everybody okay?”

  The bears answered by knocking me back to the floor with celebratory hugs.

  *

  “I don't know who I am.” Doreen said as she sat beside me on my bed. “I can remember little. Just flashes. Mum telling me to be careful how I spoke. I know for absolute certainty that Dad thinks my brother is a good lad having healthy adventures when he chases women with the same vigour that he would consider me to be a shame to him if I was ever on the receiving end of an adventure. Not my brother. But his friends. Or any man. They would get a slap on their back and I would be locked away. Which never seemed fair but that was Dad.” She closed her eyes. “That is all I know of my family. That one little iota of our lives. One smidgen of gossip. I can't remember their names. Or birthdays. Sometimes I have a fleeting glimpse of a kitchen. But is this all I am now?” She closed her eyes. “I can't remember if I was ever brave enough to let my brothers friends to kiss me. Or to do more than kissing. There is more than that? Isn't there?”

  “Ah.” I kept the conversation on safer ground. “Then maybe what you need is to decide who you should be. Not who you were.”

  “But what if I was a murderer? Or a seductress? Or if I ended up as a ghost in the machine because of my Covenant with some terrible demon?” Her eyes were wide.

  “Then you have the rarest of gifts. The chance to be a better person.” I said. “To be somebody new. We can work out who you were, once you have decided who you are.”

  “That is easy.” She was laying on top of the covers, in those same clothes, her hair
in the same style, her eyes just as bright as when I first saw her. “I am Doreen Grey.” She grinned. “Friend of bears.” She blushed. “How do you feel?”

  “Better. I only feel half dead now.”

  “Okay.” She nodded. “If you have a nightmare I will be right next door.” She faded away. I closed my eyes and hoped I would not dream of the Angel.

  Rock Me Amduscias

  Doreen had been a ghost a long time, but had spent all of that time, as far as I could tell, in a camera. She had not been at large in the world. She had seen little of the way the world had changed. But more importantly she had never learned how being a ghost worked.

  She had rolled her sleeves once or twice, but had not known if she could take off her clothes. Her clothes that were part of her. When faded out to become a presence, then faded back in her clothes had reset, they were as they had always been. That the clothes faded as she discarded them was disconcerting to her. It disconcerted her so much she would often fade out, and pop into existence in her room, or where I happened to be. When she did so she would be in fresh washed and pressed immaculate clothes. Always her dark coat and many layers.

  But if she stopped to think about it? She would realise she had not cleaned her teeth, washed her hair or bathed. She would worry, even if her body was spotless and fresh, even if she had no odour. She needed to go through the motions, to feel clean. To feel herself. So she cleaned her teeth. She practised the concentration it took to take off her clothes and go to bed, even if she would not sleep, but would dissolve away into a presence.

  That her en suite had no bath confounded her. So, she blushingly asked Tiger to show her how the electric lights, the extractor fan, and most importantly how the shower worked. It was a cubicle with a power shower. I had heard her cry of delight from the kitchen and she had popped into being by my side as I read the newspaper over a coffee.

  “Fish!” She had said, bouncing on the heels of her boots. “You have to see this.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me up several flights of stairs to our rooms. She beamed and pointed at the shower. “It is hot!” She said. “And it is like rain. But powerful. Like a steam pump. I read this book once, I think. A romance. Where the heroine flashed her ankles at the man to lure him to her at a waterfall fed by a warm spring, and as they passed under the steaming water they fell into an embrace and a kiss that reached to her soul.” She looked at me. “This is like that. But with out the worry of being seen flashing an ankle with a man.” She closed her eyes remembering the prose from the penny dreadful romance. “Its fingers play an exotic rhythm that dances across my back and teases my every nerve.” She nodded. “And the soaps are all liquid and foamy and colourful. And, there is-”

  “I am glad you like it.” I said.

  “But the water is always hot?” She asked. “No boiling it in buckets for the bath?”

  “Yes.” I said. “Are you beginning to feel at home?”

  She nodded.

  “It is brilliant.” She chewed her lip. “The bears are brilliant. Computing Machines are brilliant as long as Ted enables my Childish Protector. The Television with David Attenborough and Chris Packham watching animals, is brilliant.” She held up a finger as though declaring something very important. “Films with colour and sound and Clint Eastwood, are incredible. But the power shower on full blast with all jets active, so it comes out of the walls, that beats it all.” She looked at me. “I love it.”

  “It is.” I agreed. Not for the first time I tried to talk about something that had weighed around my head for over a week. I coughed and tried to find a subtle and delicate way to raise the subject. It fell from my lips in a way that was neither subtle or delicate. “I kissed you.”

  “Yes.” She agreed in a low voice, looking around for wayward bears. “You did.”

  “I think we have both been avoiding thinking about it.” I said. “I'm sorry if it was wrong. It was just I wasn't sure I would ever get a chance again and, well, I sort of...”

  She was giving me a look that was either begging me to stop or longing to hear more, but I could not decide which. So I thought the only thing I could do was be honest. I just wasn't sure how to word everything that was bouncing around in my head every time I saw her or felt her presence.

  “Would you kiss me again? If you had the chance?” She asked.

  I nodded. “Sorry.”

  She tried to smile and cry at the same time.

  “Would the kiss become an embrace that played exotic rhythms that danced upon my fevered flesh and baited the passions that pulsed through my veins?” She asked.

  “Well, I thought maybe we should start with a film at the cinema. Or a museum. And a meal. And then see if you wanted to-” I looked at the floor. “If it does not work out I can bind you to something else, or find a way to free you. You are under no obligation to do this because-”

  “I meant now.” She said with a nervous laugh.

  “Oh.” I sighed. “So I did not scare you off?”

  “Television melodramas suggest that there are different expectations upon lovers and romantics these days. A brasher more open way. I would not be offended if you wanted to be a little more forwards.” She smiled. “Please?”

  I leant forwards and kissed her. She closed her eyes and shivered nervously as she opened herself to the kiss. There were no fingers dancing on fevered flesh, but a closeness. An honesty of our feelings. She let out a sigh as she broke her lips. As contented as it was scared. She faded from my grip.

  With her body gone I toppled forwards and my head smacked against the the outside wall of the shower with a thud. I fell backwards and landed against her toilet.

  “So which will it be?” Tiger asked from the other side of the door. “Movies or Museum? I say Museum.”

  “You aren't invited.” I said nursing my head.

  “Yeah.” She agreed. “But there is nothing at the cinema I want to see...”

  “Tiger. I really need to talk about boundaries and privacy.” I said.

  She nodded and gave a blushing grin. “Well,” she put her hands on her hips, “how else was I meant to know if you two were getting kissy kissy. Neither of you were around when I needed you and... Well... Ta da!”

  “Do you have to know?” I said, rubbing my head and wondering why stars were dancing around me. I blinked and tried to focus.

  “Well, obviously I have to know.” She decided after some thought. She looked at me. “Oh wait, did I stop it being kissy kissy?”

  “Maybe a little.” I rubbed her nose. “Why are you really here? Why did you need us?”

  “Oh.” She nodded. “Right. The job. Some people wanted an exorcism. They are down in the office.” I got to my feet and feeling a little dizzy I staggered down stairs straightening myself up as best as I can.

  Tiger skipped along beside me. Getting under my feet.

  “So,” She said, with a big grin on her face, “what film will you take her to see? Will you buy her flowers? How about a picnic by the sea at sunset? Have you thought about promising her your heart?”

  “Tiger.” I turned to say something more substantial but she covered her mouth with both paws and mimed zipping it up. “Please don't help with this. If I want the bears to help, to make something special I will ask. But until I do, please, just let me find my feet with this.”

  “Of course.”

  “Are your fingers crossed?”

  “No.” She suddenly became fascinated with her toes.

  “Just...” I shook my head. It was still full of pain and fuzz. I held up a warning finger and slipped into the office. I froze. Sitting in the guest seats were two elderly men in pale shirts and light suits. On the other, with a pen and a legal pad taking careful notes, was Doreen. She gave me a serious look as I stepped in.

  “Ah. Mister King.” She smiled. “I hope you do not mind me taking some of the details? Mister and Mister White were just explaining their problem to me.”

  “We have inherited a large number of artefac
ts from my uncle.” Mister White said.

  “Since they started being shipped to our home from his Florida retreat however, we have noticed a number of disturbances.” Mister White added. They were holding each others hands in a way that suggested marriage rather than fraternity. Both were white haired, one balder than the other. Both had a theatrical tone to their words.

  “Your aide has explained your scale of fees. It sounds somewhat reasonable.” The first said.

  “My partner.” I said. “Miss Grey is an essential and important part of the operation. As are our ursine friends. We will of course, not charge at all for our initial survey.” I did not see them flinch at the mention of bears. “I also have liability insurance.” I said. “If we are dealing with artefacts of an antique nature?”

  “Among other... Delights.” The second White said. He coughed. “We would appreciate a speedy response. The disturbances are frequent and disruptive. Our home no longer feels our own.”

  “I understand.” I said. “When would be convenient?”

  The pair looked at each other.

  “Now?” The first asked with a shrug.

  Doreen looked at me and smiled. At the first opportunity she leant in whisper close.

  “Partners?” She asked.

  “If you want?” I smiled as she touched her fingers to mine. There was a flicker of cold energy between us. She gave me a hint of a nod.

  “Now.” I said to the Whites. I looked at the standard questions that Doreen had asked them and noted on the legal pad. “A cat person?”

  “A person.” Mr White said. “With a feline way of walking and a head like that of a cat, but the body of a sleek person. I can not say if it is male or female. It rarely lingers long enough to be seen clearly.”

  “But the actions it has taken,” the other Mister White said, “leaves no doubt as to the foul intent.”

  *