Urban Necromancer by Phil Chard Read Free Book Online

eight. She ran four laps of the property. The day went by with little happening.  A games console in one of the unpacked crates was the top source of entertainment for the rest of the day. Controlling a cartoon mouse, she avoided traps and ate cheese all the way to level seven of ten.
     

Chapter X
     
     
    Day 4
     
    The power indicator on her phone was on its last bar and flashing a warning red signal. She hadn’t thought to bring a charger, believing that the job would be over within a few hours. There was no house phone, the new owners hadn’t gotten around to arranging one. There wasn’t a lot she could do about it, but Juliet would soon be cut off from the outside world. She rang Joe to inform him of the situation.
    “I don’t like it.” Joe informed her.
    “What’s to like? It’s the reality. Why are you edgy?”
    Joe feared this was a plot by the spook, to leave her cut off. Juliet laughed this off. “Are you kidding me?”
    “You can come back; you don’t have to go through with this.”
    Yeah, I could stay in your debt forever Joe, she thought. She said, “Some nice people want to move into their nice new house Joe. And why shouldn’t they? Why should some scumbag spook be allowed to scare them away?”
    “This isn’t Ludivicio Street and you’re not dealing with Jack DeGrisse. You don’t have anything to prove.”
    Juliet ended the call, irritated. She ignored Joe’s follow up call. Within a few hours her phone was dead.
    Lap after lap of the property, Juliet ran with Joe’s words ringing in her ears. She was here for a payday; this wasn’t anything to do with Ludivicio Street or Jack DeGrisse.
    She wasn’t here because of Ludivicio Street...
    She wasn’t...
    Was she?
    After showering she walked her aching muscles into the kitchen. She grabbed another bottle of wine from the cellar. It was French and white and a lot better than the first one she’d tried; that being the case, she tried more of it.
    After she’d drunk three-quarters of the bottle, she rested on the floor for four hours.
    The rest of the day slipped hazily by; Juliet progressed to level nine of ten on the game she had taken a liking to. Having finished Tess of the D’Urbervilles , she made a start on Wuthering Heights . It dropped into her sleeping lap just after midnight.
     

Chapter XI
     
     
    Day 5
     
    Ancestral voices fill the air…
    Juliet’s eyes sprang open.
    The forest strips your senses bare…
    It was loud. Confused and still mentally elsewhere, she tried to make sense of the sound… music.
    …visions from a higher world…
    She looked at her watch: 1:23 a.m .
    Juliet had not even seen a CD player or stereo system in the house, but the song was being played at an ear-splitting level from somewhere within the house.
    Her heart rate was quickening ― it was showtime .
    She shuffled from her makeshift bed onto the floor and switched on a light which momentarily dazzled her eyes. Her ears searched for the music’s origin; once tuned in, they led her to the foot of the staircase.
    At the bottom of the staircase was a decadent three pane window which overlooked the garden outside. It was positioned with architectural precision, presenting anyone looking out with a picture-postcard view of the exterior garden. But at night, wonder became fear. The moonlight made sinister tree shadows on the grass. Where birds had rested during the day, now a madman could easily hide and lie in wait with an axe.
    Juliet chided her imagination. There was work to do.
    The song continued; it drew her in like a magnet. Her feet slowly thrust her forward. The music was amplified with every cautious step; it was accompanied by another beat; she could feel the quickening beat of her heart within her ribcage; her face was suddenly feeling flushed as images of Emily Houghton’s bludgeoned face entered her mind…
    Stop.
    She counselled herself and obeyed the voice. She was frozen on the staircase.
    Deep breaths .
    She took exaggerated