Urban Necromancer by Phil Chard Read Free Book Online Page B

operational endeavours. Birdsong floated into the room from a fully opened window behind her. Her mouth felt tangy; she felt blood sliding down her throat and nearly choked before spitting it out and staining the floor.
     
    *
     
    Juliet stared at her bloodied face in the mirror, then grimaced and threw more of the sink water onto her face. She dried her face carefully, painfully aware that any rough treatment would aggravate the pain.
    For the rest of the day frozen peas and cold compacts were adorned to her head. Fleetingly, she thought of leaving, but the idea was quickly dispatched; the incident had just made her more determined to get rid of it ― and as it was now in the mood to play, it was time for her to reveal her hand...
     

Chapter XIII
     
     
    Day 6
     
    The music started at 2:57 a.m. Juliet wasn’t asleep this time; she was still bug-eyed from cola drinks and cappuccinos.
    Ancestral voices fill the air…
    The song was getting boring now. She jumped up and headed for the staircase. The music stopped. Undaunted by this change of tactic, she walked up the stairs and stood arms crossed on the first floor.
    “I’m running out of patience with you,” she bellowed. “I can help you if you want, I can stop this nightmare.”
    One by one, doors to each of the rooms on this floor started slamming shut. Her eyes followed the theatre, more than a little uneasy. Door seven shut. Door eight shut. Door nine shut. Door ten… remained ajar.
    “OK.” she said out loud with a confidence that belied her fears.
    She made her way to the room, keeping close to the walls, keeping far from the guardrail, nervous but trying not to show it.
    Upon entering the room she switched the light on, shut the door quickly and stood with her back firmly against it while her eyes roamed the room suspiciously. The chair had gone – Juliet had removed it earlier, but had left the CD player to give the spook a means of playing an opening gambit. Now she walked into the middle of the room.
    “I take it you’re in this room?”
    The room remained pin-drop quiet.
    “If you are, then I want you to give me a sign ― a non-threatening sign.”
    Juliet felt a shove and stumbled, but managed to retain her balance.
    “I said a non-threatening sign!” Juliet’s tone was firm. Then in a softer voice: “I can help you. If you want to be helped, then give me a sign.”
    An eerie silence followed, which was only broken when the front cover of the CD player opened.
    Juliet nodded. “OK.”
    She closed her eyes, concentrated on entering the condition and successfully stepped out of her physical body. The first thing her spirit-self saw was the incomprehensible face of It . It was, or had been, a man in his late twenties. He had dirty blonde hair and was good looking ― a fact Juliet ascertained despite his Oh My God expression.
    “What the…?” he asked.
    “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” It was a line that Juliet never tired of using.
    “What the…?” he said again, looking at the dual images he now had of Juliet. One of the images had its eyes open and was looking in his direction. The other was rigid, eyes closed, motionless. It looked like the girl who was now staring directly at him had just walked out of that particular body and before him now stood a duplicate ― a duplicate that was staring right at him. This girl could see him!
    “Neat trick, huh?” said Juliet, attempting to gate-crash the man’s racing thoughts.
    “What the…?” he was still stuck on monosyllables and studied Juliet like she was in a glass case in a museum.
    “You do realise that you’re dead, don’t you?” Juliet said. She’d realised long ago that there wasn’t a tactful way to pose that question. 
    He looked directly at image two, the one that had addressed him, “Yeah, I know I’m dead. That’s been apparent for some time.”
    He looked at twin images of the girl and then said, “Who the Hell are you?”
    Juliet gestured to the